Posted on 08/04/2002 5:02:01 PM PDT by Pokey78
A MILLIONAIRE diamond-smuggler closely linked to a notorious arms dealer was arrested in Italy at the weekend on suspicion of supplying weapons to al-Qaeda. Sanjivan Ruprah, who is Kenyan-born, was picked up near Milan, which investigators say is al-Qaeda’s main European headquarters. He was said to be travelling on a fake Belgian passport with an unnamed woman, believed to be his sister, who was using British documents. Mr Ruprah’s name features prominently on a United Nations list of those banned from international flights because of links to arms and diamond-trafficking in Africa, as is his close associate, the Russian businessman Victor Bout. British and US Intelligence allege that Mr Bout was the main arms supplier to the Taleban. Mr Ruprah was on the run after fleeing bail in Belgium, and the Italian police said: “We all know about this man, who is an international arms-trafficker.” Detectives say that they found incriminating documents during their search.
"RAMAT GAN, ISRAEL -Reports that illicit diamond sales bolstered the fortunes of Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaeda terrorist network have heightened already intense scrutiny of the diamond trade. Even before these revelations, the issue of "blood" or "conflict diamonds" - gems sold to fund wars in Africa - were the subject of United Nations inquiries and Congressional reports. In November, spurred by the possible terrorist connection, the US House of Representatives passed a bill to throttle conflict-diamond trade.Inside Israel's diamond trade: a family affairThere is widespread worry in the diamond community that the ensuing restrictions could stifle legitimate trade as well, but Schnitzer is seemingly unconcerned.
"It's nothing," he says, dismissing the furor with a wave. Yet it's an issue that touches his family.
His son Shmuel helps lead efforts by the Belgium-based World Diamond Council to cope with conflict diamonds and protect the industry. And the whiz-kid reputation of Schnitzer's grandson, Daniel Gertler, has been shadowed by stories of his willingness to spice diamond deals with military perks. . .
As vice-chairman of the World Diamond Council's committee on conflict diamonds and current president of Israel's diamond exchange, Shmuel Schnitzer is well acquainted with the issue. "We didn't volunteer for this," he says. "But we have to do the utmost to solve the problem."
Today, the exchange brings Israel $13 billion in imports and exports, and is the country's second-largest industry. Israel buys some 50 percent of the world's rough diamonds, two-thirds of which go to the US.
Rebel forces in Angola were selling $300 million a year in rough diamond. RUF rebels in Sierra Leone moved between $25 and $100 million a year. How likely is it some of those diamonds didn't go to the country which handles 50% of the uncut diamonds in the world?
Now you are being merely obnoxious.
MOSCOW -- Anti-Semitism in Russia is on the wane, and synagogues, Hebrew schools and Jewish community centers are sprouting up again in scores of small towns and villages, said officials at the largest congress of Jewish communities in the country since before the 1917 Revolution.
The two-day Congress of Jewish Communities of Russia, which ended Tuesday, was a chance to showcase what organizers called a remarkable renaissance of Jewish life. Berl Lazar, the chief rabbi of Russia, said local Jewish organizations finally are taking root and flourishing after having been suppressed during the 74 years of Communist rule that ended in 1991.
"It is impossible to count all the miracles that are happening," Lazar said. "Today we see Jewish schools, Jewish kindergartens, charity canteens, various cultural programs and lots of music and artistic groups in towns where Jewish life had not existed at all." Avraham Berkowitz, executive director of the Federation of Jewish Communities of the Commonwealth of Independent States--a reference to a post-Communist grouping of most former Soviet republics--said delegates from about 145 Jewish communities went to the congress. The number of officially registered communities serving the country's estimated 1 million Jews has doubled in just the last two years, he said.
In addition to the 400 or so delegates at the congress held in the recently opened Moscow Jewish Community Center, Russian Culture Minister Mikhail Y. Shvydkoi and an envoy of President Vladimir V. Putin attended the meeting, along with representatives of the Muslim community and the Russian Orthodox Church.
In his opening speech, Lazar pointed to Putin's positive attitude toward Jewish life as one key factor helping to increase religious tolerance in Russia. Putin has undertaken a number of symbolic acts to show his backing for the Jewish community, such as lighting a national menorah last Hanukkah.
The improved atmosphere means that "thousands and thousands of Jews who didn't want to admit that they were Jews and who even made a secret of the fact now are proud to say, 'Yes, we are a part of the Jewish community, and we want to participate,' " Lazar said. "An organized Jewish life exists in Russia, and it's not a virtual thing anymore."
