Note the location of “Planet 9” and the inbound path for Nibiru provided by the Zetas in 1997. Nibiru arrived, right on schedule in 2003, and right where predicted a full 7 years earlier. Where the Zetas provided the location of the gravity draw represented by the Sun’s dark unlit binary and the inbound Nibiru in 1983, when the IRAS team lofted its infra-red balloon in search of the inbound Nibiru, this location was not provided to the public. All articles in print at that time only referring to the location as the “western edge of the constellation Orion”, quite vague, and the “western edge” is vast. Yet the Zetas pinpointed the location as being just outside the lower bow of Orion. Such is the accuracy of ZetaTalk. How would the public eventually become “aware of the history and accuracy of ZetaTalk predictions” as predicted by the Zetas on April 16, 2016? ? It would seem this is already in process.
SOZT March 19, 2016
So what happened to the announcement? Obama lacked the courage. As a result of this colossal failure, having to disband the Jade Helm structure, the US military reacted. Obama is no longer running the country. Chief of Staff General Dunford is. Ben Fulford has for months been referring to Obama as the US “spokesperson”. Is this true, and how does this work? In that the Middle East, under the direction and press from Israel, Turkey, the Jewish bankers of the Federal Reserve, and the Saudis were supporting ISIS and this threatened to create a force that would not only invade Europe but also create an endless terrorism threat to the US, the military did indeed effect a silent coup. Russia needed to enter the fray, and Dunford, but not Obama, agreed. This will never be admitted, publicly, nor do the parties want this.
EOZT
SOZT October 1, 2015
The three major social media outlets in use around the globe all had significant, and simultaneous outages between September 20-24, 2015. Skype had complaints from the UK, Australia, and Japan. Twitter received reports from the US, Australia, and Singapore. FaceBook had the loudest howls, primarily from the US and Europe. Notably these downtimes, some lasting for hours or even days, got no attention in the major media, and there was no real explanation for the outages. Every Skype user has an account and a password, as do their contacts. Every Skype user can broadcast messages to their contacts, even if these contacts are not presently online. Every twitter use likewise has an account and a password, and by sending a tweet passes information along to subscribers, who can retweet the info in the future. FaceBook users likewise have an account and a password, with many friends who pick up info from each other and pass it along on their FaceBook accounts. In all of this, the networks themselves are AWARE of the accounts and passwords, and could do a broadcast to all in the event of an announcement. Check your user agreements. This is legal!
EOZT
SOZT April 25, 2015
When we announced that the Council of Worlds would be going to war with the elite over their blockage of the announcement, the tools available to the Council were not immediately apparent. Early in the campaign the Sony hack showed one such mechanism, whereby an anonymous hacker revealed embarrassing information about Sony executives. Similarly exposing pedophile activities by Prince Andrew and Bill Clinton and blatant lies by self-promoting media talking heads such as Brian Williams and Bill O’Reilly required nothing more than encouraging contactees to step forward. In many, many cases a financial loss sufficient to trigger a clash among the elite is a result of an electronic delay during trades.
EOZT
SOZT July 4, 2015
What is the message here? As with other failed launches, this most recent failure is a definitive message from the Council of Worlds. Space X has had success in resupplying the ISS, though has flounded on landing on a floating ocean platform. Resupply of the ISS is OK, reuse of their launch equipment so as to help the elite escape, not OK. The message now is that the elite should not expect to get into space at all. No escape. The message here is to take all hope away from such plans among the elite. They are to remain on Earth with the common man. We expect the battle to shift from attempts to block the announcement, or deny its meaning, to attempts to enslave the common man in some way. That is another fight, on another day.
EOZT
SOZT November 1, 2014
The elite – the wealthy and politically powerful in the world – have continued in their attempts to thwart the announcement by Obama and his partners admitting that Nibiru, aka Planet X exists. We have long stated that the announcement date was set by Obama and Xi at their June 7-8, 2013 meeting in Santa Monica. The flustered slip given by the French Foreign Minister on May 13, 2014 re “500 days
http://www.zetatalk.com/ning/17ma2014.htm
until climate chaos” was in reference to this, as the date set was to be 500 days from the 2013 meeting, ie October 20, 2014.
EOZT
SOZT November 8, 2014
Relying solely on Russia or China to proceed would get the truth out BUT since the block had always been on the US end, via Reagan’s national security directive, without a confirmation from Obama this is awkward and subject to being countered. If true, where is the confirmation from Obama? It would be packaged as some odd communist attack against Obama going into the elections, to make him seem weak, almost comical. So where is this going now? For us to comment would be to empower the enemy, which of course we will not do. Your curiosity is not as important as having the announcement succeed.
EOZT
SOZT December 10, 2014
We have stated that the public will see only the flash and parry of swords from a distance during the Council of Worlds war with the cover-up crowd. Meanwhile, periodic tests of the Emergency Broadcast System in the US are done, to see if the channels are open. As of this writing, they are not yet open. The war is still on, full press. Meanwhile, during the flash and parry of swords, one can see resistance, pleading, panic, and capitulation.
EOZT
Starr DiGiacomo
http://gazette.com/defense-department-researchers-push-plan-aimed-a...
Defense Department researchers push plan aimed at avoiding worldwide GPS meltdown
January 31, 2016 Updated: January 31, 2016 at 2:40 pm
The Defense Department's top researchers want ground-based miniature atomic clocks to avert a global catastrophe if the orbiting timepieces that make up the Colorado Springs-based Global Positioning System stop ticking.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency announced a crash program to invent miniature advanced atomic clocks that reflects growing worries about the vulnerability of Air Force Space Command's GPS satellites.
"Among their myriad potential advantages, better clocks could reduce one of the more worrisome modern-day national security vulnerabilities: a deep and growing dependence on the Global Positioning System," DARPA said in a news release.
Military and civilian uses of GPS have expanded greatly since the Persian Gulf War in 1991, when the classified system was revealed to the world. The space-based timing signals broadcast by the 32 satellites operated by airmen at Schriever Air Force Base are used to control the globe's financial transactions, telephone networks and the Internet in the civilian world. For the military, GPS puts bombs on target, keeps troops from getting lost and controls the growing fleet of combat drones.
In Colorado Springs, retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Wes Clark oversaw development of the program in the 1970s. The use of GPS in everyday life makes it an attractive target for those who want to attack America, he said.
"Can you imagine our society today without GPS?" Clark asked. "It would pretty much be a global catastrophe."
Over the past year, the military has shown increasing concern about the wartime vulnerability of satellites, especially GPS. In November, Space Command boss Gen. John Hyten outlined plans to deal with attacks on satellite capabilities during an interview with The Gazette.
"I never want conflict to extend into space," Hyten said. "But we have to be able to defend ourselves."
The Army last month ran training exercises at Fort Carson that simulated how attacks on satellites would impact troops on the ground. The Joint Interagency Combined Space Operations Center at Schriever is running a series of war games to show how attacks would impact military and intelligence-gathering spacecraft.
"Within 30 seconds of a GPS shutdown, a GPS receiver would only be able to specify that it was somewhere within an area the size of Washington, D.C.," DARPA said on its website. "An hour of GPS shutdown would expand the area of uncertainty to more than the size of Montana."
A partial defense against the loss of GPS would be small, highly accurate clocks that could keep time and allow navigation computers to keep running. The clocks envisioned by DARPA, accurate to within trillionths of a second, also would fill in for GPS signals that time telephone networks, banking systems and computer transactions.
The clocks would have to be small enough to fit on military craft and be used on the battlefield. But small and atomic clock are words not normally used together.
Schriever is home to three "rubidium fountain" clocks that are accurate within a few trillionths of a second. They are used to set the time for smaller atomic clocks on the Air Force's GPS satellites.
"Those are some of the best-performing clocks in the world, but they fill a room," said Robert Lutwak, who is leading DARPA's atomic clock program. DARPA wants a clock the size of a cellphone that runs on a small battery.
Atomic clocks work by measuring the oscillations of atoms. Those oscillations can be changed by factors including gravity and temperature. That means they don't work outside a laboratory-like environment or in the controlled world of space.
"We like to think atoms are all perfect," said Lutwak, who holds a doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is credited with creating the world's best "chip-scale" atomic clock, a breakthrough that still lacks the accuracy needed for GPS failure.
DARPA says its $50 million clock program will have to overcome huge hurdles.
"Success will require record-breaking advances that counter accuracy-eroding processes in current atomic clocks, among them variations in atomic frequencies that result from temperature fluctuations and subtle frequency differences that can occur if the power shuts down and then starts up again," DARPA said.
Feb 1, 2016
Scott
Sumner Redstone resigns as CBS executive chairman (2/3/16)
Sumner Redstone has resigned as executive chairman of CBS Corp (CBS.N), the television and radio company said on Wednesday, amid heightened questions about the 92-year-old billionaire's physical and mental health.
Shares of CBS were up 4.6 percent in after-hours market trading, while those of Viacom Inc (VIAB.O), where Redstone is also chairman, rose 7.9 percent.
Viacom's board is scheduled to meet on Thursday, a company spokesman said, and may follow suit in replacing Redstone as chairman, CNBC reported.
CBS said Redstone would be replaced by Leslie Moonves, its president and chief executive since 2006.
...Redstone controls about 80 percent of the voting shares in Viacom and CBS through a holding company.
CBS said that, before electing Moonves, its board offered the position of non-executive chair to Redstone's daughter, Shari Redstone, but that she had declined.
Shari Redstone confirmed she declined the offer and congratulated Moonves on his new role.
"It is my firm belief that whoever may succeed my father as Chair at each company should be someone who is not a Trustee of my father’s trust or otherwise intertwined in Redstone family matters, but rather a leader with an independent voice," she said in an emailed statement. "I was honored to nominate Les as the CBS Chair and am delighted to congratulate him on his new position."
...Redstone's resignation as executive chairman was effective Feb. 2, CBS said. He will remain as chairman emeritus.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-cbs-corp-moves-chairman-idUSKCN0V...
Oct. 1, 2012 file photo, Sumner Redstone, left, and Leslie Moonves
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/11aee0f1e2af427ca2a36590a0cfbe90/sum...
Feb 3, 2016
Stanislav
Donald Trump claims Ted Cruz 'stole' Iowa caucuses and calls for new election
The businessman, who came in second in Iowa, tweets that Cruz committed fraud by telling voters that Ben Carson was quitting the race
Donald Trump has claimed Ted Cruz committed “fraud” in his successful campaign to win the Republican Iowa caucuses on Monday, and has called for a new election.
The businessman, who came in second in Iowa, tweeted:
Earlier, Trump accused Cruz of “stealing” the election in the key state, the first to vote in this stage of the 2016 presidential election.
He accused the Cruz campaign of telling Iowa voters that fellow candidate Ben Carson was quitting the race so he could steal Carson’s votes.
“During primetime of the Iowa Caucus, Cruz put out a release that @RealBenCarson was quitting the race, and to caucus (or vote) for Cruz,” Trump wrote. “Many people voted for Cruz over Carson because of this Cruz fraud. Also, Cruz sent out a VOTER VIOLATION certificate to thousands of voters.
“The Voter Violation certificate gave poor marks to the unsuspecting voter (grade of F) and told them to clear it up by voting for Cruz. Fraud.”
He added that “Cruz strongly told thousands of caucusgoers (voters) that Trump was strongly in favor of Obamacare and ‘choice’ – a total lie!”
Cruz had issued an apology of sorts to the Carson campaign for spreading the rumor on election night that Carson was dropping out of the race, which Cruz characterized as an honest “mistake”:
“Last night when our political team saw the CNN post saying that Dr Carson was not carrying on to New Hampshire and South Carolina, our campaign updated grassroots leaders just as we would with any breaking news story,” Cruz said in a statement on Tuesday.
“That’s fair game. What the team then should have done was send around the follow-up statement from the Carson campaign clarifying that he was indeed staying in the race when that came out.”
In addition, the Texas senator and his presidential campaign were formally denounced by top state officials for sending mailers to Iowa voters accusing them of a “voting violation” – in an apparent effort to scare voters to the polls.
The mailers included a voting score and included the phrase “official public record”. They referred to the recipients by name, and also their neighbors, as part of a broader attempt to shame them for not having participated in prior elections.
Some campaign observers criticized Trump for decrying what was simply politics as usual. Stuart Stevens, a former strategist for 2012 Republican candidate Mitt Romney, wrote:
To beat John McCain in South Carolina in 2000, the George W Bush campaign used a Bible professor to spread a rumor that “McCain chose to sire children without marriage”. Lee Atwater helped George HW Bush beat Michael Dukakis in 1988 by cutting a racist commercial tying Dukakis to a rape and stabbing by convicted murderer Willie Horton while on furlough. theguardian.com
Bernie Sanders wants raw vote count released after tight finish in Iowa caucuses
Dramatic clash with Hillary Clinton for Democratic presidential nomination is sign public want change, says leftwing senator
‘I know there are some precincts that have still not reported. I can only hope the count will be honest,’ said Bernie Sanders. Photograph: Rick Wilking/Reuters
Bernie Sanders has called on the Democratic party to release a raw vote count in Iowa after a nail-biting finish left lingering doubts over the first, much tighter-than-expected, clash with Hillary Clinton for the presidential nomination.
Speaking to reporters on a chartered plane flying from Des Moines to their next showdown in New Hampshire, the leftwing senator said his performance in the Iowa caucus was a signal that the American people were hungry for more radical change than that offered by establishment candidates.
“Tonight is a wonderful start to the national campaign,” Sanders said in a packed gangway on the late-night flight heading east to beat an incoming snowstorm. “Tonight shows the American people that this is a campaign that can win.”
He threw little light on an unfolding controversy over certain Iowa precincts that did not have enough Democratic party volunteers to report delegate totals for each candidate but did call on officials to take the unusual step of revealing underlying voter totals. Delegates are awarded in the Iowa Democratic contest on a precinct-by-precinct basis, irrespective of the state-wide vote for each candidate.
“I honestly don’t know what happened. I know there are some precincts that have still not reported. I can only hope and expect that the count will be honest,” he said. “I have no idea. Did we win the popular vote? I don’t know, but as much information as possible should be made available.”
Sanders’ campaign director, Jeff Weaver, told reporters he did not “anticipate we are going to contest” specific results but hoped there would be an investigation into what happened.
He also claimed the tight result, in a state where Sanders had once trailed by Clinton in polling by 50 percentage points, was a sign of a dramatic surge of popularity for his agenda to reduce income inequality and “seize back democracy from the billionaire class”.
“People said we had an inferior ground game, that we didn’t have as good an understanding of the state,” said Weaver. “I think we certainly demonstrated that we had at least as good a ground game and I would argue that we had a better one because we started out [as underdogs].”
