Aug. 16 issue - At first, Pakistan's security forces had no idea just how big a catch they'd made. U.S. intelligence officers didn't guess the whole truth either, although it had been their tip that led to Mohammed Neem Noor Khan's arrest. They knew only that he was doing communications work for Al Qaeda.

The 25-year-old computer specialist didn't put up a fight when he was picked up on July 13 in Lahore. Pakistani officials say he didn't even own a weapon. But as experts examined his home computer, they began to realize Khan was a key connection between Osama bin Laden's inner circle, holed up in some of the world's most impenetrable terrain, and Al Qaeda's operatives, still obeying the master terrorist's commands in cities around the world.

[. . . . ] Security experts worry that Khan may typify a whole new generation of Al Qaeda field officers. Karachi alone has more than 20 small, Qaeda-linked cells led by educated young men, according to Pakistani intelligence. One such group, calling itself Jundullah (God's Brigade), sprang an ambush last June on a military motorcade in the heart of the city. The attack killed six soldiers and three police and nearly eliminated one of the Pakistani Army's top officers. Security forces later captured the alleged ringleaders, including a cardiologist, an orthopedic surgeon, a physicist with a master's degree from the University of Karachi and another individual with a master's in statistics. Senior Pakistani officials expect that Al Qaeda will replace Khan easily enough. "We have weakened, not eliminated, the network," says Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat. "But every arrest helps us to get closer to the others." The hope is only to hunt down Al Qaeda's senior members faster than the group can recruit new ones. [. . . . ]

Toronto and Ottawa — Canada's megacities are absorbing an ever increasing number of immigrants, a demographic revolution that has created a country of two solitudes and put unprecedented strain on everything from health care to public transit.

Seventy-three per cent of the 1.8 million immigrants who arrived in Canada from 1991 to 2001 settled in Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver, a new trend according to a Statistics Canada study released yesterday.

[. . . . ] About 90 per cent of Canada's recent immigrants — defined as refugees, and business or family-class immigrants who came to Canada between 1991 and 2001 — live in the country's 10 largest cities, with a very small percentage going to such places as Sudbury, the Maritimes or smaller urban centres in Quebec.

[. . . . ] Frank McKenna, New Brunswick's former premier, predicted this year that Atlantic Canada will face a "long, slow and tortuous" decline unless it attracts more immigration to the region. [. . . . ]

VICTORIA (CP) - The U.S.-Canada boundary -often called the world's longest undefended border -may no longer be so undefended. [That will definitely affect the economy. ]

The U.S. is stepping up surveillance along the border, in the air and on the water, starting with a high-tech unit than begins operations in Bellingham, just across the border from the Vancouver area. "It is the first of five such border units that will be established from Bellingham over to Plattsburg, New York," said Gary Bracken, communications director for the Office of Air and Marine Operations.

The New York unit will be set up later this year and units in Montana, North Dakota and Michigan will be established in coming years.

The move is part of the U.S. response to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. [. . . . ]

In what will be one of Canada's largest white-collar crime investigations, the RCMP will assign as many as two dozen officers and forensic accountants to the criminal investigation of Nortel Networks Corp., a source familiar with the probe says.

While the news of the probe late Monday came as little surprise to the Street -- Nortel shares gave up little ground yesterday -- the widening scale of the investigation could pose longer-term problems for the company, including damaging customer relations or distracting management from its game plan in a rapidly changing industry, some analysts said.

The RCMP's white-collar crime unit, called the Integrated Market Enforcement Team (IMET), has spent months developing a plan for investigating the Brampton, Ont.-based telecommunications equipment maker, which began revealing a series of accounting problems more than a year ago.

[. . . . ] Superintendent Craig Hannaford of IMET would not comment on the specifics of the case. However, he said investigations of this kind typically involve interviewing numerous company officials and extensive forensic accounting work.

"These are resource-intensive investigations so when we move to that step obviously we are saying that we are going to devote some resources to it," Supt. Hannaford said.