Lazar noted that unlike in the past, when Russian Jews who wished to practice their faith actively sought visas to move to the United States, Israel or Germany, many Jews now feel that they can remain comfortably in Russia. "Jews want to stay here and live like a community in any other country," he said.
Berkowitz said the number of Jews emigrating from the countries of the former Soviet Union had peaked in 1990 and stood at about 1,000 a month now.
Lev Leviev, chairman of the Federation of Jewish Communities, said it was a success for Russian Jews that Putin during his state visit to the United States this month went out of his way to make contact with American Jewish organizations.
Despite the improvements in the state's attitude toward Jewish life, there are still periodic hate crimes recorded, such as the desecration of Jewish cemeteries and places of worship. Officials at the congress also expressed concern about a spate of recent attacks by neo-Nazi skinheads against members of other minorities, particularly African students and immigrants from the Caucasus and Central Asian regions.
Zinovy Kogan, chairman of the Congress of Jewish Religious Communities and Organizations of Russia, said by telephone Tuesday that he would not exaggerate the decline in nationalist hatred.
"We are glad that Putin sent a message to the Congress of Jewish Communities gathering and that the government was represented there, but we would be even happier if those responsible for the recent pogroms [against other minorities] were brought to justice as soon as possible--so that people of all nationalities could feel safe in Moscow and in other towns."
Yakov Ryzhak of The Times' Moscow Bureau contributed to this report.
Belgium has an arrest warrent out for Victor Bout, Samih Ossailly and Sanjivan Ruprah. They are accused of providing arms to Al Qaeda in exchange for diamonds. In the same press release, Belgium, said it was immediatly opening an investigation of the activities of "Limo Diamonds" owned by Moshe Fisher and Israel Fisher.
Limo Diamonds is located in the RAMAT GAN diamond exchange in Tel Aviv.
Shnitzer and Gertler both of whom, the UN claims, trade arms for diamonds also are located in the RAMAT GAN diamond exchange in Tel Aviv.
Diplomat in Mideast With "Blood Diamond"Posted October 1, 2001
LIBERIAN ORBIT, Minneapolis
Sources in Monrovia say a female diplomat has left for the Middle East with a consignment of UN-banned "blood diamonds" for sale.
The lady, a cleric and relative of the Liberian leader, has been designated as ambassador to Israel. According to our Monrovia contact, who asked that the name of the lady be withheld for the moment, the pieces of diamond originate from Sierra Leone and are worth several hundred thousand dollars.
In May this year, the United Nations imposed a regime of sanctions on the government of Charles Taylor for what the Security Council described, among other offenses, as dealing in "blood diamonds." The expression is used to describe a criminal arrangement in which Taylor has supplied arms in exchange for diamonds with the Sierra Leone rebel RUF, which has waged a war of mayhem against the population in its quest for political power. The UN said due to the support given by Taylor, a co-founder of the RUF, the war and its atrocities continued in Sierra Leone.
The UN decision followed the report of a special panel of international investigators who established that Taylor was the mastermind in a global syndicate of blood diamond dealing and arms trafficking mostly from Eastern Europe to hot spots in Africa. The panel said the transporting of illegal arms was done by aircraft registered under the Liberian flag. Liberia, which is already under a UN arms embargo, often directed the arms shipment to Burkina Faso as a diversion before bringing the consignments to Liberia and then Sierra Leone and other places.
The UN banned all diamond exports from Liberia in addition to barring Liberian government officials and their immediate families from international travel, except for bona fide conferences for which approval must be obtained from the UN. Sources say Taylor has continued to receive diamonds from the RUF, but has found it difficult to market them particularly in global diamond centers like Belgium. He has therefore targeted places like Israel, a burgeoning diamond-cutting market.
Sources say the new Taylor plan therefore involved appointing a relative as ambassador, which would be a cover for the diamond trade. The lady is currently heading a religious delegation to Jerusalem, where she is expected to consolidate her contacts.
According to our contact, a long-time Taylor confidante and until recently chief of protocol at the Executive Mansion, Moussa Cissé, has also been in the midst of the diamond dealing. He carries ordinary passports under various names to elude the UN Sanctions, to undertake a number of external shady missions, including the sale of blood diamonds.
Several international organizations, including Global Witness, Nepenthes and Greenpeace have said the Liberian government has not stopped its dealing with the RUF, and that the UN should expand the export ban to include timber. The groups say Taylor's partner in the timber trade are also involved in diamond and arms trafficking. The International Sea Transport Workers' Federation, for its part, is lobbying owners of ships registered under the Liberian flag to reconsider their partnership with the Liberian government, due to what the Federation says is a link between the money generated in the maritime program, Taylor and the RUF. The Federation says it cannot ignore evidence that some of the $18 million paid by companies to fly the Liberian flag are arming "Taylor's murderous proxies," an apparent reference to the RUF.
