What, This is insane! 65-year-old Holocaust scammer nailed; gets nearly two years in jail; and made to pay $135,000 back for bilking German gov’t out of more than $57M.

 
A female forger from the former Soviet Union was slapped with nearly two years in prison today for creating phony identity papers that helped a fraud ring scam more than $57 million in Holocaust reparations from the German government. 

A weeping Dora Grande bowed her head in shame and let out a whimper after Manhattan federal Judge Thomas Griesa said she deserved a “meaningful penalty” for forging about 300 documents at $100 a pop while working as a translator and notary public in Brooklyn. 

In addition to the 21 months prison time — just three months shy of the maximum under her plea deal — Griesa ordered Grande to forfeit the $30,000 she pocketed through the scam, and also pay $75,000 in restitution. 

Defense lawyer Glenn Morak argued that Grande, 65, had no idea that her fake birth certificates would be used in a massive scheme to rip off the Manhattan-based Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. >>more<< 
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Germany to pay $1 billion for home health care of ageing 56,000 Holocaust victims. Does this mean when those 56,000 die we can drop the whole thing?

 Germany will pay around 800 million euros ($1.03 billion) over a four-year period for homecare for the ageing survivors of the Holocaust, a Jewish organization said on Wednesday.

Worldwide Compensation Programs

Below is a list of compensation programs available to Holocaust survivors worldwide. This list is for informational purposes only. For programs that are not administered by the Claims Conference, please contact the program directly for information on how to apply. >>more<<

The Jewish Claims Conference, which represents Jews in negotiations on compensation for Nazi victims and their descendants, said some 56,000 Holocaust victims worldwide, over a third of them living in Israel, would benefit from the aid.

“We are seeing Germany’s continued commitment to fulfill its historic obligation to Nazi victims,”Stuart Eizenstat, the Claims Conference special negotiator, said in a statement on the organization’s website.

“This ensures that Holocaust survivors, now in their final years, can be confident that we are endeavoring to help them live in dignity, after their early life was filled with indescribable tragedy and trauma.”

A German finance ministry spokesman confirmed the details of the compensation.

“This is all the more impressive since it comes at a time of budget austerity in Germany,” added Eizenstat, a former U.S. ambassador to the European Union.

The Claims Conference said it had worked closely with the German finance ministry to calculate the victims’ needs.

In the negotiations, the two sides also agreed to widen the scope of existing pension programs to include Jews who lived in “open ghettos”, that is without walls but still in constant fear of deportation by the Nazis, the Claims Conference said.

The former West Germany acknowledged the murder of six million Jews by the Nazi regime and began in 1952 to pay compensation eventually worth 3 billion marks (1.5 billion euros) to Israel.  >>MORE<<

Short URL: http://www.newsnet14.com/?p=125248

thank you for the info below Belatucadros

Belatucadros

May 30, 2013 - 3:40 pm(

“Does this mean when those 56,000 die we can drop the whole thing?”

No it doesn’t, Germany is contractually obligated to pay whatever Israel clams it owes (while adding things like this to it) until the year 2050. They are not just paying this money to “Jews” either. The following i seen a few days ago and found it interesting:

No End in Sight

Germany Has Paid Out More Than $61.8 Billion in Third Reich Reparations

Since 1951 Germany has paid more than 102 billion marks, about $61.8 billion at 1998 exchange rates, in federal government reparation payments to Israel and Third Reich victims. In addition, Germans have paid out billions in private and other public funds, including about 75 million marks ($49 million) by German firms in compensation to wartime forced laborers, the Welt am Sonntag newspaper reported recently. These figures are based on calculations by the German Finance Ministry, the influential paper said.

Of the total, Germany has paid out 78.4 billion marks ($47 billion) on the basis of the 1965 Federal Restitution Law (BEG) to persons, especially Jews, who had been persecuted during the Third Reich era on the basis of race, religion, origin or ideology.

While most of those who were alive during the Second World War are now dead, in recent years Germany was still paying out some 1.25 billion marks (about $75 million) to 106,000 pensioners in Israel, the United States and other countries on the basis of the 1965 Restitution Law.

