text:
The fifth season of the reality television series _Basketball Wives_ aired on VH1 from August 19, 2013 until October 21, 2013.[1] The show was primarily filmed in Miami, Florida and New York, New York. It was executively produced by Nick Emmerson, Alex Demyanenko, Shaunie O'Neal, Jill Holmes, Tom Huffman, and Sean Rankine.

The show chronicles the lives of a group of women who are the wives and girlfriends, or have been romantically linked to, professional basketball players in the National Basketball Association, though the title of the series does not make this differentiation, solely referring to the women as “wives”.

Production

_Basketball Wives_ debuted on April 11, 2010, with thirty-minute episodes. The second season premiered on December 12, 2010, with expanded sixty-minute episodes and featured new cast member Tami Roman.[2] Season 3 made its debut on May 30, 2011, with new cast member Meeka Claxton.[3] The fourth season premiered on February 20, 2012, with two new cast members, Kenya Bell and Kesha Nichols and the departure of Claxton.[4] The fifth season premiered on August 19, 2013, with Tasha Marbury joining the cast.[5] According to a tweet from Tami Roman, the show has been quietly though officially cancelled.[6]

Cast

Main Cast

-   Tasha Marbury: Wife of Stephon Marbury
-   Suzie Ketcham: Ex-Girlfriend of Michael Olowokandi
-   Tami Roman: Ex-Wife of Kenny Anderson
-   Evelyn Lozada: Ex-Wife of Chad Ochocinco
-   Shaunie O'Neal: Ex-Wife of Shaquille O’Neal

Episodes

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

title: Basketball Wives (season 5)

question: Define Basketball Wives.

answer: It is a reality television series that chronicles the lives of a group of women who are the wives and girlfriends of basketball players in the National Basketball Association or NBA. The show doesn't differentiate and the women are all referred to as "wives."

question: What locations did the show film in?

answer: Miami, Florida and New York, New York

question: When did the show first air?

answer: The show's first season debuted on April 11, 2010.

question: Name the cast of Basketball Wives season 5.

answer:
- Tasha Marbury: Wife of Stephon Marbury
- Suzie Ketcham: Ex-Girlfriend of Michael Olowokandi
- Tami Roman: Ex-Wife of Kenny Anderson
- Evelyn Lozada: Ex-Wife of Chad Ochocinco
- Shaunie O'Neal: Ex-Wife of Shaquille O’Neal

question: Write a ~5 sentence summary.

answer: Basketball Wives is a reality television series that chronicles the lives of a group of women who are the wives and girlfriends of basketball players in the National Basketball Association or NBA. The show doesn't differentiate and the women are all referred to as "wives." The show was filmed on location in Miami and New York. Season 1 debuted on April 11, 2010, and the show lasted up to season 5 before it was officially canceled. Season 5's cast was led by Tasha Marbury, wife of Stephon Marbury, and Shaunie O'Neal, ex-wife of Shaquille O’Neal.


split: train

text:
Beijing Journal

[A dealer of Mao-era propaganda and antiques in his shop on the second floor of the Exhibition Hall at Panjiayuan, Beijing’s biggest antique and flea market.]

Credit...Gilles Sabrie for The New York Times

-   July 21, 2016

BEIJING — The vast antiques market is awash in jewelry, snuff bottles, old clocks, brass paperweights, ceramics, and slabs of jade of many hues and dubious quality. It has the same feel as flea markets all around the world that advertise antiquities but do not always deliver the real thing.

Yet when strolling through the Panjiayuan market, a huge open-air space in southeast Beijing, the question of whether the wares are authentic is beside the point. At its heart, the market is a raucous hub for unearthing the past 100 years or more of China’s turbulent past.

There are 20-foot-tall stone statues of Buddha, busts of Confucius, Ming-era lions and huge urns suitable for the gardens of a palace. There are old books, posters and vintage photographs.

Collectors of rare books and posters of China find gems in the ramshackle alleyways devoted to old paper items. Or they make discoveries in the more exclusive little shops in the grandly named Panjiayuan Exhibition Hall, a dowdy gray building that was added to the market in the last decade.

A favorite haunt of treasure hunters as well as Chinese and foreign tourists, the market was threatened with a shutdown this spring when the state company that manages it clashed with merchants over renting rights for tiny spaces — often amounting to a patch of ground measuring just 4 feet by 6 feet.

Image[Stalls at the Panjiayuan market.]

Credit...Gilles Sabrie for The New York Times

Scuffles broke out between the police and some vendors. Many stalls closed in protest over rumors about plans to move the market to a spot in Hebei Province, 160 miles to the west.

Then the vice mayor of the city, Li Shixiang, backed off, and said about 1,000 of the estimated 4,000 stalls would be closed as part of a plan to upgrade the market, an idea that goes against the popular grain.

Most fans agree that a raffish spirit is one of Panjiayuan’s most appealing features. It remains a standout from the city’s gaudy malls that sell silk, pearls and fake designer goods.

The vendors are standing firm against the city’s edicts, insisting they will not budge. And the buyers keep coming.

“I have been here since 1995,” said Ren Guibin, 55, as he sat in his book-lined nook with glass-fronted cabinets in the more upscale section of the exhibition hall. “I am not moving. My customers know where to find me.”

Behind his desk, a framed poster of a young Chinese woman — her cheeks flushed with enthusiasm, her hair tied back and her arm thrust skyward in a revolutionary salute — leaned against the wall. It was one of his prize pieces from the Cultural Revolution, the period from 1966 to 1976 when Mao Zedong’s Red Guards were in the vanguard.

Image

Credit...Gilles Sabrie for The New York Times

“I was offered $25,000 for it, but I turned it down,” Mr. Ren said. Even though he had owned the poster for eight years, he was in no rush to sell it.

That is because a wealthy Chinese collector of Cultural Revolution memorabilia prepared to pay more would be sure to buy it, he said. The recent surge of patriotism combined with astonishing new wealth has created a new kind of buyer: the serious and affluent Chinese collector.

“Twenty years ago, Americans bought all this Cultural Revolution stuff. It was like buying cabbage for them, it was so cheap. Now rich Chinese are going to buy it all back.”

Down the corridor, another vendor was doing business with Marien van der Heijden, of the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam, which owns a large collection of Chinese propaganda posters that is displayed on chineseposters.net.

By midmorning, Mr. van der Heijden, a visitor here for the past 15 years, had amassed about 50 posters, neatly rolled inside a fat tube to hand carry back to Europe.

His best find of the morning was something quite rare: a poster of young Chinese women getting ready for work in the 1950s, a period of poster art when the style was more casual than the high social realism of the Cultural Revolution.

“In the ’50s posters you see human beings, not robots,” he said. “In the early ’50s you even see ugly people. I am always looking for posters with individuality and humanity.”

In the more unprepossessing stalls in the outdoor section of the market, books are scattered on the ground in disorderly piles, and vendors sit at the back keeping an eye on their displays from small stools just six inches off the ground.

Ruben Lundgren, a Dutch photographer who has lived in Beijing for a dozen years, scoured the stalls looking for photography books of the last days of the Qing dynasty, the Kuomintang years, and the various phases of Communist rule.

Many of the books he found illustrate a coffee-table production called “The Chinese Photobook,” published in New York last year by Aperture. It describes and depicts the changing styles of Chinese photo books with many examples from the post-1949 Communist era.

“In the 1980s, after the Cultural Revolution, there was a massive flow of books onto the market,” he said. “Libraries that had been closed in the ’60s and ’70s just pushed books onto the market for very little.”

In the past few years, rare books in mint condition have been harder to find at Panjiayuan. The best often get sent to auction, where they fetch higher prices.

Image

Credit...Gilles Sabrie for The New York Times

Still, on a recent visit Mr. Lundgren uncovered the photo book of the funeral of Premier Zhou Enlai, who died in 1976, a good find because of the more candid style of photography.

At another stall, in the back row of books haphazardly piled on the ground, he unearthed a highly stylized propaganda volume of color photos of Chinese soldiers who served in the Korean War.

Kang Xuesong, a former news photographer, runs a popular shop for old photographs of China called Da Kang Photography Studio. He embarked on a new profession 20 years ago as a purveyor of sepia and black-and-white images of Shanghai and Beijing before World War II.

He specializes in photos of bourgeois families from the 1930s who, dressed in traditional Chinese finery, posed in studios with European backdrops that featured Bugati cars and Art Deco furniture.

His briskest trade is in the Mao era. Collectors like the nostalgic feel of the photos, he said. From his connections as a news photographer, Mr. Kang said he knew where to find old file photographs from Xinhua, the state-run agency whose photographers were granted wide access to the leaders of the Communists from the moment they entered Beijing in 1949.

The most valued photographs, Mr. Kang said, were the more informal ones. A popular image showed a barefoot Mao in a swimsuit in 1954, sitting on the sand with his daughter Li Na and nephew, Mao Yuanxin.

A beach umbrella behind them, they were relaxing at the beach at Beidaihe, the summer resort not far from Beijing. A bargain at $50, Mr. Kang said.

question: Why did the Beijing government want to shut down so many vendors?

answer: As part of a plan to upgrade the market.

question: How many of the vendors would be shut down?

answer: 1/4.

question: Are all the antiques in the market legitimate?

answer: No, but that's besides the point.

question: What are some of the more sought out wares of the market?

answer: Paper goods like books and posters.

question: Write a ~7 sentence summary.

answer: At Panjiayuan, Beijing's biggeset antique and flea market, thousands of vendors sell all manner of antiques and wares. Whether they're all authentic is besides the point. Some of the most sought out of all are paper goods like books and posters. The entire history of China can be found in these. Propaganda from  the various time periods are notable collectors' items. A Dutch photographer who has lived in Beijing for a dozen years looks for books of the last days of the Qing dynasty, the Kuomintang years, and the various phases of Communist rule. 1000 of the 4000 vendors are currently facing being shut down as the government pushes for updates to the market, but they push back.


text:
i had a cat.
it was older than me,
i think its name was pepper?
we had a fold out couch.
one christmas,
he was asleep under it.
we crushed pepper.
on christmas.
my parents got us a new one
i dont even remember its name...
we were backing out of the driveway
mum screamed
said stay in the car
i remember seeing this kitten
i was on my way to kindergarten.
it had one eye..
i couldnt even comprehend what had happened.
i left
had nap time
blissfuly unaware.
when i got home
we had a new kitten
i cant even remember its name..
scroll forward a year
my grandma comes over
her dog was always angry.
it strutted into the room
and tore up our kitten.
my parents tried to shield me from what happened
but i remember.
one of them
we had for a long time
Jack.
that old indestructible bastard.
nothing could phase him,
he was a fucking pirate
lost an eye to cancer,
weeks later lost a foot.
that paw Jack.
hah..
years
and years we also had Esmerelda.
we always called her kitten
but my sister
always insisted we call her by that name.
we never did.
the saddest day is when something dies without a name.
the whole time we had a dog.
she was always there
every time we yelled "out"
shed patiently wait for us to let her back in.
15 years.
shed been run over, i spent 2 days in her cage at the veterinarians,
and she soldiered through.
i told her everything,
she listened.
Peaches
the best dog ive ever had the fortune of meeting.
i couldnt even make it to the vets on her last day,
i still feel like shit.
goodbye Peaches
i hope you know what you meant to me

title: Peaches

question: What is the cause of so many accidents to the narrator's family pets?

answer: The family seems careless.


text:
SMOKE SESSIONS RECORDS is an independent record label based in New York City.

