“The IRS always treated those as loans to Mr. Stanford,” said Larry Campagna, who represented Stanford in personal and business tax disputes with the IRS in 1998 and again in 2003.

The IRS did change its position, however, about the correct way to characterize payments from Stanford to his Houston-based Stanford Financial Group, the parent company of Stanford’s scores of business operations. He was sole owner of Stanford Financial and its subsidiaries.

Although the tax agency ruled that those should be listed as loans on 1998 tax returns, it said the payments should be recorded on 2001 and 2002 returns as dividend payments to Stanford, Campagna said.

Defense attorney Robert Scardino asked Campagna if anything about the returns prompted the IRS to ask criminal investigators to initiate a fraud probe.

“No,” Campagna said before he was dismissed from the witness stand.

Stanford, a native of Mexia, is accused of leading a fraud that prosecutors allege took $7 billion from clients who bought certificates of deposit in Stanford’s bank in Antigua. They were led to believe their money was invested conservatively, according to prosecution testimony, while much of it really went to personal loans to Stanford for his pet business projects and luxurious life.

Two other defense witnesses testified Monday. However, U.S. District Judge David Hittner decided Stanford’s coughing from an apparent cold needed medical attention and stopped the trial early.

Osvaldo Pi, an accountant who went to work in 2001 for Stanford Venture Capital, spent much of his time on the stand explaining venture capital, private equity and other financial terms to jurors.

Private equity firms often seek investments, on their own behalf or for well-heeled clients, in ventures that aren’t publicly traded and seek to raise capital by selling ownership shares. Private equity firms also may arrange buyout deals that take public companies private.

Pi said his job included identifying investment opportunities for Stanford Venture Capital, and that it raised millions of dollars for companies Pi and others vetted for risk and potential.

In the trial’s fifth week, the defense is attempting to show that Stanford was interested in legitimate investments, that he was consolidating his companies to make them more manageable and that the companies would have remained solvent if the U.S. government hadn’t filed a fraud suit and shut them down in February 2009.

Pi testified that the receiver who took over the assets of Stanford Financial Group and its subsidiaries didn’t seem interested in pursuing investments that remained viable, but in liquidating the companies’ assets. He said he stayed with the firm for seven months after it went into receivership.

Karen Pittman, a librarian for Andrew College, a private junior college in Georgia, testified that Stanford hired her to research whether he was related to Leland Stanford, founder of Stanford University in California. Stanford touted the relationship in his promotional brochures although university officials deny any kinship.

Pittman said she found a common relative, but after two years of research could not say for sure that Leland Stanford and Allen Stanford were related.

Defense witnesses have portrayed Stanford as the company visionary who left details to others – notably Chief Financial Officer James Davis. Davis pleaded guilty to three felony charges and testified that he and Stanford knowingly misled investors and misused their money.

Stanford and others were indicted in June 2009. He has been held without bail as a possible flight risk since his arrest that month.

Three other Stanford executives indicted separately and scheduled for trial later are free on bail, and an Antiguan regulator accused of taking bribes is fighting extradition from that Caribbean nation. Davis was charged separately in connection with his guilty plea and is cooperating with the government.

terri.langford@chron.com

Article source: http://www.chron.com/business/article/Witness-describes-Stanford-s-private-equity-3347132.php

Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/pakistan-president-behind-secret-memo-us-witness-175554326.html

The attacks raise fears that the sect, Boko Haram, is taking root in the northern city of Kano.

Resident Ali Garba, a 32-year-old bus driver, said he heard at least six explosions as he was preparing to head to the mosque for dawn prayers in a densely populated Kano neighborhood.

After that, he said, he heard gunfire for about two hours. By the time he left his house, the military had cordoned his neighborhood to prepare for searches, forcing him back into his home.

The attack occurred during curfew hours, he said, likely reducing its impact.

There were no casualties and four suspects were arrested during searches, said military spokesman Lt. Ikedichi Iweha, who declined to comment further.

Boko Haram, whose name means “Western education is sacrilege” in the local Hausa language, is carrying out increasingly sophisticated and bloody attacks in its campaign to implement strict Shariah law and avenge Muslim killings in Nigeria, a multiethnic nation of more than 160 million people.

Meanwhile Wednesday, authorities in the northeast Nigeria’s Yobe state blamed the sect for the shooting death of one man and the wounding of another.

