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Iran's Oil Mafia April 16, 2007 Frontpagemagazine.com Hassan Daioleslam Robert William (Bob) Ney is a current federal prisoner and a former Ohio Congressman from 1995 until November 3, 2006. Ney pled guilty to charges of conspiracy and making false statements in relation to the Jack Abramoff lobbying and bribery scandal. Ney reportedly received bribes from Abramoff, other lobbyists, and two foreign businessmen - a felon and an arms dealer - in exchange for using his position to advance their interests. Conspicuously missing from this dossier of disservice to the country was Ney’s assistance in the creation of a Washington-based lobbying...

Italian tenor Giuseppe Di Stefano, to whom Luciano Pavarotti owed his launch to stardom, died in Milan on Monday. He was 86. Di Stefano died after a long coma caused by an attack during a robbery at his Kenyan holiday home in late 2004. Fellow Italian tenor Pavarotti, who died last year, had his big break when Di Stefano dropped out of a performance of "La Boheme" at London's Covent Garden in 1963. Pavarotti performed as the stand-in and a star was born. Local media said Di Stefano had never fully recovered from the savage beating he received from unknown...

University of Colorado at Boulder Interim Chancellor Phill DiStefano today issued a notice of intent to dismiss for cause to Professor Ward Churchill. His recommendation follows a CU-Boulder investigation into allegations of research misconduct by Churchill.

A lawyer for Saddam Hussein says the deposed Iraqi dictator's upcoming trial should be held in Europe. London-based attorney Giovanni Di Stefano told a Swedish television interviewer Sunday the defense team would prefer a trial be held in Sweden, Austria, Switzerland or The Hague, Netherlands, Al-Jazeera reported. Di Stefano told the Swedish television network SVT Iraq was not safe. "In the unlikely event that our client is tried and convicted, said Di Stefano," he can go straight to a detention center in Sweden. Al-Jazeera said the Swedish Foreign Ministry had no comment on the report late Sunday. Lawyers for Saddam...

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein should be tried in another country, preferably Sweden, rather than Iraq, one of his defense lawyers said on Sunday. "We invite the Iraqi government and the prosecutors to hold this trial, if there is to be a trial, not in Iraq where it's not safe to hold the trial, but to hold it either in the Hague or in Sweden or in Austria or even in Switzerland," British-based lawyer Giovanni di Stefano said. "I would favor Sweden more than any other country -- where we are likely, more than not, a) to...

Giovanni Di Stefano, in an interview with FHM (UK) magazine says the following: Q: "Didn't you once meet Bin Laden?" A: "Yes, In Baghdad in 1998. He was a nobody back then and I didn't take much notice. He was educated, had very soft skin and shook my hand like a woman. He inspired a lot of the Mujahideen in Kosovo to do some pretty horrific things to the Serbs. My friend Arkan [the late Serbian warlord] said to me once, "Why didn't you kill him?" I probably would have done if I'd known who he was."