Obama's support of Isalmic radical candidates in Kenya, 2006, is of great concern
Posted on 01/18/2008 5:29:00 PM PST by Libloather
Good thing he’s a democrat - he’d be in real trouble otherwise
Ping.
I wonder if Rev. Jesse “Blood Diamonds” Jackson is feeling nervous?
>>>So, WHO ARE THESE so-called Rebels?
Danny Pearl said it was al-Qaida. He must have been onto something since this was his last article before he was kidnapped and killed.
http://www.geocities.com/spyjaguar/161101.html
Much-smuggled gem aids al-Qaida November 16, 2001
MERERANI, Tanzania, Nov. 16 — In the shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro, miners with flashlights tied to their heads crawl hundreds of feet beneath the East African plain, searching for a purple-brown crystal that will turn into a blue gem called tanzanite. Many of the rare stones chipped off by the spacemen, as the miners are called, find their way to display cases at Zales, QVC or Tiffany. But it’s a long way from these dusty plains to U.S. jewelry stores, and the stones pass through many hands on their journey. Some of those hands, it is increasingly clear, belong to active supporters of Osama bin Laden.
A TRADE GROUP called the Tanzanian Mineral Dealers Association denies that bin Laden’s al-Qaida has any role in the tanzanite trade. But in the bars and cafes that dot the streets of Tanzania’s mining community, the radical connections are no secret. According to miners and local residents, Muslim extremists loyal to bin Laden buy stones from miners and middlemen, smuggling them out of Tanzania to free-trade havens such as Dubai and Hong Kong.
“Yes, people here are trading for Osama. Just look around and you will find serious Muslims who believe in him and work for him,” says Musa Abdallah, a Kenyan who has worked as a tanzanite miner for six years.
EMBASSY BOMBINGS
Many details of the trade remain murky, such as whether its main role is to earn money for the militants or simply to help them move funds secretly about the world. Still, William Wechsler, a former National Security Council member in charge of counterterrorism under President Clinton, says there is little doubt that bin Laden’s links to gemstones, including tanzanite, have been used at times to help fund his terror activities. Al-Qaida’s dealings in tanzanite in the 1990s were detailed at length during the recent federal trial that convicted four bin Laden men in connection with the U.S. embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya.
Alex Magyane, a Tanzanian government official actively investigating the tanzanite trade, says he has recently traced bin Laden-linked smuggling of rough stones through Kenya to bazaars in the Middle East. “Beyond any doubt, I am 100 percent sure that these Muslim gem traders are connected to Osama bin Laden,” the official says.
Tanzanite is so rare it is mined in only one place on earth, a five-square-mile patch of graphite rock here in northeastern Tanzania. Legend has it that Masai tribesmen discovered the gem when a bolt of lightning set fire to the plains, and some crystals on the ground turned blue. In 1967 an Indian geologist identified the stone as a rare form of the mineral zoisite and determined that it turned a velvety blue when heated to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Tiffany & Co. named it “tanzanite” and promoted it as “the most important gemological discovery in 2,000 years.” Tanzanite became a U.S. marketing phenomenon, second in popularity only to sapphire among colored stones.
HEART OF THE OCEAN
Its popularity soared when movie fans learned that the sapphire heart-shaped pendant Kate Winslet hurled into the sea in the movie “Titanic” was actually tanzanite. By then, the U.S. was selling $380 million of tanzanite jewelry a year.
Yet Tanzania’s official exports of uncut tanzanite crystal totaled a mere $16 million last year. Rampant smuggling spirits as much as 90 percent of the production out of the country, Tanzanian government statistics show. Local traders often buy plastic bags full of rough stones, paying cash and exchanging none of the paperwork that would trigger a 3 percent export duty. And in faraway places where the rough tanzanite is cooked, cut and polished, such as the Indian city of Jaipur, dealers say they don’t question suppliers closely about sources.
