Free Republic

Russians secretly mocked Obama for so easily giving them American uranium, nuclear fuel contracts and technology, FBI informant reveals in excerpts from the new book "Fallout: Nuclear Bribes, Russian Spies and the Washington Lies that Enriched the Clinton and Biden Dynasties." The failed Russian reset .. repeatedly gave Russia's nuclear monopoly, Rosatom, assets like uranium under U.S. soil and billions of dollars in nuclear fuel contracts that made American electricity customers reliant on Moscow for years to come. And then Vladimir Putin pulled the rug out from under the Obama administration in 2014, invading the Crimea region of U.S. ally...

Here's a fascinating politics/energy/international relations story that's flying below the radar now, but feels as though it could get huge. The news starts with Uranium One (UUU), a Toronto-listed uranium miner, whose shares plunged 38% on news that the Kazakhstan government was probing whether certain Kazakh mines it owns were acquired illegally. Specifically, it's looking at potentially illegal asset sales by Mukhtar Dzhakishev, the former head of state-owned uranium miner Kazatomprom, who later sought favors from the man who sold the assets to, Frank Giustra, and Bill Clinton. Reuters: [O]ne deal in question was the sale of a 30 percent...

Mukhtar Dzhakishev is by all accounts in miserable shape.Languishing in a “harsh” Kazakhstan prison colony that was once part of Stalin’s gulag system, he suffers from hypertension, hardened arteries and kidney disease likely triggered by a severe beating.“His life is constantly at risk,” one human-rights group warned in September, as it urged the international community to advocate on Dzakishev’s behalf.Largely unable to communicate with the outside world, the former head of Kazakhstan’s state uranium conglomerate has made one thing clear: he blames his arrest and 14-year prison term at least in part on a Canadian company’s corporate dealings.More specifically, Dzakishev...

Hunter Biden referred to Massimov in a 2016 email as a "close friend." Former Kazakh Prime Minister Karim Massimov, a known Biden family business associate, was detained Saturday on suspicion of treason, according to an announcement from the Kazakhstan National Security Committee, a body he chaired until this past week. Local media report at least 164 people have died as a result of riots that broke out Jan. 2 following an increase in fuel prices. An unverified photo shows then-Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden flanked by then-Prime Minister Massimov and Kazakh oligarch Kenes Rakishev in the...