April 1, 2005
Remember Henry Cisneros? He served on Bill Clinton's Cabinet until 1999, when he pled guilty to lying to FBI investigators about paying off his mistress. Cisneros coughed up a $10,000 fine for the crime and left politics. However, the independent-counsel investigation his corruption touched off still continues to this day, and has racked up over $21 million in costs -- over a million of which was spent in the last half of 2004: Nearly a decade after he was appointed to investigate then-Housing Secretary Henry G. Cisneros, independent counsel David M. Barrett spent more than $1.26 million of federal money in the last six months of fiscal 2004, the Government Accountability Office reported yesterday. Since its inception, the Cisneros investigation has cost nearly $21 million, a total rivaling some of the largest independent counsel investigations in history. Much of the money has gone for pay and benefits, travel, rent and...
Oh, the delicious irony ... Europe's most ambitious dream, a continent-wide constitution, may founder on a most unexpected rock. France, long a driving force behind the European Union (EU), is increasingly hostile to the charter, a key symbol of Europe's march toward integration. As voters prepare for a May 29 referendum on the subject, five opinion polls in recent days put opponents of the constitution clearly ahead of supporters. But as the government went into high gear this week to try to turn the tide, public debate suggests that French doubts are rooted less in the legal text than in skepticism about the very idea of a united Europe. The French seemed perfectly pleased with the concept of a united Europe -- as long as an EU meant basically Greater France, complete with its highly socialized nanny state, severe limitations on economic competition, and control from Paris. The French people...
Today's editorial in the Washington Post accomplishes the remarkable feat of both understanding that the Volcker Report doesn't exonerate UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan at all, and then using that fact to endorse Annan's continued leadership of the UN. Confused? So, apparently, is the Post's editorial board: While the investigators found that Kojo Annan misled the secretary general about the length of his employment, and while it seems all too clear that he intended to profit from his U.N. connections, the probe did not find any evidence that Cotecna won its U.N. contract thanks to Kofi Annan's intervention. Nevertheless, the report does not, as Mr. Annan claimed this week, amount to an "exoneration." For while Mr. Annan was not found guilty of direct corruption, the portrait of the secretary general's office, as it emerges from the report, is not attractive. Mr. Annan's former chief of staff, Iqbal Riza, is found to...
Today's more detailed report on Sandy Berger's plea deal in the Washington Post underscores the intent of Berger to hide and destroy information that would either embarass or incriminate himself or Bill Clinton before the 9/11 Commission could gain access to it. Far from the "accidental" removal he insisted occurred, Berger now admits to intentionally removing and destroying classified material, a condition of his plea bargain: The deal's terms make clear that Berger spoke falsely last summer in public claims that in 2003 he twice inadvertently walked off with copies of a classified document during visits to the National Archives, then later lost them. He described the episode last summer as "an honest mistake." Yesterday, a Berger associate who declined to be identified by name but was speaking with Berger's permission said: "He recognizes what he did was wrong. . . . It was not inadvertent." In return, the government...
Tapscott's Copy Desk points readers to a new article in the American Journalism Review which combines an in-depth interview of Rony Arbovitz with an analysis of the firestorm he touched off at Davos by reporting the comments made by Eason Jordan to the blogosphere. Arbovitz fires his guns at the mainstream media that ignored the story far too long for mere coincidence: When Jordan dropped his bombshell, contending that 12 journalists had been targeted and killed by U.S. forces in Iraq, Abovitz felt compelled to challenge the CNN executive to back up the charges. "My reaction wasn't that he was lying; my reaction was that he was telling the truth," Abovitz recalls. "I thought what he was saying was going to be blown open wide by CNN in some major exposé, that he was letting us in on some huge Abu Ghraib-type scandal, but much, much bigger." And so, Abovitz...