Dozens of young staffers were in a jubilant mood on the two-hour flight, cheering as Sanders boarded the plane in a party atmosphere that belied the ongoing uncertainty over the exact result.
The candidate’s wife, Jane Sanders, described to reporters the “rollercoaster” of watching results pour in for him while waiting in their hotel room.
“We are in this for the long haul,” said the senator. “We are going to win states all over the country. We have confronted one of the very difficult issues that we face. What has always bothered me is people who say, ‘I like you, Bernie. I want to vote for you, but I just don’t think you can win.’ Today we took a giant step to overcome that kind of doubt in many voters.”
Sanders also claimed that the momentum in Iowa and New Hampshire – where he enjoys a 20-point poll lead – was vindication of his campaign’s core message.
Sanders said: “The message we have brought forth – that there is something profoundly wrong with our great country where so many people are working longer hours for low wages while almost all the new income and wealth is going to the top 1% – resonated not only in Iowa, but is going to resonate in New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina and all across this country.
Upsets, ties and dropouts: the Iowa caucuses in two minutes - video report
“I want to thank the people of Iowa for giving us this opportunity to have a kickstart as we begin the campaign to take us to states throughout the country,” he added. “When we began this, it is fair to say we were considered to be a fringe campaign. I would hope that most people no longer believe that.”
With half of the results in across the rural midwest state, Clinton appeared to be easing to victory, three points up on the Vermont senator, whose relatively ramshackle campaign seemed to be no match for her mighty political machine.
But as the night wore on, Clinton’s lead shrank to two and then one point, until she was locked in a virtual tie with the 74-year-old. Appearing on-stage in Des Moines before the final tally arrived, Clinton hailed “a contest of ideas” and appeared battle-ready for the fight of her political life.
She congratulated her opponent, saying: “I am excited about really getting into the debate with Sen Sanders about the best way forward to fight for us in America.” Source: theguardian.com
Donald Trump's plane makes emergency landing
Private 757 reports engine trouble before landing safely in Nashville en route to Little Rock, Arkansas
Donald Trump's plane was forced to make an emergency landing in Nashville, Tennessee, on Wednesday because of engine trouble.
The Boeing 757 was on its way from Mr Trump's home base of New York to Little Rock, Arkansas, where the property mogul and Republican presidential candidate was due to address a rally.
The private jet landed safely at 4:40 pm after reporting engine problems, according to the Federal Aviation Authority, which said it would investigate the incident.
Mr Trump travelled the rest of the way in a charter aircraft, a campaign spokeswoman said.
Mr Trump eventually arrived an hour and a half late in Little Rock where was addressed more than 11,500 people.
He said it was "rough" getting there but insisted there was "no way" he would return to New York instead of continuing on to Little Rock.
"I love Arkansas," he said.
The technical trouble came two days after Mr Trump stumbled under his first test, losing to Ted Cruz in the Iowa caucuses.
On Wednesday he accused the Texas senator of stealing the win. Source: telegraph.co.uk
Feb 4, 2016
Scott
HSBC to pay $470 mln to resolve mortgage servicing probe by U.S. govt, states (2/5/16)
HSBC Holdings Plc will pay $470 million to settle parallel U.S. federal and state civil charges alleging the bank's mortgage servicing arm engaged in abusive foreclosure and loan origination practices, government officials announced on Friday.
The mortgage settlement resolves claims brought against the London-based bank by the Justice Department, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and 49 states plus the District of Columbia.
The Justice Department said the deal will provide for $370 million in various forms of consumer relief, such as reducing the principal on some borrower's mortgages.
Another $100 million, meanwhile, will be divided up into several pots, with $40.5 million going to the federal government, $59.3 million going into an account that the states will use to pay borrowers who lost their homes in foreclosure, and an additional $200,000 to reimburse state attorneys general for investigative costs.
...The mortgage servicing investigation started after evidence emerged late in 2010 that banks had robo-signed thousands of foreclosure documents without properly reviewing paperwork.
The HSBC agreement requires the company to provide various types of relief to mortgage holders, such as principal reductions and refinancing for underwater mortgages.
HSBC also needs to undertake certain corrective actions.
For instance, it must not foreclose on homeowners being considered for a loan modification and must give those people a chance to appeal denials.
HSBC must also install an independent monitor to review compliance with the settlement, which will be entered into a Washington, D.C. federal court.
"There has to be one set of rules for everyone, no matter how rich or how powerful, and that includes lenders who engage in abusive business practices," New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in a statement.
http://www.reuters.com/article/hsbc-mortgage-settlement-idUSL2N15K1HV
http://www.wsj.com/articles/hsbc-agrees-470m-settlement-over-allege...
Feb 5, 2016
casey a
Queen Elizabeth 'was opposed to changing voting system to proportional representation'
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/queen-elizabeth-was-o...
-------------------------
Iowans claim instances when Sanders was shorted delegates
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/...
Keane Schwarz is certain he knows the outcome of the vote in his precinct: He was the lone caucusgoer in Woodbury County No. 43.
But the Iowa Democratic Party's final results state that Hillary Clinton won one county delegate and Bernie Sanders received zero.
"I voted for Bernie," Schwarz, 36, of Oto, told The Des Moines Register. “It was really suspicious … I’m actually pretty irate about it.”
--------------
Wall Street worried about Bernie
Feb 7, 2016
casey a
Nearly 200 images released by US military depict Bush-era detainee abuse
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/05/us-military-bush-era...
Feb 8, 2016
Scott
HSBC Sued By Families Of US Citizens Killed By Mexican Drug Cartels... (2/10/16)
HSBC sued for laundering cartel money (2/10/16)
The families of US victims murdered by Mexican cartels are suing HSBC for helping the illegal enterprise to operate. The lawsuit claims that by knowingly laundering billions, the bank should be held responsible for a series of deaths in 2010 and 2011.
Scrutiny is once again abound on HSBC, not long after it paid $1.9bn for a criminal investigation in 2012, during which it was accused of laundering over $880m for drug cartels.
The bank has stated that it will fight the lawsuit, which was filed on February 09 in a Texan Federal Court.
The lawsuit argues that the bank should be held accountable under the Anti-Terrorism Act, which was amended following the 9/11 terrorist US attacks to enable victims to request compensation from entities that have provided material assistance to terrorist groups.
Using documents that were presented in the case made by the US Senate in 2012, the lawsuit highlights that the bank disregarded its internal regulations and was even referred to by one cartel kingpin as “the place to launder money”, according to Bloomberg.
Pressure on HSBC continues to escalate as the London-headquartered bank is also being sued by the families of US soldiers injured and killed in Iraq, amid accusations that it helped to finance militant groups such as Hezbollah. Again, the bank has denied any wrongdoing.
Given HSBC’s track record of money laundering on behalf of illegal entities, it would seem that it is only a matter of time before the bank faces another large penalty, and if the damning lawsuits continue at this current rate, it may finally buckle under.
http://www.worldfinance.com/home/hsbc-sued-for-laundering-cartel-money
Feb 11, 2016
SongStar101
Morgan Stanley will pay $3.2 billion for role in 2008 economic crisis: Schneiderman
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/morgan-stanley-pay-3-2-billion-...
Morgan Stanley will pay $3.2 billion for misleading investors in mortgage-backed securities.
Morgan Stanley can bank on this deal being sweet.
In what amounted to a slap on the wrist, the financial giant agreed Thursday to pay $3.2 billion for its role in the 2008 financial crisis.
The settlement brokered by the Justice Department includes an admission by the bank, headed at the time by CEO John Mack, that it misled investors about the quality of residential mortgage backed securities, which are bundled mortgage loans.
As part of the deal, $550 million is going to New York, state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced Thursday.
In a May 31, 2006, email, the head of Morgan Stanley’s team tasked with assessing the value of properties underlying the mortgage loans asked a colleague, “Please do not mention the ‘slightly higher risk tolerance’ in these communications. We are running under the radar and do not want to document these types of things.”
In a Nov. 21, 2006, email, a member of the Morgan Stanley due diligence team forwarded a list of sketchy loans to a supervisor and asked for approval to purchase them, adding, “I assume you will want to do your ‘magic’ on this one?”
When the housing bubble burst in the leadup to the 2008 financial crisis, those securities became toxic and the global economic system ground to a halt.
Similar deals have been reached with other big banks. JPMorgan Chase paid $13 billion, Bank of America paid $16.65 billion and Citigroup paid $7 billion.
The settlement figures are a reflection of the number of securities the banks sold to investors.
The relief for the Empire State includes $400 million for affordable rental housing, community purchases of distressed properties, mortgage principal reduction and other measures, according to Schneiderman’s office, which conducted the investigation with the Justice Department.
“This does represent a significant milestone. ... Our focus in this area really relates to the horror done, damage done by banks including Morgan Stanley,” Schneiderman said, noting the bank sold “bad mortgage backed securities they knew or should’ve known were going to fail.”
Schneiderman said the bank’s tactics “drained trillions of dollars of wealth from homeowners.”
The deal does not guarantee Morgan Stanley officials will avoid criminal charges, though Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara has said he has been unable to build cases against Wall Street execs for the financial crisis.
“We are pleased to have finalized these settlements involving legacy residential mortgage-backed securities matters,” said Morgan Stanley spokesman Mark Lake.
State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced the deal with Morgan Stanley that includes $550 million for New York.
Feb 12, 2016
SongStar101
Hackers publish contact info of 20,000 FBI employees
http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/08/politics/hackers-fbi-employee-info/
Washington (CNN)Hackers, making good on a threat, published contact information for 20,000 FBI employees Monday afternoon, just one day after posting similar data on almost 10,000 Department of Homeland Security employees.
The hackers, tweeting from the account @DotGovs, claim they obtained the details by hacking into a Department of Justice database.
The hackers boasted on Twitter, "FBI and DHS info is dropped and that's all we came to do, so now its time to go, bye folks! #FreePalestine."
The information contained names, titles, phone numbers and email addresses. After the hackers published the data on the DHS employees on Sunday, they tweeted, "Well folks, it looks like @TheJusticeDept has finally realized their computer has been breached after 1 week."
The Justice Department is investigating the hack.
Department spokesman Peter Carr told CNN it does not appear there was a breach of private personnel information, such as Social Security numbers.
"The department is looking into the unauthorized access of a system operated by one of its components containing employee contact information," said Carr. "This unauthorized access is still under investigation; however, there is no indication at this time that there is any breach of sensitive personally identifiable information. The department takes this very seriously and is continuing to deploy protection and defensive measures to safeguard information. Any activity that is determined to be criminal in nature will be referred to law enforcement for investigation."
The hackers taunted federal officials, tweeting, "When will the US government realize we won't stop until they cut relations with Israel."
Feb 12, 2016
Scott
EMP-caused as in "Amtrak Surge" and "Electromagnetic Pulse Denial"? Or related to Council of Worlds at WAR re Announcement Delays? Or both? Comcast is owner of NBC.
Comcast's major outage is over (2/16/16)
For several hours on Monday, Comcast's TV, Internet and phone service was disrupted for customers across the country.
In a statement, Comcast called it a "temporary network interruption"...
...A map of reported service interruptions from Downdetector, which aggregates outage complaints on social media, showed problems occurred in regions all over the country. Complaints spiked at around 9 a.m. ET and subsided in the early afternoon on Monday.
...Comcast service outages sent social media ablaze with complaints from areas across the country.
...A slew of Twitter and Facebook users said the service hotline wasn't allowing customers to get in touch with a representative.
Most of the complaints said that none of Comcast's high-definition, or HD, TV channels were accessible. Others reported that their home phones lines were beeping and others couldn't access the Internet or their Xfinity, or Internet-based television, accounts.
One customer service representative said on Twitter that transmission issues were to blame and the company was "working on redirecting our feeds"...
http://money.cnn.com/2016/02/16/technology/comcast-outage-over/inde...
Comcast Outage Comes at a Terrible Time (2/16/16)
...the two problematic aspects of this outage were that it was far-reaching and that social media blew up with claims that Comcast's toll-free customer service number was also not working.
Comcast claimed to have the problem largely contained by Monday afternoon, but a quick view of Comcast's live outage map as of 11 p.m. ET last night showed that the reports of failing service were still trickling in late into the day.
...This will naturally hurt Comcast's reputation. The widely despised company had been making some decent headway in improving in consumer-facing operations.
...Any kind of downtime that receives national attention -- and yesterday's hiccup did exactly that -- will make it that much harder to boost retention. Comcast can't disconnect from its customers in more ways than one.
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/02/16/comcast-outage-com...
COMCAST'S LIVE OUTAGE MAP AS OF 11 P.M. ET LAST NIGHT.
Feb 16, 2016
SongStar101
Ex-French President Sarkozy is investigated over campaign funds
http://www.euronews.com/2016/02/16/ex-french-president-sarkozy-is-i...
Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been placed under formal investigation over his 2012 election campaign costs which were more than twice the legal limit.
The move is a prelude to a possible trial but does not lead automatically to prosecution. Sarkozy has repeatedly denied any knowledge of over spending.
Sarkozy is the head of France’s centre-right The Republicans political party (previously the UMP) and was the president of France from 2007 to 2012.
Bygmalion
It is the latest in a series of investigations involving Sarkoyz’s 2012 campaign. He’s been designated as an “assisted-witness” in connection with a wider scandal involving a Public Relations company called Bygmalion and political funding offences. His witness status means he’s not currently being prosecuted.
Four senior figures in Sarkozy’s 2012 campaign, including his campaign manager and treasurer, have previously been placed under formal investigation in relation to what has come to be known as the Bygmalion scandal.
It is alleged that millions of euros in false invoices were issued by the Bygmalion PR company, which organised some of Sarkozy’s appearances during his campaign.
Bygmalion allegedly charged 18.5m euros to the party instead of to the Sarkozy campaign, allowing the campaign to greatly exceed the spending limit of 22.5m euros.
Presidential hopes
Tuesday’s legal developments deal a serious blow to Sarkozy’s hopes of running again for president . He’ll probably be too busy to contest a primary in November ahead of next year’s presidential election.
It now throws the presidential race wide open at a time when ex-Prime Minister Alain Juppe has taken a solid lead in opinion polls over at least six other declared contenders for the centre-right nomination, with more expected to enter the contest soon.
The winner of the primary is likely to face incumbent Socialist President Francois Hollande and far-right anti-immigration populist Marine Le Pen, although Hollande has not announced whether he will run again.
Feb 17, 2016
Scott
Cherie Blair is married to Tony Blair, UK Prime Minister who cooperated with the invasion of Iraq.
MPs call for probe into Cherie Blair's law firm and HSBC over alleged money laundering after Mail revelations (2/18/16)
MPs last night demanded a formal investigation into Cherie Blair over allegedly corrupt payments from the repressive Maldives government.
