A community of decent freedom loving Seychellois,determined to see Seychelles FREE from the clutches of failure, corruption, and lack of respect of Democracy and fundamental human rights. A spin off of the anti Communist league who believe in Sesel Pou Seselwa.
Reports are surfacing of the presence of a spy for Iran in Seychelles. The spy is is disclosed by security personnel candidly, has close links to the Le Pep ruling party and the former president of Seychelles, Mr. James Alix Michel. The spy portfolio includes collecting information on the UAE royal family while they are in Seychelles, a favorite rest and recreation destination for them as well as many other royals from the Middle East.
Iran is a long standing rival of the UAE government which maintains close ties with the Seychelles and the USA.
Last year, a Iranian fishing vessel was seized in Seychelles waters, carrying over 100 kilo of heroin. The cargo was worth over $ 128 Million at street value. It is uncommon for such vessels to venture into Seychelles waters, but the spy had previous knowledge of the incident, it is reported.
The Seychelles Weekly, once the paper that advocated foreign direct investment, a international airport, the foreign policy of " friends to all enemy to none" has pasted a full page advertisement for the country to " Say No To Grand Police Development".
Save The Mud Turtle The key argument Weekly cites is the need to save the yellow bellied and black mud turtles. These little fresh water creatures were introduced into Seychelles and are common around the world. If the project goes through Weekly, along with Ministry of Environment can insure that the population of these turtles actually increases, by committing the developer to increase its population, spread them around Mahe and every where the Editor lives, so he can feel comfortable with the project,slated to bring in over $1 Billion in foreign direct investment, which Seychelles needs to increase the salary base of Seychellois and increase our quality of life. Projects of this magnitude help the country, compress employers to raise salaries for serious and qualified Seychellois.
Focus On The Right Issue What Weekly should be focusing on is getting Government of Seychelles commitment to engage the developer, make commitments to empower Seychellois in the project, ensure our truckers have work, our excavator operators get contracts, our rock blasters blast, our small contractors can bring in Indian workers to work the project, so they make a good living off the project.
At the development stage ask government to insure development impact contributions are made to up grade roads, airport, bus services. Insure housing for staff are contracted out across the economic base to insure Seychellois have an interest in the project succeeding. A 320 room hotel will require near 1000 staff housing, numerous buses for transfers, a host of other services which our people can participate in a meaningful manner. We are no longer any ones " BOY" so when a serious project comes along, let's welcome it with a different eye, a eye that will insure Seychellois benefit, not get cast aside and we are left with nothing but a granite rock to sit on and cry over why we are in such a mess, then drink ourselves in self pity when Mauritians lock the deals, we are left to fight over crumbs and start referring back to June 5 th, 1977 when we have nothing else to say, when we know too well the culprits of the mis deeds today are more Catholic then the Pope.
Trump donor secretly met with Russian close to Putin
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Blackwater founder Erik Prince met with a Russian person close to President Vladimir Putin, according to U.S., European and Arab officials.(Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post)
The United Arab Emirates arranged a secret meeting in January between Blackwater founder Erik Prince and a Russian close to President Vladimir Putin as part of an apparent effort to establish a back-channel line of communication between Moscow and President-elect Donald Trump, according to U.S., European and Arab officials.
The meeting took place around Jan. 11 — nine days before Trump’s inauguration — in the Seychelles islands in the Indian Ocean, officials said. Though the full agenda remains unclear, the UAE agreed to broker the meeting in part to explore whether Russia could be persuaded to curtail its relationship with Iran, including in Syria, a Trump administration objective that would be likely to require major concessions to Moscow on U.S. sanctions.
Though Prince had no formal role with the Trump campaign or transition team, he presented himself as an unofficial envoy for Trump to high-ranking Emiratis involved in setting up his meeting with the Putin confidant, according to the officials, who did not identify the Russian.
Prince was an avid supporter of Trump. After the Republican convention, he contributed $250,000 to Trump’s campaign, the national party and a pro-Trump super PAC led by GOP mega-donor Rebekah Mercer, records show. He has ties to people in Trump’s circle, including Stephen K. Bannon, now serving as the president’s chief strategist and senior counselor. Prince’s sister Betsy DeVos serves as education secretary in the Trump administration. And Prince was seen in the Trump transition offices in New York in December.
U.S. officials said the FBI has been scrutinizing the Seychelles meeting as part of a broader probe of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election and alleged contacts between associates of Putin and Trump. The FBI declined to comment.
