Kristyn Wong-Tam Is Leaving Toronto City Council & Plans To Run As NDP Candidate In Toronto Centre



Brooke Houghton -
Narcity

Toronto city councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam announced in a statement on Friday that they will not be running for reelection for City Council in October 2022.

Wong-Tam represents Ward 13 and says she has decided "after a great deal of consideration and conversations" to put their name "forward to seek the NDP nomination to become the next Member of Provincial Parliament for Toronto Centre," in June's provincial election.

According to their statement, their resignation from their post at City Council will be effective on May 4, 2022.

"To the residents of Ward 13 - Toronto Centre, it is with much gratitude and love that I announce that I will not be seeking re-election for City Council in October," wrote Wong-Tam.

"The amazing Ward 13 team will continue to work at full speed to support residents as well as the interim Councillor and ensure a smooth transition after the next municipal election."


In a thread of tweets posted on April 8, Wong-Tam wrote, "Serving you as your City Councillor in Toronto Centre for almost 12 years has been the greatest honour of my life. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for the trust you have placed in me."

Multiple NDP MPPs commented on the Twitter thread writing warm words of encouragement to Wong-Tam.


"Kristyn, this is incredible news! You will be a fantastic MPP for Toronto Centre and I look forward to serving with you as part of our @OntarioNDP team at Queen's Park!" wrote Tom Rakocevic, Ontario NDP MPP of Humber River-Black Creek.

DAMNED IF THEY DO DAMNED IF THEY DON'T

Alberta's Kenney urges party to back him or risk division and election loss to NDP

EDMONTON — Premier Jason Kenney, in a speech to party members deciding his fate, told them he is an unblemished election winner who saved Alberta from servitude in a dystopian socialist hellscape.


© Provided by The Canadian PressAlberta's Kenney urges party to back him or risk division and election loss to NDP

“I’m 12-0!” Kenney said Saturday in a speech before cheering, applauding, whooping, placard-waving supporters in Red Deer.

“I know a thing or two about winning elections.”

The speech to the party formally launched what has become a fractious, acrimonious intraparty fight to determine whether Kenney should remain in charge of the United Conservatives.

Kenney has faced open dissent from some party and caucus members for more than a year, and he made it clear in his speech this vote must end the feuding one way or another.

“If the members decide they want to have a leadership election, I will step aside,” he said.

“But if the members decide that they want to choose the path of unity and stability … then I, and I believe all of our members, will expect every member of our caucus and our team also to respect the decision.”

Ballots will be mailed out this weekend to almost 60,000 party members. They must be returned by May 11, with results announced May 18.

If Kenney gets less then 50 per cent plus one of the votes, a leadership race must be called.

Kenney’s critics say his policies coupled with an imperious, controlling management style have alienated supporters and sent popularity numbers plunging to the point the party could lose the next election to Rachel Notley’s Opposition NDP.

Kenney has labelled his opponents racial and religious bigots bent on dismantling his big-tent conservative coalition.

In his speech, he said decisions he had to make during COVID-19, particularly restrictions on personal freedoms, lit the powder keg of anger against him.

“I ask for your forgiveness if there were decisions that we made which you think were wrong or which offended you,” he said.

But he said now is not the time to fight past battles with the next provincial election just around the corner in May 2023.

Kenney reminded them he left his job as a Conservative MP to unite feuding conservatives under the new UCP in 2017 and then defeat the NDP in the 2019 election.

He characterized that 2019 campaign as a mission to stop “left wing ideologues who want to turn Alberta into some kind of socialist lab experiment” with an agenda he said had pulverized the economy, atomized jobs and sent thousands fleeing.

“I decided something had to be done,” said Kenney. “I knew if (the NDP) got a second consecutive term they would fundamentally change this province forever.

“We would lose this province as a beacon of hope.

“They would drive their toxic ideas into our schools, they would regulate and unionize everything that moves, they’d crush businesses with their class warfare politics of resentment, and they’d turn Alberta into a vassal state for (Prime Minister) Justin Trudeau’s Ottawa.”

The ballot question is simple: “Do you approve of the current leader? Yes or No.”

But the process has been tortuous as unhappy party members battled to mark a ballot and have their say.

It was supposed to be before 2022. Then it was supposed to be late in 2022 before it became a one-day, in-person vote Saturday in Red Deer.

