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Charles McGonigal, the former head of counterintelligence at the FBI field office in New York City who was involved in the investigation into the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia during the 2016 election, has fallen under the scrutiny of a grand jury convened by U.S. attorneys late last year for his own ties with Russia and other foreign governments, reports Insider. The grand jury is reportedly investigating McGonigal’s business dealings with a top aide to Oleg Deripaska, the billionaire Russian oligarch who was at the center of allegations that Russia colluded with the Trump campaign, according to a recently obtained...

KEY POINTS: * A copper deficit is set to inundate global markets throughout 2023, fueled by increasingly challenged South American supply streams and higher demand pressures. * Copper is a leading pulse check for economic health, and the red metal’s squeeze could be an indicator that global inflationary pressures could worsen, and subsequently compel central banks to maintain their hawkish stances for longer. ***************************************************************************************** A copper deficit is set to inundate global markets throughout 2023 — and one analyst predicts the shortfall could potentially extend throughout the rest of the decade. The world is currently facing a global copper shortage,...

The front page of today’s New York Times features a big article clearly intended to get the readers riled up about the latest environmental horror that must be stopped. The headline is “The Illegal Airstrips Bringing Toxic Mining to Brazil’s Indigenous Land.” Subheadline: “The Times identified hundreds of airstrips that bring criminal mining operations to the most remote corners of the Amazon.” Wow, this is bad. The airstrips are “illegal.” The mining is “toxic,” and not only toxic but also “criminal.” And it’s all happening in the most pristine place left in the whole world, the “remote corners of the...

We're way past "normal" times, but in any world that remotely resembles "normal", Bobulinski came with enough credibility, facts and receipts to bury Joe Biden's Presidential campaign six feet below the surface of the Earth. Dates, times, names, texts, emails, . . . The most explosive part to me was the revelation that Hunter Biden was acting as Ye Jianming's personal lawyer even as Ye, as chairman of the Chinese CCP-linked energy company "CEFC", was negotiating the purchase of a 14% state in Russia's state-owned energy company. If that's not somehow treasonous, I don't know what would be. But there's...

A lawsuit filed this week in Washington, D.C., alleges that some of the world's largest technology firms knowingly engaged in the usage of child labor in Africa's cobalt mines. The suit was filed by nongovernmental organization International Rights Advocates and mentions Apple, Dell, Microsoft, Tesla and Alphabet, the parent company of Google, USA Today reports. Cobalt is an essential part of rechargeable lithium batteries that power many of the electronic devices that the listed companies sell. According to the suit, two mining companies — British company Glencore and Chinese company Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt — supplied cobalt to all of the...

The Democrats have been illegally supplying Iran's Nuclear Program since 2009. Obama, John Kerry, and Hillary Clinton have all benefited financially from it. Hillary Clinton has ties to the mining/commodity trading industry through her old criminal pal Marc Rich. Through Rich's company Glencore, Hillary Clinton can be tied to: Terrorism, the Drug trade, Iran's Nuclear Program, North Korea, and even Apartheid South Africa Everyone largely believes that Hillary Clinton is corrupt. I believe so too, but I believe it's in a different vein of corruption. I believe there is a long running criminal conspiracy in our Government that dates back...

A little known Swedish-Canadian oil and mining conglomerate human rights groups have repeatedly charged produces “blood minerals” is among the Clinton Foundation’s biggest donors, thanks to a ($100 million pledge) in 2007, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation has found.“Blood minerals” are related to “blood diamonds,” which are allegedly mined in war zones or sold as commodities to help finance political insurgencies or despotic warlords. When the Vancouver, Canada-based Lundin Group gave its $100 million commitment to the “Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative,” the company had long been cutting deals with warlords, Marxist rebels, military strongmen and dictatorships in the...

ZURICH, SWITZERLAND, Feb. 26 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese business delegation inked trade deals worth more than 300 million U.S. dollars with Swiss companies on Thursday, ending the second leg of their four-state procurement tour in Europe. The agreements covered products ranging from software to electric equipments and metals, which meet China's domestic needs, according to Chinese trade officials. Among those agreements, Switzerland's ABB, a global leader in power and automation technologies, signed a letter of intent for the supply of generator circuit breakers to China Nuclear Power Engineering Company. Switzerland's Glencore, one of the world's largest suppliers of a wide...