There were also calls for an inquiry into HSBC’s role in the murky deal.
The demands came after the Mail revealed yesterday how Mrs Blair’s legal firm received at least £210,000 for its work for the tax haven’s autocratic president from a suspected conman and terrorist who is now an international fugitive.
The payment landed in Omnia Strategy’s HSBC account in September last year after being approved by the bank.
...Law firms have strict legal requirements to report suspicious activity which may indicate money laundering, and to verify the identity of clients and the source of funds.
Banks also have to comply with strict rules to ensure they are not being used by corrupt states, criminals, terrorists or drugs gangs to launder money.
...Steve Goodrich of Transparency International UK, which campaigns against money laundering, said: ‘These are serious allegations that need to be investigated. Regardless of where the money came from, UK firms should not be involved in laundering the reputations of corrupt and repressive regimes.’
...Mrs Blair’s firm earned £2,000 a day representing Abdullah Yameen, the president of the Maldives, who has jailed more than 1,700 opposition activists.
...The case could have serious ramifications for HSBC, which avoided prosecution in 2012 only by striking a deal with the US government. If found guilty again, it could be banned in the US. ...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3453710/Cherie-s-rank-hypoc...
Cherie, human rights hypocrite: Damning dossier on Mrs Blair's 'ethical' law firm reveals dealings with arms trafficker now wanted for terrorism
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3452002/Cherie-human-rights...
Feb 19, 2016
SongStar101
Turkey's President Erdogan's Son Arrested for Massive Money Laundering in Italy, Might Go to Jail
http://www.awdnews.com/top-news/erdogan-s-son-arrested-for-massive-...
The son of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is under investigation in Italy as part of a probe into a major political corruption scandal.
35-year-old Bilal Erdogan is suspected of money laundering, according to Bologna's public prosecutor. The investigation was apparently opened after a key political opponent of his father - Turkish businessman Murat Hakan Uzan - accused Erdogan the son of smuggling in substantial amounts of cash into Italy to be recycled.
According to Uzan, Bilal flew into the country with an armed entourage of bodyguards and a "large sum of money." Incredibly, when his guards were initially barred from entering the country they were reportedly given Turkish diplomatic passports and subsequently granted entry.
Erdogan left Turkey last August for the northern Italian city in the aftermath of a major corruption scandal in which he was among those implicated.
President Erdogan dismissed the case at the time as a fabricated attempt to discredit him and his inner circle - even after leaked tapes emerged several months afterwards in which he is allegedly heard telling Bilal to dispose of some 30 million euros in cash.
Many have speculated he fled the country to escape possible charges, but he maintains he moved to Italy with his wife and children purely to pursue his PhD.
Feb 19, 2016
SongStar101
Malaysia 1MDB scandal: FBI investigating Goldman Sachs and Tim Leissner's connection to missing money
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/malaysia-1mdb-scandal-fbi-investigating-go...
The FBI are reportedly investigating Goldman Sachs regional chairman Tim Leissner's connections to Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, who is allegedly involved in a massive multi-million dollar scandal. Leissner, the Singapore-based chairman of Goldman's Southeast Asia operations, has returned to the US and is thought to be taking time off from his role as pressure for the Malaysian PM increased.
High-flying banker Leissner, 45, is married to Kimora Lee Simmons, the former wife of hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, and now lives in California. According to reports in the US Simmons has connections to the Malaysian PM's wife.
As for the embattled Razak, the 1MDB scandal is being investigated by the Malaysian government who want to know why $681m (£470m) was transferred into his bank account by Saudi Arabia. Authorities in France and the UK are looking at 1Malaysia Development Bhd for financial irregularities.
The fund was started in 2009 to bolster Malaysia's coffers and turn the capital, Kuala Lumpur, into an economic hub but critics say that the fund lacks transparency and took on too much debt. In early 2015, it missed $11bn (£7.5bn) of payments it owed to banks and bondholders.
When the Wall Street Journal disclosed that $618m (£426m) was transferred from the fund into Najib's personal bank account a scandal erupted, forcing the prime minister to claim that the money had been a donation from the Saudis, which was latterly confirmed after an investigation by Malaysia's anti-corruption commission.
The New York Post claimed that the FBI were reportedly investigating all the fund's transactions in with wider probes of money-laundering allegations spanning five countries. And the investigation could lead Goldman to face a congressional inquiry. The bank declined to comment to the newspaper.
The sum of three bond sales for 1MDB back in 2012 and 2013, which amount to $6.5bn (£448m), reportedly yielded fees, commissions and expenses for Goldman of almost $593m (£586m) amounting to 9.1% of the money raised – the typical cut for an investment bank is about 5%.
"If it exceeds the limit Malaysia sets for investment managers of a fund, then Goldman will have to deal with some negative kickback from Malaysia," said Dick Bove, a bank industry analyst at Rafferty Capital Markets.
Feb 19, 2016
Scott
Big Victory: Judge Pushes Jewel v. NSA Forward (1/19/16)
Who is being sued?
The specific defendants are the United States, the National Security Agency, the Department of Justice, President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Cheney's Chief of Staff David Addington, NSA Director Keith B. Alexander, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden, Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey, former Attorneys General Alberto Gonzales and John D. Ashcroft, Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell, and former DNI John Negroponte.
https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying/faq#22
We won a groundbreaking legal victory late Friday in our Jewel v. NSA case, which challenges the NSA’s Internet and telephone surveillance. Judge Jeffrey White has authorized EFF, on behalf of the plaintiffs, to conduct discovery against the NSA. We had been barred from doing so since the case was filed in 2008, which meant that the government was able to prevent us from requesting important information about how these programs worked.
This marks the first time a party has been allowed to gather factual evidence from the NSA in a case involving the agency’s warrantless surveillance.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/02/big-victory-judge-pushes-jewe...
Feb 22, 2016
Scott
SEC probes HSBC hiring in Asia (2/22/16)
...The London-based bank said Monday it was being investigated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over the recruitment of "candidates referred by or related to government officials or employees of state-owned enterprises."
HSBC (HSBC) said it was cooperating with the investigation but couldn't predict the outcome. It warned that the impact on the bank "could be significant."
...On top of the SEC probe, HSBC had other bad news for investors Monday.
It posted a surprise $858 million pre-tax loss in the last quarter of 2015, helping to send its stock tumbling as much as 5% in London trading. HSBC shares in Hong Kong closed down 2%.
http://money.cnn.com/2016/02/22/news/companies/hsbc-sec-investigati...
Feb 23, 2016
SongStar101
Tech giants now getting hammered with taxes?? This is big and will likely snowball into each country of the EU?
EU Shuts Down Tax Loopholes As It Targets Google, Apple, Amazon And Facebook
http://www.ibtimes.com/eu-shuts-down-tax-loopholes-it-targets-googl...
U.S. companies have criticized radical reforms being proposed by the European Union that aim to shut down loopholes the likes of Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon are using to artificially lower their tax bills. A group lobbying on behalf of the U.S. companies calls the reforms an effort to “pad the coffers of foreign governments,” but at least one tax expert says the efforts will fall flat as companies will simply find new loopholes to circumvent the new system.
The Anti Tax Avoidance Package was introduced on Thursday by Pierre Moscovici, Europe’s tax commissioner, who said they will aim to “hamper aggressive tax planning, boost transparency between Member States and ensure fairer competition for all businesses in the Single Market.”
Among the key proposals being introduced are legally binding measures to block the most common methods used by companies to avoid paying tax and a recommendation to member states on how to prevent tax treaty abuse. To improve transparency, the commission is also proposing that the 28 EU member states share tax-related information on multinationals as well as creating a new process for listing countries that “refuse to play fair.”
Ahead of the announcement, American Innovation Matters — a lobbying group that includes U.S. companies like Cisco, Boeing, Apple, Intel and Facebook — called the EU proposals “the latest example of the aggressive moves being made abroad in an effort to tax even more American earnings, and use them to pad the coffers of foreign governments.”
The proposals were announced as the European Commission confirmed it had received a complaint about the controversial tax deal Google struck with the U.K. government last week to pay 130 million pounds ($185 million) in taxes covering a 10-year period from 2005 to 2015. The sum has been called “derisory” and the U.K. government has come under pressure to explain how it came up with the figure.
The EU’s antitrust chief, Margrethe Vestager, told the BBC’s “Today” program: “If we find there’s something to be concerned about, if someone writes to us and says maybe this is not how it should be, then we’ll take a look.” The Scottish National Party has confirmed it sent such a letter to Brussels asking the commission to investigate if the deal constituted state aid.
Indeed that practice is already happening, with Ireland offering a 12 percent tax rate that has seen Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon all setting up operations in the country. The U.K. is following suit, with its corporation tax rate dropping from 28 percent in 2010 to 20 percent today, and some expecting the Treasury to announce a further drop to 18 percent.
In parallel with the EU proposals, on Wednesday, 31 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development signed an agreement reached last October laying out new rules to stop companies from using complex tax arrangements to avoid paying corporation tax. Despite these efforts by the EU and OECD, the impact on U.S. multinationals is unlikely to be significant.
“These proposals will make it more difficult for multinational companies to shift profits to lower-taxed countries [but] I don’t think it will prevent that altogether,” Professor Michael Devereux, director of the Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation, told International Business Times. “I think over time companies will find ways around some of the closing of the loopholes.”
When asked if the new proposals would prevent the controversial Google tax situation from arising again, Moscovici declined to comment.
The biggest problem facing regulators is the international taxation system, which is incredibly complex, and the efforts being made by individual governments, the European Union and the OECD are simply not addressing the real issues. “The international tax system is in a mess and it needs fundamental reform and none of these proposals are really creating fundamental reform, they are just fixing loopholes,” Devereux said.
For real change to take place in Europe on tax matters it would require the agreement of all 28 member states and that is highly unlikely to happen, particularly as the U.K. prepares to vote on whether to stay in the EU.
As well as another potential investigation into Google by Europe — the search giant is already being investigated over anti-competitive practices related to online shopping and Android — the commission’s antitrust regulators are also investigating Apple’s tax arrangements. The investigation is seeking to establish whether Apple reached a sweetheart deal with the Irish government to pay significantly less tax, with a ruling expected in March. Last week, Apple CEO Tim Cook and Vestager had a private meeting where it is thought the investigation was discussed.
The commission says that tax legislation in Europe dates back to the 1930s and needs to be updated to meet “today’s global, digital economy.” It adds that multinational companies operating in several European countries pay on average 30 percent less tax than a company operating in a single European country.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Google Boss Summoned to Meet EU Chief Amid Tax and Privacy Probes
http://sputniknews.com/europe/20160225/1035343408/google-tax-privac...
Google chief executive Sundar Pichai has been summoned Thursday to meet EU Competition chief Margrethe Vestager to discuss the company’s relationship with the EU amid taxation probes and questions over privacy.
The meeting between Pichai and Vestager is being held behind closed doors, however, the EU competition chief has several reasons for a showdown with the boss of Google. European lawmakers are urging her to speed up its investigation into why Google offers its Android operating system only in conjunction with other Google services and also why manufacturers allegedly may not pre-install rival products.
The Commission is also accusing the internet giant of abusing its dominant position by using its search engine to privilege its own sale comparison website, to the detriment of its competitors.
It is also investigating other aspects of Google’s behavior regarding the mapping, travel, flight, third party data and advertising businesses, which it believes is a violation of the European regulation regarding the abuse of a dominant position and affects the right of users to access the best search results.
Privacy Probes
The Court of Justice of the European Union in 2014 ruled that European citizens can request the removal of links to websites containing inappropriate personal information in search results associated with their names.
However, the Commission said in a statement:
"Google has since received over 145 000 requests, relating to almost 500 000 links. Only one in two requests results in a delisting. The others are suspended or refused, in accordance with the criteria set up by Google. The commercial enterprise is therefore assuming the role of a private judge. The criteria, framework and recommendations surrounding the procedure for being forgotten must be laid down by the competent legislative authorities."
Google is also under investigation in several countries over its tax arrangements, which some say allow the company to move money around its assets to lower its corporation tax liability in many EU states.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------France seeks 1.6 billion euros in back taxes from Google: source
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-google-france-taxation-idUSKCN0VX1Z5
France is seeking 1.6 billion euros ($1.76 billion) in back taxes from U.S. Internet giant Google (GOOGL.O), criticized for its use of aggressive tax optimization techniques, a source at the finance ministry said on Wednesday.
"As far as our country is concerned, back taxes concerning this company amount to 1.6 billion euros," the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said.
A spokeswoman for Google France declined to comment on the amount when contacted by Reuters, saying only that the company obeyed tax rules in all countries where it operated.
The finance ministry also declined comment. An unsourced 2012 media report mentioned a claim for 1 billion euros by French authorities, which Google denied at the time.
Shares in the company were down 1.8 percent in early New York trade, broadly in line with the Nasdaq average.
French tax authority usually issues at least one preliminary assessment before its final assessment, which can be challenged in court if not accepted, tax advisers say.
Earlier this month, Finance Minister Michel Sapin ruled out striking a deal with the U.S. search engine company as the British government recently did, saying the sums at stake in France were "far greater" than those in Britain.
Google reached a 130 million pound ($181.18 million) settlement with British tax authorities for the period since 2005, which British lawmakers criticized on Wednesday as "disproportionately small".
France, Britain and other countries have long complained at the way Google, Yahoo! and other digital giants generate huge profits in their countries but have their tax base in countries such as Ireland, where corporate tax rates are far lower.
But the complaints have made little legal headway because EU tax law protects companies against paying tax in a country where they do not have what is termed a "permanent establishment".
($1 = 0.9108 euros)
Feb 26, 2016
Ecosikh
Oh the irony of it all..... - see below
"http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/feb/28/mervyn-king-new-financial-crisis-is-certain-without-reform-of-banks
Mervyn King: new financial crisis is 'certain' without reform of banks
He has also claimed that the 2008 crisis was the fault of the financial system, not individual greedy bankers, in his new book, The End Of Alchemy: Money, Banking And The Future Of The Global Economy, serialised in The Telegraph.
“Without reform of the financial system, another crisis is certain, and the failure ... to tackle the disequilibrium in the world economy makes it likely that it will come sooner rather than later,” Lord King wrote.
He added that global central banks were caught in a “prisoner’s dilemma” - unable to raise interest rates for fear of stifling the economic recovery, the newspaper reported.
A remark from a Chinese colleague who said the west had not got the hang of money and banking was the inspiration for his book.
Lord King, 67, said without understanding what caused the crash, politicians and bankers would be unable to prevent another, and lays the blame at the door of a broken financial system.
He said: “The crisis was a failure of a system, and the ideas that underpinned it, not of individual policymakers or bankers, incompetent and greedy though some of them undoubtedly were.”