But less than three weeks ago, after the membership cutoff date, the UCP board changed it to a provincewide mail-in contest.

The board said widespread interest — with 15,000 party members expected to make the trip to cast a ballot — made the one-day in-person option impossible.

Opponents, including UCP caucus member and Kenney opponent Brian Jean, said they worry the goalposts were moved to broaden the voting base because it had become clear Kenney would lose the in-person contest in Red Deer.

Jean, in statement, said, “Kenney's rhetoric and approach have divided our party. The premier gave a speech that said the choice is between more of the same or Rachel Notley's NDP.

“You know someone is losing when they resort to fear.”

Political scientist Duane Bratt, with Mount Royal University in Calgary, said Kenney's demand of unity if he wins is easier said than done, especially if he gets a slim majority.

“Do you expect (no-voters) to say, ‘You won, we lost, therefore we will work really hard for you and we will volunteer for you and we will donate money to you, and we will run as candidates for you?’

"Or do they just say, ‘We’re walking away.”

“No matter what the result is, I don’t know how this party stays unified.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 9, 2022.

Dean Bennett, The Canadian Press

ALBERTA
Ex-medical examiner says she fears lawsuit from former justice minister

EDMONTON — A former Alberta chief medical examiner says she is afraid to testify at her wrongful dismissal trial for fear a lawyer who was once justice minister will sue her for defamation.

Dr. Anny Sauvageau’s lawsuit, which began last week, has dealt with allegations of political interference in the Officer of the Chief Medical Examiner during her time there in 2014.

An affidavit filed with the Court of Queen’s Bench on Friday says Sauvageau’s lawyer, Allan Garber, received an email from a lawyer for Jonathan Denis threatening to sue Sauvageau over her testimony.

Denis, who was justice minister under the Progressive Conservatives from 2012 to 2015, went on to become a founding partner of the Calgary-based firm Guardian Law Group.

The email, which was filed as an exhibit in the affidavit, accuses Sauvageau of engaging “in a seven-year campaign of defamation and harassment of Mr. Denis.”

“Her false accusations of political interference while she was chief medical examiner for Alberta were found to be without merit in an independent investigation by Peter Hourihan, the erstwhile public interest commissioner of Alberta,” read the email from Guardian Law Group lawyer Kyle Shewchuk.

“We have been closely watching Dr. Sauvageau’s current trial and are aware that, the report’s findings notwithstanding, Dr. Sauvageau’s defamation of Mr. Denis has continued unabated.”

The email goes on to say that her actions must stop and that “we reserve the right to refer to this correspondence should Dr. Sauvageau’s defamation continue.”

Shewchuk also refers to an article in the Edmonton Journal about Sauvageau’s testimony about a visit from assistant deputy minister Maryann Everett.

The article says that Everett allegedly told Sauvageau that the chief medical examiner’s role was to make Denis, who was justice minister at the time, “look good.”

In Sauvageau’s affidavit filed Friday, she says that she has not defamed Denis and that her evidence was about Everett.

Sauvageau says in her affidavit that she cannot afford to defend herself in a defamation lawsuit.

“My counsel has advised me that my testimony is privileged, but I am afraid that I might be sued by Jonathan Denis,” the affidavit says.

“The financial consequences of a lawsuit frighten me, especially since I do not have a job.”

In an email Friday, Shewchuk says “we disagree with all of these assertions.”

He did not comment further, saying that Brendan Miller of Foster LLP has been retained on the matter.

Miller said in an email that he and Denis "disagree with the characterization by Dr. Sauvageau and her counsel regarding the April 7, 2022 letter."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 8, 2022.

Daniela Germano, The Canadian Press

Android spyware linked to Russian hackers tracks location, records audio

MobileSyrup - Apr 2

Researchers uncovered a previously unknown, Russian-linked Android malware that masquerades as a system app called ‘Process Manager’ while collecting a wealth of user data.

According to Lab52 (via Bleeping Computer), the malware is linked to Turla, a Russian state-sponsored hacking group. Turla is known for using custom malware to target European and American systems, typically for espionage. Moreover, Turla was recently linked to the ‘Sunburst‘ backdoor used in the 2020 SolarWinds attack.

