Global Articles on what is going on...posted daily

[sandi66]

WikiLeaks release puts companies on alert for security of their data
By JORDAN ROBERTSON
AP Technology Writer
Published: Monday, December 6, 2010 1:08 PM MST

SAN FRANCISCO — WikiLeaks’ release of secret government communications is a warning to the world’s biggest companies: You may be next.

Computer experts have warned for years about the threat posed by disgruntled insiders and by poorly crafted security policies, which give too much access to confidential data. And there is nothing about WikiLeaks’ release of U.S. diplomatic documents to suggest that the group can’t — or won’t — use the same methods to reveal the secrets of powerful corporations.

And as WikiLeaks claims it has incriminating documents from a major U.S. bank, possibly Bank of America, there’s new urgency to addressing information security inside corporations and a reminder of its limits when confronted with a determined insider.

At risk are e-mails, documents, databases and internal websites that companies think are locked to the outside world. Companies create records of every decision they make, whether it’s rolling out new products, pursuing acquisitions, fighting legislation, foiling rivals or allowing executives to sell stock.

Although it’s easy technologically to limit who in a company sees specific types of information, many companies leave access settings far too open. And despite intentions, mistakes happen and settings can become inadvertently broad, especially as networks grow more complex with reorganizations and acquisitions.

And even when security technology is doing its job, it’s a poor match if someone with legitimate access decides to go rogue.

All an insider needs to obtain and leak secrets are access and a cheap thumb drive. By contrast, outside attackers often have to hack into personal computers at the bottom of the food chain, then use their skills and guile in hopes of working their way up.

Employees go rogue all the time — for ego, to expose hypocrisy, to exact revenge or simply for greed:

n A former analyst with mortgage lender Countrywide Financial Corp., now owned by Bank of America, is awaiting trial on charges he downloaded data on potentially 2 million customers over two years, charging $500 for each batch of 20,000 profiles. Prosecutors say the analyst worked secretly on Sundays, using an unsecured Countrywide computer that allowed downloads to personal thumb drives. Other home loan companies bought the customer profiles, including Social Security numbers, for new sales leads, according to authorities.

n An employee with Certegy Check Services Inc., a check authorization service, was accused of stealing information on more than 8 million people and selling it to telemarketers for a haul of $580,000. He was sentenced in 2008 to nearly five years in prison.

Despite the repeated warnings, many large companies lack clear policies on who should have access to certain data, said Christopher Glyer, a manager with the Mandiant Corp., an Alexandria, Va.-based security firm that investigates computer intrusions.

WikiLeaks argues that revealing details of companies and governments behaving badly, no matter how the information is obtained, is good for democracy.

Julian Assange, WikiLeaks’ founder, told Forbes magazine that the number of leaks his site gets has been increasing “exponentially” as the site has gotten more publicity. He said it sometimes numbers in the thousands per day.

Assange told Forbes that half the unpublished material his organization has is about the private sector, including a “megaleak” involving a bank. He would not name the bank, but he said last year in an interview with Computerworld that he has several gigabytes of data from a Bank of America executive’s hard drive. One gigabyte can hold nearly 700,000 pages of text.

Assange also told Forbes that Wikileaks has “lots” of information on BP PLC, the London-based oil company under fire for the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Assange said his organization is trying to figure out if its information on BP is unique.

WikiLeaks published confidential documents from the Swiss bank Julius Baer and the Kaupthing Bank in Iceland. The site also published an operation manual for the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

WikiLeaks’ most recent leaks exposed frank and sometimes embarrassing communications from diplomats and world leaders. They included inflammatory assessments of their counterparts and international hot spots such as Iran and North Korea.

The prime suspect in the diplomatic leaks, Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, is being held in a maximum-security military brig at Quantico, Va., charged in connection with an earlier WikiLeaks release: video of a 2007 U.S. Apache helicopter attack in Baghdad that killed a Reuters news photographer and his driver.

Military investigators say Manning is a person of interest in the leak of nearly 77,000 Afghan war records WikiLeaks published online in July. Though Manning has not been charged in the latest release of internal U.S. government documents, WikiLeaks has hailed him as a hero.