Spending imbalances both within and between countries led to the crisis in 2008 and he believes a current disequilibrium will lead to the next.
To solve the problem, Lord King suggests raising productivity and boldly reforming the banking system.
He said: “Only a fundamental rethink of how we, as a society, organise our system of money and banking will prevent a repetition of the crisis that we experienced in 2008.”
Lord King was in charge of the Bank of England when the credit crunch struck in 2007, leading to the collapse of Northern Rock and numerous other British lenders, including RBS, and has been criticised for failing to see the global financial crisis coming.
Feb 28, 2016
Starr DiGiacomo
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/208904#.VtnvG-Z2Fm0
New initiative to topple Netanyahu from power
A new initiative has reportedly been agreed upon by leaders of the parties classified as "centrist" and "right-wing," according to which they will not recommend Binyamin Netanyahu as prime minister in the next elections, thereby denying him the chance to form the government.
The initiative, revealed by Channel 2 late Thursday, comes after Netanyahu's erstwhile ally Yisrael Beytenu head MK Avigdor Liberman gave a speech last week, in which he promised not to sit in a leftist government, and likewise not to sit with Netanyahu under the current conditions.
While the pledges would appear to obligate him to remain in the opposition, talks held in recent weeks between the heads of "centrist" and "right-wing" parties have formulated a plan that apparently would force Likud to forego Netanyahu if it wants to remain in power.
The new initiative would have the party heads inform the president after the next elections that they will not agree to sit in a government formed by Netanyahu, but would be open to any other candidate for prime minister from Likud.
In this way they hope to force Netanyahu's demotion within Likud, as the party will want to retain control and be allowed first crack and forming a coalition government by the president, should it receive the most mandates in elections as polls suggest it will.
Just this Monday Liberman held a joint meeting with Yesh Atid head MK Yair Lapid, in which the two slammed the government. Netanyahu responded by calling Liberman a "blabbering" leftist, to which Liberman charged him with selling out to the Arab Joint List party.
It was already revealed in the last elections that Liberman had planned to cooperate with Lapid and Moshe Kahlon of the Kulanu party to create a united bloc to unseat Netanyahu. The plan, exposed by ex-Yisrael Beytenu MK Faina Kirshenbaum, later fell apart as Liberman's party came under investigation in a massive corruption scandal.
Netanyahu is currently in his fourth term as prime minister, and his third consecutive term in the role which he has now held since 2009.
Mar 4, 2016
Derrick Johnson
SpaceX Rocket Crashes During Drone Ship Landing -- Again
After four delayed attempts, Elon Musk's Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, launched its Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Friday, successfully deploying a communications satellite into orbit.
But, as the company had warned may happen, the attempt to land the 14-story rocket booster on a drone ship at sea ended much as did three previous tries: in flames.
As with previous missions, SpaceX said landing the rocket was a secondary objective. The primary goal of delivering a commercial communications satellite called SES-9 into orbit for the company SES was a success.
Friday's attempt was not without suspense. As the rocket booster came in for an upright landing aboard the floating, football field-sized drone ship, comically named Of Course I Still Love You, the video feed cut out.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/spacex-rocket-crash_us_56da1b14...
Mar 5, 2016
KM
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-bush-familys-links-to-nazi-germany...
Bush Family Links to Nazi Germany: “A Famous American Family” Made its Fortune from the Nazis
Image: George W. Bush’s Grandfather, Senator Prescott Bush
“A famous American family” made its fortune from the Nazis, according toJohn Loftus’ documented historical analysis.
The Bush family links to Nazi Germany’s war economy were first brought to light at the Nuremberg trials in the testimony of Nazi Germany’s steel magnate Fritz Thyssen. Thyssen was a partner of George W. Bush’s grandfather Prescott Bush:
Multibillionaire steel magnate Fritz Thyssen-the man whose steel combine was the cold heart of the Nazi war machine-talked and talked and talked to a joint US-UK interrogation team.
… What the Allied investigators never understood was that they were not asking Thyssen the right question. Thyssen did not need any foreign bank accounts because his family secretly owned an entire chain of banks.
He did not have to transfer his Nazi assets at the end of World War II, all he had to do was transfer the ownership documents – stocks, bonds, deeds and trusts–from his bank in Berlin through his bank in Holland to his American friends in New York City: Prescott Bush and Herbert Walker [father in law of Prescott Bush]. Thyssen’s partners in crime were the father and [grandfather] of a future President of the United States [George Herbert Walker Bush]. (John Loftus, How the Bush family made its fortune from the Nazis: The Dutch Conn..., Global Research, February 2002, edit by GR)
The American public is not aware of the links of the Bush family to Nazi Germany because the historical record has been carefully withheld by the mainstream media.
In September 2004, however, The Guardian revealed that:
Mar 6, 2016
SongStar101
Bush Administration Allowed Gitmo Commander Breaking International Law
http://sputniknews.com/us/20160303/1035690109/bush-administration-g...
The George W. Bush administration informed personnel at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility they would not be bound to the Geneva Conventions when dealing with suspected terrorist detainees, first commander of the Guantanamo Bay detention center Michael Lehnert told Sputnik.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik), Leandra Bernstein — "We were told that we could be guided by it but we didn’t need to follow it," Lehnert said on Wednesday of international law under the Geneva Conventions and additional protocols.
In prosecuting the War on Terror, "I think we could have learned to apply the Geneva Convention in this conflict and done it very effectively," Lehnert added.
Following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against the United States, the Bush administration adopted a legal opinion that exempted suspected terrorists from protections under the Geneva Conventions and additional protocols. The Geneva Conventions ensure prisoners of war will not be tortured, or face cruel or degrading treatment.
Lehnert, who was appointed to oversee the initial opening of the detention center at Guantanamo Bay in January 2002, noted that the Bush administration’s decision to avoid applying international law was "unfortunate."
The administration also "did a poor job of sorting" terrorist suspects under Article 5 of the Geneva Convention, requiring a tribunal at the point of capture, Lehnert explained.
The result of failing to hold tribunals at the point of capture resulted in the capture of a number of prisoners "of questionable status… who were just at the wrong place at the wrong time."
After numerous reports of human rights violations and degrading treatment of prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay, the military detention facility has largely become synonymous with prisoner abuse and torture.
Despite reported human rights violations, there has not been a single high-level prosecution of a US official for violating international law relating to the treatment of prisoners of war or enemy combatants.
Torture Probe: Ex-Gitmo Commander Blows Off French Subpoena
George W. Bush the First President in US History to Sanction Torture
Mar 7, 2016
Recall 15
Presidential Alert Message Test, On Chile. 07, March 2016
The strange message that woke Chileans
At 5:44 am on Monday March 7, many Chileans awoke because of a message containing an alert supposed emergency. Minister of Transport and Telecommunications, Andrés Gómez-Lobo explains that it is investigating the source of this message and clarifies that in the case of a real alert, the message will not include the word "test".
From:
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=es&sl=es&tl=en&am...
Mar 8, 2016
SongStar101
Ants in disarray now regrouping? A secluded meeting about Apple encryption, GOP, Trump and the White House?
http://www.zetatalk.com/ning/19sp2015.htm
Who will win this war for control of the White House with its influence over the banking establishment and the media? Trump’s backer is none other than the Puppet Master, who has more wealth and influence than can be imagined, albeit so carefully fronted by others that it cannot be discerned.
At Secretive Meeting, Tech CEOs And Top Republicans Commiserate, Plot To Stop Trump
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/aei-world-forum-donald-trump_us...
Billionaires, tech CEOs and top members of the Republican establishment flew to a private island resort off the coast of Georgia this weekend for the American Enterprise Institute's annual World Forum, according to sources familiar with the secretive gathering.
The main topic at the closed-to-the-press confab? How to stop Republican front-runner Donald Trump.
Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google co-founder Larry Page, Napster creator and Facebook investor Sean Parker, and Tesla Motors and SpaceX honcho Elon Musk all attended. So did Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), political guru Karl Rove, House Speaker Paul Ryan, GOP Sens. Tom Cotton (Ark.), Cory Gardner (Colo.), Tim Scott (S.C.), Rob Portman (Ohio) and Ben Sasse (Neb.), who recently made news by saying he "cannot support Donald Trump."
Along with Ryan, the House was represented by Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Fred Upton (Mich.), Rep. Kevin Brady (Texas) and almost-Speaker Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), sources said, along with leadership figure Cathy McMorris Rodgers (Wash.), Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price (R-Ga.), Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (Texas) and Diane Black (Tenn.).
Philip Anschutz, the billionaire GOP donor whose company owns a stake in Sea Island, was also there, along with Democratic Rep. John Delaney, who represents Maryland. Arthur Sulzberger, the publisher of The New York Times, was there, too, a Times spokeswoman confirmed.
"A specter was haunting the World Forum--the specter of Donald Trump," Kristol wrote in an emailed report from the conference, borrowing the opening lines of the Communist Manifesto. "There was much unhappiness about his emergence, a good deal of talk, some of it insightful and thoughtful, about why he's done so well, and many expressions of hope that he would be defeated."
"The key task now, to once again paraphrase Karl Marx, is less to understand Trump than to stop him," Kristol wrote. "In general, there's a little too much hand-wringing, brow-furrowing, and fatalism out there and not quite enough resolving to save the party from nominating or the country electing someone who simply shouldn't be president."
A highlight of the gathering was a presentation by Rove about focus group findings on Trump. The business mogul's greatest weakness, according to Rove, was that voters have a very hard time envisioning him as "presidential" and as somebody their children should look up to. They also see him as somebody who can be erratic and shouldn't have his (small) fingers anywhere near a nuclear trigger.
Sources familiar with the meeting -- who requested anonymity because the forum is off the record -- said that much of the conversation around Trump centered on "how this happened, rather than how are we going to stop him," as one person put it.
Trump, who already has nearly one-third of the delegates he needs to secure the GOP nomination, faces major tests in the Florida and Ohio primaries next week. If he wins both those states, he will need to win just half of the remaining delegates to secure the nomination.
He wasn't the only topic of the wide-ranging conference, however. At one point, Cotton and Apple's Cook fiercely debated cell phone encryption, a source familiar with the exchange told HuffPost. "Cotton was pretty harsh on Cook," the source said, and "everyone was a little uncomfortable about how hostile Cotton was." (Apple is in the midst of a battle with the Justice Department and the FBI over an encrypted iPhone that belonged to one of the San Bernardino shooters.) Cook did not attend the Rove session, or otherwise take part in any political organizing, emphasized a source close to Cook.
AEI has held the annual forum on Sea Island for years. It's so secret that in 2015, Bloomberg News complained that no one would even say whether it had snowed.
Federal Aviation Administration records available on FlightAware.com show that a fleet of private jets flew into and out of two small airports near Sea Island this weekend. Fifty-four planes flew out of the airport on St. Simons Island, Georgia, on Sunday -- nearly four times as many as departed from the airport the previous Sunday.
Many of the planes are registered to jet-sharing companies such as NetJets and Flexjet or private jet services companies such as Jetsetter. At least two of them flew directly to San Jose, California, home of many tech giants, on Sunday.
Another plane, which arrived from Eaton, Colorado, on Wednesday and flew back there on Sunday, is registered to Monfort Aviation, LLC, a private, tax-exempt trust. FAA records don't indicate who controls Monfort Aviation, but it shares a name with Dick and Charlie Monfort, the Colorado-based heirs to a meatpacking fortune who now own the Colorado Rockies baseball team. The plane, a Raytheon Hawker 800XP, seats 15 people. Anschutz, the billionaire whose company part owns Sea Island, is also from Colorado.
Another private plane, a Canadair Challenger, flew cross-country from St. Simons to Van Nuys Airport in Southern California on Friday. Van Nuys Airport is so associated with millionaires and billionaires that their disputes over space at the field occasionally spill into the news media.
Another plane, a tri-jet Dassault Falcon 900, flew into St. Simons on Thursday from Westchester County, New York, and returned on Sunday. It's registered to Northwood Investors LLC, which is run by John Kukral, whose official bio notes he's been involved in real estate deals worth over $40 billion.
"The event is private and off-the record, therefore we do not comment further on the content or attendees," said Judy Stecker, a spokeswoman for AEI. She described the forum as "an informal gathering of leading thinkers from all ideological backgrounds to discuss challenges that the United States and the free world face in economics, security and social welfare."
Sea Island Resort -- which boasts three golf courses and a spa and fitness center that, at 65,000 square feet, would fill nearly two-thirds of a Home Depot -- is famous for its isolation. It's surrounded by marshes and some distance from the nearest large commercial airports. In 2004, when President George W. Bush hosted the annual G-8 summit on the island, the press center for the event was located 80 miles away in Savannah, Georgia.
The Anschutz Corp., Starwood Capital Group Global, Avenue Capital Group, and Oaktree Capital Management bought the then-bankrupt resort -- which covers the entire island -- in 2010 for $212.4 million.
"It is not much of a place to experience average America," The New York Times wrote of Sea Island in 2004. "But it is a fine locale to shut out the rest of the world, view conspicuous architectural consumption and walk beaches that have little or no public access."
In 2015, AEI's Sea Island gala drew most of the men who would become the Republican party's presidential candidates, according to an agenda Bloomberg obtained at the time. Scheduled speakers included former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum. (Some scheduled speakers may not have attended; a snowstorm snarled transportation up and down the East Coast that weekend.)
AEI paid $32,490.97 for 11 members of Congress to attend the conference in 2015 alone, according to disclosure records available on Legistorm.com.
Democratic officials, including Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Jason Furman, the chair of Barack Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, Gene Sperling, another top Obama economic adviser, and former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, were listed as 2015 attendees, Bloomberg reported at the time.
Christie was scheduled to deliver the opening remarks at the conference that year.
A few weeks ago, he endorsed Trump.
Mar 8, 2016
Ecosikh
I am note sure about the timing of this interview, but it was UL recently showing Trump talking about 911 - perhaps a shot across the bows?
Trump on Fox
Mar 8, 2016
SongStar101
Chris Matthews at center of NBC’s latest news scandal
http://nypost.com/2016/03/11/chris-matthews-at-center-of-nbcs-lates...
MSNBC “Hardball” host Chris Matthews isn’t much for keeping his promises of transparency when it involves political contributions to his wife’s congressional campaign.
Last June, the blabbermouth commentator insisted on his show that he would be “transparent and fair in our coverage” after his wife, Kathleen, announced that she was running as a Democrat for the open seat in Maryland’s 8th District.
Since then, Kathleen Matthews, a former news anchor and Marriott exec, has received a total of $79,050 in campaign contributions from prominent former and current politicians featured on her husband’s long-running cable-news show.
“As a journalist, I also know how important it is to respect certain boundaries on my support for her both in my public role and here on MSNBC,” her husband said on his program.
