Hue and Cri

“This morning, an Embraer 190 aircraft of an Azerbaijani airline, flying from Baku to Grozny, was shot down by a Russian air defense system.’ He cited video footage from inside the plane that showed “punctured life vests”.

The allegation was echoed by four sources in Azerbaijan who spoke to Reuters. The four, all of whom had knowledge of the investigation, told the news agency that the flight was downed by a Russian air defense system.

There has also been speculation in Russian media that the plane could have been shot down by Russia’s air defenses, which mistook it for a Ukrainian drone.

FlightRadar24 said online that the plane had faced “strong GPS jamming” that “made the aircraft transmit bad ADS-B data”, referring to the information that allows flight-tracking websites to follow planes in flight. Russia has been blamed in the past for jamming GPS transmissions in the wider region.

Russia has previously employed jamming technology to defend against drone attacks, and some reports suggest that Chechnya came under such an attack shortly before the crash.

Russia’s emergencies ministry said on Thursday morning it had evacuated nine nationals who survived the crash, including one child, from Aktau to Moscow on a special flight.

[September 2022 Border Dispute with Uzbekistan ]

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov made clear the Kremlin’s position on the events in Kazakhstan. He said Russia’s neighbour had not asked for help and expressed hope that “our Kazakhstani friends will be able to handle their internal problems on their own” – which perhaps was a hint that Moscow does want to play a role.

Within a few hours of this statement, an appeal for help actually came from Kazakhstan’s capital. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev stated that the country was attacked by “terrorist gangs which had been trained abroad” and asked for help from the CSTO. Tokayev declared the unrest “an unprecedented act of aggression and assault on our statehood” and requested help from the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a military alliance of six former Soviet countries.

Overnight, the first military planes flew into Kazakhstan, delivering troops from Russia. Afterwards, small contingents from Armenia, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Belarus also arrived.

Having secured some kind of a deal with Kazakhstan’s first president Nursultan Nazarbayev and strengthened his power, Tokayev was quick to declare CSTO’s mission complete. On January 11, he said that troops would start withdrawing. This announcement reflects the president’s understanding that an extended presence of foreign troops may upset the population, which may come to see them as occupiers. And this is something Tokayev would not risk, given that now more than ever, he has to win popular support and strengthen his legitimacy.

Despite the quick end of CSTO’s mission, its leader, Putin’s Russia, emerges as the biggest beneficiary of these events. The Kremlin declared victory, having managed to strengthen its influence in the post-Soviet space and securing the loyalty of Kazakhstan’s leadership and its respect for Russian geopolitical interests and the interests of the large Russian community in the country.

It was also able to demonstrate that CSTO is not just a project on paper and can play a significant role in the geopolitics of Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

The committee concluded that Credit Suisse’s management was principally to blame for the crisis, “The report confirms that the collapse of Credit Suisse was driven by years of strategic errors, mismanagement and reliance on substantial regulatory concessions,” UBS said in a statement.

[April 10 2024 That Swiss did not put Credit Suisse into resolution unhelpful ]

“The fact that Swiss authorities did not put Credit Suisse into resolution was frankly umhelpful and ultimately a missed opportunity.” aid Martin Gruenberg, FDIC

[July 24 2023 Archegos: The Fed fines UBS $387m – for Credit Suisse “misconduct” ]

The Federal Reserve said it would fine UBS for “misconduct” by Credit Suisse in its risk management of Archegos Capital Management, an investment fund that collapsed in 2021. All told, the fines levied against UBS announced Monday total $387 million – including fines from the Swiss government and the Bank of England.

Archegos Capital Management, a former Credit Suisse client, used borrowed money to build massive positions in media companies like ViacomCBS and Discovery but was unable to pay back lenders when share prices dropped.

https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/enforcement20230724a.htm

A federal appeals court on Wednesday struck down the Nasdaq’s diversity disclosure rules for companies listed on the stock exchange, which were designed to boost the representation of women and minority directors on boards.

The big picture: The conservative-majority New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the Securities and Exchange Commission did not have the power to approve the rule that required companies to ensure women and minority directors were on their boards
“we respect the Court’s decision and do not intend to seek further review.”

Mozambique’s auction of ‘tuna bonds’ fleet fails to attract a single bid. Since the crisis, economic growth has been slow as the country wrestled with debt restructuring, cut-off international aid flows and high inflation resulting from a weakened currency. To this day, debts are unsustainably high and at risk of default.
The tuna fishing fleet at the center of a $2 billion corruption scandal, which scuttled Mozambique’s economy and triggered court cases across three continents, was up for auction.
The 24 vessels, which have been rusting away for a decade in a port in Maputo, the capital, put the southeast nation on the hook for a $900 million bond that it’s still battling to repay. Auction: 26505 / End date: 12/4/2024 7:10 AM

[December 7 2022 Guebuza’s son Ndambi ]

Ndambi Guebuza, son of former president Armando Guebuza, was among 11 people found guilty of embezzlement and money laundering.

Kickbacks were also given to some senior politicians.

Others given prison sentences include Gregorio Leao, head of the Security and Intelligence Service (SISE) under Mr Guebuza, and Antonio do Rosario, who became chairperson of all three newly-created state companies that took the loans.
The scandal happened during the rule of former president Armando Guebuza
One notable absentee from the trial has been former finance minister Manuel Chang. He has been detained in South Africa since December 2018, in response to an arrest warrant issued by authorities in the United States, on charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, securities fraud and money laundering.

[September 3 2021]

The son of Mozambique’s ex-president Armando Guebuza on Monday denied allegations he took bribes to facilitate a $2 billion secret government loan that plunged the southern African country into financial crisis.