A substantial portion of Germany’s reparations payments have been to the “Jewish Claims Conference” for Jews who had persecuted by the Third Reich. Recipients include former forced laborers and concentration camp internees, as well as individuals deprived of rights or property under the Nazis. Based in New York City, the Jewish Claims Conference (JCC) has operated for decades as a kind of supra-national governmental agency for Jews around the world.

Between 1992 and July 1998, the German federal government paid out 1.1 billion marks (about $647 million) to the JCC. During the first half of 1998, it made available 378 million marks (about $222 million) to the JCC in special one-time restitution payments for Jews who had persecuted by the Third Reich, according to a German government report issued on September 29, 1998. The JCC distributed up to 5,000 marks each to individual claimants.

In recent years Germany has paid out nearly 1.8 billion marks on the basis of special bilateral agreements concluded in 1991 and 1993 with Poland and three successor states of the former Soviet Union — the Russian Federation, Ukraine and Belarus (White Russia) — even though in 1953 Poland and the Soviet Union each renounced any further reparations payments from Germany.

Because there’s no sign that German reparations payments will stop anytime soon, the Welt am Sonntag wonders if they might be “bottomless.” In coming years, Finance Ministry specialists estimate, Germany will pay out an additional 24 billion marks (about $14.4 billion at a recent exchange rate) in Third Reich reparations.

(Sources: J. Kummer, “Wird die Wiedergutmachung ein Fass ohne Boden?” Welt am Sonntag, Oct. 4, 1998, p. 54; Reuters’ dispatch, Bonn, Oct. 3, 1998; The Week in Germany, published by the German Information Center in New York, Oct. 2, 1998; Focus on “German Restitution for National Socialist Crimes,” May 1995 special report by the German Information Center; “Milliardenloch Wiedergutmachung,” D. National-Zeitung [Munich], Nov. 20, 1998, p. 7. See also: “West Germany’s Holocaust Payoff to Israel and World Jewry,” in the Summer 1988 Journal, pp. 243-250.)
From The Journal of Historical Review, Nov.-Dec. 1998 (Vol. 17, No. 6), page 19.

As soon as i can find the one (article outlining the contract and length of the contract Germany is obligated to) i first mentioned I will post it.

Holocaust Compensation and Restitution By Country

(December 2005)

---

For the latest information and additional links to the programs described below,
please visit the The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany

Austria Belgium Bulgaria Croatia Czech Republic Denmark Estonia France Germany Greece Hungary Israel Italy Latvia Lithuania Luxembourg Macedonia Netherlands Norway Poland Romania Russia Serbia-Montenegro Slovakia Sweden Ukraine UK International Venues

The information presented herein is intended for information purposes only and solely as a general guide. The information is not intended as legal advice. It is a summary of specific issues and does not represent a definitive or complete statement of the programs and policies of the agencies or governments mentioned. The information may not address the special needs, interests and circumstances of individual recipients. Individual situations differ and recipients are urged to seek individual advice.Individuals seeking specific information on a program are urged to contact the relevant program or to consult their social service agency or help center representative. To the best of our knowledge the information is correct as of the date of this document and this information may change subsequent to the said date.  Updated December, 2005. The chart is also available in printable (PDF) format: [Compensation and Restitution at a Glance]

Needing Pork, China Is to Buy a U.S. Supplier; ‘Smithfield’

China’s pig dumping scandal puts spotlight on illegal pork trade

By Peter Ford, Staff writer / March 14, 2013

On Wednesday, 46 men were jailed for selling meat from sick pigs near where farmers were believed to dump some 6,000 diseased pigs into a river that supplies drinking water to Shanghai.

BEIJING

The 6,000 rotting pigs floating toward Shanghai may pose a public health problem, but at least they are not part of a much greater threat. If they had not been thrown into the Huangpu River, it is emerging, they might well have ended up on dinner plates.

The discovery of the dead pigs has thrown a spotlight on a little-known practice that insiders say is not uncommon inChina: Farmers sell pigs that have died from disease to underground traders, who then sell the pork illegally to consumers and food processing firms.

In the past two years at least six other similar cases have come to court in different parts of China, suggesting that the practice is widespread. 

