The protesters object to the policies of South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity.

Alan Gassiev, a member of the political council of the opposition People’s Party, told RFE/RL that Kokoity is implementing "antidemocratic politics."

The demonstrators held signs saying "Kokoity, Where Is Russia’s Money?" and "No to Blacklists, Yes to Fair Elections!"

Gassiev said the opposition will do everything to establish real democracy and justice in South Ossetia.

South Ossetia is a breakaway Georgian region that was the scene of the Russian-Georgian war in August.

Russia and Nicaragua are the only two countries in the world that recognize South Ossetia as an independent state.

South Ossetian Opposition Group Protests In Moscow

Ozawa said on Monday the election to pick his successor should be held after the lower house completes its deliberations on the fiscal 2009 supplementary budget so as to minimize the impact on the public.

Former Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) chiefs such as Katsuya Okada and Naoto Kan are believed as potential successors to Ozawa within the party. Other possible successors include Yukio Hatoyama and Naoto Kan, two Ozawa’s deputies, analysts has said.

Okada was widely perceived as the front runner to succeed Ozawa.

Ozawa said he decided to step down as party leader to strengthen the unity of the party towards a clear victory in the next election and achieve a change in government, which was nearly ruled unbrokenly by Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) for more than half a century.

Japan’s main opposition to pick new chief on Saturday

The recommendation to indict Olmert was issued on Thursday, adding more charges to a series of corruption scandals that have forced his resignation.

A police statement said that during Olmert’s term as trade minister under Ariel Sharon, the former Israeli prime minister, he diverted state money to Uri Messer, a former law partner.

Micky Rosenfeld, a police spokesman, said the anti-fraud unit’s non-binding recommendation included evidence of “fraud and breach of trust”.

Olmert, who resigned in September but is staying on until a new government is formed following a February 10 election, has denied the allegations.

The outgoing prime minister faces six other simultaneous investigations on claims involving bribery, money-laundering and fraud with Morris Talansky, a US businessman.

Olmert faces further charges

In a filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the investment bank said it had discovered actions initiated by an unnamed China-based employee that “appear to have violated” the act.

Three people familiar with the matter said the employee referred to in the filing was Garth Peterson, Morgan Stanley’s top property deal-maker in China until he was fired around Christmas.

The bank said it had “terminated the employee” involved and reported the activity to the authorities.

Morgan Stanley has been particularly active in the murky and corrupt Chinese property market.

“Morgan Stanley was one of the first movers into the Chinese real estate market,” said Sam Crispin, managing director of Crispins Property Investment Management.

“They have raised a lot of money and have done some great projects.”

Starting in 2003, the bank invested several billion renminbi in shopping malls, apartment blocks and office buildings in Shanghai and at one point was regarded as the largest single global real estate investor in the city.

It put a number of those properties on the market last September. By the end of September, Morgan Stanley had $91.3bn of real estate assets under management globally, with $26.5bn of that in Asia.

Morgan Stanley refused to comment on the case beyond repeating the contents of its SEC filing.

China’s real estate sector is rife with bribery and corruption. Consulting firms promise access to senior government officials and preferential treatment in bids for land and projects in exchange for large “consulting fees”.

“Unfortunately this kind of thing happens a lot in China but it is unusual for an international company like Morgan Stanley to let itself get directly involved,” said one large real estate investor in China who asked not to be named.

Morgan Stanley has put Sonny Kalsi, its global head of real estate investing, on administrative leave effective immediately.

US companies and their agents are prohibited from paying bribes to win business abroad.

Mr Peterson was based in Shanghai during the rise and fall of Chen Liangyu, the city’s former mayor who was arrested in 2006 for corruption that was partly related to property deals.

Morgan Stanley acts over possible China corruption

The action came after a four-day impeachment trial on allegations that the Democrat had abused his power — trying, among other things, to sell Barack Obama’s vacant Senate seat to the highest bidder.

During several hours of deliberations, senator after senator stood up to criticize Blagojevich, the first chief executive in Illinois’ long history of political corruption to be impeached and convicted.

“He reminded us today in real detail that he is an unusually good liar,” Republican state Sen. Matt Murphy said. “We bent over backward to make sure that this process was fair.”

After the 59-0 vote, Democratic Lt. Gov. Patrick Quinn signed the oath of office and became the state’s 41st governor. Among the problems awaiting him is a budget deficit of as much as $5 billion.

