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| 12/25 |
| 2004/11/10-11 [Politics/Foreign/MiddleEast/Israel] UID:34820 Activity:insanely high |
11/10 The bastard finally died. Arafat RIH.
http://www.cnn.com
http://tinyurl.com/ufse
\_ you're not jewish by chance, are you?
\_ only jews hate murdering thieving terrorist thugs? god save
the human race if thats true....
\_ no- only jews hate arafat and what he believed in.
\_ sheesh, troll. go away trollboy. so stupid and obvious.
\_ And what was that exactly? What principles was he
upholding by stealing billions of dollars of his
own people's money? What principles was he upholding
by slaughtering innocent civilians?
\_ when did he steal his own people's $ ?
\_ *blanch* He's estimated to have stolen
upwards of $5 billion. Here's a low-ball
from CBS. -!pp
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/11/07/60minutes/main582487.shtml
\_ i hope you will make similar comments when bush, or putin
or sharon dies. if not i hope god kills you soon.
\_ Umm.. right. Call me when you get back to reality.
\_ if you can't tell the difference between arafat and these
three you're hopeless. i know the motd well enough to know
you're probably not a troll. that's the sad part.
\_ Arafat was a Communist / Soviet agent. Good riddance.
\_ All these rumors about Arafat stealing are all lies spread
by the Israelis.
\_ Where else does his wife's 5-figure monthly allowance come from?
\_ Hey, they have lots of admirers and supporters including rich
Arabs. No biggie. Probably comes from your gas guzzling
SUV.
\_ Arafat was the father of the modern Palestinian statehood movement.
All decent people despise him for that. |
| 12/25 |
|
| www.cnn.com EDT (09:38 GMT) May 2, 2004 32 Saudis: Gunmen worked at oil compound 33 Saudis: Gunmen worked at oil compound An explosive belt left by one of the attackers. The Saudi Interior Ministry says three of the four gunmen, who opened fire at a petrochemical compound, actually worked at the site. Saudi authorities also believe all four gunmen were on a list of 26 wanted militants released last year. Six people -- two Americans, two Britons, an Australian and a Saudi policeman -- died in the shooting. ET) CNNs Jeff Koinange returns to Rwanda 10 years after the horrific genocide that shocked the world. Underrated 105 Business News: 106 16,000 at Buffett meeting 107 Death of the supermarket? TIME 100 REPORT 108 More reports 109 Making a difference 110 Making a difference The world's influential people in business, art, politics, science HEAD-TO-TOE FLOW 111 Health News 112 Heart and Blood Health Library: 113 Heart and Blood Tips to lower blood pressure and have a healthy heart OFFBEAT IMAGES 114 The week in pictures 115 The week in pictures Dentally aware dog, flying pigs, hot tub baptism and more WEATHER Get your hometown weather on the home page! Zip Code: PERSONALIZE Or 116 select location from a list Quick Vote Do you work more hours than your parents did? Yes No 117 VIEW RESULTS VOTE From our Partners External site icon 118 Time: 119 Ashcroft's Barriers to Fighting Terror 120 A Solution at Fallujah? |
| tinyurl.com/ufse -> www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/11/07/60minutes/main582487.shtml Jim Prince and a team of American accountants - hired by Arafat's own fin ance ministry - are combing through Arafat's books. Given what they've a lready uncovered, Arafat may be rethinking the decision. "What is Mr Arafat and the Palestinian Authority worth today?" So far, Prince's team has determined that part of the Palestinian leader' s wealth was in a secret portfolio worth close to $1 billion -- with inv estments in companies like a Coca-Cola bottling plant in Ramallah, a Tun isian cell phone company and venture capital funds in the US and the C ayman Islands. Although the money for the portfolio came from public funds like Palestin ian taxes, virtually none of it was used for the Palestinian people; And, Prince says, none of these dealings w ere made public. "Our whole point is to bring it out of control of any one person," Prince says. That's what happened with the portfolio money, which is now under the con trol of Salam Fayyad, a former World Bank official who Arafat was forced to appoint finance minister last year after crowds began protesting his corrupt regime. Ther e is impropriety, and that's what had to be fixed." Fayyad's investigators are treading softly, well aware that their probe m ay become too embarrassing for Arafat. "We run into obstacles in a number of places, particularly among the old PLO types," Prince says, adding one might dra w their own conclusions as to whether his statement includes Arafat hims elf. Martin Indyk, a top adviser on the Middle East in the Clinton administrat ion and now head of the Saban Center, a Washington think-tank, says Araf at was always traveling the world, looking for handouts. "Arafat