The investigation did more than just point to wrongdoing by the program's director, Benon Sevan. It also led to a guilty plea by a program procurement officer, Alexander Yakovlev, for unsuccessfully seeking a bribe from a company that was trying to get an oil-for-food contract. The panel, led by former US Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, also said that Yakovlev had received more than $950,000 from companies that won contracts for other UN programs he was involved with.

German papers took up the issue on Thursday in a general discussion on corruption and potential remedies. Also on their editorial platter were discussions over Turkey and its possible entry into the EU.

Conservative daily Die Welt ran a very critical editorial piece on the UN, pointing out that Kofi Annan's son's implication in the scandal had become clear, as had the trustworthiness of some of the General Secretary's right-hand men. This scandal was worse, the paper said, than other UN failures in places like Rwanda, Somalia, or Srebrenica. There, the fault lay in structural problems, poor relations with certain countries, and mandate issues -- all of which will be addressed in September reform discussions. The oil-for-food program was an outrage by comparison, the paper writes: "Hundreds of thousands of dollars disappearing while Iraqi children went without school meals and vaccinations is of another caliber." In line with its free trade editorial positions the paper went on to suggest that the private sector and free market often come up against unnecessary hurdles in development projects, some of which are propagated by the very state-centered model upon which the UN was founded. After the recent scandals, "the UN has to prove that it is necessary," the paper said. And "like in any bridge club, membership should be based on rules. No dictators should be allowed on the human rights commission."

Munich's center-left Süddeutsche Zeiting agreed that the UN was in dire need of reform, but went further to tell its readers that the phenomenon was wide-reaching. "Many still consider corruption an exotic problem of Africans, Russians, and people living in far-away countries. But the Volkswagen scandal has shown that corruption can also be very German." The editorial, entitled "The Weight of Corruption", also pointed out that corruption is an occurrence that perpetuates itself. "Multinational corporations promote corruption in the third world, because they pay bribes. They are perpetrators, but also the victims of this, because without systematically paying bribes they would lose markets." The solution the SZ proposes seems like it wouldn't be so out of line with that of the more neo-liberal papers: more competition. "Open competition is not a sure, but a relatively good working method to fight corruption. Insular, overregulated states with large bureaucracies are particularly susceptible." As a therapy against corruption, the paper recommends more transparency. "The organization must slim down and become above all more transparent, just like the UN critics demand."

In other papers, commentators focused on Turkey and its EU accession talks, which are scheduled to start in October.

Financial Times Deutschland recommended that the talks be as straightforward as possible, and the EU should make it clearer to Turkey that its entrance cannot be guaranteed. The reason: Jacques Chirac's promise to the French electorate Turkish accession would first have to be approved by a referendum in France, something that seems highly unlikely, even in 15 years. The paper writes: "From today's perspective, Turkish accession in 10 or 15 years cannot happen, even if all EU governments support it and the Turks fulfill all reform demands on their side of the coin -- this is a strong geo-strategic setback for Europe, practically pre-programmed by Chirac's disastrous referendum promise." The paper sees it as unfair to commence accession talks on October 3 as planned without openly explaining that the EU could easily end up in a position where it can't deliver membership, even if it is supported by all the governments. "In other words", the paper says, "Turkey must be told from the very beginning that adopting the over 80,000 pages of European legislation should be considered -- unlike with other aspirants -- to be done at its own risk."