[Townhall] Three Virginia businessmen were charged with attempting to defraud the United States Military by engaging in illegal commerce in Iran and laundering money internationally in an attempt at winning contracts in Afghanistan.
In 2012, Anham FZCO, a defense contractor based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which maintained offices in Dubai, UAE, Jordan and the United States, was awarded an $8 billion contract to provide food and supplies to U.S. troops stations in Afghanistan. During the bidding process, Anham said they would build two warehouses to provide supplies. According to the indictment, Anham executives knowingly provided false estimates of the completion dates for the warehouses and by providing the government with misleading photographs intended to convey that Anham’s progress on the warehouses was further along than it actually was. The company allegedly took construction materials and equipment to a site in February 2012 when they created the false appearance of an active construction site. Anham took photos, sent them to the Department of Defense as "in-progress," and then deconstructed the temporary site.
According to the Department of Justice, bidders were required to certify that they abide by the Iran Sanctions Act, which prohibits U.S. citizens and companies from engaging in commercial activity in Iran. The company allegedly violated the sanctions by shipping warehouse materials to Iran and then, eventually, Afghanistan. They did this as a means of saving money.
#1
Just out of curiosity, could we also have a look into foreign contracting in support of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yes, Turkey and Pakistan would indeed be the focus. Well it has been nearly two decades, what could be the harm ?
Oh, time permitting, don't forget to have a look into US State Department 'host nation' contract support to US Embassies and consulates.
"Abul Huda Farouki was the chief executive officer of Anham and a major Democratic donor. He had previously donated to Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. He was also a former member of the Clinton Global Initiative. Farouki's company was awarded contracts when President Obama was in office and Hillary Clinton served as Secretary of State."
Posted by: lord garth ||
12/06/2018 6:08 Comments ||
Top||
#3
bidders were required to certify that they abide by the Iran Sanctions Act, which prohibits U.S. citizens and companies from engaging in commercial activity in Iran
[PULSE.NG] The first UN-backed discussions on the disputed Western Sahara region since 2012 opened in Geneva on Wednesday, but expectations remained low, with the meeting seen as just a first step towards resuming dialogue.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/06/2018 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[8 views]
Top|| File under:
[PULSE.NG] A man accused of hijacking a plane more than two years ago and diverting it to Cyprus will face trial on a string of charges, Egypt's public prosecutor said Wednesday.
Seif al-Din Mohamed Mostafa, who was extradited in August from Cyprus, is accused of forcing a domestic flight from Alexandria to Cairo to divert its route to the Mediterranean island in March 2016.
Egypt's public prosecutor announced on Wednesday the case has been referred to the country's criminal court, paving the way for a trial to begin at an unspecified date.
Accusations against Mostafa include deliberately disrupting a flight, seizing control of an aircraft through threats and intimidation and promoting the ideas of the now-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group, the prosecutor said in a statement.
Cypriot authorities handed over Mostafa to their Egyptian counterparts after a court ruling allowed his extradition.
While held in Cyprus, Mostafa fought his extradition on grounds he would not receive a fair trial in Egypt. The Cypriot supreme court however dismissed his appeal last year against being sent home.
His request for asylum was refused as Cypriot authorities deemed him a "perpetrator of serious crimes".
The 2016 hijacking took place a few months after the October 2015 downing of a Russian airliner by the Islamic State group, killing all 224 on board, an incident that dealt a severe blow to Egypt's lucrative tourism industry.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/06/2018 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[6 views]
Top|| File under:
[PRESSTV] A court in Egypt has sentenced to life in prison Moslem Brüderbund leader Mohammed Badie, his deputy Khairat al-Shater, and four others over their alleged role in violence at the time of the ouster of the first democratically elected President Mohammed Morsi in 2013.
Judicial sources said the court issued the ruling on Wednesday as part of a retrial over violence between Brotherhood supporters and opponents near the Brotherhood headquarters in the capital Cairo back in 2013.
The rulings are the latest among several trials and retrials of Badie and other big shots of the Brotherhood that ruled the African country before the military, led by incumbent President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, ousted Morsi following mass protests in 2013.