[. . . . ] Nortel has been unable to offer investors any financial certainty since announcing in April that it would cut its 2003 profit of $732-million (U.S.), its first year in the black since 1997, in half. The company is restating results for 2001, 2002, and 2003. Tomorrow, Nortel is scheduled to give a preliminary look at results for the first two quarters of 2004.

Nortel Networks Corp. said Thursday it will cut staffing levels by about 10 per cent to shore up its financial performance after early 2004 results suggested its business weren't hitting their cost targets.

As well, the company said another seven employees involved in its financial reporting have been terminated “for cause,” bringing the total number of people fired in the wake of its accounting scandal to 10, including its former chief executive officer Frank Dunn.

Thursday's job cuts will affect about 3,500 workers. Brampton, Ont.-based Nortel made the announcement as it delivered its first glimpse of how the company was performing in the first two quarters of this year.

Nortel has already cut its work force dramatically. In 2001, Nortel had an estimated 95,000 employees. Before Thursday's announcement, that number had been reduced to about 35,500.

[. . . . ] Nortel said it will be seeking repayment of 2003 bonuses from all 10 of those people.

"When you buy from The Body Shop you are helping to promote the PLO and its goals"

The Body Shop Supports the PLO:

The Body Shop, a personal care products retail chain, gave a quarter of its $300,000 "Human Rights Award 2002" prize money (i.e. $75,000) to a group called The National Committee for the Defence of the Rights of the Internally Displaced (ADRID), who advocate, among other things, the "right to return" of all "Palestinian refugees" to Israel. Their manifesto (pages 5-6) states as follows: [. . . . ]

Public Works and Government Services Canada has told its tenants to honour a clause in their leases to provide bilingual services. In a letter sent to its business owners in downtown Ottawa, near Parliament Hill, Public Works said it would talk with its tenants to ensure the clause is upheld. "Over the next few months, PWGSC will meet with each of its tenants to review the lease requirements and their implications for signage, menus, notices and other advertising material (including Web sites) in both official languages," the letter said. "PWGSC also encourages tenants to provide bilingual services to their patrons in their facilities and by telephone. PWGSC will monitor the compliance with these requirements on an ongoing basis," the letter said. Dr. Grenville Goodwin, an optometrist in the area, a Public Works tenant, said he does not need the government to tell him how to operate his business. His firm provides service in English, French, Vietnamese, Cantonese and German. "It stinks," Mr. Goodwin said. "It is an intrusion into my affairs." . . . .

CALGARY - Husky Energy Inc. moved yesterday to bolster its holdings in offshore China with a deepwater exploration agreement with China National Offshore Oil Corp.

The Calgary-based company, controlled by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing, said yesterday it signed a contract to explore in a block in the South China Sea located 300 kilometres southeast of Hong Kong, and east of its Wenchang oil project.

Husky is trying to capitalize on growing demand for energy in China, which moved ahead of Japan last year to become the world's second-largest oil consumer after the United States, said Don Campbell, a spokesman for Husky.

"Everyone is talking about the consumption requirements in China due to their large and growing economy, and we want to be positioned there to take advantage of those opportunities," he said. [. . . . ]

Husky will pay for all drilling costs, while state-owned CNOOC can back into a development project, if there's a discovery, with a 51% interest.

The contract is the seventh deal between Husky and CNOOC, China's dominant offshore oil and gas producer. The block is 3,965 square kilometres in size, in water averaging 300 to 2,000 metres deep. [. . . . ]

China's thirst for oil contributed to the run-up in crude prices.

Expansion in energy demand in China, which was oil self-sufficient only 10 years ago, is largely due to its expanding industrial economy, despite the rapid growth in auto sales, CERA said. [. . . . ]

[. . . . ] That leads us into a legal action recently filed in the Ontario Court of Justice. None of the claims and none of the arguments advanced by the defence have been proved.

Here are the details of the action:

- Five investors, acting as plaintiffs, have started a legal action against Trinity Capital Corp. and Trinity Capital Securities Ltd. over their investment in Internet Gaming Software Solutions Ltd.

The five investors, three of whom are individuals, filed a statement of claim. In turn, the defendants, Trinity Capital and Trinity Capital Securities, have filed a statement of defence.

