Nagorno-Karabakh Government Will Dissolve, Half The Armenian Population Flee In Terror From Azerbaijani Rule GreekCityTimes.com
Resulta que la compra paso sin problemas y ahora me estoy preguntando que tan amplia es la cobertura de negocios en donde se puede usar dicha tarjeta, dado que en la página de alkosto te dice que tiene cobertura amplia pero a menos de que este buscando mal, no he encontrado una lista precisa de los negocios/comercios donde pueda usarla aparte …
After nearly a year of anticipation, the most shocking thing about the federal indictment of Sen. Robert Menendez that dropped Friday is how clumsy it makes the senator and his co-conspirators look.
According to the indictment, the Democrat, his wife, and their alleged accomplices left fingerprints—literal, digital, and figurative—all over the purported plot to take bribes in exchange for local, national, and international favors. So far, Menendez and two of the other defendants have denied wrongdoing.
None has yet disputed U.S. Attorney Damian Williams’ evidence. And that evidence, if accurate, would appear to indicate that not only is Menendez a crook, but an incredibly bad one.
Here’s a rundown of the most ridiculous tidbits from the criminal complaint.
The envelopes
Envelopes are all over Williams’ indictment, just like they were allegedly all over Menendez’s home when the FBI paid a visit last summer. Among other locales, the feds reported finding them inside the pockets of two jackets with the senator’s name stitched on them—one appearing to be a Congressional Hispanic Caucus windbreaker.
On the envelopes themselves, the feds say they found the fingerprints and DNA of alleged co-conspirator Fred Daibes and his chauffeur—and, on one, Daibes’ return address.
The total value of the cash on the premises came to almost $500,000. And that’s without getting into the allegedly gifted Mercedes convertible in the garage, or…
The gold bars
The FBI also reported recovering more than $100,000 in gold bars of different sizes from the Menendez residence. The thing about gold bars is that they come with unique serial numbers, and the indictment asserts these numbers let them trace 11 of the bars at the home to Daibes, and two more to Wael Hana, the Egyptian-American businessman behind the mysterious exporter IS EG Halal.
Damian Williams, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announcing that U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) was indicted on corruption charges charges.
The Google searches
It’s unclear whether the feds got the info from Menendez’s internet service provider, or whether he just didn’t clear his browser history, but shortly after receiving one of the alleged deliveries of gold bars, the indictment claims the senator Googled “kilo of gold price.”
It’s not the only time he allegedly left a trail online. Elsewhere, the complaint claims Menendez did a Google search for the state agency whose investigation of an employee and relative of co-defendant Jose Uribe he allegedly attempted to interfere in.
The photos
Maybe it’s too much in this era to suggest somebody not pictorially document every waking moment of their life. But you might want to at least crop some of your shots.
The Menendez couple, Uribe, and an associate let somebody photograph the four of them at a “celebratory dinner” shortly after the senator interceded to resolve some of Uribe’s legal issues.
The married pair also had their photo taken during a private dinner at the home of an Egyptian intelligence official allegedly in on one of the bribery schemes, while the feds said they found a picture of two gold bars on the senatorial spouse’s phone—with the serial numbers linking them to Daibes plainly visible.
Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and his wife Nadine Arslanian.
The text messages
The only thing more irritating than a partner who texts absolutely constantly is one who can’t stop texting about a criminal conspiracy you’re implicated in—creating a mass of evidence for investigators to grab.
But that’s allegedly exactly what the senator’s wife did. And despite her alleged efforts to delete the texts, the Justice Department recovered some doozies. For instance, on one occasion, she allegedly texted Daibes to complain Hana hadn’t paid her, prompting the businessman to respond “Nadine I personally gave Bob a check for September.”
While awaiting that payment from Hana, she messaged her husband “I am soooooo upset,” and added “I thought Fred [DAIBES] would make sure it’s there and the second day in a row there is nothing.” She did eventually get $30,000 from IS EG Halal, the indictment notes.
Nadine Menendez did not keep her texting to her fellow Americans either. She allegedly wrote the Egyptian intelligence official “anytime you need anything you have my number and we will make everything happen.”
She also left a text message record of Uribe’s alleged underwriting of her Mercedes, sending Hana “I’m so excited to get a car next week. !!” and writing to her husband “Congratulations mon amour de la vie, we are the proud owners of a 2019 Mercedes.” Uribe wrote her “are you happy,” to which she responded “I will never forget this.”
