Panorama: Three Fifa World Cup officials took bribes

BBC News, 29 November 2010

Three senior Fifa officials who will vote on the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bids took bribes in the 1990s, according to the BBC's Panorama.

Fifa executives Ricardo Teixeira (l), Issa Hayatou
and Nicolas Leoz (r)

Nicolas Leoz, Issa Hayatou and Ricardo Teixeira took the money from a sport marketing firm awarded lucrative World Cup rights, the programme alleges.

The alleged bribes are included in a confidential document listing 175 payments totalling about $100m (£64m).

The three men did not respond to Panorama's allegations.

Fifa, world football's governing body, also declined interview requests to address the allegations.

Timing criticised

Panorama, to be broadcast later, also reports on evidence of a fourth senior Fifa executive's continued involvement in the resale of World Cup tickets to touts.

The BBC has received criticism over the timing of the programme, which comes ahead of Thursday's vote by Fifa's executive committee on who will host the 2018 and 2022 World Cup finals.

England is competing with Russia, Spain/Portugal and Netherlands/Belgium to host the 2018 tournament.

The BBC has defended the timing of Panorama, saying the programme is in the public interest.

The alleged bribes to the three members of Fifa's executive committee were paid by sports marketing company International Sport and Leisure (ISL) and date from 1989 to 1999, Panorama reports. The company collapsed in 2001.

Fifa granted ISL exclusive rights to market World Cup tournaments to some of the world's biggest brands and ISL received millions more from negotiating television broadcast rights.

A former account manager at ISL, Roland Buechel, said staff had long suspected bribes were being paid for the lucrative Fifa contracts.

"It is huge money, billions, that can be earned and all the sports marketing companies they fight, they want it," Mr Buechel said.

Some details of the alleged bribes emerged in 2008, when six ISL managers were accused of misusing company money.

Read whole story .....

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Der Spiegel: Enthűllt wie Amerika die Welt Sieht

"Another cable alleged that the Saudi king had urged US to attack Iran." (Guardian)

"U.S. fears Iran has long-range missile, but Russia calls it a 'myth'" (CNN)

"Claims of inappropriate behavior by a member of the British royal family"

"US officials being instructed to spy on the UN's leadership under US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton" (Telegraph , Spiegel , NYT)

"Alleged links between the Russian government and organized crime"

"The extraordinarily close relationship between Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister, and Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister."

"China pressed over Iran and North Korea's nuclear trade." (Guardian)

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The evidence says Muhammad existed

RNW, 25 November 2010, By Michel Hoebink

(photo: flickr/Zoe52)

Some sceptical scholars claim that Muhammad did not exist and that Islam is a fabrication made up in later centuries. But Leiden University’s Petra Sijpesteijn has demonstrated from her work on Arabic papyrus manuscripts that their claim is not true.

What was the origin of Islam and what went on at the dawn of Islamic history? In the past, scholars who wanted to research the subject had to rely on the official Islamic version of events which was only written down about 200 years after Muhammad’s death. Only relatively recently has interest grown in more objective but less accessible sources such as coins, inscriptions and texts written on papyrus.

Petra Sijpesteijn, professor of Arabic language and culture at Leiden University, says that this last source is especially important. “The papyri are in fact the only contemporary source for the first 200 years of Islamic history.”

Pioneer

Papyrus manuscripts have been found in their thousands in the sand and at ancient rubbish tips all over the Middle East but especially in Egypt. Dr Sijpesteijn explains that they are often difficult to read because they are partially destroyed, badly written out or in dialect. “But if you can read them, they offer a unique glimpse of ordinary life at the dawn of Islam.”

The study of Arabic papyri is in its infancy. Only a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of available manuscripts have been studied. As far as the work done so far is concerned, the Muslim faithful can set their minds at ease: Dr Sijpesteijn says the texts largely confirm the official Islamic version of events.

Disorganised horde

Dr Sijpesteijn distances herself from the small group of polemical colleagues, known as the ‘revisionists’, who assert that the Prophet Muhammad probably did not exist. They say the Arabic conquerors were actually a disorganised horde of Bedouins who gained control of half the known world more or less by chance. Islam is said to have been dreamt up 200 years later in Iraq.