This year, the feared sect is blamed for killing at least 304 people, according to an Associated Press count. At least 185 people died in Kano last month in the group’s deadliest assault yet.

The northern-based group has carried out attacks across Nigeria’s mostly Muslim north but its attacks have been most persistent in the northeastern city of Maiduguri, the sect’s spiritual home, where people live in constant fear of bombings and drive-by killings.

However, a series of attacks over the last month targeting military and police institutions — typical Boko Haram targets — in the much bigger city of Kano, about 380 miles (610 kilometers) away from Maiduguri, are raising fears that the group may be taking root there too.

Authorities have vowed to stop the sect, but the frequency, boldness and scale of its attacks have subdued many citizens’ faith in the security forces’ ability to suppress Boko Haram — a sentiment reinforced by a recent blunder.

In January, a Boko Haram suspect escaped during a police-escorted prison transfer, but was then rearrested over a week ago. Kabiru Sokoto was accused of being involved in the Dec. 25 bombing of St. Theresa Catholic Church that killed at least 44 people in Madalla, a city just outside of Nigeria’s capital of Abuja.

Nigeria’s Police Service Commission announced Wednesday that the local police commissioner who ordered Sokoto’s transfer, Hassan Zakari Biu, had been dismissed effective immediately.

____

Associated Press writers Yinka Ibukun in Lagos, Nigeria, and Haruna Umar in Maiduguri, Nigeria, contributed to this report.

Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/witness-explosions-rock-northern-nigeria-city-204800462.html

Article source: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/02/21/bells-are-ringing-confidence-rises-as-dow-finally-hits-13-000-again.html

Image 1 of 10: Arab sex symbol, Haifa Wehbe, found herself at war with the Gauls when a French website posted ‘pornographic’ images – allegedly her’s – from a sex tape. The singer denied it was her, accusing rival Rula Saad of a set-up, spreading these defamations. Also from Haifa’s ‘dossier’ are snaps of her in a lingerie store taken from a ‘security’ camera.

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Image 1 of 10: Nancy Ajram: A video clip was been leaked from a beauty salon in Egypt revealing the star semi-naked mid-waxing session on a rather delicate area. Nancy has shown extreme outrage over the video claiming that some people abuse new technologies like mobiles for the forces of bad, not good. (Yes, we hate to burst your bubble, Madam Ajram).

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Image 1 of 10: Lebanese Marwa is the latest in the line-up of scandalous stars. A leaked video from her film (Feelings) shows her completely naked. After a singing ban imposed in Egypt, she was exonerated by the musician’s guild. Eventually, she admitted knowledge of the footage as not fabricated but from the filming. (When’s the movie out, we ask?!)

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Image 1 of 10: Egyptian actress Dunya Abdel Aziz was less than impressed when nude photos of her found their way to the internet. These showed her bathing in a scene from her movie, Dove Hunter – in which she stars alongside Ashraf Abdel Baqi. Dunya is otherwise known for playing racy roles in Egyptian cinema.

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Image 1 of 10: Syrian singer “Na Na” is known, as it is, for her provocative video clips. So less surprise when a pornographic video with her “boyfriend” got out. It was said to be of high ‘quality’ (as far as sex-tapes go). She admits its authenticity, while citing unconscious during the filming and accusing her boyfriend (ex?) of using the tape as blackmail.

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Image 1 of 10: Egyptian belly dancer Dina’s video sex-tape was leaked by her ‘secret’ husband. In fact, this embarrassing episode exposed her hidden marriage. The scandal caused her to withdraw from the public eye, distancing herself especially from media, until a recent TV interview in which she shrugged off the whole incident, saying ‘I don’t care’.

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Image 1 of 10: Razan Maghrabi the Lebanese TV presenter was left red-faced when phone-footage of her behaving badly got leaked. She is shown being familiar with a male friend, deemed suggestive indecent. When later reminded of the intimate lewd behavior between her this ‘friend’, she revealed him as her ‘secret’ husband. (Secret Arab marriages again)

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Image 1 of 10: Nicole Ballan, the Lebanese 1995 runner-up beauty queen, disappeared from the face of Lebanon after her ‘porn’
scandal video with her then-boyfriend got leaked. The tape spread faster than Arab revolutions; the boyfriend wound up in prison, she in hiding. She has today wiped off her scarlet letter with a comeback into the Arab ‘Abaya’ business.

