http://www.rense.com/general21/gf.htm
Excerpt:
Last April, Bush Sr. led a Carlyle delegation to Turkey, where Rubenstein negotiated a joint venture with the
Koc Group, Turkey's largest conglomerate, which has holdings in energy, telecommunications and defense. During a dinner with Turkish business executives, Bush reminded the audience of Turkey's support during the Gulf War and promised to "help Turkey as we did in the past." FNSS, a joint venture between United Defense and the Nurol Group, is Turkey's largest manufacturer of armored vehicles and exports to Malaysia and other nations.
http://www.forbes.com/lists/2010/10/billionaires-2010_Mehmet-Emin-Karamehmet_2T50.html
Excerpt:
| Net Worth: | $2.9 bil |
|---|
| Fortune: | Self Made |
| Source: | telecom |
| Age: | 65 |
| Country Of Citizenship: | Turkey |
| Residence: | Istanbul |
| Education: | Dover C, Bachelor of Arts / Science |
| Marital Status: | Married, 1 child |
Sentenced in February to 11 years and 8 months in jail and fined $300 million for embezzlement; Karamehmet, who is not in custody, has the right to appeal. Case is related to use of loans at Pamubank AS, a lender he owned until regulators seized it in 2002. Had to sell his second bank Yapi Kredi to
Koc Group due to financial difficulties the next year. Fell out of billionaire ranks in 2003 but returned three years later, bolstered by interest in Turkcell, nation's largest mobile phone company of which he is chairman. Turkcell is only Turkish company to trade on the New York Stock Exchange. His holding group Cukorova also has interest in Genel Energy, which started exporting oil from northern Iraq in April 2009. Founded first trading firm at age 22.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bofors_scandal
Excerpt:
The
Bofors scandal was a major
corruption scandal in
India in the 1980s; then the
Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and several others were accused of receiving
kickbacks from
Bofors AB for winning a bid to supply India's 155 mm field
howitzer. The scale of the corruption was far worse than any that India had seen before, and directly led to the defeat of Gandhi's ruling
Indian National Congress party in the November 1989 general elections. It has been speculated that the scale of the scandal was to the tune of Rs. 400 million.
[1] The case came to light during
Vishwanath Pratap Singh's tenure as defense minister, and was revealed through investigative journalism by
Chitra Subramaniam and
N. Ram of the newspapers the
Indian Express and
The Hindu.
[2]
Ottavio Quattrocchi was accused as the middleman in the scandal because of his intimacy with
Rajiv and his Italian-born wife
Sonia Gandhi. Magazine cover from
India TodayThe name of the middleman associated with the scandal was
Ottavio Quattrocchi, an Italian businessman who represented the petrochemicals firm
Snamprogetti. Quattrocchi was reportedly close to the family of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and emerged as a powerful broker in the 1980s between big businesses and the Indian government. While the case was being investigated,
Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated on May 21, 1991 for an unrelated cause. In 1997, the Swiss banks released some 500 documents after years of legal battle and the
Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filed a case against Quattrocchi,
Win Chadha, also naming Rajiv Gandhi, the defence secretary
S. K. Bhatnagar and a number of others.
[3] In the meantime, Win Chadha also died.
[4]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottavio_Quattrocchi
Excerpt:
Ottavio Quattrocchi is an Italian businessman who was being sought until early 2009 in India for criminal charges
[1] for acting as a conduit for bribes in the
Bofors scandal.
http://www.angelfire.com/indie/pearly/htmls/bush-carlyle.htmlExcerpt:
"They are big, and they are quiet," says David Mulholland, business editor of Jane's Defense Weekly. "But they're not easy to get information out of, [but] United Defense are going to do well [in the current conflict] ."
United also owns Bofors, a Swedish munitions manufacturer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadj_Boudella
Excerpt:
Hadj Boudell
a is a citizen of Bosnia who was wrongfully detained for over six years in the
United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in
Cuba.
