Free Republic

BOSTON (Reuters) - A South Korean man was sentenced to nearly three years in prison on Tuesday for his role in a scheme to buy military engines for Black Hawk helicopters and then divert them to China. Kwonhwan Park and his Malaysian company, SGS, claimed that the two engines were either for the Malaysian Army or the South Korean Army in an application to the State Department but the shipment actually was sent to China from Malaysia. U.S. District Judge Mark Kravitz ordered Park, who pleaded guilty to violating the Arms Export Control Act and conspiracy charges in November, to...

AFP/File Photo: The UN-appointed panel probing the scandal-tainted oil-for-food program for Iraq, headed by Paul Volcker, seen... Slideshow: Oil-for-Food Corruption Probe Video AP Video By NICK WADHAMS and EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writers 39 minutes ago NEW YORK - A formerUnited Nations procurement officer pleaded guilty Monday to soliciting a bribe under the oil-for-food program, making him the first U.N. official to face criminal charges in connection with the scandal-tainted operation. Alexander Yakovlev, a Russian, also pleaded guilty in federal court to charges of wire fraud and money laundering for accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes...

We’ve all been had. The bottom has long since fallen out of the key group that master-minded the Kyoto Protocol credit scheme, but nobody seemed to have joined the dots. It all began with the flight of Canadian Maurice Strong’s Earth Council from Costa Rica as noted by the National Post’s Peter Foster in May, 2004. With no fanfare, the Earth Council landed in CH2M Hill’s Consumer Road Toronto office towers. The Costa Rican government has been pursuing the Earth Council for payment of U.S.$1.65 million, for the wrongful sale of a tract of land it imprudently donated to the...