MAJOR contracts for the Hurricane Katrina clean-up have been awarded without bidding or with limited competition, prompting controversy in the United States.

Major contracts for the Hurricane Katrina clean-up have been awarded without bidding or with limited competition, prompting controversy in the United States.

INSURGENTS threatened to behead a kidnapped US Marine and a Pakistani driver unless the Americans release all Iraqis in “occupation jails,” according to a videotape on Arab television.

Truck driver Thomas Hamill, who has escaped from his captors in Iraq, was among seven employees of Halliburton subsidiary KBR, formerly known as Kellogg, Brown & Root, missing since an attack on their convoy west of Baghdad, about 90 miles from Tikrit.

US Vice President Dick Cheney’s former company may have overcharged the US Army by as much as €55.7m for petrol in Iraq, Pentagon auditors have found.