Lab52 identified a malicious APK — the file type used for Android applications — called ‘Process Manager.’ It’s not clear how threat actors distribute the APK to users. Based on the connection to Turla, it’s possible threat actors use phishing schemes or social engineering to get the app installed on devices.

Once installed, however, the app disguises itself with a gear-shaped icon to look like a system component. Coupled with the ‘Process Manager’ name, it could be easily mistaken for part of the Android system.

On first launch, Lab52 says the app prompts the user to grant it 18 permissions, including access to location, camera, call logs, SMS, the ability to read and write to storage, and more. With these permissions, Process Manager can effectively gather a huge amount of data about the device’s owner.

Lab52 noted it’s not clear if the app uses the Android Accessibility service to grant itself permissions, or if it tricks users into granting permission.

Further, once the malware gets the permissions, it removes its icon and runs in the background. Interestingly, the app shows a notification saying that it’s running, which seems counterintuitive for a spyware app that would want to remain hidden.

Lab52 also found that the malware installed additional apps on victims’ devices, including one called ‘Roz Dhan: Earn Wallet cash,’ a popular money earning app. The malware appears to install the app using its referral system, likely earning a commission for the creators.

All this seems relatively strange for spyware — Bleeping Computer suggests the unsophisticated nature may indicate the spyware is part of a larger system.

The publication also suggests some ways Android users can protect themselves. For one, check the ‘Permission manager’ feature in the Settings app (on my phone, it’s available in the ‘Privacy’ menu). It’s a good idea to revoke permissions for any apps you don’t trust, or that appear risky. Users should also pay attention to the new camera and microphone use indicators that appear on devices running Android 12. If these indicators show up when you’re not using the camera or microphone, it could indicate the presence of spyware on your device.

Source: Lab52 Via: Bleeping Computer

The US is trying to fix medical devices’ big cybersecurity problem


Nicole Wetsman - Yesterday 

The Verge
© Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge


Medical devices are one major weak point in health care cybersecurity, and both Congress and the Food and Drug Administration took steps towards closing that gap this week —Congress with a proposed bill and the FDA with new draft guidelines for device makers on how they should build devices that are less likely to be hacked.

Devices like infusion pumps or imaging machines that are connected to the internet can be targets for hacks. Those attacks can siphon off patient data or put their safety directly at risk. Experts consistently find that devices in use today have vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers.

The FDA, which regulates medical devices, has been trying to get a handle on this problem for a while. Back in 2014, it put out guidance for medical device makers that outlined how they should incorporate cybersecurity before they asked the agency to clear their products. The agency then put out a draft guideline in 2018. This new draft replaces the 2018 version and is based on feedback from manufacturers and other experts and changes in the medical device environment over the past few years, Suzanne Schwartz, director of the Office of Strategic Partnerships and Technology Innovation at the FDA, told The Verge.

The new document is still just a draft, and device makers won’t start using it until it’s finalized after another round of feedback. But it includes a few significant changes from the last go-around — including an emphasis on the whole lifecycle of a device and a recommendation that manufacturers include a Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) with all new products that gives users information on the various elements that make up a device. An SBOM makes it easier for users to keep tabs on their devices. If there’s a bug or vulnerability found in a bit of software, for example, a hospital could easily check if their infusion pumps use that specific software.

The FDA also put out legislative proposals around medical device cybersecurity, asking asking Congress for more explicit power to make requirements. “The intent is to enable devices to be that much more resilient to withstand the potential for cyber exploits or intrusion,” Schwartz says. Manufacturers should be able to update or patch software problems without hurting the devices’ function, she says.

The FDA’s efforts dovetail with a proposed bill introduced in Congress this week, the Protecting and Transforming Cyber Health Care (PATCH) Act, which would codify some of the FDA’s proposals. The bill would require device manufacturers to have a plan to address any cybersecurity issues with their devices, and require an SBOM for new devices. If the bill passes, then those elements become requirements rather than just recommended guidelines from the FDA.
“This would give us extra teeth”

“This would give us extra teeth,” Schwartz says. “This really, for the first time, would establish, very explicitly, authority in the area of cybersecurity and tie that directly to the safety of medical devices.”

Notably, these new recommendations and the legislation would primarily apply to new devices coming onto the market — they don’t cover the millions of medical devices already in use in the United States. The FDA has guidelines, written in 2016, that outline how device makers should keep tabs on potential cybersecurity issues in their existing devices already on the market. Schwartz says that the FDA doesn’t have active plans to update that guidance, but it’s something the agency would consider.

