The Vultures in
Westinghouse
Sightings from The Catbird Seat
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December 16, 2006
China, U.S. sign deal to import Westinghouse
nuclear power technology to China
China and the United States on Saturday signed a memorandum of understanding for Westinghouse Electric Co. to provide technology for four nuclear power units to be built in China.
The memorandum of understanding was signed by China's Minister of the National Development and Reform Commission(NDRC) Ma Kai and U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman.
"The pact was signed to ensure the introduction of technology and the smooth construction of the nuclear power plants," according to a statement released by the NDRC.
The U.S.-based Westinghouse will provide China with the AP1000 technology, a light water nuclear reactor which has an advanced design and an automatic system to deal with emergencies.
The deal was signed on the sidelines of a five-country energy ministers meeting in Beijing.
Source: Xinhua
http://english.people.com.cn/200612/16/eng20061216_333300.html
For more, GO TO > > > The Nuclear Nests; Vultures in the U.S. Dept of Energy
Samuel W. Bodman
Secretary of Energy
Samuel Wright Bodman was sworn in as the 11th Secretary of Energy on February 1, 2005 after the United States Senate unanimously confirmed him on January 31, 2005.
He leads the Department of Energy with a budget in excess of $23 billion and over 100,000 federal and contractor employees.
Previously, Secretary Bodman served as Deputy Secretary of the Treasury beginning in February 2004. He also served the Bush Administration as the Deputy Secretary of the Department of Commerce beginning in 2001.
A financier and executive by trade, with three decades of experience in the private sector, Secretary Bodman was well suited manage the day-to-day operations of both of these cabinet agencies.
Born in 1938 in Chicago, he graduated in 1961 with a B.S. in chemical engineering from Cornell University. In 1965, he completed his ScD at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. For the next six years he served as an Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT and began his work in the financial sector as Technical Director of the American Research and Development Corporation, a pioneer venture capital firm....
From there, Secretary Bodman went to Fidelity Venture Associates, a division of the Fidelity Investments. In 1983 he was named President and Chief Operating Officer of Fidelity Investments and a Director of the Fidelity Group of Mutual Funds.
In 1987, he joined Cabot Corporation, a Boston-based Fortune 300 company with global business activities in specialty chemicals and materials, where he served as Chairman, CEO, and a Director. Over the years, he has been a Director of many other publicly owned corporations.
Secretary Bodman has also been active in public service. He is a former Director of M.I.T.'s School of Engineering Practice and a former member of the M.I.T. Commission on Education. He also served as a member of the Executive and Investment Committees at M.I.T., a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and a Trustee of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and the New England Aquarium.
Secretary Bodman is married to M. Diane Bodman. He has three children, two stepchildren, and eight grandchildren.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/bodman-bio.html
Westinghouse Electric (1886)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
This page provides information on the historic (and defunct) Westinghouse Electric Corporation founded in 1886 and renamed CBS Corporation in 1997 until its acquisition by Viacom....
The Westinghouse Electric Corporation was an organization founded by George Westinghouse in 1886 as Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company. The company purchased CBS in 1995 and was renamed CBS Corporation in 1997.
George Westinghouse had previously founded the Westinghouse Air Brake Company. Westinghouse Electric received the rights for the first patent for alternating-current transmission from Nikola Tesla and unveiled the technology for lighting in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. The company pioneered long-distance power transmission and high-voltage transmission.... It was historically the rival to General Electric.
Timeline of company evolution
1889 - renames itself the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company
1899 - founds British Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company
1914 - acquires Copeman Electric Stove Company and enters the home appliance market (sold in 1974 to White Consolidated Industries)
1915 - New England Westinghouse Company opens for business. First product: rifles for the Czar's army.
1916 - share of British Westinghouse purchased by a British holding company, which becomes Metropolitan-Vickers
1920s - enters the broadcasting industry, with stations like KDKA in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
1930s - enters the nuclear age with an industrial atom smasher.
1940s - enters aviation with airborne radar (defense electronics sold 1996), jet engine propulsion, and ground based airport lighting.
1945 - renames itself the Westinghouse Electric Corporation, and makes first automatic elevator.
1950s - enters consumer finance with Westinghouse Credit Corporation
1960s - acquires ThermoKing, begins automated mass transit (sold 1988)
1970s - sells well-known appliance division to White Consolidated Industries which becomes White-Westinghouse
1980s - acquires cable television operator TelePrompter (sold 1985) and robot maker Unimation; sells street light division to Cooper Lighting, elevator/escalator division to Schindler Group, and lamp division to Philips.
