MOSCOW, October 30 (RIA Novosti) - Russian aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska, banned from entry into the U.S. over alleged links to organized crime, visited the country this year under an FBI arrangement, the Wall Street Journal said Friday.
According to the paper, Deripaska, who controls RusAl, the world's biggest aluminum producer, visited the U.S. in August and earlier this month, the paper reported, citing two unnamed "administration officials." The Wall Street Journal said that Deripaska met with FBI agents as part of a continuing criminal investigation. The focus of the probe remains unknown.
The paper said Deripaska used his time in the U.S. to meet with top executives from U.S. investment banks Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
The Russian billionaire was also reported to have met in Detroit with top executives at General Motors Co., in order to discuss the sale of a stake in its Adam Opel AG unit to a Russian-backed consortium that includes Deripaska's AO GAZ auto maker.
The State Department, which rules on requests for U.S. visas, declined to comment on the recent visits, the paper said.
read more @ ria novosti
2. Israel interferes to keep UNIFIL commander in post
excerpt:
Indeed, and according to a senior Israeli official, the Zionist entity has asked Italy to try to remain at the helm of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) rather than handing over the responsibility to Spain as planned.
"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week called Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and asked him to try to keep the current commander of UNIFIL Claudio Graziano in his post," the official said.
Graziano's term is due to end in a few weeks, with Spain slated to take over.
Israeli daily Haaretz said Netanyahu's move turned into a serious diplomatic incident, with Spain likely to take up the issue during talks with visiting Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak this week.
read more @ al manar tv
3. Tony Blair's bid for EU presidency sinks
"It would be right to describe Tony's chances as fading," one source said. "Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel are not terribly enthusiastic. Silvio Berlusconi remains his strongest backer."
read more @ guardian
Bolstered by her confirmation as a second-term German chancellor and fresh from dinner and deal-making with president Nicolas Sarkozy of France, Angela Merkel went into the European summit as the key swing voter, making or breaking Tony Blair's chances of becoming the first European president.
Despite Sarkozy being the first European leader to suggest Blair for the job two years ago, Merkel appeared to have talked the French president into changing his mind in Paris on Wednesday night.
Merkel is said not to be particularly opposed to Blair. But the realities of power in the EU, with centre right governments outweighing those of the centre left three to one, appeared to be clinching the job for a European Christian democrat, Merkel's political tribe.
read more @ guardian4. France's Chirac faces trial over Paris 'ghost jobs'
Former French president Jacques Chirac is to be tried on allegations that he gave 21 political allies false contracts as ghost workers in Paris city hall, in an unprecedented move against a former French head of state. A statement from Chirac's office on Friday said he and nine others were charged with a role in awarding contracts for non-existent jobs. The statement described the former president as "serene."
...Simeoni's decision is a blow to Chirac, who enjoyed constitutional immunity during his 12 years as president only to be hit by a flurry of legal problems after he stepped down in 2007. No former French head of state has faced prosecution for corruption and a trial would be a public humiliation for a man who was a central figure in French politics for four decades.
read more @ al manar tv
5. Angolagate scandal: Pasqua is not going down alone
Charles Pasqua does not intend to go down alone in the Angolagate scandal. Sentenced Tuesday to a one-year prison term for "influence peddling" and "misuse of public assets," the former French Minister of Interior immediately demanded that an official secrecy act on arms sale documents be lifted. He openly accused François Mitterrand, Jacques Chirac, and two former prime ministers Édouard Balladur and Alain Juppé to have been "aware" of the arms sale to Angola during the 90s, despite a UN embargo. He made the revelation in an interview published Thursday in Le Figaro. The lifting of the official secrecy act on documents concerning arms sale "will shake a number of elements in the Republic", threatened Charles Pasqua the day before on French cable television, Canal +.
...Apart from his decision to appeal the ruling, Charles Pasqua also claims that he has been set-up. He has consistently called for the lifting of the official secrecy act on arms sales documents. A majority of elected officials Wednesday expressed their support for the idea. The international political Angolagate scandal is yet to yield all its secrets.
read more @ afrik.com
6. Thailand: gov promises fair trial for fugitive banker, really, dead serious this time
The government has promised a fair trial for fugitive banker Rakesh Saxena, extradited from Canada to face charges of embezzling tens of millions of dollars in a scandal that helped trigger the 1997 Asian financial crisis. An Indian national, Saxena lost a 13-year fight against extradition when Canada's Supreme Court refused to hear his final appeal on Thursday. He was put on a Thai Airways International flight out of Vancouver, with an escort of Thai police and legal officials, that was due to arrive in Bangkok late on Friday.
...Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said the case against Saxena will proceed strictly according to law, and the government will not protect any politicians found to be involved. “If any politicians found to be involved in the BBC corruption case will face appropriate legal action,'' Mr Abhisit said. The premier said the government was serious about proceeding with the case, otherwise it would not have worked so hard and so long to extradite Saxena to Thailand.
