Ex-Aide Outs Mahmoud Abbas’ Rampant Theft from International Donors

It's not so much that he is stealing from Int'l donors, but he is stealing from Palestinians. Keeping his people in poverty helps keep them angry at Israel, even as the real villain is among them.

Yasser Jadallah, former senior advisor to PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, reveals corruption and theft of funds by Abbas himself and other top Palestinian cronies.

By Yakir Benzion, United With Israel

One of the biggest complaints the Palestinians have is actually against the Palestinians.

For years, ordinary Palestinians have complained about official corruption. It started decades ago in Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization, where billions of dollars in donated funds disappeared into the PLO-controlled bank accounts. There was no paper trail. There was no accountability.

After the Oslo Accords in 1993 there was hope that the Palestinian Authority that came into office would finally be responsible with money ostensibly destined for the Palestinians. The Europeans and other donor countries kept pushing for transparency while Palestinian leaders always denied there was any corruption, but the Palestinians themselves always knew there was something fishy.

Tens of billions of dollars in donations over the years seemed to be getting them nowhere, and nobody could say for sure where all that money goes.

Lest you think all Palestinians live in poverty, this is the humble abode of Palestinian businessman

Mohamed Abdel-Hadi

That fishy feeling got a big confirmation recently when a whistleblower in Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas’s office fled to Europe to seek political asylum in Belgium and started revealing what was going on.

The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs recently published a translation of some of the damning comments from Yasser Jadallah, a senior official in President Mahmoud Abbas’ Political Department, confirming what Palestinians and Israelis have been saying for years: There is major corruption related to the theft of funds given to the PA by international organizations.

In a video released by a Palestinian news agency associated with Hamas, which always loves to poke Abbas in the eye, Jadallah claimed that the funds in the Palestinian Ministry of Finance listed under the heading “EU assistance and Arab states” were mostly transferred to the Palestinian presidency and from there to secret accounts known to only three people: Abbas, his private secretary Mrs. Intesar Abu Amara, and Mahmoud Salameh, Deputy Chief of Staff in the PA chairman’s office.

Jadallah claimed the funds disappeared after entering the PA bank accounts and were transferred to accounts with fictitious names, as well as to accounts with the names of Abbas’s grandchildren.

“We have passed this information onto European MPs,” Jadallah said in the video.

Jadallah said Abbas ordered his office accounts to be destroyed every six months, but in reality, they are destroyed every day for “security reasons.”

Before fleeing to Europe, Jadallah said Palestinian security agents abducted him twice and tried to stop him from revealing the corruption. PA sources denied the allegations and accused Jadallah of being a disgruntled former civil servant trying to settle scores by spreading lies.

Yasser Jadallah’s video was circulated via WhatsApp across the PA-run territories and sparked considerable interest. The PA’s silence on the issue only heightens suspicions that there is substance to the news.

The corruption issue appears to be a key reason why most Palestinians are not interested in a new intifada to fight Israel’s upcoming extension of sovereignty to Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.

‘We don’t need the West’: Assad to Ban Foreign Money from Syria Reconstruction

"The West is not honest at all, they don’t give, they only take."

Syrian President Bashar Assad speaks to Russian NTV channel © Reuters

Syria will not allow Western investors to step into the rebuilding of war-damaged country as they only come to “take” from foreign economies, Syria’s Bashar Assad told Russian media, adding he will seek friendly aid instead.

Friendly aid would mean Iran and Russia, for the most part, and possibly a small Gulf State or two. They are going to need a ton of money as most of the country is completely destroyed and may regret closing the door, especially if the west tightens the screws on Iran again.

And Assad surely knows that if Iran is spending kazillions of dollars in Syria it is going to want stuff in return. It has already opened schools in Syria and are teaching children Iran's toxic version of Islam.

The US and its Western allies have been actively engaged in the seven-year long war in Syria, including the illegal stationing of troops in the country and backing anti-government militants such as Free Syrian Army (FSA) and “moderate” Islamist groups. The war has dealt billions in damage to the country, but President Assad is determined to rebuild without a single penny from the “dishonest” West. 

“They [the West] won’t be part of reconstruction in Syria, because very simply we won’t allow them to be part of it… we don’t need the West. The West is not honest at all, they don’t give, they only take,” the Syrian leader told Russian NTV channel on Sunday. 

The country was historically built without external help, the Syrian president stressed, adding that any loans would be allowed only from “friends.” On the other hand, European investors, who have been privately contacting the Syrian authorities on the matter, will be banned from Syrian markets. Assad says that Europe has eyes for Syria just to save its own “dire” economies.

“They need this market, they are in a very dire situation economically since 2008, most of the European countries. They need many markets, Syria is one of them, and we are not going to allow them to be part of this market, very simply,” he said.