The court on Wednesday sentenced Badie, Shater and four others to life in prison over violence between Brotherhood supporters and opponents near the headquarters, but acquitted former Parliament Speaker Saad al-Katatny along with a former minister, two prominent Brotherhood figures and two others.
All of the defendants have the right to appeal one final time before the Court of Cassation, Egypt's highest civilian court.
The public prosecution may also appeal the acquittals or the life prison terms that two defendants got instead of death penalty .
The defendants faced charges of inciting violence against the protesters in front of the Brotherhood headquarters, aggravated battery and possession of firearms.
Authorities had referred 18 defendants, including five who remain on the lam, to trial in the case and a ruling was issued in 2015.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/06/2018 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[10 views]
Top|| File under: Muslim Brotherhood
[PULSE.NG] Presidential candidate of the Alliance for New Nigeria (ANN), Fela Durotoye, believes the only reason Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... 's insurgency has not ended after nine years is because there are powerful people making money from the nation's counter-insurgency.
The terrorist group's insurgency escalated in 2009 after its spiritual leader, Mohammed Yusuf, was extra-judicially murdered by coppers. Hundreds of the group's members were also killed during the crackdown by the military.
While speaking during an interview with Pulse on Tuesday, December 4, 2018, Durotoye said the military has not been deliberate in its prosecution of the war because certain people are profiting from it.
He said unnamed military sources have previously told him that soldiers on the frontlines are sometimes ordered to not kill faceless myrmidons in their sights for unexplained reasons.
He further accused the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of using funds meant to prosecute the war to fund elections instead.
He said, "I spoke with a couple of military guys in the last two weeks and some of them were saying, 'Sir, we don't understand what's going on because sometimes even when you see the people and you want to attack them, they'll tell you not to.'
"This is what they said. They said they'll get orders from above to say, 'Don't kill them, capture them'. But these guys here have guns they want to kill you and you say don't kill them. If you say capture them, then there's a problem.
"I think it's important that we have military that are deliberate about ending this whole terrorism.
"For me, if you see that $1 billion is spent on arms against Boko Haram every four years just before election, you realise that there's more than meets the eye there.
"We know that every war all across the world, there are people, especially in the military, that are making a lot of money from it. In Nigeria, it's no different."
He said the APC and PDP have both used funds meant for financing the military to fight Boko Haram to achieve political means and urged Nigerians to vote both leading parties out in the 2019 general elections to prevent a future recurrence.
He said, "There are people that are making money from this and every war situation because there are people who are there and supposedly buying arms but we saw with Dasuki-gate especially where the money for the arms went. The money for the arms went to Ekiti election.
"PDP did it, APC did it. The only way to make sure it does not happen in the next four years is to make sure that it's not PDP or APC you're voting. That's the only way. We cannot continue to do the same thing the same way and expect different results."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/06/2018 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[7 views]
Top|| File under: Boko Haram (ISIS)
#1
Yup. War is a racket.
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
12/06/2018 0:36 Comments ||
Top||
#2
In past ages, a war, almost by definition, was something that sooner or later came to an end, usually in unmistakable victory or defeat. In the past, also, war was one of the main instruments by which human societies were kept in touch with physical reality. All rulers in all ages have tried to impose a false view of the world upon their followers, but they could not afford to encourage any illusion that tended to impair military efficiency. So long as defeat meant the loss of independence, or some other result generally held to be undesirable, the precautions against defeat had to be serious. Physical facts could not be ignored. In philosophy, or religion, or ethics, or politics, two and two might make five, but when one was designing a gun or an aeroplane they had to make four. Inefficient nations were always conquered sooner or later, and the struggle for efficiency was inimical to illusions. Moreover, to be efficient it was necessary to be able to learn from the past, which meant having a fairly accurate idea of what had happened in the past. Newspapers and history books were, of course, always coloured and biased, but falsification of the kind that is practised today would have been impossible. War was a sure safeguard of sanity, and so far as the ruling classes were concerned it was probably the most important of all safeguards. While wars could be won or lost, no ruling class could be completely irresponsible.