...The bank reportedly tried hostile takeovers of many large Thai companies listed on the stock exchange and gave cheap, often unsecured, loans to various public officials and politicians in Thailand, India, Russia, Sinagapore, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon.
The subsequent collapse of the bank was seen as an early indication of the regulatory failures that would lead to the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Attorney-General Chulasingh said investigators had evidence of more than 20 cases of alleged fraud involving Saxena but he would face trial only on the single charge on which he was formally extradited.
read more @ bangkok post
7. Ashcroft and Belize: "the only thing he respects is dollars"
"Lord Ashcroft? I can tell you about Lord Ashcroft. Let me tell you all about that man... We Belizeans are wise. We are not stupid any more. We are not the same people we were 20 years ago. We are wising up every day and we are very proud of what our prime minister is doing."
If there is one subject that excites passions in Belize, it is the subject of the secretive Tory peer, who has been a dominant presence in the little Central American country for over two decades.
...
How has Lord Ashcroft been reading the political runes in Belize? He and his representatives refused to talk about the issue with The Independent, but there are clues in the reports of his holding company, BCB Holdings, which is listed on the Alternative Investment Market in London. A year ago, the company was called BB Holdings, after Belize Bank. The group lends more in the Turks and Caicos Islands now, and is also shifting its focus to Trinidad and Tobago, where its shares have just begun trading on the local stock exchange there, too.
The footnotes to the accounts reveal that BCB believes it is owed $18.3m by the Belizean government, in two separate disputes over loan guarantees issued by the previous government. ..."There are so many companies and trusts associated with Ashcroft, and they keep churning around, so you never know who owns what. We are trying to get answers that make sense."
Mr Slusher thinks – hopes – that Lord Ashcroft's days of making outsize profits in Belize may be coming to a close because of the outcry generated over the telecoms agreements. "It is not just the present government that is taking a different attitude towards him, but the general population, too, because of what has been revealed.
"He's very personable, and he's a sharp businessman. I just don't like what he is doing. I think he is raping my country. But then, my country did lie down and take its panties off..."
8. undercover cop working pedophilia investigation
excerpts:
"People don't realise the scale of this problem. They read about high-profile paedophiles like Roy Whiting [who murdered Sarah Payne] or famous ones like Gary Glitter, but they don't realise that for every one of them there are hundreds more. And it's not just your stereotypical flasher in a mac; the people we arrest are from all walks of society. They are doctors, lawyers, teachers, businessmen and even policemen."
...Det Ch Insp Grant has worked in the paedophile unit for two years. Before that he investigated murders. Yet his final case in the homicide team before his transfer gave him an insight into the world of child abuse. He was the senior officer investigating in the murder of Peter Connelly ("Baby P").
He admits that, since joining the paedophile unit, the scale of the problem has shocked him. "The challenge for us is keeping up with them and finding out what websites they are using," he said. "The ones we have identified may be just the tip of the iceberg. That said, we are not trying to scaremonger. If parents simply watch which sites their children are going on and ensure they only talk to people who both the child and parents truly know, then they should not be at risk."
9. closing the loop: the scope of child abuse and pedophilia reaches to the TOP of society
When he was aged 13, Jason Owen (born Jason Barker) was accused of beating and raping an 11 year old girl. (Jason Owen. / Baby P killers unmasked.)
Prosecutors decided not to prosecute.
According to relatives, Jason Owen inflicted cigarette burns on his younger brother Steven Barker.
By the time he was 20, Jason Owen had a string of convictions for burglaries, arson and assault.
In 1995 police were asked to investigate allegations that Jason Owen tortured his grandmother.
The charges were dropped after the grandmother died.
In 1999 Jason Owen set fire to his own families house.
A few years later the police were asked to investigate allegations that Jason Owen had tried to kill his sister and burn down her house.
Jason Owen stayed in the same home as Baby Peter.
Baby Peter suffered 50 injuries, including eight fractured ribs and a broken back.
The tip of his little finger was missing, when he was found dead in August 2007.
Owen "had joined in the habitual ... kicking ... of the child, as the child was used as a 'punching bag'".
Over many, many months, the police and social workers failed to take action to protect Baby Peter.
Paby Peter was tortured to death in August 2007.
Jason Owen was sent to jail at the end of 2008.
...
On 16 November 2008, the Mail on Sunday tells us How a close male relative of Baby P is linked to a big paedophile ring.
This child-abuse ring operated in Labour-run Islington, the part of London where Tony Blair once lived.
Reportedly, the ring supplied boys to top people.
(This child abuse ring, reportedly, has links to the child abuse in Jersey, which in turn, reportedly, has links to the Dutroux affair and the security services)
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