The American Left, having apparently run out of rhetorical gas and losing every argument it makes on foreign and domestic policy, now has opted for food fights to stop debates. Pat Buchanon became the latest target of the Left's childishness at a Western Michigan University debate: Commentator and former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan cut short an appearance after an opponent of his conservative views doused him with salad dressing. "Stop the bigotry!" the demonstrator shouted as he hurled the liquid Thursday night during the program at Western Michigan University. The incident came just two days after another noted conservative, William Kristol, was struck by a pie during an appearance at a college in Indiana. After he was hit, Buchanan cut short his question-and-answer session with the audience, saying, "Thank you all for coming, but I'm going to have to get my hair washed." If the attacks weren't so pathetic, they'd...
Voices on both the left and right have criticized the Bush administration for failing to progress in the so-called War on Terror. Now that one player from the original Iraq-nK-Iran Axis of Evil has been taken out, where do we go from here? Does war require striking terrorists everywhere? Probably. Does eliminating Iraq mean we have to focus on North Korea or Iran next? Charles Krauthammer thinks not. In today's column for the WaPo, he proposes Syria as the logical replacement in a "New Axis of Evil." Citing the recent bombings in Lebanon and trysts in Iran, he concludes: All this regional mischief-making is critical because we are at the dawn of an Arab Spring -- the first bloom of democracy in Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, Palestine and throughout the greater Middle East -- and its emerging mortal enemy is a new axis of evil whose fulcrum is Syria. The axis...
With the life of our Pontiff, John Paul II, now being measured in hours, our prayers must continue for his soul and for the Body of Christ he leaves behind for new leadership. We mourn for our loss of the most charismatic and substantial leader the Roman Catholic Church has been blessed to have in at least a century. We also give thanks to the Lord for the privilege of having the leadership of such a giant when we needed him the most. When John Paul II took over the Papacy in 1978, the first non-Italian Pope in more than four centuries, he came from a land that had suffered under the domination of two different kinds of tyrannies for over 40 years. The Communist oppression under which the new Pope had lived created a love of liberty and justice in the amazingly vital John Paul. He survived an assassin's...
Sunni clerics in Iraq surprised Coalition forces -- and likely their followers -- by urging Sunnis to join the security forces supporting the interim government: Influential Sunni Muslim clerics who once condemned Iraqi security force members as traitors made a surprise turnaround Friday and encouraged citizens to join the nascent police and army. If heeded, the announcement could strengthen the image of the officers and soldiers trying to take over the fight against the Sunni-led insurgency. ... Ahmed Abdul Ghafour al-Samarrai, a cleric in the Association of Muslim Scholars, read the edict during a sermon at a major Sunni mosque in Baghdad. He said it was necessary for Sunnis to join the security forces to prevent Iraqi police and army from falling into "the hands of those who have caused chaos, destruction and violated the sanctities." Iraqis across all divisions will welcome this development. It shows that the Sunni resistance...
April 2, 2005
USA Today reports that the autopsy on Terri Schiavo has been completed, and her remains have been released to her husband, as ordered by the Florida courts long ago. This gives Michael Schiavo an opportunity to exact one more bit of cruel revenge against Terri's parents: The autopsy of Terri Schiavo has been completed, and the body is ready for release to her husband, who plans to cremate her remains and bury the ashes without telling his in-laws when or where. ... The Schindlers have scheduled a funeral Mass for Tuesday in Gulfport. The Mass will be preceded by a gathering for people to express their condolences. Michael Schiavo's family has said he plans to take the cremated remains to Pennsylvania, where Terri Schiavo grew up, but her parents and siblings want to bury her body in Florida so they can visit her grave. I can understand the family disagreement...
Pakistan has long been considered one of the centers of radical Islam, from its madrassas to its early support for the Taliban and ties to al-Qaeda. However, more than three years after 9/11 and Pervez Musharraf's open opposition to Islamists -- and surviving two assassination attempts by them -- their appeal in Pakistan has waned almost to the point of non-existence, if the result of their latest call for a general strike gives any indication: Pakistani police fired tear gas and used batons in on Saturday to disperse small groups of Islamists whose call for a nationwide general strike fizzled in most parts of the country. The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) alliance of six Islamic opposition parties called the strike to demand that President Pervez Musharraf give up power. Police in the eastern city of Lahore said they fired tear gas to disperse a group of activists who hurled stones at...