for years would cry poor, saying, 'I can't pay the salaries, we'r e gonna have a disaster here, the Palestinian economy is going to collap se,'" says Indyk. Arafat accumulated another $1 billion with the help of -- of all people -- the Israelis. Under the Oslo Accords, it was agreed that Israel would collect sales taxes on goo ds purchased by Palestinians and transfer those funds to the Palestinian treasury. But instead, Indyk says, "that money is transferred to Yasser Arafat to, amongst other places, bank accounts which he maintains off-l ine in Israel." Until three years ago, Israel put the tax revenues into Arafat's account at Bank Leumi in downtown Tel Aviv, no questions asked. According to Indyk, "The Israelis came to us and said, basically, 'Arafat 's job is to clean up Gaza. He needs w alking-around money,' because the assumption was that he would use it to get control of all of these terrorists who'd been operating in these ar eas for decades." No one knows this better than Dennis Ros s, who was Middle East negotiator for the first President Bush and Presi dent Clinton, and now heads the Washington Institute for Near East Polic y He says Arafat's "walking-around money" financed a vast patronage sys tem. "I used to see that people came in, you know, with their requests," Ross says. Like a Chicago ward boss, he still doles out oodles of money; Fayyad says he pays his security forces alone $20 million a month, all of it in cas h All told, US officials estimate Arafat's personal nest egg at between $ 1 billion and $3 billion. Arafat may have $1 billion, but he sure isn't spending it to live well. H e's holed up in his Ramallah compound, which the Israelis all but reduce d to rubble a year-and-a-half ago. Arafat has always lived modestly, whi ch you can't say about his wife, Suha. According to Israeli officials, s he gets $100,000 a month from Arafat out of the Palestinian budget, and lives lavishly in Paris on this allowance. Both Israeli and US sources say those recent outpourings of support at Arafat's compound we re "rent-a-rallies," and that Arafat has spent millions to support terro rists and purchase weapons. "He defines himself as being the embodiment of the Palestinian people," R oss answers. Palestinians certainly paid dearly for something else Fayyad uncovered: a system of monopolies in commodities -- like flour and cement -- that Ar afat handed out to his cronies, who then turned around and fleeced the p ublic. Fayyad says it could accurately be seen as gouging his own people. "And e specially in Gaza which is poorer, which is something that is totally un acceptable and immoral, actually." Of all the monopolies, none was as lucrative or as corrupt as the General Petroleum Corporation, the one for gasoline. The corporation took the f uel it purchased from an Israeli company and watered it down with kerose ne, not only defrauding the Palestinian drivers, but wrecking their car engines. Fayyad says the Petroleum Corporation charged exorbitant prices, and Araf at got a hefty kickback. "To the president, I can tell you, if there was not money in the treasury, he went to the Petroleum Corporation." When Fayyad dismantled the corporation, the man who had run it fled to Ca lifornia. Ever since, with the monopoly broken up, Palestinian drivers h ave paid 20 percent less for gas and 80 percent less for diesel fuel. Fayyad became a hero, like the Robin Hood of the Palestinians. "A lot of this is about, you know, dis tinguishing between right and wrong. Mohammed Rachid, Arafat's economic adviser who set up his tangled web of investments and monopolies, says he's cooperating with Fayyad's investig ators. Rachid left the Palestinian territories about a year ago under a cloud. He asked CBS News not to reveal where we met him for his first te levision interview. He's referring to the investment portfolio he managed for Arafat. He also opened that account at the Leumi Bank in Tel Aviv. According to a recen t report by the International Monetary Fund, that secret account was: "U nder the control of President Arafat and his financial adviser Mohammed Rachid" -- and no one else. "If we are having a secret account, we should have it in Israel? But that's what the Israelis, and the people working for Fayyad, say it w as. Rachid says that "transfers to Leumi Bank account never stayed. It was re ceiving the revenues and transferring the revenues to the Palestinian Au thority's account in the Arab bank in Gaza." He's saying the Leumi money was sent to the Palestinian Authority. But, i n fact, much of it was sent to Switzerland, to the prestigious Lombard O dier Bank, for yet another secret investment account that held over $300 million. In a letter obtained by CBS News, Rachid tells the bank that t he funds will come from Palestinian "taxes" and "customs revenues." "It was all under the name of the Palestinian authorities," Rachid