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Tuesday 23 December 2008

From Saudi Arabia to Barbara Streisand, Bill Clinton's $492million donor list revealed

Saudi Arabia, Norway and other foreign governments gave at least $46 million, and donors with ties to India delivered millions more.

The Poor in Saudi Arabia

Corporate donors included the controversial Blackwater security firm, at risk of losing its lucrative government contract to protect U.S. diplomats in Iraq, and Web company Yahoo, involved in disputes over surrendering Internet information to Chinese authorities that led to the imprisonment of dissidents there.

Other high-profile Clinton donors don't suggest inevitable collisions between U.S. policies and their giving.

Celebrities Barbra Streisand, Steven Spielberg, Paul Newman, Carly Simon and Chevy Chase all gave.

Sports figures included New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, Formula One driver Michael Schumacher and owners of the Indiana Pacers basketball team.

The foundation disclosed the names of its 205,000 donors on its Web site yesterday, ending a decade of resistance to identifying them.

It released only the names of donors and the range of their contributions. It did not identify each contributor's occupation, employer or nationality or provide any other details.

The foundation said separately yesterday that fewer than 3,000 of its donors were foreigners but did not identify which ones.

It was not immediately clear whether the disclosures will raise any serious challenge to Hillary Clinton's nomination to be Secretary of State. More