(CNSNews.com) – Foreign governments have contributed from $20 million to $65 million to the William J. Clinton Foundation since the foundation’s inception in 1997, according to a recently released list of donors.
The list was published as part of an agreement between the Clintons and the Obama transition team when Sen. Hillary Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) was announced as President-elect Obama's choice for secretary of state.
The largest foreign-government donor was Saudi Arabia, which gave between $10-25 million. The foundation did not reveal specific amounts, only ranges for the donations.
Other foreign governments giving to the Clinton Foundation include Norway (at $5-10 million) and Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Brunei (all at $1-5 million each.) Jamaica and Italy’s Ministry for Environment and Territory each gave $50,000 to $100,000 in donations.
Taiwan’s Economic and Cultural Office gave between $1-5 million. The U.S. does not have formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan so the Economic and Cultural Office serves as the de facto embassy.
AUSAID, the Australian government’s international aid program, gave Clinton between $10-25 million, as did COPRESIDA-Secretariado Tecnico, the Dominican Republic’s anti-AIDS agency.
One of two contributors giving more than $25 million was UNITAID, an international partnership between the governments of Brazil, Britain, France, Chile, and Norway that buys AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis drugs. UNITAID, according to its Web site, is funded entirely through taxes on airline tickets bought in the five countries.
Besides governments, there were other major donors to the foundation with foreign ties. The Dutch National Lottery Fund, a frequent contributor to Oxfam and Amnesty International, gave Clinton between $5-10 million.
The Dubai Foundation -- established by the Sultan of Dubai -- and the Friends of Saudi Arabia both gave between $ 1-5 million.
Some large individual donors also had foreign ties.
-- Sheikh Mohammed H. Al-Amoudi, a Saudi oil tycoon, gave between $1-5 million.
-- Issam Fares, a former deputy prime minister of Lebanon in the pro-Syria government of Prime Minister Omar Karami gave between $1-5 million.
-- Saudi billionaire Nasser Al-Rashid gave $1-5 million. Rashid owns The Lady Moura, the 11th largest yacht in the world and is the founder of Rashid Engineering.
-- Amar Singh, an influential member of the Indian parliament whose party supported the Indian government’s push for a nuclear deal with the U.S., gave between $1-5 million to the Clinton Foundation.
-- Harold Snyder, who gave $1-5 million, is the director of Teva Pharmaceutical, Israel’s largest drug company.
-- Victor Pinchuk, the son-in-law of former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma and one of the world’s richest men, gave the Clinton Foundation $1-5 million.
Also giving between $1-5 million: Indian business tycoon Lakshmi Mittal, who was the Financial Times’ “2006 Person of the Year” and is head of ArcelorMittal -- the world’s largest steel producer.
The list, which accounts for $492 million in contributions from 205,000 donors, did not say when during the last decade the amounts were given, nor did it give any information about the donors other than their names and range of their donations.