History

Smoke jazz club started the label in 2014.[1] The co-founders were Frank Christopher and Paul Stache; Damon Smith was added to the organization soon afterwards.[2]

In its first year, a vinyl sampler and nine CDs were released.[3] The music is mostly post-bop jazz.[4] Early releases included recordings led by Harold Mabern, Vincent Herring, Javon Jackson, and David Hazeltine.[5] They were recorded in concert at the club and were engineered by Stache.[6]

Practices

Releases are usually taken from recordings of concerts in the club.[7] A late 2014 list of recording equipment included: “a matched pair of Schoeps Mk. 4 and a Neuman U87 microphones on the piano; U47 and Royer 122Vs on tenor sax; RCA 77 ribbons on alto sax; a vintage RCA 44 and a Coles 4038 on trumpets; an RCA 44 and Sennheister 409 on bass; and, for drums, a pair of Neuman KM84s and a Coles 4038 overhead, a D12 or FET47 on the bass drum, and an SM57 on the snare”.[8]

[1] Hovan, C. Andrew (April 23, 2014) “Smoke Sessions: A Threesome from Herring, Jackson, & Hazeltine”. AllAboutJazz.

[2]

[3] Kaplan, Fred (December 19, 2014) “Smoke Sessions on Record”. _Stereophile_.

[4]

[5]

[6] Potter, Jeff (March 2014) “Capturing Magic”. _Down Beat_. p. 50.

[7]

[8]

title: Smoke Sessions Records

question: How was Smoke Sessions Records created?

answer: Smoke jazz club started the label in 2014. The co-founders were Frank Christopher and Paul Stache. Damon Smith was added to the organization soon afterwards.

question: What genre music does Smoke Sessions Records release?

answer: Mostly post-bop jazz.

question: Summarize the artists whose music was released by Smoke Sessions Records.

answer: Early releases included recording led by Harold Mabem, Vincent Herring, Javon Jackson and David Hazeltine.

question: How is music recorded for Smoke Sessions Records?

answer: Releases are usually taken from recordings of concerts in the Smoke jazz club. They were engineered by Stache afterward.

question: Write a ~1 sentence summary.

answer: Smoke Sessions Records is an independent label from New York City that releases recordings taken from Smoke jazz club.


text:
JACOBS CREEK is a stream in northeast St. Francois County in the U.S. state of Missouri.[1] It is a tributary of Hazel Run.

The stream headwaters arise along the south side of a mountain bearing the French Village fire lookout tower at an elevation of about 940 feet. The community of French Village is about two miles to the east on Missouri Route Y. The stream flows to the southwest for about three miles to its confluence with Hazel Run just northwest of the community of Hazel Run at an elevation of 738 feet.[2][3]

The source area is at and the confluence is at .[4]

Jacobs Creek has the name of Jacob Mostiller, the original owner of the site.[5]

[1]

[2] _French Village, Missouri,_ 7.5 Minute Topographic Quadrangle, USGS, 1964

[3]

[4]

[5]

title: Jacobs Creek (Missouri)

question: What is Jacobs Creek?

answer: It's a stream.

question: Where is it located?

answer: In St Francois County in the US state of Missouri.

question: What is the local town called?

answer: The French Village.

question: What is it named after?

answer: Jacob Mostiller, the original owner of the site.

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: Jacobs Creek is located in St Francois County in French Village, Missouri. It is named after the owner of the original site, Jacob Mostiller.


text:
The LOGAN SUBDIVISION is a railroad line owned by CSX Transportation in the U.S. state of West Virginia. It was formerly part of the CSX HUNTINGTON EAST DIVISION.[1] It became part of the CSX Florence Division on June 20, 2016. The line runs from Barboursville, West Virginia, to Gilbert, West Virginia, for a total of 87.2 miles. At its north end the line continues south from the Kanawha Subdivision and at its south end the line connects with Norfolk Southern.[2]

[1] Huntington East Division Timetable

[2]

title: Logan Subdivision

question: Where is the Logan Subdivision?

answer: West Virginia, U.S.

question: What is the Logan Subdivision?

answer: A U.S. railroad line.

question: What happened in June of 2016?

answer: The Logan Subdivision become part of the CSX Florence Division.

question: How long does the line run?

answer: 87.2 miles total

question: Who owns the Logan Subdivision?

answer: CSX Transportation

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: The Logan Subdivision is a railroad line in West Virginia, U.S.A. It runs 87.2 miles total, from Barboursville to Gilbert.


text:
_LONGICOELOTES_ is a genus of East Asian funnel weavers first described by X. P. Wang in 2002.[1]

Species

it contains four species:[2]

-   _Longicoelotes geei_ Zhang & Zhao, 2017 – China
-   _Longicoelotes karschi_ Wang, 2002 – China
-   _Longicoelotes kulianganus_ (Chamberlin, 1924) – China
-   _Longicoelotes senkakuensis_ (Shimojana, 2000) – Japan (Ryukyu Is.)

[1]

[2]

title: Longicoelotes

question: What are longicoelotes?

answer: The name refers to a genus of funnel weavers.

question: What are funnel weavers?

answer: The article does not elaborate.

question: When were they first described?

answer: 2002.

question: Who is credited with first describing them?

answer: X.P.Wang.

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: Longicoelotes is a genus of East Asian funnel weavers first described by X. P. Wang in 2002. There are four species.


text:
Uneasiness was setting in. No no, that's incorrect. This uneasiness, it was present at the very beginning. It's not nervousness. It's not anxiousness, nor fear. It's unsettling coldness. Yes, it was uneasiness, and it was there the moment I reached the foot of the basement stairs.

Stairs? I have no recollection of these stairs. I couldn't paint the faintest picture of these stairs. How did they feel? Were they carpeted? Were they wooden? Were the stairs to short that I couldn't walk down them without turning my feet and walking down with my body slightly cocked to the side? No, I'd remember that. Wait, are there even stai-. Yes. Yes there is. That much I am certain of. There are stairs, and I'm at the bottom of them.

I know I'm in the basement too. Or is this a cellar? I'd certainly describe the room my left a cellar. Its floor is cold, broken concrete. Its concrete walls lined with shelves. No recollection of what's on the shelves. However, I'm not standing in a cellar. Cellars don't have carpet, and I'm standing on carpet. Ugly carpet too. Its main color a burnt orange. Patterns are painted in with brown. It's old carpet, and I'm now repulsed by it, desperately desiring to move off it.

I step out. How long had I been standing still? I begin moving quickly now. I'm now in a hallway. The hallway is too narrow. Two people could not walk abreast without being uncomfortably close. I was alone. Why did this narrow hallway anger me the way it did? The hallway walls didn't help my mood either. They were covered with that shiny, pathetic excuse of fake wood.

Finally, the room I was being drawn to. More bad carpet. This time a green shag carpet covers the floor. A bedroom. The bed was made, but with old, unused linen. A dresser and mirror are to my right. I walk in. I notice another room past the dresser. A light is on in the room. Uneasiness is with me again. I need to see what's in that room. No. Then I realize whatever is in that room is not supposed to be seen by me. I can't handle the uneasiness any longer. I would rather feel the coldness of death. Death, that's exactly what awaits me in that room. I step closer. Breathing becomes difficult. I'm closer now. Very close. One more step, that's all I need to take. I close my eyes, take the step, and turn.

I open my eyes. Only darkness, I'm now awake. A feeling of uneasiness, it's the only thing I bring back with me from my recurring dream.

title: A Recurring Dream

question: Why does the narrator focus so much on the carpet?

answer: Unclear.

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: The narrator reflects on the recurring dream they keep having. The seem to be walking in a house and are being called to a specific room where death awaits them.


text:
[Prom DJ for the North West]

NO CHAT ALL TUNES       FANTASTIC SOUND             LIGHT THEMING       ONLINE PLAYLIST BUILDER

[Prom DJ for the North West]

Prom DJ, Disco & lighting hire for all Manchester & North West Proms, Summer Balls & Graduation nights. Whether you require a versatile DJ for your event or if you want lighting to help theme the room, here at David Lee Events we can tailor our services to your budget.

Catering for guests of up to 400+ wanting a great night with great tunes.  Apart from the DJ’s we offer variety of UV Lighting, flame lights, red carpet entrances, star projection etc, all geared to making your event the best night ever!!!

Have a quick read, then get in touch to discuss your ideas, light theming and or the music and lets see if we can’t give you and your colleges the best night celebrations!!!

DJ’s for Proms, Graduations  & Balls

[Lighting & DJ Services for Proms]
Prom DJ & Lighting
If you book one of our talented Proms DJ’s, not only do you get a DJ who will play the latest tunes, take requests on the night, but at the right time, know when to change to play the party classics. Happy to take requests on the night as well as taking a playlist built by you and your guests online before the night. Our DJ’s are versatile & professional and all about filling the dance floor with dancing bodies!!!

All customers get a free online planner. This allows you and your guests to make requests before you even turn up. Obviously our DJ uses his professional know how to twist & turn the playlist to make it work, but that’s where we excel! So if you want the the dance floor full, your favourite tunes being played, and the best prom night ever… you know what to do.

Venue Lighting / Theming

[Uplighting, Stars & UV]
Lighting for Proms
Looking to make an impact on your guests as they enter the room or just a little effect lighting for the dance floor, then have a look here. Image projection, up-lighting, uv lighting all used at Prom night and graduation balls. You choose the theme let me know your budget and we’ll make something happen. There are some examples in the gallery below where we installed green up-lighting, and projected patterns onto the walls & ceiling along with Emerald city gobo’s  for an Wizard of OZ Emerald City theme. Another was alternates pink & blue with a starry sky and UV Lights. So from a couple of flame lights for entrances, to full room theming, we got it covered.

DJ & Lighting packages

From flame lights or red carpets for entrances to the sounds & lights of the party, we got you sorted. For the all in one packages just let us know where, when and your budget, and we will happily tailor our services to make sure we give you the night you and your fellow students deserve. We look forward to working with you.