Guebuza’s eldest son Ndambi is among 19 high-profile defendants facing trial in a high-security prison in the capital Maputo over alleged links to a 2013 corruption case known as the “hidden debt” scandal.

He is accused of receiving $33 million from an international shipbuilding group, Privinvest, to convince his father, who was president at the time, to approve corrupt maritime projects.

[November 20 2019 Privinvest’s Boustani ]

Jean Boustani talks about his relationship with Armando Guebuza
– The Lebanese said he met the former president of Mozambique at his birthday party in Maputo and persuaded him to approve the hidden debt bill

Privinvest submitted the project for the protection of Mozambique’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) to the office of the President of the Republic on 31 December 2011 and a long 13 months of negotiations followed, leading Jean Boustani and his boss Iskandar Safa to lose hope. to see the project move forward. Everything changed when in January 2013, the young Lebanese traveled from Abu Dhabi to Maputo and attended Armando Guebuza’s 70th birthday party, where he approached the then head of state about the project and 24 hours later had everything approved .

“Safa said, ‘Jean, if we can’t find the [Mozambican] president, this project won’t happen,’” said Boustani. “So I went to Mozambique to do everything to find the president,” he said.

[November 19 2019]

Jean Boustani denied that he had committed any crime under US law, although he assumes that he paid money to third parties to facilitate the business of the three. Mozambican companies with Privinvest, “normal practice” in several countries.

The businessman, however, added that his intermediary business model, which he uses in exchange for contacts for money, “is very simple” and happens in many parts of the world, including America.

“They say ‘I will do my best to make sure your project is approved and I will charge you a percentage of the total value of the project,’ explained Jean Boustani, to whom“ this is called the success rate, commission, intermediary fee, can call multiple names ”.

“In Africa and the Middle East, you always have so-called agents, or intermediaries, who in America call lobbying. Its role is to open the door to secure the market for investors, ”he said. https://wp.me/pEe9-18p

As in Mozambique, according to the businessman, “In the Middle East and Africa, unless you know the policy makers personally, you need an intermediary to be able to propose projects, especially in the Ministry of Defense.”
For six weeks Jean Boustani, a Lebanese salesman at a shipbuilding company, sat quietly in a New York court as prosecutors summoned 20 witnesses to support charges he defrauded U.S. investors in a $2 billion Mozambican kickback scam.
On Monday, Boustani began to tell his side of the story to the jury, something many lawyers generally advise against because it exposes their clients to cross-examination.
Lebanese citizen Jean Boustani, 41, said in his first trial speech that his first trip to Mozambique was in March 2011, at a presentation by the Mozambican Ministry of Science and Technology.
As a negotiator for Privinvest, “the world’s largest private shipbuilder,” Jean Boustani said he was “very interested” in “development opportunities” in Africa and took advantage of an invitation by a “business agent” named Basetsana Thokoane, former agent of the South African Secret Service.
Jean Boustani said he had frequent professional contact with Basetsana Thokoane, whom he called “Bassi”, a business intermediary or lobbyist for Privinvest, who “presented him with business ideas in Africa.”
According to the statement, the South African business agent has put forward proposals on Namibia, Kenya, Tanzania, Nigeria and Mozambique.
It was through Basetsana Thokoane that the accused claimed to have met Rosario Mutota, former agent of the Mozambican State Information and Security Service (SISE) and “business partner” Teófilo Nhangumele, at a meeting hosted by the Ministry of Science and Technology. .
Jean Boustani told in court that he met the minister, Venâncio Massinga, who gave him “a presentation on the opportunities in Mozambique”.
The Lebanese said Rosario Mutota (or Cipriano Sioínio Mutota) had a “business partnership” with Teófilo Nhangumele.
Boustani said that at the first meeting with Mozambicans, “he spent a lot of time” with Minister and Teófilo Nhangumele on opportunities in the country: from “discoveries of natural gas reserves, oil explorations, mines, tourism, agriculture, industry”.
The defendant narrated that the Mozambicans were “willing, hopeful and powerful to attract foreign investors”.
“Because they also informed me about their wealth, gas, natural and offshore resources, it was crucial for them to start focusing on protecting resources and how to develop the blue economy,” said Jean Boustani, stressing that the country had “three thousand kilometers of coastline”.
In 2011, Jean Boustani introduced Privinvest: “who we are, what we do, what we can do, what our added value” in the shipbuilding sector, according to his statement on Monday.
At first impression, Jean Boustani called Theophilus Nhangumele “very polite, very intelligent, professional and a pleasant man.”
“The first time I was presented with an opportunity in Mozambique was, of course, thanks to Bassi,” said the accused, explaining that Mozambique and South Africa are border countries, “very close politically and culturally” and “share a lot of common history.” “
According to the argument because of the process of decolonization of African countries, Basetsana Thokoane met people who “hid and took refuge in Mozambique” even in the “times of political independence”.
“She told me that Mozambique was thriving because they had found massive reserves of natural gas and oil,” said Jean Boustani, referring to the period 2010-2011.
Arrested in a Brooklyn prison in the United States since Jan. 2, Jean Boustani filed a statement on Monday led by his lawyer, Michael Schachter, and has again pleaded not guilty to two felonies: conspiracy to commit fraud. and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Jean Boustani was the representative of the shipbuilding company Privinvest, a service and equipment provider for three Mozambican state-owned companies that took out international loans of about $ 2.2 billion (two billion euros) and defaulted, leading to the discovery of Mozambique’s hidden debts. https://wp.me/pEe9-18p