Claudia Rosett keeps the information coming on the most ignored Canadian story on the planet. (For example, a search of the CBC website shows the most recent reference to Tongsun Park to be over a year old);
The testimony about cash just keeps rolling in. It has now rolled as far as those checks to “M. Strong.” Friday the prosecution called to the stand a Jordanian branch bank manager, a woman named Rima Elias Azzouni, who testified under oath that in September, 1997, Tongsun Park walked into her bank in the Jordanian capital of Amman, opened an account, and deposited into it $700,000 in U.S. $100 banknotes, much of it bundled in wrappers with markings of the Iraqi government’s Al Rafidain Bank.
[…]
Under direct questioning, she then described in detail two sets of transactions that took place in 1997 (both apparently the same transactions discussed in far less detail in the Sept. 7, 2005 report by Paul Volcker’s probe into Oil-for-Food).
The first, according to Azzouni’s testimony, took place on July 30, 1997, when a man with an Iraqi passport, Hammam Rashid Humaym, came into her branch bank, opened an account in his own name and deposited into it “$991,000 American dollars.” That same day, Humaym had issued from the account a check made out to “Mr. M. Strong.” (This appears to have been the Jordanian bank check that Volcker alleges was delivered to Maurice Strong in New York the following week, who endorsed it over to a business associate Theodore Kheel — who deposited it on August 5, 1997. Strong told the Volcker committee he did not know that the funds might have come from Iraq, and said he regarded the check as payment for an investment Park wished to make in a Strong family company. Strong was working at the time with the rank of Under-Secretary-General as chief architect for Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s 1997 reforms at the U.N.).
In opening the account, Humaym provided a phone number, 614191, testified Azzouni, which was the same phone number provided by Park, when less than two months later he walked into Azzouni’s bank branch and opened an account under the name T.S. Park. The government showed the jury copies of bank documents with the matching phone numbers, and relevant names and signatures. Azzouni further testified that having deposited $700,000 in cash, on Sept. 14, 1997, Park returned to her bank office later that same day, and had four checks issued on his new account. The jury was shown bank documentation for all four checks…-
During this period of time, (1996 – 1999), Tongsun Park served as an advisor and then the CEO of Canadian Atomic Energy Company (AECL). Park’s website
(Linkmeister Newsbeat1 is always a good first source to check for breaking developments on the trial, and a host of other news items.)
h/t Maz2 in the comments.
Maurice Strong isbmuch to close to the Liberal Party of Canada for the CBC to touch this story.
CBC still believes PMSH & the CPC is just a temporary blip, the Liberals will be returned to power very soon and all will get back to normal at Pravda North
Why is the Canadian Media not reporting on this story ? “WE REPORT, YOU DECIDE.” Is it a cover-up ? A 30 second blip, haven’t even seen that, doesn’t count. How about a special, Niel MacDonald in the courthouse ? Or an openning National line; Canada’s big world fraud ? Or a UN reality check ? Or a timeline story on “this great Canadian ? Or Canada /North Korean connection ?
This guy just scares me, can’t imagine how many countries he has his talons into!
Expose him? Who? I am pretty sure he has everything fully controlled one way or another. There will not be any special investigations in Canada, nothing will be reported here and this story, along with all the others, will die.
Bastards.
The North Vancouver “jihad news” site jihadunspun is offering the video of the mutilated American soldiers.
And this article…sorry it is a little long but the kicker is the last sentence.
Also it is interesting that the author refers to nuclear armed India. If I recall it was PMPT in the 60’s or 70’s who sold India a CANDU reactor and India promptly converted the technology into a bomb. That part of Canadian history is an interesting chapter. Does anyone else on sda recall when and how India got the bomb?
7/7: Little Learned From London Tragedy Or Carnage In Muslim Lands
Written by By Salim Lone
Monday, 10 July 2006
We remind our viewers that the opinions and points of view expressed in this article are those of the author and shall not be deemed to mean that they are necessarily those of JUSone, the publisher, editor, writers, contributors or staff. This article is published here as it addresses some of the core and critical issues facing the broad Muslim community.
