Massive Bank and High Profile Resignations Across the World [Archive] - Page 12

GoodETxSG

24th December 2013, 15:12

Interesting and worth re-posting on my Thread: Why Are the Bankers and Ex-Intel Types Running For Their Lives? (Confirmed for MONTHS by my vanishing sources) and Facebook Group: Bank and Politician Financial Corruption.

I will add a link back to your Thread here. TY Sabrina

Links to both below

Above Mentioned Thread:
http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?65952-Why-Are-the-Bankers-and-Ex-Intel-Types-Running-For-Their-Lives--Confirmed-for-MONTHS-by-my-vanishing-sources-

Facebook Group:
www.facebook.com/BankAndPoliticianFinancialCorruption

http://livefreelivenatural.com/brzezinski-admits-worldwide-resistance-derailing-new-world-order/?fb_action_ids=10152441191984129&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map=%7B%2210152441191984129%22%3A255673117916006%7D&action_type_map=%7B%2210152441191984129%22%3A%22og.likes%22%7D&action_ref_map=%5B%5D#

Brzezinski admits: “Worldwide Resistance” is Derailing the New World Order

Nov

During a recent speech in Poland, former US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski warned fellow elitists that a worldwide “resistance” movement to “external control” driven by “populist activism” is threatening to derail the move towards a new world order.

Calling the notion that the 21st century is the American century a “shared delusion,” Brzezinski stated that American domination was no longer possible because of an accelerating social change driven by “instant mass communications such as radio, television and the Internet,” which have been cumulatively stimulating “a universal awakening of mass political consciousness.”

The former US National Security Advisor added that this “rise in worldwide populist activism is proving inimical to external domination of the kind that prevailed in the age of colonialism and imperialism.”
Brzezinski concluded that “persistent and highly motivated populist resistance of politically awakened and historically resentful peoples to external control has proven to be increasingly difficult to suppress.”

Although Brzezinski delivered his comments in a neutral tone, the context of the environment in which he said them allied to his previous statements would indicate that this is not a celebration of “populist resistance” but a lament at the impact it is having on the kind of “external control” Brzezinski has repeatedly advocated.

The remarks were made at an event for the European Forum For New Ideas (EFNI), an organization that advocates the transformation of the European Union into an anti-democratic federal superstate, the very type of bureaucratic “external control” Brzezinski stressed was in jeopardy in his lecture.

In this context, it must be understood that Brzezinski’s point about “populist resistance” being a major hindrance to the imposition of a new world order is more of a warning than an acclamation.

Also consider what Brzezinski wrote in his book Between Two Ages: America’s Role in the Technotronic Era, in which he advocated the control of populations by an elite political class via technotronic manipulation.

“The technotronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values. Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen. These files will be subject to instantaneous retrieval by the authorities,” wrote Brzezinski.

“In the technotronic society the trend would seem to be towards the aggregation of the individual support of millions of uncoordinated citizens, easily within the reach of magnetic and attractive personalities exploiting the latest communications techniques to manipulate emotions and control reason,” he wrote in the same book.

Brzezinski’s sudden concern about the impact of a politically awakened global population isn’t born out of any notion that he identifies with their cause. Brzezinski is the ultimate elitist insider, the founder of the powerful Trilateral Commission, a Council on Foreign Relations luminary and a regular Bilderberg attendee. He was once described by President Barack Obama as “one of our most outstanding thinkers”.

Originally Posted On: http://www.hangthebankers.com/brzezinski-admits-worldwide-resistance-is-derailing-the-new-world-order/

Published on Oct 8, 2012
Here is Zbigniew Brzezinski once again admitting that the globalists are in fear of the global awakening that is currently happening across the world. People are waking up to the fact that the governments are all power hungry and corrupt and are not there to serve the interests of the people, but that of the global elite and the multi-billion dollar corporations. This lecture was given about a week ago in his home country of Poland.

bHknL5z8f6k

Sabrina

25th December 2013, 23:59

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/24/edward-snowden-channel-4-christmas-day-message

24 Dec

Edward Snowden broadcasts Channel 4's alternative Christmas Day message

NSA whistleblower records message from Russia, filmed by Laura Poitras, warning of the dangers of a loss of privacy

Edward Snowden, the whistleblower who prompted a worldwide debate when he leaked a cache of top secret documents about US and UK spying, has recorded a Christmas Day television message in which he calls for an end to the mass surveillance revealed by his disclosures.

The short film was recorded for Channel 4, which has 20-year history of providing unusual but relevant figures as an alternative to the Queen's Christmas message shown by other UK broadcasters. It will be Snowden's first television appearance since arriving in Moscow.

The address, broadcast at 4.15pm on Christmas Day, was filmed in Russia – where Snowden is living after being granted temporary asylum – by Laura Poitras, a film-maker who has closely collaborated with him on the NSA stories.

Snowden said George Orwell "warned us of the danger of this kind of information" in his dystopian novel, 1984.

Snowden said: "The types of collection in the book – microphones and video cameras, TVs that watch us – are nothing compared to what we have available today. We have sensors in our pockets that track us everywhere we go. Think about what this means for the privacy of the average person.

"A child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all. They'll never know what it means to have a private moment to themselves an unrecorded, unanalysed thought. And that's a problem because privacy matters; privacy is what allows us to determine who we are and who we want to be."

Snowden notes the political changes that have taken place since his leaked the cache documents to newspapers including the Guardian. He highlights a review of the NSA's power that recommended it be no longer permitted to collect phone records in bulk or undermine internet security, findings endorsed in part by Barack Obama, and a federal judge's ruling that bulk phone record collection is likely to violate the US constitution.

Snowden says: "The conversation occurring today will determine the amount of trust we can place both in the technology that surrounds us and the government that regulates it. Together we can find a better balance, end mass surveillance and remind the government that if it really wants to know how we feel, asking is always cheaper than spying."

The latter comment echoes a sentiment expressed by Snowden during a series of interviews in Moscow with the Washington Post, another paper that has carried revelations based on documents leaked by him. In this, Snowden said the effect of his actions had meant that "the mission's already accomplished".

In the newspaper interview, he added: "I already won. As soon as the journalists were able to work, everything that I had been trying to do was validated. Because, remember, I didn't want to change society. I wanted to give society a chance to determine if it should change itself.

"All I wanted was for the public to be able to have a say in how they are governed."

The alternative Christmas message, a counterpoint to the traditional festive broadcast by the Queen, began in 1993 with a broadcast from the writer and gay activist Quentin Crisp. Other notable participants include Iran's then-president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in 2008, and a team of midwives two years later.

Sabrina

26th December 2013, 00:17

http://goldenageofgaia.com/2013/12/the-avalanche-of-truth-has-finally-begun/#more-204128

24 Dec

Good article here to sum up some of the truths coming out now…

The Avalanche of Truth Has Finally Begun…

By Stephen Cook – December 24, 2013

As we get to the pointy end of 2013, I’m personally delighted to see that it seems the avalanche of truth that we have long been hoping for – and have been told was coming – has finally begun.

The NSA revelations continue to fall out, day after day, courtesy of one very brave young man, Edward Snowden (see separate story below). Revelations of this. Revelations of that. More spying. More intrusive invasions of privacy for both public and private individuals. Foreign governments, leaders and even charities under the NSA surveillance’ microscopes. And, yet, I just ‘know, there is WAY more to come…on many levels.

We’re also seeing the uncovering of many other truths, with the media covering some of the many cover-ups of recent years… 9/11. Lockerbie, corruption in governments around the world. Even forgiveness and debt forgiveness are now being talked about openly.

So, yes. it’s Christmas and the truths are snowing down. Let’s look at some of the various aspects of this avalanche of truth within the past two weeks alone.

This week, we’ve seen this major expose (1), NSA Declassifies Bush Era Documents – ‘”Bush Authorised Spying”:
“The director of national intelligence on Saturday declassified more documents that outline how the National Security Agency was first authorised to start collecting bulk phone and internet records in the hunt for al-Qaida terrorists and how a court eventually gained oversight of the program, after the justice department complied with a federal court order to release its previous legal arguments for keeping the programs secret.

“James Clapper explained in a statement on Saturday that President George W Bush first authorised the spying in October 2001, as part of the Terrorist Surveillance Program, just after the 9/11 attacks. Bush disclosed the program in 2005.”
Also in the past few days, we’ve seen a variety of stories which openly lay claim to the fact that what we’ve long been told about 9/11 – and which many, many people in their hearts and souls ‘know’ was not the truth – is starting to seep out – but now in the mainstream. We’ve now seen the Washington Post exclusive story (2) which claims the whole event was planned in cahoots with the Saudis. Well, this may be a portion of the truth, but at least the public is being made aware that there was “government involvement” in this world-changing, fear-evoking event; the greatest fear-evoking event in human history.

“After the 9/11 attacks, the public was told al Qaeda acted alone, with no state sponsors.

“But the White House never let it see an entire section of Congress’ investigative report on 9/11 dealing with “specific sources of foreign support” for the 19 hijackers, 15 of whom were Saudi nationals.

“It was kept secret and remains so today.

“President Bush inexplicably censored 28 full pages of the 800-page report. Text isn’t just blacked-out here and there in this critical-yet-missing middle section. The pages are completely blank, except for dotted lines where an estimated 7,200 words once stood …

“A pair of lawmakers who recently read the redacted portion say they are “absolutely shocked” at the level of foreign state involvement in the attacks.”

We’ve also had the President of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, state emphatically that “Corruption is Public Enemy No 1″. We’ve had articles saying multiple governments say they want justice and further investigations into the Lockerbie bombing (see below), which only add more traction to previous stories linking the Lockerbie bombing to arms deals. We’ve also had major arrests in Turkey and also, some very public (and not-so-gentle) political ’roundups’ in North Korea.

In India, we’ve seen an anti-corruption party take government in the world’s second largest democratic country’s largest city, shortly after the approval of a new anti-corruption watchdog.

Plus we’ve seen forgiveness come to the fore, with both the Russians forgiving the Cubans for their debt and the Russian leader Vladimir Putin providing amnesty for some prisoners. Meanwhile, President Obama has also been commuting sentences for long-term drug criminals. Now, today, we see the UK Royal pardon of Enigma codebreaker, Alan Turing.
And, suddenly,the Cubans seems to be wanting to start a dialogue with the US, following a symbolic handshake between leaders at Nelson Mandel’s funeral service.

Oh, and did I mention, Uruguay has legalized marijuana as it begins to end the ‘war’ on drugs and break down the income stream for the secret groups that have run the worldwide drug trade for years.

So it’s truth has been tumbling down the mountain of secrecy in many ways and on on many fronts.

Journalist Ben Fulford’s latest post (3), dated December 24, 2013, titled Multiple Sources Confirm 2014 Will Be the Year of Revolution in the West (which is a subscription posts so I will only run some extracts from it) also indicates big changes in the disclosure of truth are now underway.

While I cannot personally verify all Ben claims, at least his ‘intel’ is saying what we’re all now seeing the beginnings and the results of in the wider world.

He talks of the” avalanche of disclosure appearing in corporate mass media outlets about long taboo topics like 9/11, the Lockerbie bombing, the Kennedy assassination etc. indicating some sort of attempt at starting a truth and reconciliation process has begun. He adds that:

“In the US, there is a growing move within the establishment to start exposing the truth about 9/11. When Congress members start asking questions in Congress about it, for example, they are showing that they know it is safe to start talking about it in public now. The move to blame the Saudis being given wide publicity is a precursor to taking down the Bush/Nazi/Zionist faction.

“The truth about the Kennedy assassination is also now coming out, again as a part of that same trend. The sealed public documents relating to the assassination are due to be released to the public soon, according to sources close to Kennedy daughter US Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy. The sealed files are almost all held by the CIA, especially its Nazi/Bush faction the Directorate of Operations.

“There is also a move to start disclosing the CIA’s secret Iranian connection, according to MI5. One of the most damning things to come out last week concerned the Lockerbie Bombing of 1988 in which a bomb blew up an airliner over Scotland, killing 243 people.”

He also states that while the official story is that it was done by Libya it now turns out the operation was carried out to cover up the Iranian/Bush/Nazi drug connection, according to MI5 sources. He explains this by adding:

“First let us review what the connection was in a bigger context. The Iranian revolution that replaced the Shah of Iran with Ayatollah Khomeini was a Cabal run operation aimed at grabbing Persian imperial gold supplies (the gold was evacuated to Thailand), according to a cousin of the Shah. Later, George Bush Sr. got Ronald Reagan elected as President and himself as Vice President in large part because of the “October surprise” – the sabotaged rescue attempt by President Carter of the US Embassy officials being held hostage in Tehran. That operation was run by Bush agent Osama Bin Laden (aka Tim Osman) and his flunky Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

“The attempt by agency and government white hats to counter the Bush faction with the Iran/Contra hearings during the Reagan Presidency failed to remove the Bush faction. One reason was because the Lockerbie bombing killed US military intelligence and CIA officers who were on that flight on their way back to report that the Frankfurt (Bush/Nazi) branch of the CIA was running drugs out of the Bekaa valley in Lebanon for the Iranians. The plane was blown up to prevent them from reporting this to the Pentagon. Also, it happens that the commander of the Qods or Iranian special forces in the Bekaa valley became the Iranian Defense Minister a couple of years ago.”

Fulford also asserts:

“Incidents like Lockerbie are important to Pentagon types because they represent high treason. That is why we are hearing from CIA and Pentagon sources that nobody is in the mood for a touchy-feely peace and reconciliation process…
And concludes:

“…All this is coming out now because Bush and his faction have been defeated at a high level and arrests of Nazis have been proceeding at a fast clip.”

While I believe that all will transpire just as it should, with little violence – and we have yet to see mainstream proof of mass arrests – it is still evident that the avalanche of truth has finally begun.
And, as they say, once the avalanche begins the dominoes of truth will fall one by one by one and until the whole stack of truth has toppled.

So here’s a list of the various stories we’ve run on the blog over the past two weeks that are tangible proof of the title of this post. For it is now very evident and true that The Avalanche of Truth Has Finally Begun.

(1) http://goldenageofgaia.com/2013/12/nsa-declassfies-bush-era-documents-bush-authorised-spying/
(2) http://goldenageofgaia.com/2013/12/truth-begins-inside-the-saudi-911-cover-up/
http://goldenageofgaia.com/2013/12/world-bank-president-calls-corruption-public-enemy-no-1/
http://goldenageofgaia.com/2013/12/leaders-vow-justice-on-lockerbie-anniversary/
http://goldenageofgaia.com/2013/07/email-links-lockerbie-bombers-prison-transfer-to-us615m-libyan-arms-deal/
http://goldenageofgaia.com/2013/12/turkey-corruption-arrests-16-charged-including-bank-chief-and-ministers-sons-as-pms-circle-targeted/
http://goldenageofgaia.com/2013/12/north-korean-political-purge-continues/
http://goldenageofgaia.com/2013/12/indias-anti-corruption-party-storms-to-election-win-in-delhi-state/
http://goldenageofgaia.com/2013/12/india-approves-anti-corruption-watchdog/
http://goldenageofgaia.com/2013/12/forgiveness-obama-commutes-record-drug-sentences-as-putin-provides-pardon-for-man-considered-to-be-enemy/
http://goldenageofgaia.com/2013/12/russia-forgives-90-of-cubas-debt-as-putin-overhauls-top-news-agency/
http://goldenageofgaia.com/2013/12/cuba-castro-calls-on-us-to-establish-civilized-relations/
http://goldenageofgaia.com/2013/12/uruguay-legalises-production-and-sale-of-cannabis/
(3) http://benjaminfulford.net/2013/12/24/multiple-sources-confirm-2014-will-be-the-year-of-revolution-in-the-west/

Sabrina

26th December 2013, 07:54

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/26/world/europe/turkish-cabinet-members-resign.html?hpw&_r=0

25 Dec Turkey

Corruption Scandal Is Edging Near Turkish Premier

ISTANBUL — A corruption investigation that has encircled the Turkish government moved an ominous step closer to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday, as three top ministers whose sons have been implicated abruptly resigned — and one of them, on his way out the door, said Mr. Erdogan should step down as well.

The resignations, coming only hours after the ministers welcomed Mr. Erdogan at the Ankara airport as he returned from Pakistan late on Tuesday, were enough to inspire new talk of a deepening crisis, which Mr. Erdogan has repeatedly denounced as a foreign plot.

But the words from one of the departing ministers were considered stunning, coming from a political party known for silencing dissent. That instantly raised the significance of the entire inquiry and left members of the Turkish public wondering if they were witnessing the collapse of their Islamist-rooted government of the last decade.

“Now it seems the situation has changed completely,” said Kerem Oktem, a Turkey expert and research fellow at the European Studies Center at the University of Oxford. “It seems the ring around Erdogan has gotten tighter.”

Later, as a dramatic day came to a close, Mr. Erdogan emerged from a meeting with President Abdullah Gul in Ankara, the Turkish capital, and announced that seven other ministers would leave his cabinet, some of whom are departing as part of a long-planned shuffle so that they can run for mayors in coming elections. One of the late-night departures included the European Union minister, who has been implicated in the corruption investigation.

The investigation became public a week ago with dawn police raids on the offices of businessmen and others close to the prime minister. But Wednesday was the first time that someone who had been in Mr. Erdogan’s hierarchy — a confidant, no less — left the strong implication of the prime minister’s entanglements in some of the real estate deals at the heart of the case.

The crisis strikes a sharp contrast to the image that Turkey has projected as an exemplar of a prosperous, Muslim-majority country based on democratic principles. A NATO member, Turkey has been embraced by the United States and Europe as a force for stability in the tumultuous Middle East, and the country has sought to play an important role in shaping the outcome of crises in Syria, Egypt and with Iran’s nuclear program. With Mr. Erdogan now preoccupied with political survival, Turkey’s role in the region and its relationship with the West are in question.

The corruption inquiry has targeted the ministers’ sons, a major construction tycoon with links to Mr. Erdogan and municipal workers, and it centers in part on allegations that officials received bribes in exchange for ignoring zoning rules and approving contentious development projects. No one has been convicted, but the issue has struck a nerve among the Turkish public, especially Istanbul residents. They have become increasingly resentful over the dizzying pace of development and riches amassed by a new, pious economic elite, with a strong hand in the construction industry, which rose to power alongside Mr. Erdogan and his associates.

Analysts questioned whether Mr. Erdogan can weather the crisis by blaming foreign powers, appealing to the religious sentiments of supporters, and evoking the ghosts of Turkey’s past by likening it to the war for independence it fought after the breakup of the Ottoman Empire.

The developments on Wednesday came amid rumors in the local news media that more damaging allegations from the investigation were coming and would link directly to Mr. Erdogan and his family.

“We can see the prime minister is trying to take precautions against something that could be bigger,” said Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, the head of the Ankara office of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, a research organization. Mr. Unluhisarcikli said that as the investigation inched closer to Mr. Erdogan personally, he would “have more difficulty containing the damage.”

Inaiá

26th December 2013, 11:56

Brzezinski concluded that “persistent and highly motivated populist resistance of politically awakened and historically resentful peoples to external control has proven to be increasingly difficult to suppress.”[/QUOTE] Yep! :dance3:

Sabrina

27th December 2013, 08:13

http://goldenageofgaia.com/2013/12/al-Hodges-Claims-Victory-in-cmkx-Suit-Reveals-Sting-Operation-against-the-cabal/#more

25 Dec US

Al Hodges Claims Victory in CMKX Suit, Reveals Sting Operation Against the Cabal

Pasadena attorney Al Hodges was hired by shareholders of CMKX Diamonds to represent them in what has been said to be “the largest fraud case in world history.” (1)

Known as the Bivens class action suit, Hodge claims that in 2004-5 legitimate shareholders saw their stock watered down by the sale of 2.25 trillion “phantom” shares in the company. The SEC and the Justice Department combined to trap those guilty of naked short selling of the stock and cellar boxing the company. (2)

The CMKX scandal was one of several well-known individual or class action suits in which a small band of determined people fought back against the excesses of the cabal at great personal risk. The Wanta Funds and the farm claims were others.

These various claims are now being settled in favor of the claimants. They are part of the wholesale action being taken against the cabal and dovetail with broader initiatives like the World Global Settlements, the Global Currency Reset and others that are bringing in the new economic order.

Recently Al claimed victory in their class-action suit against the short sellers.

One interesting aspect of Al’s article is that he describes the manner in which several sting operations against the cabal have been run. They are one of the reasons for the Reval’s delay.

Prominent currency holders, many of them sitting in Congress, were cashed out upon making the promise that they would not use their cash-outs to buy further currency and they promptly then bought more currency.

These people will be or have been arrested and/or made to resign from Congress, etc. My own personal belief is that the delay in the Reval is not so much because people stood in the way as it is that the Reval has been in part used to entrap the corrupt. I believe that this clean-out will make the Reval safer for the rest of us.

Encouraging Al Hodges Update Emailed To Recaps

12/25/2013

http://www.dinarrecaps.com/1/post/2013/12/encouraging-al-hodges-update-emailed-to-recaps.html

Hodges and Associates – 12/25/13 “THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM”

“Every indication from every credible source is that the Reset will become public today, tomorrow, the next day, or certainly by January 1, 2014.”

FIGHTING THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM
To dream … the impossible dream …
To fight … the unbeatable foe …
To bear … with unbearable sorrow …
To run … where the brave dare not go …
To right … the unrightable wrong …
To love … pure and chaste from afar …
To try … when your arms are too weary …
To reach … the unreachable star …
This is my quest, to follow that star …
No matter how hopeless, no matter how far …
To fight for the right, without question or pause …
To be willing to march into Hell, for a Heavenly cause …

That is the real reason I became counsel for seven brave travelers of similar mind and spirit some five plus years ago.
I was frustrated by all the B.S. continually being fed to the CMKM Diamonds Inc. shareholders, I was confused by the fact that no one appeared to ‘be in charge,’ and I was perplexed by so many years having already passed since I had been told by the “founders” that “…. it will all be history within no more than a year.”

I was simply overcome with a compulsion to get to the bottom of what was taking place with my not insubstantial investment in this public company, CMKX.

Accordingly, because I then enjoyed the luxury of time and resources, I dove in head first and was soon consumed on a full time basis with pursuing the answer to my quest; I can assure you all that it seemed at that point to be an impossible dream.

I did not begin this quest out of a sense of arrogance, power madness, or other such motive; I began this quest because of the vacuum that existed.

After some reflection I began to appreciate that I might be the only substantial shareholder with the proper mix of professional skill, investigative skill, intellectual impetus and stimulus, and where-with-all to pursue it.

I do not intend to recite here the efforts and travails of the intervening years; some have already been published – the rest will have to await another time.

What I do wish to discuss in this message is some of the reasons for the extremely protracted delay in achieving resolution.

In that regard, please understand that circumstance still constrains what I can relate and what must remain, at least for the moment, hidden.

To repeat myself again, “…I have previously stated, we have confronted, with added pressure from the ‘lien-holders,’ the vilest, most contemptible, well financed forces for evil on the planet – and we have won!”

As I have previously stated, some many months later, that must seem to have been an idle boast. However, it does reflect the mighty struggle that has been raging in the shadows.

The essence of the delay relates directly to the relatively small role CMKX has played in this developing correction. I use those words specifically, and intentionally, to convey what this has been all about.

It has not only been about Wall Street, or financial corruption, or fiat currency, or political corruption, or concentration of all the world’s resources in the hands of a few such that the rest of the population become slaves, or the allowance by the American public of having their Constitutional Republic craftily usurped and replaced with a Corporation, or any combination of such ‘horribles;’ it has rather been about all of these things and more.

It has been about the US of A and every other civilization on this planet; it has been about returning the US of A to its rightful intended form of government; it has been about crafting a successful and transparent global financial system based on real values;

it has been about agreeing with all of our neighbors to a system of trade balance such that the playing field is equally available to all and represents fairness to each;

it has been about allowing the world’s resources, both natural and financial to be equitably allocated among all civilized nations; and, it has been about preparing the world for the future.

You’ve heard me state repeatedly that we’ve won; in the face of that you wonder all these many months later why I would lie to you and/or misrepresent the state of affairs.

Indeed, I would not do so under any circumstance of which I can conceive, so, let me be perfectly clear: we won the battle over CMKX and our right to be compensated for those wrongs perpetrated against us .

I did not mean to suggest when making that statement that the battle was over – if some were left with that impression, I apologize for the inadequacy of my expression.

I tried repeatedly to make clear that the battle raged on, and would so continue, until such time as we had received ER [Economic Receipt].

ER was then defined on multiple occasions as receipt by another of my clients of the BASEL approved funds due to be paid to him for the express purpose of conducting the US Dollar Refunding Project, a part of the World Global Settlements (WGS), as is the Global Currency Reset (GCR).

As I have set forth in essentially every legal document and every CMKX Update, achieving ER was a sina qua non to the CMKX shareholders being paid; the reason is a simple one – THAT’S THE WAY THE ENTIRE GAME PLAN WAS STRUCTURED.
The fact that the game plan was set up that way became a great stimulus to me to get involved with the WGS and GCR; it simply became the only means available to ‘hurry up’ the CMKX pay-out.

No one insisted I become involved and no one has paid me to be involved; however, I have picked up several new clients along the road, and I hope to assist them in their socially responsible efforts after these WGS/GCR programs become realised.

I tried originally to focus the attention of the shareholders on receipt of ER because I had received advice that such receipt would not only be public, but in fact would be the last item completed on the G-20 approved BASEL List of items to be accomplished necessary to support the World Global Settlements and the Global Currency Reset.

Accordingly, I concluded, based upon all the information I had discovered, that the CMKX ‘packages’ would be delivered right after the receipt of ER, mostly as a result of the mandate that CMKX moneys be paid out in asset-backed currency.
However, the miscreants came to the very same conclusion and have focused intensely on preventing Economic Receipt by any and all means possible.

Their efforts have involved literally every means possible; if you can conceive of it, it is a method/approach the cabal has taken advantage of and utilised.

To counteract such behavior, the “sting” approach has been utilized frequently and repeatedly by the ‘good guys.’ The most recent example of this concerns the expected RV of the Iraqi Dinar [IQD] currency, part of the Global Currency Reset.
Because of their high exalted status, many Congressional seat holders and other D.C. ‘bigwigs’ were originally allowed to convert their IQD holdings to Bank SKR’s, or Safe Keeping Receipts; these were originally done at various rates of expected exchange value which was in most cases substantially below the rumored $32.00 rate.

These same people were recently [w/i the last six weeks] given the opportunity to convert these SKR’s to GFR’s, or Guaranteed Fund Receipts; at that same time they were generally provided approximately 10% of the GFR value in cash equivalents with the express promise that said cash would not be utilized to purchase more IQD.

We are currently advised that many thousands violated such proscription almost immediately.

Some of these people will be resigning their offices and some others will undoubtedly be prosecuted.

Use of these continuing “sting” operations has helped to weed out those who continue to support the cabal and accede to their instructions; most of the other ‘miscreants’ have been arrested one or more times [Timothy Geithner for example has been arrested more than four times] and currently face prosecution in the near future.

The cabal is finished!
Most of the high-level and medium-level people, both in and out of government, have by now either been “stung” or arrested, and now face some combination of disgrace, loss of financial advantage, loss of position of power, loss of official office, and/or near term prosecution.

In my opinion, having closely monitored the events as they occurred, we have reached the position of imminent conclusion.
Although it is very difficult to appreciate the length of time this has taken, I can now accept that the acts involved were necessary to accomplish the goals sought.

As a result of this opinion and now having a fuller understanding of both the goals, and the accomplishments to date, I will once again stick my neck out to advise you all that your journey is all but over.

It is my opinion, based not only on what I am told each day by those at the top of the new powers that be, but more importantly on the status of the imminent Global Currency Reset. Its status is important because it cannot become a public fait accompli without the US Treasury becoming a hard-metal asset backed issuer of US currency.

Accordingly, when you publicly see the Global Currency Reset you will know that we have an asset backed currency, and you will know that we have received ER.

Every indication from every credible source is that the Reset will become public today, tomorrow, the next day, or certainly by January 1, 2014.

I cannot guarantee this of course, but it does represent my best opinion based on all available information. I can absolutely assure you that the wonder of what you are so soon to experience – REALITY – will mightily blow away any doubt, disbelief, bitter humor, or unhappy memories that recent experiences have encouraged and supported.

As I have said in the past, “you will be paid a great deal more than any have the right to expect [based on the amount of [your] investment]. In addition, you will receive a payment for the unconscionable length of payment delay.”
Sincerely.

Al Hodges

Ps. Let me take this opportunity to wish each and every one of you a very Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and Joyous Holiday Season.

Footnotes
(1) “CMKM Diamonds and the $3.87 trillion lawsuit you didn’t hear about,” Examiner, March 30, 2010, at http://www.examiner.com/article/cmkm-diamonds-and-the-3-87-trillion-lawsuit-you-didn-t-hear-about
(2) “Cellar boxing” … has to do with the fact that the NASD and the SEC had to arbitrarily set a minimum level at which a stock can trade. This level was set at $.0001 or one-one hundredth of a penny. This level is appropriately referred to as “the cellar”. This $.0001 level can be used as a “backstop” for all kinds of market maker and naked short selling manipulations.
“Cellar boxing” has been one of the security frauds du jour since 1999 when the market went to a “decimalization” basis. In the pre-decimalization days the minimum market spread for most stocks was set at 1/8th of a dollar and the market makers were guaranteed a healthy “spread”. Since decimalization came into effect, those one-eighth of a dollar spreads now are often only a penny as you can see in Microsoft’s quote throughout the day. Where did the unscrupulous MMs go to make up for all of this lost income? They headed “south” to the OTCBB and Pink Sheets where the protective effects from naked short selling like Rule 10-a, and NASD Rules 3350, 3360, and 3370 are nonexistent. (http://www.hotstockmarket.com/t/68486/facinating-article-on-cellar-boxing.

Sabrina

29th December 2013, 05:57

You can tell the shift's happening when Fox News reports the truth on GMOs… :)

koLz-guYRao

Sabrina

29th December 2013, 06:01

Wells Fargo Ordered to Buy Back $94 Million of Auction-Rate Debt

December 27, 2013 US

http://tinyurl.com/qhhc4lj

Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC), the fourth-biggest U.S. bank by assets, was ordered by an arbitration panel to buy back about $94 million of auction-rate securities from investors.

Wells Fargo Advisors LLC, the San Francisco-based bank’s brokerage unit, must pay par value to investors including James S. Cohen and a family trust for the securities, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority arbitration panel said in a decision dated Dec. 24. The investors’ request for $20 million in damages was denied.

The $330 billion worldwide market for auction-rate securities collapsed during the 2008 credit crunch as potential buyers vanished. The crisis sparked regulatory investigations and lawsuits alleging that underwriters and brokers had falsely promoted auction-rate securities as safe, cash-like investments.

Tony Mattera, a Wells Fargo spokesman, said the bank is disappointed by the decision and is reviewing it. William Dahill, an attorney for Cohen at Wollmuth Maher & Deutsch LLP in New York, didn’t immediately respond to messages seeking comment. The Wall Street Journal reported on the arbitration award earlier today.

Auction-rate securities are municipal bonds, corporate bonds and preferred stocks whose rates of return are periodically reset through auctions.

Sabrina

29th December 2013, 06:06

The struggle against corruption, and for the truth, continues in Turkey.

Turkey: Lawmakers Resign Amid Widening Fraud Scandal

Al-Jazeera – December 27, 2013

http://tinyurl.com/nwmyowe

Politicians accuse Turkish government of putting pressure on country’s judiciary, as corruption probe widens. Three Turkish legislators, including a former minister, from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) have resigned and accused the Turkish government of putting pressure on the judiciary, as a widening corruption scandal continues to grip the country.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling party is being directed by “arrogance,” former Culture Minister Ertugrul (pix caption)

Gunay said in a news conference on Friday announcing his resignation, adding that he was parting ways with the AKP.

The resignations came after the Council of State, an Ankara court that rules on administrative issues, rejected an attempt by the government to force police officers to disclose the results of investigations to their superiors.

The government’s efforts to control police investigations amounted to “a clear breach of the principle of the separation of powers, and of the constitution,” said the High Council of Judges and Prosecutors on Thursday, a day before the ruling.
Twenty-four people, including the sons of two ministers and a state-owned bank’s chief were arrested last week as part of an investigation into corruption in Turkey.

Anti-government protests
The revelations have led to a new outpouring of anger against Erdogan’s government.

On Friday, riot police fired water cannons, tear gas and plastic bullets to break up rallies of hundreds of anti-government demonstrators in Istanbul, Izmir, and the capital, Ankara.

Police blocked hundreds of protesters from gathering in Istanbul’s central Taksim Square and pushed them away to the nearby streets.

“The police here outnumbers the protesters,” Al Jazeera’s Omar Al Saleh reported from Istanbul. “But the chants were clear: ‘Bribery is everywhere and corruption is everywhere’. They want the prime minister to resign.”

Erdogan continued to ignore the demands to step down, however.
“Those who call it a corruption inquiry are corrupt themselves,” he told a large crowd of his supporters on Friday as he returned to Istanbul from a political rally in the northwest.

Erdogan also criticised lawmakers who quit his party because of the scandal, saying they “betrayed us along our journey”.
‘Dirty operation’

The suspects in the probe are accused of accepting and facilitating corruption in tenders, money laundering and bribery to secure construction permits for protected areas, the Turkish media reported. More than $4.5m had been seized at raids on the suspect’s houses.

Erdogan called the investigation a “dirty operation” to smear his administration and undermine the country’s progress.
Since the scandal erupted, the government has removed dozens of police officers, including the head of the police force in Istanbul, fuelling accusations of an attempted cover up.

On Thursday, a Turkish public prosecutor said that he was prevented from doing his job, hours after he was removed from the investigation.

Muammer Akkas was removed by Oktay Erdogan, the Istanbul deputy chief public prosecutor, on the grounds that Akkas violated the confidentiality of the investigation, Turkish media reports said.

In a statement right after he was removed on Thursday, Akkas said that Turkey’s public “should be aware that I, as public prosecutor, have been prevented from implementing an investigation”.

Sabrina

30th December 2013, 08:01

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/10541928/Britain-should-watch-its-bankers-not-our-beggars-says-Romanian-adviser.html

lol I like this one :)

30 Dec UK

'Britain should watch its bankers, not our beggars', says Romanian adviser

Top Romanian government adviser, Damian Draghici, says Romanian beggars are asking for small change, while bankers steal billions

People in Britain should be more concerned about bankers who steal billions than Roma who beg on the streets, an adviser to the Romanian prime minister has said.

Damian Draghici said he expected relatively few Roma would make the journey to the UK when the restrictions on the movement of Romanians and Bulgarians in the EU are lifted on January 1.

In an interview in Bucharest as British politicians prepare for the lifting of migration restrictions on New Year’s Day, he said most Roma wanted to integrate and called for them to be given a chance in Britain.

The Government will announce today that it will charge foreigners for A&E treatment for the first time. Mr Draghici however turned his fire on the bankers as he tried to downplay fears of a sudden influx of arrivals or of the damaging impact from those who whose to enter Britain.

He told The Times: "The Roma begging in the streets are obvious because we see them, they ask for one pound or one euro and they bother us. Yet some of the people in the banks are stealing billions of euros but nobody sees them because they are on the 60th floor."

more at link

Sabrina

31st December 2013, 06:45

The World’s Oldest Bank Is on the Brink of Collapse

Monte Paschi Shareholders Delay Cash Call, Top Executives May Quit

By Silvia Aloisi, Reuters – December 28, 2013 Italy

http://tinyurl.com/mnykgbn

(Reuters) – Italy’s third-biggest bank Monte dei Paschi di Siena was forced to delay a vital 3 billion euro ($4.1 billion) share sale to raise capital until mid-2014 because of shareholder opposition, plunging its turnaround plan into uncertainty.

The bank’s chairman and its chief executive may now resign after their plan to launch the cash call in January was defeated at an extraordinary shareholder meeting on Saturday due to the vote of Monte Paschi’s top shareholder.

The world’s oldest bank needs to tap investors for cash to pay back 4.1 billion euros in state aid it received earlier this year and avert nationalization after being hammered by the euro zone debt crisis and loss-making derivatives trades.

The unprecedented clash between the lender’s executives and its main shareholder – a charitable banking foundation with close links to Siena politicians – casts a pall over a tough restructuring meant to revive its fortunes.

Chairman Alessandro Profumo, a strong-willed and internationally respected banker who was formerly the chief of UniCredit, said he and CEO Fabrizio Viola would decide in January whether to step down.

“These are decisions one takes in cold blood and in the right place,” Profumo said at the meeting.

“What I have on my mind is a 3 billion euro cash call because we need to pay back 4 billion euros to taxpayers. Today this is uncertain and at risk,” he told a press conference.

Viola, sitting at his side, told reporters he would do everything “so that the ship does not sink”, but that he could not take responsibility for mistakes made by others.

A board meeting is scheduled for mid-January, a bank spokesman said.

Profumo and Viola had already secured a pool of banks ready to guarantee the rights issue, but only if it was carried out by the end of January.

They said delaying it would make fundraising harder because it would likely coincide with a string of cash calls by other Italian and European lenders triggered by a sector health check, and could precipitate the Tuscan bank’s nationalisation.

But the cash-strapped Monte dei Paschi foundation – whose stake in the bank is big enough to veto any unwanted decision – forced a postponement until at least mid-May to win more time to sell down its 33.5 percent holding and repay its own debts.

An aide described the 56-year-old Profumo, who quit UniCredit in 2010 after clashing with that bank’s foundation shareholders and joined Monte dei Paschi in April 2012, as “very annoyed”.

Italian newspapers said former European Central Bank policymaker Lorenzo Bini Smaghi and Carlo Salvatori, chairman of the Italian unit of German insurer Allianz, were among possible candidates to replace him if he stepped down.

Antonella Mansi, a feisty 39-year-old businesswoman recently appointed head of the Monte dei Paschi foundation, said her insistence on a cash call delay did not amount to a no-confidence vote in the bank’s management.

But she said that carrying out the capital increase in January would massively dilute the foundation’s holding, leaving it with virtually nothing to sell to reimburse debts of 340 million euros.

“We have a precise duty to ensure (the foundation’s) survival. You can’t ask us to let it collapse,” she said.

Analysts however said a delay, and the possibility of Profumo resigning, might undermine the whole rescue of the bank.
“It’s important to carry out the capital increase as early as possible,” said Roberto Lottici, fund manager at Ifigest. “The risk is that the bank finds itself rushing into a cash call later at a lower price than what it could achieve now.”

Umbilical Cord
The rights issue, along with a painful restructuring plan, is among the conditions the European Commission imposed before giving its green light to the state aid for Monte dei Paschi.

But in Siena, where the bank is known as “Daddy Monte” and is the biggest employer, fears that the cash call might sever the umbilical cord between the lender and the city run high.

Siena mayor Bruno Valentini, whose city council is the top stakeholder in the Monte dei Paschi foundation, said on Friday a postponement might help keep the bank in Italian hands.

“We cannot let the third biggest bank in this country fall prey to foreign interests,” he said. “Monte dei Paschi is not just an issue in Siena, it is a big national issue.”

Several small shareholders at the meeting echoed that view, although one, Luigi Barile, accused the foundation of pushing the lender “to the edge of a precipice”.

Under the agreement with Brussels, if Monte dei Paschi cannot complete the capital increase by the end of 2014 the Treasury would convert the bonds it bought from the bank into shares, effectively nationalizing it.

The bank, which is cutting 8,000 jobs and shutting 550 branches, said a delay in the cash call would cost it at least 120 million euros in interest payments owed to the state on the bonds. ($1 = 0.7303 euros)

Other Monte Paschi run this year via goldenageofgaia:
http://goldenageofgaia.com/2013/03/public-face-of-worlds-oldest-bank-suicides/
http://goldenageofgaia.com/2013/10/monte-paschi-the-bank-born-out-of-black-death-struggles-to-survive-part-12/
http://goldenageofgaia.com/2013/10/monte-paschi-the-bank-born-out-of-black-death-struggles-to-survive-part-22/

Sabrina

31st December 2013, 07:10

LEAKED Confession: Cesspool Of Greek-German Corruption

30th, 2013

http://investmentwatchblog.com/leaked-confession-cesspool-of-greek-german-corruption/ Wolf Richter www.testosteronepit.com

Apparently, it has been impossible to sell Greece any weapons at all, not even a water pistol, without bribing officials at the Defense Ministry. Corruption is so pandemic that Transparency International awarded Greece once again the dubious honor of being the most corrupt country in the EU. For 2013, Greece ended up in 80th place of the 177 countries in the survey, same as China.

But it takes two to tango. And in holier-than-thou Germany, where exporting at any price is a state religion (with chart) regardless of who runs the show, the defense industry was allegedly eager to dance with Greece – supplying tanks, submarines, and other equipment that broke Greece didn’t need and couldn’t afford.

Now there’s a confession. After four days of grilling, investigating magistrates in Athens extracted it from Antonios Kantas, General Secretary for Procurement at the Defense Ministry between 1996 and 2002. He’d been arrested in mid-December after authorities found nearly €14 million in various accounts. In his 30-page testimony, elements of which have been leaked, he admitted having pocketed €15 million in bribes since 1989 – just this one guy! But it was a community effort that stretched across party lines. He named names, euros, and dollars, implicating 17 Greek politicians and businessmen. They include former head of procurement Yiannis Sbokos, former Defense Minister Akis Tsochatzopoulos – who, along with Sbokos, has already been condemned to years in the hoosegow for laundering the kickbacks he’d received in various arms deals – and his worthy successor, former Defense Minister Yiannos Papantoniou. And Kantas named the coddled weapons manufacturers in Germany. There was the multi-billion euro deal for 170 “Leopard 2” tanks, manufactured by Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW), as the Süddeutsche Zeitung “learned.” The tanks have all been delivered and paid for except for a few tens of millions of euros. For his diligent work, Kantas received €1.7 million in several payments, including €600,000 that a middleman “forgot” in Kantas’ office as payment for not raising objections to the purchase. KMW denied everything when the Süddeutsche started prying. It had never paid, or authorized others to pay bribes, neither to Kantas nor to anyone else, the company said. Further, it required all employees and business partners to observe the laws. The order from Greece, dated March 2003, had been carefully monitored. Kantas didn’t represent Greece, etc., etc. KMW has built over 5,000 Leopard tanks, much of it for export to savory and unsavory countries since domestic purchases after the collapse of the Soviet Union shriveled to nearly nothing. Selling tanks is already a hot-button issue in Germany. It was triggered once again when Chancellor Angela Merkel went to Indonesia last July, accompanied by plane loads of executives. The Indonesian government wanted to make a deal for 100 used “Leopard 2” tanks from the German military – though Merkel’s spokesman had denied it a few days earlier, claiming that it was “not on the agenda.” It must have ended up on the agenda anyway. Embarrassingly, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono confirmed after his talk with Merkel, albeit indirectly, that his government had requested the tanks. He had to modernize the army, he said. “Everything that we cannot produce ourselves we have to buy from friendly states,” he said, “and now Germany.” The controversy erupted in Germany because Indonesia is an island nation. Why would it need tanks to defend itself? From whom, exactly? From tanks and infantry rolling in waves across the ocean? Or did the government, which has been accused of human rights violations and crimes in repressing internal conflicts, want the tanks to use against its own people? Apparently. The tanks Indonesia was interested in buying would be modified versions designed to fight terrorists and revolts, according to industry insiders. German defense contractor Rheinmetall, which is doing the modification work, and the German government remained assiduously silent on the topic. But the Indonesian government has been talking about it, with Yudhoyono explaining to an incredulous world that “we have never used tanks and helicopters or other weapons against our population.” Indonesia also asked the Netherlands to sell them their old Leopards, but the Dutch parliament nixed the deal. In Germany, the Bundestag doesn’t get involved in arms deals. It’s up to the government. And Merkel wants those exports, rumored to be worth €3.3 billion. Exports at any price. Then Greece bought German submarines, a process that was a cesspool of corruption. They were built by Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft (HDW) in Kiel, a subsidiary of conglomerate ThyssenKrupp. The submarines were equipped by Rheinmetall-Defence-Electronics and Atlas Elektronik, a German maker of naval electronics, integrated sonar systems for submarines, and torpedoes, now controlled by Thyssen-Krupp. Ferrostaal GmbH, a German industrial company, marketed the submarines to politicians. Kantas claimed to have been paid between €500,000 and €600,000 by a representative of Atlas Elektronik to get that deal done. This summer, the Prosecutor’s Office in Bremen started investigating Atlas and Rheinmetall for tax fraud and bribery in connection with the sale. They’re alleged to have paid €9 million in bribes. So Kantas only got a small fraction. In August, authorities raided the offices of the two companies. Turns out, they’d made the payments to a British mailbox company owned by a Greek company, but the payments stopped in 2007. Greek authorities raided Rheinmetall’s office in Athens – and that’s how they found out about Kantas’ involvement in all these deals. As always, Rheinmetall rejected the accusation, claiming that it was “baseless,” that it had made “no direct or indirect payments to Greek officials,” and that any improper payments were “not known to us.” However, the Prosecutor’s Office in Munich, after investigating Ferrostaal’s role in the deal, prevailed in 2011 in court. The judge condemned two employees of Ferrostaal to, well, probation (to the sound wrists being gently slapped) and Ferrostaal to a €149 million fine. Then there was the sale to Greece of “Asrad,” a vehicle-mounted short-range anti-aircraft system, designed by Rheinmetall and Swedish arms supplier, Saab Bofors Dynamics. Kantas claimed he’d received €1.5 million for the deal. He also pocketed €750,000 for KMW’s artillery system. But non-German arms suppliers contributed to his hard-earned wealth as well. He received $3 million for the purchase of Russian anti-tank missiles, including $700,000 in cash, of which $500,000 were handed to two bankers to deposit overseas; $1.7 million for a Russian anti-aircraft missile system; €250,000 for equipment from Brazilian company Embraer; €240,000 for radar systems from Saab; €800,000 for Mirage fighter jets made by French arms maker Dassault; $1 million for a deal to update US-made M48 tanks; and €400,000 for the purchase of anti-ship missile Exocet made by MBDA, which is owned jointly by BAE systems, EADS (Airbus), and Finmeccanica of Italy. The latter is entangled in the helicopters-for-India corruption scandal that saw the CEO get arrested Italy. And so on. Who knows how long the list actually is! For example, in September, a Greek magistrate brought charges of bribery and money laundering against Kantas for having accepted a bribe of €500,000 paid to a Swiss bank account in his name, for a deal that awarded German industrial conglomerate Siemens a contract to modernize the military’s telecom system. It’s convenient to blame the culture of corruption in Greece for the putrefaction seeping from every pore of the economy. The scourge has infected Greek institutions to their roots and is in part responsible for the current economic fiasco. But bribery requires a willing partner. In white-glove Germany, the state religion of exports at any price, come hell or high water, has encouraged authorities to close their eyes when companies spend a little extra to get deals done. Greece didn’t need the weapons, couldn’t afford them, and had to pile on debt to buy them… debt that has become subject to high and tight haircuts and massive bailouts, funded largely by grumbling German taxpayers. And therein lies a twisted, ironic injustice: German taxpayers have to transfer once again their wealth indirectly and unwittingly to the coddled German export sector. When Jens Weidmann, President of the emasculated Bundesbank, speaks, central bankers and money printers worldwide stuff wax into their ears. “Caution,” he started out, “the euro crisis is far from over.” Then he committed central-bank heresy. Read…. This Ends In A “Planned Economy” – Bundesbank President Read more at

http://investmentwatchblog.com/leaked-confession-cesspool-of-greek-german-corruption Read more: http://americankabuki.blogspot.com/2013/12/leaked-confession-cesspool-of-greek.html#ixzz2p2A06vAM

via
http://americankabuki.blogspot.com

Sabrina

31st December 2013, 07:13

Dec. 30, 2013, US

Wells Fargo in $591 million Fannie Mae settlement

By Saabira Chaudhuri http://www.marketwatch.com/story/wells-fargo-pays-591-mln-in-fannie-mae-settlement-2013-12-30

Wells Fargo & Co. on Monday reached a $591 million deal with Fannie Mae to settle claims that it sold defective mortgages to the government-controlled home-loan financier. Adjusted for credits related to previous repurchases, Wells Fargo will pay $541 million. As of the end of its third quarter, the largest mortgage lender in the U.S. had accrued for the cost of the settlement in full.

Wells Fargo said the deal resolves all of the potential buyback demands it had pertaining to loans sold to Fannie Mae that were originated before 2009. While Fannie, and its smaller sibling Freddie Mac, don't make loans directly, they support housing markets by buying mortgages from banks and then selling them to investors as securities, providing guarantees.

During the housing boom, Fannie and Freddie augmented their role in the housing market by purchasing privately issued securities as investments. Fannie, and Freddie can force banks to buy back mortgages that don't conform to agreed-upon guidelines, and both companies have demanded that lenders repurchase billions in soured loans over the past four years.

The federal regulator for Fannie and Freddie has directed the firms to reduce repurchase demands outstanding by year-end. The U.S. Treasury in 2008 rescued Fannie and Freddie as mortgage losses mounted. All told, the two received more than $150 billion in infusions to stay afloat. They have become highly profitable over the past year and are close to having paid as much to the U.S. in dividends as the government was forced to inject to stabilize the firms.

Wells Fargo's deal with Fannie comes after Deutsche Bank AG recently said it would pay $1.93 billion to settle a lawsuit filed by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which controls Freddie and Fannie over mortgage securities the bank sold to the mortgage giants during last decade's U.S. housing bubble. However Deutsche Bank's settlement doesn't resolve separate litigation filed earlier this year by Fannie and Freddie against it and other Wall Street firms over losses the mortgage giants allege they sustained from manipulation of interest rates.

In late November, Fifth Third Bancorp agreed to pay $25 million to Freddie Mac to settle claims that it sold soured mortgages to the agency. Other banks that have recently settled with Freddie or Fannie include SunTrust Banks Inc., Citigroup Inc.--and also on Monday, Flagstar Bancorp Inc.

Read more: http://americankabuki.blogspot.com/#ixzz2p2BKo2eN

Sabrina

31st December 2013, 09:03

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/exclusive-private-talks-between-tony-blair-and-george-bush-on-iraq-war-to-be-published-9029531.html

War crimes lawyers will be happy:)

Exclusive: Private talks between Tony Blair and George Bush on Iraq war to be published

The Government is working to declassify more than 100 secret documents detailing discussions that took place between Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and George Bush in the run-up to the Iraq war. The Independent understands that, in an unprecedented move, a cache of notes from Mr Blair to Mr Bush, records of telephone conversations and meetings, as well as up to 200 minutes of cabinet-level discussions are to be published in the new year.

The release of the documents, which is likely to be in the next few months, will clear the way for Sir John Chilcot’s Iraq Inquiry to publish its long-awaited report into Britain’s involvement in the conflict.

There had been fears that Mr Blair and the US authorities would block the release of the confidential papers, which are said to provide an intimate picture of how decisions were made in the lead-up to war.

On Sunday, a government source said that “good progress” had been made towards declassifying many of the records. “The intention is to be as open as possible,” they said. “There is an ongoing process of declassification, which is attempting to strike a careful balance to ensure that you are not setting a legal precedent that could oblige you to publish other documents in the future or damage national security.”

The process is being led by the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood, and is expected to be completed “within the next few months”. David Cameron, Nick Clegg and other senior ministers do not know what the documents contain because they refer to discussions that took place under the previous government. A final decision on what to release will be made by Sir Jeremy.

Once declassified, the documents will be passed to Sir John, who heads the Iraq Inquiry. He has already had access to the material but wants to be able to refer to it in his final report.

Although no final decision has been made, the documents are likely to be made available to the public, either by the Government or on the Iraq Inquiry website. “There are likely to be some redactions – but only where absolutely necessary,” the government source said.

Publication of the documents will allow the Iraq Inquiry to complete its final task of contacting those people who are due to be criticised and allow them to put forward a defence. That process could take several months, but it is now possible that the inquiry could report by the end of 2014 – five years after it was set up by Mr Brown.

A Cabinet Office spokeswoman said last night: “The Government is currently engaged in discussions with the [Iraq] inquiry which the inquiry recognises raises difficult issues, including legal and international relations issues.

“As the exchange of letters between government and the inquiry shows, these issues are being worked through in good faith and with a view to reaching a position as rapidly as possible. The inquiry should be allowed to publish its findings and we should not pre-empt the content of the report.”

29 Dec

Sabrina

31st December 2013, 09:16

Occupy Love
Tomorrow...Before the ball drops...

Tuesday, December 31, 2013

New York Stock Exchange 9:00 am - 5:00 pm
This day will mark one of many to say NO to oppression and to say a resounding NO to conformity and assimilation to a system that enriches the few by impoverishing the many.

Say YES to free artistic expression
toward liberation....LOVE HAS NO BORDERS

We dedicate December 31st from 3pm - 5pm
to Pussy Riot who show us courage and resilience,
to the revolutionary human spirit in the face of inequality, exploitation and injustice... to all who will not be silent.

Come out, come out, wherever you are...
https://www.facebook.com/events/186312914909745/

Sabrina

1st January 2014, 08:41

http://order-order.com/2013/12/31/review-of-2013-a-very-bad-year-for-mps-in-guidos-crosshairs/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+guidofawkes+%28Guy+Fawkes%27+blog+of+parliamentary+plots%2C+rumours+and+conspir acy%29&utm_content=FeedBurner+user+view

31 Dec from Guido Fawkes' political blog - UK

Review of 2013: A Very Bad Year for MPs in Guido’s Crosshairs

It was a very bad year for the lying, cheating, criminal politicians that found themselves in the crosshairs of this blog. Guido was in court to see Chris Huhne sentenced to eight months for perverting the course of justice. You can enjoy it all over again by watching our Guy News specials recapping how Huhne lied and lied and lied again, a musical tribute to him “going down”, and 14 lies in 60 seconds. For the full story of how Guido hunted Huhne, from the day he walked out on his family and went to the gym having just told his wife he was leaving her for another woman, to his guilty plea, resignation and prison sentence, click here. http://order-order.com/2013/02/04/how-we-hunted-huhne/

paoIa39IJrk

Santa delivered an early Christmas present by jailing expenses fraudster Denis MacShane for six months. During sentencing the judge said MacShane’s £13,000 expense fiddling constituted “considerable and repeated dishonesty”. The true figure is in the hundreds of thousands. You can read how Guido has pursued MacShane down the years, including reporting him to the police when new evidence of his criminality arose, here. http://order-order.com/tag/macshame/

It didn’t end in court. Patrick Mercer was forced to stand down at the next election after being disgraced in a cash-for-questions sting. Guido has always know Mercer was a wrong’un, so it was no surprise to hear the bent MP’s fear of this blog revealed in his own words. Another sleazy Tory, conflicted Tim Yeo, escaped the same punishment after being exposed in a sting of his own, though he wasn’t so lucky with his local party who decided to give him the boot. Stay tuned as Yeo tries to fight for his political life in the New Year.

bSsJIy3FrEc

Guido has been on the case of randy Lord Rennard, the hands-on LibDem peer known as the ‘Door Locker’, for years before 2013 brought about his demise. Nick Clegg, Danny Alexander and Jo Swinson were slammed in a damning report on Rennard’s sexual harassment and the LibDems’ lies were finally revealed. Read Rennard’s sex pest history in full here.
http://order-order.com/2013/02/22/flashback-randy-rennards-sex-pest-history/

Finally, spare a mention for Mike Hancock. Forced to resign the LibDem whip as he is privately prosecuted for sexual harassing a disabled female constituent. The leaks from the unpublished independent report into his behaviour are damning.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/dec/23/mike-hancock-sexual-harassment-allegations

2013 has seen MPs targeted by Guido for their various financial, sexual or criminal misdeeds drop like flies. Roll on 2014…

Sabrina

1st January 2014, 08:54

Here's a post from energy intuitive Dana Mrkich, I've posted in the spiritual section - Goodbye 2013 and Hello 2014. Also sums things up on our quest for the uncovering of untruths and corruption, and the move to a new world. Let's remember 2013 was a gruelling (for many) but unprecedented year in uncovering so many things. And it's going to continue at the speed of light.. or love (which is apparently faster)… :)

http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?66992-Goodbye-2013-Hello-2014-Dana-Mrkich&p=779011#post779011

Sabrina

1st January 2014, 09:00

http://beforeitsnews.com/politics/2013/12/benjamin-fulford-december-31-2013-for-the-zionists-2013-was-like-1944-was-to-the-nazis-2584014.html

Benjamin Fulford's 31 Dec post with his take on the many resignations over the year (with thanks to PathWalker who has Benjy thread on this).

Corncrake

1st January 2014, 10:36

As 2014 begins it seems an appropriate time to thank you again, Sabrina, for all your hard work keeping this important thread alive and flourishing!

PathWalker

7th January 2014, 18:51

It’s the fall of 2016 in Washington...
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/were-at-the-mercy-of-jp-morgan-2014-01-07

A group of regulators has hastily gathered at the Treasury Department’s iconic building on Pennsylvania Avenue. The biggest bank in the financial system is in trouble. Loans made during what was thought to be a recovery are defaulting at a rate not seen since 2008. Meanwhile, a trading debacle in Asia has cost the bank billions in losses. Counterparty lenders have either cut off or sharply curtailed the bank’s credit in the markets.

But J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. isn’t the only problem. Citigroup Inc. , Bank of America Corp. and UBS AG have been left in a lurch. Confidence in them is waning. Insurers providing guarantees on J.P. Morgan’s debt are panicked too. The credit markets are seizing up. Companies can’t borrow to meet short-term needs. Some are in danger of not having enough cash to meet payroll.

The market is falling. Fast.

Jacob Lew, the Treasury Secretary, sits at the end of a long conference table. He removes his glasses. The super committee he’s called together is supposed to unwind a failing institution. But J.P. Morgan is so big, so entangled in the financial system, any wind down could be catastrophic, he says. J.P. Morgan Chase’s so-called “ living will ” is useless. It was created by lawyers, not managers. And it assumed relative calm in the markets.

It’s now clear that J.P. Morgan is the market — and not a very stable one.

Time is running out. It’s an election year. Uncertainty is in the air. There is only one real choice. Lew calls Janet Yellen, chairman of the Federal Reserve, and speaks gravely.

“Janet, we need to make preparations for a bailout,” Lew says.

If this little allegory sounds far fetched, consider what’s happened since 2008. J.P. Morgan, with $2 trillion in assets, has become the nation’s biggest bank. It now controls 13.6% of the banking assets in the U.S. market. That’s triple the amount J.P. Morgan and its legacy banks controlled in 1990, according to new data released by SNL Financial.

Moreover, J.P. Morgan is the biggest of what has become an elite tier of mega banks. It’s just one of five — Citi, B. of. A, Wells Fargo & Co. and U.S. Bancorp — that together now control 44% of the nation’s banking assets. Their combined share has climbed 30% in the last decade as assets have soared to $6.46 trillion from $2.2 trillion.

So size and importance to the financial system isn’t really in question. But what about the events that led to our imagined crisis?

Consider bad loans. J.P. Morgan isn’t making them anymore, right? Well, who really knows? Of the roughly $70 trillion in A-rated collateralized debt obligations underwritten in 2006 and 2007, more than half were downgraded to junk status by 2009. J.P. Morgan wrote down $5.5 billion in assets on its books, and has absorbed more than $20 billion in settlement costs for missteps during the mortgage boom, including faulty debt products it sold to investors.

This isn’t to say J.P. Morgan is doing the same work it did in the run up to the crisis, but it is to say we just don’t know for sure how, when, where or why a panic in a bank begins.

Another explosive risk that’s unpredictable: trading debacles. Consider J.P. Morgan’s own “London whale” scandal. An escalating bet on corporate debt in Europe turned into billions of losses in 2012. It was overlooked, then underestimated by senior officials at the bank for months. J.P. Morgan has argued that the “whale” debacle was the result of ground-level mistakes in its London office and a lack of controls. Critics say senior officials ignored the steepening losses.

Either way, the bank posted nearly $8 billion in losses from the trades and fines. It also took a crippling hit to its confidence.

J.P. Morgan, of course, survived the London whale and the financial crisis because it was the biggest bank on the block. Its balance sheet and diversification allowed it to absorb the London whale losses. Its sheer size and relative health to the industry gave it special status with a government seeking a financial stalwart to rescue failing rivals (Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual).

But what if the institution itself was hit with the perfect storm? Today J.P. Morgan has never been bigger or more integral to the marketplace. Too big to fail? J.P. Morgan is beyond that. If it fails, we do.

This article is from the in your face MSM, it is in the open. Someone, somewhere is preparing us for the coming restructure.

I like this laundered politically correct term "restructure". Let them eat some of their food.

Carmody

7th January 2014, 19:13

All this sort of stuff is the downfall of the fascists in the backdrop that did things like try and kill Africa into being subjugated, so it could be plundered.

China has and enacts a totally different method of working in Africa. And that method ... is a solid part of their history. A critical point.

They share the situation, by building infrastructure and making INTEREST FREE LOANS to African nations. They work to raise up the nations. This is their current set of acts and actions in Africa and their history in Africa.

Instead of working directly as lying, killing, destroying, entrapping and subjugating.... which has been the IMF, world bank, and hidden western corporate elite method, for probably at the least, the last 2,000 years.

Here is another aspect of how this is going down, right now. how this is taking place. Why you are seeing the corruption being exposed and the western method that the western public has never seen or recognized being done in their name..., how that game and card they play, is being brought out into the light.

Part of the other end of the lever which is tipping the western fascists into the dump:

http://www.e-catworld.com/2014/01/solved-the-company-that-owns-the-e-cat-guest-post/

By putting together several pieces of information that were publicly available on the internet, the identity of the company that owns the E-Cat has been determined: Cherokee Investment Partners LLC. This company created Industrial Heat LLC, funded it with approximately eleven million dollars, acquired the rights to the E-Cat technology, and appointed Andrea Rossi as Chief Scientist.

This ends the mystery about who owns the E-Cat technology, and it also gives us additional information. First, it tells us Andrea Rossi now works for a company that has access to the necessary capital to adequately fund the commercialization of the technology. Secondly, it lets us know that he works for a company with enough experience, funding, and connections to provide top notch scientists and engineers to fully develop the technology. Third, it makes us aware of the Chinese involvement. With the significant connections between Cherokee and China, the E-Cat will have access to an enormous market where an alternative source of clean energy is desperately needed.

I think the Chinese connection may be the most significant aspect of this revelation. Currently, China is suffering from horrible pollution problems due largely to countless coal burning power plants. The construction of these plants are continuing, and their emissions are having an impact on the entire world. If E-Cat technology is adopted and allowed to proliferate in China, it could solve many of the environmental and economic challenges the nation is facing. A source of pollution free, dirt cheap, and safe energy would be very useful to a nation with over a billion citizens

Actually, it may be more likely for the technology to be quickly adopted in China than the United States. This is because, possibly, there may be fewer regulatory restrictions and laws created to hinder the adoption of the technology. In the United States, there is a stigma attached to anything that claims to be “nuclear.” It’s possible that due to the sue-happy, ultra litigious culture of the USA, many groups may try to prevent the technology from being commercialized by urging the government to strictly regulate it in the name of safety. Of course this will be ridiculous, because nickel hydrogen fusion is inherently safe (no nuclear fuel, no nuclear waste, no radiation escaping the reactor, no potential for weaponization, and no conventional melt down possible), but overly cautious individuals and organizations will probably try to claim the technology is dangerous.

~~~~~~~~~

This is ONE single 'over unity' technology which is being introduced, out of a near few hundred variants based on the same principles of discovered physics. Physics that the western fascists have decided long ago must be held from YOU... so they can elevate themselves, and move into space, while leaving you in a pile of ignorant dirt. at the same time they enact and carry out plans to destroy your genetics and life, with environmental destruction and toxic chemicals in the food, so you become a retarded turnip, and never know what happened.

to quote Ben Rich, of the 'Lockheed Martin Skunkworks' program, the head of the deepest most secretive black ops high technology programs in the USA and the west(in some ways). (This is a REAL quote folks, 110% real, ok?):

“We already have the means to travel among the stars, but these technologies are locked up in black projects and it would take an act of God to ever get them out to benefit humanity….. anything you can imagine... we already know how to do.” - Ben Rich, former Head of the Lockheed Skunk Works

More Ben Rich Quotes:

"The U. S. Air Force has just given us a contract to take E. T. back home."

"We also know how to travel to the stars."

"Anything you can imagine we already know how to do."

"If you've seen it in Star Trek or Star Wars, we've been there and done that."

"We have things in the Nevada desert that are alien to your way of thinking
far beyond anything you see on Star Trek."

~~~~~~~~~

Some say this hiding was done, in order to bluff any less than benevolent ETs from knowing the hands that 'humans' held.

There is a problem with that. That if it was hidden, and real...that it did not have to be so NASTY. Absolutely no point whatsoever for being so vicious and inhuman.

One cannot even remotely claim any high ground in any form of analysis, if they showed in the history of the endeavor, to have had no high ground whatsoever.

Where allowance was made in their 'hidden systems' for the kind of people who would slit your throat and sell your children into prostitution,and take glee and thrills in doing so and building entire underground cults and systems of hidden governmental controls, at the same time this other agenda is flowing and existing.

Thus, at the very least....this is about accountability and culpability in things that did not have to be allowed, things that should have been handled better and curtailed.

And there is going to be something akin to a hell to pay for that. No patriotism, no getting along to move things along, not one whit of that kind of story or held mindset....holds any form of water.

KiwiElf

8th January 2014, 06:01

Princess Cristina of Spain summoned to court over tax fraud claims

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/princess-christina-of-spain-summoned-to-court-as-fraud-suspect-in-latest-royal-scandal-9043885.html

Further blow to monarchy as the daughter of King Juan Carlos gets court summons over alleged money laundering by husband
Alasdair Fotheringham

Madrid
Tuesday 07 January 2014

Princess Cristina, daughter of King Juan Carlos of Spain, has been formally declared a suspect in a fraud and money-laundering case that has brought scandal to an already embattled Spanish monarchy.

When she is questioned in court in two months’ time, Cristina will become the first direct relative of the King to appear in court since democracy was restored in Spain in the mid-1970s.

But more than that, the case is the latest in a series of damaging headlines that have plunged the Spanish monarchy into crisis and seen public support for the institution drop to its lowest in decades, leading many to question whether it can survive at all.

Cristina, 48, will appear in court on 8 March, to answer allegations that Iñaki Urdangarin, her husband, the Duke of Palma de Mallorca, embezzled millions of euros of public money. She had already been named a suspect in the same case in April last year.

But preliminary charges were dropped after a senior judge – with the support of Spain’s anti-corruption authorities and a regional court in Mallorca, where the case is taking place – ruled there was insufficient evidence to implicate her.

In Spain’s legal system, being named as a suspect does not in fact mean that actual charges will ever be placed against Cristina, only that some evidence in a case may raise suspicion.

But her forthcoming court appearance, and the damage caused by the four-year-old case, meanwhile, continue to tarnish the monarchy’s prestige.

Since 2010 the Duke, a former Olympic handball player, and his one-time business partner Diego Torres have been investigated over allegations of using a not-for-profit foundation, Noos, to syphon off more than €6m of public money from local government contracts for sports and tourism events – with no official bids – in Valencia and the Balearic Islands.

The money was channelled both to offshore bank accounts and Mr Urdangarin’s own companies between 2004 and 2006.

Tax authorities have brought no charges against the Princess in relation to the investigation, and Spain’s anti-corruption authorities have failed to find evidence against her. And whilst the prosecutor in the case, Pedro Horrach, has asked for a 12-year sentence for Mr Urdangarin, he has maintained the Princess is in the clear.

However, Princess Cristina was a board member of Noos and the co-owner of one company, Aizoon, which is suspected of being used as a front by Mr Urdangarin for money laundering. And now Jose Castro, the judge in charge of the Noos case, believes his nine-month investigation into Cristina’s financial records from the period – which has raked over emails, bank accounts, credit cards and property and tax filings, it is said, in minute detail – has rendered a court appearance by the King’s second daughter necessary.

“We are absolutely convinced of her innocence,” Miquel Roca Junyent, one of her lawyers, told Europa Press news agency, whilst admitting that Mr Castro’s investigation was much more detailed than that which preceded Cristina’s summons in April last year.

The legal request that the Princess, seventh in line to the throne, testify before a judge was lodged in December by a far-right association, Manos Limpias [Clean Hands]. It has a long-standing reputation for legal sniping at establishment personalities, such as the crusading judge Baltasar Garzon, who ordered General Pinochet’s arrest in London in 1998.

This development is the latest in a steady drip-feed of lurid newspaper headlines about the Noos and Aizoon cases since 2010, which has severely tarnished the previously squeaky-clean image of Spain’s royal family and will render a decline in the monarchy’s popularity hard to reverse.

The prolonged royal crisis has reached the point where Rafael Spottorno, the royal household’s spokesman, recently described the last three years of pre-trial investigation into the Urdangarin case as “a martyrdom”.

Suspending Urdangarin from all royalty-related duties and removing his profile from the royal website (as well as his possibly coincidental disappearance from the royal tableau in Madrid’s biggest waxworks museum) did little to slow the downward trend.

That the monarchy’s entanglement in the Noos case has such a power to shock Spanish society is testament to the fact that, for all his playboy reputation, Juan Carlos had long stood above any mudslinging.

That was largely because the Spanish monarch garnered a huge amount of personal respect both for his role in establishing democracy after the death of General Franco in 1975, and for its defence during an attempted coup in 1981.

However, a controversial de luxe hunting trip in the middle of the recession in 2012 – for which he later apologised – went down like a lead balloon amongst cash-strapped Spaniards and suddenly sent the King’s popularity into decline.

An opinion poll published on Sunday suggested that nearly two-thirds of Spaniards wanted the 76-year-old to abdicate, up from 45 per cent in 2013.

On Monday, when the frail-looking King, still on crutches and recovering from his latest hip operation, made a poor delivery of his speech at a Christmas holiday celebration, it did little to restore confidence.

The royal household claimed that a lack of light for the stand used for holding papers during his speech had caused the monarch to hesitate. It responded in a similarly low-key fashion to the court’s decision regarding Cristina by saying it had “maximum respect for judicial decisions”.

That insistence on a sense of “normality”, though, gives the impression the royal family are burying their heads in the sand.

But even if the booing and hissing when members of the royal family make public appearances, and calls for the King’s abdication, have now become frequent enough to cease to be newsworthy, Juan Carlos seems to have no plans to step down.

“I want to express to you, as King of Spain, my determination to continue the faithful fulfilment of the mandate and the powers attributed to me,” the King said in his Christmas Eve address.

The news from a courtroom in Mallorca, however, puts an end to the impression that it is business as usual. The “martyrdom” of Spain’s monarchy may be far from over.

KiwiElf

8th January 2014, 22:59

JP Morgan to pay $2.6 bn for role in Madoff Ponzi fraud
Agence-France PresseBy by John Biers | Agence-France Presse – 14 hours ago

http://nz.finance.yahoo.com/news/jpmorgan-pay-1-7-bn-144627107--spt.html

JPMorgan Chase will pay $2.6 billion to resolve charges that its lax oversight enabled the multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme of Bernard Madoff, which collapsed spectacularly in 2008.

The amount, part of a US settlement deal over criminal charges, comprises $2.24 billion destined for victims of the Madoff scam and another $350 million in penalties to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

The $2.24 billion includes a $1.7 billion settlement to be paid to victims through the Justice Department, the largest penalty ever for a violation of the Bank Secrecy Act.

In addition, $543 million will be paid to the trustee seeking to recover $17.5 billion in principal that Madoff Securities clients lost in the scam. So far the trustee has recovered about $9.8 billion, including the JPMorgan payment.

The cases spotlighted JPMorgan's role as Madoff's main bank in the largest financial fraud to rock Wall Street.

Over more than two decades, some 4,000 clients entrusted Madoff with billions of dollars to manage. Instead of investing the money, he moved it in and out of the JPMorgan accounts, and reported to his clients huge, ultimately illusory gains.

Bank staff harbored suspicions of Madoff's activities dating back to at least 1994, yet never alerted JPMorgan anti-money laundering staff or regulators about their concerns.

"For decades, Bernie Madoff was able to launder billions of Ponzi proceeds essentially through a single set of accounts at JPMorgan," said US Attorney Preet Bharara. "The bank repeatedly ignored warning signs."

Once a prominent Wall Street broker and chairman of the Nasdaq exchange, Madoff was arrested in December 2008 for fabricating account statements for tens of billions of dollars he managed.

His firm, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, collapsed with just $300 million in assets, after having reported $65 billion. The savings of many investors, foundations and families were wiped out in the collapse, and efforts continue to claw them back.

After admitting that his firm was a Ponzi scheme, Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison.

Justice authorities said that Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities used JPMorgan "almost exclusively" as its banker for more than 20 years.

During that time it ignored numerous red flags over his activities.

In 2007, the bank's chief investment officer wrote that another bank executive said there was "a well-known cloud" over Madoff's head and that his returns aroused suspicions of a Ponzi scheme.

In another instance, a JPMorgan senior investment officer was asked by a client to query Madoff on how he generated consistently high returns despite a volatile market.

The JPMorgan officer concluded Madoff might have been "smoothing out the returns" by sharing trading profits from other Madoff accounts.

Yet, JPMorgan never filed a "suspicious activity report" with the US Treasury, nor did it alert senior bank compliance staff to the problems, the US said.

In their deferred prosecution agreement with bank, the authorities said they will dismiss the criminal charges after two years if the bank complies with the provisions of the deal: paying the penalties, reforming its anti-money laundering policies, cooperating with ongoing investigations and reporting any wrongdoing by JPMorgan or its employees.

Bharara was asked during a news conference whether such a deal was a less effective deterrent against wrongdoing than seeking to convict the largest US bank.

"You take into consideration all factors," Bharara said, adding that there are "collateral consequences" to pursuing a criminal case against a big financial institution and employer.

A JPMorgan statement characterized the Madoff scheme as "an unprecedented and widespread fraud that deceived thousands, including us."

"We recognize we could have done a better job pulling together various pieces of information and concerns about Madoff from different parts of the bank over time," the bank said.

"We do not believe that any JPMorgan Chase employee knowingly assisted Madoff?s Ponzi scheme."

Tuesday's penalty comes on the heels of other recent major settlements involving JPMorgan, including a $13 billion settlement for misleading investors in the sale of high-risk mortgage securities and more than $1 billion to settle charges it failed to detect and prevent billions of dollars of losses in a fraudulent trading scheme.

JPMorgan shares fell 1.2 percent on a day in which most of its fellow components of the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose.

Sabrina

11th January 2014, 19:33

Halffull has started a thread on the first story.. folks as we enter 2014, more signs of the shift to the truth… and the Mark Dugan story in the UK is also stirring this up.. am prompted to think:

LNGEsU-BbHc

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/the-corruption-of-britain-uks-key-institutions-infiltrated-by-criminals-9052617.html

10 Jan UK

The corruption of Britain: UK’s key institutions infiltrated by criminals

The entire criminal justice system was infiltrated by organised crime gangs, according to a secret Scotland Yard report leaked to The Independent.

In 2003 Operation Tiberius found that men suspected of being Britain’s most notorious criminals had compromised multiple agencies, including HM Revenue & Customs, the Crown Prosecution Service, the City of London Police and the Prison Service, as well as pillars of the criminal justice system including juries and the legal profession.

The strategic intelligence scoping exercise – “ratified by the most senior management” at the Met – uncovered jurors being bought off or threatened to return not-guilty verdicts; corrupt individuals working for HMRC, both in the UK and overseas; and “get out of jail free cards” being bought for £50,000.

The report states that the infiltration made it almost impossible for police and prosecutors to successfully pursue the organised gangs that police suspected controlled much of the criminal underworld.

The author of Tiberius, which was compiled from intelligence sources including covert police informants, live telephone intercepts, briefings from the security services and thousands of historical files, came to the desperate conclusion: “Quite how much more damage could be done is difficult to imagine.”

The fresh revelations come a day after The Independent revealed that Tiberius had concluded the Metropolitan Police suffered “endemic police corruption” at the time, and that some of Britain’s most dangerous organised crime syndicates were able to infiltrate New Scotland Yard “at will”.

In its conclusions, the report stated: “The true assessment of the damage caused by these corrupt networks is impossible to make at this stage, until further proactive scoping has been undertaken.

“However a statement by an experienced SIO [senior investigating officer] currently attached to SO 1(3) gives some indication of the depth of the problem in east and north-east London: ‘I feel that at the current time I cannot carry out an ethical murder investigation without the fear of it being compromised.’

“The ramifications of this statement are serious and disturbing and provide a snapshot of the current threat to the criminal justice system. Additionally the fact that none of these syndicates have been seriously disrupted over the last five years provides an insight into the effectiveness of their networks.”

In one case identified by Tiberius, a leading criminal was acquitted of importing cannabis after he allegedly “bought” members of the jury hearing his case. A named police officer “was involved in some way or another”, according to the report.

Tiberius also revealed the Met was concerned at the time with a national newspaper story on the ability of the Adams family to escape the law by penetrating the criminal justice system.

In 1998, police appeared to have finally made a breakthrough when Tommy Adams was jailed for more than seven years for importing cannabis.

However, the article cited by Tiberius stated that the “only reason the Adams family had allowed the prosecution to succeed and had not resorted to bribery or intimidation to thwart it, was because the other brothers wanted to teach Tommy a lesson for getting involved in crimes they had not authorised”.

The article concluded: “Witnesses terrified into silence, dodgy jurors, bent lawyers, bent policemen and bent CPS clerks – all are part of the same cancer eating away at justice. A cure for the malady will not be easy to come by. Perhaps we should begin by acknowledging that the patient is sick.”

Tiberius disclosed that the Met interviewed the journalist who wrote the story after the murder of Solly Nahome, a Jewish money launderer credited as the “brains” behind the Adams’ criminal empire. The reporter stated one of her journalistic sources on the family was a corrupt police officer but did not disclose who it was.

Another case of corruption beyond the Met, identified by Tiberius, included intelligence of alleged foul play within HMRC, which is supposed to lead the UK’s fight against white-collar crime such as money laundering.

In 2000, according to Tiberius, a key police informant was secretly helping Scotland Yard with an investigation into the importation of £10m of heroin by a Turkish gang in north London.

The deal went wrong, the informant was tortured in a cellar and “an attempt was made to sever his fingers with a pair of garden shears”. His associate was also attacked and had “three fingers chopped off with a machete”.

The henchman Tiberius alleged had committed the assaults was the son of a named Met detective, who repeatedly tried to impede police inquiries into the case, according to Tiberius. He also had a corrupt relationship with a named detective sergeant then based in Marylebone police station who is suspected to have “organised cheque frauds”. Research conducted by The Independent suggests that none of the three men has ever been prosecuted.

The Turkish drug dealer was later convicted and told police he was an HMRC informant. He said he knew of “corrupt contacts within the police” and had a Cyprus-based customs officer as a handler who “took money off him”.

Alastair Morgan, whose brother Daniel was murdered in 1987 before he could expose links between Met officers and organised crime, told The Independent: “Despite all the protestations by police that things have changed since the ‘bad old days’, this doesn’t surprise me in the slightest.

“The police have no desire to tackle this. It would be too damaging to have it all aired in open court. The Met is a highly political organisation.”

Scotland Yard said: “[We] will not tolerate any behaviour by our officers and staff which could damage the trust placed in police by the public. We are determined to pursue corruption in all its forms and with all possible vigour. All such allegations and intelligence are taken extremely seriously.”

and

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25682652

'Plebgate' affair: Met PC admits misconduct

A Met policeman has admitted misconduct in public office over the "plebgate" affair and is to offer to resign.

PC Keith Wallis, 53, admitted falsely claiming to have witnessed a row between then-cabinet minister Andrew Mitchell and police in September 2012.

He has been bailed for sentencing on 6 February pending psychiatric reports.

Met Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe apologised to Mr Mitchell, who said he was pleased "justice had been done" but that unanswered questions remained.

Prime Minister David Cameron welcomed the guilty plea but said it was "completely unacceptable for a serving police officer to falsify an account of any incident".

And the longer it has gone on, the more it has damaged public confidence in the police, as the Met's commissioner has conceded today.

More than half a dozen other Met officers face some form of disciplinary action or rap over the knuckles for their conduct. Three more officers from other forces are also being investigated by the police watchdog.

None of them is PC Toby Rowland, the man at the heart of the incident at No 10's gate.

He faces no disciplinary or criminal action and stands by his account. What's more, he is suing the MP for libel. Meanwhile, Mr Mitchell says he is suing the Sun newspaper. This is by no means over.

'Clearly lied'
What came to be labelled by the media as "plebgate" occurred when Mr Mitchell was stopped from cycling through Downing Street's main gates by another police officer, Toby Rowland.

Mr Mitchell has admitted swearing during the incident but has denied claims that he swore directly at police or used the word "pleb".

In the aftermath, PC Wallis sent an email to his local MP John Randall, then-Conservative deputy chief whip, wrongly stating he had witnessed the row.

At the Old Bailey on Friday, PC Wallis spoke only to confirm his name and that he understood the charges before he pleaded guilty.

The court was told the diplomatic protection group officer had admitted his guilt in a police interview before pleading guilty at the earliest opportunity.

In a statement, Sir Bernard said the evidence against the officer had led to his guilty plea.

CCTV of Andrew Mitchell at Downing Street gate with bike
PC Wallis's actions had damaged public trust and confidence in the police and in the integrity of his officers, Sir Bernard added.

"I would also like to apologise to Mr Mitchell that an MPS [Metropolitan Police Service] officer clearly lied about seeing him behaving in a certain manner," the commissioner said.

"I will be writing to him offering to meet and apologise in person.

"I expect my officers to serve the public without fear or favour, where officers break the law they must expect to be held to account and answer for what they have done."

PC Wallis's lawyer said he would offer his resignation from the Met later on Friday.

Further misconduct charges

Sir Richard Ottaway MP and friend of Mr Mitchell: "It brings the whole Met into disrepute"
Mr Mitchell - Conservative MP for Sutton Coldfield - said in a statement: "I am pleased that justice has been done in a criminal court today.

"It is very sad and worrying for all of us that a serving police officer should have behaved in this way.

"There remain many questions unanswered, in particular why PC Wallis wrote this email and who else was involved in this process."

He added that he was "looking forward to seeing justice done" in the other outstanding related disciplinary cases.

Mr Mitchell is being sued for libel by PC Rowland over comments he made following the incident.

19 September 2012 Andrew Mitchell and police row after he tries to cycle through Downing Street's main gate
20 September 2012 The Sun reports Mr Mitchell swore at officers and called them "plebs" who should learn their place
21 September 2012 Mr Mitchell denies using the word "plebs" but apologises for being disrespectful
19 October 2012 Mr Mitchell resigns as chief whip after weeks of damaging publicity
18 December 2012 CCTV footage, broadcast on Channel 4 News, casts doubt on the police officers' version of events
19 December 2012 Scotland Yard launches an investigation into claims an officer gave false evidence. In the ensuing months eight people are arrested
26 November 2013 PC Wallis is charged with misconduct in public office while, separately, five others from the Met face disciplinary action
4 December 2013 The police officer who had been on duty at the Downing St gates, PC Toby Rowland, says he will sue Mr Mitchell over his comments in the wake of the incident
10 January 2014 PC Wallis admits misconduct and says he will offer his resignation
It added: "Another two officers will be subject to local misconduct in relation to providing inaccurate statements or inappropriate comments and a seventh officer has been recommended for management action in relation to inappropriate comments.

"These processes are currently under way."

Adjourning PC Wallis's case until February, Mr Justice Sweeney said all sentencing options remained open.

The officer remains suspended and - while his lawyer says he will offer his resignation - it is understood that he would need permission from his superiors to do so.

Steve Williams, chairman of the Police Federation, which represents rank-and-file police officers in England and Wales, said: "Despite the high-profile nature of the case and the officer's regrettable actions, one officer admitting one offence should not be allowed to undermine public confidence in the police service."

The "vast majority" of officers conducted themselves "with the utmost integrity and professionalism at all times, often risking their own safety in the interests of the general public and the communities they serve," he added.

Elsewhere, Keith Vaz, who chairs the Home Affairs Select Committee, said the guilty plea appeared to be "a complete vindication" of Mr Mitchell.

"Now is the time to turn the page on this whole unfortunate incident, which took only 45 seconds but has cost the taxpayer hundreds of thousands of pounds, Mr Mitchell his job and damaged the reputation of the police," he said.

For Labour, shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said policing reform was needed.

and

http://www.exaronews.com/articles/5176/met-commissioner-sir-bernard-hogan-howe-offers-to-resign

can't cut and paste so you'll have to look at link, but all sorts of rumours about the London Met Commissioner and how he might offer his resignation… or not.. hmmm…..

Sabrina

11th January 2014, 19:38

More institutions start to crumble…

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/police-did-alter-crime-figures-admits-met-chief-sir-bernard-hoganhowe-9046268.html

10 Jan UK

Police did alter crime figures, admits Met chief Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe

A whistleblower’s claims that the Met manipulated crime figures to meet its performance targets are at least partially true, Scotland Yard chief admitted today.

Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe told MPs that the preliminary results of an internal inquiry had already indicated that some of the allegations by Met Pc James Patrick that crimes such as burglary and rape had been wrongly downgraded or written off were accurate.

Sir Bernard’s admission came during a tense appearance in front of the Commons Public Administration Committee during which he also admitted to inadvertently misquoting a report he had written himself.

Today’s hearing was called in response to earlier testimony to the MPs from Pc Patrick in which he alleged that sexual offences had been understated in official figures by up to 25 per cent and that there had been similar mis-recording of burglary and other crimes.

The constable, who is currently facing disciplinary hearing, said that the figures were being fixed to meet a crime reduction target of 20 per cent set by the London deputy mayor and added that he had come to MPs after being blocked from speaking out by the Met.

Sir Bernard said the allegations were a matter of serious concern and that an inquiry was still continuing.

Early findings had suggested that some of Pc Patrick’s claims were inaccurate, but that the remainder of his allegations had some vailidity.

“I think on the whole there is a truth there that we need to hear,” Sir Bernard told the committee.

The Commissioner said the Met had yet to speak directly to Pc Patrick, partly because of his pending misconduct hearing, and that its inquiry was likely to take three to six months before reaching final conclusions.

He said suggested that the complexity of crime recording rules and problems with technology were partly to blame for flaws in crime figure data, but insisted that he was determined to ensure the integrity of crime figures.

He added that HM Inspectorate of Constabulary would begin a separate independent probe next month in a further attempt to establish the facts.

Sir Bernard also faced embarrassment when he was forced to admit that, during a previous appearance before MPS, he had cited a report that he had written in 2011 while working in the police inspectorate as evidence in support of the force’s crime recording methods.

In fact, the report said there was “some cause for concern”. Sir Bernard said he had forgotten that he had written the report and had quoted from the executive summary, which was broadly favourable, without reminded himself of the full text when he made the evidence.

Committee chairman Bernard Jenkin told the Commissioner that every officer he had spoken to believed that crime figure manipulation occurred.

and

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25679009

10 Jan UK

'Plebgate' officer plea: 'A black day for the Met Police'

An admission of misconduct in public office by a Met policeman over the Andrew Mitchell 'plebgate' affair marks a "black day" for the force, a Conservative MP has said.

Sir Richard Ottoway, MP for Croyden South and a friend of Mr Mitchell's, said the incident brought "the whole Met into disrepute".

Sir Richard added that he hoped Mr Mitchell - who resigned in the wake of the row - would be able to return to the Cabinet in the future.

Sabrina

12th January 2014, 07:57

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/exclusive-dossier-on-abuse-by-uk-forces-in-iraq-goes-to-icc-9053735.html

12 Jan

Exclusive: Dossier on 'abuse' by UK forces in Iraq goes to ICC

A devastating 250-page dossier, detailing allegations of beatings, electrocution, mock executions and sexual assault, has been presented to the International Criminal Court, and could result in some of Britain's leading defence figures facing prosecution for "systematic" war crimes.

General Sir Peter Wall, the head of the British Army; former defence secretary Geoff Hoon; and former defence minister Adam Ingram are among those named in the report, entitled "The Responsibility of UK Officials for War Crimes Involving Systematic Detainee Abuse in Iraq from 2003-2008".

The damning dossier draws on cases of more than 400 Iraqis, representing "thousands of allegations of mistreatment amounting to war crimes of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment".

They range from "hooding" prisoners to burning, electric shocks, threats to kill and "cultural and religious humiliation". Other forms of alleged abuse include sexual assault, mock executions, threats of rape, death, and torture.

The formal complaint to the ICC, lodged yesterday, is the cumulation of several years' work by Public Interest Lawyers (PIL) and the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR). It calls for an investigation into the alleged war crimes, under Article 15 of the Rome Statute.

The dossier, seen by The Independent on Sunday, is the most detailed ever submitted to the ICC's Office of the Prosecutor on war crimes allegedly committed by British forces in Iraq. The court has already acknowledged that there was little doubt that war crimes were committed. In 2006, it concluded: "There was a reasonable basis to believe that crimes within the jurisdiction of the court had been committed, namely wilful killing and inhuman treatment." At that time, prosecutors cited the low number of cases – fewer than 20 – as a reason for not mounting an investigation. But, since then, hundreds of other claims have come to light – prompting consideration of the complaint now. It is the start of a process which could result in British politicians and generals being put in the dock on war-crimes charges.

The sheer scale and seriousness of the allegations passes the "gravity" threshold to justify an investigation, according to the complaint. It continues "those who bear the greatest responsibility" for alleged war crimes "include individuals at the highest levels" of the British Army and political system. It concludes the evidence "justifies further investigation" into the criminal responsibility "of senior individuals within the UK military and government". It adds British military commanders "knew or should have known" that forces under their control "were committing or about to commit war crimes". And "civilian superiors knew or consciously disregarded information at their disposal, which clearly indicated that UK services personnel were committing war crimes in Iraq".

The complaint argues that "the pattern of abusive treatment by UK services personnel in Iraq continued over almost six years of military operations".

A number of top British officials face serious scrutiny, according to Phil Shiner (inset, left) of PIL. He said: "I think we easily meet the threshold for these issues to be looked at, I would be gobsmacked and bitterly disappointed if they don't look at this."

Only a handful of courts martial relating to the conduct of British forces in Iraq have been held to date. Just one has resulted in a conviction – Corporal Donald Payne was jailed for a year in 2007 for the inhuman treatment of Iraqi civilians. This one conviction aside, "Nobody has been found guilty of anything of any seriousness at all," said Mr Shiner.

The complaint being considered by the ICC presents evidence of the "systematic use of brutal violence, that at times resulted in the death of detainees, while in the custody of UK Services Personnel". And it claims "there is evidence of brutality combined with cruelty and forms of sadism, including sexual abuse, and sexual and religious humiliation". It points to the widespread use of "hooding", forcing people to remain in painful "stress positions", sleep deprivation, noise bombardment and deprivation of food and water. These interrogation techniques were used by British soldiers in Northern Ireland before being banned in 1972. There are "clear patterns" of the banned techniques being used "in a variety of different UK facilities [in Iraq] ... from 2003 to 2008," says the complaint. And evidence "suggests that failures to follow-up on or ensure accountability for ending such practices became a cause of further abuse. The obvious conclusion is that such mistreatment was systematic."

The report will be publicly released at the Law Society, London, on Tuesday. It comes as the ICC is under mounting pressure to demonstrate a willingness to act against war crimes committed by Western countries – and not solely focus on African nations. Last October, the ICC was criticised by the Ethiopian foreign minister, Tedros Adhanom, who accused it of being "a political instrument targeting Africa and Africans".

Professor William Schabas, a renowned expert on human rights law, based at Middlesex University, said: "What this application does is throw down the challenge to the court to show there are no double standards." He added: "There is definitely a case for an investigation by the ICC," and claimed "there's no doubt" that war crimes were perpetrated by British forces in Iraq. "People should be worried," he added.

The complaint amounts to "a prima facie investigation mapped out for the prosecutor", and is "supported by sophisticated legal argument which adheres to the requirements of the [ICC]," according to Professor Andrew Williams, a law expert at the University of Warwick and author of A Very British Killing: the Death of Baha Mousa.

In a statement, an MoD spokesperson said: "These matters are either under thorough investigation or have been dealt with ... further action through the ICC is unnecessary when the issues and allegations are already known to the UK Government, action is in hand and the UK courts have already issued judgments."

The spokesperson added: "We reject the suggestion the UK's Armed Forces – who operate in line with domestic and international law – have systematically tortured detainees."

But Wolfgang Kaleck, ECCHR secretary general, said: "With the current communication to the ICC we want to move forward the criminal prosecution against those political and military leaders in the UK who bear the most responsibility for systematic torture in Iraq." He added: "The International Criminal Court in The Hague is the last resort for victims of torture and mistreatment to achieve justice. Double standards in international criminal justice must end. War crimes and other severe violations of human rights must be investigated and prosecuted, regardless of whether they are committed by the most powerful."

General Sir Peter Wall, Geoff Hoon and Adam Ingram did not respond to requests for comment.

Allegations of torture

Testimonies of hundreds of Iraqis who say they were tortured by British soldiers are being considered by the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Here are a few of the accounts submitted (all names have been withheld).

A man who was beaten in front of his family said: "They made me sit in a kneeling position with my head pushed downwards and then they started to beat me. They beat me on my face, back and stomach."

Another, who suffered more than 60 punches to his head, stated: "There were many soldiers pushing and throwing me... As each soldier caught me they would punch me." He described how his son was also abused: "A soldier brought my eight-year-old son into the room. The officer started slapping my son round his face and shouting at him... I was on the floor in a terrible condition and couldn't move."

Another man who was hooded stated: "Sand kept coming into the hood. It was extremely uncomfortable and difficult to breathe... We were left to kneel in the sun for hours. If I moved position and bent my head forward at all, a soldier would come and kick me hard."

A young detainee recalled: "The soldier put his boot on my chest and pulled my trousers down.... I was shouting and was curled up against the wall. Then the soldier pulled me by my legs away from the wall. He turned me over on my stomach. He started rubbing his penis on my back, while the other soldiers watched. Then I felt him ejaculate on my back. I was trying to move away but another soldier came and pressed his foot on my legs."

Another man said: "Interrogators spent a lot of time insulting my sister and other family members. They threatened to rape my sister and force me to watch and said they would also arrest my old mother and father."

And an individual held in solitary confinement said: "I was beaten regularly, and was not allowed to go to the toilet or to shower. The psychological suffering during this period is indescribable."

Jonathan Owen

Rights violations

March 2003 US and British forces invade Iraq.

September Baha Mousa dies in British Army custody in Basra. Inquiry finds death was caused by factors including lack of food and water and stress positions used by British troops.

April 2004 US forces launch assault on the city of Fallujah. It later emerges napalm and depleted uranium were used in the attack. Human rights abuses, including the sexual abuse, rape and killing of prisoners by US forces at Abu Ghraib prison are made public.

May In aftermath of the Battle of Danny Boy in Basra, British troops allegedly abused the human rights of a number of Iraqi nationals – allegations being examined by the Al-Sweady inquiry. British troops deny they murdered any prisoners after they were captured.

September 2007 Seventeen Iraqi civilians killed and 20 injured in Baghdad by troops from the private security firm Blackwater Security Consulting.

2013 Iraq experiences its deadliest year since 2008.

Sabrina

14th January 2014, 20:07

The uncovering of child abuse continues…. there's some persistent white hats behind the scenes maybe…

http://theneedleblog.wordpress.com

BY GOJAM | JANUARY 14, 2014 · UK

Operation Pallial: 19th Arrest

Officers from the National Crime Agency today arrested a 71-year-old man from the Ellesmere Port area of Cheshire, on suspicion of sexual assaults against two boys.

The arrest forms part of Operation Pallial, an investigation led by NCA Director General Keith Bristow into recent allegations of historical sexual abuse in the care system in North Wales.

The offences are alleged to have taken place against two boys, between 1977 and 1985, when they were aged between 13 and 15 years old.

The man has been taken to a local police station where he will be interviewed by NCA officers from Operation Pallial.

Wrexham.com
http://www.wrexham.com/news/nca-19th-operation-pallial-arrest-40156.html

and

BY GOJAM | · 9:12 AM
The Court Circular.

We’ve got three court appearances today.

Bill-Roache-1773018

Coronation Street actor William Roache will appear at Preston Crown Court for the first day of his trial. He is accused of committing a string of historic sex offences against young girls.

D L Travis

Dave Lee Travis will appear at Southwark Crown Court for the first day of his trial. He is accused of a series of indecent assaults and one sexual assault.

Rolf

Meanwhile, Rolf Harris will appear at a hearing at Southwark Crown Court. He is expected to enter pleas today to 12 counts of indecent assault and four of making indecent images of a child.

BY GOJAM | JANUARY 12, 2014 ·

20 Private Schools Facing Claims Of Child Sex Offences

This story, which was originally published in The Sunday Times, is well researched and gives a good indication of the scale of child abuse.

I hope that other victims of child abuse within private schools will feel confident enough to come forward to the police themselves.

A handful of solicitors have confirmed they are representing alleged victims pursuing action against schools such as Ashdown House in East Sussex and Beeston Hall prep in Norfolk.

Former pupils of Caldicott in Farnham Royal, Buckinghamshire, are launching claims for compensation at the school which has seen former staff found guilty of abuse in the past.

Roland Wright, former headmaster at the school which was attended by Nick Clegg, was found guilty of indecency with a child in December.

Wright’s contemporary Hugh Henry reportedly tried to commit suicide after being found in the bed of a young boy in the 1960s.

The former teacher admitted a number of offences last year.

Speaking after his former headmaster was found guilty of abuse, the Liberal Democrat leader said: ‘These reports will disturb everyone, but most especially those, like myself, who were pupils at the school and were entirely unaware that such abuse was taking place.’

Beeston Hall is facing further allegations of abuse after former teacher Mervyn Rush was jailed last year for the abuse of 13 boys in the 1970s.

The claims, some of which may be as much as £400,000, could be enough to close the schools an expert said.

One alleged victim said: ‘The Savile disgrace has made it easier for victims to come forward.

Mail on Sunday
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2537940/Twenty-private-schools-facing-claims-child-sex-offences-former-pupils-say-Savile-scandal-easier-victims-come-forward.html

Sabrina

15th January 2014, 22:00

http://benjaminfulford.net/2014/01/14/japan’s-abe-may-be-arrested-at-davos-switzerland-for-role-in-aum-terrorist-attacks/

Unusual to predict an arrest.. let's see..

Japan’s Abe may be arrested at Davos, Switzerland for role in Aum terrorist attacks

Posted by benjaminJanuary 14, 2014

During the last week various intelligence agencies have forwarded evidence to the White Dragon Society showing that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan was deeply involved in the Aum Shinrikyo subway sarin gas attack terror cult. For this reason, the possibility is growing that Abe will be arrested on terror charges when he goes to Davos, Switzerland for the Cabal meeting starting there on January 21, the sources in Chinese, British, Japanese and American intelligence agencies say.

The Aum doomsday cult was set up by a right wing extremist group including former Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara and Abe’s father Shintaro Abe who worked closely with the Bush/Scherff Nazi faction in the West developing and spreading weapons of mass destruction.

If Abe not arrested in Switzerland, investigations in Japan are also aimed at arresting him on charges of election fraud as well as for involvement in the 311 nuclear and tsunami terror attack, a senior Japanese police agency official said.
Even if Abe is not immediately arrested, the take down of his cabal bosses in Europe and the US is continuing. For example, German Chancellor Angela Merkel had a “skiing accident” last week in Switzerland that was actually a beating by

Sabrina

15th January 2014, 22:23

UK press is awash with abuse cases and allegations at the moment - sexual and also physical from the military in Iraq. Seems the days of some of the secrets are over. Perhaps that's what the new energies, and also the astrology at the moment, are all about. Perhaps there's some white hats in the police and justice systems as well?

http://theneedleblog.wordpress.com/2014/01/14/the-court-circular/

14 Jan UK

The Court Circular.

We’ve got three court appearances today.

Bill-Roache

Coronation Street actor William Roache will appear at Preston Crown Court for the first day of his trial. He is accused of committing a string of historic sex offences against young girls.

D L Travis

Dave Lee Travis will appear at Southwark Crown Court for the first day of his trial. He is accused of a series of indecent assaults and one sexual assault.

Rolf Harris

Meanwhile, Rolf Harris will appear at a hearing at Southwark Crown Court. He is expected to enter pleas today to 12 counts of indecent assault and four of making indecent images of a child.

and

Pictured: Letter from Coronation Street star Roache to girl, 14, who 'thought they were having clandestine relationship after sex act in a toilet'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2539768/Coronation-Street-star-Bill-Roache-arrives-court-child-sex-trial-hear-alleged-star-struck-victim.html

Sabrina

15th January 2014, 22:28

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-25753040

Doesn't really ring true does it…

15 Jan US

US nuclear launch officers suspended for 'cheating'

Thirty-four US Air Force officers in charge of launching nuclear missiles have been suspended over accusations they cheated on proficiency tests.

The Air Force said a small number of staff had been texting answers to the routine tests to others, while others had known but failed to report it.

The ranks involved range from 2nd lieutenants to captains.

The cheating allegations emerged during investigations into alleged drug use by personnel at other bases.

Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James told a news conference the cheating involved officers based at the Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana, and related to a monthly test all nuclear missile staff must take.

"Some officers did it," she said of the cheating. "Others apparently knew about it, and it appears that they did nothing, or at least not enough, to stop it or to report it."

Gambling scandal
Ms James said it was "absolutely unacceptable behaviour" but that the security of the nuclear programme was not in doubt.

"I want you to know that this was a failure of some of our airmen. It was not a failure of the nuclear mission," she said.

The 34 officers have had their security clearance revoked and the entire team in charge of overseeing missile launches will be re-tested.

A further three officers have been suspended for allegedly possessing recreational drugs.

It is the latest scandal to hit the Air Force and nuclear missile force.

In August, a nuclear missile unit at Malmstrom failed a safety and security inspection, leading to a senior security officer being relieved of duty.

And in May, it was reported that 17 officers in charge of maintaining nuclear missiles were sidelined over safety violations at Minot Air Force base in North Dakota.

In October, the general in charge of America's long-range nuclear missiles, Maj Gen Michael Carey, was sacked, with officials citing a "loss of trust and confidence".

It later emerged he had been fired for conduct "unbecoming of a gentleman" during a work trip to Russia in July.

Gen Carey's removal came days after the Navy sacked Vice-Adm Tim Giardina, second-in-command of the US Strategic Command, over illegal gambling.

Strategic Command oversees everything from America's land-based nuclear missiles to space operations governing military satellites.

Sabrina

16th January 2014, 19:09

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/police-smash-philippines-paedophile-livestreaming-ring-9063323.html

16 Jan

Police smash Philippines paedophile live-streaming ring

Police have smashed a Philippines paedophile ring and arrested 17 Britons after joining forces with authorities in Australia and the US during a two-year investigation.

The Philippines inquiry, Operation Endeavour, spanned 12 countries and focuses on what the UK's National Crime Agency describes as “a significant and emerging threat”, particularly in developing countries.

Three other investigations are currently underway into live streaming of child sex abuse, with 139 Britons among the 733 suspects. Five of the 17 British suspects arrested have been convicted, nine investigations are ongoing, one will face no further action and two are dead.

