US jury indicts Rajya Sabha MP in bribery conspiracy

April 3, 2014

Ramachandra_Rao

Washington, April 3: In an unprecedented case, a Chicago jury has indicted a Congress party Rajya Sabha MP in an alleged international conspiracy to bribe state and central government officials in India to allow mining of titanium minerals.

K.V.P. Ramachandra Rao, aka KVP and Dr. KVP, 65, a Rajya Sabha member from Andhra Pradesh, was indicted by a federal grand jury in June 2013 along with an Indian-American businessman and four other foreign nationals, the Justice Department announced Wednesday.

Rao is described as a Member of Parliament in India who was an official of the state government of Andhra Pradesh and a close advisor to the now-deceased chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy. Also charged was Gajendra Lal, 50, an Indian national and permanent resident of the US, who formerly resided in Winston-Salem, North Carolina

Under the federal indictment unsealed Wednesday excluding Rao, five of the six defendants are also charged with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), among other offenses.

According to the indictment beginning in 2006, the defendants allegedly conspired to pay at least $18.5 million in bribes to secure licenses to mine minerals in Andhra Pradesh.

The mining project was expected to generate more than $500 million annually from the sale of titanium products, including sales to unnamed "Company A," headquartered in Chicago.

All six defendants were charged with one count each of racketeering conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy, and two counts of interstate travel in aid of racketeering.

Only one defendant, Dmitry Firtash, aka "Dmytro Firtash" and "DF," 48, a Ukrainian national, was arrested March 12 in Vienna, Austria.

He was released after posting 125 million euros (approximately $174 million) bail and has pledged to remain in Austria until the end of extradition proceedings.

Firtash allegedly controls Group DF, an international conglomerate of companies that was directly and indirectly owned by Group DF Limited, a British Virgin Islands company.

The indictment alleges the defendants used US financial institutions to engage in the international transmission of millions of dollars for the purpose of bribing Indian public officials to obtain approval of the necessary licenses for the project.

Firtash allegedly met with Indian government officials, including then chief minister Reddy, to discuss the project and its progress, and authorised payment of at least $18.5 million in bribes to both state and central government officials in India to secure the approval of licenses for the project.

Firtash also allegedly directed his subordinates to create documents to make it falsely appear that money transferred for the purpose of paying these bribes was transferred for legitimate commercial purposes He appointed various subordinates to oversee efforts to obtain the licenses through bribery.

Lal, also known as "Gaj" allegedly reported to Firtash on the status of obtaining licenses, and recommended whether, and in what manner, to pay certain bribes to government officials.

The indictment also alleges that defendant Periyasamy Sunderalingam, aka "Sunder," 60, met with Rao to determine the total amount of bribes and advised others on the results of the meeting.

He identified various foreign bank accounts held in the names of nominees outside India that could be used to funnel bribes to Rao.

Rao allegedly solicited bribes for himself and others in return for approving licenses for the project, and he warned other defendants concerning the threat of a possible law enforcement investigation of the project.

The indictment lists 57 transfers of funds between various entities, some controlled by Group DF, in various amounts totalling more than $10.59 million beginning April 28, 2006, through July 13, 2010. The indictment seeks forfeiture from all six defendants of more than $10.59 million.

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Agencies
January 7,2020

Tehran, Jan 7: The Iranian Parliament on Tuesday ratified a motion dubbed as "harsh revenge", that considers all members of the US Pentagon and those responsible for the death of Major General Qasem Soleimani as "terrorist forces".

The triple-urgency motion is a modification of a previously ratified bill on April 23, 2019, that designated the US Central Command (CENTCOM) as a terrorist organization in retaliation to the same designation imposed on Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) by Washington, the Tehran-based Mehr News Agency said in a report.

Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said in Tuesday's open session that in the previous anti-US law, CENTCOM was designated as a terrorist entity.

"Today, following the cruel US measure in assassinating General Soleimani, the responsibility of which was accepted by the US President, we modify the previous law and announce that all members of Pentagon, commanders, agents and those responsible for the martyrdom of Gen Soleimani will be considered as terrorist forces," Larijani was quoted as saying in the report.

All of Iran nation supports the resistance, he added.

The modified law also allows withdrawal of $223 million to the IRGC's Quds Force from the National Development Fund of Iran for the next two months, added Larijani.

He said that the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's permission to withdraw the fund has been obtained, the Mehr report added.

Following its ratification, MPs chanted anti-US slogans at the Parliament.

