is pressure being applied to certain people?

1. Rabbi Baruch Chalomish caught in drug and prostitution business

A rabbi set up in business as a drug dealer and lavished his supplies of cocaine on young prostitutes at parties, a jury was told today.

Rabbi Baruch Chalomish, 54, bearded and wearing a trilby hat, shared the dock at Manchester Crown Court with an interpreter who occasionally translated the barristers’ words into Hebrew.

He was said by the prosecution to be a wealthy man who took up with Nasir Abbas, also 54, a convicted dealer, who had the 'know-how’ and the contacts in the drug trade. The rabbi was the financier in the operation.

They set up their “commercial cocaine supply operation” in a hotel service flat in Shude Hill, Manchester, where, it is alleged, Rabbi Chalomish liked to dispense the drug in return for “sexual favours”.

Rabbi Chalomish, a part of Greater Manchester’s Orthodox Jewish community, denies two charges of supplying cocaine but admits two counts of possession. Mr Abbas, who did not turn up for the trial, faces similar charges of possessing the Class A controlled drug with intent to supply.

read more @ truth seeker


2. Israeli tycoon slams French conviction


MOSCOW - Arkady Gaydamak, the Israeli tycoon convicted by a French court last month of smuggling arms to Angola, blasted the case as "pure politics" in an interview published Wednesday.

Gaydamak, born in Moscow, professed his innocence to the Russian daily Vedomosti, three weeks after he was convicted in absentia and sentenced to six years in jail for organising arms sales to Angola during its 1990s civil war.

"I personally never took part in the deliveries of military equipment," said Gaydamak, whose business interests have ranged from Angolan oil exports to Russian media outlets to Israeli sports teams.

...The tycoon said in the interview that he has French, Angolan, Israeli and Canadian citizenship and there was "nothing interfering" with him receiving a Russian passport too.

The huge Soviet-made arsenal that fuelled Angola's grim civil war included 420 tanks, 150,000 shells, 170,000 anti-personnel mines, 12 helicopters, and six warships and was worth 790 million dollars.

read more @ middle east online


3. Background: 2007: Gaydamak is connected to Lev Leviev and Putin and Chabad

In a move that brought the feud between Russian tycoons Arkady Gaydamak and Lev Leviev to a new high, Russian President Vladimir Putin invited Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, an associate of Gaydamak, and not Rabbi Berel Lazar, who is close to Leviev, to a meeting with representatives of the European Jewish Congress at the Kremlin on Wendnesday.

The feud pits Lazar's Chabad Association of Jewish Communities in Russia, which Leviev heads, against Goldschmidt's Russian Jewish Congress of which Gaydamak is president.

...Jews in Russia also believe that Putin reached the conclusion that a rabbi who does not represent all the Chabad movements in Russia can not serve as the representative of the entire Jewish-Russian community. Because of this, Putin turned to Goldschmidt.

The sudden turn of events in Moscow may also have an effect on Israeli politics. In contrast to Lazar, Goldschmidt is a Lithuanian ultra-Orthodox rabbi and is very close to Rabbi Elyashiv, a powerful political figure in Jerusalem. Goldschmidt's improved standing in Russia could help Gaydamak in his plans to run for mayor of Jerusalem.

read more @ haaretz
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/911509.html


4. Feb 2002: Professional Jeweler Archive: Lev Leviev's Angolan connection

Angola’s diamonds remain at the center of a debate regarding human rights violations and abject poverty. Drawn into the debate is Israeli-Russian businessman Lev Leviev, who markets Angola’s legal diamond production and holds a majority ownership of its only working diamond-bearing kimberlite mine.

Leviev’s goal, identified back when he was a fledgling Israeli diamantaire, was to tap directly into a diamond source and gain independence from the De Beers distribution system. “Nothing is stable unless you own your own mine,” he is fond of saying. While not everyone can own a diamond mine, Leviev set out to prove the concept of vertical integration could work. Since then he has shown that controlling diamond production from the mine to the polishing factory and beyond is both possible and wildly profitable. (For more on Leviev, his background and his businesses, see “The Discreet Tycoon,” Professional Jeweler, January 2002, p. 20).

...

How Leviev arranged the Angolan connection is a matter of speculation. He says he presented Angola with a plan to reduce smuggling and increase revenue by funneling diamonds through only one source – and the government accepted the plan.

Others say Leviev’s friendship with Isabel dos Santos, the president’s daughter, and his connections with obscure Russian businessmen operating in Angola helped clinch the deal. Leviev dismisses these claims, preferring to focus on the benefits his relationship brings Angola. “The government of Angola has obviously profited from this venture,” Leviev says. According to his figures, in pre-Leviev 1998, Angola’s tax revenue from diamonds was under $10 million. But the Leviev era is different. Tax revenue from diamonds totaled $60 million in 2000 and was already at $49 million after the first nine months of 2001. Leviev says he expects that once Angola’s mining sector becomes more formalized and new ventures start producing diamonds, revenue benefiting Angola could exceed $100 million.


etc. read more here:
http://www.professionaljeweler.com/archives/articles/2002/feb02/0202dn1.html





5. today, WSJ: Africa-Israel sells half of old NYT building -- Africa-Israel is a Lev Leviev company

"The Wall Street Journal" reports that Africa-Israel Investments Ltd. (TASE:AFIL; Pink Sheets:AFIVY) has reached a tentative debt settlement for the old New York Time Buildings, which it acquired in 2007. The deal that will wipe out more than $400 million in debt.

Africa-Israel's US unit Africa-Israel Investments Inc. bought the building on Times Square in Manhattan for $525 million and then added $715 million in debt on the property. "The Wall Street Journal" cites sources as saying that Africa-Israel will transfer half of its ownership in the building to one of its creditors, private-equity firm Five Mile Capital Partners LLC. The new money will be used to repay existing debtholders, which are expected to take a major loss.

...According to "The Wall Street Journal", the major losers in the debt settlement on old New York Time Building are Credit Suisse Group AG (NYSE: CS; SWX: CSGN; XETRA: CSGZ), BlackRock Inc. (NYSE: BLK), and CIT Group Inc. According to Norwegian news Norwegian news service "Norwatch", the UK arm of BlackRock sold its Africa-Israel shares following pressure from three Scandinavian banks over construction in West Bank settlements. BlackRock denies the report, saying that all transaction are purely for business reasons.

more here:

http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000515271&fid=1725