But when war becomes literally continuous, it also ceases to be dangerous. When war is continuous there is no such thing as military necessity. Technical progress can cease and the most palpable facts can be denied or disregarded. As we have seen, researches that could be called scientific are still carried out for the purposes of war, but they are essentially a kind of daydreaming, and their failure to show results is not important. Efficiency, even military efficiency, is no longer needed. Nothing is efficient in Oceania except the Thought Police. Since each of the three super-states is unconquerable, each is in effect a separate universe within which almost any perversion of thought can be safely practised. Reality only exerts its pressure through the needs of everyday life -- the need to eat and drink, to get shelter and clothing, to avoid swallowing poison or stepping out of top-storey windows, and the like. Between life and death, and between physical pleasure and physical pain, there is still a distinction, but that is all. Cut off from contact with the outer world, and with the past, the citizen of Oceania is like a man in interstellar space, who has no way of knowing which direction is up and which is down. The rulers of such a state are absolute, as the Pharaohs or the Caesars could not be. They are obliged to prevent their followers from starving to death in numbers large enough to be inconvenient, and they are obliged to remain at the same low level of military technique as their rivals; but once that minimum is achieved, they can twist reality into whatever shape they choose.
The war, therefore, if we judge it by the standards of previous wars, is merely an imposture. It is like the battles between certain ruminant animals whose horns are set at such an angle that they are incapable of hurting one another. But though it is unreal it is not meaningless. It eats up the surplus of consumable goods, and it helps to preserve the special mental atmosphere that a hierarchical society needs. War, it will be seen, is now a purely internal affair. In the past, the ruling groups of all countries, although they might recognize their common interest and therefore limit the destructiveness of war, did fight against one another, and the victor always plundered the vanquished. In our own day they are not fighting against one another at all. The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact. The very word 'war', therefore, has become misleading. It would probably be accurate to say that by becoming continuous war has ceased to exist. The peculiar pressure that it exerted on human beings between the Neolithic Age and the early twentieth century has disappeared and been replaced by something quite different. The effect would be much the same if the three super-states, instead of fighting one another, should agree to live in perpetual peace, each inviolate within its own boundaries. For in that case each would still be a self-contained universe, freed for ever from the sobering influence of external danger. A peace that was truly permanent would be the same as a permanent war. This -- although the vast majority of Party members understand it only in a shallower sense -- is the inner meaning of the Party slogan: War is Peace.
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
12/06/2018 0:39 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Herb, you are absolutely correct. Back when war was black and white Bertholdt Brecht wrote about where it was going in Mother Courage. It is a racket, as inhuman as it might sound, there's no reason to feel sorry for those who insist on living on the edges of it.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/06/2018 5:26 Comments ||
Top||
#4
"There's war / plague / piracy / tyranny here. I guess we'll just have to stay." I'm supposed to feel sorry for that POV?
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/06/2018 5:28 Comments ||
Top||
#5
We keep getting told we have to "contain" Russian / Iranian / Islamist aggression by means that have been failing for half a century. MAD kept the Soviet Union in check. The ChiComs have a different outlook, may not care about MAD.
Build Prompt Global Strike, het it down around 18 minutes. Design / test / develop / build every possible missile defense technology. No 355 ship Navy. Too damn bad. No 6th generation fighter. Too damn bad. Spend taxpayer dollars to defend taxpayers, not to make Beltway contractors fat on offensive weapons that our politicians won't use anyway.
Start now.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/06/2018 5:37 Comments ||
Top||
#6
There's a comfortable career, world travel, and prestige in peace processing.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
12/06/2018 6:13 Comments ||
Top||
#7
Nice dissertation, Hemingway. In the future, you might wanna cite your plagiarism = George Orwell
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/06/2018 8:35 Comments ||
Top||
[PRESSTV] Bulgaria's government confirmed on Wednesday that it would not join the United Nations ...boodling on the grand scale... pact for better regulating worldwide migration, set to be adopted later this month.
"The government decided that Bulgaria will abstain from joining the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration," said a government statement.
Bulgaria would not send representatives to the December 10-11 conference in Marrakesh, Morocco, at which the pact is set to be formally adopted, the statement added. And it would abstain at the UN general assembly vote to affirm the pact.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/06/2018 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under: Moslem Colonists
[DAWN] One month on, the police have not made any progress in the investigation into the murder of Jamaat-e-Ulema Islam Sami (JUI-S) chief Maulana Samiul Haq ...the Godfather of the Taliban, leader of his own faction of the JUI. Known as Mullah Sandwich for his habit of having two young boys at a time... .