And on multiple occasions, she responded to Daibes’ alleged bribes with “Christmas in January” and “THANK YOU Fred” with a string of emojis. She also texted to tell the businessman, facing bank fraud charges, that her husband was sleeping better due to Daibes’ trial date getting temporarily adjourned—after the senator purportedly intervened repeatedly with the Justice Department on his behalf.
“He was amazing in all he did. He’s an amazing friend and as loyal as they come,” Daibes responded. “Let me know if I can get him a recliner. It helped me sleep.”
Of course, the senator himself appears to have implicated himself by texting government information to his partner—once about an impending ammunition sale—that she then forwarded to Hana, who passed it along to his Egyptian government contacts. According to the indictment, in response to the ammo news, a Cairo military official “replied with a ‘thumbs-up’ emoji.”
Then there’s the occasion detailed in the indictment when the senator sent his bride a news article about his colleagues’ intention to raise the Middle Eastern autocracy’s abysmal human rights, which she promptly passed to yet another Egyptian official. That anonymous operative responded, “Thanks you so much, chairman [Menendez] also raised it today, we appreciate it.”
“I just thought it would be better to know ahead of time what is being talked about and this way you can prepare your rebuttals,” she allegedly wrote back.
The opposition railed against National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir on Wednesday after six people were killed in Arab-sector crime incidents, five in the northern Bedouin town Basmat Tabun, and a sixth man, Ataf Abu Kalib, 50, was shot dead in broad daylight in Haifa.
In Basmat Tabun, the victims were all members of the same Delaika family: the parents and their three children. Police suspect a connection between the two murders and are investigating.
Magen David Adom paramedics who arrived at Basmat Tabun pronounced their deaths, while evacuating another man at the scene with moderate injuries to the Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa. “A redline was crossed here,” said police chief Kobi Shabtai at the scene. “The people who carried out this attack, from our perspective, are terrorists; this is a terrorist act,” he added, vowing to bring the killers to justice.
Medics who arrived in Haifa found Abu Kalib lifeless. Three masked men, armed with automatic weapons, rained fire on him, killing him instantly, and immediately exited the scene. Abu Kalib is the cousin of Omar Abu Kalib, a member of the Hariri criminal group.
These latest victims bring the death tally in Arab sector violence this year to 188, compared to 80 at this point last year, according to the Abraham Initiatives, a nonprofit that deals with Arab-Israeli dialogue and tracks the murder rate in the sector. The organization pointed the responsibility to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying he must “fire the national security minister immediately and implement a welfare plan to deal with sector crime. This is an emergency.”
The Abraham Initiatives added that of the 188, 171 were shot, 87 were under the age of 30, and 12 were women.
Benny Gantz calls for Ben-Gvir to be fired
After the Haifa murder, various opposition members spoke out against Ben-Gvir with some calling for him to be fired.
Earlier in the day, after the Haifa murder, National Unity leader Benny Gantz said, “The murder today shows just how severe the neglect is and how widespread and deep the treatment must be. The current government, which appointed Ben-Gvir, who is busy with provocations instead of saving human life, is not qualified to handle this problem. The prime minister must fire Ben-Gvir not only because of his actions, but mainly because of his neglect.”Yesh Atid MK Ron Katz voiced a similar sentiment alongside a screenshot of footage from the murder.
Head of the Otzma Yehudit party MK Itamar Ben Gvir at a special committee in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament in Jerusalem, on December 18, 2022. (credit: YONATAN SINDEL/FLASH90)
“This morning, a man was assassinated in the North,” he wrote. “And the idle minister is busy with interviews, TikTok videos, and planning prayer services to divide the people. In what other country would this minister be kept in his position? How can it be that there is no price for failure in the State of Israel?”
He ended by telling Netanyahu that he is responsible for the issue, an accusation echoed by National Unity MK Yifat Shasha-Biton.
“We cannot deal with Ben-Gvir with tweets, it’s time for action,” she said. “There’s no governance, there’s no security, there are more and more victims, more and more crime, and there’s no light at the end of the darkness that has befallen us. Israel’s citizens are living in fear on [Netanyahu’s] watch. You cannot blame the appointed minister, who suffers from delusions of grandeur and who is busy being the neighborhood bully. You were chosen to lead. The responsibility is on you. It’s time to do it.”