Mererani, which is a 30-minute drive from the mines along a treacherous dirt road, is reminiscent of a Gold Rush town, with shacks, bars, brothels and hordes of young men hoping for a strike. Besides a few big mechanized mining operations, hundreds of individuals hold tiny, 50-yard-square claims that they mine as best they can. Working with the “spacemen” who descend the tunnels are “snakes,” the term for boys who sift piles of grit on the surface and sometimes wriggle into the crevices too small for adults. Restaurants play on the dreams of prosperity, taking names like New York and The Big Apple. But alongside the dreams and the decadence, a religious radicalism is brewing.
Tanzania’s Muslims, who make up about 40 percent of the populace, have long practiced a “soft” Islam, tolerant of drinking, revealing dress and their many Christian neighbors. But Muslim radicalism began to rise in the early 1990s, fueled by poverty and financial support from Islamic charities abroad. It included the al-Qaida cell that bombed the U.S. embassy in Tanzania three years ago.
In Mererani, a new mosque called Taqwa has brought an openly radical Muslim presence to the tanzanite district. Taqwa’s imam, Sheik Omari, has issued edicts that Muslims miners should sell their stones only to fellow Muslims. The diktats breed resentment. “The fundamentalists have established a mafia to dominate the trade,” says Abdallah, the Kenyan spaceman. “Even if non-Muslims offer better prices for our stones, we are harassed by the fundamentalists not to sell to anyone but them. Many Muslim miners obey because they are scared of them.”
The Taqwa mosque is still under construction on a dusty side street. Inside a temporary prayer hall of wood and corrugated metal, miners are taught the importance of avenging the “arrogance” of America and defending Afghanistan from “U.S. oppression.” Support for bin Laden is a duty, miners are told. The faithful of Taqwa often address one another as Jahidini, a Swahili word that means Muslim militant. Some routinely greet one another as “Osama.”
After prayers, the mosque’s courtyard becomes an open-air gem-dealing space, where Sheik Omari and other mosque leaders trade tanzanite with small-time miners. In between haggling, the elders preach the virtues of suicide attacks as a way to defend their faith.
‘TICKET TO PARADISE’
“Remember, Islam teaches us that your body is a weapon,” Sheik Omari tells a group of young men in Swahili. “But if you die, you should take as many of your enemy with you as you can. This will be your ticket to paradise.”
Asked if he works with or belongs to al-Qaida, Sheik Omari gives a vague answer, as do others at the mosque. ” ‘Al-Qaida’ means ‘base.’ I don’t know any base. But Islam says we must support our brothers and sisters and those who defend Islam from its enemies,” Sheik Omari says.
The mosque traders, who aren’t licensed as dealers but act as informal middlemen, make clear the gem business must serve their militant brand of Islam. “We as Muslims must unite in dealing in gemstones to help one another and to generate funds to defend Islam from those who want to destroy it,” says Aman Mustafa, a Kenyan gem broker and teacher at the mosque, who says he has studied Islamic law in Sudan.
U.S. investigators of al-Qaida’s business say that it is designed to create self-sustaining networks and cells. Here in Mererani, some proceeds from the tanzanite trade are plowed back into expanding Taqwa’s influence. “This mosque is being built with tanzanite,” Sheik Omari says. “Our Islam is stronger with our efforts to create a Muslim force in this gemstone.”
KENYAN CONNECTION
Magyane, whose government title is regional mine officer, says some of the stones bought by the Muslim militants are smuggled through “rat routes” to the Kenyan city of Mombasa. That city is a stronghold of al-Qaida sympathizers and was a base for the 1998 embassy bombings.
Throughout the embassy-bomber trial this year in New York, several bin Laden associates or former ones, both state witnesses and defendants, referred to dealings in tanzanite in the mid-1990s. Testimony described how the stones moved through Kenya to Hong Kong via one of two al-Qaida companies, Tanzanite King or Black Giant, set up by defendant Wadih el Hage, a gem dealer and former personal secretary to bin Laden. El Hage is serving a life sentence for his role as the bombers’ financial facilitator.