“And while most of you know that our show doesn’t typically cover congressional races, I will continue to fully disclose my relationship with her as part of MSNBC’s commitment to being transparent and fair in our coverage,” added Matthews.
But Matthews, who has made glowing references to Kathleen on his show without mentioning her campaign, hasn’t uttered a word about the contributions his 62-year-old wife has received from his TV guests.
The revelation is another black eye for NBC, which bounced Brian Williams as anchor of the network news last year and dispatched him to MSNBC after he fabricated details of stories he covered.
The Intercept, which broke the story of the “Hardball” campaign connection Friday, compiled a laundry list of questionable donations. It showed some political heavyweights making contributions just before or after their appearances on the show.
The political action committee for Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) gave $10,000 to Kathleen’s campaign on June 20, 2015 — two days before Gillibrand appeared on “Hardball.”
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) contributed $1,000 on Jan. 11, 2016, one day before she was interviewed on the program.
Chris Matthews’ guests, their spouses or their PACs donated $79,050 as of Dec. 31 — about 5 percent of the $1.5 million Kathleen had raised as of then.
At least 11 of the donations came from guests after they appeared on Matthews’ show.
Paul Pelosi, husband of House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), put $1,000 into Kathleen’s coffers.
Jackie Clegg-Dodd, wife of Chris Dodd, a former Connecticut senator and president of the Motion Picture Association of America, gave $500. Dick Blum, husband of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), maxed out with a $2,700 donation.
MSNBC issued a statement saying it “does not book guests on the basis of political contributions. That would violate not only our ethical obligation as journalists, but also violate the standards of NBC News.”
Chris Matthews did not return calls for comment.
“Working women know it is possible to have their own career and not depend on their spouse for success,” said Kathleen Matthews’ campaign manager, Ethan Susseles.
Mar 13, 2016
SongStar101
Georgian PM orders inquiry into videos allegedly showing cheating politicians
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/14/georgia-pm-inquiry-vid...
Abdaladze/AP
Andrew North in Tbilisi
Monday 14 March 2016
Georgia has been shaken by the release of two covertly filmed sex tapes apparently showing prominent opposition and ruling party politicians involved in adulterous encounters, in what is being seen as a campaign of intimidation before elections due in October.
The government has asked for help from the FBI in tracing the source of the tapes after the latest video was posted on YouTube on Monday showing a series of sexual encounters, including one involving a woman believed to be a member of the governing Georgian Dream coalition.
The anonymous post was accompanied by threats to release more compromising footage unless two coalition members, an opposition politician and a well-known journalist resign by the end of March.
The videos have since been taken down and some Georgian internet users reported YouTube being briefly blocked.
Georgia has a history of covertly filmed videos being released to tar political opponents before elections, and leaders pledged to investigate the latest incident.
The prime minister, Giorgi Kvirikashvili, condemned the videos as an attempt to “blackmail” the country, and ordered the security services to track down those responsible.
Hundreds of people protested outside government offices in Tbilisi last Friday following the release of the first video, which apparently showed an opposition politician in an intimate encounter with a partner who was not her spouse.
The opposition accused government supporters of being behind the videos, in particular the billionaire former prime minister and Georgian Dream founder, Bidzina Ivanishvili, who still exerts a strong hold over the coalition.
“None of this could have happened without his personal OK,” claimed Giorgi Kandelaki, an MP with the pro-western United National Movement (UNM), which ruled Georgia until 2012 under the former president Mikhail Saakashvili.
Georgia’s justice minister, Tea Tsulukiani, rejected such claims as “complete nonsense”, saying all the videos had been recorded during the UNM’s time in power. “Anyone who knows Mr Ivanishvili knows he respects people’s private lives and would never do anything like this,” she told the Guardian, adding that the government had now asked for help from the FBI and a neighbouring country that she would not name in tracking down the source of the videos.
The videos are the latest in a long line of such releases. Last year the director of Georgia’s largest TV channel Rustavi 2, seen as close to the opposition, said he had been threatened with the release of compromising videos if he did not step down. Nika Gvaramia pre-empted the release by admitting he had not always been a faithful husband.
The previous Saakashvili administration was voted out in 2012 after the release of secretly filmed videos of prison guards purportedly showing inmates being tortured.
Saakashvili’s government was itself accused of building up a library of compromising videos of opponents to use against them, some of which was destroyed by the current government when it took power.
Many opposition figures also see Russia’s hands in the scandal. “It’s not so much Videogate as a reflection of Russian-style political tactics becoming more common here,” said Kandelaki.
The UNM accuses Georgian Dream of being covertly pro-Russia despite its public pro-western stance. The ruling politicians in the videos were in effect “being sacrificed”, Kandelaki said.
With Russia still occupying nearly 20% of Georgian territory eight years after they fought a brief war, fear of the Kremlin’s intentions dominates Georgian politics.
Both main parties are struggling in the polls, and some predict more avowedly pro-Russia factions could gain ground in the elections.
The journalist threatened in the latest video has resorted to pre-emptive action, naming herself on her TV programme on Monday and vowing not to be intimidated. “I am Ingra Grigolia,” she said, “woman, daughter, mother and friend. I have a wonderful boyfriend and I have sex.”
Mar 15, 2016
SongStar101
Suspended U.N. diplomat pleads guilty in U.S. bribery case
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-un-corruption-idUSKCN0WI2HI
A suspended deputy United Nations ambassador from the Dominican Republic pleaded guilty on Wednesday to charges that he participated in a scheme to bribe a former U.N. General Assembly president.
Francis Lorenzo, 48, admitted in federal court in Manhattan that he engaged in conspiracies to commit bribery and money laundering, as part of an agreement to cooperate in the U.S. investigation.
Lorenzo admitted he facilitated bribe payments from Ng Lap Seng, a billionaire real estate developer in Macau, to John Ashe, a former U.N. ambassador from Antigua and Barbuda and who served as General Assembly president from 2013 to 2014.
Those bribes, Lorenzo admitted, were paid to Ashe to seek U.N. support of a U.N.-sponsored conference center in Macau. Lorenzo, who prosecutors said received bribes himself from Ng, said payments were also made to other unnamed foreign officials.
"I understand what I was doing, as I described it, was wrong," he said in court.
Lorenzo is the third defendant to plead guilty to charges arising out of a case U.S. prosecutors announced in October involving a scheme starting in 2011 to pay more than $1.3 million in bribes to Ashe.
Prosecutors said those bribes included more than $500,000 that Ng, who made the payment through intermediaries including Lorenzo and Jeff Yin, Ng's assistant.
Ashe also received more than $800,000 from Chinese businessmen to support their interests within the United Nations and Antigua, prosecutors said.
Those bribes were arranged through Sheri Yan, who was the Global Sustainability Foundation's chief executive, and Heidi Hong Piao, the foundation's finance director, prosecutors said. Both women pleaded guilty in January.
Ashe, Ng and Yin have pleaded not guilty. Benjamin Brafman, Ng's lawyer, said outside of court that Lorenzo's plea would not affect the billionaire' s determination to go to trial, saying he "maintains he is personally innocent."
Mar 16, 2016
SongStar101
Ex-oil CEO going 89 miles per hour before crash
Former Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon was driving at 89 miles per hour just seconds before his Chevy Tahoe slammed into an overpass wall and erupted into flames, police said on Monday.
http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/14/news/aubrey-mcclendon-crash-89-mile...
Aubrey McClendon-Reuters
McClendon wasn't wearing a seatbelt and was driving alone in a 50-mile-per-hour zone prior to the March 2 crash that killed the U.S. shale pioneer, according to an update from Oklahoma City police.
Authorities said McClendon, 56, was positively identified by the medical examiner days later through his dental records. The fiery crash took place one day after the founder of Chesapeake Energy (CHK) was indicted by a federal grand jury.
McClendon's brakes appeared to be working and there were no signs of a medical emergency before the fiery crash, police said.
=================================================
Snippets of the Reuters report...
Special Report: The final days and deals of Aubrey McClendon
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-aubrey-mcclendon-specialreport-id...
By fighting the U.S. criminal indictment, he faced a potential public airing of his business tactics. McClendon’s own emails were expected to represent the bulk of the government’s evidence against him, say two people familiar with the matter.
HIGH-LEVEL JUSTICE MEETINGS
McClendon knew he was under criminal investigation: AEP disclosed in a filing last year with U.S. securities regulators that the Justice Department was investigating him over the potential antitrust violations. His former company, Chesapeake, has been cooperating with authorities in return for "conditional leniency" from the Justice Department. As a result, Chesapeake has said, the company did not expect to face prosecution or penalties.
But the indictment caught McClendon off guard, according to people familiar with the matter.
His legal team had met with senior Justice Department prosecutors three times in late 2015 to try to persuade them not to indict McClendon, a person familiar with the matter said. McClendon had been expecting a response; instead, he was indicted without warning, the person said.
Temple’s view was echoed by others in the industry. But emails published by Reuters in 2012 showed that McClendon had indeed tried to suppress land prices elsewhere. In one, McClendon wrote to a rival energy executive that it was time "to smoke a peace pipe" together "if we are bidding each other up." In another, he wrote: “Should we throw in 50/50 together here rather than trying to bash each other’s brains out on lease buying?”
When the Justice Department announced the indictment March 1, it also issued a statement strongly critical of McClendon.
“Executives who abuse their positions as leaders of major corporations to organize criminal activity must be held accountable for their actions,” wrote Baer, the Assistant Attorney General.
Mar 16, 2016
Nancy Lieder
What does this news about General Dunford being in charge in the US mean for the announcement? Time will tell. But it is clear that Obama failed in this regard. Remember that this is in the hands of man, who has free will. The important thing is that something happen, by whatever means. Remember, there is more here than human actions. There are a billion visitors, in various life forms, working during the Earth's Transformation. Over half the human population are already contactees, hearing the truth from their contacts. Nibiru visibility is increasing daily. The Earth wobble is increasing and undeniable. The Council of Worlds can inform the people of Earth in a number of ways we are not even aware of. Stay tuned, this drama has hardly reacted its last chapter!
Mar 24, 2016
SongStar101
Toshiba confirms SEC investigation as accounting woes spread to US
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/mar/18/toshiba-confirms-se...
Securities commission and justice department examining ‘accounting problem’ at US units, says Japanese corporation, amid profit-padding crisis
Kato / Reuters/Reuters
Thursday 17 March 2016 23.28 EDT Last modified on Tuesday 22 March 2016 11.43 EDT
Toshiba has announced its US businesses are cooperating with authorities over alleged accounting irregularities and is to cut a further 3,000 jobs.
Toshiba boss quits over £780m accounting scandal
The company has been shaken by a profit-padding scandal in which senior management for years systematically pushed subordinates to cover up weak financial figures.
Toshiba, a pillar of Japan’s industrial establishment, is expecting a huge loss of about 710bn yen (US$6.4bn or £4.4bn) for the year to March, with declining global demand exacerbating financial woes.
The group said in a statement: “Several of our US subsidiaries have been requested to provide information by the US Department of Justice and [the] Securities and Exchange Commission [SEC], and they are cooperating with the request.” It referred to what it called an “accounting problem”, although it refrained from naming any companies.
The statement came after Bloomberg News reported on Thursday that the US justice department and the SEC were investigating if any fraud occurred over a loss booked by Toshiba’s US-based nuclear business division, Westinghouse.
The loss could be up to 200bn yen, the Asahi Shimbun daily newspaper reported.
Toshiba shares fell nearly 8% in Tokyo on Thursday following the reports, but rebounded on Friday, closing up 4.2% – the second biggest riser on the Nikkei, the Japanese stock market.
Toshiba said at a press conference held after the market closed on Friday that it would slash a further 3,000 jobs, taking total job losses to 14,000.
The company said it expected to return to the black in the year starting in April, when it is forecasting an operating profit of 120bn yen.
Toshiba also said it it was conducting a stress test on its Westinghouse division to assess whether it needs a writedown. It added that goodwill at Westinghouse was estimated to fall to 351.3bn yen by the end of March, from 385.2bn yen at the end of December.
Nuclear power has become less popular since Toshiba’s acquisition in 2006, especially following the Fukushima disaster which prompted many countries to freeze nuclear energy expansion.
The 152bn yen (£780m) accounting scandal led to the departure of Toshiba’s boss Hisao Tanaka last summer. An independent panel of accountants and lawyers found that Toshiba overstated its operating profits over several years in accounting irregularities involving top management.
In December, Japan’s Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission imposed a record 7.37bn yen fine on the company over the accounting scandal which has hammered its reputation.
In the wake of the scandal Toshiba – a vast conglomerate that makes everything from TVs, PCs and rice cookers to nuclear plants – has cut thousands of jobs and moved to sell some divisions to streamline the business.
Toshiba has just sold its medical equipment division to Canon for almost $6bn. It also announced a basic agreement to sell a majority interest in its home appliance business to China’s Midea.
Mar 25, 2016
SongStar101
Enter Anonymous, another group working behind the scenes with the Council of Worlds, the Puppet Master, and Trump!
After Brussels, Anonymous to tackle ISIS and bigotry
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/03/24/after-brussels-anonymous-to-tackle-i...|finance|headline|headline|story&par=yahoo&doc=103494263
Activist hacker group Anonymous is calling for people to stand up against discrimination as part of its fight against Islamic State in the wake of the Brussels terror attacks.
In a video posted to YouTube following Tuesday's bombings, an Anonymous member donned a Guy Fawkes mask to condemn the deadly attacks which were launched by a network tied to the terrorist group known as Islamic State (IS).
Thirty one people were left dead in Brussels on after terror attacks targeting the city's main airport and metro on Tuesday.
While the group is best known for hacking its targets, this time Anonymous is also calling for compassion.
"You don't have to hack them. If you stand up against discrimination in your country, you harm them much more than by hacking their websites," the video said.
"The Islamic State cannot recruit Muslims in Europe if they are accepted and included in the society. So we want all of you to stand together against discrimination."
It comes amid criticism over the black of integration in Belgium and the isolation of its Muslim communities, like those located in Brussels' Molenbeek — a neighborhood that has gained a reputation for its link to Islamic extremism after ties were found with the Paris attackers.
Anonymous originally declared "war" on Islamic State following the tragic events in Paris which saw 130 people killed in coordinated attacks throughout the city last November, and later that month claimed to have taken down 20,000 IS-linked Twitter accounts. .
U.S. intelligence officials are now increasingly convinced that the same terrorist network that carried out the Paris attacks were involved in Tuesday's bombings in Brussels, according to NBC News sources.
"We will not rest as long as terrorists continue their actions around the world. We will strike back against them. We will keep hacking their websites, shutting down their Twitter accounts and stealing their bitcoins. We defend the rights of freedom and tolerance," the video stated.
