Disgraced former US lobbyist Jack Abramoff has been jailed for nearly six years for conspiracy and fraud.

Abramoff - who had close links to top Republicans - had pleaded guilty to the charges, which relate to the purchase of a fleet of casino boats in 2000.

In a separate case, he has admitted to tax evasion, defrauding his clients and conspiring to bribe public officials.

An ongoing federal inquiry is said to be focusing on his dealings with up to 20 politicians in Congress.

The case has sent shockwaves through Washington’s political establishment, the BBC’s Jonathan Beale in Miami says.

SunCruz case

The federal judge in Miami gave Abramoff a total of 70 months - five years and 10 months - in jail on Wednesday.

The case related to the purchase of the SunCruz Casinos gambling fleet.

Abramoff and his former business partner - Adam Kidan - were accused of faking a wire transfer of $23m to obtain loans for the purchase of SunCruz.

The sentence was the minimum under his plea agreement in the case.

Kidan was also sentenced to 70 months in jail. Both were also ordered to pay $21.7m in restitution.

Abramoff said in court that the case was “incredibly painful” for him personally, but also for his family and his friends.

“In the past few years I have begun the process of becoming a new man,” he said.

Corruption case

Abramoff - along with Kidan - does not have to begin serving his sentences for another 90 days in order to be able to continue co-operating in the separate Washington case.

In January, Abramoff also pleaded guilty to defrauding the Native American tribes that were his clients, to tax evasion and to conspiring to bribe public officials.

The wide-ranging federal inquiry began in 2004 after reports that he and business partner Michael Scanlon had received some $45m (£26m) from Native American tribes with casinos.

Abramoff was accused of exploiting the tribes to enrich himself and his friends, and offering politicians in both houses of Congress lavish meals, tickets to major sporting events and trips.

He was a major fundraiser for Republican politicians, including the former house republican leader Tom Delay.

Most have now deserted him and denied any wrongdoing, says our correspondent.
No date has been set for sentencing in the second case, but his co-operation with investigators is likely to lead to a reduced jail term.

Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4856470.stm

Young Palestinian rapper Patriarch releases his first album “Son of a Refuge”; the album is an instant hit with all young Arab Americans in the Bay Area.

The album is straight from the heart, and talks about the struggle and the plight of all Palestinian people. It is spoken from the eyes of a Palestinian refugee growing up in America, having to deal with racism, lack of equality, and the ignorance of the American public concerning the Palestinian Israeli conflict.
The album features prominent Bay Area rappers, like Kurupt, Dead Prez, San Quinn, and a few others. His lyrics are full of meaning, and are controversial at times, but he is headstrong, dedicated, and has a got message to spread. The album is of the hook, listen to some sample, and get your own copy at www.PatriarchMusic.com

Google buys Writely, watch out Microsoft, and where are the VC’s?Google beet Yahoo to the punch. They saw good technology and the potential, so they jumped on it before anyone else got the chance. The price tag is undisclosed (yet) but I doubt it’s any cheaper than what Yahoo paid for del.icio.us.

Angel investors and VC’s need to jump on the bandwagon and secure themselves a piece of the pie, before its all eaten up by the big guys (Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft.)

FlyInside.com is a free virtual tour company for real estate that has “cool” technology coupled with a solid business plan. It is a great example of what the “Next Net” is going to look like. Lots of users, lots of traffic, and real money seem to be the major drivers in this new internet economy.

RISMEDIA, March 9 — Users of FlyInside.com, a Web site for creating free virtual tours, now have the ability to generate MLS/IDX compliant tours. The unbranded options are automatically generated along with every tour created through FlyInside.com.

Unlike the company’s standard free virtual tours which have the ability to generate leads for the agent, the MLS compliant tours have no brand or contact information. This is important since many Multiple Listing Services do not allow branded tours. With this new option, users can post the free lead-capturing tour on their Web site (or anywhere else), while linking the unbranded tour to an MLS listing.

To create the unbranded tours, users simply follow the online wizard through the easy step-by-step process of uploading their photos, writing descriptions, and choosing background music. In the final step of publishing the tours, they will see both branded and unbranded tour options. Automatically generating the unbranded tour option is an added benefit for time-crunched real estate professionals who don’t want to spend the extra time creating two different tours.

Ever since the launch of FlyInside.com, agents and brokers had urged the company to offer this option. However, since the tours have no lead capturing abilities, the $1 a lead model will not apply to the unbranded tours. Rather, the company will offer them as an optional add-on for a flat $10 fee.

Flyinside.com tours come with free activity tracking, free Web hosting and the ability to create virtual tours with an unlimited number of slideshow and 360°rotating images. Furthermore, users can post their virtual tours to Realtor.com® for a fee.

For more information, visit www.flyinside.com.

By Dan Williams

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A group of Israelis who lost children to Palestinian suicide bombings appealed on Wednesday to organizers of next week’s Academy Awards to disqualify a film exploring the reasoning behind such attacks.

The bereaved parents said they had gathered more than 32,000 signatures on a petition against the nomination in the best foreign film category of “Paradise Now,” a drama about two West Bank friends recruited to blow themselves up in Tel Aviv.

The controversial film was made by an Israeli Arab director and actors working with a Palestinian crew and locations. The producer was a Jewish Israeli and the funding was European.

Yossi Zur, whose teenage son Asaf was killed in a bus bombing, accused the film of sympathetically portraying a tactic hailed by many Palestinians waging a 5-year-old uprising.

“What they call ‘Paradise Now’ we call ‘hell now’, each and every day,” Zur told reporters. “It is a mission of the free world not to give such movies a prize.”

Film industry experts said it was unheard of for an Oscar nomination to be withdrawn. This year’s ceremony is on March 5.

Major Israeli cinema chains have shunned “Paradise Now,” with distribution experts citing concern that its portrayal of suicide bombers could spell a low box-office turnout and even boycotts.

The film shows Palestinians bemoaning the travails of life under Israeli occupation, yet its characters also debate whether this warrants resorting to violence.

One of the protagonists takes on his deadly mission to exonerate guilt over a relative who spied for Israel, a comment on the complex pressures within Palestinian society.

Palestinians seeking independence in the West Bank and Gaza, which Israel captured in a 1967 war, won limited self-rule under interim accords that formed the Palestinian Authority. Some Jews opposed ceding the land, seeing it as their biblical birthright.

Fighting that erupted in 2000 and last month’s victory in Palestinian elections of the Islamic militant group Hamas have dimmed hopes for peaceful two-state co-existence.

C0-PRODUCTION

Despite its controversial subject, “Paradise Now” won a Golden Globe prize in January, boosting its Oscar prospects.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is already debating how to present the provenance of the film. The academy’s Web site had listed it as coming from “Palestine,” drawing Israeli complaints as the state does not yet exist.

The controversy around “Paradise Now” compounds an already fraught Academy Awards for Israel, thanks to several nominations garnered by Steven Spielberg’s “Munich.”

A thriller about the reprisals the Jewish state launched after 11 of its athletes died in a Palestinian raid on the 1972 Olympic Games, Munich has been accused by pro-Israel groups of skewing history and criticizing Israeli security policies.

Spielberg called the film his “prayer for peace.”