OIL-FOR-FOOD SCANDAL UPDATE... INDIA'S FOREIGN MINISTER FIRED

The scandal keeps getting wider and higher up the totem pole. In some odd way, I'm glad this scandal broke loose and that it is affecting many governments throughout the world. It sends a clear message to all the crooked officials, or would-be crooks, that they should think twice before putting themselves before their duties to their nation and moral responsibilities, or some actions from their past will come back and bite their ass... hard.

India's foreign minister, Natwar Singh, was fired Monday amid charges that he reaped illegal profits from the United Nations oil-for-food program in Iraq, as the ruling Congress Party sought to contain a burgeoning political crisis over the scandal.

Singh, 74, and the Congress Party were named as beneficiaries of illegal oil deals in a report last month by a U.N. panel investigating abuses in the program, which permitted the government of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to sell oil and use the proceeds for food and other humanitarian goods

The panel, headed by former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Paul A. Volcker, accused more than 2,400 businesses and individuals around the world of paying nearly $1.8 billion in kickbacks to secure deals under the program. (full article)