Bin Laden supporters trading tanzanite today face no interference from Tanzanian authorities. “We have no proof they are involved in terrorist activities,” says the mining area’s regional governor, Daniel Ole Njoolay.
Adadi Rajabu, head of Tanzania’s counterterrorism police, adds that “before 1998, we never knew there were people smuggling gemstones on behalf of a terrorist group. But it is not an area we have looked at carefully. Most of our attention since 1998 has been focused on operatives who were likely to be engaged in activities like bombings, not business.”
ROAD TO DUBAI
Sheik Omari and Mustafa say they sell their stones to a prominent local dealer, Abdulhakim Mulla, who Mustafa says sends some of the gems on to Dubai. The dealer denies the Dubai connection. In any event, on a recent day Sheik Omari could be overheard telling miners to bring perfect stones to the mosque, because “our market in Dubai only wants perfect stones.”
To Westerners in the gem business, mention of Dubai raises alarms. For one thing, the emirate is known as a center of money laundering and the underground cash-transfer system known as hawala, much-favored by bin Laden. Dubai also has no gem-cutting industry. It lies far outside normal channels for the trade in rough gemstones, most of which go to Jaipur, to Bangkok or to a few other traditional centers of cutting and polishing.
“Dubai is the kind of place that should throw up a flag that something is definitely askew,” says Cap R. Beesley, president of American Gemological Laboratories in New York, which tests colored stones. “When you see any rechanneling through nontraditional destinations like Dubai, it means someone is finding some financial incentive not to play by the book.”
U.S. law-enforcement officials have identified Dubai as a haven for al-Qaida business interests. The FBI and the Treasury Department are currently trying to help the United Arab Emirates, of which Dubai is a part, to crack down on the abuse of Dubai’s free-trade zones by terrorists and criminals. While this effort mainly focuses on gold smuggling, the U.S. also has reports that al-Qaida uses tanzanite as a way to move funds around the world, says a U.S. government investigator familiar with Dubai.
Out of more than 12,000 pounds of official tanzanite exports from Tanzania last year, a mere 13 pounds were sold to Dubai dealers. But Magyane estimates that a hundred times that amount actually made its way to Dubai, through smuggling.
CASH BUSINESS
In Dubai, on a strip of small jewel shops along a creek, Africans often go door to door trying to sell plastic bags full of unrefined gold and sometimes uncut gemstones for cash. D.B. Siroya, an Indian dealer based in Dubai for two decades, says he has sometime acquired rough tanzanite in Dubai on behalf of Indian friends, buying from sellers he knows.
The cash element is part of what makes the gem trade attractive to al-Qaida, according to Wechsler, the former U.S. counterterrorism official. He says the gem business is also attractive because it is tiered, with many layers of brokers, traders, cutters, polishers and wholesalers between miner and consumer.
A U.S. government-funded report last year for Tanzania’s mining industry noted that the country’s gem industry was “subject to abuse by money launderers, arms and drug dealers.” Afgem Ltd., a South African mining company, has been trying to change that. It advocates branding tanzanite stones with tiny laser-etched logos and bar codes, plus other regulations to discourage smuggling. But its plan last year ignited clashes with small miners, who, Tanzanian intelligence claims, were funded by foreigners with a stake in the current loose system.
The many tiers in the business make it possible for unsavory players to get in and out without leaving much of a trace. In the U.S. jewelry industry, which consumes nearly 80 percent of tanzanite gems, many participants say they have heard industry reports of tanzanite links to al-Qaida only recently, and tend to discount them.
QVC Inc. says it has met with its seven tanzanite vendors to make sure they comply with its ethics code, which says QVC won’t knowingly deal in gemstones “that originate from a group or a country which engages in illegal, inhumane or terrorist activities.” Darlene Daggett, executive vice president of merchandising, says that if tanzanite “definitively can be linked to terrorist activities, we will not continue to sell it.”
