The world opened its wallet for former US president Bill Clinton.
Governments, corporations and billionaires with their own interests in US foreign policy gave the former president’s charity millions of dollars, the records he released on Thursday show.
The records were released to lay bare any financial entanglements that could affect Clinton’s wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, as the next secretary of state.
Saudi Arabia, Norway and other foreign governments gave at least US$46 million, and donors with ties to India delivered millions more.
Corporate donors included the Blackwater security firm, at risk of losing its lucrative government contract to protect US diplomats in Iraq, and Yahoo, involved in disputes over surrendering Internet information to Chinese authorities that led to the imprisonment of dissidents there.
Other high-profile donors include celebrities Barbra Streisand, Steven Spielberg, Paul Newman, Carly Simon and Chevy Chase, while sports figures included New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner and Formula One driver Michael Schumacher.
The records account for at least US$492 million in contributions to the William J. Clinton Foundation, a nonprofit created by the former president to finance his library in Little Rock, Arkansas, and charitable efforts in dozens of countries to reduce poverty and treat AIDS.
President-elect Barack Obama made Hillary Clinton’s nomination as secretary of state contingent on her husband revealing the foundation’s contributors, to address questions about potential conflicts of interest.
The foundation disclosed the names of its 205,000 donors on its Web site on Thursday, ending a decade of resistance to identifying them. It released only the names of donors and the range of their contributions. It did not identify each contributor’s occupation, employer or nationality or provide any other details. The foundation said separately on Thursday that fewer than 3,000 of its donors were foreigners but did not identify which ones.
It was not immediately clear whether the disclosures will raise any serious challenge to Hillary Clinton’s nomination to be secretary of state.
Shortly after the documents were released, Hillary Clinton made another appearance at the State Department for meetings with transition aides, officials said. It was the latest of several trips to the building for the former first lady since she was nominated by Obama.
After negotiations with Obama’s transition team, Bill Clinton promised to reveal the contributors, submit future foundation activities and paid speeches to an ethics review, step away from the day-to-day operation of his annual charitable conference and inform the State Department about new sources of income and speeches.
Saudi Arabia gave US$10 million to US$25 million to the foundation. AUSAID, the Australian government’s overseas aid program, and COPRESIDA-Secretariado Tecnico, a Dominican Republic government agency formed to fight AIDS, each gave US$10 million to US$25 million.
Norway gave US$5 million to US$10 million. Kuwait, Qatar, Brunei and Oman each gave US$1 million to US$5 million. Jamaica and Italy’s Ministry for Environment and Territory gave US$50,000 to US$100,000 each. Tenerife donated US$25,000 to US$50,000. The Dutch national lottery gave US$5 million to US$10 million.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a
RSS