.
Europe
Greece
13 Aug 2024 Greece battles wildfires near Athens. (Photo/ (Source: Al Jazeera - Qatar)
Ukraine
August 13, 2024 Wealthy oligarchs, individuals like Lahun, instead of helping the country during the war, are increasingly hiding their wealth in the West and fleeing to Europe, avoiding justice. One of the co-founders of PrivatBank and a close associate of Kolomoyskyi, Boholyubov, over 60 years old and with more than three minor children, boarding the last compartment of a train to Poland with a fake passport, likely managed to avoid criminal prosecution in the near future. He arrived at the Kyiv railway station incognito, using his wife’s car - his wife being the former First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. He was facing multiple criminal investigations. On the train, he presented a lost passport belonging to a man from the Volyn region in western Ukraine, who resembled him. Boholyubov holds British citizenship and plans to live in Vienna, where his wife has recently been appointed as Ukraine’s representative to Vienna-based international organisations. Two countries - the United Kingdom and Austria - are now turning a blind eye to the illegal exit of this prominent Ukrainian figure, thus aiding his evasion of justice. He crossed the Polish border with the help of several border guards, one of whom is now in pre-trial detention for organising the VIP’s escape. Before this, former bankers like Zhevago, Firtash and Lahun, also escaped justice by crossing the western border. These are prime examples of people who should be returning their ill-gotten gains to their country during Russia’s full-scale invasion. The wealth taken from Ukraine by these fugitives allows them to live comfortably in Western Europe for years, in hospitable European capitals, such as London and Vienna, avoiding justice. They can afford expensive lawyers and delay extradition cases - if they even arise. Former owner of Finance and Credit Bank, Zhevago is accused in Ukraine of embezzling about 60 million euros from the bank and being involved in bribing the head of Ukraine’s Supreme Court. He is comfortably residing in France, owning a media business in Ukraine that lobbies his interests in government agencies and whitewashes his reputation with foreign investors. French courts have refused Ukraine’s request to extradite Zhevago. Gas oligarch Firtash has been awaiting justice from a U.S. court in Austria’s capital for nearly ten years. In Ukraine, he faces charges related to gas schemes that caused the state 40.5 million euros in damages and is on the National Security Council’s sanctions list. Austrian courts have protected Firtash from extradition to the United States, where Washington accuses him of misconduct in arms supply deals. Entrepreneur Lahun, the former owner of Delta Bank, fled to Austria in 2022 and now divides his time between Vienna and London. He is notorious for leading one of the largest private banks to bankruptcy - second only to the nationalised PrivatBank, owned by Kolomoyskyi and the aforementioned Boholyubov. Lahun and his top managers are accused of abuses, including funnelling funds through numerous offshore companies under his control, registering businesses in the names of relatives, issuing loans to affiliated parties, submitting fake reports to regulators, engaging in illegal transactions with government bonds and currency operations, and using fraudulent or significantly overvalued collateral to secure refinancing funds. Delta Bank was one of the key operators of the scandal-ridden Austrian Meinl Bank, which lost its license due to involvement in money laundering. Lahun’s schemes also included dozens of companies in the aggressor country, as revealed by an investigation by the private detective firm Kroll. According to Ukrainian media, Lahun has transferred a number of companies and real estate rental businesses in Austria - some of his assets - to a UK resident, Ukrainian lawyer Hutsalyuk. Through Hutsalyuk, Lahun’s other Russian connections, such as with the company Ruspolimet, are also traced. Another of Lahun’s lawyers, Tarasyuk, has become the owner of several of Lahun’s companies. Today, Tarasyuk is among the Delta Bank executives against whom the Deposit Guarantee Fund claims nearly 600 million euros. The total damage caused by Lahun’s activities exceeds 1.2 billion euros. Around 600 criminal cases were opened, but Lahun has consistently managed to avoid serious consequences. Delta Bank was removed from the market in 2015, but until 2022, Lahun freely travelled between Austria and Ukraine, with his assets neither frozen nor transferred to state management. Dozens of land plots and active finance, construction, and insurance enterprises continued to generate profits for him. It wasn’t until 2023, when Lahun decided to take drastic measures to avoid further prosecution. The former owner of Delta Bank