“The international security system is in tatters. Designed to prevent wars of aggression and gross human rights abuses that until recently were the preserve of tyrants, it is incapable of addressing these crimes that are now the calling cards of some mighty democracies.”
The talk everywhere here in London is about the 7 July terrorist attacks last year which killed 48 civilians and the four suicide bombers. The approach of the anniversary has been marked by a series of studies and commentaries aimed at trying to understand how young Muslim youths born and bred here could turn so viciously on fellow Britons, and more importantly, how the alienation that led to such extreme acts could be reduced.
The media this week got a chance to contribute to the healing process by valiantly portraying the first death in Afghanistan of a British Muslim soldier as an indication that Muslims were capable of fighting for this country even when it was at war with a Muslim nation. But this well-intentioned spin and the overall spirit of consensus-seeking and conciliation in advance of the anniversary were shaken by an inexplicable and astonishing display of dissonant insensitivity by Prime Minister Tony Blair on Tuesday. He lashed out at establishment Muslim leaders for not doing enough to fight extremists in their midst, and went on to say that he had the impression that the leaders were in sympathy with their grievances.
The leaders must not only condemn extremist actions, he asserted, they needed also to stand up and tell “extremists about the completely false sense of their grievances against the west” and also that “their whole ideology is wrong.” Mr. Blair also asserted that he “was not the person to go into the Muslim community” to address these issues, as if his prime ministership did not extend to Muslim Britons.
The arrogance of Mr. Blair’s conviction in his own rectitude and in the superiority of western ideology is breathtaking, as is his demand that Muslim leaders should do his bidding. The grievances he referred to are of course the occupations of Iraq, Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories, which inflame even the most moderate Muslims’ passions. He continues to stick to his dogged belief that Muslim grievances over these wars and occupations “are completely false.”
It is hard to believe that he actually expects Muslim leaders to support these wars, and that such support might help root out the extremism that most British Muslims and non-Muslims abhor. Indeed, the opposite would be guaranteed if Muslim leaders came out in support of these wars. There is good work being done by community and other groups here to address the divide between Muslim youth and society at large by tackling their marginalization, discrimination and impoverishment. But this work cannot possibly counter the fury generated by the three occupations and numerous other acts of aggression and lawless behaviour that US President George Bush’s administration has unleashed globally, much of it with British government support or complicity.
These aggressions, according to a respected American university study, have seen up to a quarter million Muslims killed since 2001, without counting the 600,000 Iraqis, primarily children, perished over the previous decade under UN sanctions. War crimes and crimes against humanity are being committed regularly by western and Israeli soldiers. Torture and death squads are being allowed full rein in Iraq, while Israel assassinates, with severe collateral damage, “militants” who are lawfully using force to resist an illegal occupation. In any event, the world media takes Israel’s “militant” labeling entirely at face value.
Can we possibly hope to end the radicalization of Muslims and the resort to terrorism when this is the nature of our new world? The US and UK in fact cannot even win over Muslim moderates to its causes, which in practical terms is its greatest failure since it is only these moderates who can in the end curb the extremists. It is not only Muslims who despise the aggressive western posture. The Pew and other polls in recent weeks have shown that war in Iraq and related aggressions are considered more of a threat to world peace than Iran’s nuclear ambitions by people even in close US allies such as Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Russia.
The growing international lawlessness reflects a complete breakdown of the international security system. Designed to prevent unlawful aggression and gross human rights abuses that until recently were the preserve of tyrants. But now that these have become the calling cards of the world’s greatest democracies, this system is mute and paralyzed. This international system’s prime instrument is the United Nations Security Council, which has not even dared to discuss any of these outrages. Its principal role now is to impose the will of the powerful over the weak when they resist US hegemony.
