| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
© 2007 Independent Media Institute |
Friday, December 19, 2008
Army's Deadly Theme Park | Fox News Hires Racist Cop | Recession Threatens Ritzy Weddings
Africa News Today (AN/Today): Top 50 British footballers of 2008 - You won't find Rio Ferdinand, Frank Lampard or John Terry here.
Top 50 British footballers of 2008
( Paul Harding/Action Images)
No 50: Nikki Bull
You won't find Rio Ferdinand, Frank Lampard or John Terry here. We've tried to give the little-known and the under-rated their due by concentrating on those who have enhanced their reputations this year. The kind of footballers who took their game to the next level in 2008, no matter what level it was before.
(PA) - No 1: Gareth Barry
(IAN KINGTON/AFP) - No 2: Ashley Young
(Glyn Kirk/AFP) - No 3: Theo Walcott
(PA) - Fraizer Campbell
Click on the blue links to see the players in action
50. Nikki Bull
That Aldershot secured their return to the Football League at a canter last season was in no small part down to their excellent goalkeeper, the non-league player of the year, even if the spelling of his first name suggests he should be in a boyband.
49. Jamie Ward
The diminutive 22-year-old Chesterfield forward is bang in form, having notched 15 goals already this term, bettering his total from last season by three. Linked with a move to greater things.
48. Rickie Lambert
Archetype of a lower-league hit-man, the 26-year-old Liverpudlian has scored 27 goals in the calendar year 2008 for little Bristol Rovers, including the winner in the FA Cup against Southampton.
47. Freddie Sears
There was genuine excitement among West Ham fans at the 19-year-old's debut in March: a local lad, from Hornchurch, brought up through the club's academy. And he scored the winner on his debut against Blackburn to cement the bond, though no goals since.
46. Leon Osman
It's hard to praise the Everton man without seemingly patronising him: a hard worker, reliable, solid – the definition of an unsung hero. Unless there are any Leon Osman songs out there that I'm not aware of. Became a Goodison essential in 2008.
45. Fraizer Campbell
Juande Ramos appeared nonplussed when the striker arrived at Tottenham on loan as part of the deal that sent Dimitar Berbatov the other way, but Hull fans appreciate Campbell, whose goals last season were a key reason why they are now in the top-flight.
44. Jose Baxter
This Everton kid has a marvellous Spanish meets British name, the equivalent of a paella-and-chips supper. More to the point, his performances in the reserves and in a handful of first-team games suggest that Arsenal don't have a monopoly on talented youngsters.
43. Jack Rodwell
The tall defender or midfield player is a prodigy. He made his Everton debut aged just 16 at the end of 2007 and has since made five starts and four substitute appearances in the league for the club.
42. Chris Gunter
Nine caps for Wales aged just 19, the full back was so good in just 20 league starts for Cardiff that Spurs paid £2 million for him.
41. Ched Evans
Fulham v Manchester City, December 6: Benjani is substituted. On comes a 19-year-old Welsh striker with a handful of appearances, while £18 million-worth of Brazil international in the shape of Jo is left on the bench.
40. Rory Delap
The Stoke City midfield player makes the list for his delicate first touch, his step-overs and his Cruyff turns. Oh, alright then, for his throw-ins. Let's not do him a disservice, though, he has 11 caps for Ireland.
39. Ross Turnbull
Perhaps the lowest-profile goalkeeper in the Premier League, but he must be doing something right for Gareth Southgate to have entrusted him with the goalkeeper's jersey after Mark Schwarzer left Middlesbrough for Fulham in the summer.
38. Chris Brunt
Tony Mowbray paid £3 million to Sheffield Wednesday to sign the Northern Ireland international last season and the creative wide-man, capable of scoring spectacular goals, had a fine year, even if, in common with his West Brom teammates, this term is a bit of a pain.
37. Jamie O'Hara
Born in 1950 in Toledo, as half of The O'Kanes he enjoyed seven singles on the Billboard Hot Country chart. Wait – that's the wrong Jamie O'Hara. This one's soon going to be more famous, because on this season's evidence the young midfield player has a lovely left foot and a tenacious attitude.
36. Carlton Cole
Seriously? Carlton Cole? OK, in the scoring stakes he makes Emile Heskey look like Gerd Muller, but Cole merits inclusion for the way he recovered from vitriolic abuse from "his own fans" in the first part of last season to win over the Cockney critics at Upton Park.
