Wealthy Businessman Linked to Congo Gold Smuggling Jet [Wait for It] ‘Was Recently Appointed to an Advisory Post in the Obama Administration’
February 23rd, 2011Update: Kenyan Killed in Congo Gold Smuggling Probe
Via: Reuters:
A senior Kenyan official has been shot dead while investigating gold smuggling from eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Kenyan police said on Monday.
Eric Kiraithe, a police spokesman, said the man was an official at Kenya’s Revenue Authority.
“We have not arrested any suspects involved in gold smuggling but we have identified three Kenyans who are part of the cartels involved in gold smuggling,” he said.
Police commissioner Matthew Iteere told reporters an investigation had been launched into the shooting.
Kenyan media said the official was shot by four armed men at the weekend while he was sitting in his car, waiting for the gate to his house to be opened.
They said he was leading the investigation into the discovery of two and a half tonnes of gold worth about $100 million.
An unnamed official in Democratic Republic of Congo’s North Kivu province told Reuters last week that “large amounts” of gold from eastern Congo had been recovered in Nairobi and Tanzania’s Dar es Salaam.
Congo’s government has not confirmed the smuggling.
Three provinces in Congo’s east are subject to a mining ban imposed last year by President Joseph Kabila to weed out what he called the “mafia groups” controlling the mineral trade.
A United Nations report published last year said the gold trade in North and South Kivu provinces was worth around $160 million per year, with at least 80 percent of it smuggled illegally out of the country.
Earlier this month seven foreigners were arrested in the eastern city of Goma on suspicion of trying to smuggle hundreds of kilograms of gold from the country.
—End Update—
Via: Houston Chronicle:
A private jet that flew four international businessmen to the Democratic Republic of the Congo where they are being held on gold-smuggling allegations was provided by CAMAC International, a Houston oil-trading company owned by one of the city’s richest men and a brother of one of the passengers.
Kase Lawal, a Nigerian-born immigrant who has overseen CAMAC’s rise to a $2.4 billion private company — said to be the second-largest black-owned business in the U.S. — and who was recently appointed to an advisory post in the Obama administration, is the half-brother of Mukaila Aderemi “Mickey” Lawal, who was detained along with fellow Houstonian Carlos St. Mary and two other businessmen as their plane was preparing to depart from Goma, a city in the mineral-laden eastern half of Congo.
The country recently banned the export of gold and other key minerals in an attempt to decriminalize its mining industries.
A CAMAC spokesman would not explain why Mickey Lawal, a 50-year-old company executive in charge of Nigerian operations, was on the plane or what his role in the transaction may have been.
He also did not say why CAMAC allowed the Gulfstream it leases from a Dallas company to be used in the mysterious mission, which ended on Feb. 3 when Congolese intelligence police arrested the men and flight crew, impounded the plane and seized almost $7 million in U.S. dollars, and gold bars valued at some $20 million.
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Kase Lawal, 56, came to the U.S. in the 1970s and earned degrees from Texas Southern University and Prairie View A&M.
Well-connected politically to members of both major parties, he was named by President Barack Obama to the Advisory Committee on Trade Policy and Negotiations.
Highest Gas Prices in February Since 1990
February 23rd, 2011Via: ABC News:
Weekly gas prices skyrocketed, according to the Department of Energy, driven by the popular revolts spreading across the Middle East.
The U.S. weekly average price per gallon is $3.19, up 54 cents from a year ago, and slightly higher than last week’s $3.14. This was the highest price posted during the month of February since 1990, when the data became available. The most expensive regions again are New England at $3.23 and California at $3.56.
Oil settled at $93.57 in New York trading, up 8.5 percent since Friday’s close, the biggest one day jump in nearly three years.
Seattle-Area Restaurant Refuses to Serve TSA Agents
February 23rd, 2011Via: Consumerist:
Fed up with what he views as crappy treatment from the TSA, the owner of a restaurant near Seattle-Tacoma International Airport has decided to put all TSA agents on his No-Eat List.
“We have posted signs on our doors basically saying that they aren’t allowed to come into our business,” one employee tells travel journalist Christopher Elliott. “We have the right to refuse service to anyone.”
She says that whenever a TSA agent attempts to dine at the restaurant, “we turn our backs and completely ignore them, and tell them to leave… Their kind aren’t welcomed in our establishment.”
