https://www.westernjournal.com/eu-nears-...americans/

This stinks of politics to me.  If the EU goal is to shelter against more outbreaks of, well, -any- disease, this program won't work.

Guess I won't travel to the USA until this gets sorted.  Not that I travel so often, but I worry about family events back home for which I would want to be present.

Cheers

Quote:US Revokes Hong Kong Special Status, Ends Exports of Defence Equipment, Sensitive Technologies
© REUTERS / POOL

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo earlier denounced Beijing for "decreeing an end to freedom in Hong Kong", warning that the United States will treat Hong Kong as "just another piece of mainland China", since the Chinese Communist Party appears to treat the region in the same way.
Mike Pompeo tweeted that the United States will end its export of defence equipment and "sensitive US Commerce Department-controlled dual-use technologies" to Hong Kong, adding that "if Beijing now treats Hong Kong as "One Country, One System, so must we". 

Quote:Today, the United States is ending exports of @StateDeptPM controlled U.S. origin defense equipment and sensitive @CommerceGov controlled dual-use technologies to Hong Kong. If Beijing now treats Hong Kong as “One Country, One System,” so must we.
— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) June 29, 2020

In his statement, Pompeo claimed that the action was taken to "protect US national security".

Quote:"The United States is forced to take this action to protect US national security. We can no longer distinguish between the export of controlled items to Hong Kong or to mainland China. We cannot risk these items falling into the hands of the People’s Liberation Army, whose primary purpose is to uphold the dictatorship of the CCP by any means necessary", the statement said.

Pompeo added that additional measures by the Trump administration against Hong Kong will "reflect the reality on the ground in Hong Kong". 
The announcement came after Pompeo warned that Washington would "move away" from agreements that the US has with Hong Kong that are "different from those we have with Beijing". Pompeo has repeatedly insisted that the US will treat Hong Kong in the same way that it treats mainland China, referring to the Chinese Communist Party.

Quote:"President Trump has made very, very clear to the extent that the Chinese Communist Party treats Hong Kong as it does Shenzhen and Shanghai, we will treat them the same. We have many agreements that are unique between the United States and Hong Kong, separate and different from those we have with Beijing. We will move away from every one of those", Pompeo said at a virtual conference at the 2020 Copenhagen Democracy Summit.

Revoking of Hong Kong's special status
In a follow-up statement, US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross announced the suspension of "regulations affording preferential treatment to Hong Kong over China".

Quote:"Commerce Department regulations affording preferential treatment to Hong Kong over China, including the availability of export license exceptions, are suspended. Further actions to eliminate differential treatment are also being evaluated. We urge Beijing to immediately reverse course and fulfill the promises it has made to the people of Hong Kong and the world", the statement read.

Under the 1992 United States-Hong Kong Policy Act, the region enjoys a special status as a customs territory separate from mainland China. This act allowed Hong Kong to have its own export control system and made it a territory where the US tariffs on Chinese goods did not apply.
Another spike in tensions between the US and China came after Beijing introduced new legislation for Hong Kong envisaging imprisonment and penalties for subversive activity and attempts to undermine state authority. The new law was met by waves of protests and condemnation from the United States.
Denouncing the US measures, Beijing has repeatedly said that the use of Hong Kong is a part of China's internal affairs and must not be interfered with.

Quote:83 Tons Of Fake Gold Bars: Gold Market Rocked By Massive China Counterfeiting Scandal



by Tyler Durden
Mon, 06/29/2020 - 12:15

     

Over the years, we have periodically reported of the occasional gold bar discovered as counterfeit in Manhattan's Diamond District which instead of containing the yellow precious metal would be filled with gold-plated tungsten or in some cases copper. The news would spark a brief wave of outrage, prompting physical gold holders to run ultrasound spot checks of their inventory, at which point interest would wane and why not: buyer, after all, beware in gold as in every other market, and if someone is spending thousands to buy fake gold, well that's Darwinism in action.