All images on this page open up in a larger light box once pressed for better viewing.

North West Prom Night, Graduations & Summer Balls Gallery

[Prom DJ for Cheshire]
Cheshire Proms DJ
[North West prom Night]
North West Prom DJ
[Manchester Prom Company]
Manchester Proms
[Image Projection of stars]
Stars Image Projection
[Venue lighting for Prom]
Uplighting, stars & UV
[Graduation DJ with uplighting]
Manchester Graduation
[Graduation DJ & Lighting]
Lighting & DJ
[DJ for Manchester Graduations]
Manchester DJ
[Floor pack at Graduation Party]
Graduation DJ Services
[Lighting for Manchester Graduation Ball]
Graduation Lighting
[North West Graduation Ball]
Event Lighting
[Prom Night DJ]
Lancashire Proms DJ
[Prom DJ for the North West]
North West Prom DJ
[Prom Night DJ for Manchester]
Manchester Event DJ
[Gobo Projection]
Image Projection
[Event lighting for Manchester Proms]
Event lighting
[Emerald City lights]
Green Flame Lights
[Prom DJ]
North West Prom Night
[Party time at Prom]
Prom Night Party
[DJ for the North West Proms]
Prom DJ Services
[DJ & UV Lighting for Proms]
UV Lighting & DJ

question: What does the article say about the lighting offers from Prom DJ?

answer: They can arrange custom lighting with relatively intricate effects. Full room theming, UV lighting, and flame lights are also offered. Lighting the dance floor, the entrance for the guests and image projection are possible uses. The lighting services can be combined with the DJ services from Prom DJ.

question: What does the article say about how to dance at the Prom?


text:
I'm basically living a Gods life

I'm special, not genius special, nor am I short yellow bus special.
 No, i'm a very special type of special, a special special if you
 will. you see, I have the power to stop time. I first discovered
 it when I was around thirteen. I noticed that when I concentrated
hard enough on something that everyone around me would stop and I
would be the only one left moving. I controlled time.
Having this talent was quite fun at first, you know, things like
cheating on tests and sleeping in the middle of class for hours on
end and then picking back up where I left off. Nowadays it's still
 amazingly fun but it has it's drawbacks. Whenever I try to really
think about things, things like work problems or relationship issues
 i'll find that hours will pass without even noticing. this
leads me to have three week days. life goes so slowly now that I
 can think about everything I do and say before doing or saying anything.
 I have determined I don't age while in this state so technically I am
 immortal. Anyways that's beside the point of this story.

It was a typical morning for me. I would wake up and unfreeze time to see
the sun rising outside, just where I left off as normal. I would then get
up and get dressed and ready for work. Shower? check, Breakfast? check, brush
teeth? check, Suit? check Keys? check wallet? check, Rifle? check Oh? Did I
mention what the job actually was?

Technically I work for the government. When I was sixteen
I sat down and thought about who had the most authority in my
town, then I made the decision to tell the local police chief about my certain abilities.
In hopes I could get a job in some way. At first he laughed, as would any sensible person.
I decided to prove it too him by stopping time, taking his gun and then proceeding to go
 stand in the corner twirling it cowboy style around my finger. Of course this
almost got me shot I say almost because as soon as the deputy drew his gun I
proceeded to clear the entire station of weapons and drop them all at the
 poor police chiefs feet. It was stupid, I know but I was sixteen and absurdly
immature with my abilities. S.W.A.T was called, Detectives showed up, people
went crazy. They even called a HAZMAT team. I was quickly transported to an
 interrogation room, at my consent of course. Some guys in suits showed up just
 like in the movies and In six years I was working as a special operative. I went
anywhere they wanted me too and killed anyone they told me too. And then, at the
 end of the month, I would get payed 216,000 for my troubles.

This case wasn't very special. find this Chinese politician, set up shop across the
 street then take him out with one well placed bullet. After that retrieve the
bullet, bleach the DNA and get back to the plane. all in the blink of an eye.
The only time that I would spend in real time was when the bullet was flying.
So I did just that. as soon as I got off the plane I stopped time And started
walking towards my target 2.4 mile south south east into the bustling city. not to bad. It took me
forty five minutes to lug my rifle case to the building opposite of the mans
 hotel. Once there I sat on the roof waiting to see the face that was ingrained
in my memory from Briefing. 0800 hours that's when he was scheduled for pickup.
 0757 0758 0759 There! He was one minute early but I saw him anyways. There he
was, in the crowd. I stopped time and began setup of my M110. I unzipped the case
 to reveal all the parts of my instrument. I grabbed the cold black stock and barrel,
threading them together. Next was the scope, I clipped that on with a click and dialed it
to the correct distances. I set up my bipod on the concrete ledge and threaded my silencer
onto the end before setting it into position. I looked into the scope, My finger
lay next to the trigger, numb. I aimed. Moved my finger onto the cold steel of
the trigger. That's when something caught my eye, something glimmered.
"everyone is frozen" I thought to myself That's when I aimed up and saw on
the rooftop adjacent was someone else. moving, waiting, aiming. That's when
 I realised that the glimmer was a scope and that I was going to die.

title: [MF] I'm Special Special

question: How does the narrator describe themselves?

answer: The narrator describes themselves as special. The narrator discovered that they had a special skill when they were young. The narrator had also gone to the local police station when they were 16 to show them their special skill. The narrator was soon on their way to working as a special operative.

question: What is the irony behind the fact of the case that the narrator called not very special?

answer: The irony of the case that the narrator described as not special was that it could very well be his last case. The case assignment was simple enough, he was to place a bullet in a Chinese politician. But before he knew it, a gun was placed on him, and he knew that he was going to die.

question: What would the narrator's life be if he hadn't gone to the police station to show them their special skill?


text:
Purdue University research published Monday says rural Indiana would benefit from broadband connectivity in a wide variety of ways.

The report finds that for each dollar invested in rural broadband, $4 will go back into the economy through increased tax revenue and healthcare savings. The analysis found if investments in broadband were made statewide, Indiana would see about $12 billion over a 20 year period. And Purdue University agricultural economics professor Wally Tyner says that’s a conservative estimate.

“We wanted this to be rock solid as a bottom-line base that in likelihood would be much larger in reality,” says Tyner.

Data was collected from seven cooperatives representing about 93,000 Hoosiers. Researchers evaluated possible benefits high-speed broadband would have for the area in education, farm incomes, workforce development and healthcare.

READ MORE: State Establishes Broadband Expansion Director To Focus On Rural Communities

Tyner says he was surprised by how much broadband capabilities would benefit telemedicine access.

“The way rural citizens will access medical care, the reduction in costs for their access and the increase in quality of outcomes for their access to healthcare is really going to change if we make these investments,” he says.

The study found telemedicine could reduce physician treatment time, save patients’ transportation costs, and lower emergency room usage.

Indiana Electric Cooperatives Vice President Scott Bowers says parts of Indiana are hurt by limited broadband services.

“When you look at the communities in Indiana, there’s a lot of communities that quite frankly are struggling,” says Bowers. “And a lot of that has to do with the lack of access or availability and affordability of broadband.”

Bowers says the financial analysis will hopefully give lawmakers a further push to solve the problem.

“Purdue through this study is really I think showing the opportunity from an economic impact component as it relates to the state realizing its full potential economically,” Bowers says.

The study does not make any policy recommendations. But Tyner says it is clear rural Indiana’s electric cooperatives would not be able to foot the entire bill.

“In order to make this happen, it appears that the governments that will benefit, federal, state and local, are going to have to pitch in and help the co-ops with the upfront costs,” says Tyner.

Bower says his organization will continue to work to find funding to help pay for extending broadband.

“One of the things that Indiana’s Electric Cooperatives has been talking about over the last couple of years is trying to create partnerships with the state and federal government to be able to utilize grant dollars to support true meaningful broadband deployment,” he says.

question: What does the article say Indiana would benefit from?

answer: Broadband access.

question: What will broadband access help Hoosiers with?

answer: Telemedicine access.

question: How many Hoosiers are represented by the seven cooperatives?

answer: 93,000

question: What is necessary for this to happen?

answer: The government is going to have to intervene.

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: The article talks about the need in Indiana to get broadband to rural areas. Broadband would especially help Hoosiers get telemedicine, and the article speculates that government assistance will be necessary to make this happen.


text:
PHILIP MARLOWE () is a fictional character created by Raymond Chandler. Marlowe first appeared under that name in _The Big Sleep_, published in 1939. Chandler's early short stories, published in pulp magazines like _Black Mask_ and _Dime Detective_, featured similar characters with names like “Carmady” and “John Dalmas”.

Some of those short stories were later combined and expanded into novels featuring Marlowe, a process Chandler called “cannibalizing” but is more commonly known in publishing as a fix-up. When the original stories were republished years later in the short story collection _The Simple Art of Murder_, Chandler did not change the names of the protagonists to Philip Marlowe. His first two stories, “Blackmailers Don't Shoot” and “Smart-Aleck Kill” (with a detective named Mallory), were never altered in print but did join the others as Marlowe cases for the television series _Philip Marlowe, Private Eye_.

Marlowe's character is foremost within the genre of hardboiled crime fiction that originated in the 1920s, notably in _Black Mask_ magazine, in which Dashiell Hammett's The Continental Op and Sam Spade first appeared.

Underneath the wisecracking, hard-drinking, tough private eye, Marlowe is quietly contemplative and philosophical and enjoys chess and poetry. While he is not afraid to risk physical harm, he does not dish out violence merely to settle scores. Morally upright, he is not fooled by the genre's usual _femmes fatales_, such as Carmen Sternwood in _The Big Sleep_.

Chandler's treatment of the detective novel exhibits an effort to develop the form. His first full-length book, _The Big Sleep_, was published when Chandler was 51; his last, _Playback_ when he was 70. Seven novels were produced in the last two decades of his life. An eighth, _Poodle Springs_, was completed posthumously by Robert B. Parker and published years later.

Inspiration

Explaining the origin of Marlowe's character, Chandler commented that “Marlowe just grew out of the pulps. He was no one person.”[1] When creating the character, Chandler had originally intended to call him Mallory; his stories for the _Black Mask_ magazine featured characters that are considered precursors to Marlowe. The emergence of Marlowe coincided with Chandler's transition from writing short stories to novels.[2]

Chandler was said[3] to have taken the name Marlowe from Marlowe House, to which he belonged during his time at Dulwich College. Marlowe House was named for Christopher Marlowe, a hard-drinking Elizabethan writer who graduated in philosophy and worked secretly for the government.

Biographical notes

[Ed Bishop had the title role in BBC Radio's _Philip Marlowe_ radio drama series.]