The Seychelles encounter, which one official said spanned two days, adds to an expanding web of connections between Russia and Americans with ties to Trump — contacts that the White House has been reluctant to acknowledge or explain until they have been exposed by news organizations.
“We are not aware of any meetings, and Erik Prince had no role in the transition,” said Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary.
A Prince spokesman said in a statement: “Erik had no role on the transition team. This is a complete fabrication. The meeting had nothing to do with President Trump. Why is the so-called under-resourced intelligence community messing around with surveillance of American citizens when they should be hunting terrorists?”
Prince is best known as the founder of Blackwater, a security firm that became a symbol of U.S. abuses in Iraq after a series of incidents, including one in 2007 in which the company’s guards were accused — and later criminally convicted — of killing civilians in a crowded Iraqi square. Prince sold the firm, which was subsequently re-branded, but has continued building a private paramilitary empire with contracts across the Middle East and Asia. He now heads a Hong Kong-based company known as the Frontier Services Group.
Prince would probably have been seen as too controversial to serve in any official capacity in the Trump transition or administration. But his ties to Trump advisers, experience with clandestine work and relationship with the royal leaders of the Emirates — where he moved in 2010 amid mounting legal problems for his American business — would have positioned him as an ideal go-between.
The Seychelles meeting came after separate private discussions in New York involving high-ranking representatives of Trump with both Moscow and the Emirates.
The White House has acknowledged that Michael T. Flynn, Trump’s original national security adviser, and Trump adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner met with the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak, in late November or early December in New York.
Flynn and Kushner were joined by Bannon for a separate meeting with the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, who made an undisclosed visit to New York later in December, according to the U.S., European and Arab officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
In an unusual breach of protocol, the UAE did not notify the Obama administration in advance of the visit, though officials found out because Zayed’s name appeared on a flight manifest.
Officials said Zayed and his brother, the UAE’s national security adviser, coordinated the Seychelles meeting with Russian government officials with the goal of establishing an unofficial back channel between Trump and Putin.
Officials said Zayed wanted to be helpful to both leaders, who had talked about working more closely together, a policy objective long advocated by the crown prince. The UAE, which sees Iran as one of its main enemies, also shared the Trump team’s interest in finding ways to drive a wedge between Moscow and Tehran.
Zayed met twice with Putin in 2016, according to Western officials, and urged the Russian leader to work more closely with the Emirates and Saudi Arabia — an effort to isolate Iran.
At the time of the Seychelles meeting and for weeks afterward, the UAE believed that Prince had the blessing of the new administration to act as its unofficial representative. The Russian participant was a person whom Zayed knew was close to Putin from his interactions with both men, the officials said.
Scrutiny over Russia
When the Seychelles meeting took place, official contacts between members of the incoming Trump administration and the Russian government were under intense scrutiny, both from federal investigators and the press.
Less than a week before the Seychelles meeting, U.S. intelligence agencies released a report accusing Russia of intervening clandestinely during the 2016 election to help Trump win the White House.
The FBI was already investigating communications between Flynn and Kislyak. The Washington Post’s David Ignatiusfirst disclosed those communications on Jan. 12, around the time of the Seychelles meeting. Flynn was subsequently fired by Trump for misleading Vice President Pence and others about his discussions with Kislyak.
Yousef Al Otaiba, the UAE’s ambassador in Washington, declined to comment.
Government officials in the Seychelles said they were not aware of any meetings between Trump and Putin associates in the country around Jan. 11. But they said luxury resorts on the island are ideal for clandestine gatherings like the one described by the U.S., European and Arab officials.
“I wouldn’t be surprised at all,” said Barry Faure, the Seychelles secretary of state for foreign affairs. “The Seychelles is the kind of place where you can have a good time away from the eyes of the media. That’s even printed in our tourism marketing. But I guess this time you smelled something.”
Trump has dismissed the investigations of Russia’s role in the election as “fake news” and a “witch hunt.”
The level of discretion surrounding the Seychelles meeting seems extraordinary given the frequency with which senior Trump advisers, including Flynn and Kushner, had interacted with Russian officials in the United States, including at the high-profile Trump Tower in New York.
Steven Simon, a National Security Council senior director for the Middle East and North Africa in the Obama White House, said: “The idea of using business cutouts, or individuals perceived to be close to political leaders, as a tool of diplomacy is as old as the hills. These unofficial channels are desirable precisely because they are deniable; ideas can be tested without the risk of failure.”