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Oil companies, including one that employed an Iraq weapons supplier, paid hundreds of millions of dollars in illegal kickbacks to Saddam Hussein during the U.N. oil-for-food program, a U.N. report said on Thursday. Saddam Hussein's government took in $228.8 million (128.3 million pounds) from surcharges in connection with oil contracts, the report said. That was nearly 13 percent of the $1.8 billion in surcharges Iraq received from more than 2,200 foreign companies during the oil-for-food humanitarian program of 1996 to 2003, the report charged. Intricate webs of companies, individuals, and governments stretching from Europe to Asia...

Special report: Next month’s UN report will drag British-based miner Xstrata into the controversy over surcharges paid to Saddam.... Glencore is also known as the company founded by Marc Rich, the commodities trader who fled to Switzerland from the US after being charged for embargo-busting in Iran following the Khomeini revolution. Four years ago, Rich was pardoned by President Bill Clinton on Clinton’s last day in the White House.

GENEVA - The U.N.-ordered probe into oil-for-food corruption is being seriously hampered by an elaborate system of ghost firms set up around the world to cover the tracks of bribes to Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) as he cheated the $60 billion program, a top investigator said. Some front companies in this global oil trading center and elsewhere that dealt with Saddam have been liquidated or have hidden ownership, complicating the search for evidence of financial improprieties, said Swiss criminal lawyer Mark Pieth. He's one of three commission members leading the probe headed by former U.S. Federal Reserve (news...

A UN-ordered probe into Iraq oil-for-food corruption is being seriously hampered by an elaborate system of ghost firms set up around the world to cover the tracks of bribes to Saddam Hussein as he cheated the 60 billion dollar (£31.4 billion) program, a top investigator said. Some front companies that dealt with Saddam have been liquidated or have hidden ownership, complicating the search for evidence of financial improprieties, said Swiss criminal lawyer Mark Pieth. He’s one of three commission members leading the probe headed by former US Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker. Major oil trading companies and individuals – from...

GENEVA - The U.N.-ordered probe into oil-for-food corruption is being seriously hampered by an elaborate system of ghost firms set up around the world to cover the tracks of bribes to Saddam Hussein as he cheated the $60 billion program, a top investigator said. Some front companies in this global oil trading center and elsewhere that dealt with Saddam have been liquidated or have hidden ownership, complicating the search for evidence of financial improprieties, said Swiss criminal lawyer Mark Pieth. He's one of three commission members leading the probe headed by former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker. Major oil...

Food-for-oil deals under Hussein rife with corruption One of the most prolific purchasers of the oil was Swiss-based Glencore run by onetime fugitive American financier Marc Rich, which the report alleges paid more than $3.2 million in kickbacks to the Iraqi government. Rich, formerly wanted for tax evasion, ..........

A team of international forensic investigators is preparing to blow the lid off the much-disputed U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq and will present new evidence of corruption at an upcoming congressional hearing that directly will implicate world leaders and top U.N. officials, Insight has learned. Investigators, led by Claude Hankes-Drielsma and the KPMG accounting firm, currently are in Baghdad sifting through mountains of Saddam Hussein-era records seized from his Oil Ministry and the State Oil Marketing Organization that detail payments by Saddam to his legions of foreign friends and political supporters. An Iraqi newspaper, Al-Mada, published the list of 270...

<p>MILAN, Italy — European prosecutors say that documents identifying Marc Rich — the American fugitive who won an 11th-hour pardon from President Clinton — have turned up during a crackdown on money laundering and the Russian mafia.</p> <p>While Mr. Rich has not been named as a suspect, prosecutors do not rule out issuing a subpoena or even an arrest warrant for him as their investigation develops.</p>

Top brass flew to Baghdad with publicity-shy empowerment businessman Mzilikazi Wa Afrika, Jessica Bezuidenhout and Andre Jurgens Two of the ANC's most powerful officials travelled to Iraq with a controversial Johannesburg businessman just weeks before he landed a R1.2-billion state oil deal. Sandi Majali is one of about 270 people around the world who have been named in an alleged sanctions-busting scam involving oil from former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime. The names appeared in Iraqi State Oil Marketing Organisation documents found after the fall of Saddam. Majali, 41, who heads the media-shy empowerment company Imvume Resources, has for the...

Introduction On January 25, 2004, the Iraqi independent daily Al-Mada published a list of approximately 270 individuals and entities who were beneficiaries of Saddam Hussein's oil vouchers. [1] The report evoked reactions from many of those included in the list as well as from the Arab media, among them apologists for Saddam's regime. The fact that so many have opted for silence may give credence to the list's authenticity. A former undersecretary in the Iraqi Ministry of Petroleum, Abd Al-Saheb Salman Qutb, said that the ministry possesses documents proving the authenticity of the list published by Al-Mada. The list was...