Manning boasted to a hacker confidant that security was so flimsy he was able to bring a homemade music CD into work, delete its contents and fill it with secrets, according to a log of the exchange posted by Wired.com.

www.trivalleycentral.com/articles/2010/12/06/casa_grande_dispatch/business/doc4cfd3df4318f2789245979.txt

[sandi66]

Democrats Meet With Obama Over Tax Cuts Deal
Democrats meet with Obama, Biden before cutting tax cut deal

WASHINGTON December 6, 2010 (AP)


President Barack Obama called Democratic leaders to the White House Monday in hopes of advancing a year-end bipartisan compromise to extend expiring tax cuts for all Americans and renew jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed.

Some Democrats have complained that the White House was surrendering too much to the Republicans by agreeing to include the upper income in any tax cut deal.

The White House also sought renewal of several other tax provisions that are expiring. These were initially included in the 2009 economic stimulus bill and include a tax credit for lower- and middle-class wage earners, even if they don't make enough to pay federal income taxes, breaks to offset college tuition and breaks for companies that hire the unemployed.

Obama signaled a looming deal during a speech in North Carolina Monday, saying he would cede ground in his positions to help Republican and Democratic lawmakers work out a deal.

"We've got to make sure we're coming up with a solution, even if it's not 100 percent what I want or 100 percent what the Republicans want," Obama said.

Among those expected in the meeting were Vice President Joe Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Democratic whip Dick Durbin.

All sides say a deal could be completed this week. An increasing sense of urgency to complete the deal has set in at the White House, which also wants the Senate to ratify a nuclear arms treaty with Russia. But time is running out for lawmakers in Congress' lame-duck session.

The White House meeting with Democrats Monday was designed to identify what provisions would have to be in the tax deal to win Democratic support.

Questions remained about how many concessions Obama could extract from Republicans in exchange for extending current tax rates for high earners, a proposal he opposed. But without action, lawmakers face the prospect of delivering a tax hike to all taxpayers at the end of the year, when the current rates expire and revert to higher pre-2001 and 2003 levels.

Negotiations between the Obama administration and a bipartisan group of lawmakers centered on a two-year extension of current rates.

At the same time, a jump in the unemployment rate to 9.8 percent is putting pressure on Republicans to accede to President Barack Obama's demand that Congress extend unemployment insurance for a year. GOP congressional leaders had opposed an extension of benefits without cuts elsewhere in the federal budget.

"I think most folks believe the recipe would include at least an extension of unemployment benefits for those who are unemployed and an extension of all of the tax rates for all Americans for some period of time," Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, the Senate's Republican negotiator in the talks, said Sunday.

Central to the deal, White House officials and Democrats said, is an extension of unemployment benefits.

"Without unemployment benefits being extended, personally, this is a nonstarter," said Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the second-ranking member of the Senate Democratic leadership.

Republicans have insisted that any extension of jobless aid be paid for with cuts elsewhere in the federal budget. The White House opposes that, saying such cuts are economically damaging during a weak recovery.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said Republicans would probably cede that point to the Democrats.

"Let's take care of the unemployment compensation even if it isn't ... backed up by real finances," Hatch said. "We've got to do it. So let's do it. But that ought to be it."

About 2 million unemployed workers will run out of benefits this month if they are not renewed, and the administration estimates 7 million will be affected if the payments are not extended for a year.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell on Sunday said discussions are still under way on a variety of unresolved issues.

Any deal would require the approval of the House and Senate, and the president's signature. Obama told Democratic congressional leaders Saturday that he would oppose any extension of tax rates that did not include jobless benefits and other assistance his administration was seeking.

The short-term tax and spending debate is unfolding even as Congress and the Obama administration confront growing anxieties over the federal government's growing deficits.

abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=12326364

[sandi66]

Obama and GOP reach deal on two-year extension of Bush tax cuts for all incomes

By Jon Ward - The Daily Caller | Published: 3:29 PM 12/06/2010 | Updated: 4:14 PM 12

President Obama and congressional Republicans have reached a tentative deal to extend the Bush tax cuts for all income levels and are presenting the proposal to congressional Democrats Monday afternoon, The Daily Caller has learned.

The deal will extend the current tax levels for two more years, preventing taxes from going up on any income levels, despite the wishes of many liberal Democrats — including Obama — that individuals making more than $200,000 a year and families with more than $250,000 a year in income see their rates go up.

In exchange, Republicans have agreed to extend unemployment insurance benefits for an additional 13 months.