Yet one market which seemed stubbornly immune to any counterfeiting was that of physical gold in China, which was odd considering that over the past decade China had emerged as the world's biggest counterfeiter of various, mostly industrial metals used to secure bank loans, better known as "ghost collateral", and which adding insult to injury, would frequently  be rehypothecated meaning often several banks would have claims to the same (fake) asset.
All that is about to change with the discovery of what may be one of the biggest gold counterfeiting scandal in recent history. And yes, not only does it involve China, but it emerges from a city that has become synonymous for all that is scandalous about China: Wuhan itself.

With that preamble in mind, we introduce readers to Wuhan Kingold Jewelry Inc., a company which as the name implies was founded and operates out of Wuhan, and which describes itself on its website as "A Company with a Golden future."

In retrospect, it probably meant "copper" future, because as a remarkable expose by Caixin has found, more than a dozen Chinese financial institutions, mainly trust companies (i.e., shadow banks) loaned 20 billion yuan ($2.8 billion) over the past five years to Wuhan Kingold Jewelry with pure gold as collateral and insurance policies to cover any losses. There was just one problem: the "gold" turned out to be gold-plated copper.
Some more background: Kingold - whose name was probably stolen from Kinross Gold, one of the world's largest gold miners - is the largest privately owned gold processor in central China’s Hubei province. Its shares are listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange in New York (although its current market cap of just $10MM is a far cry from its all time highs hit when the company IPOed on the Nasdaq around 2010) . The company is led by Chairman Jia Zhihong, an intimidating ex-military man who is the controlling shareholder.
What could go wrong?
Well, apparently everything as at least some of 83 tons of gold bars used as loan collateral turned out to be nothing but gilded copper. That has left lenders holding the bag for the remaining 16 billion yuan of loans outstanding against the bogus bars. And as Caixin adds, the loans were covered by 30 billion yuan of property insurance policies issued by state insurer PICC Property and Casualty and various other smaller insurers.

The fake gold came to light in February when Dongguan Trust (one of those infamous Chinese shadow banks) set out to liquidate Kingold collateral to cover defaulted debts. As the report continues, in late 2019 Kingold failed to repay investors in several trust products. To its shock, Dongguan Trust said it discovered that the gleaming gold bars were actually gilded copper alloy.
The news sent shockwaves through Kingold’s creditors. China Minsheng Trust - another shadow banking company and one of Kingold’s largest creditors - obtained a court order to test collateral before Kingold’s debts came due. On May 22, the test result returned saying the bars sealed in Minsheng Trust’s coffers are also copper alloy.
And with authorities investigating how this happened, Kingold chief Jia flatly denies that anything is wrong with the collateral his company put up. Well, what else could he say...
As Caxin notes, the Kingold counterfeiting case echoes China’s largest gold-loan fraud case, unfolding since 2016 in the northwest Shaanxi province and neighboring Hunan, where regulators found adulterated gold bars in 19 lenders’ coffers backing 19 billion yuan of loans, or about USD $2.5 billion. In that case, a lender seeking to melt gold collateral found black tungsten plate in the middle of the bars.
In the case of Kingold, the company said it took out loans against gold to supplement its cash holdings, support business operations and expand gold reserves, according to public records. It then appears to have decided to apply a gold-layer to tons of copper and pretend it was money-good gold collateral. And even more shocking, for years nobody checked the authenticity of the pledged collateral!
In 2018, the company beat a number of competitors in bidding to buy a controlling stake in state-owned auto parts maker Tri-Ring Group. Kingold offered 7 billion yuan in cash for 99.97% of Tri-Ring. The Hubei government cited the deal as a model of so-called mixed-ownership reform, which seeks to invite private shareholders into state-owned enterprises. But Kingold has faced problems taking over Tri-Ring’s assets amid a series of corruption probes and disputes involving Tri-Ring.
After obtaining the test results, Minsheng Trust executive said the company asked Jia whether the company fabricated the gold bars: “He flatly denied it and said it was because some of the gold the company acquired in early days had low purity,” the executive said. In a telephone interview with Caixin in early June, Jia denied that the gold pledged by his company was faked.
“How could it be fake if insurance companies agreed to cover it?” he said and refused to comment further. Well, the answer is simple: the insurance companies were in on the scam, but that's a story for another day.
In early June, Minsheng Trust, Dongguan Trust and a smaller creditor Chang’An Trust filed lawsuits against Kingold and demanded that PICC P&C cover their losses. PICC P&C declined to comment to Caixin on the matter but said the case is in judicial procedure. A source from PICC P&C told Caixin that the claim procedure should be initiated by Kingold as the insured party rather than financial institutions as beneficiaries. Kingold hasn’t made a claim, the Caixin source said.
In total, Kingold pledge tens of thousands of kilograms of gold to no less than 14 creditors amounting to just under 20 billion yuan.