The five essentially want the return of the $650,000 they invested in an issuer, Internet Gaming Software. That investment, made about three years ago, was by way of a senior debt security and was made because Internet Gaming needed "bridge financing." Plans called for the investment to be repaid in early 2002.

Those funds were given by the five investors to Trinity, which in turn advanced the funds to the issuer, a company that was largely involved in designing Internet casino software. [. . . . ]

The teenage woman takes a long look at the menu. She makes her choice and the waiter disappears to fetch her order. He returns with a fit, beautiful, young man.

Ruth Evans is 19 and from Manchester. She is in a male brothel in Thai capital Bangkok - and has just ordered a prostitute for the evening.

She will buy him drinks, they will chat and dance. Later, if she wants, she can pay him £22 (1,600 baht in the local currency) to go back to her hotel and have sex with her.

[. . . . ] The sex workers are tested for HIV every four or five weeks. If they do not turn up for work then it means they have had a positive result. Each bar has one or two cases each month.

[. . . . ] "I had a lot of friends that were Canadians that came to Afghanistan and went to training," Mr. Khadr said. "Some of them are dead now and some of them are back in Canada and some of them are under arrest."

[. . . . ] Among the Canadians who attended the camps were Amer and Ahmad El-Maati of Toronto, a Vancouver man he knew as Amer, who was killed in a 1998 U.S. missile strike, and a Canadian named Idriss, who was arrested for plotting to blow up an embassy in Azerbaijan, Mr. Khadr testified.

He also testified he met Mahmoud Jaballah in Peshawar, Pakistan. Mr. Jaballah is an Egyptian being detained by Canadian authorities following his arrest in Toronto. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) alleges he is a member of the Al Jihad terrorist group. His lawyers argued at a hearing yesterday that he should not be deported to Egypt because he would face torture there. (See story Page A6)

Mr. Khadr's testimony, which fills 176 pages, lends support to accusations by CSIS that Mr. Khadr's father, the late Ahmed Khadr, was a central figure in Canada's Sunni Islamic extremist network until he was killed last year during a shootout with Pakistani security forces. [. . . . ]

"I had a lot of friends that were Canadians that came to Afghanistan and went to training," Mr. Khadr said. "Some of them are dead now and some of them are back in Canada and some of them are under arrest." [. . . . ]

Expose the subversive activities of Islamist extremists around the world or in the United States, and speedy CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) pops up with accusations of Islamophobia.

Before Abdurahman Alamoudi, a U.S. citizen and prominent leader of Washington's Muslim community, confessed to a Libyan-funded assassination plot, CAIR denounced his detractors as Muslim-bashers. CAIR suddenly fell silent when Alamoudi plea-bargained with the United States for a lighter sentence, in the range of a quarter of a century, instead of life for his part in a plot by Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi to assassinate Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah.

It would behoove CAIR to care more about an institutional memory called MEMRI -- The Middle East Media Research Institute -- and read or listen to what it plucks daily from Islam's airwaves.

Recent samples:

-- "I say to you the American people, according to the Koran ... your lives are lost, you will collapse, and America will collapse." (Friday Sermon at Tehran U. titled "America will collapse).

-- "The liberated Western woman works more with her breasts than with her hands, dancing in brothels. ... Where are the lies about her liberation and the honor accorded her?" (Friday Sermon in Medina, Saudi Arabia).

-- "From the day civil strife began in Islam, the Jews were behind it. There is no evil in the world that the Jews were not behind. (Saudi Sheikh Abd Al-Qader Hammad's sermon titled "A Muslim is not allowed to open his Heart to the enemy of Allah").

-- "The Jews are behind all moral corruption and perverse thinking. This is a putrid history whose stench is sickening (Friday sermon in Bahrain titled "Treachery Runs in the Jews' Blood"). [. . . . ]

The Canadian Jewish Congress and Canadian Arab Federation have rightly joined forces to condemn these incidents -- anti-Jewish graffiti has also been found on campus -- and to call for tolerance.

But tolerance isn't enough in the face of death threats.

What's required is some good old-fashioned intolerance of what is serious criminal behaviour.