“From the papyri, it appears that the Arab conquests were indeed carefully planned and organised and that the Arabs saw themselves as conquerors with a religious mission. They also appear to have held religious views and followed customs which contain important elements of the behaviour and beliefs of later Muslims.

Dr Sijpesteijn says for example that, shortly after Muhammad’s death, there is already mention of a pilgrimage (hajj) and a tax to collect money for the poor (zakat). She has also come across a papyrus text written around 725 which names both the prophet and Islam.

Even so, her discoveries form a potential threat to the image some modern Muslims have of their history. The papyri contradict the belief held by many of today’s Muslims that Muhammad delivered Islam as a sort of ready-made package. “It looks as though Islam in its first centuries developed a form gradually. There was an awful lot of discussion about precisely what it meant to be a Muslim.”

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Nigeria detains 12 in Halliburton bribery case

Reuters, LAGOS | Sat Nov 27, 2010 3:58pm EST

(Reuters) - Nigeria's anti-corruption police have raided the offices of the U.S. oilfield services group Halliburton and arrested 12 people in a bribery case involving the former Halliburton unit KBR Inc, a spokesman said on Saturday.

The U.S. firm said the detentions, carried out on Thursday, had no legal basis and that its employees had since been freed.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) said it had detained 10 Halliburton staff for questioning and one senior employee each from oil services firms Saipem Contracting Nigeria Ltd and Technip Offshore Nigeria Ltd.

Eni, Saipem's parent company, declined to comment.

"We are still looking for the (local) managing director of Halliburton," EFCC spokesman Femi Babafemi said.

Those detained in the raid, carried out with the assistance of armed police, included Giuseppe Surace, believed to be Saipem's country manager, and Frank Pliya from Technip, as well as a mixture of expatriates and Nigerians, Babafemi said.

Halliburton said in a statement that its employees were not connected with the case, and that they had all subsequently been released.

"Nigerian authorities entered the offices of Halliburton in Lagos, ransacked the property, assaulted personnel and took a number of non-managerial employees into custody ... this action had no legal basis," its statement said.

Houston-based engineering firm KBR pleaded guilty last year to U.S. charges that it paid $180 million in bribes between 1994 and 2004 to Nigerian officials to secure $6 billion in contracts for the Bonny Island liquefied natural gas (LNG) project.

KBR and Halliburton reached a $579 million settlement in the United States but Nigeria, France and Switzerland have conducted their own investigations into the case.

KBR split from Halliburton in 2007.

"The Halliburton oil field services operations in Nigeria have never in any way been any part of the LNG project, and none of the Halliburton employees have ever had any connection to or participation in that project," Halliburton said.

A former aide to Nigerian ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo pleaded not guilty in October to six counts of money laundering in relation to the case between 2002-2003, including accepting $1.5 million in bribes.

His case was adjourned to December 16.

(Reporting by Nick Tattersall and Anna Driver; editing by Kevin Liffey)

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149 alleged al Qaeda members arrested in Saudi Arabia

CNN News, November 26th, 2010

Security forces in Saudi Arabia have arrested 149 people alleged to be members of al Qaeda, the Saudi Interior Ministry said on Friday.

Gen. Mansour al-Turki, Interior Ministry spokesman, the people were plotting to kill government officials, security forces, and media employees.

"Their general motives are spreading an ideology of hate by calling others disbelievers, collecting money to finance the deviant al Qaeda group inside and outside the kingdom, easing travel for some individuals for training in destabilized places and executing criminal plots to spread chaos and insecurity." al-Turki said.

The arrests occurred over an eight-month period, and the people seized were dispersed among 19 active terrorist cells throughout the kingdom. Security forces found 2.4 million riyals (or about $600,000) among the cells.

Saudi state-run TV reports said of the 149 people, 124 were Saudi nationals. There were also Yemenis and Egyptians. The cells have external links, Turki said, a reference to al Qaeda in Yemen, Somalia and Afghanistan.

The people were involved in collecting money and financing terrorism, targeting oil refineries and government buildings, weapons training, and making hand grenades.

Turki said the suspects were trying to using the hajj, or Muslim pilgrimage, season to create unrest and pursue recruiting.

The suspects pursued internet recruiting, and used nicknames in their recruiting efforts. Some of the names included killer, love of God, immigrant lion, and the stranger.

Among those arrested was a woman, who was sent back to her family after she was seized.