Caixin learned that the Hubei provincial government set up a special task force to oversee the matter and that the public security department launched an investigation. The Shanghai Gold Exchange, a gold industry self-regulatory organization, disqualified Kingold as a member as of last week.
Following Dongguan Trust and Minsheng Trust, two other Kingold creditors also tested pledged gold bars and found they were fake, Caixin learned. A Dongguan Trust employee said his company reported the case to police Feb. 27, the day after the testing result was delivered, and demanded 1.3 billion yuan of compensation from PICC P&C’s Hubei branch.
Meanwhile, Kingold defaulted on 1.8 billion yuan of loans from Dongguan Trust with an additional 1.6 billion yuan due in July.
The 83 tons of purportedly pure gold stored in creditors’ coffers by Kingold as of June, backing the 16 billion yuan of loans, would be equivalent to 22% of China’s annual gold production and 4.2% of the state gold reserve as of 2019.
In short, more than 4% of China's official gold reserves may be fake. And this assume that no other Chinese gold producers and jewelry makers are engaging in similar fraud (spoiler alert: they are.)
* * *
Founded in 2002 by Jia, Kingold was previously a gold factory in Hubei affiliated with the People’s Bank of China that was split off from the central bank during a restructuring. With businesses ranging from gold jewelry design, manufacturing and trading, Kingold is one of China’s largest gold jewelry manufacturers, according to the company website.

Quote:The company debuted on Nasdaq in 2010. The stock currently trades around $1 apiece, giving Kingold a market value of $12 million, down 70% from a year ago. A company financial report showed that Kingold had $3.3 billion of total assets as of the end of September 2019, with liabilities of $2.4 billion.

Jia, now 59, served in the military in Wuhan and Guangzhou and spent six years living in Hong Kong. He once managed gold mines owned by the People’s Liberation Army, which means he likely has connections all the way to the very top.
Jia Zhihong
“Jia is tall and strong,” one financial industry source familiar with Jia told Caixin. “He’s an imposing figure and speaks loudly. He is bold, reckless and eloquent, always making you feel he knows better than you.”
Several trust company sources said Jia is well connected in Hubei - the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic - which may explain Kingold’s surprise victory in the Tri-Ring deal. But a financial industry source in Hubei said Jia’s business is not as solid as it may appear.
“We knew for years that he doesn't have much gold ― all he has is copper,” said the source, who declined to be named.
Local financial institutions in Hubei have avoided doing business with Kingold, but they don’t want to offend him publicly, the source said. Why? Because of his extnesive connections with the Chinese army.
“Almost none of Hubei’s local trust companies and banks has been involved in (Kingold’s) financing,” he said.
That explains why most of Kingold’s creditors are from outside Hubei. Caixin learned from regulatory sources that Minsheng Trust is the largest creditor of Kingold with nearly 4.1 billion yuan of outstanding loans, followed by Hengfeng Bank’s 3.9 billion yuan, Dongguan Trust’s 3.4 billion yuan, Anxin Trust & Investment Co.’s 1.9 billion yuan and Sichuan Trust Co.’s 1.8 billion yuan.
But wait, counterfeiting gold is just the tip of the company's fraud iceberg: several industry sources told Caixin that the institutions were willing to offer loans to Kingold because Jia promised to help them dispose of bad loans.
Hengfeng Bank is the only commercial bank involved in the Kingold affair. The bank in 2017 provided an 8 billion yuan loan to Kingold, which in return agreed to help the bank write off 500 million yuan of bad loans, bank sources said. Kingold repaid half of the debts in 2018. But the loan issuance involved many irregularities as access to the pledged gold and testing procedures was controlled by Kingold, one Hengfeng employee said.

