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The abuses relate mostly to U.N. supplies and services -- both in the department of management and the department of peacekeeping operations.

The following statement, released during the UN climate summit in Bonn (July 16-27), warns against a further weakening and distortion of the Kyoto Protocol, as governments try to accommodate the irresponsible position of the U.S. (and a growing number of other countries).

Defense Department fraud-hunters dismiss data from retired officer about inflated prices.

A new audit of American financial practices in Iraq has uncovered irregularities including millions of reconstruction dollars stuffed casually into footlockers and filing cabinets, an American soldier in the Philippines who gambled away cash belonging to Iraq, and three Iraqis who plunged to their deaths in a rebuilt hospital elevator that had been improperly certified as safe.

Eight Procurement Officials Suspended

Auditors who have discovered Iraq's deepening financial crisis have been ignored. They asked the US ambassador and the US military commander in Iraq for their views. Neither replied. The US State Department was to submit estimates of how much it will cost to complete all American-funded projects in Iraq to the White House Office of Management and Budget. The Office won't discuss the matter. Earlier this month, Brigadier-General William McCoy told reporters: 'The US never intended to completely rebuild Iraq . . . This was just supposed to be a jump-start.'

The first official history of the $25 billion American reconstruction effort in Iraq depicts a program hobbled from the outset by gross understaffing, a lack of technical expertise, bureaucratic infighting, secrecy and constantly increasing security costs, according to a preliminary draft.

A bill for busing evacuees from New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina was $32 million more than it should have been, and the government paid it without question, the Transportation Department inspector general said Friday.

The fed is looking into contracts for evacuation of New Orleans awarded to the FAA and a transportation company with ties to Bush. Did the agency and the company do anything at all post-Katrina?

CH2M Hill, a national company based in Denver, landed the deal for the collection and disposal of about 30,000 damaged and abandoned cars, trucks, buses and boats littering public streets and rights of way.

Today leaders of more than a dozen environmental justice organizations from the United States and around the world delivered an Earth Day letter to President George W. Bush offering a scathing response to the U.S. abandonment of the Kyoto Protocol.

The State Department office charged with monitoring human trafficking is investigating alleged abuses of workers who are part of an undocumented pipeline used to deliver thousands of Asians to labor on U.S. military bases in Iraq.

Investigators Have Yet to Pursue U.S. Contracting Money That May Be Missing

Making connections between U.S. corporate and political interests involved Iraqi reconstruction, monitoring for price gouging, rigged and no-bid contracts, and scrutinizing the DoD's procurement policies is as American as apple pie. But in today's Iraq, carpetbags are more likely to be filled with Glock 9mm pistols or HK MP5 submachine guns rather than cheap cigars or crooked contracts. U

Tally exceeds White House projections.

Human trafficking is not a new phenomenon in Punjab. However, it is the landing of young aspirants in Iraq that has started raising hackles.