pimblr.com

Three days after the Chicago Sun-Times reported that Aiham Alsammarae, the former electricity minister convicted of corruption in Iraq, put up $2.7 million in property to help raise $8.5 million to free Tony Rezko from jail in Chicago, the Times reported that Alsammarae had contributed six times to Obama’s presidential campaign.
The April 29, 2008 report also noted that before he escaped from jail in Bagdad in December 2006, and returned to Chicago, Obama’s US Senate office had sought information about Alsammarae from the State Department on October 16, 2006 on behalf of Alsammarae’s family while he was being held in jail in Iraq.
As usual, when busted on the contributions given in January, February and March, the Obama camp said it would donate Alsammarae’s money to charity and his spokesman, Ben LaBolt, put out the standard line that Obama does not ever “recall” meeting Alsammarae.
The money missing due to Alsammarae’s corruption in Iraq during the two years he served as electricity minister between August 2003 and May 2005 is estimated to be $2 billion.
The Operation Board Games investigation revealed that Alsammarae signed contracts worth $200 million that benefited both Rezko and the Iraqi-born billionaire, Nadhmi Auchi, who ended up with Riverside Park, a 62-acre lot in the Chicago Loop estimated to now be worth $2.5 billion.
As noted previously in this series, understanding the connections between Auchi and Riverside Park and all the players is the key to understanding Operation Board Games. Financing deals in the Chicago real estate industry were the focus of the investigation from the start and the financing deals involving Riverside Park specifically.
On September 29, 2005, Crain’s Chicago Business news reported that General Mediterranean Holding, “a Luxembourg-based conglomerate headed by Nadhmi Auchi, is buying Riverside Park, a yet-to-be-built development on a prime 62-acre parcel on Roosevelt Road,” quoting Michael Rumman, the director of the Illinois Department of Central Management Services, as a consultant on the project.

scoop.co.nz

A look at recent fatal shark attacks in the United States:
—Jamie Marie Daigle, 14, killed June 25, 2005, by a bull shark while swimming off a beach in Destin, Fla.
—Randy Fry, 50, killed Aug. 15, 2004, by a great white shark while diving off the coast of Mendocino, Calif.
—Willis McInnis, 57, killed April 7, 2004, by a tiger shark while surfing off the coast in Maui, Hawaii.
—Deborah Franzman, 50, killed Aug. 19, 2003, by a great white shark while swimming off Avila Beach, Calif.
—Eric Reichardt, 42, drowned Sept. 16, 2001, in a suspected shark attack off Pompano Beach, Fla.
—Sergei Zaloukaev, 28, killed Sept. 3, 2001, off the coast of Avon, N.C.
—David Peltier, 10, died after a Sept. 1, 2001, attack while surfing at Sandbridge Beach, Va.
—Thadeus Kubinski, 69, killed Aug. 30, 2000, by a bull shark while swimming in Boca Ciega Bay in Florida.
—James Tellasmon, 9, killed Nov. 21, 1998, by a tiger shark while swimming off of Vero Beach, Fla.
—William Covert, 25, killed Sept. 13, 1995, while diving off Alligator Reef in the Florida Keys.
—James Robinson, 42, killed Dec. 9, 1994, in a great white shark attack while diving off San Miguel Island, Calif.
—Michelle von Emster, 25, killed April 16, 1994, by a great white shark while swimming off Point Loma near San Diego, Calif.

mercurynews.com