How can anyone take the UN seriously?

• It is answerable to nobody.
• It is impotent.
• It is corrupt. Its Secretary General is implicated in the oil-for-food scandal via his son, Kojo. He provides no answers to questions such as "What happened to the Mercedes?" but blusters, calling the enquiring journalist "cheeky" and "an overgrown schoolboy" for even posing the question. Neither Kofi Annan, his aide Lamin Sise, nor his assistan Wagaye Assebe, can recall what happened, and the original documents have disappeared -- what a surprise!
• It gives murderous states such as Sudan and Zimbabwe equal weight to the world's democracies.
• Its personnel, supposedly on humanitarian missions, are accused of buying sex with the food they were distributing.

The world would be a better place without the UN in its current form.