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Singh is accused of being bribed by the former Iraqi government  Related: India to probe Volcker report claims India official denies oil-food charges  Tools:       India's foreign minister has been stripped of his post over allegations that he benefited from the UN oil-for-food programme in Iraq. Foreign Minister Natwar Singh is the first political casualty of a UN independent inquiry committee report released two weeks ago that revealed global corruption in the humanitarian programme that was meant to help sanctions-hit Iraq in the aftermath of the first Gulf war in 1991.Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who summoned the...

A senior French politician said on Friday he had been implicated in an oil-for-food scam in Iraq in an effort to discredit President Jacques Chirac, a fierce opponent of the US-led war in Iraq. A US Senate report on Thursday said Senator Charles Pasqua - once a close Chirac associate and former interior minister in a conservative government - had received an allocation of 11 million barrels of oil with the personal approval of ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. The oil-for-food programme was dogged by allegations of massive fraud and charges Saddam used it to buy influence in the West....

US Democratic Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, who had hoped to replace George W. Bush as president yesterday, instead sat in the cold and clapped as the Republican began a second four-year term. Iowa Democratic Senator Tom Harkin patted Senator Kerry on the back shortly before the inauguration Senator Kerry had hoped would be his. As Mr Bush delivered his inaugural address, Senator Kerry, about 10m away on the steps of the US Capitol, joined other lawmakers and the crowd in repeated applause. Senator Kerry looked relaxed, at times wistful. He frequently smiled, able to hide any disappointment over what...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush (news - web sites) called for a "full and open" accounting of the U.N. oil-for-food program on Thursday but would not say whether he thought U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) should resign.   Amid a call from a prominent Republican senator for Annan to step down, Bush and other officials have neither defended the secretary general nor joined calls for his ouster. "I look forward to the full disclosure of the facts, get an honest appraisal of that which went on. And it's important for the integrity of the organization to have...

Oil-for-Food Scandal Key to CIA Report Monday The U.N. Oil-for-Food program — already the subject of federal, congressional and United Nations financial abuse probes — took a fresh hit with an explosive new report that said Saddam Hussein was using the program to fund his ambitions. The report looking into whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction — found that Saddam was able to "subvert" the $60 billion U.N. program to generate an estimated $1.7 billion in revenue outside U.N. control from 1997-2003. In light of the report, FOX News presents another hour-long special investigating the biggest financial scam in...

<p>March 25, 2004 -- WASHINGTON - The United Nations allowed Saddam Hussein to shortchange Iraqi Kurds out of billions of dollars from the scandal-plagued oil-for-food program, and funds for the oppressed population mysteriously vanished after the war, The Post has learned. Howar Ziad, the Kurdish liaison to the United Nations, revealed in an interview new details about the extent of mismanagement and corruption within the $100 billion U.N. humanitarian program - portions of which were mandated to be spent in the semiautonomous Kurdish provinces of northern Iraq.</p>