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Kazakhgate
Kаzаkhgаtе refers to the scandal surrounding James Giffen, an American businessman and former advisor of Kazakhstan president Nursultan Nazarbayev. Charges US prosecutors accused Giffen of bribery paid to Nazarbayev and Nurlan Balgimbayev, former Prime Minister of Kazakhstan, to secure contracts over the Tengiz oil fields for Western companies in the 1990s.Kazakhgate fires up Kazakhstan's election campaign Eurasia InsightMarlena Telvick Indictments allege bribes were paid for Kazakhstan oil ''San Francisco Chronicle'', April 7, 2003 James ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Giffen
James Henry Giffen (March 22, 1941 – October 29, 2022) was an American businessman and an authority on American-Soviet trade. He was the founder and chairman of Mercator Corporation. Giffen was the prime suspect accused in the $80 million Kazakhgate bribery scandal, which was at one time the largest U.S. investigations ever into an overseas bribery case; but which went nowhere. Background Giffen was born in Stockton, California, on March 22, 1941. LeVine, Steve (2007). ''The Oil and the Glory: The Pursuit of Empire and Fortune on the Caspian Sea''. New York: Random House (2007). . . He had ties to the USSR dating back to the 1970s. After graduating from college, he worked for a subsidiary of Armco Steel, developing a relationship with Armco boss and future US commerce secretary C. William Verity, Jr. During the Cold War, Giffen was instrumental in setting up the multi-company American Trade Consortium (including large corporations such as RJR Nabisco, Chevron, Eastman Kodak ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nurlan Balgimbayev
Nurlan Utebovich Balgimbayev ( kz, Нұрлан Өтепұлы Балғымбаев, ''Nūrlan Ötepūly Balğymbaev''; 20 November 1947 – 14 October 2015) was a Kazakh politician who served as Prime Minister of Kazakhstan from 10 October 1997 to 1 October 1999. He became President of the Kazakhstan Oil Investment Company in 2002. Biography Early life and career Balgimbayev was a graduate of the Kazakh Polytechnic Institute. From 1973 to 1986, Nurlan Balgimbayev worked in the oil industry, beginning as chief engineer of oil refinery Zhaikneft. In 1986, he was hired by the Soviet ministry of oil and gas. With the fall of the Russian block in 1991, Balgimbayev left for the US and studied one year at the University of Massachusetts and made a one-year internship at Chevron (1993-1994). Political career Until 1997, he held different minister and vice-minister positions in the Kazakh government. From October 1994 to March 1997, Nurlan Balgimbayev was Minister of Oil and Gas. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Baer
Robert Booker Baer (born July 11, 1952) is an American author and a former CIA case officer who was primarily assigned to the Middle East.Robert Bae"Don't Assume Ahmadinejad Really Lost" ''Time'' website, June 16, 2009 He is ''Time'''s intelligence columnist and has contributed to '' Vanity Fair'', ''The Wall Street Journal'', and ''The Washington Post''. Baer speaks eight languages, won the CIA Career Intelligence Medal and is a frequent commentator and author about issues related to international relations, espionage, and U.S. foreign policy. He hosted the History reality television series ''Hunting Hitler''. He is an Intelligence and Security Analyst for CNN. His book ''See No Evil'' was adapted by the director Stephen Gaghan and used as the basis for the film ''Syriana'', with George Clooney playing Baer's character. Early life Baer was born in Los Angeles. At the age of 9, his parents divorced and he moved to Aspen, Colorado where he aspired to become a professional skie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbekistan to the south, and Turkmenistan to the southwest, with a coastline along the Caspian Sea. Its capital is Astana, known as Nur-Sultan from 2019 to 2022. Almaty, Kazakhstan's largest city, was the country's capital until 1997. Kazakhstan is the world's largest landlocked country, the largest and northernmost Muslim-majority country by land area, and the ninth-largest country in the world. It has a population of 19 million people, and one of the lowest population densities in the world, at fewer than 6 people per square kilometre (15 people per square mile). The country dominates Central Asia economically and politically, generating 60 percent of the region's GDP, primarily through its oil and gas industry; it also has vast mineral ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Espionage Novel
Spy fiction is a genre of literature involving espionage as an important context or plot device. It emerged in the early twentieth century, inspired by rivalries and intrigues between the major powers, and the establishment of modern intelligence agencies. It was given new impetus by the development of fascism and communism in the lead-up to World War II, continued to develop during the Cold War, and received a fresh impetus from the emergence of rogue states, international criminal organizations, global terrorist networks, maritime piracy and technological sabotage and espionage as potent threats to Western societies. As a genre, spy fiction is thematically related to the novel of adventure (''The Prisoner of Zenda'', 1894, ''The Scarlet Pimpernel'', 1905), the thriller (such as the works of Edgar Wallace) and the politico-military thriller (''The Schirmer Inheritance'', 1953, ''The Quiet American'', 1955). History Commentator William Bendler noted that "Chapter 2 of the Heb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tim Blake Nelson
Timothy Blake Nelson (born May 11, 1964) is an American actor and playwright. Described as a "modern character actor", his roles include Delmar O'Donnell in ''O Brother, Where Art Thou?'' (2000), Gideon in ''Minority Report'' (2002), Dr. Pendanski in ''Holes'' (2003), Danny Dalton Jr. in ''Syriana'' (2005), Samuel Sterns in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Richard Schell in ''Lincoln'' (2012), the title character in ''The Ballad of Buster Scruggs'' (2018), and Henry McCarty in ''Old Henry'' (2021). He portrayed Wade Tillman / Looking Glass in the HBO limited series ''Watchmen'' (2019), for which he received a Critics' Choice Television Awards nomination for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series in 2020. Nelson's directorial credits include '' Eye of God'' (1997), which was nominated for the Sundance Grand Jury Prize and an Independent Spirit Award; '' O'' (2001), a modern-day adaptation of ''Othello;'' and the Holocaust drama ''The Grey Zone'' (2001). ''Eye of God'' and ''The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Syriana