– CNN's Rima Maktabi contributed to this report

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Netherlands calls for arrest of Nazi Klaas-Carel Faber

BBC News, 25 November 2010

Dutch authorities have issued a European arrest warrant for a Dutch-born Nazi war criminal, Klaas-Carel Faber, now living in Germany.

Klaas-Carel Faber

Faber, 88, was sentenced to death in 1947 for the deaths of Jews at the Westerbork transit camp but his term was commuted to life.

He escaped in 1952, was given German citizenship and now lives in Bavaria.

Dutch media say it is the first time a European arrest warrant has been issued for a war criminal.

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Israel razes West Bank 'mosque'

BBC News, 25 November 2010

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The Israeli army has demolished a number of buildings in West Bank, including one that Palestinians said was a long-established mosque.

The residents of Khirbet Yarza say the mosque was
built before the Israeli occupation of 1967

Israeli officials said the structures were temporary and built without permits in a military fire zone.

Palestinian villagers said the mosque was built before 1967 when Israel occupied the West Bank.

The UN has criticised Israel for demolishing Palestinian property and prohibiting construction in the zone.

"This morning, The Civil Administration demolished eight temporary structures and a building construction that were built without the required permits a in a fire area, risking the lives of the population," said a statement from the Israeli ministry of defence.

An Israeli spokesman said none of the buildings was a mosque.

Construction and planning issues come under the jurisdiction of the Civil Administration in Area C, the part of the West Bank designated a military fire zone by Israel.

The statement said the Palestinians had been notified of the demolition order and been given a chance to appeal against it.

A spokesman for the residents of the village, Khirbet Yarza, said the villagers had papers proving the mosque was legal and built before 1967, reported the West Bank-based Ma'an news agency.

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967, settling close to 500,000 Jews in more than 100 settlements. There are about 2.5 million Palestinians living in the West Bank..

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Dutch queen’s father ‘was involved in arms trade’

RNW, 24 November 2010

Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands

Historian Gerard Aalders from the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation (NIOD) says Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands (Queen Beatrix's father) was involved in arms dealing in Indonesia around 1950. Dr Aalders makes his allegation in his book, Bernhard Zakenprins (Bernhard, Prince of Business) which is published on Thursday. Prince Bernhard died in 2004.

The historian has not unearthed any evidence that the prince actually bought or sold arms himself. However, he says he has indirect evidence from which it can be deduced that the husband of Queen Juliana became involved with the arms trade with the aim of bringing about the fall of the government of newly independent Indonesia.

“A number of arms dealers knew Prince Bernhard personally and the infamous Afghan arms dealer Ali Shah visited him at Soestdijk Palace for business talks,” says Dr Aalders. He says his conclusions are “98 percent complete”. He believes many important records remain behind closed doors.

Indonesian Vice-president Hatta and Dutch Queen Juliana at the signing ceremony in The Hague at which the Dutch recognized Indonesian sovereignty. (27 Dec.1949)

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Exclusive: Corruption charges to feature in WikiLeaks release

Reuters, By Mark Hosenball, WASHINGTON | Wed Nov 24, 2010

(Reuters) - Classified U.S. diplomatic cables reporting corruption allegations against foreign governments and leaders are expected in official documents that WikiLeaks plans to release soon, sources said on Wednesday.

The whistle-blowing website said on its Twitter feed this week its next release would be seven times larger than the collection of roughly 400,000 Pentagon reports related to the Iraq war which it made public in October.

Three sources familiar with the State Department cables held by WikiLeaks say the corruption allegations in them are major enough to cause serious embarrassment for foreign governments and politicians named in them.

They said the release was expected next week, but could come earlier.

The detailed, candid reporting by U.S. diplomats also may create foreign policy complications for the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama, the sources said.

Among the countries whose politicians feature in the reports are Russia, Afghanistan and former Soviet republics in Central Asia. But other reports also detail potentially embarrassing allegations reported to Washington from U.S. diplomats in other regions including East Asia and Europe, one of the sources familiar with the WikiLeaks holdings said.

The U.S. government has strongly objected to past WikiLeaks revelations, which it said compromise national security and can put some people at risk.

Past WikiLeaks releases of classified U.S. documents on related to Iraq and Afghanistan have given a battlefield view of both conflicts and sensitive intelligence, but contained few startling revelations.