Research Credit: Pookie
Not Confirmed: Gaddafi Has Ordered Security Services to Start Sabotaging Oil Facilities
February 23rd, 2011Note: The source of this information is a Robert Baer, a former CIA case officer. Batteries not included. Your mileage may vary.
Monitoring…
Via: Time:
There’s been virtually no reliable information coming out of Tripoli, but a source close to the Gaddafi regime I did manage to get hold of told me the already terrible situation in Libya will get much worse. Among other things, Gaddafi has ordered security services to start sabotaging oil facilities. They will start by blowing up several oil pipelines, cutting off flow to Mediterranean ports. The sabotage, according to the insider, is meant to serve as a message to Libya’s rebellious tribes: It’s either me or chaos.
U.S. Government Pays HBGary for Rootkits
February 22nd, 2011Via: Ars Technica:
In 2009, HBGary had partnered with the Advanced Information Systems group of defense contractor General Dynamics to work on a project euphemistically known as “Task B.” The team had a simple mission: slip a piece of stealth software onto a target laptop without the owner’s knowledge.
Research Credit: RJ
TSA Agent Able to Smuggle Handgun Through Enhanced-Imaging Body Scanners Without Fail
February 22nd, 2011Via: NBC:
An undercover TSA agent was able to get through security at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport with a handgun during testing of the enhanced-imaging body scanners, according to a high-ranking, inside source at the Transportation Security Administration.
The source said the undercover agent carried a pistol in her undergarments when she put the body scanners to the test. The officer successfully made it through the airport’s body scanners every time she tried, the source said.
…
The TSA insider who blew the whistle on the test also said that none of the TSA agents who failed to spot the gun on the scanned image were disciplined. The source said the agents continue to work the body scanners today.
Army Wants Rapid-Fire Rubber Bullets for Crowd Control
February 22nd, 2011Via: New Scientist:
THE US army is planning to field “rubber bullets” for machine guns. Military officials claim the ammunition will allow them to more effectively quell violent protests without loss of life, but human rights campaigners are alarmed by the new weapon.
The final design for the XM1044 round has not been selected, according to an order placed on the Federal Business Opportunities website last month, but the army’s Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate has been working on a ring aerofoil projectile for some years. The round is a hollow plastic cylinder 40 millimetres across, looking something like a short toilet-paper roll. In flight its shape generates lift, giving it a longer range.
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Firing rapidly at long range is likely to be dangerously inaccurate, says Angela Wright of Amnesty International. “Such a weapon system would allow for a burst of non-accurate fire at a crowd, with high risk of hitting bystanders, ricochets and of hitting vulnerable areas of the body,” she says.
Despite being hollow and plastic, if a round were to strike someone in the head, it could severely injure or kill them, she adds.
Research Credit: neverwas
Cables Show China Used Debt Holdings to Press U.S.
February 22nd, 2011Duh.
Via: AFP:
Leaked diplomatic cables vividly show China’s willingness to translate its massive holdings of US debt into political influence on issues ranging from Taiwan’s sovereignty to Washington’s financial policy.
China’s clout — gleaned from its nearly $900 billion stack of US debt — has been widely commented on in the United States, but sensitive cables show just how much influence Beijing has and how keen Washington is to address its rival’s concerns.
Iranian Warships Enter Suez Canal
February 22nd, 2011Monitoring…
Via: Bloomberg:
Iranian warships have begun crossing the Suez Canal for the first time since 1979 as Israel stressed its objection to their planned voyage to Syria.
The two ships entered the canal early today after the approval of Egypt’s Defense Ministry, the state-run Middle East News Agency cited Ahmed El Manakhly, head of traffic at the Suez Canal Authority, as saying. The crossing usually takes 10 to 12 hours, El Manakhly said.
Home Prices Still Falling, ‘Expect Further Declines This Year’
February 22nd, 2011Via: AP:
Home prices in a majority of major U.S. cities tracked by a private trade group have fallen to their lowest levels since the housing bubble burst, and analysts expect further declines this year.
The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller 20-city home price index fell 1 percent in December from November. Prices fell in all but one of the metropolitan markets tracked.
The only city to see a gain was Washington, where hiring by the federal government has helped boost the region’s job market.