35. Michael Johnson
Common name, uncommon talent: Johnson broke into the Manchester City side last season and impressed to such an extent that he was linked with a move to Arsenal, though injuries have hampered him in this campaign and at 20, he's probably too old for Arsene Wenger.
34. James Morrison
The former Middlesbrough midfield player, now with West Brom, represented England for every level except the senior side, and well and truly burnt his bridges with the Three Lions when he pulled on a Scotland shirt for the first time in May.
33. Ross McCormack
The 22-year-old Glaswegian, signed by Cardiff on a free from Motherwell, has had a brilliant start to his Ninian Park career, with 13 goals in just 17 league starts this season.
32. Steven Taylor
The defender is that rare thing, something for Newcastle fans to be optimistic about. The England under-21s mainstay, now 22, has been a lynchpin at the back even as all tumbles around him.
31. Kevin Thomson
Tipped by Mark Hateley as a future Rangers captain, the midfield player made his Scotland debut in August and formed an effective partnership for his club with Pedro Mendes, but a knee injury suffered in November has ruled him out until next season.
30. Paul Robinson
After a nightmarish couple of years, the goalkeeper enjoyed a mini-resurgence in 2008 and returned to the England squad, even though he had to move from Spurs to Blackburn to start rebuilding his belief. And my, hasn't he been busy lately.
Memorable name, memorable player: the former Manchester United trainee, only 22, banged the goals in at Plymouth, securing him a £1.5 million move to Wolves in January. And 27 goals in the calendar year 2008 is not too shabby.
28. Fabian Delph
Top-flight scouts are queuing up to take a peek at this versatile, energetic, committed attacking midfield player - the best young player to emerge at Leeds United since Aaron Lennon.
27. Adam Johnson
Real Madrid tracking Middlesbrough winger? Must be Stewart Downing. But no, apparently the Spanish giants are keeping an eye on the progress of Johnson, a 21-year-old from Sunderland who has only a handful of starts for Boro.
26. Christophe Berra
The 23-year-old Hearts defender with French ancestry got the call from George Burley rather than Raymond Domenech this year, winning his first two Scotland caps. His reputation is growing and he has been linked with a £3m move to the Premier League.
25. Joe Ledley
Signs are that Cardiff will struggle to keep hold of the £6 million-rated Wales international midfield player, 22 in January. He scored the goal against Barnsley at Wembley that sent Cardiff to the FA Cup Final.
24. Chris Iwelumo
Let's put aside his comical miss on his Scotland debut and say: Iwelumo, Scotland debut? He must be doing something right. And he certainly is. The Wolves striker is a target man in the Emile Heskey mould – except he's prolific!
23. Jack Wilshere
Lewis Hamilton, Ashley Young, the ginger kid from the Harry Potter films - sons of Stevenage are enjoying great success. The 16-year-old midfield player has already featured in the league and Champions League for Arsenal, as well as, naturally, the Carling Cup.
22. Joe Lewis
At the start of 2007-08 the young goalkeeper went on loan to Morecambe to find first-team action. He did so well that Peterborough signed him from Norwich for £400,000, and, remarkably, he was called into the full England squad for last summer's friendlies. A future star.
21. Aaron Ramsey
The child from Caerphilly cost Arsenal £5 million. And it looks well spent at this stage, with the versatile 17-year-old (18 on Boxing Day) already playing his part, even starting in Europe.
20. Scott Brown
The former Hibernian man has become a regular in the Celtic midfield, with his defensive attributes to the fore, also featuring frequently for Scotland.
19. Joe Hart
The 19-year-old is already Manchester City's first choice and made his England debut against Trinidad & Tobago last summer, even though it is clear he has a fair bit to learn if he is to dislodge David James as the country's number one.
18. Mark Wilson
Bizarrely uncapped for the senior Scottish side despite representing the country at all junior levels and captaining the under-21s, yet the left or right back has just been awarded a new contract by Celtic as recognition for his fine year.
17. Darren Bent
To think that in the summer of 2007, Bent cost more than Barcelona paid for Thierry Henry. At least this season he has begun to justify some of that £16.5 million price tag, as Spurs discovered that the striker they were forced to play because of a lack of alternatives is not so bad after all.
16. Danny Murphy
After moving from Charlton to Spurs in 2006, the former England midfield player looked washed-up – at the ripe old age of 29. But since joining Fulham and playing regularly he has been quietly effective. And he scored the goal that kept the Cottagers up at Fratton Park in May.