However, nothing needs reforming like other people's bad habits... an interim charge sheet of the case was submitted by the police in the court of an additional session judge on Monday.
The interim charge sheet contains the statements of the victim’s son and a report on more than 12 individuals, the mobile phone data of the JUI-S chief, the preliminary statement given by the victim’s secretary and a police investigation report.
However, nothing needs reforming like other people's bad habits... it does not identify a prime accused. The police was to submit an interim charge sheet for the murder case within 14-days of the incident.
The police have been waiting for the DNA report of the samples taken from the victim’s body and those taken from elsewhere at the scene of the crime.
The police have been reluctant to share details of their investigation with the dear departed’s family nor have they made the details public. No cash reward has been offered for information that could lead to the murderer.
"We cannot say anything at the moment because we are still investigating into the murder," a police official close to the investigation said.
The police’s attempts to exhume Maulana Sami’s body for a post-mortem have also been unproductive after the concerned court of law as well as the family refused permission for the exhumation.
The request was made to the additional session judge by the Rawalpindi police which was forwarded to the concerned court in Nowshera which rejected it.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/06/2018 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[9 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
[IsraelTimes] Prime Minister Netanyahu calls UN chief Antonio Guterres to update him on Operation Northern Shield, urges international condemnation of Hezbollah.
At a regularly scheduled meeting with peacekeepers and representatives from the Lebanese Armed Forces, Israeli officers "presented the uncovered Hezbollah attack tunnel that had been dug from Leb to Israel," a statement from the Israeli military said, without providing details.
"The IDF expressed its protest to the serious violation of Israeli territory and UN Resolution 1701," the statement said referring to the 2006 UN Security Council resolution calling for Hezbollah to withdraw from southern Leb following the Second Leb War, the last major conflict between the IDF and the Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group.
The United Nations ...an organization originally established to war on dictatorships which was promptly infiltrated by dictatorships and is now held in thrall to dictatorships... Interim Force in Leb (UNIFIL) said Wednesday it will send a team to Israel to "ascertain facts" and called for full access to all locations along the border. According to Israel’s Hadashot news, some UNIFIL personal were shown the Israeli side of the tunnel.
"I emphasize the critical role of our liaison and coordination mechanisms in mitigating tensions through continuous communication, at the heart of which is the Tripartite forum," said head of UNIFIL mission Maj. Gen. Stefano Del Col.
He appealed to both sides in using the mechanisms to "avoid misunderstandings and ensure that security and stability" along the border is maintained and reinforced.
So far, only the US administration has expressed unequivocal support for Operation Northern Shield. Russia on Wednesday expressed tacit support on Wednesday for the efforts to expose Hezbollah’s cross-border attack tunnels, while calling on both sides to show restraint lest the volatile situation on the Lebanese border escalate.
Russia does not consider Hezbollah a terrorist organization.
[IsraelTimes] Army promises more ’surprises’ for the Lebanese terror group as it reportedly expands its tunnel-busting operation to two other locations
Since the launch of Israel’s operation to find and destroy Hezbollah’s cross-border attack tunnels on Tuesday, the Lebanese terror group has been dutifully tracking the Israel Defense Forces’ activities along the border and publicizing them.
The apparent message that Hezbollah is seeking to convey to the Israeli military is they know exactly what the IDF is up to, keeping an eye on things and tracking soldiers’ movements.
Continued on Page 49
[ALMASDARNEWS] Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday urged UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to slam Lebanon-based Hezbollah militant movement for digging transboundary tunnels leading to Israel and tighten sanctions against the group.
“Prime Minister Netanyahu updated UNSG Guterres on the details of Operation Northern Shield and said that he expects the UN to strongly condemn the violation of Israel’s sovereignty … The Prime Minister also told the UN Sec.-Gen. that the international community must join in the demand to impose increased sanctions on Hezbollah in the wake of the events,” the statement read.