Quote:The loan was pushed forward by Song Hao, former head of Hengfeng’s Yantai branch. Song was placed under graft investigation in March 2018 in connection with the bank’s disgraced former Chairman Cai Guohua, whose downfall led to a major revamp in the bank’s management. In 2019, Hengfeng’s new management sued Kingold for the unpaid loans and moved to dispose the collateral. But a test of the gold bars found they are “all copper,” the bank source said.

It is still unclear whether the collateral was faked in the first place or replaced afterward. Sources from Minsheng Trust and Dongguan Trust confirmed that the collateral was examined by third-party testing institutions and strictly monitored by representatives from Kingold, lenders and insurers during the process of delivery.
"I still can’t understand which part went wrong," a Minsheng Trust source said. Bank records showed that the vault where the collateral was stored was never opened, the source told Caixin.
The falling dominos
Public records showed that Kingold’s first gold-backed borrowing can be traced back to 2013, when it reached an agreement for 200 million yuan of loans from Chang’An Trust, with 1,000 kilograms of gold pledged. The two-year loan was to fund a property project in Wuhan and was repaid on time. Before this, Kingold’s financing mainly came from bank loans with property and equipment as collateral.
It appears that one way or another, the company realized that it could fabricate gold ownership and receive money in exchange for what were basically worthless copper bricks painted as gold; and thanks to Jia's military connections nobody would ask any other questions.
As a result, starting in 2015, Kingold rapidly increased its reliance on gold-backed borrowing and started working with PICC P&C to cover the loans. In 2016, Kingold borrowed 11 billion yuan, nearly 16 times higher than the previous year’s figure. Its debt-to asset ratio surged to 87.5% from 43.4%, according to a company financial report. That year, Kingold pledged 54.7 tons of gold for loans, 7.5 times higher than the previous year.
It is now safe to assume that most of that gold never existed.
A person close to Jia said the surge of borrowing was partly due to Kingold’s pursuit of Tri-Ring. In 2016, the Hubei provincial government announced a plan to sell Tri-Ring stakes to private investors as a major revamp of the Hubei government-controlled auto parts manufacturer.
In 2018, Kingold was selected as the investor in a deal worth 7 billion yuan. According to the investment plan, Kingold’s purchase of Tri-Ring was part of a strategy to expand into the hydrogen fuel cell business, which is obviously a "logical" fit for a company involved in gold jewelry. Sources close to the deal said Kingold was attracted by Tri-Ring for its rich holding of industrial land that could be converted for commercial development.
Yes, at the very bottom of the fraud we finally get to the one true and endless Chinese asset bubble: real estate.
A Dongguan Trust investment document showed that Tri-Ring owns land blocks in Wuhan and Shenzhen that are worth nearly 40 billion yuan.

The deal drew immediate controversy as some rival bidders questioned the transparency of the bidding process and Kingold’s qualifications.
And here things get even crazier: according to Kingold’s financial reports, the company had only 100 million yuan of net assets in 2016 and 2 billion yuan in 2017, sparking doubts over its capacity to pay for the deal. Despite the fuss, Kingold paid 2.8 billion yuan for the first installment shortly after the announcement of the deal. The second installment of 2.4 billion yuan was paid several months later with funds raised from Dongguan Trust.
In December, Tri-Ring completed its business registration change, marking completion of Kingold’s takeover. However, the new owner has since faced troubles mobilizing Tri-Ring’s assets because of a series of corruption probes surrounding the auto parts maker since early 2019 that brought down Tri-Ring’s former chairman. As Caixin the notes, a majority of Tri-Ring’s assets were frozen amid the investigation and subsequent debt disputes, limiting Jia’s access to the assets.
The fraud is finally exposed
Hobbled by the Tri-Ring deal, which cost billions of yuan but has yet to make any return, Jia’s capital chain was eventually broken when Hengfeng Bank pushed for repayment, triggering a series of events that brought the fake gold to light, said a person close to the matter. Insurers’ involvement was key to the success of Kingold’s gold-backed loan deals. The insurance policies provided by leading state-owned insurers like PICC P&C were a major factor defusing lenders’ risk concerns, several trust company sources said.
“Without the insurance coverage from PICC P&C, (we) wouldn’t issue loans to Kingold as the collateral can only be tested through random picked samples,” one person told Caixin.