Toronto, one of the most multicultural and tolerant cities on Earth, has experienced too many of these incidents lately, particularly aimed at Jews and Muslims.

[. . . . ] Barely five months after vowing "an end to cronyism," Prime Minister Paul Martin has handed a plum diplomatic post to former Grit MP Yvon Charbonneau -- who gave up his seat for one of Martin's handpicked candidates. So much for changing the way things work in Ottawa!

Filmmaker uncovers shocking Palestinian 'myths' -- manipulation of media images -- 'No journalist can report honestly without risking his life'

When Pierre Rehov saw images of a 12-year-old Palestinian boy being shot, it altered the course of his life.

The film producer was stunned to learn Israel had been accused of targeting young Mohammed al-Dura, whose gripping death in the arms of his father was an image broadcast around the world. Indeed, the graphic images of the boy dying in his father Jamal's arms, supposedly murdered by Israeli soldiers, became the icon of the newly launched intifada and fueled the ambitions of a thousand young, would-be suicide bombers.

"I was in shock," Rehov said in a recent magazine interview. "In this case, I knew as a producer that there was something very fishy about the images. The angles just weren't right."

One day after watching footage of al-Dura's death, Rehov, an Algerian-born Jew who lives in France, was thrust into action when he witnessed a pro-Palestinian rally in the streets of Paris, where demonstrators screamed "Death to the Jews." The al-Dura video had been videotaped by a Palestinian freelance photographer working for France 2 television.

[. . . . ] Indeed, as WorldNetDaily has reported, independent studies of the incident show the boy couldn't have been shot by Israeli soldiers as alleged. Moreover, there is compelling evidence that the "shooting death" of little Mohammed al-Dura was a piece of intentional Arab "street theatre" staged by Palestinians to portray Israelis as child murderers.

Since the al-Dura incident and Rehov's revelations about it, the filmmaker has immersed himself in documenting, up-close and personal, the true nature of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. To date he has produced six documentaries, highlighted on a new website that communicates his conviction that Palestinian leaders have created a mythology every reporter working in the disputed territories is compelled to buy if he wants to work safely.

"There is no freedom of press under the Palestinian Authority, and no journalist can report honestly without risking his life," says Rehov. [. . . . ]

Illegals from terrorist nations are crossing the border into Arizona.

[. . . . ] "It's a Muslim prayer blanket. It was found about a mile and a half west from the Douglas port of entry in 2001."

Larry Vance is a rancher who lives near the U.S.-Mexico border in Douglas, Arizona.

For years, he says he's watched - and documented - thousands of illegals crossing the border and running away to eventual arrest... or freedom and anonymity somewhere in this country.

And in just one hour, during this stake-out along the border between Douglas and b\Bisbee, The Investigators count 198 illegals in five different groups crossing into the U.S. with no resistance.

Watch as they huddle in the bushes, then climb thru a few strands of barbed wire and run for freedom.

We called Border Patrol and waited another full hour, but no one ever came.

Later, we checked Border Patrol logs which note agents being dispatched following our call, but also note those agents found no signs of activity in the area.

In recent years, Vance says, the evidence some illegals leave behind is alarming.

[. . . . ] Some in Congress are starting to take notice of the threat. Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo released a report that revealed a 50% increase in OTMs, illegals Other Than Mexicans, crossing the border.

Tancredo says some illegals from terrorist nations are paying as much as $50,000 to be smuggled in. He says they're not paying that kind of money simply to work at a 7/11. [. . . . ]

[. . . . ] Over the past month, border agents from Arizona and Texas have anonymously reported recent encounters with dozens of Arab men, who have made their way across the 2,000-mile Mexican border.

Patrol agents told one Arizona newspaper that 77 males "of Middle Eastern descent" were apprehended in June in two separate incidents. All were trekking through the Chiricahua mountains and are believed to have been part of a larger group of illegal immigrants. Many were released pending immigration hearings. According to Solomon Ortiz, the Congressman for Corpus Christi in Texas, similar incidents are "happening all over the place. It's very, very scary".