At this very moment, for example, the 1.3 million residents of Gaza are all being severely punished, and killed, in a bid to supposedly save one Israeli soldier’s life. Palestine’s democratically elected Prime Minister, Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, has been threatened with assassination while at least six of his ministers have been detained. As one of the world’s great journalists, Gideon Levy, wrote this week in Haaretz, one of the world’s great newspapers, “a state that takes such steps is no longer distinguishable from a terror organization.”
Israel’s current actions do not come close to comparing with the atrocities committed by US forces in Fallujah, the condemnation of which by the normally cautious UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan saw him nearly booted out of office.
But the Security Council is silent in the face of such mass terror, as is virtually the entire western and Muslim leadership. Here in London, Mr. Blair refused to criticize Israel’s latest crimes, claiming that condemning only one side is “not helpful.” Switzerland’s courage in labeling these actions “collective punishment,” associated primarily with Nazi Germany’s war tactics, must be applauded. As must be Hugo Chavez’s and Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s condemnations. Is it a wonder that the two have such fervent followings?
Much of the western world’s international posture is currently marked by profound contradictions and hypocrisy. The freedoms the west is supposedly fighting for are being made a mockery of both at home and abroad. Its vaunted commitment to democracy is being undercut as it works to oust the Hamas government and inflict pain on the Palestinians who elected it overwhelmingly, while it supports dictatorship in Pakistan and Egypt. Iran’s pursuit of nuclear energy is fully sanctioned under international law but the US is threatening it with war even as it offers nuclear-armed India special co-operation in the nuclear field.
Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, extraordinary rendition, kidnappings and use of torture camps even in Europe are testaments to the west’s tattered commitments to human rights. Indeed, after all the venom directed at the UN over human rights violators serving on its Human Rights Commission, the champions of these rights got the Iraqi ambassador to the UN elected as the chairman of the General Assembly’s committee dealing with human rights!
These astounding double standards and the shameless resort to gross falsehoods are the expressions of a world in which the powerful no longer feel the need to win respect from the world, which it openly asserts it will control through intimidation and force. A pliant mainstream media continues to portray such remarkable excesses as aberrations, at best. The one institution not firmly roped in is the judiciary in the US and UK, which in recent days has ruled as unconstitutional key anti-terror actions by the two countries.
These western policies violate some of the most hallowed and carefully-crafted principles of humanity crafted over generations of debate. But that is far less important than the fact that they have comprehensively failed to assert a measure of global security, have resulted in instead in untold carnage in Muslim lands primarily and are alienating vast swathes of humanity who will provide the tinder for terrible outrages against innocents.
The push towards greater global divisions and conflagration that US policies are causing could be moderated by close ally Britain, which has been more sensitive and even-handed internationally after its humiliating Suez Canal expedition a half century ago. One can only hope that Gordon Brown will provide better global leadership, having seen the severe national and international political damage done to both Bush and Blair through their militaristic posture in resolving security challenges.
Salim Lone’s last assignment in a long United Nations career was as Spokesman for the UN mission in Iraq right after the US-led invasion and occupation in 2003.
Good points. I think that Fred is right; these people are all Associates of the Liberal Party.
And the CBC is indeed Pravda North, a state-run (Liberal stacked) media system that is used for propaganda and only propaganda. What have they been focusing on recently? Relentless, ongoing, endless, attacks on the Bush administration and the USA. Their focus is so reductionist, so blatantly biased that no totalitarian communist or Taliban regime could better them.
I agree with Fred also, that the CBC and Liberals consider Harper and the CPC simply a ‘blip’ that will disappear in a wink and The True Party will return to Its Natural Place.
The other non-story that no MSM reports on? The corrupt, disgraceful buyout of the Caledonian natives, by McGuinty, using our taxpayer money. That is a disgrace, an outrage; he should be impeached. But there’s not a word, not an opinion piece, not a column, not a whisper in any MSM about it.
Strong’s Connections Expanded: Canada’s Atomic Energy Corporation Ltd. (AECL)….