The focus of the new draft guidelines and the FDA’s push for legislation around device cybersecurity is to make sure new devices coming online are in better shape than the ones that have been on the market and that have existing cybersecurity issues. “We want the devices of tomorrow not to have the same legacy issues that we’re dealing with today,” she says.

Biden says investment bankers 'could all retire and nothing much would change,' but if truckers quit 'everything comes to a halt'

htowey@insider.com (Hannah Towey) - Yesterday 

President Joe Biden (C) delivers remarks on his 'Trucking Action Plan' with apprentice truck driver Maria Rodriguez and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. 

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Biden spoke about the Trucking Action Plan this week, which aims to strengthen the supply chain.

He said 'nothing much would change' without investment bankers, but 'everything' would halt if truckers quit.

Walmart just raised the starting salary of its truck drivers to between $95,000 and $110,000 a year.

President Joe Biden delivered remarks on the White House's Trucking Action Plan on Monday, an initiative that aims to "increase the supply of truck drivers" as the nation continues to struggle with labor gaps and supply-chain issues.

"All of you here today are people our economy should be built around because you all — you all are the people who literally make it run," Biden told the crowd containing truckers and their families, speaking from behind a podium centered between two massive semi-truck tractors. "That's not hyperbole."

"I have nothing against investment bankers. They could all retire and nothing much would change. You all quit, everything comes to a halt," he continued.

Companies have struggled to hire truck drivers this year, creating labor gaps in an already strained supply chain. But some truckers have pushed back on the idea that the nation faces a "shortage" of truckers, arguing that the industry's real problem is low pay and job quality.

Jason Miller, associate professor of supply-chain management at Michigan State University, previously told Insider that there isn't a shortage of truck drivers. Instead, he said, truckers have shifted from working for mega carriers to driving for smaller operators or becoming owner-operators themselves.

This has prompted many carriers to offer massive sign-on bonuses and wage hikes. On Thursday, Walmart announced it is shifting its pay structure so that its private fleet drivers can earn between $95,000 and $110,000 in their first year.

That's nearly double nearly the average truck driver's salary of $50,340 a year, according to data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. By comparison, a first-year investment banking analyst at J.P Morgan is paid a starting salary of $110,000, as Axios reported Friday.

In his remarks Monday, President Biden said 2021 was "the best year for trucking employment since 1994," adding that there are now 35,000 more trucking jobs than there were before the pandemic.

He also acknowledged the issues facing women in the trucking industry, and said increased wages, reduced wait times, and improved safety will benefit the recruitment and retention of female drivers.

Biden's speech did not address the lack of truck parking across the country, a critical need for trucker safety and sleep that drivers say has been overlooked by the White House.
Read the original article on Business Insider

Bank of America backs SEC proposal for climate risk disclosures

By Elizabeth Dilts Marshall

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bank of America on Friday threw its support behind the securities regulator's proposal requiring U.S.-listed companies to disclose their climate-related risks and greenhouse gas emissions.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) unveiled the draft rule last month, aiming to help investors better understand the "actual or likely material impacts" climate-related risks will have on a company's business, strategy and outlook.

"We think the proposal is constructive and headed in the right direction," said Paul Donofrio, head of sustainability at Bank of America, the country's second-biggest bank by assets.

Among the proposed rule's key requirements, companies must disclose their own direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions, known as Scope 1 and 2 emissions, as well as those generated by suppliers and partners, known as Scope 3 emissions.

"We are all in on this notion of companies providing the marketplace with disclosures that will help everybody understand what the emission status is at a company and what their plans are to get to net zero ... so that market participants can allocate capital (as they see fit)," Donofrio told reporters.

Donofrio, who spent six years as the bank's chief financial officer, cautioned that Scope 3 emissions are currently hard for the majority of companies to calculate accurately but said the bank supports phasing in those disclosures later.

"Scope three disclosures, today, might be subject to a lot of uncertainty, would not get the assurance, therefore not be trusted and it might call into a question other disclosures," Donofrio said.

He added that the bank supports a price on carbon, which could reflect "its true cost to society so that people will see the value of those investments".