"When they kill innocent civilians in Belgium they hit everybody in Europe. We have to fight back," the video stated.
Mar 25, 2016
Stanislav
Crude Mystery: Where Did 800,000 Barrels of Oil Go? 17 March, 2016.
Tally of unaccounted-for oil hit highest level in 17 years in 2015; oil data is ‘an imperfect science’
There is mystery at the heart of the oversupplied global oil market: missing barrels of crude.
Last year, there were 800,000 barrels of oil a day unaccounted for by the International Energy Agency, the energy monitor that puts together data on crude supply and demand. Where these barrels ended up, or if they even existed, is key to an oil market that remains under pressure from the glut in crude.
Some analysts say the barrels may be in China. Others believe the barrels were created by flawed accounting and they don’t actually exist. If they don’t exist, then the oversupply that has driven crude prices to decade lows could be much smaller than estimated and prices could rebound faster.
Whatever the answer, the discrepancy underscores how oil prices flip around based on data that investors are often unsure of.
Barrels have gone missing before, but last year the tally of unaccounted-for oil grew to its highest level in 17 years. At a time when the issue of oversupply dominates the oil industry, this matters.
“If the market is tighter than assumed due to the missing barrels, prices could spike quicker,” said David Pursell, managing director at energy-focused investment bank Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co.
Here’s how a barrel of crude goes “missing” in the data. Last year, the IEA estimated that on average the world produced around 1.9 million barrels a day more crude than there was demand for. Of that crude, 770,000 barrels went into onshore storage while roughly 300,000 barrels were in transit on the seas or through pipelines. That left roughly 800,000 barrels a day unaccounted for in the data. Global oil supply is about 96 million barrels a day.
In the fourth quarter, the number of missing barrels reached as high as 1.1 million barrels a day, or 43% of the estimated oversupply during that period.
The IEA collates production and demand data from around the world, and its monthly reports often move prices. Other major market monitors, like the U.S. Energy Information Administration and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, don’t break down their data to show the number of missing barrels.
In 1998, the last time the number of missing barrels was so high, concern over the discrepancy reached the U.S. Congress. A U.S. senator asked the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan agency working for Congress, to examine the IEA data. The agency found that “[statistical] limitations can introduce errors into the data, although the magnitude and direction of these errors are not clear.”
That is what most analysts think.
“The most likely explanation for the majority of the missing barrels is simply that they do not exist,” said Paul Horsnell, an oil analyst at Standard Chartered.
Standard Chartered projects U.S. crude averaging $63 a barrel in the fourth quarter, an above-consensus forecast that has been shaped partly by the bank’s belief that the glut is smaller than it seems. The average forecast among 13 investment banks surveyed by The Wall Street Journal last month was oil at $45 a barrel by the end of the year.
West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. benchmark, rose $1.74 a barrel, or 4.5%, to $40.20 on Thursday, giving it a two-day gain of 11%. Brent, the international gauge, rose $1.21 a barrel, or 3%, to $41.54.
A spokesman for the IEA referred to the agency’s website, which says that the barrels’ “miscellaneous to balance” could be explained by overstated supply, understated demand or stockpile changes in countries outside the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
While the IEA estimates supply and demand from global data, its numbers on where the oversupply is being stockpiled come only from members of the OECD. That means that some of those barrels might be found in non-OECD countries like China.
Some analysts disagree. The missing barrels have become such a large proportion of the oversupply that this would imply that stockpiles are building up in non-OECD countries at a much faster pace than those in the organization, something that they question.
Analysts also point out that collecting data on oil is hard.
Demand data is derived from models rather than from real measured consumption and is often substantially revised, investment bank DNB Markets said in a research note. More than half of global oil demand also now comes from non-OECD nations where statistical gathering isn’t as well developed, the bank said.
“We hence suspect that demand in non-OECD in reality is meaningfully larger than what is reported by the IEA,” they said.
Given this, some investors look at trends in oil data rather than the precise numbers they throw up.
Oil data is “an imperfect science,” said Rob Haworth, senior investment strategist at U.S. Bank Wealth Management, which oversees $125 billion in assets.
Still, Mr. Haworth said that whether these barrels are missing or not, the global glut of crude is still far from over.
“The market could be a little tighter, but the barrels we do know about—it’s still a lot of them,” he said. Source: wsj.com
800,000 Barrels of Oil got missed, 43% of the oversupply seemed not exist. 17 March, 2016. Source: financialbuzz.com
Mar 25, 2016
Scott
Hackers 'attack NASA' over claims the secretive space agency is hiding one BIG secret (3/22/16)
...On Sunday night, two groups called New World Hacking and AnonCorrupt claimed to have "blasted" the space agency's main website and email servers using a cyber-weapon called a DDoS attack .
Although the NASA website does not appear to have been brought down and is still in action, the hackers presented us with evidence that suggests some of its systems are still suffering from the after-effects of a digital blitzkreig.
...NASA has not yet confirmed or denied the attack...
"We believe NASA is holding back information on many things, not just one," a member of New World Hacking told Mirror.co.uk.
"The main thing we suspect they are holding back some more information on ISIS that the public needs to know.
"We won't tell the public what we think they are hiding - we will let NASA explain."
The group said the attack was part of a campaign called Operation Censorship (or #OPCensorship) and was also a practice run for upcoming cyber-assaults against Donald Trump, which are expected to take place on April Fool's Day.
...The British hacker Gary McKinnon is also understood to have cracked into NASA servers in a bid to find evidence that aliens had visited the Earth.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/tech/anonymous-hackers-attack-nasa-over-760...
Screenshot shared by hackers show the NASA email server was down in following countries
Remember, the NWH [New World Hacking] is the same group who claimed responsibility for shutting down Xbox online service, BBC news servers, HSBC UK’s online banking, the official website for Donald Trump’s election campaign, Salt Lake city Police and airport websites.
https://www.hackread.com/hackers-ddos-shutdown-nasa-website-email-s...
ZetaTalk: GodlikeProduction Live December 26, 2009
Why is the US so keen to extradite Gary McKinnon from the UK for hacking NASA - did he come across info on Planet X as well as UFO pictures as he claims?
Yes, on all counts.
Mar 26, 2016
SongStar101
Scientists attempt to regain contact with Japan's malfunctioning Hitomi satellite
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2016/03/29/scientists-attempt-to-reg...
In this Feb. 17, 2016 photo, an H-2A rocket carrying an X-ray astronomy satellite called "Hitomi", is launched from the Tanegashima Space Center in Kagoshima Prefecture, southern Japan. (Kyodo News via AP)
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is attempting to regain contact with its malfunctioning Hitomi astronomy satellite.
JAXA lost contact with Hitomi, also known as Astro-H, at 3:40 a.m. ET March 26, Space.com reports. The satellite was launched aboard an H-2A rocket on Feb. 17.
In a statement released Tuesday, the Agency said that it has been trying to communicate with the x-ray astronomy satellite using ground stations in Japan and other countries. JAXA received signals from the satellite at around 9 a.m. ET Monday at the Uchinoura Ground Station in Japan and at about 11:30 a.m. ET Monday at the Santiago Tracking Station in Chile. “JAXA has not been able to figure out the state of its health, as the time frames for receiving the signals were very short.”
On March 27 the U.S. Joint Space Operations Center (JSpOC) said that Hitomi separated into five pieces on March 26. However, Space.com notes that, despite the debris noticed by JSpOC, the satellite appears to be mostly intact, citing the fact that signals were received after Hitomi’s reported “breakup.”
“In order to investigate the situation, JAXA is observing the objects, using a radar located at the Kamisaibara Space Guard Center (KSGC) and telescopes at the Bisei Space Guard Center (BSGC) owned by the Japan Space Forum,” the Japanese space agency said, in its statement. “Up to now, the telescopes at BSGC detected two objects around the satellite’s original orbit, while the radar at KSGC identified one of them.”
“JAXA continues to investigate the relationship between the information announced by JSpOC and the communication anomaly,” it added. “JAXA will continue to do its best to recover communications with Hitomi and investigate the cause of the anomaly.”
---------------------------------------------
Video Shows Japan's Hitomi Satellite Tumbling in Space, Rescue Efforts Underway
http://www.space.com/32408-japan-hitomi-satellite-tumbling-video-re...
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is struggling to understand exactly what went wrong with its brand-new astronomy satellite, Hitomi, which suffered some sort of malfunction over the weekend and is apparently tumbling in space, according to a video captured by an amateur astronomer.
Officials with JAXA lost regular contact with Hitomi on Saturday (March 26), but the space agency received two cryptic signals from the spacecraft yesterday, officials reported in a status update today (March 29). Radar observations have detected two objects near the satellite's orbit, JAXA officials wrote in the update. [See video of the satellite tumbling shot by Paul Maley]
You can track Hitomi on our Satellite Tracker, powered by N2YO, to find out when the craft may be visible from your area.
Amateur astronomers and satellite trackers, meanwhile, are following Hitomi's plight using ground-based telescopes. One video, captured by Paul Maley in Arizona, shows the satellite's brightness flaring up, then dimming, as the craft moves across the sky. Maley told National Geographic's Nadia Drake that his video — which first appeared on Drake's NatGeo blog No Place Like Home — suggests the satellite is tumbling in space.
"Because the orbit of Hitomi is quite stable it is relatively easy to track. In fact, if the sky clears up I will be attempting additional video beginning tonight," Maley told Space.com in an email today, adding that he will be watching for any changes in its rotation. "So far, it remains unchanged at a bit over 10 seconds between major flashes. These peak flashes can reach + 3 magnitude (or slightly dimmer than the North Star) but are brief. Between these major flashes there are minor ones but the satellite is also invisible during each major flash cycle as well. My video does reveal that."
According to JAXA's latest update, the Hitomi satellite, which launched in February, separated into multiple pieces at around 10:42 a.m. EDT (1442 GMT) March 26. JAXA detected two short flashes of signal 2.5 hours apart over the night of March 28-29, from the Santiago Tracking Station in Chile.
"JAXA has not been able to figure out the state of its health, as the time frames for receiving the signals were very short," JAXA officials said in the statement. [Japan's Hitomi X-Ray Astronomy Satellite Explained (Infographic)]
The U.S. Strategic Command's Joint Space Operations Center (JSpOC) reported that on Sunday (March 27), it detected five pieces of debris associated with the satellite. Then amateur observers like Maley noted flashes of light coming from the satellite at a regular interval, suggesting that the craft was spinning.
JAXA's own radar, at the Kamisaibara Space Guard Center, has detected two objects near the satellite's original orbit, and Japan Space Forum's Bisei Space Guard Center telescope has seen one of them. The organization "continues to investigate the relationship between the information announced by JSpOC and the communication anomaly," officials said.
"JAXA will continue to do its best to recover communications with Hitomi and investigate the cause of the anomaly," they added.
Hitomi, also known as ASTRO-H, launched Feb. 17 to simultaneously observe regions of the sky in the X-ray and gamma-ray registers. The craft was 46 feet (14 meters) long when deployed and weighed 6,000 lbs. (2.7 metric tons). It is intended to investigate the evolution and large-scale structure of the universe, dark matter distribution, how matter behaves in high-gravity areas like black holes and other high-energy phenomena, JAXA wrote on the telescope's website.
The satellite was built in collaboration with NASA, the Canadian Space Agency and European Space Agency among others.
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Lost Japanese Satellite Reappears Smashed Into Five Pieces And Nobody Knows What Happened
https://news.yahoo.com/lost-japanese-satellite-reappears-smashed-in...
A black hole-hunting Japanese satellite that disappeared last week has mysteriously surfaced again and made contact with ground control.
Japanese space agency JAXA lost contact with the Hitomi space probe on Saturday, when the satellite was due to start operations.
The satellite was later found to have smashed apart into five separate pieces.
The satellite later managed to send two short communications to mission control though these haven’t helped ground crew to unravel the mystery of what happened.
“JAXA has not been able to figure out the state of its health, as the time frames for receiving the signals were very short,” said JAXA in a statement.
The US Joint Space Operations Center, which spotted the broken apart satellite has said there’s no evidence that the probe was hit by space debris.
This suggests that the Hitomi’s fate is more likely to be the result of a technical malfunction on the probe itself.
JAXA has not yet be able to find out if they satellite can be salvaged.
A video made by astronomer Paul Maley in Arizona appears to show the satellite spinning out of control, which could explain why it has lost contact with ground control.
The ambitious Hitomi satellite features instruments provided by NASA, ESA and the Canadian Space Agency with the entire project reported to have cost $270million (£188million).
The probe was launched to gather vital information on supermassive black holes.
Mar 31, 2016
SongStar101
South Africa's Jacob Zuma breached constitution - court
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-35932286
The highest court in South Africa has ruled that President Jacob Zuma violated the constitution when he failed to repay government money spent on his private home.
It gave the treasury 60 days to determine how much he should repay.
The ruling is a victory for the opposition, who said they would push for Mr Zuma's impeachment.
They accuse him of using "ill-gotten wealth" to upgrade his home with a swimming pool and amphitheatre.
Mr Zuma has denied any wrongdoing.
A government statement said he would "reflect" on the judgement and take "appropriate action".
A spokeswoman for the governing African National Congress (ANC) said the party's top six officials, who include Mr Zuma and his deputy Cyril Ramaphosa, would meet to discuss the implications of the ruling, Reuters news agency reports.
Mr Zuma has up to now refused to bow to pressure to resign.
'Mighty Sword'
An anti-corruption body, known as the public protector, ruled in 2014 that $23m (£15m) had been spent on his rural home in Nkandla in South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal province.
Mr Zuma had "unduly benefited" from the renovations and should repay a portion of the money, the public protector said.
In a unanimous judgement on behalf of the Constitutional Court's 11 judges, Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng said the public protector was a "Biblical David" fighting against the Goliath of corruption.
Mr Zuma's failure to repay the money was "inconsistent" with the constitution, he added.
"The president failed to uphold, defend and respect the constitution," he declared.
Mr Mogoeng added that public officials ignored the constitution at their peril, and should remember that the rule of law was the "sharp and mighty sword that stands ready to chop the ugly head of impunity from its stiffened neck".
What Mr Zuma must pay for
The case was brought by two opposition parties, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and the Democratic Alliance (DA).
The EFF called on Mr Zuma to step down while the DA said it would table a motion in parliament to demand his impeachment.
Mr Zuma's term in government has been marred by allegations of corruption and cronyism.
Analysis: Milton Nkosi, BBC Africa, Johannesburg
It is very difficult to see how the ANC can continue to have President Zuma at the helm, following the stinging rebuke he received from the Constitutional Court.
Opposition parties now plan to strike against the 73-year-old leader, and hope that ANC MPs will vote with them to impeach him. Another option is for the ANC to recall Mr Zuma, as it did with his predecessor, Thabo Mbeki, in 2008.
