(Editor's Note: This story contains language some readers may find objectionable.)

Pacific Rim Bureau (CNSNews.com) - New Zealand's highest-paid broadcaster has caused a national storm over the on-air use of a racial epithet to describe United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

In a program this week on the small country's most popular talkback radio station, Newstalk ZB, Paul Holmes attacked Annan for his criticism of the U.S.-led war on Iraq.

After deriding the U.N. as a "tower of Babel" and saying its officials had the world's greatest perquisites and "do-nothing" jobs, Holmes turned his focus onto Annan himself.

"We're not going to be told how to live our lives by a Ghanaian," Holmes said before referring repeatedly to the secretary-general as a "cheeky darkie."

The comments have caused outrage in a country whose government is strongly supportive of the U.N. and favors "multilateralism" in dealing with the world's problems.

Prime Minister Helen Clark - who is rumored in New Zealand to be interested in succeeding Annan when his second term expires in 2006 - said Holmes' remarks were "completely unacceptable and demeaning of one of the world's top civil servants."

"We have a reputation at the U.N. as a model member," Clark said. "To have those sort of comments broadcast is very bad for us."

A spokesman for the foreign ministry in Wellington said there had been no communication between the government and Annan's office over the incident. There was no comment from the secretary-general's office, but a spokeswoman there also said the New Zealand government had not been in touch.

Holmes has subsequently apologized, insisting he was not a racist and that his comments were "stupid."

But the fallout has continued. A colleague - a Samoan - on the broadcaster's prime-time television current affairs program quit Thursday, and Newstalk ZB went off the air for a short time Friday morning, reportedly after receiving a bomb threat linked to the affair.

New Zealand's Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) received scores of complaints from listeners.

Tariana Turia, a government minister responsible for affairs involving the indigenous Maori, was skeptical of Holmes' apology.

"We have got a huge issue in this country with racism," Turia said. "We bury it and pretend it isn't going on around us, but it is just beneath the surface."

Newstalk ZB is not planning to take action against its star host, saying the matter was being dealt with internally.

Holmes has been subjected to complaints to the BSA in the past, having referred to the Catholic Church as "rotten to the core" and to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as a "dreadful beast."

In the same program as he derided Annan, Holmes called French President Jacques Chirac "Old Rubber Face" and welcomed the ousting of Saddam Hussein.

Sometime later, Holmes said on the air that he had been "extreme."

"I don't mind being detested by the far left, but I don't relish being approved of by the far right," Holmes said.

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