(Reporting by Elizabeth Dilts Marshall; Additional reporting by Simon Jessop in London; Editing by David Goodman)

CAPITALI$TS IN SPACE 


SpaceX launches 3 visitors to space station for $55M each

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — SpaceX launched three rich businessmen and their astronaut escort to the International Space Station on Friday for more than a week’s stay, as NASA joins Russia in hosting guests at the world’s most expensive tourist destination.

It’s SpaceX’s first private charter flight to the orbiting lab after two years of carrying astronauts there for NASA.

Arriving at the space station Saturday will be an American, Canadian and Israeli who run investment, real estate and other companies. They’re paying $55 million apiece for the rocket ride and accommodations, all meals included.

Russia has been hosting tourists at the space station — and before that the Mir station — for decades. Just last fall, a Russian movie crew flew up, followed by a Japanese fashion tycoon and his assistant.

NASA is finally getting into the act, after years of opposing space station visitors.

“It was a hell of a ride and we’re looking forward to the next 10 days,” said former NASA astronaut and chaperone Michael Lopez-Alegria on reaching orbit.

The visitors' tickets include access to all but the Russian portion of the space station — they’ll need permission from the three cosmonauts on board. Three Americans and a German also live up there.

Lopez-Alegria plans to avoid talking about politics and the war in Ukraine while he’s at the space station.

“I honestly think that it won’t be awkward. I mean maybe a tiny bit,” he said. He expects the “spirit of collaboration will shine through.”

The private Axiom Space company arranged the visit with NASA for its three paying customers: Larry Connor of Dayton, Ohio, who runs the Connor Group; Mark Pathy, founder and CEO of Montreal’s Mavrik Corp.; and Israel’s Eytan Stibbe, a former fighter pilot and founding partner of Vital Capital.

Before the launch, their enthusiasm was obvious: Stibbe did a little dance when he arrived at the rocket at Kennedy Space Center.

SpaceX and NASA have been upfront with them about the risks of spaceflight, said Lopez-Alegria, who spent seven months at the space station 15 years ago.

“There’s no fuzz, I think, on what the dangers are or what the bad days could look like,” Lopez-Alegria told The Associated Press before the flight.

Each visitor has a full slate of experiments to conduct during their stay, one reason they don’t like to be called space tourists.

“They’re not up there to paste their nose on the window,” said Axiom’s co-founder and president, Michael Suffredini, a former NASA space station program manager.

The three businessmen are the latest to take advantage of the opening of space to those with deep pockets. Jeff Bezos’ rocket company Blue Origin is taking customers on 10-minute rides to the edge of space, while Virgin Galactic expects to start flying customers on its rocket ship later this year.

Friday‘s flight is the second private charter for Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which took a billionaire and his guests on a three-day orbit ride last year.

Axiom is targeting next year for its second private flight to the space station. More customer trips will follow, with Axiom adding its own rooms to the orbiting complex beginning in 2024. After about five years, the company plans to detach its compartments to form a self-sustaining station — one of several commercial outposts intended to replace the space station once it's retired and NASA shifts to the moon.

At an adjacent pad during Friday’s launch: NASA’s new moon rocket, which is awaiting completion of a dress rehearsal for a summertime test flight.

As a gift for their seven station hosts, the four visitors are taking up paella and other Spanish cuisine prepared by celebrity chef José Andrés. The rest of their time at the station, NASA’s freeze-dried chow will have to do.

The automated SpaceX capsule is due back with the four on April 19.

Connor is honoring Ohio’s air and space legacy, taking up a fabric swatch from the Wright brothers’ 1903 Kitty Hawk flyer and gold foil from the Apollo 11 command module from the Neil Armstrong Air and Space Museum in Wapakoneta.

Only the second Israeli in space, Stibbe will continue a thunderstorm experiment begun by the first — Ilan Ramon, who died aboard shuttle Columbia in 2003. They were in the same fighter pilot squadron.

Stibbe is carrying copies of recovered pages of Ramon’s space diary, as well as a song composed by Ramon’s musician son and a painting of pages falling from the sky by his daughter.

“To be a part of this unique crew is a proof for me that there’s no dream beyond reach,” he said.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Marcia Dunn , The Associated Press

Chelsea FC director with Canadian ties says acquisition of Abramovich-linked investment vehicle 'annulled'

Barbara Shecter - Yesterday 

Director of Chelsea FC Eugene Tenenbaum stands alongside owner Roman Abramovich.