With the world's attention turned to the Vatican and the final hours of Pope John Paul II's mission drawing to a close, the Communists in China have decided to note the Pope's passing in their own special way. Chinese authorities have rounded up more Catholics who have refused to renounce their ties to the Pope and the Vatican and swear fealty to the Communist authority and their "approved" Catholic Church: The Vatican said Saturday that Chinese authorities have carried out a new series of arrests of officials from that country's non-government controlled Catholic Church. The most recent arrest occurred Wednesday, when a priest was picked up in Hebei, the same diocese whose bishop was arrested Jan. 3. The statement said security forces also detained the 86-year-old bishop of Wenzhou, Monsignor James Lin Xili, on March 20 and two days later a lay official of the diocese. China refuses to allow...
Pope John Paul II died today at 1:37 pm CT. Pope John Paul II, the Polish pontiff who led the Roman Catholic Church for more than a quarter century and became history's most-traveled pope, died Saturday night in his Vatican apartment. He was 84. ... "The Holy Father died this evening at 9:37 p.m. (2:37 p.m. EST) in his private apartment. All the procedures outlined in the apostolic Constitution `Universi Dominici Gregis' that was written by John Paul II on Feb. 22, 1996, have been put in motion." ... Since his surprise election in 1978, John Paul traveled the world, inspiring a revolt against communism in his native Poland and across the Soviet bloc, but also preaching against consumerism, contraception and abortion. John Paul was a robust 58 when the cardinals stunned the world and elected the cardinal from Krakow, the first non-Italian pope in 455 years. I offer St....
Laura and I join people across the Earth in mourning the passing of Pope John Paul II. The Catholic Church has lost its shepherd, the world has lost a champion of human freedom, and a good and faithful servant of God has been called home. Pope John Paul II left the throne of St. Peter in the same way he ascended to it -- as a witness to the dignity of human life. In his native Poland, that witness launched a democratic revolution that swept Eastern Europe and changed the course of history. Throughout the West, John Paul's witness reminded us of our obligation to build a culture of life in which the strong protect the weak. And during the Pope's final years, his witness was made even more powerful by his daily courage in the face of illness and great suffering. All Popes belong to the world, but Americans...
My friend John "Rocket Man" Hinderaker caught the New York Times exposing its elitist sensibilities in reporting the death of Pope John Paul II. In its initial release on the Pope's passing, the Times reveals that they had a firm grasp on criticism of John Paul, but apparently no one in their newsroom knew anyone who liked one of the greatest Popes of the modern Church: Even as his own voice faded away, his views on the sanctity of all human life echoed unambiguously among Catholics and Christian evangelicals in the United States on issues from abortion to the end of life. need some quote from supporter John Paul II's admirers were as passionate as his detractors, for whom his long illness served as a symbol for what they said was a decrepit, tradition-bound papacy in need of rejuvenation and a bolder connection with modern life. "The situation in the...
A political scandal involving the Public Works Ministry, a government effort called the Sponsorship Program, and allegations of corruption in the ruling Liberal Party has Canada abuzz with rumors of payoffs, Mob ties, and snap elections. For the last two years, Canadian politics has been gripped by the so-called “sponsorship scandal” – tens of millions of dollars in government contracts which were funneled into advertizing firms closely connected with the Liberal government for little or no work, but with shadowy rumours that much of the money found its way back into Liberal coffers. Prime Minister Paul Martin, himself a Liberal, appointed the Gomery Commission to investigate these charges and determine whether to bring charges against government officials for corruption and malfeasance. (See the blog Small Dead Animals for some excellent background on the case.) Most of the testimony heard by the Commission has been public, but Judge Gomery has decided...