''Syriana'' is a 2005 American political thriller film written and directed by Stephen Gaghan, loosely based on Robert Baer's 2003 memoir ''See No Evil (Baer book), See No Evil''. The film stars an ensemble cast consisting of George Clooney, Matt Damon, Jeffrey Wright, Chris Cooper, William Hurt, Tim Blake Nelson, Amanda Peet, Christopher Plummer, Alexander Siddig, and Mazhar Munir. ''Syriana'' was shot in 200 locations in five continents, with large parts shot in the Middle East, Washington, D.C., and Africa. In an interview with Charlie Rose, Gaghan described incidents (including planned regime changes in Venezuela) from personal meetings and interviews with the most powerful oil owners, owners of media houses, lobbyists, lawyers, and politicians which were included in the film. As with Gaghan's screenplay for ''Traffic (2000 film), Traffic'', ''Syriana'' uses multiple, parallel storylines, jumping between locations in Iran, Texas, Washington, D.C., Switzerland, Spain, and Leba ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Clooney
George Timothy Clooney (born May 6, 1961) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is the recipient of List of awards and nominations received by George Clooney, numerous accolades, including a British Academy Film Awards, British Academy Film Award, four Golden Globe Awards, and two Academy Awards, one for his acting and the other as a producer. In 2018, he was the recipient of the AFI Life Achievement Award, and in 2022, he was felicitated at the Kennedy Center Honors for a "lifetime of contributions to American culture." Clooney started his career in television, gaining wide recognition in his role as Doug Ross, Dr. Doug Ross on the NBC medical drama ''ER (TV series), ER'' from 1994 to 1999, for which he received two Primetime Emmy Awards, Primetime Emmy Award nominations. He expanded to leading roles in films, with his breakthrough role in ''From Dusk till Dawn'' (1996). This led to starring roles in the superhero film ''Batman & Robin (film), Batman & Robin'' (1997), Steven ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
See No Evil (Baer Book)
''See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War Against Terrorism'' is a 2003 memoir by Robert Baer, a former CIA case officer in the Directorate of Operations. Baer begins with his upbringing in the United States and Europe and continues with a tour of his CIA experiences across the globe. Approximately the first two-thirds of the memoir focus on the various experiences of Baer's two-decade (1976–1997) career at the CIA, while the last third depicts the growing cynicism brought on by the corruption and obliviousness encountered in Washington. One of the main focal points of the story is Baer's obsession with uncovering the perpetrators of the unsolved 1983 United States Embassy bombing in Beirut, Lebanon. Baer's memoir describes his own solution of the mystery. The overall theme around which the memoir is built is his view of the CIA losing its prowess due to increasing diplomatic sensitivity in Washington's foreign policies in the aftermath of political f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Pauley
William Henry Pauley III (August 14, 1952 – July 6, 2021) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. He was noted for issuing the opinion in ''ACLU v. Clapper'' in 2013 concerning the legality of the National Security Agency's bulk collection of metadata, as well as sentencing Michael Cohen to three years in prison in 2018. Education and career Pauley was born in Glen Cove, New York, on August 14, 1952. He obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree from Duke University in 1974 and a Juris Doctor from Duke University School of Law in 1977. He was a law clerk for the Office of the Nassau County Attorney in New York from 1977 to 1978. He was a Deputy County Attorney in the Nassau County Attorney's Office in 1978. He was in private practice in New York City from 1978 to 1998. He was an assistant counsel for the New York State Assembly Minority Leader from 1984 to 1998. Federal judicial service Pauley was nominated by Bil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Financial Times
The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nikkei, with core editorial offices across Britain, the United States and continental Europe. In July 2015, Pearson sold the publication to Nikkei for £844 million (US$1.32 billion) after owning it since 1957. In 2019, it reported one million paying subscriptions, three-quarters of which were digital subscriptions. The newspaper has a prominent focus on financial journalism and economic analysis over generalist reporting, drawing both criticism and acclaim. The daily sponsors an annual book award and publishes a " Person of the Year" feature. The paper was founded in January 1888 as the ''London Financial Guide'' before rebranding a month later as the ''Financial Times''. It was first circulated around metropolitan London by James Sherid ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nursultan Nazarbayev
Nursultan Abishuly Nazarbayev ( kk, Нұрсұлтан Әбішұлы Назарбаев, Nūrsūltan Äbişūlı Nazarbaev, ; born 6 July 1940) is a Kazakh politician and military officer who served as the first President of Kazakhstan, in office from country’s independence in 1991 until his formal resignation in 2019, and as the Chairman of the Security Council of Kazakhstan from 1991 to 2022. He held the special title as Elbasy (meaning "Leader of the Nation", ) from 2010 to 2022. Nazarbayev was one of the longest-ruling non-royal leaders in the world, having led Kazakhstan for nearly three decades, excluding chairmanship in the Security Council after the end of his presidency. He has often been referred to as a dictator due to usurpation of power and autocratic rule. He was named First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Kazakh SSR in 1989 and was elected as the nation's first president shortly before its independence from the Soviet Union. In 1962, while working as a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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