“The pig mortality rate is high and farmers sell the carcasses to people in the illegal business so as to recoup some of their losses,” says Feng Yonghui, an analyst with Zhongkeyiheng, an agri-business consultancy in Beijing.  MORE

China has replaced the U.S. to become the world’s largest consumer of pork. The country has a national pork reserve that it releases when prices soar.

Demand for pork in China reflects its booming economy and rising middle class. But that rapidly growing appetite has strained its food production systems, leading to breakdowns and a number of food safety scandals.

Now China’s biggest pork producer, seeking plentiful supplies and technical expertise, has agreed to buy Smithfield Foods, the 87-year-old Virginia-based meat giant with brands like Armour and Farmland, for $4.7 billion in cash.

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• Cheese & Patés

If completed, the deal that was announced on Wednesday would be the biggest takeover of an American company by a Chinese concern. But it must first overcome skepticism in Washington — and a potentially close examination process by United States regulators. Both Smithfield and its suitor, Shuanghui International, said that they will submit the deal for review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or Cfius, a panel of government agencies tasked with clearing deals for national security.

Typically, the committee is concerned with acquisitions that involve technology or vital natural resources. The nation’s food supply chain is not specifically mentioned in its mandate, but the panel’s jurisdiction is considered broad. Among the deals it has reviewed and approved in recent months are the proposed takeover of Nexen Energy by a Chinese oil company and the proposed sale of control of Sprint Nextel to a Japanese telecommunications firm.

The committee may consider whether Shuanghui has ties to organizations like the Chinese army, as well as whether Smithfield’s customer rolls include sensitive information like the locations of secure military installations.  <>

Short URL: http://www.newsnet14.com/?p=125238

Video: Is Obama the Next Fidel Castro? Here are some of the gruesome photos.

thank you Robert Duvall for posting the above video

CUBA: Castro v. the Church Monday, Aug. 22, 1960
Fidel Castro last week lashed out at the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church in Cuba as “scribes and Pharisees,” “peons of the American embassy” and “Franco Fascists.” Castro’s rage was aroused by a pastoral letter* condemning “the growing advance of Communism in our country.” He shouted that whoever “condemns the revolution betrays Christ” and is “capable of crucifying Christ again.”

The Infamous Firing Squad  (see complete from the real cuba)

Thousands of Cubans have died in front of Castro’s infamous firing squad. There was no discrimination, as far as the firing squad was concerned. Young and old, black and white, rich and poor were sent to ‘el paredón’ (the wall).

Many of those who helped Castro gain power, like Comandantes Ernesto Sori Marin and William Morgan, an American, were among the thousands who were shot.

Here are some of the gruesome photos.

Fidel Castro questioning a Cuban farmer who was later executed. The woman behind Castro is Celia Sánchez and sitting next to him is Camilo Cienfuegos.

Celia Sanchez & Fidel Castro at Work & Relaxation

 The above photo was taken in March of 1964, five years after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution that ousted the U. S.-backed Batista dictatorship. It shows Celia Sanchez hard at work on the couch and Fidel Castro relaxing barefooted in his rocking chair. Cuban insiders consider this a very appropriate photograph because Celia was the primary decision-maker in Cuba from January of 1959 till her death from cancer on January 11, 1980, at age fifty-nine. Fidel, as the recognized upfront leader of Cuba, always fully supported whatever decisions Celia rendered, even if he initially disagreed with her. Irate over terrorist acts from Florida that continually targeted her beloved peasants, Celia, without consulting Fidel, sent a cable to Moscow requesting nuclear missiles on Cuban soil.

Camilo Cienfuegos As An

Immigrant In U.S.

BY RAFAEL SIERRA

Pathfinder Press recently released a new edition of Ernesto Che Guevara’s Episodes of the Cuban Revolutionary War – 1956-58. “Pages from Cuba’s Revolutionary History,” a weekly series aimed at promoting this book, features articles by and about combatants of the July 26 Movement and Rebel Army, which led the revolutionary war that overthrew the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista and opened the socialist revolution in the Americas.