[2]
He was born in
Algeria, moved to
Bosnia, married
Nađa Dizdarević a Bosnian woman, and became a Bosnian citizen. Boudella, and five associates of his, who were also Bosnians who were born in Algeria were arrested by Bosnian authorities. Local
United States intelligence officials said they detected "
chatter" that implicated the six in a conspiracy to bomb the Bosnian embassy.
He won his
habeas corpus and
US District Court Judge Richard J. Leon wrote that there was no evidence that Boudella intended to travel to Afghanistan to take up arms against
US forces. Judge Leon declared Boudella's detention as unlawful and ordered his release in November 2008. He was released from Guantanamo and returned to his family in Bosnia on December 16, 2008.
[3]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algerian_Six
Excerpt:
The
Algerian Six are six Muslim men who had been imprisoned without charges at
Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba since January 2002;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na%C4%91a_Dizdarevi%C4%87
Excerpt:
Nađa Dizdarević (
Bosnian, in Cyrillic: Нађа Диздаревић) is a
Bosnian citizen. She is known for the efforts she has made to draw the world's attention to the
extrajudicial capture and detention of her husband,
Hadj Boudella.
[1] Boudella was captured by
American intelligence officials, and transported to detention in the US naval base at
Guantánamo Bay,
Cuba.
[2]
Dizdarević has organized demonstrations, sit-ins, and
hunger strikes, to draw public attention to her husband's case.
[3] Dizdarević collapsed and was hospitalized ending her most recent hunger strike, on December 9, 2005.
[4]
On January 23, 2006 Dizdarević laid kidnapping charges against former
Prime Minister Zlatko Lagumdžija, former Minister of the Interior
Tomislav Limov, the warden of the prison where her husband and the others identified as the "Algerian Six" were held, and various other employees of the Interior Ministry.
[5]
On January 30, 2006 Dizdarević was interviewed by the German magazine
Der Spiegel.
[6]In her interview she asserted that her husband's lawyers could not inquire too closely about the conditions of his detention, or he would be punished. But she had been assured by other detainees, who had been released, that Guantánamo guards had regularly shown disrespect to the
Qur'an. She had asserted, just as firmly, that the guards were routinely beating children in
Camp Iguana.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_X-Ray_(Guantanamo)
Excerpt:
Camp X-Ray was a temporary detention facility at the
Guantanamo Bay detention camp of
Joint Task Force Guantanamo on the
U.S. Naval Base in
Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The first twenty detainees arrived at Guantanamo on January 11, 2002.
[1][2] It was named
Camp X-Ray because various temporary camps in the station were named sequentially from the beginning and then from the end of the
NATO phonetic alphabet. The legal status of
detainees at the camp has been a significant source of controversy, ultimately reaching the
United States Supreme Court.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Delta_(Guantanamo_Bay)
Excerpt:
A Camp Delta recreation and exercise area at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The detention block is shown with sunshades drawn on December 3, 2002.
is composed of detention camps 1 through 6, Camp Platinum,
Camp Iguana, the
Guantanamo psychiatric ward,
Camp Echo and
Camp No, is a permanent
detainment camp at Guantanamo Bay that replaced the temporary facilities of
Camp X-Ray. Its first facilities were built between February 27 and mid-April 2002 by
Navy Seabees, Marine Engineers, and workers from
Halliburton subsidiary
Kellogg, Brown and Root.
[citation needed] The prisoners, referred to as detainees have uncertain rights due to their location not on American soil. There are allegations of torture and abuse of prisoners [1]
Most of the security forces are
U.S. Army military police, and
U.S. Navy Masters-at-Arms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Iguana_(Guantanamo_Bay)
Excerpt:
Unlike all other Guantanamo detainees, those in Camp Iguana had an unobstructed view of the Ocean.
Camp Iguana showers and restroom -- when Camp Iguana held three youths they were allowed two showers a day, when the rest of the detainees were escorted to open-air showers once a week.
[citation needed] is a small compound in the
detainment camp complex on the
US Naval base at
Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba. Camp Iguana originally held three child detainees who camp spokesmen then claimed were the only detainees under age 16. It was closed in the winter of 2004 when the three were sent home. When the Department of Defense was forced, by
US District Court Judge
Jed Rakoff's
court order to release the identities of all the detainees, they acknowledged that they had held up to twenty minors in the adult portion of the prison.