April 3, 2005
The new Iraqi parliament made significant progress this morning towards forming a governing coalition. They selected Hajem al-Hassani, a Sunni, as their new Speaker of Parliament and have settled on all but one vice-presidential position that has been designated to the Sunni as well: In a ballot, the members of the 275-seat National Assembly voted overwhelmingly to elect Hajem al-Hassani, the current industry minister, as speaker. Hassani, a religious Sunni, is an ally of Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. "We passed the first hurdle," Hassani told reporters afterwards. "The Iraqi people have proven that they can overcome the political crisis that has plagued the country for the last two months." But he also warned against complacency. "If we neglect our responsibilities and fail, we will hurt ourselves and the people will replace us with others," he said. Shi'ite politician Hussain Shahristani and Kurdish lawmaker Arif Tayfor were elected deputy speakers....
Canada's Sponsorship Program scandal, called Adscam north of the border, may result in snap elections. At first, this was thought to support the Liberal Party, the undeniable if temporary beneficiary of Judge Gomery's publication ban on key testimony at the Adscam hearings, and for good reason. However, lawyers for Jean Brault now want to delay his upcoming May trial to the fall -- and since the proximity of Brault's trial to his Gomery testimony caused Gomery to impose the ban, a significant delay might force Gomery to lift it. If so, the Liberals could face an enraged Canadian electorate much sooner than planned: Explosive new testimony at the Gomery commission has created a buzz in Ottawa that the opposition could force a quick election on a Liberal government damaged by the sponsorship scandal. ... Charged on six counts relating to the way his agency handled five federal contracts, Mr. Brault...
I spent most of the day offline, as today was my birthday and I'm still trying to shake off the effects of the flu or a nasty cold (not sure which). I spoke with a couple of Canadian reporters regarding the Brault testimony, and I also worked on another source which confirmed the overall accuracy of my original source for the material. I also got a note from CTV News that their lawyers cleared them to mention Captain's Quarters on their evening news, which started at 10 pm ET. Since then, traffic has tripled this evening, so if you're dropping by the blog for the first time, welcome aboard. More information should be forthcoming regarding the embargoed testimony either tomorrow night or Tuesday. I plan on staying with the story regardless of whether the ban stays in place. Hopefully, the publication here will convince Judge Gomery to do what should...
In a late update to the Adscam story, the Canadian Liberal Party will request standing at the Gomery Commission tomorrow in order to cross-examine Jean Brault. This news has not yet been published in any Canadian newspaper, but I understand that it has been broadcast on CTV. This may be a result of the Brault testimony being made public here at CQ, but as soon as I get some better detail on the request and what it might mean for the investigation, I'll update this post. UPDATE: Here's a CTV report on the release. It came out prior to their lawyers approving the mention of CQ in relation to the story. Believe it or not, Canadian news sources could wind up committing a crime just by linking to my blog now: Some of the so-called explosive testimony from the Gomery Inquiry that Canadians aren't supposed to see has found its...
April 4, 2005
After CTV named Captain's Quarters on their news program last night, the site got swarmed with tens of thousands of visitors, leading to some slower response times (sorry!) and a "magnitude" increase of traffic for blogs who I've linked, especially on this story. However, if you've linked your blog to CQ and you live six or seven hours north of me, you may receive a summons from your government, according to this report from the London Free Press this morning: A U.S. website has breached the publication ban protecting a Montreal ad executive's explosive and damning testimony at the federal sponsorship inquiry. The U.S. blogger riled the Gomery commission during the weekend by posting extracts of testimony given in secret Thursday by Jean Brault. The American blog, being promoted by an all-news Canadian website, boasts "Canada's Corruption Scandal Breaks Wide Open" and promises more to come. The owner of the...
