Looks like a few secrets have finally been revealed this week

"ON A SEPTEMBER evening in London in 1978, Georgi Markov, prize-winning Bulgarian author and BBC broadcaster, felt a stinging pain in his thigh as he mingled with rush-hour commuters waiting for a bus on Waterloo Bridge.

A heavily built man in the queue momentarily dropped an umbrella, mumbled “sorry” and quickly crossed the road to hail a taxi.

An exile from the communist regime of Todor Zhivkov, the Bulgarian dictator, Markov, 49, had been aware of the danger he was in. An anonymous caller had told him he would be poisoned and he ate and drank only in the company of close friends.

But Markov thought little of the seemingly trivial incident and continued his journey home. He was dead in three days.......... "

Sponsorship corruption reveals a party in power far too long

"Hard as it is for Liberals to accept, sponsorship corruption, ethical failings and the crass determination to hold power by any means all find their genesis in the arrogance of a party that believes that it not only has the answers, it is the answer.

When a notion that false and arrogant becomes entrenched in a partisan psyche, any offence, all rules broken, every dollar stolen are excusable as the cost of pursuing the greater good. In that black-is-white universe, a government whose simplistic policies and thieving practices restoked separatism's fires positions itself as all that stands between unity and chaos.

That's the Mount Everest of arrogance and the deadliest of political sins."

Who gave white collar criminals a free pass?

"And about three-quarters of the abandoned tips were not investigated simply because the RCMP had "limited resources."

"There is no shortage of evidence against these individuals committing crime, just a shortage of investigators to bring all the criminals to justice," says the 31-page report from 2004.

The findings suggest the extent of money-laundering in Canada, most of which stems from drug-trafficking, far exceeds the ability of the RCMP to investigate.

Fintrac found that the Mounties were abandoning almost half of the tips they were given in Canada's three biggest cities."


The government claims it provided $10 billion for security for Canadians- apparently this money didn't get to the RCMP, CSIS and FINTRAC where it's needed .One would have assumed a few thousand officers could have been hired with this kind of money but since most sections are undermanned and underfunded, one might wonder where the money went?

For some strange reason, there almost seems to be a blackout in Canada on the oil for food scandal

The lawyer for a U.N. staffer fired for wrongdoing in the oil-for-food scandal insisted yesterday that his client acted on orders of higher-ups and is being used as a "scapegoat" to take the heat off Secretary-General Kofi Annan and other bigwigs.

Coming out swinging two days after his client was canned, the lawyer for Cypriot mid-level bureaucrat Joseph Stephanides said he plans a major battle against U.N. leadership to get reinstated and refute charges he engaged in "serious misconduct" in the award of a lucrative inspection contract to a British firm.

"Lawyer George Irving told The Post Stephanides was "essentially the messenger" when he warned the British mission to the United Nations in 1996 that the company Lloyd's Register needed to substantially lower its tender in order to beat out a French firm that submitted the lowest bid.

The commission investigating the oil-for-food scandal headed by former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker charged Stephanides was acting independently during his talks with the British mission.

But Irving provided The Post with internal documents dated in August 1996 that show Stephanides made at least five superiors aware that Lloyd's was better-suited to handle the oil-for-food inspection contract and that he was recommending that it lower the cost of the bid.

"My client has been made a scapegoat to divert attention from others," Irving said. "

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Some Background on the oil for food scandal:


What GAO Found:

GAO estimates that from 1997 to 2002, the former Iraqi regime acquired
$10.1 billion in illegal revenues, including $5.7 billion in oil
smuggled out of Iraq and $4.4 billion through surcharges on oil sales
and illicit commissions from suppliers exporting goods to Iraq through
the Oil for Food program. This estimate includes oil revenue and
contract amounts for 2002, updated letters of credit from prior years,
and newer estimates of illicit commissions from commodity suppliers.

Senator Norm Coleman

More from Senator Coleman

Also Senator Carl Levin

UPDATE: This should have been at the top of the list since Claudia Rosett should have won a Pulitzer for her investigative work on the oil for food program.