Note: The following post is a quote:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1794460/posts
FBI looks for man who held Clinton, Boxer fundraisers
The Baltimore Sun ^ | March 3, 2007 | ROBIN FIELDS AND CHUCK NEUBAUER
Posted on 03/03/2007 2:00:22 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
WASHINGTON // A Pakistani immigrant who hosted fundraisers for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is being sought by the FBI on allegations that he funneled illegal contributions to Clinton's political action committee and to Sen. Barbara Boxer's 2004 re-election campaign.
Authorities say Northridge, Calif., businessman Abdul Rehman Jinnah, 56, fled the country shortly after being indicted on charges of engineering more than $50,000 in illegal donations to the Democratic committees. A business associate charged as Jinnah's co-conspirator has entered a guilty plea and is scheduled to be sentenced in Los Angeles next week.
...The case has transformed Jinnah from a political point man on Pakistani issues, a man often photographed next to foreign dignitaries and U.S. leaders, into a fugitive with his mug shot on the FBI's most-wanted list.
Jinnah's profile peaked in 2004 and 2005 as he wooed members of Congress to join a caucus advancing Pakistani concerns and brought Clinton to speak to prominent Pakistani-Americans, lauding their homeland's contributions to the war on terrorism and calling relations with Pakistan beneficial to U.S. interests.
...Authorities say that from June 2004 to February 2005, Jinnah directly or indirectly solicited contributions from more than a dozen "conduits," reimbursing them with funds from his company, All American Distributing, a seller of cell phone service and accessories.
The scheme allowed Jinnah to get around limits then in effect on individual donors of $5,000 per year to PACs and $2,000 per election to candidates, as well as the ban on using corporate money for political donations.
...The indictment, handed down last May without a press release, mentions only the initials of the committees that received the illegal donations, referring to them as "HP" and "FB." However, the charging document filed against Jinnah's co-conspirator, Stuart Schoenburg, identifies one of the committees as HILLPAC, ..
(Excerpt) Read more at baltimoresun.com ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=ethiopia
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NOTE: The following text is a quote:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3371851,00.html
French, British tourists kidnapped in remote northeastern Ethiopia
Published: 03.03.07, 11:49 / Israel News
Britain was sending a 10-person crisis team to Ethiopia on Saturday after at least a dozen Western tourists - including five Britons - were kidnapped in remote northeastern Ethiopia, a barren expanse of
volcanoes and ancient salt mines where bandits and rebels operate.
The tourists - between seven and 10 French in one group and five British citizens in another - were seized Thursday in Dalol, 800 kilometers (500 miles) northeast of Addis Ababa, according to a businessman and a tour operator who work in the area. They asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter. (AP)