15. Boaz Myhill
With Hull roaring high up the Premier League this season, Myhill making some fine saves and there being a dearth of non-dodgy English goalkeepers, isn't it time Capello looked at Myhill? No, actually, he's Welsh-American. Oh well.
14. Glen Johnson
With Micah Richards injured or inept and Gary Neville out of action for most of the year, is the toilet-seat thief now the best English right back in the nation? Improved vastly from his early days at Chelsea, when he was frankly useless.
13. Michael Turner
If he wasn't playing for Hull, chances are there would be more of an England buzz being generated by the 25-year-old centre back's performances this term. But with each good performance by the Tigers, more praise is heaped on him.
12. Jermain Defoe
Has hotted up since he stopped warming the Spurs bench, with 19 goals since he moved to Portsmouth in January, three of those for England. Looks a bona fide international-calibre striker again.
11. Gary Cahill
Cahill is what Arsenal need: an old-fashioned, tough, commanding centre back who eschews nonsense in any shape or form. The £5 million Gary Megson paid in January to bring him to Bolton Wanderers was a huge factor in keeping them up.
10. Dean Windass
Scoring Hull's winner in the Coca-Cola Championship play-off final was the worst thing he could have done for his playing time, as Phil Brown appears to think that the Premier League isn't much of a place for 39-year-old strikers. But what a winner and what a story for the local legend.
9. Emile Heskey
Expected to be hotly pursued in January, yet how many goals has the forward scored in 2008? Six. But his value to England and Wigan as a big bloke who distracts defenders and wins headers is evident - so that 2007 international recall was not a freak moment of Steve McClaren madness after all.
8 James Milner
"He's the future, my future," Capello said this week of the most-capped player in England under-21s history, so expect the Villa winger to make his first international appearance before long - reward for some lively displays this year, though he may only be England's fifth-choice right winger after Walcott, Wright-Phillips, Bentley and Beckham.
Football's favourite fisherman and cheeky chappie even earnt a call-up to the England squad this season, though a man with the sartorial elegance of Fabio Capello is very unlikely to make someone with hair like Bullard's a mainstay of the midfield.
6. Robert Green
Given David James' erratic nature and the generally average performances of most his compatriots you could make a case for the West Ham United man being the best English goalkeeper of 2008. Unless you were Fabio Capello.
His remarkable off-field adventures, as detailed in the Sunday tabloids, did not distract the Aston Villa forward this year. He won his first England cap thanks to some devastating examples of the pacy striker's art.
Arsene Wenger, make a mistake? Selling Upson certainly looks like one. That said, the defender is far more accomplished – and less injury-prone – than he was in 2003 when Arsenal let him go. Rightly called into the England squad by Capello.
3. Theo Walcott
Underwhelming for the first half of 2008, but all that was forgotten as the teenager devastated Croatia in September with a brilliant hat-trick. Remains inconsistent, and presently injured, but this was the year that Walcott proved himself as a bona fide star.
2. Ashley Young
"World-class," his manager called him after the winger-cum-forward scored twice against Everton. And now, with four England caps to his name, the 23-year-old is well on the way to proving Martin O'Neill right.
1. Gareth Barry
For a player who spent nearly four years out of the international reckoning between 2003 and 2007, the Aston Villa midfield player is suddenly indispensable: he appeared in all ten of England's games under Fabio Capello. And rightly so, as he is one of the Premier League's best players, eh, Rafa?
Contact our advertising team for advertising and sponsorship in Times Online, The Times and The Sunday Times, or place your advertisement.
Africa News Today (AN/Today): Three near-invisible drawings discovered on back of Da Vinci masterpiece - Infra-red photography revealed drawings of a horse's head
Three near-invisible drawings discovered on back of Da Vinci masterpiece
(Jean-Louis Bellec/AFP/Getty Images) - The sketches were spotted on the back of Leonardo da Vinci's Virgin And Child With St Anne
(C2RMF/E.Lambert/Handout/Reuters) - Infra-red photography revealed drawings of a horse's head
Africa News Today (AN/Today): Pictures: Barack Obama as a college freshman
Pictures: Barack Obama as a college freshman
(Lisa Jack/Time)
Taken in 1980, the picture shows Barack Obama as a college freshman
Image :1 of 3
Time magazine: person of the year - see more pictures
Cigarette clamped between thumb and finger, a louche Barack Obama leans back with smouldering eyes and draws smoke deep into his lungs.