Blagojevich had ignored the Senate impeachment trial all week to take his case to the nation through TV talk shows. But Thursday, he came to the Capitol to offer a sprawling, passionate defense.

Alternately praising and upbraiding those who would decide his fate, Blagojevich urged the senators during a 47-minute speech not to remove him from office, saying he had “never, ever intended to violate the law.”

“There hasn’t been a single piece of information that proves any wrongdoing,” said Blagojevich, who was arrested at his Chicago home Dec. 9 on federal corruption charges. “How can you throw a governor out of office with insufficient and incomplete evidence?”

Blagojevich also warned senators against setting a “dangerous precedent” that would thwart the will of an electorate that twice had voted for him. “Imagine what future governors will face if I’m thrown out of office for this,” Blagojevich said.

But lawmakers were unmoved, saying the governor had violated the public trust and paralyzed government.

Republican state Sen. Kirk Dillard said Blagojevich was “inept, he’s corrupt, he’s cost the state millions of dollars.”

House prosecutor David Ellis attacked Blagojevich’s speech, saying in a short rebuttal that “when the camera’s on, the governor is for the little guy, the little people. When the camera’s off, what are his priorities?”

Ellis pointed behind him to a poster board with transcripts of Blagojevich’s wiretapped phone conversations, often laced with obscenities.

In the first part of his closing argument — before Blagojevich addressed the Senate — Ellis said that “every decision this governor made was based on one of three criteria: the governor’s legal situation, his personal situation and his political situation.”

As an example, he cited the criminal filing in which Blagojevich was charged with conspiring to sell Obama’s Senate seat. ” ‘It’s a . . . valuable thing. You just don’t give it away for nothing,’ ” Ellis quoted Blagojevich as saying.

“The governor,” Ellis said, “wanted to make a trade.”

The prosecutor also discussed federal allegations that Blagojevich had tried to pressure Tribune Co. — the parent company of the Los Angeles Times — to fire Chicago Tribune editorial writers in exchange for state money to help with the sale of the Chicago Cubs.

Ellis said Blagojevich had 15 conversations with his former chief of staff, John Harris, in a month, repeatedly directing Harris to talk to high-ranking Tribune Co. executives.

There would be no money from the state to help with the sale of the Cubs, Ellis said, unless members of the editorial board were fired.

“The governor knew what he was doing was harmful,” Ellis said.

Blagojevich is removed from office – Los Angeles Times

An official complaint accusing them of bribery will be made with Scotland Yard today as two high-level Parliamentary investigations into the claims begin.

The inquiries centre on former ministers Lord Truscott and Lord Moonie, ex-Government whip Lord Snape and Lord Taylor of Blackburn, a one-time education adviser to Margaret Thatcher.

All deny any wrongdoing. But they allegedly told undercover reporters that they would be willing to accept fees of up to £120,000 to work behind the scenes to alter Government legislation on behalf of a foreign businessman.

House of Lords rules states that peers ‘must never accept any financial inducement as an incentive or reward for exercising Parliamentary influence’.

The accusations that peers are ‘for hire’ brought dismay across the political spectrum, with the unprecedented range of inquiries evidence of the seriousness of the allegations.

For decades the Lords has been considered the torchbearer of Parliamentary integrity while the House of Commons endured a number of sleaze scandals.

Last night former Tory cabinet minister Lord Tebbit told the Daily Mail: ‘The lobbyists have recognised that the Commons is now full of bovine, careerist placemen so utterly under the thumbs of the control freaks that they seldom go into the chamber to listen to the arguments, and will almost certainly roll over and vote as commanded by their whips.

‘It is hardly worth trying to corrupt most MPs as they have no influence worth buying, so the only place where argument and persuasion can still see off the power of the whips is the House of Lords.

‘Tony Blair, lauded by many as the master politician of his time, has become enormously rich as Britain has tumbled into debt.

‘It was he who wrecked all the great institutions created over the last 200 years: an honest, impartial civil service; the English law courts; the finest police force in the world; and a House of Commons which represented the people, not the politicians.

‘And it was also he who set out to destroy the House of Lords, once so admired for its probity – interestingly, all of those embroiled in these allegations were invested with their peerages by Labour.’

