KOFI held his pregnant wife Grace. It had been just a few months since they married.

A sweeping year-long probe of the Iraq oil-for-food program has concluded that the United Nations allowed “illicit, unethical, and corrupt behaviour” to overwhelm the $64bn (€51.2bn) operation, and must adopt sweeping reforms to reclaim its credibility before taking on such tasks again.

THE son of the UN Secretary-General was yesterday reported to have received at least €230,000 from a Swiss company that was awarded a contract from the UN’s oil-for-food programme in Iraq — almost double the amount previously disclosed.

Iraqis are ready to “take the training wheels off” and assume political power from the US-led coalition, President George Bush said as his administration began to outline a rough plan for the June 30 transition of authority.

FORMER cabinet secretary Clare Short said last night British Prime Minister Tony Blair would be a liar if he denied her claims that British agents had bugged UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's office.