When he agreed to model for an aspiring photographer's portfolio, the prospect of this image reemerging 28 years later as he prepared to enter the White House probably never crossed his mind.
Back then he was a student at Occidental College in Los Angeles struggling with his racial identity and, by his own admission, experimenting with drugs. These days he can claim to be the fittest President-elect in history, working out six days a week with a gym regime that some suspect borders on the obsessive. But he is still trying to kick cigarettes.
Time magazine, naming Mr Obama as its Person of the Year, yesterday published the long-lost pictures with the photographer, Lisa Jack, saying that they showed a "spirit of fun and thoughtfulness" in the President-elect.
The film, she said, was kept locked in a safe during the election campaign so that it could not be used for political purposes. Some polls have suggested that his smoking habit was a bigger barrier to him getting elected than the colour of his skin.
Although Mr Obama was careful to avoid being photographed smoking on the campaign trail, he has acknowledged in recent interviews that despite promising to quit "there were times where I have fallen off the wagon".
Under pressure from his wife, Michelle, Mr Obama claims that his daily intake has fallen from a peak of seven or eight to rare occasions when he has "bummed one" from an aide.
(Lisa Jack/Time) - The President elect posed for student photographer Lisa Jack at Occidental College in Los Angeles, California
(Lisa Jack/Time) - Ms Jack kept the images locked in a safe during the election campaign so they could not be used for political purposes
His battle with cigarettes is facing another deadline – January 20, Inauguration Day – because smoking is banned in the White House. Asked if he would be able to cope, Mr Obama said: "What I would say is that I have done a terrific job under the circumstances of making myself much healthier, and I think that you will not see any violations of these rules."
His daily routine now begins with a Secret Service convoy escorting him from his Chicago home to the Regents Park apartment building five blocks away to use the gym. Some suggest that his priority is physical, rather than spiritual, health. Mr Obama reportedly has not been to church since the election campaign ended, but he still finds time to exercise on Sundays.
In an interview with Men's Health magazine last month, he complained that the average 45 minutes a day he had spent working out during the campaign had been insufficient. In the past month Mr Obama has usually been in the gym for well over an hour. "The main reason I do it is just to clear my head and relieve me of stress. It's a great way to stay focused," he said.
Those who have seen the 47-year-old President-elect in action say that there is not an ounce of fat on him and that runners on adjacent treadmills have been unable to keep up. There have also been five-a-side basketball games with some of his closest aides.
Michael Lowe, Professor of Psychology at Drexel University in Philadelphia, who studies eating disorders, has said that although "it's hazardous to draw wide-ranging conclusions about someone's personality", exercising for more than an hour a day could be regarded as compulsive.
The website Gawker.com suggested that the incoming President's slender physique put him at odds with a nation where obesity has become widespread. "Barack Obama Shames Americans With His Elitist Body" read the headline.
Mr Obama has described pictures of his torso taken on the beach in Hawaii as embarrassing. But he may still prefer that image to one of him smoking while wearing a hat.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article5361432.ece
Africa News Today (AN/Today): Britain's oldest newlyweds: life begins at 80 About 400 people in their eighties get married each year in Britain. We meet John Dawkins, 89, and Penny Cooper, 90, who wed just three weeks ago
Britain's oldest newlyweds: life begins at 80
About 400 people in their eighties get married each year in Britain. We meet John Dawkins, 89, and Penny Cooper, 90, who wed just three weeks ago
Africa News Today (AN/Today): Can the name Hitler ever be neutral? - New Jersey, for refusing to waste their icing sugar writing Happy Birthday Adolf Hitler on a birthday cake.
Can the name Hitler ever be neutral?
Three cheers for the principled cake-makers of Holland Township, New Jersey, for refusing to waste their icing sugar writing Happy Birthday Adolf Hitler on a birthday cake. Little Adolf Hitler Campbell was apparently given his name because, as his brain-challenged father explained, no one else in the world would have it. And he can't see what the fuss is about: "Other kids get their cake," he complained. "I get a hard time. It's not fair to my children. How can a name be offensive?"