Philip Marlowe is a fictional character created by Raymond Chandler in a series of novels including _The Big Sleep_, _Farewell, My Lovely_ and _The Long Goodbye_. Chandler is not consistent as to Marlowe's age. In _The Big Sleep_, set in 1936, Marlowe's age is given as 33, while in _The Long Goodbye_ (set fourteen years later) Marlowe is 42. In a letter to D. J. Ibberson of April 19, 1951, Chandler noted among other things that Marlowe is 38 years old and was born in Santa Rosa, California. He had a couple of years at college and some experience as an investigator for an insurance company and the district attorney's office of Los Angeles County. He was fired from the D.A.'s office for insubordination (or as Marlowe put it, “talking back”). The D.A.'s chief investigator, Bernie Ohls, is a friend and former colleague and a source of information for Marlowe within law enforcement.

Marlowe just falls short of the classic six foot two: tall. He weighs about . He first lived at the Hobart Arms, on Franklin Avenue near North Kenmore Avenue (in _The Big Sleep_), but then moved to the Bristol Hotel, where he stayed for about ten years. By 1950 (in _The Long Goodbye_) he has rented a house on Yucca Avenue and continued at the same place in early 1952 in _Playback_, the last full-length Chandler Marlowe novel.

His office, originally on the seventh floor of an unnamed building in 1936, is at #615 on the sixth floor of the Cahuenga Building by March/April 1939 (the date of _Farewell, My Lovely_), which is on Hollywood Boulevard near Ivar. North Ivar Avenue is between North Cahuenga Boulevard to the west and Vine Street to the east. The office telephone number is GLenview 7537. Marlowe's office is modest and he doesn't have a secretary (unlike Sam Spade). He generally refuses to take divorce cases.

He drinks whiskey or brandy frequently and in relatively large quantities. For example, in _The High Window_, he gets out a bottle of Four Roses, and pours glasses for himself, for Det. Lt. Breeze and for Spangler. At other times he is drinking Old Forester, a Kentucky bourbon: “I hung up and fed myself a slug of Old Forester to brace my nerves for the interview. As I was inhaling it I heard her steps tripping along the corridor.” (_The Little Sister_) However, in _Playback_ he orders a double Gibson at a bar while tailing Betty Mayfield. Also, in _The Long Goodbye_, he and Terry Lennox drink Gimlets.

Marlowe is adept at using liquor to loosen peoples' tongues. An example is in _The High Window_, when Marlowe finally persuades the detective-lieutenant, whose “solid old face was lined and grey with fatigue”, to take a drink: “Breeze looked at me very steadily. Then he sighed. Then he picked the glass up and tasted it and sighed again and shook his head sideways with a half smile; the way a man does when you give him a drink and he needs it very badly and it is just right and the first swallow is like a peek into a cleaner, sunnier, brighter world.”

He frequently drinks coffee. Eschewing the use of filters (see _Farewell My Lovely_), he uses a vacuum coffee maker (see _The Long Goodbye_, chapter 5). He smokes and prefers Camel cigarettes. At home he sometimes smokes a pipe. A chess adept, he almost exclusively plays against himself, or plays games from books.

Typical of classic private eyes, Marlowe is the eternal bachelor in all of the novels. But in the opening paragraphs of _Poodle Springs_ he has just married Linda Loring, the divorced daughter of the press tycoon Harlan Potter. He knows her from _The Long Goodbye_, where they spent one night together, and from _Playback_, where she, after one and a half years, surprisingly called him from Paris and proposed to him (“I'm asking you to marry me”).

Marlowe bibliography

Original short stories by Raymond Chandler

-   _Blackmailers Don't Shoot_ (December 1933, Black Mask; lead character named Mallory)
-   _Smart-Aleck Kill_ (July 1934, Black Mask; Mallory)
-   _Finger Man_ (October 1934, Black Mask; Carmady)
-   _Killer in the Rain_ (January 1935, Black Mask; Carmady)
-   _Nevada Gas_ (June 1935, Black Mask)
-   _Spanish Blood_ (November 1935, Black Mask)
-   _Guns at Cyrano's_ (January 1936, Black Mask; Ted Malvern)
-   _The Man Who Liked Dogs_ (March 1936, Black Mask; Carmady)
-   _Noon Street Nemesis_ (May 30, 1936, Detective Fiction Weekly; aka “Pick-up on Noon Street”)
-   _Goldfish_ (June 1936, Black Mask)
-   _The Curtain_ (September 1936, Black Mask; Carmady)
-   _Try the Girl_ (January 1937, Black Mask; Carmady)
-   _Mandarin's Jade_ (November 1937, Dime Detective; John Dalmas)
-   _Red Wind_ (January 1938, Dime Detective: John Dalmas)
-   _The King in Yellow_ (March 1938, Dime Detective)
-   _Bay City Blues_ (June 1938; Dime Detective; John Dalmas)
-   _The Lady in the Lake_ (January 1939, Dime Detective; John Dalmas)
-   _Pearls Are a Nuisance_ (April 1939, Dime Detective)
-   _Trouble Is My Business_ (August 1939, Dime Detective; John Dalmas)
-   _I'll Be Waiting_ (October 14, 1939, Saturday Evening Post)
-   _The Bronze Door_ (November 1939)
-   _No Crime in the Mountains_ (September 1941, Detective Story, John Evans)

Original Philip Marlowe works by Raymond Chandler

-   _The Big Sleep_ (1939)
-   _Farewell, My Lovely_ (1940)
-   _The High Window_ (1942)
-   _The Lady in the Lake_ (1943)
-   _The Little Sister_ (1949)
-   _The Long Goodbye_ (1953)
-   _Playback_ (1958)
-   “The Pencil” (AKA “Marlowe Takes On the Syndicate”, “Wrong Pigeon”, and “Philip Marlowe's Last Case”) (1959), (short story): Chandler's last completed work about Marlowe, his first Marlowe short story in more than twenty years, and the first short story originally written about Marlowe.
-   _The Poodle Springs Story_ in _Raymond Chandler Speaking_ (1962)(only the first four chapters were completed and then left unfinished at Chandler's death in 1959; Robert B. Parker extended the material to a full-length novel, _Poodle Springs_ in 1989)

Authorized works by other writers

[Marlowe, as he appeared in volume 9 of _Detective Conan_]

-   _El Diez Por Ciento de Vida_ by Hiber Conteris (Spain, 1985), English translation as _Ten Percent of Life_ by Deborah Bergmann(1987, ISBN 9-780671-634193). Marlowe probes the 1956 “suicide” of a Hollywood literary agent, one of whose clients is Raymond Chandler.
-   _Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe: A Centennial Celebration_, ed. Byron Preiss (1988, ; extended edition 1999, ); reprints _The Pencil_ alongside Philip Marlowe stories by other authors:
    -   _The Perfect Crime_ by Max Allan Collins
    -   _The Black-Eyed Blonde_ by Benjamin M. Schutz
    -   _Gun Music_ by Loren D. Estleman
    -   _Saving Grace_ by Joyce Harrington
    -   _Maliby Tag Team_ by Jonathan Valin
    -   _Sad-Eyed Blonde_ by Dick Lochte
    -   _The Empty Sleeve_ by W. R. Philbrick
    -   _Dealer's Choice_ by Sara Paretsky
    -   _Red Rock_ by Julie Smith
    -   _The Deepest South_ by Paco Igancio Taibo II
    -   _Consultation in the Dark_ by Francis M. Nevins, Jr
    -   _In the Jungle of Cities_ by Roger L. Simon
    -   _Star Bright_ by John Lutz
    -   _Stardust Kill_ by Simon Brett
    -   _Locker 246_ by Robert J. Randisi
    -   _Bitter Lemons_ by Stuart M. Kaminsky
    -   _The Man Who Knew Dick Bong_ by Robert Crais
    -   _Essence D'Orient_ by Edward D. Hoch
    -   _In The Line of Duty_ by Jeremiah Healey
    -   _The Alibi_ by Ed Gorman
    -   _The Devil's Playground_ by James Grady
    -   _Asia_ by Eric Van Lustbader
    -   _Mice_ by Robert Campbell
    -   _Sixty-Four Squares_ by J. Madison Davis (1999 edition)
    -   _Summer In Idle Valley_ by Roger L. Simon (1999 edition)
-   _Poodle Springs_ (1989, ), by Robert B. Parker. An authorized completion of Chandler's unfinished last work; the original text 'The Poodle Springs Story' had been published alongside excerpts from Chandler's letters, notes and essays in _Raymond Chandler Speaking_ (1971), by Dorothy Gardener and Katherine Sorley Walker. New York: Books for Library Press.
-   _Perchance to Dream_ (1991, ), by Robert B. Parker. An authorized sequel to Chandler's _The Big Sleep_.
-   _The Black-Eyed Blonde_ (2014), by John Banville writing as “Benjamin Black,”[4] is an authorized sequel to _The Long Goodbye_, and reuses the title of Benjamin M. Schutz's otherwise-unrelated Marlowe story.
-   _Only to Sleep_ (2018), by Lawrence Osborne, finds the elderly Marlowe in Mexico in 1988, investigating the “accidental” swimming death of a debt-ridden con man/developer.

Film adaptations

thumb|right|upright=1.2|thumbtime=0:32|Trailer for _Lady in the Lake_ (1947)

-   _The Falcon Takes Over_ (1942) — (adaptation of _Farewell My Lovely_ with detective “The Falcon” substituting for Marlowe) George Sanders as The Falcon.
-   _Time to Kill_ (1942) — (adaptation of _The High Window_ with detective Michael Shayne substituting for Marlowe) Lloyd Nolan as Shayne.
-   _Murder, My Sweet_ (1944) — (adaptation of [and released in the UK as] _Farewell My Lovely_) Dick Powell as Marlowe.
-   _The Big Sleep_ (1946) — Humphrey Bogart as Marlowe.
-   _Lady in the Lake_ (1947) — Robert Montgomery as Marlowe.
-   _The Brasher Doubloon_ (1947) — (adaptation of [and released in the UK as] _The High Window_) George Montgomery as Marlowe.
-   _Marlowe_ (1969) — (adaptation of _The Little Sister_) James Garner as Marlowe. This became the partial inspiration for _The Rockford Files_, the other being the series _Maverick_.
-   _The Long Goodbye_ (1973) — Elliott Gould as Marlowe.
-   _Farewell My Lovely_ (1975) — Robert Mitchum as Marlowe.
-   _The Big Sleep_ (1978) — Robert Mitchum as Marlowe.
-   _Poodle Springs_ (1998) /TV) — James Caan as Marlowe.

