British prime minister Gordon Brown was plunged into a new crisis tonight as one of his ministers broke ranks to demand a leadership contest.

Investigators probing the United Nations oil-for-food programme have found evidence of “gross mismanagement” and possible corruption by the agency that oversaw compensation for victims of Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait, Iraq’s deputy UN ambassador said early today.

The committee probing the UN oil-for-food programme has announced it will again investigate Secretary-General Kofi Annan after two previously unknown emails suggested he may have known more than he claimed about a multi-million-dollar UN contract awarded to the company that employed his son.

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