Maybe this'll give you a clue, Mr Campbell. Here's the account of the other Adolf Hitler's birthday celebrations in April, 1939. Along with the ghastly plywood swastikas and papier mache eagles, processions of SS cadets and the wearers of the infamous Blood Order, comes a telling little quote from Goebbels:
In a speech to the people broadcast this evening from all German stations the Minister of Propaganda, Dr Goebbels, said that there was no one on the globe who could remain indifferent to the name "Hitler." For some that name meant hope, faith, and future, for others it was the object of distorted hate, base lies, and cowardly calumny ...
Remains to be seen if nominative determinism - the idea that there is a link between people's names and their occupation (read Comment Central's ten examples) - will pay out in little Adolf's case, but with a sister called Aryan Nation you can bet his parents are hoping.
History doesn't relate whether big Hitler got a cake, but he was sung to sleep by the choir of his own SS bodyguard from the courtyard of the Chancery.
Africa News Today (AN/Today): In Clinton List, a Veil Is Lifted on Foundation By PETER BAKER and CHARLIE SAVAGE
In Clinton List, a Veil Is Lifted on Foundation
WASHINGTON — Former President Bill Clinton has collected tens of millions of dollars for his foundation over the last 10 years from governments in the Middle East, tycoons from Canada, India, Nigeria and Ukraine, and other international figures with interests in American foreign policy.
Lifting a longstanding cloak of secrecy, Mr. Clinton on Thursday released a complete list of more than 200,000 donors to his foundation as part of an agreement to douse concerns about potential conflicts if Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is confirmed as secretary of state in the Obama administration.
The donor list offers a glimpse into the high-powered, big-dollar world in which Mr. Clinton has traveled since leaving the White House as he jetted around the globe making money for himself and raising vast sums for his ambitious philanthropic programs fighting disease, poverty and climate change. Some of the world's richest people and most famous celebrities handed over large checks to finance his presidential library and charitable activities.
With his wife now poised to take over as America's top diplomat, Mr. Clinton's fund-raising is coming under new scrutiny for relationships that could pose potential conflict-of-interest issues for Mrs. Clinton in her job. Some of her husband's biggest backers have much at stake in the policies that President-elect Barack Obama's incoming administration adopts toward their regions or business ventures.
Saudi Arabia alone gave to the foundation $10 million to $25 million, as did government aid agencies in Australia and the Dominican Republic. Brunei, Kuwait, Norway, Oman, Qatar and Taiwan each gave more than $1 million. So did the ruling family of Abu Dhabi and the Dubai Foundation, both based in the United Arab Emirates, and the Friends of Saudi Arabia, founded by a Saudi prince.
Also among the largest donors were a businessman who was close to the onetime military ruler of Nigeria, a Ukrainian tycoon who was son-in-law of that former Soviet republic's authoritarian president and a Canadian mining executive who took Mr. Clinton to Kazakhstan while trying to win lucrative uranium contracts.
In addition, the foundation accepted sizable contributions from several prominent figures from India, like a billionaire steel magnate and a politician who lobbied Mrs. Clinton this year on behalf of a civilian nuclear cooperation agreement between India and the United States, a deal that has rankled Pakistan, a key foreign policy focus of the incoming administration.
Such contributions could provoke suspicion at home and abroad among those wondering about any effect on administration policy.
Matthew Levitt, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said donations from "countries where we have particularly sensitive issues and relations" would invariably raise concerns about whether Mrs. Clinton had conflicts of interest.
"The real question," Mr. Levitt said, "is to what extent you can really separate the activities and influence of any husband and wife, and certainly a husband and wife team that is such a powerhouse."
Mr. Clinton's office said in a statement that the disclosure itself should ensure that there would be "not even the appearance of a conflict of interest."
Stephanie Cutter, a spokeswoman for Mr. Obama, said the president-elect had chosen Mrs. Clinton for his cabinet because "no one could better represent the United States."
"Past donations to the Clinton foundation," Ms. Cutter said, "have no connection to Senator Clinton's prospective tenure as secretary of state."
Republicans have addressed the issue cautiously, suggesting that they would examine it but not necessarily hold up Mrs. Clinton's confirmation as a result. Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, the top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, which will consider her nomination, was in Russia on Thursday and unavailable for comment, according to Mr. Lugar's office.
But in an interview on Nov. 30 on "This Week" on ABC, Mr. Lugar said Mr. Clinton's activities would raise legitimate questions, adding, "I don't know how, given all of our ethics standards now, anyone quite measures up to this who has such cosmic ties."
Still, he indicated that he would vote for Mrs. Clinton and praised Mr. Obama's team for doing "a good job in trying to pin down the most important elements" in its agreement with Mr. Clinton.