Quote:PICC P&C’s Hubei branch provided coverage for most of Kingold’s loans, Caixin learned. All the policies will expire by October. As of June 11, 60 policies were still valid or involved in lawsuits.

PICC P&C faces multiple lawsuits filed by Kingold’s creditors demanding compensation. But a PICC P&C spokesperson said the policies cover only collateral losses caused by accident, disasters, robbery and theft. Not fraud, and certainly not losses when the collateral never even existed!
Whose fault
Wang Guangming, a lawyer at Dacheng Law Offices, said the key issue is what happened to the pledged gold and which party was aware of the falsification. If Kingold faked the gold bars and both the insurers and creditors were unaware, the insurers should compensate the lenders and sue Kingold for insurance fraud, Wang said. Insurers are also responsible to compensate if they knew of Kingold’s scam but creditors didn’t, Wang said.

Quote:If Kingold and creditors were both aware of the fake collateral, insurers could terminate the policies and sue the parties for fraud. But if insurers were also involved in the scam, then all the contracts are invalid and every party should assume their own legal responsibilities, Wang said.
A financial regulatory official told Caixin that previous investigations of loan fraud cases involving fake gold pledges found there was often collusion between borrowers and financial institutions.

Earlier this year, PICC P&C removed its Hubei branch party head and general manager Liu Fangming. Sources said staff members involved in business with Kingold were also dismissed. PICC P&C said Liu’s removal was due to internal management issues. It didn't answer Caixin’s question about whether Liu was involved in the Kingold scandal.
PICC P&C’s Hubei branch provided insurance for most of Kingold’s gold-backed loans.
* * *
The above story is shocking in exposing just how multi-faceted fraud is in China: capitalizing on pre-existing cronyism and connections with China's powerful army, the founder of Kingold was allowed to basically do anything he wanted, no questions asked, including counterfeiting over 83 tons of gold bars to get billions in funds to participate in China's housing bubble, only for a series of unexpected events to unwind the frauds one after another and expose the type of sordid scandal that is at the heart of most Chinese "enterprises" and business ventures.
As for the gold, yes - several billion in gold bars never existed and yet resulted in a cascade of subsequent cash flow events allowing tens of billions in funds to be released, "benefiting" not only founder Jia, but China's broader economy. Which is, needless to say, terrifying: because whereas just after the financial crisis China was engaged in building ghost cities, everyone knew these were a symbol of demand that would never materialize, even if the cities themselves did exist. However, it now appears that a major part of China's subsequent economic boom has been predicated on tens of billions in hard assets - such as gold - which simply do not exist.
As for what this means for the price of gold... well, Kingold is certainly not the only Chinese company engaging in such blatant fraud, and the consequences are clear: once Chinese creditors or insurance companies start testing the "collateral" they have received in exchange for tens of billions in loans and discover, to their "amazement", that instead of gold they are proud owners of tungsten or copper, they have two choices: reveal the fraud, risking tremendous adverse consequences and/or prison time, or quietly buy up all the gold needed to literally fill the void from years of gold counterfeiting.
Something tells us option two will be far more palatable to China's kleptoculture where one domino cold trigger a collapse of the entire financial system. What happens next: a panicked scramble to procure physical gold, one which even our friends at the BIS will be powerless to stop from sending the price of the precious metal to all time highs.

Wait...what?

Quote:Iran has issued an arrest warrant and asked Interpol for help in detaining U.S. President Donald Trump and dozens of others it believes carried out the drone strike that killed a top Iranian general in Baghdad, a local prosecutor reportedly said Monday.