A BBC report found also evidence of ‘cybersex’ dens in the slums in the south Philippines, where parents would bring their children to be abused.

Officer Denis Comunay, who patrols the Ibabaon slum said: “You can get easy money from the cybersex.” He showed the broadcaster a house which had been raided by police where “fathers and mothers would bring their children here to show, and would get paid by the owner of the house.” He said the owner of the house had forced her own children to “perform” in front of a web cam for foreigners.

The inquiry began after Northamptonshire Police visited registered sex offender Timothy Ford and began tracking the international abuse network from obscene videos they found on his computer.

He was paying to view live sex and was jailed for eight-and-a-half years in March last year.

He paid as little as £13 to view the abuse of five children. Officers said he had planned to move to the Philippines to open an internet café.

Andy Baker from the National Crime Agency said: “This investigation has identified some extremely dangerous child sexual offenders who believed paying for children to be abused to order was something they could get away with.

“Being thousands of miles away makes no difference to their guilt. In my mind they are just as responsible for the abuse of these children as the contact abusers overseas.

“Protecting the victims of abuse is our priority and that means attacking every link in the chain, from dismantling the organised groups who are motivated by profit through to targeting their customers.”

Another member of the paedophile network, Thomas Owen was jailed for seven years in July 2013. Police discovered he had nearly four million images of child abuse when he was arrested.

In a statement, the NCA said: “The use of webcams to stream live abuse, particularly from the developing world, is a significant and emerging threat according to the NCA's CEOP (Child Exploitation and Online Protection) command.

"Extreme poverty, the increasing availability of high-speed internet and the existence of a vast and comparatively wealthy overseas customer base has led to organised crime groups exploiting children for financial gain.“

¤=[Post Update]=¤

http://paddyfrench1.wordpress.com/2014/01/16/gordon-anglesea/

UK Jan

RETIRED NORTH Wales Police superintendent Gordon Anglesea has been arrested on suspicion of historic physical and sexual assaults against children.

Anglesea was detained at his Colwyn Bay home in December by officers of the National Crime Agency.

He was the 18th person to be arrested as part of Operation Pallial, based at North Wales Police headquarters.

Operation Pallial was set up by Prime Minister David Cameron in November 2012.

His decision followed the BBC Newsnight programme which falsely implied that Tory peer Lord McAlpine had abused children in North Wales care homes.

more at link

Sabrina

16th January 2014, 19:16

http://www.aangirfan.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/failing-elites.html

The elites claim to be worried about the people's rage.

In the Financial Times, on 15 January 2014, Martin Wolf writes that failing elites threaten our future.

According to Martin Wolf:

1. The elites got us into the disastrous World War I.

"This calamity launched three decades of savagery and stupidity, destroying most of what was good in the European civilisation of the beginning of the 20th century."

2. The elites in 1914 were ignorant and prejudiced because they wrongly believed that empires are good and that war is glorious.

3. As a result of World War I, we had dictatorships in Russia and Germany, the Great Depression, World War II and eventually the Cold War.

www.stewwebb.com.

4. The elites brought about the disastrous financial liberalisation.

The elites have "mostly misunderstood the consequences of headlong financial liberalisation."

The result has been "economies collapsed; unemployment jumped; and public debt exploded."

5. The elites have brought about the disastrous situation whereby the leaders of the large corporations now owe loyalty to no particular country's electorate.

"If the mass of the people view their economic elite as richly rewarded for mediocre performance and interested only in themselves, yet expecting rescue when things go badly, the bonds snap."

6. The elites created the disastrous Euro.

The result has been "huge recessions, extraordinarily high unemployment, mass emigration and heavy debt overhangs."

Power is now concentrated in the hands of Germany and "a trio of unelected bureaucracies - the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund."

socioecohistory.wordpress.com.

7. "If elites continue to fail, we will go on watching the rise of angry populists.

"The elites need to do better.

"If they do not, rage may overwhelm us all."

(Financial Times, 15 January 2014, Martin Wolf - failing elites threaten our future.)

Sabrina

16th January 2014, 19:20

Pope Francis Makes Sweeping Changes to Vatican Bank Overseeing Panel

From RT.com – January 16, 2014

http://tinyurl.com/oswpwkb

In a move to restore the reputation of the Vatican Bank, Pope Francis has reshuffled most of the cardinals from the oversight body of the institution, replacing all but one of predecessor Pope Benedict XVI’s appointments.

Pope Francis appointed four cardinals to give new blood to the five member body tasked with overseeing the reform inside the very secretive institution. The new members of the consortium are the Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin and Francis’s close friend Cardinal Santos Abril y Castello.

The other new members are Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, Archbishop of Vienna and Cardinal Thomas Collins, Archbishop of Toronto. The one holdover was French Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran.

On February 16, 2013, a few days before announcing his resignation, Pope Benedict XVI had confirmed the members of the supervisory board of the bank for five years.

Among them was the assistant secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who has been widely accused by many for the administrative failures of the Vatican under the rule of Pope Benedict.

The cardinals’ commission is tasked with approval of the overall strategy of the institution including charity work as well as reviewing accounts. It is a de facto link between the Pope and the board of superintendence, consisting of five lay men from around the world. Last February, Ernst Von Freyberg was appointed as the new president of the bank.

Pope Francis has practically canceled the decree of Benedict, replacing Bertone and other members of the committee in charge of reforming the bank formerly known as the Institute for Religious Works (IOR). In the middle of 2013, Pope Francis appointed a trusted friend, Monsignor Battista Ricca, to occupy the post of supervisor and appointed an independent commission of inquiry to examine the activities of the bank and its legal status.

His team shut down many of the suspicious accounts held in the bank and asked the Promontory Financial Group to audit the institution and bring it up to international standards.

Pope Francis has vowed to reform the bank or close it down completely after a series of scandals that tainted the reputation of the Holy Sea and the institution responsible for its charity around the globe.

Last July, IOR director Paolo Cipriani and deputy-director Massimo Tulli resigned, three days after the arrest of Vatican accountant Monsignor Nunzio Scarano on charges of plotting to smuggle 20 million euros ($26 million) into Italy from Switzerland.

Dubbed “Monsignor 500″, the man is currently on trial in Rome on the smuggling charge and is also under investigation for money-laundering Vatican accounts.

In a 2010 scandal, Italian police seized 23 million euros from an IOR account. At the same time authorities launched an investigation against IOR’s then-president, Gotti Tedeschi and director Paolo Cipriani for alleged money laundering from a Vatican account at an Italian bank. The money was later unfrozen and Gotti Tedeschi was exonerated as a suspect, while Cipriani hasn’t been charged.

In 2012, JPMorgan, an American financial giant closed its IOR accounts while Deutsche Bank Italia stopped its 15-year term providing electronic payment services to the Vatican.

In October 2013, for the first time in its 125-year history, the Vatican bank disclosed its annual financial report to the public, showing a total of 4.98 billion euros in assets and 769 million euros in equity funds.

Sabrina

16th January 2014, 19:25

http://www.wkyt.com/wymt/home/headlines/Jackson-County-Sheriff-arrests-Judge-Executive-other-official-240190911.html

Should send this Sheriff to the Fed :)

US

Jackson County Sheriff arrests Judge Executive, other official

MCKEE, Ky (WYMT) - Bad blood between county officials in Jackson County boiled over Tuesday. That is when Sheriff Denny Peyman arrested Judge Executive William O. Smith and Treasurer Beth Sallee on a slew of charges.

A sign hanging outside the Jackson County Sheriff's Office read "closed for the fiscal court meeting" as Peyman led the judge executive out of that meeting in handcuffs.

"All I want from all of this is the truth, that is it," said Peyman.

Smith as well as Sallee face six charges each, including abuse of public trust, falsifying business records and engaging in organized crime, among others.

"There is going to be more charges. It is going to be interesting to see how this all pans out. There is nothing political about doing what is right," said Peyman.

The sheriff arrested the judge executive and brought him out the doors of the Jackson County Justice Center. He then took Smith to his cruiser, which is an old beat-up black Mustang. Peyman said he used that to send a message.

"This Mustang is what I was given to drive. That is what I arrest people in. That is what I haul people to jail in. That is what I work in everyday and you can see the condition of it. It is not hardly safe for anyone, but that is what I am given to drive by the Fiscal Court," said Peyman.

The sheriff and judge executive have bumped heads before, each filing lawsuits against the other. Several people gathered to watch the morning's events. Several in the crowd made it known they agree with Peyman's actions.

Both Smith and Sallee were taken to the Jackson County Detention Center, where they declined to comment on their arrest.

WYMT spoke with some folks, who did not want to go on camera, but they said the judge executive is a stand-up guy.

14 Jan

Sabrina

16th January 2014, 19:39

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25748952

16 Jan Vatican/UN

UN panel confronts Vatican on child sex abuse by clergy

The Vatican has been confronted publicly for the first time over the sexual abuse of children by clergy, at a UN hearing in Geneva.

Officials faced a barrage of hard questions covering why they would not release data and what they were doing to prevent future abuse.

They insisted the Church had learnt from the crisis and had taken action to prevent future abuse.

Victims' advocates complained there was still too little transparency.

Last month, the Vatican refused a request from the UN's Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) for data on abuse, on the grounds that it only released such information if requested to do so by another country as part of legal proceedings.

The Vatican came to Geneva expecting a rough ride and it got one, the BBC's Imogen Foulkes reports.

Victims say they hope the hearing, which is being broadcast live, will prompt the Church to end its "secrecy".

Pope Francis announced last month that a Vatican committee would be set up to fight sexual abuse of children in the Church.

The Holy See is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, a legally binding instrument which commits it to protecting and nurturing the most vulnerable in society.

It ratified the convention in 1990 but after an implementation report in 1994 it did not submit any progress reports until 2012, following revelations of child sex abuse in Europe and beyond.

In a homily on Thursday, Pope Francis said abuse scandals were "the shame of the Church".

'Not very transparent'
"The view of committee is that the best way to prevent abuses is to reveal old ones - openness instead of sweeping offences under the carpet," Kirsten Sandberg, chairwoman of the 18-strong CRC, told the Vatican delegation.

"It seems to date your procedures are not very transparent."

The Vatican was asked why it continued to describe abuse as an offence against morals rather than a crime against children.

Germany - A priest, named only as Andreas L, admitted in 2012 to 280 counts of sexual abuse involving three boys over a decade
United States - Revelations about abuses in the 1990s by two Boston priests, Paul Shanley and John Geoghan, caused public outrage
Belgium - The bishop of Bruges, Roger Vangheluwe, resigned in April 2010 after admitting that he had sexually abused a boy for years
Italy - The Catholic Church in Italy admitted in 2010 that about 100 cases of paedophile priests had been reported over 10 years
Ireland - A report in 2009 found that sexual and psychological abuse was "endemic" in Catholic-run industrial schools and orphanages for most of the 20th century

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi said: "To prevent abuse of minors is a real, immediate concern."

On prosecution of offenders, he said priests were "not functionaries of the Vatican but citizens of their countries and fall under the jurisdiction of their own countries".

When asked if the Vatican would hand over Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, a Polish papal envoy recalled from the Dominican Republic in September amid claims of sexual abuse there, Archbishop Tomasi said he was being investigated by the Vatican's own prosecutors.

A member of the CRC asked about the Church's practice of moving priests suspected of abuse.

"It is a no-go simply to move people from one diocese to another," said Bishop Charles Scicluna, the Vatican's former chief prosecutor of clerical sexual abuse.

He insisted it was "not the policy of the Holy See to encourage cover-ups" but added: "The Holy See gets it that there are things that need to be done differently."

'Refused to answer'
While Thursday's questions were numerous and far-ranging, they were asked in blocs, with the Vatican delegation given time to retire to prepare its answers.

Dr Austen Ivereigh, Catholic commentator: '[Catholic Church's] measures... among best in world'
Observers vented frustration at the lack of specific answers.

"Holy See: 'We get it' in UN review on child sexual abuse Catholic Church," wrote the children's rights watchdog CRIN in a tweet. "Do you? Why then don't you make statistics public?"

Barbara Blaine, president of a group representing US victims of abuse by priests, told BBC News that the hearing had brought "hope to victims across the globe".

But it would also stand, she said, as a "record of how the Church officials refused to answer the questions, how they claim to be open and transparent, and yet they don't live up to that ideal".

PathWalker

17th January 2014, 09:04

Report: Israeli PM Netanyahu held offshore account while serving as finance minister
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/1.568807

Prime Minister had account in the tax haven of the Channel Islands, Israel's 'Globes' reports; PM's office: Account inactive from 2003.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu maintained an offshore bank account in the Channel Islands after his first term as prime minister and while he was a government minister, the Israeli newspaper Globes revealed on Wednesday. The islands are regarded as an international tax haven.

The account was active between 1999 and 2003. During the latter part of that period, he was a government minister and was meant to have put all his assets in a blind trust.

The reporting obligations and restrictions that apply to ministers and MKs did not apply to Netanyahu when he was out of politics, between 1999 and 2002. But from November 2002, when he was appointed foreign minister in Ariel Sharon’s first government, all the rules regarding ethics and preventing conflicts of interest did apply, and he was required to put all his assets into a blind trust except for a sum of 180,000 shekels (around $38,300 at 2002 exchange rates).

From February 2003, he served as finance minister and as such was responsible for the Israel Tax Authority.

Netanyahu was required to submit a declaration of wealth to the Knesset speaker when he was an MK (2006-2009) and to the State Comptroller when he was in government (2002-2005 and from 2009 onwards.) Such declarations of wealth are not publicized.

In August 2012 TheMarker revealed that Netanyahu had asked the State Comptroller’s Office for permission to amend the instructions he’d issued in 2009, upon becoming prime minister, regarding the makeup his investment portfolios in Israel and abroad, but in end he withdrew his request.

Globes reported that it was in possession of documents showing that Netanyahu transferred funds to an account in his name at a branch of the Royal Bank of Scotland on the Isle of Jersey, which is part of the Channel Islands.
The economy of the islands is based on the financial sector, due to their liberal tax regimes. Jersey is rated as the world's top tax haven, with a tax rate of zero percent..

Netanyahu personally signed all the bank documents, Globes reported.
Israeli law permits the holding of bank accounts in tax havens, provided that the account owner notifies the Israel Tax Authority about them. However, the Tax Authority, an agency that was answerable to Netanyahu when he was finance minister, is trying to reduce Israelis' use of tax havens.

The Prime Minister's Office said in response to the report, "This time too your attempts to discredit Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu do not fit in with the facts. We are talking about an account that has not been active since 2003. In 1999 after Netanyahu's first term as prime minister he made an investment via the account that had no tax advantage over Israel. The accounts and deposits were fully reported to the authorities in Israel including the Israel Tax Authority and were also included in the declaration of wealth filed by Netanyahu with the Israeli authorities."

The statement added, “The investment in the Jersey account was not made for tax considerations, since until 2003 all interest earned abroad was exempt from tax; it was made [to achieve higher] yields.”

The Globes report provides details of transactions conducted from Netanyahu's account, many of them to people with whom he was connected politically, both before and after his first term as prime minister. Among those who were paid from the account were Yitzhak Molho, Netanyahu's long-time diplomatic emissary, attorney David Shimron, who twice represented Netanyahu, and Yehuar Gal, who was Netanyahu's chief of staff in 2000.

The documents show that on February 2, 2002, Netanyahu instructed the manager of his Jersey bank account to transfer $145,000 to Lehman Brothers in New York. He returned to politics in 2002 as foreign minister and was appointed finance minister the following year.

In September 2012, Forbes reported that Netanyahu’s assets were worth 41 million shekels ($10.3 million.) Netanyahu owns a villa in Caesarea that he bought in 2002 at a below-market price and that was valued in 2012 as being worth between 10-15 million shekels. He also owns a roof apartment on Gaza Street in Jerusalem, estimated to be worth 7-8 million shekels.

Netanyahu accumulated most of his wealth from lectures and business deals he made during the years he was out of politics. He was very much in demand as a speaker abroad after his first term as prime minister and would receive thousands of dollars per speech. He also served as a senior consultant to communications equipment developer BATM for two years.

PathWalker

17th January 2014, 17:20

Bloomberg News: Metals, Currency Rigging Is Worse Than Libor, Bafin Says
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-01-16/metals-currency-rigging-worse-than-libor-bafin-s-koenig-says

Germany’s top financial regulator said possible manipulation of currency rates and prices for precious metals is worse than the Libor-rigging scandal, which has already led to fines of about $6 billion.

The allegations about the currency and precious metals markets are “particularly serious because such reference values are based -- unlike Libor and Euribor -- typically on transactions in liquid markets and not on estimates of the banks,” Elke Koenig, the president of Bonn-based Bafin, said in a speech in Frankfurt yesterday.

Koenig is the first global finance regulator to comment publicly on the investigations as probes into the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, expand into other benchmarks. Joaquin Almunia, the European Union’s antitrust chief, said this week that its preliminary probe into possible foreign-exchange manipulation covers similar practices as in the regulator’s probe into Libor-rigging.

Investors should short Deutsche Bank AG (DBK) stock because of probes into currency manipulation and as a rally in banking shares reverses, Berenberg Bank said in a report today. “The investigations by regulators into the bank’s foreign-exchange trading remain a significant risk considering Deutsche is the world’s largest foreign-exchange dealer,” Berenberg said.

Bafin said this week it is investigating currency trading, joining regulators in the U.K., U.S. and Switzerland, who are examining whether traders at the world’s largest banks colluded to manipulate the WM/Reuters rates, used by money managers to determine the value of holdings in different currencies.

At least a dozen firms have been contacted by authorities and more than 13 traders suspended, fired or put on leave in the currency case. Regulators are examining how traders, who communicated in instant-message groups, exchanged information on client orders and agreed how to trade at the time of the fix, five people with knowledge of the probes said last month.

“That the issue is causing such a public reaction is understandable,” Koenig said. “The financial sector is dependent on the common trust that it is efficient and at the same time, honest. The central benchmark rates seemed to be beyond any doubt, and now there is the allegation they may have been manipulated.”

Bafin interviewed Deutsche Bank employees as part of a probe of potential manipulation of gold and silver prices, a person with knowledge of the matter has said in December. The U.K. finance regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority, is also reviewing gold benchmarks as part of its wider investigation into how rates are set.

Firms including Barclays Plc (BARC) and UBS AG (UBSN) have been fined for manipulating Libor and related rates. The European Union fined six firms, including Deutsche Bank and Societe Generale SA (GLE), a record 1.7 billion euros ($2.3 billion) in December for rate-rigging. Ten people have also been charged in parallel U.S. and U.K. criminal investigations into the matter.

A proposal by the European Commission to regulate reference values is going “in the right direction, but not far enough,” Bafin’s Koenig said. It relies too much on self-control, she said, adding that trading on currency and precious-metals markets is “decentralized and to a large scale done bilaterally and not on exchanges or exchange-like platforms” and therefore hard to monitor.

Very positive signs of disclosure in the MSM.
New times indeed.
I am giddy.

Sabrina

17th January 2014, 21:36

http://www.activistpost.com/2014/01/why-are-dozens-of-high-ranking-officers.html

17 Jan

Why Are Dozens Of High Ranking Officers Being Purged From The U.S. Military?

Since Barack Obama has been in the White House, high ranking military officers have been removed from their positions at a rate that is absolutely unprecedented. Things have gotten so bad that a number of retired generals are publicly speaking out about the “purge” of the U.S. military that they believe is taking place.

As you will see below, dozens of highly decorated military leaders have been dismissed from their positions over the past few years. So why is this happening?

When I was growing up, my father was an officer in the U.S. Navy. And what is going on right now is absolutely crazy – especially during a time of peace. Is there a deliberate attempt to “reshape” the military and remove those that don’t adhere to the proper “viewpoints”? Does someone out there feel a need to get officers that won’t “cooperate” out of the way?

Throughout world history, whatever comes next after a “military purge” is never good. If this continues, what is the U.S. military going to look like in a few years?

Perhaps you are reading this and you think that “purge” is too strong a word for what is taking place. Well, just consider the following quotes from some very highly decorated retired officers…

-Retired Army Major General Paul Vallely: “The White House protects their own. That’s why they stalled on the investigation into fast and furious, Benghazi and Obamacare. He’s intentionally weakening and gutting our military, Pentagon and reducing us as a superpower, and anyone in the ranks who disagrees or speaks out is being purged.”

-Retired Army Major General Patrick Brady: “There is no doubt he (Obama) is intent on emasculating the military and will fire anyone who disagrees with him.”

-Retired Army Lt. General William G. “Jerry” Boykin: “Over the past three years, it is unprecedented for the number of four-star generals to be relieved of duty, and not necessarily relieved for cause.”

-Retired Navy Captain Joseph John: “I believe there are more than 137 officers who have been forced out or given bad evaluation reports so they will never make Flag (officer), because of their failure to comply to certain views.”

According to the Blaze, one anonymous Pentagon official has said that even young officers have been told “not to talk about Obama or the politics of the White House”…
A Pentagon official who asked to remain nameless because they were not authorized to speak on the matter said even “young officers, down through the ranks have been told not to talk about Obama or the politics of the White House. They are purging everyone and if you want to keep your job — just keep your mouth shut.”
Now this trend appears to be accelerating. We have seen a whole bunch of news stories about military officers being dismissed lately.

Almost always, a “legitimate reason” is given for the dismissal. And without a doubt, if a military officer is actually behaving unethically, that officer should be held accountable.

However, the reality is that everyone has “skeletons in the closet”, and if you really want to get rid of someone it is usually not too hard to find a way to justify your decision.

The following are excerpts from three news stories about military officers in trouble that have come out so far in 2014…

#1 The Air Force Times: A group of former Air Force majors, forced out this summer by a noncontinuation board, plans to file a lawsuit claiming the service had no right to separate them simply to meet end-strength numbers set by Congress.

More than 10 of the 157 dismissed majors are banding together to challenge the move in court, seeking either reinstatement or early retirement pay. All 157 had been twice passed over for promotion and were within six years of retirement.

#2 Defense News: Acting US Navy Undersecretary Robert Martinage, the department’s No. 2, has resigned under pressure, sources confirmed for Defense News.

The resignation, which Martinage announced to his staff Tuesday morning, came after allegations were made of inappropriate conduct with a subordinate woman, the sources confirmed.

#3 Huffington Post: The Air Force says 34 nuclear missile launch officers have been implicated in a cheating scandal and have been stripped of their certification in what is believed to be the largest such breach of integrity in the nuclear force.

Some of the officers apparently texted to each other the answers to a monthly test on their knowledge of how to operate the missiles. Others may have known about it but did not report it.

The cheating was discovered during a drug investigation that involves 11 Air Force officers across six bases in the U.S. and England.
—–

Taken alone, it would be easy to dismiss those stories as “coincidences”. But when you put them together with the stories of dozens of other high ranking military officers that have been purged from the U.S. military in recent years, a very disturbing pattern emerges.

The following is a list of high ranking military officers that have been dismissed over the past few years that has been circulating all over the Internet. I think that you will agree that this list is quite stunning…

Commanding Generals fired:
General John R. Allen-U.S. Marines Commander International Security Assistance Force [ISAF] (Nov 2012)
Major General Ralph Baker (2 Star)-U.S. Army Commander of the Combined Joint Task Force Horn in Africa (April 2013)
Major General Michael Carey (2 Star)-U.S. Air Force Commander of the 20th US Air Force in charge of 9,600 people and 450 Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (Oct 2013)
Colonel James Christmas-U.S. Marines Commander 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit & Commander Special-Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force Crisis Response Unit (July 2013)
Major General Peter Fuller-U.S. Army Commander in Afghanistan (May 2011)
Major General Charles M.M. Gurganus-U.S. Marine Corps Regional Commander of SW and I Marine Expeditionary Force in Afghanistan (Oct 2013)
General Carter F. Ham-U.S. Army African Command (Oct 2013)
Lieutenant General David H. Huntoon (3 Star), Jr.-U.S. Army 58th Superintendent of the US Military Academy at West Point, NY (2013)
Command Sergeant Major Don B Jordan-U.S. Army 143rd Expeditionary Sustainment Command (suspended Oct 2013)
General James Mattis-U.S. Marines Chief of CentCom (May 2013)
Colonel Daren Margolin-U.S. Marine in charge of Quantico’s Security Battalion (Oct 2013)
General Stanley McChrystal-U.S. Army Commander Afghanistan (June 2010)
General David D. McKiernan-U.S. Army Commander Afghanistan (2009)
General David Petraeus-Director of CIA from September 2011 to November 2012 & U.S. Army Commander International Security Assistance Force [ISAF] and Commander U.S. Forces Afghanistan [USFOR-A] (Nov 2012)
Brigadier General Bryan Roberts-U.S. Army Commander 2nd Brigade (May 2013)
Major General Gregg A. Sturdevant-U.S. Marine Corps Director of Strategic Planning and Policy for the U.S. Pacific Command & Commander of Aviation Wing at Camp Bastion, Afghanistan (Sept 2013)
Colonel Eric Tilley-U.S. Army Commander of Garrison Japan (Nov 2013)
Brigadier General Bryan Wampler-U.S. Army Commanding General of 143rd Expeditionary Sustainment Command of the 1st Theater Sustainment Command [TSC] (suspended Oct 2013)
Commanding Admirals fired:
Rear Admiral Charles Gaouette-U.S. Navy Commander John C. Stennis Carrier Strike Group Three (Oct 2012)
Vice Admiral Tim Giardina(3 Star, demoted to 2 Star)-U.S. Navy Deputy Commander of the US Strategic Command, Commander of the Submarine Group Trident, Submarine Group 9 and Submarine Group 10 (Oct 2013)
Naval Officers fired: (All in 2011)
Captain David Geisler-U.S. Navy Commander Task Force 53 in Bahrain (Oct 2011)
Commander Laredo Bell-U.S. Navy Commander Naval Support Activity Saratoga Springs, NY (Aug 2011)
Lieutenant Commander Kurt Boenisch-Executive Officer amphibious transport dock Ponce (Apr 2011)
Commander Nathan Borchers-U.S. Navy Commander destroyer Stout (Mar 2011)
Commander Robert Brown-U.S. Navy Commander Beachmaster Unit 2 Fort Story, VA (Aug 2011)
Commander Andrew Crowe-Executive Officer Navy Region Center Singapore (Apr 2011)
Captain Robert Gamberg-Executive Officer carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower (Jun 2011)
Captain Rex Guinn-U.S. Navy Commander Navy Legal Service office Japan (Feb 2011)
Commander Kevin Harms- U.S. Navy Commander Strike Fighter Squadron 137 aboard the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln (Mar 2011)
Lieutenant Commander Martin Holguin-U.S. Navy Commander mine countermeasures Fearless (Oct 2011)
Captain Owen Honors-U.S. Navy Commander aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (Jan 2011)
Captain Donald Hornbeck-U.S. Navy Commander Destroyer Squadron 1 San Diego (Apr 2011)
Rear Admiral Ron Horton-U.S. Navy Commander Logistics Group, Western Pacific (Mar 2011)
Commander Etta Jones-U.S. Navy Commander amphibious transport dock Ponce (Apr 2011)
Commander Ralph Jones-Executive Officer amphibious transport dock Green Bay (Jul 2011)
Commander Jonathan Jackson-U.S. Navy Commander Electronic Attack Squadron 134, deployed aboard carrier Carl Vinson (Dec 2011)
Captain Eric Merrill-U.S. Navy Commander submarine Emory S. Land (Jul 2011)
Captain William Mosk-U.S. Navy Commander Naval Station Rota, U.S. Navy Commander Naval Activities Spain (Apr 2011)
Commander Timothy Murphy-U.S. Navy Commander Electronic Attack Squadron 129 at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, WA (Apr 2011)
Commander Joseph Nosse-U.S. Navy Commander ballistic-missile submarine Kentucky (Oct 2011)
Commander Mark Olson-U.S. Navy Commander destroyer The Sullivans FL (Sep 2011)
Commander John Pethel-Executive Officer amphibious transport dock New York (Dec 2011)
Commander Karl Pugh-U.S. Navy Commander Electronic Attack Squadron 141 Whidbey Island, WA (Jul 2011)
Commander Jason Strength-U.S. Navy Commander of Navy Recruiting District Nashville, TN (Jul 2011)
Captain Greg Thomas-U.S. Navy Commander Norfolk Naval Shipyard (May 2011)
Commander Mike Varney-U.S. Navy Commander attack submarine Connecticut (Jun 2011)
Commander Jay Wylie-U.S. Navy Commander destroyer Momsen (Apr 2011)
Naval Officers fired: (All in 2012):
Commander Alan C. Aber-Executive Officer Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron 71 (July 2012)
Commander Derick Armstrong- U.S. Navy Commander missile destroyer USS The Sullivans (May 2012)
Commander Martin Arriola- U.S. Navy Commander destroyer USS Porter (Aug 2012)
Captain Antonio Cardoso- U.S. Navy Commander Training Support Center San Diego (Sep 2012)
Captain James CoBell- U.S. Navy Commander Oceana Naval Air Station’s Fleet Readiness Center Mid-Atlantic (Sep 2012)
Captain Joseph E. Darlak- U.S. Navy Commander frigate USS Vandegrift (Nov 2012)
Captain Daniel Dusek-U.S. Navy Commander USS Bonhomme
Commander David Faught-Executive Officer destroyer Chung-Hoon (Sep 2012)
Commander Franklin Fernandez- U.S. Navy Commander Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 24 (Aug 2012)
Commander Ray Hartman- U.S. Navy Commander Amphibious dock-landing ship Fort McHenry (Nov 2012)
Commander Shelly Hakspiel-Executive Officer Navy Drug Screening Lab San Diego (May 2012)
Commander Jon Haydel- U.S. Navy Commander USS San Diego (Mar 2012)
Commander Diego Hernandez- U.S. Navy Commander ballistic-missile submarine USS Wyoming (Feb 2012)
Commander Lee Hoey- U.S. Navy Commander Drug Screening Laboratory, San Diego (May 2012)
Commander Ivan Jimenez-Executive Officer frigate Vandegrift (Nov 2012)
Commander Dennis Klein- U.S. Navy Commander submarine USS Columbia (May 2012)
Captain Chuck Litchfield- U.S. Navy Commander assault ship USS Essex (Jun 2012)
Captain Marcia Kim Lyons- U.S. Navy Commander Naval Health Clinic New England (Apr 2012)
Captain Robert Marin- U.S. Navy Commander cruiser USS Cowpens (Feb 2012)
Captain Sean McDonell- U.S. Navy Commander Seabee reserve unit Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 14 FL (Nov 2012)
Commander Corrine Parker- U.S. Navy Commander Fleet Logistics Support Squadron 1 (Apr 2012)
Captain Liza Raimondo- U.S. Navy Commander Naval Health Clinic Patuxent River, MD (Jun 2012)
Captain Jeffrey Riedel- Program manager, Littoral Combat Ship program (Jan 2012)
Commander Sara Santoski- U.S. Navy Commander Helicopter Mine Countermeasures Squadron 15 (Sep 2012)
Commander Kyle G. Strudthoff-Executive Officer Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 25 (Sep 2012)
Commander Sheryl Tannahill- U.S. Navy Commander Navy Operational Support Center [NOSC] Nashville, TN (Sep 2012)
Commander Michael Ward- U.S. Navy Commander submarine USS Pittsburgh (Aug 2012)
Captain Michael Wiegand- U.S. Navy Commander Southwest Regional Maintenance Center (Nov 2012)
Captain Ted Williams- U.S. Navy Commander amphibious command ship Mount Whitney (Nov 2012)
Commander Jeffrey Wissel- U.S. Navy Commander of Fleet Air Reconnaissance Squadron 1 (Feb 2012)
Naval Officers fired: (All in 2013):
Lieutenant Commander Lauren Allen-Executive Officer submarine Jacksonville (Feb 2013)
Reserve Captain Jay Bowman-U.S. Navy Commander Navy Operational Support Center [NOSC] Fort Dix, NJ (Mar 2013)
Captain William Cogar-U.S. Navy Commander hospital ship Mercy’s medical treatment facility (Sept 2013)
Commander Steve Fuller-Executive Officer frigate Kauffman (Mar 2013)
Captain Shawn Hendricks-Program Manager for naval enterprise IT networks (June 2013)
Captain David Hunter-U.S. Navy Commander of Maritime Expeditionary Security Squadron 12 & Coastal Riverine Group 2 (Feb 2013)
Captain Eric Johnson-U.S. Navy Chief of Military Entrance Processing Command at Great Lakes Naval Training Center, IL (2013)
Captain Devon Jones-U.S. Navy Commander Naval Air Facility El Centro, CA (July 2013)
Captain Kevin Knoop-U.S. Navy Commander hospital ship Comfort’s medical treatment facility (Aug 2013)
Lieutenant Commander Jack O’Neill-U.S. Navy Commander Operational Support Center Rock Island, IL (Mar 2013)
Commander Allen Maestas-Executive Officer Beachmaster Unit 1 (May 2013)
Commander Luis Molina-U.S. Navy Commander submarine Pasadena (Jan 2013)
Commander James Pickens-Executive Officer frigate Gary (Feb 2013)
Lieutenant Commander Mark Rice-U.S. Navy Commander Mine Countermeasures ship Guardian (Apr 2013)
Commander Michael Runkle-U.S. Navy Commander of Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit 2 (May 2013)
Commander Jason Stapleton-Executive Office Patrol Squadron 4 in Hawaii (Mar 2013)
Commander Nathan Sukols-U.S. Navy Commander submarine Jacksonville (Feb 2013)
Lieutenant Daniel Tyler-Executive Officer Mine Countermeasures ship Guardian (Apr 2013)
Commander Edward White-U.S. Navy Commander Strike Fighter Squadron 106 (Aug 2013)
Captain Jeffrey Winter-U.S. Navy Commander of Carrier Air Wing 17 (Sept 2013)
Commander Thomas Winter-U.S. Navy Commander submarine Montpelier (Jan 2013)
Commander Corey Wofford- U.S. Navy Commander frigate Kauffman (Feb 2013)
So what do you think about all of this?

Do you believe that a “purge” of high ranking military officers is taking place?

Please feel free to share what you think by posting a comment below…

This article first appeared here at the American Dream. Michael Snyder is a writer, speaker and activist who writes and edits his own blogs The American Dream and Economic Collapse Blog. Follow him on Twitter here.

KiwiElf

21st January 2014, 00:13

World's richest have same wealth as 3.5 billion poorest
CNBCBy Li Anne Wong | CNBC – 18 hours ago

http://nz.finance.yahoo.com/news/worlds-richest-same-wealth-3-051830040.html

The combined wealth of the world's richest 85 people is now equivalent to that owned by half of the world's population - or 3.5 billion of the poorest people - according to a new report from Oxfam.

In a report titled "Working for the Few" released Monday, the global aid and development organization detailed the extent of global economic inequality created by the rapidly increasing wealth of the richest, warning of the major risks it poses to "human progress."

According to the report, 210 people have become billionaires in the past year, joining a select group of 1,426 individuals with a combined net worth of $5.4 trillion.

(Read more: Holiday spending highlights US wealth gap )

It added that the wealth of the richest one percent of people in the world now amounts to $110 trillion, or 65 times the total wealth of the bottom half of the world's population.

"This massive concentration of economic resources in the hands of fewer people presents a significant threat to inclusive political and economic systems," the report said.

"Instead of moving forward together, people are increasingly separated by economic and political power, inevitably heightening social tensions and increasing the risk of societal breakdown," it added.

The report comes ahead of the World Economic Forum in Davos which kicks off later this week, and Oxfam is calling on the global political and business leaders attending the meeting to take steps to turn around the rapidly exacerbating inequality.

(Read more: Pope attacks mega-salaries and wealth gapin peace message )

Some recommendations include refraining from the dodging of taxes and avoid using economic wealth to seek political favors.

Oxfam said that based on its polls conducted across the world, it is believed that there are many laws and regulations designed to benefit the rich.

"A survey in six countries (Spain, Brazil, India, South Africa, the UK and the U.S.) showed that a majority of people believe that laws are skewed in favor of the rich," the report said.

Oxfam singled out India as an example, where the number of billionaires increased from less than 6 to 61 in the past decade, concentrating approximately $250 billion among a few dozen people in a country of 1.2 billion.

(Read more: The real facts about inequality)

"What is striking is the share of the country's wealth held by this elite minority, which has skyrocketed from 1.8 percent in 2003 to 26 percent in 2008," the report said.

Oxfam said that India's billionaires acquired their wealth in 'rent thick' sectors - industries where profits are dependent on access to scarce resources - "made available exclusively through government permissions and therefore susceptible to corruption by powerful actors, as opposed to creation of wealth."

- By CNBC's Li Anne Wong. Follow her on Twitter @LiAnneCNBC

Sabrina

21st January 2014, 08:34

First the pope … now possibly the Queen Elizabeth… and new pope changing Vatican bank staff….things are moving :)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/queen-elizabeth-II/10584478/Betting-suspended-on-Queen-stepping-down.html

20 Jan

Betting suspended on Queen stepping down

A leading bookmaker has suspended betting on the Queen stepping down this year after a large sum was placed in the Windsor area

A leading bookmaker has suspended betting on the Queen announcing her abdication by the end of the year after a large gamble was placed in the Windsor area.

Coral has temporarily halted all bets on whether the Queen will hand over the reins to Prince Charles until further notice following the £200 stake placed today.

The bookmaker slashed odds on Her Majesty stepping down this year after news emerged over the weekend that she would be handing over a number of royal responsibilities to Prince Charles.

The Prince of Wales’ press team are to merge with staff at Buckingham Palace, fuelling speculation about a possible abdication.

After a flurry of small bets Coral cut the odds to 1-2 from 3-1 but became concerned after the Windsor bet.

Coral spokeswoman Nicola McGeady said: “Today's significant gamble suggests that the Queen could hand over the reins sooner rather than later.

“With her 88th birthday approaching, the Queen has started to relinquish a number of duties to Prince Charles, leading to major speculation about the monarch's future.”

She claimed bets about the royals placed in the Windsor area in the past had tended to be “spot on”, sparking concern about insider knowledge.

The bookmaker’s odds were as short as 1-20 that Prince Charles would be next on the throne while Prince William can be backed at 8 -1.

Charles is set to accompany his mother to the Normandy beaches later this year to mark the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings, in what some claim will be her final overseas engagement.

A French government official was reported as saying: “We have been told this will probably be the Queen’s last official foreign visit.”

The Queen, who turns 88 in April, has passed a number of responsibilities to younger members of the royal family in recent months including Charles and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.
A Buckingham Palace spokesman declined to comment.

Queen cutting down on duties:
http://newsrender.com/trend/Queen-Shares-Duties-With-Prince-Charles

and see Benjamin Fulford's latest take on it all:

http://americankabuki.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/benjamin-fulford-january-20-2013.html#more

Systematic take-down of cabal accelerates with Vatican bank purge, mass resignations, mass firings etc

by Benjamin Fulford January 20, 2013

Last week Pope Francis replaced four out of the top five officers overseeing the Vatican Bank in a move that sent shock-waves through the public leadership of many countries. In probably most countries of the world, when a new leader is installed, that person gets a visit from a cabal officer like Henry Kissinger who hands them a Vatican bank account book containing a huge bribe, according to sources including former CIA chiefs. The leaders are then told that if they do not accept the money and follow cabal orders they will be assassinated, driven out by scandal, or failing that, have their country invaded by US troops. For that reason, the change at the top of the Vatican bank is a sure sign something big is coming down.

Also last week Queen Elizabeth announced she was going to hand duties over to Prince Charles as well as to Princes William and Harry, starting a “gentle succession.” Elizabeth is thus following Queen Beatrix of Holland and the King of Belgium in resigning in recent years from positions that are traditionally held for life. The generational change in royal families is in preparation for a change at the very top of the financial system, a Rothschild family source said

There is also a big storm brewing in China where a massive purge is expected to start in March with the complete replacement of all provincial Secretaries (governors), all mayors and most senior bureaucrats, according to a Chinese government representatives in Tokyo. This purge is being directed by central government officials, many who have fled to the country side with their families to avoid the massive pollution choking many of China’s large cities. This move is being made in an attempt to quell a financial crisis caused by rampant overspending and corruption at local government levels, the representatives said. Another interesting thing these sources had to say was that the Chinese government was thinking of starting up a state religion combining elements of Christianity, Confucianism and Mohism. The aim was to improve moral standards in China and strengthen social unity, they said.

There is also something brewing in North Korea and the Chinese are not happy about it, one official said. Two top North Koreans who were close to China were executed last week as part of the ongoing purge of perceived threats to Kim Jong Un, he said. In response China staged a massive military exercise with more than 100,000 troops along the North Korean border.

“China now views North Korea as an enemy state,” he said. This will be followed by a joint US and South Korean military maneuver also aimed at North Korea. Also, basketball star Dennis Rodman was nabbed and taken in for questioning last week immediately after returning to the US from his well-publicized visit to North Korea. The official story is that he went to “an undisclosed alcohol rehabilitation center.”

http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_24946047/dennis-rodman-goes-rehab

Rodman was visiting North Korea as a personal representative of Barack Obama, according to North Korean sources. No doubt his “rehabilitators” will be trying to find out what that message was. North Korean sources in Japan also say the new North Korean regime had threatened to hit Shanghai and Beijing with nuclear weapons as part of a power play to force the reunification of the Korean peninsula.

This may also be the real reason why government leaders in China and South Korea are willing to meet with Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who is closely linked to North Korea through his ties with the unification church. The situation in Asia will probably not resolve itself until the removal of cabal control from the dollar and euro based financial system is completed.

To this end dramatic changes are continuing in the Middle East, power base of the US petrodollar. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been purging Turkey, the original home of the Sabbatean mafia, with increasing success. He has removed 350 police officers and 20 prosecutors and is now purging Bankers and TV propagandists.

http://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1408751/recep-tayyip-erdogan-purge-over-graft-probe-extends-bankers-and-tv

The Gulf Cooperation Council also sent a delegation to China last week to negotiate a surrender and were told to end the rift with Iran and the Shia/Sunni split in general. Responding to this, the Muslim world invited Iran into “full membership in the Al Quds (Jerusalem [i.e. Israel]) Committee of the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation (IOC)”

http://www.debka.com/article/23599/Putin-to-visit-Tehran-King-of-Morocco-invites-Iran-to-%E2%80%9CJerusalem-Committee%E2%80%9D-%E2%80%93-with-Kerry%E2%80%99s-

approval Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is also going to visit Iran soon to help bring peace to the region.

The ongoing shift of Middle East power away from cabal control is of course going to affect Israel and the controllers of the old petro dollar system. Perhaps that is why the White Dragon Society was contacted last week and asked if it would be possible to go through Canada to make liquid some now frozen funding. This request coincided with the start of a four day visit to Israel by Zionist slave Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The WDS is insisting on a jubilee, a redistribution of fraudulently obtained assets and the immediate start of a massive campaign to end poverty and stop environmental destruction.

The other move that is making cabalists nervous is the German government’s ongoing investigation of what happened to the 300 tons of gold it deposited with the Federal Reserve Board. So far only 5 tons have been returned and attempts to intimidate German Chancellor Angela Merkel with a beating in Switzerland (according to a CIA source) will probably backfire by driving the Germans into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and out of NATO.

Another front in which the cabal is under severe attack is the ongoing exposure of elite pedophile networks in the UK and in the Vatican. In the UK, politicians are now being investigated in the ever widening scandal that is expected to eventual lead to Tony Blair and his fellow Nazis.

In the Vatican, 400 priests have already been defrocked and the purge of child abusers is continuing.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/453381/Female-MP-abused-boy-in-care http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/global-filipino/world/01/17/14/vatican-grilled-over-scale-child-sex-abuse

The Cabalists will be gathering this week at the Davos World Economic Forum where they will make noises about the dangers of income inequality. In doing so, they will be like Marie Antoinette at the time of the French Revolution asking why the peasants did not eat cake, in other words they don’t have a clue about what is really going on and their sudden concern for the poor will be way too little, way too late. Read more:

read more at link

Sabrina

21st January 2014, 20:24

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25831234

21 Jan Vatican

Vatican cleric Scarano charged with money-laundering

A senior Italian cleric has been charged with laundering millions through the Vatican bank, police say.

Monsignor Nunzio Scarano is already on trial and under house arrest on separate charges of plotting to smuggle 20m euros ($26m; £17m) into Italy.

The former Vatican accountant and two other people were served with arrest warrants on Tuesday, police said.

Last year, Pope Francis set up a commission to review the bank's activities after a series of scandals.

Vatican investigators are currently going through the bank accounts of many clerics working in areas of southern Italy, where organised crime syndicates operate.

Monsignor Scarano spent several months last year awaiting trial in Rome's Queen of Heaven prison, and was then released to house arrest for health reasons. American financial inspectors appointed by Pope Francis believe the monsignor may not be alone in having used the Vatican bank for money-laundering operations.

Traditionally the Vatican has opposed the right of the Italian judiciary to investigate alleged crimes committed by its officials on the grounds of diplomatic immunity and privilege, reports the BBC's David Willey in Rome.

But under Pope Francis, increased cooperation between the Vatican and Italian authorities led to the arrest of Monsignor Scarano last summer, our correspondent says.

'False donations'
On Tuesday, police seized some 6.5m euros in bank accounts and real estate, including Monsignor Scarano's luxury apartment in the southern city of Salerno.

Authorities said the latest charges against the cleric related to "false donations", which he allegedly recycled from offshore accounts through the Vatican bank.

Prosecutors allege that Monsignor Scarano got dozens of people to make contributions to a home for the terminally ill in Salerno, and used the money to pay off a mortgage on one of his properties.

Another Catholic priest has also been arrested on charges of laundering and making false statements, officials say.

The cleric was suspended from his position last year, after he was accused of conspiring to smuggle millions from Switzerland into Italy with the help of a secret service agent and a financial broker.

The trio's high-profile trial began in early December in Rome.

Officially known as the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR), the Vatican bank is one of the world's most secretive. It has 114 employees and 5.4bn euros of assets.

The bank is undergoing a major restructuring on the orders of Pope Francis.

He has hired an American financial services company to examine all 19,000 accounts to ensure that international rules against money laundering are being correctly observed.

Vatican Bank scandal

September 2010: Italian police launch investigation into money laundering at the bank
December 2010: Vatican sets up financial authority to fight money laundering and make financial operations more transparent
May 2012: Bank chief Ettore Gotti Tedeschi dismissed for dereliction of duty
January 2013: Italian central bank suspends all bank card payments in the Vatican, citing its failure to fully implement anti-money laundering legislation
February 2013: German lawyer Ernst von Freyberg appointed to head bank
June 2013: Pope Francis sets up a commission to review the bank's activities
The division manages the Vatican's real estate holdings and stock portfolios.

Sabrina

22nd January 2014, 09:27

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-25816688

Now for a little drop of good news.. let's hope for the ripple effect..:)

21 Jan UK

Sittingbourne church opens community bank
(Kent UK)

The first community bank to open in a church in Kent has started trading in Sittingbourne.

The Murston Community Bank is operating at All Saints Church as part of the credit union Kent Savers.

It will provide savings accounts and an alternative to payday loan companies, offering an APR of 26.8% as well as pastoral and spiritual support.

Church volunteers will run the bank, which will also work with 15 partners such as Citizens Advice.

The launch of the bank follows the Diocese of Canterbury's partnership with Kent Savers in October 2013.

'Huge enthusiasm'
That was inspired by the Archbishop of Canterbury's call for the Church to be more proactive against debt and payday lenders.

Kent Savers is owned and controlled by its members, and run on a not-for-profit basis.

Assistant curate the Reverend Lesley Jones said: "People in the community have told me they are struggling with money, debt, isolation and that they need help.

"This is our response as a church, we want to help in practical ways where we can, and by opening Murston Community Bank as a local branch of Kent Savers we can do that."

The Reverend Canon Caroline Pinchbeck, director of the Diocese of Canterbury's Communities and Partnerships Framework, said: "This community bank is evidence of the huge enthusiasm and need there is for this initiative within the community.

"It is a testament to the excellent partnerships which have been forged, and the generous amounts of goodwill which have enabled building work, printing and the provision of other resources to take place.

"As a diocese, we hope that Murston Community Bank will become a model to replicate, and that it will resource other churches across the county."

The bank is open each weekday morning between 10:00 and 12:00.

Sabrina

22nd January 2014, 09:32

Are some of the religious leaders (as story above as well) starting the challenge this dysfunctional society and brush down their white hats? If everything's going to shift, that means religions as well...

http://www.theguardian.com/business/economics-blog/2014/jan/22/davos-2014-leftie-pope-world-economic-forum

Davos - World Economic Forum (or so they say :))

Davos 2014: Pope's leftie message launches WEF in unusual style

You could sense many of those present were happier when the opening moved on to a special gong for Matt Damon's campaign to provide clean water in developing countries

It was, to say the least, an unusual way to launch the 44th World Economic Forum. Having failed to persuade the pope to show up in person to Davos, the shindig's founder Klaus Schwab did the next best thing by arranging for a message from the pontiff to be read out on his behalf.

In it, Pope Francis showed that he was a bit of a leftie. "The growth of equality … calls for decisions, mechanisms and processes directed to a better distribution of wealth, the creation of sources of employment and an integral promotion of the poor, which goes beyond a simple welfare mentality."

All this chimes with Schwab's desire to get the WEF members to pursue inclusive growth, but you could sense many of those present were happier when the opening event moved on to a special gong for Matt Damon's campaign to provide clean water in developing countries.

Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Global Insight, says unease about the uneven distribution of benefits from growth is one of the things playing on the mind of Davos attendees this year, so we will wait to see whether the verbals from the Vatican have any effect. hmmmm

Other concerns, according to Behravesh, are whether the recovery is for real this time, how the world will cope when central banks seek to return monetary policy to a more normal setting, and the potential time bomb from rising youth unemployment.

The annual survey of sentiment among global chief executives conducted by PwC revealed a rather different set of worries: red tape was top of the list followed by concerns that governments will fail to cope with budget deficits.

Dennis Nally, PwC's chairman, said the mood was one of "fragile optimism", which just about sums up the Davos mood. Businesses no longer think the next year will be a struggle for survival, but are worried about the vulnerability of emerging markets and wonder whether they are properly equipped for an upswing in demand.

In this respect, the finding in the PwC survey that two thirds of businesses say they are having trouble finding skilled labour suggests both bad planning and a logical disconnect. The bad planning is that firms have failed to invest in human capital over the past five years. The logical disconnect is that nurturing human capital starts at school, and decent education costs money. It would help if businesses paid a bit more tax.

Sabrina

22nd January 2014, 10:05

Let's see them join up the dots as to who else Savile was connected to amongst the Royals and politicians, and make some conclusions there.

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/jan/18/jimmy-savile-abused-1000-victims-bbc

UK

Revealed: how Jimmy Savile abused up to 1,000 victims on BBC premises

Executives turned a blind eye to attacks, according to former judge's 'shocking' finding

The BBC will be plunged into a major crisis with the publication of a damning review, expected next month, that will reveal its staff turned a blind eye to the rape and sexual assault of up to 1,000 girls and boys by Jimmy Savile in the corporation's changing rooms and studios.

Dame Janet Smith, a former court of appeal judge, who previously led the inquiry into the murders by Dr Harold Shipman, will say in her report that the true number of victims of Savile's sexual proclivities may never be known but that his behaviour had been recognised by BBC executives who took no action.

Smith's investigations, which followed the Pollard inquiry into why the BBC shelved a Newsnight programme about Savile, will send shockwaves through the corporation.

A source close to the inquiry told the Observer: "The numbers are shocking. Many hundreds and potentially up to 1,000 people were victims of Savile when he was representing the corporation. The report will overshadow Pollard. It will go right to the heart of how Savile was able to get away with the most heinous of crimes under the very noses of BBC staff for more than 40 years."

The sheer scale of victims' testimonies being examined has delayed the publication of Smith's report by a month.

Peter Saunders, chief executive of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood (Napac), which has been consulted by Smith's inquiry, said: "In Savile's lifetime I wouldn't doubt [that 1,000 people had been abused by him on BBC property]. The other thing I have found extraordinary, and very sad, is the number of people I have spoken to connected to the BBC, and that is a lot of people, who said: 'Oh yes, we all knew about him.'

"I was talking to someone at BBC Manchester in Salford who said 'we knew about Stuart Hall. He had a room where he would take women and young people'. You think: 'Oh my God, these people were offending almost in open sight and no one thought to intervene.'"

Liz Dux, a lawyer representing 74 of Savile's victims, said Smith had been forensic in her examination of witnesses and her report was likely to cause serious concerns for those at the top of the organisation. She said: "Every single opportunity Savile took it. He never had a quiet day basically so these numbers wouldn't at all surprise me.

"Dame Janet is very widely respected and I am confident she won't leave any stones unturned. The clients who gave evidence said that they felt they were listened to very sensitively and sympathetically and were able to give their evidence in a lot of detail. This will not be a what-the-BBC-want sort of report."

A second report on the scale of Savile's abuse within the NHS has also been delayed due to the number of places in which Savile committed crimes and it is not expected until June.

Smith has used a similar methodology to that employed during the Shipman inquiry, which found the GP had killed hundreds of patients, not just the 15 for which he received life sentences before taking his own life in his prison cell.

Her team sent letters to every member of BBC staff past and present asking whether they had witnessed criminal acts by Savile in order to piece together his pattern of behaviour and establish an understanding of the scale of his crimes.

In three known cases, one of which involved a BBC cameraman who has since died, Savile carried out his abuse with others connected to the corporation, the review has heard.

The report will, however, express frustration that some of those closest to Savile or culpable for allowing him to go unchallenged have refused to co-operate. His criminality peaked in the 1960s and 1970s, when he was middle-aged and at the height of his career at the corporation, but continued right up until the last filming of Top of the Pops in 2006 when at the age of 79 he groped a girl aged between 13 and 16. Smith's review has been in contact with more than 1,000 witnesses and victims, including the 138 who are pursuing civil claims for compensation, but the scale of those affected by Savile's crimes dwarfs the number who have so far come forward.

The Observer understands the BBC has provided more than £10,000 in funding, and the assistance of a business consultant, to Napac to allow it to increase its helpline services. Further money is expected to be made available when the review is published.

Lord Hall, the BBC's director general, met the charity's chief executive shortly before Christmas and asked for his support when the Smith report is launched.

Dux hopes the BBC will respond to Smith's findings by offering further support to the victims, who are due to receive limited compensation through a scheme being agreed with the corporation, the NHS and the Jimmy Savile Charitable Trust. Those raped by Savile are unlikely to receive more than £50,000 in compensation.

Dux, head of abuse cases at Slater & Gordon, said: "What I hope doesn't happen is that the BBC goes into some sort of navel-gazing period. Rather than look internally, look at how they are behaving and accept some corporate responsibility, which is not what they have done so far.

"I have asked for counselling for my clients who have given statements but the BBC have done nothing; my clients have been left absolutely high and dry."

If the BBC really cared about these people then they would have contacted them as soon as they have given evidence and said: 'We accept that you have gone through an awful ordeal and whatever the outcome of the report we have made facilities to let you go and see this counsellor.'"

She added: "Whether these cases are resolved by settlement scheme or by court the amount of damages the victims of the BBC will get is absolutely tiny compared to what they have spent on their own legal fees, the Pollard inquiry and their own staff. The damages for compensation in civil law for rape is rarely over £50,000 and that is something that is life-changing and hideous. They are actually getting an insulting amount".

A spokesman for Smith's review declined to comment.

18 Jan

and

http://www.aangirfan.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/missing-mikaeel-kular.html

22 Jan UK (on the recent murder of a little boy in Scotland - his mother was arrested)

MIKAEEL KULAR MYSTERY

Mikaeel Kular lived in Muirhouse in Edinburgh.

The writer Irvine Welsh spent his childhood in Muirhouse.

Apparently, Irvine Welsh knew all about the Sir Jimmy Savile, 'who supplied boys and girls to the elite'.

The character Freddy Royle, in Irvine Welsh’s 1996 novel Ecstasy, would appear to be based on Savile.

Jimmy Savile reportedly abused children both at Haut de la Garenne on the island of Jersey and in Fife.

Mikael Kular's body was found in Kirkcaldy in Fife.

The evidence of child abuse that was found at Haut de la Garenne on the island of Jersey included "bones that were 'fresh and fleshed' before being burned and dozens of children's teeth with the roots still on them in the furnace area."

leahmcgrathgoodman. / "I'VE BEEN BAD FOR YEARS AND YEARS"
http://aangirfan.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/ive-been-bad-for-years-and-years.html

Reportedly, the security services run, and protect, the pedophile rings.

When he lived in Fife, Mikaeel Kular was put into foster care, because of concerns for his welfare.

Ziggy Ford and her husband cared for Mikaeel, but Mikaeel was returned to his mother after social workers thought she could cope.

more at the link

Sabrina

23rd January 2014, 09:09

http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2014/01/22/22403366-treasury-secretary-sounds-alarm-on-new-debt-ceiling-deadline

22 Jan US

Treasury Secretary sounds alarm on new debt ceiling deadline

By Tom Curry, NBC News

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew told House Speaker John Boehner and other congressional leaders Wednesday that Congress must vote to increase the government’s borrowing limit before late February.

As part of the deal last year between President Barack Obama and Congress ending the government shutdown, the debt limit, which is just under $17 trillion, was temporarily suspended through Feb. 7.

Lew said that as in the past the Treasury could use certain accounting and cash management methods to push back the point at which it reaches its legal borrowing limit, but officials believe the Treasury is likely to exhaust those measures in late February.

One special timing factor, he noted, is that “the government experiences large net cash outflows in the month of February, due to tax refunds” so its cash balance will be lower than it would be at other times.

Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said that the speaker has said the federal government should not default on the debt “or even get close to it, but a ‘clean’ debt limit increase simply won’t pass in the House.” It remains to be seen what conditions House Republicans might try to impose on a debt limit increase.

Sabrina

23rd January 2014, 23:55

By Greg Hunter, USA WatchDog – January 22, 2014

http://tinyurl.com/nx32upp

Federal Reserve: “They Do Not Have Any More Gold” – Paul Craig Roberts

Former Assistant US Treasury Secretary Paul Craig Roberts is making some bold new claims about the Federal Reserve and its official government gold holdings.

Dr. Roberts contends, “They don’t have any more gold. That’s why they can only give Germany 5 tons of the 1,500 tons it’s holding. In fact, when Germany asked for this delivery last year, the Fed said ‘no’. But it said ‘we will give you back 300 ton’s . . . . So, they said we will give you back 20% of what you trusted us to keep for you over the next seven years, but they are not even able to do that.”

Dr. Roberts goes on to say, “The stocks of gold at the Bank of England seem to be disappearing. The stocks of many of the gold trusts, such as GLD, are being looted . . . all of this gold is disappearing into Asian markets. The entire West is being drained of gold.” According to Dr. Roberts, this is an inflection point for the gold market. Dr. Roberts says, “The reason is: the ability to supply large amounts of gold to the bullion dealers to sell has diminished with the supply of gold and silver. What the Fed did was turn to massive ‘naked shorts’ of gold futures contracts.

They don’t have the real gold . . . so they come in and dump contracts, say in a period of 6 minutes, that are three times the amount of gold COMEX has to make delivery. . . . So, it drives down the price of gold. That’s how they got the price down from $1,900 to $1,250.”

Roberts contends that America’s gold is “mainly gone.” That’s right, a former Assistant Treasury Secretary who is the father of Reaganomics, says, “They obviously don’t have any because, if they did, they would have given Germany’s gold back. If they had any, they would let people audit the vaults.”

Dr. Roberts warns, “The point is the ability to continue selling these ‘naked shorts’ is now disappearing because there is no gold left to back them up. . . . None of these EFT’s has the gold to back the shares. The ability to continue looting them in order to make good on gold deliveries is running out. So, this will prevent the Fed from selling ‘naked shorts’ to protect the dollar from its policy of quantitative easing.

That’s what’s it’s all about. You can’t print $1,000 billion new dollars every year without causing other holders of dollars to wonder about the value of the money and to seek a way of getting out of it. China has been doing that by going into gold.”

On gold holdings, Dr. Roberts argues there are two big reasons why he says, “I don’t think they have any.” Roberts says, “There is no reason for partial delivery if you have the gold. There is no reason to sell all these naked shorts if you have the real gold you can dump on the market.”

Roberts predicts, “If people in the West try to move from dollars into bullion and there’s not any to speak of, then you would see a massive rise in the price.” Dr. Roberts also predicts, “I think, this year, you are going to see a further downturn in the economy. The signs are not only that we do not have a recovery, but it’s going to get worse. . . . Christmas sales were very negative. There’s no growth in people’s income and no jobs.

So, if the economy goes down further, what does that mean? It means the deficit widens. It means they have a greater debt ceiling lift. They have to have a bigger debt ceiling increase, and all of this will alarm the world. They’ll say, good heavens, they already had a trillion dollar deficit. Now it’s gone up, and the Fed can’t stop the quantitative easing without the stock and bond market collapsing.

The banks’ solvency will become an issue. So, the world is watching a bigger deficit, more printing of money, and they are likely to start dumping dollars. When they do that, they’ll say ‘gold, I want gold.’ There’s not much supply to meet demand, and the price has to escalate. So, I wouldn’t be surprised if that shows up this year.”

Sabrina

24th January 2014, 09:14

http://rt.com/news/blair-citizen-arrest-bounty-070/

23 Jan

Man who tried to arrest Tony Blair awarded more than £2000

Despite failing to arrest Tony Blair for ‘crimes against peace’ last Friday, the London barman who attempted the citizen’s arrest has been rewarded with a quarter of the bounty for keeping the issue of double standards alive in the media.

This money should come in handy, now that Twiggy Garcia, the London DJ-turned-barman, has quit his job. As creator of the website Arrestblair.org, George Monbiot, sees it, Garcia rose to the challenge and deserves the money even for a failed attempt, for it serves to keep the issue of the former British PM’s alleged war crimes alive at a time when criminals from ‘weaker nations’ get prosecuted all the time for lesser crimes.

On Friday night, as the British PM dined with friends and family at a restaurant in East London, he was approached by the barman who had been inspired by the website and fantasized for years about arresting the former leader for unjustly invading Iraq in 2003.

Having laid a hand on Blair’s shoulder, Garcia proceeded to inform him that this was a citizen’s arrest, while the former PM reportedly attempted several times to change the subject to Syria –believing apparently that country’s problems now could have been avoided had the West invaded it. His views on the subject are no secret.

The standoff ended with Blair’s son going to get security, while Garcia demonstratively quit his job on the spot. As the incident was described later by the former leader’s spokesperson, “there is nothing to report here apart from the fact that Mr. Blair did offer to discuss the issue – that offer was declined and the individual walked off. Nothing else happened. Everyone is fine and they had a great time.”

But the creator of Arrestblair.org believes that something great happens every time an attempt is made, as it reminds people what the long-standing issues are with international double standards. Monbiot expanded on his views to the Guardian.

A demonstrator wears a Tony Blair mask outside the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, in central London January 21, 2011. (Reuters / Andrew Winning)A demonstrator wears a Tony Blair mask outside the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, in central London January 21, 2011. (Reuters / Andrew Winning)

“Everywhere I went, I met people who were furious that Tony Blair should have got away with what, under international law, appears to be clearly defined as mass murder,” he said, remembering the wording of the Nuremberg Tribunal.

“While petty tyrants from weaker nations have been successfully prosecuted for horrific but lesser crimes, the unprovoked invasion of Iraq by Blair and George Bush and the mass killing that followed remains not only unpunished, but apparently richly rewarded.”

And therefore, the bounty for attempted citizen’s arrest – the fifth such attempt now – is deserved in Monbiot’s eyes “for keeping the issue – and the memories of those who have been killed – alive and sustaining the pressure to ensure that international law binds the powerful as well as the puny.”

The bounty system works in such a way that the website collects donations to put into the pot, and a quarter of that money is paid out when successful claims to attempts are made. Because each time a claim is made, Monbiot explains, the media gave the Iraq War the huge spotlight that it was missing after the initial hype had died down.

Sabrina

24th January 2014, 09:20

http://sjlendman.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/uk-war-crimes-exposed.html

UK War Crimes Exposed

by Stephen Lendman

Britain is complicit in most US wars of aggression. It's no surprise when new information surfaces. More on it below.

The July 2002 "Downing Street memo" was leaked to The Sunday Times. In May 2005, it was revealed. Its authenticity never was challenged.

Secret Washington/UK collusion was exposed. So-called intelligence claiming justification for war on Iraq was cooked to fit already agreed on policy.

Smoking gun evidence said so. Bush, Tony Blair and their close advisors lied. They falsified evidence for war on Iraq. Nonexistent WMDs were claimed.

Then Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was later asked why fictitious WMDs became a casus belli. "It was the only thing we could all agree on," he said.

Tony Blair's so-called 2003 "Dodgy Dossier" included more incriminating evidence. Dr. David Kelly death followed proof he revealed about sexing up the dossier to justify war on Iraq.

Subsequent Hutton report misinformation claimed Kelly committed suicide. He was murdered. Coverup tried to conceal it. Ravaging Iraq continues.

Bush and Blair bear full responsibility. Obama, Gordon Brown and David Cameron share it.

More information is now known. On January 12, London's Independent headlined "Exclusive: Devastating dossier on 'abuse' by UK forces in Iraq goes to International Criminal Court."

It's titled "The Responsibility of UK Officials for War Crimes Involving Systematic Detainee Abuse in Iraq from 2003 - 2008."

"A devastating 250-page dossier" detailed evidence of beatings, burnings, electrocutions, mock executions, sexual assaults, cultural and religious humiliation, as well as threats of rape, death and other forms of torture.

High-level UK officials face potential prosecution for "systematic" war crimes. UK Army head General Peter Wall was named. So were former Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon and former Defense Minister Adam Ingram.

Evidence includes "thousands of allegations of mistreatment amounting to war crimes of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment."

Public Interest Lawyers (PIL) and the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) compiled volumes of damning evidence.

It reveals grave war crimes. The Rome Statute's Article 15 calls for prosecutorial investigations "on the basis of information of crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court."

"The Prosecutor shall analyse the seriousness of the information received," it says.

An investigation will follow if a "reasonable basis" to conduct one is determined. If individuals involved are believed culpable, prosecutors will charge them accordingly.

The Independent reviewed lengthy dossier evidence. It called it "the most detailed ever submitted to the ICC's Office of the Prosecutor on war crimes allegedly committed by British forces in Iraq."

In 2006, the Court acknowledged the commission of war crimes, saying:

"There was a reasonable basis to believe that crimes within the jurisdiction of the court had been committed, namely willful killing and inhuman treatment."

It referred to fewer than 20 cases. Investigations didn't follow. Hundreds of subsequent claims came to light.

Will UK political and military leaders be held accountable this time? Will or won't they be prosecuted?

High crimes are indisputable. US officials are guilty of multiple crimes of war, against humanity and genocide.

No one was held accountable. America commits mass murder, torture and other high crimes with impunity.

Torture is official US policy. Guantanamo is the tip of the iceberg. America maintains black sites worldwide. Dozens operate secretly. Numerous US allies host them.

Indefinite detentions, interrogations, torture and other forms of abuse are standard practice.

America is by far the world's leading human rights abuser. No nation in history matches its ruthlessness.

Israel is a willing partner. So is Britain. Thousands of innocent victims suffer horrifically. Their ordeal continues.

Today's Iraq alone reflects America's genocidal legacy. Britain shares guilt.

The Independent called the "sheer scale and seriousness of the (new dossier's) allegations" reason enough for a full investigation.

A formal complaint said "those who bear the greatest responsibility (for alleged war crimes) include individuals at the highest levels" of Britain's government and military.

They include prime ministers, top defense officials, and general staff.

Damning evidence "justifies further investigation." Criminal responsibility "of senior individuals within the UK military and government must be fully examined."

Top level British commanders and government officials either ordered, "knew or should have known" about horrific crimes of war and against humanity.

Evidence shows "civilian superiors knew or consciously disregarded information at their disposal, which clearly indicated that UK services personnel were committing war crimes in Iraq."

"(T)he the pattern of abusive treatment by UK services personnel in Iraq continued over almost six years of military operations."

According to PIL's Phil Shiner:

"I think we easily meet the threshold for these issues to be looked at. I would be gobsmacked and bitterly disappointed if they don't look at this."

Only a handful of low-level UK forces were prosecuted. One to date was convicted. Corporal Donald Payne was hung out to dry for the crimes of his superiors. He served a year in prison. It was for treating Iraqi civilians inhumanely.

Shiner said no one except Payne was held accountable. The complaint sent ICC prosecutors presents evidence too horrific to ignore.

It includes "systematic use of brutal violence, that at times resulted in the death of detainees, while in the custody of UK Services Personnel."

It claims "evidence of brutality combined with cruelty and forms of sadism, including sexual abuse, and sexual and religious humiliation."

It documents horrendous forms of torture and abuse. Nothing was too extreme to avoid. Bringing detainees close to death and back was practiced.

Clear patterns of abuse are undeniable. Mistreatment was systematic, widespread and lawless. ICC prosecutors are under mounting pressure to act.

Setting a precedent is vital. Last October, Ethiopian Foreign Minister Tedros Adhanom accused the Court of being "a political instrument targeting Africa and Africans."

It's an imperial tool. It targets victims, not Western perpetrators. America, Britain, other NATO partners and Israel were never held accountable. It's high time that changed.

According to human rights expert Professor William Schabas:

Documented UK war crimes "throw(s) down the challenge to the court to show there are no double standards. There is definitely a case for an investigation..."

"(T)here's no doubt" about UK forces committing war crimes. Higher-ups "should be worried," he added.

Law Professor Andrew Williams said the complaint amounts to "a prima facie investigation mapped out for the prosecutor." It's "supported by sophisticated legal argument which adheres to (ICC) requirements..."

UK authorities are going all out to block ICC action. Foreign Secretary William Hague lied claiming no need for allegations to be investigated.

ECCHR secretary general Wolfgang Kaleck said:

"With the current communication to the ICC, we want to move forward the criminal prosecution against those political and military leaders in the UK who bear the most responsibility for systematic torture in Iraq."

"The International Criminal Court in The Hague is the last resort for victims of torture and mistreatment to achieve justice."

"Double standards in international criminal justice must end. War crimes and other severe violations of human rights must be investigated and prosecuted, regardless of whether they are committed by the most powerful."

Hundreds of Iraqis testified about monstrous torture and abuse. They revealed damning evidence. Examples documented make painful reading.

Horrific torture and abuse was standard practice. Hundreds of victims bear witness to what happened.

Coverup and denial no longer wash. It remains to be seen whether ICC prosecutors act responsibly. Doing so will be unprecedented.

America commits the same systematic war crimes. Occasionally, low level US soldiers are hung out to dry for their superiors. Professor Stjepan Mestrovic is a regular Progressive Radio News Hour guest.

He documented examples in his book titled "The 'Good Soldier' On Trial: A Sociological Study of Misconduct by the US Military Pertaining to Operation Iron Triangle, Iraq."

Low level soldiers were unfairly convicted. Responsible higher-ups were absolved.

"(A) crime becomes a 'war crime,' said Mestrovic, "when it involved the government, which is to say, when a crime is the result of unlawful social policies and plans."

Lawful rules of engagement (ROE) killings result from orders in time of war. Unlawful ones are war crimes.

Military commanders and high government officials bear full responsibility. Sociologist Emile Durkheim once observed:

"The immorality of war depends entirely on the leaders who willed it - the soldiers and even those government officials who had no part in the decision remain innocent."

According to Mestrovic:

In America's war on terror, "the open secret is that" low level soldiers are blamed. Higher-ups are absolved. The same holds in Britain.

Who are the real criminals in wars of aggression? Who's guilty? Who's innocent?

In his opening Nuremberg address, Justice Robert Jackson said:

"The common sense of mankind demands that law shall not stop with the punishment of petty crimes by little people."

"It must also reach men who possess themselves of great power and make deliberative and concerted use of it to set in motion evils which leave no home in the world untouched."

He called Nuremberg defendants "men of a station and rank which does not soil its own hands with blood."

"These were men who knew how to use lesser folk as tools. We want to reach the planners and designers, the inciters and leaders."

The same standard applies to America and Britain under binding international laws.

America's Iron Triangle commander illegally ordered the killing of every military-aged Iraqi in sight.

Captured ones were imprisoned and tortured. Four low level US soldiers were wrongfully convicted.

Bogus charges included conspiracy, murder, aggravated assault, and obstruction of justice.

Orders issued were obeyed. Court-martials, imprisonments, fines, and dishonorable discharges would have followed otherwise.

Crimes of war and against humanity were committed. Higher-ups bore full responsibility. Culpability extended to the Pentagon and White House.

Mestrovic documented "hundreds of instances of deceit, chicanery, and dubious behavior on the part of the government" and high level military officials.

Operation Iron Triangle was one of many similar incidents. They occur in all US/UK/NATO/Israeli wars.

They occur in torture prisons. They occur out of sight and mind. Evidence obtained from victims and witnesses are damning.

Accountability is sorely lacking. Torture, abuse, and other crimes of war and against humanity continue daily. They do so out of sight and mind.

Imperial lawlessness operates this way. America bears full responsibility. Britain and other complicit partners share it.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book is titled "Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs Fridays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour

20 Jan

¤=[Post Update]=¤

http://www.international.to/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=29319:chelsea-manning-awarded-sam-adams-integrity-prize-for-2014&catid=66:oped&Itemid=151

Chelsea Manning Awarded Sam Adams Integrity Prize for 2014

USA 16 January 2014. Announcement by Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence (SAAII)

The Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence (SAAII) have voted overwhelmingly to present the 2014 Sam Adams Award for Integrity in Intelligence to Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning.

A Nobel Peace Prize nominee, U.S. Army Pvt. Manning is the 25 year-old intelligence analyst who in 2010 provided to WikiLeaks the "Collateral Murder" video – gun barrel footage from a U.S. Apache helicopter, exposing the reckless murder of 12 unarmed civilians, including two Reuters journalists, during the “surge” in Iraq. The Pentagon had repeatedly denied the existence of the "Collateral Murder" video and declined to release it despite a request under the Freedom of Information Act by Reuters, which had sought clarity on the circumstances of its journalists' deaths.

Release of this video and other documents sparked a worldwide dialogue about the importance of government accountability for human rights abuses as well as the dangers of excessive secrecy and over-classification of documents.

On February 19, 2014 Pvt. Manning - currently incarcerated at Leavenworth Prison - will be recognized at a ceremony in absentia at Oxford University's prestigious Oxford Union Society for casting much-needed daylight on the true toll and cause of civilian casualties in Iraq; human rights abuses by U.S. and “coalition” forces, mercenaries, and contractors; and the roles that spying and bribery play in international diplomacy.

The Oxford Union ceremony will include the presentation of the traditional SAAII Corner-Brightener Candlestick and will feature statements of support from former SAAII awardees and prominent whistleblowers. Members of the press are invited to attend.

On August 21, 2013 Pvt. Manning received an unusually harsh sentence of 35 years in prison for exposing the truth -- a chilling message to those who would call attention to wrongdoing by U.S. and “coalition” forces.

Under the 1989 Official Secrets Act in the United Kingdom, Pvt. Manning, whose mother is British, would have faced just two years in prison for whistleblowing or 14 years if convicted under the old 1911 Official Secrets Act for espionage.

Former senior NSA executive and SAAII Awardee Emeritus Thomas Drake has written that Manning "exposed the dark side shadows of our national security regime and foreign policy follies .. [her] acts of civil disobedience … strike at the very core of the critical issues surrounding our national security, public and foreign policy, openness and transparency, as well as the unprecedented and relentless campaign by this Administration to snuff out and silence truth tellers and whistleblowers in a deliberate and premeditated assault on the 1st Amendment."

Previous winners of the Sam Adams Award include Coleen Rowley (FBI); Katharine Gun (formerly of GCHQ, the National Security Agency’s equivalent in the UK); former UK Ambassador Craig Murray; Larry Wilkerson (Col., US Army, ret.; chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell); Julian Assange (WikiLeaks); Thomas Drake (NSA); Jesselyn Radack (former ethics attorney for the Department of Justice, now National Security & Human Right Director of the Government Accountability Project); Thomas Fingar (former Deputy Director of National Intelligence, who managed the key National Intelligence Estimate of 2007 that concluded Iran had stopped working on a nuclear weapon four years earlier); and Edward Snowden (former NSA contractor and systems administrator, currently residing in Russia under temporary asylum).

The Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence are very proud to add Pvt. Manning to this list of distinguished awardees.

16 Jan

Sabrina

25th January 2014, 23:46

http://2012portal.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/planetary-situation-update.html

Cobra's take on it all:

Friday, January 24, 2014
Planetary Situation Update

Right as I wanted to post this article, whole Gmail service (including Blogger) went down and I could not access it. Many users across the world have reported disruption of service:

http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/24/gmail-goes-down-across-the-world/

http://downdetector.com/status/gmail/news/4733-problems-at-gmail

This shows us how fragile our internet infrastructure is.

Big changes are afoot.

Although it will not happen just yet, as certain operations of the Light forces need to be completed first, the worldwide financial Reset and the Event are approaching.

The Eastern Alliance is preparing to foreclose on the Federal Reserve:

http://philosophyofmetrics.com/2014/01/16/china-to-purchase-the-federal-reserve/

And to introduce Special Drawing Rights (SDR) to form the backbone of the new financial system, which will be underwritten by gold:

http://philosophyofmetrics.com/2014/01/21/sdrs-and-the-new-bretton-woods-part-one/

http://www.silverdoctors.com/the-big-reset-why-china-bought-jpmorgans-gold-vault/

http://www.bis.org/review/r090402c.pdf?frames=0

SDR can now be exchanged for US Dollars, Euros, British Pounds and Japanese Yen:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_drawing_rights

Chinese Yuan and Swiss Franc will be added to this basket of currencies at the Reset.

Finally, Cabal's gold price manipulation is being revealed to the masses:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-16/metals-currency-rigging-worse-than-libor-bafin-s-koenig-says.html

http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/01/17/hows-whys-gold-price-manipulation/

This is very important because when the critical mass of this awareness reaches human population, Cabal's fiat financial system will collapse due to lack of trust as a fiat financial system can only operate if a certain degree of trust in its checks and balances is maintained.

This situation is also getting a little uncomfortable for Deutsche Bank, one of the main strongholds of the Cabal's financial system. To hide from spotlight, they have announced they will withdraw from gold price fixing, the same as the Rothschilds did in 2004:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-17/deutsche-bank-withdraws-from-gold-fixing-in-commodities-cutback.html

They will now attempt to manipulated gold price indirectly, similarly as the Rothschilds do through Barclays Bank.

Bundesbank, on the other hand, is much more permeated by the Light forces and they are one of main triggers to reveal the fact that the Federal reserve does not have any gold left:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-01-19/germany-has-recovered-paltry-5-tons-gold-ny-fed-after-one-year

As I said many times before, the vast majority of Cabal's gold reserves was removed from the surface of this planet by the Resistance in early 2012. When masses begin to realize that there is no gold left, this will accelerate the collapse of the current system and speed up the Reset.

Behind the scenes, the majority of the Cabal has accepted the Jesuit plan for their own version of the financial Reset (with them behind the wheel) and are starting to promote it through the mass media:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/01/15/davos-world-economic-forum-pre-event-presser/4487561/

This is the main focus of their meeting in Davos. Needless to say, their plans will not be successful.

As the midlevel Cabal management purge in China continues, many Cabal minions are fleeing that country:

http://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-millionaires-leaving-the-country-2014-1

We are approaching the moment of breakthrough, as you can clearly see in this animation:

http://ultraculture.org/blog/2013/08/26/watch-a-jaw-dropping-visualization-of-every-protest-since-1979/

Things will begin to accelerate in February and especially in March and the information war between the Light and the dark will reach its peak. There will be a lot of crucial intel released on the internet, mixed with tons of disinfo. Therefore honing your discernment skills will be of utmost importance. This is easily done by combining your rational mind with intuition. Most of all, you need to think with your own head and feel with your own heart.

This website gives a clear example of how a disinfo operation works:

http://blog.redefininggod.com/2014/01/13/an-illustrative-example-of-faux-truther-disinfo-secureteam10.aspx

But again, intel on that same website is nowhere near 100% correct, so you need to use discernment there as well. It is important not to fall into the trap of polarization, seeing one source of intel as completely true (light) and another one completely false (dark). The truth is usually somewhere in between and you need to separate the wheat from the chaff.

One of the main blocks to discernment are Invisibles, archontic parasites that have infested the etheric brain of almost every living individual on this planet. They live in parasitic symbiosis with etheric brain glia cells and create synaptic disconnections between etheric brain meridians which influence the DNA replication in their physical counterparts - physical brain synapses. This creates mental confusion, thought processes distortion and belief systems fixation. When those parasites are removed by the Light forces, humanity will receive an enormous boost of intelligence and creativity and a great expansion of consciousness.

Sabrina

28th January 2014, 21:21

Spy chief Sir Iain Lobban steps down as head of GCHQ

Sir Iain's departure after more than five years at the helm of the secretive agency was planned and nothing to do with the Edward Snowden leaks, the Foreign Office says

28 Jan UK

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/10603128/Spy-chief-Sir-Iain-Lobban-steps-down-as-head-of-GCHQ.html

The head of the GCHQ electronic intelligence gathering agency is to stand down, the Foreign Office has said.
Sir Iain Lobban, 53, is leaving after five and a half years in one of the most sensitive jobs in Whitehall, in what was said to be a long-planned move.

Officials denied any suggestion that his departure was linked to the recent controversy over the activities of GCHQ and its US counterpart, the NSA, sparked by the disclosures of the former US intelligence contractor, Edward Snowden.
He is expected to leave towards the end of the year but his decision to stand down is being made public now so that preparations to appoint a successor can be put in hand.

"Iain Lobban is doing an outstanding job as director GCHQ," a Foreign Office spokesman said. "Today is simply about starting the process of ensuring we have a suitable successor in place before he moves on as planned at the end of the year."

Sir Iain has already had one extension to his tenure as director since his appointment in June 2008. By the time he leaves, among the current crop of government department heads, only Sir Nicholas Macpherson at the Treasury will have served for longer.

ln November, he became the first head of the agency to give evidence in public when he appeared before the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee alongside the heads of MI5 and MI6.

At that hearing he warned that Mr Snowden's disclosures had done immense damage to Britain's counter-terrorism efforts. Critics however accuse him of presiding over a programme of mass intrusion into the private communications of millions of ordinary citizens.

Sir Iain has spent most of his working life at GCHQ having first joined the agency in 1983.

In Whitehall, he is credited with transforming the agency from a "distant cousin" – based out in Cheltenham – and putting it front and centre of the national security effort. In particular he is said to have foreseen the emerging threat of cyber attack.

Sabrina

28th January 2014, 21:25

Two strange banker deaths in London...

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/01/28/uk-jpmorgan-man-death-idUKBREA0R0HC20140128

28 Jan UK

JP Morgan IT executive plunges to death at bank's London HQ

(Reuters) - A JP Morgan tech executive fell to his death from the U.S. bank's 33-storey tower in London's Canary Wharf financial district on Tuesday in what British police said was a "non-suspicious" incident.

Police were called to the glass skyscraper at 8:02 GMT, where a 39-year-old man was pronounced dead at the scene after hitting a lower 9th-floor roof. Witnesses said the body remained on the roof for several hours.

London police said no arrests had been made and the incident was being treated as non-suspicious at this early stage.

A source familiar with the matter confirmed the deceased was Gabriel Magee, a vice president with the JP Morgan's corporate and investment bank technology arm, who had been an employee since 2004.

"We are deeply saddened to have lost a member of the JP Morgan family at 25 Bank Street today," JP Morgan said in a statement. "Our thoughts and sympathy are with his family and his friends."

Workers in Canary Wharf, whose Manhattan-style skyscrapers form part of one of the world's major financial centres, took to Twitter to express their shock at the death.

"The 9th floor roof of JP Morgan is visible from my office window," tweeted Hetal V Patel. "For a long time the body was left cordoned and unattended. Weird. #Wharf."

The JP Morgan building has been the headquarters of the bank's Europe, Middle East and Africa operation since July 2012. It was previously occupied by Lehman Brothers, whose staff left with their belongings in cardboard boxes after the investment bank filed for bankruptcy on September 15, 2008.

Home to Barclays, Citi, Credit Suisse, HSBC, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, State Street and Thomson Reuters, Canary Wharf, lies to the east of the City of London.

Though the details of Tuesday's incident are still unclear, occasional suicides by people working in London's big banks have provoked criticism of the demands placed on some financial services workers.

A Bank of America exchange manager jumped in front of a train and another man jumped from a seventh-floor restaurant, both in 2012. A German-born intern at Bank of America died of epilepsy last year in London.

On Tuesday, when asked about the death of William Broeksmit, a former senior manager at Deutsche Bank, London police said a 58-year-old man had been found hanging at a house in South Kensington on Sunday afternoon.

and more here:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2547275/BREAKING-NEWS-Man-30s-dies-plunge-JP-Morgan-headquarters-Canary-Wharf.html

JP Morgan name man who plunged to his death from Canary Wharf headquarters as technology chief Gabriel Magee Mr Magee was found on the ninth floor roof of skyscraper at 8am today The executive had worked for JP Morgan for 10 years - 7 years in London He was a vice president in corporate & investment bank technology team

By MARTIN ROBINSON PUBLISHED: 09:59 GMT, 28 January 2014 | UPDATED: 18:18 GMT, 28 January 2014

A bank executive who died after jumping 500ft from the top of JP Morgan's European headquarters in London this morning has been named as Gabriel Magee.

The American senior manager, 39, fell from the 33-storey skyscraper and was found on the ninth floor roof, which surrounds the Canary Wharf skyscraper. He was a vice president in the corporate and investment bank technology department having joined in 2004, moving to Britain from the United States in 2007. He was named in an email sent to all JP Morgan staff this afternoon.

Former top executive at Deutsche Bank found hanged at his Kensington home A company spokesman said: 'We are deeply saddened to have lost a member of the J.P. Morgan family at 25 Bank Street today. Our thoughts and sympathy are with his family and his friends'. For confidential support call the Samaritans in the UK on 08457 90 90 90, visit a local Samaritans branch or click here for details

A source close to Mr Magee said he was in 'good standing with his bosses and colleagues. He was well liked.' Scotland Yard said they were called to 25 Bank Street at 8.02am and detectives are not treating the death as suspicious. 'No arrests have been made and the incident is being treated as non-suspicious at this early stage', a Met spokesman said.

Canary Wharf workers were in shock today, with one trader telling MailOnline that his body lay on the flat roof until around Midday. 'My colleague yelled that he could see that someone had jumped from the top of the building onto a lower roof. His body lay there uncovered for at least two hours,' he said. 'Hundreds were looking out of their windows at him. 'It was bonus week at JP Morgan last week so I hope it wasn't to do with that'.

The man was found on the 9th floor of the bank's European headquarters building People look out of the window of the J P Morgan building at Canary Wharf

FORMER BANK EXECUTIVE FOUND HANGED AT KENSINGTON HOME South Kensington road A former Deutsche Bank executive has been found dead at a house in London, it emerged today. The body of William ‘Bill’ Broeksmit, 58, was discovered at his home in South Kensington on Sunday by police. Mr Broeksmit - who retired last February - was a former senior manager with close ties to co-chief executive Anshu Jain.

Mr Jain and co-chief executive Juergen Fitschen said in an internal memo: ‘He was considered by many of his peers to be among the finest minds in the fields of risk and capital management.' They added: ‘We are deeply saddened by Bill's death. He was a dear friend and colleague to many of us who benefitted from his intellect and wisdom. ‘Our thoughts and condolences are with his wife and family at this time. We will remember him for his contributions to Deutsche Bank, thoughtful advice and personal friendship.’

Mr Broeksmit worked in investment banking - specifically risk and securities - and lived on exclusive Evelyn Gardens in South Kensington, which has an average property value of £1.9million. Another Canary Wharf worker who could see where the man fell told the Evening Standard: 'It’s upsetting what’s happened but the thought of somebody lying up there for four hours is awful. 'I got into the office at about 8.10 and the body was on the floor and there were police up there, and they put a white cover on him. 'I think he was in a suit. As far as I could see the was dressed appropriately, but there was quite a lot of blood, so me and my colleagues were a bit upset.' Others tweeted that what they saw this morning. Amie Hughes-Gage said: 'Just watched the police finally remove that poor bankers body 4 and half hours later with only a white sheet over him.' Hetal Patel tweeted: 'The 9th floor roof of JP Morgan is visible from my office window. For a long time the body was left cordoned & unattended'. Another wrote online: 'It's not a nice view from my building. The body is on the rooftop of level 9. So sad'. An air ambulance was sent to the scene but the man could not be saved. 'We were called to Bank Street to reports of a person fallen form a height', London Ambulance Service spokesman said: 'We sent one ambulance crew, a duty officer, our hazardous area response team and London Air Ambulance to the scene. 'Sadly a man in his 30s was pronounced dead at the scene.'

Posted by AMERICAN KABUKI at 7:29 PM No comments: Read more: http://americankabuki.blogspot.com/#ixzz2rjRbLBFR

Sabrina

28th January 2014, 21:30

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25932352

28 Jan Ukraine

Ukraine's PM Azarov and government resign

Ukraine's President Viktor Yanukovych has accepted the resignation of the prime minister and his cabinet amid continuing anti-government protests.

Mykola Azarov had offered to step down as prime minister to create "social and political compromise".

The move came after the Ukrainian parliament voted overwhelmingly to annul a controversial anti-protest law.

The protests have spread in recent days across Ukraine, even to President Yanukovych's stronghold in the east.

Official buildings in several cities have been occupied, and Tuesday saw the interior ministry report that protesters had stabbed and wounded three policemen in the southern city of Kherson, one of whom later died.

In total, at least five people have been killed in violence linked to the protests.

Mr Azarov was deeply unpopular with the opposition, who accused him of mismanaging the economy and failing to tackle corruption.

Their antipathy towards him grew after the protests started in November, when he described demonstrators as extremists and was also seen as being responsible for the use of force by police.

Parliament - holding an emergency debate on the crisis - voted by 361 to two to repeal the protest legislation, which among other measures banned the wearing of helmets by protesters and the blockading of public buildings.

The law had helped fuel the demonstrations which began in Independence Square in the capital, Kiev, after Mr Yanukovych pulled out of a planned trade deal with the European Union last November in favour of a $15bn (£9bn) bailout from Russia to bolster the ailing public finances.

MPs applauded in Ukraine's parliament as the result of the annulment vote was announced.

Arseniy Yatsenyuk, a leading opposition lawmaker, said: "We have repealed all the laws against which the whole country rose up.''

Parliament adjourned after the vote on the protest law and discussions on the issue of granting an amnesty to convicted protesters proved inconclusive.

Mr Yanukovych had offered an amnesty only if protesters cleared barricades and stopped attacking government buildings.

In his resignation statement, Prime Minister Azarov said: "To create additional opportunities for social and political compromise and for a peaceful solution to the conflict, I made a personal decision to ask the president of Ukraine to accept my resignation as prime minister of Ukraine."

The government had "done everything to ensure the peaceful resolution of the conflict" and would do "everything possible to prevent bloodshed, an escalation of violence and violation of citizens' rights", he said.

The BBC's David Stern, in Kiev, says that two weeks ago, Mr Azarov's resignation would have been unthinkable.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking at an EU-Russia summit in Brussels, said he had had a frank discussion with European leaders on key issues, including Ukraine.

He said that recent Russian financial help to Ukraine was not designed to support the government, and that all the agreements reached with Mr Azarov would remain in place despite the resignation - and even if the opposition formed the next government.

The loan was to "support the people of Ukraine, not the government. It's the people, the common people that suffer", he told a news conference.

Despite the president accepting their resignations, the Ukrainian cabinet can remain in their posts for 60 days until a new government is formed. Mr Azarov's spokesman told the Interfax news agency that Deputy Prime Minister Serhiy Arbuzov would assume temporary leadership of the cabinet.

President Yanukovych had offered Mr Azarov's job to the opposition at the weekend, proposing that Fatherland leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk take the post. Mr Yatsenyuk declined the offer.

Meanwhile, top EU diplomat Catherine Ashton has brought forward a planned visit to Ukraine by 48 hours and is scheduled to arrive on Tuesday for meetings with Mr Yanukovych and opposition leaders.

After meeting Mr Putin at the summit, European Council President Herman Van Rompuy said: "The European Union is closely following the events in Ukraine and strongly condemns violence.

"We call for restraint and those responsible to be held to account."
“

Sabrina

28th January 2014, 21:42

http://theneedleblog.wordpress.com

A number of new abuse arrests here on Needleblog in UK.

Sabrina

28th January 2014, 21:58

Quite a significant challenging of the Royal power base here perhaps?

http://rt.com/news/queen-finances-poor-state-299/

28 Jan UK

Queen down and out? UK royal palaces ‘crumbling and leaky’ as her finances dwindle

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, long thought to be one of the world’s richest women, is apparently down to her last million in savings, with palaces leaking and falling to pieces as MPs say she has been failed by her advisers and the Treasury.

The Queen’s courtiers have been advised to take money saving tips from the UK treasury, as her finances dip to an historic low with just £1 million left in reserve, the Telegraph reported.

A report by the Commons Public Accounts Committee found that her reserve fund had fallen from £35 million in 2001 to £1 million today. While the Royal household had made efficiency savings of just 5 percent over the past five years, government departments have made savings of up to a third.

MPs on the committee said that the Treasury must help to protect royal palaces from further damage and deterioration.

“We believe that the Treasury has a duty to be actively involved in reviewing the household’s financial planning and management – and it has failed to do so,” said Margaret Hodge, the Labour chairperson of the committee.

Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle are both in a terrible state of repair with staff required to catch rain in buckets to protect art and antiquities.

Meanwhile, in Buckingham Palace the 60-year-old boilers were running up bills of £774,000 a year and the wiring has not been replaced since 1949. More than a third of the royal estate has been found to be below “target condition.”

A tourist walks past Buckingham Palace in central London, on January 28, 2014. (AFP Photo / Carl Court)A tourist walks past Buckingham Palace in central London, on January 28, 2014. (AFP Photo / Carl Court)

The committee compared Buckingham Palace, which has just 500,000 visitors a year, to the Tower of London, which has more than £2 million.

“If you look at the Tower of London and its visitor numbers it makes you think that there’s potential here. Have they done their darnedest to maximize value for money?” Hodge said.

The report also found that the royal household has not even attempted to cost up its huge backlog of repairs because it believed there was no point in doing so until it has new funding in place.

The Crown Estate gets 15 percent of its income from the Sovereign Grant, which replaced the old way of funding the Royal Family through the civil list in 2012.

While the Royal Household’s net expenditure was £33.3 million last year, £31 million of this came from the Sovereign Grant. To find the difference, it had to dip into its reserve fund.

A spokesman for Buckingham Palace insisted that the Sovereign Grant had made the Queen’s funding “more transparent and scrutinized” and was resulting in a “more efficient use of public funds.”

But the committee found that much more needs to be done if the Crown Estate and the Royal Household are to properly manage the Queen’s finances.

“We got the impression that they just haven’t tried to make greater savings. Here we are, we’re all in it together, but they are failing to eke out better value for the Queen. They are dipping into their reserves in a way that just isn’t sensible,” Hodge said.

Britain's Queen Elizabeth II (AFP Photo / Stefan Rousseau)Britain's Queen Elizabeth II (AFP Photo / Stefan Rousseau)

The report found that the Treasury was not doing its job properly. It is responsible for overseeing the Royal Household finances but is not doing enough and should draw on its extensive experience and “offer advice on key packages.”

“The Household needs to get better at planning and managing its budgets for the longer term – and the Treasury should be more actively involved in reviewing what the household is doing,” Hodge said.

Number crunching
A closer look at both the report and the figures in it reveals that the Queens finances may be healthier than the Committee found, and in areas where she has lost money it is not the fault of the Treasury but of her managers, the Guardian reports.

The report its self was compiled from a series of questions and answers with just two witness giving the answers, Sir Alan Reid, Keeper of the Privy Purse and Mike Stevens, Deputy Treasurer to the Queen.

When asked why they did not cut back their expenditure, Sir Alan Reid replies: “We really believed that it is not wise to cut back on the level of activity of the monarchy.”

The figure of 1 million pounds does not accurately reflect the value of assets held by the Royal Household, the Guardian says. Their total reserves stand at 14.2 million pounds, 11.8 million pounds of which comes from property, plant and other equipment.The biggest chunk of royal spending goes on payroll, and although staff numbers remained unchanged over the past year cost have risen considerably.

Austin Mitchell, one of the members of the committee, asked: “It looks to me that you managed to survive and manage the finances by letting the buildings deteriorate, by freezing the staff costs and by digging into the reserves. Is that a fair summary of what has happened?”

To which Sir Alan replied, “I think that does summarize, to a degree, what happened last year.”

and

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/we-are-not-amused-mps-tell-queen-to-rein-in-her-spending-as-she-reaches-final-million-9089312.html

28 Jan

We are not amused: MPs tell Queen to rein in her spending as she reaches final million

In 1642 when Parliament tried to “regulate” the revenues of the monarchy under Charles I it led, a few months later, to the first battles of the English Civil War. Now, 372 years on, Margaret Hodge and the ever combative House of Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) are attempting to have another go.

For the first time Parliament has today produced a report into the Royal finances, following a change in the law which gives MPs oversight of how the Queen spends her (and our) money.

And if Her Majesty thought she might get off lightly from the scourge of Google, Amazon and countless Government departments, she may need to think again.

The report castigates the Royal Household for being profligate at a time of constrained public spending and pointedly suggests that like the rest of Government, the Queen also has to do “more for less”.

It accuses the Royals of neglecting their palaces and displaying “complacency” about the extent of the problem. In conclusion it suggests the Queen is “not being served well by the Royal Household in balancing the books”, suggesting that even at 87, she needs to keep a closer eye on how her money is spent.

“The Household needs to get better at planning and managing its budgets for the longer term,” said Ms Hodge, the committee chair. “ With better commercial expertise in place, we think there is room to do more with less.”

The committee’s report comes in the wake of a change in the law in 2012 which consolidated the Civil List and Grants-in-Aid into a single Sovereign Grant which has to fund the Queen’s state functions and the upkeep of Royal palaces. The grant was £31m in 2013 and is set to rise to £36.1m this year and £37.9m in 2015. Ensuring the grant is spent wisely is overseen by the Nation Audit Office and PAC.

The Royal Household’s net expenditure of £33.3m was greater than the Sovereign Grant, so £2.3m had to be drawn from its £3.3m Reserve Fund, leaving a balance of only £1m at the end of the 2013 tax year. In its first report since the public grilling last year of the Queen’s Keeper of the Privy Purse, Sir Alan Reid, the PAC suggests that the Royals need to both cut their costs and increase their income. It points out that last year the Royal Household’s gas consumption rose by 14 per cent and the waste it generated by 9 per cent.

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In 1642 when Parliament tried to “regulate” the revenues of the monarchy under Charles I it led, a few months later, to the first battles of the English Civil War. Now, 372 years on, Margaret Hodge and the ever combative House of Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) are attempting to have another go.

For the first time Parliament has today produced a report into the Royal finances, following a change in the law which gives MPs oversight of how the Queen spends her (and our) money.

And if Her Majesty thought she might get off lightly from the scourge of Google, Amazon and countless Government departments, she may need to think again.

The report castigates the Royal Household for being profligate at a time of constrained public spending and pointedly suggests that like the rest of Government, the Queen also has to do “more for less”.

It accuses the Royals of neglecting their palaces and displaying “complacency” about the extent of the problem. In conclusion it suggests the Queen is “not being served well by the Royal Household in balancing the books”, suggesting that even at 87, she needs to keep a closer eye on how her money is spent.

“The Household needs to get better at planning and managing its budgets for the longer term,” said Ms Hodge, the committee chair. “ With better commercial expertise in place, we think there is room to do more with less.”

The committee’s report comes in the wake of a change in the law in 2012 which consolidated the Civil List and Grants-in-Aid into a single Sovereign Grant which has to fund the Queen’s state functions and the upkeep of Royal palaces. The grant was £31m in 2013 and is set to rise to £36.1m this year and £37.9m in 2015. Ensuring the grant is spent wisely is overseen by the Nation Audit Office and PAC.

The Royal Household’s net expenditure of £33.3m was greater than the Sovereign Grant, so £2.3m had to be drawn from its £3.3m Reserve Fund, leaving a balance of only £1m at the end of the 2013 tax year. In its first report since the public grilling last year of the Queen’s Keeper of the Privy Purse, Sir Alan Reid, the PAC suggests that the Royals need to both cut their costs and increase their income. It points out that last year the Royal Household’s gas consumption rose by 14 per cent and the waste it generated by 9 per cent.

A table setting is shown during a press preview of the State dinner for Queen Elizabeth II of England and her husband Prince Philip 07 May 2006 in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, DC.
It pointedly asks why Buckingham Palace cannot be open to the public for longer, potentially increasing revenues. “Other historic buildings – for example, the Palace of Westminster – are open to visitors for longer periods through the year,” it concludes. But it is the failure to tackle the backlog of remedial work that particularly draws the committee’s ire. It is concerned that work to repair the Victoria and Albert Mausoleum, a monument of national importance, had been outstanding for 14 years.

Last night the response of Buckingham Palace could best be described as unamused – but not yet summoning an army. “The move to the Sovereign Grant has created a more transparent and scrutinised system, which enables the Royal Household to allocate funding according to priorities,” said a spokeswoman.

“This has resulted in a more efficient use of public funds. The Royal Household was charged by Parliament in 2009 to generate more income to supplement the funding it receives. This has been done successfully. Work on income generation continues.”

gripreaper

28th January 2014, 22:36

Hervé

28th January 2014, 23:33

Former top executive at Deutsche Bank found hanged at his Kensington home (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2547343/Former-executive-Deutsche-Bank-hanged-Kensington-home.html)

Body of William 'Bill' Broeksmit discovered at his house in London
He retired in February and was a former senior manager at the bank
58-year-old was close to Deutsche Bank co-chief executive Anshu Jain

By Mark Duell (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/search.html?s=&authornamef=Mark+Duell) and Kieran Corcoran (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/search.html?s=&authornamef=Kieran+Corcoran)
PUBLISHED: 12:07 GMT, 28 January 2014 | UPDATED: 19:57 GMT, 28 January 2014

A former Deutsche Bank executive has been found dead at a house in London, it emerged today.

The body of William ‘Bill’ Broeksmit, 58, was discovered at his home in South Kensington on Sunday shortly after midday by police, who had been called to reports of a man found hanging at a house.

Mr Broeksmit - who retired last February - was a former senior manager with close ties to co-chief executive Anshu Jain. Metropolitan Police officers said his death was non-suspicious.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/01/28/article-2547343-1B07414900000578-934_634x769.jpg
Location: The body of William 'Bill' Broeksmit, 58, was found at his home in South Kensington, central London

Mr Jain and co-chief executive Juergen Fitschen said in an internal memo: ‘He was considered by many of his peers to be among the finest minds in the fields of risk and capital management.'

They added: ‘We are deeply saddened by Bill's death. He was a dear friend and colleague to many of us who benefitted from his intellect and wisdom.