Radio and television adaptations

[Gerald Mohr in the CBS Radio series _The Adventures of Philip Marlowe_ (1948–1951)]

-   _Lux Radio Theater_, “Murder My Sweet”, adapted from the 1944 film, CBS Radio, June 11, 1945 (Dick Powell as Marlowe)
-   _The New Adventures of Philip Marlowe_, NBC Radio series, June 17, 1947 to September 9, 1947 (Van Heflin as Marlowe)
-   _Suspense_, CBS radio, January 10, 1948 (cameo by series host Robert Montgomery in _The Adventures of Sam Spade_ cross-over, “The Kandy Tooth”)
-   _Lux Radio Theater_, “Lady in the Lake”, adapted from the 1947 film, CBS Radio, February 9, 1948 (Robert Montgomery as Marlowe)
-   _Hollywood Star Time_, “Murder My Sweet”, adapted from the 1944 film, CBS Radio, June 8, 1948 (Dick Powell as Marlowe)
-   _The Adventures of Philip Marlowe_, CBS Radio series, September 26, 1948 to September 15, 1951 (Gerald Mohr as Marlowe)
-   _Climax!_, “The Long Goodbye”, adapted from the novel, CBS Television, October 7, 1954 (Dick Powell as Marlowe)
-   _Philip Marlowe_, ABC Television series, October 6, 1959 to March 29, 1960 (Philip Carey as Marlowe)
-   _The BBC Presents: Philip Marlowe_, BBC Radio series, September 26, 1977 to September 23, 1988 (Ed Bishop as Marlowe)
-   _Philip Marlowe, Private Eye_, HBO/London Weekend Television series, April 16, 1983 to May 14, 1983, April 27, 1986 to June 3, 1986[5] (Powers Boothe as Marlowe)
-   _Fallen Angels_, “Red Wind”, adapted from the short story, Showtime Television, November 26, 1995 (Danny Glover as Marlowe)
-   _Poodle Springs_, adapted from the novel (a fragment completed by Robert B. Parker), HBO Television movie, July 25, 1998 (James Caan as Marlowe)
-   _Marlowe_, a 2007 TV pilot (Jason O'Mara as Marlowe)
-   In 2011 the BBC started a series of radio adaptations of all the Philip Marlowe novels under the heading _Classic Chandler_. Toby Stephens played Philip Marlowe throughout. The series started on February 5, 2011, on BBC Radio 4 with a 90-minute adaptation of _The Big Sleep_ and continued with adaptations of _The Lady in the Lake_ (February 12, 2011), _Farewell My Lovely_ (February 19, 2011) and a 60-minute version of _Playback_ (February 26, 2011). The series continued later that year with 90-minute adaptations of _The Long Goodbye_ (October 1, 2011). _The High Window_ (October 8, 2011), _The Little Sister_ (October 15, 2011) and a 60-minute version of _Poodle Springs_ (October 22, 2011).

Video game adaptations

-   _Philip Marlowe: Private Eye_, Byron Preiss (developer), Simon & Schuster (publisher), 1 January 1997

References in other works

-   In the pilot episode of _Bored to Death_ the main character Jonathan Ames (played by Jason Schwartzman) reads _Farewell My Lovely_ and uses the name Philip Marlowe as a pseudonym
-   The central character in Dennis Potter's _The Singing Detective_ is crime novelist Philip E. Marlow, portrayed in the original TV version by Michael Gambon and in the later film version by Robert Downey, Jr.
-   Marlowe is referenced in the lyrics to Burton Cummings' 1979 song “Dream of a Child” and Dire Straits' “Private Investigations”.
-   The two main characters of the film _Radioactive Dreams_ are named Philip and Marlowe; Philip narrates it in a similar style as Chandler's novels.
-   In the _Star Trek: The Next Generation_ episode “The Big Goodbye” (obviously in reference to _The Big Sleep_ and _The Long Goodbye_), a computer malfunction traps Jean-Luc Picard, Data, and Beverly Crusher in a 1940s Dixon Hill detective story holodeck program. Dixon Hill is an homage to such characters as Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade, among others.
-   In _Kamen Rider W_, Sokichi Narumi gives Raito Sonozaki the name “Philip” due to his fondness of Philip Marlowe.
-   _Smart Philip_ (2003): Crime comedy film inspired by Chandler's work with Tomáš Hanák as Philip Marlowe.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4] http://www.thebookseller.com/news/banville-bring-back-chandler.html

[5] _Philip Marlowe, Private Eye_ at IMDb

title: Philip Marlowe

question: What would change if Chandler belonged to a different House at Dulwich College?

answer: If Chandler belonged to a different House at Dulwich College, Marlowe would probably be named something else.

question: Do you think Philip Marlowe has good relations with the police?

answer: Philip Marlowe probably has good relations with the police.


text:
The OIL-FOR-FOOD PROGRAMME (OIP), established by the United Nations in 1995 (under UN Security Council Resolution 986)[1] was established to allow Iraq to sell oil on the world market in exchange for food, medicine, and other humanitarian needs for ordinary Iraqi citizens without allowing Iraq to boost its military capabilities.

The programme was introduced by United States President Bill Clinton's administration in 1995,[2] as a response to arguments that ordinary Iraqi citizens were inordinately affected by the international economic sanctions aimed at the demilitarisation of Saddam Hussein's Iraq, imposed in the wake of the first Gulf War. The sanctions were discontinued on 21 November 2003 after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and the humanitarian functions turned over to the Coalition Provisional Authority.[3]

The programme was _de jure_ terminated in 2003 and _de facto_ terminated in 2010. Although the sanctions were effective, there were revelations of corruption involving the funds.

Background and design

The Oil-for-Food Programme was instituted to relieve the extended suffering of civilians as the result of the United Nations' imposition of comprehensive sanctions on Iraq following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. Security Council Resolution 706 of 15 August 1991 was introduced to allow the sale of Iraqi oil in exchange for food.[4]

Security Council Resolution 712 of 19 September 1991 confirmed that Iraq could sell up to US$1.6 billion in oil to fund an Oil-For-Food Programme.[5] After an initial refusal, Iraq signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) in May 1996 for arrangements to be taken to implement that resolution.

The Oil-for-Food Programme started in December 1996, and the first shipments of food arrived in March 1997. Sixty percent of Iraq's twenty-six million people were solely dependent on rations from the oil-for-food plan.

The programme used an escrow system. Oil exported from Iraq was paid for by the recipient into an escrow account possessed until 2001 by BNP Paribas bank, rather than to the Iraqi government. The money was then apportioned to pay for war reparations to Kuwait, ongoing coalition and United Nations operations within Iraq. The remainder, the majority of the revenue, was available to the Iraqi government to purchase regulated items.

The Iraqi government was permitted to purchase only items that were not embargoed under the economic sanctions. Certain items, such as raw foodstuffs, were expedited for immediate shipment, but requests for most items, including such simple things as pencils and folic acid, were reviewed in a process that typically took six months before shipment was authorized. Items deemed to have any potential application in chemical, biological or nuclear weapons systems development were not available to the regime, regardless of stated purpose.

Financial statistics

Over US $53 billion worth of Iraqi oil was sold on the world market. About US $46 billion of this was intended to provide for the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people such as food and medicine, given the context of international economic sanctions. A considerable portion was spent on Gulf War reparations paid through a compensation fund (25% starting December 2000). UN administrative and operational costs for the programme was US $1.2 billion; the cost of the weapons inspection programme was also paid from these funds. Internal audits have not been made public.[6]

End of the programme

Shortly before United States and British forces invaded Iraq, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan suspended the programme and evacuated more than 300 workers monitoring the distribution of supplies.

On 28 March 2003, Secretary-General Annan, the United States, and Britain asked the Security Council to ensure that nearly US $10 billion in goods Iraq had ordered and that were already approved—including US $2.4 billion for food—could enter the country once conditions allowed. The resolution under discussion made clear that the chief responsibility for addressing humanitarian consequences of the war would fall to the United States and Britain if they took control of the country. Under the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention these are the responsibilities of the occupying power.

On 22 May 2003, UN Security Council Resolution 1483 granted authority to the Coalition Provisional Authority to use Iraq's oil revenue. The programme's remaining funds, $10 billion, were transferred over a six-month winding-up period to the Development Fund for Iraq under the Coalition Provisional Authority's control; this represented 14% of the programme's total income over 5 years.

The programme was formally terminated on 21 November 2003 and its major functions were turned over to the Coalition Provisional Authority.[7]

Abuse

The programme also suffered from widespread corruption and abuse. Throughout its existence, the programme was dogged by accusations that some of its profits were unlawfully diverted to the government of Iraq and to UN officials. These accusations were made in many countries, including the US and Norway.[8]

Until 2001, the money for the Oil-for-Food Programme went through BNP Paribas, whose main private share-holder is Iraqi-born Nadhmi Auchi, a man estimated worth about $1 billion according to _Forbes_ estimates, the 13th-richest man in Britain according to _The Guardian_. Auchi received a 15-month suspended sentence for his involvement in the Elf scandal, which the British newspaper called “the biggest fraud inquiry in Europe since the Second World War”, saying “Elf became a private bank for its executives who spent £200 million on political favours, mistresses, jewellery, fine art, villas and apartments”.[9] Elf, an oil company, merged with TotalFina to become Total S.A. in 2003.

Misapplication of funding

According to information from Aqila al-Hashimi, who was senior bureaucrat with the Oil-for-Food Programme in Iraq, of the programme's total of 60 billion dollars, “roughly 65% was actually applied to aid”.[10] Over 193 so-called electrical consultants each received $15,000 per month while the electricity only worked a few hours at a time.[11]

Benon Sevan of Cyprus, who headed the programme, defended it, claiming that it had only a 2.2% administrative cost and that it was subject to more than 100 internal and external audits. He blamed Security Council restrictions for making the situation difficult and said that 90 per cent of Iraq's population relied on the programme for its monthly food basket. Sevan stonewalled efforts to review and investigate the programme.[12] He ordered his staff to enforce a policy that complaints about illegal payoffs should be formally filed with the whistleblower's country, making them public and allowing Iraq to bar any whistleblowers. In 2000, Dileep Nair, the UN corruption watchdog, wanted to determine the programme's level of vulnerability. Sevan and UN Deputy Secretary-General Louise Frechette, rejected any such investigation, claiming that it would be too expensive to be worthwhile. UN Chef de Cabinet Iqbal Riza ordered the shredding of years' worth of documents in his office concerning the programme. He said that they were from a working file that contained copies of documents received by his office, and were purged due to lack of space, and also that the originals were held elsewhere.[13]

In response to these criticisms, and to evidence acquired after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, accusations were made that skimmed profits were being used to buy influence at the UN and with Kofi Annan himself. An investigation cleared Annan of any personal wrongdoing.[14]

Adulterated foods

According to an interim report released on 3 February 2005 by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker's commission (see #Investigations below), much of the food aid supplied under the programme “was unfit for human consumption”. The report concluded that Sevan had accepted nearly $150,000 in bribes over the course of the programme, and in 2005 he was suspended from his position at the United Nations as a result of the fraud investigation.[15]

Intentional weakening of the Security Council

Peter van Walsum, the now-retired Ambassador of the Netherlands to the United Nations and chairman of the Iraq Sanctions Committee from 1999 to 2000, speculated in a recent book that Iraq deliberately divided the Security Council by awarding contracts to France, Russia, and China but not to the United Kingdom and the United States. He also stated he encountered a number of cases in which he felt the lack of Iraqi cooperation was designed to exacerbate the suffering of its own people. He also said that in his opinion the sanctions were not an effective deterrent.

