Gaining control of Russian Oil
Washington's efforts to depose Vladimir Putin and gain control of Russian Oil reserves
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=LAU20041025&articleId=556
Washington's efforts to depose Vladimir Putin and gain control of Russian Oil reserves
The fax-back service for pre-written newspaper articles must have been working overtime these last few weeks at Langley, Virginia. A flood of articles has appeared in the press attacking the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, especially in the wake of the Beslan massacre. They all have the same structure. Whenever you read the words, "Nothing can excuse the murder of children," you know that a big "But" is looming. Such articles invariably go on to explain why the murder of children is indeed understandable, and the reason usually given is Russian authoritarianism, against which the Chechen rebellion is natural and legitimate.[i]
Bush names nine to Holocaust museum council
Elie Wiesel and Judy Yudof, former president of the Conservative Judaism movement, are among nine people named to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council.
Others named by President Bush to serve until January 2011 include Debra Abrams, of Florida; Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis, of New York; Norma Lerner, of Ohio; Marvin Pomerantz, of Iowa; Alan Neil Rechtshaffen, of New York; J. Philip Rosen, of New York; and Bradley David Wine, of Maryland. The council oversees the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.
http://jta.org/page_view_breaking_story.asp?intid=2258
Russian back to the USSR
Nick Bray
April 19, 2006
http://www.thecouriermail.news.com.au/story/0,20797,18848634-5003422,00.html
...At the end of the episode, the oligarch is seen walking through a crowded Independence Square in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev with a new business partner, Neil Bush, little brother to Dubya....
Robbery, not reconstruction, in Iraq
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/04/18/robbery_not_reconstruction_in_iraq/
By Derrick Z. Jackson, Globe Columnist April 18, 2006
The great liberator of Iraq was actually the hyena that cleaned out the nation.
Piece by piece, Halliburton over here, a corrupt company over there, we have heard various individual cases of overcharging and fraud by American firms in the reconstruction of Iraq. Last weekend, a Globe story connected some of the dots of corruption. Of $20.7 billion in Iraqi bank accounts and oil revenues seized by the Coalition Provisional Authority in the US-led invasion of Iraq, $14 billion was given out for reconstruction but tens of millions of dollars were unaccounted for. A year ago, an audit by the inspector general found no evidence of work done or goods delivered on 154 of 198 contracts. Sixty cases of potential swindles are under investigation.
Halliburton and its hundreds of millions of dollars of overcharges or baseless costs are well known. But millions more were taken by companies that promised to build or restore libraries or police facilities, or deliver trucks and construction equipment. Money was given to the puppet government with no follow-up. US government investigators can account for only a third of the $1.5 billion given by the CPA to the interim government and it appears that a substantial portion of the $8 billion given to Iraqi ministries went to ''ghost employees.''
Canadian Wants Rid Of President Bush
http://www.ltvnews.com/viewarticle.php?id=6116
Canadan's Neil Young has a new album that includes a track called “Let's Impeach the President.â€The album is called “Living With War. The album is a surprise to Young’s fans and his record company, as the 60-year-old singer-songwriter only announced its release Monday.Young recorded the 10-song collection, which includes an anti-Iraq War harangue, in just three days earlier this month.
Shoot Them in the Cornfields
http://www.nyblueprint.com/event.asp?eid=13861
"Shoot Them in the Cornfields!", a new play by Sophia Murashkovsky, is directed by Yuri Joffe, a noted, Stanislavski prize-winning director from Moscow's Mayakovsky Academic Theater. The play is a fictionalized family history that time-trips between World War II, the Khruschev reign, and the heady days of the coup d'état of 1991. It is a first-person account of an aging Jewish woman, Yelena Levin, and her husband, Mikhail Levin, who were both banished to Butirka; one of the most notorious criminal prisons of the Soviet Union, for entrepreneurship during Nikita Khrushchev's oppressive anti-intellectual reign in 1958.
Contact Information: www.sophiamurashkovsky.com
Doolittle Taps Ken Starr To Fight Abramoff Fallout
http://cbs13.com/topstories/local_story_108120853.html
(AP) ROSEVILLE Congressman John Doolittle of Roseville is hiring a former aide to Whitewater special prosecutor Kenneth Starr to advise him as he fights fallout from his friendship with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Doolittle says that former federal prosecutor David Barger will advise him on how he should answer media questions about the scandal during his re-election campaign. Doolittle denies wrongdoing and says he has not been contacted by investigators.
What About a Stretch Limo?
New e-mails detail how disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff wooed a former government official with trips, tickets and even a job. All he wanted in return: access to public officials, some government property and maybe a slightly used car.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12357359/site/newsweek/
By Michael Isikoff
Updated: 2:58 p.m. ET April 17, 2006
April 17, 2006 - The disclosure by federal prosecutors of more than 200 e-mails from lobbyist Jack Abramoff sheds new light on how the disgraced Washington power broker worked tirelessly to provide perks and favors to a former Bush administration official in a quest for favorable treatment from the government.
Abramoff, the e-mails show, bombarded then General Services Administration chief of staff David Safavian—who later worked in a senior position at the White House—with offers of sports tickets, golf outings, a lavish overseas trip and a lucrative job with his prestigious lobbying firm. At the same time, the e-mails show, Safavian offered to set up meetings and briefings for Abramoff and his associates and provide insider information that could have potentially benefitted his lobbying clients. Although there is no evidence that any of the deals actually came off, prosecutors say they illustrate how Safavian, who is due to stand trial next month on charges of lying to the FBI, “spent his energies looking out [for] Mr. Abramoff’s interests.”
In an Aug. 12, 2002, e-mail, Safavian responded to one of Abramoff’s associates who asked about arranging a GSA briefing for the chief executive of a software company being represented by Abramoff’s firm. “I’d be happy to put that together,” Safavian wrote. “What I would suggest is that we do two meetings … one with me where I can put on a dog and pony show, and a follow up with our commissioner at the [GSA’s] Federal Technology Service.” The commissioner, Safavian added, “has some critical information she can import to you and your client. I can orchestrate an impressive meeting with your client with relative ease.”
The timing of that and other e-mail exchanges is potentially important because they came just days after Safavian returned from a $130,000 golfing outing to the famed St. Andrews Course in Scotland that was organized by Abramoff. The itinerary for the trip, disclosed for the first time, show that the Abramoff party—which also included Ohio Rep. Robert Ney and well-connected Republican Party strategist Ralph Reed—involved a non-stop whirl of golfing and expensive dinners that the Abramoff party was driven to by “luxury coach.” At the last minute, a London leg of the trip was added by Abramoff—apparently so he could have a meeting with one of his clients, Alexander Koulakovsky, a Russian energy executive whose role in financing congressional trips for Rep. Tom Delay and a non-profit group, the U.S. Family Network, run by Delay’s former chief of staff, Ed Buckham, has come under scrutiny as part of the Abramoff investigation.