Askar Akayev, the former president of Kyrgyzstan, accepted reality after being deposed last month and formally resigned his position. Akayev had to meet a Kyrgyz delegation at the embassy in Moscow as he has been declared persona non grata in his homeland: Kyrgyzstan's deposed President Askar Akayev formally resigned on Monday allowing the Central Asian state's new rulers to consolidate their grip on power seized in last month's coup and prepare for a new election. The veteran leader formally stepped down in a ceremony at the Kyrgyz embassy in the Russian capital, where he had fled after the coup on March 24. "Askar Akayev has already signed the (resignation) statement," Bermet Bukasheva, member of a Kyrgyz delegation dispatched to Moscow to negotiate with the ousted leader, said in comments shown on Russian television. After a confusing two weeks where two Kyrgyz parliaments struggled for control and the interim security chief...
John Bolton received public support for his nomination as the American ambassador to the UN, with 64 former defense strategists and arms-control specialists signing an open letter to Senator Richard Lugar. Led by luminaries such as Caspar Weinberger, James Woolsey, and Frank Gaffney, they argue that the 62 Bolton critics who sent a letter opposing his nomination have other motives in mind: Caspar W. Weinberger, a former secretary of defense, R. James Woolsey, a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and 64 other retired arms control specialists and diplomats are lined up in support of John R. Bolton, whose nomination to be the American ambassador to the United Nations has stirred some opposition. In a letter planned for delivery on Monday to Senator Richard G. Lugar, the Indiana Republican who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, other committee members and Congressional leaders, they said the attack on...
Islamofascist groups like al-Qaeda and Tawid and Jihad have used Arabian satellite TV networks as a propaganda arm for their terrorist causes. Terrorists routinely select stations like Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya to publicize their videotaped butchery or their exhortations to the faithful. However, the Lebanon Daily Star reports that the Islamists may no longer be enamored of these media outlets after their coverage of Pope John Paul II's death: [R]adical Islamists, who advocate the expulsion of non-Muslims from Islamic countries, have been using Islamist Web sites to vent their anger at Arab television stations for according the pope such importance. One such user lashed out at Al-Jazeera, saying viewers were "annoyed" with extensive reports eulogizing the pope, who the user described as an "old tyrant." "What is mortifying is that this hooligan channel pretends [to defend] Islam," added the user, who wrote under the name Muhib al-Salihine on the Islamic News...
I expect to have more information today on the Adscam testimony, as well as more background information on why this matters to both Canadians and Americans. That may come later in the day, probably in the early evening. In the meantime, if you have found this site and are looking for the original post, you can find it here. Also, I've created a new subcategory for Canada, which will have all of the updates on this story. Bookmark it and check back often. Winds of Change has a great post on the scandal. Be sure to read it. Don't forget Small Dead Animals, which has a lot of background on Adscam. My web hosting service, Hosting Matters, has done an excellent job handling the huge boost in traffic coming from CQ's new Canadian readers. I hope if you experience any slow loading or error messages that you remain patient. They...
Despite having a ruined voice thanks to a lingering bout of laryngitis, I spent most of my work breaks juggling telephone interviews with Canadian media outlets. For the most part, they wanted to know why I broke the publication ban. I told them I don't believe in restricting free speech, either in Canada or in the US or anywhere else, and if a government has corruption problems, making them a secret hardly helps clean it up. For CQ readers in Vancouver, I will appear on CBC's television news program this evening, in my very first TV appearance. Bear in mind that I look like hell today and sound worse, so be kind in your judgment. I do not know whether CBC will post the video to their website, but hopefully at some point we'll get a look at it. Lastly, I understand that comments have stopped functioning, which may either...
This installment of the testimony of Jean Brault at the Gomery Commission comes from Friday and follows the first installment. Today;s testimony is still being rebuilt from notes and may not be ready until tomorrow. Again, I want to caution people that this is a single source of information, although I did receive independent confirmation about the first installment from two separate sources. Bear in mind that the witness has not yet been cross-examined as well. The Martin Connections So far, Jean Brault has testified that in addition to the roughly $250,000 (US) his company legitimately gave to the Liberal Party, they made almost $250,000 in under the table contributions (cash donations, or donations funneled through employees or other companies), and put party workers on the payroll for an in-kind contribution value of about $200,000. Most of Brault’s testimony seems to implicate the circles around Jean Chrétien and Alfonso Gagliano...