1989 - sells watthour meter division at Raleigh, North Carolina to Asea Brown Boveri Group.
1991 - (see Buying Manila)
1994 - sells electric power distribution and control business unit to Eaton Corporation for $1 billion
1995 - buys CBS for US$5.4 billion.
1996 - buys Infinity Broadcasting
1996 - sells Westinghouse Electronic Systems defense business to Northrop Grumman for $3 billion, becoming Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems.
1997 - sells most non-broadcast operations; renames itself CBS Corporation
1998 - sells remaining manufacturing asset, its nuclear business, to BNFL who sold it to Toshiba in 2006 who still operates it as Westinghouse Electric Company today.
1998 - CBS Corporation creates a new subsidiary called Westinghouse Electric Corporation to manage the Westinghouse brand.
1999 - sold to Viacom, Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westinghouse_Electric_Corporation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
British Nuclear Fuels plc or BNFL manufactures and transports nuclear fuel (notably MOX), runs reactors, generates and sells electricity, reprocesses and manages spent fuel (mainly at Sellafield), and decommissions nuclear plants and other similar facilities.
BNFL is owned by the British government.
BNFL has undergone major changes recently: the formation of a new holding company on 1 April 2005, the transfer of its nuclear sites to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and the sale of its Westinghouse Electric Company subsidiary in February 2006. In March 2006 the company announced its intention to sell its major subsidiary, British Nuclear Group.
History
British Nuclear Fuels Limited was set up in February 1971 from the demerger of the production division of the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA). In 1984 BNFL became a public limited company as British Nuclear Fuels plc, wholly owned by the UK government....
BNFL Inc. was established in 1990 and specialised in decontamination and decommissioning of nuclear sites. On 19 April 2005 the company was renamed BNG America, a subsidiary of BNFL's British Nuclear Group.
In 1996 the UK's eight most advanced nuclear plants, seven Advanced Gas Cooled Reactor (AGR) and one Pressurised Water Reactor (PWR) were privatised as British Energy, raising £2.1 billion.[2] The oldest reactors, the Magnox sites, were not attractive for commercial operations and remained in public ownership as Magnox Electric. On 30 January 1998 Magnox Electric was merged into BNFL as British Nuclear Fuels plc Magnox Generation.
In 1999 BNFL acquired Westinghouse Electric Company, the commercial nuclear power businesses of CBS, (Westinghouse acquired CBS in 1995 and reoriented itself as a broadcaster). Westinghouse's businesses are fuel manufacture, decommissioning of nuclear sites and reactor design, construction and servicing.
In 2000 BNFL purchased the nuclear businesses of ABB for £300 million ($485 million). This company, which was merged into Westinghouse, had nuclear interests in the United States, Europe and Asia.
Reorganisation
On 1 April 2005 the company was reorganised. British Nuclear Fuels plc was renamed British Nuclear Group Sellafield Ltd. A new holding company was established an adopted the British Nuclear Fuels plc name. This new group operates largely through its major British Nuclear Group subsidiary.
In July 2005 BNFL confirmed it planned to sell Westinghouse, then estimated to be worth $1.8bn (£1bn). However the bid attracted interest from several companies, including Toshiba, General Electric and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and when the Financial Times reported on January 23, 2006 that Toshiba had won the bid, it valued the company's offer at $5bn (£2.8bn).
On February 6 2006 Toshiba confirmed it was buying Westinghouse Electric Company for $5.4bn and announced it would sell a minority stake to investors.
On 3 February 2006 BNFL announced it had agreed to sell its BNG America subsidiary to Energy Solutions...
In March 2006 BNFL announced its intention to sell British Nuclear Group. With the sale of Westinghouse Electric Company, BNG America and BNG this will effectively bring BNFL to an end. Mike Parker, CEO of BNFL, said: "By the end of 2007... there will be little need for the BNFL corporate centre from this time."
On 22 August 2006 the BNFL announced that instead of selling BNG as a going concern it would instead sell it off piece by piece. The first businesses to be sold are Project Services, a specialist nuclear consulting business, and the one-third stake of AWE Management.
AWE is responsible for the support and manufacturing of the UK's nuclear deterrent.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BNFL
< < < FLASHBACK < < <
EXPORT-IMPORT BANK
In 1993, the Ex-Im Bank’s Advisory Committee was headed by Warren H. Hollinshead, CFO of the Westinghouse Electric Co. During that same year, Ex-Im awarded $98,075,505 to Westinghouse.