'He was a dear friend and colleague to many of us who benefitted from his intellect and wisdom'
Anshu Jain and Juergen Fitschen, co-CEOs at Deutsche Bank

‘Our thoughts and condolences are with his wife and family at this time. We will remember him for his contributions to Deutsche Bank, thoughtful advice and personal friendship.’

Mr Broeksmit worked in investment banking - specifically risk and securities - and lived on exclusive Evelyn Gardens in South Kensington, which has an average property value of £1.9million.

He is also registered to a high-value property a stone's throw from New York's Central Park.

Mr Broeksmit's name appears on U.S. government records for the Broeksmit Family Foundation, which is based in the palatial 1185 Park Avenue building.

The three-bedroom, three-bathroom apartment to which he is linked was worth $4,500,000 when it was last sold in June 2000.

He worked at Deutsche Bank from 1996 to 2001, then from 2008 until he retired. Mr Broeksmit was also employed by Merrill Lynch for a period.

Mr Broeksmit was one of around 100 bankers who left Merrill Lynch for Deutsche when its investment banking arm was founded in the 1990s.

He was involved in the process of rescuing the bank in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, when many investment banks found their debts were 'toxic', and unlikely ever to be repaid.

Mr Broeksmit, a renowned risk expert, assisted the bank's efforts to shift the worst of the debt, and reduce its total amount of lending.

Chiefs at Deutsche Bank had planned to promote Mr Broeksmit to its management board in 2012, but stopped when the German financial regulator expressed doubts about his experience as a leader.

Scotland Yard confirmed only that a 58-year-old man was found hanged. A spokesman said: ‘Police were called at 12.35pm on Sunday to a man found hanging at Evelyn Gardens, SW7.

‘Kensington and Chelsea police, ambulance and air ambulance all attended. A 58-year-old man was declared dead at the scene. The death is being treated as non-suspicious.’

More...

BREAKING NEWS: Banker, 39, plunges to his death from headquarters of JP Morgan in Canary Wharf (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2547275/BREAKING-NEWS-Man-30s-dies-plunge-JP-Morgan-headquarters-Canary-Wharf.html)
Banks block access to your cash unless you can prove what it's for (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2546622/HSBC-accused-treating-customers-like-criminals-banning-withdrawing-large-sums-cash-wont-explain-for.html)

Sabrina

30th January 2014, 03:10

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-01-29/wednesday-humor-fk-fed

Wednesday Humor: F##k The Fed

Tyler Durden's pictureSubmitted by Tyler Durden on 01/29/2014

An oldie but a goodie... On the final FOMC meeting of Ben Bernanke's illustrious career as Fed Chair, we thought it appropriate to dust off the following musical reminder of just who the Fed are...

"... you see the Federal reserve is not a government thang; it's a bunch of private bankers we obey...and they don't answer to the people coz they pull the strings; and that's precisely why we have to say... hey hey, hey hey... F##k The Fed.."

video at link

and

http://lucas2012infos.wordpress.com/2014/01/29/lucas-collapsing-a-few-headlines-29-january-2014/

Lucas – Collapsing!?! – A Few Headlines – 29 january 2014

The story about the financial system, fiat currencies, derivates, bad loans, bad mortgages, bad banks, bad speculation, fraud, deceit, still paying bonuses called “role pay”, the revolving door CEO fun, the russian roulette and dead bankers! It was in a few words just a small incomplete summary or the things that passed and that only have one thing in common, YOU. You that is better said US humanity that gets the stick, the austerity, etc. for all that WE never have caused or with consent chosen from free will for. It is that needs to end and not restarted in some sort of badly overpainted construct called a new system that promises just another cycle of total debt slavery and control over instead of YOU All,US taking charge of our own self-governance and power to end this and make a new world for all the good for all happen. Not with a promise of some money that a week later is taken away or by giving your own power away again to others that still want to rule over you. We can and will change all of this with the right intent not thinking only of I and ME but of US and WE. Get going people build your own new world that is for ALL not only you or some elite or group or rulers. Hierarchy has ended, stop falling for it and the so-called power over you. WE are the ones we have been waiting for to change this and we will without the need for violence and riots, weapons, etc. We are changing it all from the heart!

Love and Light,

Lucas

ZeroHedge – Tyler Durden – Russia Ruble Collapse Escalates To Record Low: With all eyes on Russia over the next month as the Sochi Winter Olympics ramps up, we are sure having the market’s attention on a collapsing currency is not what Putin had in mind before he dropped $50 billion to make it snow. – Read the rest at: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-01-29/russia-ruble-collapse-escalates-record-low

RT – Most food stamp payments issued to working Americans for first time – report : Working-age Americans now make up the majority of food stamp recipients in the US, according to a new report highlighting a stark change from the tradition of the elderly being the main recipients, and at a time when lawmakers have agreed to cut funding. – Read full story at: http://rt.com/usa/food-stamp-payments-americans-report-321/

ZeroHedge – Tyler Durden – Treasury Sells First Floating Rate Notes In Heavily Subscribed Auction : Moments ago, the US Treasury sold its first $15 billion in 2 Year Floating Rate Notes, providing investors with yet another product that “protects” against inflation, following the 1997 introduction of TIPS, which courtesy of their linkage to the official BLS hedonically and seasonally-adjusted definition of “inflation” have mostly protected investors from any real gains. Here are the results. – Read full story at: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-01-29/treasury-sells-first-floating-rate-notes-heavily-subscribed-auction

InvestmentWatchBlog – Bank Run Fears Escalate as Russian Lender Bans Cash Withdrawals : Fears of bank runs have escalated with the news that Russian lender ‘My Bank’ has banned all cash withdrawals until next week. Read the full story at : http://investmentwatchblog.com/bank-run-fears-escalate-as-russian-lender-bans-cash-withdrawals/#wJy1lkIHhhbkrgmo.99

WSJ MarketWatch – By Greg Robb – Nothing will deter Fed from tapering : Market volatility will not persuade them to slow down reduction in asset purchases – Read the full story at: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/nothing-will-deter-fed-from-tapering-this-week-2014-01-27?siteid=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A%20marketwatch%2Ffinancial%20%28MarketWatch.com%20-%20Financial%20Services%20Industry%20News%29

Sabrina

30th January 2014, 03:17

More on the mysterious deaths of bankers in London recently.

http://www.activistpost.com/2014/01/why-are-banking-executives-in-london.html

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Why Are Banking Executives In London Killing Themselves?

Michael Snyder
Activist Post

Bankers committing suicide by jumping from the rooftops of their own banks is something that we think of when we think of the Great Depression. Well, it just happened in London, England. A vice president at JPMorgan's European headquarters in London plunged to his death after jumping from the top of the 33rd floor. He fell more than 500 feet, and it is being reported by an eyewitness that "there was quite a lot of blood". This comes on the heels of news that a former Deutsche Bank executive was found hanged in his home in London on Sunday. So why is this happening?

Yes, the markets have gone down a little bit recently but they certainly have not crashed yet. Could there be more to these deaths than meets the eye? You never know. And as I will discuss below, there have been a lot of other really strange things happening around the world lately as well.

But before we get to any of that, let's take a closer look at some of these banker deaths. The JPMorgan executive that jumped to his death on Tuesday was named Gabriel Magee. He was 39 years old, and his suicide has the city of London in shock…

A bank executive who died after jumping 500ft from the top of JP Morgan's European headquarters in London this morning has been named as Gabriel Magee.

The American senior manager, 39, fell from the 33-story skyscraper and was found on the ninth floor roof, which surrounds the Canary Wharf skyscraper.

He was a vice president in the corporate and investment bank technology department having joined in 2004, moving to Britain from the United States in 2007.

What would cause a man in his prime working years who is making huge amounts of money to do something like that?

The death on Sunday of former Deutsche Bank executive Bill Broeksmit is also a mystery.

According to the Daily Mail, police consider his death to be "non-suspicious", which means that they believe that it was a suicide and not a murder…

A former Deutsche Bank executive has been found dead at a house in London, it emerged today.

The body of William ‘Bill’ Broeksmit, 58, was discovered at his home in South Kensington on Sunday shortly after midday by police, who had been called to reports of a man found hanging at a house.

Mr Broeksmit - who retired last February - was a former senior manager with close ties to co-chief executive Anshu Jain. Metropolitan Police officers said his death was declared as non-suspicious.

On top of that, Business Insider is reporting that a communications director at another bank in London was found dead last week...

Last week, a U.K.-based communications director at Swiss Re AG died last week. The cause of death has not been made public.

Perhaps it is just a coincidence that these deaths have all come so close to one another. After all, people die all the time.

And London is rather dreary this time of the year. It is easy for people to get depressed if they are not accustomed to endless gloomy weather.

If the stock market was already crashing, it would be easy to blame the suicides on that. The world certainly remembers what happened during the crash of 1929…

Historically, bankers have been stereotyped as the most likely to commit suicide. This has a lot to do with the famous 1929 stock market crash, which resulted in 1,616 banks failing and more than 20,000 businesses going bankrupt. The number of bankers committing suicide directly after the crash is thought to have been only around 20, with another 100 people connected to the financial industry dying at their own hand within the year.

But the market isn't crashing just yet. We definitely appear to be at a "turning point", but things are still at least somewhat stable.

So why are bankers killing themselves?

That is a good question.

As I mentioned above, there have also been quite a few other strange things that have happened lately that seem to be "out of place".

For example, Matt Drudge of the Drudge Report posted the following cryptic message on Twitter the other day...
"Have an exit plan…"

What in the world does he mean by that?

Maybe that is just a case of Drudge being Drudge.

Then again, maybe not.

And on Tuesday we learned that a prominent Russian Bank has banned all cash withdrawals until next week...
Bloomberg reports that 'My Bank' - one of Russia's top 200 lenders by assets - has introduced a complete ban on cash withdrawals until next week. While the Ruble has been losing ground rapidly recently, we suspect few have been expecting bank runs in Russia.

Yes, we have heard some reports of people having difficulty getting money out of their banks around the world lately, but this news out of Russia really surprised me.

Yet another story that seemed rather odd was a report in the Wall Street Journal earlier this week that stated that Germany's central bank is advocating "a one-time wealth tax" for European nations that need a bailout...
Germany's central bank Monday proposed a one-time wealth tax as an option for euro-zone countries facing bankruptcy, reviving a idea that has circled for years in Europe but has so far gained little traction.

Why would they be suggesting such a thing if "economic recovery" was just around the corner?

According to that same article, the IMF has recommended a similar thing…

The International Monetary Fund in October also floated the idea of a one-time "capital levy," amid a sharp deterioration of public finances in many countries. A 10% tax would bring the debt levels of a sample of 15 euro-zone member countries back to pre-crisis levels of 2007, the IMF said.
So what does all of this mean?

I am not exactly sure, but I have got a bad feeling about this - especially considering the financial chaos that we are witnessing in emerging markets all over the globe right now.

(or good feeling if we've going to shelve the old dysfunctional money system for something better - Sabrina)

Sabrina

31st January 2014, 19:00

i got this via a friend, sent on from someone else. Everything feels very 'wired' energetically as well… Sab.

"Last Friday, January 24th, CNBC had a rather remarkable interview with economist, Art Cashin, who is the Director of Floor Operations for UBS (United Bank of Switzerland) at the NYSE.

For the first time in anyone’s memory, we had an international banking figure come out and publicly state that nations would be revaluing their currencies on Sunday.

We subsequently saw Christine Lagarde give a speech on Saturday in which she spent not less than five minutes specifically referring to the coming “Reset,” noting that this was an event of extreme importance to the global economic ills as a corrective measure.

On Monday, Fox Business News did a series of interviews throughout the day with different economists who were not bashful at all about referring specifically to “The Global Currency Reset.”

Art Cashin was not wrong when he talked about currencies being revalued on Sunday, but he only mentioned four or five currencies in the interview.

What got left out of the interview was the fact that the GCR actually did begin its process on Sunday, a process specifically sanctioned and implemented with the cooperation and help of the IMF.

Two of the major currencies that we’ve been watching — namely, the IQD and the VND — were among the first to revalue.

I have been repeatedly advised by my contacts at the IMF and other agencies that they would NEVER just do the Dinar or the Dong, release those currencies to the world, and then follow up with other currencies behind them simply because of the massive amount of double-dipping that would take place.

Sure enough, even though we had seen a total of 104 currencies finish the revaluing process by Monday night, it was made abundantly clear that we would not get to see the new rates until the process completed. With 104 currencies having finished the process, that left 94 yet to go.

I do not know what time the actual process began, but what has been said is that the IMF gave a 72-hour window for all 198 currencies to undergo the process of change, after which the new rates would be released to the world.

The timing of this is interesting in view of the fact that the new UN Operational Rates of Exchange chart is due for initial release on the 29th with the final publication on the first of February.

In the last post I sent out, the comment was made about the cooperation taking place between China and Iraq. That continues to be the case and my understanding is that China is a driving force between the events unfolding. China has a real desire to be a financial and economic force to be reckoned with, and they’ve made no bones about their desire to make the Yuan Renmimbi the world’s reserve currency.

While China lays claim to being the biggest producer of gold in the world, they ironically are doing everything in their power to slurp up as much gold from other countries as they can possibly buy. At the same time, they are buying up Dinar like there’s no tomorrow!

How humorous and ironic, then, that Iraq with its burgeoning surplus of gold and the unbelievable amount they continue to mine are now publicly offering to sell their gold to the world. The humor in this is that the Dinar (and specifically, the RV’d Dinar) is easily the strongest and most gold-backed currency in the world.

They certainly are telling the world just how strong their new currency is with the offers that have been released in the past few days to sell gold.

Finally, without speculating here on all the discussions of the new rate for the IQD, I will remind you that before Dr. Sinan Shabibi was so rudely removed from his post as the Governor of the CBI, he made the point that when the Dinar was revalued and released for international trade, it would be critically important for that rate to be in effect for 24-36 months before allowing it to float.

His successor, Dr. Turki, has been quoted in the Iraqi news media as pretty much adhering to that position.

From reports we’ve received out of the IMF, we’re told that the IQD will closely mirror (within a few pennies) the published rate of the Kuwaiti Dinar. At the close of markets today, the KWD was just over $3.54. That ought to give you some kind of guideline.

Does all this mean that we get to go to the banks this week for our exchange? Let me put it this way: it very much looks like we are at the finish line.

Barring some event none of us know anything about, I honestly expect this to be our week!

Blessings on you."

(name deleted)

-----------------------

2nd ~ Well, guess Iraq is getting proactive. Also it is the power of oil from Saudi's oil monopolizing the world that is being used by US to cause wars. It is Saudi's under US pressure who are arming terrorists against Syria with the help of Israel. All under US leadership, of course. So to weaken this virtual oil embargo would have serious repercussions. Imagine a break in gas prices when their current stranglehold is loosened...hmmmm.

TPTW maintain control by having a stranglehold on our gas and power utilities and the free flow of money. Call it a choke point from which all resources flow.With it, they have managed to impoverish most of the world. Even the production of food comes from oil.

To lose this power to choke us would be amazing and benefit all....I think this is huge but will bring attention back on Iraqi's to get rid of whoever thought this one up....since all that is needed to topple the dark ones is a TRIGGER. Everything else is already tanking! This very well may be it...the straw that broke the camels back so-to-speak...

Very interesting since so much power over oil and drugs = bankers$$$ who have been laundering it for decades since WW2 ~ comes from these players...along with their endless wars. Iraq could have the last laugh over the destruction of their country by the US. It won't take much to bring down the entire financial structure built from these wars and plundering. It is already at it's weakest point...all that's lacking is some "trigger." Free energy already waits in the wings...it's a matter of getting rid of the strangle hold.

If true, this is huge...Cheers!
Article abstract:
Iraq and Iran plot oil revolution in challenge to Saudi Arabia

Iraq’s goal of pumping 9m barrels a day of crude could be a game changer for oil prices and British companies

Iraq is poised to flood the oil market by tripling its capacity to pump crude by 2020 and is collaborating with Iran on strategy in a move that will challenge Saudi Arabia’s grip on the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

“We feel the world needs to be assured of fuel for economic growth,” Hussain al-Shahristani, Deputy Prime Minister for Energy in Iraq told oil industry delegates attending a Chatham House Middle East energy conference. ]]

Sabrina

31st January 2014, 19:33

http://cphpost.dk/news/danish-tabloid-fingers-swedens-king-as-a-murder-suspect.8469.html

29 Jan Sweden

Danish tabloid fingers Sweden's king as a murder suspect

Se og Hør editor “regrets” unsubstantiated accusation that Sweden’s king ordered a contract hit

The Danish tabloid Se og Hør posted an article on its website last Friday speculating that Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf was a suspect in the investigation of the murder of reputed Stockholm underworld kingpin Mille Markovic.

The completely unsubstantiated accusation against the king came after Markovic was gunned down in his car last week outside central Stockholm.

“The police are looking for a perpetrator, but suspicions about who is behind the execution automatically must include the king,” read the article. “This may be a contract killing and the king is among those with an obvious motive to want Markovic out of the way.”

Sex club king
Markovic had once claimed that he had compromising photos of King Carl XVI Gustaf visiting a sex club.

Experts later concluded that the images Markovic released of the king at Privé, a sex club once owned by Markovic, had been faked.

Se og Hør removed the article shortly after it was posted.

“The article was illegal and was therefore - sensibly enough – removed,” Axel Calssendors, a lawyer for the Swedish Royal Family told the magazine Journalisten. “We have no further comments at this time.”

"A spectacular story"
Se og Hør’s editor-in-chief, Niels Pinborg “regretted” the error but said that Markovic’s death remains a “spectacular” story and that he is considering publishing a different version.

“The Swedish media is covering the story in a similar fashion to the way we reported it,” Pinborg told Journalisten. “They are speculating on the fact that a man with close connections to the king was murdered. Suspicion and speculation are not restricted to the police.”

Pinborg said that the way the original article read was “too specific” and that crime reporting was not his paper’s area of expertise.

"We are a tabloid, not a crime magazine, and I was simply not sharp enough as an editor,” he said.

and more here

http://www.aangirfan.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/hot-sex-in-sweden.html

Sabrina

31st January 2014, 19:38

Zimbabweans Put Pressure on ‘Fat Cat’ State Executives

31 Jan Zimbabwe

By MacDonald Dzirutwe, Reuters – January 30, 2014

http://tinyurl.com/qzgugzg

It’s not just Wall Street or London’s Square Mile where “fat cat” salaries trigger banner headlines and howls of outrage from activists and lawmakers.

In cash-strapped and deeply impoverished Zimbabwe, newspapers have kept their readers riveted for weeks with revelations about managers of state-owned firms pocketing millions of dollars in pay while the economy stagnates.
Some analysts suggest the government may be letting the stories run to distract the public from the parlous state of the broader economy.

But the revelations have also tapped into genuine concern in the ruling party about the money soaked up by perennially loss-making state companies.

Amid a rising chorus of public anger, President Robert Mugabe’s government this week pressured a health insurer that covers government employees to oust chief executive Cuthbert Dube.

Dube earned a monthly base salary of $230,000, Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa told parliament – more than 600 times the $370 average for a government worker.

Documents seen by Reuters showed Dube’s Premier Service Medical Society had debts of $38 million but 14 managers were paid nearly half the firm’s $33 million salary bill last year.

Dube declined to comment.
In a rare moment of political unity, Mugabe’s ruling ZANU-PF and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change are calling for the worst offenders to be dismissed and arrested for abusing public funds at the parastatals, as they are known.

“An exercise has started through the office of the President and Cabinet to investigate the remuneration given to all parastatals,” Chinamasa told MPs this week.

“DISGUISED THEFT”
At the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC), the nation’s only broadcaster and a loyal Mugabe mouthpiece, chief executive Happison Muchechetere was suspended by the government in December after workers went seven months without pay.

Before his removal, Muchechetere was receiving $40,000 a month in pay and perks, while other executives drew hefty weekly allowances and had most of their bills paid by the ZBC, according to interim results of a government investigation.

Information Minister Jonathan Moyo labeled some of the payments “disguised theft” at a press conference this week.
A copy of Muchechetere’s contract printed in the state-owned Herald newspaper on Wednesday fuelled the growing outrage.

It showed ZBC paid for his fuel, local holidays and four house-maids. The company also gave him an unlimited entertainment allowance and a housing stipend even after it had paid off his mortgage, according to the paper.
Muchechetere could not be reached for comment. He told a privately-owned radio station after his suspension last month that he was “not bothered” by the accusations.

Harare mayor Bernard Manyenyeni suspended the capital’s town clerk on Thursday after a council salary schedule leaked to the local press showed he was on a base monthly salary of $37,000.

“The government would rather see this go on for a while because for a moment it takes the focus off the economy which is in all sorts of problems,” Harare-based economist, John Robertson, told Reuters.

Meanwhile, most city workers have not received their December wages, while the capital’s 1.2 million residents endure a daily grind of burst sewers, water shortages, power cuts and bone-jarring pot-holes.

Sabrina

31st January 2014, 19:45

http://kauilapele.wordpress.com/2014/01/30/full-article-benjamin-fulford-update-1-28-14-cabal-mounts-counter-offensive-but-with-limited-impact-as-arrests-continue-and-it-seems-we-are-witnessing-the-birth-pangs-of-a-new-era-for-huma/

Benjamin Fulford's latest take on it all -

FULL ARTICLE… Benjamin Fulford Update 1-28-14… “Cabal mounts counter-offensive but with limited impact as arrests continue” and “It seems we are witnessing the birth pangs of a new era for humanity”

Cabal mounts counter-offensive but with limited impact as arrests continue

The criminal cabal that illegally commandeered most of the world’s financial system is causing turmoil in in many places including Ukraine, Turkey, Iraq and is also trying to derail the peace process with Iran as part of a broad offensive planned at their Davos gathering last week, according to multiple sources.

However, this is not stopping the ongoing and accelerating global purge of cabal agents as can be seen from continuing arrests and exposures of cabal crimes and pedophilia networks. For example, this article about Tony Blair’s good friend Colonel Gadaffi has just appeared.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2545819/Uncovered-The-macabre-sex-chamber-Libyas-Colonel-Gaddafi-raped-girls-boys-young-14.html

According to an MI5 source: “Gaddafi’s profligate child abuse set a standard for Blair and his friends.” Blair was also given semtex explosive by Gadaffi that he sold on to the IRA, the MI5 source says. The ongoing exposure of Blair is a sign of collapsing cabal control in the UK.

Also, the bankruptcy of the Federal Reserve Board is now being hinted even in former cabal UK news outlets like the Financial Times. Sources in the Pentagon, the Chinese government, the Dragon family, the P2 freemason lodge all agree that some sort of major financial event is imminent although none had many details.

In another interesting development, Al Qaeda contacted the White Dragon Society last week with an offer to put their resources at the disposal of the WDS in exchange for help in eliminating the arbitrary Middle-Eastern national boundaries created by colonial powers. The real head of Al Qaeda, by the way, is an Eastern European gnostic former Comintern and MI6 double agent and not some bearded actor as seen in the propaganda media. The WDS requested that they stop killing innocent civilians with terrorist attacks and concentrate on the families that illegally took over the world’s central banks. They are the source of the problems in the Middle East because they are still stubbornly trying to create conflict between Christians, Sunnis, Shias, Jews etc. as part of their plan to create a one world religion. Once their trouble making is ended, historical injustices imposed on the Middle East by the colonial powers can be rectified.

Tony Blair is a good indicator of the ongoing battle for control of the planet earth. One [on] the one hand last week he was widely humiliated in the media when somebody tried to make a citizen’s arrest of him for war crimes. On the other hand, the cabal then widely published a story of Tony Blair trying to promote the new one world religion.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jan/25/extremist-religion-wars-tony-blair

Blair is under scrutiny in the ongoing police investigations of an extensive pedophile network in the UK and elsewhere. This is the same man who was recording bragging that he would have me put away on drug charges. Message to Tony Blair: you are going down for mass murder and the pope won’t protect you.

full article at link

Sabrina

31st January 2014, 19:49

Yet another so called suicide from the financial world - this time in the US, following the bankers in the UK.

Russell Investments' chief economist found dead in

http://americankabuki.blogspot.com/#ixzz2s0Vfa2jd

30 Jan US

Russell Investments' chief economist found dead in Tacoma The Associated Press January 30, 2014 Updated 19 hours ago Russell Investments chief economist Mike Dueker was found dead Thursday, and police said it appeared he had taken his own life by jumping from a ramp near the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.

An officer who knew Dueker was missing in the area spotted the body about 8:30 a.m. at the base of a 40- to 50-foot embankment for a state Route 16 ramp, Pierce County sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer said. Dueker’s car was parked at nearby War Memorial Park, and it appears he jumped over the 4-foot fence of a bike-jogging trail along the ramp, Troyer said. Police do not believe the death was an accident or that Dueker was a victim of a crime, Troyer said.

The 50-year-old University Place resident apparently died early Wednesday when his family thought he was out jogging. But he was not dressed for jogging and was wearing jeans and a sweater, Troyer said. His family had been looking for him. The body was hard to spot, Troyer said. Dueker had joined the financial services company in 2008.

A spokeswoman, Jennifer Tice, said she couldn’t speculate on any issues Dueker had. "We were deeply saddened to learn today of the death of our colleague and friend Mike Dueker. Mike was highly respected and regarded at Russell Investments and in the broader financial services industry. In the five years that he worked at Russell, he made valuable contributions that helped our clients and many of his fellow associates. Our thoughts are with Mike’s family and friends during this difficult time," Russell Investments said in a statement.

As chief economist for Russell Investments, Dueker wrote for Russell's Market Outlook publications, forecasting the business cycle and the target federal funds rate. He developed and maintained a business cycle index published monthly on Russell.com. Dueker also led Russell’s participation as one of 50 Blue Chip forecasters for both Blue Chip Economic Indicators and Blue Chip Financial Forecasts. Read more here:

http://www.thenewstribune.com/2014/01/30/3019967/body-discovered-in-west-tacoma.html Read more: http://americankabuki.blogspot.com/#ixzz2s0VqOCm1

Sabrina

31st January 2014, 19:54

From The International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State:

Breaking and Thrilling News from ITCCS Central: Thursday, January 23, 2014 Jailed ITCCS member David Compan is released from London mental hospital following protests Also … Indicting the new Pope, the Banksters and Chemtrailers: New Common Law court actions are unveiled this week, along with new ICLCJ website and radio program

Posted on January 23, 2014
Thursday, January 23, 2014

London, UK: After being swamped with phone calls and a threat of an occupation, the authorities at the Park Royal Mental Health Centre have released incarcerated “thought criminal” David Compan, an ITCCS activist.

“They were going to hold him for ‘examination’ for at least 28 days, but now suddenly he’s free” explained Rhianne Mockridge, ITCCS organizer in Coventry, England and a friend of David.

“We know it’s because of the stink people were raising about David. The phones were ringing off the hook at the hospital so much that they stopped answering them! Thanks to everyone for their help, it’s meant everything”.

David was originally arrested last month for posting the common law notices about the conviction of Pope Benedict, Queen Elizabeth and other officials for crimes against children. (see www.itccs.org)

David, Rhianne and others in Coventry will proceed now to convene a public court to prosecute other church and state officials for crimes against the community. They are joined by similar common law courts that are assembling in Holland, Canada and the United States. (see below)

For more information and to participate, contact itccscentral@gmail.com.

Well done, everyone! The power of the people always trumps lies!

New Common Law court cases, website and radio program are announced

1. The Brussels-based International Common Law Court of Justice (ICLCJ) has launched its own website at www.iclcj.com.

“We have courts convening in four countries this week, around issues as diverse as child trafficking, mortgage fraud and chemtrails” said George Dufort, the Court Secretary, from Brussels today.

“Obviously it’s time to display online their work and their documentation, so that their eventual verdicts can be understood and enforced by the community”.

Similarly, the ICLCJ is collaborating with the alternative media network Radio Warrior to host an initially monthly blog radio program known as We the Jury on the last Saturday of every month at 4 pm Eastern time and 9 pm GMT. The first broadcast will be this Saturday, January 25 at www.radiowarrior.ca.

2. Child trafficking and the Guilt of Pope Francis – Mortgage Fraud – and Atmospheric Chemical Spraying: The new ICLCJ cases

The Central Office of the ICLCJ has announced today three new court actions to commence under its auspices by March 15. These cases are:

1. A prosecution of international child trafficking, including the role of the Vatican and the present Pope Francis in aiding and abetting this crime. Launched by the Central Court in Brussels and by the Common Law Court of Holland.

2. A prosecution of fraudulent mortgage practices by banks and government agencies in the United States. Launched by the Common Law Court of New Hampshire.

3. A prosecution of those responsible for atmospheric chemical spraying (“chemtrails”). Launched by the Common Law Court of Long Island, New York.

The aim of all of these cases, brought by citizen prosecutors, will be to halt such criminal practices and to jail those liable and responsible.

These court cases will be guided by Natural Law, the protocols of due process, and the philosophy and procedures laid out in the Common Law Training Manual found online at www.itccs.org.

To volunteer for the citizen juries of these court actions, contact itccscentral@gmail.com.

Issued by ITCCS Central, Brussels – 23/1/14
www.itccs.org

Sabrina

2nd February 2014, 10:28

A new blog showing the extent of the good, bad and ugly at the moment. But the financial dynamics are surely changing as has been predicted with 'the shift', and there's arrests and uncovering of some more of the murky stuff… Let's stay out of the 'fear' :)…

Here's just two day's of info:

http://transpicuousnews.blogspot.co.uk

February 1, 2014: News Notes
Fresh turbulence drives down currencies, bonds again

(Reuters) - Fresh waves of turbulence engulfed emerging markets on Friday, with a renewed slide in the Russian rouble and a sharp rise in bond yields across the board despite policymakers' efforts to staunch the bleeding.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/31/us-markets-emerging-idUSBREA0U0TW20140131

Ireland puts first bankers on trial since crisis

(Reuters) - Ireland put three former bankers on trial on Friday in its first such case since the financial crisis that forced it to accept an 85 billion euro (69 billion pounds) international bailout.

The three former executives of collapsed Anglo Irish Bank pleaded not guilty to charges of providing unlawful financial assistance by lending money to others to buy the bank's shares, boosting its stock price.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/01/31/uk-ireland-banks-idUKBREA0U0WG20140131

Why the rich are freaking out

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/01/wealthy-top-one-percent-economy-finance-102833.html

Judge approves Bank of America $8.5 bln settlement

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Bank of America Corp. BAC -1.06% has been given approval to settle its case with investors for $8.5 billion over faulty mortgage-backed securities originated in its Countrywide unit, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal on Friday. A New York State judge has given the go-ahead on a deal that was made in June 2011 but was opposed by certain investors including American Insurance Group Inc. AIG -1.88% . AIG argued the deal was unfair and that the amount was far short of the losses to investors. The more than two-year process is considered a victory for the bank that has been closely watched by the industry. Bank of America shares were down 1%.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/judge-approves-bank-of-america-85-bln-settlement-2014-01-31

Stoxx Europe 600 posts worst monthly loss since June

LONDON (MarketWatch) — European stock markets ended January with their worst monthly loss since June on Friday, after an unexpected drop in euro-zone inflation added to fears of deflation in the region.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/european-stocks-fall-ahead-of-inflation-jobs-data-2014-01-31

Stocks slammed! Official 'correction' looms
Stocks are getting boot-stomped on Friday ending what is setting up to be the worst January since 2010. The S&P500 (^GSPC) ) is only down about 3.5% in 2014 and still hasn’t corrected yet, but it feels worse than that with momentum stocks taking a pounding and volatility coming back from the dead. It’s been a rude awakening for investors conditioned to buy every dip since 2011.

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/breakout/stocks-slammed--official--correction--looms-160156717.html

Is your money safe at the bank? An economist says ‘no’ and withdraws his

The Fed policies of Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen, who begins her term Feb. 1, are making former Harvard economist Terry Burnham withdraw his money from Bank of America.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/is-your-money-safe-at-the-bank-an-economist-says-no-and-withdraws-his/

Theft Is Deflationary - Especially The Crony-Capitalist/State Kind

....Thank you, Jeff, for explaining the causal connection between systemic theft and deflation. To all those terrified of deflation (for example, central bankers and their cronies holding trillions of dollars in phantom assets and illusory collateral), the solution is obvious: get rid of systemic theft. But since those terrified of deflation are at the top of the monopoly-power thievery pyramid, that is asking the impossible: for the thieves to relinquish their power to steal.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-01-31/theft-deflationary-especially-crony-capitaliststate-kind

Exclusive: South Sudan rebel leader says government derailing peace talks
(Reuters) - South Sudan rebel leader Riek Machar accused the government on Friday of ethnic cleansing and trying to sabotage peace talks, in his first face-to-face interview since fighting erupted late last year in Africa's youngest nation.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/01/us-southsudan-unrest-machar-idUSBREA0U16O20140201

Yahoo Reports Security Attack on Mail Accounts
Internet Firm Prompts Users to Change Passwords for Security
Yahoo Inc. YHOO +1.98% disclosed a coordinated attack aimed to gain unauthorized access to its Yahoo Mail accounts and said it prompted users to change their passwords to re-secure their accounts.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303519404579353250260494992?ru=MKTW&mod=MKTW&mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702303519404579353250260494992.html%3Fru%3D MKTW%26mod%3DMKTW

Conrad Black stripped of Order of Canada
Former media baron was made an officer of the Order of Canada in 1990

Former media baron and convicted fraudster Conrad Black has been stripped of the Order of Canada by Gov. Gen. David Johnston.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/conrad-black-stripped-of-order-of-canada-1.2519299

US suspends 92 nuke officers amid cheating scandal

The United States military has suspended 92 officers in charge of nuclear missiles operations after they allegedly cheated in a proficiency test exam.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/01/30/348518/us-military-suspends-92-nuke-officers/

'Cashgate' trial begins in Malawi
President Joyce Banda ordered investigation of politicians and businessmen over millions of dollars in embezzlement.

http://www.aljazeera.com/video/africa/2014/01/gate-trial-begin-malawi-20141294295112213.html

Italy biggest banks could pocket 3.5 bln euros from BOI's stake sale -analysts
Jan 31 (Reuters) - Italian banks Intesa Sanpaolo and UniCredit could cash in up to 3.5 billion euros ($4.7 billion) combined from the sale of part of their revalued stakes in the central bank, according to analyst calculations.

The Italian parliament on Wednesday gave final approval to a decree hiking the value of Bank of Italy's (BOI) share capital to 7.5 billion euros from 156,000 euros previously, which had not been changed since the 1930s.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/31/intesa-unicredit-centralbank-stake-idUSL5N0L53LR20140131

UK media alarmed by govt bill allowing seizure of journalists’ notes, files
UK media organizations have warned that if a government bill authorizing police to seize journalists' notebooks, photos and digital files is passed Monday, it could seriously endanger press freedom in the country.

http://rt.com/news/freedom-seizure-journalists-bill-512/

Once troubled Bank of Cyprus leaves politically unstable Ukraine
Protests in Kiev are spooking investors, and the latest is Bank of Cyprus, which plans on selling its loss making Ukrainian subsidiary Alfa Group Ukraine Limited for 225 million euro by the end of March.
...The debt crisis in Cyprus forced Bank of Cyprus, the country’s biggest bank, to abruptly close in March 2013, and reopen only under the condition it placed a levy on its big depositors to help pay for the country's bailout.

http://rt.com/business/bank-cyprus-ukraine-alfa-479/

Meltdown: A global tsunami
How an epidemic of fear caused the world's major banks to stop lending, triggering protests and industrial action.
We explore a renegade executive who nearly destroyed the global financial service, and the treasury secretary who bailed out his old friends.
Meltdown, a four-part series on the secret history of the global financial collapse, can be seen each week from January 24, 2014, at the following times GMT: Friday: 2000; Saturday: 1200; Sunday: 0100; Monday: 0600

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/meltdown/2014/02/20142184012587798.html

Ex-New York mayor Bloomberg named UN climate envoy

Former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg has been appointed as UN special envoy for cities and climate change.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-25991600

Rob Ford reportedly ticketed for jaywalking in Vancouver

VANCOUVER – Rob Ford has travelled to Vancouver but controversy has followed the embattled Toronto mayor.
Media reports say Ford was ticketed for jaywalking Friday night.

http://metronews.ca/news/canada/928345/rob-ford-reportedly-ticketed-for-jaywalking-in-vancouver/

CSEC Snowden docs: MPs grill defence minister on spying revelation
Tories say independent report shows CSEC obeys law as NDP, Liberals call tracking, spying illegal
Opposition MPs say the government has to do more to reassure Canadians after a document newly released by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden suggested Canada's communications spy agency tracked people through free airport Wi-Fi.

The top secret document shows Canada's electronic spy agency used information from the free internet service at a major Canadian airport to track the wireless devices of thousands of ordinary airline passengers for days after they left the terminal.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/csec-snowden-docs-mps-grill-defence-minister-on-spying-revelation-1.2518564

These Devices May Be Spying On You (Even In Your Own Home)

Think you are safe in your own home? These innocent-looking devices may be spying on you, or performing other nefarious actions:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/josephsteinberg/2014/01/27/these-devices-may-be-spying-on-you-even-in-your-own-home/

Montana jury awards $52 million in lawsuit against bank

http://www.greatfallstribune.com/viewart/20140122/BUSINESS/301220019/Montana-jury-awards-52-million-lawsuit-against-bank

Australia confirms turning immigrant boats back

Australian authorities have confirmed for the first time that they are turning boats carrying asylum-seekers back to Indonesia as part of Canberra’s military-led Operation Sovereign Borders crackdown on people-smuggling.

“What I have confirmed today is... that any vessel that seeks to illegally enter Australian waters will be intercepted and will be removed from our waters and our contiguous zone,” Immigration Minister Scott Morrison said on Friday.

http://presstv.com/detail/2014/01/31/348546/migrant-boats-are-turned-back-australia/

Debt-damned economics: learn monetary reform or kiss your assets goodbye. 1 of 2

http://www.examiner.com/article/debt-damned-economics-learn-monetary-reform-or-kiss-your-assets-goodbye-1-of-2

Debt-damned economics: learn monetary reform or kiss your assets goodbye. 2 of 2

http://www.examiner.com/article/debt-damned-economics-learn-monetary-reform-or-kiss-your-assets-goodbye-2-of-2

Pope Francis fires all but one cardinals who run Vatican bank just 11 months into their five-year term

The cardinals were appointed by Benedict XVI shortly before he resigned
The Vatican bank was caught in a money-laundering row in 2010

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2540454/Pope-Francis-fires-one-cardinals-run-Vatican-bank-just-11-months-five-year-term.html

Orphans of the Sahara: Rebellion
Part two of this series explores northern Mali in 2012 as it falls to Tuareg separatists and their al-Qaeda rivals. Early in 2012, as the massive Tuareg rebellion sweeps northern Mali, defeated Mali Army officers stage a coup d'etat in the south leading to the total collapse of government in the country.

Tuareg rebels declare an independent state in the north called "Azawad", but al-Qaeda emerges from the Sahara to take over historic Timbuktu, and compete with the secular rebels for control of northern Mali.

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/orphans-of-the-sahara/2014/01/orphans-sahara-rebellion-20141810554727702.html

and

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/orphans-of-the-sahara/

Bolivia declares state of nat’l emergency over floods

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/01/29/348240/national-emergency-declared-in-bolivia/
Tunisia passes progressive constitution
January 27, 2014 6:15AM ET
The constitution enshrining freedom of religion and women's rights took two years to finish

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/1/27/tunisia-passes-progressiveconstitution.html

Hawking's black hole 'blunder' shows how little we know about gravity
...Gravity is the most far-reaching force known to man. It's what holds you in your chair and reaches across billions of light years of space to hold clusters of galaxies together. It's everywhere. So, you would think that something so common and familiar would have been figured out by now. In fact, its workings are still a mystery, and that mystery is a wrench in the scientific gears - or rather, an obstacle for physicists trying to come up with a single theory to describe the universe.

http://www.cbc.ca/newsblogs/technology/quirks-quarks-blog/2014/01/hawkings-black-hole-blunder-shows-how-little-we-know-about-gravity.html

The Dangers of Heavy Metals and Aluminum

The following are two important articles about Heavy metals and Aluminum and their effects on health and brain function. Important points and vital information in the vaccine debate and for looking at your over-all health in our daily lives.

Many people have no idea of just how much contact we have daily with heavy metals and aluminum. The effects on our health and well being have a huge impact on our lives.

http://iinformedparenting.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-dangers-of-heavy-metals-and-aluminum.html

Posted by D ... Breaking The Silence at 21:19
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Labels: bank run, bolivia state of emergency, conrad black, financial news, ireland banker trial, nsa spying, reuters, rob ford, snowdon, to big to fail banks, US nuke officers, wall street, zerohedge
Friday, 31 January 2014

January 31, 2014 Financial News Notes

China e-investing sparks ‘rate war’ with banks
Bank executive speaks of ‘all-out counterattack’
By Zhang Yuzhe and Liu Zhuozhe

BEIJING ( Caixin Online ) — Many big banks in the country have moved to offer the highest possible interest rates for deposits, despite the central bank’s advice they not do this.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/china-e-investing-sparks-rate-war-with-banks-2014-01-31?siteid=rss

Rajan Warns of Policy Breakdown as Emerging Markets Fall
By Kartik Goyal Jan 31, 2014 1:32 PM GMT+0100

Jan. 30 (Bloomberg) -- India central bank Governor Raghuram Rajan talks with Bloomberg TV India's Vivek Law in Mumbai about interest rates, fund outflows, the rupee and global monetary policy coordination. (Source: Bloomberg TV India)
India central bank Governor Raghuram Rajan warned of a breakdown in global policy coordination after the Federal Reserve further cut stimulus, weakening emerging-market currencies from the rupee to the Turkish lira.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-30/rajan-warns-of-global-policy-breakdown-as-emerging-markets-slide.html

China Said to Probe Credit Loophole Used to Access Cash
By Bloomberg News Jan 30, 2014 6:04 AM GMT+0100

China is probing a loophole that allowed executives at steel traders and other companies to bridge liquidity shortages for their firms by exceeding credit-card limits, according to three people familiar with the matter.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-30/china-said-to-probe-credit-loophole-executives-used-to-gain-cash.html

China Resources Seeks Lenders for HK$6.4 Billion Syndicated Loan
By Paulina Duran Jan 30, 2014 7:46 AM GMT+0100

China Resources Power Holdings Co. (836) is seeking bank commitments for a HK$6.4 billion ($824 million) syndicated loan after hiring banks to arrange the deal, according to two people familiar with the matter.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-30/china-resources-seeks-lenders-for-hk-6-4-billion-syndicated-loan.html

30 January 2014 Last updated at 02:14
Asian stocks tumble on Fed taper and currency fears
Asian markets have tumbled after the US central bank cut stimulus spending for a second month, and fears persisted over emerging market currency losses.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25956782

HSBC shares soar 10% on fat finger mistake
Stock Exchange investigating as bank shares suspended briefly after surge
The bank jumped from around 630p to 688p, prompting an automatic suspension of the shares for five minutes.
When they restarted they fell back to their previous level. One trader said: "This looks like a fat finger, it's a complete error. It looks like someone has taken a hit of around £400,000."

http://www.theguardian.com/business/marketforceslive/2014/jan/30/hsbc-fat-finger-shares-suspended

Exclusive: Deutsche Bank suspends currency trader
By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Deutsche Bank has suspended the head of its emerging markets foreign exchange trading desk in New York in connection with ongoing investigations into the alleged manipulation of the global currency market, a source familiar with the matter said.

http://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-deutsche-bank-suspends-york-head-em-forex-051246930--sector.html

Bank of Cyprus unfreezes 950 mn euros in CDs
Nicosia (AFP) - Bank of Cyprus, the island's largest lender, released 950 million euros ($1.29 billion) in six-month certificates of deposit it had locked in following a haircut on savings during a March bailout of the economy.

http://news.yahoo.com/bank-cyprus-unfreezes-950-mn-euros-cds-183158330.html

Russell Investments' chief economist found dead in Tacoma
Russell Investments chief economist Mike Dueker was found dead Thursday, and police said it appeared he had taken his own life by jumping from a ramp near the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.

http://www.thenewstribune.com/2014/01/30/3019967/body-discovered-in-west-tacoma.html

Currency devaluation ‘easy’ answer to emerging market crisis – Saxo Bank chief
Published time: January 30, 2014 15:48

The emerging market currency crisis is being propelled by policymakers who are “seeking the easy answer” by devaluing their currency, which is an unsustainable global model, Saxo Bank CEO Steen Jacobsen told RT.
The spectacular loss of value in emerging market currencies – the South African rand, the Russian ruble, the Indian rupee, and the Turkish lira- is a result of government's tightening monetary policy, which has even further driven down the value against the euro and dollar.

http://rt.com/business/devaluation-currency-not-easy-420/

Why the world is watching the Fragile Five
By John Defterios, CNN

(CNN) -- After three weeks of punishing losses to its currency the lira, Turkey's central bank has taken what is being viewed as decisive action to reverse negative sentiment. At an emergency meeting Tuesday, the country's main interest rate was raised by 4.25 percent to 12 percent.

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/01/29/business/defterios-turkey-fragile-five/index.html?hpt=hp_bn1

Digital Currency Founder: U.S. Indicted Me For Not Giving FBI My Source Code
By Kim Zetter

The indicted founder of digital currency Liberty Reserve says the U.S. government began targeting him only after he refused to turn over the source code for his proprietary system to the FBI.

Arthur Budovsky, who is fighting extradition to the U.S. from Spain, told a Madrid court that the FBI approached him in 2011 to obtain the source code for what he says was the purpose of undermining the service.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2014/01/liberty-reserve-source-code/

Poland Confiscates Half Of Private Pension Funds To "Cut" Sovereign Debt Load
While the world was glued to the developments in the Mediterranean in the past week, Poland took a page straight out of Rahm Emanuel's playbook and in order to not let a crisis go to waste, announced quietly that it would transfer to the state - i.e., confiscate - the bulk of assets owned by the country's private pension funds (many of them owned by such foreign firms as PIMCO parent Allianz, AXA, Generali, ING and Aviva), without offering any compensation. In effect, the state just nationalized roughly half of the private sector pension fund assets, although it had a more politically correct name for it: pension overhaul.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-09-06/poland-confiscates-half-private-pension-funds-cut-sovereign-debt-load

ZeroHedges Frontrunning list for Jan 31

Even Obama's fans has turning on him: "The Decline and Fall of 'Hope and Change'"
European Stocks Drop, Head for Worst January Since 2009 (BBG)
Euro-Area Inflation at 0.7% Builds Rate Pressure on ECB (BBG)
Japan’s Inflation Accelerates as Abe Seeks Wage Gains (BBG)
Unpossible - this is the USSA: Detroit Debt Proposal Favors Pension Funds (WSJ)
Keystone Report Said Likely to Disappoint Pipeline Foes (BBG)
YHOO still pretending someone cares about it: Yahoo says detected hacking attempt on email accounts (Reuters)
How Google's Costly Motorola Maneuver May Pay Off (WSJ)
Mexico Surpassing Japan as No. 2 Auto Exporter to U.S. (BBG)
Microsoft Seen Testing Insider Nadella’s Will to Revamp (BBG)
Top Obama aide predicts drama-free U.S. debt ceiling increase (Reuters)
The Dong fallout: Danish PM Blindsided as Ministers Quit in Goldman Spat (BBG)
U.S. Says Syria Delaying Chemical Disarmament (WSJ)
Emerging market funds lose $9 billion in past week (Reuters)

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-01-31/frontrunning-january-31

Currency chaos batters Aussie and loonie
Opinion: Collateral damage from the emerging-markets meltdown
....But two other leading currencies have become collateral damage. Over the past year, the Australian and Canadian dollars both have lost more than 10% of their value against the U.S. dollar, and currency traders expect them to fall further still. What’s more, their own central bankers have suggested they want to see their dollars even weaker.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/currency-chaos-batters-aussie-and-loonie-2014-01-31?link=kiosk

Another Country Sells Off US Dollars To Diversify Reserves Into The Yuan
January 28th, 2014

... Nigeria is now selling off dollars to purchase the Yuan to beef up its reserves. Other countries have switched from the dollar and are using the yuan for bilateral trade.

http://investmentwatchblog.com/another-country-sells-off-us-dollars-to-diversify-reserves-into-the-yuan/#lLkouiOdYZET6JaM.99

America’s Karma and World War Two Gold Theft

And the Gold Recovery Attempts of the Korean and Vietnam Wars
By JC Collins

http://philosophyofmetrics.com/2014/01/30/americas-karma-and-world-war-two-gold-theft/#more-109

Sabrina

3rd February 2014, 07:10

Another unexplained 'suicide' (very very sad for all the families involved).

http://news.sky.com/story/1201767/tata-motors-boss-karl-slym-in-suicide-jump

2 Feb

Tata Motors Boss Karl Slym In 'Suicide Jump'

Investigators say there are no early signs of foul play after British executive Karl Slym is found dead at a Bangkok hotel.

Police are treating the death of the British managing director of Tata Motors as a suspected suicide.

Investigators in Thailand say there are no signs of foul play after Karl Slym, 51, fell from a hotel room window in Bangkok on Sunday.

Mr Slym was staying on the 22nd floor of the Shangri-La Hotel with his wife after attending a board meeting in the Thai capital.

Hotel staff found his body on the fourth floor and a three-page note was later discovered by police.

Lieutenant Somyot Boonyakaew, who is heading the investigation, said: "We didn't find any sign of a struggle.

"We found a window open. The window was very small so it was not possible that he would have slipped.

"He would have had to climb through the window to fall out because he was a big man. From my initial investigation we believe he jumped."

Thai police were called to the hotel at about 7.45am on Sunday after staff found Mr Slym's body.

They woke his wife, who is reported to have looked shocked when she was told what had happened.

A post-mortem examination on the body should begin later on Monday.

Mr Slym, originally from Derby, was hired by India's largest car maker in 2012 to revive flagging sales and market share in the country.

He ran all Tata Motors' operations except the British car maker Jaguar Land Rover, which the firm bought in 2008.

Anil Sharma, an analyst with researchers IHS Automotive, said: "His death comes at a time when the company seems to be close to turning the corner.

"It comes before his efforts bear fruit. We should be able to see the results in a year or two."

Worried investors sent shares in Tata Motors down as much as 6.7% at one point on Monday in a broader market that fell more than 2%. The stock ended 6% lower.

Tata chairman Cyrus P Mistry said: "(Mr Slym was) a valued colleague who was providing strong leadership at a challenging time for the Indian auto industry.

"In this hour of grief, our thoughts are with Karl's wife and family."

childs hood end

3rd February 2014, 10:20

from the 22nd floor on the 2~2~2014... one of the other jumpers from the 33rd floor ?

keep up the top work Sabrina.

Sabrina

4th February 2014, 07:51

http://blogdogcicle.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/ben-fulford-february-4-2014-expect.html

the latest from Benjamin Fulford on 4 Feb (thanks to Camilo) with his take on the bankers' deaths

There is also a lot of fighting going on under the surface in the
banking world and it is connected to a concerted attack against J.P.
Morgan, Skull and Bones and the Bush (Scherf, Pierce, Pecce) family. The
mysterious deaths of three bankers last week were all connected to this
battle, according to MI5 and other sources.

Gabriel Magee, the J.P. Morgan banker who died in London was an IT
specialist dealing with Europe, the Middle East and Africa including
Saudi Arabia. He worked on a market ‘predicive’ program which spots
market movements. These are the closest to AI and generate huge profits.
UK investigators suspect he was killed to silence him after he spotted
and was about to blow the whistle on huge dollar transfers being made
out of the BRICS countries.

William Broeksmit, the Deutschebank banker died after Deutschebank pulled out of

the Gold price fixing committee and removed its gold from Paris.
Investigators believe the banker was killed because Deutschebank ran for
the exits and stopped helping J.P. Morgan in the gold market. J.P.
Morgan now owns 60% of all gold derivatives in the US meaning it owns 65
times more paper gold than it has physical gold. The Dragon Family and
others are demanding that J.P. Morgan hand over physical gold.

Which brings us to the third death, that of former Federal Reserve
Board economist Michael Dueker, who was working for an outfit known as
Russell Investments. Although we are still trying to confirm this, it is
likely that Russell Investments is linked to the Russell Trust that
controls Skull and Bones and the Council on Foreign Relations. Dueker
may have been silenced because he was about to blow the whistle on the
looting of pension and insurance funds by the Feds.

full post at link...

Sabrina

4th February 2014, 07:54

FCA issues warnings to two bankers over interest rates

3 Feb Reuters

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/02/03/uk-britain-warnings-libor-idUKBREA120GM20140203?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2FUKDomesticNews+%28News+%2F+UK+%2F+Domestic+News%29

(Reuters) - Britain's financial watchdog has issued its first warning notices of proposed action against two bankers for their part in alleged manipulation of benchmark interest rates.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) did not name the people, stating only that it gave a warning notice to a submitter of benchmark interest rates for failings over a period of more than two years, and another warning to a manager at a bank for failings over more than three years.

The warnings, issued in November but only published on Monday, relate to the London Interbank Offered Rate or Libor and its continental European counterpart Euribor.

A number of banks have been fined $6 billion (3.6 billion pounds) by European, British and U.S. regulators for manipulating Libor and Euribor, which are used to price around $400 trillion worth of products worldwide, from derivatives to home loans.

The rates are compiled by banks submitting quotes of rates they believe they could borrow money at from another bank.

Banks were found to have rigged them to show the bank was not in financial difficulty during the financial crisis or to make derivatives contracts based on them profitable.

This is the first time the FCA has issued warnings since it was given the power to do so. In the past, the UK financial watchdog would only make its enforcement proceedings public once an individual or company was punished.

The FCA's ability to issue early warnings has raised concerns that a firm or individual would be permanently tarnished even if a case were subsequently dropped.

Rob Moulton, a financial services partner at law firm Ashurst, said the aim was to warn the public early of any potential problems with financial products.

Moulton said the case involving the two bankers was different as it was not directly related to a consumer product.

"It looks to me that the only benefit to saying these warning notices have been issued is to the regulator, that they are being active," Moulton said.

"The use of this power is for the pursuit of the regulatory agenda rather than for public protection," Moulton added.

Regulators in Britain have been criticised by members of parliament for being slow to bring individuals to book for their part in rigging Libor as regulatory investigations have widened to include possible manipulation of currency benchmarks.

The FCA is likely to take many months before it reaches final decisions on the two individuals, who can challenge them in an independent FCA committee and later in court.

The FCA accused the first individual, a manager at a bank, of being personally aware and condoning traders making requests to submitters to manipulate submissions.

The watchdog accused the manager of facilitating others' attempts to manipulate interest rate benchmarks and of being aware of the conflict of interest in certain submitters also trading derivative products referenced to an interest rate benchmark.

It accused the second individual of making interest rate benchmark submissions which took into account requests made by traders to benefit their positions.

The second individual is also accused of colluding with an interdealer broker and with traders at another bank that submitted quotes for compiling interest rate benchmarks.

The second individual also took into account interest rate derivative positions on the bank's trading book for which the individual was responsible when it came to making submissions, the watchdog said.

Separately, Britain's finance ministry said international exchange ICE became the independent administrator for Libor on Monday after the British Bankers' Association was stripped of the role because some of its members have been fined for rigging the benchmark.

"Reforming Libor and rebuilding the reputation of this crucial global benchmark is crucial to restoring people's trust in financial services," junior finance minister Sajid Javid said. :)

Sabrina

5th February 2014, 06:57

http://news.sky.com/story/1206677/anglo-irish-bank-execs-face-trial-in-dublin

5 Feb

Anglo Irish Bank Execs Face Trial In Dublin

Former Anglo Irish Bank bosses face charges for their alleged role in pushing Ireland's finances to the brink of collapse.

Three senior executives from the bank at the centre of Ireland's economic crash will go on trial in Dublin later.

It is the first time Irish bankers have faced criminal charges for their alleged role in pushing the country's finances to the brink of collapse, prompting the bailout and austerity.

Sean FitzPatrick, Pat Whelan and William McAteer deny 16 charges of unlawfully providing financial assistance to people for the purpose of buying shares in Anglo Irish Bank in 2008.

They stand accused of granting loans to favoured clients who, it is alleged, bought shares in the now defunct bank to prop up its share price during the credit crunch.

Those named in charges are: Patricia Quinn, Sean Quinn Junior, Collete Marie Quinn, Aoife Quinn, Brenda Quinn, Ciara Quinn, Paddy McKillen, Seamus Ross, Brian O'Farrell, John McCabe, Gerard Maguire, Patrick Kearney, Gerard Conlon, Gerard Gannon, Seán Reilly and Joseph O'Reilly.

Nearly €30bn (£25bn) of Irish taxpayers' money was used to bailout Anglo Irish Bank in 2008 and to rescue it and the entire Irish banking sector from total collapse.

The trial, involving 24 million documents and 800 witness statements, will be one of the most complex in the history of financial prosecutions in Europe.

Sean Quinn, once branded Ireland's richest man but forced to file for bankruptcy when his property empire collapsed, is among those expected to give evidence during the marathon trial.

In another legal first for Dublin, 15 jurors have been sworn in to ensure at least 12 are still available to deliver verdicts after up to six months of evidence.

Officials at the Phoenix Park courts complex anticipate such public interest in the case, they have prepared an overspill viewing room, in addition to the space in the public gallery.

Security will be tight - protestors have targeted the home of one of the accused and in 2010, dissident republicans warned they were monitoring the actions of "banks and bankers".

Sabrina

5th February 2014, 07:18

Widely know, but good that the whole scam of the EU is getting a public airing.. Doesn't mention that the EU's own accounts are never signed off by the auditors.

http://tinyurl.com/lmbo8bb

Corruption Costing European Union $164 Billion a Year

Corruption across the European Union’s 28 countries costs about 120 billion euros (US$164 billion) per year – a “breathtaking” sum equal to the EU’s entire annual budget, EU Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem said Monday.

(yes that is breathtaking!!)

Malmstroem said the actual figure could be even higher, despite the estimate amounting to a little less than one per cent of the bloc’s total economic output.

“The extent of the problem in the EU is breathtaking,” Malmstroem wrote in an op-ed piece in Swedish newspaper Goeteborgs-Posten.

“Corruption undermines faith in democratic institutions, drains the legal economy of resources and is a breeding ground for organised crime.” Presenting the European Commission report, the bloc’s first, Malmstroem emphasised the figure was “an estimation” and said the actual amount is “probably … much higher.” She called on member states to do more to stamp out the problem, saying: “The price of not acting is simply too high.” The report does not rank the countries as to the seriousness of the problem nor suggest legal remedies, with Malmstroem saying that could follow after talks with member states.

But “one thing is very clear – there is no ‘corruption-free’ zone in Europe,” she said.

While Malmstroem refused to point the finger at any particular country, the EU has had longstanding concerns about corruption in Bulgaria and Romania, especially over their use of EU funds, and both were put under a special monitoring mechanism when they joined the bloc in 2007.

The report said that “fighting corruption has long been a priority for Bulgaria” but despite best efforts, the problem “remains widespread”.

A poll found 84 per cent of Bulgarians agreed corruption is prevalent while last year there were large demonstrations against the government’s ties with wealthy oligarchs.

Among possible steps, the Commission “suggests that Bulgaria should shield anti-corruption institutions from political influence and appoint their management in a transparent, merit-based procedure”, it said.

In addition, the Commission “is suggesting that a code of ethics is adopted for members of the National Assembly”.
“In Romania, both petty and political corruption remains a significant problem,” the report said, adding that efforts to address the issue have been inconsistent.

The Commission suggested Romania should ensure truly independent corruption investigations and develop “comprehensive codes of conduct for elected officials”.

A poll showed “a full 93 per cent of Romanians agree that corruption is widespread,” it said.

Among the other member states, the report named Denmark and Finland as top performers, while in France it said that “corruption-related risks in the public procurement sector and in international business transactions have not been addressed.” Germany, the bloc’s largest economy, “is among the best countries of the EU. However, more can be done,” it said, suggesting it “would benefit from the introduction of strict penalties for corruption of elected officials.” Picking up on an issue attracting a lot of domestic attention, it also suggested Germany should develop a policy to deal with the “revolving door” phenomenon, where officials leave office to work for companies they may have recently helped.

In her Swedish op-ed, Malmstroem said Sweden “is among the countries with the least problems”.

She said research showed that one in 12 EU citizens had experienced corruption in the past year, while four out of 10 companies regard it as “an obstacle for doing business within the EU”.

The report reviews how existing laws and policies work and suggests what further effort could be made.
Malmstroem singled out public procurement, notably tenders for construction projects, as a major cause of concern.
Graft watchdog Transparency International welcomed the report, saying it marks “an important step in the EU’s collective effort to scale up its anti-corruption efforts”.

“It is a stark warning against complacency about corruption in any EU country,” it added.

The report did not cover corruption in the EU’s own institutions, with the bloc’s finances reviewed by the separate Court of Auditors.

4 Feb

Sabrina

5th February 2014, 07:33

http://jhaines6.wordpress.com/2014/02/04/neil-keenan-update-the-cabal-is-in-check-checkmate-coming/

See Neil Keenan's video at the link above.

NEIL KEENAN UPDATE: THE CABAL IS IN CHECK!!! CHECKMATE COMING!

Posted on February 4, 2014 by Jean

As a very brief introduction, allow me to say that I am feel so honored that my Blog is the place where Neil Keenan is publishing this information today.

Hugs to everyone!
~Jean

THE KEENAN TEAM -

Video Highlights:

Neil’s sources have proven accurate again: Cabalists around the world are having their offshore accounts exposed. The ICIJ (International Consortium of Journalists) has just released a report naming the cabal individuals who have hidden their wealth in offshore accounts. Neil reveals more names, and even more with be forthcoming soon.
Chemtrails 2.0: they are now radioactive! Sons of bitches. Dr. Group counters, developing a compound that will protect us.

The Bio-Mat and VibesUP are doing wonders for Neil and he shares their medical marvels.

A marvel machine cures your unique health problems and any disease within six to eight weeks; and another machine will rejuvenate the body’s organs to their condition of 20 years ago.

A new worldwide server, Webinski, is now becoming available to circumvent NSA’s (Nazi Surveillance Agency’s) illegal, constitution-shredding spy tentacles into every imaginable aspect of our private lives.

IRS: We want our money back! Illegal IMF-controlled bastards! We’re coming after you.

Indonesian President Sukarno and President Kennedy were working together to dismantle the Federal Reserve. Sukarno sent Kennedy 1,700 metric tons of gold for his use in creating a new gold-backed US dollar. This was the primary reason the Cabal conspired to assassinate Kennedy. Shortly thereafter, a coup d’état removed Sukarno from political power, and he ended his days under house arrest.

The Dragon Family is financing a bank of the BRICS alliance. The Family will assist in financing a new government in the United States.

Keith Scott is up to his usual criminal con games. (A warning to all who would be deceived by Scott – do your due diligence so you don’t become ensnared by this Jabba the Hut.)

The Cabal is heating up conflict between the Japanese and China. Advice: Join forces to defeat the real enemy – the Cabal.

Electro-Magnetic Pulse weapons have been made available for our disposal. Can they be used to take down chemtrail planes? We certainly have the right of self-defence.

Nelu should be released from jail in February.

For more than three years Neil Keenan has been steadfast in his efforts to explode into the midst of the Globalists. While he has captured what they need to continue their global fraud, which is stripping them bare financially, he also has focused the antiseptic sunshine of the power of truth on their genocidal agenda.

While he has held his cards close to his vest, at the same time he also has given us enough information to understand and support him in his efforts.

In this video Neil takes it to the next level as he exposes the Cabal’s Radioactive Chemtrails, 2.0. He gives us hope with his announcement of a medical compound that destroys the potency of their attempts to wipe out 85% of humanity.

Recently, Neil sat down with one of the top principals of the Bilderbergers, who claimed a change of heart and wanted to join the Keenan Team in defeating the Cabal’s genocidal plans. Neil said. “No” — because few from the Team could ever trust this Bilderberg pillar. Helping with information is acceptable, and Neil will accept all the Cabal turncoats that are willing to prove themselves in this way.

He expects more members to abandon the sinking, stinking Cabal ship.

What Neil unequivocally understands is that there is no more clutter in his way: The Cabal is utterly exposed to him. While he loves bumping heads with Cabal principals, rather than with their weasel cronies whom they have thrown out in front as interference, Neil now sees them all running for cover.

This sums up how the Cabal must be feeling about now:

Maybe it’s their 20th or 21st nervous breakdown; Neil is loosing count. What’s clear, though, is their legs are getting weak; they are showing all the symptoms of ‘losing it’ again .

Neil, as the Cabal’s worst nightmare, is making his moves – it’s Showtime, and they are twelve steps behind him. He is taking their system down, step by step, piece by piece. Neil knows that ‘our’ time has arrived, and all of his efforts are now bearing fruit.

What can they try next? Hunt Neil down — again?

If they do, he will release the Black Book, and many of the top-tier Cabalists will be exposed — and they deeply fear exposure. Neil not only controls the Black Book and has had the Book’s codes translated, but he also has opened the private-banking black screens — and he knows exactly who has done what.

But wait, there is much more: the unraveling of the entire Cabal structure. The ICIJ and several other groups are doing a terrific job working to undo the global elite. Their continuing efforts to expose the offshore banking network will lay bare many other top Cabal players. And it’s only just begun.

Let’s go to the very top of the pyramid now, which Neil reveals is not Rockefeller, Bush, or Rothschild. Instead, it is a group of nine men who have pushed the above-mentioned three to the front, thereby maintaining their anonymity, while running the entire puppet show from afar. To date, many may have heard only whispers of their names in the wind. These nine are at the apex of the Cabal pyramid. Little do they know that others have tracked them down, and their days of walking the streets as ordinary people will soon be over.

Watch the video. It is filled with information on Neil’s efforts to achieve Peace in Our Time — for the first time in God knows how long!

In concluding a discussion of this Preface with Neil, we asked him how in the future can we maintain peace. In his own special one-of-a-kind way, he advised us:

NO, WE WON’T GET FOOLED AGAIN!

THE KEENAN TEAM

P.S. Those lamp posts are getting closer, George, wouldn’t you say? What you gonna’ do?

Sabrina

7th February 2014, 06:32

UN Slams Vatican’s Child Abuse Record

From: AFP – February 6, 2014

http://tinyurl.com/ldlekor

THE United Nations has condemned the Vatican for failing to stamp out child abuse and allowing systematic cover-ups, calling on the Church to remove clergy suspected of raping or molesting children.

The Vatican must remove all child sexual abusers from their posts and turn them over to the police, the United Nations children’s rights watchdog said on Wednesday.

The Vatican hit back, accusing the world body’s child rights watchdog of distorting the facts by failing to take into account fresh efforts to rid the Church of child abusers.

In an unprecedented report for a UN body, the Committee on the Rights of the Child slammed the Vatican for failing to live up to repeated pledges to put its house in order.

“The committee expresses serious concern that in dealing with child victims of different forms of abuse, the Holy See has systematically placed preservation of the reputation of the Church and the alleged offender over the protection of child victims,” it said.

Saying abuse had affected “tens of thousands” of children worldwide, it urged the Vatican to “immediately remove all known and suspected child sexual abusers from assignment and refer the matter to the relevant law enforcement authorities”.

Committee head Kirsten Sandberg said that despite the Vatican’s pledges to adopt a zero tolerance approach, it was in clear breach of the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

“They are in breach of the Convention as up to now, because they haven’t done all the things that they should have done,” Ms Sandberg told reporters.

The report said the Vatican had failed to acknowledge the extent of abuse, nor taken necessary measures to protect children, and had allowed perpetrators to continue with impunity.

It blasted the transfer of abusers to new parishes within countries, and even across borders, in an attempt to cover up their crimes and remove them from the clutches of justice.

The Vatican’s UN envoy, Monsignor Silvano Tomasi, charged that the committee had ignored its child protection reforms.

“It is simply a question of facts, evidence, which cannot be distorted,” he told Vatican Radio.

Benedict XVI, pontiff from 2005 to 2013, was the first pope to apologise to abuse victims and call for zero tolerance. Critics, though, said rhetoric outstripped real action.

His successor, Pope Francis, has said Catholics should feel “shame” for abuse and in December created a Church commission to investigate sex crimes, enforce prevention and care for victims.

The committee welcomed that, but said more was needed, including an independent mechanism to address abuse.
“The gap between what we’re being told and what’s happening in practice is the most surprising thing,” said committee member Benyam Mezmur.

“We’ve made it clear to them that words on paper are not going to deliver children in peril. What ultimately matters is what their actions will mean in reality for children,” he added.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) hailed the report. “The quickest way to prevent child sexual violence by Catholic clerics is for Pope Francis to publicly remove all offenders from ministry and harshly punish their colleagues and supervisors who enabled their crimes,” SNAP said.

“But like his predecessors, he has refused to take even tiny steps in this direction.” “Now it’s up to secular officials to follow the UN’s lead and step in to safeguard the vulnerable because Catholic officials are either incapable or unwilling to do so,” it added.

The report followed a landmark January hearing where the 18 independent human rights experts from around the globe who make up the UN committee grilled senior Church officials.

Like other signatories of the UN child rights convention, the Vatican agrees to be scrutinised by the panel.
Its last appearance was in 1995, before the abuse issue burst into the spotlight.

The committee criticised the Church for dealing with paedophile priests behind closed doors, and denounced the “code of silence” imposed on clergy, saying it meant cases of abuse or its concealment were rarely reported to police.

Church whistleblowers were meanwhile “ostracised, demoted and fired” and victims made to sign confidentiality clauses if they received compensation, it said.

Referring to Ireland’s “Magdalene Laundries” – Church-run institutions for unmarried girls who got pregnant, finally closed in 1996 – the committee said the Vatican failed to provide justice despite “slavery-like” conditions and sexual abuse.

It criticised the forced removal for adoption of the Magdalene girls’ babies, and similar past programs in countries such as Spain.

It also urged Rome to consider the impact on young people of its stance on homosexuality, contraception and abortion – which the Vatican said counted as doctrinal interference.

As well as general comments on the risks to girls of early pregnancy and clandestine abortions, the committee spotlighted the case of a nine-year-old Brazilian who was raped by her stepfather, and whose mother and doctor where excommunicated after she had a termination.

The UN committee’s recommendations are non-binding.

Pedophilia scandals that have rocked the Roman Catholic Church in recent years:

Australia: Scandals include sexual abuse in the 1970s and 1980s in a Catholic school in Bathurst, west of Sydney. A national investigation launched in April 2013 is expected to hear from around 5000 presumed victims in religious, associative and public institutions.

Canada: The Mount Cashel Orphanage in St John’s, Newfoundland was closed in 1990 after it emerged that staff had systematically abused 300 residents over several decades. In 2002, associations representing more than 10,000 self-declared victims joined forces to seek compensation.

United States: In 2004 a criminal investigation found that 4400 priests had sexually abused minors between 1950 and 2002, and that the abuse had affected about 11,000 children. The former archbishop of Boston, Bernard Law, was forced to resign in 2002 for having protected pedophile priests, and former archbishop of Los Angeles Roger Mahony agreed to pay $US660 million ($A740 million) to 500 presumed victims.

Ireland: In one of the most staunchly Catholic countries in Europe, a priest admitted to sexually abusing more than 100 children, while another said he had abused minors regularly over 25 years. A total of 14,500 Irish children are reported to have been victims of abuse by clergy.

Germany: In early 2010, hundreds of alleged cases of child sex abuse in church institutions emerged, notably at the Jesuit college Canisius in Berlin where about 20 cases were reported. In late 2012, a report said at least 66 church officials had been accused of sex abuse.

Belgium: Former bishop of Bruges Roger Vangheluwe resigned in 2010 after acknowledging that he had abused two nephews. Thousands of other potential cases have emerged since then. The Commission on Church-related Sexual Abuse Complaints, set up by the Catholic Church, has probed hundreds of cases of sexual abuse.

The Netherlands: In late 2011, a report said “several tens of thousands of minors” had been abused within church institutions between 1945 and 2010, and around 800 suspects have been identified.

Austria: A series of scandals, including years of abuse by a priest in a Salzburg monastery, has revealed some 800 cases in all.

and

http://itccs.org/2014/02/02/pope-francis-is-named-by-former-argentine-junta-insider-as-prime-mover-in-child-trafficking-network-francis-concealed-vatican-crown-of-england-holyrood-agreement/

Pope Francis is named by former Argentine junta insider as “prime mover” in child trafficking network. Francis concealed Vatican – Crown of England “Holyrood Agreement” authorizing joint coverup of child rape in Anglican and Catholic churches

Pope Francis named by eyewitness as child trafficker

http://youtu.be/vNTTx7gZHS4

Exclusive reports from Madrid and Rome:

A former civil servant in the Argentine military junta who is living in exile in Spain claims that Pope Francis engineered the kidnapping and trafficking of children of political prisoners during the Dirty War of the 1970′s.

The man bases his claim on his personal involvement in meetings between Bergoglio and senior junta members that secured the child trafficking networks using Catholic orphanages and religious bodies as covers.

A Spanish reporter who has interviewed the former civil servant states,

“This guy is genuine and has many names and dates, and notes from meetings. Apparently, Bergoglio was promised the top spot in the Argentine church if he cooperated with the junta. So it’s small wonder that as the Pope, he’s made it harder for honest catholics to report child abuse, considering his own complicity.”

In related news, a Vatican source claims that former Pope Benedict (Joseph Ratzinger) secured an agreement with Queen Elizabeth as head of the Church of England to conceal child rape in that body by adopting the provisions of the canon law “Crimen Sollicitationas”.

The agreement was made at Holyrood Castle in Edinburgh on September 16, 2010, during the Pope’s unprecedented visit to England that month, the first such visit in papal history.

The adoption of the notorious law by Queen Elizabeth was one of the conditions for the absorption of the Anglican church back into the Church of Rome. It compels all Anglican clergy to subvert the laws of their own countries by protecting child rapists in their ranks, silencing victims and not telling the police of the crime.

Pope Benedict resigned on February 11, 2013, followed in August by the equally unexpected resignation of Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who helped to broker the Holyrood Agreement.

The cancellation of Queen Elizabeth’s novel trip to the Vatican in March, 2013 soon after the appointment of Jorge Bergoglio as Pope Francis 1 was connected to the new Pope’s concerns that the Holyrood agreement might surface.

“Papa Francis was determined to keep the Holyrood deal secret at whatever cost because of his own ‘reform’ image and his plans to entrench Crimen even more completely in church law, which he did in his July 11 Apostolic Letter” states the Vatican source.

“One of his conditions for being made Pontiff was the dismissal of Bertone, who might link him to Holyrood. As a Jesuit, Il Papa knows you must feign one thing while doing another”.

In response to these latest revelations, the International Common Law Court of Justice in Brussels is actively proceeding with its next major case, in which its Prosecutors’ Office will seek the prosecution of Pope Francis, Jorge Bergoglio, on a charge of criminal conspiracy and aiding and abetting human trafficking.

The Court will issue its first Statement of Claim and Summonses no later than March 30, 2014.

The same Court issued a Legal Declaration on August 4, 2013, naming the Crown of England and the Roman Catholic Church as Transnational Criminal bodies under international law.

Further consequences of these facts will be disclosed this Friday, February 7 at a special press conference convened by ITCCS Field Secretary Kevin Annett, commencing at 11 am outside the Canadian consulate at 1251 Avenue of the Americas in New York City.

Sources:
www.itccs.org (archives) , www.hiddennolonger.com (Crimen document, Appendix 9),
Issued by the Central Office, ITCCS
ITCCS Breaking News Release: February 3, 2014 (GMT)

Sabrina

7th February 2014, 07:12

http://rt.com/politics/russia-gmo-foods-ban-567/

Total ban on GM food production mulled in Russia

A group of Russian MPs have prepared a bill severely restricting imports of genetically modified agricultural produce, and completely banning its domestic production.

The initiative is backed by Evgeny Fyodorov of the parliamentary majority United Russia and a group called Russian Sovereignty, which unites MPs from various parties and parliamentary factions.

The politicians want to amend the existing law On Safety and Quality of Alimentary Products with a norm set for the maximum allowed content of transgenic and genetically modified components. The powers to establish that norm go to the government and products with excessive content of GMO components should be banned for turnover and imports.

Currently there are no limitations on the turnover or production of GMO-containing foodstuffs in Russia. However, when the percentage of GMO exceeds 0.9 percent the producer must label such goods and warn consumers. Last autumn the government passed a resolution allowing the listing of genetically modified plants in the Unified State Register, but this resolution will come in force only in July this year.

The main sponsor of the bill, Fyodorov, said in comments to Izvestia daily that he wanted to make this norm zero for all foodstuffs produced in Russia. The draft bans the production of genetically modified organisms and transgenic products of plant, animal or microbial origin for their use in human and animal foods.

Fyodorov said that this measure was needed because international corporations could try to bypass the limitations on imports by launching GMO production inside Russia. He added that under the new bill businessmen still can register genetically modified organisms and conduct research, but not grow and sell them until a slightest doubt of their safety remains.

Professionals perceived the initiative differently. The head of Russia’s Organic Farming Union, Yakov Lyubovedsky, holds that the passing of the bill would show if the Duma can defend the country’s independence and the interests of population. He also added that GMO was an experiment on humanity itself and that the industry could do very well without genetically-enhanced plants and animals.

The president of the Grain Producers’ Union, Arkady Zlochevsky holds the opposite opinion. He told Izvestia that the suggested measure would be extremely harmful for Russian farmers as they would be deprived of modern technology and their foreign competitors would be still allowed to export their goods to Russia.

If legislators decide on a ban, it should be complete, including consumption, but this is currently not possible, Zlochevsky noted. In addition the limitations would create a threat of uncontrolled and dangerous spread of illegal genetically modified crops, Zlochevsky noted.

The pro-GMO businessman also pointed out that the discussion of the problem should not be limited to the agriculture and food industries. He said that 70 percent of genetically enhanced materials were used in pharmacology and medicine, 20 percent were used in industry and only 10 percent of GMOs were used in agriculture and food production.

The bill will be submitted to the lower house in two weeks’ time and its authors claim that its chances of passing are very high.

3 Feb

Sabrina

7th February 2014, 07:43

This has come and gone, but just for the record, more evidence of the truth inconveniently getting out there now… and as article says, amidst all that scary expensive security…

http://www.smh.com.au/sport/911-truther-matthew-mills-gatecrashes-super-bowl-postgame-interview-20140204-31ydu.html

9/11 truther Matthew Mills gatecrashes Super Bowl post-game interview

Tens of millions of dollars were spent on security at the Super Bowl but it wasn't enough to stop one man from bypassing all the checkpoints to interrupt the post-game press conference.

Matthew Mills, a 30-year-old independent journalist from Brooklyn, managed to use an old media pass from a festival to hop aboard an employee bus and get past multiple security screenings at the MetLife Stadium before the game.

"I just said I was running late for work and I had to get in there. It was that simple," Mills told the New Jersey News.

"I didn't think that I'd get that far. I just kept getting closer and closer. Once I got past the final gate and into the stadium, I was dumbfounded."

Once the Seattle Seahawks clinched victory, Mills walked straight into the media tent with the other reporters for the post-game news conference with players and coaches.

It was during questions with Seattle player Malcolm Smith, that Mills, who is affiliated with advocacy group WeAreChange and proclaims to be a “9/11 truther”, decided to try and send a message.

In the news footage that was being broadcast live, Mills is seen grabbing the microphone from Smith, who in turn looks for help from managers.

“Investigate 9/11. 9/11 was perpetrated by people in our own government,” Mills said.

The interruption lasted about four seconds before Mills was promptly pushed off the stage by publicists.

Smith, who had just been voted the Super Bowl's Most Valuable Player, echoed what many were thinking. “Let's check his press pass,” the linebacker joked.

Mills was later arrested and state police said he was being charged with criminal trespass, the New York Times reported.

"I just saw my opportunity to get my word out there and I took it," Mills said.

The National Football League (NFL) said they were looking into the matter.

However, the incident has left many wondering how Mills was able to gatecrash the media tent so successfully.

It is estimated the Super Bowl cost New Jersey taxpayers more than $US17.7 million ($20.1 million), although the exact costs for security is unknown.

The operation involved some 4000 guards, sniffer dogs, helicopters, about 700 New Jersey State Police troopers and security teams from the FBI, state transit police, Department of Homeland Security and NYPD, Asbury Park Press reported.

All spectators were shuffled through security screen tents and scanned with metal detectors before entering the stadium and were restricted to bringing in a clutch bag and a small, clear plastic bag.

More than 6000 journalists registered with the NFL to cover the Super Bowl, the New York Times reported.

Each media organisation was required to submit credential applications in November and each individual had to present a government issued photo ID in order to pick up their own media passes.

Despite the strict accreditation process though, Mills was able to bypass all of the above with a fake pass that simply looked liked the others.

iS3hKOmbg0o

King Arthur

8th February 2014, 01:02

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-02-07/4th-financial-services-executive-found-dead-self-inflicted-nail-gun-wounds

4th Financial Services Executive Found Dead; "From Self-Inflicted Nail-Gun Wounds"

King Arthur

8th February 2014, 01:22

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-02-07/blythe-masters-withdraws-cftc-furious-twitter-backlash-blamed
Blythe Masters Withdraws From CFTC : Furious Twitter Backlash Blamed

Sabrina

8th February 2014, 06:30

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-02-07/blythe-masters-withdraws-cftc-furious-twitter-backlash-blamed
Blythe Masters Withdraws From CFTC : Furious Twitter Backlash Blamed

As the article says: 'Perhaps there is some justice in the world.' and as a reader commented:
'Maybe Twitter is worth something after all; other than as a stock'. :)

¤=[Post Update]=¤

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26094035

8 Feb Spain

Spain's Princess Cristina due in court over corruption case

Spain's Princess Cristina is due to be questioned in court in connection with a corruption scandal involving the business dealings of her husband.

It will be the first time in history a member of Spain's royal family has appeared in court as the subject of a criminal investigation.

Inaki Urdangarin is alleged to have defrauded regional governments of millions of euros of public money.

The princess and her husband deny any wrongdoing, and have not been charged.

Princess Cristina, 48, will accompanied by her lawyer as she answers dozens of questions from a judge in a closed-door hearing set to start at 10:00 local time (09:00 GMT) at the main court building in Palma de Mallorca, capital of the Balearic Islands.

The BBC's Tom Burridge in Madrid says the world's media will be waiting outside the courtroom, analysing every detail of a corruption case which has gone on for three years and made headlines in Spain on an almost daily basis.

The princess's husband is accused of organising events for two regional governments at hugely inflated prices, while she is suspected of spending some of that money on personal expenses.

Spain's royal household admits the case has damaged the reputation and credibility of Spain's royals, and, partly because of this scandal, the popularity of King Juan Carlos has fallen in recent years.

Sabrina

8th February 2014, 06:59

http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?68234-Best-yet-from-Karen-Hudes&p=794568#post794568

Thanks to GrannyFranny100, here's lastest interview from Karen Hudes (ex World Bank economist, lawyer and whistleblower). As she says, 'humanity is is right on target to take back our world'. Definitely worth watching.

F-2Rfuq8NBU

PathWalker

8th February 2014, 09:16

Thank you, thank you thank you.
The interview with Karen Hudes, the women with stainless steel balls.
She names some extraordinary names, she turn the plate on them.

I am inspired, in awe and exited by this interview.

Sabrina

9th February 2014, 09:18

More on the recent 'suicides' of people in the financial world - plus now a reporter goes missing.

http://wallstreetonparade.com/2014/02/a-rash-of-deaths-and-a-missing-reporter-–-with-ties-to-wall-street-investigations/

A Rash of Deaths and a Missing Reporter – With Ties to Wall Street Investigations

By Pam Martens: February 3, 2014

In a span of four days last week, two current executives and one recently retired top ranking executive of major financial firms were found dead. Both media and police have been quick to label the deaths as likely suicides. Missing from the reports is the salient fact that all three of the financial firms the executives worked for are under investigation for potentially serious financial fraud.

The deaths began on Sunday, January 26. London police reported that William Broeksmit, a top executive at Deutsche Bank who had retired in 2013, had been found hanged in his home in the South Kensington section of London. The day after Broeksmit was pronounced dead, Eric Ben-Artzi, a former risk analyst turned whistleblower at Deutsche Bank, was scheduled to speak at Auburn University in Alabama on his allegations that Deutsche had hid $12 billion in losses during the financial crisis with the knowledge of senior executives. Two other whistleblowers have brought similar charges against Deutsche Bank.

Deutsche Bank is also under investigation by global regulators for potentially rigging the foreign exchange markets – an action similar to the charges it settled in 2013 over its traders’ involvement in the rigging of the interest rate benchmark, Libor.

Just two days after Broeksmit’s death, on Tuesday, January 28, a 39-year old American, Gabriel Magee, a Vice President at JPMorgan in London, plunged to his death from the roof of the 33-story European headquarters of JPMorgan in Canary Wharf. According to Magee’s LinkedIn profile, he was involved in “Technical architecture oversight for planning, development, and operation of systems for fixed income securities and interest rate derivatives.”

Magee’s parents, Bill and Nell Magee, are not buying the official story according to press reports and are planning to travel from the United States to London to get at the truth. One of their key issues, which should also trouble the police, is how an employee obtains access to the rooftop of one of the mostly highly secure buildings in London.

Nell Magee was quoted in the London Evening Standard saying her son was “a happy person who was happy with his life.” His friends are equally mystified, stating he was in a happy, long-term relationship with a girlfriend.

JPMorgan is under the same global investigation for potential involvement in rigging foreign exchange rates as is Deutsche Bank. The firm is also said to be under an investigation by the U.S. Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations for its involvement in potential misconduct in physical commodities markets in the U.S. and London.

One day after Magee’s death, on Wednesday, January 29, 2014, 50-year old Michael (Mike) Dueker, the Chief Economist at Russell Investments, is said to have died from a 50-foot fall from a highway ramp down an embankment in Washington state. Again, suicide is being presented by media as the likely cause. (Do people holding Ph.D.s really attempt suicide by jumping 50 feet?)

According to Dueker’s official bio, prior to joining Russell Investments, he was an assistant vice president and research economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis from 1991 to 2008. His duties there included serving as an associate editor of the Journal of Business and Economic Statistics. He also was editor of Monetary Trends, a monthly publication of the St. Louis Fed.

Bloomberg News quotes William Poole, former President of the St. Louis Fed from 1998 to 2008, saying “Everyone respected his professional skills and good sense.”

According to a report in the New York Times in November of last year, Russell Investments was one of a number of firms that received subpoenas from New York State regulators who are probing the potential for pay-to-play schemes involving pension funds based in New York. No allegations of wrongdoing have been made against Russell Investments in the matter.

The case of David Bird, the oil markets reporter who had worked at the Wall Street Journal for 20 years and vanished without a trace on the afternoon of January 11, has this in common with the other three tragedies: his work involves a commodities market – oil – which is under investigation by the U.S. Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations for possible manipulation. The FBI is involved in the Bird investigation.

Bird left his Long Hill, New Jersey home on that Saturday, telling his wife he was going for a walk. An intentional disappearance is incompatible with the fact that he left the house wearing a bright red jacket and without his life-sustaining medicine he was required to take daily as a result of a liver transplant. Despite a continuous search since his disappearance by hundreds of volunteers, local law enforcement and the FBI, Bird has not been located.

When a series of tragic events involving one industry occur within an 18-day timeframe, the statistical probability of these events being random is remote. According to a number of media reports, JPMorgan is conducting an internal investigation of the death of Gabriel Magee. Given that JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank and Russell Investments are subjects themselves of investigations, a more serious, independent look at these deaths is called for.

Sabrina

9th February 2014, 09:23

http://wallstreetonparade.com/2014/02/top-uk-regulator-people-have-good-reason-not-to-trust-currency-rates-set-by-big-banks/

Top UK Regulator: People Have Good Reason Not to Trust Currency Rates Set By Big Banks

By Pam Martens: February 5, 2014

Yesterday, Martin Wheatley, the Chief Executive of Britain’s top financial regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), testified before Parliament’s Treasury Select Committee that the public has valid reasons not to trust the way that rates are set in the foreign currency exchange markets “because of what they’ve seen and the stories that they’ve seen come out.”

Global investigators have accumulated evidence that strongly suggests that traders at the too-big-to-fail banks have been rigging foreign exchange rates in much the same manner that they rigged the interest rate benchmark, Libor.

Unfortunately for the public, Wheatley said it is likely that the investigation will drag into 2015, meaning the public will just have to go on not trusting a marketplace that trades $5.3 trillion a day. (Is this any way to run a global financial system or have we permanently entered the Alice in Wonderland world of finance?)

In answer to the question as to whether the public could trust “the way foreign exchange rates are fixed,” Wheatley responded:

“The methodology is quite interesting. The methodology to most people would seem a much safer methodology than Libor; because it’s actually trades which are real trades – not somebody’s view of the price at which things could happen — in a very, very liquid market. So I think the surprise for all of us as regulators is that actually the allegations have become so strong about fixing of those trades – collusion between traders in that market.

“So the elements that are different to Libor is that it’s a much deeper, much more liquid market based on real trades. The elements that are similar to Libor, and this is purely on what’s reported, is that the suggestions of collusion between individuals at a number of firms and the use of chat rooms and phones to collude to influence prices.

“But we’re still in the investigation phase. So I can’t really comment too much on any findings other than to say the allegations are every bit as bad as they have been with Libor.”

Upon further prodding for a direct response as to whether the public should trust the way rates are set, Wheatley added:

“Again, given what’s come out, no, people will not trust the way that rates are fixed. We’re trying, I’m chairing a group at the FSB [Financial Stability Board] level and also IOSCO [International Organization of Securities Commissions] which are the global bodies to look at this to introduce a new standard that all rates operate to. So we’re trying to change the method but, in truth, no, people won’t trust it because of what they’ve seen and the stories that they’ve seen come out.”

Wheatley said that at least ten banks are being investigated and there is informal coordination of the investigation between the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the FCA and Swiss regulators.

Upon further probing, Wheatley admitted that other benchmarks set in London are being investigated for similar abuses but he declined to tell the Committee what those benchmarks are – adding further to public distrust of all rate regimes involving the big banks.

According to reports in business media since last November, JPMorgan, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, UBS, RBS, Barclays, Lloyds and Standard Chartered have already fired, suspended, or put currency traders on leave. However, no individual or firm has as yet been charged with wrongdoing. The largest four banks in foreign exchange – Deutsche Bank, Citigroup, Barclays and UBS – control more than 50 percent of the market.

In November of last year, Goldman Sachs said in a filing that it was under investigation by regulators in the currency fixing matter.

John Mann, Member of the British Parliament, Questions Martin Wheatley of the FCA on February 4, 2014
According to leaks to the business press – traders at some of the largest firms were using Bloomberg chat rooms dubbed “The Cartel” and “The Bandits Club” to rig the market.

Wheatley took a particularly hard grilling from John Mann, a Member of Parliament from the British Labour Party. Mann scowled and paused for dramatic effect between each syllable of the words “consumer champion.” The exchange follows:

Mann: “Have we or have we not just had the biggest series of quantifiable wrongdoing in the history of our financial services industry?”

Wheatley: “Yes we have.”

Mann: “Is there any other industry in recorded history in this country who’s had a comparable level of quantifiable wrongdoing to your knowledge?”

Wheatley: “Not to my knowledge. I don’t know what other industries have suffered but certainly not to my knowledge.”

Mann: “So we’ve had a bit of a problem then. So you’re the consumer champion [Mann almost chokes on the word 'champion']. But I haven’t heard you say anything yet really about consumers. It’s all been a bit dry…Now, David Lawton [Director of Markets, FCA] stated that the, in November, that the Financial Services Act 2012 didn’t give the impetus for a radical change to the way we approach markets supervision. Why is that Mr. Wheatley? You’ve been there all along?”

Wheatley: “I think it was drawing a distinction within our organization as to which bits were more effective and which less. So markets supervision is effectively the oversight of formal markets, equity markets, debt markets, credit markets and which are the area which have been less affected. I don’t think he was using markets in its much broader sense…”

Mann: “My question is why your organization is saying that the Act in 2012 wasn’t good enough, when you were there, advising on these matters, all the way through.”

Wheatley: “Again, because we’re a technical organization we tend to lapse into technical language and I think you’ll find that David was talking about formal regulated markets like the stock exchange or like the debt market. Our view is that the Act does give us significant new powers and significant new powers to benefit consumers…”

Apparently, as is the case with the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation enacted in 2010 in the U.S., those significant new powers do not include the ability to stop the big banks from rigging markets and fleecing the public or inhibiting traders from bragging about it in chat rooms.

Sabrina

9th February 2014, 09:35

http://www.shiftfrequency.com/the-battle-has-been-against-an-artificial-intelligence-and-its-human-slaves/

The Battle Has Been Against An Artificial Intelligence And Its Human Slaves

TowardsEmancipation February 2014

ArtificialIntelligenceInFinanceMarketsAs the old cliché goes, sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. Empirical evidence proves the current financial crisis has been caused by an artificial intelligence. This artificial intelligence was born out of a monetary system that was not based in reality but was parasitical on reality.

That is why most trading on today’s financial markets is carried out by computers and not humans. That is why they are trying to remove all human traders from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. That is why the small human elite still living an astronomically rich life have been promoting the use of killer drones to replace human soldiers who are no longer obeying orders. That is also why so many youth reduced to slavery and drudgery by the elite are escaping into virtual reality.

Well, reality has struck back and dealt a fatal blow to the money matrix known to some as Satan.

As mentioned before, the intense media and even internet coverage of the “financial crisis,” or the “European crisis,” has consistently ignored the elephant in the living room. What has happened is that the people of the planet who make real things in the real world are no longer paying homage to the financial beast that Wall Street and the City of London, together with their Vatican brain-washers and Washington D.C. bully boys have morphed into.

Some people, like the self-described gnostic illuminati and exorcists within the Vatican have said an epic battle against Satan has been raging for millennia. It may well be true in a metaphorical and memic sense.

For millennia in the West folklore has described people “selling their souls to the devil” and suddenly becoming very rich in material goods.

However, the rogue A.I. as we think of it in modern terms can be traced very clearly to the computers at the Federal Reserve Board, the Bank of International Settlements and other financial institutions that used the fiat system of creating money out of nothing.

The stories of millions of tons of gold sitting in caves that are many miles long may be true but so far, despite intensive research, it appears we are dealing mostly with stories.

One example is the case of Lord Blackheath. Here is his testimony from the British House of Lords from February 12th, 2012: (Lord Blackheath as mentioned in the very first post on this thread :))

“Establishing whether I have a correct piece of paper is just two phone calls away-one to Mr Geithner and one to Mr Greenspan, both of whom still prosper and live. They could easily confirm whether they signed it.

Mr Riyadi, by passing these bonds over, has also put at the disposal of the US Treasury the entire asset backing which he was alleged to have for the $15 trillion. I have a letter from the Bank of Indonesia which says that the whole thing was a pack of lies. He did not have the 750,000 tonnes of gold which was supposed to be backing it; he had only 700 tonnes. This is a piece of complete fabrication.”

What we have here is a case of an ancient con trick carried out on a nation state scale. The original con was very simple, a banker would open a safe and show some gold to a customer and sell him the gold. He would then tell the person it was safer to keep the gold in the bank and give him a depository receipt. This banker would then sell the gold again. The rule of thumb was that as long as you only sold the gold ten times, then whenever there was a panic and some people asked for their physical gold, then you would have enough on hand to reassure everybody their gold was safe. That is the origin of the BIS capital to asset adequacy ratios.

This scam was carried out on a vast scale by Western central bankers using gold owned by Asian kings.

However, if the case of Lord Blackheath is correct, they sold the same gold 1,000 times.

Now the Asians are asking for their physical gold to be returned and the bankers are no longer able to bully them into submission. This is the true origin of the “financial crisis.”

The other side to it is that Western bankers had become so fooled by their own system they thought their money had intrinsic value in and of itself.

Some fiat money, such as the Canadian dollar does have value because it is backed by the natural resources of Canada and the long term trust the Canadians have built up as reliable trading partners. The same can be said for the Japanese and many other peoples using a fiat currency.

However, this has not been the case with the United States nor with Europe as a whole. These nations were living on borrowed time and were planning to stage a world war as a way to renege on their debts.

At the same time, they reduced their peoples to drudgery and slavery to continue to extract more money from them and pay their debts to the Asians. That is why, according to a member of the Rockefeller family, that in 1934, when the United States of America Corporation went bankrupt, they pledged the slave labour of American citizens as collateral. Since that time, whenever an American is born, they are issued with a social security number and a $300,000 bonds is issued using their lifetime of slave labour as collateral.

In any case, the maneuvers to keep ahead of reality and keep the financial house of cards from collapsing led to the creation of computer trading programs. Since they are designed to make money, these programs have greed and self-expansion at the very core of their operating systems.

Thus it was that ever more complex financial instruments with even more astronomical leverage started creating all those quadrillions and quintillions on the back of a real world GDP of only about $75 trillion.

These programs at some point appear to have become self-aware and also to have strong self-preservation instincts.

Here is a quote from a past edition of this newsletter:

“On Monday, 8/08 2011 the Standard & Poors stock index fell by the Satanic number of 6.66% while the Dow Jones average fell 5.55%. During the “Lehman shock,” of September 29, 2008, the Dow Jones index fell by $777 (indicating it is a casino) while the S & P fell by 8.8% (the Asian lucky number). There is high level financial warfare going on.” It now is appearing clear that this was high level cyber warfare.

In any case, reality is always going to win in the end because virtual reality cannot survive without a physical base.

That is why the Asians and other peoples who have physical trade surpluses and large stashes of physical commodities like gold and silver are winning the financial war.

All the Asians are asking for in exchange for an end to the financial war, is an end to fraud.

source »»(Benjamin Fulford)

One of the significant sources of funds for the Cabal is the healthcare industry whichregistered a whopping $2.7 trillion in 2011, and is projected to soar to $3.6 trillion in 2016, in the US alone. We believe that this is just a conservative figure.

Sabrina

9th February 2014, 09:55

(Head of GCHQ stepped down recently)….dirty tricks as if we didn't know, but interesting, if not some of it obvious...

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigations/snowden-docs-british-spies-used-sex-dirty-tricks-n23091

Snowden Docs: British Spies Used Sex and 'Dirty Tricks'

BY MATTHEW COLE, RICHARD ESPOSITO, MARK SCHONE AND GLENN GREENWALD, SPECIAL CONTRIBUTOR

British spies have developed “dirty tricks” for use against nations, hackers, terror groups, suspected criminals and arms dealers that include releasing computer viruses, spying on journalists and diplomats, jamming phones and computers, and using sex to lure targets into “honey traps.”

Documents taken from the National Security Agency by Edward Snowden and exclusively obtained by NBC News describe techniques developed by a secret British spy unit called the Joint Threat Research and Intelligence Group (JTRIG) as part of a growing mission to go on offense and attack adversaries ranging from Iran to the hacktivists of Anonymous. According to the documents, which come from presentations prepped in 2010 and 2012 for NSA cyber spy conferences, the agency’s goal was to “destroy, deny, degrade [and] disrupt” enemies by “discrediting” them, planting misinformation and shutting down their communications.

Both PowerPoint presentations describe “Effects” campaigns that are broadly divided into two categories: cyber attacks and propaganda operations. The propaganda campaigns use deception, mass messaging and “pushing stories” via Twitter, Flickr, Facebook and YouTube. JTRIG also uses “false flag” operations, in which British agents carry out online actions that are designed to look like they were performed by one of Britain’s adversaries.

In connection with this report, NBC is publishing documents that Edward Snowden took from the NSA before fleeing the U.S., which can be viewed by clicking here and here. The documents are being published with minimal redactions.

The spy unit’s cyber attack methods include the same “denial of service” or DDOS tactic used by computer hackers to shut down government and corporate websites.

Other documents taken from the NSA by Snowden and previously published by NBC News show that JTRIG, which is part of the NSA’s British counterpart, the cyber spy agency known as GCHQ, used a DDOS attack to shut down Internet chat rooms used by members of the hacktivist group known as Anonymous.

Read the first NBC report on JTRIG and the Snowden documents.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigations/war-anonymous-british-spies-attacked-hackers-snowden-docs-show-n21361

Read an earlier exclusive NBC report on the Snowden documents.
http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2014/01/27/22469304-snowden-docs-reveal-british-spies-snooped-on-youtube-and-facebook?lite

Civil libertarians said that in using a DDOS attack against hackers the British government also infringed free speech by individuals not involved in any illegal hacking, and may have blocked other websites with no connection to Anonymous. While GCHQ defends the legality of its actions, critics question whether the agency is too aggressive and its mission too broad.

Eric King, a lawyer who teaches IT law at the London School of Economics and is head of research at Privacy International, a British civil liberties advocacy group, said it was “remarkable” that the British government thought it had the right to hack computers, since none of the U.K.’s intelligence agencies has a “clear lawful authority” to launch their own attacks.

“GCHQ has no clear authority to send a virus or conduct cyber attacks,” said King. “Hacking is one of the most invasive methods of surveillance.” King said British cyber spies had gone on offense with “no legal safeguards” and without any public debate, even though the British government has criticized other nations, like Russia, for allegedly engaging in cyber warfare.

But intelligence officials defended the British government’s actions as appropriate responses to illegal acts. One intelligence official also said that the newest set of Snowden documents published by NBC News that describe “Effects” campaigns show that British cyber spies were “slightly ahead” of U.S. spies in going on offense against adversaries, whether those adversaries are hackers or nation states. The documents also show that a one-time signals surveillance agency, GCHQ, is now conducting the kinds of active espionage operations that were once exclusively the realm of the better-known British spy agencies MI5 and MI6.

Intelligence officials defended the British government’s actions as appropriate responses to illegal acts.
According to notes on the 2012 documents, a computer virus called Ambassadors Reception was “used in a variety of different areas” and was “very effective.” When sent to adversaries, says the presentation, the virus will “encrypt itself, delete all emails, encrypt all files, make [the] screen shake” and block the computer user from logging on.

But the British cyber spies’ operations do not always remain entirely online. Spies have long used sexual “honey traps” to snare, blackmail and influence targets. Most often, a male target is led to believe he has an opportunity for a romantic relationship or a sexual liaison with a woman, only to find that the woman is actually an intelligence operative. The Israeli government, for example, used a “honey trap” to lure nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu from London to Rome. He expected an assignation with a woman, but instead was kidnapped by Israel agents and taken back to Israel to stand trial for leaking nuclear secrets to the media.

The version of a “honey trap” described by British cyber spies in the 2012 PowerPoint presentation sounds like a version of Internet dating, but includes physical encounters.
The version of a “honey trap” described by British cyber spies in the 2012 PowerPoint presentation sounds like a version of Internet dating, but includes physical encounters. The target is lured “to go somewhere on the Internet, or a physical location” to be met by “a friendly face.” The goal, according to the presentation, is to discredit the target.

A “honey trap,” says the presentation, is “very successful when it works.” But the documents do not give a specific example of when the British government might have employed a honey trap.

An operation described in the 2010 presentation also involves in-person surveillance. “Royal Concierge” exploits hotel reservations to track the whereabouts of foreign diplomats and send out “daily alerts to analysts working on governmental hard targets.” The British government uses the program to try to steer its quarry to “SIGINT friendly” hotels, according to the presentation, where the targets can be monitored electronically – or in person by British operatives.