An accountant from Toronto with longstanding ties to Roman Abramovich , one of the wealthy Russian businessmen sanctioned by western nations following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, told the Financial Post this week that a deal to buy an investment vehicle linked to Abramovich was never completed “due to the current situation.”

Eugene Tenenbaum, who grew up in Toronto and met Abramovich after moving to Moscow in the early 1990s as national director of KPMG Peat Marwick Russia, had recently agreed to purchase a company called Ervington Investments Ltd. from a trust called Norma Investments.

The transaction was first reported by Reuters and was referenced in London Stock Exchange filings, which indicated the transfer of control took place on Feb. 24, the same day that Russia invaded Ukraine.

Last month, The Wall Street Journal reported control of Norma Investments had been transferred to another Abramovich associate named David Davidovich around the time of the Ukraine invasion.

Abramovich’s family was previously the beneficial owner of Norma, Tenenbaum told the Financial Post, but at the time he sought to buy Ervington from Norma, it was controlled by Davidovich.

However, Tenenbaum says his transaction was annulled.

“Regarding Ervington, my company is no longer the shareholder as the transaction was never fully completed and annulled due to the current situation,” Tenenbaum said via email, adding that the transaction “was reversed by mutual agreement between the buyer and the seller.”

Asked to clarify whether he meant the situation surrounding Abramovich and sanctions imposed by the European Union, Canada, and the United Kingdom, which caused him to put his London-based Chelsea FC football club on the block, Tenenbaum responded: “Correct.”

Tenenbaum said the seller he referred to in his annulled transaction had been Davidovich and not Abramovich’s family.

“My transaction was with Norma. Not the family. When I started the transaction Davidovich was already the owner of Norma through his company,” Tenenbaum said.

He referred to Abramovich by the initials RA, and said: “RA or the family of RA have no involvement in this transaction and are not the beneficial owner of Ervington.”

According to Reuters, which first reported the Ervington sale last month, the company had been used as an investment vehicle for Abramovich for at least eight years. Among its investments was a ride-sharing app called Via.

Tenenbaum told Reuters that he was keen to buy Ervington because it is a company he had worked with for many years and wanted to continue to do so.

Asked what had changed since last month, he told the Financial Post: “I think my statement ‘due to the current situation’ sums it all up.”

Tenenbaum added that neither he nor Davidovich is subject to any sanctions.

How a Toronto accountant became one of oligarch Roman Abramovich's closest associates

Roman Abramovich handed Chelsea director control of investment firm on day of Ukraine invasion, filings reveal

Canada imposes sanctions on Russian tycoon Roman Abramovich

Both have long been associated with Abramovich. Tenenbaum is on the board of Chelsea FC, a football club in the U.K.’s Premier League, which is owned by Abramovich. The team is now on the block as a result of U.K. sanctions that were imposed on Abramovich in March following Russia’s invasion. Abramovich has also been sanctioned by Canada and the European Union.

He has not faced sanctions in the United States and has been widely reported to be assisting with negotiations between Russia and Ukraine aimed at resolving the armed conflict. The western sanctions aimed at those with links to Russian President Vladimir Putin or his regime have sparked widespread interest in assets owned by those targeted.

Abramovich is understood to have made much of his fortune selling his energy company Sibneft to Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom in 2006 for US$13.1 billion.

He is also the largest shareholder of London-listed steel company Evraz PLC, with a 28.64 per cent stake. Evraz directors, including Tenenbaum, stepped down in March following the U.K. sanctions, and shares of the company — which has operations in Russia and North America, including Alberta and Saskatchewan — were suspended from trading.

Tenenbaum, whose family immigrated to Canada in the 1970s from Ukraine, which was then part of the Soviet Union, worked for Sibneft as head of corporate finance beginning in 1998.

The website for Chelsea FC describes him as one of Abramovich’s “closest associates.”

• Email: bshecter@nationalpost.com | Twitter: BatPost

Britain talks tough on Putin, while its politicians also get millions in Kremlin-linked cash

Alexander Smith - NBC News

LONDON — It was a strongly worded warning from British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to Russian President Vladimir Putin: Invade Ukraine and there will be “significant consequences.”