says. "No, Palestinian Authorities, Palestinian Author ities." Actually, it was under a code name, "Ledbury" -- not the Palestinian Auth ority -- and Minister Fayyad says that this pot of money, too, was avail able only to Arafat. Does Rachid think that it should have gone, in some way, back to help the Palestinian people? But, "I don't, I don't decide what we do with the m oney." Those who want to know why Arafat didn't bring the money back, he says, s hould ask him. There's yet another stash of money Arafat might be asked about: the funds he collected when he was chairman of the PLO in exile. The PLO's former treasurer told us he saw Saddam Hussein hand Arafat a $50 million check for supporting him during the first Gulf War. And there were other larg e gifts from the KGB and the Saudis. Ross says, "Arafat used to say to me, 'Where's my money? Fayyad is trying to make sure it's the people's money, but many say his o ne-man reform effort is having only limited success. Arafat recently sen t armed men to prevent Fayyad from replacing the head of the civil servi ce, who runs Arafat's patronage apparatus. That has lead some to think F ayyad himself could be in danger. "He cannot know, and we cannot know at what point he crosses the red line ," says Indyk. Other people who have dared to call for transparency of all these finance s have been beaten up, shot, and silenced. He has upset so many powerful people, and his offices have already been r ansacked more than once. "But you know this is about, you know, doing the right thing for the people." |
| www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/11/07/60minutes/main582487.shtml Jim Prince and a team of American accountants - hired by Arafat's own fin ance ministry - are combing through Arafat's books. Given what they've a lready uncovered, Arafat may be rethinking the decision. "What is Mr Arafat and the Palestinian Authority worth today?" So far, Prince's team has determined that part of the Palestinian leader' s wealth was in a secret portfolio worth close to $1 billion -- with inv estments in companies like a Coca-Cola bottling plant in Ramallah, a Tun isian cell phone company and venture capital funds in the US and the C ayman Islands. Although the money for the portfolio came from public funds like Palestin ian taxes, virtually none of it was used for the Palestinian people; And, Prince says, none of these dealings w ere made public. "Our whole point is to bring it out of control of any one person," Prince says. That's what happened with the portfolio money, which is now under the con trol of Salam Fayyad, a former World Bank official who Arafat was forced to appoint finance minister last year after crowds began protesting his corrupt regime. Ther e is impropriety, and that's what had to be fixed." Fayyad's investigators are treading softly, well aware that their probe m ay become too embarrassing for Arafat. "We run into obstacles in a number of places, particularly among the old PLO types," Prince says, adding one might dra w their own conclusions as to whether his statement includes Arafat hims elf. Martin Indyk, a top adviser on the Middle East in the Clinton administrat ion and now head of the Saban Center, a Washington think-tank, says Araf at was always traveling the world, looking for handouts. "Arafat for years would cry poor, saying, 'I can't pay the salaries, we'r e gonna have a disaster here, the Palestinian economy is going to collap se,'" says Indyk. Arafat accumulated another $1 billion with the help of -- of all people -- the Israelis. Under the Oslo Accords, it was agreed that Israel would collect sales taxes on goo ds purchased by Palestinians and transfer those funds to the Palestinian treasury. But instead, Indyk says, "that money is transferred to Yasser Arafat to, amongst other places, bank accounts which he maintains off-l ine in Israel." Until three years ago, Israel put the tax revenues into Arafat's account at Bank Leumi in downtown Tel Aviv, no questions asked. According to Indyk, "The Israelis came to us and said, basically, 'Arafat 's job is to clean up Gaza. He needs w alking-around money,' because the assumption was that he would use it to get control of all of these terrorists who'd been operating in these ar eas for decades." No one knows this better than Dennis Ros s, who was Middle East negotiator for the first President Bush and Presi dent Clinton, and now heads the Washington Institute for Near East Polic y He says Arafat's "walking-around money" financed a vast patronage sys tem. "I used to see that people came in, you know, with their requests," Ross says. Like a Chicago ward boss, he still doles out oodles of money; Fayyad says he pays his security forces alone $20 million a month, all of it in cas h All told, US officials estimate Arafat's personal nest egg at between $ 1 billion and $3 billion. Arafat may have $1 billion, but he sure isn't spending it to live well. H e's holed up in his Ramallah compound, which the Israelis all but reduce d to rubble a year-and-a-half ago. Arafat has always lived modestly, whi ch you can't say about his wife, Suha. According to Israeli officials, s he gets $100,000 a month from Arafat out of the Palestinian budget, and lives lavishly in Paris on this allowance. Both Israeli and US sources say those recent outpourings of support at Arafat's compound we re "rent-a-rallies," and that Arafat has spent millions to support terro rists and purchase weapons. "He defines himself as being the embodiment of the Palestinian people," R oss answers. Palestinians certainly paid dearly for something else Fayyad uncovered: a system of monopolies in commodities -- like flour and cement -- that Ar afat handed out to his cronies, who then turned around and fleeced the p ublic. Fayyad says it could accurately be seen as gouging his own people. "And e specially in Gaza which is poorer, which is something that is totally un acceptable and immoral, actually." Of all the monopolies, none was as lucrative or as corrupt as the General Petroleum Corporation, the one for gasoline. The corporation took the f uel it purchased from an Israeli company and watered it down with kerose ne, not only defrauding the Palestinian drivers, but wrecking their car engines. Fayyad says the Petroleum Corporation charged exorbitant prices, and Araf at got a hefty kickback. "To the president, I can tell you, if there was not money in the treasury, he went to the Petroleum Corporation." When Fayyad dismantled the corporation, the man who had run it fled to Ca lifornia. Ever since, with the monopoly broken up, Palestinian drivers h ave paid 20 percent less for gas and 80 percent less for diesel fuel. Fayyad became a hero, like the Robin Hood of the Palestinians. "A lot of this is about, you know, dis tinguishing between right and wrong. Mohammed Rachid, Arafat's economic adviser who set up his tangled web of investments and monopolies, says he's cooperating with Fayyad's investig ators. Rachid left the Palestinian territories about a year ago under a cloud. He asked CBS News not to reveal where we met him for his first te levision interview. He's referring to the investment portfolio he managed for Arafat. He also opened that account at the Leumi Bank in Tel Aviv. According to a recen t report by the International Monetary Fund, that secret account was: "U nder the control of President Arafat and his financial adviser Mohammed Rachid" -- and no one else. "If we are having a secret account, we should have it in Israel? But that's what the Israelis, and the people working for Fayyad, say it w as. Rachid says that "transfers to Leumi Bank account never stayed. It was re ceiving the revenues and transferring the revenues to the Palestinian Au thority's account in the Arab bank in Gaza." He's saying the Leumi money was sent to the Palestinian Authority. But, i n fact, much of it was sent to Switzerland, to the prestigious Lombard O dier Bank, for yet another secret investment account that held over $300 million. In a letter obtained by CBS News, Rachid tells the bank that t he funds will come from Palestinian "taxes" and "customs revenues." "It was all under the name of the Palestinian authorities," Rachid says. "No, Palestinian Authorities, Palestinian Author ities." Actually, it was under a code name, "Ledbury" -- not the Palestinian Auth ority -- and Minister Fayyad says that this pot of money, too, was avail able only to Arafat. Does Rachid think that it should have gone, in some way, back to help the Palestinian people? But, "I don't, I don't decide what we do with the m oney." Those who want to know why Arafat didn't bring the money back, he says, s hould ask him. There's yet another stash of money Arafat might be asked about: the funds he collected when he was chairman of the PLO in exile. The PLO's former treasurer told us he saw Saddam Hussein hand Arafat a $50 million check for supporting him during the first Gulf War. And there were other larg e gifts from the KGB and the Saudis. Ross says, "Arafat used to say to me, 'Where's my money? Fayyad is trying to make sure it's the people's money, but many say his o ne-man reform effort is having only limited success. Arafat recently sen t armed men to prevent Fayyad from replacing the head of the civil servi ce, who runs Arafat's patronage apparatus. That has lead some to think F ayyad himself could be in danger. "He cannot know, and we cannot know at what point he crosses the red line ," says Indyk. Other people who have dared to call for transparency of all these finance s have been beaten up, shot, and silenced. He has upset so many powerful people, and his offices have already been r ansacked more than once. "But you know this is about, you know, doing the right thing for the people." |