“In October 1995, Reid Morden was president of AECL when he helped the Privy Council put together a clandestine Candu contract with what was then and is now North Korea’s best friend, China.”
Reid Morden, was also Executive Director to the Paul Volcker’s Commission to investigate the Oil for Food Scandal.
He had recused himself from the Strong/Tongsun Park phase of the investigation, because of a letter he had written seeking “the support of Mr. Park and Mr. Strong for the sale of “Candu 9″ nuclear reactors during their upcoming meeting in Korea with Korean leaders.”
3w .canadafreepress.com/2006/cover070706.htm
“…..A second phase of the Candu deal with China was signed in Ottawa during the controversial and much-protested visit of Premier Li Peng (AKA the “Butcher of Beijing”). Li Peng and former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, as well as AECL President Reid Morden, and his counterpart in the China Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), Jiang Xinxiong, signed documents.
AECL and the Canadian government have never made clear the precise nature of this second-phase agreement, but Morden stated, “we are now essentially ready to complete work on a commercial contract”.
…”If the name Reid Morden sounds familiar to Canadian readers, he’s a former director of the Canadian Security & Intelligence Service (CSIS).
Funny how this thread is about esentially MSM’s not carrying a story when there’s a story next door about MSM’s withering because they are nitwits.
the future looks bloggish
: )
AECL
We are proud partners with:
China National Nuclear Corporation
http://www.aecl.ca/About/Partners.htm
This may seem like a stupid question but has anyone tried sending this to the CTV “Whistleblower”? Won’t likely do much good – anyone tried the the National Post though?
I thought the exact things Andrew and it certainly is worth a try but I have no doubt that it will come to nothing.
Maurice Strong is not the world player that he is and only able to have CBC aiding him, he would ensure silence from all sources here.
Maybe get Conrad Black’s attention on this. He has nothing to lose since his credibility is shot, he loves the spotlight and the media still seems willing to afford him some coverage. A nice public speech filled with outrage should do the trick.
Oops, what am I saying? He likely golfs with Mr. Strong in his spare time, nothing surprises me anymore.
Park may have headed up Canadian Atomic Energy Limited (or whatever) but that was no doubt his own shell company and NOT, as reported, the same entity as CANDU-maker, AECL. – JL
We all know that if Maurice Strong were connected to the Conservatives instead of the Liberals, CBC would have teams of reporters digging into the story. As it is, they don’t merely bury coverage, as they did with LPC criminal malfeasance in the early days, they excise it completely.
It’s not possible that this story could escape the notice of producers at CBC; obviously decisions continue to be made to avoid covering it. Such filtering is so fulsome, and so perfectly congruent with their federal political coverage during the minority vote last year, that even to ask why our National coast-to-coast broadcaster would completely ignore such a broad international story with such strong Canadian connections is now a purely rhetorical question. Which is bad news for the CBC.
Ezra Levant needs to publish some over-the-top,outlandish claims about Strong(try the truth perhaps?)…that will bring the MSM out into the open…to defend Strong of course.
As Canadian Sentinel says: Feck the MSM.
Bloggers/commentors are doing the job of exposing Maurice Strong, his protege, Paul Martin, Jr. Chretien, and all the scumbag Librano$.
Again, feck the MSM. Here’s more from Claudia Rosett, live blogging from the trial of Park.
Quote: “is the extent of the financial ties over the past decade between Park and Maurice Strong.”
MSM ignores this. Strong is a Canadian communist/millionaire; a transparent Librano$ pirate. …-
No Free Parking
It’s daylight at the U.N. inside a federal district courtroom.
By Claudia Rosett
New York — The United Nations keeps promising transparency. But for a real window on the U.N., skip the pronouncements of Turtle Bay. The better place to look right now is the federal courtroom in lower Manhattan where the first trial linked to the U.N. Oil-for-Food scandal is underway: the case of a South Korean businessman named Tongsun Park.