April 5, 2005
The Vatican may cut ties with Taiwan and establish diplomatic relations with mainland China, according to the bishop of Hong Kong: The Vatican is reluctantly ready to cut ties with Taiwan and recognize China if Beijing can guarantee religious freedom, the head of the Hong Kong Roman Catholic diocese said on Tuesday. But a top Vatican diplomat denied any change to its position and said it did not expect any movement until after the election of a successor to Pope John Paul, who died on Saturday. Speaking to Reuters, Bishop Joseph Zen played down media reports quoting him as saying that the Holy See was "thinking of giving up" Taiwan, which China's communist rulers have treated as a breakaway province since winning the civil war in 1949. Beijing severed relations with the Holy See in the 1950s after expelling foreign clergy. Believers today must attend state-sanctioned churches which pledge loyalty...
The Guardian (UK) reports today that Vladimir Putin's chief of staff has proposed the redrawing of Russia's map to eliminate the existing regions in place of larger and less numerous "super-regions". Such a move would reduce the number of regional governors from 89 to significantly fewer, supposedly to retain Russia's "territorial integrity": President Vladimir Putin's chief of staff warned yesterday that Russia could break up into several different countries and proposed the creation of "super-regions" to be headed by Kremlin appointees. Dmitri Medvedev said in a rare interview that, unless the political and business elites work together, "Russia could disappear as a united country". The warning over Russia's territorial integrity was interpreted by analysts as an attempt to shore up support within Russia's elite for the Putin administration as a battle rages over who will head the Kremlin after Mr Putin's second term ends in 2008. Mr Medvedev told the...
Michelle Malkin alerts her readers to the disgrace of the Pulitzer committee awarding the AP it highest honor for what amounted to staged photographs of the execution of a brave Iraqi election worker: Via LGF's readers, we are reminded that the Belmont Club first raised troubling questions in December 2004 (here and here and here) about how exactly the AP photographer arrived at the scene. Also wondering at the time about the AP's relationship with the pictured terrorists and the related media ethics issues/disclosure obligations involved were Power Line and Roger L. Simon (also here). See also Mudville Gazette and Joe Katzman for background. A key post from John Hinderaker at Power Line on Dec. 25 sums up the outrage and highlights the AP's admission that its photographer was "tipped off" and had a relationship with the terrorists: [snip] Salon printed a defense of the AP (and an attack on...
It looks like President Bush has few reservations about playing hardball with Vladimir Putin in Eastern Europe. This morning, Bush endorsed a Ukrainian bid to join NATO as long as internal conditions met the prerequisites, a move that cannot have been welcomed by Putin: The United States supports expanding NATO to include Ukraine, a former Soviet republic now trying to loosen historic ties to Russia, but membership in the Western alliance is not guaranteed, President Bush said Monday. "There is a way forward in order to become a partner of the United States and other nations in NATO," Bush said during a joint press conference with Viktor Yushchenko, the populist politician whose Orange Revolution forced out Ukraine's pro-Russian government last year. "It's not a given. In other words, there are things that the Ukrainian government must do," Bush said. No one doubts that cleaning up Ukrainian corruption serves everyone's interests...
Jane Taber reports in this morning's edition of the Globe and Mail on a second interview I gave her yesterday, when I had a moment and my voice could handle it. It's meant to give Canadian readers some background on me personally, and Taber does a fine job of presenting that information. However, more importantly -- perhaps for American readers -- it explains one of the reasons I found the publication ban so ridiculous. One of my commenters last night asked why Americans should be so offended by a publication ban, considering that grand jury testimony is often kept secret here. However, grand jury testimony is truly held in camera, meaning closed off to the public. As Taber reports, that's hardly the case with the Gomery Inquiry: His contact could be anyone as the commission hearings are open to the public. Indeed, the Brault testimony is an open secret in...