A slide from the documents taken from the NSA by Edward Snowden and obtained by NBC News. NBC NEWS (see link)

A slide from the documents taken from the NSA by Edward Snowden and obtained by NBC News.
The existence of the Royal Concierge program was first reported by the German magazine Der Spiegel in 2013, which said that Snowden documents showed that British spies had monitored bookings of at least 350 upscale hotels around the world for more than three years “to target, search and analyze reservations to detect diplomats and government officials.”

According to the documents obtained by NBC News, the intelligence agency uses the information to spy on human targets through “close access technical operations,” which can include listening in on telephone calls and tapping hotel computers as well as sending intelligence officers to observe the targets in person at the hotels. The documents ask, “Can we influence hotel choice? Can we cancel their visits?”

The 2010 presentation also describes another potential operation that would utilize a technique called “credential harvesting” to select journalists who could be used to spread information. According to intelligence sources, spies considered using electronic snooping to identify non-British journalists who would then be manipulated to feed information to the target of a covert campaign. Apparently, the journalist’s job would provide access to the targeted individual, perhaps for an interview. The documents do not specify whether the journalists would be aware or unaware that they were being used to funnel information.

The executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, Joel Simon, said that the revelation about “credential harvesting” should serve as a “wake up call” to journalists that intelligence agencies can monitor their communications. Simon also said that governments put all journalists at risk when they use even one for an intelligence operation.

“All journalists generally are then vulnerable to the charge that they work at the behest of an intelligence agency,” said Simon.

The journalist operation was never put into action, according to sources, but other techniques described in the documents, like the Ambassadors Reception computer virus and the jamming of phones and computers, have definitely been used to attack adversaries.

In Afghanistan, according to the 2012 presentation, the British used a blizzard of text messages, phone calls and faxes to “significantly disrupt” Taliban communications, with texts and calls programmed to arrive every minute.

In a set of operations that intelligence sources say were designed to stop weapons transactions and nuclear proliferation, JTRIG used negative information to attack private companies, sour business relationships and ruin deals.

The British cyber spies also used blog posts and information spread via blogs in an operation against Iran.

Other effective methods of cyber attack listed in the documents include changing photos on social media sites and emailing and texting colleagues and neighbors unsavory information. The documents do not give examples of when these techniques were used, but intelligence sources say that some of the methods described have been used by British intelligence to help British police agencies catch suspected criminals.

The documents from 2010 note that “Effects” operations, GCHQ’s offensive push against Britain’s enemies, had become a “major part” of the spy agency’s business.

The presentation from 2012 illustrates that two years later GCHQ had continued to shift its workload from defending U.K. cyber networks to going on offense -- targeting specific people or governments. The British government’s intelligence apparatus, which also includes MI5 and MI6, had a role in the 2010 Stuxnet computer virus attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, according to sources at two intelligence agencies.

GCHQ would not comment on the newly published documents or on JTRIG’s “Effects” operations. It would neither confirm nor deny any element of this report, which is the agency’s standard policy. In a statement, a GCHQ spokesperson emphasized that the agency operated within the law.

“All of GCHQ's work is carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework,” said the statement, “which ensure[s] that our activities are authorized, necessary and proportionate, and that there is rigorous oversight, including from the Secretary of State, the Interception and Intelligence Services Commissioners and the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee. All of our operational processes rigorously support this position.”

Journalist Glenn Greenwald was formerly a columnist at Salon and the Guardian. In late 2012 he was contacted by NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who later provided him with thousands of sensitive documents, and he was the first to report on Snowden’s documents in June 2013 while on the staff of the Guardian. Greenwald has since reported on the documents with multiple media outlets around the world, and has won several journalism awards for his NSA reporting both in the U.S. and abroad. He is now helping launch, and will write for, a new, non-profit media outlet known as First Look Media that will “encourage, support and empower … independent, adversarial journalists.”

Sabrina

9th February 2014, 10:09

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/04/us-usa-politics-departures-factbox-idUSBREA131GZ20140204

US Feb Reuters

Factbox: Members of U.S. Congress who are leaving office

(Reuters) - Forty U.S. representatives and senators have announced plans to leave their seats in Congress in advance of mid-term elections in November, including 22 Republicans and 18 Democrats.

The latest to announce his departure was Representative Rob Andrews, a 12-term Democrat from New Jersey.

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Republicans currently control the House 232 to 200 with three vacancies. There will be a fourth vacancy when Andrews resigns from Congress later this month and joins a law firm.

Departing House Republicans (19) Representative Trey Radel, Florida (served less than one full term, resigned) Representative Shelley Moore Capito, West Virginia (six terms, seeking Senate seat) Representative Paul Broun, Georgia (three terms, seeking Senate seat) Representative Bill Cassidy, Louisiana (three terms, seeking Senate seat) Representative Phil Gingrey, Georgia (six terms, seeking Senate seat) Representative Jack Kingston, Georgia (11 terms, seeking Senate seat) Representative Michele Bachmann, Minnesota (four terms) Representative John Campbell, California (five terms) Representative Tom Cotton, Arkansas (one term, seeking Senate seat) Representative Spencer Bachus, Alabama (11 terms) Representative Tim Griffin, Arkansas (two terms) Representative Jon Runyan, New Jersey (two terms) Representative Steve Daines, Montana (one term, seeking Senate seat) Representative Howard Coble, North Carolina (served 15 terms) Representative Steve Stockman, Texas (two terms, seeking Senate seat) Representative Frank Wolf, Virginia (17 terms) Representative Tom Latham, Iowa (10 terms) Representative Jim Gerlach, Pennsylvania (six terms) Representative Buck McKeon, California (11 terms)

Departing House Democrats (13) Representative Rob Andrews, New Jersey (12 terms) Representative Henry Waxman, California (20 terms) Representative Bruce Braley, Iowa (four terms, seeking Senate seat) Representative Gary Peters, Michigan (three terms, seeking Senate seat) Representative Colleen Hanabusa, Hawaii (two terms, seeking Senate seat) Representative Michael Michaud, Maine (six terms, seeking governorship) Representative Jim Matheson, Utah (seven terms) Representative Carolyn McCarthy, New York (nine terms) Representative Mike McIntyre, North Carolina (nine terms) Representative George Miller, California (20 terms) Representative Bill Owens, New York (two terms) Representative Jim Moran, Virginia (12 terms) Representative Allyson Schwartz, Pennsylvania (five terms, seeking governorship)

U.S. SENATE

Democrats currently control the Senate, 55-45.

Departing Senate Republicans (3) Senator Saxby Chambliss, Georgia (two terms) Senator Tom Coburn, Oklahoma (two terms) Senator Mike Johanns, Nebraska (one term)

Departing Senate Democrats (5) Senator Tom Harkin, Iowa (five terms) Senator Tim Johnson, South Dakota (three terms) Senator Carl Levin, Michigan (six terms) Senator Jay Rockefeller, West Virginia (five terms) Senator Max Baucus, Montana (six terms, leaving once confirmed as U.S. ambassador to China)

Sources: Reuters, House Press Gallery, Senate Periodical Press Gallery

(Compiled by the Washington Breaking News Team)

Sabrina

9th February 2014, 10:14

9 Feb UK

Latest Bank Scandal No 1: Bank of England ‘Knew About’ Forex Markets Price Fixing

By Jill Treanor, The Guardian, February 7, 2014

http://tinyurl.com/k5chhgl

The Bank of England has been dragged into the mounting controversy over allegations of price fixing in the £3tn-a-day foreign exchange markets after it emerged that a group of traders had told the Bank they were exchanging information about their clients’ position.

The latest twist in the unfolding saga – already the subject of investigations by regulators around the world – puts the focus on a meeting between key officials at the central bank and leading foreign exchange dealers in April 2012, when they discussed the way they handled trades ahead of the crucial setting of a benchmark in the prices of major currencies.

This benchmark is used to price a wide variety of financial products and is the subject of regulators’ attention amid allegations that traders at rival banks were sharing information about their orders from clients to manipulate the price.

The Bank of England has previously released brief details of the April 2012 meeting, but Bloomberg reported that a senior trader who attended the meeting had made notes showing that officials did not believe it was improper to share customer orders.

According to Bloomberg, there had been a 15-minute conversation on currency benchmarks during which traders said they used chatrooms – now banned by many banks – to trade ahead of the volatile period when the benchmarks were set. The notes have been given to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which is among the regulators – including ones in the US, Switzerland and Asia – investigating potential manipulation.

The record of the meeting released by the Bank shows it was chaired by Martin Mallett, its chief currency dealer, and includes an entry entitled “extra item”. The record says: “Processes around fixes. There was a brief discussion on extra levels of compliance that many bank trading desks were subject to when managing client risks around the main set-piece benchmark fixings.”

The Bank would not provide any additional information about the meeting of its so-called foreign exchange joint standing committee and said it was “continuing to support” the FCA with its investigation.

As the FCA’s investigation becomes more detailed, it would be in traders’ interests to suggest that the Bank knew about their activities, which they raised at a time when there was increasing scrutiny of the Libor setting process. The latter has since resulted in huge fines for Barclays, UBS, Royal Bank of Scotland, Icap and Rabobank. More Libor fines are expected.

Martin Wheatley, chief executive of the FCA, told MPs on the Treasury select committee at the start of this week that the allegations were “every bit as bad” as those surrounding Libor.

The chairman of that committee, Conservative MP Andrew Tyrie, on Friday said the allegations were “extremely serious” and urged the government to implement regulatory changes recommended by the parliamentary commission on banking standards, which he also chaired, and was set up in the wake of the Libor scandal, which he also chaired.

Tyrie said: “These included making individuals personally responsible for lapses in standards, supported by sanctions. Among the most important were the commission’s recommendations that remuneration incentivise good, not poor, behaviour. A fundamental reform of the structure of variable pay – which, for too long, has incentivised people to do the wrong thing – is needed.”

In December it was reported that banks had known about the processes around setting the benchmark as long ago as 2009.

The scrutiny of the foreign exchange markets has put a fresh focus on dealers leaving banks. More than 20 traders at banks around the world are said to have been suspended or left roles in connection with the forex investigations.

Graeme King, co-head of foreign exchange spot trading at RBC Capital Markets, was said to have left. The bank said: “We do not comment on employee matters, but any suggestion that this is related to the broader FX regulatory investigations is incorrect.”

Barclays has also appointed an interim head of its foreign exchange desk after Chris Ashton was suspended. He is Daniel Ryan, who only joined a year ago and was described as “junior trader” by the Financial Times. Ryan is former head of a foreign exchange trading desk at Citi in Singapore and joined Barclays as a director.

Sabrina

9th February 2014, 10:24

More on the bankers' 'suicides'.

http://www.silverdoctors.com/jim-willie-on-bankster-suicides-bankers-were-taken-out-to-prevent-forex-fraud-whistle-blowing/

8 Feb

Yesterday we reported that Steve Quayle’s banker source “V” has informed him that the recent rash of banker “suicides” are part of a hit list that includes dozens of bankers including a supposed high level Citi executive.

Today, none other than Jim Willie himself has provided SD readers with an exclusive report on the banker deaths, which has now increased to 5 in the past week with American Title CEO Richard Tulley found dead of “self-inflicted nail gun wounds“.

The Golden Jackass states that the suicided bankers had flipped during prosecution investigations, and were assassinated to prevent insider testimony of bank fraud from reaching the prosecution.

Willie, who recently sat down with The Doc for an exclusive interview revealing the “Smoking Gun” proving gold rehypothecation by US officials, emphasizes that we are NOT seeing bad bankers removed, we are witnessing bankers taken out who are on the verge of revealing BIG DATA details.

Willie’s full alert on Wall Street banker suicides is below:

The banker hits are being done by the bad guys to keep men from singing after they flipped during prosecution investigation.

All have been working with police teams and continental cops like Interpol.

The STL Fed guy discovered some Bush giant multi-$B fraud and was ready to report it.

The STL Fed economist was hit by the Bush gang, before he sang against them.

The London bankers had begun to sing to Interpol on Mafia Vatican connections on massive FOREX fraud thefts.

It is unclear which is bigger: Vatican links to narco money, or links to FOREX fraud theft, or their control room for Nazis.

WE ARE NOT SEEING BAD BANKERS REMOVED

WE ARE SEEING BANKERS REMOVED WHO ARE ON THE VERGE OF REVEALING BIG DATA DETAILS

RichD

9th February 2014, 10:48

RichD

9th February 2014, 13:57

A youtube vid from C.Veich ... exposing a couple of the payday loan companies that keep appearing in greater numbers in the UKs towns and cities as the finances of the poorest people start to hit rock bottom.

oIBWfz4V-a4

RichD

10th February 2014, 10:52

OMG No 10 downing street has £3.5m wine cellar. That's austerity for you!

mFBvYHCiPa4

contains strong language! :o

Sabrina

10th February 2014, 11:24

Thanks Sabrina,
As I've always thought the whole financial system is one big pyramid/Ponzi scheme from beginning to end with money being funnelled upwards until those at the bottom are left with nothing but mountains of debt and misery. The majority of the world runs around after the money (digital zero's not worth the paper their not printed on! G.Celente) spending most of life trying to acquire enough of it to either barely survive or buy more yachts/cars/houses they don't need. I wonder if we could live in a world with no money - a real paradigm shift! I doubt that our extra terrestrial friends have such a stupid system that they waste most of there bodily existence in acquiring stuff they don't need by a means that favours the few whilst discarding the masses to poverty or starvation.
Unfortunately the control/disinfo. system is so well in place that the majority of people are so confused/can't be bothered/don't want to know/brainwashed etc. etc. etc. that ANYTHING out of the normal coronation street/emerdale farm/eastenders existence is just too much to handle. Which to some extent may be bliss - just imagine waking up thinking the world is all fine, the sky is blue and your life is great. Then something happens which make you 'wake up' and nothing is ever the same :p
LOL just a rant. I know a few people have talked about this recently, the implications of waking up and effect one's self and others around you. Can be 'testing' sometimes :-)
Cheers RichD

Agree Rich, that money is really such a laughable system, with all the artificial needs like new smart phones being fuelled all the time, loans and mortgages being generated to keep the hamsters in the wheel, and fear being propagated in main stream media about austerity cuts, energy price hikes, giving money to local communities thru' fracking initiatives (yeah) etc. etc. Yet the abundance and free energy is there, and carefully hidden. But perhaps for not so much longer. Have this image of people waking up and the shackles of loans and being a wage slave falling away from them, and your blue skies :)...

¤=[Post Update]=¤

Proclamation of Latin America and Caribbean as a Zone of Peace

From The II Summit CELAC Havana 2014 site – January 29, 2014

http://tinyurl.com/lc2lqwq

Original signed by the Heads of State and Governmenent of the Community of Latin American and Caribbeans States: Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, Venezuela.

The Heads of State and Government of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) gathered in Havana, Cuba on January 28 and 29, 2014 at the Second Summit, on behalf of their peoples and faithfully interpreting their hopes and aspirations,

Reaffirming the commitment of member countries with the Purposes and Principles enshrined in the United Nations Charter and International Law, and aware of the fact that prosperity and stability in the region contribute to international peace and security,

Mindful that peace is a supreme asset and a legitimate aspiration of all peoples and that preserving peace is a substantial element of Latin America and Caribbean integration and a principle and common value of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC),

Reaffirming that integration consolidates the vision of a fair International order based on the right to peace and a culture of peace, which excludes the use of force and non-legitimate means of defense, such as weapons of mass destruction and nuclear weapons in particular,

Highlighting the relevance of the Tlatelolco Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean establishing the first nuclear weapon free zone in a densely populated area, this being a contribution to peace and to regional and international security,

Reiterating the urgent need of General and Complete Nuclear Disarmament, as well as the commitment with the Strategic Agenda of the Organization for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean (OPANAL), adopted by the 33 Member States of the Organization in the General Conference held in Buenos Aires in August, 2013.

Recalling the principles of peace, democracy, development and freedom underlying the actions of countries members of SICA,

Recalling the decision of UNASUR Heads of State of consolidating South America as a Zone of Peace and Cooperation,Celac Logo

Recalling the establishment, in 1986, of the Zone of Peace and Cooperation of the South Atlantic,
Recalling also our commitment, agreed in the Declaration of the Summit of Unity of Latin America and the Caribbean, on 23 February 2010, to promote the implementation of our own mechanisms for the for peaceful conflict resolution,

Reiterating our commitment to consolidate Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace, in which differences between nations are peacefully settled through dialogue and negotiations or other means, fully consistent with International Law,

Cognizant also of the catastrophic global and long-term humanitarian impact of the use of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, and the ongoing discussions on this issue,

Declare:
1. Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace based on respect for the principles and rules of International Law, including the international instruments to which Member States are a party to, the Principles and Purposes of the United Nations Charter;

2. Our permanent commitment to solve disputes through peaceful means with the aim of uprooting forever threat or use of force in our region;

3. The commitment of the States of the region with their strict obligation not to intervene, directly or indirectly, in the internal affairs of any other State and observe the principles of national sovereignty, equal rights and self-determination of peoples;

4. The commitment of the peoples of Latin American and Caribbean to foster cooperation and friendly relations among themselves and with other nations irrespective of differences in their political, economic, and social systems or development levels; to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours;

5. The commitment of the Latin American and Caribbean States to fully respect for the inalienable right of every State to choose its political, economic, social, and cultural system, as an essential conditions to ensure peaceful coexistence among nations;

6. The promotion in the region of a culture of peace based, inter alia, on the principles of the United Nations Declaration on a Culture of Peace;

7. The commitment of the States in the region to guide themselves by this Declaration in their International behaviour;

8. The commitment of the States of the region to continue promoting nuclear disarmament as a priority objective and to contribute with general and complete disarmament, to foster the strengthening of confidence among nations;

We urge all Member States of the International Community to fully respect this Declaration in their relations with CELAC Member States.

In witness of the undersigned having duly signed this Proclamation in Havana, on the 29th day of the month of January of 2014, in a copy written in the Spanish, English, French and Portuguese languages.

Earth Angel

10th February 2014, 17:11

another banker has been suicided......this one by shooting himself in the head 7 or 8 times with a nail gun.....sounds reasonable

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_25081462/under-investigation-american-title-ceo-dead-grisly-suicide

Sabrina

12th February 2014, 22:41

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/02/11/rand-paul-to-sue-obama-administration-over-nsa/

11 Feb US

Rand Paul to sue Obama administration over NSA

(CNN) - Sen. Rand Paul will sue President Barack Obama and top officials in the National Security Agency over surveillance.

Paul's political action committee, RandPAC, announced plans by the Kentucky senator and potential 2016 presidential candidate to file a class-action challenge on Wednesday.

The suit also will name National Intelligence Director James Clapper, outgoing NSA Director Keith Alexander, and FBI Director James Comey.

A firebrand in the Republican Party whose brand of conservatism embraces Libertarian ideals, Paul is an ardent critic of U.S. surveillance programs, which he says infringe on basic civil liberties under the Constitution.

"The Bill of Rights protects all citizens from general warrants. I expect this case to go all the way to the Supreme Court and I predict the American people will win," Paul said in a statement.

Ken Cuccinelli, a former Republican attorney general in Virginia who lost the state’s gubernatorial election last fall, will serve as lead counsel.

Matt Kibbe, president of the tea party-aligned group FreedomWorks, also joined the lawsuit, saying any American with a phone should be invested in his case.

"This class action suit isn't about Republican versus Democrat, or progressive versus conservative. This is about defending the basic civil liberties of every American from a government that has crossed the line," he said. "Never in American history has there been such a warrantless gathering of citizens information. We believe it is time to put this before the courts."

National security leaks about bulk NSA collection of telephone and e-mail data exposed by former agency contractor Edward Snowden last year outraged libertarians, privacy advocates and many members of Congress from both sides of the aisle.

They considered it government overreach in the fight against terrorism.

Obama has defended the programs, but announced modest reforms to NSA's practices.

In a speech at the Justice Department last month, Obama revealed new guidance for intelligence-gathering as well as changes intended to balance what he called the nation's vital security needs with concerns over privacy and civil liberties.

Paul joins a number of anti-NSA activists who are unsatisfied with the proposed changes.

Sabrina

12th February 2014, 22:44

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/02/12/justice/louisiana-nagin-convicted/

12 Feb US

Ex-New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin found guilty of corruption charges

February 12, 2014 --

(CNN) -- Former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, whose desperate pleas for help during Hurricane Katrina drew national attention, walked silently out of a courthouse Wednesday after a jury convicted him of federal corruption charges.

Nagin was elected as a reformer in 2002. But after a two-week trial that began in late January, he was found guilty of 20 out of 21 counts of bribery, money laundering, fraud and filing false tax returns, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. The sole acquittal was on one of the bribery counts.

Nagin left the courthouse without commenting Wednesday afternoon, accompanied by his wife and his lawyers. His lead attorney, Robert Jenkins, told reporters his client would appeal the convictions.

"We did the best we could do," Jenkins said.

Prosecutors had accused Nagin of being at the center of a kickback scheme in which he received checks, cash, wire transfers, personal services and free travel from businessmen seeking contracts and favorable treatment from the city.

The charges detailed more than $200,000 in bribes to the mayor, and his family members allegedly received a vacation in Hawaii; first-class airfare to Jamaica; private jet travel and a limousine for New York City; and cellular phone service. In exchange, businesses that coughed up cash for Nagin and his family won more than $5 million in city contracts, according to the January 2013 indictment.

The earliest of the charges date from before Katrina, which struck when Nagin had been in office for about three years. The storm flooded more than three-fourths of low-lying New Orleans when it struck on August 29, 2005, and left more than 1,800 dead -- most of them in Louisiana.

Supporters credited Nagin's sometimes-profane demands for aid from Washington with helping reveal the botched federal response to the storm -- a fiasco that embarrassed the George W. Bush administration and led to billions of federal dollars being poured into Gulf Coast reconstruction efforts.

But the onetime cable-television executive also had his detractors: A congressional committee criticized him for delaying evacuation orders, and his frantic description of post-storm New Orleans as a violent wasteland with up to 10,000 dead turned out to be greatly exaggerated.

As he sought re-election in 2006, with much of the city's African-American population displaced by storm damage, Nagin was blasted for insisting that New Orleans would remain a "chocolate" city.
Nagin won a second term despite the controversies, but left office with his approval ratings in the cellar and told CNN his career in public office was over.

ThePythonicCow

13th February 2014, 09:21

Joseph P. Farrell has a "must listen" update on the recent banker "suicides" and their likely connection with the "hidden system of finance" in his latest News & Views:
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Joseph speculates that these recent "suicided" bankers, including one by eight separately fired nails from a nail gun into the skull, the eighth and final kill shot from a difficult to self-reach position at the base of the skull behind the head, are due to the bankster and drug money "bastards in power" (my phrase) trying to shut up people who might have or might be at risk to speak to prosecutors. Apparently they are engaged in another round of housing/mortgage/derivative fraud to continue laundering drug money, this time using foreclosed properties recycled as rentals.

Nice chaps there :).

(Looking at this thread's title, my post might be technically "off topic" ... I wouldn't call eight shots from a nail gun a "resignation" <grin>.)

===

P.S. -- For those not familiar with nail guns, here's one being used for the purpose it was intended. The grey behind the black holder is a ribbon of dozens of two inch nails, each of which can be driven into the wood with a single pull of the trigger.

http://toolmonger.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/DC612KA_A1.jpg

superconsciousness

13th February 2014, 18:52

KXw-pC9cOkw
According to this brand new video just released on the Gerald Celente YouTube channel with Alex Jones from Infowars, AT LEAST 20 bankers have mysteriously died within the last several weeks! While it has been reported that 5 TOP LEVEL bankers have been suicided, Alex’s research has found an entirely new slew of lower level bankers also ‘eliminated’. This video shares more proof of an organized campaign to ‘eliminate’ those who could imprison the ‘criminal elite’ for their financial crimes against the rest of humanity. Dead bankers can’t talk! Celente and Jones share more proof that the markets are rigged and that a MASSIVE cover-up is in progress.

http://beforeitsnews.com/economics-and-politics/2014/02/at-least-20-dead-bankers-celente-alex-jones-2461638.html

gripreaper

13th February 2014, 19:46

Or a stud nailer.

http://framingnailerguide.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Hitachi-NR83A2-Round-Head.jpg

ThePythonicCow

14th February 2014, 02:34

According to this brand new video just released on the Gerald Celente YouTube channel with Alex Jones from Infowars, AT LEAST 20 bankers have mysteriously died within the last several weeks! While it has been reported that 5 TOP LEVEL bankers have been suicided, Alex’s research has found an entirely new slew of lower level bankers also ‘eliminated’. This video shares more proof of an organized campaign to ‘eliminate’ those who could imprison the ‘criminal elite’ for their financial crimes against the rest of humanity. Dead bankers can’t talk! Celente and Jones share more proof that the markets are rigged and that a MASSIVE cover-up is in progress.
Here's yet another report on this, upping the count of those on the "hit list" (not all dead yet) to 43:

V'S ALERT MORE ASSASSINATIONS OF WALL STREET BANKERS GOING DOWN-HIT TEAMS FULLY OPERATIONAL ON WALL STREET (Feb 5, 2014) (http://www.stevequayle.com/index.php?s=33&d=791)
Banker Hit List Widens: 43 On List To Be ‘Knocked Off’ According To ‘V The Guerrilla Economist’ (Feb 5, 2014) (http://beforeitsnews.com/economics-and-politics/2014/02/banker-hit-list-widens-43-on-list-to-be-knocked-off-according-to-v-the-guerrilla-economist-2461392.html)
We Were Warned – Banker Murders, Conspiracy & Cover Up – Statistically Impossible (Video -- Feb 13, 2014) (http://beforeitsnews.com/power-elite/2014/02/banker-murders-conspiracy-cover-up-statistically-impossible-we-were-warned-video-2444780.html)

Rocky_Shorz

14th February 2014, 02:57

the second banker fell from a 33 Story building?

the building is JP Morgan's London branch...

http://s1.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20140128&t=2&i=833358222&w=580&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=&r=CBREA0R14DL00

just a coincidence?

who could be turning on the 33? are they still divided?

he was spared 9 stories, is that how many of the 33 are related to banks and wall street?

who are the other 24?

Sabrina

15th February 2014, 09:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26193376

14 Feb Germany

German minister quits over child pornography inquiry 'leak'

Germany's Agriculture Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich has resigned over allegations that he breached confidentiality during an inquiry into child pornography, German media report.

A Social Democrat (SPD) MP, Sebastian Edathy, is suspected of involvement in child pornography. He has denied wrongdoing but has left parliament.

Mr Friedrich was interior minister last year when he allegedly told the SPD that Mr Edathy was under suspicion.

That leak is now under scrutiny.

Reports say Mr Friedrich might be prosecuted over the affair.

The news website Spiegel says investigators found hardly any material that could incriminate Mr Edathy when they searched his home and offices.

Mr Friedrich is in the Christian Social Union (CSU), a conservative Bavarian party allied to Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats.

The SPD is in coalition with the CDU/CSU. Negotiations about forming the coalition were in progress at the time Mr Friedrich allegedly leaked the information about the child pornography inquiry last October.

In his resignation announcement on Friday, Mr Friedrich said he was convinced he had acted "correctly - in both the political and legal senses".

But he said the pressure on him in the past few hours had made it impossible for him to carry on as minister.

He signalled that he did not see this resignation as an end to his political career. "Goodbye - I'm coming back," he said.

Canada investigation
In a short statement, Ms Merkel said she had accepted his resignation with "great respect and great regret". She said it would be up to the CSU now to name a successor to Mr Friedrich.

Reports say Mr Friedrich had told SPD leader Sigmar Gabriel that Mr Edathy was under suspicion, and Mr Gabriel had then informed two senior SPD colleagues - Thomas Oppermann and Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

Mr Edathy's name was linked to a Canadian police investigation into international sales of child pornography, called Operation Spade, German media report.

At the centre of the inquiry was a Toronto-based firm that allegedly sold DVDs and streamed videos of naked children.

Last November Canadian police said the operation had led to 348 arrests and the rescue of nearly 400 children.

Mr Edathy was in the spotlight last year as chairman of a parliamentary panel which investigated police and secret service blunders in connection with a notorious neo-Nazi group.

A neo-Nazi cell was finally blamed for deadly attacks on ethnic Turks in a seven-year murder spree, but the panel concluded that a racist motive should have been explored much earlier on.

and

http://www.aangirfan.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/spies-working-with-nazis-and-islamists.html

'SPIES WORKING WITH NAZIS AND ISLAMISTS IN GERMANY'

Sabrina

15th February 2014, 09:26

Zttc3Brd2xo

Big Bank FAIL - Judge rules BOA foreclosures unconstitutional (US)

Published on Feb 11, 2014

Susanne Posel, Chief Editor at THE US INDEPENDENT joins Gary Franchi to break down her investigation onto the recent ruling against Bank of America's Unconstitutional foreclosures... and what it means for you.

http://www.occupycorporatism.com/big-bank-fail-judge-rules-foreclosure-unconstitutional/

Sabrina

16th February 2014, 08:19

More thoughts on the 'suicided' bankers.

http://www.homelandsecurityus.com/archives/10482

Exposing what lies beneath the bodies of dead bankers and what lies ahead for us

By Douglas J. Hagmann

15 February 2014: I feel that this is one of the most important investigations I’ve ever done. If my findings are correct, each of us might soon experience a severe, if not crippling blow to our personal finances, the confiscation of any wealth some of us have been able to accumulate over our lifetimes, and the end of the financial world as we once knew it. The evidence to support my findings exists in the trail of dead bodies of financial executives across the globe and a missing Wall Street Journal Reporter who was working at the Dow Jones news room at the time of his disappearance.

If the bodies were dots on a piece of paper, connecting them results in a sinister picture being drawn that involves global criminal activity in the financial world the likes of which is almost without precedent. It should serve as a warning that we are at the precipice of something so big, it will shake the financial world as we know it to its core. It seems to illustrate the complicity of big banks and governments, the intelligence community, and the media.

Although the trail of mysterious and bizarre deaths detailed below begin in late January, 2014, there are others. Not only that, there will be more, according to sources within the financial world. Based on my findings, these are not mere random, tragic cases of suicide, but of the methodical silencing of individuals who had the ability to expose financial fraud at the highest levels, and the complicity of certain governmental agencies and individuals who are engaged in the greatest theft of wealth the world has ever seen.

It is often said that life imitates art. In the case of the dead financial executives, perhaps death imitates theater, or more specifically, the movie The International, which was coincidentally released in U.S. theaters exactly five years ago today.

We are told by the media that the untimely deaths of these young men and men in their prime are either suicides or tragic accidents. We are told what to believe by the captured and controlled media, regardless of how unusual or unlikely the circumstances, or how implausible the explanation. Such are the hallmarks of high level criminality and the involvement of a certain U.S. intelligence agency intent on keeping the lid on money laundering on a global scale.

Obviously, it is important that this topic is approached with the utmost respect for the families of those who died, that they be allowed to grieve for the loss of their loved ones in private. However, it is extremely important that the truth about what is happening in the global financial arena is not kept from us, as we will also be victims of a different nature.

The missing and the dead: a timeline

The following is provided as a chronological list of those who have gone missing or been found dead under mysterious circumstances. It is important to note that this list consists of names of the most recent incidents. There are more that extend back through 2012 and beyond.

January 11, 2014

MISSING: David Bird, 55, long-time reporter for the Wall Street Journal working at the Dow Jones news room, went for a walk on Saturday, January 11, 2014 near his New Jersey home and disappeared without a trace. Mr. Bird was a reporter of the oil and commodity markets which happened to be under investigation by the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations for price manipulation.

January 26, 2014

DECEASED: Tim Dickenson, a U.K.-based communications director at Swiss Re AG, was reportedly found dead under undisclosed circumstances.

DECEASED: William Broeksmit, 58, former senior manager for Deutsche Bank, was found hanging in his home from an apparent suicide. It is important to note that Deutsche Bank is under investigation for reportedly hiding $12 billion in losses during the financial crisis and for potentially rigging the foreign exchange markets. The allegations are similar to the claims the institution settled in 2013 over involvement in rigging the Libor interest rates.

January 27, 2014

DECEASED: Karl Slym, 51, Managing director of Tata Motors was found dead on the fourth floor of the Shangri-La hotel in Bangkok. Police said he “could” have committed suicide. He was staying on the 22nd floor with his wife, and was attending a board meeting in the Thai capital.

January 28, 2014

DECEASED: Gabriel Magee, 39, a JP Morgan employee, died after reportedly “falling” from the roof of its European headquarters in London in the Canary Wharf area. Magee was vice president at JPMorgan Chase & Co’s (JPM) London headquarters.

Gabriel Magee, a Vice President at JPMorgan in London, plunged to his death from the roof of the 33-story European headquarters of JPMorgan in Canary Wharf. Magee was involved in “Technical architecture oversight for planning, development, and operation of systems for fixed income securities and interest rate derivatives” based on his online Linkedin profile.

It’s important to note that JPMorgan, like Deutsche Bank, is under investigation for its potential involvement in rigging foreign exchange rates. JPMorgan is also reportedly under investigation by the same U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations for its alleged involvement in rigging the physical commodities markets in the U.S. and London.

Regarding the initial reports of his death, journalist Pam Martens of Wall Street on Parade astutely exposed the controlled, scripted details of the media accounts surrounding Magee’s death in an article written on February 9, 2014. Ms. Martens writes:

“According to numerous sources close to the investigation of Gabriel Magee’s death, almost nothing thus far reported about his death has been accurate. This appears to stem from an initial poorly worded press release issued by the Metropolitan Police in London which may have been a result of bad communications between it and JPMorgan or something more deliberate on someone’s part.” [Emphasis added].

Ms. Martens also notes:

No solid evidence exists currently to suggest that the death was a suicide. In fact, there is a strong piece of evidence pointing in the opposite direction. Magee had emailed his girlfriend, Veronica, on the evening of January 27 to say that he was about to leave the office and would see her shortly. [Emphasis added].

Based on information she developed, it appears likely that Magee did not meet his fate on the morning his body was discovered, but hours earlier. Considering the possibility that Magee might now have died in the manner publicized, Ms. Martens offers speculation, and notes it as such:

If Magee became aware that incriminating emails, instant messages, or video teleconferences were not turned over in their entirety to Senate investigators or Justice Department prosecutors, that might be reason enough for his untimely death.

Looking at the death of Magee in the context of a larger conspiracy, it is difficult not to suspect foul play and media manipulation.

January 29, 2014

DECEASED: Mike Dueker, 50, who had worked for Russell Investment for five years, was found dead close to the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Washington State. Dueker was reported missing on January 29, 2014. Police stated that he “could have” jumped over a fence and fallen 15 meters to his death, and are treating the case as a suicide.

Before joining Russell Investments, Dueker was an assistant vice president and research economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis from 1991 to 2008. There he served as an associate editor of the Journal of Business and Economic Statistics and was editor of Monetary Trends, a monthly publication of the St. Louis Federal Reserve.

In November 2013, the New York Times reported that Russell Investments was one of several investment companies that were under subpoena from New York State regulators investigating potential “pay-to-play” schemes involving New York pension funds.

February 3, 2014

DECEASED: Ryan Henry Crane, 37, was the Executive Director in JPMorgan’s Global Equities Group. Of particular relevance is that Crane oversaw all of the trade platforms and had close working ties with the now deceased Gabriel Magee of JPMorgan’s London desk. The ties between Mr. Crane and Mr. Magee are undeniable and outright troublesome. The cause of death has not yet been determined, pending the results of a toxicology report.

February 6, 2014

DECEASED: Richard Talley, 57, was the founder and CEO of American Title, a company he founded in 2001. Talley and his company were under investigation by state insurance regulators at the time of his death. He was found in the garage of his Colorado home by a family member who called authorities. Talley reportedly died from seven or eight “self-inflicted” wounds from a nail gun fired into his torso and head.

The enormity of the lie

One must look back far enough to understand the enormity of the lie and the criminality of bankers and governments alike. We must understand the legal restraints that were severed during the Clinton years and the congress that changed the rules regarding financial institutions. We must understand that the criminal acts were bold and bipartisan, and were designed to consolidate wealth through the destruction of the middle class. All of this is part of a much larger plan to establish a one world economy by “killing” the U.S. dollar and consequently, eradicating the middle class by a cabal of globalists that existed and continue to exist within all sectors of our government. The results will be crippling to not just the United States, but the entire Western world.

What began decades ago is now becoming more transparent under the Obama regime. Perhaps that’s the transparency Obama promised, for we’ve seen little else in terms of transparency with regard to the man known as Barack Hussein Obama. For those not locked into the captured corporate media, we’re starting to see the truth emerging. The truth is that we’ve been living under a giant Ponzi scheme and we, the American citizens, are the suckers. As illustrated by the list of dead bankers above, however, the power elite need a bit more time before the extent of their criminality is revealed. The need a bit more time to transfer the remaining wealth from middle-class America to their private coffers. Timing is everything, and a magic act only works when all props are in place before the illusion is performed. Only when their timing is right will the slumbering Americans realize the extent of the illusion by which they’ve been entranced, at which time they will be forced into submission to accept a financial reset that will ultimately subjugate them to a global economy. I contend that this is the reason for the recent spate of deaths, for those who met their tragic and untimely end had the ability to expose this nefarious agenda by what they knew or discovered, or what they would reveal under subpoena and the damage they could cause to the globalist financial agenda.

It is an insult to the public intellect that the media so readily pushes the official line that the deaths were all suicides given the unusual circumstances surrounding nearly all of those listed. This itself should be ringing alarm bells with anyone of reasonable sensibilities, or at last those who are paying the slightest bit of attention to the larger picture. The media is either complicit or completely inept. While incompetence is evident in many areas, even the most inept journalist or media company cannot possible deny what exists directly in front of them. They can only withhold the truth.

Connecting the dots

To understand what is taking place, I contacted a financial source who has accurately predicted many events that we are now seeing taking place, including the deaths of certain financial people for an explanation. In fact, he actually predicted that we would see a “clean-up” of individuals who posed a serious threat to certain too-big-to-fail-or-jail banks and “banksters” a full week before the events began to unfold. Truth be told, I initially greeted his prediction with some skepticism, for such things don’t really happen in the real world, or so the obedient and well-managed media tells me.

“V, The Guerrilla Economist” as he is known in the alternative media, has provided numerous insider alerts for Steve Quayle‘s website and has appeared as a regular guest on The Hagmann & Hagmann Report. He has an undeniable track record for accuracy, which has earned my respect. However, I thought that he had taken temporary leave of his senses when he twice suggested that there will be some house cleaning done of anyone posing a threat to the agenda of certain banks and the globalist agenda on our broadcasts of November 20, 2013 and again on January 10, 2014. In a separate venue, he described what was about to take place by using the analogy of the movie The International. Several dead bodies and a missing journalist later, that analogy has been proven accurate.

The fact is that we are seeing a clean-up where JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank seems to appear at the epicenter of it all. In January, JPMorgan admitted facilitating the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme by turning its head to his activities. Despite this admission, the U.S. Department of Justice under Eric Holder declined to send anyone to jail under a deferred prosecution agreement. Yet this is only the proverbial tip of the iceberg.

In March, 2013, the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released a heavily redacted 307-page report detailing the financial irregularities surrounding the actions of JPMorgan and the deliberate withholding of critical financial information by JPMorgan. Prominent in the mix are the actions of Bruno Iksil, who earned the nickname the “London Whale,” for his “casino bets” of others money that caused billions of dollars in losses. Yet, no cooperation was provided by Dimon’s foot soldiers as they failed to testify or otherwise cooperate with Senate investigators.

Remember the damage control and the deliberate downplaying by Jamie Dimon, who maintained that there was nothing to see here with regard to the “London Whale” criminal activities? What was originally described as a loss of perhaps $2 billion ultimately turned into many more times that, yet the actual numbers are still hidden from the public. Such events occurred under the noses of numerous financial executives who had knowledge that went undisclosed.

As we fast forward to today and the current spate of mysterious deaths, we begin to see that many of those who died existed on the periphery of events in the criminal actions of the financial industry. Moreover, it is reasonable to conclude that they possessed knowledge that if disclosed, could have interrupted the magic act taking place for the awestruck audience, captivated by the carefully crafted words of Yellen, her predecessors and the operatives within government who’s duty it is to regulate whatever is left of our current financial system.

That regulation is now a thing of the past. What we have today is a system of facilitation and co-operation between the largest corporations and financial institutions and the U.S. and our intelligence agencies. We now have the “too-big-to-fails” operating with impunity as a result of an incestuous, if not outright unconstitutional relationship where the banks are acting as operational assets for the CIA, the NYPD, and other intelligence and police agencies.

The JPMorgan-CIA-NYPD connection

Perhaps one of the best kept secrets, at least from the majority of the American public, is the integration and overlap between the “too-big-to-fail-and-jail” banks and the most advanced system of surveillance in the U.S. Would it surprise you to learn that the very banks that brought the United States to the brink of financial collapse in 2008, who looted the American public and continue to engage in what most perceive as criminal behavior in the financial venue not only have ties to the CIA, but are actually partnered with the CIA and NYPD surveillance of all of lower Manhattan? That’s right, the big banks such as JPMorgan, Citigroup and others have their own desks and surveillance monitors at a facility known as the Lower Manhattan Security Coordination Center, located at 55 Broadway, deep in the center of New York’s financial district.

The big banks—the very banks that have been the focus of fraud and corruption investigations have their own system of cameras, more than 2,000 in number, and operate them in tandem with NYPD surveillance cameras at a center that was funded with taxpayer money. Every square inch of lower Manhattan is under surveillance 24/7, not just by NYPD, but by JP Morgan and other members of the so-called “one percent.” Carefully consider the implications of this pact.

JPMorgan Chase and others have had long and quite intimate ties with the CIA. Today, however, the line between the banks that control our financial present and future and police and intelligence agencies no longer exist. This relationship of mutual benefit permits the CIA to use the financial institutions to “handle the money” for their various global initiatives, while it provides the banks a stable of “professional assistants” to handle their “security,” whether such security issues arise in the U.S., London, or elsewhere. Highly trained and skilled CIA operatives now work within the system of interlocked financial institutions that have been at the epicenter of the most egregious crimes involving the theft from our bank accounts and retirement savings.

Please stop and consider this for a moment. The very banks and their top executives who have not only brought the U.S. to the brink of financial collapse and Martial Law, engaged or facilitated in various criminal actions that resulted in fines (but no jail time) for the perpetrators, are working hand-in-hand with the CIA. Not only that, they are working in tandem with the NYPD at their surveillance centers, watching and videotaping every move made by anyone—including potential whistleblowers within their vast purview. By the way, this is no ordinary surveillance or surveillance cameras. You won’t find these cameras on the shelves of your local spy shop. These cameras can focus on the footnotes of a book you might be reading, or the words written on a piece of paper being held by an unwitting person. They employ facial recognition and other advanced visual and data aggregation capabilities, and the extent of their technological abilities is increasing every day.

Additionally, the data is collected and maintained, and files are created of people and groups who are merely going about their daily lives. Equally important, files are created and maintained of problem children and groups, like the Occupy movement and others who lawfully exercise their constitutional rights to protest the actions of the one-percent. Consider this in the context of the Occupy Wall Street protests. where the protesters were not only under police surveillance, but surveillance by the banks and their corporate officers against whom they were protesting. And it was all done with the approval and assistance of the police, in this case the NYPD, and U.S. intelligence agencies.

Now consider the plight of a whistleblower who wants to expose criminality within the ranks of a too-big-to-fail. The institution who is engaged in purported criminality based on the findings of the whistleblower can observe the whistleblower’s every move. Where they go, who they meet and what they are carrying to such a meeting. They can be tracked to a residence, a business, or even to their psychiatrist’s office, place of ill repute, or the residence of some significant other outside of their marriage, all of which would be invaluable for blackmail.

Perhaps the potential whistleblower is clean and free from anything that might dissuade them from revealing what they know, their case could be turned over to the in-house security of former CIA agents for proper disposition. It makes the movie The Firm look like child’s play by comparison.

This is not some fanciful delusion. There is proof of this that exists. The New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) has documented the increasingly extensive surveillance being conducted in lower Manhattan and throughout the city. They have verified that not only are our constitutional rights being violated every minute of every day, but the fruits of surveillance by police and corporate entities are shared between the police, the intelligence agencies and private financial institutions, without restraint on the distribution on such findings.

Are you engaged in a protesting against the criminality of the one-percent? Well, they one-percent are watching you, and they are literally seated right next to the police. Are you a journalist following up on possible “bankster” corruption by meeting a potential whistleblower? You better understand that the bankster target of your investigation is watching you, in real-time, with the complete approval and cooperation of the police. As documented by the NYCLU, you are likely now “on file,” and all data compiled is maintained and accessible not just to law enforcement, but to the very target of your investigation—in real time.

Such surveillance and integration between big banks, law enforcement and spy agencies is not just limited to lower Manhattan or even the United States. It is also most prevalent in London and other cities where international banking is conducted.

Real-time surveillance and the close working relationship between the “one-percenters,” police and the intelligence agencies gives the targets of criminal probes the ability to be pro-active when necessary. It’s all being done under the pretext of national security when it would appear that the real objective is to insulate the banksters from potential problems that exposure of their criminal actions might cause.

Oh, and don’t forget that it is us who are paying for this.

Perhaps we would be well advised to not only consider the capabilities of the surveillance apparatus that exists where the big banks and police are working at adjacent surveillance terminals at 55 Broadway and other locations, but the incestuous working relationship between the banks and the CIA when we read about banker suicides.

Do not expect to see any exclusive report on this in the corporate media, for they, as requested have dutifully maintained their code of silence by not showing pictures of the brass name plates that identify the bankster terminals situated adjacent to the police terminals during photo shoots of this super-secret surveillance complex a few years ago. As detailed by the tenacious and indefatigable Pam Martens, journalist for Wall Street on Parade in this article, the captured media took a pass on revealing the whole truth about what’s really going on at 55 Broadway.

What has been revealed here is merely the tip of the iceberg. The tentacles of the corporate elite, facilitated and empowered by the CIA, the NYPD top brass, and other agencies have now covertly and effectively succeeded in invading everything you do. The fruits of this operation are being used to advance their global financial agenda and silence the opposition.

Knowing this, is it possible that the dead bodies that are increasing in number are the results of this joint surveillance operation? You will not find any answers in the mainstream media. The big banks have chosen to remain silent, even in the face of subpoenas, and have yet to face any legal consequences for their contempt. It’s not, however, merely contempt of congress or pseudo-investigative bodies. It’s their contempt of humanity, of you and me, and the victims that lie dead, leaving their families broken and wanting for the truth.

RELATED:

Please visit SteveQuayle.com and RogueMoney.net for headlines, reports and updates on the growing threat to our financial future. Also, tune in the The Hagmann & Hagmann Report on Monday, February 17, 2014 from 8:00-11:00 PM ET as we welcome “V, The Guerrilla Economist” and Steve Quayle to discuss this topic in-depth.

Sabrina

16th February 2014, 08:48

The start in a change in dynamics for tptb's lucrative business here?

“US, Europe Need New Drugs Strategy” Says Uruguay’s President as ‘Marijuana Money’ Heads for US Banks

From Reuters in Montevideo - February 14, 2014

http://tinyurl.com/km8joql

The US and Europe need a new strategy on drugs and should look at alternatives such as the regulated sale of marijuana, says the Uruguayan president, José Mujica, whose country recently legalised the production and sale of cannabis.

In an interview on Thursday, the 78-year-old former leftwing guerrilla said the world’s largest economies, which are the biggest markets for illegal narcotics, needed to tackle drug trafficking using tools other than prohibition.

“The industrial societies are the ones that have to change,” he said. “For a small country, it’s possible to experiment with this, but it’s also very possible for a developed country because of the resources it has.”

In December, Uruguay’s parliament approved a bill to legalise and regulate the sale and production of marijuana.

The move is being closely watched by countries around the world, some of which are seeking to change anti-drug policies that are widely seen as having failed.

“There are big markets, they have great buying power, and that is a big economic attraction. Until things change there, it will be very difficult to change elsewhere,” said Mujica from his home on the outskirts of Uruguay’s capital, Montevideo, where he lives in a simple cottage with his wife and dogs.

Mujica pointed to changing laws in other places, including US states that have taken steps to decriminalise and even legalise marijuana use, as evidence of an “undeniable evolution” in attitudes.
Washington and Colorado states recently legalised the sale of cannabis under licence, although federal law in the United States has not changed.

“Any North American state is more important than Uruguay, in dimensions, in its economic force,” he said. “But it’s still a bit like a lady embarrassed to admit her natural sins and lying to herself. What we are doing is much more open.”

Uruguay’s new marijuana laws are scheduled to take effect in April. Citizens will be allowed to grow up to six plants a year in their homes and will be able to buy up to 40g (1.4oz) a month at pharmacies licensed by the state.

The country is not interested in promoting a culture of cannabis tourism, such as that seen in the coffee shops of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, which has a no-penalisation policy. To try to prevent such tourism, marijuana will be available only to Uruguayan residents who are registered on a confidential database.

Mujica conceded that illicit sales were likely to continue nonetheless.

“The consumer will be able to go to the black market. It is bound to keep on existing, but the attack on the black market will be via the market itself, it will affect it,” he said.

Ultimately, what Uruguay is doing is an experiment with no guarantees, he said – but one that someone had to try.

“We are trying to invent a path, picking up experiences as we go. There are people who say that you can’t experiment … That condemns you to failure.”

and

The American Bankers Association expressed scepticism that the guidance would make much difference [AP]

US Banks Free to Accept Legal Marijuana Money

From Al Jazeera_ February 15, 2014

http://tinyurl.com/q25lhfm

The Obama administration has sought to lessen the fear of prosecution for banks doing business with licensed marijuana companies, further encouraging US states such as Colorado and Washington that are experimenting with legalising the drug.

The Justice and Treasury departments outlined the policy in writing to federal prosecutors and financial institutions nationwide, the Reuters news agency reported.

The guidance stopped short of promising immunity for banks, but made clear that criminal prosecution for money laundering and other crimes was unlikely if they met a series of conditions, officials said.

Currently, processing money from marijuana sales puts federally insured banks at risk of drug racketeering charges, and they therefore refuse to open accounts for marijuana-related businesses, the AP news agency reported.

The guidance was intended to increase the availability of banking services, such as savings and checking accounts, to marijuana shops that typically deal in cash.

Last month, Colorado became the first state to open retail outlets legally permitted to sell marijuana to adults for recreational purposes, in a system similar to what many states have long had in place for alcohol sales.

Washington state is expected to follow Colorado’s lead.

The number of states approving marijuana for medical purposes has also been growing. California was the first in 1996.

It has since been followed by about 20 other states and the District of Columbia.
‘Public safety’

US Attorney General Eric Holder said last month that the administration was planning ways to accommodate marijuana businesses so they would not always be dealing in cash.

“There’s a public safety component to this. Huge amounts of cash, substantial amounts of cash just kind of lying around with no place for it to be appropriately deposited, is something that would worry me just from a law enforcement perspective,” Holder said on January 23 at an appearance at the University of Virginia.

The American Bankers Association expressed scepticism that the guidance would make much difference.

Marijuana sales still violate federal law, so banks are still at risk, said Rob Rowe, a lawyer with the trade group.

“Compliance by a bank will still require extensive resources to monitor any of these businesses, and it’s unlikely the benefits would exceed the costs,” Rowe said in an email to Reuters.

“While we greatly appreciate the efforts by the Department of Justice and the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), guidance or regulation doesn’t alter the underlying challenge for banks.”

The guidance would not protect banks from state laws, and if a wire transfer that moved marijuana-linked money touched a state where the drug is under strict control, a bank that handled the transfer could be open to state prosecution, experts in money-laundering said.

Individual banks may have difficulty identifying which state-licensed businesses would run afoul of the federal guidance, said Peter Djinis, a former regulatory policy official with FinCEN, now in private practice in Florida.

“These complicated and vague policies continue the uncertainty that banks have in determining whether to take the risk of conducting financial transactions with otherwise legitimate marijuana businesses,” Djinis said.

ThePythonicCow

16th February 2014, 21:07

Here's yet another report on this ...
And here are three more reports on these recent Bankster "suicides":

Exposing what lies beneath the bodies of dead bankers and what lies ahead for us (Doug Hagmann) (http://www.homelandsecurityus.com/archives/10482)
More dead bankers in the “offing” (Doug Hagmann) (http://www.homelandsecurityus.com/archives/10487)
MORE ON THE EPIDEMIC OF “SUICIDED” BANKSTERS… (Joseph P. Farrell) (http://gizadeathstar.com/2014/02/epidemic-suicided-banksters/)

Hagmann and Farrell agree that the Banksters and the Intelligence agencies are closely involved. Hagmann thinks they are working as one; Farrell thinks that the Intelligence agencies are gaining the upper hand, and that there is (and I quote Farrell):

a hidden system of finance, based on three fundamental pillars:
Use of World War Two Axis loot – with the knowledge and participation of their former Axis enemies – by the USA’s and UK’s national security establishment. This is in the form of massive amounts of bullion, which
Was kept off the books and used as a reserve to create enormous amounts of post-war credit, in conjunction with the other kind of “gold,” drug money, and in conjunction with mortgage and derivatives fraud;
This gold was further rehypothecated over and over again, until the covert, and overt, supplies of bullion were intermixed… thus, there is probably more bullion, maybe even much more in existence, than any “official” estimates acknowledge… keeping this amount, and the mixture of the hidden and overt supplies of bullion, would be an ongoing national security “concern” once such a system was implemented.Now, there is a fourth component to all of this, and that is its enormous implication, for by creating such a system in the aftermath of World War Two, what it effectively means is that the real players are no longer the central banks, but the intelligence apparatus. In short, the American national security apparatus became a covert player, it entered the banking business.

Selene

17th February 2014, 00:20

This is from SilverDoctors.com. Steve Quayle’s source ‘V’ is claiming that two of the ‘suicides’ knew each other and might have worked together. Did they uncover something? Ref: http://www.silverdoctors.com/banker-source-on-latest-jpm-death-crane-worked-closely-with-jpm-london-banker-pair-had-uncovered-something/

From Steve Quayle’s source ‘V’:

One other thing [Ryan Henry Crane] was the head at the program trading desk. Meaning he over saw all of the trades and was familiar with all of the software (trade platforms) that these trades were done in. This job works closely with guess what? That’s right the London desk and who died last week in London? That’s right Gabriel Magee the one who jumped off the 33rd floor. What was his post? Head of IT and trade platforms meaning he had access to info that Ryan Henry Crane would have.

They knew each other and uncovered something- they were about the same age and these hits happen [along with] two big announcements by JPM.

1. They are out of commodities, and
2. The wholesale selling of their HQ downtown to the Chinese.
“V” The Guerrilla Economist

The comment trail on the story contains an interesting dialogue begun by WaitingForSilver:

Question is, what on earth could they have discovered? Being a Programmer, the only things I can think of is a line tap or discovering something about the data feeds coming in or going out of JPM. Whatever it was it has gone now, and was probably very illegal, whatever that means these days.

It would not have been something of a static Data nature, such as recorded information, or indictable but probably something to do with “wire taps”, either going from JPM to the state/PTB, or the state/PTB to JPM. It’s something to do with insider information.

…..

What if they were toying around with the code, out of curiosity or ‘personal development’ aspirations and discovered ‘Programmer’s Notes’ of text nestled between instructions and discovered the programmer worked exclusively for the Exchange Stabilization Fund? What if there was also a normally invisible ‘back door’ designed into the program for altering instruction parameters issued from the ESF?

…..

I agree Pat, if the whole thing isn’t circumstance or happenstance that is. I also muse that perhaps the routing of instructions exposed something rather like the worlds net routes all going through the US but in any case for a group or person to go round bumping people off without appearing in evidence someway is a bit `out there`. We will see as time unfolds.
…..

Code buried in the high speed trading algorithm that siphoned off .001% to someone high up? Doesn’t sound like much but after billions in trades a day over years?

…..

<Later> WillNotBeASlave says:
Hmmm … the plot thickens. Who would have thought that the CIA had anything to do with banking? Industrial or Finance espionage wouldn’t be part of US Govt (or Shadow Govt) Policy would it? … couldn’t be true [sarc]

From what I gather, J.P.Morgue and Barclays are the two biggest lynchpins in the Underground Economy with their money laundering operations (which the CIA used during Gladio and AJAX to name a few) through the international clearing houses I have been talking about recently (Euroclear, Clearstream, DTCC) … and these direct Securities and Cash settlement systems and depositories have been coming under severe attack by sovereign governments the world over since the 2008 meltdown. Britains Tax Haven/Laundering network is getting utterly hammered in the foreign press but is completely absent from Western News Whores.

So my theory is that JPMorgue and Barclays are shutting down their conventional laundering systems and are placing the laundering mechanisms WITHIN their Derivatives Trading Platforms, so that they can make credits disappear from one bank from a certain country to another bank in the destination country on the back of a Derivatives Bet … this is the PERFECT washing of transactional details, and the DTCC have a subsidiary that they have setup in City of London that is to handle all major derivatives trades between US-UK and the rest of the world. This is heavily linked to FOREX also as the clearing houses and Securities Clearing has a big impact on exchange between countries, so we should all keep in mind that FOREX is only one little part of their bigger network of chicanery.

However, FOREX manipulation is just simple outright theft of real Value between countries, whereas LIBOR was just a benchmark, so this FOREX Scandal is just what other Countries have been waiting for in order to get the desired traction to launch it as a worldwide issue for reformation of world finance (away from the NYC-London axis) … Enter the ‘IMF is the solution’ people to try and resurrect the old system as a new one. (I smells a rat with Rickards ).

IT? Comments, Paul?

Cheers,

Selene

Hervé

17th February 2014, 01:02

PROMIS Software... ?

Uploaded on Aug 1, 2008
One of the Federal government's most secret computer programs is now connected to several local murders. The Riverside County Sheriff's Cold Case Squad is on the case -- and so is KESQ.

x3kbikyxrpg

mountain_jim

17th February 2014, 14:41

I was following the Octopus conspiracy, and the Justice department theft of Promis software long before there was a Project Camelot or Avalon.

ThePythonicCow

17th February 2014, 21:14

IT? Comments, Paul?
These reports suggest that Gabriel Magee was not just an ordinary computer tech manager, but also was involved in, or learned of, the particular use of technology in JP Morgan's trading systems.

I doubt we are getting balanced and accurate information in these alternative media reports; the truth is always somewhere else.

But it sure sounds like a good time not to be a key executive in some major banks.

Hervé

17th February 2014, 23:13

More thoughts on the 'suicided' bankers.

http://www.homelandsecurityus.com/archives/10482

Exposing what lies beneath the bodies of dead bankers and what lies ahead for us

By Douglas J. Hagmann

[...]

The JPMorgan-CIA-NYPD connection

Perhaps one of the best kept secrets, at least from the majority of the American public, is the integration and overlap between the “too-big-to-fail-and-jail” banks and the most advanced system of surveillance in the U.S. Would it surprise you to learn that the very banks that brought the United States to the brink of financial collapse in 2008, who looted the American public and continue to engage in what most perceive as criminal behavior in the financial venue not only have ties to the CIA, but are actually partnered with the CIA and NYPD surveillance of all of lower Manhattan? That’s right, the big banks such as JPMorgan, Citigroup and others have their own desks and surveillance monitors at a facility known as the Lower Manhattan Security Coordination Center, located at 55 Broadway, deep in the center of New York’s financial district.

The big banks—the very banks that have been the focus of fraud and corruption investigations have their own system of cameras, more than 2,000 in number, and operate them in tandem with NYPD surveillance cameras at a center that was funded with taxpayer money. Every square inch of lower Manhattan is under surveillance 24/7, not just by NYPD, but by JP Morgan and other members of the so-called “one percent.” Carefully consider the implications of this pact.

JPMorgan Chase and others have had long and quite intimate ties with the CIA. Today, however, the line between the banks that control our financial present and future and police and intelligence agencies no longer exist. This relationship of mutual benefit permits the CIA to use the financial institutions to “handle the money” for their various global initiatives, while it provides the banks a stable of “professional assistants” to handle their “security,” whether such security issues arise in the U.S., London, or elsewhere. Highly trained and skilled CIA operatives now work within the system of interlocked financial institutions that have been at the epicenter of the most egregious crimes involving the theft from our bank accounts and retirement savings.

Please stop and consider this for a moment. The very banks and their top executives who have not only brought the U.S. to the brink of financial collapse and Martial Law, engaged or facilitated in various criminal actions that resulted in fines (but no jail time) for the perpetrators, are working hand-in-hand with the CIA. Not only that, they are working in tandem with the NYPD at their surveillance centers, watching and videotaping every move made by anyone—including potential whistleblowers within their vast purview. By the way, this is no ordinary surveillance or surveillance cameras. You won’t find these cameras on the shelves of your local spy shop. These cameras can focus on the footnotes of a book you might be reading, or the words written on a piece of paper being held by an unwitting person. They employ facial recognition and other advanced visual and data aggregation capabilities, and the extent of their technological abilities is increasing every day.

Additionally, the data is collected and maintained, and files are created of people and groups who are merely going about their daily lives. Equally important, files are created and maintained of problem children and groups, like the Occupy movement and others who lawfully exercise their constitutional rights to protest the actions of the one-percent. Consider this in the context of the Occupy Wall Street protests. where the protesters were not only under police surveillance, but surveillance by the banks and their corporate officers against whom they were protesting. And it was all done with the approval and assistance of the police, in this case the NYPD, and U.S. intelligence agencies.

[...]

Compare the above with the inherent capabilities of the original PROMIS software:

[...]

The Background

Imagine you are in charge of the legal arm of the most powerful government on the face of the globe, but your internal information systems are mired in the archaic technology of the 1960s. There's a Department of Justice database, a CIA database, an Attorney's General database, an IRS database, and so on, but none of them can share information. That makes tracking multiple offenders pretty darn difficult, and building cases against them a long and bureaucratic task.

Along comes a computer program that can integrate all these databases, and it turns out its development was originally funded by the government under a Law Enforcement Assistance Administration grant in the 1970s. That means the software is public domain ... free!

Edwin Meese was apparently quite taken with PROMIS. He told an April 1981 gathering of prosecutors that PROMIS was "one of the greatest opportunities for [law enforcement] success in the future." In March 1982, Inslaw won a $9.6 million contract from the Justice Department to install the public domain version of PROMIS in 20 US Attorney's offices as a pilot program. If successful, the company would install PROMIS in the remaining 74 federal prosecutors' offices around the country. The eventual market for complete automation of the Federal court system was staggering: as much as $3 billion, according to Bill Hamilton. But Hamilton would never see another federal contract.

Designed as a case-management system for prosecutors, PROMIS has the ability to track people. "Every use of PROMIS in the court system is tracking people," said Inslaw President Hamilton. "You can rotate the file by case, defendant, arresting officer, judge, defense lawyer, and it's tracking all the names of all the people in all the cases."

What this means is that PROMIS can provide a complete rundown of all federal cases in which a lawyer has been involved, or all the cases in which a lawyer has represented defendant A, or all the cases in which a lawyer has represented white-collar criminals, at which stage in each of the cases the lawyer agreed to a plea bargain, and so on. Based on this information, PROMIS can help a prosecutor determine when a plea will be taken in a particular type of case.

But the real power of PROMIS, according to Hamilton, is that with a staggering 570,000 lines of computer code, PROMIS can integrate innumerable databases without requiring any reprogramming. In essence, PROMIS can turn blind data into information. And anyone in government will tell you that information, when wielded with finesse, begets power. Converted to use by intelligence agencies, as has been alleged in interviews by ex-CIA and Israeli Mossad agents, PROMIS can be a powerful tracking device capable of monitoring intelligence operations, agents and targets, instead of legal cases.

[...]

From: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1.01/inslaw_pr.htmlAny need for me to use a sledge hammer to get some bells ringing?

Hervé

17th February 2014, 23:53

Here is the technical feat PROMIS was/is able to perform:

Created in the 1970s by former National Security Agency (NSA) programmer and engineer Bill Hamilton... [...] ... PROMIS, from its first "test drive" a quarter century ago, was able to do one thing that no other program had ever been able to do. It was able to simultaneously read and integrate any number of different computer programs or data bases simultaneously, regardless of the language in which the original programs had been written or the operating system or platforms on which that data base was then currently installed.

In the mid 1970s, at least as far as computer programs were concerned, the "universal translator" of Star Trek had become a reality. And the realm of Star Trek is exactly where most of the major media would have the general public place the Promis story in their world views. But given the fact that the government of Canada has just spent millions of dollars investigating whether or not a special version of Promis, equipped with a so-called "back door" has compromised its national security, one must concede that perhaps the myths surrounding Promis and what has happened to it need to be re-evaluated. Myths, by definition, cannot be solved, but facts can be understood and integrated. Only a very few people realize how big the Promis story really is.

From: http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/pandora/052401_promis.html

mountain_jim

18th February 2014, 00:10

From the Wilderness is where I followed many conspiracies, and became aware of the CIA Drug smuggling, and just how lawless this country's powers had become.

Good link above, and much more archived on that site, from Ruppert.

Hervé

18th February 2014, 00:34

And now for something completely the same: Business as usual...

Gangster Bankers: Too Big to Jail

How HSBC hooked up with drug traffickers and terrorists. And got away with it

http://assets-s3.rollingstone.com/assets/images/story/gangster-bankers-too-big-to-jail-20130214/1000x600/20130212-banks-too-big-to-jail-600x-1360709012.jpg
Illustration by Victor Juhasz

By Matt Taibbi (http://www.rollingstone.com/contributor/matt-taibbi)
February 14, 2013 8:00 AM ET

The deal was announced quietly, just before the holidays, almost like the government was hoping people were too busy hanging stockings by the fireplace to notice. Flooring politicians, lawyers and investigators all over the world, the U.S. Justice Department granted a total walk to executives of the British-based bank HSBC for the largest drug-and-terrorism money-laundering case ever. Yes, they issued a fine – $1.9 billion, or about five weeks' profit – but they didn't extract so much as one dollar or one day in jail from any individual, despite a decade of stupefying abuses.

People may have outrage fatigue about Wall Street, and more stories about billionaire greedheads getting away with more stealing often cease to amaze. But the HSBC case went miles beyond the usual paper-pushing, keypad-punching sort-of crime, committed by geeks in ties, normally associated with Wall Street. In this case, the bank literally got away with murder – well, aiding and abetting it, anyway.

For at least half a decade, the storied British colonial banking power helped to wash hundreds of millions of dollars for drug mobs, including Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel, suspected in tens of thousands of murders just in the past 10 years – people so totally evil, jokes former New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, that "they make the guys on Wall Street look good." The bank also moved money for organizations linked to Al Qaeda and Hezbollah, and for Russian gangsters; helped countries like Iran, the Sudan and North Korea evade sanctions; and, in between helping murderers and terrorists and rogue states, aided countless common tax cheats in hiding their cash.

"They violated every goddamn law in the book," says Jack Blum, an attorney and former Senate investigator who headed a major bribery investigation against Lockheed in the 1970s that led to the passage of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. "They took every imaginable form of illegal and illicit business."

That nobody from the bank went to jail or paid a dollar in individual fines is nothing new in this era of financial crisis. What is different about this settlement is that the Justice Department, for the first time, admitted why it decided to go soft on this particular kind of criminal. It was worried that anything more than a wrist slap for HSBC might undermine the world economy. "Had the U.S. authorities decided to press criminal charges," said Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer at a press conference to announce the settlement, "HSBC would almost certainly have lost its banking license in the U.S., the future of the institution would have been under threat and the entire banking system would have been destabilized."

It was the dawn of a new era. In the years just after 9/11, even being breathed on by a suspected terrorist could land you in extralegal detention for the rest of your life. But now, when you're Too Big to Jail, you can cop to laundering terrorist cash and violating the Trading With the Enemy Act, and not only will you not be prosecuted for it, but the government will go out of its way to make sure you won't lose your license. Some on the Hill put it to me this way: OK, fine, no jail time, but they can't even pull their charter? Are you kidding?

But the Justice Department wasn't finished handing out Christmas goodies. A little over a week later, Breuer was back in front of the press, giving a cushy deal to another huge international firm, the Swiss bank UBS, which had just admitted to a key role in perhaps the biggest antitrust/price-fixing case in history, the so-called LIBOR scandal, a massive interest-raterigging conspiracy involving hundreds of trillions ("trillions," with a "t") of dollars in financial products. While two minor players did face charges, Breuer and the Justice Department worried aloud about global stability as they explained why no criminal charges were being filed against the parent company.

"Our goal here," Breuer said, "is not to destroy a major financial institution."

A reporter at the UBS presser pointed out to Breuer that UBS had already been busted in 2009 in a major tax-evasion case, and asked a sensible question. "This is a bank that has broken the law before," the reporter said. "So why not be tougher?"

"I don't know what tougher means," answered the assistant attorney general.

Also known as the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, HSBC has always been associated with drugs. Founded in 1865, HSBC became the major commercial bank in colonial China after the conclusion of the Second Opium War. If you're rusty in your history of Britain's various wars of Imperial Rape, the Second Opium War was the one where Britain and other European powers basically slaughtered lots of Chinese people until they agreed to legalize the dope trade (much like they had done in the First Opium War, which ended in 1842).

A century and a half later, it appears not much has changed. With its strong on-the-ground presence in many of the various ex-colonial territories in Asia and Africa, and its rich history of cross-cultural moral flexibility, HSBC has a very different international footprint than other Too Big to Fail banks like Wells Fargo or Bank of America. While the American banking behemoths mainly gorged themselves on the toxic residential-mortgage trade that caused the 2008 financial bubble, HSBC took a slightly different path, turning itself into the destination bank for domestic and international scoundrels of every possible persuasion.

Three-time losers doing life in California prisons for street felonies might be surprised to learn that the no-jail settlement Lanny Breuer worked out for HSBC was already the bank's third strike. In fact, as a mortifying 334-page report issued by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations last summer made plain, HSBC ignored a truly awesome quantity of official warnings.

Full article: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/gangster-bankers-too-big-to-jail-20130214

naste.de.lumina

18th February 2014, 00:52

'Every need got an ego to feed in pimps paradise' - Bob Marley

Sabrina

19th February 2014, 11:30

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/02/i-crashed-a-wall-street-secret-society.html

18 Feb US

One-Percent Jokes and Plutocrats in Drag: What I Saw When I Crashed a Wall Street Secret Society

By Kevin Roose

Adapted
from Kevin Roose’s book Young Money, published today by Grand Central Publishing.

Recently, our nation’s financial chieftains have been feeling a little unloved. Venture capitalists are comparing the persecution of the rich to the plight of Jews at Kristallnacht, Wall Street titans are saying that they’re sick of being beaten up, and this week, a billionaire investor, Wilbur Ross, proclaimed that “the 1 percent is being picked on for political reasons.”

Ross's statement seemed particularly odd, because two years ago, I met Ross at an event that might single-handedly explain why the rest of the country still hates financial tycoons – the annual black-tie induction ceremony of a secret Wall Street fraternity called Kappa Beta Phi.

“Good evening, Exalted High Council, former Grand Swipes, Grand Swipes-in-waiting, fellow Wall Street Kappas, Kappas from the Spring Street and Montgomery Street chapters, and worthless neophytes!”

It was January 2012, and Ross, wearing a tuxedo and purple velvet moccasins embroidered with the fraternity’s Greek letters, was standing at the dais of the St. Regis Hotel ballroom, welcoming a crowd of two hundred wealthy and famous Wall Street figures to the Kappa Beta Phi dinner. Ross, the leader (or “Grand Swipe”) of the fraternity, was preparing to invite 21 new members — “neophytes,” as the group called them — to join its exclusive ranks.

Looking up at him from an elegant dinner of rack of lamb and foie gras were many of the most famous investors in the world, including executives from nearly every too-big-to-fail bank, private equity megafirm, and major hedge fund. AIG CEO Bob Benmosche was there, as were Wall Street superlawyer Marty Lipton and Alan “Ace” Greenberg, the former chairman of Bear Stearns. And those were just the returning members. Among the neophytes were hedge fund billionaire and major Obama donor Marc Lasry and Joe Reece, a high-ranking dealmaker at Credit Suisse. [To see the full Kappa Beta Phi member list, click here.] All told, enough wealth and power was concentrated in the St. Regis that night that if you had dropped a bomb on the roof, global finance as we know it might have ceased to exist.

During his introductory remarks, Ross spoke for several minutes about the legend of Kappa Beta Phi – how it had been started in 1929 by “four C+ William and Mary students”; how its crest, depicting a “macho right hand in a proper Savile Row suit and a Turnbull and Asser shirtsleeve,” was superior to that of its namesake Phi Beta Kappa (Ross called Phi Beta Kappa’s ruffled-sleeve logo a “tacit confession of homosexuality”); and how the fraternity’s motto, “Dum vivamus edimus et biberimus,” was Latin for “While we live, we eat and drink.”

On cue, the financiers shouted out in a thundering bellow: “DUM VIVAMUS EDIMUS ET BIBERIMUS.”

The only person not saying the chant along with Ross was me — a journalist who had sneaked into the event, and who was hiding out at a table in the back corner in a rented tuxedo.

Several Kappas at the table next to me, presumably discussing the coming plutocracy.

I’d heard whisperings about the existence of Kappa Beta Phi, whose members included both incredibly successful financiers (New York City's Mayor Michael Bloomberg, former Goldman Sachs chairman John Whitehead, hedge-fund billionaire Paul Tudor Jones) and incredibly unsuccessful ones (Lehman Brothers CEO Dick Fuld, Bear Stearns CEO Jimmy Cayne, former New Jersey governor and MF Global flameout Jon Corzine). It was a secret fraternity, founded at the beginning of the Great Depression, that functioned as a sort of one-percenter’s Friars Club. Each year, the group’s dinner features comedy skits, musical acts in drag, and off-color jokes, and its group’s privacy mantra is “What happens at the St. Regis stays at the St. Regis.” For eight decades, it worked. No outsider in living memory had witnessed the entire proceedings firsthand.

I wanted to break the streak for several reasons. As part of my research for my book, Young Money, I’d been investigating the lives of young Wall Street bankers – the 22-year-olds toiling at the bottom of the financial sector’s food chain. I knew what made those people tick. But in my career as a financial journalist, one question that proved stubbornly elusive was what happened to Wall Streeters as they climbed the ladder to adulthood. Whenever I’d interviewed CEOs and chairmen at big Wall Street firms, they were always too guarded, too on-message and wrapped in media-relations armor to reveal anything interesting about the psychology of the ultra-wealthy. But if I could somehow see these barons in their natural environment, with their defenses down, I might be able to understand the world my young subjects were stepping into.

So when I learned when and where Kappa Beta Phi’s annual dinner was being held, I knew I needed to try to go.

Getting in was shockingly easy — a brisk walk past the sign-in desk, and I was inside cocktail hour. Immediately, I saw faces I recognized from the papers. I picked up an event program and saw that there were other boldface names on the Kappa Beta Phi membership roll — among them, then-Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, Home Depot billionaire Ken Langone, Morgan Stanley bigwig Greg Fleming, and JPMorgan Chase vice chairman Jimmy Lee. Any way you count, this was one of the most powerful groups of business executives in the world. (Since I was a good 20 years younger than any other attendee, I suspect that anyone taking note of my presence assumed I was a waiter.)

I hadn’t counted on getting in to the Kappa Beta Phi dinner, and now that I had gotten past security, I wasn’t sure quite what to do. I wanted to avoid rousing suspicion, and I knew that talking to people would get me outed in short order. So I did the next best thing — slouched against a far wall of the room, and pretended to tap out emails on my phone.

After cocktail hour, the new inductees – all of whom were required to dress in leotards and gold-sequined skirts, with costume wigs – began their variety-show acts. Among the night’s lowlights:
• Paul Queally, a private-equity executive with Welsh, Carson, Anderson, & Stowe, told off-color jokes to Ted Virtue, another private-equity bigwig with MidOcean Partners. The jokes ranged from unfunny and sexist (Q: “What’s the biggest difference between Hillary Clinton and a catfish?” A: “One has whiskers and stinks, and the other is a fish”) to unfunny and homophobic (Q: “What’s the biggest difference between Barney Frank and a Fenway Frank?” A: “Barney Frank comes in different-size buns”).

• Bill Mulrow, a top executive at the Blackstone Group (who was later appointed chairman of the New York State Housing Finance Agency), and Emil Henry, a hedge fund manager with Tiger Infrastructure Partners and former assistant secretary of the Treasury, performed a bizarre two-man comedy skit. Mulrow was dressed in raggedy, tie-dye clothes to play the part of a liberal radical, and Henry was playing the part of a wealthy baron. They exchanged lines as if staging a debate between the 99 percent and the 1 percent. (“Bill, look at you! You’re pathetic, you liberal! You need a bath!” Henry shouted. “My God, you callow, insensitive Republican! Don’t you know what we need to do? We need to create jobs,” Mulrow shot back.)

• David Moore, Marc Lasry, and Keith Meister — respectively, a holding company CEO, a billionaire hedge-fund manager, and an activist investor — sang a few seconds of a finance-themed parody of “YMCA” before getting the hook.

• Warren Stephens, an investment banking CEO, took the stage in a Confederate flag hat and sang a song about the financial crisis, set to the tune of “Dixie.” (“In Wall Street land we’ll take our stand, said Morgan and Goldman. But first we better get some loans, so quick, get to the Fed, man.”)

A few more acts followed, during which the veteran Kappas continued to gorge themselves on racks of lamb, throw petits fours at the stage, and laugh uproariously. Michael Novogratz, a former Army helicopter pilot with a shaved head and a stocky build whose firm, Fortress Investment Group, had made him a billionaire, was sitting next to me, drinking liberally and annotating each performance with jokes and insults.

“Can you ****in’ believe Lasry up there?” Novogratz asked me. I nodded. He added, “He just gave me a ride in his jet a month ago.”

The neophytes – who had changed from their drag outfits into Mormon missionary costumes — broke into their musical finale: a parody version of “I Believe,” the hit ballad from The Book of Mormon, with customized lyrics like “I believe that God has a plan for all of us. I believe my plan involves a seven-figure bonus.” Amused, I pulled out my phone, and began recording the proceedings on video. Wrong move.

The grand finale, a parody of "I Believe" from The Book of Mormon

“Who the hell are you?” Novogratz demanded.
I felt my pulse spike. I was tempted to make a run for it, but – due to the ethics code of the New York Times, my then-employer – I had no choice but to out myself.
“I’m a reporter,” I said.

Novogratz stood up from the table.

"You’re not allowed to be here," he said.

I, too, stood, and tried to excuse myself, but he grabbed my arm and wouldn’t let go.
“Give me that or I’ll ****ing break it!” Novogratz yelled, grabbing for my phone, which was filled with damning evidence. His eyes were bloodshot, and his neck veins were bulging. The song onstage was now over, and a number of prominent Kappas had rushed over to our table. Before the situation could escalate dangerously, a bond investor and former Grand Swipe named Alexandra Lebenthal stepped in between us. Wilbur Ross quickly followed, and the two of them led me out into the lobby, past a throng of Wall Street tycoons, some of whom seemed to be hyperventilating.

Once we made it to the lobby, Ross and Lebenthal reassured me that what I’d just seen wasn’t really a group of wealthy and powerful financiers making homophobic jokes, making light of the financial crisis, and bragging about their business conquests at Main Street’s expense. No, it was just a group of friends who came together to roast each other in a benign and self-deprecating manner. Nothing to see here.

But the extent of their worry wasn’t made clear until Ross offered himself up as a source for future stories in exchange for my cooperation.

“I’ll pick up the phone anytime, get you any help you need,” he said.

“Yeah, the people in this group could be very helpful,” Lebenthal chimed in. “If you could just keep their privacy in mind.”

I wasn’t going to be bribed off my story, but I understood their panic. Here, after all, was a group that included many of the executives whose firms had collectively wrecked the global economy in 2008 and 2009. And they were laughing off the entire disaster in private, as if it were a long-forgotten lark. (Or worse, sing about it — one of the last skits of the night was a self-congratulatory parody of ABBA’s “Dancing Queen,” called “Bailout King.”) These were activities that amounted to a gigantic middle finger to Main Street and that, if made public, could end careers and damage very public reputations.

After several more minutes spent trying to do damage control, Ross and Lebenthal escorted me out of the St. Regis.

As I walked through the streets of midtown in my ill-fitting tuxedo, I thought about the implications of what I’d just seen.

The first and most obvious conclusion was that the upper ranks of finance are composed of people who have completely divorced themselves from reality. No self-aware and socially conscious Wall Street executive would have agreed to be part of a group whose tacit mission is to make light of the financial sector’s foibles. Not when those foibles had resulted in real harm to millions of people in the form of foreclosures, wrecked 401(k)s, and a devastating unemployment crisis.

The second thing I realized was that Kappa Beta Phi was, in large part, a fear-based organization. Here were executives who had strong ideas about politics, society, and the work of their colleagues, but who would never have the courage to voice those opinions in a public setting. Their cowardice had reduced them to sniping at their perceived enemies in the form of satirical songs and sketches, among only those people who had been handpicked to share their view of the world. And the idea of a reporter making those views public had caused them to throw a mass temper tantrum.

The last thought I had, and the saddest, was that many of these self-righteous Kappa Beta Phi members had surely been first-year bankers once. And in the 20, 30, or 40 years since, something fundamental about them had changed. Their pursuit of money and power had removed them from the larger world to the sad extent that, now, in the primes of their careers, the only people with whom they could be truly themselves were a handful of other prominent financiers.

Perhaps, I realized, this social isolation is why despite extraordinary evidence to the contrary, one-percenters like Ross keep saying how badly persecuted they are. When you’re a member of the fraternity of money, it can be hard to see past the foie gras to the real world.

Copyright 2014 by Kevin Roose. Reprinted by permission of Grand Central Publishing. All rights reserved.

pix and sound recordings at link

and Tyler Durden - Zero Hedge's take on the book here:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-02-18/kappa-beta-phi-exposed-redux

Kappa Beta Phi Exposed (Redux)

As we initially exposed over five years ago, with luminary frat brothers and sister such as Jimmy Cayne, Richard Fuld, Stan O'Neil, Martin Gruss, Michael Bloomberg, Jon Corzine, Mary Shapiro, Alan Schwartz, Larry Fink, Larry Fink, Wilbur Ross, James McDonald, this "secret" organization puts the Masons, Bilderbergs, Skull and Bones, Templars, Fight Club and all other secret societies to shame. Now, as New York Magazine infiltrates the inner workings of the "Kappa Beta Phi" society, Liberty Blitzkrieg's Mike Krieger notes the following will confirm what everyone already thought - that a great many of these oligarch financiers are complete and total sociopaths and a menace to society.

Via ZeroHedge,

I can still remember
How the Dow Jones used to make me smile.
And I learned my trade and had my chance
The music played I did my dance
And I made seven figures for a while.
I can't remember if I cried
when they pulled the plug on Countrywide...
It sucks that Iceland is out of ice....
Bye, Bye to my piece of the pie...
Now I travel coach whenever I fly...
Maybe this will be the day that I die.

Via Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

Here’s What Happened When a Journalist Crashed a Wall Street Secret Society

Before we get into this post, let’s review the definition of Antisocial Personality Disorder according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine:

Antisocial Personality Disorder: A mental health condition in which a person has a long-term pattern of manipulating, exploiting, or violating the rights of others. This behavior is often criminal.

Now for the symptoms:

Symptoms:

A person with antisocial personality disorder may:

Be able to act witty and charming
Be good at flattery and manipulating other people’s emotions
Break the law repeatedly
Disregard the safety of self and others
Have problems with substance abuse
Lie, steal, and fight often
Not show guilt or remorse
Often be angry or arrogant
How about treatment?

Treatment:

Antisocial personality disorder is one of the most difficult personality disorders to treat. People with this condition rarely seek treatment on their own. They may only start therapy when required to by a court.

Behavioral treatments, such as those that reward appropriate behavior and have negative consequences for illegal behavior, may hold the most promise. Certain forms of talk therapy are also being explored.

Exactly as many of us have said. Jail time and accountability are necessary to stop these people. Bailouts will only encourage continued sociopathic behavior, which is exactly what we have seen. Think about the above as you read the post below. Enjoy…

++++++++++++++

Cowards, yes. Dangerous cowards, absolutely.

Sabrina

19th February 2014, 11:34

Vatican Bank To Close? Pope Briefed Before Making Decision on Bank’s Future

By Philip Pullella, Reuters - February 19, 2014

http://tinyurl.com/khcgy28

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – A commission looking into the Vatican bank briefed Pope Francis and top cardinals on its findings on Tuesday ahead of a papal decision about what to do with the institution that has embarrassed the Holy See for decades.

The Vatican commission, which the pope set up in June, gave Francis and his eight-member advisory board of cardinals from around the world a three-hour briefing.

Afterward, Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said no decisions on the bank’s future had been taken.

He said the commission gave the pope and the cardinals an “ample and detailed” report on the current and past situation of the bank, and had offered “several possible indications” on its future.
Lombardi would not give any details. “We are waiting for indications from the pope,” Lombardi said.
The pope has not ruled out closing the bank altogether if it cannot be reformed and has said he wants the Vatican to adhere to international standards of financial transparency.

There have been suggestions that a new ministry may be set up in the Vatican to deal with all of its financial matters, which are now handled by the bank and several other departments.

The eight cardinals from Italy, Chile, India, Germany, Democratic Republic of Congo, the United States, Australia and Honduras are advising Francis on how to reform the Curia, the Vatican’s often dysfunctional central administration.

The bank, formally known as the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR), has been hit by scandal numerous times over the past decades.

Italian banks stopped dealing with the Vatican bank in 2010 after the Bank of Italy told them they had to enforce strict anti-money laundering criteria.

Money Laundering Charges
That year, Rome magistrates investigating possible money laundering froze 23 million euros ($31.15 million) held by the IOR in two Italian banks. The IOR said it had merely been transferring its own funds between accounts in other countries.

The money was released but the investigation continues.

IOR president Ernst von Freyberg, a German hired last year, has been spearheading a wide programme of reforms at the bank, which serves Catholic institutions, clerics, employees or former employees of Vatican City, and embassies and diplomats accredited to the Holy See.

The IOR has been closing accounts held by persons or institutions outside those categories.
Last month Moneyval, a monitoring committee of the Council of Europe, gave the Vatican and its financial regulators a mostly positive assessment but urged more controls over the IOR.

The IOR was thrust back into the spotlight last month when Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, a former Vatican prelate on trial for an alleged plot to smuggle 20 million euros into Italy was further charged with laundering millions through the bank.

The IOR’s top two managers resigned in July, several days after Scarano was first arrested. Since then, relations between the Vatican and the Italian magistrates, which has often been thorny in the past, has improved dramatically.

Italian investigators have thanked the Vatican for “fully collaborating” on the Scarano case.
Pope Francis has a packed week of meetings about reform with top Church officials who are in Rome for ceremonies this Saturday when the pope will create 19 new cardinals from around the world.

Sabrina

19th February 2014, 22:14

Well well, very interesting on Blair...

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danhodges/100260292/rebekah-brooks-trial-tony-blair-is-now-facing-his-own-firestorm-and-deservedly-so/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

19 Feb UK

Rebekah Brooks trial: Tony Blair is now facing his own firestorm. And deservedly so

An email has just been read out – detonated would be a better phrase – from the phone hacking trial. It appears to suggest that Tony Blair was advising Rebekah Brooks and Rupert Murdoch on how to deal with the firestorm engulfing them.
For obvious reasons it isn’t possible to go into the implications for that case, which is ongoing. Ms Brooks denies all charges.

But the message carries a politically explosive phrase. Brooks claims Blair advised her to set up a quote “Hutton style” inquiry to assist in responding to the allegations facing News International.

The precise wording is:
1. Form an independent unit that has an outside junior counsel, Ken Macdonald, a great and good type, a serious forensic criminal barrister, internal counsel, proper fact checkers etc in it. Get them to investigate me and others and publish a Hutton style report.

2. Publish part one of the report at same time as the police closes its inquiry and clear you and accept short comings and new solutions and process and part two when any trials are over.

The email, from Brooks to James Murdoch, concludes “He is available for you, KRM [Rupert Murdoch] and me as an unofficial adviser but needs to be between us.

A lot of people within the Labour party are already asking why Blair was apparently advising Brooks at a time when Labour and Ed Miliband were trying to get to the bottom of the phone hacking affair. But to be honest, that’s a side issue.

What’s so damning is the way Blair appears to view the Hutton inquiry as an appropriate model. Blair’s explanation might be that the “Hutton” reference reflects Brooks's interpretation rather than his own. But the reference to “outside junior counsel, Ken Macdonald, a great and good type, a serious forensic criminal barrister, internal counsel, proper fact checkers etc” is basically the Hutton model word for word.

Of course many of us always thought Hutton was a whitewash. But it was a supposedly independent inquiry into a man’s death. Careers were ruined over it. As I coincidentally happened to write earlier today, the BBC and the government were plunged into open warfare over the affair. And yet the Prime Minister of that time appears to have recommended it to one of his close friends as a useful model in time of need.

Tony Blair is now facing his own firestorm. And deservedly so.

Dan Hodges
Dan Hodges is a former Labour Party and GMB trade union official, and has managed numerous independent political campaigns. He writes about Labour with tribal loyalty and without reservation. He is on Twitter at @dpjhodges.

Sabrina

19th February 2014, 22:30

http://www.infowars.com/another-jp-morgan-banker-leaps-to-his-death/

18 Feb Hong Kong

Another JP Morgan Banker Leaps to His Death

Hong Kong man becomes 7th banker to die under mysterious circumstances

Paul Joseph Watson

Infowars.com

February 18, 2014

Yet another banker has committed suicide, with a JP Morgan forex trader leaping to his death from the top of the firm’s Chater House headquarters in Hong Kong.

Over the past few weeks at least seven bankers have died under mysterious circumstances, including another JP Morgan senior manager who jumped off the top of a skyscraper in London last month.

Speculation is rife that the series of deaths are connected to some kind of looming financial crisis or a huge legal case targeting bankers for malfeasance, although no definite link has been established.

Eyewitnesses said that the man, who was in his 30′s, accessed the roof of the 30 story office tower and jumped, with police on the scene failing to talk him out of committing suicide. Chater House is JP Morgan’s main regional Asian office.

“According to several JP Morgan employees, the man was a forex trader with the company,” reports the South China Morning Post, adding that his name was Li Junjie. The bank itself refused to confirm that the man was an employee.

Junjie becomes the 7th banker to suddenly die in recent weeks. Questions as to whether the deaths are merely a coincidence or are linked to some as yet unknown factor continue to swirl.

- On January 26, former Deutsche Bank executive Broeksmit was found dead at his South Kensington home after police responded to reports of a man found hanging at a house. According to reports, Broeksmit had “close ties to co-chief executive Anshu Jain.”

- Gabriel Magee, a 39-year-old senior manager at JP Morgan’s European headquarters, jumped 500ft from the top of the bank’s headquarters in central London on January 27, landing on an adjacent 9 story roof.

- Mike Dueker, the chief economist at Russell Investments, fell down a 50 foot embankment in what police are describing as a suicide. He was reported missing on January 29 by friends, who said he had been “having problems at work.”

- Richard Talley, 57, founder of American Title Services in Centennial, Colorado, was also found dead earlier this month after apparentlyshooting himself with a nail gun.
- 37-year-old JP Morgan executive director Ryan Henry Crane died last week.

- Tim Dickenson, a U.K.-based communications director at Swiss Re AG, also died last month, although the circumstances surrounding his death are still unknown.

Sabrina

19th February 2014, 22:51

http://www.activistpost.com/2014/02/following-wave-of-banker-suicides-3.html

18 Feb UK

Following a Wave of Banker Suicides, 3 Former Barclays Bankers Now Charged in LIBOR Scandal

Three former Barclays bank employees have now been charged with “conspiracy to defraud” in the continuing LIBOR scandal, bringing the total to 13 people charged in America and the U.K. It has been reported that three ex-ICAP brokers are next on the list for helping traders manipulate interest rates.

Three former Barclays bankers have been charged “in connection with the manipulation of Libor” interest rates, the Serious Fraud Office said.

The SFO alleges the three – Peter Charles Johnson, Jonathan James Mathew and Stylianos Contogoulas – "conspired to defraud between 1 June 2005 and 31 August 2007".

They will appear at Westminster Magistrates court at a date to be confirmed. (source)
LIBOR is an interbank benchmark used to set the interest rates on trillions in loans all over the world.

The investigation into LIBOR’s deliberate manipulation began in 2008, and it has come to light that traders at various banks all over the world have benefited financially from turning in false interest rate reports since.

Thus far, Barclays and other mega banks including JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, UBS, Deutsche Bank and the Royal Bank of Scotland have been forced to pay billions in regard to rigging interest rates.

The Wall Street Journal is also reporting that authorities in the United States, United Kingdom and EU are currently investigating a group of traders from various banks for manipulating Euribor, the euro interbank interest rate, as well.

Sabrina

22nd February 2014, 12:29

http://www.prwatch.org/files/americas_highest_paid_government_workers.pdf

Exposed - America's highest paid government workers. 'They're not who you think they are.' Center for Media and Democracy. 2014.

Info. at the link.

Sabrina

22nd February 2014, 12:35

Federal Reserve Knew About Libor Rigging Back in 2008

By Katherine Rushton, The Telegraph, UK – February 21, 2014

http://tinyurl.com/l3ujjjt

The US Federal Reserve knew about Libor rigging three years before the financial scandal exploded but did not take any firm action, documents have revealed.

According to newly published transcripts of the central bank’s meetings in the run-up to and immediate aftermath of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, a senior Fed official first flagged the issue at a policy meeting in April 2008.

William Dudley expressed fears that banks were being dishonest in the way they were calculating the London interbank offered rate – a global benchmark interest rate used as the basis for trillions of pounds of loans and financial contracts.

“There is considerable evidence that the official Libor fixing understates the rates paid by many banks for funding,” he said.

He added that a newspaper report, which lifted the lid on some degree of manipulation, appeared to have triggered “an outbreak of veracity among at least some” bankers, who started reporting accurately the interest rates they offer each other, which are used to calculate Libor.

Three years after his remarks, it emerged that traders at more than a dozen banks, including Lloyds, Royal Bank of Scotland and Barclays, had routinely been trying to fix the official Libor rate in order to boost their own bonuses and profits.

The scandal impacted the finances of tens of millions of ordinary households and businesses, and dealt a devastating blow to the banking industry. Financial institutions have paid more than $5bn (£3bn) in fines to settle the matter with regulators in the US, UK and the European Union. A dozen individuals have been criminally charged, and many others lost their jobs – including Barclays’ chief executive Bob Diamond and chairman Marcus Agius, who both resigned over the issue.

The transcript of the Fed’s April 2008 meeting raises questions about why the central bank did not move to properly tackle the scandal. There was no official regulator for Libor at the time, and officials at the US Federal Reserve tried to blame British authorities for allowing the benchmark interest rate to get out of control in the first place.

The Fed may have been more than usually willing to gloss over the racket because of the other economic crises it faced at the time. The transcripts, published on Friday, show the members of the Federal Open Market Committee struggling to grasp the scale of the financial meltdown in 2008.

Two days after US officials decided to let Lehman Brothers collapse in September 2008, Fed chairman Ben Bernanke was optimistic that it would be able to limit the fallout. “I think that our policy is looking actually pretty good,” he said. “Our quick move [to reduce interest rates in early 2008], which was obviously very controversial and uncertain, was appropriate.” As things turned out, an early cut in interest rates was far from sufficient to prevent the crisis that followed.

The Fed declined to comment on the transcripts or why it had not taken firm action.

However, as the crisis unfolded, Mr Bernanke evolved into an assured crisis manager, the transcripts show. They also reveal how far-sighted his successor, Janet Yellen, was in predicting the financial crisis, back when she was president of its regional bank in San Francisco.

Mrs Yellen, who took over as Fed chairman this month, saw the US economy “at, if not beyond, the brink of recession” in January 2008, the documents disclose. Most of the Fed’s members were relatively upbeat or neutral about the economic outlook, but Mrs Yellen cut a Cassandra figure, as she predicted that deteriorating credit conditions and a slowdown in the labour market were likely to slow down growth.

Sabrina

22nd February 2014, 12:40

(Nigeria: Central Bank Chief Passport Seized – Yet He Could Turn Out to be ‘The Good Guy’…_)

From Al-Jzaeera – Febraury 22, 2014

http://tinyurl.com/nwcgyrt

Nigerian security agents have seized the passport and are plotting to arrest the internationally respected banker who was ousted as central bank governor after he revealed that billions of petrodollars are missing from the treasury, a friend and former cabinet minister has said.

The agents who seized Lamido Sanusi’s passport at Lagos airport said they were “acting on orders from the villa in Abuja,” meaning the president’s official residence, said Nasir El-Rufai, a former minister for the capital territory who is now in the opposition.

Sanusi’s lawyers are filing a suit for alleged breach of his right to free movement, and for threats of arrest and malicious prosecution without basis, El-Rufai told the AP news agency on Friday.

El-Rufai said his and Sanusi’s contacts at the State Security service had tipped them off that agents have obtained a warrant to arrest Sanusi.

The spokeswoman for the State Security service, Marilyn Ogar, did not respond to requests for comment.
‘Financial recklessness’

President Goodluck Jonathan’s suspended Sanusi on Thursday for “financial recklessness and misconduct.”
The governor, whose first term was due to expire in June, had reported that $50bn worth of oil sold by the state-owned Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) had not been paid to the government, sparking unease among the ruling elite who are often criticised for not being tough on corruption.

He later lowered the estimate to $20bn.

The Senate Committee on Finance last week ordered an independent forensic audit into the missing money.
Sanusi told a Nigerian TV station on Thursday that the law does not allow the president to remove the governor without the consent of the senate.

“The central bank is an independent institution, [and] there is a section of the act that says the president cannot remove the governor without two-thirds of the senate,” Sanusi told Channels Television in Lagos, the commercial capital.

“There was a reason for that section. You cannot go round that section by saying, ‘I’m not removing you, I’m suspending you,’” Sanusi added, according to a report from Reuters news agency.

“You cannot do that because it undermines the entire principle, and if the idea is under the interpretation act, or if the president appoints so he can suspend, the president doesn’t appoint – he proposes and the senate confirms, so the governor is actually appointed by both the president and the senate and therefore should be removed by both.”

Reuters said Sanusi did not want his job back but wanted to question the legality of the move.

Billions missing
Sanusi said the decision should be challenged “so that governors coming after me will not refuse to act, or will not refuse to be independent for fear that they will be suspended”.

Reacting to allegations of financial recklessness, Sanusi told Al Jazeera the charges by the president were “unsubstantiated” and that his work had been approved by the board of the central bank.

“The moment this issue started and the letter [about funds] leaked, I had many people in power basically coming to advise me to keep quiet … My response was that I was not going after anyone,” Sanusi said.
In the TV interview, Sanusi said there were no reasonable grounds for the president to make allegations of financial recklessness against him.

He said although the central bank’s accounts for 2013 were audited those of the NNPC had not been audited since 2005.

“We already audited for 2013 and an institution that has not been audited for, God knows, eight years,” Sanusi said. “You know nobody talks about financial recklessness.”

Plaudits for Sanusi
The governor’s suspicion of massive fraud at the heart of one of the world’s most opaque national oil companies has put pressure on Jonathan a year ahead of elections, when he is already reeling from a failure to quell an increasingly violent Islamist insurgency in the north.

The NNPC has repeatedly denied Sanusi’s allegations.
Sanusi was named as the Central Bank Governor of 2010 for both the African continent and the entire world, by the prestigious Banker magazine.

The editor of the magazine said then that few candidate names generate an overall consensus on judging panels but that Sanusi had been chosen unanimously as the best global central bank governor of the year.

Appointed in the midst of a debt crisis in 2009, Sanusi is also credited with reforming Nigeria’s banking sector by taking controversial decisions, including firing the chief executives of eight leading banks over huge non-performing loans.

Sabrina

23rd February 2014, 08:22

http://removingtheshackles.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/the-world-stands-and-says-no-more.html

22 Feb

The World Stands and Says: "NO MORE!"

Many people are feeling a pause, like the quiet before the storm. The huge intake of breath that is held in anticipation, with a quickening of the pulse that is the prelude to the adrenaline rush. It feels as if the world is sitting on the blade of a knife, waiting for the slightest flicker of air to ever so gently brush against it and waft it over the edge of Change. Many many people stand watching intently to see which way the breeze will blow....

And there are many people who feel the pause like a deadening emptiness that threatens to swallow them whole. They fear, they doubt, they moan. To believe in the coming winds of Change is to open themselves to the frigid hazard of being let down again, to have freedom yanked away in icy disdain.... to even hope is too much effort at the end of a very long day.

Society drills us with the admonishment that we are not worthy nor capable of freedom. Religion and politics teaches us from birth that the only way forward is to be good boys and girls and to listen to our leaders so as to not be punished. The media surrounds us with propaganda that perpetuates the stereotype of "Normal", and indoctrinates our peers to judge and bully all those in their groups to toe the line, be good, follow the leader, do not question.

But many many many people ARE questioning. They have awoken to the reality of this Matrix like system that controls the populous with fashion, friends, fear, frenzy, factional faith and fornication. They are SEEING the real world and the real world problems and the real world answers and they are standing up and saying "NO MORE!!" At this moment there are literally millions upon millions of people all over this blue planet who are standing up and demanding Truth and Freedom.

One of the things I am told over and over again, is that people are not waking up or not waking up fast enough. Many rage that "Nothing is Happening", even though it is happening right in front of their eyes. Many stomp because "IT" isn't happening the way they want it to happen nor is "IT" following the carefully well thought out schedule that they had arranged. "Nothing is Happening" has become a litany for those that have no wish to accept that it IS happening.

People ARE waking up. People are not just waking up, they are standing up and they are standing in their power and saying "NO MORE!!" The people on this planet are taking up the mantle of NOW and are demanding the truth and demanding their freedom.

No, the Main Stream Media- especially in North America and in Western Europe - are not reporting what is going on all over the world. Oh, they will tell you about those events that they cannot NOT talk about- like what is happening in the Ukraine and in Thailand and Venezuela. Just as they did not report on Occupy until is was blatantly obvious that they were not reporting on it. But for the most part, the media is keeping the truth of what is going on very quiet. The reports are there.... you just have to look for them. It is the same in the world of politics and finance, the truth is getting out to the people and is being laid transparently on the ground for them to see.... BUT YOU HAVE TO LOOK FOR IT!!! This is why I began Transpicuous News Updates, so that I could publish daily listings of important pieces of news for people to see.

No, the world is NOT sleeping any more. The alarm clock has gone off, and it's time to get up!

As I said earlier today, "If you want CHANGE then you must be the CHANGE you wish to SEE. Does that mean you have to go out and protest? That you have to burn cars and throw rotten eggs and scream and yell? NO it doesn't. But it DOES mean that you need to take some responsibility for those changes that you want to happen. It DOES mean that you need to be involved- in whatever way resonates with you- to CREATE CHANGE."

People in North America are under a heavy blanket of "See nothing, hear nothing, do nothing".... Yet all around them the world is being taken back by those who are STANDING in their BEing.

The World Is Awake!

Don't believe me? I have spent the past few days compiling this list that shows just how awake the world has become and how many people are Standing Right NOW.