Baroness Royall, Labour’s leader in the Lords, described the corruption claims as ‘a very grim picture’ and announced that she would carry out her own investigation, ‘pursuing the matter with the utmost vigour’.

‘Clearly it looks very serious, but I am concerned that everybody’s side of the story should be heard,’ she said.

A separate internal inquiry will be held by the Committee on Lords’ Interests.

But as the upper chamber has no real powers of sanction, it is the potential of a criminal investigation following a written complaint from LibDem home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne which could have the greatest consequence.

Fifteen years after MPs’ willingness to ask Parliamentary questions in return for cash was exposed, the Sunday Times decided to investigate allegations that peers could be hired to change laws. Reporters posed as lobbyists acting for a fictitious Hong Kong tycoon opening a chain of retail outlets in Britain.

They claimed they were keen to gain an exemption from the Business Rates Supplements Bill currently going through Parliament. They approached a total of ten peers who already had a number of paid consultancies – five Labour, three Tories, a Liberal Democrat and an Ulster Unionist.

The Conservatives did not return their calls, while the LibDem and the Unionist refused to help after meeting the reporters. But four of the five Labour peers were willing to help.

All four are alleged to have agreed that they would remain within the rules because they would not table amendments personally but would speak in private to ministers and others involved in the passage of the Bill.

Lords Truscott and Taylor are even said to have boasted that they had previously secured changes to Bills going through Parliament to help clients.

Lord Taylor is alleged to have negotiated a retainer of £10,000 a month to help, and told the undercover reporters: ‘I will work within the rules, but the rules are meant to be bent sometimes.’

Responding to the allegations, he said yesterday that he had been approached by two people claiming to work for a lobbying firm who offered to take him on as an adviser at a fee of between £5,000 to £10,000 a month.

‘It was their suggestion, not my suggestion,’ he insisted. ‘I never said I would accept it.’ No contract was signed and no money changed hands, he added.

He insisted: ‘I have never, never in my career in the Lords or in local government, done anything that I am ashamed of in any way.’

Former defence minister Lord Moonie is said to have offered to assist in return for an annual fee of £30,000. He said last night that he had an ‘informal conversation’ about advising the lobbyists, but had not offered to table amendments for them or signed any contract. ‘I am not aware of having offered to do anything for these people that was outside the rules.’

The Sunday Times also claimed that former energy minister Lord Truscott suggested a fee of between £1,000 and £5,000 a day, while exwhip Lord Snape indicated he would be ready to help for £24,000.

Lord Truscott told the BBC yesterday that ‘to suggest I would offer to put down amendments for money is a lie’.

Lord Snape issued a statement to the Sunday Times saying that he had made it clear to the reporters that he was unable to ‘initiate or amend any legislation on behalf of an individual or a company’. However, he said he did think the reporters’ proposed exemption might be ‘beneficial’ and undertook to ‘investigate’ further, the paper said.

Mr Huhne said: ‘If these allegations are confirmed, they are not merely a breach of the Lords’ own rules but are surely also against the law on corrupt practices. Ex-ministers should not be touting themselves like taxi drivers for hire. Our politics must be clean and seen to be clean in both the Commons and the Lords. The Lords now need to tighten up their own procedures, including ensuring they have the ability to suspend and expel members.

‘The police should interview those peers who have been named and investigate whether they have used any Parliamentary procedures – including questions or the tabling of amendments – to further the interests of their clients.’

Aides said Mr Huhne’s letter of complaint would be delivered to the Metropolitan Police today.

The chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, Sir Christopher Kelly, described the allegations as ‘serious’. He said he would await the outcome of Lady Royall’s inquiries before deciding whether to launch his own investigation.

Shadow Business Secretary Ken Clarke said: ‘If the allegations are true, to take money to try to alter legislation for the benefit of the people paying you a fee … I think some people would call that corruption.’

Lord Strathclyde, the Shadow Leader of the Lords, said: ‘The rules are clear. There are no grey areas. Paid advocacy is banned.’

LibDem MP Norman Baker, who will make a complaint today to the Committee on Lords’ Interests, said: ‘If this story is substantiated, the position of these peers is untenable and they should face an appropriate fine or consider their positions.

‘This is not simply “cash for questions”, these are allegations of “cash for legislation”, which is far worse.’

Four Labour peers face corruption probe into ‘Lords for hire’ allegations | Mail Online