_al Mada_ list

One of the earliest allegations of wrongdoing in the programme surfaced on 25 January 2004, when _al Mada_, a daily newspaper in Iraq, published a list of individuals and organizations alleged to have received oil sales contracts via the UN's Oil-for-Food Programme. The list came from over 15,000 documents which were reportedly found in the state-owned Iraqi oil corporation, the Iraq National Oil Company, which had close links to the Iraqi Oil Ministry.

Named in the list of beneficiaries were George Galloway, then a British member of parliament, and his charity, the Mariam Appeal; former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua; Shaker al-Kaffaji, an Iraqi-American businessman; Indian Foreign Minister Natwar Singh, and Bheem Singh. Many prominent Russian firms and individuals were also included on the _al Mada_ list. Even the Russian Orthodox Church was supposedly involved in illegal oil trading. The former assistant to the Vatican secretary of state, Reverend Jean-Marie Benjamin, is said to have received the rights to sell . George Galloway subsequently won two libel actions against the _Christian Science Monitor_ and _Daily Telegraph_, which had reported the allegations.[16][17]

The president of Oilexco Ltd, Arthur Millholland, whose name also appeared on the _al Mada_ list, denied wrongdoing but confirmed that illegal surcharges were being paid to the Iraqi government by contractors.[18] However, the _al Mada_ list does not discuss bribes paid to Iraq – it discusses bribes paid to individuals to support Iraq. Few deny that in Iraq, like in many third-world countries, bribes and kickbacks were regularly paid to the leadership in order to get contracts, but some suggest that kickbacks would normally not occur in such countries when a UN-run programme was involved.

Operation of the scheme

The scheme is alleged to have worked in this way: individuals and organizations sympathetic to the Iraqi regime, or those just easily bribed, were offered oil contracts through the Oil-for-Food Programme. These contracts for Iraqi oil could then be sold on the open world market and the seller was allowed to keep a transaction fee, said to be between $0.15 and $0.50/barrel (0.94 and 3.14 $/m³) of oil sold. The seller was then to refund the Iraqi government a certain percentage of the commission.

Contracts to sell Iraq humanitarian goods through the Oil-for-Food Programme were given to companies and individuals based on their willingness to kick back a certain percentage of the contract profits to the Iraqi regime. Companies that sold commodities via the Oil-for-Food Programme were overcharging by up to 10%, with part of the overcharged amount being diverted into private bank accounts for Saddam Hussein and other regime officials and the other part being kept by the supplier.

The involvement of the UN itself in the scandal began in February 2004 after the name of Benon Sevan, executive director of the Oil-for-Food Programme, appeared on the Iraqi Oil Ministry's documents. Sevan received vouchers for at least 11,000,000 barrels (1,700,000 m³) of oil, worth some $3.5 million in profit. Sevan denied the charges.

BNP Paribas

The sole bank handling funds transfers for the Oil-for-Food Programme was the New York branch of the Banque Nationale de Paris-Paribas, or BNP Paribas. This French bank was the sole bank administering the $64 billion UN programme. An investigation by the US House Committee on International Relations found that BNP Paribas made payments for goods without proof of delivery and allowed payments to third parties not identified as authorized recipients. Investigators estimate that the bank received more than $700 million in fees under the UN programme, which began in 1996 and ended after the ouster of Saddam in March 2003.

Duelfer Report

The Iraq Survey Group, which was tasked with finding evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, found that OFF saved the Iraqi economy from decline after the imposition of sanctions. Furthermore, the Iraqi regime found that it could corrupt OFF to get hard currency that could be used to manipulate the Iraq Sanctions Committee and undermine sanctions as well as to obtain more weapons.[19]

The final official version of the Iraq Survey Group report, known as the Duelfer Report, cited only France, Russia and China (countries who were also strongly anti-war) as violators who paid kickbacks. According to the report, the top three recipients of oil included Russia (30%), France (15%), and China (10%), which are all members of the UN Security Council.[20] The US received 2–3% of the oil.[21] US recipients included ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco Corp. and the El Paso Corp.[22] The list of US companies was originally censored by CIA lawyers, citing privacy issues,[23] but was later leaked.

+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Nationality of                    | Oil Received                      |
| Recipients                        | (% of Total Volume)               |
+===================================+===================================+
|                                   | 30                                |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
|                                   | 15                                |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
|                                   | 10                                |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
|                                   | 6                                 |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
|                                   | 5                                 |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
|                                   | 6                                 |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
|                                   | 4                                 |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
|                                   | 4                                 |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Other (inc. US)                   | 20                                |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+

On 5 June 2007, the German chapter of the anti-corruption organisation Transparency International (TI) lodged a complaint with the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) against 57 German companies for allegedly paying $11.9m in kickbacks in the United Nations’ Oil for Food Programme in Iraq.

Oil coupons as bribes

The US-funded satellite network Al Hurra broadcast a story on 6 January 2005 detailing allegations that Saddam's regime had bribed news reporters with oil coupons. Reporters named include Ahmed Mansour of Al Jazeera and , a writer based in France known for her pro-Saddam positions. Two types of oil coupons were used: silver coupons that entitled holders to nine million barrels of oil, and gold coupons worth more. Hamida Naanaa is said to have received a gold coupon.[24]

Ingersoll-Rand pays $2.5m in fines for kickbacks

In October 2007,[25][26] the SEC brought a case against Ingersoll-Rand alleging kickbacks by three different subsidiaries to Iraqi Government officials. Ingersoll-Rand's German subsidiary ABG, subsidiary I-R Italiana and the Irish subsidiary Thermo King paid “after-sales service fees” (ASSFs), although no bona fide services were performed. Ingersoll-Rand, without admitting or denying the allegations in the commission's complaint, consented to the entry of a final judgment permanently enjoining it from future violations of Sections 13(b)(2)(A) and 13(b)(2)(B) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, ordering it to disgorge $1,710,034 in profits, plus $560,953 in pre-judgment interest, and to pay a civil penalty of $1,950,000. Ingersoll-Rand was also ordered to comply with certain undertakings regarding its compliance program for the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and to pay a $2,500,000 fine pursuant to a deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice, Fraud Section.

Complaints by Kurds

The Iraqi Kurds complained since the programme began that they were not being paid their fair share of the oil revenues. According to the guidelines set up by the Oil-for-Food Programme, the revenues were to be divided up in such a way as to protect Iraq's predominantly Kurdish regions. The allegations include claims that the Cairo office of the UN's World Health Organization, run by an individual alleged to have received oil sales contracts, managed to stall the building of a new general hospital for the Kurdish city of Sulaymaniya, even though the funds for the project had been available since 1998.

Potential Annan link

On 14 June 2005, two 1998 memos surfaced that appeared to link Kofi Annan to Cotecna Inspection S.A. The first one described a meeting between Annan and Cotecna while the company was bidding on the programme, after which the company raised its bid. A second one mentioned that Cotecna was confident that they would get the bid due to “effective but quiet lobbying” in New York diplomatic circles. The source of the documents was a Cotecna executive.

The Second Interim Report by the IIC confirmed that Cotecna won the Oil for Food contract fairly and based on merit. The Committee concluded that there was no link between Kofi Annan and the award of Cotecna's contract, and Cotecna has been transparent and cooperative through this investigation.

Alleged involvement of Russian intelligence

According to high-ranking Russian SVR defector Sergei Tretyakov, the Oil-for-Food Programme was sabotaged by an undercover Russian intelligence officer, Alexander Kramar, a UN employee who set up the artificially low oil prices in 1998 to allow Saddam to use the oil vouchers as lucrative bribes. The difference between the market price and the price defined by Kramar was pocketed by people who received the vouchers from Saddam. Among the bribed were top officials from Russia, France, and China.[27] The biggest part of vouchers (to buy of oil) went to forty-six individuals or organizations in Russia, including the Russian Orthodox Church. They pocketed $476 million.[28] Among Russians who received the money were Alexander Voloshin and Vladimir Zhirinovsky. Sergei Isakov, a friend of Voloshin, carried “bags with money” from Moscow to Baghdad taking the “earned” money as kickbacks to Saddam.[29]

Alleged use for financing of Saddam Hussein regime

Fox News broke the story that Alexander Yakovlev, a Russian official in the UN Procurement Department, was involved; he later resigned and pleaded guilty to corruption charges. The program was also linked to Ahmed Idris Nasreddin, designated as a terrorist financier by Britain, the US and according to the UN “belonging to or affiliated with Al Qaeda.” Nasreddin was removed from these lists in 2007 after he demonstrated that he had severed all business ties with Youssef Nada, who co-founded the Al Taqwa Bank with him, and pledged to have no further dealings with either Nada or the bank.[30] Petra Navigation Group was a company that was on the blacklist of firms blocked from doing business with the U.S. for sanctions-busting activities designed to help Saddam's regime.[31]

Oil for wheat

A report by UN investigator Paul Volcker released in October 2005 found that the Australian Wheat Board, later AWB Limited, was the biggest single source of kickbacks for the Iraqi government. In exchange for trouble-free disembarkation of wheat purchased under the Oil-for-Food Programme, the Australian Wheat Board paid 'trucking charges' totalling A$300 million to Alia. Alia is a real Jordanian trucking company, but one with no role in the distribution of Australian wheat in Iraq. Alia kept a small percentage of 'charges', and passed the remainder on to Saddam's government. The AWB was fully compensated for the charges by increases in the price paid; the payments were approved by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The Australian Government commissioned judge Terence Cole to further investigate whether Australian companies had indeed paid kickbacks to the Saddam regime. The Cole Inquiry commenced in December 2005.

