Free Republic

Botswana: Senator Jefferson Graces Nchindo Charge SheetMmegi/The Reporter (Gaborone) 10 January 2008 Posted to the web 10 January 2008 Tshireletso Motlogelwa The embattled United States Senator, William Jefferson has turned up in the charge sheet brought by the prosecution against former Debswana chief executive, Louis Nchindo and other senior members of the company. Jefferson, who late last year was served with a 95 page long indictment by the US department of justice on a wide range of criminal charges relating to his various trips to Africa, visited Botswana a few years ago on two occasions. Late last year, the media...

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...

A SEBEGALESE Muslim cleric deported from Italy as a danger to state security was quoted today as telling a pan-Arab newspaper that he had met three times with Osama bin Laden, leader of the al-Qaeda terrorist network. The cleric, Abdel Qadir Mamour, told the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat in an interview by telephone from Dakar, Senegal, that he had the meetings with bin Laden in Sudan from 1993 to 1996. Mamour said bin Laden had provided money to finance his trading in diamonds between Africa and Belgium, but did not say how much money was involved or if bin Laden was...

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) - A series of witnesses place six top al-Qaida fugitives in Africa buying up diamonds in the run-up to the Sept. 11 attacks, according to a confidential report by UN-backed prosecutors obtained by The Associated Press. The first-person accounts detailed by the prosecutors add to long-standing claims that al-Qaida laundered millions of dollars in terror funds through African diamonds before launching its deadliest offensive. Al-Qaida figures, including some already wanted in pre-Sept. 11 attacks on U.S. targets, dealt directly with then-president Charles Taylor and other leaders and warlords in the West African country of Liberia from 1999...

Nairobi, Kenya (CNSNews.com) - The international community should speed up efforts to prevent terrorist groups from using the proceeds from illicit diamond trade to finance their activities and launder their funds, campaigners say. A Nairobi-based African affairs analyst, Adan Mohamed, said it was "very likely" that groups like Hizballah still use the trade to raise additional revenue. "Nothing much has happened in putting mechanisms in place to prevent diamond trade from being used to clean dirty cash or finance conflicts," he said.Investigations by researchers, human rights groups, the United Nations and media organizations have revealed how Hizballah exploited weakness in...

Diamond-producing countries and the diamond industry agreed yesterday to take unprecedented measures to stop the smuggling of "conflict diamonds" from West Africa. A resolution on Ivory Coast was unanimously approved at the Moscow plenary meeting of the Kimberley Process, the UN-backed international scheme to stop the illegal trading of gems. Recognising that millions of dollars' worth of conflict diamonds were being smuggled out of the rebel-held areas of Ivory Coast, members of participating countries agreed to put in place practical measures to stop the flow. "Intervention on the trade side will impose specific controls for diamonds in the whole West...

W. Post reporter says Liberia's Taylor protected Al Qaeda, Hezbollah activities Washington Post Reporter Douglas Farah told the House Africa Subcommittee April 2 that two of the world's most violent terrorist networks -- al Qaeda and Hezbollah -- "have an interest in the regional diamond trade [in West Africa] that extends at least back to the mid-1990s." The illicit trade in what are called "blood diamonds" -- because they are used to purchase arms that fuel conflicts -- came naturally to West Africa, where instability and weak governments have long attracted criminals and terrorists, Farah told Subcommittee Chairman Ed Royce...

As Rwandans begin the formal remembrance of the victims of the genocide that began 10 years ago today, President Paul Kagame has denounced the world's "deliberate failure" to stop the slaughter of ethnic Tutsis. "When genocide takes place, the international community should not shy away from its responsibilities ... How could the lives of one million Rwandese be considered so insignificant?" he asked, speaking for many of his countrymen who lived through the 100 days of terror.   "Do the powerful nations have a hidden agenda? I would hate to believe that this agenda is dictated by racist considerations or...

France accused of genocide role Kagame denies ordering the shooting down of the Rwandan president's plane in 1994 Rwandan President Paul Kagame has accused French people of "direct involvement" in the 1994 genocide. He told the French state-owned RFI radio that they provided weapons and training, and gave orders to those who killed some 800,000 people. He said the "French elements" were acting on government orders. The president was speaking a week after a French daily reported a police report that blamed him for a rocket attack that precipitated the massacre. "Sooner or later they will have to account for...