Ex-Im also provided financing for and loan guarantees to the Westinghouse Corporation from 1993 through mid-1995 worth a total of $572,774,329....
Defense Dollars and Deal Making -
Despite the president’s previous anti-war inclinations and his much-publicized avoidance of military service, President Clinton has consistently backed policies favorable to the defense industry....
The administration has also pushed to relax export restrictions on high-tech equipment used to manufacture sophisticated weapons systems. Part of what has ingratiated the Clinton administration to weapons manufacturers has been the presence of William J. Perry, first as deputy secretary and later as secretary of defense....
Perry is a former defense consultant who headed Technology Strategies and Alliances (TSA) between 1985 and 1993.
TSA’s clients included ... Westinghouse ... While Perry severed his ties with the company, he had amassed more than a million dollars in consulting fees from TSA clients. Not long after he joined the Defense Department, Perry began going to bat for the industry....
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Or take the case of Vice President Al Gore and Export-Import Bank chairman Ken Brody, who in 1994 along with others in the administration urged the Czech Republic to award Westinghouse a contract to finish building a nuclear power plant.
The Czechs are funding the overhaul using a U.S.-backed [aka US taxpayers-backed] loan worth $317 million from the Export-Import Bank. Gore, who as a senator wrote a best-selling environmentalist book entitled Earth in the Balance, supported the loan and contract, reasoning that if Westinghouse did not get the contract, it would have gone to a Western European firm instead. The contract caused some tensions, not only between the administration and environmentalists, but also with the government of Austria, which believed the facility, located roughly 100 miles upwind from Vienna, posed an environmental hazard.
Westinghouse contributed $140,000 to the Democratic party in 1991-1992...
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From: No Contest by Ralph Nader and Wesley Smith:
THE CASE OF THE DEPOSED DICTATOR
It isn’t too often that the public gets to look behind the scenes of material blocked from view by pretrial orders. However, several years ago the curtain of secrecy was lifted in a case involving Westinghouse Electric Corporation and the Republic of the Philippines.
On Dec 1, 1988, the Philippine government of President Corazon Aquino filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against Westinghouse and the New Jersey engineering firm Burns and Roe Enterprises, Inc. ... The charges were serious, accusing Westinghouse and Burns and Roe of conspiring in mid-1970s to bribe former Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos in order to secure a contract to build a nuclear power plant.
The Philippine government contended that $17.2 million in sales commissions Westinghouse paid a Marcos crony named Herminio T. Disini, plus another $2.3 million Burns and Roe paid, were in fact bribes that were passed on to Marcos.
During the pretrial stage of the trial, the Philippines and Westinghouse lawyers agreed, at Westinghouse’s request, to a protective order granting Westinghouse the power to declare which documents turned over to discovery were to be confidential. That maneuver effectively kept the evidence regarding the allegations against Westinghouse out of the public eye.
But then Westinghouse lawyers filed a written motion for summary judgment ... The Philippines filed a brief opposing the motion. The judge, Dickinson Debevoise, heard oral arguments on the motion, and this hearing was open to the public. In arguing the motion, the lawyers quoted evidence from the court record.
On Sept 20, 1991, Judge Debevoise denied Westinghouse’s motion. Thereafter, Westinghouse asked the judge to seal the briefs and the documents ...
But by now the documents had been placed before a court as evidence. They concerned a matter of strong public interest— alleged bribery by Westinghouse, one of the United States’ most powerful defense contractors and business conglomerates, as well as relationships between the United States and the Philippines.
Two civic groups, Public Citizen and Essential Information, intervened in the lawsuit to seek public release of the documents. They requested a court order unsealing the records on the basis that the protective order was inconsistent with the long-established public right of access to judicial records, as well as with the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Westinghouse appealed to the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals. . . .
In Judge Debevoise’s decision granting the request to unseal the records of the motion, the judge wrote:
“First, there is evidence that by decree President Marcos had placed NPC [National Power Company, the party that made the deal with Westinghouse] directly under the control of his office.
Second, there is evidence that both Westinghouse and Burns & Roe believed that in order to obtain the PNPP contracts ... they would need the assistance of a powerful person having influence with President Marcos. Disini was the person they selected ...
Third, there is evidence that Disini communicated with President Marcos and obtained from him the authority to handle the PNPP contracts.
Fourth, it is undisputed that both Westinghouse and Burns & Roe entered into commission agreements with companies controlled by Disini pursuant to which millions of dollars were paid to those companies....
Fifth, there is evidence that President Marcos personally intervened in the PNPP project to ensure that Burns & Roe and Westinghouse obtained the contracts ...