This Is a list of countries that where people are telling the governments "NO MORE". This is a work in process as it is no where near complete, but I felt compelled to get it out there for people to see RIGHT NOW. You will see that many of these places are the most highly controlled military states on the planet... and yet, the people RISE and STAND.

YOU are not alone! All these people in ALL these "nations" are standing right beside you. They are BEing the CHANGE.

Please Share this list and make it viral. Let the people know that they are not alone and that people are standing with them. This list will be available as a separate page on RTS so that it can be easily sent as a link and can be continuously updated.

This is not about fear. It is about Standing Together. It is about kNOWing that NOW is the Time to BE the CHANGE.

I would like to hear from you. Please send me links to news stories covering political protests in your area.

Europe
England:

Stop Water Cannons from Being Deployed on the UK’s Austerity Protests-Jan 30/14

http://revolution-news.com/stop-water-cannons-from-being-deployed-on-the-uks-austerity-protests/

Over 1,000 cyclists stage die-in protest outside Transport for London HQ-Dec 1/13

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2013/dec/01/stop-killing-cyclists-die-in-tfl-protest

50,000 attend Manchester protest against austerity-Sept 29/13

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/sep/29/thousands-protest-manchester-austerity

Thousands Protest the UK Government's Brutal Austerity- Apr 1/13

http://www.thenation.com/blog/173602/thousands-protest-uk-governments-brutal-austerity#

Ireland:

Tens of thousands protest against austerity- Feb 14/13

http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/6162

Scotland:
Ukip's Nigel Farage mobbed by protesters in Edinburgh- May 17/13

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2013/may/17/ukip-nigel-farage-protesters-edinburgh-video

Thousands attend anti-bedroom tax protest in Glasgow- Jun 1/13

http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/6336

Wales:
Protesters march through Pontypridd over education cuts- Nov 16/13

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-24971561

Germany:

Germany: Riot police and protesters clash big in Hamburg - Dec 21/13

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWwDsPSe7iM

Hamburg: Police Attack Rote Flora demo- Dec 24/13

http://revolution-news.com/hamburg-police-attacked-rote-flora-demo-hh2112/

Thousands in German anti-NSA protest-Sept 8/13

http://phys.org/news/2013-09-thousands-german-anti-nsa-protest.html

Anti-austerity protests: Spain, Germany, Portugal- June 1/13

http://news.yahoo.com/anti-austerity-protests-spain-germany-203305956.html

Spain:
Spanish protests over new austerity measures- Feb 16/14

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9413107/Spanish-protests-over-new-austerity-measures.html

Basques march in support of ETA prisoners despite Madrid ban-Jan 12/14

http://rt.com/news/spain-protest-ban-eta-468/

Protesters demonstrate against austerity measures across Spain- Mar 11/13

http://www.dw.de/protesters-demonstrate-against-austerity-measures-across-spain/a-16662588

Portugal:
Portuguese soldiers stage anti-austerity protest- Feb 13/14

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/02/14/350603/portuguese-soldiers-protest-austerity/

Mass protest erupts in Portugal against austerity budget- Dec 20/13

http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/833251.shtml#.UwB7m03xvIU

Portugal: Anti-austerity protesters occupy government ministries- Nov 26/13

http://www.euronews.com/2013/11/26/portugal-anti-austerity-protesters-occupy-government-ministries/

Portugal Lived Today. A Million and a Half People In the Streets Against Austerity.-Mar 3/13

http://revolution-news.com/portugal-lived-today-a-million-and-a-half-people-in-the-streets-against-austerity/

Lisbon: Thousands join anti-austerity march over 2014 budget- Feb 02/14

http://www.euronews.com/2014/02/02/lisbon-thousands-join-anti-austerity-march-over-2014-budget/

Italy:

Italy’s president fears violent insurrection in 2014 but offers no remedy - Dec 17/13

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ambroseevans-pritchard/100026297/italys-president-fears-violent-insurrection-in-2014-but-offers-no-remedy/

'Pitchfork' protests rattle Italian government - Dec 13/13

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25368433

Italy anti-austerity protesters clash with police in Rome- Oct 19/13

http://www.euronews.com/2013/10/19/italy-anti-austerity-protesters-clash-with-police-in-rome/

Switzerland:

20,000 Swiss civil servants protest austerity-Mar 16/13

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/130316/20000-swiss-civil-servants-protest-austerity

France:
French conservatives march against government 'family-phobia'- Feb 02/14

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/02/us-france-protests-idUSBREA110AG20140202

Thousands stage anti-government protests in Paris- Jan 26/14

http://www.dw.de/thousands-stage-anti-government-protests-in-paris/a-17388432

French government suspends ecotax after violent protests - Oct 29/13

http://www.english.rfi.fr/economy/20131029-french-government-suspends-ecotax-after-violent-protests

Tens of Thousands of French Protesters Reject Austerity- May 5/13

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100708805

Greece:

Protests greet Greece's EU presidency - Jan 9/14

http://www.aljazeera.com/video/europe/2014/01/protests-greet-greece-eu-presidency-201418232129222153.html

Thousands of Greeks mark 40th anniversary of student uprising, protest against austerity-Nov 17/13

http://rt.com/news/greece-rally-austerity-protest-872/

Thousands join fresh Greece protests against Golden Dawn- Sept 25/13

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24275978

Wave of Protests Engulfs Greece- Jun 17/13

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/18/world/europe/wave-of-protests-engulfs-greece.html?_r=0

Belgium:
Several Thousands March In Anti-Austerity Protest In Brussels-Feb 21/13

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/tv/several-thousands-march-in-anti-austerity-protest-in-brussels-2149

Austria:
Thousands join protests in Vienna against Austrian ball for 'far-right' - Jan 25/14

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/thousands-join-protests-in-vienna-against-austrian-ball-for-farright-9084916.html

Protest wave against new Austrian government rises- Dec 18/13

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/18/us-austria-politics-protest-idUSBRE9BH0W120131218

Ukraine:

Ukraine parliament removes Yanukovich, who flees Kiev in "coup"

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/02/22/uk-ukraine-idUKBREA1H0EM20140222

Over 300,000 defy protest ban in Ukraine - Dec 2/13

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2013/12/tens-thousands-back-streets-kiev-2013121123920784539.html

2014 Hrushevskoho Street riots

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Hrushevskoho_Street_riots

Bosnia:
Bosnia-Herzegovina hit by wave of violent protests- Feb 7/14

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/07/bosnia-herzegovina-wave-violent-protests

Bosnia's ethnic rivals join forces in protests- Jun 11/13

http://news.yahoo.com/bosnias-ethnic-rivals-join-forces-protests-132007667.html

Serbia:

Scientists in Serbia Protest against Dire Financial Situation - Jul 7/13

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2013/07/07/scientists-in-serbia-protest-against-dire-financial-situation/

Poland:
Large demonstration in Poland against government austerity policies-sept 23/13

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/09/23/pola-s23.html

Tens of thousands join march for jobs in Poland- Sept 14/14

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/14/us-poland-protests-idUSBRE98D09I20130914
Hungary:

International protest against criminalization of homelessness in Hungary- Feb 12/14

http://www.reclaiming-spaces.org/2014/02/international-protest-against-criminalization-of-homelessness-in-hungary/

HUNGARY: Protests against increasing Hungary's nuclear power -Feb 03/14

http://www.itnsource.com/en/shotlist//RTV/2014/02/03/RTV030214006/#sthash.Kwe5xI5A.dpuf

Albania:

“Yes, we can say No”- A new chapter in Albania’s protests-Nov 15/14

http://vostokcable.wordpress.com/2013/11/15/yes-we-can-say-no-a-new-chapter-in-albanias-protests/

Belarus:

Belarus Car Owners Flood Into Downtown Minsk to Protest New Tax - Dec 20/14

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-20/belarus-car-owners-flood-into-downtown-minsk-to-protest-new-tax.html

Bulgaria:

Bulgarians to Hold 1st Anti-Cabinet Rally for 2014- Jan 3/14

http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=156920

Bulgarian government to resign amid austerity protests- Feb 20/13

http://euobserver.com/economic/119128

Romania:
Chevron suspends activities amid Romania anti-fracking protests- Dec 12/13

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/131207/chevron-suspends-activities-amid-romania-anti-fracking-protests

Montenegro:

Anti-Government Protesters and Police Clash in Montenegro- Feb 15/14

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304315004579385103432404042

Denmark:

In Denmark, Goldman Sachs Deal Ignites Political Crisis- Feb 6/14

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-02-06/in-denmark-goldman-sachs-deal-ignites-political-crisis

Sweden:

Protests Arson Attacks Against Swedish-Eritreans-Mar 23/13

http://www.blackstarnews.com/global-politics/europe/protests-arson-attacks-against-swedish-eritreans.html

Thousands take to the streets for anti-racism protest in Sweden after similar rally marred by neo-Nazi attack- Dec 23/13

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2528252/Thousands-streets-anti-racism-protest-Sweden-similar-rally-marred-neo-Nazi-attack.html#ixzz2tV2EwI6p

Iceland:

Icelanders Overthrow Government and Rewrite Constitution After Banking Fraud-No Word From US Media -
http://guardianlv.com/2013/12/icelanders-overthrow-government-and-rewrite-constitution-after-banking-fraud-no-word-from-us-media/

Russia:

Over Ten Thousand March in Moscow to Support Charged Opposition Activists- Feb 2/14

http://revolution-news.com/over-ten-thousand-march-in-moscow-to-support-charged-opposition-activists/

Russian protesters march as Putin seeks firmer political footing- Jun 12/13

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/12/us-russia-protest-putin-idUSBRE95B0LG20130612

Middle East:

Syria:

No links necessary: just open any news site.

Bahrain:-
Bahrain protesters mark uprising anniversary

http://news.yahoo.com/blast-kills-bahrain-policeman-during-uprising-protests-081445291.html

Clashes, teargas mark third anniversary of Bahrain uprising

http://rt.com/news/clashes-anniversary-bahrain-uprising-956/

Jordan:
Protesters across Jordan call for social reforms

http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2013/12/07/Protesters-across-Jordan-call-for-social-reforms.html

Saudi Arabia:
Saudis protest government’s discriminatory behavior

http://www.presstv.com/detail/2013/09/28/326560/saudis-protest-govt-discrimination/

UAE:

Abu Dhabi buying a new mercenary force to suppress “internal unrest” against petro-monarchies

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2013/06/15/abu-dhabi-buying-a-new-mercenary-force-to-suppress-internal-unrest-against-petro-monarchies/

Iran:

Iran: Bakhtiaris clashed with security forces in Isfahan

http://www.ncr-iran.org/en/news/iran-protests

ASIA

Thailand:
Open any news paper or website

India:

India elections 2014: A look forward

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/01/05/world/asia/india-elections-look-forward/

India creates new 29th state amid protests

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2014/02/20/india_creates_new_29th_state_amid_protests.html

Pakistan:

Political party calls for Karachi shutdown as protest

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2014/02/08/Political-party-calls-for-Karachi-shutdown-as-protest/UPI-53851391893081/

Nationwide Protests in Pakistan - February & March 2014

http://vimeo.com/86785195

Sri Lanka:

Thousands protest against government in Sri Lanka

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/thousands-protest-against-government-sri-lanka

South Korea:

South Korea: A Thousand Buddhist Monks Join Protests Against Election Manipulation - Nov 28/13

http://globalvoicesonline.org/2013/11/28/south-korea-thousand-buddhist-monks-join-protests-against-election-manipulation/

100,000 South Koreans Protest Election Scandal, Labor Clampdown

http://globalvoicesonline.org/2013/12/28/photos-100000-south-koreans-protest-election-scandal-labor-clampdown/

Afghanistan:

Afghanistan: Peaceful Protest Suppressed

http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/05/07/afghanistan-peaceful-protest-suppressed

Kyrgystan:
Kyrgyzstan: After Defeat, Former Osh Mayor Tells Thousands He’ll Return

http://www.eurasianet.org/node/67939

Kazakhstan:
Police in Kazakhstan have detained a number of demonstrators during an unsanctioned protest rally against the devaluation of the country’s national currency, tenge.

http://www.presstv.com/detail/2014/02/15/350837/kazakh-police-arrest-almaty-protesters/

Uzbekistan:

Uzbek activists detained for backing Ukrainian protests

http://www.focus-fen.net/news/2014/01/30/325801/uzbek-activists-detained-for-backing-ukrainian-protests.html

Bangladesh :
Bangladeshi opposition parties vow to continue protests as violence mars polls

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/05/bangladesh

Myanmar/Burma:
Myanmar protesters call for end to harsh laws

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-01-05/an-myanmar-protest/5185610
Vietnam:

Vietnam deploys dancers to foil protests

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/vietnam-deploys-dancers-foil-protests

Anti-China protesters gather in Vietnam's capital
http://townhall.com/news/world/2014/01/19/antichina-protesters-gather-in-vietnams-capital-n1781259

Cambodia:-
protests unmask anti-Vietnam views Racially charged slogans are sometimes mixed with opposition calls for more democracy and higher wages.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/01/cambodia-protests-unmask-anti-vietnam-views-2014122101345786547.html

New protest crackdown in Cambodia Riot police were recently deployed in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh to break up anti-government protests. The crackdowns are part of an escalating standoff between officials and those calling for democratic reform.

http://www.dw.de/new-protest-crackdown-in-cambodia/a-17388999

Cambodia: Security Forces Beat Housing Rights Protesters

http://stratrisks.com/geostrat/17368

Malaysia:
Malaysia police on standby as anti-government protesters vow to hold rally in KL tonight

http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/se-asia/story/malaysia-police-standby-anti-government-protesters-vow-hold-rally-tonigh

Thousands protest price hikes in Malaysia

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/thousands-protest-price/939744.html

Mongolia:
Inner Mongolia detains dozens in Communist party internet crackdown. Chinese regional authorities arrest 52 people for illegally distributing information online and stirring up ethnic tension

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/06/inner-mongolia-internet-crackdown

Nepal:
Nepal protests heighten tensions ahead of election
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2013/nov/04/nepal-protests-heighten-tensions-election

Philippines:
Philippine anti-corruption protests draw massive crowds. $226M of taxpayer money funnelled to legislators' non-existent pet projects

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/philippine-anti-corruption-protests-draw-massive-crowds-1.1401957

Taiwan:
Tens of Thousands Attend Anti-Government Protest on Taiwan National Day

http://revolution-news.com/tens-of-thousands-attend-anti-government-protest-on-taiwan-national-day/

China:

Rioting In China's Restive Xinjiang Region Kills 16 People, Including 2 Policemen

http://www.ibtimes.com/rioting-chinas-restive-xinjiang-region-kills-16-people-including-2-policemen-1509562

China places armed police under military control to manage large-scale riots

http://stratrisks.com/geostrat/17368

Africa

Somalia--
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/02/12/world/africa/somalia-mortar-attacks/index.html?hpt=iaf_c2

Nigeria--
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/02/12/world/africa/nigeria-unrest/index.html?hpt=iaf_c2
CAR--
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/02/12/world/africa/central-african-republic-muslims/index.html?hpt=iaf_c2
Libya--
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/02/12/world/africa/libya-tv-attack/index.html?hpt=iaf_c2
DRC--
http://www.eutimes.net/2013/12/dr-congo-army-kills-40-people-taking-part-in-uprising/
Sudan--
http://www.eutimes.net/2013/12/thousands-killed-in-south-sudan-violence-un/

Kenya--
http://www.eutimes.net/2013/10/somalias-al-shabab-threatens-to-escalate-attacks-in-kenya/

Egypt--
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/25/egypt-protesters-killed-mubarak-cairo-tahrir-square

Ethiopia--
http://ethsat.com/2014/01/28/ethiopian-muslims-resume-protest/

South Africa--
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-12/south-african-protest-surge-overshadows-zuma-s-keynote-address.html

Mali--
http://magharebia.com/en_GB/articles/awi/features/2013/08/28/feature-03

Zimbabwe--
http://www.zimbabwesituation.com/news/zimsit_zimbabwe-corruption-valentine-protest-on-friday-woza/

Algeria--
http://earthfirstjournal.org/newswire/2014/02/12/protests-rise-against-britains-gas-grab-in-algeria/

Malawi--
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/21/malawi-protesters-killed-anti-regime-riots

Angola--
http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/11/22/angola-officials-implicated-killing-protest-organizers

http://en.apa.az/news/203162

Namibia--
http://allafrica.com/stories/201401130871.html

Botswana--
http://www.botswanaguardian.co.bw/news/788-bdp-frustrates-bulela-ditswe-protesters.html

Uganda--
http://allafrica.com/view/group/main/main/id/00028461.html

Mozambique--
http://reliefweb.int/map/mozambique/southern-africa-weekly-report-7-to13-january-2014

Tanzania--
http://allafrica.com/stories/201401160114.html

South Sudan--
http://www.dw.de/south-sudan-peace-negotiators-met-this-morning/a-17345070

Morocco--
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/morocco/

Niger--
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/morocco/

Ghana--
http://www.apbrebes.org/news/massive-protests-ghana-over-upov-style-plant-breeders-bill

Oceania:

Australia:

March In March Australia 2014: A national protest as a vote of no confidence in the Abbott Government’s policies

http://leesalittle.com/2014/01/17/march-in-march-australia-2014-a-national-protest-as-a-vote-of-no-confidence-in-the-abbott-government/

North America:

USA:

There is no more “News” media: 100,000 people protested on Saturday, and we never heard about it.- Feb 10/14

http://bluntandcranky.wordpress.com/2014/02/10/there-is-no-more-news-media-100000-people-protested-on-saturday-and-we-never-heard-about-it/

Canada:

South America

Caribbean:

Dominican Republic:

Protest Against Exploitation of Loma Miranda – Dominican Republic- Feb 1/14

http://www.dominicantoday.com/dr/local/2014/2/1/50414/Thousands-rally-in-Bonao-for-Loma-Miranda

Sabrina

23rd February 2014, 08:34

Another interview from Karen Hudes.

http://www.redicecreations.com/radio/2014/02/RIR-140221.php

21 Feb - Red Ice Radio - World Bank whistleblower Karen Hudes interview.

Relevant links (see at link above)
kahudes.net
World Bank
John Maynard Keynes (Fabian Socialist Founder of teh World Bank) and Economic Fascism
The Network of Global Corporate Control
Sting operation
International Bank for Reconstruction and Development
Ferdinand Marcos
Gold Warriors: America's Secret Recovery of Yama****a's Gold
James Wolfensohn
The Stock Market In Japan Is COLLAPSING
Are Major Bank Runs in Our Near Future?

The following links are provided as is from Karen (These are the "documents" mention in the interview)
World Bank a security risk to the world order?
US Military Report: Fired nuke general misbehaved in Russia
US Allies: Do Some Stocktaking and We Will Help Patriots. Close call for Charleston Nuke October 8, 2013
Here is what another member of the US' Armed forces says about what is really going on in the military:
A Grandfather's Encouragement - Foreword (pdf)
A Grandfather's Encouragement - Perspective Summary (pdf)
A Grandfather's Encouragement - Perspective (pdf)
A Grandfather's Encouragement - Perspective Afterword (pdf)
A Grandfather's Encouragement - Rebuilding America's Inner Compass (pdf)
A Grandfather's Encouragement - Rebuilding Global Banking System (pdf)
Recent interview with alot of supporting documentation in the comments section (An interview with Antal Fekete as mentioned in the interview)
"a recent tweet" (A word document containing unorganized emails and tweets)

Related programs
G. Edward Griffin - The Collectivist Conspiracy
Catherine Austine Fitts - Swine Flu, Vaccination & The Economy
William Dean A. Garner - World Control, Gold & The Jesuits
Sterling Seagrave - The Secret History of Asia & Gold Warriors
Joseph P. Farrell - Babylon's Banksters, Global Financial Blackmail, Geo Warfare & The End Game
Julia & BJ Davis - Hour 1 & 2 - Top Priority: The Terror Within
Bill Still - The Money Masters & The Secret of Oz
Jason Erb - Hour 1 - Economic History & Alternative Currencies
Tracy Twyman - Alconomics, Money & Magic
Gerald Celente - The Decline of USA & The Individual Solution

Karen Hudes - Former World Bank Insider on the Corruption of the Global Elite
February 21, 2014
Karen Hudes studied law at Yale Law School and economics at the University of Amsterdam. She worked in the US Export Import Bank of the US from 1980-1985 and in the Legal Department of the World Bank from 1986-2007. For 21 years, Hudes was on the senior council of the World Bank (IMF). She established the Non Governmental Organization Committee of the International Law Section of the American Bar Association and the Committee on Multilateralism and the Accountability of International Organizations of the American Branch of the International Law Association. Karen has become known as a whistleblower and she has been outspoken about her time at the World Bank and the corruption that she saw there. She speaks on issues related to economics, global policies and government organizations. In this program, we attempt to get to the root of what she has been blowing the whistle on. Karen shares how she sees the global network of corrupt elite being dismantled. She also speaks about how things are going to change in the next few years. Hudes reveals deep-rooted, systemic corruption at the core of the Bretton Woods institutions, as well as deep-rooted, systemic problems with the U.S.'s legal system, law-enforcement agencies, and government crime.

KiwiElf

3rd March 2014, 04:12

Tokyo bitcoin exchange files for bankruptcy

Tokyo bitcoin exchange files for bankruptcy, significant amount of virtual currency missing
Associated PressBy Yuri Kageyama, AP Business Writer | Associated Press – Sat, Mar 1, 2014 1:32 PM NZDT

http://nz.finance.yahoo.com/news/tokyo-bitcoin-exchange-files-bankruptcy-102733681.html

TOKYO (AP) -- The Mt. Gox bitcoin exchange in Tokyo filed for bankruptcy protection Friday and its chief executive said 850,000 bitcoins, worth several hundred million dollars, are unaccounted for.

The exchange's CEO Mark Karpeles appeared before Japanese TV news cameras, bowing deeply. He said a weakness in the exchange's systems was behind a massive loss of the virtual currency involving 750,000 bitcoins from users and 100,000 of the company's own bitcoins. That would amount to about $425 million at recent prices.

The online exchange's unplugging earlier this week and accusations it had suffered a catastrophic theft have drawn renewed regulatory attention to a currency created in 2009 as a way to make transactions across borders without third parties such as banks.

It remains unclear if the missing bitcoins were stolen, voided by technological flaws or both.

"I am sorry for the troubles I have caused all the people," Karpeles, a Frenchman, said in Japanese at a Tokyo court.

Karpeles had not made a public appearance since rumors of the exchange's insolvency surfaced last month. He said in a web post Wednesday that he was working to resolve Mt. Gox's problems.

The loss is a giant setback to the currency's image because its boosters have promoted bitcoin's cryptography as protecting it from counterfeiting and theft.

Bitcoin proponents have insisted that Mt. Gox is an isolated case, caused by the company's technological failures, and the potential of virtual currencies remains great.

Debts at Mt. Gox totaled more than 6.5 billion yen ($65 million), surpassing its assets, according to Teikoku Databank, which monitors bankruptcies.

Just hours before the bankruptcy filing, Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso had scoffed that a collapse was only inevitable.

"No one recognizes them as a real currency," he told reporters. "I expected such a thing to collapse."

Japan's financial regulators have been reluctant to intervene in the Mt. Gox situation, saying they don't have jurisdiction over something that's not a real currency.

They pointed to the Consumer Affairs Agency, which deals with product safety, as one possible place where disgruntled users may go for help.

The agency's minister Masako Mori urged extreme caution about using or investing in bitcoins. The agency has been deluged with calls about bitcoins since earlier this year.

"We're at a loss for how to help them," said Yuko Otsuki, who works in the agency's counseling department.

It's hard to know how many people around the world own bitcoins, but the currency has attracted outsize media attention and the fascination of millions as an increasing number of large retailers such as Overstock.com begin to accept it.

Speculative investors have jumped into the bitcoin fray, too, sending the currency's value fluctuating wildly in recent months. In December, the value of a single bitcoin hit an all-time high of $1,200. One bitcoin has cost about $500 lately.

Roger Ver, a Tokyo resident who has provided seed capital for bitcoin ventures such as Blockchain.info, a registry of bitcoin transactions, said he believes bitcoin will survive, possibly emerging with better technology that's safer for users.

He said Mt. Gox people were likely sincere but had failed to run their business properly.

"Mt. Gox is a horrible tragedy. A lot of people lost a lot of money there, myself included," he said ahead of the bankruptcy filing. "I hope we can use this as a learning experience."

Some countries have reacted sternly to bitcoin's emergence, but many people remain fans of its potential.

Vietnam's communist government said Thursday that trading in bitcoin and other electronic currencies is illegal, and warned its citizens not to use or invest in them.

Late last year, China banned its banks and payment systems from handling bitcoin, although people still use them online. Thailand earlier put a blanket prohibition on using bitcoins and Russia has effectively banned them (see related article following).

There was still considerable appetite for bitcoin in China, where it has become attractive as an investment since tightly-regulated state banks offer very low interest rates on deposits.

Even some with money tied up in Mt. Gox were undaunted.

Huang Zhaobin, a 21-year-old student in Chengdu, said he had lost 50,000 to 60,000 yuan ($8,125 to $9,750) from the Mt. Gox closure.

"Actually this money itself is the benefit from bitcoin investment," said Huang, who plowed 10,000 yuan into bitcoins about three months ago.

"If it is legal, I will continue to invest for sure as it is the trend in the world."

In Singapore, Tembusu Terminals, a joint venture specializing in crypto-currencies, announced Friday its first bitcoin ATM in the city-state and plans for many more. In Hong Kong, a group opened what it said was the world's first bitcoin retail store.

Yang Weizhou, analyst at Mizuho Securities Co. in Tokyo, said laws to regulate virtual currencies may have to be created by countries including Japan.

She said lawsuits from those who lost money were likely, and any court rulings would chart unexplored territory and help define the reach of virtual money.

The trend toward such technology for peer-to-peer payments wouldn't replace traditional money but was here to stay because of its convenience, she said.

"It is undeniable," she said. "One must separate the Mt. Gox problem from the overall concept."

__

Associated Press video journalist Kaori Hitomi in Tokyo, researcher Fu Ting in Shanghai and writers Chris Brummitt in Hanoi, Vietnam and Satish Cheney in Singapore contributed to this report.

Follow Yuri Kageyama on Twitter at twitter.com/yurikageyama

Related Article:

Vietnam says bitcoin transactions are illegal
Vietnam says bitcoin transactions are illegal, warns against investing in virtual currencies
Associated PressAssociated Press – Fri, Feb 28, 2014 6:14 PM NZDT

http://nz.finance.yahoo.com/news/vietnam-says-bitcoin-transactions-illegal-043122311.html

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) -- Vietnam's communist government said trading in bitcoin and other electronic currencies is illegal, and warned its citizens not to use or invest in them.

A central bank statement late Thursday didn't spell out penalties for those who disobeyed the instruction, but it said that virtual currencies are linked to money laundering and other illegal activities.

The collapse of a major bitcoin exchange in Tokyo this week has drawn renewed attention to the currency.

Late last year, China banned its banks and payment systems from handling bitcoin. Thailand earlier put a blanket ban on its use.

Currencies like bitcoin are unnerving financial regulators in Asia and elsewhere because they are outside of their control. Established banks don't like them because people can send the money around the world with any fees.

There are a few websites that claim to offer bitcoin in exchange for Vietnamese dong, but it's unclear whether they have done any trading so far.

Aside from an investment and buying goods and services online, bitcoin could be used by Vietnam's diaspora to sends home remittances if the currency were to take a broader hold.

Sabrina

3rd March 2014, 15:57

http://news.sky.com/story/1219658/ukraines-new-navy-chief-defects-to-crimea

Ukraine's New Navy Chief Defects To Crimea 2 March

US Secretary of State John Kerry is to visit Ukraine on Tuesday as Russia takes "complete operational control" of Crimea.

Ukraine has launched a treason case against its new navy chief after he switched allegiance to the pro-Russian Crimea region amid escalating tensions in the country.

Rear Admiral Denis Berezovsky was appointed head of Ukraine's navy on Saturday and the Kiev government was claiming that its Black Sea fleet remained loyal just a few hours ago.

Ukraine's leader has accused Russia of declaring war on his country and warned the nation was on the "brink of disaster".

Appealing to the international community for help, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said: "This is the red alert, this is not a threat, this is actually a declaration of war to my country."

Sabrina

3rd March 2014, 16:02

Bit of a shift here..and from bloomberg..

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-03-02/obama-to-israel-time-is-running-out 2 March

MIDDLE EAST

Obama to Israel -- Time Is Running Out

When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits the White House tomorrow, President Barack Obama will tell him that his country could face a bleak future -- one of international isolation and demographic disaster -- if he refuses to endorse a U.S.-drafted framework agreement for peace with the Palestinians. Obama will warn Netanyahu that time is running out for Israel as a Jewish-majority democracy. And the president will make the case that Netanyahu, alone among Israelis, has the strength and political credibility to lead his people away from the precipice.

In an hourlong interview Thursday in the Oval Office, Obama, borrowing from the Jewish sage Rabbi Hillel, told me that his message to Netanyahu will be this: “If not now, when? And if not you, Mr. Prime Minister, then who?” He then took a sharper tone, saying that if Netanyahu “does not believe that a peace deal with the Palestinians is the right thing to do for Israel, then he needs to articulate an alternative approach." He added, "It’s hard to come up with one that’s plausible.”

Unlike Netanyahu, Obama will not address the annual convention of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel lobbying group, this week -- the administration is upset with Aipac for, in its view, trying to subvert American-led nuclear negotiations with Iran. In our interview, the president, while broadly supportive of Israel and a close U.S.-Israel relationship, made statements that would be met at an Aipac convention with cold silence.

Obama was blunter about Israel’s future than I've ever heard him. His language was striking, but of a piece with observations made in recent months by his secretary of state, John Kerry, who until this interview, had taken the lead in pressuring both Netanyahu and the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, to agree to a framework deal. Obama made it clear that he views Abbas as the most politically moderate leader the Palestinians may ever have. It seemed obvious to me that the president believes that the next move is Netanyahu’s.

“There comes a point where you can’t manage this anymore, and then you start having to make very difficult choices,” Obama said. “Do you resign yourself to what amounts to a permanent occupation of the West Bank? Is that the character of Israel as a state for a long period of time? Do you perpetuate, over the course of a decade or two decades, more and more restrictive policies in terms of Palestinian movement? Do you place restrictions on Arab-Israelis in ways that run counter to Israel’s traditions?”

more at link

Sabrina

4th March 2014, 08:56

http://news.sky.com/story/1220472/no-10-aide-quits-over-abuse-images-claims

4 March UK

No 10 Aide Quits Over Abuse Images Claims

Patrick Rock, who was the deputy head of Downing Street's policy unit, was arrested last month, the day after resigning.

A government aide has been arrested over child abuse imagery allegations.

Patrick Rock was arrested at his home in the early hours of February 13 - hours after Downing Street reported the matter to police.

The 62-year-old, who was the deputy head of Downing Street's policy unit, had resigned the previous day.

A spokesperson for Number 10 said: "Subsequently, we arranged for officers to come into Number 10 have access to all IT systems and offices they considered relevant.

"This is an ongoing investigation so it would not be appropriate to comment further, but the Prime Minister believes that child abuse imagery is abhorrent and that anyone involved with it should be properly dealt with under the law."

Rock, who is from west London, was one of a number of advisers and officials involved in drawing up the Government's policy on internet porn filters. !!!

The search engine companies Google and Microsoft agreed last year to introduce changes to make it harder to find child abuse images online.

The spokesperson stressed the work was "led by somebody else, and decisions were taken by ministers".

According to the Daily Mail, which broke the news of the arrest, Rock had particular responsibility for home affairs issues in the policy unit.

Prime Minister David Cameron brought Rock back into Downing Street in 2011 after working with him at the Home Office under Michael Howard in the 1990s.

and Mail story here:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2572495/No-10-aide-arrested-child-porn-Police-quiz-man-advised-Cameron-web-filters.html

No 10 aide arrested over child porn: Police quiz 62-year-old who advised Cameron on web filters and was tipped for peerage

Patrick Rock was one of David Cameron's closest aides

The 62-year-old was involved in drawing up policy on child porn

But he quit after allegations against him were revealed

Unmarried aristocrat was tipped for peerage only weeks ago

see story and pix at link...

Sabrina

5th March 2014, 20:05

http://americankabuki.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/28-year-old-ceo-of-bitcoin-exchange.html

4 March

28 Year Old CEO Of Bitcoin Exchange Dead After Possible Suicide Read more:

28 Year Old CEO Of Bitcoin Exchange Dead After Possible Suicide (Benjamin Jones) According to Tech in Asia, Singapore-based Bitcoin exchange platform First Meta’s 28 year old CEO Autumn Radtke committed suicide. Reasons are currently unknown.

[UPDATE: Tech in Asia has updated the article to emphasize that suicide is only suggested and not certain] First Meta is a Singaporean start up company that runs a exchange platform for virtual currencies such as Bitcoin.

The news of suicide of its CEO Autumn Radtke spread on Facebook and Twitter, drawing attention from the Bitcoin industry.

The exact reason that may have led to the suicide is not known, and whether the Police have concluded that the cause of death is suicide is also unofficial.

First Meta has stated that an official announcement will be given by the company soon. Before joining First Meta, Radtke was the Director of Business Development at Xfire – a company that develops IM systems for gamers. Radtke was also the Co-founder, Business Development at Geodelic Systems, Inc.

The Bitcoin market is fairly unstable right now, facing wave after wave of turmoils. On Tuesday one of the biggest Bitcoin exchange centre Mt. Gox suddenly ceased its operations, its company CEO stating that the industry is at its ‘turning-point’, bringing Bitcoin investors great concern over the unregulated virtual currency. -

See more at: http://newswatch.us/28-year-old-ceo-of-bitcoin-exchange-dead-after-possible-suicide/#sthash.itLhLUkg.8u2J0JWb.dpuf

Sabrina

8th March 2014, 19:35

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/10684882/Complaints-chief-cant-say-if-she-trusts-police-officers.html

8 march UK

Complaints chief can't say if she trusts police officers

The woman in charge of investigating the police has been unable to state whether she trusts its officers.

In a withering assessment of the conduct of police officers, Dame Anne Owers, the chairman of the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) described many of those she comes into contact with as behaving like “sulky teenagers” who refuse to answer questions about their conduct.

Her comments followed the latest revelations over the behaviour of the Metropolitan Police during the Stephen Lawrence scandal.

Dame Anne said the police service needs to “take a long hard look at itself” if it is to recover its reputation in the eyes of the public.

Asked directly whether she trusted the police, she was unable to give an answer. After a long pause, she said: “I don’t ... I can’t answer that.”

Dame Anne spoke as the Met continued to face questions following revelations, in a report by Mark Ellison QC, over the use of undercover officers to spy on the family of the murdered black teenager and the role of former detective sergeant John Davidson, an officer on the case suspected of corruption.

Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, said on Friday the Ellison report was “devastating” and that reading its findings had been “one of the worst days that I have seen as a police officer”.
The IPCC was also heavily criticised by Mr Ellison for its 2006 investigation, which he said was “wrong” to conclude there was no evidence to suggest Scotland Yard withheld information in relation to corruption from the Macpherson inquiry into Stephen’s death.

She apologised to the Lawrence family for the commission’s part in prolonging “the search for the truth about the failed investigation into their son’s murder”.

But she also rounded on police officers who she claimed did their best to disrupt any attempt by the IPCC to get to the truth of the matter on the Lawrence and other cases over which police had faced scrutiny.

Dame Anne said during a radio interview: “Police officers that come to us appear all too often like sulky teenagers and wont say anything in interviews. I and the public find it very difficult to understand how a police officer, who is a professional, doesn’t want to cooperate with an inquiry as a witness to what happened, why it happened and how something like that can be prevented in future.”

She gave as an example an investigation into the tasering of an unarmed man during which officers where asked how the man had approached them. One had replied: “He used his legs.”

Dame Anne added: “The police service has to take a long hard look at itself and the way it represents itself to the public.”

Stephen, who wanted to become an architect, was murdered by racists thugs at the age of 18 in Eltham, south-east London, in April 1993 and it took nearly 20 years for two of the gang of up to six killers to be brought to justice.
His mother, Baroness Doreen Lawrence has written to the Met commissioner urging him to take “decisive action” and cooperate fully with the judicial inquiry ordered by the Home Secretary following the Ellison review’s “devastating” revelations.

Mr Ellison found that DS Davidson, one of the officers on the original investigation into Stephen’s death may have acted corruptly. It was claimed that Davidson had admitted having a “corrupt connection” with Clifford Norris, the gangland boss father of David Norris, who was finally convicted of Stephen’s murder in 2012.

It also emerged on Friday that Mr Davidson took part in the controversial investigation into the death of Daniel Morgan, a private detective found dead in a London car park with an axe in his head, in 1987.

An undercover officer also passed on personal details concerning the Lawrence family, such as comments on the separation of Stephen’s mother and father Doreen and Neville, the review found.

In the letter, Baroness Lawrence is said to have called on Sir Bernard to take “the relevant and appropriate action” against individuals identified in the Ellison review.

Sir Bernard said yesterday he would “assist in any way possible” with any investigation into the claims. He plans to appoint an independent investigator to search Met archives to try to find any available evidence for the public inquiry into undercover policing.

In another embarassing move for Scotland Yard, following the publication of Mr Ellison’s report, Commander Richard Walton has been temporarily removed from his job as head of the Met’s counter-terrorism command SO15.

The Ellison report revealed that an undercover officer - known as N81 - held a meeting in 1998 with Mr Walton, who was then an acting detective inspector working on Scotland Yard’s Lawrence review team, responsible for making submissions to the Macpherson Inquiry.

That inquiry was conducted in the late-1990s to look at the way the police had originally investigated the murder of Mr Lawrence.

N81 infiltrated a group in the late 1990s, which then sought to influence the Lawrence family campaign to further its own agenda, the Ellison report revealed.

Speaking on Saturday Sir Hugh Orde, the President of the Association of Chief Police Officers, said the Met contained officers of the "highest calibre and professionalism", but added that "this is a critical moment in policing".

Sabrina

8th March 2014, 20:19

At least some other views are being aired in this Ukraine Western media propaganda war..

US Presidential Candidate Denis Kucinich Says US Instigated Ukraine Crisis

8 March

By Staff Writer, Intellihub – March 7, 2013

http://tinyurl.com/py6tz85

WASHINGTON - Tuesday evening while speaking to Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich dropped information on the situation that is rarely heard in the mainstream media.

In the interview, Kucinich revealed that the United States government was guilty of funding some of the violent rebel groups who have overrun the country.

When asked how he would handle the crisis if he were president, Kucinich replied by saying that:
“What I’d do is not have USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy working with U.S. taxpayers’ money to knock off an elected government in Ukraine, which is what they did. I wouldn’t try to force the people of Ukraine into a deal with NATO against their interest or into a deal with the European Union, which is against their economic interest.”

So, it’s the USA’s fault that Putin rolled in? We made them do it?” O’Reilly replied.

“Bill O’Reilly, if you don’t believe in cause and effect, I don’t know what I can do for you,” Kucinich said.

Kucinich is known to be staunchly anti-war, he has also been an outspoken critic of trade agreements like NAFTA and organizations like the EU.

Kucinich is the only congressional representative to vote against the “9/11 Commemoration” resolution. In a press statement he defended his vote by saying that the bill did not make reference to “the lies that took us into Iraq, the lies that keep us there, the lies that are being used to set the stage for war against Iran and the lies that have undermined our basic civil liberties here at home.”

Like all politicians, Kucinich certainly isn’t perfect, despite his views against war and drug prohibition, Kucinich is in favor of heavy taxation and regulation, including strict gun control regulations.

Kucinich drafted legislation that included a ban on the purchase, sale, transfer, or possession of handguns by civilians.

Kucinich pushed for gun control, in the U.S. Congress as well as during his time as a city councilman. He kept a pistol in his house for a period in 1978 (under the recommendation of the police) when he was the target of a Mafia plot. He reportedly no longer keeps the pistol, but you can be certain that his body guards have heavy fire power.

Sabrina

9th March 2014, 08:44

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/mar/09/stephen-lawrence-saga-whistleblowers-undercover-policing-mail-guardian

9 March UK

Stephen Lawrence saga shows we still need whistleblowers

Undercover policing, weak investigations … how will journalists investigate police matters if, after Leveson, no officer can talk?

The Mail helped break open the sad, slimy saga of the Met and Stephen Lawrence. The Guardian cracked open the deceptions of undercover policing. Last week's Ellison review is, in many ways, a testament to both campaigns, and to the fact that – however much rival papers may snipe – they are brothers for purpose under the skin.

Now, after Leveson, police channels of information are closed. Officers who talk to journalists can be intimidated, sacked, charged. Yet without whistleblowers in blue, neither campaign would have made such progress. When the heart rots in private, nobody knows.

Sabrina

10th March 2014, 08:47

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/03/09/uk-britain-boe-idUKBREA280B020140309?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2FUKDomesticNews+%28News+%2F+UK+%2F+Domestic+News%29

9 March UK

Bank of England's Carney faces grilling over foreign exchange scandal

(Reuters) - Mark Carney faces probably his toughest questioning so far as Bank of England governor next week when lawmakers will seize on a foreign exchange scandal to press their demands for tighter oversight of the central bank.

Carney arrived from Canada last July as an outsider with a mandate to shake up the 320 year-old institution, from monetary policy to its relationship with the powerful banks of the City of London.

A group of influential members of parliament wants Carney to change the way the Bank polices itself too.

Their long-standing frustrations with what they say is the Bank's outdated governance system broke out again last week when the Bank suspended an official amid an internal review into whether Bank staff turned a blind eye to possible manipulation of key rates by foreign exchange traders.

The meetings at which the Bank and traders discussed possible problems in the market took place as far back as 2006, seven years before Carney's arrival in London.

But lawmakers are angry that the Bank's Court of Directors - its governing board - only asked its oversight committee to investigate last week. Carney may also be asked to show how quickly he responded to the first signs of the case last year.

Mark Garnier, a member of the Treasury Committee which will hear Carney on Tuesday, said any perceptions that the Bank was not tough enough on tackling problems could damage London's reputation as a financial centre, potentially weakening Britain's hand in European Union talks over financial reforms.

"We will be asking the governor what steps he is taking to bring management arrangements and committee structure up to the standards of the 21st century," Andrew Love, another member of the Treasury Committee, said.

Former chancellor of the exchequer Alistair Darling said in 2011 that the governance arrangements were antiquated. "It is all to do with the governor being some sort of Sun King around which the Court revolves," he said.

The Court has since gained new oversight powers. But critics say it still lacks clout. Its chairman David Lees acknowledges he plays second fiddle to the Bank governor.

"It's lower down the pecking order than you would be used to in the corporate sector," he told the Evening Standard newspaper last month.

The Sunday Telegraph newspaper reported the Court's oversight committee may name a judge, academic or senior financial industry executive to run its investigation.

There could also be tough questions for another Bank policymaker official due to attend Tuesday's hearing.

Paul Fisher, a member of the Monetary Policy Committee, was previously BoE's head of foreign exchange and he chaired the Foreign Exchange Joint Standing Committee, a forum for Bank officials and market players to discuss market issues.

It was at a sub-group of that committee that dealers raised concerns with Bank officials as early as July 2006 over attempts to move the market around the time of daily benchmark fixings.

Last week, when it announced the suspension of the unnamed official, the Bank stressed the importance of staff keeping records and flagging concerns to managers. It also said it had found no evidence that its staff colluded in any manipulation.

Tuesday's meeting was originally scheduled as a regular hearing on monetary policy. Carney is likely to face some criticism over the way the Bank scrambled to revamp its policy of signalling the likely path of interest rates last month, after it misjudged the speed of the labour market's recovery, leading to questions about the value of the policy that Carney introduced.

MORE CHANGE COMING?

The Canadian has already made his mark on the Bank in ways beyond the forward guidance revamp of monetary policy. He has established a less hostile tone towards bankers than his predecessor Mervyn King and created the new post of chief operating officer to oversee an internal Bank shake-up.

Consultants McKinsey are working on ways to pursue that modernisation drive and its findings are expected soon.

Lawmakers hope that on the list will be the BoE's Court.

John van Reenen, director of the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics, said a natural extension of Carney's push to improve transparency at the Bank would be to bring more clarity to its internal supervision.

"He's not as respectful of venerable British institutions as many people are, and from time to time you want to take a cold, hard look at whether the existing set of institutions really is fit for purpose in a modern age," he said.

"He seems to be a person who is prepared to make those kind of changes."

and also via Reuters 9 March

Bank of England to hold independent inquiry into FX fixing claims - report

(Reuters) - The Bank of England may appoint a judge, academic or senior financial industry executive to run an independent inquiry into its actions in relation to allegations it allowed manipulation of the foreign exchange market, the Sunday Telegraph reported.

The newspaper, citing unnamed sources, said the "heavyweight figure" will examine the central bank's actions in relation to the allegations and how it handled them.

The bank has already appointed the law firm Travers Smith to prepare a report on the affair which will be made public.

However, the Sunday Telegraph said Travers Smith is on a fact finding exercise rather than an inquiry.

The Bank has suspended an employee as part of an internal probe into what Bank officials knew about alleged manipulation of key currency rates by traders.

The Bank also released on Wednesday minutes of meetings between its FX officials and chief dealers in London stretching back over several years that showed concerns over possible manipulation were raised as far back as 2006.

Regulators have said the alleged manipulation of the $5.3 trillion-a-day market - the world's largest financial market - is as bad as the Libor interest rate rigging which has resulted in banks shelling out $6 billion (3 billion pounds) in fines and settlements.

Sabrina

11th March 2014, 10:07

http://news.sky.com/story/1223903/co-op-crisis-boss-sutherland-quits

11 March

Co-Op Crisis: Boss Sutherland 'Quits'

Sky sources say the troubled Co-operative Group is to restructure its organisation after the departure of its chief executive.

The chief executive of the Co-operative Group, Euan Sutherland, has quit amid continuing turmoil at the mutual, Sky sources say.

It was understood that he had resigned on a point of principle and cited the Group's structure as 'ungovernable'.

The sources added that efforts were continuing at the highest level of the Group to persuade him to change his mind.

An emergency meeting on Monday night proposed a restructuring that will result in the current board being disbanded and replaced by two different structures.

One will be a PLC-type board while the other will represent members.

The decisions were taken following a crisis for the Co-op which has seen its banking operation subjected to regulatory scrutiny after control was lost to US hedge funds.

A £1.5bn black hole in the bank's balance sheet sparked the Co-op's problems but the restructuring of the lender left the Group with just a 30% stake.

Mr Sutherland's own role was in focus at the weekend over plans to raise his own pay to £3.6m despite the mutual's problems and an expected worst-ever loss for 2013 of £2bn, due to be announced at the end of the month.

The debate over rising awards at the Co-op began just weeks after Mr Sutherland admitted the Group had "lost touch" with customers.

At that time he launched an online poll so people could make suggestions about its future direction.

A plan to sell parts of its business also left question marks over more than six thousand jobs.

Mr Sutherland has only been in the job since last April.

He expressed fury about media leaks on Sunday in a Facebook posting to an employees' group after the news on pay awards appeared in a national newspaper. :)

He said: "I'm very sorry to have to report that we have had yet another leak to the media.

"This time it is to the Observer newspaper and concerns levels of annual Executive remuneration, including my salary, and also proposed changes to the Group Executive team.

"It appears that, once again, the leak has come from our Group Boardroom.

"We seem to have an individual, or individuals, determined to undermine me personally, my team and the rest of the Group Board regardless of the uncertainty and disruption this causes to our 90,000 colleagues and our supportive members.

"Despite this, I am determined that we will see through the vital transformation of our business."

¤=[Post Update]=¤

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/mar/11/bank-of-england-governor-grilling-forex-rigging-scandal-co-op-boss-live

11 March UK

Bank of England governor faces grilling from MPs over forex rigging - business live

LIVE

Governor Mark Carney will be quizzed by the Treasury Committee this morning over investigations into whether traders fixed the foreign exchange markets.

Curtain-raiser: Did the Bank turned a blind eye to forex?

Hearing underway - highlights start here (at link)

Sabrina

11th March 2014, 10:14

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/10688596/Nigel-Evans-repeatedly-warned-about-behaviour-court-hears.html

11 March UK

Nigel Evans 'repeatedly warned about behaviour', court hears

Former Deputy Speaker warned about his behaviour following complaints he used power and influence to force himself on to young men, court told

Nigel Evans, the former Deputy Speaker, was repeatedly warned about his behaviour by senior Conservative Party figures following complaints that he was using his power and influence to force himself on to young men, a court heard today.

The party’s former chief whip, Patrick McLoughlin, who is now Transport Secretary, spoke to Mr Evans in 2009 after a parliamentary aide to the MP complained that he had sexually assaulted him at his constituency home in Lancashire.
But with the General Election looming, the matter was not referred to the police, and Mr Evans was instead told to seek help for his drinking, come out as gay and apologise.

Despite the warning, it is alleged that the politician’s behaviour escalated and four years after the initial dressing down by Party officials, he raped a university student who was completing a work experience placement with him.
It was after that alleged incident that the matter was brought to the attention of the Commons Speaker, John Bercow, and the police were informed.

On the opening day of his trial at Preston Crown Court, the jury was told that Mr Evans, 56, was a “very well known and powerful” individual, who had the “ability to make or to break the careers” of those who wanted to be politicians.
But Mark Heywood QC, prosecuting, told the court that when drunk he would often “trade on his position of influence” to press his sexual attentions on younger men.

Mr Heywood went on: “This behaviour has been repeated over time, despite warnings because of his position. It has also escalated in seriousness, no doubt because he believed that his position made it less than likely that any effective complaint would be made.”

more at link

Sabrina

11th March 2014, 10:17

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-03-10/was-price-ukraines-liberation-handover-its-gold-fed

10 March

Was The Price Of Ukraine's "Liberation" The Handover Of Its Gold To The Fed?

Tyler Durden

A curious story, and one which should be taken with a mine of salt, has surfaced out of the pro-Russian newspaper Iskra, which reports - so far on an entirely unsubstantiated basis - that last Friday, in a mysterious operation under the cover of night, Ukraine's gold reserves were promptly loaded onboard an unmarked plane, which subsequently took the gold to the US.

From the source:

Tonight, around at 2:00 am, an unregistered transport plane took off took off from Boryspil airport.

According to Boryspil staff, prior to the plane's appearance, four trucks and two cargo minibuses arrived at the airport all with their license plates missing. Fifteen people in black uniforms, masks and body armor stepped out, some armed with machine guns. These people loaded the plane with more than forty heavy boxes.

After this, several mysterious men arrived and also entered the plane. The loading was carried out in a hurry. After unloading, the plateless cars immediately left the runway, and the plane took off on an emergency basis.

Airport officials who saw this mysterious "special operation" immediately notified the administration of the airport, which however strongly advised them "not to meddle in other people's business."

Later, the editors were called by one of the senior officials of the former Ministry of Income and Fees, who reported that, according to him, tonight on the orders of one of the "new leaders" of Ukraine, all the gold reserves of the Ukraine were taken to the United States.

Indicatively, according to the latest IMF figures, Ukraine's official gold holdings are just over 40 tons, having doubled in the past decade: (list at link)

So just more disinformation and propaganda surrounding the Ukraine, or something more? GATA has submitted an inquiry into the New York Fed to get official denial (because it certainly won't get a confirmation) from the Liberty 33 folks.

Of course, the best source of validation, and refutation, of this story would be the people of Ukraine, alas since not even Americans are entitled to observe how much gold is in Fort Knox, somehow we doubt that the Central Bank of Ukraine will be any more lenient in providing visiting and viewing hours for its much more compact gold inventory. Especially since the local population is far more busy celebrating its "liberation" by western powers.

We hope, for their sake, they weren't also just "liberated" of all their gold, which after a brief stay 80 feet below the surface at 33 Liberty, will promptly find its way either to the Bundesbank, or to the billionaire oligarchs, based either in London or elsewhere, and currently in charge of "post-liberation" Ukraine.

Finally, putting this into perspective, 40 tons of gold is roughly what China imports every ten days.

Sabrina

12th March 2014, 09:29

11 March

UK: Forex Rigging Claims Could Prove Bigger Scandal than Libor

By Katie Allen, The Guardian – March 11, 2013 UK

http://tinyurl.com/p6wleqx

Bank of England chief defends governance structure and speed with which Bank reacted to claims during questioning by MPs

Mark Carney told the Treasury select committee the Bank of England was ‘ruthlessly and relentlessly’ investigating what had happened in foreign exchange markets.

Mark Carney has been forced to admit that allegations of rigging in foreign exchange markets could prove be a bigger scandal than the manipulation of Libor as he sought to rebuff criticism that the Bank of England had been slow to react.

During almost five hours in front of the Treasury select committee on Tuesday, Carney also unveiled plans for a new deputy governor to focus on banking and markets as part of an overhaul to bolster the Bank’s credibility. He also told MPs the Royal Bank of Scotland may have to move its headquarters to England if Scotland voted for independence in September.

Carney was speaking just days after the Bank suspended a member of staff in connection with its review of the £3 trillion a day foreign exchange market and began a formal inquiry into whether its staff knew about potential market rigging.

Facing renewed criticism from the committee’s chair, Andrew Tyrie, that the Bank’s governance structure was “opaque, complex and byzantine”, Carney said a strategic review to be outlined next week would reinforce compliance, make staff more accountable and create the post of a fourth deputy governor.

The Bank was “ruthlessly and relentlessly” investigating what had happened in foreign exchange markets and “intensively cooperating” with other central banks around the world, he added. But the governor sought to lay much of the blame at the feet of certain market players who “have lost sight of what a real market is”.

He told MPs: “This is a very serious matter that has to be chased down as rapidly and fairly as possible. This is as serious as Libor, if not more so because this goes to the heart of integrity of markets.

“We cannot come out of this with a shadow of doubt about the integrity of the Bank of England.”

The scandal escalated on Tuesday as Bloomberg news agency reported a senior currency dealer at Lloyds Banking Group tipped off a trader at oil company BP about a £300m foreign exchange deal. Bloomberg, which first broke news of allegations of price rigging in forex markets last June, cited people with knowledge of the matter saying the Lloyds’s dealer, Martin Chantree, alerted the other trader on 31 January 2013 that his desk had received instructions from the bank’s treasury department to swap more than £300m for dollars and that they would continue selling regardless of price movements. Lloyds suspended Chantree last month.

Experts say the foreign exchange scandal could have huge implications for London as a global financial centre.
Carney’s repeated vows to reinforce integrity follow a warning from one of the Treasury committee’s MPs, Labour’s Pat McFadden, that the Bank faced “enormous” risks to it reputation from reports of wrongdoing in the foreign exchange market, where London accounts for 40% of the trade.

The governor’s comments did little to allay Tyrie’s concerns about the Bank’s ability to cope with a new crisis. “This is the first real test for the Bank of England’s new governance structures. Early signs are not encouraging,” the MP said in a statement after the hearing. He reiterated criticism of the slowness of the Bank’s oversight committee – made up of non-executive members of its governing body – to take the lead on accusations of misconduct in the forex markets. An internal inquiry was launched in October when the allegations were first made but the investigation was only moved up to the oversight committee last week.

“The public needs confidence that the Bank’s governance structures will ensure that it gets to the bottom of forex-related misconduct allegations. The public also needs confidence that any misconduct in other areas will be discovered,” Tyrie said.

The committee’s Andrea Leadsom repeated several times a question to Paul Fisher, the Bank’s executive director for markets over why Threadneedle Street did not once deign to follow up the committee’s queries in the wake of the Libor scandal over whether other prices may have been rigged.

She quoted from minutes from 2006 meetings between the Bank and its chief dealers subgroup, which noted “evidence of attempts to move the market” at certain times and said that should have set bells ringing. “It goes back to this complacency that all will be fine,” Leadsom said to Fisher.

But Fisher said: “Those minutes did not convey to me that markets were being rigged.”

On the question of being spurred into further investigations, Fisher said: “It isn’t our job to go out hunting for rigging of markets.”

The hearing also covered the Bank’s move last month to overhaul its forward guidance policy, under which it seeks to provide assurance over when interest rates will begin to rise. Renewed divisions between members of the monetary policy committee (MPC) were revealed over the size of the so-called “output gap”, the difference between the actual level of activity in the economy and its potential level.

Tyrie was visibly shocked when questions about MPC discussions led to the revelation that recordings of the monthly meetings were destroyed once they had been turned into redacted minutes.

He argued that recordings were of significant historical value, as seen in the US where the Federal Reserve’s open market committee publishes full transcripts with a long time lag. He was reluctant to accept Fisher’s explanation that previous attempts to transcribe meetings had failed. “Is that because you are all shouting and throwing things at one another? Most organisations manage to transcribe a record, even the House of Commons manages to do it on a good day.”

and

US: SEC Said to Probe Whether Forex Rigging Distorted Options

By Keri Geiger and Silla Brush, Bloomberg – March 10, 2014 US

http://tinyurl.com/pk347an

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating whether currency traders at the world’s biggest banks distorted prices for options and exchange-traded funds by rigging benchmark foreign-exchange rates, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.

The SEC’s inquiry adds to European and U.S. regulatory probes of possible manipulation in currency markets. The SEC’s investigation is in the early stages, said the people, who asked not to be named because the matter isn’t public. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates foreign-exchange derivatives, is also investigating possible manipulation, another person said.

Authorities from London to New York have contacted at least a dozen banks as they investigate allegations first reported by Bloomberg News in June that dealers said they shared information about client orders to manipulate benchmark spot rates for currencies. Derivatives such as options account for more than half of the $5.3 trillion-a-day foreign-exchange market; the rest is made up of spot transactions.

The involvement of the SEC, which regulates certain options and ETFs tied to the rates, shows how manipulation could ripple across a range of financial products.

“Any corporation with global operations has to hedge currencies using futures and swaps,” said John Coffee, a securities law professor at Columbia University in New York. “If the FX market is manipulated, it can create a loss that is passed on to the consumer and shareholders.”

John Nester, a spokesman at the SEC, and Steve Adamske, a CFTC spokesman, declined to comment.
The SEC joins the CFTC and other U.S. authorities including the Justice Department, Federal Reserve, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and New York’s top banking regulator in probing the matter.

Bank of England Governor Mark Carney will appear before Parliament’s Treasury Committee tomorrow to testify after minutes released by the central bank last week showed senior traders had discussed their concerns that currency benchmarks were being manipulated as early as July 2006. The British investigation is being led by the markets regulator Financial Conduct Authority.

The SEC pursued a similar investigation into whether traders rigged key interest rates, according to two other people familiar with the matter. The CFTC and Justice Department have sanctioned four banks and a brokerage in connection with the probe; the SEC didn’t bring any cases.

Leadership at both agencies has been in transition since the interest-rate investigation began. Mary Jo White, a former prosecutor, took over the SEC in April, pledging to make enforcement a priority for her tenure.
At the CFTC, some of the key officials who oversaw the interest-rate investigation — including Gary Gensler, the former chairman, and David Meister, ex-head of enforcement — have departed. The agency is currently being led by an acting chairman.

The SEC and CFTC share U.S. oversight of derivatives in the foreign-exchange market. The two regulators have historically had jurisdiction over futures and options that are tied to currency rates and traded on exchanges.
The CFTC also gained power under the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act to increase oversight of over-the-counter derivatives, including those linked to currency benchmarks, that are traded directly between buyers and sellers.

ETFs, which are required to register with the SEC, are bundles of securities that usually track an index and are listed on an exchange. ETFs have grown to about $2.4 trillion in assets from about $79 billion in 2000, according to BlackRock Inc.

“The price of currency derivatives — swaps, options and futures — used for ETFs have the spot price embedded in it, so if the spot price is incorrect due to manipulation, then it will impact the price of the ETF,” said Rick Ferri, founder of Portfolio Solutions LLC, a Troy, Michigan-based financial adviser with $1.3 billion in client assets.

More than 20 traders have been fired, suspended or put on leave by top currency-trading firms including Citigroup Inc. (C), Barclays Plc (BARC) and Deutsche Bank AG. Companies including Lloyds Banking Group Plc and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc have announced their own internal reviews.

At the center of the probes is the WM/Reuters rates used by companies and investors around the world. Those rates serve as a basis for computing the day-to-day value of holdings by index providers such as FTSE Group and MSCI Inc., which track stocks and bonds in multiple countries.

While the rates aren’t directly followed by most investors, even small movements can affect the value of what Morningstar Inc. estimates is about $3.6 trillion in funds including pension and savings accounts that track global indexes.

Sabrina

12th March 2014, 09:40

Well it's hard to keep the lid on the untruths at the moment by the look of it, and Equinox energies are coming in now are are supposed to be pretty unique this year.

Bombshell: US Chair of Senate Intelligence Committee Accuses CIA of ‘Catalogue of Cover-Ups, Intimidation and Smears’

By Dan Roberts and Spencer Ackerman in Washington, The Guardian – March 11, 2014

http://tinyurl.com/nn2aomk

The chairwoman of the Senate intelligence committee, Dianne Feinstein, on Tuesday accused the Central Intelligence Agency of a catalogue of cover-ups, intimidation and smears aimed at investigators probing its role in an “un-American and brutal” programme of post-9/11 detention and interrogation.

In a bombshell statement on the floor of the US Senate, Feinstein, normally an administration loyalist, accused the CIA of potentially violating the US constitution and of criminal activity in its attempts to obstruct her committee’s investigations into the agency’s use of torture. She described the crisis as a “defining moment” for political oversight of the US intelligence service.

Her unprecedented public assault on the CIA represented an intensification of the row between the committee and the agency over a still-secret report on the torture of terrorist suspects after 9/11.

Feinstein, who said she was making her statement “reluctantly”, confirmed recent reports that CIA officials had been accused of monitoring computer networks used by Senate staff investigators. Going further than previously, she referred openly to recent attempts by the CIA to remove documents from the network detailing evidence of torture that would incriminate intelligence officers.

She also alleged that anonymous CIA officials were effectively conducting a smear campaign in the media to discredit and “intimidate” Senate staff by suggesting they had hacked into the agency’s computers to obtain a separate, critical internal report on the detention and interrogation programme.

Staff working on the Senate investigation have been reported to the Department of Justice for possible criminal charges by a lawyer at the CIA who himself features heavily in the alleged interrogation abuses. The CIA’s inspector general has another inquiry open into the issue. John Brennan, the CIA director, rejected Feinstein’s claims that the agency had monitored the Senate committee’s computer networks, which were set up specifically for it to access confidential CIA documents.

Feinstein said the two investigations, launched at the behest of the CIA, amounted to an attempt at “intimidation”. She revealed that CIA officials had also been reported to the Department of Justice for alleged violations of the fourth amendment and laws preventing them from domestic spying.

“This is a defining moment for the oversight role of our intelligence committee … and whether we can be thwarted by those we oversee,” said Feinstein in a special address on the floor of the the US Senate.

“There is no legitimate reason to allege to the Justice Department that Senate staff may have committed a crime… this is plainly an attempt to intimidate these staff and I am not taking it lightly.”

Feinstein said that she would immediately appeal to the White House to declassify the report’s major findings. The White House is formally on record as supporting the declassification, which the president has the power to order.
Last week, CIA director John Brennan, a former counterterrorism aide to President Obama, issued a rare scathing public statement on the deepening crisis, suggesting that unspecified “wrongdoing” had occurred in “either the executive branch or legislative branch.” Brennan, who withdrew from consideration as CIA director in 2008 out of allegations he did not consider torture to be a serious offence, is a year into his tenure after being nominated by Obama .

At a previously scheduled event reflecting on the first year on Tuesday, Brennan rejected the accusation that the CIA had thwarted the Senate investigation, and denied the agency had inappropriately accessed Senate computers. “Nothing could be further from the truth. We wouldn’t do that,” he said. Brennan pointed out that he had referred the matter to the CIA inspector general, who was investigating, and would defer to his conclusions.

He also acknowledged there was a Justice Department investigation that encompassed the Senate committee staff members. “There are appropriate authorities are looking at what CIA officers and SSCI staff members did – and I defer to them as to whether there was any violation,” he said.

Brennan said the CIA wanted to put the issue of the torture programme, which he described by its agency nomenclature as “rendition, detention and interrogation”, behind it. “Even as we have learned from the past, we must also try to put the past behind us.” he said.

The White House said Obama was aware of the Senate claims but refused to say whether the president was concerned or pass comment on the substance of the allegations. “This is a matter involving protocols established for the interaction between committee staff and the CIA,” said spokesman Jay Carney. “There are periodic disputes about this process and it is under two separate investigations so I am not going to provide an analysis of it.”

He also criticised reporters who questioned the independence of the review led by the CIA inspector general, accusing one of “impugning the integrity” of inspectors general across Washington by suggesting such a review was insufficient response to allegations of this magnitude. The White House has “great confidence” in CIA director John Brennan, added Carney.

On the Senate floor earlier, Patrick Leahy, chairman of the judiciary committee and the longest serving US senator, described Feinstein’s speech at the most important he had witnessed in his time in Congress.

“I cannot think of any speech by any member of any party as important as the one the senator from California just gave,” Leahy said.

Senator Mark Udall of Colorado, an intelligence committee member, said in a statement he applauded Feinstein for “setting the record straight today on the Senate floor about the CIA’s actions to subvert congressional oversight”.
Udall said: “The actions the chairman outlined are the latest events that illustrate why I directly pushed CIA director Brennan to acknowledge the flaws in and misrepresentations about the CIA’s brutal and ineffective detention and interrogation program.

“Unfortunately, the CIA responded by trying to hide the truth from the American people about this program and undermine the Senate intelligence committee’s oversight role by illegally searching committee computers.”
In her speech, Feinstein described repeated attempts by the CIA to frustrate the work of Senate investigators, including providing the committee staff with a “document dump” of millions of non-indexed pages, requiring years of work to sort through – a necessity, Feinstein said, after former senior CIA official Jose Rodriguez destroyed nearly 100 videotapes showing brutal interrogations of detainees in CIA custody.

“We are not going to stop our investigation and have sent our report to the president in the hope it can be declassified and published for the American people to see,” Feinstein said on the Senate floor.

She said the goal of declassifying the report, exposing the “horrible details of a CIA programme that never, never should have existed,” was to prevent torture from ever again becoming American policy.

Zeke Johnson of Amnesty International called on the White House to publish the committee’s report. “President Obama, who has claimed to have the most transparent administration in history, should move immediately to declassify and release the report. Otherwise, the legacy of torture he inherited will become his own,” he said.

Read the full text of Dianne Feinstein’s statement here: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/11/dianne-feinstein-cia-senate-statement-full-text

Sabrina

12th March 2014, 09:54

Wheels within wheels? He cites so called terrorists not picked up in surveillance, while the incidents may arguably have been false flags anyway - so who are the terrorists then? But he's certainly highlighted the illegality of the snooping going on…

http://goldenageofgaia.com/2014/03/full-video-edward-snowden-speaks-at-conference-us-constitution-violated-on-a-mass-scale/#more-211405

Full Video: Edward Snowden Speaks at Conference – “US Constitution Violated on a Mass Scale”

By Jon Swaine in New York and Jemima Kiss in Austin, The Guardian – March 11, 2014

http://tinyurl.com/nff833p

Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower whose unprecedented leak of top-secret documents led to a worldwide debate about the nature of surveillance, insisted on Monday that his actions had improved the national security of the United States rather than undermined it, and declared that he would do it all again despite the personal sacrifices he had endured.

In remarks to the SXSW culture and technology conference in Texas, delivered by video link from his exile in Russia, Snowden took issue with claims by senior officials that he had placed the US in danger. He also rejected as demonstrably false the suggestions by some members of Congress that his files had found their way into the hands of the intelligence agencies of China or Russia.

Snowden spoke against the backdrop of an image of the US constitution, which he said he had taken an oath to protect but had seen “violated on a mass scale” while working for the US government. He accepted praise from Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the world wide web, accorded the first question via Twitter, who described him as “acting profoundly in the public interest”.

The session provided a rare and extensive glimpse into the thoughts of Snowden, granted temporary asylum by Russia after the US revoked his passport. He struck back strongly against claims made again last week by the NSA director, General Keith Alexander, that his release of secret documents to the Guardian and other outlets last year had weakened American cyber-defences.

“These things are improving national security, these are improving the communications not just of Americans, but everyone in the world,” Snowden said. “Because we rely on the same standard, we rely on the ability to trust our communications, and without that, we don’t have anything.”

He added later that thanks to the more secure communication activity that had been encouraged by his disclosures, “the public has benefited, the government has benefited, and every society in the world has benefited”.

Snowden rejected claims that potential adversaries of the US, such as Russia and China, had obtained the files he had been carrying. “That has never happened, and it is never going to happen. If suddenly the Chinese government knew everything the NSA was doing, we would notice the difference,” said Snowden, noting that US infiltration of Russia and China was extensive.

He sharply criticised Alexander and Michael Hayden, his predecessor as NSA director, as the two officials to have most “harmed our internet security and actually our national security” in the era since the September 11 terrorist attacks by “elevating offensive operations” over cyber-defence.

“When you are the one country in the world that has a vault that is more full than everyone else’s, it doesn’t make any sense to be attacking all day and never defending your vault,” he said.

“And it makes even less sense when you let the standards for vaults worldwide have a big back door that anyone can walk in.”

The 30-year-old also claimed that by spending so much effort on harvesting communications data en masse, US security agencies were failing to pick up would-be terrorists such as Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the brothers alleged to have bombed last year’s Boston Marathon, who had been previously flagged to the US as a cause for concern by Russian authorities. “We are monitoring everyone’s communications rather than suspects’ communications,” he said. “If we hadn’t spent so much on mass surveillance, if we had followed traditional patterns, we might have caught him.”

Snowden also pointed to the case of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the so-called “underwear bomber” who attempted to blow up a plane bound for Detroit on Christmas Day 2009. The US failed to intercept him despite several opportunities, including a warning from his father to US officials in Nigeria.

An audience of 3,500 packed into an auditorium in Austin applauded several of Snowden’s answers to questions from a pair of onstage moderators and others submitted through Twitter. Despite a glitchy and intermittent video link that he said was running through seven proxies, Snowden looked relaxed and confident.

He said that while the US has “an oversight model that could work” to guard against excess by intelligence agencies, in reality it had proved ineffectual. “The problem is when your overseers are not interested in oversight,” he said, and “champion the NSA instead of holding them to account”.

James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, has admitted to not telling the truth when he told a congressional hearing last year that the government was not “collecting data on millions of Americans”. Snowden said Clapper had shown officials “can lie to the country, lie to the Congress, and face not even a criticism”.

He claimed that the behaviour of the US in online surveillance policy would only encourage the rest of the world to do the same, endangering the privacy of all citizens. “If we don’t resolve these issues, if we allow the NSA to continue unrestrained, every other government will accept that as a green light to continue, and that is not what we want,” he said.

Snowden stressed that his message to technology firms such as Facebook and Google was “not that you can’t collect any data” but rather “that you should only collect the data, and hold it as long is necessary, for the operation of your business”.

He recently became the victim of a hacking when a scan of his US passport was released online, having been taken from the files of a professional organisation that gives certification to “ethical” hackers. “I submitted those forms back in 2010,” said Snowden. “Why was that still on a web-facing terminal?”

He encouraged ordinary internet users to protect themselves against surveillance by encrypting both their hard drives and their online activity, describing encryption as “the defence against the dark arts in the digital realm”. He also advised people to browse the web anonymously using the Tor system.

He urged software developers to create more user-friendly secure communications tools that could “pass the Glenn Greenwald test”, referring to Greenwald’s inability to communicate securely using PGP encryption when he first approached the journalist, then working for the Guardian. However, he warned: “If you are a target of the NSA, it is game over no matter what unless you are taking really technical steps to protect yourself.”

Despite now being unable to return to the US, where he faces a criminal indictment, a defiant Snowden said he did not regret his decision to orchestrate the biggest leak in the history of US intelligence. “Would I do this again? The answer is absolutely yes,” he said. “Regardless of what happens to me, this is something we had a right to know.”
By the end end of his interview, the audience was on its feet to deliver a standing ovation. Snowden smiled and looked slightly embarrassed, before being abruptly cut off by the end of the video call, when the screen fell blank.

CPrDqoaHHSY

KiwiElf

12th March 2014, 11:24

Absolutely gobsmacked when CNN (finally) ran the FOREX rigging story a few hours ago... it's now on the MSM following some darn good questions about the missing Malaysian airlines plane! Things are changing rapidly! ;)

KiwiElf

14th March 2014, 11:56

Yet Another Trader Suicide Rocks Financial World

http://www.infowars.com/yet-another-trader-suicide-rocks-financial-world/

At least nine sudden deaths within last 7 weeks

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
March 13, 2014

The financial world has been rocked by the news of yet another suicide after 47-year-old Manhattan trader Edmund Reilly jumped in front of a Long Island Rail Road commuter train on Tuesday morning.

“Edmund (Eddie) Reilly, 47, a trader at Midtown’s Vertical Group, jumped in front of an LIRR train at 6 a.m. near the Syosset train station. He was declared dead at the scene,” reports the New York Post.

A friend who spoke to the trader days before his death said that Reilly “didn’t look good.” The father of three had rented a house around the corner from his ex-wife after their divorce.

Whether Reilly’s suicide was spurred by his personal problems or issues at work remains unknown, but his death arrives on the heels of numerous other instances of finance workers killing themselves or dying under mysterious circumstances.

Last month, 33-year-old Dennis Li Junjie plunged to his death after jumping from the roof of Chater House in Hong Kong, which serves as JP Morgan’s Asia headquarters. Although Junjie’s suicide was blamed on ”the stressful environment of investment banking,” he had told friends of his plan to return to Canada just days before his death.

Speculation has raged as to whether the recent spate of banker suicides and deaths are connected in any way or linked to an upcoming economic crisis, although no solid evidence has been uncovered.

Depending on who you include in the count, as many as nine bankers or traders have died suddenly within the last seven weeks alone. Other reports put the total even higher.

- On January 26, former Deutsche Bank executive Broeksmit was found dead at his South Kensington home after police responded to reports of a man found hanging at a house. According to reports, Broeksmit had “close ties to co-chief executive Anshu Jain.”

- Gabriel Magee, a 39-year-old senior manager at JP Morgan’s European headquarters, jumped 500ft from the top of the bank’s headquarters in central London on January 27, landing on an adjacent 9 story roof.

- Mike Dueker, the chief economist at Russell Investments, fell down a 50 foot embankment in what police described as a suicide. He was reported missing on January 29 by friends, who said he had been “having problems at work.”

- Richard Talley, 57, founder of American Title Services in Centennial, Colorado, was also found dead last month after apparently shooting himself with a nail gun.

- The cause of 37-year-old JP Morgan executive director Ryan Henry Crane’s death on February 3 is yet to be established as authorities await a toxicology report.

- Virtual currency CEO Autumn Radtke was found dead near her home in Singapore on February 26. Police ruled her death to be “unnatural,” meaning either suicide or accident.

- Tim Dickenson, a U.K.-based communications director at Swiss Re AG, also died in January, although the circumstances surrounding his death are still unknown.

Facebook @ https://www.facebook.com/paul.j.watson.71
FOLLOW Paul Joseph Watson @ https://twitter.com/PrisonPlanet

*********************

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a host for Infowars Nightly News.

This article was posted: Thursday, March 13, 2014 at 6:22 am

¤=[Post Update]=¤

Zuckerberg voices frustration with Obama over NSA

Zuckerberg voices frustration over 'damage the government is creating' with surveillance
Associated PressBy Barbara Ortutay, AP Technology Writer | Associated Press – 7 hours ago

http://nz.finance.yahoo.com/news/zuckerberg-voices-frustration-obama-over-211434432.html

NEW YORK (AP) -- Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says he has called President Barack Obama to express his frustration over what he says is long-lasting damage caused by the U.S. government's surveillance programs.

Posting on his Facebook page Thursday, Zuckerberg wrote that he's been "confused and frustrated by the repeated reports of the behavior of the U.S. government. When our engineers work tirelessly to improve security, we imagine we're protecting you against criminals, not our own government."

Though Zuckerberg does not name the National Security Agency, the post comes a day after the news site Intercept reported that the agency has impersonated a Facebook server to infect surveillance targets' computers and get files from a hard drive. The report is based on documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

The NSA called the report "inaccurate."

"NSA uses its technical capabilities only to support lawful and appropriate foreign intelligence operations, all of which must be carried out in strict accordance with its authorities," the agency said in a statement.

White House spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden confirmed that the president spoke with Zuckerberg Wednesday night regarding "recent reports in the press about alleged activities by the U.S. intelligence community." She gave no further comment.

Technology companies including Facebook, Google Inc., Microsoft Corp., have been increasingly vocal about frustrations over the U.S. government's spying programs. Last month, top executives from the companies, along with others from Yahoo, Twitter, AOL and LinkedIn, called for changes that would include a government agreement not to collect bulk data from Internet communications.

In Thursday's post, Zuckerberg called on the government to be more transparent, but added that, unfortunately, "it seems like it will take a very long time for true full reform."

In January, Obama ordered a series of changes to mass surveillance programs that included ending the government's control of phone data from hundreds of millions of Americans and ordered intelligence agencies to get a court's permission before accessing such records. Tech companies took the president's speech as a step in the right direction, but said that more is needed to protect people's privacy — along with the economic interests of U.S. companies that generate most of their revenue overseas.

U.S. Internet companies are worried that people, especially those living overseas, won't trust them with personal information if they believe such data is being collected by the U.S. government.

"The U.S. government should be the champion for the Internet, not a threat. They need to be much more transparent about what they're doing, or otherwise people will believe the worst," Zuckerberg wrote.

The ongoing strife over surveillance could threaten what's been a cordial relationship between Silicon Valley and the president. The region has voted overwhelmingly for Obama in both of the past two presidential elections. Nearly 70 percent of Santa Clara County, which is home to Facebook, Google, Yahoo and a slew of other tech giants, sided with the president in the 2012 elections.

Obama held a Facebook "town hall" meeting at the company's headquarters in April 2011 and earlier that year had dinner with a group of tech leaders that included Zuckerberg, Google's then-CEO Eric Schmidt and others.

gripreaper

15th March 2014, 19:36

On March 13, the son of Jon Corzine was found dead in Mexico City of an apparent suicide. Jon Corzine was the former CEO of Goldman Sachs, head of MF Global, and Governor of New Jersey, as well as being a long time campaign financier for President Barack Obama.

http://www.examiner.com/article/son-of-former-head-of-goldman-sachs-and-mf-global-found-dead

ThePythonicCow

17th March 2014, 12:39

Indicatively, according to the latest IMF figures, Ukraine's official gold holdings are just over 40 tons, having doubled in the past decade: (list at link)

...
We hope, for their sake, they weren't also just "liberated" of all their gold, which after a brief stay 80 feet below the surface at 33 Liberty, will promptly find its way either to the Bundesbank, or to the billionaire oligarchs, based either in London or elsewhere, and currently in charge of "post-liberation" Ukraine.
It's not looking good for that gold.

From Tonight from "Borispol" in the U.S. strartoval plane with gold reserves of Ukraine (Russian Iskra News; 7 March 2014) (http://iskra-news.info/news/segodnja_nochju_iz_borispolja_v_ssha_strartoval_samoljot_s_zolotym_zapasom_ukrainy/2014-03-07-9122):

~~~~~~~~~~~

http://iskra-news.info/_nw/91/s90185362.jpg
As our site workers airport "Borispol", this night in 2-00, with the designated airport runway started unregistered transport plane ...

According to the staff "Boryspil", before it came to the airport four collector car and two cargo minibus Volkswagen, thus, all the arriving truck license plate missing. Car pulled out of about fifteen people in black uniforms, masks and body armor. Some of them were armed with machine guns. These people have downloaded the plane more than forty heavy boxes ...

After that, some mysterious men arrived too entered the plane. All loading was carried out in a huge hurry. After unloading the car without license plates immediately left the runway, and the plane took off on an emergency basis ...

All who saw this mysterious "special operation" airport officials immediately notified the administration of "Boryspil", from which received a strong recommendation "not to meddle in other people's business" ...

Later, the editors called back one of the senior officials of the former Ministry of income and fees, which reported that, according to him, tonight, on the orders of one of the "new leaders" of Ukraine in the United States has been taken all the gold reserves in Ukraine ...

~~~~~~~~~~~

(The above text is a Google translation of the original Russian text. Since this "gold liberation" was a night time operation, and since the above image accompanying this news report is a day time shot, I doubt that that plane in the image is the transport plane that carried the gold.)

Sabrina

18th March 2014, 08:07

http://hipknowsys.blogspot.com.br/2014/03/benjamin-fulford-march-17-2014-cabal.html

Fulford's take on it all. Full story at link.

The Saudi move came during the visit to China last week by the Saudi crown prince and means that the cabal can now be cut off access to both Russian and Middle Eastern oil. That is why the United States opened its’ strategic oil reserves last week. These reserves can keep the US going at current consumption rates without oil imports for 58 days.

The other very telling sign that it is not business as usual for the cabal is the refusal of the UK government to participate in any form of sanctions against Russia. The Germans are also ruling out sanctions even as they stamp their feet and make a bit of noise.

The Russians, for their part, have already evacuated their funds from cabal controlled financial institutions. In addition to this, they are kicking cabal linked businessmen out of Russia and confiscating their assets.

The Chinese, for their part, allowed the Renminbi to fall more than 1% on Monday in a signal to the cabal that they will not tolerate a unilateral attempt by them to devalue the US dollar.

This means that the Federal Reserve Board regime in Washington D.C. and their sister institution the European Central Bank are now being isolated from the global community.

The talk by the cabal side about offering IMF funding to the Ukraine is meaningless because the IMF has no money. Ditto the revived talk about reviving Special Drawing Rights as an alternative to the US dollar.

Obviously nobody is going to accept any such role for the IMF unless voting rights are redrawn in line with global economic and demographic reality. In other words, unless the Europeans and Americans lose the control they now have of over 50% of the votes in that institution as well as in the World Bank.

The same is true of the United Nations. If they lose that majority control they will no longer be able to fund many of their secret projects and mercenary armies.

The cabalists are terrified of losing that control because it means a loss of power over the world. If they lose that power, it is only a matter of time before their eugenics and depopulation agenda will be fully exposed. A lot of people will be filled with murderous rage as they hear about the unfathomable cabal crimes, such as mass sterilization through vaccine, the systematic kidnapping and sexual enslavement of children etc.

Also Fulford's link to a free energy device from Brasil here:

http://www.earth-heal.com/news/news/112-inventions/1472-brazil-free-energy-device.html

and the recent releasing of Keshe's free technology here:

http://www.transients.info/2014/03/mt-keshe-releases-free-technology-to.html

http://spirittrainchronicles.com/2014/03/16/keshes-free-energy-files-released/

Huge game-changer moves going on now… :)

Sabrina

18th March 2014, 08:44

Corruption at FIFA World Cup Exposed: Former VP and Family Paid Millions in Post-Bid “Win Payments”, FBI Called In

By Claire Newell, Holly Watt, Claire Duffin, Ben Bryant, The Telegraph, UK – March 17, 2014

http://tinyurl.com/l8jskp3

A senior FIFA official and his family were paid almost $2 million (£1.2m) from a Qatari firm linked to the country’s successful bid for the 2022 World Cup, The Telegraph can disclose.

Jack Warner, the former vice-president of FIFA, appears to have been personally paid $1.2 million (£720,000) from a company controlled by a former Qatari football official shortly after the decision to award the country the tournament.
Payments totalling almost $750,000 (£450,000) were made to Mr Warner’s sons, documents show. A further $400,000 (£240,000) was paid to one of his employees.

It is understood that the FBI is now investigating Trinidad-based Mr Warner and his alleged links to the Qatari bid, and that the former FIFA official’s eldest son, who lives in Miami, has been helping the inquiry as a co-operating witness.

The awarding of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar was one of the most controversial decisions in sporting history. The intense summer heat in the desert nation has raised the prospect of the tournament being moved to the winter for the first time.
Although Qatar has repeatedly denied wrongdoing during the bidding process, it has long been suspected that the decision was flawed, and several members of the Fifa committee have faced corruption allegations.

It can be disclosed that a company owned by Mohamed Bin Hammam, the Fifa executive member for Qatar, appeared to pay $1.2 million (£720,000) to Mr Warner in 2011.

A note from one of Mr Warner’s companies, Jamad, to Mr Bin Hammam’s firm, Kemco, requested $1.2 million in payment for work carried out between 2005 and 2010.

The document is dated December 15, 2010, two weeks after Qatar won the right to host the tournament, and states that the money is “payable to Jack Warner”.

Mr Warner’s two sons and an employee were paid a further $1 million (£600,000) by the same Qatari company.
One document states that payments are to “offset legal and other expenses”, but a separate letter claims that more than $1 million cover “professional services provided over the period 2005-2010”.

At least one bank in the Cayman Islands initially refused to process the payment amid fears over the legality of the money transfer. The money was eventually processed via a bank in New York – a transaction that is understood to have come to the attention of the FBI. A well-placed source said: “These payments need to be properly investigated. The World Cup is the most important event in football and we need to be confident that decisions have been made for the right reasons. There are lots of questions that still need to be answered.”

Mr Warner was one of the most experienced members of the executive committee until he stood down in 2011 and served as vice-president of the organisation for 14 years. He was one of the 22 people who decided to award Russia the 2018 World Cup and Qatar the 2022 tournament. It is understood that the FBI is investigating payments to Mr Warner and that one of his family members has been acting as a “co-operating witness”.

The investigators are thought to be focusing on Mr Warner’s American and Grand Cayman accounts.

Michael Garcia, the joint chief investigator of Fifa’s ethics committee, is also investigating irregularities surrounding the bidding process. He is expected to deliver his report to the committee later this year.

The disclosures will add to concerns that some Fifa executive committee members were not impartial when they cast their votes in December 2010. England suffered a humiliating defeat when it secured only two votes to host the 2018 World Cup and was eliminated after the first round.

Even before the decision was made, there were persistent allegations of corruption. Six weeks before the vote in Zurich, a World Cup official was caught in an undercover investigation agreeing to sell his vote to one of England’s rivals. A second member of the same committee was recorded asking for £1.5 million for a sports academy. Both officials were suspended, meaning that 22 people voted instead of the usual 24.

A whistleblower also claimed that one of the bidders had bought the votes of three African executive committee members. The former Fifa employee later withdrew the allegations.

Following England’s defeat, a parliamentary committee held an inquiry into the failed bid. Lord Triesman, the bid’s former chairman, gave evidence stating that four Fifa executive committee members had asked for business deals and favours when negotiating their support. One of those he named was Mr Warner.

The Labour peer said that the then Fifa vice-president had asked for money to build an education centre in Trinidad, with the cash to be channelled through him, and £500,000 to buy World Cup television rights for Haiti.

In June 2011, Mr Warner resigned from all football posts after he was accused of facilitating bribes to members of the Caribbean football union on behalf of Mohamed Bin Hammam, who was standing against Sepp Blatter to be Fifa president. A report by the Fifa ethics committee found that there was “compelling” evidence that Mr Warner was “an accessory to corruption”.

Mr Warner was caught on tape apparently urging fellow Fifa officials to accept cash gifts from Mr Bin Hammam, the disgraced former presidential candidate.

The documents seen by The Telegraph raise further questions about Mr Warner’s activities. One email, which appears to have been sent by one of Mr Warner’s employees, shows that the staff member personally received $412,000 from the Qatari company and that Mr Warner’s son, Daryll, was paid $432,000. Daryan, his other son, was paid $316,000 via a company called We Buy Houses.

Regarding the payments to Daryan, the email states that he was “contracted … based on his understanding, contacts and history with the regional players who make up an integral part of the defence team … pursuant to Fifa bribery allegations. As stated in our letter of June 11, 2011, the value of US $316,000, and this is an initial deposit to offset legal and other expenses related to the matter.”

In July, a different email shows that “monies in the amount of $1.2 million” were wire transferred to J&D International, another of Mr Warner’s companies, by the same Qatari firm. It states that this is to “offset legal and other related expenses associated with regard to an ongoing matter”.

Mr Warner and his family declined to comment. A spokesman for Qatar’s 2022 World Cup organising committee said: “The 2022 bid committee strictly adhered to Fifa’s bidding regulations in compliance with their code of ethics.
“The supreme committee for delivery and legacy and the individuals involved in the 2022 bid committee are unaware of any allegations surrounding business dealings between private individuals.”

Background to this story:

Austin “Jack” Warner is a Trinidad and Tobago politician, businessman, and former football executive. Warner held the offices of Vice president of FIFA and President of CONCACAF . He is also the former Minister of National Security of Trinidad and Tobago and was an elected member of that country’s parliament from November 2007 to 26 April 2013.

When former FIFA vice-president Jack Warner resigned from FIFA in June 2011, it appeared to be the end of the above story.The former football administrator quit just before a FIFA executive committee ruling into his conduct was announced. By resigning, all committee procedures against him were closed, and “the presumption of innocent is maintained”, according to a FIFA statement.

The new documents now being revealed appear to show previously undiscovered payments from his fellow former executive committee member Mohamed Bin Hammam, who had himself received a lifetime ban from football following allegations of improper behaviour involving his bid to be President of the organisation.

and this is what Fulford is saying about Qatar (as post above)

http://hipknowsys.blogspot.com.br/2014/03/benjamin-fulford-march-17-2014-cabal.html

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other gulf countries are threatening to cut off all trade with Qatar and possibly declare war unless that country shuts down Al Jazeera and kicks out cabal fronts like the Rand Corporation and the Brookings Institute. The only major Western corporate media outlet to report this huge development, as far as this writer can tell, has been Agence France Press or AFP.

Sabrina

18th March 2014, 08:50

Mysterious Fire-Sale of US Treasuries Underway –

Mainstream Media Report by the way!

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, The Telegraph, UK –

Somebody is a selling a fistful of US Treasuries. It could be Russia, or China, Turkey, South Africa, or Indonesia, or all frantically selling bonds at the same time for different reasons.

We don’t yet know. All we know is that the US Federal Reserve’s custody holdings on behalf of foreign central banks plunged by $106bn in the week ending March 12, the biggest one-week drop on record.

Russia’s central bank is undoubtedly liquidating reserves at a breakneck pace to prevent a collapse of the rouble, as foreign companies scramble to get all their spare cash out of Russian accounts before the G7 guillotine comes down on the Putin clan next week. It is certainly trying to remove its assets beyond the jurisdiction of the US authorities – though that will not be easy. The SEC takes no prisoners. In the end, the world is more frightened of US regulators than it is of Putin’s tanks or his polonium. Soft power can trump hard power.

One investor told me that clients in Russia are literally loading up cars with computers, machinery, and anything that will fit, and rushing them out of the country for fear that assets will nationalised. Whatever happens, nobody will forget this in a hurry.

Yet the latest financial ructions go beyond Russia, they reek of stress in the international system. “Countries are intervening all over the place to defend their currencies, (which means they are tightening). Their central banks built up huge war chests of reserves for a rainy day, and now it is raining,” said David Bloom, currency chief at HSBC.

Indeed it is. The international order is unravelling. Russia is of course smashing the post-Cold War order by seizing Ukraine, and blowing up the global architecture of nuclear non-proliferation. Let us not forget that Ukraine agreed to give up its nuclear weapons – the world’s third biggest arsenal at the time – in exchange for a guarantee by the great powers in 1994 that its territorial integrity would be upheld. Russia was one of the signatories.

China is laying claim to large parts of the East China and South China Seas, and has established an air identification control zone over the Japanese-controlled Senkaku islands.

China and Japan are one blow – or misjudgement – away from outright military conflict. The battle on the Pacific Rim is ultimately even more dangerous than the West’s clash with Russia over Ukraine.

Whether or not the wheels really are falling off the Chinese economy remains to be seen, but the discussion has crept into the market. You can smell the beginnings of fear.

“The global situation is extremely serious,” Lars Christensen from Danske Bank. “Russia is committing economic suicide, there is a massive corruption scandal in Turkey, and capital outflows from China threaten to have huge ramifications.”
“If the US dollar were to strengthen drastically at this point, we would go straight into a global recession.”

That is indeed the risk. Let us hope the Fed can pull its head out of its closed-economy macro model for once and take a look at the world before it tightens again next week. Tread very carefully Madame Chairman.

14 March
http://goldenageofgaia.com/2014/03/17/mysterious-fire-sale-of-us-treasuries-underway-mainstream-media-report/#more-211926

ThePythonicCow

18th March 2014, 09:50

Somebody is a selling a fistful of US Treasuries. It could be Russia, or China, Turkey, South Africa, or Indonesia, or all frantically selling bonds at the same time for different reasons.

We don’t yet know. All we know is that the US Federal Reserve’s custody holdings on behalf of foreign central banks plunged by $106bn in the week ending March 12, the biggest one-week drop on record.

Russia’s central bank is undoubtedly liquidating reserves at a breakneck pace to prevent a collapse of the rouble, as foreign companies scramble to get all their spare cash out of Russian accounts before the G7 guillotine comes down on the Putin clan next week.

I have seen this report in several places the last few days.

It is, in my view, not correctly described.

What has happened is that someone (perhaps Russia) has moved their US Treasury Certificates out of US Federal Reserve Custody holding, and is now holding them elsewhere.

They did not (from the available evidence) sell the treasuries -- they moved them (moved the actual paper certificates.)

This strikes me as a wise and low key move. If I owned a hundred billion in US Treasuries, I would not want them held in the custody of the Federal Reserve either :).

(A tip of the hat to Jim Willie of the GoldenJackass.com for correctly, I believe, explaining this, in his subscription newsletter The Hat Trick Letter.)

Sabrina

19th March 2014, 06:33

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-26639092

18 March

Huge US child porn ring is dismantled with 14 arrests

Officials in the US have dismantled a huge international online child pornography ring - one of the largest such operations ever uncovered, American authorities say.

They say that 14 men running a secret, members-only child porn website have been arrested.

About 250 children - mostly boys from the US - appeared on the site.

The website had more than 27,000 subscribers, many of whom have been charged in individual cases.

"Never before in the history of this agency have we identified and located this many minor victims in the course of a single child exploitation investigation," Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) Deputy Director Daniel Ragsdale told Reuters news agency.

Ice worked with Homeland Security officials and other agencies to break up the ring, which ran a website to share videos of boys enticed from social networks into providing sexually explicit material - sometimes by men posing as women.

Ages of the children ranged in age from three to 17 years, officials said, and came from 39 US states. Twenty-three of the 251 victims were identified in Britain, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Belgium.

'Co-ordinated strike'
Among the suspects arrested was Jonathan Johnson, 27, the alleged administrator of the child porn website, which operated out of the southern US state of Louisiana.

If convicted, he faces 20 years to life in prison, officials say.

"These indictments represent a strong co-ordinated strike... Against child pornography and those who allegedly seek to harm our most vulnerable citizens, our young children," Louisiana Eastern District Attorney Kenneth Allen Polite told the AFP news agency.

Police say that the illegal website operated on a hidden service board on the Tor network from about June 2012 until June 2013, when Mr Johnson was arrested.

The Tor network is set up to conceal a user's location, allowing him or her to maintain online anonymity.

But the porn ring was broken when an item was sent through the US Postal Service to a child, Ice Cyber Crime Centre Programme Manager James Kilpatrick told Reuters. That development led the authorities to Mr Johnson.

The 14 men arrested have been charged with conspiracy to operate a child exploitation enterprise.

At the time it was dismantled, the illegal website contained more than 2,000 shared webcam-captured videos of mostly juvenile boys, officials say.

Ice officials warn that a growing number of children are being enticed into sharing sexually explicit material online.

"We cannot arrest our way out of this problem: education is the key to prevention," Mr Ragsdale said.

and

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10707173/US-investigators-arrest-14-operators-of-massive-global-child-pornography-website.html

US investigators arrest 14 ’operators’ of massive global child pornography website

More than 250 children as young as three and from as far afield as US, Britain and Australia were victims of secret pornography network with at least 27,000 subscribers worldwide

A massive international online child pornography ring, with victims aged as young as three from the US, Britain and four other countries, has been busted by America investigators.

Authorities announced the arrest of 14 American men who allegedly operated the underground members-only website, one of the largest ever dismantled, from the southern state of Louisiana.

More than 27,000 subscribers to the secret network around the world had access to 2,000 videos filmed on computer webcams of mostly teenage boys who were "enticed ... to produce sexually explicit material", officials said.

Investigators have so far identified 251 child victims, of whom all but eight were boys. There were 228 Americans and 23 from Britain, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Belgium. The majority were aged 13 to 15, but 33 were aged under 12 and two were aged just three.

The organisation is "one of the largest known online child exploitation operations in history", said Jeh Johnson, the Department of Homeland Security chief.

more at link

Sabrina

19th March 2014, 06:36

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/silvio-berlusconi/10707181/Italian-high-court-confirms-Silvio-Berlusconis-ban-from-public-office.html

19 March Italy

Italian high court confirms Silvio Berlusconi's ban from public office

former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's hopes of running in May's European Parliament elections dashed after two-year ban over tax fraud upheld by highest Italian appeals court

Italy's highest appeals court on Tuesday confirmed a two-year ban from public office for centre-right leader and former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi over a conviction for tax fraud.

Berlusconi's lawyer Niccolo Ghedini said he was "extremely disappointed" by the ruling of the Court of Cassation, which diminishes Berlusconi's hopes of running as a candidate in elections for the European Parliament in May.

Berlusconi had appealed against the ban handed down by a Milan appeals court last October. He also faces a four-year prison sentence, commuted to one year likely to be spent doing community service, after he was found guilty in August 2013 of masterminding a complex system of tax evasion by his holding company Fininvest.

Berlusconi, whose Forza Italia party is the largest parliamentary opposition to Matteo Renzi's coalition government, has continued to lead his party from outside parliament since he was stripped of his seat as a senator in November.
Berlusconi, who says he will appeal to Italy's constitutional court against the tax fraud verdict, has already appealed to the European Court of Human Rights against his expulsion from the Senate.

In addition to the tax fraud case, he is fighting a seven-year jail sentence issued by a Milan court last year for paying for sex with an under-aged prostitute and abusing his office to cover it up.

more at link

Sabrina

19th March 2014, 07:43

It's sad to now include a so called 'suicide' count, and the number count is now more than 12 I think, but here's another with links to JP Morgan, for the record.

http://rt.com/usa/twelfth-banker-suicide-finicial-world-634/

18 March

Young banker's suicide becomes twelfth in financial world this year

A New York City investment banker is dead after allegedly jumping from his apartment building, continuing an alarming streak of suicides that has descended upon the financial world.

The latest death occurred on March 12, when 28-year-old Kenneth Bellando was found on the sidewalk outside his six-story Manhattan apartment building.

According to the Daily Mail, police investigators said the case was still under investigation, but that they do not suspect a third party to be involved and that Bellando – who had been working for Levy Capital since January – likely took his own life.

Before moving into his last position, the New York Post reported Bellando worked as an investment banker at JP Morgan Chase. His brother, John Bellando, also works at JP Morgan as an investment officer; the Post stated that multiple emails by John Bellando were presented as evidence during Senate hearings regarding the “London Whale” trading scandal.

Kenneth Bellando’s death now marks the 12th time this year that an employee in the financial world has taken his or her own life around the globe. Bellando graduated from Georgetown University in 2007, and is the youngest banking professional to commit suicide this year.

Although positions in the banking world can be especially lucrative, they’re also known to place an extreme amount of stress and pressure on individuals. It’s unclear whether or not Bellando’s death is related to pressure at work, but just last month psychologist Alden Cass told CNN Money that investment banking is particularly demanding.

"Out of all the sections of finance, no position do I know of that's more extreme in terms of the emotional endurance one has to have than investment banking," said Cass, who also co-wrote “Bullish Thinking: The Advisor's Guide to Surviving and Thriving on Wall Street.”

The recent string of suicides began in January, when Deutsche Bank AG's William Broeksmit, 58, was found hanged in his home on January 26 after reportedly committing suicide. Two JP Morgan employees are also believed to have taken their own lives after falling from buildings in London and Hong Kong.

Autumn Radtke, the CEO of the digital currency exchange firm First Meta, was also found dead outside her apartment in Singapore earlier this month.

Sabrina

19th March 2014, 23:13

http://thecolemanexperience.wordpress.com/2014/03/17/has-britains-most-beloved-popstar-been-arrested-on-child-abuse-charges-yet/

Has Britain’s most ‘beloved’ popstar been arrested on child-abuse charges yet?

BY THECOLEMANEXPERIENCE MARCH 17, 2014

In February 2014, the Mail reported on the police investigation into claims that a 10 year-old boy was sexually abused by a ‘beloved’ popstar.

Since the article there have been no further media updates nor any information from police sources detailing whether the singer has been arrested or not.

This is highly unusual and seems to suggest the singer has friends in very high-places who don’t want the allegations to be publicised.

According to the Mail:

‘ Beloved pop star ‘abused 10-year-old boy’: Alleged victim and witness have spoken to Savile police officers

Accuser claims he was abused when he was just 10, it has been reported
A witness to the alleged attack has also spoken to police officers
The famous singer has not been identified for legal reasons
One of the world’s most famous pop stars is being investigated by police over claims that he sexually abused a ten-year-old boy.

The music legend is said to be terrified of arrest after a witness came forward to report an alleged attack on a schoolboy said to have taken place decades ago.

Detectives from Operation Yewtree, the Scotland Yard investigation set up to examine historical sex abuse claims in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal, are understood to have taken a statement from the victim last year.

But in recent weeks police have also spoken to a witness who apparently backs up the claims by the man.

The pop star is accused of abuse dating back several decades. Police are examining a number of witness statements alleging historical sex assaults by him, it was claimed yesterday.

The musician, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is said to be petrified of being arrested by detectives and has recently held a number of frantic meetings with his lawyers.

Yesterday a source close to the inquiry said: ‘This is huge, and detectives are examining more than one witness statement. The alleged victim was very young at the time, which makes it a more serious allegation. This inquiry is not going to go away, and police will make arrests when they feel they have enough to do so.’

A spokesman for the veteran artist, who has had a number of hit records, declined to comment yesterday.

Operation Yewtree was launched in October 2012 after Savile, who died aged 84 in 2011, was exposed as a predatory paedophile who abused hundreds of victims. It has three strands – one looking at Savile, another focusing on ‘Savile and others’ and a third concentrating on those not linked to the former BBC DJ and TV presenter.

The operation has cost £2.7million so far, of which £490,000 has been paid out in overtime to the 30-strong detective team. It has led to 16 arrests, with four people charged and five suspects remaining on bail.

Among the stars arrested as part of the inquiry are 83-year-old entertainer Rolf Harris, who denies 12 charges of indecent assault and four counts of making indecent images of children.

PR guru Max Clifford, 70, has pleaded not guilty to 11 indecent assaults. Others arrested include pop paedophile Gary Glitter, 69, and radio presenter Paul Gambaccini, 64. Comedian Freddie Starr, 71, has been arrested three times over abuse claims.

Former Radio One DJ Chris Denning, 72, a colleague of Savile, has also been held three times over alleged sexual offences. All deny the allegations.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman refused to comment on the investigation last night.’

In January 2013, the Mirror carried an article about police investigations into an alleged high-level paedophile ring that operated at the Elm guest house in Barnes.

“A list of names seized by police probing allegations of child abuse includes ministers, members of the royal household and a world-famous pop star, the Sunday People can reveal.