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Image 1 of 10: Rosarita Taweel. A more recent Lebanese beauty, ‘Miss Lebanon 2008′ nearly had her title revoked no thanks to her nude photos on the internet – in violation of the contest’s squeaky clean conditions for prize winners. She defended her photo-shoots as pre-2008, and her mother dismissed the whole affair as innocent fun with the Ethiopian maid.

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Image 1 of 10: The Egyptian actress Ruby denied all knowledge of appearing in any porno video – claiming that such a video was fabricated.
The Egyptian actress Dunya Samir Ghanem appeared scantily clad in a short clip in her underwear. The Lebanese Carole Samaha turned down, with distaste, an invitation to dirty-dance with a male model at a music concert.

Celebrities in the Arab world, as elsewhere are premium, hot stuff. They are stalked, chased, and hunted down by anything from paparazzi to people with snazzy phone cameras. Their’s is a life of pressure and oftentimes distress, as they live every moment in the public gaze, devoid of privacy and the space to keep anything, let alone private marriages, from the media lens.

Scandals, while more commonplace in the western world, can still cause big upsets, marring lives in the Eastern world. Sex is still taboo and strictly for marriage. Arab celebrities can therefore find themselves, dizzy from the constant glare from TV, the internet, ‘followed’ on Twitter and in the supermarket or salon, caught off guard – wavering between confessions and denials of their on-camera supposedly-off-camera exploits.

Indeed, such controversial scandals can really offend and shake-up the foundations of the somewhat still more conservative Eastern cultures. While sex tapes and fame have become almost synonymous in the world of the Kardashians and the Paris Hilton trend-setters – who catapaulted into fame on the back of these indecent exposures- in the Arab world, we reserve the right to still be shocked. In the Middle East, certainly, home to the conservative Islamic faithful as well as more traditional Christian worshippers, and culturally ‘affected’ Arab peoples, sexually liberal behavior or out-of-wedlock candor is still very much taboo, on or off camera. Nudity, never mind pornography, can shame and scandalize entire families and the rank and file of society. It is more than just individual careers that come under the stern stamp of ill-repute.

The material from the cases rounded up in this shame-show has come about, reportedly, either from professional film footage including supposedly editited or deleted scenes, or else from privately leaked sources, even rivals looking to sabotage their competition. Otherwise, these expicit scenes discussed in this line-up, have been blatantly obtained unlawfully through security and phone cameras. Al Bawaba’s picks of some the stars ‘caught in the act’ include, possibly the usual suspects:  Haifa Wehbe, Nancy Ajram, Marwa, Dina, Dunya Abdel Aziz, “Na Na” and more.

The Tunisian Cutlure minister has banned several artists from performing live shows in Tunisia due to their unsavory reputations. This hard-line censure has raised concern and speculation that Tunisia – much like other newly ‘awakened’ Arab nations – may be falling under an attempt to Islamisize new Arabia. Will the new Arab world be witnessing attempts to erradicate these pop-celeb influences from a purer Muslim culture?

Even Arab footballers and footballers of Arab background are prone to getting carried away in the culture of scandals.  Sami Khedira, of Real Madrid, (German of Tunisian origin), and Mohamed Zidan, (the Egyptian player), have both respectivly fallen foul of the social disgraces of indecent exposure outside the realms of their sport.

The question to ask ourselves is, do we expect this particular band of celebrities that is Arab to adhere to better or ‘higher’ rules of conduct since they are Muslim or Christian Arabs? Though they can expect the best of the high life that celebrity has to offer, entourages and red carpets and hero worship not excepting, do we count on them to retain the conservative cultural standards that they were borne out of. Or is it their celebrity-given prerogative to select their preferred bits of life in the limelight? Can the beast that is celebrity be reduced to nationality or culture; or is it just one out-of-control black hole of entertainmet fodder for the web-surfing, scandal-scavenging masses?

Leave your comments below. Do you think we have the right to intrude or even ‘own’ the lives of our very own Arab Celebrities, or do think by exposing themselves, they leave us little choice but to watch their exploits? 

Article source: http://www.albawaba.com/slideshow/arab-celebs-caught-acts-pornography-nudity-and-scandals-413885

The Argyle Pink Jubilee. Photo credit: AAP via the Herald Sun newspaper.

A 12.76 carat diamond was found at the Argyle diamond mine in the East Kimberley region of Western Australia. It’s the biggest pink diamond ever found at the famed mine, the world’s largest producer of pink diamonds.