Current and former U.S. officials said that while Prince refrained from playing a direct role in the Trump transition, his name surfaced so frequently in internal discussions that he seemed to function as an outside adviser whose opinions were valued on a range of issues, including plans for overhauling the U.S. intelligence community.
He appears to have particularly close ties to Bannon, appearing multiple times on the Breitbart satellite radio program and website that Bannon ran before joining the Trump campaign.
In a July interview with Bannon, Prince said those seeking forceful U.S. leadership should “wait till January and hope Mr. Trump is elected.” And he lashed out at President Barack Obama, saying that because of his policies “the terrorists, the fascists, are winning.”
Days before the November election, Prince appeared on the Breitbart radio program, saying that he had “well-placed sources” in the New York City Police Department telling him they were preparing to make arrests in the investigation of former congressman Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) over allegations he exchanged sexually explicit texts with a minor. Flynn tweeted a link to the Breitbart report on the claim. No arrests occurred.
Prince went on to make unfounded assertions that damaging material recovered from Weiner’s computers would implicate Hillary Clinton and her close adviser, Huma Abedin, who was married to Weiner. He also called Abedin an “agent of influence very sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood.”
Prince and his family were major GOP donors in 2016. The Center for Responsive Politics reported that the family gave more than $10 million to GOP candidates and super PACs, including about $2.7 million from his sister, DeVos, and her husband.
Prince’s father, Edgar Prince, built his fortune through an auto-parts company. Betsy married Richard DeVos Jr., heir to the Amway fortune.
Erik Prince has had lucrative contracts with the UAE government, which at one point paid his firm a reported $529 million to help bring in foreign fighters to help assemble an internal paramilitary force capable of carrying out secret operations and protecting Emirati installations from terrorist attacks.
Focus on Iran
The Trump administration and the UAE appear to share a similar preoccupation with Iran. Current and former officials said that Trump advisers were focused throughout the transition period on exploring ways to get Moscow to break ranks with Tehran.
“Separating Russia from Iran was a common theme,” said a former intelligence official in the Obama administration who met with Trump transition officials. “It didn’t seem very well thought out. It seemed a little premature. They clearly had a very specific policy position, which I found odd given that they hadn’t even taken the reins and explored with experts in the U.S. government the pros and cons of that approach.”
Michael McFaul, former U.S. ambassador to Russia, said he also had discussions with people close to the Trump administration about the prospects of drawing Russia away from Iran. “When I would hear this, I would think, ‘Yeah that’s great for you guys, but why would Putin ever do that?’ ” McFaul said. “There is no interest in Russia ever doing that. They have a long relationship with Iran. They’re allied with Iran in fighting in Syria. They sell weapons to Iran. Iran is an important strategic partner for Russia in the Middle East.”
Following the New York meeting between the Emiratis and Trump aides, Zayed was approached by Prince, who said he was authorized to act as an unofficial surrogate for the president-elect, according to the officials. He wanted Zayed to set up a meeting with a Putin associate. Zayed agreed and proposed the Seychelles as the meeting place because of the privacy it would afford both sides. “He wanted to be helpful,” one official said of Zayed.
Wealthy Russians and Emirati royalty have a particularly large footprint on the islands. Signs advertising deep-sea fishing trips are posted in Cyrillic. Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov owns North Island, where Prince William and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, went on their honeymoon in 2011. Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan, president of the UAE, built a hilltop palace for himself with views across the chain of islands.
The Emiratis have given hundreds of millions of dollars to the Seychelles in recent years for causes including public health and affordable housing. But when the Emirati royal family visits, they are rarely seen.
“The jeep comes to their private jet on the tarmac and they disappear,” said one Seychellois official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he did not want to be seen as criticizing the Emiratis.
Zayed, the crown prince, owns a share of the Seychelles’ Four Seasons, a collection of private villas scattered on a lush hillside on the main island’s southern shore, overlooking the Indian Ocean, according to officials in the Seychelles. The hotel is tucked away on a private beach, far from the nearest public road.
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Current and former U.S. officials who have worked closely with Zayed, who is often referred to as MBZ, say it would be out of character for him to arrange the Jan. 11 meeting without getting a green light in advance from top aides to Trump and Putin, if not the leaders themselves. “MBZ is very cautious,” said an American businessman who knows Zayed and spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. “There had to be a nod.”
The Seychelles meeting was deemed productive by the UAE and Russia, but the idea of arranging additional meetings between Prince and Putin’s associates was dropped, officials said. Even unofficial contacts between Trump and Putin associates had become too politically risky, officials said.