The two groups of Arab males were discovered by patrol guards from Willcox, Arizona. "These guys didn't speak Spanish," said one field agent, "and they were speaking to each other in Arabic. It's ridiculous that we don't take this more seriously. We're told not to say a thing to the media." A colleague told the paper: "All the men had brand-new clothing and the exact same cut of moustache." Local ranchers have also reported a rise in the sightings of large groups of young males.

Last month, border patrol agents at McAllen airport, Texas, arrested a woman believed to be Pakistani, who was carrying a false South African passport. The woman, Farida Ahmed, is still being questioned by the FBI. She was travelling to New York, and admitted to having illegally crossed the Mexican border. She was still carrying a pair of wet jeans in her travel bag. [. . . . ]

On July 25, following a twelve-hour shootout, two South African Al Qaeda operatives were nabbed in Pakistan, along with Africa Embassy bombing suspect Ahmed Ghailani. According to reports, the pair was plotting attacks against a number of targets in South Africa, including the Johannnesburg Stock Exchange and the National Parliament in Cape Town.

These arrests highlight the growing threat posed by radical Islamists in South Africa. In addition to Al Qaeda’s increased presence within the country, South Africa’s government has closely allied itself with Iran and has largely ignored the spread of Islamic extremism within its borders.

Two months before the Pakistan arrests, the South African government revealed that security forces had thwarted an Al Qaeda plot to disrupt the country’s presidential election. South African terror suspects have even attempted to make their way into the U.S.

Just last week, a South African with suspicious travel documents was arrested in Mexico near the U.S. border. His links to Al Qaeda are currently being investigated. And on July 19, customs agents in Texas arrested Farida Goolam Mohamed Ahmed, a South African woman with a doctored passport. Like the man arrested last week, she is also being probed for possible Al Qaeda ties. In addition, immigration officials have been on the lookout for suspicious persons with South African travel documents ever since British authorities discovered hundreds of genuine blank South African passports during an anti-terrorism raid in London earlier this year.

While these developments underscore South Africa’s importance as a key node in the War on Terror, in fact, radical Islam has held a foothold in South Africa since at least the 1980’s. [. . . . ]

[. . . . ] Eight countries wrapped up intensive joint training Sunday, giving an Associated Press photographer an exclusive spot on the USS Crommelin, where Panamanian officials helped U.S. and Colombian sailors identify suspicious ships that were boarded and searched for weapons.

Three countries - the United States, Panama and Chile - staged similar naval exercises a year ago.

This year, the number of participants grew to include Argentina, Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Panama, Peru and the United States. Ecuador sent observers.

For days, military and security officials searched ships and scoured Pacific and Caribbean waters for signs of suspicious activity.

An attack on the canal would deal a huge blow to global trade. In 2003, boats making more than 13,000 trips through the waterway carried about 188 million long tons of cargo.

[. . . . ] In April 2001, a suspected al-Qaida figure identified as Adnan Gulshair El Shukrijumah arrived in Panama legally from the United States and stayed for 10 days, said Panama's security council chief, Ramiro Jarvis.


Immigration records show that El Shukrijumah then apparently returned to the United States, Panama Interior Department spokesman David Salayandia said. Authorities have been looking for him since. [. . . . ]

Executive Summary

"Terrorism Investments of the 50 States" is the first national security-based statistical analysis of the investment patterns of America's public pension funds. This report proves empirically that this nation's largest and most prominent public pension systems tend to be heavily invested in global publicly traded companies that have business activities in terrorist-sponsoring states. [footnote 1 -- Link to the original for the footnotes.]

Together, these funds invest over $1 trillion in stock alone [footnote 2] on behalf of this country's fire fighters, police officers, teachers, state and local officials and other public employees, making this collection of funds one of the most powerful investment blocks in the world. Given this extraordinary financial influence and the important role played by public companies in the economies of terrorist-sponsoring states[3],the Center for Security Policy has reached a key finding: America's 100 largest and most prominent pension systems have the power to help defeat terrorism.

