Picco then left the U.N. and set up a private consulting business in midtown Manhattan.

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Picco, for his part, has not been accused by U.S. authorities of any wrong-doing.

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Picco quietly left a few weeks later, however--about the time that a scandal flared up in the media over a corrupt U.N. procurement officer, Alexander Yakovlev.

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Riza's role in setting up the Alliance was intertwined at least briefly in early 2005 with Giandomenico Picco, whom Annan also tapped as a link between the old Dialogue and the new Alliance.

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One of Picco's final acts while working during that same period at the U.N. was to lead a round of talks in 1992 on early plans to set up what became the U.N.

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Picco has not been accused of any wrong-doing.

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But in the matter of U.N. oversight of its own ventures, it sets a disturbing precedent that to this day, the U.N. has not raised any serious objection to Picco having served as a U.N. undersecretary-general running the U.N.

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According to a 2005 Senate subcommittee report, Picco provided his services on a number of occasions from 1997 to 2003--overlapping with his Dialogue appointment as a U.N. special representative and undersecretary-general--as a consultant on Oil-for-Food to Bayoil, a company owned by Houston oil man David Chalmers.

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