Sieff reported from the Seychelles. Julie Tate, Devlin Barrett, Matea Gold, Tom Hamburger and Rosalind S. Helderman contributed to this report.
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that Prince appeared on Bannon’s radio show in November. Bannon had left to run Trump’s campaign by then. Prince appeared on the Breitbart satellite radio program.
It was a tough week for Le Pep. But Le Pep leadership need not feel down, the Truth will liberate you. When you feel down, sluggish, ask yourself when will it all end, remember, those of us with Blue DNA have been slugging it out for 40 years. This means, Le Pep leadership, people like me, my family, others have had 24,960 bad weeks in the last 40 years.........24,960 bad weeks, we are right here, under your nose, waiting for you to " just do the right thing".
Ombudsman Appointed
Nicole Tirant Gheraldi has been appointed Ombudsman. She has accepted the consolation appointment after being denied numerous applications for Judgeship. While Nicole has made the most of this appointment, she should have been made a Judge. Simple. I leave this to President Faure to address and " Do the Right Thing"!
Sylvestere Radegonde Appointed Ambassador
Sylvestere Radegonde has been appointed Ambassador of France. Radegonde was fired by James Michel ( infamous James aka " JPwason" the one and only) after he had a tug of war scuffle with the paranoid dictator while at Seychelles Tourism Board. It was one of those " do as I say, not as I do, things.
The incident with a long time serving loyal diplomat said a world of what kind of leader James Michel was.
The appointment of Ambassador Radegonde this week says a world of what kind of leader President Faure is sifting out to be for Seychelles. His actions speak volumes for all sides, in spite of a tough week, he apparently means well, but his under rank and file are not all on the same page.
Constitutional Court Rules Against SPUP Museum
This week the Constitutional Court ruled against the Le Pep SPPF SPUP folklore and ordered the Umarji Building belonging to Hassan Ali family be returned. President Faure needs to do the right thing, and the smart thing: " Do Not Appeal, Accept the ruling" correlate it to your apology made on behalf of the Le Pep party when you were sworn in as President, and made an appeal for genuine national reconciliation.
Let us not waste anymore precious national emotions. When there are many good moves Faure has made. Build on it, don't belittle what you have accomplished this far.
This acquisition had behind it a deep personal history which Dr. Ferrari is well aware of, before he accepted to be Rene's minister. Back then, he was ok with the folklore.
Dr. Ferrari should live with it until he goes on YouTube with a lie detector attached to his finger and tongue, as Le Pep should live with the judgment. We need to move forward as a People.
As President Faure said, let us " change the conversation". Wise words.
Ten Plots Returned By Midnight Press Release State House
It was announced at midnight this Thursday 10 plots owned by Sarah Ltd, would be returned to government of Seychelles. A 11 th plot remains. This swift action was done by State House in negotiations. Good effort. However, an independent national committee made up of both sides should be convened i.e., " National Committee of Asset Recovery" to insure all assets misappropriated over the years be returned to the government and rightful owners wherein possible, vested in the government wherein appropriate.
Daniel Morin Strike At State House
Who can blame Daniel Morin for taking his 100 Indian workers to State House to protest the non payment by Ministry of Finance for money owed or work completed? No one. Everyone knows today Principal Secretary Patrick Payet sits on files as I he is trying to hatch them; he sits on payments as if the money is his.
He has the attitude that people claiming money from government are NOT owed anything., without any regard for the human factor involved in payments is dangerous for the government.
Well Mr. Payet, maybe another government, you could play this game,perhaps.
The sooner you start cutting the checks on time, the sooner you will salvage the reputation of the Le Pep government and give President Danny Faure the credit he deserves. What a disgrace.
When the victimization committee starts issuing the bills to settle what is Patrick Payet going to say" ah...how did you know this sum due?" If I were you, I would just cut the checks, like you intended to do for NDEA and ESPACE for Michel, if LDS did not man up and clean your clock, expose the budgetary Fraud in play.
My Message To Le Pep Hard Core
As tough as the week has been, Le Pep, read my words, and read them thoughtfully, " no matter how bad it gets in the coming months ( it will get bad) President Danny Faure shall remain your best bet. After him, you have nothing left, so pull yourselves together, get out of depression and support your President to clean up this mess. Move forward, " fearless with dignity" ......even if at times, it will seem impossible. In time, everything will be fine, it will be ok.
Me, I am waiting for my "check" (s) from Patrick Payet! Don't cross it! It is Four weeks late now, I am counting because contrary to your perception, the government of Le Pep owes the money, I have the documentation to prove , boy, does it look bad!