To avoid potential conflicts, the Obama team, represented by its transition co-chairwoman, Valerie Jarrett, signed a memorandum of understanding on Dec. 12 with the William J. Clinton Foundation, represented by its chief executive, Bruce R. Lindsey. The five-page memorandum, provided to reporters on Thursday, required Mr. Clinton to disclose his past donors by the end of the year and any future contributors once a year.
The memorandum also requires that if Mrs. Clinton is confirmed, the Clinton Global Initiative, an offshoot of the foundation, will be incorporated separately, will no longer hold events outside the United States and will refuse any further contributions from foreign governments. Other initiatives operating under the auspices of the foundation would follow new rules and consult with State Department ethics officials in certain circumstances.
Federal law does not require former presidents to reveal foundation donors, and Mr. Clinton had until now declined to do so, arguing that many who gave expected confidentiality. Other former presidents have taken money from overseas sources, including President George Bush, whose son has sat in the Oval Office for the last eight years. The elder Mr. Bush has accepted millions of dollars from Saudi, Kuwaiti and other foreign sources for his own library.
Mr. Clinton's foundation has raised $500 million since 1997, growing into a global operation with 1,100 paid staff members and volunteers in 40 countries. It said it had provided medicine to 1.4 million people living with H.I.V./AIDS, helped dozens of cities reduce heat-trapping gases and worked to spread economic opportunity.
Mr. Clinton's advocates said that the disclosure on Thursday showed he had nothing to hide and that most of his largest contributors were already known.
Yet while unprecedented, the disclosure was also limited.
The list posted on the foundation's Web site — www.clintonfoundation.org — did not provide the nationality or occupation of the donors, the dates they contributed or the precise amounts of their gifts, instead breaking down contributors by dollar ranges. Nor did the list include pledges for future donations. As a result, it is impossible to know from the list which donations were made while Mr. Clinton was still president or while Mrs. Clinton was running for president.
Many benefactors are well-known Americans, like Stephen L. Bing; Alfonso Fanjul; Bill Gates; Tom Golisano, a billionaire who ran for New York governor; Rupert Murdoch; and Barbra Streisand. Bloomberg L.P., the financial media empire founded by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York, contributed, as did Freddie Mac, the mortgage company now partly blamed for the housing market collapse.
Another potentially sensitive donation came from Blackwater Training Center, part of the private security firm hired to protect American diplomats in Iraq. Five of its guards have been indicted for their roles in a 2007 shooting that left 17 Iraqi civilians dead.
The potential for appearances of conflict was illustrated by Amar Singh, a politician in India who gave $1 million to $5 million. Mr. Singh visited the United States in September to lobby for a deal allowing India to obtain civilian nuclear technology even though it never signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty. He met with Mrs. Clinton, who he said assured him that Democrats would not block the deal. Congress approved it weeks later.
Other donors have connections with India, a potential flashpoint because of tensions with Pakistan. Among them was Lakshmi Mittal, a steel magnate and, according to Forbes magazine, the fourth-richest person in the world. Mr. Mittal, who donated $1 million to $5 million, was involved in a scandal in 2002 in London, where he lives. After Mr. Mittal made a large donation to the Labor Party, Prime Minister Tony Blair helped him persuade Romania to sell him its state steel company.
Another donor was Gilbert Chagoury, a businessman close to Gen. Sani Abacha of Nigeria, widely criticized for a brutal and corrupt rule.
Mr. Chagoury tried during the 1990s to win favor for Mr. Abacha from the Clinton administration, contributing $460,000 to a voter registration group to which Democratic officials steered him, according to news accounts. He won meetings with National Security Council officials, including Susan E. Rice, who is now Mr. Obama's choice to be ambassador to the United Nations.
Popular Posts
-
During her years in Steps, Claire Richards gained the attention of male fans with her big smile, powerful voice and slimline physique. But a...
-
La rivendicazione fatta dal "Fronte rivouluzionario afgano" che ha chiesto il ritiro delle truppe francesi dal Paese + "La ...
-
View updated headlines in browser | Edit Profile Watch VOA's LIVE Coverage of the Final Presidential Debate 15 October (...
-
Difficulties reading this email? You can also check your Daily BabyScopes by clicking here . Please add babyscopes@rp.astrology.co...
-
Tuesday, December 16, 2008 Forward to a friend Home U.S. Elections '08 World ...
