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NEW YORK: Morgan Stanley posted its first quarterly loss ever Wednesday after taking an additional $5.7 billion write-down related to subprime mortgages. The investment bank also said it would sell a $5 billion stake to China Investment Corp., a sovereign wealth fund, to shore up its capital. The sale, which would give the Chinese government a stake of about 9.9 percent in one of Wall Street's biggest investment banks, is the latest example of a foreign investor aiding a Western financial firm after the housing meltdown. Morgan Stanley's fourth-quarter loss of $3.59 billion, or $3.61 a share, was a sharp...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Investment bank Morgan Stanley said Wednesday it sold a portion of itself to China Investment Corp., an investment arm of the Chinese government, for $5 billion to raise capital after taking $9.4 billion in writedowns on mortgage-related investments. Morgan Stanley said the investment will help bolster its capital position and allow it to continue growing its Chinese operations. China Investment will receive equity units that convert into as much as 9.9 percent of Morgan Stanley common stock. The equity units carry a fixed annual payment of 9 percent before converting to shares of common stock Aug....

New York Times Set To Nuke Hillary? Drudge has this below up with no link. But pay attention to the reporter's name: NYT Plans Sunday Exclusive on Questionable Clinton Library donors... Reporter Don Van Natta... Developing... He's a serious award-winning investigative journalist ... and co-author with Jeff Gerth of Her Way: link: Prosecutors later came to believe that Hillary had padded her bills; she "wasn't guilty of [knowingly] facilitating nefarious transactions -- she was guilty of doing less work than she took credit for," Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta Jr. explain in their 2007 biography, Her Way. Hillary...

Bill Clinton's presidential library raised more than 10 percent of the cost of its $165 million facility from foreign sources, with the most generous overseas donation coming from Saudi Arabia, according to interviews yesterday. The royal family of Saudi Arabia gave the Clinton facility in Little Rock about $10 million, roughly the same amount it gave toward the presidential library of George H.W. Bush, according to people directly familiar with the contributions. The presidential campaign of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) has for months faced questions about the source of the money for her husband's presidential library. During a September...

Kennywood Park, the summertime mecca for generations of Pittsburghers in search of thrill rides, arcade games, old-fashioned family fun and gooey cheese fries, was sold yesterday to a Spanish company. Kennywood Entertainment, a West Mifflin-based enterprise since 1898, will be taken over by Parques Reunidos of Madrid, which plans to leave day-to-day operation of the park in local hands. The descendants of F.W. Henninger and A.S. McSwigan, who acquired the park from Pittsburgh Railway Co. in 1906, had been approached by amusement companies in the past about selling the local icon, but have refused. When Premiere Parks, an Oklahoma-based chain,...

Two years ago this month, a Saudi prince caused a media splash — and raised eyebrows — when he donated $20 million each to Georgetown and Harvard universities to fund Islamic studies. Although few details have been released about how the money has been spent, at Georgetown, the money helped pay for a recent symposium on Islamic-Western relations held in the university's Copley Formal Lounge. The event attracted about 120 persons: students, Catholic priests, men in business suits and several women in colorful head scarves who all came to hear religion experts from several American universities, as well as from...

By agreeing to purchasing a $7.5 billion stake in the faltering banking giant Citigroup, the secretive, government-controlled Abu Dhabi Investment Authority is breaking with tradition. As the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world, with assets estimated at $650 billion, it poured money in the past into low-return, low-profile investments or small emerging market deals, unlike its flashy emirate neighbor, Dubai. But a falling dollar and a growing cash pile are spurring Abu Dhabi to change strategy, according to analysts, economists and deal makers, who said that more big-ticket deals might be ahead. snip Abu Dhabi is the largest oil...

Citigroup Inc., seeking to restore investor confidence amid massive losses due in credit markets and a lack of permanent leadership, is receiving a $7.5 billion capital infusion from the investment arm of the Abu Dhabi government. The investment by the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority will help rebuild Citigroup's capital levels, which have been eroded by a credit crunch that began in the summer. Citigroup Chief Executive Officer and Chairman Charles Prince resigned earlier this month after the bank, which had already written off billions of dollars, said it was facing as much as $11 billion more in losses.

The Dubai government agency that bought into Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE: Quote, Profile , Research) this year said on Monday it was considering investing in U.S. financial services firms affected by the mortgage-market crisis. DIFC Investments, one of the agencies Dubai has used to buy foreign assets, is identifying "good opportunities for acquisitions" in the United States, the governor of the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) said on Monday. Asked whether the targets could include U.S. banks such as Citigroup (C.N: Quote, Profile , Research) and Merrill Lynch (MER.N: Quote, Profile , Research), Omar bin Sulaiman told Reuters: "Without mentioning names...