In 2005 Camp Iguana was re-opened to hold some of the 38 detainees classified as "
no longer enemy combatants", while they await diplomatic efforts to find them a permanent home in a country other than their country of origin or the United States.
Camp Iguana is about a kilometer distant from the main facilities of
Camp Delta. Part of the fence that surrounds it is not covered with an opaque barrier, so that the detainees can see the ocean from that area. The detainees have access to video games, a cooler, and a soccer field.
According to an article in the London Sunday Times on June 26, 2003, the living quarters are air-conditioned and consist of "a bedroom with twin beds, a small living room with two armchairs, sofa and television, and a bathroom and
kitchenette", with an oven present for aesthetic reasons, and a refrigerator whose fruit and dessert contents are reportedly handled as part of a reward system. A line of black tape on the floor separates the living room and kitchen areas while privacy in the bathroom is handled by a blue curtain.
[citation needed]
[edit] Used to hold child detainees
When Camp Iguana was the home of three youths a guard slept in the fourth bed in their dorm.
[citation needed]
When their lessons were done the three youths initially held in Guantanamo were allowed to watch movies or play video games on their living areas' big screen TV.
[citation needed] the
U.S. Secretary of Labor has spoken about the responsibility to give child soldiers special treatment, to provide help for them to re-integrate into society.
[1][dead link]
The
Geneva Conventions would have entitled them to a prompt, open tribunal to make a fair determination of their status—whether they should have been afforded the protection of being civilians, or POWs. If the Americans had applied the Geneva Conventions the children would not have left
Afghanistan. The executive branch of the
American government claimed at the time that the constitution did not allow for judicial review of the detentions, but the judicial branch over-ruled that claim, and forced the executive branch to conduct
reviews.
In a
BBC interview a young Afghan teenager named Naqibullah described being treated humanely, and receiving an education, while in Camp Iguana.
[2]
A February 2, 2004 memo, summarizing a meeting between General
Geoffrey Miller and his staff and
Vincent Cassard of the
ICRC, Geoffrey Miller said:
[3]
- "Also, CDR Timby is in the process of finishing the report from the arrival and departure of the juveniles, they showed exceptional progress. 2 of the 3 came here with psychological problems and left here with none. They are looking forward to starting a life again. They were very excited to return home and were in good spirits."
In the spring of 2005 the presence of other detainees who had been held, while children, became known. A
New York Times article published on June 13, 2005, said there were at least six other teenagers kept within the general population.
[4]
- ...Further, the ages of the detainees brought to Guantánamo as enemy combatants cannot be determined with certainty, leaving officials to make estimates.
- "They don't come with birth certificates," said Col. Brad K. Blackner, the chief public affairs officer at the detention camp. Col. David McWilliams, the chief spokesman for the United States Southern Command in Miami, which runs the prison operation, said that the authorities were fairly confident of their estimates. "We used bone scans in some cases and age was determined by medical evidence as best we could," he said.
However, in at least one case, that of
Canadian detainee
Omar Khadr 15 when imprisoned, American Intelligence was aware of his age, and identity. A
Washington Post article from October 29, 2002 reports:
[5]
- One particularly talkative prisoner there is Omar Khadr, who at sixteen is one of the youngest prisoners in U.S. custody. U.S. officials allege that on July 27 he killed a U.S. Special Forces medic, Sgt. Christopher Speer, during a four-hour, house-to-house battle in the village of Ayub Kheyl. The wounded youth was captured, taken to Bagram, treated for his wounds and interrogated.
Khadr was captured on July 27, 2002, at the age of fifteen.
Abdul Salam Mureef Ghaithan Al Shehri, a
Saudi citizen who was fifteen when he was captured, celebrated his eighteenth birthday in Guantanamo Bay, in late April 2005.