It is expected to fetch at least $10 million according to a report in the Herald Sun newspaper in Melbourne, Australia.

Owned by mining giant Rio Tinto, the mine is estimated to have a 10-year supply left of these pinks so it’s likely this will be the largest diamond ever found at the mine.

The diamond will be known as the Argyle Pink Jubilee, Rio Tinto said in a statement.

The Argyle Pink Jubilee is a light pink diamond, similar in color to The Williamson Pink, which is the diamond that Queen Elizabeth II received as a wedding gift and was subsequently set into a brooch for her Coronation.

Expert diamond polisher Richard How Kim Kam, who has been at Argyle for 25 years, started the work to begin polishing the pink diamond, Rio Tinto said. After two months of assessment and planning, it will take about 10 days to cut and polish the diamond as a single stone.

“I’m going to take it very carefully,” he said. “I know the world will be watching.”

When the diamond has been cut and polished it will be graded by a team of international experts and showcased to the world before being sold as part of the annual Argyle Pink Diamonds Tender later this year. The best Argyle pink diamonds are shown in major cities around the world to a select group of diamond dealers where they view the diamonds and place silent bids on the ones that catch their eye. They find out months later if their bids have won.

“A diamond of this caliber is unprecedented—it has taken 26 years of Argyle production to unearth this stone and we may never see one like this again,” said Josephine Johnson, Argyle Pink Diamonds manager.

More than 90 per cent of the world’s pink diamonds come from the Argyle mine.

Large pink diamonds tend to go to museums, are gifted to royalty or end up at auction houses. Christie’s auction house has only sold 18 polished pink diamonds over 10 carats in its 244 year history.

Article source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonydemarco/2012/02/21/rare-12-carat-argyle-pink-diamond-unearthed-in-australia/

Article source: http://www.wdef.com/news/state/story/Witness-says-dive-firm-violated-its-rules/WUU2hjXcNESivQUfTLDPDQ.cspx?rss=3472

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama –  A witness in the trial of an Alabama man charged with murdering his bride on a honeymoon scuba outing in Australia testified Tuesday that a diving firm violated its own rules in preparing the woman for the trip.

The man who was the dive master on the trip in 2003, Wade Singleton, said 26-year-old Tina Watson didn’t get a private briefing or an orientation dive before going into the water with her husband, Gabe Watson, despite policies that require both.

The 34-year-old Watson is on trial on a charge of murdering the woman by drowning her during the honeymoon dive. The defense contends her death was an accident.

Watson served 18 months in prison in Australia after pleading guilty to a manslaughter charge in his wife’s death, but that charge involved negligence, not an intentional killing like the Alabama charge.

Trying to bolster suggestions that the company that operated the diving boat was at least partly to blame, defense lawyer Brett Bloomston got Singleton to acknowledge that he and other crew members didn’t ask a number of questions of the woman, a novice with only 11 previous dives.

While company rules based on government regulations required workers to make in-depth, individual assessments of divers’ skills, employees on the Spoilsport didn’t perform all the checks on Tina Watson or other divers, Singleton said.

“Were you not aware that she had never been in the ocean in an open water dive?” Bloomston asked.

“No, I was not,” replied Singleton, who has since left the diving business and now works as a paramedic.

Singleton said Gabe Watson was considered an experienced diver because he had 55 previous dives, including more than a dozen in the ocean, and both he and his wife declined an orientation dive on the Great Barrier Reef site with an expert.

“You can’t make them take the dive if they don’t want to take the dive?” asked prosecutor Tina Hammonds.

“No, I can’t,” he said.

The woman drowned while diving on a shipwreck off the coast. Prosecutors contend her husband turned off her air intentionally.

Tina Watson’s father, Tommy Thomas, left the courtroom in tears as an Australian medical examiner showed jurors autopsy photos.

The doctor, David John Williams, said an examination determined the woman drowned, and he ruled out other factors including a heart problem that she’d had several years earlier.

Article source: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/02/21/witness-in-honeymoon-murder-trial-testifies-that-diving-firm-did-not-prep-bride/

The feds claim former New York Senate Majority Leader Pedro Espada Jr. coached a woman to lie before a federal grand jury investigating corruption allegations against him, The Post has learned.

Although witness tampering is a crime, Brooklyn federal prosecutors are not charging Espada with new counts stemming from the incident — but they want the jury in his upcoming corruption trial to hear about the alleged misconduct.