Sixth, there is evidence that both Westinghouse and Burns & Roe took steps to cover up the payments, suggesting guilty minds ... After 1977 reports in the press suggested that Westinghouse may have made improper payments to obtain the PNPP contract, Westinghouse burned the files in Manila relating to the procurement of the contract. Other records were destroyed and other efforts were made to avoid discovery of the ... agreement.”...
Writing for the appellate court, Judge Dolores Sloviter affirmed the strong public interest in ensuring that such proceedings are open to public scrutiny. “Certainly, the allegations of bribes by a major U.S. corporation to the leader of a foreign country is a matter of public interest, which could give rise to public debate.” Judge Sloviter concluded that openness should be the general rule because “access to the judicial process reinforces the democratic ideals of our society.”
The judges had made the right decision. Big corporations and their power lawyers cannot turn public courts into private domains simply because they are embarrassed about their own behavior....
For more, GO TO > > > Buying Manila
April 14, 1999
EMBATTLED EMPIRE
by Rick Daysog, Honolulu Star-Bulletin
Larry Landry, former chief financial officer for the $4 billion John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, which is a co-investor with the Bishop estate in a Boston-based investment fund and a Florida apartment complex, describes Trustee Henry Peters as a savvy and thorough investment manager...
Deal promoters often approach large foundations and charitable trusts thinking they have deep pockets. But Peters brings a healthy skepticism to anyone who brings an investment to the estate, according to Landry. . . . “Henry is extremely bright and has the right kind of conservative (investment) philosophy,” said Landry, who now serves as chief executive officer of Florida-based Westport Realty Advisers. “He’s good at making sure that whoever they’re dealing with have their skins in the game.”...
In his review of the estate’s 1994-1996 accounts, court-appointed master Colbert Matsumoto and the accounting firm of Arthur Andersen said the estate — during Peters’ tenure as acting asset manager — generated an embarrassing return on investment of minus 1 percent. During that period, the trust set aside more than $240 million in reserve for future losses....
That woeful performance came as Wall Street was in the midst of a record bull run in which investors could have made double-digit returns just by putting their money in an index fund...
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From The Hartford Courant, 10/29/99, by Mike McIntire and Jon Lender:
. . . The Texas-based managers of an investment fund ... say they lost a $100 million investment deal in 1998 because they refused a directive from then-Treasurer (Conn.), Paul Silvester, to pay a finder’s fee to someone of his choosing....
Silvester had been negotiating a possible $100 million investment in the Crossroads Constitution Fund....
By the time Silvester began talking to Crossroads in 1998, the fund’s assets had been acquired by a group of Texas investors, who were not interested in forking over the kind of fees Crossroads had paid Kelly and his associates. So when Silvester told Crossroads representative Larry Landry that a fee would need to be paid, the new management at Crossroads said no...
Last summer, Landry, a former chief investment officer of the philanthropic MacArthur Foundation, left Crossroads to set up the Westport Fund...
Silvester has alleged that he had arrangements with others to whom he steered fees, whereby they would kick back some of the money . . .
For more GO TO > > > A Connecticut Yankee in King Kamehameha’s Court; The Carlyle Group: Birds that Drink from Cesspools; Marsh & McLennan: The Marsh Birds; Marsh & McLennan’s Putnam Investments; Vultures at The Crossroads
# # #
FOR MORE BUREAUCRATIC BUZZARDS,
SNEAK TO...
THE SECRET NESTS
PART IV - THE NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY
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A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING KAMEHAMEHA’S COURT
BEHIND THE BLINDS AT FIDELITY INVESTMENTS
BIRDS THAT DRINK FROM CESSPOOLS
CONFESSIONS OF A WHISTLEBLOWER
DIRTY MONEY, DIRTY POLITICS & BISHOP ESTATE
HUD: THE HOUSING & URBAN DISASTER
NESTS OF THE INSURANCE VAMPIRES
MARSH & McLENNAN’S PUTNAM INVESTMENTS
OFFICE OF THE U.S. TRUSTEE vs. HARMON
TRANSYLVANIA TRAVELERS IN ST. PAUL
UNCLE SAM’S WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION
VULTURES IN THE U.S. DEPT OF ENERGY
THE VULTURES IN WCI COMMUNITIES
THE VULTURES ON YUCCA MOUNTAIN
WHO'S GUARDING THE HEN HOUSE ???
THE WTO: THE WEALTHY TAKING OVER
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Orginally posted November 12, 2006
Last update July 1, 2009, by The Catbird