Word: extortion
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...laying out the federal criminal complaint, U.S. Attorney Fitzgerald said Blagojevich went far beyond the realm of hard-knuckle politics into a "political-corruption crime spree." The central allegation is that the governor schemed to extort money and jobs for himself and his wife from the Obama transition team in exchange for naming Obama's preferred candidate (unnamed in the charges) to the open Senate seat. The complaint details Blagojevich's attempts to contact intermediaries to the transition, and in one case it shows him soliciting favors from a union official he identifies as an "emissary." All of this alleged...
...Senate-seat scheme is only one of the allegations lodged against the two-term governor, whose administration has been under investigation for alleged "pay to play" patronage practices for years. The complaint claims that Blagojevich tried to extort the owners of the Tribune Company to fire editors at the Chicago Tribune and withhold $8 million of state funds for a children's hospital in hopes of extracting a $50,000 campaign contribution from one of its executives. Blagojevich, who came into office in 2002 with promises to clean up the state's culture of graft, made no comment Tuesday during...
...With piracy being one of the few booming businesses amid the anarchy of Somalia, pirates interviewed by TIME indicated that both the Islamist militia that controls much of the country and elements of the government are inclined to extort a share of the ransom payments - tens of millions of dollars this year alone - whenever possible. The International Maritime Board's Piracy Reporting Center says 14 ships and between 250 and 300 crew members remain in captivity along the Somali coast...
...police that, although the gang was not officially connected to the MILF, it was run by a rogue MILF commander operating in Maguindanao, a province controlled by the MILF. The arrested man told police that, as they suspected, the group had carried out numerous bombings in southern Mindanao to extort money. Jones says some of that money may be funding MILF fighters. Al-Khobar's "extortion is criminality on one level, but it also seems to be done in the interest of raising funds for more operations. So it's not necessarily completely divorced from the MILF...
...poorest regions. The central government, which lists the Naxalites as a banned terrorist group, says that 11 of India's 28 states are now affected in one way or another by the insurgency. Nongovernment organizations put the number of affected states even higher. The rebels tax local villagers, extort payments from businesses, abduct and kill "class enemies" such as government officials and police officers, and stop aid getting through to people caught in the cross fire...