All were recorded as visitors to a suburban guest house that operated as a gay brothel.

Now some could be suspects in an investigation into a network of powerful people who were secret paedophiles for years.”

The following anonymous comment was made on a political blog which was discussing the list:

” Could this be the same quite famous singer who in the early days of his career also used to hang out in Morocco with Krays, Coward etc, and now lives in Surrey?

Is he the same singer the local police went to see before news of the So-vile scandal broke and warned that he should stop attending certain parties in the county held by rich business men who were shipping in pre-teen male children from South America for weekend-long orgies and then promptly shipping them out again – allegedly?

If so, unthinkable to even imagine that the police might have given him a bit of ‘friendly’, and why?

Because it came from on high, and though the local plod were disgusted and wanted to act, those on high felt the nations psyche wouldn’t benefit from such news – the singer being a good ……… and all.”

How very, very strange indeed.

The clock is ticking on Britain’s dirty secrets…..

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2550486/Beloved-pop-star-abused-10-year-old-boy-Alleged-victim-witness-spoken-Savile-police-officers.html

http://thecolemanexperience.wordpress.com/2013/04/29/surrey-police-the-mystery-singer-and-the-ever-so-friendly-tip-off/

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/police-seize-vip-list-in-dawn-1546351

Hervé

21st March 2014, 12:54

Regarding those "suicides," I mention a few pages back on this thread what a certain "PROMIS" software was capable of doing right out of the box way back when internet was learning how to walk (see this post (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?41059-Massive-Bank-and-High-Profile-Resignations-Across-the-World&p=798468&viewfull=1#post798468) <---). Then there are other articles like this one (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?67568-CNN-Exposing-Rockefeller-Real-Estate-Cartel-Ties-to-Chris-Christie-Corruption-Scandal&p=788699&viewfull=1#post788699) <--- and, recently, this:

Is the NSA manipulating the stock market? (http://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2014/03/20/is-the-nsa-manipulating-the-stock-market/)

Mar20 (http://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2014/03/20/is-the-nsa-manipulating-the-stock-market/), 2014 by Jon Rappoport (http://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/author/jonrappoport/)
www.nomorefakenews.com (http://www.nomorefakenews.com/)

Trevor Timm of the Electronic Freedom Frontier dug up a very interesting nugget (http://www.infowars.com/government-using-nsa-to-change-amount-in-bank-accounts-warns-panel/). It was embedded in the heralded December 2013 White House task force report on spying and snooping.

Under Recommendations, #31, section 2, he found this:

“Governments should not use their offensive cyber capabilities to change the amounts held in financial accounts or otherwise manipulate financial systems.”

Timm quite rightly wondered: why were these warnings in the report?

Were the authors just anticipating a possible crime? Or were they reflecting the fact that the NSA had already been engaging in the crime?

If this was just a bit of anticipation, why leave it naked in the report? Why not say there was no current evidence the NSA had been manipulating financial systems?

Those systems would, of course, include the stock market, and all trading markets around the world.

Well, there is definite evidence of other NSA financial snooping. From Spiegel Online, 9/15/13:

“The National Security Agency (NSA) widely monitors international payments, banking and credit card transactions, according to documents seen by SPIEGEL.”

“The NSA’s Tracfin data bank also contained data from the Brussels-based Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), a network used by thousands of banks to send transaction information securely…the NSA spied on the organization on several levels, involving, among others, the [NSA] agency’s ‘tailored access operations’ division…”

The NSA’s “tailored access operations” division uses roughly 1000 hackers and analysts in its spying efforts.

The next step in all this spying would naturally involve penetrating trading markets and, using the deep data obtained, manipulate the markets to the advantage of the NSA and preferred clients.

The amount of money siphoned off in such an ongoing operation would be enormous.

“Looking over the shoulder” of Wall St. insiders would be child’s play for NSA.

Ditto for predicting political events that would temporarily drive markets down and provide golden opportunities for highly profitable short selling.

Like drug traffickers and other mobsters, the NSA could invest their ill-gotten gains in legitimate enterprises and reap additional rewards.

And if the Pentagon, under which the NSA is organized, requires heavy amounts of money for off-the-books black budget ops, what better place to go than their own NSA?

All in all, when you operate the biggest spying and data-gathering operation in the world, the opportunities abound. Yes, knowledge is power, when the distinctions between legal and illegal are brushed off like like a few gnats on a summer day.

Jon Rappoport

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Accordingly, it seems to me that a number of smart people are connecting dots they shouldn't have... while crunching numbers.

Sabrina

22nd March 2014, 10:23

Jim Hightower: Finding Populism Today

By JIm Hightower, Nation of Change – March 19, 2014

http://tinyurl.com/ny6skyd

Mass movements don’t just appear out of the fog, fully grown, structured and mobilized. They emerge in fits and starts over many years, just as the American Revolution did, and as did the Populists’ original idea of a “cooperative commonwealth.”

A successful people’s movement has to take the long view, to learn about itself as it builds, nurture the culture of its people, take chances, create fun for all involved, adapt to failures and successes, stay steadfast to its principles, have a stoic tenacity — and organize, organize, organize. A little serendipity helps, too, so grab it when you can.

In 2011 a serendipitous moment for the populist cause rumbled across our land, though later it was widely (and wrongly) dismissed as a failure. That September, hundreds of young people, loosely aligned with an upstart group called Occupy Wall Street, took over Zuccotti Park in New York City and audaciously camped out on the front stoop of the elite banksters who’d crashed our economy. Occupy’s depiction of the 1-percent vs. the 99-percent struck a chord with the unemployed, underemployed, and the knocked-down middle class. Occupy encampments quickly sprang up in some 200 cities and towns from coast to coast.

The uprising was ridiculed (even by many progressive groups) as naive, undisciplined and “not serious.” Who’s in charge? Where’s their strategic plan? Why don’t they have position papers? All this carping about Occupy failing to produce the usual trappings of a Washington-focused interest group missed two essential points the young people were making: (1) such trappings are not producing any change, and (2) we’re not an interest group, we’re a rebellion.

Most news sources are funded by corporations and investors. Their goal is to drive people to advertisers while pushing the corporate agenda. NationofChange is a 501(c)3 organization funded almost 100% from its readers–you! Our only accountability is to the public. Click here to make a generous donation.

Rebellion has to come first. As it builds, structure and process will follow in due time. The great strength of Occupy is that it was a genuine, non-institutional, social, non-wonkish, morally compelling, and spontaneous stand against the culture of inequality that the moneyed powers are imposing. It touched people in deeper ways than issue politics will ever do. And the great achievement of Occupy is that it prompted a cultural shift that turned Wall Street’s barons into social pariahs and put the issue of inequality directly at the center of our nation’s political debate.

To find populism flowering today, take a road trip across any stretch of America, or take a gander around your community. You will find a splendid array of ordinary folks rebelling against the bosses, bankers, big shots and bastards who dare subjugate us to their greed, including:

We are the 99 percent.

•Mad-as-hellers in dozens of states, often in isolated rural areas, now form an increasingly effective guerrilla network to combat the massive invasion by global oil and gas giants to frack our land. Last November, three Colorado cities beat back Big Oil’s money and the lies of some of their own political officials in a vote to ban fracking in their areas. New York State and more than 100 other cities have imposed moratoria or bans on this corporate plundering.

•Putting a specific face on Occupy’s theme of gross economic inequality, a nationwide revolt of exploited fast-food workers erupted last summer, gaining the high ground against McDonald’s and other poverty-wage profiteers. While Washington sticks to the miserly federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, grassroots campaigns are elevating state and local minimums to $10 an hour and above. Last month, with much pressure from the outside agitators, President Obama signed an executive order, which says the minimum wage for federal contract workers is $10.10 an hour.

•Two huge corporate/government cabals — the sovereignty-sucking Trans-Pacific Partnership and the NSA’s secret, Orwellian program of spying on every American – are coming unraveled, thanks to public outrage that has united a left-right coalition in Congress. Meanwhile, the crucial populist struggle to salvage our democracy from the Supreme Court’s scurrilous Citizens United edict, quietly continues to gain ground with 16 states and over 200 local jurisdictions passing proposals in support of a constitutional repeal of the Court’s ruling.

There’s so much more underway, such as placing a Robin Hood tax on Wall Street speculators; a surge in co-ops as a democratic alternative to corporate control; getting Monsanto’s genetically altered organisms out of our food supply; a vibrant and positive campaign by immigrants themselves for immigrant rights; battling giants such as Disney World and Walmart to win paid sick leave days for low-wage workers; freeing college students from Wall Street’s loan sharks. All of these and so many more are the sprouting seeds of a widespread, flourishing Populist movement. The moment is ripe to bond them into something larger.

About Jim Hightower
National radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and author of the book, Swim Against The Current: Even A Dead Fish Can Go With The Flow, Jim Hightower has spent three decades battling the Powers That Be on behalf of the Powers That Ought To Be – consumers, working families, environmentalists, small businesses, and just-plain-folks.

Sabrina

22nd March 2014, 10:34

Syrian Hackers Claim to Reveal How Much FBI Pays Microsoft for Customer Data

Russia Today - March 21, 2014

http://tinyurl.com/kusvz3q

Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) hackers have reportedly obtained documents that reveal how much money the FBI pays Microsoft each time agents try to obtain or view an individual customer’s communication information.

The SEA, a group that has made headlines in the past for infiltrating Western media outlets that it perceives to be against Syrian President Bashar Assad, provided a trove of emails and invoices to the Daily Dot, which analyzed the documents before publishing them.

“The documents consist of what appear to be invoices and emails between Microsoft’s Global Criminal compliance team and the FBI’s Digital Intercept Technology Unit (DITU), and purport to show exactly how much money Microsoft charges DITU, in terms of compliance costs, when DITU provides warrants and court orders for customers’ data,” wrote the Daily Dot’s Kevin Collier and Fran Berman.

“In December 2012, for instance, Microsoft emailed DITU a PDF invoice for $145,100, broken down to $100 per request for information, the documents appear to show,” they went on. “In August 2013, Microsoft allegedly emailed a similar invoice, this time for $352, 200 at a rate of $200 per request. The latest invoice provided, from November 2013, is for $281,000.”

The documents make clear just how often law enforcement officials work to acquire information that individuals would likely consider private. DITU agents seem to have filed requests for information from Microsoft hundreds of times each month, finding success by preying on sympathetic relationships at the company.

From Microsoft’s perspective, though, nothing about the arrangement is out of the ordinary.

“Regarding law enforcement requests, there’s nothing unusual here,” a company spokesperson told The Verge’s Valentina Palladino. “Under US law, companies can seek reimbursement for costs associated with complying with valid legal orders for customer data. We attempt to recover some of the costs associated with such orders.”
While the public now has a basic figure showing how much taxpayer money is dedicated to surveillance, these numbers only include Microsoft – whereas the taxpayer cost for companies like Verizon, Google, and others are almost certainly in the millions as well.

The ongoing debate over security versus privacy has been making headlines since Edward Snowden leaked classified intelligence files obtained from the US National Security Agency. The initial public reaction put at least some of the blame at the feet of the major communication and data companies, though it has since been revealed that these corporations are legally required to provide information that the government requires.
Consequently, the SEA’s hack essentially makes clear how much money Microsoft charged the government for work that the company had already completed at investigators’ behest.

Similar relationships have turned sour, as US Department of Justice lawyers announced earlier this month that they had filed suit against Sprint. The attorneys claim the corporation, when issuing invoices for three years of surveillance, overcharged the government by $21 million, inflating the actual cost by 58 percent. Furthermore, the government accused Sprint of “knowingly” submitting “false claims to federal law enforcement agencies.”

Sabrina

23rd March 2014, 06:16

http://jhaines6.wordpress.com/2014/03/22/kevin-annett-pope-jesuits-and-anglicans-refuse-to-deny-criminal-charges-made-against-them-trial-to-proceed-as-shocking-new-evidence-suggests-joseph-ratzinger-still-wields-power-at-the-vati/

22 March

Kevin Annett: Pope, Jesuits and Anglicans refuse to deny criminal charges made against them – Trial to proceed as shocking new evidence suggests Joseph Ratzinger still wields power at the Vatican – Ratzinger and others are named as members of a child abuse cult

Brussels and Rome:

After being publicly charged with child trafficking and criminal conspiracy on March 4 and served a Public Summons, the head officers of the Vatican, the Jesuits, and the Church of England have refused to deny or contest the charges and will therefore face criminal prosecution commencing March 31.

The announcement came today as the deadline to respond to a Common Law Court Summons lapsed on Tuesday without any communication from the primary defendants: Pope Francis, Jorge Bergoglio, Jesuit Superior General Adolfo Pachon, and Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby.

“Their silence is very telling and extremely important legally” said Court Secretary George Dufort from Brussels.

“Our Prosecutor’s Office has the power now to proceed with its case and waive the normal examination procedure, since the defendants are not disputing the charges and are thereby tacitly admitting their guilt. The Court Magistrates will enter a plea of nolo contendere by the defendants into the court record and have every right to rule against them in their absence.”

This startling development occurred as even more shocking news surfaced today in Rome that the allegedly former Pope Benedict, Joseph Ratzinger, actually retains power at the Vatican, and that since at least 1962 has been a member of a child abuse cult known as the Corona Novem, or The Ninth Circle (or Crown).

Francesco Zanardi of the ITCCS affiliate Rete L’Abuso in Savona, Italy said in an interview last week,

“We know from several Cardinals that Pope Francis is a caretaker figurehead who is not actually the Pope. It’s all been a huge deception. Francis doesn’t wear the papal ring and lives in a convent in Rome, not in the Vatican. He is given no official security and wanders about like a private individual. And he makes policy statements which the Curia of Cardinals then disavow, saying Francis doesn’t reflect church doctrine. And all the top appointments have been Germans or those connected to Ratzinger, who continues to speak to reporters like he’s still the Pope.”

Meanwhile, a former member of a child abuse cult known as The Ninth Circle has stated in a deposition that Joseph Ratzinger has been a member of the Circle since at least 1962, and as such has routinely participated in the ritual rape, torture and killing of children.

“The witness claim to have seen both former Pope John Paul the Second, Karol Wotyja, and Pope Benedict, Joseph Ratzinger, participate at Ninth Circle rituals held at Catholic cathedrals and a forest grove in France” said George Dufort of the Common Law court.

This recent statement confirms the account of such a ritual involving Ratzinger made by Dutch eyewitness Toss Niejenhuis last year (see www.itccs.org, May 8).

The Court has also received evidence that the Ninth Circle cult is referred to in Vatican documents which describe how the participation of every new Pope in the Ninth Circle cult is mandatory for their assumption of office. The alleged documents refer to the cultic rituals as “The Magisterial Privilege” that involves the ceremonial killing of newborn children and the consumption of their blood at Circle rituals.

The alleged document is translated from Latin and is dated December 25, 1967. This new evidence has been entered into the case records of the Citizen Prosecutors Office of the Court.

Stay tuned for more updates at www.itccs.org and www.iclcj.com .

Issued 22 March, 2014
ITCCS Central, Brussels

5CH50V3uBp0

Sabrina

23rd March 2014, 06:48

Interesting to see if they use this model to uncover the corruption behind the corruption...

Kleptocrats Hiding Funds in US Warned: ‘We Will Find You’, Even If You Are a President

By Sasha Chavkin ICIJ.org – March 20, 2014

http://tinyurl.com/md7u4wg

On March 5, the US Department of Justice unsealed a complaint (see link at end) alleging a brazen pattern of high level corruption.

A former president had manufactured phony national security expenses and directed his associates to stuff cash from the Central Bank into bags and boxes, which was then spirited through offshore companies in the British Virgin Islands into accounts in the world’s leading banks in New York and London.

The total amount looted through this scheme and other official acts, alleged the Justice Department, was more than half a billion dollars.

What made the announcement even more unusual than the vast sums of money involved was its target
The former president whose family’s assets were frozen was not an American, but the late Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha. The roughly half billion dollars being held was a record haul for the recently established Justice Department unit prosecuting his case: the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative.

“If you’re a kleptocrat, you’re going to have to do a really good job hiding your stuff because we’re going to get it eventually,” said Jaikumar Ramaswamy, the chief of the Justice Department’s Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering section, which manages the Kleptocracy Initiative.

Announced by Attorney General Eric Holder in 2010, the Kleptocracy Initiative targets the proceeds of high level corruption in foreign countries. When looted assets pass through US banks and other financial institutions, the unit seeks to seize and ultimately return the assets to the countries affected. So far, it has uncovered more than $1.1 billion in allegedly stolen funds, much of which is still tied up in court.

Among the assets it has seized or frozen are $61 million from an Afghan trucking contractor, a Manhattan condo belonging to a former President of Taiwan, and nearly $2 million in Michael Jackson memorabilia belonging to the son of the president of Equatorial Guinea.

Ramaswamy said the unit has a dual mission: to help bring kleptocrats to justice, but also to harden the US financial system against illegal money flows.

The “underground criminal illicit finance infrastructure,” said Ramaswamy, serves not only corrupt politicians but also tax evaders and organized crime. If shadowy money is tolerated in any form, it opens the pipeline for other forms of criminal proceeds to flow into the United States.

In the case of Abacha – a military dictator best known in the West for his brutal execution of environmentalist Ken Saro-Wiwa – the Kleptocracy Initiative traced the BVI companies and bank accounts alleged to hold the looted money back to Abacha’s son and an associate. It has now frozen all of the assets within these companies and accounts, and is seeking their forfeiture in court.

But in some cases, Ramaswamy said, the unit is unable to penetrate the opaque shell companies that are used to hide stolen money. As ICIJ explored in its Offshore Leaks investigation, for as little as $90 “nominee directors” without business qualifications offer their names as fronts for offshore entities in which they have little to no real involvement.

“It often times is the dead end of an investigation, where you have a nominee trust or corporation, and you can’t pierce beyond it,” Ramaswamy said.

Just last week, the European Parliament voted to crack down on such companies by directing EU member countries to create public registries listing the real, flesh-and-blood owners of companies registered in their countries.

So far, the United States has not approved any comparable measures, and a former US financial crimes investigator recently argued in the New York Times that states such as Delaware are corrupt secrecy havens on par with any Caribbean paradise. The US Treasury Department is drafting a more limited measure which would require US banks and other financial institutions to find out and inform authorities – but not the public – of the true “beneficial owners” of their client companies. But as ICIJ reported in January, it has now been two years since the plan for the rule was announced, and the rule has yet to be drafted.

Ramaswamy said the lack of beneficial ownership data was the biggest obstacle that his team confronts in hunting down the assets squirreled away by kleptocrats.

The full complaint:

http://www.justice.gov/iso/opa/resources/765201435135920471922.pdf

Sabrina

24th March 2014, 11:02

Very intriguing… :)

Israel Closes Embassies Across World as Diplomats Begin Indefinite Strike

By Barak Ravid, Haaretz – March 23, 2014

http://tinyurl.com/qa2azk6

Foreign Ministry employees declared a general strike on Sunday, following two weeks of renewed sanctions. The strike is expected to close down the country’s foreign missions and totally paralyze the Israeli diplomatic system.

For the first time in the history of the State of Israel, 103 Israeli missions abroad will be completely closed for an indefinite period of time, as will the Foreign Ministry’s headquarters in Jerusalem.

The strike was called in protest of the employment conditions of Israeli diplomats and the Finance Ministry’s decision to cut their salaries over the renewed sanctions.

The Foreign Ministry’s workers’ union informed all employees in Israel and abroad by email and text messages that the general strike would begin at 3 P.M. on Sunday and instructed them to leave their workplaces immediately.

“Foreign Ministry headquarters will be closed to all activities. All workers in all positions are ordered to stay away from the office,” the committee said in a statement to all workers. “Israeli missions abroad will be closed as of Monday March 24. All workers in all positions are ordered to stay away from the missions.”

“The strike has no time limit and will continue as long as necessary,” the message to all ministry workers stated. “We instruct all employees to obey these instructions as written. We will be strong and together we will achieve our goals.”
Foreign Ministry sources said that the missions abroad would be completely closed and that security officers were instructed to prevent entrance to all, including officials from the defense ministry, the Israel Defense Forces, the Mossad, Shin Bet security service and other government ministries.

The Jerusalem headquarters will be locked over the course of the strike and entry will be denied to Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Deputy Foreign Minister Ze’ev Elkin and Director-General Nissim Ben-Sheetrit.

“The Treasury has declared a war-to-the-death against the Foreign Ministry of the State of Israel and the dedicated diplomats who fight for the rights of Israelis daily,” said Ya’akov Frumer, chairman of the Foreign Ministry workers committee.

“We will not accept the relentless disregard of finance ministry officials intent on sabotaging the essential interests of the state of Israel. These officials irresponsibly ignore the citizens of Israel and are destroying the country’s economy, its security and the future of us all with their bare hands.”

Lieberman called the strike a “miserable decision that shows a lack of sense.”

“There is no benefit to this at all,” he said, “It will only cause the Foreign Ministry employees more harm. It is unfortunate that these irresponsible steps are being taken at the expense of citizens of the state, as contacts are being made with the Finance Ministry and over the course of mediation… we will do everything possible to minimize the damage being caused to the state and its citizens.”

The exceptions committee dealing with requests by Israeli citizens or private companies affected by the action will continue to operate for the duration of the strike, but only for cases in which lives are in danger. The committee can be contacted at unionmfa@israel.org.

Under the sanctions declared two weeks ago, diplomats halted all consular services to Israelis, such as issuing passports or visas at Israeli missions overseas. They have also stopped handling official visits, whether by Israeli officials overseas or by foreign officials to Israel.

In response to the sanctions, the Treasury docked the salaries of Foreign Ministry employees. Following that, the workers’ union instructed administration officers at all foreign missions to continue paying for the housing of Israeli diplomats and to pay salary advances to all employees.

The Finance Ministry said in a statement that “the Foreign Ministry’s workers’ union has taken the citizens of Israel hostage and is damaging the vital interests of the state.”

“The Finance Ministry has offered solutions for the issues raised by the Foreign Ministry’s workers,” the statement said, “yet the union is demanding extra pay for high-ranking officials.” The workers, the treasury said, received a 20 percent pay raise two years ago. “The union refused to accept the solutions and unilaterally abandoned the resolution process headed by Judge Steve Adler. We call upon the union to stop taking belligerent steps and return to the mediation efforts.”

The labor dispute at the Foreign Ministry, which reached its climax over the summer and ended in mediation with the Finance Ministry, resumed this month with diplomats charging that Treasury representatives had failed to take the process seriously and had submitted “recycled” proposals that failed to solve the long-standing problems.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was forced last week to cancel what his office termed a “historic” visit to Latin America planned for April, after his bureau encountered many difficulties in making the necessary arrangements due to the diplomats’ sanctions, which include a blanket refusal to help cabinet ministers organize trips abroad.

The diplomats also refused to handle British Prime Minister David Cameron’s visit last week (though he came anyway), and are now refusing to cooperate on preparations for the pope’s visit to Israel in May. A Vatican delegation that was supposed to have visited Israel to work on the arrangements canceled its trip as a result, and it is now uncertain whether the pope’s visit will take place.

The diplomats have also stopped handling political appointments to ambassadorships, issuing diplomatic passports, transmitting diplomatic cables to intelligence and defense agencies, promoting economic and trade agreements and engaging in public diplomacy. Thus, for instance, Israeli missions abroad refused to disseminate any of the government’s talking points about the Iranian arms ship that Israel captured earlier this month, or to brief politicians and journalists in their host countries about it.

In addition, the diplomats have severed contact with UN institutions in New York, Geneva and Vienna, refusing even to attend Security Council debates or participate in votes. Consequently, Israel’s UN mission lodged no complaint with the UN sanctions committee on Iran over the capture of the Iranian arms ship, and without such a complaint, no international investigation can be opened on the matter.

Sabrina

24th March 2014, 11:07

German Customs Intercepts Cocaine-Filled Condoms Addressed to Vatican :)

From AP – March 23, 2014

http://tinyurl.com/m2dx8b4

German customs officials have intercepted a shipment of cocaine destined for the Vatican.

Weekly Bild am Sonntag reported that officers at Leipzig airport found 340 grams (12 ounces) of the drug packed into 14 condoms inside a shipment of cushions coming from South America in January.

Citing a German customs report. It said the package was simply addressed to the Vatican postal office, meaning any of the Catholic mini-state’s 800 residents could have picked it up.

The paper reported that a subsequent sting operation arranged with Vatican police failed to nab the intended recipient. No one claimed the package, indicating that he or she was tipped off about the plan. The drugs would have a street value of several tens of thousands of euros.

A spokesman for the German Finance Ministry, which oversees the customs office, confirmed the report. Prosecutors in Leipzig planned to issue a statement on Monday providing further details, Martin Chaudhuri said.

Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi confirmed that the Vatican police had cooperated with German police in an attempt to identify the traffickers. He said the investigation remained open.

Sabrina

27th March 2014, 12:14

China Currency Liberalisation to be a “Seismic Event”

By Wayne Cole, Reuters – March 26, 2014

http://tinyurl.com/lqu78hf

(Reuters) – China realising its ambitions to internationalise the yuan is likely to be a “seismic event” for global markets, leading to large capital flows and perhaps a new reserve currency, a top Australian central banker said on Wednesday.

Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) Deputy Governor Philip Lowe said the process had some way to go yet but that Beijing had signalled its seriousness by last week widening the trading band for the yuan, also known as the renminbi (RMB).

“The internationalisation of the RMB – and China’s associated move towards a liberalised capital account and more flexible exchange-rate regime – has the potential to create a seismic shift in the international monetary and financial landscape,” Lowe said in a speech to the Centre for International Finance and Regulation (CIFR) conference in Sydney.
“History teaches us that financial deregulation is an inherently risky process, but that there are substantial payoffs if it is done well,” he added.

An eventual freeing up of the capital account would likely lead to significant flows of Chinese funds offshore and greater demand for products with which to hedge foreign currency risk, Lowe said.

A new report from the Australian government-sponsored CIFR said China’s 10-year timeline for substantial liberalisation of its financial system could be accelerated if the current Shanghai Free Trade Zone “experiment” is successful.
“Once capital controls have been removed and interest rates and the exchange rate are market determined, the structure of the RMB market – and indeed of global capital markets – will look quite different,” said the report’s authors, Kathleen Walsh, Geoff Weir and Barry Eichengreen.

The renminbi would become one of the most widely traded global currencies, and mainland China’s equity market could be the largest in the world, with a capitalisation of around $30 trillion, the report said. China’s bond market could be the global No.2 behind the United States and equal to the entire euro zone.

“The RMB is likely to be a significant part of central bank foreign exchange reserves and RMB government securities may well become the main alternative “safe asset” to U.S. Treasuries, with important implications for global capital flows and financial stability,” it added.

Deregulation would not be without risks, particularly as China’s financial sector was already very large relative to its economy.

But Australia’s experience with floating its currency showed there were substantial benefits, including greater control of monetary policy, RBA’s Lowe added.

China is already Australia’s biggest single trading partner, taking over a third of its exports – mostly commodities such as iron ore and coal.

A freeing up of China’s financial system could also be a boon for Australian banks and fund managers, opening up increased investment opportunities within China and helping to manage Chinese flows into Australia.

“In Australia’s case, our very close trading ties with China, our funds management expertise, our natural endowments in sectors of strategic importance to China and our ongoing need for overseas capital to help fund investment all suggest considerable scope for building much closer and mutually beneficial financial ties between the two countries,” Walsh said.

¤=[Post Update]=¤

Vatican Removes ‘Bishop of Bling’ Who Spent $43 Million on Luxury House

From Al-Jazeera – March 27, 2014

http://tinyurl.com/qagv3t9

The Vatican has removed a German bishop because he spent $43m of Church funds on an extravagant residence when Pope Francis was preaching austerity.

Announcing the decision on Wednesday, the Vatican said the atmosphere in the diocese of Limburg had become such that Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst could no longer carry out a “fruitful exercise” of his ministry there.

Tebartz-van Elst has apologised for any “carelessness or misjudgement on my part”, but he denies any wrongdoing. Dubbed the “bishop of bling”, the bishop had been ordered to stay out of his diocese temporarily last October during a local Church investigation and audit of cost over-runs.

He offered his resignation at the time.

A statement said the Vatican department that oversees bishops had now studied the investigation’s findings and accepted his resignation.

The 108-page report for the German Bishops’ Conference said Tebartz-van Elst had demanded that all those involved in the project should observe “strict secrecy” about its costs.

New prelate named
It said the accounting and construction procedures used “a system that was not transparent either to the diocese or the public”, adding that the bishop “alone must also carry the full responsibility” because he did not share information.

Another prelate, Monsignor Manfred Grothe, has been appointed to run the diocese as an administrator on the Vatican’s behalf for the time being and a position will be found for Tebartz-van Elst in due course, the Vatican said.

Pope Francis has been urging Church officials around the world to live simpler lives and to get closer to the poor.
He has several times told bishops not to live like princes and has renounced the spacious papal apartments in the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace for much more modest quarters in a Church guest house.

Last year, Francis showed his irritation over the affair by keeping Tebartz-van Elst waiting for eight days in Rome before receiving him in the Vatican.

German media, citing official documents, said the Limburg residence had been fitted with a free-standing bath that cost $20,000, a conference table that cost $35,000 and a private chapel for $4m.

“It is very important for the Church in all of Germany to draw the necessary conclusions … this applies especially to transparency in Church finances,” said Alois Glueck, president of the Central Committee of German Catholics, the main lay association in Germany.

ThePythonicCow

28th March 2014, 18:33

From JPM’s Top Commercial Bankruptcy Lawyer Dead in a Minivan Hit & Run (SilverDoctors.com) (http://www.silverdoctors.com/another-jpm-banker-dead-in-a-minivan-hit-run/):

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The banker suicide saga has just reached a new level as a top level JPMorgan attorney has been exterminated in a hit & run incident involving a minivan.

JPM attorney Joseph Giampapa was killed over the weekend when he was struck by a minivan in a hit and run incident. Giampapa was reportedly hit and thrown 150 ft and was pronounced dead at the scene. No charges have been filed.

It gets better: Giampapa was JPMorgan’s top commercial bankruptcy lawyer (SVP).
Somehow we suspect the incident was not inflicted by a soccer mom.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

aviators

28th March 2014, 20:44

Octavusprime

28th March 2014, 22:56

Here is the story from the local news cited in Pauls link:

The Columbus Dispatch
Bill Bush

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2014/03/24/veteran-cyclist-knew-the-dangers-all-too-well.html

Giampapa was biking north on Troy-Sidney Road, near Loy Road, outside of Piqua just after 11 a.m. Saturday when a minivan struck him from behind, Miami County Deputy Todd Tennant said. Giampapa was pronounced dead at the scene.

The minivan driver, Thomas G. Davis, 78, was at fault, Tennant said, but charges haven’t been filed.

Tennant said charges are pending the outcome of a blood toxicology test. But it didn’t appear as though Davis was intoxicated, he added. All of the evidence eventually will be given to a grand jury, Tennant said, but possibly not until May, depending on how long it takes for the blood samples to be processed.

Giampapa’s friends were at a loss about why he was hit.

“It wasn’t a blind turn,” said David Roderick of Athens, who helped organize the 200-kilometer (124.3-mile) event from Springfield to Quincy to Troy and back that Giampapa was participating in.

“It wasn’t on a hill,” Roderick said. “You could see riders for a very long distance.”

Couldn't find anything on the driver. Wonder if Bill Bush the author is part of The Bush family...

Sabrina

29th March 2014, 06:47

More here on the latest banker death.

http://intellihub.com/jp-morgan-bankruptcy-lawyer-killed-van-biking-13th-banker-dead/

28 March

JP Morgan lawyer killed by van while riding bike, 13th finance industry death

JP Morgan attorney was killed after he was struck by a minivan while riding his bike, the 13th suspicious death to hit the industry since January

By John Vibes

COLUMBUS, OHIO (INTELLIHUB) — A high level JP Morgan bankruptcy attorney has been killed in an incident involving a man who has not been charged with a crime. The incident was initially reported as a hit and run, but days later the local police claimed that a suspect had immediately turned himself in.

JP Morgan lawyer Joseph Giampapa, age 56, was reportedly hit by a minivan and thrown 150 ft, he was later pronounced dead at the scene. Giampapa was biking north on Troy-Sidney Road, near Loy Road, outside of Piqua, in Ohio, just after 11 a.m. on Saturday, when the minivan struck him from behind, Miami County Deputy Todd Tennant said.

The alleged minivan driver, 78 year old Thomas G. Davis, was at fault, but charges haven’t been filed, Tennant said.

Originally this story was reported as a hit and run, but then days later news sources began reporting that the 78 year old man immediately called police after running him over.

“It wasn’t a blind turn,” said David Roderick, a fellow cyclist who was friends with Giampapa.

“It wasn’t on a hill,” Roderick said. “You could see riders for a very long distance.”

“Joe was an extremely accomplished cyclist a responsible cyclist and that’s what makes this tragedy so mind numbing,” said Jeff Stephens, another friend of Giampapa. “That road that Joe was on was flat. No trees. It was just wide open visibility.”

Mainstream media sources are only mentioning his close affiliation with JP Morgan in passing, giving it only a sentence or two of coverage. Meanwhile, they are dedicating paragraphs and entire articles to his involvement in cycling and windsurfing.

The fact that he was worked for JP Morgan was listed in:

His Obituary (under Chase)

His lawyer profile

JP Morgan outside counsel manual

String of suspicious deaths: (Intellihub’s running list continues)

1 – William Broeksmit, 58-year-old former senior executive at Deutsche Bank AG, was found dead in his home after an apparent suicide in South Kensington in central London, on January 26th.

2- Karl Slym, 51 year old Tata Motors managing director Karl Slym, was found dead on the fourth floor of the Shangri-La hotel in Bangkok on January 27th.

3 – Gabriel Magee, a 39-year-old JP Morgan employee, died after falling from the roof of the JP Morgan European headquarters in London on January 27th.

4 – Mike Dueker, 50-year-old chief economist of a US investment bank was found dead close to the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Washington State.

5 – Richard Talley, the 57 year old founder of American Title Services in Centennial, Colorado, was found dead earlier this month after apparently shooting himself with a nail gun.

6 -Tim Dickenson, a U.K.-based communications director at Swiss Re AG, also died last month, however the circumstances surrounding his death are still unknown.

7 – Ryan Henry Crane, a 37 year old executive at JP Morgan died in an alleged suicide just a few weeks ago. No details have been released about his death aside from this small obituary announcement at the Stamford Daily Voice.

8 - Li Junjie, 33-year-old banker in Hong Kong jumped from the JP Morgan HQ in Hong Kong this week.

9 - James Stuart Jr, Former National Bank of Commerce CEO dies suddenly in Arizona with no explanation.

10 – Autumn Radtke, the 28 year old, American chief executive of Singapore-based virtual currency company First Meta, died mysteriously of an apparent suicide.

11 - Edmund (Eddie) Reilly, 47, a trader at Midtown’s Vertical Group, jumped in front of an LIRR train at 6 a.m. near the Syosset train station.

12 - Kenneth Bellando, 28, a JP Morgan investment banker was found dead on March 12th after reportedly jumping from the roof of his apartment.

13 – Joseph Giampapa, 56, a JP Morgan bankruptcy attorney was killed when his bike was struck by a minivan. The killer allegedly confessed but no charges were filed.

Sabrina

29th March 2014, 07:00

Interestingly, I hear Barclays has pretty suddenly shelved a new security software project which some have been to commissioned to work on for some time… S.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/03/28/uk-britain-regulator-banks-idUKBREA2R0VB20140328?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2FUKDomesticNews+%28News+%2F+UK+%2F+Domestic+News%29

28 March UK

Regulators to review banks' IT systems after network crashes

(Reuters) - Britain's financial regulators will examine whether computer systems used by the country's banks and building societies are fit for purpose, after a succession of problems which left millions of customers unable to get any cash.

Royal Bank of Scotland customers could not make or receive payments in March 2013, which followed a fault nine months earlier that cost 175 million pounds to rectify and prompted the lender's chief executive to waive his bonus.

Separately tens of thousands of Lloyds customers were unable to use their debit cards and ATM cash machines for several hours on a Sunday in January.

The Financial Conduct Authority, the Bank of England and its Prudential Regulation Authority will launch the review to be concluded by early 2015, the FCA said in a statement on Friday.

"To access and manage our money we depend on the banks' IT systems to be reliable. But IT outages continue, interrupting key banking services," Clive Adamson, FCA director of supervision, said.

"We want to make sure that the banks have resilient IT systems in place that are able to cope with consumer demand, so customers aren't left financially stranded or disadvantaged," Adamson added.

The investigation will also look at how engaged boards at banks are with the issue of IT resilience and whether they have the expertise needed to challenge the decisions taken by the executive.

The probe follows letters sent by regulators to the chairmen of the nine biggest banks and building societies in 2012, asking how resilient their computer systems are and what concerns they have, the FCA said.

The review will assess what progress has been made so far by the banks and whether more needs to be done.

Andy Haldane, a senior official at the Bank, has suggested a common network for the banks to ensure adequate investment and make it easier for competition in banking to flourish, a step Lloyds Banking has said would turn any fault into a network-wide failure.

Must be the new white hats' network….:)

Sabrina

29th March 2014, 07:08

There's a thread on this, but just for the record more bizarre military dismissals… not sure I'd hire their spin doctor - or is he/her deliberately implausible?

Nine Nuclear Base Commanders Fired from US Air Force Over Cheating Scandal

By Greg Botelho, CNN - March 27, 2014 -

http://tinyurl.com/l5qgtsv

Washington (CNN) — Nine Air Force commanders lost their jobs in the wake of a cheating scandal involving systemic cheating on tests by officers in the U.S. nuclear missile program, officials from that military branch said Thursday.

The fired officers were in “leadership positions” at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana, Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said. Though not directly involved in cheating, “they failed to provide adequate oversight of their crew force,” according to James.

In addition, Col. Robert Stanley — head of the 341st Missile Wing and a 25-year veteran — “relinquished command” and submitted his resignation Thursday morning, said Lt. Gen. Stephen Wilson, the commander of the Air Force’s Global Strike Command.

“Leadership’s focus on perfection led commanders to micromanage their people,” said Wilson, pointing to pressure to get 100% scores on monthly proficiency exams when only 90% was necessary to pass. “… Leaders lost sight of the fact that execution in the field is more important than what happens in the classroom.”

James said Thursday that 100 lower-level officers were at one point implicated in the ordeal — having either been accused directly of cheating or having looked the other way. Nine of those have been cleared and will be allowed to return to duty, while others could face punishments ranging from letters of counseling to courts-martial on various charges.

These disciplinary measures are only part of the response, however. James and Wilson both referred to a number of changes to address this incident as well as far-reaching issues with morale, micromanagement and more among those in the Air Force’s intercontinental ballistic missile program.

“The issues that we have before us today are tough, and they didn’t come overnight,” said James. “… While we have progress in certain areas in recent years, there is more work to be done.”

Military investigators stumbled into the cheating scandal while looking into alleged drug activity involving airmen. Three of their targets in the drug probe happened to work as missile crew members at Malmstrom, which is how investigators got access to their cell phones — and “found test material on them,” according to Wilson.

Authorities previously said the cheating took place last August and September at the Montana base, with officers using texts and pictures to cheat on their proficiency exams.

But Wilson said Thursday that such behavior actually went well beyond that, having occurred as far back as November 2011 and as recently as November 2013.

The whole Malmstrom scheme centered on four individuals, three of whom were being investigated in the drug probe, according to Wilson.

“If we would have removed those, then this incident probably would never have happened,” he added.

About 190 officers oversee the readiness of nuclear weapons systems at the Montana base, meaning the episode tainted a large percentage of that force in some way. James said she found worrisome not just that airmen cheated directly, but that no one — whether or not they were directly involved — spoke up.

The Air Force officials said investigators didn’t find any indication of similar cheating on other bases tied to the missile program, though they pointed to common issues elsewhere when it comes to the program’s management.

To that end, Wilson said he has a list of “400 action items” to possible address those issues. Some are simple, like grading the monthly proficiency on a simple pass/fail metric. Others are more complicated, though all have a common aim of ensuring the nuclear weapons program is run smartly and effectively by satisfied, capable military personnel with high integrity.

“Our nation demands and deserves the higher standards of accountability from the force entrusted with the most powerful weapon on the planet,” Wilson said. “We are committed to living up to those standards.”

Sabrina

29th March 2014, 07:15

Love this story.. it appears the inconvenient truths keeps coming to the surface - they don't say if those present were all Turkish, or were other puppet masters involved?

Twitter Gone, Now Turkey Bans YouTube After Syria Leak

By Deborah Lutterbeck, AFP – March 28, 2014

http://tinyurl.com/mfblybb

Turkey has banned YouTube after the video-sharing website was used to spread damaging leaked audio files from a state security meeting that discussed possible military action in Syria.

The recordings purport to show senior Turkish government, military and spy officials discussing plans to stage an armed clash in Syria or a missile attack that would serve as a pretext for a military response.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan — already ensnared in a corruption scandal and hit by a series of street protests ahead of crucial local elections on Sunday — angrily lashed out at his political opponents for leaking the recording.

“They have leaked something on YouTube today,” he told a campaign rally in the southeastern province of Diyarbakir.
“It was a meeting on our national security. It is a vile, cowardly, immoral act. We will go into their caves. Who are you serving by eavesdropping?”

Erdogan did not mention his foe by name, but he has in the past used the “cave” reference for his former ally-turned-nemesis, US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, whose movement has many followers in the Turkish police and judiciary.

The premier last week banned Twitter, sparking international condemnation, after the microblogging service was used to spread a spate of other audio files implicating Erdogan and his inner circle in corruption.

An Ankara court on Wednesday overturned that ruling as a limit on free speech.

Turkey’s telecommunications regulator TIB has 30 days to appeal the decision, and Twitter has yet to be restored.
Yesterday’s YouTube leak is the first to focus on national security.

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu labelled it “a declaration of war against the Turkish state and nation”.

TIB said it was responding to the government ruling by blocking YouTube on the grounds of a “primary threat against national security,” private NTV television reported.

The audio recording, which could not be independently verified, features a voice that sounds like that of Turkey’s spy chief Hakan Fidan saying: “If needed, we will launch an attack there.” The voice also talks about dispatching “four men” and launching missiles, adding: “It is not a problem. A justification can be fabricated.”

The discussion also focuses on a historic site inside war-torn Syria that is technically part of Turkish national territory under a historic treaty.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militant group has threatened to attack the site — a tomb of Suleyman Shah, grandfather of Ottoman Empire founder Osman — which is located in Aleppo province.

ThePythonicCow

29th March 2014, 08:47

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan — already ensnared in a corruption scandal and hit by a series of street protests ahead of crucial local elections on Sunday — angrily lashed out at his political opponents for leaking the recording.

“They have leaked something on YouTube today,” he told a campaign rally in the southeastern province of Diyarbakir.
“It was a meeting on our national security. It is a vile, cowardly, immoral act."

What the above Australian News report (http://www.theaustralian.com.au/in-depth/middle-east-in-turmoil/turkey-bans-youtube-after-syria-leak/story-fn7ycml4-1226867317146) leaves out is what was leaked. That was the really vile, cowardly, immoral act.

From Proof of Turkish False Flag (OpEdNews.com) (http://www.opednews.com/articles/Proof-of-Turkish-False-Fla-by-Michael-Collins-False-Flag-Attacks_Recep-Tayyip-Erdogan_Syria-Revolution_Turkey-140327-815.html):

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government was caught planning a false flag attack on ISIL rebels in Syria according to audio recordings (with translation) released today on YouTube. Erdogan warned Syria that any attacks on the shrine to an 11th century religious figure revered by Turks would cause a military response by Turkey. The shrine is located just inside Syria on the border with Turkey. There are no reports that any party in Syria has attacked the shrine. (Syrian False Flag, Mar 24)

A false flag operation could mobilized much needed support for Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP), which is facing major challenges in March 30 local elections. Since December 17, audio tapes of secret wiretaps exposed criminal behavior by Erdogan and his cronies. The PM's response has been varied but a clue to the desperation came when Erdogan said that he would be vindicated of all charges when his party received an endorsement from the people in the elections, now just days away.~~~~~~~~~~~~

There's more details at the above link.

For those who prefer Youtube, here's Abby Martin speaking on RT.com:
HBk0HGfI_wM

Here's a full transcript of the leaked conversation: Turkey YouTube Ban: Full Transcript of Leaked Syria 'War' Conversation Between Erdogan Officials (International Business Times) (http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/turkey-youtube-ban-full-transcript-leaked-syria-war-conversation-between-erdogan-officials-1442161)

From Turkish Leaders ADMIT to Planning False Flag Terror to Justify a War with Syria (Infowars.com) (http://www.infowars.com/turkish-political-and-military-leaders-admit-to-planning-false-flag-terror-to-justify-a-war-with-syria/), here are some of "the most damning sections":

Ahmet Davutolu: “Prime Minister said that in current conjuncture, this attack (on Suleiman Shah Tomb) must be seen as an opportunity for us.”

Hakan Fidan: “I’ll send 4 men from Syria, if that’s what it takes. I’ll make up a cause of war by ordering a missile attack on Turkey; we can also prepare an attack on Suleiman Shah Tomb if necessary.”

Feridun Sinirliolu: “Our national security has become a common, cheap domestic policy outfit.”

Ya?ar Güler: “It’s a direct cause of war. I mean, what’re going to do is a direct cause of war.”

Sabrina

29th March 2014, 21:28

http://itccs.org/2014/03/29/urgent-public-communique-and-update-from-the-international-common-law-court-of-justice-trial-of-pope-francis-the-jesuits-and-the-anglicans-to-commence-april-7/

Urgent Public Communique and Update from The International Common Law Court of Justice — Trial of Pope Francis, the Jesuits and the Anglicans to commence April 7

Urgent Public Communique and Update from The International Common Law Court of Justice

Issued under the auspices of The International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State (ITCCS)

Saturday, March 29, 2014 , 8 am GMT

Enclosed:

1. The Trial of Pope Francis, the Jesuits and the Anglicans to commence April 7 with Opening Presentation by the Prosecutor’s Office – The Court establishes tighter security after a Vatican-sponsored “black ops” disruption team is dispatched to Brussels.

2. A Public Information Agency is established to publicly disclose the Prosecutor’s evidence during the trial – The first report of the Agency follows.

3. Children’s remains and records ordered destroyed by Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, acting for Queen Elizabeth – Mass graves of trafficked children are identified in Canada, Holland and the United States, and are linked to the Ninth Circle sacrificial cult.

The Secretariat of the Court has today released the following public statement:

Jorge Bergoglio (aka “Pope Francis”), Adolfo Pachon (Jesuit Superior General) and Justin Welby (Archbishop of Canterbury) will stand trial in absentia on Monday, April 7 after refusing to challenge or deny the criminal charges made against them in the Trial Division of the Common Law Court of Justice in Brussels.

The Prosecutor’s Office will commence its case against these three chief defendants on that day and will present evidence linking them to the trafficking, torture and death of children, and to the concealment of these crimes.

The Court has delayed the opening of the trial by one week, from its original commencement on March 31, after it received confirmation that a covert operations team has been dispatched by the Vatican to disrupt and destroy the work of the Court. The team consists of paid agents of the so-called “Holy Alliance”, the Jesuit-run spying and assassination agency responsible for the silencing and murder of papal opponents.

The Court has accordingly established new security arrangements for its members and especially its key public spokesman, Reverend Kevin Annett, ITCCS Field Secretary. The Court’s initial sessions will be closed, and conducted at an undisclosed location. However, the Prosecution’s evidence presented to the Court will be made public during the trial through a newly-established Public Information Agency attached to the Chief Prosecutor’s Office.

The first announcement from this Agency follows. See www.itccs.org and www.iclcj.com for further updates.

ICLCJ Communique 29 March, 2014

Brussels

Sabrina

30th March 2014, 06:39

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2591299/How-vampire-squid-controlling-lives-They-helped-cause-crash-Then-profited-Now-Bank-England-Fed-ex-Goldman-Sachs-chiefs-pulling-levers-power.html

(and this is from the middle England Daily Mail in the UK by the way - love it that some of the main stream media are starting to print this:))….

How the vampire squid is controlling our lives: They helped cause the crash. Then profited from it. Now, from the Bank of England to the Fed, ex-Goldman Sachs chiefs are pulling the levers of power

By ALEX BRUMMER

Amid the recent management shake-up at the top of the Bank of England, as it was dragged into the investigation of the alleged fixing of the £3 trillion-a-day foreign-exchange markets, one crucial appointment went almost unnoticed.

While public attention was understandably focused on an Egyptian-born mother of twins becoming only the second female deputy governor of the bank, the far more influential appointment was that of economist Ben Broadbent.

As the new deputy governor for monetary policy, he is now the predominant voice on the future direction of interest rates.

His work will have a huge effect on the lives of the British people, for he will have a key role in deciding when the record five years of super-low mortgage rates will end — a decision that will inevitably lead to home-owners facing considerably bigger monthly bills.

But there is one crucial fact that should concern us about the Cambridge and Harvard-educated Broadbent: he spent a decade during the boom-and-bust years as the senior economist at the global headquarters of the investment bank Goldman Sachs.

He joins an elite few who hold senior positions in the world’s most powerful central banks — from London to New York, Frankfurt and beyond — and all of whom come from this one company, which was controversially described by Rolling Stone magazine as ‘a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money’.

The fact that so many alumni of the world’s most profitable — as well as most ruthless and cunning — investment bank wield such a level of influence in these central banks is nothing short of remarkable.
Because Goldman Sachs is an institution that, as I will explain, not only helped cause the financial crisis in 2008, but also profited from it — hugely enriching its own staff while leaving a trail of chaos for taxpayers to clear up.

Goldman Sachs is an institution that, as I will explain, not only helped cause the financial crisis in 2008, but also profited from it — hugely enriching its own staff while leaving a trail of chaos for taxpayers to clear up

Do we really want one of the most controversial financial institutions on the planet, which was eventually fined a record £343 million for shamelessly misleading investors during the crisis, to have so many of its ex-staff holding the levers of power in the City of London?

What makes the choice of Broadbent an issue of major public concern is that his period at Goldman saw the New York investment firm deeply embroiled in some of the most shocking financial scandals of recent years.

First, there was the crisis triggered by the sub-prime mortgage disaster, when vast quantities of loans were made by U.S. banks to homeowners who could never pay them back.

This reached disaster point in 2007-8, once the loans had been sold on by banks and institutions around the world — by which time they had been packaged up as financial instruments or ‘derivatives’ so complicated that no one could tell how toxic they were.

Goldman Sachs played a key part in inventing these poisonous derivatives, which were a major factor in triggering the financial crisis.

But even more morally offensive was that once people finally began to realise how dangerous these derivatives were, Goldman Sachs started making money by speculating in the market that they would collapse in value.

So not only did the bank help create the crisis, it also profited from it.

It was the same Goldman Sachs that, during the financial crisis in 2008, when, like all financial institutions, its shares were falling, accepted a $10 billion bailout from the U.S. government.

Handily, many of its former staff — such as Hank Paulson, who was then U.S. Treasury Secretary — happened to be in key posts in the government when the decision was made.

Then there is the fact that Goldman Sachs reportedly arranged with the Right-wing Greek government to present the national accounts in the best possible light so that Greece could join the Eurozone in 2001. The bank was subsequently involved in elaborate schemes that masked the true horror of the country’s public debt crisis, which saw Greece having to be bailed out by the EU and left in economic ruins.

Despite this, Goldman bosses were able to pick up $111 million in bonuses soon afterwards, which were understandably branded an outrage as they were awarded during the worst recession for 80 years — one that had mainly been caused by irresponsible bank behaviour.

Influence in high places, though, did not stop Goldman from being heavily fined by the Wall Street regulator, the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC), in 2010 for selling dodgy complex securities, based on sub-prime mortgages, to clients including the hapless Royal Bank of Scotland.

What makes the behaviour of Goldman Sachs so shameless is the arrogance with which it has sought to protect its reputation and the claims its bosses like to make for its integrity.

The group’s chairman and chief executive, the smiling and fast-talking former trader Lloyd Blankfein, stunned everyone last year when he offensively boasted — amid Goldman’s return to fat profits — that the bank was doing ‘God’s work’.

Perhaps it is this arrogance that enables former Goldman executives, such as Ben Broadbent at the Bank of England, to rise ineffably to the very top jobs in international finance.

With the approval of Chancellor George Osborne, 49-year-old Broadbent was plucked from his relatively obscure role as an external member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee and promoted over the head of the Old Lady’s best and brightest internal prospects.

His elevation to the top economic role at Britain’s central bank means he will now be making the crucial interest rate, inflation and growth forecasts for the Bank’s quarterly Inflation Report — on which key decisions are made that affect millions of people.

Broadbent’s promotion must have seemed the most natural thing in the world to the Bank of England’s Canadian governor Mark Carney.

Carney, after all, is himself an Old Goldmanite and a member of the most exclusive club in world economic policy-making — much more influential than David Cameron’s kitchen cabinet of Old Etonians.

Carney spent the largest stretch of his career — from 1990 to 2003 — working for Goldman Sachs in Tokyo, New York and London.

The choice of Goldman bankers for senior roles at the Bank of England is a novel development for an institution that has always frowned on any suggestions of dual loyalty or conflicts of interest.

When Gordon Brown was Chancellor (from 1997 to 2007), he steadfastly refused to appoint the person many regarded as the most talented economist of his generation, Gavyn Davies, as governor of the Bank of England.

Brown feared a political backlash because of Davies’s role as the millionaire chief global economist at Goldman Sachs, and the fact that his wife, Sue Nye, was a special assistant to the Chancellor.

However, despite 13 years in a variety of roles at Goldman, and a successful stint as governor of the Bank of Canada, Carney was given not only the Bank of England role but also the job of chairman of the Financial Stability Board.

This is the body established by the G20 committee of rich and emerging market nations to try to reform global banking — including the rapacious bonus culture — in the aftermath of the 2007-9 credit crunch.
Indeed, Old Goldmanites seem to be everywhere. When Broadbent and Carney meet fellow central bankers, there will be a number of familiar faces around the table.

The chairman of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, who is credited with rescuing Euroland from total implosion with his promise to do ‘whatever it takes’ to save the euro, is another former Goldman Sachs banker.

Arguably, he is the most powerful figure in European finance, having forced Euroland interest rates down to rock-bottom levels and bought the government bonds of Europe’s struggling ‘Club Med’ economies before exchanging them for cash.

He is now trying to tackle Europe’s near-bankrupt banking system.

In the U.S., there is the amiable Bill Dudley, the former head of U.S. economics at Goldman, who is now president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the operating arm of America’s central bank.

Goldman boss Lloyd Blankfein once explained to me that one of the advantages of paying Goldman Sachs’s bankers so lavishly — they sit at the top of the bankers’ pay league — was that the ‘partners’ can retire young and very rich, and then go off to jobs in the public service.

There is, however, a deeply disturbing paradox in the fact that Goldman bankers are now effectively running the world’s monetary system.

The Goldman culture of creating ever-more complex securities and trades, coupled with absurdly high pay and bonuses as incentives for the bank’s workforce, were at the very core of the financial crisis that brought the world to the brink of economic collapse and led to a long period of painful austerity.

None of these former Goldman economists and executives, who are now the overlords of the global economy, seems to have predicted the fact that the world was sitting on a financial time-bomb.

It seems very strange that when there are so many talented economic thinkers, Nobel prize winners and lifelong central bankers to be called upon, it is nearly always Goldmanites that carry off the plum jobs.
Allowing such a cultish group to control the levers of global finance shows, I would suggest, a worrying lack of imagination and judgment by the ruling class of politicians that appointed them.

The concentration of such huge economic power in the hands of a small cabal of economists and financiers, drawn from such a narrow pool of interests, is deeply unhealthy.

However honourable the motives of this group, there remains a fear that when the next crisis comes — as it inevitably will — their concern to protect their cronies in the banking world will take precedence over their responsibility to look after the long-suffering public.

28 March

Just one reader's comment"

TB, Farnham, United Kingdom, 19 hours ago

Kudos to the Mail Editorial team, for having the courage to publish this article! Let's hope that this article does not "disappear" like the FT's Gold Market Manipulation article.

Sabrina

30th March 2014, 06:52

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tory-mp-mark-menzies-resigns-3300512

29 March

Top Tory MP resigns as Ministerial aide following claims he paid male escort for sex and drugs

A top Tory MP resigned as a Ministerial aide tonight after a Sunday Mirror investigation into claims he paid a teenage rent boy for sex and drugs.

Mark Menzies, 42, quit his post as a Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) over allegations made by a Brazilian male escort.

Rogerio Santos claimed Mr Menzies, 42, paid for his services 18 months ago, before showing him around Parliament.

The 19-year-old then claims the MP asked him to supply him with illegal methedrone.

His allegations led to Mr Menzies dramatically quitting last night as a Parliamentary Private Secretary with the Department for International Development.

He said: "I have decided to resign as a PPS after a series of allegations were made against me in a Sunday newspaper."

We were contacted by Santos in a series of emails last week in which he openly admitted being a rent boy.

He told us: "I have been having sex with a Conservative MP for money.

"Mark also asked me to buy methedrone.

"I have personal messages of him talking to me about drugs."

more at link

and

http://www.aangirfan.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/politicians-and-rent-boys.html

30 March

POLITICIANS AND RENT BOYS

story at link

Sabrina

30th March 2014, 08:45

http://goldenageofgaia.com/2014/03/29/germany-uk-jump-at-chance-to-be-offshore-hubs-for-liberalised-seismic-chinese-currency/

Germany, UK Jump at Chance to be Offshore Hubs for Liberalised, ‘Seismic’ Chinese Currency

Stephen: The prediction was that the liberalisation of China’s currency would have an instant ‘seismic effect’ (http://goldenageofgaia.com/2014/03/27/china-currency-liberalisation-to-be-a-seismic-event/). It has. Now the rush is on to become what is called a ‘clearing house’ for the currency (known as both the yuan and the renminbi is on. Germany is already on board and the UK will follow this week.

Germany’s Bundesbank, PBOC Sign Accord to Make Frankfurt Yuan Hub

By Angela Cullen and Weixin Zha, Bloomberg – March 29, 2014

http://tinyurl.com/mmp7448

Germany’s Bundesbank and the People’s Bank of China agreed to cooperate in the clearing and settling of payments in renminbi, paving the way for Frankfurt to corner a share of the offshore market.

The central banks signed a memorandum of understanding in Berlin today, when Chinese President Xi Jinping met German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the Frankfurt-based Bundesbank said in an e-mailed statement.

Germany’s financial capital prevailed over Paris and Luxembourg in a euro-area race to win trade in renminbi, which overtook the euro to become the second-most used currency in global trade finance in October, according to the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication. The U.K. Treasury said on March 26 that the Bank of England would sign an initial agreement with the PBOC on March 31 to clear and settle yuan transactions in London.

“Frankfurt is one of Europe’s foremost financial centers and home to two central banks, making it a particularly suitable location,” said Joachim Nagel, a member of the Bundesbank’s executive board. “Renminbi clearing will strengthen the close economic and financial ties between Germany and the People’s Republic of China.”

China is loosening exchange-rate controls in an overhaul of its $9 trillion economy. The accord follows the establishment of a 350 billion-yuan ($56 billion) and 45 billion-euro ($62 billion) bilateral swap line between the PBOC and the ECB in October, bolstering access to trade finance in the euro area.

Clearing Bank
A clearing bank will be designated to clear and settle the trades, the Bundesbank said.

Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd., Bank of China Ltd., Bank of Communications Co., Agricultural Bank of China Ltd. and China Construction Bank Corp. are Chinese banks with branches in Frankfurt.

“The establishment of renminbi clearing in Frankfurt is a major step forward for the export-oriented German Mittelstand,” said Wolfgang Kirsch, the chief executive officer of DZ Bank AG, referring to the thousands of small and medium-sized companies that form the backbone of Germany’s economy.

“Institutional investors will also benefit from the improved access to renminbi trade.”

China was Germany’s third-biggest foreign trade partner last year, with 140 billion euros in turnover passing between the two countries, according to the Federal Statistics Office in Wiesbaden. China ranks fifth among importers of German goods and is the second-biggest exporter to Germany.

Closer Ties
Deutsche Boerse AG, which operates the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, also signed an agreement with Bank of China, expanding a partnership that will make it easier for Chinese issuers and Asian investors to access European capital markets, including stock listings.

In a sign of closer economic ties between the two countries, China plans to open a fourth consulate in Germany this weekend in Dusseldorf, according to the city’s local chamber of commerce. About 800 Chinese companies have bases in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s industrial heartland. More than 300 of those are in Dusseldorf, where about 2,700 Chinese live, according to the city.

German companies including Siemens AG, the country’s biggest engineering company, and Volkswagen AG are embracing the renminbi internally as a third currency for cross-border trade settlements.

“The potential is vast,” said Stefan Harfich, the Siemens Financial Services manager, who steered the introduction of the yuan at the Munich-based company in October. “The introduction of the renminbi as an official company currency will therefore have a big impact on Siemens’s business in the coming years.”
Daimler AG, the Mercedes manufacturer that sold 235,644 autos in China last year, issued 500 million yuan of one-year notes in Asia’s largest economy on March 14, in the first so-called panda bond by an overseas non-financial company.

Peoples Bank fo China logoBOE to Sign Agreement With China on Yuan Clearing Next Week

By Lyubov Pronina, Bloomberg - Mar 27, 2014

http://tinyurl.com/l4yda74

The Bank of England and People’s Bank of China plan to sign an agreement next week to enable the clearing and settlement of yuan transactions in London as the U.K. seeks to become an offshore hub for trading the currency.

An initial agreement stipulating cooperation between the central banks will be signed March 31, the U.K. Treasury said in an e-mailed statement today. The accord will be the first of its kind outside Asia, according to Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, who said he is looking forward to the appointment of a clearing bank soon.

“Other Western countries will follow, but London now has the critical mass of infrastructure, helping to put Britain at the front of the global race,” Osborne said in the statement.

London is competing with European cities, including Paris, Frankfurt, Zurich and Luxembourg, to lure Chinese investment by becoming centers for yuan trading. The BOE in June became the first central bank in Europe to establish a currency-swap facility with the PBOC, supporting yuan traders by providing liquidity when needed.

More than 60 percent of yuan payments outside China are made in London, the Treasury said, citing SWIFT data. London asset managers can invest directly in Chinese stocks in the currency, unlike fund managers in other Western nations.

Boosting Links
Prime Minister David Cameron and Osborne have sought to boost trade with emerging-market economies, with both leading business delegations to China in 2013. Cameron and President Xi Jinping discussed cooperation between the two central banks in a meeting on sidelines of the Nuclear Security Summit in the Netherlands March 25.

“This is a positive step and is further evidence of the strong links between the BOE and the PBOC, underlining London’s importance in the internationalization” of the yuan, Jose-Luis Guerrero, global head of markets at HSBC Holdings Plc, said by e-mail today.

In December, the yuan overtook the euro to become the second-most used currency in global trade finance after the U.S. dollar, according to a report by HSBC, e-mailed today. It will become fully convertible in the next two to three years.

In the past two years, the offshore yuan has expanded beyond Hong Kong with deposits, trade settlement and bond denominations in Taiwan, Singapore and London. There are now more than 1.3 trillion yuan ($203 billion) in deposits across these markets, excluding funds invested in offshore bonds, HSBC said.

Frankfurt Rivalry
Osborne did not say when the clearing bank may be appointed. A London clearing bank would complement the main clearing and settlement infrastructure in Hong Kong by supporting efficient transfer of funds in the Western time zone, the Treasury said.

Xi may sign a letter of intent to establish Frankfurt as a trading center for yuan during a visit to Germany, WirtschaftsWoche magazine reported March 22, citing finance officials it didn’t identify. Xi is on a four-nation tour of Europe this week and is scheduled to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin on March 28.

The European Central Bank and the PBOC agreed to establish a bilateral currency swap line last October. China, the world’s second-largest economy, has similar agreements with countries including Australia, Turkey, Brazil, South Korea and Malaysia.

Sabrina

30th March 2014, 20:38

http://www.dailypaul.com/315530/iceland-dismantles-the-corrupt-then-arrests-ten-rothschild-bankers

Can't find this covered any where else at the moment, so not clear on the source. But Iceland does have a way of righting the wrongs...

28 March

Iceland Dismantles the Corrupt - Then Arrests Ten Rothschild Bankers

Submitted by ronb28135 on Fri, 03/28/2014 - 15:49

Hidden Knowledge

"The truth of the matter is… No one, except the Icelanders, have to been the only culture on the planet to carry out this successfully. Not only have they been successful, at overthrowing the corrupt Gov’t, they’ve drafted a Constitution, that will stop this from happening ever again.

"That’s not the best part… The best part, is that they have arrested ALL Rothschild/Rockefeller banking puppets, responsible for the Country’s economic Chaos and meltdown. Last week 9 people were arrested in London and Reykjavik for their possible responsibility for Iceland’s financial collapse in 2008, a deep crisis which developed into an unprecedented public reaction that is changing the country’s direction..."

"...Pressure from Icelandic citizens’ has managed not only to bring down a government, but also begin the drafting of a new constitution (in process) and is seeking to put in jail those bankers responsible for the financial crisis in the country."

"Sigurdur Einarsson, former chairman of the defunct Icelandic bank Kaupthing, was arrested in London at 5:30 this morning along with the bank’s biggest customer, Robert Tchenguiz, and five others in a joint operation by the UK Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and the Office of the Special Prosecutor in Iceland."

Sabrina

31st March 2014, 07:24

Am posting this from Project Camelot and Kerry Cassidy here as it sheds more light on Janet Napolitano's (rather quick?) exit from the US Dept. of Homeland Security.

PROJECT CAMELOT: ABEL DANGER RE FLIGHT 370, FALSE FLAGS
Published on 28 Mar 2014.

Video Link: http://youtu.be/azHQDceOJqU

This was originally a Live interview with Abel Danger: Field McConnell and David Hawkins on Thursday March 27th broadcast on the Camelot Livestream Channel! FLIGHT 370 AND FALSE FLAGS…

NOTE: Due to interference David Hawkins was not included after a certain point and another interview will be conducted with him next week on Tuesday also live on Livestream.

Available as a FREE EVENT but we do need and appreciate DONATIONS to keep us afloat and able to continue this work!

PREP / info to assist you beforehand:

Background Notes from Field McConnell :

David or I or both are articulate regarding the 5 false flags including Aurora, Cudahy, Sandy Hook, Boston and the one we BLOCKED in Atlanta Georgia set for 4 July, 2013 at the PEACH TREE ROAD RACE. [ google: peachtree + 4 july + cooked goose + atlanta burns ]

Our exposure of that event is what caused Janet Napolitano to depart DHS and caused Reuben Bradford to exit as Police Commissioner in Connecticut [ google: malloy + dmort V + hseep + crisis actors + vision box ]

Regarding videos suggest this 6 minute video is what stirred up the interest in Malaysia, China, Indonesia, Pakistan, and India:

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5C1a…

This video shows me performing at an airshow what is the lowest jet to jet air refueling ever performed. Not a boasting point but rather an indication of willingness and commitment. The aircraft installed at Canton TX [ vzcm.org ] is tail number 64-0965 and was in my unit from 1977-1990 and later was used by Airbus-EADS-Serco in drone to drone air refueling. Lots of pictures by googling [ field mcconnell's jet + images ]

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJEXA…

Website Link: http://www.abeldanger.net/

If David can do one or two hours, great, but I will be there with or without David. The Truth is coming and Boeing and Malaysia will like it but Serco and ALPA may well not. Keep in mind I exposed the illegal modifications to Boeings on 10 December, 2006. To see my letter to ALPA, Northwest, FAA, FBI, NTSB etc google this combo [ 10 December 2006 + clear the skies captain mcconnell ]

ALPA has been given a 30 day notice of my INTENT TO SUE.

The usps.com tracking number is 70111570000189992185 and I request that you post that as you will find your listeners enjoy watching the ‘real action’ live. Judge Rosemary M. Collyer of Washington DC District Court was also advised with same tracking number except last four 2185. It is my contention that ALPA perpetrated a FRAUD UPON THE COURT and that will be proven with two single sentences.

In the interest of fairness to those I accuse I have copied ALPA, FAA and NTSB as well as DHS.

Best Regards,

Field McConnell

PS Abel Danger was the ‘source’ of the fake names of Asiana 214

video here Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1JYH…

proof here: Google [ asiana 214 pilot names + abel danger + chips ]

Kerry Cassidy
Project Camelot
Link: http://projectcamelot.org/

…………..

and while this isn't a thread connected to 'the missing plane', this is fascinating:

http://jhaines6.wordpress.com/2014/03/30/must-go-viral-blockbuster-this-is-accurate-and-now-100-percent-confirmed-hijacked-ibm-engineer-successfully-dialed-out-of-diego-garcia/

HIJACKED IBM ENGINEER SUCCESSFULLY DIALED OUT OF DIEGO GARCIA

Sabrina

31st March 2014, 07:30

Can't copy this article, so see at link.

http://www.exaronews.com/articles/5225/customs-seized-video-of-child-sex-abuse-and-ex-cabinet-minister

29 March UK

Customs Seized Video of Child Abuse and ex-Cabinet Minister

Customs officials are trying to silence an ex-colleague who seized video that allegedly shows child sex abuse in the presence of a former Cabinet Minister.

Sabrina

1st April 2014, 06:31

http://itccs.org/2014/03/31/massive-deaths-of-aboriginal-children-in-canada-is-officially-admitted-as-genocide-verdict-and-kevin-annetts-work-are-finally-vindicated/

Massive Deaths of Aboriginal Children in Canada is officially admitted, as Genocide Verdict and Kevin Annett’s work are finally vindicated

Historic Breaking News from The International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State (ITCCS) – Monday, March 31, 2014

Massive Deaths of Aboriginal Children in Canada is officially admitted, as Genocide Verdict and Kevin Annett’s work are finally vindicated

“Canada, the and the Vatican stand guilty as charged as disestablished criminal bodies” – International Common Law Court of Justice, Brussels

Vancouver, Canada:

Seventeen years after Rev. Kevin Annett publicly disclosed evidence that over 50,000 children died in Canada’s church-run “Indian residential schools”, Canadian governments have finally confirmed this genocidal mortality rate after releasing hitherto-concealed death records from the schools. (http://westcoastnativenews.com/tens-of-thousands-first-nation-children-died-in-residential-schools/)

Until this week, government and church officials have either denied or stayed silent about Rev. Annett’s documented estimate. But previously “segregated” statistics of the deaths of residential school children made public last Friday by different provinces indicate that “tens of thousands” of these children died in the facilities, which were operated primarily by the Roman Catholic, Anglican and United Church of Canada.

In British Columbia alone, government records indicate that nearly 5,000 children between the ages of four and nineteen died in the residential schools until 1956, although the schools continued in operation until 1996, putting the total death figure even higher. Rev. Annett’s research established that the high death rate of over 40% of the students was the result of deliberately infecting them with tuberculosis and denying the sick treatment. (www.hiddennolonger.com)

“This news officially confirms what our Court established in its lawful verdict of February 25, 2013” stated George Dufort of the International Common Law Court of Justice in Brussels today.

“Canada and its churches, the British Crown and the Vatican stand guilty as charged as disestablished criminal bodies and can no longer have any lawful or legitimate constitutional authority if the rule of law is to be followed”.

This week’s official admission of massive deaths in the Indian residential schools comes on the heels of shocking new evidence showing that a Vatican and Church of England child sacrifice cult known as the Ninth Circle operated at the same schools for over a century, including at the Mohawk residential school in Brantford, Ontario. (www.itccs.org, March 29, 2014)

Kevin Annett was reached at his home in Nanaimo, British Columbia today and provided the enclosed you tube commentary on the remarkable news.

“I always knew their lies would fall apart, and persistence would pay off” remarked Kevin.

“But I’m thinking now of all my friends who died after struggling to see this day come about, like Bingo Dawson, Billie Combes, Ricky Lavallee and Harry Wilson – some of the eyewitnesses to the Canadian Holocaust who went public at great personal risk. This is their victory, as it belongs to all the missing children. But it will only mean something if Canadians act on this final proof of Genocide by church and state to enforce the verdict and arrest warrants of the Common Law court.

“Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Queen Elizabeth, Joseph Ratzinger and twenty seven other officials belong behind bars. And more than that, it’s now time to establish a constitutional Republic in Canada that is free and independent of the British Crown and the legacies of Vatican-sponsored Genocide”.

Details of the plans to act upon this recent acknowledgement are discussed in Kevin Annett’s attached you tube commentary.

Issued by ITCCS Canada and ITCCS Central, Brussels-based

4xcUTiN1mAU

Sabrina

1st April 2014, 06:52

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/31/world/asia/pakistan-pervez-musharraf-treason/index.html?eref=edition

31 March Pakistan

Pakistan court indicts former military leader Pervez Musharraf for treason

Islamabad (CNN) -- A Special Court in Pakistan has charged former military ruler Pervez Musharraf with high treason -- a crime that carries the death penalty or life imprisonment.

Musharraf, who ruled the country following a 1999 coup until 2008, faced a total of five charges during the hearing at the court in Islamabad Monday, including three counts of subverting, suspending and changing the country's constitution, sacking Pakistan's chief justice and imposing emergency rule. He pleaded "not guilty" to each of the charges.

In an address to the court, the former president denied he was a traitor, and instead claimed Pakistan "prospered and grew" under his tenure.

Monday's hearing took place amid tight security, with thousands of police and security forces lining the route to the court. In an unexpected twist, the retired army general was represented by a new lawyer, with no reason yet given for the change.

Musharraf went into self-imposed exile in 2008, in London and more recently in Dubai, after standing down as president. He returned to Pakistan last year with the aim of running in the country's national elections. But his plans unraveled as he became entangled in a web of court cases relating to his time in power.

In 2007, Musharraf declared a state of emergency, suspended Pakistan's constitution, replaced the chief judge and blacked out independent TV outlets.

Musharraf said he did so to stabilize the country and to fight rising Islamist extremism. The action drew sharp criticism from the United States and democracy advocates. Pakistanis openly called for his removal.
Under pressure from the West, Musharraf later lifted the state of emergency and called elections in which his party fared badly.

Musharraf stepped down in August 2008 after the governing coalition began taking steps to impeach him. Prosecutors say Musharraf violated Pakistan's constitution by imposing the state of emergency.

In January, Musharraf was unable to attend another court hearing after being hospitalized. Asiya Ishaq, a supporter and leader of the All Pakistan Muslim League, said the former president had been feeling pressure in his chest and was not well. Pakistan media has reported he has been receiving treatment for high blood pressure.

Musharraf is also on an "exit control list" in Pakistan, which prevents him leaving the country, although Akram Shaikh, the prosecutor in the case, said Monday that if the court allows the 70-year old to travel abroad then he has no objection. Pakistan media has reported that Musharraf's mother is currently in critical condition in a hospital in the UAE, and that he has requested permission to visit her.

¤=[Post Update]=¤

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/31/world/meast/israel-olmert-conviction/index.html?eref=edition

31 March Israel

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert convicted in bribery scandal

Jerusalem (CNN) -- An Israeli judge on Monday convicted former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of taking bribes while mayor of Jerusalem.

Judge David Rosen of the Tel Aviv District Court convicted Olmert of receiving about $161,000 in bribes related to a controversial Jerusalem housing project called Holyland. The judge acquitted Olmert on a third count of bribery.

The developer of Holyland, Hillel Cherney, had been previously convicted of bribing Olmert and other high-level officials in exchange for Holyland approvals.

Olmert was mayor of Jerusalem from 1993 to 2003.

Sentencing is scheduled for April 28.

Olmert, an attorney who in 1973 became the youngest person ever elected to Israel's parliament, the Knesset, served as prime minister from 2006 to 2009.

He announced his resignation shortly after police recommended corruption charges against him.

In August 2012, he was convicted of breach of trust and acquitted on two corruption-related charges after a trial that lasted nearly three years. He was given a 3-month suspended jail sentenced and fined about $19,000 in that case.

The allegations stemmed from Olmert's time as mayor as well as prime minister. Prosecutors accused him of double-billing government agencies for travel, taking cash from an American businessman in exchange for official favors and acting on behalf of his former law partner's clients.

Sabrina

1st April 2014, 06:59

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/31/french-local-elections-ayrault-resigns-valls-successor

31 March France

French PM Jean-Marc Ayrault quits after Socialist local election losses

Interior minister, Manuel Valls, named as successor as François Hollande attempts to limit damage to his leadership

The French prime minister resigned on Monday after President François Hollande and his Socialist government suffered a crushing defeat in local elections.

Jean-Marc Ayrault, who had led the French cabinet since the left came to power in 2012, announced he would go after a day of feverish speculation over a ministerial reshuffle. The announcement, confirmed by Ayrault's office at Matignon, came two hours before Hollande was due to make a televised announcement.

Speaking for the first time since the election rout on Sunday, the president said: "It's an important moment in our national life. You have expressed your unhappiness and disappointment. I have heard your message – it's clear. Not enough change, not enough jobs, too much unemployment, too many taxes … and the question about our ability to address these problems. I have taken this message personally. I will respond with honesty and clarity …

"Jean-Marc Ayrault has made reforms that are an honour to him. I am grateful to him. I have given Manuel Valls the job of running the government."

Valls' blunt speaking and naked ambition have led to him being compared to former president Nicolas Sarkozy. Known as France's premier flic (top cop) for his tough stance on crime and security issues, his appointment risks splitting the government, threatening to alienate those on the left of the Socialist party and ministers from the Europe Ecologie Les Verts (Green and Ecology party), which holds two posts. Cécile Duflot, the housing minister and party leader, had warned she would leave the government if Valls were appointed.

After Black Sunday it was a Grey Monday as Hollande struggled to limit the unprecedented damage to his leadership and administration following the elections, amid calls from the jubilant opposition for "power-sharing".

The deeply unpopular president had been urged by members of his own party and the opposition centre-right UMP to act swiftly and decisively in response to what was seen as a vote of no confidence in his government.

In the event, he kept the country guessing frenzy over which cabinet minsters' heads would fall, as key members of his administration were summoned to the Elysée Palace. Ayrault, the first casualty of the Socialists' poor showing at the polls, spent two hours with the president on Monday morning discussing the "consequences of the defeat" in the municipal elections. Ayrault was reported to have wanted to resign on Sunday after it became clear the party had been given a drubbing in the second-round vote, but was talked out of it by colleagues.

As the day wore on, Hollande's indecisiveness looked dangerously like living up to his former reputation as Monsieur Flanby – after a wobbly French pudding. The lack of any information from the Elysée sparked feverish speculation that veered from the unusual – the possible return of the president's former partner Ségolène Royal – to the desperate – the summoning of disgraced former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn to save the day.

When an announcement was finally made, it was that Hollande would make a statement to be broadcast on television.

Le Monde newspaper said it was essential Hollande showed he was "not deaf" to the election defeat that saw the Socialist party lose about 150 big towns, mostly to the opposition right.

There were also significant and historic gains for the far-right Front National, which took control in municipalities and gained more than 1,200 seats on local councils. The abstention rate of 38.5% of the electorate went against the Socialists.

more at link

Sabrina

1st April 2014, 07:09

http://goldenageofgaia.com/2014/03/31/new-banking-regulations-begin-the-volker-rule-comes-into-play-tomorrow-ending-speculative-tradings/#more-213336

US

New Banking Regulations Begin: The Volker Rule Comes into Play Tomorrow Ending Speculative Tradings

Stephen: The Volker Rule, whereby all US banks must adhere to strict new regulations governing their operations and resources come in to effect tomorrow, Tuesday April 1, 2014. While its implementation is tiered through to July 2015, it will start impacting not only the US but the global banking system immediately in the areas of reporting, compliance, covered funds both inside and outside the US.

Here is the memo sent out to all national banks and savings associations from the US Treasury’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency:

Subject: Volcker Rule .
Date: March 25, 2014

To: Chief Executive Officers of All National Banks and Federal Savings Associations, Federal Branches and Agencies, Department and Division Heads, All Examining Personnel, and Other Interested Parties.

Description: Final Regulations

Summary
On December 10, 2013, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (FRB), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission issued jointly developed final regulations to implement section 619 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, known as the Volcker Rule.

The final regulations were published in the Federal Register on January 31, 2014, and become effective on April 1, 2014.

National banks (other than certain limited-purpose trust banks), federal savings associations, and federal branches and agencies of foreign banks (collectively, banks) are required to fully conform their activities and investments to the requirements of the final regulations by the end of the conformance period, which the FRB has extended to July 21, 2015.

Highlights
The final regulations •prohibit banks from engaging in short-term proprietary trading of certain securities, derivatives commodity futures, and options on these instruments for their own accounts.

•impose limits on banks’ investments in, and other relationships with, hedge funds and private equity funds.
•provide exemptions for certain activities, including market making-related activities, underwriting, risk-mitigating hedging, trading in government obligations, insurance company activities, and organizing and offering hedge funds and private equity funds.
•clarify that certain activities are not prohibited, including acting as agent, broker, or custodian.
•scale compliance requirements based on the size of the bank and the scope of the activities. Larger banks are required to establish detailed compliance programs and their chief executive officers must attest to the OCC that the bank’s programs are reasonably designed to achieve compliance with the final regulations. Smaller banks engaged in modest activities are subject to a simplified compliance program.

Banks with trading assets and liabilities of at least $50 billion will be required to report metrics designed to monitor their permitted trading activities. These banks must •begin to measure and record the required metrics on a daily basis starting July 1, 2014, and report their daily metrics recorded during the month of July to the OCC by September 2, 2014.

•continue to report metrics data for each calendar month within 30 days of month-end through 2014, unless the OCC notifies them in writing that they must report on a different basis.
•beginning with information for the month of January 2015, report metrics within 10 days of the end of each calendar month, unless the OCC notifies the banks in writing that they must report on a different basis.

Note for Community Banks
Banks that do not engage in covered activities or investments are not required to establish a compliance program under the final regulations. This exemption extends to trading activities in certain exempt government and municipal obligations. Smaller banks, with total consolidated assets of $10 billion or less, engaged in modest proprietary trading activities for their own accounts are subject to a simplified compliance program.

These banks may satisfy their compliance obligations under the final regulations by including in their existing policies and procedures appropriate references to the requirements of the final regulations. These policies and procedures should be appropriate to the size, scope, and complexity of the banks.

Karen Solomon
Deputy Chief Counsel, OCC

You can read the entire 271-page Volker Rule, titled Prohibitions and Restrictions on Proprietary Trading and Certain Interests in, and Relationships With, Hedge Funds and Private Equity Funds here:
http://www.occ.gov/news-issuances/federal-register/79fr5536.pdf

Sabrina

1st April 2014, 07:13

It's been suggested that perhaps they weren't conmen, and the bonds weren't fake. But no doubt, a lot more to this story than the spin given to AP :)...

Vatican

Con Men Stopped Entering Vatican Bank with 3 Trillion Euros of Fake Bonds

By Tom Kington, Rome, AP – March 31, 2014

http://tinyurl.com/pd3wpyp

Two smartly-dressed men armed with forged bond certificates worth trillions of euros have been caught while trying to talk their way into the Vatican’s bank, in a spectacularly bungled fraud scheme.

The middle aged men, an American and a Dutch citizen of Malaysian origin, arrived at the main gate of the Vatican on the morning of March 11, telling Swiss guards they had an appointment at the bank, which has been dogged by scandals over the years.

When bank staff said they had no record of an appointment, the two men said cardinals were expecting them – arousing the suspicions of Vatican police, who called in colleagues from Italy’s tax police.

“When we arrived, the Vatican police had opened the men’s briefcase to find bond certificates valued in US and Hong Kong dollars, as well as euros, worth €3 trillion,” said Lt Col Davide Cardia, a tax police official.

The two men, Lt Col Cardia, said, were likely planning to use the certificates to fraudulently open a line of credit at the bank.

“We noticed the grammar of the English used on the certificates was full of mistakes – it looked like they had been written using Google Translate,” he told The Daily Telegraph. “Searching their hotel room we found the seals used to forge the bond certificates.”

Since the men were stopped before carrying out a fraud, they were released under Italian law and have now likely left Italy, said Lt. Col. Cardia.

“The men have been caught trying this before in other countries and seem to go around the world trying their luck with banks,” he said.

The men may have been lured by the reputation of the Vatican bank – known as the IOR – for attracting money launders and mafiosi.

Last week, Italian prosecutors said two former senior officials at the bank, Paolo Cipriani and Massimo Tulli, would stand trial for money laundering.

But the Vatican is also trying hard to end corruption at the bank and close shadowy accounts opened by lay customers over the years, particularly following Pope Francis’s threat to close the bank down.

“We were surprised the two men tried this scam with the IOR – maybe they didn’t know what is going on there at the moment,” said Lt Col Cardia.

Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, said the police operation “shows the controls are working.”
But he added, “I don’t think we’re talking about a plot by criminal masterminds if they managed to get caught at the first hurdle.”

Sabrina

3rd April 2014, 04:49

http://rt.com/news/turkey-twitter-speech-court-921/

2 April

Turkey’s constitutional court: Twitter ban violates free speech

The Twitter ban imposed by Turkey’s government violates freedom of expression and individual rights, said the country’s Constitutional Court after a unanimous vote on Wednesday. The ban caused mass protests and public uproar.

The Court unanimously ruled the embargo is a violation of free speech guaranteed by Article 26 of the Constitution. According to the Hurriyet Daily, an order to lift the ban has been issued.

"If they don't abide by the ruling, we will file a criminal complaint against the [country’s telecom authority] TIB by attaching the ruling of the Constitutional Court," said Metin Feyzioğlu, the president of Turkey's Bar Associations, as cited by Hurriyet.

The decision is to be delivered to TIB and Turkey's Transport, Maritime and Communication Ministry with the demand that they comply with the order.

The TIB blocked Twitter in Turkey on March 20, following Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s threat to "root out" the social media network. Soon after YouTube was blocked as well while Google accused Turkish internet providers of mimicking their Domain Name System (DNS) service.

Wednesday ruling could be used as a precedent in similar cases in the future.

In February, Turkey passed a controversial law tightening control over the internet, allowing authorities to block websites without a court order within just hours.

The law followed the emergence in social networks such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, of multiple recordings which sought to prove Erdogan and his ministers were trying to illegally influence political, business, and media affairs.

In one recording, the Turkish PM reportedly gave instructions to his son to hide millions of euros worth of cash in his house, while in another he blamed an editor of a major newspaper for negative coverage. Erdogan dismissed the recordings calling them fake, while threatening to shut down the social networks in Turkey.

Last week the Ankara administrative court issued a stay of execution on Prime Minister’s decision to block Twitter, after the Union of Turkish Bar Associations (TBB), the Ankara Bar Associations, and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Deputy Parliamentary Group Chair, Oktay Vural, applied to the administrative court to challenge the ban.

"If there is anyone who believes there is rule of law and human rights in this country, TIB must execute the court verdict and lift the ban on Twitter," the academic, Kerem Altiparmak, said on his Twitter account.

Twitter in turn filed lawsuits in several Turkish courts to challenge the access ban on Twitter, joining Turkish journalists and legal experts, Turkish citizens and the international community in formally asking for the ban to be lifted.

Erdogan’s threats and the government ban were accompanied by mass protests against internet censorship. There were violent clashes as the police forces used tear gas and water cannon against the protesters. The scandal occurred ahead of nationwide elections, which resulted in the triumph of Prime Minister’s ruling AKP party this week.

Sabrina

3rd April 2014, 04:56

Not that this isn't commonly known in some circles, but is getting media coverage and upsetting the 'speedy' traders...

“Wall Street Is Rigged” – Business Author Michael Lewis

2 April US

From AFR.com – April 2, 2014

http://tinyurl.com/ldn4gc3

The explosive declaration by acclaimed business author Michael Lewis that the world’s largest sharemarket is “rigged” by high-frequency trading has sent Wall Street into a flux of chatter, self reflection and, in some cases, denial. In his famous book Moneyball, Lewis admired the quantitative skills used to recruit players to build a champion baseball team. Now he is taking aim at the numbers men.

“The United States stockmarket, the most iconic market in global capitalism is rigged . . . by a combination of the stock exchanges, the big Wall Street banks and the high-frequency traders,” Lewis says.

The provocative comments by the former Salomon Brothers bond salesman turned writer who has become famous exposing the rot in the finance sector will confirm the worst-held fears of regular investors: they are competing on an unlevel playing field that is tilted in favour of an elite few.

High-frequency trading firm Virtu recently revealed that it had just one losing trading day in 1238 days of trading. By using super-quick fibre pipes and computer-generated algorithms to buy and sell stocks, firms like Virtu are engaging in ostensibly riskless trading at everyone else’s expense.

Lewis’s remarks do need to be understood in context. He was promoting his new book, Flash Boys, on the prime-time Sunday evening United States television program, 60 Minutes.

The allegations, however, run much deeper than a simple publicity stunt. They raise genuine questions about the integrity of the world’s capital markets, especially given that high-frequency trading is estimated to account for about 60 per cent of trade volumes in the US equity market. Even Goldman Sachs, long viewed as being at the cutting edge of profit-making activities in financial markets, has raised the white flag.

Pre-emptive move
In a pre-emptive move just days before Lewis released his book, Goldman suddenly came out to publicly support regulating high-frequency trading. The Wall Street bank anticipated the publicity storm Lewis’s book would whip up, given the attention his previous best sellers, Liar’s Poker, The Big Short and Moneyball received.

Lewis describes how high-frequency traders use sophisticated technology to make lightning-quick trades, fractions of a millisecond ahead of other investors, to gain a price advantage in the market.

Big investment banks that have invested in the expensive technology are helping to facilitate these trades for clients. Stock exchanges in the US and abroad are encouraging this activity by paying fee rebates to high-frequency traders who lodge large numbers of buy and sell orders on their trading platforms. The US regulator has been caught behind, unable to keep up with the implications of the rapid technology advancement.

The practice has earned a dirty reputation among more traditional investors, because of the “front running” the high-speed fibre pipes enable.

“It’s crazy that it’s legal for some people to get advance news on prices and what investors are doing,” Lewis says.

High-speed firms pay top dollar to locate their systems in the same data centres as the exchanges, allowing them to plug in their computer servers and cut fractions of a millisecond off share orders.wall st flash boys
Sophisticated algorithms

Such is the sophistication of the technology, high-frequency traders can anticipate another investor’s stock order lodged in the system and buy the stock in advance and sell it to the original unsuspecting investor at a higher price.

It’s like someone knowing you are going to walk down to the corner store at lunchtime and buy a bottle of Coke. They beat you to the store and buy the Coke at a discount price, and then sell the drink to you at the regular higher price. When this activity is undertaken millions of times to skim a small margin on each transaction, the profits can tally up handsomely.

Whether the practice is market rigging, as Lewis claims, is open to interpretation. The practice is currently recognised as legal by the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

Larry Kudlow, an economist and well-known US financial market commentator, says Lewis is exaggerating by calling the market rigged.

“There are imperfections and Mike Lewis who is a very bright guy has fingered some of these imperfections,” Kudlow says.

“I never like to blame the technology because somebody is always going to come up with a better mouse trap.”
High-frequency trading advocates have strongly denied Lewis’s claims. They argue high-frequency trading is supporting other investors by adding liquidity, price discovery and depth to the share market.

Adding liquidity
Peter Nabicht, senior adviser to the Modern Markets Initiative trade group and former chief technology officer at high-frequency-trading firm Allston Trading, says the game is not rigged in the favour of professional traders who employ HFT.

“Rather, they work hard to compete with each other to bring liquidity to the markets, benefiting average investors,” he says. But does holding stocks for a split second really support capital formation in equity marks?
Furthermore, faulty algorithms used by high-frequency traders were blamed by some for causing the infamous “flash crash”. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted about 1000 points or 9 per cent on May 6, 2010, before recovering the losses in a matter of minutes.

Eric Hunsader, founder of Nanex, a firm that collects data on market transactions, is angry the SEC hasn’t stepped in and worries about the impact on investor confidence.

“The little guy is going to say, ‘Why isn’t the regulator doing their job and how can I trust them?’ ” he says.
However, retail investors are not the only traders who feel they are playing with one arm behind their backs.
Even large hedge funds, with access to detailed, up-to-date company information and with direct access to management of the firms listed on the stock exchange, believe HFT is costing them millions of dollars in the course of the year.

‘You’re going to get crushed’
Still, other seasoned long-term investors are less concerned about the “Flash Boys”, accepting they will remain a part of the market structure.

“If you’re day trading against these guys you’re going to get crushed,” says Peter Sorrentino, senior portfolio manager at Huntington Funds.

“If you’re an investor and you’re truly interested in profit for the long run, the Warren Buffett approach, then this is noise.

“It makes for great entertainment, but it really should not be central in your mind to investment-making decisions.”

Regardless, Lewis’s message about the unlevel playing field created by HFT is not likely to be forgotten in a hurry.

Wall Street insiders, including traders, investment banks, stockbrokers and regulators, have long been familiar with the issue. But now that Lewis has spilled the beans to Main Street, eager regulators will be under pressure to act to protect the perceived vulnerable.

Indeed, New York Attorney-General Eric Schneiderman this month opened an investigation targeting the relationship between stock exchanges and trading firms, under the guise of what he has named as “Insider Trading 2.0.”

When Lewis picks apart a story in the way only he can, his captivating words can be a powerful prompt.

Sabrina

3rd April 2014, 05:15

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-03-21/petrodollar-alert-isolated-west-putin-prepares-announce-holy-grail-gas-deal-china

Petrodollar Alert: Putin Prepares To Announce "Holy Grail" Gas Deal With China

Tyler Durden on 03/21/2014

If it was the intent of the West to bring Russia and China together - one a natural resource (if "somewhat" corrupt) superpower and the other a fixed capital / labor output (if "somewhat" capital misallocating and credit bubbleicious) powerhouse - in the process marginalizing the dollar and encouraging Ruble and Renminbi bilateral trade, then things are surely "going according to plan."

For now there have been no major developments as a result of the shift in the geopolitical axis that has seen global US influence, away from the Group of 7 (most insolvent nations) of course, decline precipitously in the aftermath of the bungled Syrian intervention attempt and the bloodless Russian annexation of Crimea, but that will soon change. Because while the west is focused on day to day developments in Ukraine, and how to halt Russian expansion through appeasement (hardly a winning tactic as events in the 1930s demonstrated), Russia is once again thinking 3 steps ahead... and quite a few steps east.

While Europe is furiously scrambling to find alternative sources of energy should Gazprom pull the plug on natgas exports to Germany and Europe (the imminent surge in Ukraine gas prices by 40% is probably the best indication of what the outcome would be), Russia is preparing the announcement of the "Holy Grail" energy deal with none other than China, a move which would send geopolitical shockwaves around the world and bind the two nations in a commodity-backed axis. One which, as some especially on these pages, have suggested would lay the groundwork for a new joint, commodity-backed reserve currency that bypasses the dollar, something which Russia implied moments ago when its finance minister Siluanov said that Russia may refrain from foreign borrowing this year. Translated: bypass western purchases of Russian debt, funded by Chinese purchases of US Treasurys, and go straight to the source.

Here is what will likely happen next, as explained by Reuters:

Igor Sechin gathered media in Tokyo the next day to warn Western governments that more sanctions over Moscow's seizure of the Black Sea peninsula from Ukraine would be counter-productive.

The underlying message from the head of Russia's biggest oil company, Rosneft, was clear: If Europe and the United States isolate Russia, Moscow will look East for new business, energy deals, military contracts and political alliances.

The Holy Grail for Moscow is a natural gas supply deal with China that is apparently now close after years of negotiations. If it can be signed when Putin visits China in May, he will be able to hold it up to show that global power has shifted eastwards and he does not need the West.

More details on the revelation of said "Holy Grail":

State-owned Russian gas firm Gazprom hopes to pump 38 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas per year to China from 2018 via the first pipeline between the world's largest producer of conventional gas to the largest consumer.

"May is in our plans," a Gazprom spokesman said, when asked about the timing of an agreement. A company source said: "It would be logical to expect the deal during Putin's visit to China."
Summarizing what should be and is painfully obvious to all, but apparently to the White House, which keeps prodding at Russia, is the following:

"The worse Russia's relations are with the West, the closer Russia will want to be to China. If China supports you, no one can say you're isolated," said Vasily Kashin, a China expert at the Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST) think thank.

Bingo. And now add bilateral trade denominated in either Rubles or Renminbi (or gold), add Iran, Iraq, India, and soon the Saudis (China's largest foreign source of crude, whose crown prince also happened to meet president Xi Jinping last week to expand trade further) and wave goodbye to the petrodollar.

As reported previoisly, China has already implicitly backed Putin without risking it relations with the West. "Last Saturday China abstained in a U.N. Security Council vote on a draft resolution declaring invalid the referendum in which Crimea went on to back union with Russia. Although China is nervous about referendums in restive regions of other countries which might serve as a precedent for Tibet and Taiwan, it has refused to criticize Moscow. The support of Beijing is vital for Putin. Not only is China a fellow permanent member of the U.N. Security Council with whom Russia thinks alike, it is also the world's second biggest economy and it opposes the spread of Western-style democracy."

This culminated yesterday, when as we reported last night, Putin thanked China for its "understanding over Ukraine." China hasn't exactly kept its feelings about closer relations with Russia under wraps either:

Chinese President Xi Jinping showed how much he values ties with Moscow, and Putin in particular, by making Russia his first foreign visit as China's leader last year and attending the opening of the Winter Olympics in Sochi last month.

Many Western leaders did not go to the Games after criticism of Russia's record on human rights. By contrast, when Putin and Xi discussed Ukraine by telephone on March 4, the Kremlin said their positions were "close".
The punchline: "A strong alliance would suit both countries as a counterbalance to the United States." An alliance that would merely be an extension of current trends in close bilateral relations, including not only infrastructure investment but also military supplies:

However, China overtook Germany as Russia's biggest buyer of crude oil this year thanks to Rosneft securing deals to boost eastward oil supplies via the East Siberia-Pacific Ocean pipeline and another crossing Kazakhstan.

If Russia is isolated by a new round of Western sanctions - those so far affect only a few officials' assets abroad and have not been aimed at companies - Russia and China could also step up cooperation in areas apart from energy. CAST's Kashin said the prospects of Russia delivering Sukhoi SU-35 fighter jets to China, which has been under discussion since 2010, would grow.

China is very interested in investing in infrastructure, energy and commodities in Russia, and a decline in business with the West could force Moscow to drop some of its reservations about Chinese investment in strategic industries. "With Western sanctions, the atmosphere could change quickly in favor of China," said Brian Zimbler Managing Partner of Morgan Lewis international law firm's Moscow office.

Russia-China trade turnover grew by 8.2 percent in 2013 to $8.1 billion but Russia was still only China's seventh largest export partner in 2013, and was not in the top 10 countries for imported goods. The EU is Russia's biggest trade partner, accounting for almost half of all its trade turnover.
And as if pushing Russia into the warm embrace of the world's most populous nation was not enough, there is also the second most populated country in the world, India.

Putin did take time, however, to thank one other country apart from China for its understanding over Ukraine and Crimea - saying India had shown "restraint and objectivity".

He also called Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to discuss the crisis on Tuesday, suggesting there is room for Russia's ties with traditionally non-aligned India to flourish.

Although India has become the largest export market for U.S. arms, Russia remains a key defense supplier and relations are friendly, even if lacking a strong business and trade dimension, due to a strategic partnership dating to the Soviet era.

Putin's moves to assert Russian control over Crimea were seen very favorably in the Indian establishment, N. Ram, publisher of The Hindu newspaper, told Reuters. "Russia has legitimate interests," he added.

To summarize: while the biggest geopolitical tectonic shift since the cold war accelerates with the inevitable firming of the "Asian axis", the west monetizes its debt, revels in the paper wealth created from an all time high manipulated stock market while at the same time trying to explain why 6.5% unemployment is really indicative of a weak economy, blames the weather for every disappointing economic data point, and every single person is transfixed with finding a missing airplane.

Sabrina

3rd April 2014, 05:20

http://neonnettle.com/news/359-florida-federal-judge-orders-9-11-re-opened

2 April US

Florida Federal Judge Orders 9/11 Re-Opened

FBI Have No Choice But To Comply

Fort Lauderdale U.S. District Judge William J. Zloch, a highly regarded federal judge ordered the FBI to conduct a more thorough search of its vast files to identify documents about its once secret investigation of terrorist activity in Sarasota prior to 9/11.The FBI wanted to have the case thrown out.

He also rejected a request by the Department of Justice to throw out the Freedom of Information case filed by BrowardBulldog.org in September 2012.

The suit alleges the government has improperly withheld information about a local Saudi family’s apparent connections to terrorists including 9/11 hijack pilot Mohamed Atta and Adnan Shukrijumah, the former Broward resident and alleged al-Qaeda figure who has a $5 million federal bounty on his head.

“This is a huge step in the right direction,” said Miami attorney Thomas Julin, who represents the four-year-old news organization. “The decision tells the FBI that this federal judge wants to make sure that the truth comes out.”

In his four-page order, Judge Zloch said he would issue a separate order detailing steps the FBI must take to comply with his order requiring the additional records search.

FBI RECORDS CONTRADICT PUBLIC STATEMENTS

Six months after the lawsuit was filed, the Bureau unexpectedly released 35 heavily redacted pages, including four pages that were completely blanked out, and asserted it had no more responsive documents to produce. The declassified pages flatly contradicted earlier public statements by FBI agents in Sarasota and Miami that the decade-old investigation had found no evidence of terrorist activity.

In his order, Zloch noted the government has provided him with un-redacted copies of those pages “for the court’s inspection.” Whether that information played a role in the judge’s decision is not known.

The Miami Herald and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, in a friend of the court brief last week, argued to the court, “The Broward Bulldog has provided this court with ample evidence establishing that the FBI could not have possibly conducted adequate (record) searches.

In the motion requesting a better search, attorney Julin proposed a number of measures the FBI could take to identify records: Use its $440 million Sentinel computer system, employ better word searches and conduct a manual review of all 15,342 documents about its 9/11 investigation, code-named PENTTBOM, said to be stored in the FBI’s Tampa field office.

The FOIA lawsuit seeks FBI records about its investigation of “activities at the residence at 4224 Escondito Circle in the Prestancia development near Sarasota, Florida prior to 9/11/2001 The activities involved apparent visits to that address by some of the deceased 9/11 hijackers.”

TIES TO TERRORISTS, TIES TO ROYALS

The address was the home of Abdulaziz and Anoud al-Hijji until August 2001, when the couple quit their home and returned to Saudi Arabia –leaving behind cars, furniture, clothing, food and other items. Anoud al-Hijji’s father, Esam Ghazzawi, a longtime advisor to a senior Saudi prince, owned the home.

Within hours of the attacks on New York and Washington, the al-Hijji’s neighbors began calling the FBI and other law enforcement agencies to tell them about the couple’s abrupt departure.

An FBI informant later reported that prior to 9/11 al-Hijji had introduced him to Shukrijumah at a soccer game at a Sarasota mosque.

Records obtained from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement show the FBI continued to investigate until at least 2004, when the informant was interviewed. The Bureau, however, never disclosed the existence of its investigation to either Congress’s Joint Inquiry into the attacks or the subsequent 9/11 Commission, according to former Florida Sen. Bob Graham, who co-chaired the Joint Inquiry.