Zale Corp. says it has heard “bits and pieces” about such a link, but not enough to know if it needs to change procedures. “It comes down to knowing who we do business with and knowing where they get their stones,” says spokeswoman Sue Davidson. “But all we really know is what they’re telling us. Without some kind of gemstone authorization, certification and tracking system in place, we cannot guarantee that no stone has been smuggled.”
Zale CEO Robert DiNicola adds: “If it came to light that there is a problem with tanzanite, we wouldn’t deal with it.”
Jewelers of America, a retail jewelers’ trade group, says it has been focusing on the “far more significant consequences to human life” of “blood” diamonds, those whose sale helps to fuel African conflicts. “I’m not suggesting we are not willing to look at other connections,” but “we need more information,” says the group’s chief executive, Matthew Runci.
Obama's support of Isalmic radical candidates in Kenya, 2006, is of great concern
Do you think Sage Capital Growth diamond-trading delt with diamonds from the Dubai laundering? Just wondering...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1933097/posts
Giuliani’s Profitable Partnership
Yeah.
Corrupt democrat - still in office. Because he’s a democrat.
And the MSM doesn’t care - because he’s a (black) democrat.
WAIT!
I thought Nancy Pelosi was gonna rid congress of this “culture of corruption.” Why isn’t her haggard old face on tv screaming for his immediate removal?
OH, yeah that’s right, he is a dem, so it isn’t really corruption, just a misunderstanding as to where he kept his savings.
He was looking for the man who sold his ancestor down the river
He’s DEMOCRAT PRESIDENTIAL material!!
Global Giuliani has political and business connections to the diamond industry. Keep in mind, NYC is the diamond industry's centerpiece winding through diamond trading centers in Antwerp and Israel, the latter is where Rudy has garnered campaign support (and perhaps contributions) for his WH bid.
Much-smuggled gem aids al-Qaida; Bought, sold by militants, tanzanite ends up at Mideast souks
By Robert Block and Daniel Pearl----THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, Nov. 16, 2001
(One of the last or THE last article Daniel Pearl wrote before his murder---at the time Pearl was in the Mid-East investigating the underground diamond trade.).
MERERANI, Tanzania, — In the shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro, miners with flashlights tied to their heads crawl hundreds of feet beneath the East African plain, searching for a purple-brown crystal that will turn into a blue gem called tanzanite. Many of the rare stones chipped off by the spacemen, as the miners are called, find their way to display cases at Zales, QVC or Tiffany. But it’s a long way from these dusty plains to U.S. jewelry stores, and the stones pass through many hands on their journey. Some of those hands, it is increasingly clear, belong to active supporters of Osama bin Laden.
A TRADE GROUP called the Tanzanian Mineral Dealers Association denies that bin Laden’s al-Qaida has any role in the tanzanite trade. But in the bars and cafes that dot the streets of Tanzania’s mining community, the radical connections are no secret. According to miners and local residents, Muslim extremists loyal to bin Laden buy stones from miners and middlemen, smuggling them out of Tanzania to free-trade havens such as Dubai and Hong Kong. “Yes, people here are trading for Osama. Just look around and you will find serious Muslims who believe in him and work for him,” says Musa Abdallah, a Kenyan who has worked as a tanzanite miner for six years.
EMBASSY BOMBINGS Many details of the trade remain murky, such as whether its main role is to earn money for the militants or simply to help them move funds secretly about the world. Still, William Wechsler, a former National Security Council member in charge of counterterrorism under President Clinton, says there is little doubt that bin Laden’s links to gemstones, including tanzanite, have been used at times to help fund his terror activities. Al-Qaida’s dealings in tanzanite in the 1990s were detailed at length during the recent federal trial that convicted four bin Laden men in connection with the U.S. embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya. Alex Magyane, a Tanzanian government official actively investigating the tanzanite trade, says he has recently traced bin Laden-linked smuggling of rough stones through Kenya to bazaars in the Middle East. “Beyond any doubt, I am 100 percent sure that these Muslim gem traders are connected to Osama bin Laden,” the official says.