A local human rights group, the Liberia Watch for Human Rights, earlier called on President Taylor "to expel foreign nationals" from his dreaded bodyguard squad, the Anti-Terrorist Unit (ATU), notorious for its acts of terror against civilians. The UN resolution also demanded the expulsion of all RUF militias from Liberia. In a statement published in Monrovia, the rights group said it was referring particularly to Sierra Leoneans who are "former or still active RUF (Revolutionary United Front) fighters." The group said expelling the foreign security men would be in compliance with the requirement of the United Nations.
Police in the Italian city of Milan recently broke an international arms-smuggling ring that also involved Charles Taylor. According to the July 8 edition of the Sunday Times in London, the Ukrainian-Russian organized crime group had been supplying weapons to the RUF rebels.
Police raided the home of Leonid Efirmovich Minin, an international arms dealer the newspaper identified as a confidante and business partner of Charles Taylor. Minin was cited in the report of the UN panel of experts as one of the key figures in the Taylor international arms trafficking arrangement. And until his arrest last week, Police sources said Minin was still at the heart of sanctions-busting operations. The Times reports that Minin and Taylor are also part of a large timber company, which the UN says is reaping huge sums of money for the men. (Minin has an Israeli passport)
In another development, British Foreign Office Minister Peter Hain in July said his government was aware that a former Russian KGB officer was supplying weapons to Liberia in violation of UN sanctions. The Russian, Victor Bout, was named in the UN panel of experts report as a Charles Taylor collaborator. The British described Bout as "the principal merchant of death in Africa," adding that one way to stop sanctions busting would be to stop Bout.
The government of President Putin in the Russian capital of Moscow invited UN sanction officials recently declared the active participation of the Eastern power in the international effort to implement the UN embargo on Liberia.
With the precious stones now finding their way to the Israel under the cover of diplomacy, Russia and other members of the UN Security Council will probably have to readjust their sanction monitoring mechanism accordingly.
The Orbit had indicated in several articles (West Africa's Bin Laden , Rebels Mine for Lebanese , Terror-Producing,) that Taylor was shedding crocodile tears over the September 1l tragedy, given his involvement as a central figure in international blood diamond and arms trafficking, with links in North Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe.The ORBIT has also disclosed the continued presence of Sierra Leone rebel fighters in Liberia, in violation of the UN Security Council imposed sanctions. From the following investigative and thorough piece published November 1, 2001, by the awards winning American newspaper, the Washington Post, Charles Taylor has indeed been part and parcel of illicit diamond activities of Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda terrorist network. In fact the Liberian capital of Monrovia has been the center of Al Qaeda diamond business agents, invited and nurtured by the Taylor regime.
The Liberian orbit makes two claims. Taylor is in the pocket of Al Qaeda and Taylor uses his diplomats to smuggle diamonds to Israel.
Apparently Mr. Lied thinks the UN is sacrocanct. LOL. Some "Conservative."
Alouette Mr. Lied is just blowing smoke. If I were you I would just let Mr. Leviev know about this and let him and his people take it from there.
The guilt by association game is an old Democrat trick, the Clintons and Gore used it against their enemies. The Democrats are still doing it against Bush. Mr. Lied is just rehearsing for a stint at the DNC.
Wealthy successful people are often the target of attacks by those shall we say who are not very successful, and have way to much time on their hands. :)))
Larry, perhaps you ought to refocus your attention on the ex trade or perhaps on money laundering before the hit comes down?
That must have been when you were still pretending to be a Republican, before you joined the McKinney camp. Do you have an actual paying job or do you just post and agitate and collect tax payer money for a living?
That is what makes you feel good??? Insinuating that another Freeper's loved one is friends with a person who is connected through insinuation and innuendo to some other characters whose names were mentioned in a UN report?
If this is how you make yourself feel good, it must really suck to be you.
The recent poll suggests that many Republicans in this otherwise Democrat-heavy congressional district are considering crossing over to the Democratic primary in order to voice their displeasure with Cynthia McKinney. And the survey indicates that many white Democrats also intend to vote for Majette.
What goes around comes around.
Other than an ongoing slander campaign, of course.
The Militarization Of West Africa
U.S. Navy to the rescue. Let's see if Victor Bout,Leviev, Gaydamak,Shnitzer,Gertler and Bah want to tangle with F/A-18 Hornets.
To the grassy knoll set.
You left out Docberg, Happystein, Bashfulman, Sneezyberg, Sleepybaum, Grumpyman, etc. They were Jewish you know.
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