Prosecutors identified the witness as one of the top executives at Soundview Healthcare Network, Espada’s not-for-profit medical firm, which was financed by taxpayer dollars.

Late in 2010, the woman — who also previously sat on Soundview’s board of directors — received a subpoena to testify before a grand jury probing Espada’s private business activities, prosecutors wrote in a recent court filing.

“Just prior to her appearance, Espada summoned her to meet with him,” Assistant US Attorney Roger Burlingame wrote.

“During the meeting, Espada informed [the woman] of the questions he believed she would be asked in the grand jury and of the ‘correct’ answers to those questions,” Burlingame wrote.

The discussion revolved around the feds’ suspicions that Espada had engaged in bid rigging when Soundview hired SME — his private janitorial company — for cleaning services, prosecutors said.

The feds say that by using this bid-rigging scheme, SME and Espada stole more than $100,000 a year out of Soundview’s corporate funds.

Espada told the woman to testify that “there were three bidders” for the janitorial contract and that Espada’s firm had submitted the cheapest bid for the cleaning contract, prosecutors say.

At the time the cleaning contract was awarded to Espada’s janitorial firm, the woman was sitting on the board that approved the deal, prosecutors say.

The woman “felt uncomfortable at the meeting because she believed that Espada — her boss and a respected authority figure in her life — was attempting to influence her grand-jury testimony,” Burlingame wrote.

“Shortly thereafter, she appeared before the grand jury and falsely testified.”

Prosecutors say that the woman — whom they describe as a young mother who has worked at Soundview for most of her adult life — will be testifying as a leading prosecution witness at Espada’s trial.

The feds are asking Judge Frederic Block to allow the testimony about the alleged witness tampering, arguing that it demonstrates Espada’s “consciousness of guilt.”

Espada is accused of embezzling government funds by allegedly using his health-care business as a personal bank.

Soundview Healthcare Network received about $1 million a year in federal funds, officials said.

Prosecutors have indicated they plan to use charts prepared by an FBI analyst at Espada’s trial to explain the alleged bid-rigging schemes.

The former state senator’s attorney, Susan Necheles, has said that Espada is steadfast in his desire to fight the charges and maintains that he is not guilty of any misdeeds.

Necheles did not immediately return a call for comment.

The judge has not yet ruled on the witness issue.

mmaddux@nypost.com

Article source: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/brooklyn/witness_tamper_hit_vs_espada_FQ87VtqiRu7XKgrSQGrO1K?CMP=OTC-rss&FEEDNAME=

The Vatican has announced the canonization of the 17th century Visayan martyr, along with six others, following the approval of Pope Benedict XVI, according to the Vatican’s official website.

The Pope made the announcement through Angelo Cardinal Amato, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, at the St. Peter’s Basilica, following a ceremony in which 22 bishops from around the world were elevated to the rank of cardinal.

The Vatican had earlier recognized the recovery from a deep coma of a Cebu businesswoman as a miracle obtained through Calungsod’s intercession.

Meanwhile, the Archdiocese of Cebu is expected to go full swing in its preparations for the big event. Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma has appointed Cebu Archbishop Emeritus Ricardo Cardinal Vidal as the overall head for the preparations for the archdiocese-wide celebration.

Vidal will help organize the group of pilgrims that will include auxiliary bishops and devotees who will witness first-hand the canonization rites in Rome.

“It’s a witnessing,” said the prelate of the canonization rites. A thanksgiving mass will be celebrated by the archdiocese after the formal rites in Rome.

Blessed Pedro was martyred for his faith at the young age of 17 in Tumon, Guam, in 1672 while doing missionary work along with a Spanish Jesuit priest, then the rector of the evangelization mission and now, Blessed Diego Luis de San Vitores.

Blessed Pope John Paul II beatified the former altar boy on March 5, 2000, and declared April 2 of every year as Pedro Calungsod Day in his native town of Ginatilan in Cebu, where a thanksgiving mass, followed by a solemn procession, is celebratted on the date annually. Ever since, the Cebuanos have looked up to him as a powerful intercessor.

Cardinal Vidal said, “Young people today can draw encouragement and strength from the example of Blessed Pedro whose love of Jesus inspired him to devote his teenage years teaching the faith as a boy catechist. He is a model and patron of the youth.” (With reports from Mars Mosqueda and Leslie Ann G. Aquino)

Article source: http://ph.news.yahoo.com/canonization-set-visayan-martyr-112356166.html