From the pension system of this country's smallest state, Rhode Island, which has close to $400 million invested in 41 companies that are active in terrorist-sponsoring states, to America's largest public pension system -- the California Public Employees Retirement System -- which has over $17 billion invested in 201 such companies, the results were remarkably uniform:

On average, America's Top 100 pension systems invest between 15 and 23 percent of their portfolio in companies that do business in terrorist-sponsoring states.[4]

[. . . . ] * On average, the Top 100 public funds were invested in: 73 companies doing business in Iran; 24 companies doing business in Libya; 26 companies doing business in Sudan; 31 companies doing business in Syria; and 9 companies doing business in North Korea.

* On average, the Top 100 pension systems were invested in 17 companies that did business with Saddam Hussein's Iraq prior to the war. [There are other examples. ]

[. . . . ] In a recent letter to the Executive Directors of the same Top 100 pension systems assessed herein, Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) left little doubt as to the moral responsibility of our nation's pension systems to help defeat terrorism. According to the Senator, "It is uncon-scionable for our country's public pension systems to permit investment in companies that provide revenues, advanced equipment and technology to countries that threaten our vital security interests." [. . . . ]

What kind of terrorist attacks do security forces and delegates to the upcoming Republican National Convention in New York need to prepare for most? No one can say for sure, but several possibilities seem to stand out as more obvious threats to try and guard against.

There is good reason to hope that the capture of key al-Qaida operatives in Britain and elsewhere may well have saved the upcoming RNC at Madison Square Garden later this month from ambitious and horrific terrorist attacks. But in the war of ghosts and shadows that U.S. intelligence and its global allies are now waging, no one can ever be sure of anything. [. . . . ]

U.S. intelligence officials say al-Qaida is increasingly using non-Arab scouts, both male and female, some of whom pose as Christians, USA Today said Monday.

"The FBI has their eye on or has opened several hundred investigations of people sympathetic to or supportive of" al-Qaida, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said. "There was a legitimate concern right after (Sept. 11) that the face of international terrorism was basically from the Middle East. We know differently."

Three other security officials who did not want to be identified said the cells are mostly based on east-coast states, including New York, New Jersey, Delaware and Virginia. There are known cells also in Michigan and California. [. . . . ]

[. . . . ] The root problem is that the United States has the silly provincial belief that, in the fight against world AIDS, it should be able to spend its own money as it sees fit. (It wants no special privilege in this regard. The US believes every nation should give its charity in the manner it believes best addresses the problem.) But this is an issue for many activists, since the US contribution is approximately two thirds of the entire World effort.

So vyou can see why AIDS activists are so angry at the US: it is giving twice as much money to their cause as France, Italy, Spain, Britain, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Belgium, Ireland, Japan, China, Australia, Russia, Canada, Taiwan, and the rest of the world combined.

This would seem like a good thing, but it's not, since it means that if France wants to do big things in the AIDS World, it has to first commandeer the US AIDS Relief fund. The only other alternative would be for France to give more of its own money. Likewise, if you belong to a non-governmental organization with ambitions to public health grandeur, you too may be frustrated in your plans by the fact that you bring little to the table other than an absolute confidence in your own moral superiority.

One of the main points of contention in the subtle "you're-too-stupid-to-spend-your-own-money" argument being waged against America, is the US insistence that the patents on AIDS drugs be respected, especially when the money buying these drugs is American in origin. Indeed, France's President, Jacque Chirac, called such US action "tantamount to Blackmail".

[. . . . ] The morally superior plan supported by those that would control America's money, is to allow anyone with a bathtub and a barrel of chemicals, anywhere in the world, to produce any AIDS drug they want in whatever quantity they want, without the companies that spent several billion dollars discovering these drugs receiving so much as a Happy Meal toy in return.

This is a crisis, it is argued, and in times of crisis, private property must often be commandeered. This is a legitimate point and one the US should well remember should we ever be denied access to the oil fields of the Arabian Peninsula. But it ignores the fact that, traditionally, when private property is commandeered from friends and allies, they are normally compensated for it afterwards. France, I am sure, saw its share of battlefield receipts issued when the American Government was dealing with a crisis there a few decades back. [. . . . ]

Press Release

Source: Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia, Information Office

WASHINGTON, Aug. 13 /PRNewswire/ -- The Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington DC has issued the following statement:

On August 10, 2004, The New York Sun published an article by Daniel Pipes entitled 'The Saudis' Covert P.R. Campaign.' The article speculates that Saudi Arabia pays five Middle East experts to speak on its behalf as part of a program to educate Americans about U.S./Saudi relations. This is absolutely not true. . . .