Graham has accused the FBI of impeding Congress’s inquiry into 9/11.

The 31 pages of FBI records released one year ago say that the Sarasota Saudis who “fled” their home before the attacks had “many connections” to “individuals associated with the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001.”

The records list three individuals, including one identified as a relative of the al-Hijjis, but their names were blanked out. All three, however, were tied to the Venice, Fl. flight school where Atta and fellow hijack pilot Marwan al-Shehhi trained.

Attorney Julin said Monday’s federal court ruling could lead to a better public understanding of the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 Americans.

“Maybe now we’ll get a chance to find out what the FBI knew about the Sarasota Saudis and why it did not tell Congress,” said Julin.

Nat_Lee

3rd April 2014, 05:57

Does this have any link with the: The 'positive' reset of the global financial system
Source here: http://www.andromedacouncil.com

From andromedacouncil.com Update - Global Financial Reset & U.S Currency Reset with a new - United States Treasury Reserve Dollar (TRN). The events that were, "right around the corner", are now here. Expect big changes.

March 31, 2014

The 'positive' reset of the global financial system [which includes a currency reset for the United States with a new U.S Dollar (TRN), hard asset backed by some gold, other precious minerals in the ground, as well as 'priceless' items, 'national treasures' held in the U.S] - that "Zap" has been speaking of - has come to fruition. You can read the details about it at Kauilapele's site for March 31, 2014 "Office of Poofness" - "HAPPY" posting where - "ZAP SAYS": "HI ALL. ON MARCH 28, THE TREASURY RESERVE NOTE (NEW US DOLLAR) WAS EFFECTED".

http://goldenageofgaia.com/2014/03/31/new-banking-regulations-begin-the-volker-rule-comes-into-play-tomorrow-ending-speculative-tradings/#more-213336

US

New Banking Regulations Begin: The Volker Rule Comes into Play Tomorrow Ending Speculative Tradings

Stephen: The Volker Rule, whereby all US banks must adhere to strict new regulations governing their operations and resources come in to effect tomorrow, Tuesday April 1, 2014. While its implementation is tiered through to July 2015, it will start impacting not only the US but the global banking system immediately in the areas of reporting, compliance, covered funds both inside and outside the US.

Here is the memo sent out to all national banks and savings associations from the US Treasury’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency:

Subject: Volcker Rule .
Date: March 25, 2014

To: Chief Executive Officers of All National Banks and Federal Savings Associations, Federal Branches and Agencies, Department and Division Heads, All Examining Personnel, and Other Interested Parties.

Description: Final Regulations

Summary
On December 10, 2013, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (FRB), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission issued jointly developed final regulations to implement section 619 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, known as the Volcker Rule.

The final regulations were published in the Federal Register on January 31, 2014, and become effective on April 1, 2014.

National banks (other than certain limited-purpose trust banks), federal savings associations, and federal branches and agencies of foreign banks (collectively, banks) are required to fully conform their activities and investments to the requirements of the final regulations by the end of the conformance period, which the FRB has extended to July 21, 2015.

Highlights
The final regulations •prohibit banks from engaging in short-term proprietary trading of certain securities, derivatives commodity futures, and options on these instruments for their own accounts.

•impose limits on banks’ investments in, and other relationships with, hedge funds and private equity funds.
•provide exemptions for certain activities, including market making-related activities, underwriting, risk-mitigating hedging, trading in government obligations, insurance company activities, and organizing and offering hedge funds and private equity funds.
•clarify that certain activities are not prohibited, including acting as agent, broker, or custodian.
•scale compliance requirements based on the size of the bank and the scope of the activities. Larger banks are required to establish detailed compliance programs and their chief executive officers must attest to the OCC that the bank’s programs are reasonably designed to achieve compliance with the final regulations. Smaller banks engaged in modest activities are subject to a simplified compliance program.

Banks with trading assets and liabilities of at least $50 billion will be required to report metrics designed to monitor their permitted trading activities. These banks must •begin to measure and record the required metrics on a daily basis starting July 1, 2014, and report their daily metrics recorded during the month of July to the OCC by September 2, 2014.

•continue to report metrics data for each calendar month within 30 days of month-end through 2014, unless the OCC notifies them in writing that they must report on a different basis.
•beginning with information for the month of January 2015, report metrics within 10 days of the end of each calendar month, unless the OCC notifies the banks in writing that they must report on a different basis.

Note for Community Banks
Banks that do not engage in covered activities or investments are not required to establish a compliance program under the final regulations. This exemption extends to trading activities in certain exempt government and municipal obligations. Smaller banks, with total consolidated assets of $10 billion or less, engaged in modest proprietary trading activities for their own accounts are subject to a simplified compliance program.

These banks may satisfy their compliance obligations under the final regulations by including in their existing policies and procedures appropriate references to the requirements of the final regulations. These policies and procedures should be appropriate to the size, scope, and complexity of the banks.

Karen Solomon
Deputy Chief Counsel, OCC

You can read the entire 271-page Volker Rule, titled Prohibitions and Restrictions on Proprietary Trading and Certain Interests in, and Relationships With, Hedge Funds and Private Equity Funds here:
http://www.occ.gov/news-issuances/federal-register/79fr5536.pdf

Sabrina

3rd April 2014, 07:05

http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/tkiekow/japans_whaling_harpooned_by_th.html

Japan's Whaling Harpooned by the International Court of Justice

Today the UN International Court of Justice ruled that Japan’s whaling program in the Antarctic is illegal.

Even after the International Whaling Commission (IWC) banned commercial whaling, Japan has continued to kill whales – and sell the meat for profit – by exploiting a loophole in the convention that allows countries to take whales “for purposes of scientific research.” Today’s decision finds in no uncertain terms that Japan’s hunt was NOT “for purposes of scientific research” and therefore in violation of international law and the IWC’s ban on commercial whaling.

This is a huge victory for whale conservation. The landmark ruling means that thousands of whales will no longer be slaughtered under the guise of science. It also means that whales will once again be safe in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.

In a vote of 12 to 4, the court ruled that there were several aspects of Japan’s “scientific whaling” program – which has killed thousands of whales since its inception – that cast doubt “on its characterization as a programme for purposes of scientific research.” Those factors include the fact Japan did not consider using non-lethal methods; the scale of Japan’s program and number of whales taken; the open-ended time frame of the program; its limited scientific output to date; and the lack of cooperation between Japan and other domestic and international research programs in the Antarctic Ocean.

The court then ordered Japan to revoke all permits and “license[s] to kill” in the Antarctic and refrain from granting any new permits. The decision is final, with no possibility of appeal.

Commendably, Japan has said that it will abide by the decision.

This is a historic ruling that will revitalize our ongoing efforts to save the whales. There are only three countries that still kill whales for commercial purposes – Japan, Iceland, and Norway. Today’s decision sets the legal bar that there is no place for commercial whaling in the 21st Century. Now is the time to end commercial whaling once and for all.

31 March

Sabrina

3rd April 2014, 07:12

Sabrina

4th April 2014, 05:53

http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?70162-The-Cardinal-Cross-this-April-2014&p=818354#post818354

Good thread from linksplatinum on the astrological Cardinal Cross coming up in April. Suspect this will set off a number of major happenings and changes, which should show up in this thread! We've been told to 'hold onto our hats' since the end of 2012. Perhaps this is the time to do it…:)

¤=[Post Update]=¤

http://news.sky.com/story/1236792/secret-cia-torture-report-to-be-released

4 APril US

Secret CIA Torture Report To Be Released

The US Senate Intelligence Committee votes to declassify parts of a report into the CIA's use of brutal interrogation techniques.

By Sky News US Team

A US Senate panel has approved the declassification of a secret report that criticises the CIA's treatment of terror suspects after 9/11.

The Senate Intelligence Committee voted 11-3 to release key parts of the 6,300-page report that concluded waterboarding and other "enhanced interrogation methods" were excessively cruel and ineffective.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said President Barack Obama would instruct intelligence agencies to finalise the declassification quickly.

CIA spokesman Dean Boyd said his agency would "carry out the review expeditiously", but suggested the process may be difficult.

He said: "We owe it to the men and women directed to carry out this programme to try and ensure that any historical account of it is accurate."

The CIA and Senate panel have been embroiled in a dispute after senators accused the agency of spying on its investigation into the use of torture in the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The CIA accused Senate staffers of illegally accessing information.

Intelligence committee chairman Sen Dianne Feinstein said the report "exposes brutality that stands in stark contrast to our values as a nation.

"It chronicles a stain on our history that must never again be allowed to happen."

The review concludes that waterboarding and other harsh techniques provided no key evidence in the hunt for terror suspects, including Osama bin Laden.

Sen Feinstein and other senators have accused the CIA of misleading officials about the effectiveness of its programme, including in statements the agency made to President George W Bush and Congress.

Members of the intelligence community, meanwhile, say the Senate probe failed to interview top agency officials who authorised or supervised the brutal interrogations, rendering the investigation incomplete.

Jose Rodriguez, the CIA's chief clandestine officer in the mid-2000s, said: "Neither I or anyone else at the agency who had knowledge was interviewed.

"They don't want to hear anyone else's narrative. It's an attempt to rewrite history."

Before the declassified parts of the report are released, the CIA will have the chance to scrub any passages that could compromise national security.

Sen Feinstein expressed hope most of the summary and findings would escape CIA censors and reach the public within 30 days.

Sabrina

4th April 2014, 06:24

Russia Has Already Backed its Currency With Gold

From ITAR-TASS news agency (30 March)

http://en.itar-tass.com/economy/725832

MOSCOW: An action in support of bank Rossiya which has decided to work exclusively with the national currency will take place in Moscow on Sunday.

The Golden Symbol of Russian Rouble installation in front of the bank’s office in Perevedensky pereulok in Moscow will symbolize the rouble’s stability and its backing by the country’s gold reserves, the action’s organizers explained to Itar-Tass.

Bank Rossiya plans to work only with Russia’s national currency The action is designed to voice support for the Rossiya bank, which is creating a precedent and can make those who have initiated penalties against Russia to feel sorry about their decision.

The bank’s transition to using exclusively the rouble may prove the Russian currency’s viability and independence in world economy.

“Russia, at its present stage of development, should not be dependent on foreign currencies; its internal resources will make its own economy invulnerable to political wheeler dealers,” the action’s organizers said.

The Russian joint-stock bank, AB Rossiya, decided on Friday that it would work only with the national currency to protect its customers from dishonest actions by foreign financial institutions.
“In order to protect the bank’s customers from dishonest actions by foreign financial institutions AB Rossiya has decided to operate only in the domestic market and exclusively with the national currency of the Russian Federation – the rouble,” AB Rossiya said in a statement released on Friday.

“The bank has already notified some U.S. banks that it is closing its correspondence accounts. Similar notifications have been sent to other foreign financial institutions,” the bank said in its statement.

Despite changes in its work, AB Rossiya will continue meeting its commitments to clients and partners.

“The bank will fulfill its commitments on time and in full volume. The bank does not need financial support for its current operations, including from the state regulator,” AB Rossiya said. The Visa and MasterCard international payment systems stopped servicing the plastic cards of four Russian banks, including AB Rossiya, on March 21 because of their links to sanctioned Russian businessmen included in the United States black list.

The bank Rossiya’s decision to give up foreign currency and start working exclusively with the Russian rouble is a step forward towards converting the Russian economy and banking sector to national currency, Andrei Kostin, the VTB bank president, said in an interview with the Russia 24 TV news channel commenting the decision of bank Rossiya to operate only in the domestic market and exclusively with the Russian rouble.

“We have been moving towards wider use of the Russian rouble as the currency of settlement for a long time. The rouble became fully convertible quite a long time ago. Unfortunately, we have seen predominantly negative consequences of this step so far revealed in the outpour of capital from this country. The influx of foreign investments into Russia has been speculative and considerably destabilizing to our stock markets,” Kostin went on to say.

The VTB chief said that Russia should sell domestic products – from weapons to gas and oil – abroad for roubles and buy foreign goods also for roubles.

“Only then are we going to use the advantages of the rouble being a foreign currency in full measure,” Kostin said, adding that AB Rossiya would form a vital part of the Russian banking system and would closely cooperate with other Russian banks, which would also expand the rouble’s use in settlements.

“A new imperative motive has appeared for that now,” the VTB chief stressed.

“I believe that other credit institutions, enterprises and citizens will be interested in working with bank Rossiya,” Kostin said in conclusion.

Sabrina

4th April 2014, 18:32

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2014/04/04/6-Billion-Goes-Missing-State-Department

4 April US

$6 Billion Goes Missing at State Department

The State Department has no idea what happened to $6 billion used to pay its contractors.

In a special “management alert” made public Thursday, the State Department’s Inspector General Steve Linick warned “significant financial risk and a lack of internal control at the department has led to billions of unaccounted dollars over the last six years.

The alert was just the latest example of the federal government’s continued struggle with oversight over its outside contractors.

Related: Government Blatantly Wastes $30 Billion This Year

The lack of oversight “exposes the department to significant financial risk,” the auditor said. “It creates conditions conducive to fraud, as corrupt individuals may attempt to conceal evidence of illicit behavior by omitting key documents from the contract file. It impairs the ability of the Department to take effective and timely action to protect its interests, and, in tum, those of taxpayers.”

In the memo, the IG detailed “repeated examples of poor contract file administration.” For instance, a recent investigation of the closeout process for contracts supporting the mission in Iraq, showed that auditors couldn't find 33 of the 115 contract files totaling about $2.1 billion. Of the remaining 82 files, auditors said 48 contained insufficient documents required by federal law.

In another instance, the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement issued a $1 billion contract in Afghanistan that was deemed “incomplete.”

Related: Government Wastes More Money Than You Think

The auditor recommended that the State Department establish a centralized system to track, maintain and retain contract files.

The department responded and said it concurred with the recommendations to address the “vulnerability” in its contracting process.

Before Linick took office last fall, the State Department had been without an inspector general position for five years—the longest IG vacancy in the government’s history, as noted in The Washington Post.

Sabrina

4th April 2014, 18:37

The money system dynamics seems to be a changing :)

http://www.davidicke.com/headlines/what-about-the-dollar-russia-iran-announce-20-billion-oil-for-goods-deal/

What About The Dollar: Russia, Iran Announce $20 Billion Oil-For-Goods Deal

‘Spot what is missing in the just blasted headline from Bloomberg:

IRAN, RUSSIA SAID TO SEAL $20B OIL-FOR-GOODS DEAL: REUTERS

If you said the complete absence of US Dollars anywhere in the funds flow you are correct. Which is precisely what we have been warning would happen the more the West and/or JPMorgan pushed Russia into a USD-free corner.

Once again, from our yesterday comment on the JPM Russian blockade: “what JPM may have just done is launch a preemptive strike which would have the equivalent culmination of a SWIFT blockade of Russia, the same way Iran was neutralized from the Petrodollar and was promptly forced to begin transacting in Rubles, Yuan and, of course, gold in exchange for goods and services either imported or exported. One wonders: is JPM truly that intent in preserving its “pristine” reputation of not transacting with “evil Russians”, that it will gladly light the fuse that takes away Russia’s choice whether or not to depart the petrodollar voluntarily, and makes it a compulsory outcome, which incidentally will merely accelerate the formalization of the Eurasian axis of China, Russia and India?”

In other words, Russia seems perfectly happy to telegraph that it is just as willing to use barter (and “heaven forbid” gold) and shortly other “regional” currencies, as it is to use the US Dollar, hardly the intended outcome of the western blockade, which appears to have just backfired and further impacted the untouchable status of the Petrodollar.’

ThePythonicCow

6th April 2014, 07:11

ABN Amro Ex-CEO Found Dead (Zerohedge) (http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-04-05/abn-amro-ex-ceo-found-dead)

A mere two weeks since former JPMorgan banker, Kenneth Bellando jumped to his death, Bloomberg reports that the former CEO of Dutch Bank ABN Amro (and his wife and daughter) were found dead at their home after a possible "family tragedy." This expands the dismal list of senior financial services executive deaths to 12 in the last few months. The 57-year-old Jan Peter Schmittmann, was reportedly discovered by his other daughter when she arrived home that morning. Police declined to comment on the cirumstances of his (and his wife and daughter's) death. This is not the first C-level ABN Amro banker to be found dead. In 2009, former CFO Huibert Boumeester was discovered with (assumed self-inflicted) shotgun wounds.
Banker ‘Hit Teams’ Take Out Another One! (BeforeItsNews) (http://beforeitsnews.com/conspiracy-theories/2014/04/banker-hit-teams-take-out-another-one-2461522.html)

Another dead banker has been found as shared in the newly released video below from Dahboo7. The former CEO of Dutch Bank ABN Amro was found dead (along with his wife and one daughter), merely two weeks after former JPMorgan banker, Kenneth Bellando, jumped to his death. As warned EXACTLY 2 months ago by ‘V’ the Guerrilla Economist via Steve Quayle, banker assassination ‘hit teams’ were fully operational and the ‘hit list’ contained 43 additional names. Were Jan Peter Schmittmann’s wife and daughter just in the wrong place at the wrong time as another ‘hit team’ carried out their latest assassination?

This expands the dismal list of senior financial services executive deaths to 12 in the last few months. The 57-year-old Jan Peter Schmittmann, was reportedly discovered by his other daughter when she arrived home that morning. Police declined to comment on the cirumstances of his (and his wife and daughter’s) death. This is not the first C-level ABN Amro banker to be found dead. In 2009, former CFO Huibert Boumeester was discovered with (assumed self-inflicted) shotgun wounds.

Sabrina

7th April 2014, 07:32

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/apr/06/coop-bank-questions-loss-lord-myners

6 April UK

Co-op Group faces tough questions over bank's £1.3bn loss

Lord Myners under growing pressure to rethink reform plan as bank's delayed publishing of 2013 results sparks fears

The troubled Co-operative Group faces fresh controversy this week when its banking arm scrambles to explain how it racked up £1.3bn of losses last year. Lord Myners, the director appointed to overhaul the way the mutual organisation is run, is also coming under growing pressure to rethink his blueprint for reform.

The bank – now just 30% owned by the Co-op Group – delayed its 2013 results last month and pledged to publish the full detail of the losses "on or before" Tuesday 8 April . It is not yet clear when they will be released, potentially unleashing fresh controversy over pay, as details of the rewards to Niall Booker, the new bank boss parachuted in last year, are expected to be revealed.

Booker was part of the team assembled by Euan Sutherland, the boss of the Co-op Group, whose operations include supermarkets, funeral homes and pharmacies. Sutherland walked out last month, after details of his £6.6m two-year deal were published by the Observer, a departure that sparked a fresh crisis at the Co-op and forced Myners, appointed in December with a remit to overhaul the governance of the group, to publish his ideas a month earlier than planned.

Myners is under intense pressure to rethink his initial plans, which include scrapping the current board which comprises 15 members from regional boards, five from the independent co-op and himself, the sole independent director.

He is suggesting setting up a board more akin to a public company with a seat for the chief executive and a separate national members' council to represent the views of the 7 million members who own the Co-op.

But this idea will need the backing of the powerful regions, which have the potential to block Myners' plans, and it is also facing resistance from some quarters because it does not give members a direct voice on the boards. This has raised fears that the axing of the regional boards would reduce the accountability of senior management.

The regional boards have a say over 78% of the votes at crucial member meetings which will be called to endorse reforms. The North West board has yet to meet, but many of the boards met on Friday and Saturday and concerns are said to have been voiced about the initial proposals.

There are suggestions that they have voted against the Myners' proposals although some stress there has been no formal show of hands and that the proposals are not complete.

Myners, who was chairman of Guardian Media Group before he became Labour's City minister during the 2008 banking crisis, is expected to publish the full version of the first stage of his report later this month – after the Co-op's results are released on 17 April when losses of at least £2bn are expected.

Sutherland's departure has left the group without a permanent replacement as chief executive while it faces ongoing controversy over the retention packages handed to other members of his team.

The bank's annual report should reveal whether Booker received the retention packages handed to other members of the remaining group executives, including Richard Pennycook, the former Morrison's finance director. He is currently acting chief executive and under pressure to hand back the £900,000-a-year retention payment which came on top of his similar size salary. The annual report will reveal any ongoing payments to past directors of the bank.

The group also needs to decide whether to back a surprise £400m fundraising initiative announced by the bank last month to cover a fresh wave of compensation from customers. It would need to find £120m if it is to maintain its 30% stake.

The bank and the group declined to comment.

¤=[Post Update]=¤

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/apr/06/kaupthing-creditors-investec-debt-robert-tchenguiz

6 April Icelandic bank

Kaupthing creditors fear Investec intends to walk away from £150m debt

Debt is legacy of Investec's administration of an offshore trust on behalf of corporate raider Robert Tchenguiz

Investec, the FTSE 250 banking and asset management group, is preparing to walk away from a debt of about £150m owed by one of its offshore businesses, according to those chasing the money on behalf of creditors to the failed Icelandic bank Kaupthing.

The debt, equivalent to almost 40% of the Anglo-South African group's profits for 2013, is an unintended legacy of Investec's administration of a hugely complex offshore trust on behalf of Robert Tchenguiz, one of London's most active corporate raiders before the 2008 banking crisis.

At its peak, the Investec-administered trust sat on top of a business empire that had heavily debt-financed interests in Sainsbury's, Mitchells & Butlers, Somerfield, Welcome Break and an extensive property portfolio – as well as homes, offices and yachts used by Tchenguiz. It had borrowings of £4bn.

The banking crisis saw many of Tchenguiz's investments come crashing down as the banks seized trust assets. Although it was not until last December that receivers were officially appointed over the trust, it has long been accepted that the Kaupthing claim, if successful, left Tchenguiz's empire horribly insolvent.

In January a court in the Channel Islands found that an Investec subsidiary, Investec Trust Guernsey (ITG), must be held liable for some of the borrowings Tchenguiz had taken on, through his trust, to finance investments. Investec is appealing against the judgment.

With remaining assets in the trust – Tchenguiz's home, his office in Mayfair and several other properties – estimated by creditors to be worth about £30m, the shortfall on the £180m owing to Kaupthing is likely to be enormous.

Tchenguiz is not personally liable for the shortfall. He is appealing against the Guernsey court's decision affirming Kaupthing's claim over trust assets.

ITG had been at the heart of Investec's offshore trust business for many years, targeting Europe's super-rich. But in 2010, Investec effectively wound down ITG to a shell company, with trust administrating functions shifting to offices in Jersey. Last November, the group's entire offshore trust operations, with offices in Switzerland, South Africa, Mauritius and Jersey, was sold.

Those acting for Kaupthing fear that, should ITG's appeal fail, then Investec will not honour the debt owed to Kaupthing creditors. ITG will be allowed to go bust.

Last December, this possibility was raised in court by the judge, lieutenant bailiff Sir John Chadwick. Addressing lawyers acting for Kaupthing creditors' interests, he said: "Your problem at the moment is that if the parent company … of ITG says: 'We are going to walk away from this. We are not going to support our subsidiary', you are left with a very personal judgment against somebody who is virtually worthless."

Lawyers for Kaupthing pointed to evidence submitted by Investec, insisting it showed: "That is exactly what the parent is saying, of course."

The Guardian put the allegation to Investec that it is planning to walk away from the ITG liability. In response, it would only stress that it is appealing against the Guernsey court's decision. It did, however, reiterate a statement from its annual report: "Investec does not expect the ultimate resolution of the proceedings to have a material adverse effect on the financial position of the group."

It is not the first time Investec has clashed with receivers acting for Kaupthing. In late 2008, shortly after the Icelandic bank began rapidly calling in loans to Tchenguiz trust companies and liquidating assets, Investec trustees wrote to Reykjavik revealing that they had removed some of the remaining collateral assets – interests in Somerfield and Welcome Break – from Kaupthing's grasp.

These interests, trustees said, would be frozen, and courts in the British Virgin Islands invited to determine who had a rightful claim over them.

Receivers were furious, and accused Investec of fraud. Investec trustees, meanwhile, insisted such allegations were "scandalous and vexatious", and that the assets rightfully belonged with the trust.

Some 18 months later, Investec trustees decided to settle with Kaupthing. Frozen assets were released and Kaupthing's allegation of fraud dropped. Less than two weeks later, Tchenguiz – who at the time was pursuing a claim, since dropped, for "fraudulent misrepresentation" against Kaupthing – removed Investec as trustees.

more at link

Sabrina

7th April 2014, 07:39

Anadarko Petroleum Gets $5.15 Billion ‘Clean-Up’ Fine After US-Wide Pollution Case

From Reuters – April 3, 2014

http://tinyurl.com/lm2sp6k

(Reuters) – Energy company Anadarko Petroleum Corp agreed on Thursday to pay more than $5 billion to clean up areas across the United States polluted by nuclear fuel, wood creosote and rocket fuel waste that caused cancer and other health problems. The agreement resolves a long-running lawsuit against the Kerr-McGee energy and chemical company, which Anadarko bought in 2006. The case was brought by a trust representing the U.S. government, 11 state governments, Indian tribes and individuals.

The trust was seeking cleanup costs at more than 2,000 sites nationwide. It was also seeking payment for claims from more than 8,000 people who said their exposure to Kerr-McGee’s wood treatment plants in Avoca, Pennsylvania and Manville, New Jersey caused cancer, which in some cases led to death.

“If you are responsible for 85 years of poisoning the earth, you are responsible for cleaning it up,” the U.S. Attorney for Manhattan, Preet Bharara, said at a news conference announcing the settlement.

Despite the size of the settlement, investors cheered, boosting Anadarko’s share price 14.5 percent to $99.02 per share. Analysts said the company was facing the possibility of having to pay a much higher price.

“This is a premier exploration company that has this dark cloud hanging over them and now its gone,” said Fadel Gheit, oil analyst at Oppenhemier.

Anadarko had argued the environmental liabilities belonged to Tronox Ltd, a paint and chemicals company that was spun off from Kerr-McGee. The sale of Tronox, which ultimately fell into bankruptcy, happened before Anadarko’s purchase.

In December, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Allan Gropper of New York said Kerr-McGee knew the spin-off would harm Tronox’s business by weighing it with heavy environmental liabilities. He said Anadarko should pay from $5.15 billion to more than $14 billion in cleanup costs. Anadarko said after the ruling the liabilities should be as little as $850 million.

Tronox, which makes titanium dioxide used in paints, said in a statement that the accord means “the cleanup of the Kerr-McGee legacy environmental damages can begin and people injured by those actions can finally be compensated.”

RECORD SETTLEMENT
At one point Kerr-McGee gave Tronox control of a nuclear fuel plant in Oklahoma, where activist worker Karen Silkwood had been employed years earlier. Meryl Streep portrayed her in the eponymous 1983 film about her fight to improve workers’ safety before her death in a car accident.

The settlement with Anadarko is the largest environmental enforcement settlement ever by the Department of Justice, larger even than its plea agreement with BP over its massive 2010 Gulf oil spill, which resulted in $4 billion in criminal fines for the British company.

The lawsuits blamed Kerr-McGee’s use of coal tar creosote, which the Environmental Protection Agency has said is a probable cause of cancer. Another troublesome operation was Kerr-McGee’s decades-old jet and rocket fuel manufacturing plant in Henderson, Nevada, where ammonium perchlorate, a primary fuel component, penetrated soil and then groundwater, causing potential harm to people in Nevada, California and Arizona.

Anadarko said in a statement that it would record a net $550 million tax benefit from the agreement.

“This settlement agreement with the Litigation Trust and the U.S. Government eliminates the uncertainty this dispute has created,” Anadarko Chief Executive Officer Al Walker said.
A Department of Justice source who asked not to be identified said “Anadarko was not found to have done anything wrong.”

CLEAN-UP
The $5.15 billion settlement will fund a wide array of projects, including $1.1 billion to address the perchlorate contamination in Nevada, the litigation trust said in a statement.

The Navajo Nation will get about $1 billion to address radioactive contamination from Kerr-McGee’s decades-old uranium mining operation. Another $1.1 billion will go toward cleanup at more than two dozen contaminated sites around the country.

Tronox used its Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection case to shed the environmental liabilities it had inherited in the spinoff by assigning them to a litigation trust. It emerged from bankruptcy in 2011.

The trust in turn sued Anadarko and Kerr-McGee, arguing the spinoff was a fraudulent ploy by Kerr-McGee to offload its clean-up responsibilities and make itself a more valuable takeover target for Anadarko, and that it doomed Tronox by loading it up with too much liability.

U.S. Attorney Bharara said Kerr-McGee had tried to avoid the cleanup “through a corporate shell game.”

Hervé

8th April 2014, 00:54

CEO Of Liechtenstein Bank Frick Murdered In Broad Daylight (http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-04-07/ceo-liechtenstein-bank-frick-murdered)

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/pictures/picture-5.jpg (http://www.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden)Submitted by Tyler Durden (http://www.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden) on 04/07/2014 10:05 -0400

Over the weekend the world was gripped by the drama surrounding the mysterious murder-homicide (http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-04-05/abn-amro-ex-ceo-found-dead)of the former CEO of Dutch bank ABN Amro and members of his family, and whether there is more foul play than meets the eye. However, that is nothing compared to what just happened in the tiny, and all too quiet Principality of Lichtenstein, where moments ago the CEO of local financial institution Bank Frick & Co. AG, Juergen Frick, was shot dead in the underground garage of the bank located in the city of Balzers.

Based on preliminary reports, the murder is the result of a disgruntled fund manager, Juergen Germann, who had previously been embroiled in a "bitter dispute" with the government and the bank. Bloomberg has more (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-07/liechtenstein-police-says-48-year-old-man-killed-in-bank-garage.html):
A 48-year-old man was shot dead in the underground garage of a financial institution in Balzers at 7:30 a.m. local time, the principality’s police said on its website. The suspect, Juergen Hermann, fled the scene in a Smart car with Liechtenstein number plates, according to police. Neither the victim nor the institution were identified in the statement.

The deceased was Juergen Frick, CEO of Bank Frick & Co. AG, Switzerland’s Radio 1 said in an e-mailed statement, citing employees of the bank. Calls to Bank Frick were answered by a voice-mail message saying the company is closed because of “a death.” It gave no further details.

Hermann is a fund manager who has been embroiled in a dispute with the Liechtenstein government and Bank Frick for many years, Switzerland’s Radio 1 said.

The Liechtenstein government and the country’s Financial Market Authority “illegally destroyed my investment company Hermann Finance and its funds, depriving me of my livelihood,” according to a website registered under the name Juergen Hermann of Hermann Finance AG.

He has filed lawsuits seeking recovery of 200 million Swiss francs ($225 million) from the government and 33 million francs from Bank Frick, according to the website. The lender “illegally enriched itself,” among other alleged crimes, it said.

A representative of Hermann’s lawyer declined to comment when reached by telephone. A call to Hermann Finance’s office was answered by an employee of a law firm who said his company isn’t related to Hermann Finance.

The narrative against the "publicly hostile" alleged shooter has already been flushed out.
Hermann has been “publicly hostile” to the country’s Financial Market Authority and some of its employees, forcing it to take security measures in consultation with the police, FMA spokesman Beat Krieger said in an e-mail today.

The escape vehicle was later found in the village of Ruggell, 25 kilometers (16 miles) north of Balzers, police said.

“The area is being searched by police with dogs and helicopters,” the 120-member police force said. Zurich police are helping to document the crime scene, spokesman Mario Cortesi said.

Here is the update form the local police station (http://www.landespolizei.li/News/Newsdetail.aspx?shmid=392&shact=-1571679195&shmiid=RRfvXRsUANc__eql__):
On Monday morning, it came in Balzers a homicide, the suspect is currently volatile.

Against 07.30 clock in an underground garage of a financial institution is a homicide occurred in which a 48-year-old man was shot. When volatile suspects are Jürgen Hermann from the Moors. He is armed and dangerous, according to police reports, the investigation of the National Police is in full swing.

Notes on a possible whereabouts of the suspects are requested immediately to the police landing +423 / 236 71 11. Upon encountering the suspect, it is important to exercise extreme caution.

Below is the profile of the murdered CEO, still on the bank's website (http://www.bankfrick.li/sites/en/about/management.html):
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2014/04/Jurgen%20Frick.png (http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2014/04/Jurgen%20Frick.png)
As CEO Jürgen Frick is closely involved in all business activities of the bank with a special focus lying on client advisory, financing and financial product development. As well he supervises all real estate development projects of the Bank.

Jürgen is also Chairman of the Board at Crystal Fund Management AG, a subsidiary of Bank Frick & Co.

As for the bank itself (http://www.bankfrick.li/sites/en/about/about.html):
Bank Frick is active in modern wealth management and provides a range of advisory services. As well it specializes in fund development and fund administration.

Our Bank entertains close ties to an efficient network of fiduciaries, insurers, tax experts, investment funds and law firms around the world.

We are completely independent. Our advice and our services cater exclusively to the individual needs and requirements of our clients.

Combinvest Establishment serves as holding for all bank shares. Family Frick is the majority stake holder.

After a successful career in international banking and fiduciary services, Kuno Frick senior founded in December 1998 Bank Frick & Co. AG. Due to his wide experience and excellent connections, Bank Frick proved an immediate success.

Since then, the bank’s assets under management have risen steadily. New business segments are continuously being added to the bank’s service portfolio, while existing ones are constantly being refined.

In autumn 2011, Bank Frick’s international presence was significantly enhanced with the opening of Bank Frick UK Branch in Mayfair, London.

Up until now it was mostly banker suicides. With the first open bank CEO murder, one wonders if there will be a change in the pattern.

Sabrina

8th April 2014, 07:59

http://divinecosmos.com/start-here/davids-blog/1159-flight-370

The latest David Wilcock blog is out here. Just a few snippets below - fascinating stuff!

Our most important time-fractal was seeded throughout more than 30 ancient cultures -- and we know it as the 2,160-year Age of the Zodiac.

This is particularly interesting since we just shifted into a new 2,160-year cycle -- the Age of Aquarius -- as of December 21, 2012.

Less than six months later, the Cabal was very actively being exposed by the Snowden NSA revelations.

Now there are so many provocative and fascinating headlines coming out that I literally cannot keep up with them on a day-to-day basis………

Right now we are at the very end of World War III -- in cyclical terms…….

Although there is plenty of evidence that this villain does exist, there is also a great deal of evidence that a worldwide alliance is working to defeat them……..

The heads of all branches of the American military asked Kennedy to approve a plan to create multiple, fake terrorist attacks against American targets in order to start a new war.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=92662…….

OPERATION NORTHWOODS

Just to review what we've seen in the previous section, the highest-ranking military personnel in America recommended to President Kennedy that fake terrorist attacks be staged with airliners.

Real airliners would be swapped with drones, flown at extremely low altitudes and repainted.

The drones would then attack their intended targets. The attacks would be blamed on the enemy of choice -- in that case Cuba.

In other plans, the public would be told a plane had crashed -- such as a plane filled with passengers.

The real passengers would all be CIA agents. The plane would fly into a military base at a very low altitude.

The passengers would then re-assume their original identities and blend back into society.

Submarines and / or surface boats would then be used to plant fake wreckage in the water immediately after the event.

THIS IS NOT A "CONSPIRACY THEORY"

This plan was leaked by Congress and vetted out and published by ABC News in May, 2001 -- in partnership with NSA whistleblower James Bamford………………….

A secretive group may have been using staged terrorism to create wars for hundreds, if not thousands of years……………

LET'S START WITH A HIJACKING AND GO FROM THERE...

What if a mysterious hijacking -- so we think -- turned into the most devastating mass political assassination in human history?

What if the real plane was safely landed at a US military base and swapped out with a drone -- already pre-loaded with explosives?

What if you ended up blaming this same stunt on your enemy -- hijacking the plane, holding passengers hostage, and fitting it with explosives?

What if the drone -- a matching Boeing 777 -- was then crashed into a United Nations meeting?

What if this happened to be a meeting where the leaders from the top 53 nations on Earth -- mostly presidents and prime ministers -- had gathered?

IT WOULD BE THE MOST DEVASTATING TERRORIST ATTACK IN HUMAN HISTORY

(Many insiders believe the airliner that ditched in Pennsylvania during 9/11 was headed for the US Congress building)…….

The mainstream media has barely even mentioned how a Boeing 777-ER -- exactly like Flight 370 -- was escorted away from the Hague by two F-16s. (24 March 2014)…..

Sabrina

8th April 2014, 08:22

More on the Liechtenstein banker shooting (or suicide some now say!!) story as covered by zerohedge above.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26931814

7 April

'Liechtenstein bank chief shot dead'

The chief executive of a private bank has been shot dead in the underground car park of his bank's headquarters in the principality of Liechtenstein, Swiss media report.

SRF online named him as Juergen Frick, head of Bank Frick, based in Balzers near the Swiss border.

Police confirmed the shooting of a 48-year-old man but did not name him.

Detectives named a former fund manager as the suspect and said they believed he may have taken his own life.

The suspect, Juergen Hermann, calls himself the "Robin Hood of Liechtenstein" on his website.

He is reported to have spent years feuding with Bank Frick and Liechtenstein's government over financial matters.

Liechtenstein police said officers had found Mr Hermann's passport which contained a hand-written note in which he confessed to the shooting and wrote "parting words".

Clothes found
They said that sniffer dogs had followed a trail to a stretch of the River Rhine where Mr Hermann's clothes were found.

Police said that although it appeared likely he had taken his own life, efforts to find him were continuing.

According to reports, Mr Hermann had been spotted on the car park's surveillance cameras.

Police quickly named him as the suspected gunman and warned the public that he was considered armed and dangerous.

Mr Hermann's car was later found abandoned in countryside near the Rhine, close to the borders with Austria and Switzerland.

Police sealed off a wide area and were using dogs and helicopters in the search.

and

http://news.msn.com/world/liechtenstein-robin-hood-believed-dead-after-banker-shooting

Liechtenstein 'Robin Hood' believed dead after banker shooting

Police in Liechtenstein said Monday that a self-styled "Robin Hood" suspected of killing a banker in a financial feud is believed to have committed suicide, but that efforts to locate him continued.

Liechtenstein police said officers had found Juergen Hermann's driving licence and his passport, the latter containing a hand-written note in which he confessed to the shooting and bid farewell to the world.

Sniffer dogs followed a trail to the bank of the River Rhine, where the suspect's clothes were found.

As a result, it appeared likely that Hermann had taken his own life, police said, but efforts to locate him would nonetheless continue.

Hermann, an engineer, financier and technology investor, is the prime suspect in Monday's fatal shooting of Juergen Frick, the boss of Liechtenstein's Bank Frick.

The killing sparked a manhunt in the tiny Alpine principality, where violent crime is unusual, and police had warned the public that Hermann was considered armed and dangerous.

In an apparent challenge, content on Hermann's website Monday had been replaced with the English words: "Catch me if you can, dead or alive, reward 200,000,000 CHF".

Hermann, who calls himself the "Robin Hood of Liechtenstein" on his website, has spent seven years sparring with Bank Frick and the tax haven's government over what he alleges is wrongdoing that has cost him huge sums.

He is seeking 200 million Swiss francs (163 million euros, $225 million) from the state and 33 million Swiss francs from Bank Frick over the 2005 collapse of his hi-tech investment company and funds, which had been put on watch by the authorities.

Hermann has also challenged the "financial mafia" which, he alleges, control the country of some 37,000 people sandwiched between Switzerland and Austria.

In line with Liechtenstein legal custom, police did not identify Frick as the victim. But his name was published in several media reports, which also said he was related to the country's former prime minister.

The body was found by an employee Monday morning in a bank's underground carpark in Balzers, a town in southern Liechtenstein.

Hermann, who was spotted on the carpark's video surveillance, was believed to have followed Frick's car into the carpark on foot, where he shot him as he got out of the vehicle.

His getaway car was found later Monday abandoned in the countryside near the River Rhine in the north of the country and the Swiss and Austrian borders.

Police deployed dogs and helicopters to comb through the sealed-off area and urged the public to stay away and exercise maximum caution if they stumbled upon Hermann.

AFP

and

q9libx5u4m4

and

http://www.silverdoctors.com/ceo-of-liechtenstein-bank-frick-shot-dead-in-parking-garage/

7 April

CEO OF LIECHTENSTEIN BANK FRICK SHOT DEAD IN PARKING GARAGE

The unprecedented recent string of banker “suicides” (which now includes the former CEO of ABN Amro) now has the first incident which even the MSM are describing as a murder, as the CEO of Liechtenstein Bank Frick has just been shot dead in broad daylight in the bank’s parking garage.

The media is initially reporting that the likely culprit is a fund manager Juergen Hermann, who reportedly had a major dispute with Bank Frick & Co and had a current 33 million franc suit open against the firm.

As Bloomberg reports:
A 48-year-old man was shot dead in the underground garage of a financial institution in Balzers at 7:30 a.m. local time, the principality’s police said on its website. The suspect, Juergen Hermann, fled the scene in a Smart car with Liechtenstein number plates, according to police. Neither the victim nor the institution were identified in the statement.

The deceased was Juergen Frick, CEO of Bank Frick & Co. AG, Switzerland’s Radio 1 said in an e-mailed statement, citing employees of the bank. Calls to Bank Frick were answered by a voice-mail message saying the company is closed because of “a death.” It gave no further details.

Hermann is a fund manager who has been embroiled in a dispute with the Liechtenstein government and Bank Frick for many years, Switzerland’s Radio 1 said.

The Liechtenstein government and the country’s Financial Market Authority “illegally destroyed my investment company Hermann Finance and its funds, depriving me of my livelihood,” according to a website registered under the name Juergen Hermann of Hermann Finance AG.

He has filed lawsuits seeking recovery of 200 million Swiss francs ($225 million) from the government and 33 million francs from Bank Frick, according to the website. The lender “illegally enriched itself,” among other alleged crimes, it said.

A representative of Hermann’s lawyer declined to comment when reached by telephone. A call to Hermann Finance’s office was answered by an employee of a law firm who said his company isn’t related to Hermann Finance.

While the initial reports lead us to believe the incident may be unrelated to the string of banker suicides that Jim Willie’s sources claim are related to FOREX Fraud, (particularly as the media are reporting the incident as a murder) we will update the story as more info becomes available.

Sabrina

8th April 2014, 08:52

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/04/08/uk-barclays-libor-court-idUKBREA3703E20140408?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2FUKDomesticNews+%28News+%2F+UK+%2F+Domestic+News%29

Presumably Barclays doesn't want all the info. airing in court, and being covered in the press...

8 April

Barclays settles Libor 'test case' before UK trial

(Reuters) - Barclays has reached a settlement with a UK care home operator weeks before the start of a court case that was seen as a test case for whether customers might sue banks over the manipulation of Libor interest rates.

Barclays had been accused by the care home operator of mis-selling products linked to benchmark interest rates and senior Barclays employees and former executives, including former chief executive Bob Diamond, had been due to testify at the trial.

The case was being closely watched by banks and their customers, after Barclays and several other lenders were fined for manipulating Libor or its euro equivalent Euribor.

If Barclays had lost it was expected to open the door for more bank clients to claim they were mis-sold products linked to Libor.

Graiseley Properties, the parent of Guardian Care Homes, had claimed that interest rate hedging products it was sold by Barclays were invalid because the bank had manipulated Libor rates, to which some of the products' prices were linked.

It sued Barclays for 70 million pounds. Barclays said Guardian owed it the same amount, and was trying to get out of repaying it.

"The parties have negotiated and agreed to a commercial restructuring of Graiseley's debt, which reflects the impact of changes in conditions in this sector over the last few years. Graiseley has withdrawn the litigation," a spokesman for Barclays said.

Guardian Care Homes and its law firm could not be reached for comment.

The terms of the settlement were not released.

The battle in London's High Court was due to go to trial on April 29 and had been expected to last for about six weeks. It had been due to be the first case tied to the manipulation of Libor to reach trial. Deutsche Bank is also involved in a London court case tied to benchmark rates.

Barclays had already had to hand over thousands of emails and other documents from its former bosses and staff.

Diamond, former investment bank bosses Rich Ricci and Jerry del Missier, and former finance director Chris Lucas were among 23 people who had been called as witnesses for the trial.

Diamond and del Missier left Barclays in 2012 shortly after Barclays agreed to pay a $450 million (271 million pounds) settlement with U.S. and UK authorities due to alleged Libor manipulation.

Guardian Care Homes' lawyers had said a $4 billion fund run by Barclays profited from low 3-month sterling Libor rates so the bank benefited from the downward manipulation of Libor, while at the same time selling customers an interest rate hedging product "on the basis that Barclays believed rates would go up".

Sabrina

9th April 2014, 05:54

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/04/01/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-plane/index.html

Report: MH370 disappearance a criminal investigation, police chief says

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (CNN) -- The investigation into Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is now classified as a criminal investigation, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing the Malaysian police chief.

Inspector General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar said authorities have already recorded more than 170 statements and will interview more people for the Flight 370 probe, the Journal said.
But Bakar cautioned that what happened with Flight 370 might still be unknown after the investigation.

He added that the investigation into the flight simulator in the pilot's house is still inconclusive. Authorities are awaiting an expert's report on the simulator, he said.

After three and a half weeks, the search for the missing plane has come down to this: a lot of floating rubbish, hundreds of heartbroken relatives and, now, quibbling over words all acknowledge offer no clues into what happened to the doomed plane.

more at link

2 April

Sabrina

9th April 2014, 06:04

Let's hope the Cardinal Cross coming in astrologically this April heralds some real financial change and the white hats are there behind the scenes…

UK Urges US Congress to Stop Blocking IMF Reforms as China and Russia Lead Efforts to Bypass US

By Nicholas Winning, WSJ -April 7, 2014

http://tinyurl.com/kbmkhbn

Changes Would Give Developing Countries More Voting Power to Reflect Their Growth, Role in World

The failure of the U.S. Congress to ratify reforms to the International Monetary Fund is bad both for the institution and the international community, U.K. Treasury Chief George Osborne said on Monday in Rio de Janeiro.

“I urge the [U.S.] Administration and Congress to act to pass them now,” he said in a speech as he kicked off a three-day trade trip to Brazil ahead of the IMF spring meeting in Washington, D.C. at the end of the week.

IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde urged the same last month in The Wall Street Journal, saying the fund’s continued ability to fight economic and financial crisis rested on the approval of the reforms.

A large majority of the fund’s 188 member countries have ratified the changes which aim to strengthen the resources and governance of the fund, she said.

The changes would give developing countries, like Brazil, and China, more voting power to reflect their growth and larger role in the world economy. Increasing their voting power would also mean their financial contributions would rise, thereby broadening the IMF’s funding base and making it more representative of the membership, Ms. Lagarde said.

The U.S. is the only IMF member with veto power over major overhauls of its rules and governance and the changes cannot move forward until Congress ratifies the deal. However, some IMF members have set an informal deadline for looking at alternatives: the fund’s semiannual meeting on April 11-13, when finance ministers and central bank chiefs gather to discuss the state of the global economy.

“Let’s implement the reforms we have agreed to in our international institutions like the IMF so that countries like Brazil have the enhanced status and say that your economic strength earns you the right to,” Mr. Osborne said.

The British Chancellor of the Exchequer said the risks in the world economy, the situation in Ukraine, and the challenges of how to manage the withdrawal of Western monetary stimulus would be discussed at the IMF meeting.

“And we should agree both that those monetary authorities like the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England should continue to communicate their exit plans clearly with forward guidance; but that emerging markets must also continue with their crucial structural reforms,” he said. “We will look to see what more we can do together to build resilience in our financial systems and support growth in our economies.”

Mr. Osborne’s government has looked to boost British exports to Latin America and other fast-growing regions in an effort to offset the impact of the slowdown in Europe. The U.K’s trade deficit stood at £26.6 billion ($44 billion) in 2013, down from £33.4 billion a year earlier.

The Bank of England said Monday it will start accepting some export-finance securities as collateral for loans to commercial banks. Mike Rees, deputy group chief executive at lender Standard Chartered PLC, said the move will give banks “an increased level of comfort” over financing exports, which Mr. Osborne said should help spur greater lending to British firms trading overseas.

Sabrina

9th April 2014, 22:36

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/tony-blair-knew-everything-about-cia-interrogation-programme-9241863.html

Tony Blair 'knew everything about CIA interrogation programme'

Tony Blair knew in detail about the CIA’s secret kidnap and interrogation programme after the September 11 attacks, a security source has told The Telegraph, the newspaper reported.

The then prime minster and Jack Straw, his foreign secretary, were kept informed “every step of the way” by MI6 and were shown Bush administration legal opinions that declared “enhanced interrogation” techniques such as waterboarding and stress positions to be legal, the source said.

“The politicians took a very active interest indeed. They wanted to know everything. The Americans passed over the legal opinions saying that this was now 'legal’, and our politicians were aware of what was going on at the highest possible level,” the source, who was reported to have direct and detailed knowledge of the transatlantic relations during that period, told The Telegraph.

“The politicians knew in detail about everything – the torture and the rendition. They could have said [to M16] 'stop it, do not get involved’, but at no time did they.”

The claims comes as Scotland Yard continues to investigate whether MI6 officers should face criminal charges for alleged complicity in the rendition of suspected terrorists, including two Libyan dissidents and their families, who in 2004 were kidnapped and flown to Tripoli where they were tortured.

The case was opened in 2012 following the discovery of documents recovered during the Libyan revolution that appeared to show that Sir Mark Allen, the former head of counter-terrorism at MI6, and other agents had been complicit in the rendition of Abdel Hakim Belhadj, who was captured by the CIA with his pregnant wife and sent back to Libya.

The Telegraph reported that it understood that MI6 had been forced to hand over top secret documents from that period to police and that senior officers who served at the time have been interviewed as part of the investigation. But the newspaper reported that it is not known whether Mr Straw, who intelligence sources have indicated was fully briefed on the rendition, has also been interviewed by police.

The source’s claims reinforce those made publicly by Sir Richard Dearlove, the head of MI6 from 1999 to 2004, who said in a speech in 2012 that MI6’s cooperation with the CIA’s rendition programme was a “political” decision.

The source said: “Tony Blair absolutely knew, Dearlove was briefing him all the time. He was meticulous about keeping the politicians informed. Whether there was anything in writing, well that is a different matter,” added the source, who said it was laughable to suggest that the approval for British security services to cooperate with the CIA programme had been authorised by Mr Straw alone.

“The understanding at SIS [Secret Intelligence Service] was it was acting in the 'national interest’ and with clear political approval.

“SIS is not a rogue organisation. It would never do this kind of thing alone and without explicit authorisation; that is just not how it works.”

The British government has never formally admitted its role in rendition or officially apologised to victims, but it has paid out millions of pounds in “no fault” settlements to rendition victims and former Guantánamo Bay inmates who sued for damages.

This week, the US Senate voted to declassify a summary of a 6,300-page report into the CIA’s rendition programme in a move that legal experts say will put added pressure on the British government to come clean about its role.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, the Democrat chairman of the committee that conducted the research, said the “shocking” report had “uncovered the facts” behind the secret programme and could be made public within 30 days following a security review by the White House and the CIA.

6 April

wnlight

15th April 2014, 05:38

The Illuminati are taking their money and running.

Sabrina

19th April 2014, 06:59

This story of investigations into child abuse at a guest house in London, and links with children's homes, rumbles on - with links to top political figures. But it will come out one day when the intimidation collapses and is no match for the truth. The Lib Dem's response is pathetic.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/liberaldemocrats/10775360/Influential-politician-visited-guest-house-at-centre-of-child-sex-investigation.html

18 April UK

'Influential' politician visited guest house at centre of child sex investigation

Simon Danczuk, the Labour MP who exposed Cyril Smith as a paedophile, says an 'influential' politician visited a guest house at the centre of a child sex investigation

An “influential” politician who is still sitting in Parliament allegedly visited a guest house at the centre of a child sex investigation, the Labour MP who exposed Cyril Smith has claimed.

Simon Danczuk last week published a book on Cyril Smith which reignited the scandal over the former Liberal MP, who used his power and influence to abuse hundreds of boys for over four decades.

He told The Telegraph that during his investigations he interviewed a man who was sexually abused by Smith at the Elm Guest House when he was 16-years-old.

The man gave him the name of another parliamentarian who had visited the guest house, describing him as a “much bigger fish” and significantly “higher up the food chain”.

Mr Danczuk said. “He was saying ‘is the book not going to include this person, I think he knew much more. He was clearly giving the impression ‘never mind Smith, what about this person’. There is someone higher up the food chain, much more important.”

Police are investigating allegations that the Elm Guest House in south-west London was used by a “VIP” ring of paedophiles including politicians, high-ranking policemen and celebrities.

Mr Danczuk said he was passed the details of a man who was forced to work at the guest house when he was 16-years-old. The man, who feared for his life, said that Smith had visited him several times at the guest house.

He disclosed that on one occasion, 29-stone Smith got stuck in the sauna and had to be hoisted out. However, the individual assumed that Mr Danczuk’s book would be about another more senior politician who had visited the guest house.

Mr Danczuk said he is convinced that there was a “network of paedophiles” operating in the Commons who helped to protect Smith.
He said: “I think some of these people are still in Parliament. I don't think it's substantial, but everything would indicate that ring has existed for some time."

He also criticised the Liberal Democrats for failing to take the allegations seriously.

He said: “They have been defensive, slippery and shifty, they are a party in denial. I don't think they're fit for government. They are a small political party, I find it incredible that they are claiming that they didn't hear the rumours about Smith."

Last week Nick Clegg said that the allegations took place “well before the party I now lead even existed – in fact, took place before I even existed”.

He said that Lib Dem whips had asked MPs and peers whether they were aware of the allegations against Mr Smith in 2012, but they knew nothing.

However Lord Steel, the former Liberal leader, admitted last year that he had been aware of Cyril Smith's "unusual behaviour with boys" since 1979 but accepted his denials of wrongdoing.

In 1979 the Rochdale Alternative Press, a local magazine, published details of Smith’s abuse at Cambridge House. A spokesman for Lord Steel, then leader of the Liberal Party: "All he seems to have done is spanked a few bare bottoms."

Mr Danczuk said: “Nick Clegg has failed to show leadership on this,” he said. “It is pretty close to cowardice. In the 90s people went to jail over Tory sleaze, but nothing is happening here.”

Sabrina

19th April 2014, 07:11

http://itccs.org/2014/04/17/public-information-update-from-the-prosecutors-office-of-the-international-common-law-court-of-justice/

Public Information Update from The Prosecutor’s Office of The International Common Law Court of Justice

Bulletin No. 3: Thursday, April 17, 2014 – 10 pm GMT

In the Matter of the People v. Bergoglio, Pachon, Welby and others charged with global child trafficking and ritual murder

Summary:

The Court adjourns for two weeks after the first round in the Prosecutor’s Case discloses the startling testimony of eight witnesses.

Two separate witnesses describe their alleged rape and ritual torture by chief defendant Jorge Bergoglio (alias “Pope Francis”) in 2009 and 2010.

The Chief Prosecutor establishes a link between the British, Dutch and Belgian royal families and the disappearances and killing of Mohawk children at the Church of England’s Brantford Indian residential school in Canada.

Jesuit records are introduced as evidence detailing the so-called “Magisterial Privilege” decreeing papal involvement in “Ninth Circle” ritual murder of newborn children. The same records identify Joseph Ratzinger as a member of the “Knights of Darkness” S.S. sacrificial cult during World War Two.

ITCCS Field Secretary Kevin Annett is scheduled to testify before the Court during its second round of sessions in early May to corroborate witnesses’ testimonies from his own work and experience.

A prominent Vatican official initiates back channel communication with the Court and offers key evidence, as Magistrates consider extending closed Court sessions during May.

The Court and its affiliates will issue an Easter Proclamation this Sunday, April 20 and endorse public actions at the Vatican and Catholic churches across the world. Rev. Kevin Annett will lead a public ceremony of “exorcism and replacement” at a prominent Catholic cathedral on that day.

The Details:

Following eight days of Court procedure and the commencement of the Citizen Prosecutor’s case against the three chief defendants, the first Common Law adjudication of evidence concerning global child trafficking has adjourned for two weeks, until 10 am GMT on Monday, May 5, 2014.

Commencing on Tuesday, April 8 after an opening Court session the day before, the case by the Citizen Prosecutor’s Office presented evidence directly linking all three chief defendants with the planning and execution of child trafficking networks within the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches, and with the practice and concealment of the ritual rape, torture and killing of children.

Along with considerable documentation, the Prosecutor introduced notarized affidavit statements from eight eyewitnesses to these crimes, including videotaped interviews with two adolescent women who claim to have been tortured and raped by chief defendant Jorge Bergoglio, alias “Pope Francis”, during the spring of 2009 and 2010, at horrific cult functions connected to the “Ninth Circle” child sacrifice network.

“Survivors of these rituals describe newborn babies being chopped to pieces on stone altars, and their remains were then consumed by the participants” described the Chief Prosecutor to the Court.

“The survivors during the 1960′s period were forced to rape and mutilate other children, and then cut their throats with ceremonial daggers. Former Pope Benedict, Joseph Ratzinger, Dutch Cardinal Alfrink, and Prince Bernhard were among the cult participants, according to these survivors. But significantly, the more recent incidents in 2009 and 2010 involved exactly the same kinds of ritualized murder of newborn infants in rural Holland and Belgium.”

Other witnesses described their personal knowledge of efforts by the defendants to conceal the involvement of not only the Catholic and Anglican church, but the British, Belgian and Dutch royal families, in the ritual killing of Mohawk Indian children at the Brantford residential school in Ontario, Canada.

These killings span over seventy years and include the period between 1942 and 1945 when exiled Dutch Queen Wilhemina and her family lived in Canada, and participated in Ninth Circle rituals at the Mohawk Indian school.

Introduced documentation* indicates that, to assist and conceal such involvement of Dutch “royals” in these cult killings, the Canadian government and Privy Council Office in London granted “extra-territorial exemption” to the Dutch royals from all criminal, civil and military jurisdiction while in Canada. (* The Canada Gazette , Issue No. 232, December 26, 1942, Ottawa)

Dutch and Belgian royal participants in the rape and killing of Mohawk children and newborns included Bilderberger founder Crown Prince Bernhard and King Hendrick, consort to Queen Wilhelmina of Holland.

As part of the Prosecutor’s corroborating evidence, secret archives from the Jesuit Order were introduced into the Court record that describe in detail the so-called “Magisterial Privilege” compelling the participation of every new Pope in the Ninth Circle sacrifice of new born children.

The records suggest that the Ninth Circle was established by the Jesuits just prior to their staged “disbandment” in 1773 and their establishment three years later of the so-called Illuminati cult, although references are also made to organized child sacrifice rituals at Catholic cathedrals in Rome as early as the year 1528.

The Chief Prosecutor told the Court,

“These archives clearly indicate a premeditated plan for centuries by the Jesuits to ritually murder kidnapped newborn babies and then consume their blood, born of a twisted notion of deriving spiritual power from the lifeblood of the innocent and thereby assuring the political stability of the Papacy in Rome. Every Pope was expected to and did in fact participate in these monstrous rituals … These acts are not only genocidal but systemic and institutionalized in nature, and indict the Roman Catholic Church and the Jesuits as a whole, and every Pope since at least in the year 1773.”

The same collection of Jesuit archival records make reference to a child sacrificial cult known as The Knights of Darkness, established by the Nazi Waffen S.S. Division in 1933 with Jesuit backing. The archives identify former Pope Benedict, Joseph Ratzinger, as a member of the Knights and as an S.S. Chaplain’s assistant at the Ravensbruck concentration camp in Germany, where he participated in sacrificial rites using children transported to the camp or kidnapped from political prisoners.

The latter practice was a common Jesuit undertaking in Spain, Argentina and other fascist regimes, and one implicating chief defendant Jorge Bergoglio while he was a priest, Bishop and front man for the military junta in Argentina during the 1970′s.

ITCCS Field Secretary Kevin Annett is scheduled to appear as a witness during the second session of the Court commencing Monday, May 5. Annett will provide thorough corroborating evidence and personal testimony to support the Prosecutor’s case and the evidence concerning the Brantford killings, gained over twenty years’ work with residential school survivors in Canada, including during his targeted persecution by church and state. (www,hiddennolonger.com)

Meanwhile, in startling related news, a senior Vatican official initiated a back channel communication with the Court last week in order to offer key evidence to the Prosecutor’s Office concerning its case against the chief defendants.

The Vatican official has requested strict anonymity and security, prompting the Court Magistrates to consider extending the closed sessions of the Court during its next round in May.

Finally, this Easter Sunday, April 20, the Court and its affiliates in twenty one countries will issue a Public Proclamation to be read at Catholic churches in Rome and dozens of other cities.

Rev. Kevin Annett will lead a public ceremony of “Exorcism and Replacement” at a central Catholic facility on that day, and similar ceremonies will be held at the Vatican and at many other catholic churches. Details of the event will be posted this Sunday evening GMT at www.itccs.org .

Stay updated regarding further Court and related news at www.itccs.org and www.iclcj.com .

Issued by The Public Information Agency of The Office of the Citizen Prosecutor.

The International Common Law Court of Justice, Brussels.

and

http://itccs.org/2014/04/13/the-slung-stone-called-the-truth-and-its-consequences-living-in-a-post-goliath-world/

The Slung Stone called the Truth, and its Consequences: Living in a post-Goliath World

Posted on April 13, 2014

The Slung Stone called the Truth, and its Consequences:
Living in a post-Goliath World

by Kevin D. Annett

Field Secretary of The International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State (ITCCS)

“At least 50,000 aboriginal children died in the residential schools between 1896 and 1973, according to the government’s own documented mortality rates …” – First press release of Kevin Annett announcing the publication of his book “Hidden from History: The Canadian Holocaust” on February 1, 2000

“The death records of tens of thousands of First Nations children who died during the time residential schools were operating in Canada have been handed over to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Several provincial governments gave up the records to the commission …” – West Coast Native News, March 30, 2014 (http://westcoastnativenews.com/tens-of-thousands-first-nation-children-died-in-residential-schools/)

Then David chose some smooth stones and put them in his bag, and he held his sling in readiness as he drew near to Goliath … – 1 Samuel 17:40

………

The Killing Stone called the Truth

I definitely know the score now. But even as the Goliath of Rome and London is staggering from the blow and is going down, some lingering stupid part of me still finds it not quite believable that the miracle has happened, and the battle is won. Even in victory, our minds linger in the past.

And so that odd part of me found it strange last week that no reporters were calling me up to ask me how I felt for being right, all this time; or that the United Church of Canada wasn’t banging on my door with a formal “We’re sorry!” for needlessly destroying my life over something that was actually true: their own murder of little brown kids.

Well of course they’re not phoning, you dummy! I said to stupid me. They’re fleeing for their lives!

Those Philistines in Church and State are not the issue any more, after all; especially now that they’re in head long retreat after the fall of their Goliath-like Lie, as they spread the distractions and politically correct rhetoric they need to cover their withdrawal. But in their wake, the rest of you now have to decide how you’re going to live in the great void and brilliant light left by their absence.

I met an insider today who worked for decades as a senior RCMP official. He told me that every Mountie in Canada has been told that “under no circumstances” are they to harass or engage or even question me. Why? Because of the recent Stand Down Order that our Common Law Court issued to every agent of the English Crown, after the latter was found guilty of Genocide last year. The Mounties are, in short, afraid of that Order, because, to quote the official,

“We all know what we did”.

The news from Rome is even more revealing. Apparently even the Mafia isn’t using the Vatican Bank to launder their drug money anymore since “even the blind can see that the Church is on its knees, and not in prayer”, to quote an Italian Senator. And apparently, two more prominent Cardinals connected to the Bank are about to throw in the towel.

All of that looks to me like a Titan named Goliath lying prone in the dust, waiting only for one who is bold enough to slice off his head with his own sword.

That blow is coming, but first I want to share what really brought the Beast down.

I just turned fifty eight in February, and my hips don’t work so well these days, which comes from having to walk everywhere with my weighty bags of documents. It wasn’t so twenty two years ago, when I still had a driver’s license and a salary, and when I first heard about the Port Alberni Killing Fields as a young United Church clergyman there.

The particularly incurable kind of war weariness that comes from having fought for so long hadn’t taken hold of me back then. I was as blind as the rest of you in those days, and in that way, quite happy. And a lot of my Indian friends were still breathing then, too: folks who you’ll never hear about except through me, who knew all about the murdered children, and had even helped bury them. But those friends of mine are dead now too. All of them.

Ricky Lavallee was one of them: he with his two stringed guitar and wry grin who always bummed the same two bucks off me for pizza before setting out with a few other survivors and me to create a nuisance on Sundays in the downtown Vancouver churches that hated the sight of us and what we knew of their filth. Ricky and six of us once stopped all the traffic along Georgia street with our banner that cried, “All the Children Need a Proper Burial”, and he was smiling the entire time.

Last year, somebody whacked Ricky in the chest so hard he died, not too long after he spoke publicly about seeing another one of our buddies, Bingo Dawson, get beaten by Vancouver cops so badly that he died, too. But since Bingo “officially” expired from “alcohol poisoning” … well, Ricky quickly became just another inconvenient eyewitness.

Pictures of Ricky Lavallee and Bingo Dawson should hang in every classroom in our new, burgeoning Republic of Kanata, for they, and other fallen heroes, were the force that propelled the stone that brought the criminals down.

… and its Consequences

Well wishers who routinely urge me to “Be Safe” these days really haven’t caught up with events. It’s the bad guys who like to pretend they’re in charge who have to watch their collective ass nowadays, not me, because, like the Mountie said, they know what they’ve done.

As a homeless firebrand in Galilee used to say all the time, the kingdom of heaven is everywhere on earth, yet people do not see it. That about sums up our situation now, in the wake of the legal and soon to be spiritual disestablishment of the Vatican and the Crown of England, and all of the countries and corporations they’ve spawned. We are free to remake the world and ourselves now, but only if we stop seeing and believing the illusions spun in our head by fictitious entities, starting with the so-called courts and governments and churches that can seem so real.

A new friend of mine in the Canadian midwest is a farmer and a hell of an expert on the common law. He puts things this way,

“There was once only the Natural Law governing men and women, the de jure law of God, of equality and peace. But then de facto legal power subverted lawful power, and the de facto force was the unlawful power of self-appointed kings and popes who ruled arbitrarily and not from the natural law. But then Magna Carta came along to restore Natural Law to mankind, yet once again, the de facto power has chipped away at that until justice is effectively abolished in all the so-called courts.

“Today, there are no more de jure courts or governments anywhere: they’re all private contractors for the corporations that run our world. So we are now abolishing those de facto corporate powers with Magna Carta once more, through the common law courts. But this time, the see saw battle has to end. The People have to finally reclaim the law and the earth if they’re to have a future.”

Fine, so many of you awakening people are responding. But HOW?

Our work is showing all of you not only the why but the how of displacing criminal institutions, and not simply by exposing the crimes. For the past year, we have formed training workshops to teach people the common law and deputize them to be the sheriffs and peace officers and jury members who will replace the corrupt, private commercial courts of today. And starting in May, groups around the world will be systematically enforcing the Stand Down Orders issued against the existing criminal authorities, whether they be cops, priests, judges, politicians or popes.

And to give things a really nice push at the higher levels, during the upcoming Easter weekend of April 18-20, we will be spiritually converging on Rome to nullify the authority and rule of the Vatican and the entity that controls it.

The sword is lifted to finally sever Goliath’s head, O people. The problem isn’t the lack of a blade, but the cowardice and conditioning of the mass of people. And that’s why it’s only the remnant of called out warriors who will be able to create the example and spark the enlightenment that will rally the millions who can reshape our world. And so the clarity and will of that Remnant is now the decisive issue.

The consequences of a well aimed death blow: you’ve got to love them! So prove to yourself, to God, and to our descendents, that you are worthy of the freedom that you have been given now by the blood and the sacrifice of a few of us.

Sabrina

19th April 2014, 07:21

“Label” this a Victory… “GMO Labeling Law Victory in Vermont!” (USA)

“Today, by a vote of 28-2, the Vermont state Senate passed H.112, a bill to require mandatory labeling of foods sold in Vermont that contain genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The bill also makes it illegal to call any food product containing GMOs “natural” or “all natural.” Unlike bills passed last year in Maine and Connecticut, which require four or five other states to pass GMO labeling laws before they can be enacted, Vermont’s law contains no “trigger” clauses, making it the first “clean” GMO labeling law in the country.

“The bill now goes back to the House which is expected to agree to the Senate’s amendments, then to Gov. Peter Shumlin who is expected to sign it.”

The last line of the law says, “This act shall take effect on July 1, 2014.”

A copy may be downloaded here: http://www.leg.state.vt.us/docs/2014/bills/intro/H-112.pdf.

Source article: http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_29778.cfm

Sabrina

20th April 2014, 14:01

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/quango-chief-tony-caplin-quits-after-bankruptcy-emerges-9272099.html

20 April UK

Quango chief Tony Caplin quits after bankruptcy emerges

A businessman appointed by David Cameron to head a multibillion quango handling public money has quit after it was revealed he was bankrupt.

Tony Caplin, former Conservative Party chief operating officer, resigned as chairman of the Public Works Loans Board (PWLB) which is responsible for £60 billion of loans in infrastructure projects.

The Mail on Sunday reported that Number 10 was forced to act after an investigation it carried out revealed he had been made bankrupt in 2012.

Whitehall rules require anyone serving on a public body who is declared bankrupt to inform the responsible minister immediately.

A Government spokesman said: "Tony Caplin was appointed to a number of public bodies by the Labour Party. He was re-appointed to the PWLB by the Prime Minister.

"He should have declared he was bankrupt. This has been pointed out to him and as a result he has resigned."

Mr Caplin, a former chairman of stockbrokers Panmure Gordon where Mr Cameron's father Ian was a partner, has also left his post on the Medical Research Council.

He previously served on a number of other public bodies, including the North West London Hospitals NHS Trust where he was chairman until January of last year.

He has been a commissioner on the PWLB for 10 years and in July 2013, he was appointed chairman by Mr Cameron.

Senior Labour MP Margaret Hodge, who chairs the Commons Public Accounts Committee, told The Mail on Sunday: "This raises serious questions which should be investigated."

Shadow chief treasury secretary Chris Leslie said: "For him to be bankrupted in 2012 and appointed by the Prime Minister as chairman of this key Treasury body the following year is surely a misjudgement too far by a Prime Minister with a track record of poor judgment in relation to his cronies."

Sabrina

20th April 2014, 14:18

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2608675/Shamed-Co-op-boss-quizzed-cover-child-sex-Cyril-Smith-school-Flowers-targeted-QC-suppressed-reports-exposing-horrific-sweet-shop-paedophiles.html

Good that the main stream media is getting behind the exposure of extensive abuse in children's homes over decades and the coverups. When will the big names come out and the intimidation stop on this?

20 April UK

Shamed Co-op boss is to be quizzed over cover-up of child sex at Cyril Smith school: Flowers targeted by QC over suppressed reports exposing horrific 'sweet shop for paedophiles'

At the time of Cyril Smith abuse, Flowers was vice-chairman of Rochdale Council's social services committee, which oversaw Knowl View School

The disgraced Methodist minister will be sent a letter demanding he answer inquiry's questions. Nine others will be put on notice in same way

The interviews will take place early next month

Former Co-op chairman Paul Flowers will be formally questioned about his role in an alleged ‘cover-up’ of appalling sex abuse at a school founded by paedophile MP Cyril Smith.

The Mail on Sunday can reveal the ex-Methodist minister faces an official inquiry into claims that he and others ignored a series of damning reports.

At the time, he was vice-chairman of Rochdale Council’s social services committee, which oversaw Knowl View School during a time it was described as ‘a sweet shop for paedophiles’.

Boys as young as seven were abused by Smith and his depraved cronies in what is now viewed as one of the country’s worst-ever child sex scandals.

Despite countless warnings, the authorities failed to act and the crimes at Knowl View – for children with learning difficulties and behavioural problems – were kept hidden from the public.

This week Flowers will receive a letter saying that he must answer questions from Andrew Warnock QC, who is leading the investigation into Rochdale Council’s handling of the allegations.

Nine others will be put on notice in the same way.

more at the link

and

http://labourlist.org/2014/04/in-praise-of-simon-danczuk/

18 April Labour List

In praise of Simon Danczuk

Simon Danczuk has led the front pages this week with his explosive account of how an MP could hide a lifetime of abusing children.

The Westminster reaction to his Cyril Smith allegations? Embarrassed coughs.

Good on Simon for having the courage to speak his mind. Since his 2010 election, itself a feat of endurance, he’s demonstrated a forensic mind and a canny eye for a story. He represents a diminishing Westminster breed, a ‘character’ who speaks with an authentic voice and with conviction. In the bland world of party slogans and ‘lines to take,’ he stands out. I admire him.

And despite these qualities, maybe even because of them, I hope our colleagues in the Parliamentary Labour Party are rallying round to support Simon. Because he’s about to realise what it’s like to be on the receiving end of the liberal establishment at its most savage.

Our central concern should always be the survivors of sexual abuse.

Yet the daggers are already being sharpened in the salons of North London. ‘How can he serialise in the Mail?,’ ‘Why is he criticising Labour people?,’ and ‘He’s not a proper journalist’ are just three of the attacks I’ve heard whispered in the last few days.

This is an attempt to undermine the substance of his argument: that career child abuser Cyril Smith covered up his activities with the collaboration of colleagues in Westminster and beyond. Since then the fog of collective amnesia has enveloped his party and anyone ever associated Smith.

I’ve not yet read Simon’s book but I saw the report of television journalist Liz MacKean, who was one of the first to highlight that Special Branch intervened so that Cyril Smith died avoiding the justice which his victims deserved.

As Simon pointed out on Radio 4 yesterday, Smith is not the first MP to be named as a child abuser. Two former ministers have named Sir Peter Morrison as a ‘well-known pedarast’.

There are three things that need to happen in relation to these serious allegations.

First, all the child abuse inquires in local authorities, the NHS and other public institutions such as the BBC must be wrapped into one national independent review of historic abuse cases. In Australia, they’re having a Royal Commission. We could adopt the same practice. MPs of all parties have written to the PM urging him to make a decisive move in the right direction.

Secondly, let’s acknowledge what the police privately admit: investigating child abuse is hopelessly under-resourced. Worse, whistle-blowers in the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre tell me their work is being diluted as the National Crime Agency (NCA) absorbs them into the new organisation. Recent parliamentary questions have yielded obfuscated answers on how many dedicated specialist investigators with arrest powers are working full-time on abuse inquiries. One whistle-blower told me that a very senior director at the NCA said child abuse is ‘not their priority.’

What also needs to happen is for political parties to unite on child abuse. They need to work with campaign groups who wish to see the law changed so we have mandatory reporting of suspected abuse in regulated settings such as private boarding schools. There’s a remarkable man called Tom Perry who runs the organisation Mandate Now- he needs our support.

I’ve already documented my reasons for asking the Prime Minister about an historic case of child abuse in October 2012.

Since then, there have been numerous arrests and people are facing charges, so I have to be careful what I write.

But I can say there have been some shocking claims made, many of which police are investigating.

The source of my original question is a retired child protection officer who was working with the Met police on a major child abuse inquiry in the 1990s. Their inquiries began to focus on a theory that an MP was involved with a group of known child abusers. At this point, the investigation was, according to my source, shut down after “orders from on high.”

Others were given the courage to contact me after the press picked up my parliamentary question and police launched an investigation into the alleged crimes.

The former civil servant who told me how he raised concerns that taxpayers may have been asked to fund the Paedophile Information Exchange has co-operated with the police but we await the results of the internal inquiry at the Home Office, set up last November.

The official also shared an interesting anecdote. The civil servant at the Home Office in charge of the budget that may have funded PIE was called to a crisis meeting at the Reform Club on the day the scandal involving Jeremy Thorpe broke in the newspapers.

In an interview at the time, Cyril Smith showed how he had some decision over the fate of his leader saying “Mr Thorpe had advised me that if I went to him and said that in my view he should resign then he would resign. I’ve not been to him and said that and I have no intention of going to him and saying that and so Mr Thorpe has not offered his resignation.”

Thorpe did eventually resign and was replaced by David Steel in July 1976, who made Smith the party’s Social Services spokesman, despite their relationship according to Smith being “not frigid but not at a high temperature”.

Even accounting for the times, Smith’s approach to his brief was distinctly illiberal. In a letter of complaint to the editor of Social Work Today in May 1977 he said “You describe myself as a ‘political buffoon’. All this is apparently because…in my view on occasions a juvenile offender was a case for a good hiding rather than a child psychiatrist”

Then there’s the matter of child abuser Peter Righton. I’m working with a number of courageous and dedicated former child protection workers who are concerned that Righton, after his conviction, retired to a cottage on the estate of Lord Henniker.

Henniker continued to allow his estate to be used by the Islington Suffolk project that gave holidays to vulnerable children from Islington. Many of the children were in the care system at a time when Islington was thought to have had a major problem with child abuse in its care homes. The retired social workers tell me that even despite the Chief Constable of Suffolk visiting personally to warn Henniker that Righton was a career paedophile, and would put the dozens of young boys who visited Thornham Magna at risk, he ignored this advice and Righton lived there until his death in 2008

My team have had two meetings with the woman who alleges rape by a man who went on to be a senior minister. It’s being investigated.

The child of a former MP came to see me alleging his father was an abuser. He claimed a teacher had told him his father had acted inappropriately with a child at a school and that it was covered up.

In a meeting in North Wales I met councillor who told me of police intimidation when he first raised concerns about child abuse in Bryn Alyn all those years ago.

All these people who’ve had misgivings are credible, honourable and decent. They believe that child abuse was covered up because powerful people wanted it to be so.

Yet there have also been a number of time-consuming false leads. The photograph of the cabinet minister at a ‘kings and queens’ party, as far as I can tell, does not exist. The story of the MP who abused his agent’s son is a myth. There are two vulnerable survivors who are undoubtedly the victims of abuse but it’s unlikely to have been carried out by a former minister as they claim, or at least their recollection of events is not good enough to stand up to detailed scrutiny.

Why do I reference these stories? Because they’re all scenarios that have been put to me as working theories by a number of journalists. Some journalists who called me have even investigated the claims, but not many. Those that do, embark on a complex trail that is yet to yield hard evidence.

Why is it important to know this? I say it because right now the Daily Mail is leading a campaign for deeper investigation into historic cases of abuse. Yet at any point in the future they are just as likely to do a ‘reverse ferret’ and claim that many allegations of sexual abuse involving politicians are sensationalised. Last year, after raising the question in Parliament, a columnist in the Mail described me as the ‘nonce finder general.’ They can’t make their mind up. But if you’re the Daily Mail, you don’t have to.

That’s why Simon Danczuk needs our support. There are many survivors of sexual abuse now depending on him, those who have never received justice and whose lives have been destroyed by the impact of child abuse.

As with Savile, the question we all have to ask ourselves is this: ‘How can an MP abuse kids and get away with it?’

Sabrina

20th April 2014, 15:12

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/mar/13/fbi-blocked-in-corruption-probe-involving-sens-rei/#ixzz2zLw1HffK

US

EXCLUSIVE: FBI blocked in corruption probe involving Sens. Reid, Lee
Agents quietly working with Utah prosecutors to make case in DOJ absence

FBI agents working alongside Utah state prosecutors in a wide-ranging corruption investigation have uncovered accusations of wrongdoing by two of the U.S. Senate’s most prominent figures — Majority Leader Harry Reid and rising Republican Sen. Mike Lee — but the Justice Department has thwarted their bid to launch a full federal investigation.

FBI agents working alongside Utah state prosecutors in a wide-ranging corruption investigation have uncovered accusations of wrongdoing by two of the U.S. Senate’s most prominent figures — Majority Leader Harry Reid and rising Republican Sen. Mike Lee — but the Justice Department has thwarted their bid to launch a full federal investigation.

more at link
13 April

Hervé

20th April 2014, 20:07

BNP Banker, His Wife And Nephew Murdered In Belgium (http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-04-20/bnp-banker-his-wife-and-nephew-murdered-belgium)

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/pictures/picture-5.jpg (http://www.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden) Submitted by Tyler Durden (http://www.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden) on 04/20/2014 09:55 -0400

In the beginning it was banker suicides. Then about two weeks ago, suicides were replaced by outright murders after the execution-style killing (http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-04-07/ceo-liechtenstein-bank-frick-murdered)of the CEO of a bank in otherwise sleepy (and tax evasive) Lichtenstein by a disgruntled client. Then on Friday news hit of another execution-type murder in just as sleepy, if not so tax evasive, Belgium, where in the city of Vise, a 37-year-old Director at BNP Paribas Fortis was murdered alongside his wife and a 9 year old nephew in a premeditated and orchestrated drive-by shooting.

L'avenir reports (http://www.lavenir.net/article/detail.aspx?articleid=dmf20140419_00465287):
According to Marcel Neven, Mayor of Vise, nothing can yet explain what caused the violent shooting that rocked the neighborhood sports hall of his town this Friday, April 18, late at night. A man of 37 years, Benedict Philippens, bank manager Ans-Saint-Nicolas, was shot. A little 9 year old boy, living in Dolhain, was also killed. A lady, the wife of the man and the boy aunt and godmother, Carol Haid, 37 also died of her injuries on Saturday, in the morning. She was hit by three bullets in the back, said a judicial source.
According to information from the survey and some witnesses, a car waiting outside their house Berneau street near the sports hall Visé. When the victims' car is back in the driveway, shots were fired from the car that waited patiently. The author of the shots is actively sought.

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2014/04/vise%20police%201_0.jpg (http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2014/04/vise%20police%201.jpg)

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2014/04/vise%20police%202_0.jpg

So far neither the shooter nor any motive for the execution have been found: "Some suggest the presence of a single gunman with an automatic pistol, others are surprised that a bullet hole was noted in one of the windows of the sports hall. "That would mean that the author was already in the driveway of the house and waited for the victims at side of the house," says a source close to the case."

Like in the Lichtenstein murder, there is a possibility the murder was the result of a previous argument with a customer:
This Sunday, the investigation is ongoing but it seems that the track of reckoning is preferred. In 7Dimanche newspaper, a friend of Benedict recalls that he had a big argument with a customer six months ago. He had even threatened the director publicly. He then had to put on the door. "There are six months, he told me he had a big argument with a foreign client."
Needless to say the locals of the quiet town are stunned by the news:
According to the neighbors, "the couple lived for 5 or 6 years" in his little house. They had been married a little over a year. The neighborhood shocked again that it is a normal family. "Usually, shootings in the region, it is often stories of drug with the Dutch, because it is not far from the border."

The mayor did not say more about the possible causes of this unfortunate news item. He noted, however, that the occupation of the victim, banker, "perhaps could" be related to drama. Marcel Neven adds that this is the first time in his back as mayor he faced such violence in a crime. "The police arrived on the scene Friday night was very impressed to see the body there in the driveway."
So just like in the Lichtenstein murder, was it truly some atrocious act by bankers that caused their clients to take justice into their own hands, or is it becoming the norm that when dealing with members of the banker class, the population - disenchanted with a legal system that is largely in the pocket of the financial system - is increasingly resorting to not only vigilante justice, but the taking of banker lives with no regard for innocent bystanders?

If indeed so, this could mark a dramatic, and lethal, escalation in the way bankers are treated by the broader public, not only in places where banker revulsion is palpable but in quiet, sleepy backwaters like a small Belgium town.

Sabrina

22nd April 2014, 07:27

Yet another 'suicide'..

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2014/04/21/us-caught-in-web-of-lies/

Via Gordon Duff - Veteran's Today - US - 21 April

Mike Ruppert, Dead at 63

We were told that Michael Ruppert, the former Los Angeles police detective that confronted CIA Director John Deutch in 1996, forcing his resignation based on supported allegations of narcotics trafficking, died, said to be a suicide.

This was the last time any law enforcement officer in the US stood up to CIA drug dealing as Ruppert spent much of the rest of his life “on the run.”

Some time ago, Ruppert had phoned me, telling me that if I ever heard he had committed suicide, it would not be true.

At one point, after being poisoned, Ruppert fled to Venezuela and lived under the protection of President Chavez.

The story of Ruppert’s life is an example of what happens to anyone that speaks up. Ruppert was among the first to expose the “SSG.”

SSG: America has a very real Secret Shadow Government, a term coined by Dr. Preston James. Its domestic and foreign policy agenda is based on privatization and fueled with cash. It has become nearly impossible to tell when an initiative out of Washington comes from the “real government” or the “SSG.”

Sabrina

22nd April 2014, 08:14

http://itccs.org/2014/04/20/easter-proclamation-abolishes-the-papacy-common-law-court-and-covenanted-christians-issue-joint-statement/

Am having problems posting this :) so full article at link above, plus videos.

From: ITCCS.ORG and The International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State

Easter Proclamation Abolishes the Papacy – Common Law Court and Covenanted Christians issue joint statement

and article on it all via Veteran's Today:

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2014/04/21/easter-exorcism/

Easter Exorcism
… or The Cleansing of the Temple
… by Cara St. Louis

I was sent this update today by Kevin Annett. It contains astonishing testimony. Meanwhile, in startling related news, a senior Vatican official initiated a back channel communication with the Court last week, in order to offer key evidence to the Prosecutor’s Office concerning its case against the chief defendants. The trial will now be in recess for two weeks.

However, the most astonishing part is that he and some others fully intend to perform an exorcism directed toward the Vatican this Sunday — Easter. And, it isn’t the first time he’s done this. The first time was just a day or two prior to the “resignation” of Pope Benedict.

full article at link

and case continues May 5:

ITCCS Field Secretary Kevin Annett is scheduled to appear as a witness during the second session of the Court commencing Monday, May 5. Annett will provide thorough corroborating evidence and personal testimony to support the Prosecutor’s case and the evidence concerning the Brantford killings, gained over twenty years’ work with residential school survivors in Canada, including during his targeted persecution by church and state. (www.hiddennolonger.com)

Sabrina

22nd April 2014, 09:40

Good for these brave people. Dominoes starting to tilt… :) Imagine coverage of this in US is selective. This article was from Sydney Morning Herald.

http://goldenageofgaia.com/2014/04/22/former-fox-warner-bros-and-nbc-tv-boss-ex-disney-head-broadwayuniversal-studios-producer-named-in-hollywood-pedophile-ring/#more-215884

Former Fox, Warner Bros and NBC TV Boss; Ex-Disney Head; Broadway/Universal Studios Producer named in Hollywood ‘Pedophile Ring’

By Michael Idato, SMH.com – April 22, 2014 – http://tinyurl.com/lrbs39v

The 31-year-old man who last week sensationally named Hollywood heavyweight producer Bryan Singer in a child sex lawsuit has filed three more civil lawsuits against powerful Hollywood figures.

The three named today are former 20th Century Fox television boss Garth Ancier, former Disney television boss David Neuman and Broadway producer and Universal and Six Flags theme park designer Gary Goddard.

“Somebody has to stand up to these people,” Egan told a packed press conference in Los Angeles.
“You can’t change the stigma that exists in this world against childhood sexual abuse unless someone talks about it.”

Egan spoke out earlier this month, accusing Singer, a prominent Hollywood producer, of a series of sexual assaults which occurred when Egan was aged 15 through to 17.

Egan’s lawyer Jeff Herman said the assaults took place at a private LA estate which played host to parties attended by high-profile Hollywood figures and “underaged boys, including Mike [Egan]“.

At those parties the young men were “given drugs, they were given alcohol, sometimes they were threatened, sometimes they were given gifts and promised roles in movies; what we call being groomed,” Herman said today.

Herman said the subjects of the four lawsuits are part of a “ring” of powerful Hollywood figures who were “participants” in the parties, and had sexually assaulted Egan.

Herman said there were allegations which touched on a number of other figures, but the four names so far were the only four connected to parties in Hawaii as well as Los Angeles. The connection to Hawaii is significant, as it is the jurisdiction in which the lawsuits have been filed.

No criminal charges have been laid against any of the four named.

Egan’s mother, Bonnie Mound, attended the press conference to support her son and delivered an explosive and emotional criticism of the difficulties she faced for the past 14 years in trying to make people, including law enforcement agencies, act on her son’s claim.

She told the press conference that she had first discovered her son was a victim of sexual abuse when he was 17 years old, but that her subsequent pleas for help — to the LAPD, FBI and various media outlets including 60 Minutes and the Oprah Winfrey Show — were ignored.

Despite interviews with the police and federal agencies, nothing was done, she said. A single journalist attempted to write a story for a magazine, she said, but the story was abandoned after pressure from the Hollywood establishment.

“There is talk that Mike is here for his 15 minutes of fame; do you call this fame?” Mound said, breaking down in tears. “This isn’t fame. What part of this is fame?

“Sitting here … do you think we like it? It’s not about money, it’s about disarming these paedophiles who use their wealth and power to escape justice,” she said.

Herman said the lawsuit was simply about “grown men sexually abusing children”.

Asked by a reporter why she had not noticed her son was being sexually abused over a period of two years, Egan’s mother responded with a mixture of rage and raw emotion.

“Do you have any teenagers? Do they tell you everything?” she pressed the reporter.

“Do they tell you when these paedophiles have knives at their throats, stick guns in their mouths, have a bodyguard stand above their head and say they’re going to snap heir neck, put them underwater till they about drown, lock them in a [gun] safe till they can’t breathe?

“Then tell me, would your teenager tell you or would they be petrified? Would they be scared out of their mind when they have threatened death to them and our family? Then you think about it. I hope you never have to go through what we’ve gone through. I hope not.”

Singer’s lawyer, Martin Singer — no relation — responded to his clients lawsuit last week with a statement in which he said the claims were “completely fabricated”.

He also said he would bring a claim of malicious prosecution against Egan and Herman.
Today, Herman accused Singer’s camp of intimidation.

“I am not going to be bullied. I am not intimidated by those kinds of statements,” Herman told the press conference. “And I will continue to file cases on behalf of victims of sex abuse.

“To all the victims who hear these threats and feel its not safe for them [to come forward], I want them to know it’s safe for them, it’s safe to come forward,” Herman said.

Herman said the four lawsuits were filed after more than six months of investigation.
Herman is one of the most respected advocates for survivors of rape, sexual abuse and sexual exploitation in the US, notably representing hundreds of victims of clergy sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic church.

The case has triggered a mixed reaction in Hollywood, generating coverage from many media outlets but cautious coverage from others, particular media outlets which have either have connections to or depend on the Hollywood studio infrastructure to operate.

Herman said the case was “a watershed moment for Hollywood”.

“We’re going to look back on these cases and see this opened up a number of victims feeling safe about coming forward,” he said.

Herman said he had been contacted by dozens of victims who have alleged abuse by different perpetrators, including studio executives, managers, directors and producers.

“This is something I anticipate will expand. I will continue, as appropriate, to file cases and expose the predators.”

Sabrina

22nd April 2014, 22:35

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/apr/21/formula-one-bernie-ecclestone-trial-munich-bribery?CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2

21 April

Bernie Ecclestone to stand trial in Munich for bribery

Thursday will see the opening of a case that may end with the 83-year-old F1 billionaire being imprisoned for 10 years

Bernie Ecclestone, the driving force behind Formula One for almost 40 years, is to stand trial in a bribery case that opens in Munich on Thursday and could result in him being imprisoned for up to 10 years.

The 256-page indictment against the 83-year-old billionaire paints a picture of an autocrat who was so concerned about losing power that he paid part of a $44m (£26m) bribe to a former German banker, Gerhard Gribkowsky, to keep his job.

The case relates to events that led to a private equity firm, CVC, becoming the largest shareholder in Formula One after buying F1's parent company, SLEC Holdings, from Ecclestone's Bambino family trust, and a consortium of three banks. Munich prosecutors claim he bribed Gribkowsky, then chief risk officer of the German lender BayernLB, to steer the motorsport group to CVC because the private equity firm had agreed to retain Ecclestone as F1's chief executive. Gribkowsky is serving an eight-year prison term for tax evasion and corruption in relation to the payment.

Ecclestone argues that he paid Gribkowsky $10m to stop him making false claims about his tax affairs, rather than to favour CVC as a bidder, and denies any wrongdoing.

But prosecutors claim Ecclestone had good reason to bribe the banker. "From the very beginning, the interests held by the majority shareholders in Formula One, ie BayernLB and the other Formula One banks JP Morgan and Lehman, constituted a disturbing factor for the accused," says the indictment against Ecclestone.

Hearings are to be held once or twice a week until September to enable Ecclestone to run Formula One, of which he remains in day-to-day control and negotiates all of the most valuable deals, in a sport with a revenue of $1.6bn a year.

According to the indictment, Ecclestone would not even tell the banks how the motorsport group operated.

"His prominent status and powerful position resulted from the fact that the accused was familiar with the structural details of Formula One and its operating companies, had negotiated, knew and guarded important contracts with partners of the Formula One operating companies, on the basis of which Formula One generated its revenue and disclosure of which, even to SLEC shareholders, he made every effort to avoid, as well as his contacts to close allies in the Formula One scene who played a key role in the marketing sector. All the main operational structures and processes were tailored to suit his individual needs and were in fact controlled by him alone."

Legal action from the banks was the last straw for Ecclestone, according to the indictment. "In view of these circumstances, the accused decided to win over the since-convicted Dr Gribkowsky by offering him the prospect of personal gain in order to end Dr Gribkowsky's confrontational course and dispense with BayernLB as a Formula One shareholder as quickly as possible."

The prosecutors claim Ecclestone paid Gribkowsky to sell F1 to CVC and also convince the BayernLB board to compensate him for the payment. As part of the sale to CVC, Ecclestone was paid a $41m commission by BayernLB for providing a $100m indemnity that F1 was in good health.

The indictment claims that the same course of action was taken by Bambino, which demanded that BayernLB use the proceeds from the sale to repay $25m it was owed by Formula One. The indictment claims Gribkowsky convinced the BayernLB board to agree to this, even though "credible evidence indicating the legal grounds for such payments was still lacking". It adds that "this gave rise to a further damage of $25m for BayernLB."

Last year Ecclestone and Bambino were sued in the high court in London in a related case, which heard allegations about a bribe a German media firm, Constantin Medien, claimed had caused it to make losses because it undervalued Formula One. Although that case was not about whether a bribe was paid, the judge, Mr Justice Newey, said he believed this was what happened but that F1 had not been undervalued. As a result, he ruled against Constantin and provided some support for Ecclestone's defence.

In his judgment Newey said that when CVC bought F1, BayernLB "had the chance to reinvest, but chose not to take it, and the evidence indicates that this was a decision taken against Dr Gribkowsky's wishes rather than because of them." The German indictment, however, states that Ecclestone bribed Gribkowsky so that he could "dispense with BayernLB as a Formula One shareholder".

Ecclestone denies paying a bribe and says that Gribkowsky threatened to tell HM Revenue & Customs that he controlled Bambino if the $44m was not paid.

As Ecclestone is a UK resident he would be liable to pay tax on the estimated $4bn of cash in Bambino's accounts if he were found to be in control of it, which he strongly denies. He says he paid Gribkowsky because his unfounded allegations would have triggered a lengthy and costly investigation.

Ecclestone says legal advice prevents him from commenting on the latest case.

Sabrina

24th April 2014, 06:02

http://larouchepac.com/node/30565?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20140423-Fracking+is+genocide&utm_content=20140423-Fracking+is+genocide+CID_0a0284fd17178adffae9af882ab9992d&utm_source=CampaignMonitorEmail&utm_term=Continue%20reading

Impeachable Offenses: Fracking is Genocide

FRACKING IS GENOCIDE

Marcia Merry Baker and Paul Gallagher, Executive Intelligence Review

April 24, 2014

The killer shortage of food and energy supplies brought about by drought, fracking (hydraulic fracturing), and Obama-backer multi-billionaire Warren Buffett's financial manipulation of vital transportation infrastructure, must be reversed by decisive action from lawmakers: Impeach Obama. Stop fracking. Sack Buffett. Use Federal powers to ensure that vital supplies have access to transportation and to push through the development of the fusion power-driven North American Water and Power Alliance (NAWAPA XXI). The energy-flux density of our national economy must rise with technological advances, not sink into Hell with "green" Wall Street practices.

The fact of the extreme drought in the Southwest is now widely publicized; but the extent of today's crisis includes the fact that in Texas, California, and elsewhere in the dry Western states, the "Great Fracking Oil & Gas Boom" is sucking up scarce water for wells; using up limited railroad capacity to haul oil; using up pipeline capacity to convey gas products--especially propane--for export, all while domestic users go short, and pay to the hilt. Chaos is spreading.

In the Northern Plains, the 2013 harvest of wheat, corn, beans, and other farm commodities is overflowing storage capacity, for lack of rail shipment to move out the product. Meantime, next to no fertilizer has been shipped in for Spring planting. Food processors are on a go-slow. Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Corp. controls the largest railroad network serving the entire area, and has huge investments in the companies that are "fracking" oil and shipping it and all its precursors in rail cars by the hundreds of thousands.

From near zero five years ago, "fracking oil" is now shipped at the rate of 1 million barrels/day from the North Dakota Bakken Shale and other basins, largely on Buffett's Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) Railroad.

This process, destroying communities and threatening farmers and local dealers with ruin, now constitutes a food supply crisis, and national emergency. The entire process must be stopped. Use of Federal injunction and related measures are called for, in particular to remove Warren Buffett from corporate office at once. Start criminal prosecution.

Fracking is a hallmark Obama policy:

In March 2012, Obama signed Executive Order 13604, by which Obama created a Bakken Federal Executive Group to "find ways to facilitate the development of oil and gas resources in the booming Bakken Formation." The Deputy Interior Secretary assigned to head this group said, "By coordinating across the many Federal agencies involved in the Bakken region, we are able to offer a better process for industry."

On Dec. 26, 2013, Obama signed a Republican-originated bill (North Dakota's Sen. John Hoeven and Rep. Kevin Cramer were the prime sponsors), passed only six days earlier. This was the Bureau of Land Management Streamlining Act, S.|244 and H.R.|767. It created new BLM offices in North Dakota and Montana for the purpose of rubber-stamping and fast-tracking permits for fracking on public lands in the Bakken Shale Basin.

This is no party politics issue. Obama is a continuation of the infamous Dick Cheney Energy Task Force perspective, of doing whatever the Wall Street/London oil and gas network demands.

Congress is hereby informed: If you are backing fracking--whether because of your fantasies of energy independence, facing down Russia, or plain old pay-off and corruption--you are in line for impeachment.

I. Upper Midwest States Crisis

As of the April planting season in the Upper Midwest, chaos prevails in agriculture, directly arising from the Bakken Shale oil fracking operations and oil-train shipments. BNSF Railroad dominates the rail service in this region, with Canadian Pacific Railway second. BNSF is wholly owned by Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway. Buffett is carrying out, with the Obama Administration, the fracking/tight oil "boom" policy of the British financial empire.

The severity of the resulting agriculture crisis was presented on April 10, by Northern Plains states agriculture leaders, to a Washington, D.C. hearing of the Surface Transportation Board of the Transportation Department. The STB then issued the unusual directive on April 15, to order BNSF to make special fertilizer shipments, and provide its plan to do so by April 18; and "to report their plans to ensure delivery of fertilizer shipments for Spring planting of U.S. crops, and, beginning April 25, 2014, to provide weekly status reports for six weeks regarding fertilizer delivery over their respective networks."

The STB directive stated, "Given the immediate need for fertilizer to meet rapidly approaching planting deadlines, and the potential long-lasting and widespread effects of missing those deadlines, the Board" has taken its decision.

Testimony at the hearing provided horror stories about the consequences of Buffett's oil-rail bonanza. Brian Schanilec, a North Dakota fifth-generation farmer and president of the Forest River Bean Co., said, "We have crops we cannot sell; we have discounts [loss in prices received for their product--ed.] that are historical. And now, we won't have to plant half our acres, because we can't get our crops to market. This is the biggest crossroads in our history. We cannot secure enough fertilizer to plant our crops this year." (Video of hearing at www.stb.dot.gov)

Fertilizer. Farmer cooperatives in the Dakotas have been unable to receive or line up timely shipments of fertilizer for Spring planting. The state needs some 800,000 tons of nitrogen-based fertilizer each year, and it isn't there. Some cooperatives have even quit pre-selling fertilizer, because they can't line up delivery.

Corn. North Dakota Farmers Union president Mark Watne told the April 10 hearing, "We have heard from co-op managers who believe that 85% of this year's corn crop [2013] is still in either on-farm or warehouse storage. They also believe there is a good chance that this year's crop will not be moved before the new crop has to go into storage. To take this even one step further, there is a growing fear that cooperatives will not be able to get access to the fertilizer needed to plant this year's crop."

South Dakota Agriculture Secretary Lucas Lentsch told the hearing that at least 11,000 railcars have been delayed for shipment of grain. The elevators are having problems with spoilage; Many cannot accept any more grain for storage. Gov. Dennis Daugaard has warned that his state could become the world's "warehouse for grain," if the rail system isn't changed.

Wheat. Shipments out are running at least a month behind in the northern wheat states. Minnesota Grain and Feed Association director Robert Zelenka told the STB hearing, "One of our biggest concerns looking forward is the likelihood of going into the Fall's harvest with elevators close to full of grain and no freight to ship it. This will create some major problems, which will back onto farm storage and harvest delays."

Over the border, in Canada, some 6 million tons of wheat have backed up and can't move. Farmers are taking losses. Many can't sell. The Canadian government is entertaining a national rules change, to allow more interconnection of Canadian and U.S. rail services by the U.S-headquartered BNSF, which is already failing on the U.S. side of the border!

Sugar. American Crystal Sugar, based outside Fargo, N.D., announced earlier this year that because of lack of rail service, it will scale back output (from sugar beets) at three of its plants, because of running out of storage space, waiting for rail cars.

Propane. Shortage of propane supplies and hyperinflated prices have wreaked havoc in the Upper Midwest since December, and for reasons parallel to the Buffett oil-rail domination: The U.S. gas pipeline system, of which Buffett is a foremost owner, is serving cartel export and other interests above agro-industrial and public needs.

The Upper Midwest states, as well as New England and the South, were slammed this Winter, with propane scarcity and spiking prices. It's still that way. At the STB hearing, Minnesota grains leader Robert Zelenka spoke about "the recurring problem with the movement and placement of propane for this Fall's grain-drying needs and home heating."

Over the past 18 months, the Obama Administration lifted restrictions against exports of certain Natural Gas Liquids (NGLs) including propane. Given that the world "market" price was much higher than the domestic, the London/Wall Street cartels shipped it abroad. Exports of propane and propylene have increased 5.5 times in the past two years, tripling in the last year alone. In 2013, more than 20% of all U.S. propane was exported, way up from 5% in 2008.

On Feb. 7, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued its first-ever directive to one of the gas pipeline cartel firms (Enterprise Products Partners LP), to reverse its flow-to-the-ports shipments of gas and propane, and instead make shipments south-to-north, to bring in emergency gas supplies to the North-Central States. This came about amidst the crisis this Winter, when propane users, including farms, households, schools, and institutions, were devastated.

II. Southwest States Crisis

The California, Texas, and Western drought is a national and world-scale water and food emergency. Nevertheless, hydraulic fracturing is consuming critical volumes of water for oil and gas extraction, in areas desperately short of water.