Three days after that phone call last Dec. 13, Johnson’s Conservative Party received a donation of 66,500 pounds (nearly $88,000) from Lubov Chernukhin, the wife of one of Putin’s former deputy ministers.

In all, Chernukhin has donated more than 2 million pounds to the Conservative Party since 2012, making her one of the largest female donors in British political history, public records from the British Electoral Commission show.

Chernukhin says that she is a vehement critic of Putin and his war, and that none of her donations have been funded by corruption or improper means. Neither she nor her husband are among those who have been sanctioned by the the British government or others, and there is no suggestion either are guilty of any wrongdoing.

Her lawyers said in an email to NBC News that she disputed having historical links to the Kremlin because her husband, Vladimir, fled Russia in 2004 after being fired by the government and suffering harassment. (Vladimir Chernukhin used to chair Russia’s state development bank VEB, whose assets Britain froze after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.)

But she is far from alone. Lubov Chernukhin is just one of several Russia-linked millionaires and billionaires to donate large sums to the ruling Conservative Party.

For some experts and critics, this type of bankrolling exposes a contradiction at the heart of Britain’s response to the invasion: How can Johnson’s government claim to be one of Putin's strongest opponents, when London — and the ruling party itself — is awash with Russian cash?

One of the most prominent critics of the funding status quo is Dominic Grieve, a former U.K. Attorney General and ex-Conservative lawmaker who in recent years has rebelled against Johnson’s administration.

“The Conservative Party says these are allowable donations — and they may be — but you do have to ask yourself what the motivation is for this and what the intention is behind it,” he said.

“A lot of Russians with very close links to Putin” are now “well integrated into the U.K. business and social scene, and accepted because of their wealth,” according to a report by the British Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee in 2020, based on the committee‘s inquiry that Grieve headed up a year earlier.

Grieve said there is no doubt in his mind that this constitutes a risk to national security.
'Curried favor and garnered influence'?

This is a story that starts amid the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, when a few canny, ruthless Russians got rich from the often shady carve-up of lucrative state resources.

Fearing their fortunes might be lost in a fragile economy and shaky rule of law, many decided their money was safer in the financial hub of London. Successive British governments (not just Conservative ones) did little to discourage them.

Over the next 30 years, London became so riddled with Russian capital that it earned nicknames like “Londongrad,” “Moscow-on-Thames” or simply “the laundromat.”

These Russian "oligarchs" plowed their money into mansions in London's leafy Hampstead and stucco Georgian town houses in Belgravia; into luxury goods from the Harrods department store; and into expensive educations for their children at prestigious schools.

According to Transparency International, a Berlin-based watchdog, people with links to the Kremlin or corrupt activities in Russia have purchased at least 1.5 billion pounds (close to $2 billion) of real estate in Britain. That number is "certainly just the tip of the iceberg," the organization said in a report in February.

Soon this money "started buying what you might call influence," Tom Keatinge, an expert in financial crime at the Royal United Services Institute think tank, said. That meant "donating to galleries or to academic institutions," but also "making donations to political parties, typically the Conservative Party, where it may or may not have curried favor and garnered influence."


© Toby MelvilleImage: Police officers seal off the road on which Russian Sergei Skripal and his daughter have been staying in Salisbury, Britain, on March 7, 2018. (Toby Melville / Reuters file)

Accepting this flow of wealth into London was not only a risk in terms of money laundering but also national security, said Grieve, a longtime critic of Johnson’s.

That's because many, but not all, Russian oligarchs are "intimately bound up with what can only be described as a mafia society — headed by the chief boss of the mafiosi, Mr. Putin," he said.

For decades “the U.K. has been welcoming dirty Russian money with open arms,” agreed Bill Browder, an American-born hedge-fund manager based in London who is now a leading anti-Putin campaigner on corruption and human rights.

Although the Ukraine invasion “was a day of reckoning when everybody realized” that accepting Russian money “was enabling the murder of tens of thousands of people,” Browder is still skeptical that significant progress will be made in Britain or elsewhere.

“In my experience there is always a disconnect between the rhetoric and the reality,” he said.

Perhaps the most ostentatious investment was the purchase by Roman Abramovich of the capital’s biggest soccer clubs, Chelsea FC, founded in 1905. While he has always denied allegations he is linked to Putin, Abramovich, whose fortune amounts to an estimated $12.3 billion, according to Reuters, was sanctioned by Britain and the European Union last month.