During the interview, Assad lashed out at Western powers, which he believes are controlled by Washington and only have “the substitute of statesmen” and “fake politics.” He said this approach needed “fake stories,” including the alleged use of chemical weapons, which Assad was repeatedly accused of despite Damascus destroying the stockpile in 2013.

The Syrian leader also said that negotiating with US President Donald Trump would be fruitless as Washington always comes up short on its promises and things only get worse when it’s involved.

“The problem with the American presidents is that they are hostages to their lobbies, to the mainstream media, to the huge corporations, financial, oil, armaments, etc.,” Assad said. He described President Trump as a “very stark example” of American approach in politics – always saying “what you want to hear,” but doing the opposite, get things “worse and worse.”

“So, talking and discussing with the Americans now for no reason, without achieving anything, is just a waste of time,” the Syrian leader said, adding that Damascus is ready for productive dialogue, but it is unlikely to have it with Washington “in the foreseeable future.”

So, it would seem, the door is closed, but not necessarily locked.

BMJ Editor Fiona Godlee Takes on Corruption in Science

Science is only as good as the people who produce it

'Medicine and science are run by human beings,

so there will always be crooks,' says journal editor

By Kelly Crowe, CBC News 

But Dr. Fiona Godlee, editor of the British Medical Journal, specializes in the unexpected.


The puppet she's holding is dressed as a doctor, complete with a stethoscope around its neck. Its strings represent the hidden hand of the pharmaceutical industry

'I think we have to call it what it is. 

It is a corruption of the scientific process.'

-Dr. Fiona Godlee, editor, BMJ

Godlee keeps it on her desk to remind her of the dark forces at work in science and medicine. And she is blunt about the results.

"I think we have to call it what it is. It is the corruption of the scientific process."

There are increasing concerns these days about scientific misconduct. Hundreds of papers are being pulled from the scientific record, for falsified data, for plagiarism, and for a variety of other reasons that are often never explained.

Sometimes it's an honest mistake. But it's estimated that 70 per cent of the retractions are based on some form of scientific misconduct.

"Medicine and science are run by human beings, so there will always be crooks," Godlee says.

"There will be commercial pressures, academic pressures, and to pretend otherwise is absurd. So we have to have many more mechanisms, much more skepticism, and much more willingness to challenge."

As the editor of one of the oldest and most influential medical journals, Godlee is leading several campaigns to change the way science is reported, including opening up data for other scientists to review, and digging up data from old and abandoned trials for a second look.

She has strong words about the overuse of drugs, and the influence of industry on the types of questions that scientists ask, and the conclusions that are drawn from the evidence.

"It's not my job to be popular, I'm very clear about that," she says from her office in the historic British Medical Association building in central London.

"She's taken her licks, as it were, because other people don't like the level of transparency she is bringing to the process," says medical writer Dr. Ivan Oransky, who writes about flawed science on his blog Retraction Watch.


Dr. Ivan Oransky of Retraction Watch tries to shine a light on science's dirty secrets. (CBC)

Based in New York City, Retraction Watch is fascinating reading for anyone interested in what goes on behind science's closed doors.

Every day there are one or two new examples of research that has been quietly withdrawn.

"People leak us things, people send us documents, we get reports from universities that aren't supposed to see the light of day," Oransky says.

"There does remain a really entrenched problem with institutions, when asked to investigate allegations of misconduct. They will tend to close down, will tend to prefer not to investigate, will tend to hide any evidence and see it as a damage to their own reputation if they were to take action," Godlee says.

So retractions are, paradoxically, a good thing.

"I think this trend toward journal retraction is a positive sign against what we've known to be going on for quite a long time," Godlee says.

Godlee admires Oransky's work, although they've never met.

"It's doing a good and important job," she said. "It's doing more than retractions, it's looking at misconduct in research."

In that sense, Godlee says, they are on the same page. But Godlee says the journals themselves are part of the problem.

It is up to the journals to decide what science gets published, and they usually choose positive findings. That means a study showing that a treatment or theory doesn't work rarely makes it into a high-profile journal.

It's called "publication bias" and it distorts the scientific record.

"All along the way, the system tends to encourage a sort of optimistic positive view of new drugs and drug treatments generally," Godlee says

Her solution? Transparency. Throw open the windows, let everyone see everything.

"I do have a belief in the fundamentality of science to correct itself. We can't do that under the blanket of secrecy," she says.

"We also need to have more independence in science, less commercial bias, less ability of academics to follow their own biases. All sorts of checks and balances of that sort. But in the end, transparency, to me, seems like the only correct route."

Her policy is already changing the scientific record.

Just last week, the BMJ published the results of a second look at a long abandoned clinical trial testing the hypothesis that a diet high in unsaturated oil would reduce heart disease and death. 

The new conclusion? Not only did corn oil not improve health, the data also showed a higher risk in death from the high corn oil diet.