Obama presented the proposal to Democratic congressional leaders at the White House Monday afternoon, seeking to obtain their approval for the deal.

A House Democratic leadership source cautioned that the full party caucus will need to give their approval to any deal, which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, will likely present to them at a Tuesday evening meeting.

Other details include a temporary two percent reduction in payroll taxes to replace Obama’s “Making Work Pay” tax credit from the 2009 stimulus bill, and a compromise on the estate tax, which will be set for two years at 35 percent, with a $5 million exemption amount.

The tax rate for capital gains and dividends will be maintained at 15 percent.

The estate tax solution comes from Sen. Blanche Lincoln, Arkansas Democrat, and Sen. Jon Kyl, Arizona Republican.

Obama views the unemployment benefit extension, as well as the payroll tax holiday, as measures which will stimulate the economy, which he has said is his top priority even if it means he must accept some things he does not want, such as a full extension of all tax cuts.

“We’ve got to make sure that we’re coming up with a solution, even if it’s not a hundred percent of what I want or what the Republicans want,” Obama said Monday during a speech in Winston-Salem, N.C. “There’s no reason that ordinary Americans should see their taxes go up next year.”

This article originally stated that the estate tax exemption would be permanent.


dailycaller.com/2010/12/06/obama-and-gop-reach-deal-on-two-year-extension-of-bush-tax-cuts-for-all-incomes/

[sandi66]

Obama and GOP reach deal on two-year extension of Bush tax cuts for all incomes

By Jon Ward - The Daily Caller | Published: 3:29 PM 12/06/2010 | Updated: 4:14 PM 12

President Obama and congressional Republicans have reached a tentative deal to extend the Bush tax cuts for all income levels and are presenting the proposal to congressional Democrats Monday afternoon, The Daily Caller has learned.

The deal will extend the current tax levels for two more years, preventing taxes from going up on any income levels, despite the wishes of many liberal Democrats — including Obama — that individuals making more than $200,000 a year and families with more than $250,000 a year in income see their rates go up.

In exchange, Republicans have agreed to extend unemployment insurance benefits for an additional 13 months.

Obama presented the proposal to Democratic congressional leaders at the White House Monday afternoon, seeking to obtain their approval for the deal.

A House Democratic leadership source cautioned that the full party caucus will need to give their approval to any deal, which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, will likely present to them at a Tuesday evening meeting.

Other details include a temporary two percent reduction in payroll taxes to replace Obama’s “Making Work Pay” tax credit from the 2009 stimulus bill, and a compromise on the estate tax, which will be set for two years at 35 percent, with a $5 million exemption amount.

The tax rate for capital gains and dividends will be maintained at 15 percent.

The estate tax solution comes from Sen. Blanche Lincoln, Arkansas Democrat, and Sen. Jon Kyl, Arizona Republican.

Obama views the unemployment benefit extension, as well as the payroll tax holiday, as measures which will stimulate the economy, which he has said is his top priority even if it means he must accept some things he does not want, such as a full extension of all tax cuts.

“We’ve got to make sure that we’re coming up with a solution, even if it’s not a hundred percent of what I want or what the Republicans want,” Obama said Monday during a speech in Winston-Salem, N.C. “There’s no reason that ordinary Americans should see their taxes go up next year.”

This article originally stated that the estate tax exemption would be permanent.


dailycaller.com/2010/12/06/obama-and-gop-reach-deal-on-two-year-extension-of-bush-tax-cuts-for-all-incomes/

[sandi66]

Treasuries Fall After Obama Says to Extend Tax Cuts for 2 Years
By Keith Jenkins and Ron Harui -

Dec 7, 2010 7:08 AM ET


Treasuries dropped, paring the biggest gain in almost three weeks yesterday, after President Barack Obama said he’ll agree to extend his predecessor’s tax cuts for two years.

Longer-maturity debt led the decline as Obama’s plan would also see the payroll tax cut 2 percentage points to help support the recovery, reducing demand for the safety of debt and widening future budget deficits. The 10-year note yield rose to within three basis points of its highest level in more than four months. U.S. stock futures advanced. Treasuries extended their drop before today’s sale of $32 billion of three-year notes, the first of three auctions this week totaling $66 billion.