In an odd display of twisted priorities, Canada's Attorney General may start investigating the Canadian blogosphere to find bloggers who have linked back to CQ and broken the publication ban: CANADA'S attorney general is probing possible breaches of a publication ban set up to protect explosive testimony at the AdScam inquiry. Justice spokesman Patrick Charette said federal lawyers are looking into the Internet sites reproducing excerpts of Montreal ad exec Jean Brault's testimony and providing a link to a U.S. blog featuring more extensive coverage of the hearing. "We have to decide what the best course of action is," Charette said, adding federal lawyers could charge Canadian bloggers and website owners with contempt of court or suggest AdScam Justice John Gomery issue warning letters. So instead of chasing down felons or prosecuting violent criminals, or perhaps investigating government corruption, the AG intends to start delivering contempt citations ... or even...
My source for the testimony for the Gomery Inquiry has told me not to expect an update today on yesterday's or today's hearings tonight. The actions of the Attorney General have spooked some people in the courtroom, and apparently Justice Gomery has threatened to clear out the spectators and the TV feeds if the leaks continue. Things may change tomorrow, or even later on tonight. If I get an update, I will post it as soon as I'm able. Just as yesterday, I did a number of interviews with Canadian media today. Most of the questions were the same, but the people with whom I spoke were uniformly friendly, courteous, and gracious. This has been true across Canada, as I believe I have spoken with media in almost every province now. It's been quite impressive. The last Canadian interview I did was for a magazine in Montreal, and they asked...
The Iraqi National Assembly took another big step towards seating its first democratically elected government in decades today, agreeing to the key positions of the presidency and two vice-presidents and enabling the Assembly to finally select a prime minister: The assembly is expected to name Jalal Talabani, a Kurdish leader, as president; Adel Abdul Mahdi, a prominent Shiite Arab politician, as vice president; and Sheik Ghazi al-Yawar, the Sunni Arab president of the interim government, as the other vice president, said Hussein al-Shahristani, an assembly vice speaker. The agreement ends a stark impasse between the main parties that had threatened to wreck the confidence built during the Jan. 30 elections, when Iraqis defied insurgent threats to walk in droves to polling stations. The Iraqi public has shown increasing impatience with the gridlock, and American military commanders have warned that a continued lack of a government could lead to a rise...
The United Nations may face yet another scandal, the BBC reports tonight, regarding its conduct in the UN mission to the Congo. A UN whistleblower claims that a key report included falsified allegations of a Rwandan invasion of Congo: The United Nations says it is looking into allegations that a UN document contained false information that caused instability in war-torn central Africa. A former UN employee, the American intelligence analyst William Church, told the BBC the details were added to a public UN report by other UN staff. The report stated Rwanda mounted a military incursion against neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo last year. ... [A] dissenting member of the UN panel, William Church, has now told the BBC that the Rwandan invasion was a false claim added by other panel members who had come under pressure from un-named sources. The chair of the UN investigation, the Algerian diplomat Abdulahi...
April 6, 2005
The following is a translation of the two installments of Jean Brault's testimony at the Gomery Inquiry into French, for the benefit of readers in Quebec. The translation was kindly provided to me by CQ reader P.E. from Montréal. The bulk of the post will be in the extended comments; just click on the link below to read the entire post. 1) Pots-de-vin et ristournes ==================== Le jeudi 31 mars 2005, Jean Brault a commencé à livrer son témoignage (encore soumis à une interdiction de publication) et a révélé l'existence d'un gigantesque système de corruption étendant ses tentacules jusqu'aux plus hauts niveaux du Parti libéral. Brault a révélé l'existence de transactions fictives s'élevant à des centaines de milliers de dollars, faites au profit du Parti libéral de 1994 à 2002. La plupart des contributions électorales illégales consistaient à ce que Brault engage des «employés» —qui étaient en fait des employés...
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