CREATING TENSION

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Washington was assessing the implications of what WikiLeaks may reveal and was notifying foreign governments "that a release of documents is possible in the near future."

"We decry what has happened. These revelations are harmful to the United States and our interests. They are going to create tension in our relationships,' Crowley said. "We wish that this would not happen but we are obviously prepared for the possibility that it will."

Both the State Department and the Pentagon confirmed they had been in touch with lawmakers on Capitol Hill to inform them of what may be coming.

Sources said three international news organizations which previously published stories based on classified U.S. government documents acquired by WikiLeaks -- the New York Times, Britain's Guardian newspaper and the German weekly news magazine Der Spiegel -- were given access the documents some time ago by Julian Assange, the Australian-born computer hacker who says he is WikiLeaks' founder and leader.

Two of the sources said Assange has also made the documents available to at least two other European publications -- the newspapers El Pais of Spain and Le Monde of France.

Assange did not immediately reply to an email seeking comment.

The New York Times, Guardian and Der Spiegel are trying to coordinate when they release their first stories about the material -- likely to be next week -- but one of the sources said that it is unclear whether Le Monde and El Pais will be publishing on the same schedule.

The sources said the documents -- which also report on other local controversies beyond allegations of corruption -- may result in more international uproar than did the earlier release by WikiLeaks of Pentagon reports on the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Asked by e-mail to comment on the latest anticipated WikiLeaks release, New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller told Reuters: "If we had a big story in the works, we'd be disinclined to discuss it before publication."

(Editing by Andrew Quinn and Mohammad Zargham)

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MADSEN: Wall St Sources - FED Stuffing Treasurier into Banks and Pensions

surfingtheapocalypse.net, by WhiteKnight , UK Europe., Wednesday, November 24, 2010, 13:03

November 23, 2010 -- Wall Street sources: Fed stuffing Treasuries into banks and pensions

Wall Street sources have told Wayne Madsen Report that the Federal Reserve Bank has been stuffing U.S. Treasury instruments into every imaginable financial system in the United States. One source reports that "every ETF (exchange-traded fund), mutual fund, 401k account, bank account, and hedge fund are all bursting at the seams with Treasuries."

Treasuries are poor options for short-term yields and in 2008 their yield was negative for a period of time. As foreign investors flee Treasuries because of the de facto devaluation of the U.S. dollar, the Federal Reserve is dumping them on U.S. investors.

What particularly concerns some Wall Street insiders is that by tryng to avoid bankruptcy, the government is raiding retirement funds and replacng cash with potentially worthless Treasuries.

One Wall Street source told WMR that what the Federal Reserve is doing is "absolutely criminal" and that after having their tax money used to bail out Wall Street crooks, the criminals are now setting their sights on the pension plans of every American. And bank savings accounts, we are also told, are now within the sights of the Wall Street criminals.

http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/articles/20101123.

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Senior bankers arrested in India 'scam' probe

BBC News, 24 November 2010

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Police in the Indian city of Mumbai say that they have arrested eight people, including senior executives of top state banks, over a suspected scam.

The allegations are the latest in a series of
corruption scandals

They say that the alleged fraud involved bribes paid to secure large corporate loans.

Senior figures from the Bank of India, the Central Bank of India and the Punjab National Bank were arrested.

The Bombay stock exchange recorded significant losses after the arrests were made public.

The arrests are the latest in a series of corruption scandals to hit the country, including alleged financial irregularities at the Commonwealth Games, an alleged scam involving homes for war widows in the state of Maharashtra and the resignation of a government minister in a row over the issue of multi-billion dollar mobile phone contracts.

At a news conference in Mumbai, police said that raids had taken place across the country and officials were arrested in Delhi and Mumbai.

There was no immediate response from any of the arrested officials or the institutions for which they work.

Among those arrested was the chairman of Mumbai-based financial services group, Money Matters, and two other executives from the firm, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) said.

Correspondents say that the company specialises in advising corporate clients on how to borrow money.

The CBI said that Money Matters was "allegedly bribing senior officials of public sector banks and financial institutions for facilitating large scale corporate loans".

CBI official P Kandaswamy told the BBC that the "financial proportions of the scam were not known and investigations were going on".

All eight officials appeared in court in Mumbai on Wednesday and were remanded in custody for five days.