“Obama’s comments on tax cuts weigh on Treasuries,” said David Page, a fixed-income strategist at Lloyds TSB Corporate Markets in London. “The long end comes under pressure. Tax cuts have an implicit effect on the U.S. budget deficit, and may lead to further funding requirements.”

The yield on the benchmark 10-year note climbed seven basis points to 2.99 percent as of 6:40 a.m. in New York, according to Bloomberg Data. It reached 3.01 percent earlier today. The 2.625 percent security due November 2020 dropped 19/32, or $5.94 per $1,000 face amount, to 96 28/32. The yield reached 3.04 percent on Dec. 3, the highest level since July 28, according to Bloomberg generic data.

Thirty-year yields gained six basis points to 4.30 percent. Futures contracts on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index gained 0.8 percent.

‘Deficit Problem’

Obama said he would accept a lower rate for the estate tax than Democrats wanted in order to break a stalemate over extending President George W. Bush’s tax cuts before Congress adjourns. The current tax rates, enacted in 2001 and 2003, are set to expire Dec. 31. Without the compromise, middle-income families would become “collateral damage for political warfare here in Washington,” Obama said in televised remarks.

“The tax cuts may help increase consumer spending, but the flipside to this is that the U.S. deficit problem will continue,” said Zeal Yin, who invests in dollar-denominated debt in Taipei at Shin Kong Life Insurance Co., Taiwan’s second- largest life insurer, which manages about $50 billion. “While prices may be supported by possible safety bids in the short term, you have got to underweight the market over one year.”

Ten-year yields may rise as high as 4 percent over the next 12 months, he said.

Debt Sales

The U.S. will auction $32 billion of three-year securities today, $21 billion of 10-year notes tomorrow and $13 billion of 30-year bonds on Dec. 9.

“Fixed-income markets are looking to the start of this week’s bond supply for direction,” Lloyds TSB’s Page said.

The three-year debt to be sold today yielded 0.78 percent in pre-auction trading, compared with 0.575 percent at the previous sale of the securities on Nov. 8. Investors bid for 3.26 times the amount offered last month, compared with 2.95 at the October auction.

Treasuries extended losses before reports this week that economists said will show fewer Americans filed claims for unemployment benefits and consumer confidence rose.

Jobless claims declined by 11,000 to 425,000 in the week ended Dec. 4, according to a Bloomberg survey before the Labor Department report on Dec. 9. The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan preliminary index of consumer sentiment rose to 72.5 in December from 71.6 the prior month, a separate Bloomberg survey showed before the Dec. 10 report.

Technical Decline

Treasury 10-year note futures may decline to as low as 121 13/32 should they fall below the 122 23/32 key support level, UBS AG said, citing technical indicators. That’s the mid-point from Dec. 3’s low of 122 2/32 and high of 123 15/32, according to Richard Adcock, head of fixed-income technical strategy at UBS in London..

The 10-year note contract expiring in March 2011 dropped 16/32 to 122 27/32.

German 10-year government bonds, the euro region’s benchmark securities, dropped amid speculation Ireland will win parliamentary approval for an austerity plan as it seeks to seal an international bailout.

Irish Finance Minister Brian Lenihan will lay out the 2011 budget in parliament in Dublin at 3:45 p.m. local time, adding to measures of about 14 billion euros over the last two years.

Europe ‘Muddling’

The German 10-year yield rose four basis points to 2.90 percent today.

European finance ministers yesterday ruled out immediate aid for Portugal and Spain or an increase to the 750 billion- euro ($997 billion) crisis fund. European Central Bank Governing Council member Nout Wellink said yesterday it’s not the central bank’s task to rescue euro-area countries with funding problems.

“The Europeans are muddling along instead of providing conclusive support to Ireland and the rest of the peripheral countries,” said Marc Fovinci, who helps oversee $2.7 billion as head of fixed income at Ferguson Wellman Capital Management Inc. in Portland, Oregon. “That does nothing but create uncertainty, and provides a flight to quality.”

U.S. government debt has handed investors a 7.3 percent return this year, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch indexes. German debt has gained 6.7 percent, the indexes show.

Treasuries gained yesterday, with 10-year yields falling nine basis points, after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said the central bank may boost debt purchases to support the economy.

The central bank will purchase $6 billion to $8 billion of securities maturing from December 2014 to May 2016 today, according to the New York Fed’s website.