The U.K. government sanctioned him last month alongside six others who it described as "Russia’s wealthiest and most influential oligarchs, whose business empires, wealth and connections are closely associated with the Kremlin."


© Ian MacNicolIan MacNicol Archive (Ian MacNicol / Getty Images file)

The political sphere has been a similar free-for-all. Unlike in the U.S. there is no limit to how much a British registered voter can donate to a political party. And until recently wealthy Russians have been able to fast-track British residency permits if they invest at least 2 million pounds in the country.

Johnson denies there is anything wrong with these donations, telling Parliament in February that “we do not raise money from Russian oligarchs. We raise money from people who are registered to vote on the U.K. register of interests.”

The Conservative Party did not respond to NBC News' emailed request for comment on the questions surrounding its Russia-linked funding. The opposition Labour Party has also received Russia-linked donations, albeit to a much lesser extent. There is no suggestion of wrongdoing by any of these donors, many of whom have complex relationships and histories with their homeland and Putin.

Among the highest-profile donors is Lubov Chernukhin, who has paid several six-figure sums at auction to play tennis with Johnson and then-Prime Minister David Cameron, as well as to dine privately with Theresa May when she was prime minister.

Her husband said in 2018 court documents that his time at Russia's state development bank from 2002 to 2004 "elevated me to the inner circles of the Russian establishment." He described Abramovich and Oleg Deripaska, another billionaire oligarch and alleged Putin ally, as being "like friends" in the witness statement, although the court battle was against Deripaska himself.

In an email to NBC News, Lubov Chernukhin's lawyers said that she "has never held any political position in Russia or elsewhere" and "she has no links to President Putin or the Kremlin."

On the day of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, she released a statement condemning "Russian military aggression," "Putin's despotic regime" and his "Stalinesque persecution of the Russian people." Chernukhin said she supported the "strongest possible sanctions against Putin's regime and its enablers."

Her lawyers said she married her husband in 2007, three years after he was “driven out” of Russia after falling out of favor with the Kremlin. She has donated millions of pounds of her own money to the Conservative Party because she "is passionate about democracy," her lawyers said.


Evgeny Lebedev at the 65th Evening Standard Theatre Awards at the London Coliseum on Nov. 24, 2019. (Mike Marsland / WireImage)

The Conservative Party is also under scrutiny because of Johnson’s decision last year to award a peerage to his friend Evgeny Lebedev, a media mogul who owns the London Evening Standard and Independent newspapers and whose father was a KGB spy. The prime minister’s estranged ex-adviser, Dominic Cummings, says that he was “in the room” when British officials told Johnson that intelligence agencies had “serious reservations” about the peerage — reservations he said the prime minister ignored.

Johnson says this recollection is “simply incorrect.” And Lebedev said in an emailed response to NBC News that "the PM and other members of the Cabinet have categorically denied this."

Lebedev, who is a dual British-Russian national, also wrote in his newspaper that “I am not some agent of Russia” but “proud to be a British citizen and consider Britain my home.” He has repeatedly called for Putin to end his invasion in Ukraine.
'Nowhere to hide'

The invasion has certainly been a wake-up call for the West. Germany, for example, is having its own reckoning over its reliance on Russian gas.

In Britain, the government points out that it has never shied away from condemning Putin, who Johnson this week accused of war crimes and "indiscriminate and unforgivable slaughter" of civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha.

The NLAW anti-tank missiles Britain donated to Ukraine have gained a near cult-status on the battlefield and helped push back the Russian advance. And the U.K. has joined Washington and Brussels in sanctioning hundreds more Russian banks, companies and oligarchs.

“There will be nowhere to hide," Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said Feb. 28 of the oligarch purge.

But for some critics this is too little, too late.

Browder and others ask why the West was jolted into action by the Ukraine invasion, but not Putin's bombing of civilians from Grozny to Aleppo; by Russian spies targeting people with radioactive poisons and nerve agents on British soil; by the Kremlin’s crackdown on political opposition at home; and by its election meddling in the U.S. and elsewhere.

"Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a failure of deterrence by Western democracies," Grieve, the former U.K. attorney general, said. “The interesting question is: Did we convey an impression that Putin could act with impunity in Ukraine because people in Britain and elsewhere were far too interested in Russian money to do something about it?”