Free Republic

THE SOVIET AMBASSADOR The Making of the Radical Behind Perestroika By Christopher Shulgan McClelland & Stewart, 359 pages, $34.99 Christopher Shulgan has done an excellent job in documenting Yakovlev's career in the Soviet government and describing his exceptional role in the events that caused the collapse of the Soviet Union. But he skirts over one of the most significant episodes of Yakovlev's life - his chairmanship, beginning in 1988, of the Commission to Rehabilitate Victims of Political Repression. While he went to great efforts in disclosing the crimes of Lenin and Stalin, Yakovlev stopped short of looking into the repressions...

UNITED NATIONS - A Russian U.N. official accused of money laundering was released on $500,000 bail posted by his government on Friday, Russia's U.N. Mission said. Vladimir Kuznetsov, 48, who chaired the powerful U.N. budget oversight committee, had been jailed since Sept. 1 on charges that he conspired with a U.N. procurement officer to launder hundreds of thousands of dollars from foreign companies seeking contracts with the world body. He has pleaded innocent to the charges. Maria Zakharova, press secretary at Russia's U.N. Mission, confirmed that Kuznetsov was freed after the Russian government paid his $500,000 bail. Moscow is keeping...

UNITED NATIONS - A U.N. appeals body ruled that the only employee to be fired over the Iraq oil-for-food scandal did not violate staff rules and should be reinstated with a public apology from Secretary-General Kofi Annan, according to documents disclosed Thursday. The Joint Disciplinary Committee concluded that Joseph Stephanides was fired mostly because of the public scrutiny from an investigation that found the $64 billion program was poorly managed and corrupt. The ruling, obtained by The Associated Press, said the three-judge panel "sympathized with the applicant's argument that he was being made the 'sacrificial lamb' in this matter so...

UNITED NATIONS - In a widening scandal over contracts, the United Nations announced Friday that it has suspended a subsidiary of the world's largest catering company as a U.N. supplier until the outcome of an investigation into alleged contract irregularities. The suspension is the latest blow to U.N. contracting which in recent months has seen the arrest of two Russians by the FBI for alleged money laundering. U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Eurest Support Services, or ESS, has been barred from seeking new U.N. contracts until completion of a U.N. investigation into allegations that it "improperly obtained" internal U.N. information...

NEW YORK — The scandal engulfing the United Nations Procurement Department () now appears to be bottomless. It also shows signs of growing more sinister, especially where it involves a mysterious private company called IHC Services (), which did big business with the procurement department until it was removed from U.N. rosters in June. New details of how dark the scandal could prove to be have emerged from the private sale of IHC on June 3, 2005, just as the procurement scandal was about to break. It now appears that while doing business with the U.N., IHC had links both to Saddam...

BEIJING, September 23 (RIA Novosti, Alexei Yefimov) -- Russia has invited China to help develop and manufacture a new passenger plane, aimed to compete with Boeing and Airbus, senior officials from the country's leading aircraft makers said Friday. Vladimir Belyakov, deputy general director of Ilyushin, said the firm, together with two other top Russian producers, Yakovlev and Tupolev, was working on the low-cost, fuel efficient MS-21 passenger plane. The MS-21 project was presented at the Beijing Aviation Expo 2005. "We would like to make it an international project and develop the plane with the help of other companies, including foreign...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The top U.N. management official said Wednesday he has ordered a new investigation of the procurement division in light of a senior officer's guilty plea for taking massive bribes from United Nations contractors. The review by Christopher Burnham will add to the extraordinary level of scrutiny on the procurement department, which first gained serious attention over its involvement in the scandal-tainted U.N. oil-for-food program. It was thrust into the spotlight again on Monday, when one of its staff, Alexander Yakovlev pleaded guilty in federal court to three counts of money laundering, wire fraud and conspiracy to...

U.S. Attorney's Office takes into custody ex-United Nations Procurement Official in Oil-for-food Investigation. - Just Breaking!

BREAKING NEWS A former U.N. officer named in the oil-for-food scandal pleads guilty to money laundering and conspiracy charges, federal prosecutors said.

NEW YORK - Investigators probing claims of wrongdoing in the Iraq oil-for-food program accused its former chief, Benon Sevan, of corruption for taking illegal kickbacks and recommended his immunity be lifted for prosecution. The investigators said a former U.N. procurement officer sought a bribe and should have his immunity lifted as well. Alexander Yakovlev also was accused of collecting nearly $1 million in kickbacks outside the oil-for-food program. The third report by the Independent Inquiry Committee, led by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, was a new blow to the scandal-tainted $64 billion program. For the first time, it gave...

Breaking on Fox UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. procurement official who has been at the center of a FOX News investigation into a possible conflict of interest involving his son has quit his job, officials at the United Nations confirmed Wednesday. On Monday, the United Nations announced it was going to into whether procurement officer Alexander Yakovlev (search) violated conflict-of-interest rules. But the U.N. decision did more than draw attention to the man's possible wrongdoing — it also raised questions about how the world body investigates itself.

MOSCOW, Sept. 13 - President Vladimir V. Putin ordered a stunning overhaul of Russia's political system on Monday in what he called an effort to unite the country against terrorism. If enacted, as expected, the proposals would strengthen his already pervasive control over the legislative branch and regional governments. Mr. Putin, meeting in special session with cabinet ministers and regional government leaders, outlined what would be the most sweeping political overhaul - and his most striking single step to consolidate power - in Russia in more than a decade. Critics immediately said it would violate the Constitution and stifle what...