The yield on the 10-year note will end next year at 3.23 percent, according to the average forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of banks and securities companies with the most recent estimates given the heaviest weightings.

www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-07/treasuries-decline-after-obama-agrees-to-two-year-extension-for-tax-cuts.html

[sandi66]

Repeal Amendment deserves debate
BRIAN CALLE >> Calle is the editorial writer and director of the national public policy website, Freedom Politics.com
December 07, 2010 6:00 AM

When the new Congress — including many representatives and a senators purporting to be ideological, citizen activists inspired by the Tea Party — takes office Jan. 2, it is likely that perhaps the most unsettled issue in the nation’s history will be showcased: the debate over state’s rights. This time, though, it may take the form of a proposed constitutional amendment to empower states against federal overreaches.


It is a foregone conclusion that the new Republican majority in the House will, even if just for symbolic purposes, introduce legislation to repeal the Obama health care law. With a Senate still controlled by Democrats and Obama with veto power and no threat of it being overturned, the likelihood of passage is nil for an Obamacare repeal.


What may have some traction, though, is a constitutional amendment, colloquially dubbed the “Repeal Amendment,” which would allow states to band together to overturn federal legislation, such as Obamacare.


Randy Barnett, a CATO Institute senior fellow and professor of constitutional law at Georgetown University, drafted the proposal. It reads: “Any provision of law or regulation of the United States may be repealed by the several states, and such repeal shall be effective when the legislatures of two-thirds of the several states approve resolutions for this purpose that particularly describe the same provision or provisions of law or regulation to be repealed.”


Basically, the legislation would allow states to band together to overturn federal legislation — if two-thirds of state houses passed resolutions opposing a piece of federal legislation, it would be overturned.


Barnett seems to have his finger on the pulse of many Americans, or at least Tea Partiers and those concerned with keeping government in line with the vision of the founders and the Constitution. The desire is for stronger checks and balances against federal overreaching; giving authority to the states; and putting government decision making closer to the people. Such a reform should pique the interests of voters concerned with increased personal liberty and a better tempered government.


The debate, however, will not wait until January. On Nov. 30, Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, introduced the Repeal Amendment in the House of Representatives. Though it will likely not be voted on prior to the new Congress, Bishop believes introducing it now will jump-start the debate for when the new Congress gets to work.


Whether the Repeal Amendment will have legs in the House or Senate is somewhat suspect. Still, the idea warrants serious discussion, analysis and consideration.


Should the new divided Congress take up such an amendment it would rehash a much needed national debate about the jurisdiction of the federal government and protections for state government power as enumerated in the Constitution and protected for in the 10th Amendment: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Barnett argues that the “Repeal Amendment would help restore the ability of states to protect the powers ‘reserved to the states’ noted in the 10th Amendment.” He says “the amendment provides a new political check on the threat to American liberties posed by a runaway federal government” in an effort to protect citizen’s rights outlined in the constitution.



www.oaoa.com/opinion/deserves-56827-new-repeal.html

[sandi66]

Iraq will emerge from Chapter VII of the middle of this month

07/12/2010 13:00

Arbil, December 7 (Rn) - preparing the UN Security Council, to remove Iraq from Chapter VII of the December 15 ongoing, according to the expectations of the Deputy U.S. Ambassador in Iraq, which fired from Basra in the second of this month, and therefore the Presidential Decision to the Security Council containing three items, including the lifting of the international trusteeship of Iraq.

In the fifteenth of December Siltim the UN Security Council, headed by the Washington representative of the Vice-President Joe Biden, according to leaks Delomasep, where to vote on the three projects is to extend the period of international immunity to the Development Fund for Iraq for six months, otherwise the request of Baghdad, extending for a year, and the closure of File oil for food program once, and the third will be announced to remove Iraq from Chapter VII. as well as to issue a Presidential report shows the cooperation of Iraq and return to the international community.

The international position of Iraq came after a series of measures carried out by seven years ago with regard to end the outstanding issues with Kuwait and the payment of compensation and work transparently with the International Organization of Atomic Energy, which was described in its latest cooperation of Iraq with "transparent." Further tightening of Baghdad in more than of the memorandum of its mission to the United Nations that "the time has come" out of the money the UN resolution.