[6]
In an interview broadcast on the
BBC on September 9, 2005,
Clive Stafford Smith, a prominent
British human rights lawyer who represents thirty seven Guantanamo detainees, reported that the continued incarceration of children between 16 and 18 at Guantanamo Bay was one of the triggers for the
hunger strikes that had taken place during the summer of 2005. Interestingly, it has been determined by the United Nations that to forcefeed the strikers amounts to torture. Smith said that as many as twenty teenagers remained imprisoned at Guantanamo, some of whom were being kept in long term solitary confinement.
In May 2009 Afghan human rights workers challenged the American bone-scan estimate of
Mohammed Jawad's age, asserting he had been as young 12 or 13 when he was captured in December 2002.
[7][8]
[edit] Used to hold those not classified "enemy combatants"
On August 25, 2005, the
Associated Press distributed a story about Camp Iguana being reopened to hold detainees whose Combatant Status Reviews had concluded that they should not have been determined to have been "enemy combatants".
[9][dead link] The reviews determined that thirty eight of the approximately 540 detainees were not enemy combatants. Some have been repatriated. Some of the detainees are exiles from countries that torture dissidents, and face torture if the United States were to send them home. As their status has been determined, the United States would be justified in sending them back to their home countries, however the Bush Administration has said that they decided the most humane thing to do is to allow the detainees to continue living at Camp Iguana where they are not being tortured and are, in fact, living better than most from their home countries.
[citation needed]
Some detainees who were determined not to be enemy combatants were kept at Camp Iguana, while others including
Sami Al Laithi continued to be detained back in
Camp Delta.
On Friday May 5, 2006 five
Uighurs who had been held in Camp Iguana were transported to a refugee center in
Albania just prior to a review of their writs of
habeas corpus which was scheduled to be conducted the following Monday.
[10][11] These five were among a total of 15 Uighurs who were reported to have been determined not to have been "enemy combatants" despite continuing to be held at Guantanamo incarceration facilities.
[12]
In a telephone interview,
Abu Baker Qassim, one of the Uighurs sent to Albania, said Camp Iguana had held nine innocent detainees before their departure. The other four innocent detainees had been a
Russian, an
Algerian, a
Libyan, and a man who had been born in
Saudi Arabia to Uighur exiles.
On 30 September 2008 Assistant Attorney General
Gregory Katsas filed a "notice of status" on the seventeen remaining Uyghur detainees—stating that the Department of Justice was not going to attempt to defend classifying the Uyghurs as enemy combatants, and was therefore no longer going to treat them as enemy combatants. Their attorneys pointed out that several of their clients remained in solitary confinement. The DoD then stated that all the Uyghurs would be transferred to Camp Iguana.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jed_S._Rakoff
http://www.cablegatesearch.net/cable.php?id=03ANKARA7918 (found while researching Imar Bank)
...cal
Excerpt:
Cable reference id: #03ANKARA7918
“All of them, those in power, and those who want the power, would pamper us, if we agreed to overlook their crookedness by wilfully restricting our activities.” —
“Refus Global“,
Paul-Émile Borduas
| Subject | Ex-brsa Chair Akcakoca Comments On Banking Sector, Investigations |
| Origin | Embassy Ankara |
| Cable time | Wed, 24 Dec 2003 08:52 UTC |
| Classification | CONFIDENTIAL |
| Reference id | 03ANKARA7918 |
| Source | http://wikileaks.fi/cable/2003/12/03ANKARA7918.html |
| Release time | Tue, 17 May 2011 19:00 UTC |
| History | First published on Tue, 17 May 2011 20:53 UTC |
Excerpt:
Turkey Seizes 219 Companies Of Uzan Family
Published: February 16, 2004
The Turkish financial authorities intensified pressure on the powerful Uzan family over the weekend by seizing a large number of its companies in an effort to recover debts totaling nearly $6 billion.
The state news agency, Anatolian, said that 219 companies, with interests ranging from media to cement, had been seized.
Turkey has accused leading members of the family, including the patriarch Kemal Uzan, of involvement in a multibillion-dollar bank fraud. The Turkish media said the government was seeking their extradition from the United States, where they have gone into hiding.