In the latest U.N.-related bombshell, the jury heard on Monday that Park around the year 2000 was
allegedly paying the private-office expenses in
New York of former U.N. eminence Maurice Strong.
At the time, Strong held the U.N.’s third-highest rank of under-secretary-general, and was serving as a special adviser to Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
Park is charged by federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York with having acted as an unregistered agent of the government of Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Park’s lawyer says he is “absolutely not guilty,” and nothing here is meant to suggest otherwise. But in the matter of U.N. transparency — or lack of it — Park per se is not the issue. What has been coming to light, as the jury has heard one government witness after another detailing the alleged business deals of the 71-year-old Tongsun Park,
is the extent of the financial ties over the past decade between Park and Maurice Strong.
There is no sign that anyone at the U.N. even inquired into these matters at the time, let alone disclosed any of this to the public.
Prosecutors introduced as evidence a copy of a handwritten fax from Mayo to Dickerson, dated June 16, 2000, asking for payment into Strong’s account at “The Chase Manhattan Bank, United Nations,” complete with account number. They also showed documentation of a bank transfer three days later, on June 19, 2000, of $6,000 from Dickerson’s account to Maurice Strong’s — apparently some of the money for which Dickerson said he had expected Park to reimburse him. Strong, whose Toronto office says he is currently in Beijing, did not respond to queries e-mailed yesterday about Dickerson’s testimony. …
………….
Strong shills for the cult of Scientology:
Scientology Press Release: 09-26-2004
Church of Scientology of New York Inaugurates New Home
“Congressman Charles Rangel praised the Church for its effective drug abuse and literacy programs, while United Nations Under-Secretary General Maurice Strong validated the Church’s human rights public education campaign. ”
“It is through the works of Scientology and it is through the works of so many of the people who have brought their inspiration and drive from this movement that I have come to have an appreciation of the importance of the contributions that this movement, this religion, has made to a more peaceful world and a better opportunity for each individual to experience the best of this world.
“If I’ve learned anything in all my years in the global arena, it is that world governments do not possess all the tools to bring resolution to the problems that beset human kind. Governments can guide, can incense, but most of the doing is left to people like us, organizations like yours.
“We will be doing our part to give effect to Mr. Hubbard’s call to help build a world without insanity, criminality and war, where honest people have rights and Man is free to rise to greater heights.” …
http://www.suppressiveperson.org/government/officials/strong/index.html
… more from Claudia Rosett
http://www.paulding.net/bin/url.cgi/13340.15
strong, the slime behind the last three liberal prime ministers. As CEO, pillaged Petro Can, architect for UN food for oil scam and founder of Kyoto and the attempted scam of sale of energy credits. This world will be better off when he leaves it.
What is the Privy Councillor status of Maurice Strong?
Does he still have access to State Secrets?
Question: I have two questions about Mr. Strong. Can you check and find out whether Mr. Strong was employed by the United Nations in the 50s or 60s and that he was removed from here?
And also, in 2003, Mr. Eliot Spitzer, NewYorkState’s attorney general, files, I mean investigated the Strong financial corporation, in the year 2003? Did that corporation belong to Mr. Maurice Strong? And in 1997, — in ’96-’97 — when he was employed at the United Nations, at that point in time he headed a corporation which was based somewhere in Central America. And when it went down, the shareholders of that corporation sued Mr. Maurice Strong in a class action suit. Can you check on that?
Associate Spokesman: Most of those questions you’d have to address to Mr. Strong. As you know, the issue of financial disclosure forms which people at the ASG or Under-Secretary-General level would have had to fill out — were only put in place in 1999.
So, for his other appointments prior to 1999, he did not have to fill out these forms. And on his appointments on as on exactly when employed basis or dollar-a-year envoy, it had been the prior policy to waive the requirement to fill out that form.
Question: No. I was saying that when he was hired in 1992, I think ’96, as a reformist, as a United Nations reformer and so forth. And then he headed the Rio Summit also. The thing is that this particular case is rather troubling, wherein he was implicated that he may have sold, in an insider’s deal, his corporation’s shares.