<p>Last June, Hillary Clinton's campaign gave back $7,000 to Chinese restaurant workers who contributed $1,000 apiece for a political fundraiser.</p>

ASIAN-American groups don't like the increased scrutiny that Hillary Clin ton's mysterious Chinese dishwasher donors are getting. To which I say, in words that should be universally understood: Boo-freaking-hoo. In the wake of eye-opening investigations by The Post and the Los Angeles Times of more dubious foreign funny money flowing into Hill's coffers, ethnic-grievance groups are stepping forward to condemn these stories as examples of "negligent journalism." Yep: The newspapers are guilty of "negligence" because they actually broke news instead of covering it up. Both papers uncovered dishwashers, cooks and other suspect Hillary campaign contributors in Chinatown, Flushing, The Bronx...

The NY Post and LA Times uncovered dishwashers, cooks and other suspect Hillary campaign contributors in Chinatown, Flushing, The Bronx and Brooklyn who were limited-income, limited-English-proficient and smellier than stinky tofu. One Asian donor admitted "to lacking the legal-resident status required for giving campaign money." Another was reimbursed for her $1,000 donation - setting off clear alarm bells over yet another possible straw donor scheme on the heels of Norman Hsu-gate.

RUSH: Now, folks, I want to say just a little bit more about the "unfairness," the "inaccuracy," whatever you want to call it from the Drive-By Media of the Harry Reid smear letter auction with my matching donation now generating $4.2 million for the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation. In anybody's judgment, that's huge news, especially since it involved a skirmish between me and the Senate majority leader. The amount of coverage that this has received, especially accurate coverage, is such that you could put it in a thimble. Well, maybe a syringe, but certainly nothing larger than that. But the...

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign returned $7,000 in donations last spring that were linked to a fund-raising event in Chinatown in New York City, campaign officials said yesterday, acknowledging another instance where questionable donors came into Mrs. Clinton’s political orbit. unlike Mrs. Clinton’s trouble with the former fund-raiser Norman Hsu — whose extensive legal problems and dubious fund-raising practices came as a surprise — her campaign identified the concerns about the Chinatown fund-raising on its own, campaign officials said. The Los Angeles Times reported yesterday that it had reviewed the cases of more than 150 donors apparently linked to...

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's campaign is looking for political cash this week in an unlikely place: Resource-rich Kazakhstan, where the Republican presidential front-runner's law firm does substantial business in the often murky oil, gas and minerals industries. A fund-raising event tomorrow in Almaty, the commercial center of the former Soviet republic, will mark the campaign's third foray overseas for cash. Last week, Mr. Giuliani flew to London for a fund-raising luncheon where about 100 Americans living in Europe paid between $1,000 and $2,300 for a ticket -- the second his campaign has held in the United Kingdom. Mr....

Giuliani is reaching out to Borat's glorious nation......his campaign will throw a fund-raiser in Kazakhstan (in the Crimea).

When it comes to shady foreign operators infusing cash into our electoral system, Bill and Hillary Clinton have declared themselves "shocked." One of the Democrat Party's mysterious, deep-pocketed bagmen is Norman Hsu, a prodigious Democrat donor who was arrested last week, after having evaded the law for 15 years over grand theft swindling charges. He was supposed to serve jail time. Instead, he managed to remain a fugitive while raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars for Democrat candidates and officeholders - and openly posing for photographs with the likes of Hillary Clinton. The 84 individuals who received money from...

Leading Clinton DonorStays Below the Radar By IANTHE JEANNE DUGAN and BRODY MULLINSAugust 29, 2007; Page A6 Norman Hsu is one of the leading political fund-raisers in the country this year. In fact, many fund-raisers say he is one of a small handful of people capable of raising more than $1 million -- a major feat considering the maximum donation allowed by an individual for 2008 races is $4,600 per candidate. 

A Pakistani immigrant is wanted by federal authorities on charges he channeled $30,000 in illegal contributions to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential war chest. The FBI is hunting Los Angeles businessman Abdul Rehman Jinnah, who vanished soon after his grand-jury indictment for violating federal election laws last May. Clinton's camp has denied any knowledge of Jinnah's scheme, which is also alleged to have funneled more than $50,000 in illegal donations to the political action committees of Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), the Los Angeles Times reported yesterday. Jinnah, 56, a cellphone and frozen-yogurt businessman, allegedly collected campaign donations from family members,...

Tue, December 27, 2005 Rosie told to keep her donation By CP ST. JOHN'S, N.L. -- Federal NDP candidate Peg Norman received an offer she had to refuse from former TV chat show host Rosie O'Donnell. Norman, who is running for the second time in the Newfoundland riding of St. John's South-Mount Pearl, had to say no thanks to O'Donnell's "generous" offer of a donation in the Jan. 23 election campaign because the actress isn't a Canadian citizen. The offer not only reflects O'Donnell's left-leaning political bent, but also her affection for Canada, says Norman. "Politically, we're pretty close --...