A third option would be to say "better the devil you know" and to stick with Mr Zuma, at least until after this year's crucial local government elections.
As for South Africans, they are celebrating the independence of the Constitutional Court. It has shown that it will protect the public from the abuse of power and will not be a political crony of the government. This is likely to embolden South Africans to continue fighting corruption and demanding accountability from the government.
Mar 31, 2016
SongStar101
Second judge says Clinton email setup may have been in 'bad faith'
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-clinton-idUSKCN0WV2EI
A second federal judge has taken the rare step of allowing a group suing for records from Hillary Clinton's time as U.S. secretary of state to seek sworn testimony from officials, saying there was "evidence of government wrong-doing and bad faith."
The language in Judge Royce Lamberth's order undercut the Democratic presidential contender's assertion she was allowed to set up a private email server in her home for her work as the country's top diplomat and that the arrangement was not particularly unusual.
He described Clinton's email arrangement as "extraordinary" in his order filed on Tuesday in federal district court in Washington.
Referring to the State Department, Clinton and Clinton's aides, he said there had been "constantly shifting admissions by the Government and the former government officials."
Spokesmen for Clinton did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The case is a civil matter, but the order adds to the legal uncertainty that has overshadowed Clinton's campaign to be the Democratic nominee in the Nov. 8 presidential election.
The FBI is also conducting a criminal inquiry into the arrangement after it emerged that classified government secrets ended up in Clinton's unsecured email account. Clinton has said she does not think she will be charged with a crime.
Lamberth's order granted the request by Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group suing the department under open records laws, to gather evidence, including sworn testimony. The group has filed several lawsuits, including one seeking records about the 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.
"Where there is evidence of government wrong-doing and bad faith, as here, limited discovery is appropriate, even though it is exceedingly rare in FOIA (freedom-of-information) cases,"
Lamberth noted in his order.
The government is normally given the benefit of the doubt that it properly searched and produced records.
Since the email arrangement came to public knowledge a year ago, the State Department has found itself defending Clinton in scores of lawsuits from groups, individuals and news outlets who say they were wrongly denied access to Clinton's federal records.
Clinton left the department in 2013, but did not return her email records to the government until nearly two years later.
Last month, Judge Emmet Sullivan, who is overseeing a separate Judicial Watch lawsuit over other Clinton-related records, allowed a similar motion for discovery.
Mar 31, 2016
casey a
The biggest leak of documents in oil-industry history has exposed Monaco-based company Unaoil as an agent of serious corruption. Now, law enforcement groups around the world, including the FBI, are taking notice.
http://www.theage.com.au/interactive/2016/the-bribe-factory/#chapter2
(Unaoil essentially acted as a middleman for big oil companies and such, through bribes.)
the reporters stated that western companies worked with Iraq’s “new elite” to begin a “sustained campaign of looting.”... and that Unaoil “influenced a Who's Who of the country’s oil industry” from 2004 to 2012, from the deputy prime minister to the oil minister and beyond.
The report goes on to cover Unaoil’s dealings in North Africa, alleging that before the overthrow of the Libyan government in 2011, Unaoil made dodgy deals with officials, guaranteeing oil and gas contracts for multi-national corporations.
The report also states that similar dealings took place in Syria, with Unaoil helping British oil company Petrofac secure deals with the government.
The US Department of Justice, FBI, UK National Crime Agency and Australian Federal Police are now jointly investigating the allegations in what could become the world’s biggest probe into corruption allegations.
https://www.rt.com/news/337961-unaoil-corruption-scandal-investigat...
The headquarters of the Monaco-based oil company Unaoil and the homes of its executives have been raided by police in the wake of revelations in recent days that it has systematically corrupted the global oil industry.
In a statement, the Monaco government said it was helping British authorities investigate the "vast corruption scandal"
Apr 1, 2016
casey a
Hacker claims he helped Enrique Peña Nieto win Mexican presidential election
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/31/mexico-presidential-el...
Andrés Sepúlveda, an online campaign strategist, claimed he had also helped to manipulate elections in nine countries across Latin America by stealing data, installing malware and creating fake waves of enthusiasm and derision on social media.
According to the report, Sepúlveda saw speech drafts, meetings plans and campaign schedules as they were typed into the keyboard.
Sepúlveda said he destroyed most of the evidence and that many of the candidates he helped may be unaware of his role, which was organised via middlemen. Chief among them is Rendón, dubbed the “Karl Rove of Latin America”. The article cites email between the two men. But Rendón said the emails had not come from any of his accounts.
“My job was to do actions of dirty war and psychological operations, black propaganda, rumours – the whole dark side of politics that nobody knows exists but everyone can see,” the 31-year-old told Bloomberg.
The black propaganda could also be more focussed. To alienate the conservative Catholic supporters of a regional candidate in Tabasco, Sepúlveda claims he set up fake Facebook accounts of gay men to provide unwelcome support. In the swing state of Jalisco, he deliberately upset voters with automated 3am campaign calls purportedly coming from leftwing gubernatorial candidate Enrique Alfaro Ramírez – who subsequently lost by a narrow margin.
Apr 1, 2016
casey a
Brazil prosecutors charge billionaire Safra in bribery scheme
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-corruption-safra-idUSKCN0W...
Brazilian prosecutors on Thursday charged Joseph Safra, the world's richest banker, in connection with an alleged scheme to pay bribes to government officials in return for waiving tax debts.
The charges filed are a follow-up of a broader police inquiry, known as "Operation Zealots," into kickbacks by companies through lobbyists. Dozens of other Brazilian firms have also been under investigation for suspected kickbacks.
Apr 1, 2016
Scott
Hackers breach computer networks of some big U.S. law firms (3/30/16)
Hackers broke into the computer networks of some big U.S. law firms, including Cravath Swaine & Moore LLP and Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.
Federal investigators are looking to see if confidential information was stolen for insider trading, as these law firms represented Wall Street banks and big companies, the Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-hacking-law-firms-idUSKCN0WW09F
Reports Disclose Law Firms Targeted by Hackers (4/1/16)
...A Weil spokesperson declined to comment, but Cravath confirmed that the firm identified a "limited breach of its IT systems" in the summer of 2015.
...Cyber security professionals said that what's new about these hacks and attempted attacks is that they've been disclosed, willingly or not.
Law firms will go to great lengths to keep attempted and successful hacks secret, because any sign that the data they store isn't secure can result in a "huge loss of customer confidence," said Austin Berglas, former head of the FBI's cyber branch in New York.
http://www.newyorklawjournal.com/home/id=1202753787431/Reports-Disc...
Apr 2, 2016
Scott
World's top banks in U.S. government cross-hairs over dealings with 1MDB (4/1/16)
U.S. Department of Justice officials have asked Deutsche Bank AG and JPMorgan Chase & Co to provide details on their dealings with 1MDB, as global investigations into the troubled Malaysian state fund widen.
U.S. Department of Justice officials also traveled to Kuala Lumpur [capital of Malaysia] to speak to senior bankers and other people with close links to the state fund, three people with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters. They said JPMorgan and Deutsche were not the target of investigations at this stage, but had only been asked to provide details.
...The U.S. government is already reviewing Goldman Sachs' relationship with the Malaysian fund. A Federal Bureau of Investigation team specializing in "international kleptocracy" is leading the bureau's inquiries, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters last year.
...Singapore's central bank said on Friday it had asked financial institutions to provide details of any transactions linked to 1MDB, without identifying any lenders by name.
...On Thursday, Luxembourg's state prosecutor launched a judicial inquiry into allegations of money laundering involving hundreds of millions of dollars against 1MDB.
This follows a similar inquiry by Swiss prosecutors, who said earlier this year they had identified four cases of alleged criminal misconduct in the suspected misappropriation of about $4 billion from Malaysian state companies.
Malaysia's central bank also said it would pursue administrative action against 1MDB for missing a deadline to submit documents on its finances abroad.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-malaysia-1mdb-idUSKCN0WY3IB
Apr 2, 2016
casey a
Citibank And HSBC Worked With Firm At Center Of International Bribery Scandal
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/unaoil-citibank-hsbc_us_56feba0...
British financial giant HSBC and American bailout kingpin Citibank processed transactions, managed money and vouched for Unaoil, a once-obscure firm that is now at the center of a massive international corruption scandal.
Halliburton, KBR and other corporate conglomerates relied on Unaoil to deliver them lucrative contracts with corrupt regimes in oil-rich nations. But without the help of banks like HSBC and Citibank, none of Unaoil’s operations would have been possible.
Money from major Western corporations went into one account, which was then transferred to other accounts, which in turn was used to pay various officials.
HSBC and Citibank have histories of corruption. In 2012, HSBC was fined $1.9 billion for laundering drug money and violating U.S. sanctions against Iran. In 2015, it paid Swiss authorities $43 million to settle allegations that it helped the global elite illegally dodge taxes. Citibank was fined $140 million last year for violations of money laundering laws related to its work with an energy company involved in a bribery scandal with the Mexican government. The bank is currently being investigated for its role in the bribery scandal at FIFA, the international soccer organization.
In addition to managing Unaoil’s accounts, HSBC also vouched for the company, helped it win business and loaned money to members of the Ahsani family. In October 2004, Unaoil asked HSBC to send a letter to the Iraqi government vouching for the company as a legitimate business in sound enough financial shape to follow through on its bid for a government contract
Apr 3, 2016
Shaun Kazuck
Seems the war against the coverup continues.
"Unprecedented Leak" Exposes The Criminal Financial Dealings Of Some Of The World's Wealthiest People
An unprecedented leak of more than 11 million documents, called the "Panama Papers", has revealed the hidden financial dealings of some of the world's wealthiest people, as well as 12 current and former world leaders and 128 more politicians and public officials around the world.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-03/unprecedented-leak-exposes...
Apr 3, 2016
Scott
U.N. audit identifies serious lapses linked to alleged bribery (4/3/16)
...The 21-page confidential report by the U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services' (OIOS), reviewed by Reuters, outlines the results of an audit ordered by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in response to charges against John Ashe, General Assembly president in 2013-2014, and six other people.
...the irregularities uncovered - a U.N. document improperly altered, travel expenses paid by NGOs against U.N. guidelines, U.N. employees keeping iPads given to them by an NGO headed by an indicted individual.
...The audit came in response to an ongoing U.S. investigation that has since October resulted in charges against seven people including Ashe, a former U.N. ambassador from Antigua and Barbuda.
U.S. prosecutors say Ashe received $1.3 million in bribes from Chinese businessmen including Ng Lap Seng, a billionaire real estate developer who heads Macau-based Sun Kian Ip Group and was seeking to build a U.N.-sponsored conference center in Macau.
Francis Lorenzo, a suspended deputy U.N. ambassador from the Dominican Republic who prosecutors said helped facilitate Ng's bribes and received bribes himself, pleaded guilty in March and agreed to cooperate with U.S. authorities. Sheri Yan, chief executive of Global Sustainability Foundation, a New York-based NGO, and Heidi Hong Piao, its finance director, accused of facilitating bribes to Ashe, pleaded guilty in January. Julia Vivi Wang has not yet entered a plea, and Ng's assistant Jeff Yin pleaded not guilty.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-un-corruption-exclusive-idUSKCN0X...
Apr 3, 2016
casey a
IMF Tries To Put Out Fire From Bombshell Greece Leak
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/imf-greece-leak-letter-response...
Greece challenges IMF over WikiLeaks revelations
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/04/02/greece-challenges-im...
Greece has demanded "explanations" from the International Monetary Fund after WikiLeaks made public a transcript suggesting that the organisation was pushing for a crisis or "event" to force the country into deciding on new reforms.
Apr 4, 2016
Starr DiGiacomo
http://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/03/iceland-pm-calls-snap-e...
Iceland’s PM faces calls for snap election after offshore revelations
Sunday 3 April 2016 13.52 EDT
Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson under fire after leaked papers show he failed to declare stake in offshore company
Iceland’s prime minister is this week expected to face calls in parliament for a snap election after the Panama Papers revealed he is among several leading politicians around the world with links to secretive companies in offshore tax havens.
The financial affairs of Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson and his wife have come under scrutiny because of details revealed in documents from a Panamanian law firm that helps clients protect their wealth in secretive offshore tax regimes. The files from Mossack Fonseca form the biggest ever data leak to journalists.
Opposition leaders have this weekend been discussing a motion calling for a general election – in effect a confidence vote in the prime minister.
On Monday, Gunnlaugsson is expected to face allegations from opponents that he has hidden a major financial conflict of interest from voters ever since he was elected an MP seven years ago.
The former prime minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir said Gunnlaugsson would have to resign if he could not regain public trust quickly, calling on him to “give a straightforward account of all the facts of the matter”.
The former finance minister Steingrímur Sigfússon told the Guardian: “We can’t permit this. Iceland would simply look like a banana republic. No one is saying he used his position as prime minister to help this offshore company, but the fact is you shouldn’t leave yourself open to a conflict of interest. And nor should you keep it secret.”
Leaked papers show Gunnlaugsson co-owned a company called Wintris Inc, set up in 2007 on the Caribbean island of Tortola in the British Virgin Islands, to hold investments with his wealthy partner, later wife, Anna Sigurlaug Pálsdótti The couple were living in the UK at the time and had been advised to set up a company in the tax haven in order to hold and invest substantial proceeds from the sale of Pálsdóttir’s share in her family’s business back in Iceland.
Gunnlaugsson owned a 50% stake in Wintris for more than two years, then transferred it to Pálsdóttir, who held the other 50%, for one dollar. The prime minister’s office now says his shareholding was an error and “it had always been clear to both of them that the prime minister’s wife owned the assets”. Once drawn to the couple’s attention in late 2009, the error was corrected.
Towards the end of Gunnlaugsson’s time as a Wintris shareholder, having returned to Iceland, he was elected to parliament as leader of the Progressive party.
Gunnlaugsson, who became prime minister four years later, never disclosed his Wintris shares on Iceland’s parliamentary register of MPs’ financial interests.
Nor has he spoken about the offshore company publicly – until questioned by the Guardian and other media working in conjunction with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
When first asked if he had ever owned an offshore company, Gunnlaugsson said: “Myself? No. Well, the Icelandic companies I have worked with had connections with offshore companies … but I can confirm I have never hidden any of my assets.”
Asked what he knew about Wintris, he initially said: “Well, it’s a company, if I recall correctly, which is associated with one of the companies that I was on the board of.” Shortly afterwards, Gunnlaugsson ended the interview.
Public statements
The prime minister and his wife then rushed out separate public statements in Icelandic condemning reporters’ intrusions into their private business matters.