Tanzanite is so rare it is mined in only one place on earth, a five-square-mile patch of graphite rock here in northeastern Tanzania. Legend has it that Masai tribesmen discovered the gem when a bolt of lightning set fire to the plains, and some crystals on the ground turned blue. --SNIP--
Giuliani's Profitable Partnership
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL | Dec 1, 2007 | By MARY JACOBY and ANDREW MORSE----FR Posted by Fred
A partnership Rudy Giuliani forged with a wealthy diamond-trading family from Israel helped his effort to expand his fledgling consulting business in Japan, and generated more than $600,000 in speaking fees for the Republican presidential candidate. The former New York mayor's previously undisclosed relationship with the Sage Capital Growth -- a medium-size private equity firm associated with the diamond-trading Steinmetz family of Israel -- shows how money came his way after he earned international acclaim leading the city through the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
It offers a peek at Mr. Giuliani's closely held five-year-old consulting business, New York-based Giuliani Partners LLC, whose clients he has declined to identify. In addition to large speaking fees that went directly to Mr. Giuliani, the Sage relationship helped his firm expand into a foreign market where he and his team of ex-New York City criminal justice, municipal and fire department officials lacked experience. They went beyond their core security expertise to work with companies in sectors ranging from condominiums to alternative energy -- though their promises to help Japanese companies to expand sometimes fell flat.
Mr. Giuliani's personal contributions appear largely to have been to make speeches in Tokyo and elsewhere to promote his partnership with Sage, and to lend his celebrity status to conferences. Two of the Japanese companies Sage invested in prominently posted photos of the former mayor posing with their executives. "At the beginning, there was some hope this would lead to something bigger, but that just didn't materialize," said Nobuyuki Omori, an investor relations manager at Digital Garage Inc., an Internet firm the Sage-Giuliani partnership had vowed to help expand.
At one point, Mr. Giuliani was slated to head a Sage-funded philanthropy alongside major business leaders in the U.S. and Japan, though that........... (Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
========================================
Wonder if Rooty's guy Twersky has anything to do with Sage and the diamond operation?
GIULIANI BANDWAGON BRANCHES OUT TO ISRAEL
By MAGGIE HABERMAN, NY Post, April 21, 2007
EXCERPT A group of Israelis has launched a grass-roots effort to get people living in the Jewish state who are eligible to vote in the United States to line up behind Rudy Giuliani, it was reported yesterday.
The group, Giuliani Supporters in Israel, was launched by Mordechai Twersky, a onetime candidate for state Assembly in The Bronx in the early 1990s, according the Jerusalem Post. Twersky has established a Web site, giulianisupportersinisrael.org, with background information including Giuliani's famed eviction of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat from a Lincoln Center concert in 1995. "I did this as a private personal initiative, as a proud American and Israeli citizen, and I am confident that it will catch on," Twersky told the paper.
He said the campaign hadn't set up his group, but that he's been in contact with Team Giuliani since he got started. Giuliani has historically been popular with Jewish voters, and took a hard pro-Israel line when he was in office. Giuliani's campaign didn't return The Post's calls for comment. In some past elections, planeloads of Israelis with American citizenship have flown to the United States to vote.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/04212007/news/nationalnews/giuliani_bandwagon_branches_out_to_israel_nationalnews_maggie_haberman.htm
Bracewell & Giuliani
Pearl Building, Suite 1301
P.O. Box 6750
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
T: +971.4.228.3194
F: +971.4.222.7250
The Dubai office of Bracewell & Giuliani is an integral part of the firm’s well-established global energy and finance practices. At the hub of Bracewell’s Middle East practice, our Dubai-based and international attorneys represent established and entrepreneurial U.S. domestic and foreign clients in the United Arab Emirates and other Gulf Cooperation Council States of Oman, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait. We also represent clients in nearby jurisdictions outside the Gulf States and throughout the region.