Associate Spokesman: What I am telling you is that you should address those questions to him. We would not have been aware of his…(interrupted).
Question: (Inaudible interruption)?
Associate Spokesman: No. What I am saying to you is that he would not have had to file a financial disclosure form because that requirement only began in 1999.
Louis?
Question: Steph, on Maurice Strong; in an interview with a Toronto newspaper that was published this morning, Maurice Strong essentially says that TongsunPark did invest a million dollars in a company that was run by his son and later went bankrupt. In the light of those revelations, is it the UN’s opinion now that this unnamed official No 2, cited in the criminal complaint last week, is indeed Maurice Strong?
Associate Spokesman: Again, that’s an issue that’s being looked at by the Federal District Attorney of the Southern District of New York. We have no information at this point who that UN official No. 2 is.
Question: The information that Mr. Strong’s given is that, you know, Mr. Park did invest a million dollars, like the criminal complaint says, and that a million dollars went into a company that was run by his son, like the criminal complaint says. And the company later went bankrupt. And in light of those revelations, are you now, is it the UN’s opinion that official No. 2 is Mr. Strong?
Associate Spokesman: We don’t have any hard facts as to who No. 1 and No. 2 are. What we do know is that Mr. Strong decided to step aside while investigations are ongoing.
Yes? …-
http://www.un.org/News/briefings/docs/2005/db050421.doc.htm
And let’s not forget the common link between recent prime ministers, Mo Strong and Oil-for fraud:
Power Corporation’s The Honourable Paul Desmarais, P.C., C.C. — shareholder in Total/ Fina through subsidiary Pargesa Holding S.A.
Update: Rosett’s Notebook.
Swiped from the Secretary-General’s Cellar?
07/12 11:30 AM
So where are the missing U.N. records? Prosecutor Edward O’Callaghan laid out in court on Tuesday that it is standard U.N. practice to keep a log of visitors to U.N. Secretary-General’s official residence in Manhattan. The entries in the logbook usually include the name, date and times of arrival and departure. It is then U.N. procedure to store the filled volumes in the basement of the official residence.
These logbooks are potentially of interest, because some of the testimony in this case has involved allegations of meetings at the official residence between Tongsun Park and Boutros-Ghali.
But here’s the mystery. O’Callaghan said that when U.N. security staff went looking last year for the residence logs from the Boutros-Ghali era, which spanned January 1992 to December, 1996, they found only one volume, covering only April 1995 to August 1996. (O’Callaghan flashed across a large screen before the jury an exhibit gleaned from that log, showing what appeared to be some 20 visits by Tongsun Park).
The jury heard that “the basement was accessible to the secretary-general, his family, and the secretary-general’s residential staff, including security, housekeeping and cooking staff.”
Since Boutros-Ghali moved out, the only family in residence has been that of Kofi Annan. Can Boutros tell us more? Can Kofi? … should we ask the cook? …-
http://rosett.nationalreview.com/
Annan and ex-PM Martin, Jr.:
Martin has private UN meeting with Annan
UN sources said Mr. Martin requested the noon get-together, adding there were “no note … contacts with the UN, did not appear to be aware of the UN visit. …
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=284dceb5-b48d-42cc-b7dd-fec4983f2450 –
Will Maurice Strong stand trial?
Course not.
Saddam is sitting trial in Baghdad. So a cubble miilionjs were stole so what? (H/T Jean Chretien)…-
Korean Businessman Guilty in Oil-for-Food Case
Thursday , July 13, 2006
NEW YORK — A South Korean businessman accused of being an Iraqi agent and trying to influence the United Nations’ oil-for-food program was found guilty Thursday of conspiracy.
Tongsun Park, 71, arrested last year, was the first to go on trial in the criminal case stemming from a scandal involving the United Nations, Iraq and a group of all ..
fox news