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United Nations set to Appoint First UFO Ambassador: “Take me to your Leader”

Liberty News Online, 11-22-2010 4:15 pm - Dr. Jerome Corsi - WorldNetDaily.com

Remarkably, the United Nations is on the verge of appointing its first ambassador to aliens, as in UFOs, thereby extending the concept of global governance to galaxy governance, and maybe beyond.

The most likely candidate to fill the job is Malaysian astrophysicist Mazian Othman, current director of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, or UNOOSA.

The post will require approval from U.N. scientific advisory committees and the General Assembly, according to CBS News.

But the question is: Why? Does the United Nations know something the rest of us do not know? Is there a reason to be concerned that we need a world-government ambassador to be in place, ready to talk with extraterrestrials right now? Or, is this just typical U.N. silliness?

'Take me to your leader'

The Sunday Times in Australia obtained a recording of a talk Othman gave to fellow scientists in which she explained the need for the U.N. to have a UFO ambassador: "The continued search for extraterrestrial communication, by several entities, sustains the hope that some day humankind will receive signals from extraterrestrials. When we do, we should have in place a coordinated response that takes into account all the sensitivities related to the subject. The U.N. is a ready-made mechanism for such coordination."

Stephen Hawking

(According to Gaia (Mother Earth) is
Stephen Hawking an incarnation of Sir
Isaac Newton, confirmed in a channeling
thru Pepper Lewis in the Shirley
Maclaine Radio Show 2, including
explanations of BP Oil spill, Dark Matter,
God/God/Local God..., ET Disclosure,
3/5/7 dimension, Money, Currencies ...
etc.)

The Mail in London reported that in April professor Stephen Hawking warned that alien contact, if it ever comes, may not be as friendly as had been hoped for.

The 68-year-old scientist said he could imagine aliens arriving in "massive ships" to colonize Earth and plunder the planet's resources. "It would be 'too risky' to attempt to make contact with alien races," Hawking said. "If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn't turn out very well for Native Americans."

UFOEvidence.org, "Extraterrestrial Contact: Scientific Study of the UFO Phenomenon and Search for Extraterrestrial Life," quotes Dr. Stephen Greer, director of the Center for the Study of Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, as saying: "The evidence that the earth is being visited by at least one extraterrestrial civilization is extensive both in scope and detail. In its totality, it comprises a body of evidence which at the very least supports the general assessment that extraterrestrial life has been detected, and that a vigorous program of research and serious diplomatic initiatives is warranted."

Professor Richard Crowther, an expert in space law and governance at the U.K. Space Agency who leads British delegations to the United Nations on such subjects, told NewsCore in Australia, "Othman is absolutely the nearest thing we have to a 'take me to your leader' person."

U.S. government archives of UFO data

There are thousands of pages of government UFO documents archived on the Internet. For those interested, the following are among the best treasure troves of UFO government-collected material:

1. U.S. Department of Defense, UFO-related documents: Assorted documents from the DOD investigation into UFOs, beginning with the U.S. Air force Project Sign in 1948 and continuing with Project Blue Book that remained in existence through 1968.
   
   
2. CIA documents on UFOs: Collection catalogues CIA information on UFOs from the 1940s through the early 1990s. See also, for the most recent CIA information on UFOs, the article "CIA's Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-1990," at the Center for the Study of Intelligence websites. The article is located in online publications, under the "Studies in Intelligence" section, specifically semi-annual Edition No. 1, 1997.
   
   
3. National Security Agency documents on UFOs: Includes documents released by NASA in 1980 under Civil Action No. 80-1562, "Citizens Against Unidentified Flying Objects Secrecy v. National Security Agency."
   
   
4. FBI documents on UFOs: FBI documents on UFOs, including the Animal Mutilation Project that contains accounts of animal mutilations reported during the late 1970s.
   
   
5. National archives: UFOs – Project Blue Book: U.S. Air Force records on Project Blue Book, shut down in 1969.
   
   
6. National Archives: Recently released UFO files from U.K. government: A wide range of UFO-related documents, drawings, letters and parliamentary questions in the U.K., covering the years 1995-2003.
   
   
7. National Archives: UFO files from U.K. government: U.K. government files released in 2008-2010.

Professor Mazlan Othman is in charge of conducting negotiations with the first extraterrestrials that might come to this planet. Photo: V. Martin/ITU

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