India--the world's biggest defense importer--has of late placed ordersworth several billions of dollars with the U.S. partly due to growing relations between the two democracies and also as part of attempts to diversify its reliance on longtime supplier--Russia.
After a long U.N. career, Riza had resigned in disgrace just a few months earlier, after disclosures by Paul Volcker's Oil-for-Food inquiry that Riza, in violation of his own orders to staff, had overseen the shredding of three years worthof U.N. executive suite documents of "potential relevance" to the investigation.
Some reports said sell ordersof over 7, 500 futures contracts (worth 100 ounces each) were executed right at the opening of Comex futures trading Wednesday.