Quote:Interpol, based in Lyon, France, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Just got do listening to this old song and never really heard this in the song.  

Can you guess the artist and song? 

" When I think back
On all the crap I learned in high school
It's a wonder
I can think at all
And though my lack of education
Hasn't hurt me none
I can read the writing on the wall "

@"Gram in TEXAS" 

Very Happy to see you found us, just wanted to say Hi,,,,,,,,,,,,,

If you need help, just ask and now you can visit the Shoutbox on the front page and Chat Live.

@"Sol"  I took the liberty to copy the description an everything from the last game - seemed to make the most sense as it explained everything perfectly. 

Please refer to this thread for rules:  http://rogue-nation3.com/showthread.php?...7#pid40937


Hey Everyone,


Please help me Welcome @TheRedneck  and @beez to this new Rogue Game.


Rules: One question at a time, three questions total, per players.


TheRedneck gets to ask the first question.


Who will find the lie?


As the Narrator, here are my three claims; two of which are truthful and one of which is an outlandish lie.


Claim 1:

I was on the phone with my ex-ex, and I heard a somebody dragging a dead body through the woods behind my house. He caught me watching as his face peered from the treeline. I was a bottle + in on the wine at the time so my panicking attempt at a getaway in my car was not a good idea, but it worked. I ended up catching my neighbor red handed trying to hide the evidence and it resulted in a very long and drunk night with detectives.  

Claim 2: 

As part of tradition, the graduating class in my hometown would spray paint a small slogan on the train bridge crossing the river. While halfway through "cheeched a ton..." a train came across the bridge while we were dangling 20ft above the water. The conductor (as part of normal checks) checked the bridge and found me and a friend hanging on for dear life. A chase ensued after he called the local PD, and it ended with me escaping only to come back later to find my friend in a tree hiding. 

Claim 3:

I was investigated, arrested, and ultimately convicted of delivery of a controlled substance: .351 grams of Marijuana. The flakes from a roach. Spent 6 months in jail, 5 years of probation, got kicked out of the Army, and had to give up a fabulous gun collection because of my newfound felony. 


Once @TheRedneck has asked the first question and I've answered truthfully, @beez gets to ask the next question, then @TheRedneck may ask the second question and so on until both have asked their three questions.


When the three questions from the players have been asked and answered, the players get to give their choice of which claim is the lie, 1, 2, or 3.

Whoever finds the lie becomes the Narrator for the next game.

Whoever loses must wait one turn before he can request another participation as a player.

@TheRedneck, being the first player that came forward, has he advantage of choosing from claims 1, 2, or 3. @beez may NOT choose the same choice as TheRedneck, thus giving TheRedneck a clear ad.

That is a hint for the next game; the first to give his name as a player gets the same advantage.


Members may participate but the Narrator may ignore their questions if desired. The Narrator has an obligation to answer truthfully to the players.


Let's have fun !

This may have needed to go in a political forum; if so, a MOD can move it.

Looks like China is working on another pandemic for the world since the Covid-19 fizzled out quicker than they wanted.

Quote:A new strain of flu that has the potential to become a pandemic has been identified in China by scientists.
It emerged recently and is carried by pigs, but can infect humans, they say.

The researchers are concerned that it could mutate further so that it can spread easily from person to person, and trigger a global outbreak.

While it is not an immediate problem, they say, it has "all the hallmarks" of being highly adapted to infect humans and needs close monitoring.

As it's new, people could have little or no immunity to the virus.

Pandemic threat
A bad new strain of influenza is among the top disease threats that experts are watching for, even as the world attempts to bring to an end the current coronavirus pandemic.

The last pandemic flu the world encountered - the swine flu outbreak of 2009 that began in Mexico - was less deadly than initially feared, largely because many older people had some immunity to it, probably because of its similarity to other flu viruses that had circulated years before.

That virus, called A/H1N1pdm09, is now covered by the annual flu vaccine to make sure people are protected.