[. . . . ] This release was in response to a story that Daniel Pipes wrote this week for the New York Sun.

Let me respond, on the record, since I was one faculty member contacted by the Saudis’ P.R. firm, urging that I offer a forum to their speakers.

I am a professor of political science at the University of Chicago and co-director of a speakers program at the University, the Program on International Politics, Economics, and Security. In connection with this speakers program, I was contacted by several times by Saudi P.R. firms, urging me to take speakers on their behalf. The calls and e-mails came from Sarah Burleson, as associate of the Chicago P.R. firm of Adelstein and Associates, which (she told me) is doing this work in connection with the Saudi’s Washington P.R. firm, Qorvis Communications. She made clear that this is part of a broader Saudi initiative to secure placements for friendly speakers at universities and other public forums. The e-mail to me announced this Saudi-sponsored program:

[. . . . ] Taking the Saudi government press release at face value, these speakers are actually turning down a normal academic honoraria in order to speak for free on behalf of the Saudi P.R. firm. Apparently, these senior figures spend days flying around the country, speaking on behalf of a major Saudi P.R. initiative, while turning down compensation from the venues that host them, from the Saudis themselves, and from the Saudi P.R. firms. One obvious question is whether they are compensated by any other Saudi-based or Saudi-funded institutions “for these activities.” The press release mentions only the government and the P.R. firms. Another question is whether these speakers have other financial ties to the Saudi government, Saudi businesses, or Saudi-funded philanthropies that pay them for other activities closely tied to their seemingly unpaid speeches, such as “consulting.” That is, these “free” speeches might be compensated indirectly through payments for other Saudi-related activities. [. . . . ]

Hillary Clinton is flying high within the Democratic Party as a marquee star that many hope will launch a presidential run in 2008 or 2012 or join up as a vice presidential contender. But previously unknown federal documents outlining potentially serious election law violations could spell trouble for the junior senator from New York and some high-fliers in the Democratic Party.

At the same time, according to legal and federal law enforcement sources who have spoken to Insight on condition of anonymity, the failure to pursue alleged wrongdoing by Clinton's senatorial campaign in 2000 and among a variety of party and White House officials involved in fundraising at the time raises questions about the integrity of the Justice Department which has failed to bring indictments against key players in Hollywood, Washington, New York and Florida despite mounting evidence.

At the center in much of this legal thicket is Peter Franklin Paul, a colorful figure and former international lawyer who spent time in jail in the 1970's for cocaine possession and an elaborate scheme that scammed Cuban dictator Fidel Castro out of $8 million. Paul subsequently became a successful businessman in Miami, Fla., and then in Los Angeles, Calif., where he co-founded along with legendary comic book creator Stan Lee the Stan Lee Media company (SLM). [. . . . ]

[. . . . ] In the past few years, a growing number of complaints have hit my desk -- everything from a poor gentleman who found a scam artist had sold his mortgage-free home after stealing the title -- to consumers complaining about losing their deposits after being misled by their agent and mortgage broker.

In 2001 alone, real estate fraud is estimated to cost $300 million in Canada, up from $73 million in 1999, according to the Canadian Institute of Mortgage Broker and Lenders.

"Organized fraud rings appear to be masterminding the scams, while local 'mules' actually carry them out," said Decker.


In a nutshell, here's how identity theft fraud works:

One fraudster assumes the identity of the home's registered owners, stealing the title to the deed -- while another assumes the identity of a prospective purchaser.
The fraudsters make up phony purchase and sale agreements and deliver them to separate lawyers. The phony buyer then secures mortgage financing.

The deal is consummated. And they walk away with proceeds of the crime (the mortgage money) -- only to commit the crime again.

[. . . . ] Another scam is valuation fraud, known as the Oklahoma. [. . . . ]