Two years earlier, the BMJ published an analysis of another lost trial, by the same team. After digging the data out of a box in an old garage, they came to a similar conclusion about the effect of a so-called "healthy" oil on health.

And there was the re-analysis of Study 329, a controversial clinical trial into the use of the antidepressant Paxil to treat teenage depression. The new findings contradicted the original industry-funded researchers, concluding that the drug wasn't safe and didn't work.

Is that the conclusion of the re-analysis or the original finding? I would think the former, but the sentence could be interpreted either way.

It took a court case to get access to the hidden Paxil data, which was protected by corporate secrecy. And that raises another controversial question about who should be testing drugs in the first place.

'Patients do get hurt.'

- Dr. Fiona Godlee

"It's led me and others to increasingly question the idea that the manufacturer of the drug could ever be considered the right people to evaluate its effectiveness and safety," Godlee says.

"That seems to me to be very mad idea which has grown up historically, and we have to start questioning it and we have to come up with alternatives, which would mean independent studies done by independent bodies."

And it matters, Godlee says, because bad science can be dangerous.

"Patients do get hurt. Drugs that shouldn't be available are available. Drugs with harms are used and patients are unaware of those harms. Devices that shouldn't be on the market are on the market. So yes, we do know that patients are harmed, and we know that the health systems are harmed as a result of poor science."

Kelly Crowe is a medical sciences correspondent for CBC News, specializing in health and biomedical research. She joined CBC in 1991, and has spent 25 years reporting on a wide range of national news and current affairs, with a particular interest in science and medicine.

Judge has Pity on Black Thieves but None for 3 Year Old White Victim

I present this story from Right Wing News even though their conclusions are off the mark. I'll discuss it below.

Right Wing News
A black judge in Kentucky has given two home invaders and armed robbers a light sentence because he feels that their three-year-old white victim was a “racist” because in her victim statement the little girl said she is now afraid of black people after they broke into her home and threatened her with a gun.

Judge Olu Stevens

In an outrageous statement from the bench, Louisville Judge Olu Stevens attacked the tiny white toddler and her parents for their “racism” calling the little girl’s statement “disturbing” while at the same time excusing the actions of the criminals who traumatized her. That’s right, this judge was more upset at a little girl for being scared by armed robbers than he was at the armed robbers.

At the sentencing trial of one of the robbers, a victim’s impact statement written by the little girl’s mother was entered into evidence. The statement read in part, “Whenever we are running errands, if we come across a black male, she holds me tight and begs me to leave. It has affected her friendships at school and our relationships with African-American friends.”

Then the judge outrageously attacked the little girl saying her statement disgusted him…

Watch Judge Stevens comments

But when Wallace (the robber) was brought up for sentencing Feb. 4 in Jefferson Circuit Court, it was the parents, not Wallace, who suffered Judge Olu Stevens’ wrath.

“I am offended. … I am deeply offended that they would be victimized by an individual and express some kind of fear of all black men,” he said.

“This little girl certainly has been victimized, and she can’t help the way she feels,” he said. “My exception is more with her parents and their accepting that kind of mentality and fostering those type of stereotypes.”

The Grays were not in court as Stevens denounced their statements and granted probation to Wallace, whom he said deserved the opportunity to redeem himself.

So, the armed robber who traumatized a tiny girl gets probation because this judge claimed that the little girl was a racist…. and he assumes, I am sure, that the little girl deserved to be robbed at gun point because she is white.

This case is bad enough on its own merits, it doesn't need the hyperbole added by the web site. Their conclusions were completely wrong and it is so obvious I have to wonder whether it was deliberate or if they are really that dumb at Right Wing News.

The judge never called the little girl racist or even implied it. He specifically stated “This little girl certainly has been victimized, and she can’t help the way she feels,”. In case that is too complex for you (RWN) to understand, it means he doesn't think the little girl is racist. 

His declaration of racism is leveled at the girl's parents for "accepting that kind of mentality and fostering those type of stereotypes.” Do you need me to break that down for you, RWN? It means he's calling the parents racist, not the child.

Now, Judge Stevens' conclusion is (without having seen the rest of the impact statement) completely wrong. It's like he was looking for an out for the guy. He decides that the little girl's reaction is disturbing and unnatural. However, if the little girl were black and the invader white, the little black girl would be just as afraid of whitey as the white girl is of blacks. It is a completely natural reaction.

There is nothing from what I could see in the impact statement to suggest that the parents 'accepted' the girl's fear or fostered 'those type of stereotypes'. Is it possible to sue a judge for defamation? If it is, they certainly appear to have a case. The mother even stated plainly that they have relationships with African-American friends. He seems to have missed that in implying that they were racist. If there is anyone racist in this story it is not the little girl or her parents.

So, as I said, the story is bad enough that it doesn't need the misleading headline and assumptions by RWN. Their report is not a lot less dishonest than Judge Stevens' misguided accusations.