A Ticket For Corruption

“THE UN needs a good smack in the face,” fumed one city councillor. New York has long been fed up with the United Nations and its diplomats. The city has 1,700 of them, about 1,699 too many. Their meetings cause endless traffic jams and annoying multi-car motorcades. As for their outstanding fines for traffic violations (more than $18m at the last count), these have so infuriated Michael Bloomberg, New York's mayor, that in 2002 he vowed to tow away illegally parked consular vehicles. Colin Powell, then secretary of state, had to step in to broker a compromise.