Ukraine’s Made-in-USA Finance Minister | Consortiumnews

Exclusive: A top problem of Ukraine has been corruption and cronyism, so it may raise eyebrows that new Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko, an ex-U.S. diplomat and newly minted Ukrainian citizen, was involved in insider dealings while managing a $150 million U.S. AID-backed investment fund, writes Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry

Ukraine’s new Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko, a former U.S. State Department officer who was granted Ukrainian citizenship only this week, headed a U.S. government-funded investment project for Ukraine that involved substantial insider dealings, including $1 million-plus fees to a management company that she also controlled.

Jaresko served as president and chief executive officer of Western NIS Enterprise Fund (WNISEF), which was created by the U.S. Agency for International Development (U.S. AID) with $150 million to spur business activity in Ukraine. She also was cofounder and managing partner of Horizon Capital which managed WNISEF’s investments at a rate of 2 to 2.5 percent of committed capital, fees exceeding $1 million in recent years, according to WNISEF’s 2012 annual report.

The growth of that insider dealing at the U.S.-taxpayer-funded WNISEF is further underscored by the number of paragraphs committed to listing the “related party transactions,” i.e., potential conflicts of interest, between an early annual report from 2003 and the one a decade later.

In the 2003 report, the “related party transactions” were summed up in two paragraphs, with the major item a $189,700 payment to a struggling computer management company where WNISEF had an investment.

Complete story at - Ukraine’s Made-in-USA Finance Minister | Consortiumnews

When Will Poroshenko Sell His Chocolate Business? / Sputnik UK

President Poroshenko of Ukraine has told Bild magazine in Germany that he is still negotiating the sale of his business which he promised to sell when he ran for president last May.

Ukraine’s constitution bans state officials from owning a business.

A year ago Ukrainians flocked to the Maidan square in central Kiev in protest against corruption, the oligarchs and in support of European values.

In the process of a violent coup they swapped one oligarchic ruler for another and introduced a European first – a president-cum-banker. Europeans must be wondering if such a conflict of interest is indeed in line with their declared values.

During the presidential election in May 2014 Mr. Poroshenko promised to sell off his massive business empire that spans banking, confectionary, agriculture, energy, auto and shipbuilding, and mass media. However, the President is refusing to sell his major media asset Channel 5 TV claiming he can guarantee its editorial independence. In the country where media has traditionally been a political weapon this is easier said than done. And what is officially on sale out of the impressive list of other assets, at least for now, are chocolate factories, including two in Russia and a shipyard in Sevastopol, Crimea, which has a contract with the Russian Navy.

While the shipyard’s performance was affected by the process of re-registering it as a Russian company, the Russian chocolate factories netted Mr Poroshenko $70 million in revenue last year. Overall, his sweet empire is ranked 20th in the world by the Candy Industry publication with net sales of $1 billion in 2013. No wonder it’s painful to get rid of such a money spinner. Mr. Poroshenko explains that it is not easy to find a buyer at the time of economic and social turmoil in Ukraine. The estimated value of his business empire has almost halved from the $2.6 billion it stood at before the troubles started a year ago.

Complete story at - When Will Poroshenko Sell His Chocolate Business? / Sputnik UK

Who’s Paying the Pro-War Pundits? | The Nation

If you read enough news and watch enough cable television about the threat of the Islamic State, the radical Sunni Muslim militia group better known simply as IS, you will inevitably encounter a parade of retired generals demanding an increased US military presence in the region. They will say that our government should deploy, as retired General Anthony Zinni demanded, up to 10,000 American boots on the ground to battle IS. Or as in retired General Jack Keane’s case, they will make more vague demands, such as for “offensive” air strikes and the deployment of more military advisers to the region.

But what you won’t learn from media coverage of IS is that many of these former Pentagon officials have skin in the game as paid directors and advisers to some of the largest military contractors in the world. Ramping up America’s military presence in Iraq and directly entering the war in Syria, along with greater military spending more broadly, is a debatable solution to a complex political and sectarian conflict. But those goals do unquestionably benefit one player in this saga: America’s defense industry.

Keane is a great example of this phenomenon. His think tank, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), which he oversees along with neoconservative partisans Liz Cheney and William Kristol, has provided the data on IS used for multiple stories by The New York Times, the BBC and other leading outlets.

Keane has appeared on Fox News at least nine times over the last two months to promote the idea that the best way to stop IS is through military action—in particular, through air strikes deep into IS-held territory. In one of the only congressional hearings about IS over the summer, Keane was there to testify and call for more American military engagement. On Wednesday evening, Keane declared President Obama’s speech on defeating IS insufficient, arguing that a bolder strategy is necessary. “I truly believe we need to put special operation forces in there,” he told host Megyn Kelly.

Complete story at - Who’s Paying the Pro-War Pundits? | The Nation