This week’s installment is about Camilo Cienfuegos, one of the principal Rebel Army commanders. Before he joined the Cuban revolutionary forces, Cienfuegos was a worker and political activist in the United States. Cienfuegos’s first stay in the United States ended with his deportation by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). The second ended when he went to Mexico to volunteer for the Granma expedition being organized by the July 26 Movement, led by Fidel Castro, to begin the revolutionary armed struggle against the Batista regime.

Even before the triumph of the Revolution, Castro and his gang were prone to murder those who disagreed with them.

In the photo below, taken while still in the Sierra Maestra mountains, Fidel Castro’s brother, Raul, is seen getting ready to shoot a young rebel soldier who disobeyed orders.

Short URL: http://www.newsnet14.com/?p=125221

U.S. Arab population up more than 75 percent since 1990, census report shows. As the Government is more tran$parent with citizen$ information but not their own!

The Arab population in the United States has grown more than 75 percent since 1990, more than triple the rate nation’s overall growth, a Census Bureau report released Wednesday shows.

Yet Arabs represent a tiny fraction of the entire population in the United States, estimated at just 0.5 percent.

The Census Bureau’s five-year American Community Survey ending in 2010 places the U.S. Arab population at 1.5 million, up from 850,000 in 1990.

The biggest groups are:

1. Lebanese, estimated at 485,917
2. Egyptian, 179,853
3. Syrian, 147,426
4. Palestinian, 83,241
5. Moroccan, 74,908
6. Iraqi, 73,896
7. Jordanian, 60,056
8. Yemeni, 29,358

People of Arab ancestry have higher median household incomes than the overall population – $56,433 to $51,914 – with the highest incomes being Lebanese ($67,264) and Egyptian ($62,812).

Arabs also tend to be from larger households, with 2.93 people per household vs. 2.59 for the U.S. population as a whole. Yemeni households average 4.34 people, the census report shows (pdf).  See source for more

How Unique is the New U.S. Open Data Policy?

 The White House’s new Executive Order may be significantly different than the open data policies that have come before it on the federal level, but where does it stand in a global — and local — context?

Many folks have already jumped at the chance to compare this new US executive order and the new policies that accompany it to a similar public letter issued by UK Prime Minister David Cameron in 2010, but little attention has been paid to one of the new policy’s most substantial provisions: the creation of a public listing of agency databased on an internal audits of information holdings. As administrative as this provision might sound, the creation of this listing (and the accompanying scoping of what information isn’t yet public, but could be released) is part of the next evolution of open data policies (and something Sunlight has long called for as a best practice).

So does this policy put the U.S. on the leading edge?

Feds to Open Data Access in a Big Way

One aspect of the feds’ new Open Data Policy presents both an opportunity and a challenge. It specifically calls for improved interoperability as a way to advance open data implementation. “Right now, standards setting for interoperability seems to be nobody’s job — and the federal government has the opportunity to take the lead here,” said Hudson Hollister of the Data Transparency Coalition.

Making money from accessing the vast amounts of information collected by the U.S. government has been the basis for many commercial enterprises. The widespread use of Census Bureau data alone has been a great business resource for decades — with a relatively new twist as a component of Google Maps.

Now the U.S. government has undertaken a major effort to make tons of federal information from all agencies more accessible for the general public and the business community. The government’s Open Data Policy requires federal agencies to put most of their information resources into electronically accessible configurations.

“One of the things we’re doing to fuel more private sector innovation and discovery is to make vast amounts of America’s data open and easy to access for the first time in history,” said President Obama when he announced the program in a May 9 executive order. The Office of Management Budget supplemented the order with an implementation directive. >>more<<

Transparency and Open Government

Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies

SUBJECT:      Transparency and Open Government

My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government.  We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.

Government should be transparent.  Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing.  Information maintained by the Federal Government is a national asset. My Administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use. Executive departments and agencies should harness new technologies to put information about their operations and decisions online and readily available to the public. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public feedback to identify information of greatest use to the public.

Government should be participatory. Public engagement enhances the Government’s effectiveness and improves the quality of its decisions. Knowledge is widely dispersed in society, and public officials benefit from having access to that dispersed knowledge. Executive departments and agencies should offer Americans increased opportunities to participate in policymaking and to provide their Government with the benefits of their collective expertise and information. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public input on how we can increase and improve opportunities for public participation in Government.

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