The Cole Inquiry has received testimony from senior Australian Government officials, including Prime Minister John Howard, Deputy Prime Minister Mark Vaile, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and various officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. During the course of the inquiry numerous AWB officials have resigned, including managing director Andrew Lindberg.[32] [33][34][35][36] In 2009, the Australian Federal Police ended the investigation related to the scandal.[37]

Investigations

GAO investigation

After the 2003 invasion of Iraq and subsequent Coalition victory over the Iraqi Army, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) was given the task of finalizing all Oil-for-Food-related supply contracts made with the now-defunct regime and of tracking down the personal fortunes of former regime members.[38] During the execution of this task, the GAO found weaknesses in the programme that allowed kickbacks and other sources of wealth for Saddam Hussein. The GAO estimates that the Saddam Hussein regime generated $10.1 billion in illegal revenues. This figure includes $5.7 billion from oil smuggling and $4.4 billion in illicit surcharges on oil sales and after-sales charges on suppliers. The scale of the fraud was far more extensive than the GAO had previously estimated. A U.S. Department of Defense study, cited by the GAO, evaluated 759 contracts administered through the Oil-for-Food Programme and found that nearly half had been overpriced, by an average of 21 percent.[39] Unlike the 661 committee, members of the Security Council had the authority to launch investigations into contracts and to stop any contract they did not like. The British and the Americans had turned down hundreds of Oil-for-Food contract requests, but these were blocked primarily on the grounds that the items being imported were dual-use technologies.

To quote the GAO report, in its summary:

    Both the UN Secretary-General, through the Office of the Iraqi Programme (OIP) and the Security Council, through its sanctions committee for Iraq, were responsible for overseeing the Oil-for-Food Programme. However, the Iraqi government negotiated contracts directly with purchasers of Iraqi oil and suppliers of commodities, which may have been one important factor that allowed Iraq to levy illegal surcharges and commissions.

Joseph A. Christoff, director of international affairs and trade at the General Accounting Office, told a House hearing that UN auditors had refused to release the internal audits of the Oil-for-Food Programme.[40] Benon Sevan, with support from Kofi Annan, had written letters to all former Oil-for-Food contractors asking them to consult Sevan before releasing any documents to GAO or US congressional inquiry panels.[41] Throughout its history, the programme had received both complaints from critics saying that it needed to be more open and complaints from companies about proprietary information being disclosed.

The United Nations has denied all requests by the GAO for access to confidential internal audits of the Oil-for-Food Programme.

While attempting to determine the complexity of the Oil-for-Food Programme for articles in _The Wall Street Journal_, investigative journalist Claudia Rosett of the Foundation for the Defence of Democracies and the Hudson Institute discovered that the UN treated details such as the identities of Oil-for-Food contractors; the price, quantity and quality of goods involved in the relief deals; and the identities of the oil buyers and the precise quantities that they received as confidential. The bank statements, the interest paid, and the transactions were all secret as well.[42] Rosett has come under harsh criticism from Denis Halliday[43] and Benon Sevan,[44] who have claimed that many of Rosett's claims (such as Oil-for-Food funding the approval of an Olympic stadium, and where responsibility for various issues lay according to the UN resolutions) were incorrect.

The US House Committee on International Relations investigated the Oil-for-Food Programme and discovered that money was provided by Sabah Yassen, the former Iraqi ambassador to Jordan, to pay the families of Palestinian suicide bombers between $15,000 to $25,000. From September 2000 until the invasion of Iraq, the families of Palestinians killed or wounded in the conflict with Israel (including 117 responsible for suicide bombings in Israel) received over $35 million. It is alleged that this money came from the UN Oil-for-Food Programme.[45]

Independent Inquiry Committee

After initial opposition to an investigation, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan stated on 19 March 2004 that a full independent investigation would be launched. In an official press interview, Annan said “[...] it is highly possible that there has been quite a lot of wrongdoing, but we need to investigate [...] and see who was responsible.” [https://web.archive.org/web/20120204084900/http://webcast.un.org/ramgen/pressconference/so040319.rm?start= “00:00:03”]. (_audio clip, @5:56_) However, Annan was emphatic that most of the claims were “outrageous and exaggerated”,[46] and that most of the criticisms had to do with things over which the programme had no authority.

The following individuals were chosen in April 2004 to head the United Nations' _Independent Inquiry Committee_:[47]

-   Paul Volcker, former United States Federal Reserve System chairman and director of the United Nations Association of the United States of America;
-   Mark Pieth of Switzerland, an expert on money-laundering in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD); and
-   Richard Goldstone of South Africa, former Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).

On 22 April 2004, the United Nations Security Council passed a unanimous resolution endorsing the Volcker inquiry into corruption in the United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme for Iraq, calling upon all 191 member states to cooperate.[48]

The definitive[49] report was presented by Paul Volcker to the Security Council on 7 September 2005.[50]

A leaked internal UN audit, which surfaced on mineweb.com, shows massive discrepancies between Cotecna reports and UN agency reports for the value of the shipments into northern Iraq. The audit found that Cotecna did no “value” inspections on nearly US$1 billion worth of aid shipments for the Inter-Agency Humanitarian Programme into northern Iraq. However, in a subsequent report published by the Independent Inquiry Committee (IIC) (27 October 2005) it was concluded that “there were no major complaints by the United Nations or its member states about Cotecna's performance”[51] and that “the audit did not report any deficiencies in Cotecna's inspections”.[52] Benon Sevan was briefed in December 2002 on the findings of the audit.[53]

The audit is available here.[54] Its summary states:

    OIOS' overall conclusion is that the management of the Contract has not been adequate and certain provisions of the Contract had not been adhered to. In addition, the incorporation of additional costs, such as rehabilitation of camps in the man-day-rate was an unacceptable arrangement. Also, the contract had been amended prior to its commencement, which was inappropriate. OIP needs to strengthen its management of contracts and the Procurement Division (PD) should ensure that the basis of payment is appropriate in order to avoid additional costs to the Organization

After reading the leaked audit, congressman Henry Hyde wrote to Kofi Annan wondering why “The U.S. Congress – which provides 22 percent of the U.N.'s budget and which has publicly requested copies of the 55 internal audits – should be required to depend on media leaks for source documents.”

Interim report results

In a 219-page initial report, the Volcker Commission documented how OIF chairman Benon Sevan used his position to solicit and receive allocations of oil from Iraq during the years he oversaw the humanitarian relief programme. Internal records from SOMO (Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organization), as well as interviews with former Iraqi officials involved in illicit oil deals, show that Sevan had requested and received allocations of of oil on behalf of a Panama-registered trading company called African Middle East Petroleum Co.

Although the report makes no specific allegations of criminal activity by Sevan, Volcker does not rule out the possibility that charges might be filed by authorities in countries with relevant jurisdiction. The report called Sevan's conduct “ethically improper”, noting that Sevan had received large cash payments totalling $160,000 dollars each year he had headed the programme. Sevan claims the money came from an aunt in Cyprus who has since died, but the panel found no evidence to back this claim.

Volcker also reported in January that a review of 58 confidential UN internal OIF audits showed UN officials ignored early signs that humanitarian goods shipped to Iraq before the 2003 Invasion war were given little if any inspections by the Swiss company Cotecna. However, Volker concluded in the 27 October 2005 IIC report that “the audit did not report any deficiencies in Cotecna's inspections”.[55] Cotecna paid Kojo Annan, Kofi Annan's son, consulting fees until November 2003. Volcker said that future reports would deal with questions regarding Kojo Annan.[56]

Investigations by Iraqi Governing Council

International accounting firm KPMG had been selected by the Iraqi Governing Council to investigate the _al Mada claims_, along with Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer. It was due to release its findings to the Iraqi Governing Council in May 2004. However, in June 2004, KPMG stopped working on the project because it was owed money by the IGC.[57]

The US has been harshly critical of the KPMG probe led by associates of Ahmed Chalabi, accusing it of undermining the main probe established by Paul Bremer. That probe had been run by the head of Iraq's independent Board of Supreme Audit, Ehsan Karim, with assistance from Ernst & Young. The Board of Supreme Audit is within the Iraqi Finance Ministry. In June 2004, Karim's investigation agreed to share information with the Volcker panel. However, on 1 July 2004, Karim was killed by a bomb magnetically attached to his car.[58]

Claude Hankes-Drielsma, a British national and long-time friend of Ahmed Chalabi, was appointed by the IGC to coordinate its investigation of the Oil-for-Food Programme. Drielsma testified in front of the US Congress (on 21 April 2004) that the KPMG investigation “is expected to demonstrate the clear link between those countries which were quite ready to support Saddam Hussein's regime for their own financial benefit, at the expense of the Iraqi people, and those that opposed the strict application of sanctions and the overthrow of Saddam”. He also testified that Chalabi was in charge of the investigation for the IGC.

In late May 2004, on the same day that Chalabi's offices at the Iraqi National Congress were raided by coalition forces, Drielsma claimed that an individual or individuals hacked into his computer and deleted every file associated with his investigation. He also claimed that “a back-up databank” was also deleted.[59] When asked by Claudia Rosett if he had been physically threatened as well, Drielsma replied with “no comment”. Drielsma has also been an outspoken critic of the UN's refusal to release any internal Oil-for-Food audit information to the IGC.

Beneficiaries

Russia

According to the paper _The Beneficiaries of Saddam's Oil Vouchers: the List of 270_, included many Russian beneficiaries.[60][61]

Other

Other beneficiaries have been alleged:[62]

Austria:

-   The Arab-Austrian Society (chaired by Fritz Edlinger) – .

Belarus:

-   Liberal Party –
-   The Communist Party of Belarus –

Brazil:

-   The Revolutionary Movement 8th October, a Brazilian Communist group –

Canada:

-   Arthur Millholland, president and CEO of the Oilexco company

FR Yugoslavia (De facto:Serbia and Montenegro):

-   The Yugoslav Left party –
-   The Socialist Party –
-   The Italian Party –
-   “kokstuntsha” – possibly Kostunica's party –

Other parties:

-   The Romanian Labor Party –
-   The Party of the Hungarian Interest –
-   The Bulgarian Socialist Party –
-   The Communist Party of Slovakia –

France:

-   The French-Arab Friendship Association –
-   Former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua –
-   Patrick Maugein, the Trafigura company –
-   Michel Grimard, “founder of the French-Iraqi Export Club” – .

Egypt:

-   Khaled Gamal Abd Al-Nasser, “son of the late Egyptian president” –
-   Imad Al-Galda, “a businessman and a member of the Egyptian parliament from President Mubarak's National Democratic Party” –
-   Abd Al-Azim Mannaf, “editor of the Sout Al-Arab newspaper” –
-   Muhammad Hilmi, “editor of the Egyptian paper Sahwat Misr” – an undisclosed number of barrels.
-   The United Arab Company –
-   The Nile and Euphrates Company –
-   The Al-Multaqa Foundation for Press and Publication – .