Soleimani and his son-in-law and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the second-in-command of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Front (PMF), along with eight other people were killed in the January 3 drone attack ordered by US President Donald Trump.

Soleimani, 63, was the elite Quds Force chief in charge of IRGC operations outside Iran, and has been on the ground in Syria and Iraq supervising militias backed by Tehran.

The Quds Force holds sway over a large number of militias across the region ranging from Lebanon to Syria and Iraq.

The attack has led to widespread condemnation in Iran. Supreme Leader Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani has vowed revenge on the US.

On Sunday, Iranian MP Abolfazl Aboutorabi threatened to attack the heart of American politics.

During an open session of the Iranian Parliament on Sunday afternoon, President Trump was called a "terrorist in a suit" after he threatened to hit 52 Iranian sites hard if Tehran attacks Americans or US assets.

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Agencies
February 16,2020

Wuhan, Feb 16: The death toll from China's coronavirus epidemic has climbed to 1,665 after 142 more people died, mostly in the worst-hit Hubei Province, and the confirmed cases jumped to 68,500, officials said on Sunday, as top WHO experts scramble to assist Beijing contain the virus spread.

China's National Health Commission confirmed 2,009 new cases across the country.

Hubei and its provincial capital Wuhan, where the virus first emerged in December, reported 1,843 of the new cases. The latest report brought the total confirmed cases in Hubei to 56,249 cases.

Of the new deaths, 139 were in Hubei, two in Sichuan, and one in Hunan, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

The number of new cases, however, appears to have started dropping and a top Chinese health official has said efforts to control the outbreak have reached the “most crucial stage".

The report said 9,419 infected patients had been discharged from hospital after recovery so far.

The coronavirus has posed a severe threat to the medical staff as more than 1,700 Chinese health officials have been infected by the virus while treating the patients and six of them have died.

Experts from the World Health Organisation are expected in Beijing on Sunday to join Chinese health authorities in containing the virus, which has spread to several other countries forcing them to temporarily stop tourist arrivals from China.

The health commission said a joint mission with WHO experts will pay field visits to China's three provincial-level regions to learn the effectiveness of the epidemic control measures.

One task of the mission will be to come up with standard medicine to cure the disease, according to the health commission.

Several antiviral drugs are under clinical trials and Chinese researchers have narrowed down their focus to a few existing drugs, including Chloroquine Phosphate, Favipiravir and Remdesivir, said Zhang Xinmin, director of the China National Centre for Biotechnology Development.

Experts have asked people to frequently wash hands and face, and wear masks.

Authorities have begun quarantining large quantity of bank notes and coins in the affected areas and sanitising them with UV light before releasing them back into circulation to stop the virus from spreading.

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News Network
April 20,2020

Washington, Apr 20: The US wants to send a team of experts to China to investigate coronavirus, President Donald Trump has said, a day after he warned Beijing of "consequences" if it was knowingly responsible for the spread of COVID-19 which has killed more than 165,000 people globally, including over 41,000 in America.

Describing the coronavirus as a plague, Trump, during his White House news conference on Sunday, said that he is not happy with China where the pandemic emerged in December last year in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.

“We spoke to them (Chinese) a long time ago about going in. We want to go in. We want to see what's going on. And we weren't exactly invited, I can tell you that,” the President told reporters.

“I was very happy with the (trade) deal (with China), very happy with everything and then we found out about the plague and since we found out about that I'm not happy,” he said.

The US has launched an investigation into whether the deadly virus "escaped" from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

He has repeatedly expressed disappointment over China's handling of the coronavirus disease, alleged non-transparency and initial non-cooperation from Beijing with Washington on dealing with the crisis.

“Based on an investigation, we are going to find out,” Trump told reporters.

A day earlier, he warned China that it should face consequences if it was "knowingly responsible" for the spread of the novel coronavirus, upping the ante on Beijing over its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“If they (China) were knowingly responsible… then there should be consequences. You're talking about, you know, potentially lives like nobody's seen since 1917,” Trump said on Saturday.

The opposition Democratic Party said that Trump has falsely claimed he acted early by restricting travel from China when it was little too late and he continued to downplay the virus throughout February.

The number of COVID-19 deaths in the US crossed 41,000 and the total infections were more than 764,000 so far.

New York, the epicentre of the deadly COVID-19 in the US, has 2,42,000 cases and over 17,600 fatalities so far. It has registered a 50-percent decline in new cases over an eight-day period.

The novel virus, which emerged in China in December last year, has killed over 160,000 and infected more than 2.3 million people worldwide.

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