The new flu strain that has been identified in China is similar to 2009 swine flu, but with some new changes.

So far, it hasn't posed a big threat, but Prof Kin-Chow Chang and colleagues who have been studying it, say it is one to keep an eye on.

The virus, which the researchers call G4 EA H1N1, can grow and multiply in the cells that line the human airways.
They found evidence of recent infection starting in people who worked in abattoirs and the swine industry in China.

Current flu vaccines do not appear to protect against it, although they could be adapted to do so if needed.

Prof Kin-Chow Chang, who works at Nottingham University in the UK, told the BBC: "Right now we are distracted with coronavirus and rightly so. But we must not lose sight of potentially dangerous new viruses."
While this new virus is not an immediate problem, he says: "We should not ignore it".

Quote:[/url]

Chuck Schumer@SenSchumer

I'm calling for an immediate briefing from the Directors of National Intelligence and the CIA for all 100 Senators on reports that Russia placed bounties on US Troops in Afghanistan. We also need to know whether or not President Trump was told this information, and if so, when.
11:47 AM · Jun 29, 2020·

Didn't Obummer send them a bunch of cash on pallets?  Hmm...  

OOPS!  

Quote:Iran is paying Taliban fighters $1,000 for each U.S. soldier they kill in Afghanistan, according to a report in a British newspaper.

[url=http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/]The Sunday Times described how a man it said was a "Taliban treasurer" had gone to collect $18,000 from an Iranian firm in Kabul, a reward it said was for an attack in July which killed several Afghan government troops and destroyed an American armored vehicle.

The treasurer left with the cash hidden in a sack of flour, the newspaper said, and then gave it to Taliban fighters in the province of Wardak. In the past six months, the treasurer claimed to have collected more than $77,000 from the company.
The Sunday Times said its investigation had found that at least five Kabul-based Iranian companies were secretly passing funds to the Taliban.

The newspaper's correspondent, Miles Amoore, said he met and interviewed the treasurer, who he said had been an illiterate farmer who was taught to read and write, plus basic accountancy, by the Taliban last winter.

1. Related content
   
   1. NATO general: Taliban are training in Iran
      
   2. 8 dead as Taliban targets U.S. Consulate
      

"We don’t care who we get money from," the treasurer was quoted as saying. He described the relationship with Iran as a "marriage of convenience." Iran is a predominantly Shiite country, while the Taliban is dominated by Sunni Muslims.
'For jihad'

"Iran will never stop funding us because Americans are dangerous for them as well. I think the hatred is the same from both us and Iran. The money we get is not dirty. It is for jihad," the treasurer told Amoore.
Advertise


In addition to the $1,000 bounty on U.S. troops, the unnamed man said Iran paid $6,000 for the destruction of a U.S. military vehicle.

"I have to sign off on all the receipts and I have to add up how much each fighter deserves after each operation. I also have to communicate in the Iranian language," the treasurer told the newspaper.

The report came as the Taliban threatened Sunday to derail elections this month and warned Afghans to boycott the vote in their first explicit threat against the poll.

The Sept. 18 parliamentary election is seen as a litmus test of stability in Afghanistan before U.S. President Barack Obama conducts a war strategy review in December that will examine the pace and scale of U.S. troop withdrawals from July 2011.
Despite the presence of almost 150,000 foreign troops, violence is at its worst across Afghanistan since the Taliban were ousted by U.S.-backed Afghan forces in late 2001.

"This (election) is a foreign process for the sake of further occupation of Afghanistan and we are asking the Afghan nation to boycott it," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said.

"We are against it and will try with the best of our ability to block it. Our first targets will be the foreign forces and next the Afghan ones. So we are asking people to not take part," he told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location.
Security is a major concern ahead of the vote, with four candidates killed already in recent weeks, according to the United Nations and government officials.

Another candidate was wounded, and 10 of his campaign workers killed, in an air strike in northern Takhar province on Friday, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) is investigating the incident but maintains it killed a senior member of the al-Qaida-linked Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan in the air strike.
Reuters contributed to this report.

@"CottonGinWaste" 

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