In the phone talks with Guterres, Netanyahu also blamed Iran for its alleged support to the militant movement that resulted in the violation of the UN Security Resolution 1701, according to the statement.
UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement on Wednesday that Antonio Guterres condemns Hezbollah’s alleged construction of cross-border tunnels into Israel.
“From the Secretary-General’s point of view, the building of tunnels from one country to another for military purposes is wholly unacceptable,” the spokesman said.
Dujarric noted that the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) will send a technical team to the Lebanese-Israeli border on Thursday to investigate the allegations. UNIFIL has called for full access to all locations across the Blue Line, or the UN-demarcated Israeli-Lebanese border, Dujarric added.
On Tuesday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced the launch an open-ended military operation dubbed “Northern Shield” to find and destroy cross-border tunnels that the Jewish state says Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement built to transport its militants into Israel in any potential future conflict.
Lebanese officials have denied the allegations in comments carried on the country’s state-run National News Agency (NNA). E pur se muove.
Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri earlier on Wednesday said Israel provided no evidence to prove its claims, which he dismissed as false, the NNA reported. The Lebanese Army also issued a statement calling Israel’s accusations “mere allegations,” according to the NNA.
Israel traditionally views Hezbollah’s presence in Lebanon and Syria as a threat to its national security as the movement is backed by Iran, which is Israel’s main rival in the region.
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), which monitors the Blue Line, designated by the United Nations after Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000, said on Tuesday that it had increased security patrols at the Lebanese-Israeli border to avoid potential escalation amid Israel’s anti-tunnel efforts.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/06/2018 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[7 views]
Top|| File under: Hezbollah
#2
"Oh yeah, we totally condemn that behavior. Totally. But don't expect us to, like, actually do anything about. OK, OK, stop whining. We'll send some more UNIFIL guys to act as human shields for Hamass."
[PRESSTV] Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has rejected allegations by US officials that Iran’s missile program violates Security Council Resolution 2231, saying the UN document does not ban Tehran’s missile activities.
"What has been obvious and acknowledged by the Americans themselves both in the current administration and the previous one is that neither the JCPOA (the Iran nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) nor (UN Security Council) Resolution 2231 ban Iran’s missile activities," Zarif said on Wednesday.
He made the remarks while speaking to news hounds after a weekly cabinet session, in response to allegations raised by US officials about Iran’s missile program.
He added that former US Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman, during the nuclear talks between Iran and six world powers, and US special envoy for Iran Brian Hook, two weeks ago, said that UN Resolution 1929 forced Iran to limit its missile program, but Resolution 2231 had such a demand from Iran on a special type of missile.
The top diplomat said that Iran was not seeking nuclear capable missiles as it did not pursue a nuclear weapons program.
He said "the Islamic Theocratic Republic of Iran’s missiles have pin-point accuracy" and are solely designed for conventional weapons.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/06/2018 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[9 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has rejected allegations by US officials that Iran’s missile program violates Security Council Resolution 2231, saying the UN document does not ban Tehran’s missile activities.
So 0bumhole's legacy has no clothes after all. Why am I not shocked?
[PRESSTV] A Hezbollah official has warned Israel against invading Leb, saying the resistance movement is strong enough to block any military aggression and retaliate against it.
"The days when Israel could simply attack Leb are over, even though the initiative to attack is in Israel’s hands," Hassan Hoballah, a member of Hezbollah’s political bureau, said on Tuesday.
The remarks came hours after the Israeli army launched an operation along Leb’s border under the pretext of "cutting off" what it claims are Hezbollah tunnels near the occupied territories.
Chief of Staff of Israeli military, Lieutenant General Gadi Eizenkot, claimed that the so-called Operation Northern Shield had been launched before the tunnels were operational and "became an immediate and direct threat to northern communities and army bases."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/06/2018 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[7 views]
Top|| File under: Hezbollah
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Townhall] Three Virginia businessmen were charged with attempting to defraud the United States Military by engaging in illegal commerce in Iran and laundering money internationally in an attempt at winning contracts in Afghanistan. 
... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality...
the 
[ALMASDARNEWS] Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday urged UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to slam Lebanon-based Hezbollah militant movement for digging transboundary tunnels leading to Israel and tighten sanctions against the group.