Bracewell has a strong foothold in both the state of Dubai and the Dubai International Financial Center (DIFC). For example, one of our senior partners is a member of the Board of Directors of the Dubai Financial Services Authority, while another partner is a 40-year resident of the region, a former U.S. diplomat in the Middle East and Chairman Emeritus of the American Business Council of the Gulf Countries.
Attorneys in the Dubai office provide clients with counsel in financing transactions, asset purchases and sales, equity transactions, the establishment of joint ventures and other business combinations, and issues related to labor, corporate governance and issuing securities on the Dubai International Financial Exchange (DIFX). The firm’s long history with the DIFC and our familiarity with local laws and key regulatory officials enable us to help clients address the day-to-day requirements of — and exploit strategic opportunities found in — doing business in the Middle East.
June 25, 2007
DUBAI (June 25, 2007) — Bracewell & Giuliani LLP announced the opening of its office in Dubai, United Arab Emirates today. The Dubai office will be led by partner David M. Stockwell, a 25-year resident and legal practitioner and a former senior United States diplomat in residence there.
The Dubai office will advise clients on doing business in Dubai and in the other member-states of the United Arab Emirates, including operations in the new Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), and on local labor law, commercial and corporate law, arbitration, licensing, litigation, energy and environmental matters in the Arabian Gulf region. Mr. Stockwell serves as a current member of the Financial Markets Tribunal of the Dubai Financial Services Authority, which hears appeals of regulatory/administrative rulings of the Authority, the regulator of activities within the DIFC.
A member of the Houston and International Bar Associations, Mr. Stockwell was born in Saudi Arabia and has lived in the Middle East for more than forty-five years. Mr. Stockwell’s diplomatic career with the United States State Department also includes having served as Commercial Attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait and as the Country Officer for Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates in Washington, D.C. He is a past president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Dubai and Chairman Emeritus of the American Business Council of the Gulf Countries, the umbrella business grouping of all American Chambers of Commerce in the Arabian Gulf. He also serves as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of The Cultural Foundation which was established by the Ruler of Dubai to own and operate the American School of Dubai.
“Dubai is an important emerging market for many companies, but the business environment is unknown to most organizations looking to expand into the market,” said Mr. Stockwell. “Having lived and practiced in the region, I understand the environment. I know how to work with the government and the business community to provide guidance and leadership to clients.”
“Multinational banking and finance companies are starting to shift important operations to Dubai, the Dubai International Financial Centre and the entire Arabian Gulf region.
With Bracewell’s focused expertise in energy, corporate law, finance, international law and tax planning, serving that region from an office in Dubai makes perfect sense and provides considerable synergy,” said Patrick Oxford, managing partner of Bracewell & Giuliani. “Our firm’s core competencies in energy, finance and international tax position us to add value for our clients operating in the Middle East just as we have done for them in the North Caspian, North Sea and Gulf Coast,” continued Mr. Oxford.
David Stockwell, who heads up the Dubai office of B&G is a director of a tour company called Seawings. Seawings will give you a nice aerial tour of the key sites in the diamond trade. Another tour will show you the highlights of the gold trade.
http://www.seawings.ae/flights/diamond_enquiry.asp
As exclusive as Dubai’s diamond trade, this is the ultimate seaplane experience; offering private and exclusive charters for parties of up to seven people. To enquire just fill in the details below. Our reservations team will then contact you to arrange your Classic Diamond flight.
Seawings LLC Board of Directors: Chairman Sheikh Saeed Mohammed Hasher Al Maktoum Director David Stockwell (USA) – Dubai resident Director Peter Groves (Canada) – Dubai resident Director Stuart Wheeler (UK) – Dubai resident
Thank You.
Thank You.
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