Libya:

-   Prime Minister Shukri Ghanem –

India:

-   The Indian National Congress –

Indonesia:

-   Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri –

Italy:

-   The Italian Petrol Union –
-   West Petrol, an Italian company that trades crude oil and oil products –
-   Roberto Formigoni, possibly the president of Lombardia –
-   Salvatore Nicotra, an oil merchant –

Myanmar:

-   Myanmar's Forestry Minister –

Palestine:

-   The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) –
-   The PLO Political Bureau –
-   Abu Al-Abbas –
-   Abdallah Al-Horani –
-   The PFLP –
-   Wafa Tawfiq Al-Sayegh –

Qatar:

-   Qatari Horseracing Association Chairman Hamad bin Ali Aal Thani –
-   Gulf Petroleum –

Spain:

-   Basem Qaqish, “a member of the Spanish Committee for the Defense of the Arab Cause” –
-   Ali Ballout, “a pro-Saddam Lebanese journalist” –
-   Javier Robert –

Syria:

-   Farras Mustafa Tlass, “the son of Syrian Defense Minister Mustafa Tlass” –
-   Audh Amourah –
-   Ghassan Zakariya –
-   Anwar Al-Aqqad –
-   Hamida Na'Na', the owner of the Al Wefaq Al-Arabi periodical – .

Switzerland:

-   Glencore, the largest commodity trader in Switzerland –
-   Taurus Petroleum –
-   Petrogas, which is “listed under three sub-companies – Petrogas Services, Petrogas Distribution, and Petrogas Resources – and is associated with the Russian company Rosneftegazetroy” –
-   Alcon, “listed in Lichtenstein and associated with larger oil companies” –
-   Finar Holdings, which is “listed in Lugano, Switzerland, and is under liquidation” – received

Ukraine:

-   The Social Democratic Party – .
-   The Communist Party – .
-   The Socialist Party – .
-   The FTD oil company – , as did other Ukrainian companies.

United Kingdom:

-   George Galloway –
-   Fawwaz Zreiqat – . Zreiqat also appears in the Jordanian section as having received
-   The Mujahideen Khalq –

United States:

-   Samir Vincent, “organized a delegation of Iraqi religious leaders to visit the U.S. and meet with former president Jimmy Carter” –
-   Shaker Al-Khafaji, “the pro-Saddam chairman of the 17th conference of Iraqi expatriates” – .

Other beneficiaries were companies and individuals from the Sudan, Yemen, Cyprus, Turkey, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Pakistan, Romania, the UAE, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Panama, Thailand, Chad, China, Nigeria, Kenya, Ireland, Bahrain, and the Philippines as well as two Saudi Arabian companies.[63]

Criminal investigation in France

The French criminal justice system is investigating the alleged involvement of two former officials from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Jean-Bernard Mérimée and Serge Boidevaix. The two are accused of having used their extensive network of connections in the Arab world in order to commit “influence peddling” and “corruption of foreign public agents”. They have been put under formal criminal investigation by investigating magistrate Philippe Courroye, a famous specialist in cases of corruption and other financial dealings. Both men had retired at the time of the alleged crimes and acted in their personal capacity, not as official envoys of the French government; however, Boidevaix claims that he kept the Ministry of Foreign Affairs informed of his actions in Iraq. The Ministry claims to have warned both men formally in 2001 (during the administration of Lionel Jospin).

Some other people, including Bernard Guillet, an aide to French senator Charles Pasqua, are also under formal investigation. Guillet and Pasqua deny any wrongdoing.

US Senate investigations

US Senator Norm Coleman called for Kofi Annan to resign over the scandal and held a number of hearings on the matter. The most spectacular of these hearings occurred after the subcommittee released a report that accused (then) British Member of Parliament (MP) George Galloway, Russian politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky, and former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua of receiving oil allocations from Iraq in return for being political allies of Saddam Hussein's regime. Galloway, in an unusual appearance of a British MP before a US Senate subcommittee, responded angrily to the allegations against him in a confrontational public hearing which drew much media attention in both America and Britain.[64] Galloway denied the allegations.

It is estimated that as much as $10 billion to $21.3 billion went unaccounted for and/or was directed to Saddam Hussein and his government in the form of kickbacks and oil smuggling. Record keeping of illegal behaviour is hard to come by and rare at best. To date, only 1 of 54 internal UN audits of the Oil-for-Food Programme has been made public. The UN has refused all requests for its audits.

Warren Hoge alleged that the American government was aware of the scandal and chose to not prevent the smuggling because their allies Turkey and Jordan benefited from the majority of the smuggled oil. US Senator Carl Levin (D-Michigan) is quoted in an interview for the _New York Times_ as saying, “There is no question that the bulk of the illicit oil revenues came from the open sale of Iraqi oil to Jordan and to Turkey, and that that was a way of going around the Oil-for-Food Programme [and that] we were fully aware of the bypass and looked the other way.”[65]

Indictments

On 6 January 2006, South Korean businessman Tongsun Park was arrested by the FBI in Houston after he was indicted for illegally accepting millions of dollars from Iraq in the UN Oil-for-Food Programme. The criminal charges against him were unsealed in a U.S. District Court in Manhattan.[66]

After an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation's New York Field Office, on 16 January 2007, Benon Sevan was indicted by prosecutors from the Southern District of New York for taking about $160,000 in bribes.[67][68] Michael J. Garcia, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, issued a warrant through Interpol for the arrest of Sevan at his home in Cyprus, as well as a warrant for Efraim “Fred” Nadler, a New York businessman who was indicted on charges of channelling the illegal payments to Sevan. Nadler's whereabouts are unknown.[69]

Daimler AG Kickbacks Case

On 1 April 2010, Daimler AG pleaded guilty to bribery charges brought by the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and will pay $185 million (US) as settlement, but remains subject to a two-year deferred prosecution agreement and oversight by an independent monitor. The German automaker of Mercedes-Benz vehicles was accused of violating the terms of the United Nations' Oil for Food Program with Iraq by including kickbacks 10 percent of the contract values to the Iraqi government. The SEC said the company earned more than $4 million from the sale of vehicles and spare parts.[70]

The SEC case was sparked in 2004 after David Bazzetta, a former auditor at then DaimlerChrysler Corp, filed a whistle-blower complaint after he was fired for raising questions about bank accounts controlled by Mercedes-Benz units in South America.[71] Bazzetta alleged that he learned in a July 2001 corporate audit executive committee meeting in Stuttgart that business units “continued to maintain secret bank accounts to bribe foreign government officials”, though the company knew the practice violated U.S. laws.

The investigation for the case also revealed that Daimler made some $56 million in bribes related to more than 200 transactions in 22 countries that earned the company $1.9 billion in revenue and at least $91.4 million in illegal profits. “Using offshore bank accounts, third-party agents and deceptive pricing practices, these companies [Daimler AG and its subsidiaries] saw foreign bribery as a way of doing business”, said Mythili Raman, a principal deputy in the Justice Department's criminal division.[72]

“It is no exaggeration to describe corruption and bribe-paying at Daimler as a standard business practice”, Robert Khuzami, director of the SEC's enforcement division, said in a statement.[73]

Judge Richard J. Leon of United States District Court in Washington, approved the plea agreement and settlement, calling it a “just resolution.”

[1]

[2] Traub, James. “Off Target.” _New Republic_ 232.6 (21 February 2005): 14–17. _Academic Search Premier._ Web. 12 Dec 2011.

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9] _The Guardian_ on Nadhmi Auchi (see also Clearstream scandal)

[10] Samantha Nutt. M.D. “Damned Nations: Greed, Guns, Arms and Aid”. McLelland & Stewart Ltd. Toronto. Canada, 2011. . Page 147

[11] Samantha Nutt, MD. _Damned Nations: Greed, Guns, Arms and Aid_. McLelland & Stewart Ltd. Toronto. Canada, 2011. . p. 148

[12]

[13]

[14]

[15]

[16]

[17]

[18]

[19] Duelfer, vol. 1, ch. “Regime Strategic Intent”, p. 1.

[20] Duelfer, vol. 1, ch. “Regime Finance and Procurement”, p. 31.

[21]

[22]

[23]

[24] 1

[25]

[26]

[27] Pete Earley, “Comrade J: The Untold Secrets of Russia's Master Spy in America After the End of the Cold War”, Penguin Books, 2007, , pages 210–223.

[28]

[29]

[30]

[31]

[32]

[33]

[34]

[35] 2

[36]

[37]

[38]

[39]

[40]

[41]

[42]

[43]

[44]

[45]

[46] 3

[47]

[48]

[49]

[50]

[51] Independent Inquiry Committee into the United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme – (27 October 2005) p. 474

[52] Independent Inquiry Committee into the United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme – (27 October 2005) p. 475

[53]

[54]

[55]

[56]

[57]

[58]

[59]

[60]

[61]

[62]

[63]

[64]

[65]

[66]

[67]

[68]

[69]

[70]

[71]

[72]

[73]

title: Oil-for-Food Programme

question: What led to the ending of the United Nations' Oil-for-Food Programme (OIP) in Iraq?

answer: There was corruption and sabotage involving individuals and countries.

question: What motivated the British and Americans to invade Iraq in 2003?

answer: Though the excuse was that Saddam Hussein was hoarding dangerous weapons, the real reasons seem to be the failure of the OIP and the way the Iraq government used it to fracture the UN Security Council, pitching China, Russia, and France against them.


text:
MILANO DUE (Milan 2, also known as _Milano 2_) is a residential centre in the Italian town of Segrate (Province of Milan). It was built as a new town by Edilnord, a company associated with the Fininvest group of Silvio Berlusconi.

The main peculiarity of Milano Due is its walkability: A system of walkways and bridges connects the whole neighborhood, so that it is possible to walk around without ever intersecting traffic. It was marketed as a residential neighborhood for families of the upper middle class with children.

The works started in 1970, and were completed in 1979. Distinctive landmarks are the sporting facilities, a small artificial lake (_il laghetto_) and a children's playground.

Media

Milano Due also hosted the headquarters of the first Italian private television channel, TeleMilano, a small cable network who started broadcasting in the area in 1974. It later evolved into Canale 5, the first national private TV station.

title: Milano Due

question: Where is Milano Due located?

answer: Milano Due is a residential centre in the town of Segrate, in Milan.

question: What is unique about the Milano Due?

answer: It's walkability - it has a system of walkways and bridges that connects the whole neighbourhood so it's possible to walk the whole place without ever intersecting traffic.

question: How many years did it take to build Milano Due?

answer: It took about a decade.

question: Name a major company that has its headquarters in Milano Due?

answer: TeleMilano, an Italian private television channel, has its headquarters there.

question: Write a ~3 sentence summary.

answer:
Milano Due is a residential area in the Italian town of Segrate, Province of Milan. Milano Due has such a good network of bridges and walkways connecting the neighbourhood, that is possible to walk across the entire area without bothering with traffic.

Milano Due took 10 years to build and develop.