The operation ''is in accordance with Turkish banking law and aims to recoup public money,'' the Savings and Deposits Insurance Fund, known as TMSF, said in a statement. It said the family owed the equivalent of $5.7 billion.
Anatolian said the move was also aimed at preventing the Uzans from siphoning off the assets of the companies. CNN Turk television said the insurance fund would press for some companies to be declared bankrupt to help speed the debt collection.
CNN Turk showed police guarding the entrance to the Istanbul headquarters of the Uzans' Star media group. Managers of the company were prevented from entering the building, it said. Anatolian quoted Cemil Cicek, a Turkish government spokesman, as saying that the companies and factories owned by the Uzans were continuing to operate. ''But they should come and talk to the TMSF and present a plan on how they will repay their debts,'' Mr. Cicek said.
CNN Turk said the TMSF had divided the Uzan companies seized into four categories -- media, telecommunications, cement and finance -- and had appointed trustees to manage each group.
Turkey's banking authorities began moving against the Uzans last summer, seizing their Imar Bank after declaring it a threat to national financial stability. The Uzans have said the government is trying to destroy them for political reasons. Cem Uzan, unconnected with the Imar Bank fraud inquiry, heads the right-wing Youth party.
The party, which has no seats in Parliament, issued a statement linking the moves over the weekend to Turkey's local elections set for March. ''The government is frightened about our party's rise and is using the power of the state to pressure us,'' it said.
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=cukurova-wins-case-against-alfa-group-2010-05-23
Excerpt:
Fierce fighting in Libya's western mountains
May 20, 2011|From Nic Robertson, CNN
Smoke rises from a fire on a boat on Thursday in Tripoli after NATO air strikes targeted the port of the Libyan capital.
Forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi have unleashed their biggest attack yet against a rebel stronghold in the mountains of western Libya, one of the Libyan leader's former generals said Friday.
The attack began at dawn Thursday, the former commander said. He now commands rebels in Zintan, using the name Hajj Usama.
The attack began Thursday when about 150 of Gadhafi's infantry troops began firing on three fronts near Zintan, he said. They were supported by about 40 vehicles, including long-range "Grad" rocket launchers and 14.5 mm heavy machine guns with a range of 6 kilometers.
Zintan lies about 90 miles southwest of the capital, Tripoli. Zintan, population 40,000, is at the eastern tip of a 170-mile ribbon of rebel-held mountains that stretch westward from the Tunisian border.
After decades in the Libyan army, including a tour of duty in neighboring Chad, Hajj Usama said he now despises his former commander in chief, whom he called a terrorist.
"He's never used infantry like this," said the trim, gray-bearded rebel commander. In previous battles, Hajj Usama said, Gadhafi's artillery forces had taken over nearby civilian housing in Zuwail al Bagul and shelled from a distance.
Gadhafi's forces simultaneously attacked Thursday on three fronts, Hajj Usama said -- to the north of Zintan, firing Grad rockets into the eastern part of the nearby town of Rayayna, and attacking to the southeast and to the east of Zintan.
In response, he dispatched hundreds of fighters to cut off Gadhafi's advance, Hajj Usama said.
As of Friday night, one rebel was dead and three were wounded, one of them critically, he said.
Fresh trenches cut deep in the stark, red sand here underscore the rebels' readiness to continue defending the town. The absence of Gadhafi's forces has buoyed the confidence of the rebel fighters.
Some of the fighters who returned late Friday from the front lines -- crammed into the backs of pickup trucks -- appeared to be school-age. They carried only a handful of weapons, a few hunting rifles and old, bolt-action shotguns.
Nevertheless, Hajj Osama said, "they are keen and determined to fight for their freedom."
The attack that began Thursday, he speculated, was intended to regain control of Rayayna, population 12,000. Residents east of the town had "declared their support for the rebels a month ago," he said, while the rest of the town remains loyal to Gadhafi and his former head of internal security, Nasar al Mabout. Hajj Usama said al Mabout lives there.