Both stressed their financial interests had always been properly disclosed to the Icelandic tax authorities. The Guardian has seen no evidence to suggest tax avoidance, evasion or any dishonest financial gain on the part of Gunnlaugsson, Pálsdóttir or Wintris.
The prime minister now accepts he did jointly own Wintris with his wife. Copies of the share certificate in his name and of Wintris’s share register are published today by the Guardian.
He nevertheless insists he did not have to declare his shares on the parliamentary register because Wintris was a holding company, not a “commercial company”.
He was elected to parliament in April 2009 and did not transfer his Wintris shares to Pálsdóttir until the last day of that year. A copy of the transfer agreement is published here.
Asked if he had nevertheless breached the spirit of the disclosure rules, the prime minister declined to reply. He conceded there might be a case for tightening the rulebook.
Leaked Wintris documents show in detail the layers of complexity associated with such BVI companies, masking the identity of those in charge.
They also raise uncomfortable questions about how Gunnlaugsson could have remained unaware – for more than two years – that he was the owner of 50% of Wintris and its considerable investments.
The instruction to set up Wintris first came through agents in Luxembourg, who contacted Mossack Fonseca, an international law firm specialising in offshore secrecy. A registered office was set up in the BVI and three nominee directors recruited from Panama.
Power of attorney
Names of the Panamanian directors appear on almost all of the company’s official paperwork for the first three years, but it was Gunnlaugsson and Pálsdóttir who held the authority to control the firm, having privately been granted power of attorney over Wintris’s affairs.
Five months after it was set up, the company also made arrangements to open a bank account at a London branch of Credit Suisse. By then, the involvement of Gunnlaugsson and Pálsdóttir in the activities of Wintris was well hidden from the public gaze.
Later that year, Iceland became one of the most severe casualties of the global credit crisis. Financial meltdown meant the country was forced to seek bailout loans and impose currency controls as foreign investors rushed to sell out of the rapidly devaluing Icelandic króna.
While Wintris was shielded from some of this turmoil, it had invested in bonds issued by three Icelandic banks and was owed more than 500m Icelandic króna (£2.8m) when they all collapsed. Only a small fraction of that sum is likely to be recovered.
Revelations from the Panama Papers about Gunnlaugsson and Pálsdóttir’s offshore activities are awkward for Iceland’s prime minister, who has made a name for himself defending the collapse of his country’s financial system against the demands of foreign creditors, whom he has repeatedly characterised as “vultures”.
He has dismissed suggestions that his wife’s ownership of Wintris compromised him as prime minister. On the contrary, he suggested, his consistently tough approach to foreign creditors, including Wintris, demonstrated that his wife’s financial interests had never affected his decision-making.
Icelanders’ suspicions
For some years many ordinary Icelanders have grown suspicious about wealthy Icelanders and their use of offshore companies, concerned such arrangements are designed to avoid tax.
To pursue investigations in this area, Iceland’s tax office last year paid a whistleblower for a cache of data from Mossack Fonseca’s regional office in Luxembourg. As a result, tax inspectors are said to have in their hands the private details of up to 400 Icelanders with interests in tax havens.
There is no suggestion of tax avoidance in the case of Wintris, but the prime minister said he and his wife had “always assumed” the whistleblower data could include information on Wintris. He said he supported the tax office’s ongoing inquiries.
A rebellion against the prime minister in parliament on Monday may depend in part on the position taken by his partners in coalition government, led by the finance minister, Bjarni Benediktsson.
But Benediktsson’s name also appears in the Panama Papers as he previously owned a third of a company called Falson & Co, incorporated in the Seychelles. Benediktsson’s interest in Falson was held through bearer share certificates, which do not record the name of the owner.
He told the Guardian the company had been set up with two co-investors to buy a property in Dubai, but the deal had fallen through in 2009 and he had had no dealings with the company since.
In a television interview last year, Benediktsson was asked if he had ever done business in tax havens. “No, I haven’t done that,” he said. “I have not had any assets in tax havens – not done anything like that.”
Asked why he had not mentioned Falson, Benediktsson said he had not realised it was based in the Seychelles. He had thought it was in Luxembourg.
Apr 4, 2016
Corey Young
@Star DiGiacomo,
I think its also interesting to note the Western Corporate media's 'selective' searches within the data. I have read on twitter etc... that people are questioning why Iceland (no western banks) and in particular Russia (Putin fascination) are being singled out while no real mention of Western CEO's and billionaire's being singled out is being brought to light.
Of course...it is relatively early in the investigation of the data being released.....I am hopeful that the CoW and those working behind the scenes can reveal for impactful information!
Apr 4, 2016
SongStar101
Leaked papers give Fifa ethics committee new credibility crisis
http://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/03/leaked-papers-fifa-ethi...
Football (soccer) body launches inquiry after documents shows member’s links to ex-vice-president accused of corruption
Fifa could face another crisis after the Panama Papers revealed an apparent conflict of interest at the heart of the ethics committee supposed to clean it up.
The documents – part of a huge data leak from the law firm Mossack Fonseca, which helps clients set up companies in offshore tax regimes – show links between Juan Pedro Damiani, a Uruguayan lawyer and long-serving member of the ethics committee, and Eugenio Figueredo, a former senior Fifa vice-president recently accused of corruption, are far more extensive than previously known.
The files could threaten to undermine the credibility of the ethics committee, which is central to attempts to show Fifa is willing to reform after decades of corruption allegations.
Fifa’s ethics committee immediately launched an inquiry, insisting it did not know about Damiani’s business links to Figueredo before the former informed its chair, the German judge Hans-Joachim Eckert, via email on 18 March after being confronted by the Guardian and its partners in the Panama Papers project.
Eckert, who chairs the adjudicatory chamber of the committee on which Damiani sits, passed the case to the investigatory arm. In his email to Eckert, Damiani said he had maintained a professional relationship with Figueredo since 2007 – although documents seen by the Guardian suggest it may go back even further.
According to the Panama Papers, Damiani and his law firm act for more than 200 offshore companies registered with Mossack Fonseca, the Panamanian legal firm whose database has been leaked.
There is nothing unlawful in acting for or setting up offshore companies, but the lack of transparency is a cause for concern.
The files reveal several of these companies are connected to Figueredo – who was arrested in Zurich last year and accused of involvement in a $110m (£77m) bribery scam – and that the two men appear to have had ties dating back to 2002.
The documents also show that Damiani arranged the formation of a Panamanian company through which Figueredo, who is also Uruguayan, was given special powers to make loans to sporting institutions.
The professional links between them continued until at least February 2015, when Damiani asked Mossack Fonseca to give special powers to Figueredo’s wife over a company called Gilson Overseas SA, which is now under investigation. Less than four months after Mossack Fonseca carried out the work, Figueredo was provisionally banned by the ethics committee.
The documents also reveal that in June 2015, a month after Figueredo’s arrest, the former Fifa vice-president was still the “beneficial owner” – the real owner of a company, whose name may not appear on the shareholder register – of five companies. He was also still named as an official of two other companies. All seven were represented by Damiani’s law firm. Five out of the seven remained active at the end of 2015, the Panama Papers show.
The revelations will not only call into question Damiani’s position on the committee. He will also have to explain how he came to represent the offshore financial interests of an official who has now been accused of bribery.
The disclosures may damage the credibility of the ethics committee, which has fought the perception that it is being used for political ends by Fifa’s disgraced former president Sepp Blatter and others.
Damiani, who has served on the committee since its formation in 2003, and Figueredo are two of the biggest names in South American football. As well as being a lawyer, Damiani is president of one of the country’s biggest football teams, Peñarol. He has handled a string of bans, including Blatter’s suspension. Figueredo, 84, a former head of Uruguay’s football association and a key figure in South American football for decades, was a Fifa vice-president in 2013 and 2014. Figueredo’s time as head of Uruguay’s FA was tainted by claims of cronyism.
He was arrested in a swoop on Zurich’s five-star Baur au Lac hotel last May after the US Department of Justice outlined corruption charges including money laundering, racketeering and tax evasion. He is accused of being involved in a scheme to solicit $110m in bribes from broadcasting executives in exchange for a suite of rights to the Copa America – the South American version of the European Championships – and a centenary edition of the tournament to be played in 2016. Prosecutors say Figueredo was in line for a $3m payment as a result of the scheme.
In addition to the US accusations, Figueredo pleaded guilty this year to fraud and money laundering in a separate case in Uruguay.
The US indictment alleged one of the three sports rights companies involved was led by the sports marketing executives Hugo Jinkis and his son Mariano. The files show Damiani once represented their offshore vehicle Cross Trading, registered in the tiny island country of Niue. In June 2015, as the scale of corruption within Fifa began to emerge, Mossack Fonseca resigned as the registered agents of Cross Trading.
It is understood from Fifa sources that Damiani did not mention any links to Cross Trading in his email to the ethics committee last month.
Damiani told the Guardian he was not authorised to comment on the case while Figueredo was being investigated in Uruguay. A spokesman for one of his law firms said Damiani himself had first submitted a report that led to action being taken against Figueredo by the Uruguayan authorities. He also said Damiani had kept the Fifa ethics committee informed and reported the case to it in January 2014. Asked about links that appeared to continue beyond that date, Damiani refused to comment further.
“To sum up, as an organisation, but also on a personal level and a professional level as president of Peñarol, Mr Damiani took all the relevant measures to bring clarity to these incidents, even though following those steps was not a legal requirement on his part,” said the spokesman. He said Damiani did not maintain any professional or commercial links with anyone under criminal investigation in the US over the Fifa scandal.
Jinkis failed to reply for requests to comment.
Lionel Messi
The world’s best footballer, Lionel Messi, is one of the high-profile people who crop up in the Panama Papers. Records show he and his father, Jorge Horacio, were the ultimate beneficial owners of a company called Mega Star Enterprises, registered by Mossack Fonseca in February 2012. There is nothing unlawful about having an offshore company.
Both men are currently on trial in Spain for tax evasion. That case centres on the alleged simulated transfer of image rights into front companies with no business activity in Uruguay and Belize. Both men have denied the accusations and instead blamed a former financial adviser. Jorge Messi made a voluntary corrective payment of €5m in August 2013. Mega Star enterprises is not mentioned in the case.
The Guardian contacted Messi about Mega Star 12 days ago. He has not responded. His father declined to comment to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
Apr 4, 2016
SongStar101
A world of hidden wealth: why we are shining a light offshore
http://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/03/a-world-of-hidden-wealt...
They are known as the CDOTs – the UK’s crown dependencies and overseas territories – island states such as the Caymans and the British Virgin Islands.
On maps they appear no bigger than a full stop, but each year billions of dollars in capital sail into the global banking system along the warm currents of the Caribbean.
Economists are charting an unrelenting, escalating transfer of wealth, enabled by the offshore system, often from the very poorest to the very richest nations.
The money is sometimes spent in obvious ways – funding super-yachts, private jets, fine art auctions and, of course, property. But there is the unseen damage. It harms the ecology of vibrant cities by making them unaffordable to ordinary people.
The cash is also a shot in the arm to the financial system. Lawfully injected into London hedge funds and Wall Street trading rooms, it funds high-stakes investments and, in the good years, big bonus pools.
The movement of this offshore money is an industry made possible in part by the secrecy on sale in tax havens, led by the UK’s substantial network of offshore enclaves. The Panama Papers lift the veil on how this world works – and the people who use it.
While much of the leaked material will remain private, there are compelling reasons for publishing some of the data. The documents reveal a huge breadth of unseen activity.
At one end of this spectrum, the papers simply reveal the vast number of people who use offshore to protect their wealth. There is nothing unlawful about doing this. It is not illegal to be a director, shareholder or beneficial owner – the real owner, even though their name may not appear on the shareholder register – of an offshore company. But the financial advantages these structures provide are not generally available to the ordinary taxpayer.
Since the 2008 crash, there has been a clamour for everyone to pay a fair share of the tax burden.
Unsurprisingly, the public is questioning – perhaps more than ever – whether a system that provides advantages only to the wealthy is immoral. And the political climate that once tolerated this inequality has changed decisively.
At the other end of this spectrum there is, frankly, what could be described as offshore pandemonium.
In the files we have found evidence of Russian banks providing slush funds for President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle; assets belonging to 12 country leaders, including the leaders of Iceland, Pakistan and Ukraine; companies connected to more than 140 senior politicians, their friends and relatives, and to some 22 people subject to sanctions for supporting regimes in North Korea, Syria, Russia and Zimbabwe; the proceeds of crimes, including Britain’s infamous Brink’s-Mat gold robbery; and enough art hidden in private collections to fill a public gallery.
Just as importantly, we will shine a spotlight on the role of the facilitators: the well-paid lawyers, accountants and private bankers in financial centres such as London and Geneva, whose expertise lies in moving money offshore.
Behaviour revealed in the Panama Papers highlights the failures of regulatory regimes that were either oblivious to, or unwilling to act against, Mossack Fonseca, the law firm from whose database the documents have been leaked.
Yet at least one underling in the firm recognised the jeopardy. He emailed the head office in Panama to ask: “Is there any kind of indemnity that stop[s] us as employees of Mossack Fonseca from being prosecuted? We are getting a bit worried …”
The disclosures have been made possible by the biggest data leak in history – 11.5m documents detailing the activities of more than 200,000 offshore companies, about two-thirds of the total incorporated by Mossack Fonseca.
Obtained from an anonymous source by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and shared by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists with other media organisations, the files are a mine of emails, shareholder registers, bank statements, internal reports, passport scans and company certificates.
Companies should know who really owns them and law enforcers should be able to obtain this information easily Though the source of the leak is not known to the Guardian, there can be no doubt as to the files’ authenticity – and potential impact.
The offshore industry may say there are good reasons for sheltering assets in tax havens. Big corporations often argue they have a duty to their shareholders to pay as little tax as is legal. But they are swimming against the tide.
Research group Global Financial Integrity puts the figure for illicit financial outflows from developing countries at $1tn a year and growing.
No wonder then that some world leaders are now taking a stand.
In June 2013, at the G8 summit in Northern Ireland, Britain’s prime minister, David Cameron, promised to fight the “scourge of tax evasion and aggressive tax avoidance”, with transparency, in particular “transparency about who owns which companies”.
World leaders, including Barack Obama, signed up to the plan, which stated: “Companies should know who really owns them and tax collectors and law enforcers should be able to obtain this information easily.”
The details from the Panama Papers will contribute to an important public debate – not just in the UK but across the world – about what offshore activity can be tolerated, and what should not.
Can you have transparency if some activities are kept secret, and others not? And who makes that judgment? These are huge questions that governments have not been able to answer.
In May, the UK is planning to host an anti-corruption summit. Offshore tax havens are to be discussed – and after the Panama Papers disclosures they are likely to be top of the agenda.
Apr 4, 2016