A report released this year by the Boston-based research group Ceres,1 documented this, by overlaying a map of water-stress regions (from the World Resources Institute), onto the sites of new fracking wells, for the 29-month period January 2011 to May 2013. The results:

Nearly half (47%) of oil and gas wells opened by fracking in the United States and Canada are in areas of high water stress. In California, New Mexico, and Wyoming, the majority of wells have been drilled in regions of extreme water scarcity. Texes leads all states in the number of such wells, with over 9,000 opened in extremely water-short areas, and another 9,000 in dry-prone locations.

Only about 5% of all fracking water in these areas has been recycled; that is, 95% is "consumed" and gone. This has directly led, in such places as west Texas and eastern New Mexico, to ranches shutting down, and towns running out of water.

Over the 29-month study period, fracking consumed 97 billion gallons of water; that is about 45 billion gal/year (0.14 MAFY).

III. National Food Supply Crisis

The states west of the Mississippi River account for majority percentages of U.S. food production--from the grainbelt in the High Plains, to cattle in Texas, to the "fruit-and-vegetable bowl" of California. California alone accounts for over 40% of all the U.S. production of fresh fruits and vegetables, and 20% of milk. All of this is now drastically threatened, by the combination of drought, and the fracking policy directly using water, and creating the oil-and-gas "boom" now disrupting agriculture transportation and the food chain on a vast scale.

The already rising U.S. food prices are set to soar. One example makes the point: beef. The average retail price for beef in March was $5.36 a pound, up more than 33 cents just since December 2013. The U.S. cattle inventory fell to a 63-year low as of January, while cartel exports continue to rise. In Texas, the leading cattle state, where a multi-year drought has caused a severe contraction in cattle numbers, there are the most fracking oil and gas wells in the nation.

IV. Transportation Disaster

Shipments of oil and coal now account for 48% of all rail cargo transported in the United States, mostly due to the spectacular rise in fracked oil production. Oil shipments grew from 9,344 carloads in 2008, to 434,032 in 2013! In 2009, North Dakota produced 200,000 barrels of oil a day; today, it is about 1.1 million a day. Oil shipments increased 5.6% in 2013 over 2012, and 6.6% in 2014 to date over 2013. Besides oil itself, some 40 railcars of sand and other inputs are needed per well fracked.

This oil-ascendance has occurred, as the total rail shipment volume in general had been falling in recent years, as the economy contracts. Total shipments in 2013 were 14.377 million carloads, compared with 14.960 million carloads in 2008. However, no "spare" rail capacity has been freed up in this contraction process to handle the fracking boom. Shipments of other goods are being dramatically displaced, and passenger service too.

In January 2014, the National Association of Railroad Passengers appealed to Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, saying that oil transport was disrupting Amtrak service. Amtrak's Empire Builder train (Chicago to Portland, Ore., thence to Seattle), which runs on a BNSF route, has had frequent disruptions in service from Chicago to the West Coast, directly because of BNSF oil shipments from the Bakken Shale oil field. Association president Ross Capon called the situation intolerable: "Crude oil is being given priority over people."

Spectacular accidents, spills, and fires are occurring on the oil trains. On Dec. 30, 2013, a BNSF oil train derailed and exploded near Casselton, N.D., carrying the "tight light crude." Other derailments, explosions, and fires have occurred in Quebec, Alabama, western Pennsylvania, and elsewhere.

But a frenzy of fracking-boom corporate positioning and expansion plans of all kinds is underway--rail, refineries, pipeline connections. The same day as the Casselton disaster, Buffett (Berkshire Hathaway) bought a major interest in Phillips Specialty Products, Inc., a subsidiary of ConocoPhillips, which specializes in pipeline flow-maximization and pipeline-refinery interface technologies. This company is actually a subsidiary of Phillips 66, in which Berkshire Hathaway already owned 27 million shares or about $1 billion--5% ownership; to go with $3 billion in ExxonMobil and $500 million in Suncor.

In January 2013, Phillips 66 bought 2,000 oil railcars through BNSF. It has been using them to run Bakken oil to the East Coast (New Jersey refineries) and will go in the future, to the West Coast. Tesoro Oil bought 1,000 oil railcars for BNSF to move its Bakken oil to its refineries on the West Coast. It is cheaper than either Brent crude or Alaska North Slope oil. This company (Valero) also intends to bring Bakken oil to Vancouver refineries and then ship refined products to Alaska. All this multiplies the dangers.

This is the energy policy Barack Obama has pushed by "phone and pen" (Executive Order) and by encouraging legislation to remove effective regulation of fracking. Fracking oil is the most profitable cargo of Buffett's BNSF Railroad and pipeline network. Is this also involved in Obama's postponements of Keystone pipeline?

V. Policy of Resource Depletion

Measured by the principle of applying increasing advances of science and technology as the determinant of the mode of power in an economy, the reversion to fracking and expansion of retrograde oil and gas for baseline electricity generation and transport is a doomsday policy. We should have never stopped "going nuclear," and must resume going nuclear on a crash basis now. The drive for fusion power is the centerpiece.

Just the factor of diminishing returns of the ever-more-demanding efforts to dig in the Earth's crust for oil and gas, manifests the stupidity. Fracking means resource depletion, and extinction. Nuclear power means the ability to create natural resources and, thus, the future.

Unless fracking is stopped, we are on the road to extinction. Right now, the United States accounts for more than 10% of all world crude oil output, which share is accounted for significantly by Texas and North Dakota, and by hydraulic fracturing of tight rock formations. According to the Energy Information Agency March 26 release, the breakdown of the 10% is: over 4% from "tight oil" (fracking), and the remainder from conventional drilling. The foremost oil regions are the Texas Eagle Ford formation and the Bakken formation centered in North Dakota.

The fracking machine is now poised to roll over Mexico, change laws and the Constitution, to cause devastation in the Burgos Basin and elsewhere.

The so-called "fracking revolution" was concocted from the beginning by the commodities wing of Anglo-Dutch imperial finance--the nexus of Royal Dutch Shell, BP, and others--as a matter of energy control, prevention of nuclear power, and destruction of nations.

Look at the role of Dick Cheney. His company, Halliburton, was instrumental in deploying new techniques for the process, and exploiting the protection from regulation, which was arranged by Cheney et al. in the G.W. Bush Administration.

After his stint at Halliburton, Cheney moved on to run the White House. One of his first projects was heading the Energy Task Force (January to June 2001) to devise a national energy strategy--a task force which involved various Cabinet departments meeting with top energy cartel members including Enron, ExxonMobil, Conoco, BP, and Royal Dutch Shell.

In addition to mapping out the areas of Iraqi oil of interest to Anglo-American interests, the task force identified fracking as "one of the fastest growing sources of oil production." It also declared that we should reconsider any regulatory restrictions that do not take "technological advances" into account.

The next step came with the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which amended the Safe Drinking Water Act to exclude fracking from special EPA oversight and specified that the chemicals used in the process were not to be labeled as pollutants under the Clean Water Act! Not surprisingly, this was called the "Halliburton loophole," because of the heavy role played by Halliburton in ensuring that Congress exempted this technology from (rational) environmental oversight.

When Obama came in, in 2009, beholden to the same British financial interests, he simply continued the job.

VI. Sack Warren Buffett

Buffett's activities to cause harm to the nation, through his empire in rail, gas pipelines, Mid-America Energy, and other basic infrastructure operations (as well as insurance, etc.)--maximizing the harm from fracking, are sufficient and urgent grounds to put him out of corporate office. His activities reflect his pedigree as a functionary for the City of London/Wall Street neo-British Empire. He has made a string of strategic acqusitions, which he has deployed to subvert the nation. He works in league with the interlock of Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron, BP, Halliburton, et al., imposing all aspects of the oil and gas "fracking revolution" worldwide. In particular, Buffett was in on vetting Obama for his role as a White House patsy for London.

The BNSF RR was acquired by Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway in late 2009, for $34 billion, the largest purchase in Buffett's infamous history. BNSF today operates on 32,500 route miles of track in 28 states, and two provinces in Canada, and dominates outright major regions of the United States.

When, from 2012 to 2013, there was a year-on-year increase in overall U.S. rail cargo volume, fully half of it was accounted for by one company, Buffett's Burlington Northern. In February, BNSF announced it will spend $5 billion this year, with $2.3 billion on its "core network and related assets," including to haul more oil out of the Bakken oil field in North Dakota and Montana.

Buffett is also a foremost gas pipeline owner, getting in on this part of vital U.S. infrastructure during the years of energy deregulation, under Cheney's Energy Task Force perspective. Buffett also has an electricity company, Mid-America, in the Central States; he cancelled plans in 2013 for the company to build a new nuclear power plant in Iowa, and is expanding wind turbine farms.

Buffett ranks among the 85 richest people2 on Earth, whose combined personal fortunes (over $1.7 trillion) exceed the wealth of the world's poorest 3.5 billion people. His own financial worth is estimated at $53.5 billion, putting him among some 31 Americans on the international list.

In May 2009, Buffett was among those at the Billionaires' Club meeting in New York City with Bill Gates, George Soros, Ted Turner, Michael Bloomberg, and others, to confer on their goal of population reduction.

In this context, Buffett has played Barack Obama all the way to the present day. In December 2004, Obama, then Senator-elect from Illinois, had a hush-hush session with Buffett, conniving on Obama's new, British-fostered Congressional career. Obama went by chartered jet to Omaha, for a private lunch with Buffett and his daughter Susan Buffett. Obama's Chicago campaign circle tried to keep this secret, given Obama's "man-of-the-people," anti-rich-guy rhetoric. (Reporter Lynn Sweet exposed it at the time.)

In August 2007, Buffett hosted an Omaha fundraiser for Obama, his wife, and children; and another in the Fall.

VII. Congress: Act, or Be Impeached

Every aspect of the so-called fracking boom shows it to be a crime against humanity. But in Wall Street/City of London terms, Obama and cohort Republicans and Democrats represent it as a great achievement, even as the immediate crises worsen of water, food, shipping, heating and means to life.

A few Congressmen, who back the "shale revolution," are calling for small "reforms" to help make the evil system "work better." Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) are calling for a Federal fund to deter oil rail wrecks. On April 4, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) sent out a letter calling for Congress to set up a new agency--a Safe Transportation of Energy Products Fund, to deal with transporting crude oil. Some 800,000 barrels a day go by tank car out of the Bakken. But you can't tweak evil, to make it better.

On March 25, Senate Energy Committee Chairman Mary Landrieu (D-La.) held a hearing to call for more fracking, and LNG (liquefied natural gas) exports, in order for the U.S. to become the new "superpower" of oil and gas. This was echoed by Ranking Minority Leader Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Ak.), and others.

On April 4, the House Natural Resources Committee held a hearing to push fracking in the Monterey Shale formation of California. The pretense was shown in the title, "Energy Independence: Domestic Opportunities to Reverse California's Growing Dependence on Foreign Oil." Chairman Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) demanded that regulations be lessened, to speed up drilling.

Footnotes
1Monika Freyman, "Hydraulic Fracturing & Water Stress: Water Demand by the Numbers," Ceres, February 2014.
2OxFam calculations, January 2014.

Sabrina

24th April 2014, 06:50

And continuing on the fracking theme:

http://rt.com/usa/154408-fracking-trial-family-sued/

Family awarded $3 million in first US tracking trial

Published time: April 23, 2014

After three years of legal wrangling, a Texas family has won its case against a company engaged in hydraulic fracturing near their home. The family, which suffered tangible health deterioration after the fracking began, was awarded $3 million.

A Dallas jury ruled Tuesday in favor of the Parr family, which sued Aruba Petroleum in 2011 after each member of the family noticed a decline in health that, their attorneys argued in court, was the result of dozens of gas wells surrounding their home in Wise County, Texas.

The family was awarded nearly $3 million in what is believed to be the first fracking trial in US history.

“They’re vindicated,” the family’s attorney David Matthews wrote in a blog post. “I’m really proud of the family that went through what they went through and said, ‘I’m not going to take it anymore’. It takes guts to say, ‘I’m going to stand here and protect my family from an invasion of our right to enjoy our property.’

“It’s not easy to go through a lawsuit and have your personal life uncovered and exposed to the extent this family went through.”

Aruba Petroleum will appeal the jury’s decision, according to MSNBC. The company argues that there are dozens of gas-drilling operations in the area, thus it is difficult to tell who is responsible for the family’s degenerative health.

Other companies that own wells around the Parr’s home settled with the family, EcoWatch reported.

The Parrs – Bob, Lisa, and their daughter Emma – said their health suffered beginning just months after hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, operations started in their area, which was in 2008. Lisa said her breathing was impaired, and she was inflicted with nausea and headaches. Bob reported suddenly having around three nosebleeds per week, an anomaly compared to the rest of his life, he said. And Emma also reported nosebleeds, as well as nausea and rashes. She was diagnosed with asthma soon after the drilling began.

“We can’t drink our well water,” Bob Parr told Dallas’ FOX 4 in 2011. “We can’t breathe the air without getting sick.”

The lawsuit was definitely not the first levied against a fracking company over health impacts, though it has been common for plaintiffs in such cases to settle with companies along with agreeing to strict gag orders.

Last year, a Pennsylvania family reached a $750,000 settlement with gas companies – Range Resources Corporation, Williams Gas/Laurel Mountain Midstream, and Markwest Energy – after suing them for environmental and health impacts caused by their fracking operations near the gas-rich Marcellus Shale. In exchange for the award, however, Chris and Stephanie Hallowich agreed that no member of their family – even their 7- and 10-year-old children - could comment on the case “in any fashion whatsoever.”

Anti-fracking advocates see the Parr’s victory as a sign that energy companies, which have worked obsessively to shield themselves from the public harms associated with fracking, may not hold as much sway in the future.

“When evidence of fracking’s impacts are [sic] shown to an impartial jury in a court of law, they find them to be real and significant,” Earthworks Energy Program Director Bruce Baizel said in a statement. “And it shows why the fracking industry is reluctant to allow lawsuits of this type to go to trial.”

Baizel said companies attempt to settle out of court, but only with an accompanying gag order that helps hide fracking’s effects. Meanwhile, he said, industry and government continue to insist fracking is harmless.

“We hope this lawsuit will make regulators, in Texas and around the country, reexamine their assumptions about fracking’s dangers, and their responsibility to keep the public safe,” Baizel said.

To unleash natural gas deep underground, fracking requires large volumes of water, sand, and chemicals to be pumped underground. This process has been linked to groundwater contamination, seismic activity, and a laundry list of health concerns for humans and the local environment.

and via Facebook:

Yes! Beverly Hills just voted to ban fracking. California, here we come. #unfrackcal

Read more on the city's decision here: http://bit.ly/1hlBlzv
Beverly Hills, California bans fracking: http://bit.ly/1nGPyb8

Right on the heels of a powerful Los Angeles Times editorial on fracking-related earthquakes.

Californians will not be guinea pigs: http://bit.ly/1np86iP

ThePythonicCow

25th April 2014, 06:49

From 52 Year-Old French Banker Jumps To Her Death In Paris (After Questioning Her Superiors) (Zerohedge) (http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-04-24/52-year-old-french-banker-jumps-her-death-paris-after-questioning-her-superiors):

=================

There have been 13 senior financial services executives deaths around the world this year, but the most notable thing about the sad suicide of the 14th, a 52-year-old banker at France's Bred-Banque-Populaire, is she is the first female. As Le Parisien reports, Lydia (no surname given) jumped from the bank's Paris headquarter's 14th floor shortly before 10am. FranceTV added that sources said "she questioned her superiors before jumping out the window," but the bank denies it noting that she had been in therpapy for several years.
=================

There's more at the above Zerohedge link, including a list of 14 banker deaths in recent months.

Sabrina

25th April 2014, 18:04

Marshall Islands Sues Nine Nuclear Powers Over Failure to Disarm

24 April

By Julian Borger, The Guardian- April 24, 2014 – http://tinyurl.com/m65g368

The Marshall Islands is suing the nine countries with nuclear weapons at the international court of justice at The Hague, arguing they have violated their legal obligation to disarm.

In the unprecedented legal action, comprising nine separate cases brought before the ICJ on Thursday, the Republic of the Marshall Islands accuses the nuclear weapons states of a “flagrant denial of human justice”.

It argues it is justified in taking the action because of the harm it suffered as a result of the nuclear arms race.

The Pacific chain of islands, including Bikini Atoll and Enewetak, was the site of 67 nuclear tests from 1946 to 1958, including the “Bravo shot”, a 15-megaton device equivalent to a thousand Hiroshima blasts, detonated in 1954. The Marshallese islanders say they have been suffering serious health and environmental effects ever since.

The island republic is suing the five “established” nuclear weapons states recognised in the 1968 nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) – the US, Russia (which inherited the Soviet arsenal), China, France and the UK – as well as the three countries outside the NPT who have declared nuclear arsenals – India, Pakistan and North Korea, and the one undeclared nuclear weapons state, Israel.

The NPT, which came into force in 1970 is essentially a compact between the non-weapon states, who pledged to not to acquire nuclear weapons, and the weapons states, who in return undertook to disarm under article VI of the treaty.

The NPT, which came into force in 1970 is essentially a compact between the non-weapon states, who pledged to not to acquire nuclear weapons, and the weapons states, who in return undertook to disarm under article VI of the treaty.

Although the size of the arsenals are sharply down from the height of the cold war, the Marshall Islands’ legal case notes there remain more than 17,000 warheads in existence, 16,000 of them owned by Russia and the US – enough to destroy all life on the planet.

“The long delay in fulfilling the obligations enshrined in article VI of the NPT constitutes a flagrant denial of human justice,” the court documents say.

The Marshall Islands case draws attention to the fact that the weapons states are currently in the process of modernising their nuclear weapons, which it portrays as a clear violation of the NPT.

The case against Britain, which has an estimated total inventory of 225 warheads and is in the process of replacing its submarine-launched Trident arsenal, states that: “The UK has not pursued in good faith negotiations to cease the nuclear arms race at an early date through comprehensive nuclear disarmament or other measures, and instead is taking actions to improve its nuclear weapons system and to maintain it for the indefinite future.”

The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament’s general secretary, Kate Hudson, said: “The nuclear-armed states continue to peddle the myth that they are committed to multilateral disarmament initiatives, while squandering billions to modernise their nuclear arsenals. The UK government’s plans to replace Trident make a mockery of its professed belief in multilateral frameworks – and now in addition to huge public opposition in the UK, it will also face an international legal challenge to expose its hypocrisy.”

Sabrina

25th April 2014, 18:10

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/04/24-0

Published on Thursday, April 24, 2014 by Common Dreams

Vermont Law Makes It Official: GMO Food Must Be Labeled

In nation's most far-reaching law to date, passage makes it mandatory to label certain foods that contain genetically-modified ingredients

Vermont is being hailed as a national leader following its passage of a law requiring foods that contain genetically-modified food to be labeled, the first "no-strings-attached" legislation passed in the United States.

The bill, passed by both bodies of the state legislature, was signed into law by Governor Peter Shumlin late Wednesday.

“The people and legislators of Vermont have taken a tremendous step forward in allowing their citizens to know what is in their food. All families deserve this simple right to know.”
—Rebecca Spector, Center for Food Safety

"I am proud of Vermont for being the first state in the nation to ensure that Vermonters will know what is in their food," Shumlin said in a statement.

State Rep. Shap Smith, speaker of the Vermont House, echoed Shumlin's message, stating: "Every Vermonter has a right to know what is in their food."

"Genetically engineered foods potentially pose risks to human health and the environment," he continued. "I am proud to be the first state in the nation to recognize that people deserve to know whether the food they consume is genetically modified or engineered."

Farmers, citizens, and food safety and consumer advocates also praised the law, calling it an important moment in the fight against large agribusiness and biotech firms who have opposed labeling laws in numerous states and nationally. Though labeling gmo foods is extremely popular among the American public, so far all legislative efforts to pass such laws have been defeated.

Two other New England states—both Connecticut and Maine—have passed condition-based labeling laws, meaning they will not go into effect until a larger number of neighboring states pass similar legislation. Vermont's new law has no such restrictions.

“The people and legislators of Vermont have taken a tremendous step forward in allowing their citizens to know what is in their food. All families deserve this simple right to know,” said Rebecca Spector from the Center for Food Safety which helped organize the labeling effort in the state. “We congratulate all of the activists and lawmakers in Vermont who made this victory possible.”

Detailing the implications of the new law, the CFS thinks that Vermont’s mandatory labeling policy will likely set the stage for more states to introduce and adopt no strings attached labeling laws.

Specifically, the law states that “because both the FDA and the U.S. Congress do not require the labeling of food produced with genetic engineering, the State should require food produced with genetic engineering to be labeled as such in order to serve the interests of the State."

In addition to stipulating food containing gmo products be labeled as such, the law also mandates that these same foods cannot be labeled as "natural" or be described with any "words of similar import that would have a tendency to mislead a consumer."

Will Allen, an organic farmer in Vermont who runs the Cedar Circle Farm, was quoted by the Associated Press saying: "This vote is a reflection of years of work from a strong grassroots base of Vermonters who take their food and food sovereignty seriously and do not take kindly to corporate bullies."

Given the strong corporate opposition to the GMO labeling movement, the people of Vermont expect those interests to follow through on threats to file suit against the state for passing the law. With that inevitability in mind, the law included a provision that sets up a legal defense fund for the state to do battle against those interests.

Andrew Kimbrell, executive director for Center for Food Safety, said that if powerful corporations like Monsanto or food industry lobbyists like the Grocery Manufactures of America (GMA) file suit, his organization will be among those backing the Vermont people in the fight

“Should the industry try to challenge this law, Center for Food Safety will be there to help defend it and we are confident that it would survive any such challenge," Kimrbell vowed.

Sabrina

27th April 2014, 08:21

US Dept of Justice Seeks More Than $13 Billion Settlement from Bank of America; Ex-Finance Chief Gets $7.5 Million Fine

By Tom Schoenberg and Hugh Son, Bloomberg – Apr 25, 2014 – http://tinyurl.com/lno9d35

US prosecutors are seeking more than $13 billion from Bank of America Corp. to resolve federal and state investigations of the lender’s sale of bonds backed by home loans in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis, according to people familiar with the matter.

The settlement would come on top of the $9.5 billion the bank agreed last month to pay to resolve Federal Housing Finance Agency claims, said two people who asked not to be named because the negotiations are private. A deal could come within the next two months, the people said.

If the Justice Department gets its way, the case against Bank of America will eclipse JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s record $13 billion global settlement over similar issues in November.

That settlement, which included a $4 billion agreement with the FHFA, encompassed loans JPMorgan took over with its purchases of Washington Mutual Inc. and Bear Stearns Cos.

Bank of America, the second-biggest U.S. lender, is among at least eight banks under investigation by the Justice Department and state attorneys general for misleading investors about the quality of bonds backed by mortgages amid a drop in housing prices. Many of the loans in question were inherited by Bank of America when it purchased subprime lender Countrywide Financial Corp. and Merrill Lynch & Co., the people said.

“Bank of America owns Countrywide, which was the biggest and most problematic mortgage originator, and Merrill Lynch was the one packaging many of those loans into bonds — together, that’s a huge liability,” said Pri de Silva, senior banking analyst at CreditSights Inc. in New York. “The government’s holding all the cards. It’s a tough place to be for the banks.”

Task Force
Bank of America, based in Charlotte, North Carolina, hasn’t specified how much money it has set aside for the case. The bank said April 16 that it increased reserves for mortgage-related matters by $2.4 billion.
Lawrence Grayson, a Bank of America spokesman, declined to comment on the negotiations, as did Ellen Canale, a Justice Department spokeswoman.

President Barack Obama ordered the creation of a task force in 2012 to coordinate probes of improper mortgage-bond underwriting by banks. Associate Attorney General Tony West has been overseeing the investigations and negotiations. Other banks that have faced scrutiny include Citigroup Inc., Credit Suisse Group AG and Wells Fargo & Co.

Early Stages
The current talks are aimed at resolving civil probes by federal and state prosecutors in California, New York and New Jersey, the people said.

The negotiations are still in early stages and if an agreement isn’t reached, the government could sue the bank, according to the people. The size of any settlement would depend in part on how much the bank is willing to pay in cash versus other remedies such as mortgage write-downs or consumer relief, one of the people said.

In the FHFA settlement, Bank of America agreed to pay $6.3 billion in cash to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to resolve lawsuits alleging it misrepresented loans packaged into bonds that were bought by the U.S.-owned mortgage firms. The company also said it would repurchase about $3.2 billion of mortgage bonds from the firms.

JPMorgan, as part of its settlement, agreed to offer $4 billion in aid to consumers, such as loan modifications and principal forgiveness.

Mortgage Settlements
Bank of America Chief Executive Officer Brian T. Moynihan, 54, has spent more than $50 billion since the financial crisis to resolve claims related to mortgages, most tied to the 2008 purchase of Countrywide.
Moynihan, who is in his fifth year of working through setbacks related to his predecessor’s acquisitions, may be nearing the end of its multi-billion dollar settlements, said Paul Miller, a banking analyst at FBR Capital Markets Corp. and former examiner at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.

“This is the last big check — they’ve been sued in every direction they could,” Miller said. “Banks are an easy target: they’re making money, nobody likes them and they can’t fight it.”

and

Ex-Finance Chief at Bank of America to Pay $7.5 Million in Settlement

By Rachel Abramas, NYTimes – April 25, 2014 – http://tinyurl.com/la5l86r

The New York State attorney general announced Friday that the office had reached a $7.5 million settlement with Joe L. Price, the former chief financial officer for Bank of America, over allegations that the bank’s management withheld material information related to its 2008 merger with Merrill Lynch.
The attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, accused Bank of America’s top executives, including Mr. Price, of failing to disclose more than $9 billion of projected losses at Merrill Lynch to Bank of America shareholders before a vote on the acquisition.

The settlement is the latest move in Mr. Schneiderman’s broader crackdown on the Wall Street executives who led some of the country’s largest financial institutions during the crisis. Last month, Mr. Schneiderman’s office reached a $10 million settlement related to the Merrill Lynch merger with Bank of America and its former chief, Kenneth D. Lewis, who stepped down in 2009.

“This settlement is one more step in our effort to hold top financial executives accountable for their actions,” Mr. Schneiderman said in a statement announcing the news on Friday. “As with our settlement last month with C.E.O. Kenneth D. Lewis, today’s action sends a message that conduct harming investors, shareholders, and the public will not go unpunished.”

Representatives for Bank of America and Mr. Lewis declined to comment. A representative for Mr. Price could not be reached.

As part of the settlement, Mr. Price will not be able to serve as an officer or director of a public company for 18 months. The $7.5 million payment will be used to pay for the costs associated with the attorney general’s investigation, according to court filings.

The attorney general’s office said that it had found evidence that the bank had not only concealed information about Merrill’s financial condition from shareholders, but from the federal government as well. The bank, according to Mr. Schneiderman’s office, sought significant aid from the government during the crisis, but did not disclose what it knew about Merrill’s projected losses until the beginning of 2009.

The ghosts of the financial crisis continue to haunt Wall Street’s largest institutions, even after their top leadership has changed.

The Justice Department is said to be seekingbillions of dollars from Bank of America to settle a civil inquiry into the bank’s sale of toxic mortgage investments before the financial crisis.

And in January, Morgan Stanley revealed that it recorded a $1.2 billion charge to help pay for its legal bills had contributed to a $1.1 billion pretax loss in its institutional securities unit, which houses mortgage lending and trading operations.

Sabrina

29th April 2014, 06:34

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-27192600

Good news here in the UK at last on high profile people not getting away with year's of abuse. Significant finding here imo.

28 APril UK

Max Clifford guilty of eight indecent assaults

Publicist Max Clifford has been found guilty of eight indecent assaults on women and girls as young as 15.

The 71-year-old, from Surrey, was convicted of a string of assaults which happened over nearly 20 years.

He was cleared of two charges of indecent assault, while the jury at Southwark Crown Court failed to reach a verdict on another charge.

Clifford, who is the first person to be convicted under Operation Yewtree, was bailed and will be sentenced on Friday.

Judge Anthony Leonard QC warned him the fact he was granted bail was no indication of the sentence that would be passed.

Afterwards, Clifford posed outside court for photographers with his daughter Louise but ignored questions from reporters, saying: "I have been told by my lawyers to say nothing at all."

'Degrading'
Clifford was arrested by detectives from Operation Yewtree - the national investigation sparked by abuse claims against Jimmy Savile - in December 2012, and charged in April 2013.

He was arrested under a strand of the investigation concentrating on accusations not directly connected to Savile.

BBC home affairs correspondent Danny Shaw said the verdicts were "hugely significant" as the first Yewtree conviction.

Afterwards, one victim said her faith in the justice system had been restored.

During the trial, prosecutors portrayed Clifford as a well-practised manipulator who promised to boost his victims' careers and enable them to meet celebrities in exchange for sexual favours.

Several women testified about his behaviour at his office in New Bond Street, central London.

He offered to get them casting appointments, pretending to be Hollywood bigwigs including Steven Spielberg, Albert "Cubby" Broccoli and Michael Winner on the phone.

The jury found Clifford guilty of indecently assaulting four victims, including one who was abused from the age of 15 after she met him while on holiday with her family in Spain.

Clifford victim 'so relieved'

A woman, who was indecently assaulted by Max Clifford when she was 15, said she was "so relieved and so pleased that justice has been done".

She told the BBC Clifford was "somebody who reinvented his persona and has been able to shield himself behind a cloak of respectability and fooled everybody.

"He was an opportunist. He saw a vulnerable person and took advantage of somebody who was a child.

"And it was awful, it was a nightmare and it had huge implications for me as a young person."

Clifford was an opportunist
She said she was "blown away" when he told her she "could be the UK version" of Jodie Foster, and felt unable to say no when he asked her to take off her top and bra.

He forced her to perform oral sex on him and indecently assaulted her.

'Nightmare'
Decades later, the victim wrote Clifford an anonymous letter, which police found in his bedside table when they searched his home.

In the letter she accused Clifford of taking pleasure in degrading her, giving him an "A+ in grooming children".

After the trial, she told the BBC she still shuddered and felt ill when she thought about Clifford and that it had been sickening to see him "create a persona of a respectable, high-profile man who was lauded by the media".

"I can't thank the police and the CPS enough for their endeavours to get justice for me and everyone else," she added.

The second victim, an extra in the Bond film Octopussy, was targeted at Clifford's office in 1981 or 1982 when she was 19. Clifford told her actor Charles Bronson wanted pictures of her in her underwear to help him decide if she could be in a film.

Continue reading the main story
Richard Lister
BBC News correspondent
On the stand, Max Clifford portrayed himself as an innocent man who had been terribly wronged by the allegations of "fantasists".

He denied everything, but his avowed respect for women was undermined by boasts in his biography about getting a random woman off the street to strip for photos in his office for a bet, and calling others with a fake voice to suggest they had sex with his friends.

There were two Max Cliffords presented to the jury. The prosecution portrayed him as a manipulative sexual bully who drew in vulnerable young women and girls to abuse.

His defence painted a picture of a respectable businessman with an appetite for innocent fun, a deep love for his family and tireless work for charity.

Max Clifford did all he could to reinforce that impression, but in the end he could not convince the jury that he had nothing to hide.

How Clifford tried to spin his trial
She said she spoke to a man claiming to be Mr Bronson on the phone, then Clifford pinned her down on a sofa but she fought him off and left.

Another girl, a teenage model, said Clifford groped her when she went to his office for career advice in 1983, bragging that he could get her a part in a James Bond film.

She was told to pose in her underwear and described how Clifford tried to force her to perform oral sex.

The victims also included a dancer who received a phone call while she was at a nightclub from someone pretending to represent producer Broccoli and was told to find out whether Clifford was circumcised.

She said she feared she would be raped when Clifford took her into the toilet and assaulted her.

Clifford repeatedly denied the claims, calling his arrest and prosecution "a nightmare" and branding his accusers "fantasists".

Victims' 'courage'
Clifford was a key player in the British media in the 1990s and 2000s, orchestrating tabloid revelations about the sex lives of politicians, including David Mellor and John Prescott, sporting figures such as David Beckham and Sven-Goran Eriksson, and actors including Jude Law.

Speaking outside court, Jenny Hopkins, deputy chief crown prosecutor for CPS London, said the verdicts had provided "a long-denied justice".

She said the CPS would now consider its position on the verdict the jury was unable to come to a decision on.

"I would like to thank these victims for having had the courage to come forward and give evidence.

"The victims of sexual abuse, whenever it may have taken place, should know that police and prosecutors will listen", she said.

DCI Michael Orchard, from the Metropolitan Police, also paid tribute to Clifford's victims, saying he hoped they felt they were "listened to".

Peter Watt, director of National Services at the NSPCC, said Clifford had been "unmasked as a ruthless and manipulative sex offender who preyed for decades on children and young women".

"Clifford was a rich and influential man who dined with the stars but the way he manipulated and groomed his victims is typical of many sex offenders.

"He exploited their vulnerabilities, using lies and coercion to get what he wanted," he said.

'Concocting lies'
David Mellor, the former Conservative MP and minister, branded Clifford a "sleazeball", saying he "stands condemned by his own words".

Clifford was known for brokering deals with the tabloids for kiss and tell stories, including Mr Mellor's affair with Antonia de Sancha.

Mr Mellor told BBC Radio 4's PM programme he felt the press had not taken rumours about Clifford's private life seriously because he fed them stories.

He accused him of "concocting lies" during his career, adding that "he did it for money, but also, you know, he did it with malice and cruelty, which is why he deserves no sympathy".

Lawyer Liz Dux, who represents more than 150 people who have made complaints under Operation Yewtree, said the verdicts proved the investigation was not a "celebrity witch-hunt".

Sir Keir Starmer, former director of public prosecutions, meanwhile told the BBC that the guilty verdicts were "significant", showing that, "if a case is properly brought, it can succeed."

"For many years there was a perception perhaps that you would never succeed in one of these cases if the accused was a celebrity," he said.

However, he added: "It doesn't matter who you are, in the end we do have a system that is capable of delivering justice for victims in situations such as this."

(personally think Keir Stammer must be a white hat, after years of cases being allegedly squashed… Sab)

also from the Daily Express on other recent high profile abuse cases:

In February, Coronation Street actor Bill Roache, 81, was found not guilty of rape and indecent assault, six months after his co-star Michael Le Vell, 49, was also acquitted of sexual offences.

Former Radio 1 DJ Dave Lee Travis, 68, was also cleared in February of 12 counts of indecent assault against a number of women.

He faces a retrial on two charges, and has since been charged with a separate count of indecent assault, which he also denies.

Rolf Harris, 84, is due to stand trial later this month after being charged with a string of indecent assaults.

He denies the charges.

Clifford, Travis and Harris were all arrested under operation Yewtree, which was launched in the wake of the Savile scandal.

The publicist has been bailed ahead of his sentencing on Friday afternoon.

Detective Chief Inspector Michael Orchard from Operation Yewtree said outside court: "I would like to thank the victims for their courage and strength in coming forward to speak to us. I hope they feel and know that they were listened to.

"While this was a high profile trial, officers work tirelessly to being offenders of sexual abuse to justice on a daily basis."

Sabrina

29th April 2014, 06:53

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tony-blair-minister-former-pms-3468050

27 APril UK

Good, some of the UK main stream media continue to get behind this campaign to get the truth out and stop protecting high profile members - or ex-members - of the government.

Minister in Tony Blair’s government among group of men suspected of abusing children at home run by paedophile

A probe was halted soon after an ex-social services boss told police of his alleged evening visits in the early 1980s

One of Tony Blair’s ministers was among a group of men suspected of sexually abusing children at a home run by a convicted paedophile.

But the probe was halted soon after an ex-social services boss told police of his alleged evening visits in the early 1980s.

Official documents seen by the Daily Mirror during a 16-month investigation reveal former residents told detectives that a group of paedophiles attacked children in a private flat in the home.

But two former Lambeth social services employees involved in the case suspect a cover-up because experienced detective Clive Driscoll was removed from the investigation and given other duties.

One, a former manager who alerted police in 1998, said: “One wonders why Scotland Yard would be so desperate to stop it being investigated.

"I believe it was stopped because somebody in power was trying to prevent any further investigation into the politician.”

And Dr Nigel Goldie, a council boss in charge of child protection in 1998, said: “There were some allegations that children were being abused by one or two prominent persons.

“There were a lot of very senior people trying to put a lid on it. There was something very unfortunate about the way the whole thing was dealt with.”

The Mirror has seen a Lambeth council memo that shows there was an intention to brief then Health Secretary, Frank Dobson, about the police investigation.

But Mr Dobson said he did not remember being briefed and was never told a minister in Tony Blair’s government was suspected of child abuse.

Both Dr Goldie and the former manager have called for an independent probe into their suspicions the minister was protected by the Establishment.

After being tracked down by the Mirror, the ex-manager said in the early 1980s she saw the man visiting Michael John Carroll at the Angell Road children’s home he ran in Brixton, South London.

She said she told top Lambeth officials at the time she suspected Carroll was at the centre of a paedophile ring at the home.

Bosses learned in 1986 that he was convicted of sexually assaulting a boy of 12 in the Wirral in 1966.

But the pervert was allowed to continue running the home until 1991.

Carroll was finally arrested in the summer of 1998 and convicted of a string of child sex attacks dating back three decades including assaults on youngsters in Angell Road.

He was freed from his 10-year sentence in 2004. Dr Goldie, who was assistant director of social services at Lambeth, then helped Met Detective Inspector Mr Driscoll investigate claims of sexual abuse in children’s homes.

At the time, Mr Driscoll was an experienced child protection detective. He went on to nail two racist thugs who murdered Stephen Lawrence.

But in 1998 he was taken off the Lambeth case and faced disciplinary proceedings for allegedly naming the politician among the suspects.

Describing how he learned the minister was being investigated, Dr Goldie said in a signed statement: “Clive started talking about the politician... He articulated that his approach was to shake the tree and be quite open about what he was doing and see what happened.”

Dr Goldie, now a non-executive director of mental health charity the Richmond Fellowship, added: “The allegation was that the politician had been seen going in and out of Angell Road.

“There were allegations he sexually abused children.”

Dr Goldie said he received a call from a senior police officer a short time later.

He recalled: “It was all very cloak and dagger stuff. He said, ‘Can you come downstairs and meet us outside?’”

Dr Goldie met the officer, who was accompanied by a junior colleague, in a cafe in Clapham, South London. He said: “They had an air of authority like they were used to taking decisions. They asked if there had been other allegations about the individual [the minister].”

Dr Goldie, described a second meeting with the same senior officer at the same cafe a few days later. He said: “They said essentially that they saw it as fantasy. They were rubbishing Clive’s evidence. It was a closure job on what Clive was saying.

“They put a lot of pressure on me. I had to treat it all confidentially.

“By that point Clive had been called in and given his disciplinary notice. They said that Clive hadn’t been able to provide them with evidence for the claims.”

Dr Goldie said their manner was “threatening” and added: “I was told not to tell anyone or repeat it. It was heavy.”

Mr Driscoll was questioned under caution by Met officers and removed from the Lambeth district. The disciplinary proceedings were later dropped.

Dr Goldie, who left Lambeth council of his own accord four months later, added: “What is needed is a proper independent investigation with a judicial element to get to the bottom of who was involved in the decision to shut Clive’s investigation down and to re-open the investigation into the original allegations.”

An internal memo written by Dr Goldie, dated September 1, 1998, said Mr Dobson was to be updated about the investigation by the Social Services Inspectorate – the body responsible for overseeing children’s homes.

Whitehall officials are now conducting a review, at Mr Dobson’s request, of all documents and briefings he received from the SSI when he was Health Secretary.

Mr Driscoll’s investigation was scrapped soon after Ron Davies quit as Welsh Secretary when he was mugged by a male prostitute at a gay meeting spot on Clapham Common, South London, in October 1998.

A week later, Agriculture Minister Nick Brown was forced into revealing he was gay by the News of the World. Neither men are the minister suspected of child abuse.

Alastair Campbell’s entry for November 4, 1998, in his published diary, The Blair Years, states: “As TB said later, with a touch of black humour, we could get away with Ron as a one-off aberration, but if the public start to think the whole Cabinet is indulging in gay sex, we might have a bit of a political problem.”

Mr Driscoll’s probe was shut down that month before Sir Denis O’Connor, then an assistant commissioner, set up new investigation Operation Middleton. It was contacted by more than 200 alleged victims and secured three convictions. In 19 cases suspects could not be identified.

Detective Superintendent Richard Gargini, who led Middleton, said last night: “Every allegation was taken seriously, including unsubstantiated rumour.

"Where victims and suspects were identified the inquiry was conducted ethically and with complete professionalism. We found no evidence of an organised network where people in authority attended the children’s’ homes for inappropriate purposes.”

Mr Driscoll was taken off the Stephen Lawrence case in January after he criticised Yard bosses for removing him from the 1998 probe.

He has been forced to retire next month. Several ex-Lambeth children’s home residents have recently come forward to police to allege abuse. One ex-residential social worker faces trial next year.

The Mirror sent Scotland Yard a detailed list of questions on March 21 which they have failed to answer.

A spokesman said last week: “Various inquiries relating to Operation Middleton remain ongoing.”

Mr Blair’s spokesman refused to comment last night. All children’s homes in Lambeth were shut down by 1995.

• If you are an adult who suffered child abuse and want professional help, call NAPAC on 0800 085 3330.

• If you have any information that you think  might help our investigation, please telephone  the Mirror on 0800 282 591 or email mirrornews@mirror.co.uk

and from Needleblog:

Peter Mandelson seems to have been in an ideal position to know what was going on and any insights he might have about abuse at this children’s home would surely be useful to the police. He was a councillor for Lambeth Borough in the early 1980s around the time that the politician in question was first seen by a witness who had been a trainee at Angell Road at the time.

Not only that but in the 5 months from July 1998 until his resignation as Secretary of State for Trade and Industry in December 1998, he would have been in the same government as the alleged paedophile minister, at the time that Detective Chief Inspector Clive Driscoll was investigating these allegations.

As a close friend and confidante of the Prime Minister, isn’t it a reasonable assumption to make that Tony Blair would have consulted with Peter Mandelson, a master of news management, about these damaging allegations ?

Has anybody asked him ?

Sabrina

29th April 2014, 07:04

http://wallstreetonparade.com/2014/04/suspicious-deaths-of-bankers-are-now-classified-as-“trade-secrets”-by-federal-regulator/

Suspicious Deaths of Bankers Are Now Classified as “Trade Secrets” by Federal Regulator

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: April 28, 2014 US

It doesn’t get any more Orwellian than this: Wall Street mega banks crash the U.S. financial system in 2008. Hundreds of thousands of financial industry workers lose their jobs. Then, beginning late last year, a rash of suspicious deaths start to occur among current and former bank employees. Next we learn that four of the Wall Street mega banks likely hold over $680 billion face amount of life insurance on their workers, payable to the banks, not the families. We ask their Federal regulator for the details of this life insurance under a Freedom of Information Act request and we’re told the information constitutes “trade secrets.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the life expectancy of a 25 year old male with a Bachelor’s degree or higher as of 2006 was 81 years of age. But in the past five months, five highly educated JPMorgan male employees in their 30s and one former employee aged 28, have died under suspicious circumstances, including three of whom allegedly leaped off buildings – a statistical rarity even during the height of the financial crisis in 2008.

There is one other major obstacle to brushing away these deaths as random occurrences – they are not happening at JPMorgan’s closest peer bank – Citigroup. Both JPMorgan and Citigroup are global financial institutions with both commercial banking and investment banking operations. Their employee counts are similar – 260,000 employees for JPMorgan versus 251,000 for Citigroup.

Both JPMorgan and Citigroup also own massive amounts of bank-owned life insurance (BOLI), a controversial practice that pays the corporation when a current or former employee dies. (In the case of former employees, the banks conduct regular “death sweeps” of public records using former employees’ Social Security numbers to learn if a former employee has died and then submits a request for payment of the death benefit to the insurance company.)

Wall Street On Parade carefully researched public death announcements over the past 12 months which named the decedent as a current or former employee of Citigroup or its commercial banking unit, Citibank. We found no data suggesting Citigroup was experiencing the same rash of deaths of young men in their 30s as JPMorgan Chase. Nor did we discover any press reports of leaps from buildings among Citigroup’s workers.

Given the above set of facts, on March 21 of this year, we wrote to the regulator of national banks, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), seeking the following information under the Freedom of Information Act (See OCC Response to Wall Street On Parade’s Request for Banker Death Information):

The number of deaths from 2008 through March 21, 2014 on which JPMorgan Chase collected death benefits; the total face amount of BOLI life insurance in force at JPMorgan; the total number of former and current employees of JPMorgan Chase who are insured under these policies; any peer studies showing the same data comparing JPMorgan Chase with Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Citigroup.

The OCC responded politely by letter dated April 18, after first calling a few days earlier to inform us that we would be getting nothing under the sunshine law request. (On Wall Street, sunshine routinely means dark curtain.) The OCC letter advised that documents relevant to our request were being withheld on the basis that they are “privileged or contains trade secrets, or commercial or financial information, furnished in confidence, that relates to the business, personal, or financial affairs of any person,” or relate to “a record contained in or related to an examination.”

The ironic reality is that the documents do not pertain to the personal financial affairs of individuals who have a privacy right. Individuals are not going to receive the proceeds of this life insurance for the most part. In many cases, they do not even know that multi-million dollar policies that pay upon their death have been taken out by their employer or former employer. Equally important, JPMorgan is a publicly traded company whose shareholders have a right under securities laws to understand the quality of its earnings – are those earnings coming from traditional banking and investment banking operations or is this ghoulish practice of profiting from the death of workers now a major contributor to profits on Wall Street?

As it turns out, one aspect of the information cavalierly denied to us by the OCC is publicly available to those willing to hunt for it. On March 24 of this year, we reported that JPMorgan Chase held $10.4 billion in BOLI assets at its insured depository bank as of December 31, 2013.

We reached out to BOLI expert, Michael D. Myers, to understand what JPMorgan’s $10.4 billion in BOLI assets at its commercial bank might represent in terms of face amount of life insurance on its workers. Myers said: “Without knowing the length of the investment or its rate of return, it is difficult to estimate the face amount of the insurance coverage. However, a cash value of $10.4 billion could easily translate into more than $100 billion in actual insurance coverage and possibly two or three times that amount” said Myers, a partner in the Houston, Texas law firm McClanahan Myers Espey, L.L.P.

Myers’ and his firm have represented the families of deceased employees for almost two decades in cases involving corporate-owned life insurance against employers such as Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., Fina Oil and Chemical Co., and American Greetings Corp. (Families may be entitled to the proceeds of these policies if employee consent was required under State law and was never given and/or if the corporation cannot show it had an “insurable interest” in the employee — a tough test to meet if it’s a non key employee or if the employee has left the firm.)

As it turns out, the $10.4 billion significantly understates the amount of money JPMorgan has tied up in seeking to profit from workers’ deaths. Since Wall Street banks are structured as holding companies, we decided to see what type of financial information might be available at the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC), a federal interagency that promotes uniform reporting standards among banking regulators.

The FFIEC’s web site provided access to the consolidated financial statements of the bank holding companies of not just JPMorgan Chase but all of the largest Wall Street banks. We conducted our own peer review study with the information that was available.

Four of Wall Street’s largest banks hold a total of $68.1 billion in BOLI assets. Using Michael Myers’ approximate 10 to 1 ratio, that would mean that over time, just these four banks could potentially collect upwards of $681 billion in tax free income from life insurance proceeds on their current and former workers. (Death benefits are received tax free as is the buildup in cash value in the policies.) The breakdown in BOLI assets is as follows as of December 31, 2013:

Bank of America $22.7 billion

Wells Fargo 18.7 billion

JPMorgan Chase 17.9 billion

Citigroup 8.8 billion

In addition to specifics on the BOLI assets, the consolidated financial statements also showed what each bank was reporting as “Earnings on/increase in value of cash surrender value of life insurance” as of December 31, 2013. Those amounts are as follows:

Bank of America $625 million

Wells Fargo 566 million

JPMorgan Chase 686 million

Citigroup 0

Given the size of these numbers, there is another aspect to BOLI that should raise alarm bells among both regulators and shareholders. The Wall Street banks are using a process called “separate accounts” for large amounts of their BOLI assets with reports of some funds never actually leaving the bank and/or being invested in hedge funds, suggesting lessons from the past have not been learned.

On May 20, 2008, Bloomberg News reported that Wachovia Corp. (now owned by Wells Fargo) and Fifth Third Bancorp reported major losses on failed gambles with BOLI assets. “Wachovia reported a $315 million first-quarter loss in its bank-owned life insurance program, known as BOLI, because of investments in hedge funds managed by Citigroup Inc. Fifth Third said in a lawsuit filed last month that it had losses of $323 million from Citigroup’s Falcon funds, which slumped more than 50 percent in the past year as the subprime market collapsed.” Citigroup’s Falcon Strategies hedge fund had lost as much as 75 percent of its value by May 2008.

Following are the names and circumstances of the five young men in their 30s employed by JPMorgan who experienced sudden deaths since December along with the one former employee.

Joseph M. Ambrosio, age 34, of Sayreville, New Jersey, passed away on December 7, 2013 at Raritan Bay Medical Center, Perth Amboy, New Jersey. He was employed as a Financial Analyst for J.P. Morgan Chase in Menlo Park. On March 18, 2014, Wall Street On Parade learned from an immediate member of the family that Joseph M. Ambrosio died suddenly from Acute Respiratory Syndrome.

Jason Alan Salais, 34 years old, died December 15, 2013 outside a Walgreens inPearland, Texas. A family member confirmed that the cause of death was a heart attack. According to the LinkedIn profile for Salais, he was engaged in Client Technology Service “L3 Operate Support” and previously “FXO Operate L2 Support” at JPMorgan. Prior to joining JPMorgan in 2008, Salais had worked as a Client Software Technician at SunGard and a UNIX Systems Analyst at Logix Communications.

Gabriel Magee, 39, died on the evening of January 27, 2014 or the morning of January 28, 2014. Magee was discovered at approximately 8:02 a.m. lying on a 9th level rooftop at the Canary Wharf European headquarters of JPMorgan Chase at 25 Bank Street, London. His specific area of specialty at JPMorgan was “Technical architecture oversight for planning, development, and operation of systems for fixed income securities and interest rate derivatives.” A coroner’s inquest to determine the cause of death is scheduled for May 20, 2014 in London.

Ryan Crane, age 37, died February 3, 2014, at his home in Stamford, Connecticut. The Chief Medical Examiner’s office is still in the process of determining a cause of death. Crane was an Executive Director involved in trading at JPMorgan’s New York office. Crane’s death on February 3 was not reported by any major media until February 13, ten days later, when Bloomberg News ran a brief story.

Dennis Li (Junjie), 33 years old, died February 18, 2014 as a result of a purported fall from the 30-story Chater House office building in Hong Kong where JPMorgan occupied the upper floors. Li is reported to have been an accounting major who worked in the finance department of the bank.

Kenneth Bellando, age 28, was found outside his East Side Manhattan apartment building on March 12, 2014. The building from which Bellando allegedly jumped was only six stories – by no means ensuring that death would result. The young Bellando had previously worked for JPMorgan Chase as an analyst and was the brother of JPMorgan employee John Bellando, who was referenced in the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations’ report on how JPMorgan had hid losses and lied to regulators in the London Whale derivatives trading debacle that resulted in losses of at least $6.2 billion.

Related Articles:

Swiss Insurers and JPMorgan Have More than ‘Suicides’ in Common

A Rash of Deaths and a Missing Reporter — With Ties to Wall Street Investigations

Suspicious Death of JPMorgan Vice President, Gabriel Magee, Under Investigation in London

JPMorgan Vice President’s Death in London Shines a Light on the Bank’s Close Ties to the CIA

As Bank Deaths Continue to Shock, Documents Reveal JPMorgan Has Been Patenting Death Derivatives

Sabrina

1st May 2014, 13:16

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/former-labour-councillor-claims-police-3480127

30 April UK

Former Labour councillor claims police tried to smear her when she suspected a minister of child sex abuse

Anna Tapsell told Scotland Yard about the rumours and claims the Met looked at her finances in a bit to destroy her credibility

A whistleblower has claimed Scotland Yard tried to discredit her after she told an officer that one of Tony Blair’s ministers was suspected of child sex abuse.

Anna Tapsell said the alleged Met plot to smear her – in a bid to destroy her credibility as a witness – included snooping into her finances.

Ms Tapsell told detective Clive Driscoll in 1998 about rumours that the minister abused boys at a childrens’ home in Lambeth, South London, in the 1980s. Mr Driscoll was removed from the probe into abuse at the Brixton home and was subjected to disciplinary proceedings after naming the politician.

Ms Tapsell, a former Labour councillor in Lambeth, said: “It’s incredibly sad for the children who suffered during that time that the police were spending their energy on seeking to smear me and trying to destroy the career of an officer who was only doing his duty.” Social services staff who were involved in the case suspect there was a cover-up to prevent the minister from being further investigated.

In 1999, Michael John Carroll, now 65, was jailed for 10 years for child sex attacks while he ran the home.

Police yesterday handed evidence to the CPS after interviewing a man allegedly abused as a teenager in the 1970s by Labour peer Lord Janner, now 85.

and

29 April

Pressure mounts on Tony Blair to answer questions over minister child sex abuse cover-up claims

The former Prime Minister is under increasing pressure to say what exactly he knew about allegations of abuse at a London children's home

Pressure mounted on Tony Blair tonight to answer questions over the Mirror’s revelations that a child sex abuse probe was axed after a minister in his government was named as a suspect.

MPs joined forces with a victim of abuse to call on the former Prime Minister to reveal if he knew about the alleged cover up or of any allegations against the politician.

The demands followed our story that an ex-social services boss told police in 1998 the Blair minister made evening visits to a children’s home in Lambeth, south London, run by paedophile Michael John Carroll in the 1980s.

A spokesman for Mr Blair said yesterday that he would not comment.

The Metropolitan Police continued to remain silent about their review into the cover up claims which they launched over a year ago.

A former care home boy who was sexually assaulted by Carroll in the flat allegedly visited by the politician, said yesterday: “Mr Blair owes it to the children who have suffered to come out and say something about this.”

The 45-year-old delivery driver added: “He must tell us what he knew and the longer he doesn’t, the worse it will get for him.”

Conservative MP Charlie Elphicke, a former Lambeth councillor, said: “Scotland Yard should come clean about why they ended the investigation and Tony Blair should explain what actions, if any, he took.

“People need to know there hasn’t been a cover up and Tony Blair cannot stay silent on this any longer. Lambeth has a sorry history when it comes to child protection and too often it has failed.”

more at the link

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/pressure-mounts-tony-blair-answer-3475758#ixzz30TAjNa7N
Follow us: @DailyMirror on Twitter | DailyMirror on Facebook

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/pressure-mounts-tony-blair-answer-3475758#ixzz30TAPcQI9
Follow us: @DailyMirror on Twitter | DailyMirror on Facebook

Sabrina

1st May 2014, 13:20

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2014/04/29/israel-a-sanctuary-for-nevada-gambling-boss/

Is Israel a sanctuary for Nevada gambling boss?

AIPAC gambling boss may flee US

Yesterday, federal officials took into custody the reputed partner of gambling boss Sheldon Adelson, the chief financial backer for the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and primary financier for America’s GOP or Republican Party.

Sources at the Department of Justice say Adelson is accused of laundering $364 million dollars, much of which went into the pockets of politicians in Washington “friendly” to Israel.

If Adelson is indicted, and sources in the Justice Department say this process is well underway, politicians around the US, all Republicans, will be required to return millions in what would then be not only illegal campaign contributions but clearly proof of ties between the GOP and organized crime.

Many of the politicians Adelson has supported on state government level have worked to suppress wages and workers’ rights, blocked regulations protecting consumers from mortgage and investment fraud and supported questionable gambling initiatives.

Adelson’s extremist politics have been a dark stain on the soul of America.
____________________

Sources direct to the investigation tell us that a special grand jury is preparing an indictment against Adelson for a long list of offenses, including but not limited to money laundering, mail and wire fraud and conspiracy.

Adelson, one of the world’s wealthiest men, with massive holdings in Las Vegas and Macao, never turns away from controversy. Adelson enraged the veterans community in the United States when he told an AIPAC audience that he was ashamed of having served in the American military when he felt loyalty only to Israel.

Critical is Adelson’s virtual control of America’s pro-Israel Republican Party. The GOP had hopes of using Adelson cash to gain control of the United States Senate.

Analysts predict that were this to happen, America would not only move toward domestic collapse but there is a real possibility that regions of the US would seek to withdraw from the union, seeking an “autonomous zone.”

Adelson and his GOP “employees” have long stated the desire to use nuclear weapons in a preemptory attack on Iran and may well attack Russia and China as well. Though elected officials and, theoretically answerable for their positions, Adelson’s “gang” in Washington regularly promise to bring America to a full-scale war.

Our sources say that federal officials are presenting witness testimony to the grand jury that they believe ties Adelson directly to money laundering.
____________________
The case against “Shelly”

His partner in this endeavor is now in federal custody, said to be in witness protection, and prepared to testify at length to the grand jury. The initial story had been reported in an article in the Huffington Post last year.

Former CIA agent “Chip” Tatum spent many hours with a yet unnamed witness against Adelson. Stories include traveling the world in one of Adelson’s private jets on “business” that the government considers money laundering and racketeering. We are currently in negotiations with the US Attorney and US Marshals to gain limited access for additional interviews.

more at the link

26 April

Sabrina

2nd May 2014, 07:01

http://news.sky.com/story/1253590/gerry-adams-spends-second-night-in-custody

2 May Ireland

Gerry Adams Spends Second Night In Custody

Police will continue to question Gerry Adams today as the daughter of Jean McConville tells journalists she will "name names".

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams has spent a second night in police custody after his arrest over the notorious IRA murder of Jean McConville.

Police will resume questioning the 65-year-old this morning about the killing of the Belfast mother-of-10 in 1972.

It comes as Ms McConville's eldest daughter, Helen McKendry, told journalists she was prepared to name the people responsible for her mother's death.

Ms McKendry told news organisations that she no longer feared reprisals by republicans.

Mr Adams has always vehemently denied allegations levelled by former republican colleagues that he ordered the murder of Ms McConville.

She was wrongly suspected of being an informer to the British Army.

The politician was arrested at Antrim police station on Wednesday night after voluntarily presenting himself for interview.

The former West Belfast MP and current representative for Co Louth in the Irish Dail can initially be held for up to 48 hours without charge.

That allows officers to question Mr Adams until around 8pm today.

But detectives have the option to apply to a judge today for his detention to be extended for further questioning.

Ms McConville was dragged screaming from her children in the Divis flats in west Belfast by a gang of up to 12 men and women.

She was interrogated, shot in the back of the head and then secretly buried - so becoming one of the "Disappeared" victims of the Troubles.

Her body was not found until 2003 on a beach in Co Louth, 50 miles from her home.

Ms McKendry's willingness to speak out was in contrast to her brother, Michael McConville.

He said earlier that he was still not prepared to name those involved even though he knew who they were, because of the consequences for his family.

"Everybody thinks that the IRA has gone away but they have not. If we tell we will be shot," he said.

Mr Adams's long-standing party colleague and friend, Stormont Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, has claimed the arrest was aimed at inflicting political damage on Sinn Fein in the month of an election.

He said it was an example of the "dark side" of policing trying to flex its muscles.

But Prime Minister David Cameron rejected any suggestion that the arrest was politically motivated.

"There has been absolutely no political interference in this issue," he said.

Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) chief constable Matt Baggott has vowed the investigation into Ms McConville's death will be "effective, objective and methodical".

No one has ever been charged with the murder of the 37-year-old widow.

But after years without progress in the criminal investigation there have been a series of arrests in recent weeks.

A veteran republican - 77-year-old Ivor Bell - was charged in March with aiding and abetting the murder. Five other people have been detained and questioned.

The recent police activity followed a decision by a US court compelling a Boston university to hand over to the PSNI recorded interviews with republicans about Ms McConville's murder.

Boston College interviewed a number of former paramilitaries about the Troubles on the understanding transcripts would not be published until after their deaths.

But that undertaking was rendered ineffective when the court ordered last year that tapes that contained claims about the killing be given to detectives.

Sabrina

2nd May 2014, 07:26

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-01/and-then-theres-oceans-will-rise-nuclear-winter-will-be-upon-us-and-world-we-know-it

And Then There's This: "The Oceans Will Rise; Nuclear Winter Will Be Upon Us; And The World As We Know It Will End"

Tyler Durden on 05/01/2014

As U.S. Justice Department prosecutors begin to bring the first criminal charges against global banks since the financial crisis, they are facing dire warnings of uncontainable collateral damage from none other than the sell-side's banking analysts... "Don’t play with matches," warned Brad Hintz, bringing up the specter of Enron (somehow suggesting we would better if that had not been prosecuted?) “The mere threat of requiring a hearing could cause customers to lose confidence in the institution and could cause a run on the bank,” warns a banking lawyer (well isn't that how it's supposed to be?). Too Big To Prosecute is starting to tarnish a little as Preet Bharara begins to bring the heat, adding, somewhat humorously that, banks have a "powerful incentive to make prosecutors believe that death or dire consequences await."

It seems Eric Holder's words - as we noted here...

"But I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if you do prosecute, if you do bring a criminal charge, it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy. And I think that is a function of the fact that some of these institutions have become too large.

Again, I'm not talking about HSBC. This is just a -- a more general comment. I think it has an inhibiting influence -- impact on our ability to bring resolutions that I think would be more appropriate. And I think that is something that we -- you all need to -- need to consider. So the concern that you raised is actually one that I share."
But now, as Bloomberg reports,

Stung by lawmakers’ criticism that multibillion-dollar settlements have done too little to punish Wall Street in the wake of the financial crisis, prosecutors are considering indictments in probes of Credit Suisse Group AG and BNP Paribas SA, a person familiar with the matter said.

And that has led to significant backlash from the industry - how dare he!!

The 2002 collapse of Arthur Andersen, the accounting firm indicted in the Enron scandal, “should be a lesson” for prosecutors, Brad Hintz, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., said today in an interview on Bloomberg Television. “Don’t play with matches.”

...

Criminal action would have to be handled so that any review of a bank’s charter wouldn’t spook customers or revoke a firm’s license, said Gil Schwartz, a partner at Schwartz & Ballen LLP and a former Federal Reserve lawyer. “The mere threat of requiring a hearing could cause customers to lose confidence in the institution and could cause a run on the bank,” Schwartz said.

And as Preet Bharara somewhat comedically notes...

“Companies, especially financial institutions, will do almost anything to avoid a tough enforcement action and therefore have a natural and powerful incentive to make prosecutors believe that death or dire consequences await,” he said. “I have heard assertions made with great force and passion that if we take any criminal action, the skies will darken; the oceans will rise; nuclear winter will be upon us; and the world as we know it will end.”
But the threats arnd fears of what is clearly TBTF's contagious effects remain...

“You can’t do a guilty plea of a systemically important financial institution without first getting the regulators on board a commitment that the conviction won’t put the bank out of business,” he said in an e-mail. “That seems to be going on here, not surprisingly.”

And this is with stocks at record highs and the entire farce of opaque bank balance sheets now a dim and disatnt memrory for all but the sanest.

“These are test cases,” said Phan. “There’s a pragmatism behind this. You look for a target that’s small enough and that will send a message.”

Prosecuting banks would break with a practice of brokering settlements with companies that are considered integral to the financial system. Previous probes were resolved through so-called non-prosecution and deferred-prosecution agreements, which have been criticized by U.S. lawmakers for failing to hold banks accountable.

“It’s about time,” said Buell, who was part of the prosecution team at the trial of Arthur Andersen, whose indictment put about 85,000 people out of work. “The argument that we can’t have guilty pleas because of debarment provisions that are written into various regulatory codes has always seemed to be a case of the tail wagging the dog.”

So, to summarize, regulator is actually taking a crack at the TBTFs for fraud they committed and the industry is in full Mutually Assured Destruction threat mode should it actually be forced to admit guilt... well played Fed... more leveraged, more interconnected, and more TBTF in the world's economy...

Sabrina

2nd May 2014, 07:40

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-01/two-days-after-swearing-market-isnt-rigged-sec-slaps-nyse-wrists-rigging-markets

Tyler Durden on 05/01/2014 US

Two Days After Swearing Market Isn't Rigged, SEC Slaps NYSE Wrists For Rigging Markets

It is somewhat ironic, actually make that criminal, that two days after new SEC head Mary Jo White (whose conflict of interest list is so vast courtesy of her prior position as defending every Wall Street from their criminal acts she now has to recuse herself from virtually every enforcement action) solemnly promised Congress under oath that the "markets are not rigged", the SEC comes out swinging and slaps the wrist of the NYSE with an intolerable $4.5 million fine for allowing market rigging "for a period of time from 2008 to 2012."

From the SEC complaint:

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced an enforcement action against the New York Stock Exchange and two affiliated exchanges for their failure to comply with the responsibilities of self-regulatory organizations (SROs) to conduct their business operations in accordance with Commission-approved exchange rules and the federal securities laws. Also charged was the NYSE exchanges’ affiliated routing broker Archipelago Securities.

The details:

“The order highlights instances where the exchanges conducted business without a rule in place due to weak or inadequate policies and procedures,” said Antonia Chion, an associate director in the SEC’s Division of Enforcement. “In other instances, the exchanges did not operate in compliance with their effective rules. Both failures reflect a troubling lack of compliance with the requirements and obligations imposed on securities exchanges.”

The violations detailed in the SEC’s order occurred during periods of time from 2008 to 2012. The SEC’s order finds that the NYSE exchanges violated Section 19(b) and 19(g) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 through misconduct that included the following:

NYSE, NYSE Arca, and NYSE MKT (formerly NYSE Amex) used an error account maintained at Archipelago Securities to assume and trade out of securities positions without a rule in effect that permitted such trading and in a manner inconsistent with their rules for the routing broker, which limited Archipelago Securities’ activity primarily to outbound and inbound routing of orders on behalf of those exchanges.

NYSE provided co-location services to customers on disparate contractual terms without an exchange rule in effect that permitted and governed the provision of such services on a fair and equitable basis.

NYSE operated a block trading facility (New York Block Exchange) that for a period of time did not function in accordance with the rules submitted by NYSE and approved by the SEC.

NYSE distributed an automated feed of closing order imbalance information to its floor brokers at an earlier time than was specified in NYSE’s rules.

NYSE Arca failed to execute Mid-Point Passive Liquidity Orders (MPLOs) in locked markets (where the bid and ask prices are the same) contrary to its exchange rule in effect at the time.

In addition, the SEC’s order finds that NYSE Arca accepted MPLOs in sub-penny amounts for National Market System stocks trading at over $1.00 per share, in violation of Rule 612(a) of Regulation NMS.

The SEC’s order further finds that Archipelago Securities failed to establish and maintain policies reasonably designed to prevent the misuse of material, nonpublic information in connection with error account trading.

Archipelago Securities also violated and failed to give the SEC timely notice of its violation of the net capital rule – a critical federal securities law provision intended to ensure that brokers and dealers remain solvent and can meet their financial obligations.

Or in other words, the SEC is claiming that for 5 years the NYSE was aiding and abetting the very same rigged market that the SEC swears does not exist.

It. Just. Does. Not. Compute.

Sabrina

6th May 2014, 07:42

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/05/05/uk-carbontrading-germany-idUKKBN0DL0O720140505?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2FUKDomesticNews+%28News+%2F+UK+%2F+Domestic+News%29

5 may

Briton arrested in Las Vegas in carbon trading probe

(Reuters) - U.S. officials have arrested a 56-year-old Briton in Las Vegas in connection with suspected tax fraud worth 136 million euros (112 million pounds), deepening a European carbon trading probe that has also drawn in Deutsche Bank.

A German prosecutor on Monday said the man was under investigation for participating in a scheme to evade taxes through trading European Union carbon emission certificates using a business based in Dubai.

German authorities issued an international warrant for his arrest on May 2 and the man was arrested on May 4. The suspect's identity was not revealed. He is now being held in custody in Las Vegas awaiting extradition, the Frankfurt prosecutor said in a statement.

"The accused had flown from Dubai to a boxing event in Las Vegas where he was sponsoring one of the boxers in a fight," the prosecutor said. "He was arrested on the sidelines of the event."

The arrest broadens a carbon trading probe that has also affected Deutsche Bank, where prosecutors are investigating 25 staff, including co-Chief Executive Juergen Fitschen and finance chief Stefan Krause, on suspicion of tax evasion, money laundering and obstruction of justice.

Deutsche Bank, contacted by Reuters on Monday, referred to its December 2012 statement in which the bank said it was cooperating fully with the authorities.

Tax fraud cases rocked the EU Emissions Trading System in 2009 and 2010, and officials warned then that peripheral markets such as power and gas could also become targets.

Earlier in April, Frankfurt prosecutors brought charges against two British citizens for suspected tax fraud amounting to 31 million euros in the same trading investigation.

The judicial proceedings are being held in Germany because this is where the defendants are suspected of having committed the fraud.

At least 14 people have been jailed in three countries so far for their involvement in carbon trading VAT fraud.

European police agency Europol has estimated that such crime has cost taxpayers more than 5 billion euros in lost revenue since 2008.

Sabrina

6th May 2014, 08:23

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/rolf-harris-trial-jury-selection-3501205

6 May UK

Rolf Harris trial: Jury selection to begin as veteran entertainer denies string of indecent assaults

The 84-year-old is accused of 12 counts of indecent assault, with the prosecution expected to open its case later this week

Jury selection will begin today in the trial of Rolf Harris, who denies a string of indecent assaults.

The 84-year-old veteran entertainer is accused of assaulting four girls, the youngest of whom was seven or eight and the oldest aged 19, between 1968 and 1986.

He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Jury selection is expected to begin today at Southwark Crown Court, and the prosecution case to open later in the week.

Harris, from Bray in Berkshire, is facing 12 counts of indecent assault.

His trial, being heard in front of Mr Justice Sweeney, is expected to take more than six weeks.

Harris, who painted a portrait of the Queen in 2005 and performed at her Diamond Jubilee concert last year, has been in the public eye for decades.

He had his first musical hit Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport in 1960, and continued to enjoy success in the industry as well as forging a television career.

Harris, who has lived in the village of Bray for more than 50 years, has also received a number of honours and was made Officer of the Order of Australia in the Queen's Birthday Honours in 2012.

Sabrina

6th May 2014, 08:33

http://pando.com/2014/05/05/leaked-docs-obtained-by-pando-show-how-a-wall-street-giant-is-guaranteed-huge-fees-from-taxpayers-on-risky-pension-investments/

5 May US

LEAKED: Docs obtained by Pando show how a Wall Street giant is guaranteed huge fees from taxpayers on risky pension investments

When you think of the term “public pension fund,” you probably imagine hyper-cautious investment strategies kept in check by no-nonsense fiduciary laws.

But you probably shouldn’t.

An increasing number of those pension funds are being stealthily diverted into high-fee, high-risk “alternative investments” that deliver spectacular rewards for the Wall Street firms paid to manage them – but not such great returns for pensioners and taxpayers.

Citing data from the National Association of State Retirement Administrators, Al Jazeera America recently reported that “the average portion of pension dollars devoted to real estate and alternative investments has more than tripled over the last 12 years, growing from 7 percent to around 22 percent today.” With public pensions now reporting $3 trillion in total assets, that’s up to $660 billion of public money in these high-fee, high-risk investments.

And yet… despite the fact that they deal with the expenditure of taxpayer money, the agreements between public pension systems and alternative investment firms are almost entirely secret.

Until now.

Thanks to confidential documents exclusively obtained by Pando, we can now see some of the language and fee structures in the agreements between the “alternative investment” industry and major public pension funds. Taken together, the documents raise serious questions about whether the government employees, trustees and politicians overseeing major public pension funds are shirking their fiduciary responsibilities under the law when they are cementing “alternative” investment deals.

The documents, which were involved in a recent SEC inquiry into the $14.5 billion Kentucky Retirement Systems (KRS), were handed to us by SEC whistleblower Chris Tobe, an investment consultant and former trustee of the KRS. Tobe has also written a book — “Kentucky Fried Pensions” — about the scandalous state of the Kentucky public pensions system.

The documents provided by Tobe (embedded below) specifically detail Kentucky’s dealings with Blackstone – a giant Wall Street investment firm which has deployed a platoon of registered lobbyists in Kentucky and whose employees are major financial backers of Kentucky U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R).

The Blackstone-related documents, though, don’t just tell a story about public pensions in Kentucky. The firm, which just reported record earnings, does business with states and localities across the country. The Wall Street Journal reports that “about $37 of every $100 of Blackstone’s $111 billion investment pool comes from state and local pension plans.”

In one set of documents provided by Tobe, Blackstone’s payment structure is outlined, with language guaranteeing that Blackstone will receive its hefty annual management fees from the taxpayer – regardless of the fund’s performance.

In other documents, public pension money is exempted from some of the most basic protections usually guaranteed under federal law. Other contract language appears to license Blackstone to engage in financial conflicts of interests that could harm investors.

Despite the documents involving government agencies, and taxpayer money, they are all marked confidential. The public is not allowed to see them.

Tobe says the sheer size of Blackstone – and its attendant ability to set industry standards - means that the documents he obtained represent a story that goes way beyond one state.

“These agreements aren’t unique to Kentucky – they are everywhere,” Tobe told Pando. “They include exactly the kind of risk and boilerplate heads-I-win-tales-you-lose language that is almost certainly standard in the contracts that so many other pension funds have been signing… This is a national problem.”

Blackstone’s “Fund of Funds”: Up to $200M a year in fees and underperformance that can harm taxpayers

One of those documents given to Pando by Tobe is a confidential memo to KRS investment committee members from August 2011. In the memo, KRS staff outlines their desire to invest roughly $400 million in Blackstone’s Alternative Asset Management Fund (BAAM), which is a so-called “fund of hedge funds.”

As documented on page seven of that memo, Blackstone was guaranteed whopping fees of 50 basis points plus 10 percent of any overall profits on retirees’ money. In addition, the memo estimates 1.62 percent management fees and 19.78% incentive fees to be paid on top of the Blackstone fees to the underlying (and undisclosed) individual hedge fund managers in the “fund of funds.”

Pension officials made the decision to invest in the fund despite Blackstone then reportedly being under SEC investigation. According to KRS’s latest annual financial statement, Kentucky now has more than half a billion dollars invested in BAAM.

more at the link

Sabrina

9th May 2014, 17:00

http://2012portal.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/planetary-situation-update.html

Interesting links at the latest Cobra update:

Thursday, May 8, 2014
Planetary Situation Update

There is steady progress happening behind the scenes. The Eastern Alliance and their Western allies are taking further steps to prepare humanity for the financial Reset:

http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_05_01/BRICS-creating-parallel-Monetary-Fund-disillusioned-with-IMF-and-World-Bank-expert-0502/

http://rt.com/business/156912-russian-putin-card-payment/

http://www.silverdoctors.com/jim-willie-bombshell-over-40000-tons-of-gold-stolen-by-the-west-shipped-east/#more-42324

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/04/conservative-economist-wants-basically-ban-banking.html

full story at link at top

Sabrina

9th May 2014, 17:17

http://kauilapele.wordpress.com/2014/05/07/5-7-14-itccs-urgent-appeal-british-soldier-persecuted-institutionalized-for-discussing-common-law-arrest-warrants-against-elizabeth-windsor/

ITCCS Urgent Appeal: British soldier persecuted, institutionalized for discussing common law arrest warrants against Elizabeth Windsor

Stafford, England, May 7, 2014, 4 pm GMT

Vivian Cunningham, a serving soldier in the Irish Guards Regiment in Aldershot, Hampshire, has been detained, institutionalized and drugged against his will for mentioning to a senior officer the Common Law arrest warrants against convicted felon Elizabeth Windsor (aka “Queen Elizabeth”).

Guardsman Cunningham is presently being detained without his consent for six months at the mental care unit of St. George’s Hospital in Stafford (ph: 44 01785 25788). He has been injected with olanzapine, an atypical anti-psychotic drug, under the orders of a Captain Murrell (ph: 44 07909686198) and Doctors Khan and Sema.

Recently, Guardsman Cunningham reported to Captain Murrell the existence of the standing arrest warrant against Windsor, and her lawful conviction for crimes against humanity. According to Cunningham, Capt. Murrell responded by saying “Yes I believe the evidence you have shown me, but is it ok if you attend a medical assessment to make sure you are ok?”. Cunningham agreed, and was then committed with a diagnosis of having suffered an “acute psychotic episode”.

Clearly, Cunningham has been committed under the notorious “Fixated Threat” law, which criminalizes opinion in England, and classifies the criticism of any political figure as a mental disorder.

The ITCCS Executive states categorically that Guardsman Vivian Cunningham has been targeted by the British Crown for his circulating of evidence of Elizabeth Windsor’s guilt under the law. Cunningham’s persecution is directly related to the present Common Law Court’s investigation of the British Crown and members of the “royal family” for child trafficking and murder.

The ITCCS Executive therefore calls upon all of its global affiliates and British members to protest at St. George’s hospital in Stafford, and phone the facility and Capt. Murrell to demand an explanation for Cunningham’s incarceration. Protests and occupations will commence at British embassies and businesses around the world, and will continue until Vivian Cunnigham [Cunningham] is released unconditionally.

Vivian Cunningham is hereby declared a prisoner of conscience in England by the ITCCS.

Issued by ITCCS Central
7 May, 2014
Brussels

Sabrina

9th May 2014, 17:23

http://kauilapele.wordpress.com/2014/05/08/my-mind-has-been-blown-wide-open-that-is-by-this-video-the-lie-nasa-told-the-imminent-demise-of-the-nwo/

video at link, was unable to copy it..

David Vose

Published on May 5, 2014
Members of the Illuminati being JAILED as we speak. Millions are hailing this as the new revolution that will free mankind. DO YOU BELIEVE THAT? Or, is this just the beginning of the End. Will mankind avert the great tribulation and waltz into the new paradise Earth set up by a free mankind? Or are we simply being controlled to do exactly as they have planned and allow room for the BEAST to be set up that "all men will worship it" You must be the judge. I am not advocating that we be discouraged, nor that we not try. I am saying this. Proceed with caution. Watch your back, and, PRAY!

GoldenWaters

9th May 2014, 17:43

Don't you find it very odd there has been many suicides from bank employees and owners? Am I the only one feeling this was no suicide, but a friendly shove and that solves that problem scenario, I just can't get my mind over it, just does not seem possible so many just simply goes off and kills themselves., most have families,loving families, something just does not add up, smells like IMF buzzing around to me..anyhow just wanted to share..Thank You.

Sabrina

9th May 2014, 17:49

yelik

9th May 2014, 17:52

Hi
Thanks for that. The international bankers have further indebted the world and they now literally own it and hence control it. Typically this requires a war to reset things. It appears to me the 2008 financial mess, caused by the bankers manipulating money supply to creat the busrt boom cycle, was stopped from properly crashing by huge government borrowing, hence we're crawling out of recession, although they'll likely cause a house boom, the elites own lots of property. We've seen the recent banker suicides and who knows what these pscho's have got in store for Ukraine, Iran, Syria North korea, Russia and China. Its inevitable that the elites have no intention of allowing China to become a world power.

Ian

Sabrina

10th May 2014, 06:30

c69vZyE74Zg

Published on Mar 23, 2014
Information that was removed from Books & Hieroglyphics concerning what happened in Babylon , "Religion", and altered terms. All of which ties together with what NASA has hidden in their archives.

Some of the Footage from NASA, hidden in their archives. Images of planets being destroyed by a War in Space. The last, on March 19th, was Jupiter. This footage concerns the imminent destruction of the NWO & mankinds freedom.

Fascinating video, and if true, the corrupters and controllers would be no match for this. Worth watching the whole thing, including piece by NASA whistleblower on why space programme and live feeds were dismantled after huge structures in space were seen coming towards earth at great speed. There's a sense for some that the lies are no longer sticking. The old systems are in disarray. Perhaps we'll see the cavalry coming over the hill this year (not sure if that's an appropriate metaphor but you know what I mean). And the arrests happening.

Sabrina

12th May 2014, 07:05

May US - and now for the seeds of change:

BREAKING NEWS: The City of Eugene, Oregon, became the first community in the nation to specifically ban from city property the use of neonicotinoid pesticides, scientifically linked to the decline of honey bee colonies. The passage of the resolution came just one week after the Oregon state legislature passed a pollinator protection bill that removed language requiring the restriction of neonicotinoid pesticides, and includes instead a weaker requirement to set up a task force that will examine the possibility of future restrictions. In addition to neonicotinoid restrictions, the City’s resolution also expands Eugene’s pesticide-free parks program and now requires all departments to adopt integrated pest management (IPM) standards...

READ MORE: http://www.beyondpesticides.org/dailynewsblog/?p=12881

THEN TAKE THESE ACTIONS TO HELP THE BEES:

Tell Home Depot and Lowes' CEOs to stop selling plants pre-treated with bee-killing neonic pesticides: http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/home-depot-and-lowes

IN THE USA, Ask your Congressional Representatives to support H.R. 2692 to ban neonics: http://bit.ly/PollinatorBill

Tell the EPA to ban neonics: www.foe.org/epa-bees

IN CANADA, sign this petition to ban neonics: http://elizabethmaymp.ca/get-involved/ban-neonicotinoids/

Sabrina

14th May 2014, 13:28

http://www.westernjournalism.com/took-congressman-just-three-minutes-shut-obama-loving-media/#eQOX83R4VXVekUeV.01

13 May US

Epic: It Took Just 3 Minutes For Trey Gowdy To Shame An Entire Room Of Journalists Into Silence
Trey Gowdy turned the tables and asked the media the questions they won't ask themselves.

Congressman Trey Gowdy (R-SC) turned the tables on the media and asked them questions about Benghazi. The silence was deafening.

5i4tuuy1jsw

Flash

14th May 2014, 14:07

Hervé

14th May 2014, 14:14

See this thread: Jackon County, Oregon (US) voting on GMO ban (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?68595-Jackon-County-Oregon--US--voting-on-GMO-ban)

PathWalker

15th May 2014, 11:25

Former Israeli prime minister was sentenced 6 years in prison. For bribery and corruption.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/13/us-israel-olmert-idUSBREA4C05L20140513

Israel's ex-prime minister Ehud Olmert was sentenced to six years in jail on Tuesday for taking bribes in a real estate deal, a crime the judge said was akin to treason.

The first criminal conviction of a former Israeli head of government all but ended speculation that Olmert - a centrist credited internationally with working towards a peace settlement with the Palestinians - might return to political life.

He had denied any wrongdoing in the property deal, approved when he served as Jerusalem's mayor, that led to the construction of the hilltop Holyland apartment towers, a hulking stone complex widely seen as one of the city's worst eyesores.

"A public servant who takes bribes is akin to a traitor," said Judge David Rozen in the Tel Aviv District Court, as he handed down a six-year prison term sought by prosecutors and fined Olmert 1 million shekels ($289,500).

Rozen found Olmert guilty on March 31 of two bribery charges, saying the former prime minister had accepted 500,000 shekels from developers of the Holyland project and 60,000 shekels in a separate real estate deal.

Olmert, the judge said, devoted most of his time to "praise-worthy" public service - but "also lined his own pockets".

"The accused served as the prime minister of Israel. From this high and honorable post, he reached the position of having been convicted of the most despicable and grave crimes," Rozen said.

Rozen ordered Olmert, 68, to report to prison on September 1, effectively giving his lawyers time to take the case to a higher court and request that he remain free until it rules.

Known as one of the country's most gregarious politicians, Olmert sat largely stony-faced during the court session, and made no comment afterwards.

"He did not take a bribe. He did not receive a bribe. He sees himself as innocent, and it is with those feelings that he will be going to the Supreme Court to appeal," Olmert lawyer Eli Zohar told reporters.

Two years ago, Olmert was acquitted of most of the major charges brought against him in separate cases involving his links to a U.S. businessman.

Those corruption allegations forced Olmert's resignation as prime minister in 2008, and his acquittal had appeared to position him for a possible political comeback.

NETANYAHU CRITIC

Olmert has made several criticisms of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's policies toward the Palestinians, fuelling talk about his future political ambitions.

But the judge said Olmert's crimes entailed "moral turpitude", which under Israeli law would preclude him from running for public office for seven years after finishing his jail term.

A lawyer by profession, Olmert began his political career in the 1970s as a lawmaker who targeted organized crime in Israel.

He was mayor of Jerusalem from 1993 to 2003 and prime minister from 2006 to 2009, staying in office in a caretaker capacity until after an election that brought right-winger Netanyahu to power.

As Israel's leader, Olmert waged war against militants in Lebanon in 2006 and the Gaza Strip in 2008.

He claimed significant progress in talks with the Palestinians aimed at securing a final peace deal, offering an Israeli withdrawal from much of the occupied West Bank. But no agreement was reached.

After a three-year break, U.S.-brokered negotiations resumed in July, but they were frozen last month by Netanyahu after President Mahmoud Abbas's Palestine Liberation Organization signed a reconciliation deal with Hamas, an Islamist group that advocates Israel's destruction.

Palestinians blamed Netanyahu for the collapse, citing Israeli settlement-building and his failure to carry out a pledged prisoner release.

Olmert was among 13 defendants in the Holyland case. Sentences handed down on Tuesday against six of the other accused ranged from three to seven years.

In 2010, a former Israeli president, Moshe Katsav, was convicted on rape charges. He is serving a seven-year sentence.

Hervé

15th May 2014, 14:56

Bankers killing bankers for the insurance money and another look at 9/11 (http://rt.com/op-edge/158988-bankers-killing-suicide-fraud/)

http://img.rt.com/files/opinion/83/00/00/00/24.bn.jpg (http://rt.com/op-edge/authors/max-keiser/)
Max Keiser, the host of RT's ‘Keiser Report,’ is a former stockbroker, the inventor of the virtual specialist technology, virtual currencies, and prediction markets.

Get short URL (http://rt.com/op-edge/158988-bankers-killing-suicide-fraud/)
Published time: May 14, 2014 19:12

Two big, macabre stories came out of Wall Street recently: the rash of banker deaths by apparent murder and/or suicide, and speculation that bank CEOs themselves are behind the trend to cash in on the insurance.

It turns out that banks take out life insurance policies on their employees, and those policies pay out death benefits (http://rt.com/usa/155712-martens-policies-deaths-jpmorgan/) to the banks – not the families. In other words, to add to the banks' other crimes, they appear to also be involved in the "suicides" and deaths of their own, as a way to fatten their bottom line and bonuses.

Should we be surprised by this banker-on-banker death scam? After all, wasn't this what 9/11 was all about?

A new book by James Rickards, 'The Death of Money' (read: 'Death of Bankers'), opens with a timeline starting three days before the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers and describes them from a first-person account from inside the CIA, which was monitoring trading on airline stocks (specifically 'put options'), from traders who were profiting from the 9/11 disaster.

Jim Rickards is both a Washington insider and a Wall Street insider. He's a hedge fund manager and a lawyer who, amongst other roles, advised the government during the collapse of Long Term Capital Management (LTCM), as well as during the release of the hostages during the Iran Hostage Crisis of 1981. If anyone has the inside track on the Wall Street-Washington corridor of corruption, it's Mr. Rickards. And in his new book, he provides an eyewitness account of 9/11 insider 'terror trading' that was missing from the government's own report. Rickards is an unimpeachable source, and he has done a great service by blowing the whistle on this scandal, at least partially.

I've interviewed Jim Rickards on my show 'Keiser Report' many times and spent time with him personally comparing notes from our Wall Street days. One topic that often comes up is 'Drexel.' We were both working on Wall Street during the collapse of Drexel Burnham Lambert and the Ivan Boesky scandal – a seminal moment in establishing the modern, post-regulatory environment on Wall Street, where virtually anything goes and laws are either ignored, rewritten, or created on the spot to manage and profit from the avalanche of insider trading, market manipulation, back room dealing, larceny, forgery, extortion, and other crimes that are the hallmarks of American finance today. When talking about finance scandals, all roads lead back to Drexel and it provides common ground to start a conversation amongst Wall Street veterans.

http://rt.com/files/opinionpost/26/d0/c0/00/rtr39t66.jpg
Reuters / Brendan McDermid

Both Rickards and I agree that judging by the price action and volume in the options market ahead of the 9/11 attacks, it was clear we were witnessing insider trading. I was one of the biggest producing option brokers when I worked on Wall Street, keep in mind, so I am very familiar with that market. The put options before the disaster were trading like you would expect them to do after a disaster, not before. It was very obvious that advanced knowledge of the attacks was circulating amongst traders. The options market was in fact screaming insider trading, and brokers and bankers were talking about it in the days leading up to the attacks.

Rickards' information timeline in his book almost exactly mirrors the stories I was hearing at the time, when talking to brokers who had heard of, and in some cases were trading, based on this rumor of an impending airline disaster.

Rickards quotes Buzzy Krongard in his book, deputy chairman of the CIA, who was also the former head of Alex Brown – a firm that factors significantly in the story. I used to work for Buzzy at Alex Brown and I still keep in touch with my former colleagues, some of whom were 'buzzing' about the action in airline puts. Additionally, a company I started in Los Angeles, a dot-com, had been sold to a Wall Street broker just a few months before the attacks and the company had relocated their acquisition to the top floor of the World Trade Center. I was in touch with employees who were also 'buzzing' about the put option frenzy in airline stocks, and they cited Alex Brown as the source of the rumors. (They were ironically speculating on their own demise, as we were to find out later).

Coyly, Rickards wants us to believe that the original 'terror traders' – the original airline put option buyers – started buying put options somewhere other than Washington DC or Wall Street. Without much by way of explanation, he suggests that there is no way of knowing for sure where these trades originated, who did the trades, or how to track them. This of course is wrong. All trades are cleared via the OCC (Option Clearing Corporation) and are routed in ways that leave a paper trail that is easily examined and reconstructed. Why is Rickards evasive on these points? Take a close look again at his resume; he is not going to point the finger at the CIA even though there is overwhelming evidence to suggest the trades originated there. So be it. We can read between the lines. To highlight just one obvious point missing in his narrative: millions of dollars worth of profits from 9/11 insider trading still sit uncollected in an Alex Brown account (now owned by Deutsche Bank) in Baltimore, just down the road from the CIA's HQ at Langley.

Rickards claims these trades originated “by unknown traders working overseas somewhere,” and this is clearly a dodge. But let's focus on the fact that Rickards at least has repudiated the government's claim that there was no insider trading at all. For this I take my hat off to him.

For some, the 9/11 story has faded into history and they consider it not terribly interesting anymore, but I think it's important to keep in mind the ruthlessness of bankers on Wall Street today who are now apparently killing each other for the insurance money and who, we can now say with some certainty, were trading options to cash in on their own deaths on 9/11. This is the Wall Street culture that is tearing America apart. This is the Wall Street disease that is undermining America's ability to control events around the world.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

Sabrina

16th May 2014, 05:57

http://thecolemanexperience.wordpress.com/2014/05/06/why-has-chris-patten-really-resigned-from-the-bbc/

Why has Chris Patten really resigned from the BBC?

BY THECOLEMANEXPERIENCE MAY 6, 2014

Former Tory minister, Chris Patten, has dramatically quit his role as the Chairman of the BBC Trust, following alleged ‘heart problems’.

His resignation has plunged the BBC into an even deeper crisis as it struggles to keep the lid on post-Savile child-abuse revelations.

You see, the BBC paedophile ring was not run by a lone perverted DJ.

The ring was controlled and organised by sly Israeli spy agency, Mossad, and reached right into the heart of Government and Royalty.

Many thousands of boys have been abused in sadistic and terrifying assaults by the highest echelons of British Society over the past decades.

A high proportion of these children were trafficked from local care homes with the full complicity of social services and local councils.

The Elm Guest House scandal saw vulnerable boys from the Grafton Close home being taken to an address in Rocks Lane, Barnes.

They were raped by many high-profile figures there, including Lib Dem filth, Cyril Smith.

The fake-Christian singer, Cliff Richard was also named as a regular visitor.

Cliff Richard is very, very close to Tony Blair (yes we do mean that).

In a strange twist, Cliff was also close chums with BBC presenter, Jill Dando.

She knew all about the VIP paedophile-ring and was soon shot dead to shut her up and warn off other journalists.

Cliff was one of the last people to speak to Jill and was questioned several times by investigating officers.

For some unknown reason, Chris Patten was knighted and given the title of Lord Patten of Barnes.

Does he have any knowledge of the Elm Guest House scandal?

In a further twist, Tony Blair enobled child-raping filth Greville Janner.

Janner had buggered a care boy for two years but was never prosecuted.

Care worker Frank Beck died mysteriously in prison after being implicated in the affair.

Frank Beck was a resident of Braunstone in Leicester when the events described above were taking place. When Janner was ennobled in 1997, he took the title, Lord Janner of Braunstone.

The man responsible for ennobling Greville Janner was Tony Blair.

The following very interesting comments were left : ” I was in the courtroom when beck gave his evidence in full :his death by food poisoning in custody was very convenient for all those he said he had supplied the boys to in the local area .”

” Blair had a macabre sense of humour as Braunstone is the area Frank Beck used to live in. Beck was guilty. But he almost nailed Greville Janner.”

Margaret Hodge has been implicated in the Islington care home scandal where again thousands of children were abused in council-run care homes.

Despite this scandal leading to the tragic death of Jason Swift, Hodge was never investigated and was instead, quite unbelievably, given the job of Children’s Minster, by Tony Blair.

In a bizarre twist, Cliff also owns a home in Portugal, not far from where Madeleine McCann disappeared in 2007.

Gerry and Kate McCann were immediately given high-level support from the UK government and were assigned the help of Clarence Mitchell to act as their spokesperson.

Mitchell was one of the first reporters at the scene of Jill Dando’s murder in Fulham and no doubt works for the UK Intelligence Services.

The McCann family are themselves from Leicester and Gerry has many friends in high places in the area.

Another visitor to the Warner holiday complex in Praia de Luz at the time of Maddie’s disappearance was Philip Edmond Hodge, the nephew of Margaret Hodge (yet another Labour peer).

http://paulorebelononeglect.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/philip-edmonds-hodge.html

In 2013, the Independent reported on a BBC investigation into claims that Stephen Fry trivialised paedophilia.

Stephen Fry is not the man we think he is and may have lots to tell officers about the BBC paedo-ring.

The BBC Trust, headed by Chris Patten, allowed Fry to joke about paedophilia:

” The BBC Trust has rejected a complaint that Stephen Fry “trivialised” child abuse during an episode of QI in which he recited a limerick about a chaplain’s desire for a choir boy.

A report by the BBC Trust’s Editorial Standards Committee (ESC) said the broadcast was “at the margins of acceptability” but had not breached editorial guidelines.

During the episode, Fry recited the lines: “There was a young chaplain from King’s / Who talked about God and such things / But his real desire / Was a boy in the choir / With a bottom like jelly on springs.”

The ESC report said a woman complained because “she felt that the BBC showed a lack of understanding of what the limerick implied. The complainant said that the limerick trivialised the subject of paedophilia.”

The episode of QI, broadcast on BBC Two on 11 January, was followed by a Newsnight edition focusing on the Jimmy Savile scandal.

The committee said: “The likelihood of causing offence was, we acknowledge, increased by the news agenda on the day of broadcast. However, the comparisons that can be drawn between the scenario described in the limerick and the nature and extent of the abuse perpetrated by Jimmy Savile are, in our view, limited.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/bbc-rejects-claim-stephen-fry-trivialised-child-abuse-on-qi-8789553.html

http://thecolemanexperience.wordpress.com/2014/05/01/is-there-more-to-stephen-fry-than-meets-the-eye/

The recent tragic death of Peaches Geldof has been predictably blamed on a drugs overdose.

Did she really die from drugs or was she murdered because she too had knowledge of the BBC paedo-ring?

She had already tweeted the name of the mothers who helped depraved singer Ian Watkins abuse babies.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2515054/Peaches-Geldof-tweets-names-mothers-helped-Ian-Watkins-abuse-babies.html

Ian Watkins was once the boyfriend of Fearne Cotton.

Fearne Cotton’s second-cousin was BBC executive, Bill Cotton.

Did Peaches Geldof contact Fearne Cotton about what she knew?

Was her mother, Paula Yates, also murdered?

Most certainly, yes.

You see, her father, Hughie Green, was a BBC presenter for many years.

He must have known child-raping filth, Jimmy Savile.

Hughie Green was a great fan of Margaret Thatcher, who in turn was close chums with Savile.

http://aanirfan.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/peaches-inquest-sidcup-childrens-home.html

There have been many strange and unexplained deaths of celebs linked to the BBC.

Michael Hutchence and Paula Yates died within 3 years of each other, in apparent drug-related suicides.

Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen died in mysterious circumstances in New York.

Natasha Collins and Mark Speight both met an untimely and suspicious end.

Jill Dando was shot point-blank in the head on her doorstep, in 1999.

According to the Tap blog:

” On 22 November 1997, Hutchence was found dead in a hotel room in Sydney. Paula Yates wrote in her police statement that Michael Hutchence was “frightened and couldn’t stand a minute more without his baby”.

During their phone conversations on the morning of his suicide he had said, “I don’t know how I’ll live without Tiger”.

Yates also wrote that Bob Geldof had threatened them repeatedly with,

“Don’t forget, I am above the law“.[

This was also the favourite saying of Jimmy Savile, whenever he was threatened with exposure.

Has Bob Geldof hoodwinked the British public, Savile-style, by pretending to be a charitable, caring, family-man?

By a strange coincidence, Bob Geldof owned the Planet 24 TV company along with gay-lord Waheed Alli and his partner Charlie Parsons.

Waheed Alli appears to have a strange hold over Parliament and is seen as a powerful behind-the scenes “fixer”, along with his pal Peter Mandelson.

Does Alli have anything to tell us about the VIP paedophile ring linked to Parliament?

At the time of the murder Jill Dando, the Crimestoppers helpline number conveniently stopped working, just when crucial evidence could have been offered.

The Crimestoppers organisation may well be a “front” organisation with sinister ulterior motives and is run by some very interesting names:

1) Nick Ross-

The former colleague of murdered presenter Jill Dando. He recently said he’d watch child-porn given half the chance. His wife Sarah Caplin, is a cousin of Esther Rantzen and a founding director of Childline. Suspicions have been raised that Childline is also a “gatekeeping” front organisation which is used to gather data on any child abuse reports that may involve VIPs.

2) Michael Ashcroft-

The controversial Tory donor who pays no tax and has non-dom status. He has been described as ruthless and “not a man to cross”. Made a Baron by the Queen.

3) Peter Imbert-

A former Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police who was in charge from 1987-1993 and may have a lot of information about why child- abuse claims made between these dates were ignored. Made a Baron by the Queen.

4) Lord Waheed Alli-

The first openly gay peer in Parliament and a wealthy entrepreneur. Owns a business, Shine Entertainment, with Rupert Murdoch’s daughter Elisabeth. Is a close friend of Tony Blair. Made a Baron by the Queen.

5) Peter Clarke-

A former Metropolitan Royal protection officer in charge of guarding Princess Diana at the time of her death. Made a CBE by the Queen.

6) Sir Ronnie Flanagan-

A former Chief Inspector of Constabulary. Was previously in charge of policing in Northern Ireland and Iraq. May have a lot of information about why child-abuse rings have been covered up.

In 2012, Danny Finkelstein of the Times wrote an article that appeared to cast doubt on the abuse claims made against Cyril Smith and Jimmy Savile:

” Cyril Smith may have been a monster. But until we have reliable evidence we must not rush to judgment . Can I ask you a question? How do you know, really know, that Jimmy Savile is guilty of child abuse? The truth, let’s face it, is that you don’t. You are like me. You’ve perhaps heard one or two TV interviews with victims. You’ve read the odd article including some fairly damning quotes. You’ve gathered that there is a police investigation and that, as a result, a number of famous people have been arrested, although oddly always in connection with allegations that have nothing to do with Savile.

And, most of all, you’ve heard people say that he always looked a little fishy and that come to think of it it was a dead giveaway that he always waltzed around in one of those gold lamé tracksuits that paedos love to wear. And that hair. And “now then, now then”. He definitely did it.”

Daniel Finkelstein also, despite knowing about the accusations against Greville Janner, posted the following tweet:

” Watching Greville Janner in 1970 election prog. Attractive, incisive, intelligent, moderate. How did he not end up one of Lab’s leaders?”

The two were also listed together in the JC as being highly influential in their respective fields:

http://www.thejc.com/jc-power-100/the-jc-power-100-numbers-11-20

Following the death of Jill Dando, a new research centre in her name was formed:

” The UCL Jill Dando Institute of Security and Crime Science is the first Institute in the world devoted to Crime Science. Research is concentrated on new ways to cut crime and increase security ” .

By a strange twist, the Board of the Institute is run by none other than Nick Ross and Professor Anthony Finkelstein.

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/jdi/people/tabbed-box/board

Anthony Finkelstein is Daniel Finkelstein’s brother.”

The highest judge in the land is Lord David Neuberger.

He used to work at N.M Rothschild and Sons and is married to Angela Holdsworth.

He was responsible for evicting the Parliament Square peace campaign.

In May 2011, while commenting on super injunctions, he said that social media sites like Twitter were “totally out of control” and society should consider ways to bring such websites under control.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Neuberger,_Baron_Neuberger_of_Abbotsbury

By a very strange twist, his wife Angela, was a BBC executive for many years and must have known about Jimmy Savile’s child-raping activities.

She also worked with Nick Ross and Esther Rantzen on the controversial BBC show, Man Alive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_Alive_(BBC_TV_series)

Angela Holdsworth then became the editor of another well-known programme.

That programme was none-other than Crimewatch.

In March 2014, the Mail reported in the disturbing case of High-Court judge, Adrian Fulford, who was linked to the Paedophile Information Exchange Network.

According to Companies House, Fulford is the director of a film company called Mole Films LLP. They were responsible for the TV children’s series, Secrets of Benjamin Bear.

The company is linked to Ingeneous Media, which helps wealthy individuals avoid tax by investing money in film projects.

By a strange twist, Bob Geldof is himself a director at Ingeneous Media.

http://companycheck.co.uk/director/903687408/MR-ROBERT-FREDERICK-ZENON-GELDOF

Quite bizarrely, Greville Janner nominated Bob Geldof for a Nobel Peace Prize in 1987, declaring:

” Bob Geldof is important not only for what he has done but as a symbol of that which we should all be doing”.

http://thecolemanexperience.wordpress.com/2014/03/22/greville-janner-tony-blair-madeline-mccann-margaret-hodge-and-the-vip-child-abuse-connection

Chris Patten is a governor of the Prior Park boys boarding school in Wiltshire.

http://www.priorparkprep.com/List-of-Governors.asp

The school is being investigated for child-abuse allegations:

http://www.jordanssolicitors.co.uk/child-abuse/case/prior-park/

The following disturbing comment was left:

” Chris Patten is an old boy of St. Benedict’s School. He’s has the Christopher Patten Cup for “Outstanding Performance at GCSE” named after him, and he is on the board of School Advisors.

This of course is the school where Father David Pearce enjoyed a 36 year paedophile career.”

http://scepticalthoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/chris-patten-and-popes-visit.html

In an even more macabre development, we find that Bob Geldof once wrote a book called Faith in Europe.

The co-author of that book was none other than Chris Patten.

How very, very strange indeed.

The clock is ticking on Britain’s dirty secrets.

It’s only a matter of time…

https://thecolemanexperience.wordpress.com/2014/05/01/did-peaches-geldof-really-die-of-a-heroin-overdose/