After the Basmat Tabun murders, Ben-Gvir made his way to the scene.
“I’m expressing deep shock from the violence and the bloodbath in the Arab sector that claimed another six lives today,” he said. “In the last few months, we gave the police a lot of resources and passed legislation that will help police to eradicate the murders, and we are continuing to work to pass laws, like the option of using biometric cameras, that could save lives.”
The last time a murder of this scale in the sector took place was three months ago in Yafia. Five people were shot in a shooting at a car wash. An investigation found that the shots were fired from automatic weapons.
A woman who resides in the regional council told Maariv that she was at home “when we heard police sirens on the street. We went out not understanding what was happening, and then we heard about the horrific murder of the Delaika family in their home. People cried and screamed. This situation cannot continue; we are being neglected every day. There is no knowing who will be the next victim.”
Robert Menendez, chairman of the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, recently warned opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu that including extreme-right lawmakers in a potential future government would harm US-Israel relations, according to a report Saturday.
According to the Axios report, Menendez made the comments during a visit to Israel last month. Citing two unnamed American sources familiar with the meeting, the report said Menendez raised his concerns over Netanyahu’s cooperation with far-right parties, specifically mentioning Otzma Yehudit and its leader Itamar Ben Gvir.
Former prime minister Netanyahu recently brokered a deal to get Otzma Yehudit and Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism party to run together in a bid to improve his chances of returning to power.
Ben Gvir has reportedly been offered a senior ministerial position if a Netanyahu-led government is established.
Netanyahu said ahead of previous elections that he did not believe the extremist Ben Gvir was fit to be a minister. However, without Ben Gvir’s support, Netanyahu likely has little to no chance of leading the next government.
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The report said Menendez told Netanyahu he had “serious concerns” about including “extremist and polarizing individuals like Ben Gvir” in a future government, citing the unnamed US sources.
Likud party and opposition leader MK Benjamin Netanyahu attends Kikar HaShabbat conference at the Waldorf Astoria Jerusalem Hotel, September 12, 2022. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
“The senator told Netanyahu he needed to realize the composition of such a coalition could seriously erode bipartisan support in Washington, which has been a pillar of the bilateral relationship between the US and Israel,” one of the sources cited by Axios said.
One of the sources said Netanyahu was “pissed off” by Menendez’s comments.
Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu meets with US Senators including Lindsey Graham and Bob Menendez (right) in Jerusalem on September 5, 2022. (Via Twitter, used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)
Netanyahu’s office declined to comment on the report, the news site said, and US State Department spokesman Ned Price said the Biden administration does not interfere in Israel’s internal politics.
Ben Gvir, meanwhile, responded by blaming Prime Minister Yair Lapid, who also serves as foreign minister, for “destroying” Israel’s foreign relations, accusing him of “dragging” Menendez into interfering in the Israeli election process.
Ben Gvir is an admirer of late extremist rabbi Meir Kahane, who advocated transferring Israel’s Arabs out of the country. He was convicted of incitement to racism in 2007 for holding a sign at a protest reading “Expel the Arab enemy.”
MK Itamar Ben Gvir of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party tours the Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem on July 22, 2022. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
In recent public remarks, he has sought to downplay his extremist views, saying he isn’t in favor of expelling all Arabs — only terrorists or those he deems disloyal. However, analysts have pointed out that he regularly refers to many Arab public figures with no history of terror-related activities, including elected lawmakers and party leaders, as “terrorists.”
Until it began to harm him politically, Ben Gvir also kept on a wall of his Hebron home a picture of Baruch Goldstein, who in 1994 massacred 29 Palestinians at prayer in Hebron’s Tomb of the Patriarchs. During a recent visit to a high school in the central city of Ramat Gan, Ben Gvir said he no longer considers Goldstein a “hero.”
Ben Gvir frequently stirs up friction between Jewish and Arab Israelis and was reportedly accused by the national police chief of abetting the worst inter-communal violence in recent Israeli history in May of last year.
He has additionally allied with some of Israel’s most extremist Jewish movements and activists — including Lehava, a Jewish supremacist anti-miscegenation group, and the virulently homophobic Noam.
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