with over 1.2 billion euros in debt to state entities initiated personal bankruptcy proceedings as an individual. For almost a year, the National Bank, state banks Ukreximbank and Oschadbank on one side, and Lahun and his lawyers on the other, are debating whether the ex-banker has the right to take this step. Lahun may soon initiate the debt cancellation process in court. He proposes writing off 80% of that amount and paying the remainder in ’instalments’ from his modest salary in Austria - where the ex-banker claims to earn about 2,900 euros monthly. He proposes allocating 1,700 euros from this sum to repay the debt. Once it is completed, Lahun, a quiet, law- abiding European resident, will be without worrying about an Interpol warrant or other legal actions from Ukrainian authorities. EU countries and the UK turn a blind eye to the fact that potential criminals are effectively hiding on their territory. Ukraine, in turn, could desperately use these funds ’to finance its military’, rebuild its economy, and ensure social stability. While giving military aid with one hand at the taxpayers’ expense, these same governments allow individuals like Lahun to hide sums in European jurisdictions that are potentially equivalent to the annual aid of small nations. (Source: EU Reporter, a Brussels-based news website publishing content relating to the European Union)
North America
United States
August 13, 2024 The U.S. has approved $20 billion in arms sales to Israel, including scores of fighter jets and advanced air-to-air missiles, the State Department announced. The impending sale includes more than 50 F-15 fighter jets produced by Boeing, Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles, or AMRAAMs, 120 mm tank ammunition and high explosive mortars and tactical vehicles. The jets comprise the biggest portion of the $20 billion in sales with the first deliveries expected in 2029. The contracts will also include upgrade kits for Israel to modify its existing fleet of two dozen F-15 fighter jets with new engines and radars, among other upgrades. Much of what is being sold is to help Israel increase its military capability in the long term, the earliest systems being delivered under the contract aren't expected until the 2026 timeframe. It comes at a time of intense concern that Israel may become involved in a wider Middle East war. The United States is committed to the security of Israel, and it is vital to U.S. national interests to assist Israel to develop and maintain a strong and ready self-defense capability. This proposed sale is consistent with those objectives, the State Department said in a release on the sale. The Biden administration has had to balance its continued support for Israel with a growing number of calls from lawmakers and the U.S. public to curb military support there due to the high number of civilian deaths in Gaza. It has curbed one delivery of 2,000-pound weapons amid continued airstrikes by Israel in densely populated civilian areas in Gaza. (Source: VoA / Associated Press = U.S.)
Aug 13, 2024 Former US President Trump was interviewed by SpaceX and Tesla CEO Musk, which aired live on X and lasted for more than two hours. Trump claimed that US President Biden "might not have any IQ at all", and termed Vice President Harris his ’border czar’. The Republican presidential nominee, who has the endorsement of Musk, also praised the X owner for his cost-cutting measures at the social media company. During the chat, Musk pitched himself for a role in Trump's potential administration, which earned him praise from the former US President. (Source: India Today)
13.08.24 Harris is a radical left lunatic, more incompetent than Biden: Trump - who has 88.8 million followers on X - tells Musk. He accused Harris of having failed miserably on border security as hundreds and thousands of people entered the country illegally. (Source: The Telegraph - India)
13 August 2024 In the eyes of voters, if there is anyone more incompetent than President Biden it is his VP, said the (Republican) pollster Johnson last September. She is faced by Trump, a bully, a loud-mouthed liar and a compulsive fantasist who is apparently unable to speak a single grammatically-correct sentence. But he did build a skyscraper in New York, which is nearly as difficult as getting a submarine into the nimbus. Viktor Orbán was probably right when he said that had Trump been President, Putin would never have sent his tanks into Ukraine because the Russian leader would have had absolutely no idea of how Trump in the White House would react. He knew full well what the Biden-Harris team would do to prevent it: exactly what they did on the Mexican Border. /Photo/ (Source: Brussels Signal - Belgium)
by Myers, an Irish journalist, author and broadcaster who has reported on the wars in Northern Ireland, where he worked throughout the 1970s, Beirut and Bosnia.
.5 5 27 09:33