He Twenty years after the adoption of resolution 661 UN Security Council, which is the second decision issued against Iraq after its invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, the development of which Iraq under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations and imposed on him an economic embargo froze its assets in international banks. According to the resolution, Iraq remains subject to the requirements of Chapter VII that the stresses of the United Nations Security Council's commitment to Baghdad with all the international resolutions concerning the occupation of Kuwait, including the file of compensation. and after the implementation of resolution 986 known as Oil for Food Programme, the United Nations to develop 5% of the proceeds from the sale of Iraqi oil since 1997 in a special fund to compensate Kuwait for losses suffered as a result of the invasion.

Leaks reported by the official Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) said his consultations, the Security Council to take a final position on Iraq, and Washington created the international atmosphere for the abolition of the international trusteeship in Iraq, as one of U.S. commitments to Iraq after 2003.

Last week, Washington said a delegate in the Security Council, Susan Rice, said he "would be an important opportunity for the international community to find out the real progress made by Iraq concerning the composition of the government in addition to the important steps taken for the completion of its commitment to the Chapter VII."

For his part, UN Secretary-General of the United Nations to Iraq, Ad Melkert yesterday at a news conference in Cairo that "it is important to get out of Iraq from Chapter VII, and of the international point of view to be that there are effective relationships between Iraq and Kuwait and the entire region and restore the special relations and friendly relations between two countries. "

The common border between the two sides one of the most important points of contention so far, and that prompts Kuwaitis demarcated, as well as compensation for a file which resulted in large paid by Iraq of Kuwait.

The Kuwait and Iraq had agreed Tuesday to withdraw about 500 meters from the international boundary between them deep into their territory step aimed at ending the border problems pending between them, and pledged to build 50 houses for Iraqi citizens homes are located very closely to the border and affect the sound vision and close monitoring of the area border.

Position of Kuwait in hand in line for weeks with the need to remove Iraq from Section VII, where Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammad in September 21 last, support for that, saying that "Kuwait is the first country to wish to exit Iraq from Chapter VII, and this means that Iraq completed the implementation of resolutions and international obligations. "

Confirmed in the Kuwaiti press in a timely manner "Sheikh Nasser Mohammad Al-Prime Minister announced his agreement with the Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon to end the outstanding issues with Iraq."

Kuwait has sought since the fall of the former regime in the spring of 2003 to establish diplomatic relations firm with Baghdad, referring to being considered for Iraq on the basis of its political system is the new friend her, where dispatched Baghdad in mid-year, its first ambassador to Kuwait to establish "strategic relations" document, while it was Kuwait has sent its first ambassador to Baghdad since 2008.

The Undersecretary of the Iraqi Foreign Ministry, however, Abawi, had confirmed the (Rn) on August 23 last that "Iraq has paid so far $ 30 billion of debt of Kuwait and remained, including $ 22 billion dollars." And stressed that Baghdad is seeking to end the file of debt and compensation Kuwait exit from Chapter VII soon. stressing his country's commitment to international resolutions of the Security Council on its neighbor Kuwait to close this file without delay.

While Bush's Chief of the Arab world in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kuwait Jassem Mubaraki's (Rn) in the September 14, said he, "There are no outstanding issues with Iraq, and found minor problems, we have joint committees regarding the demarcation of the border and farms of joint and fishermen and coastal waters as well as Safwan border expansion port and oil fields in common, and will take these problems to be solved in the future. "

In Iraq announced on 19 September last in the statement of the spokesman for his government Ali al-Dabbagh's (Rn) that "Iraq has begun the first step to resolve outstanding problems with Kuwait through the installation of border markers of the land boundary between the two countries, which demonstrates the commitment of Iraq, UN resolutions, stressing that "the Iraqi government is working to activate the Convention on the Unification of fields, joint oil, which could be where a joint investment between the two audit third party, include this step also solve the problem of farm common border in the town of Safwan in Basra province and belonging to farmers Iraqis."
Safaa Khalaf

http://translate.googleusercontent.c...a1CpaQ_GvcCcAA


ty David

[sandi66]

Obama Finally Signs the Settlement Loan for Black Farmers

Posted by Jeff Jankowski on Dec 7th, 2010

The latest news about the settlement loan for African American farmers will finally break-free after long years of waiting. This has been a hot issue for the previous months when the moment of remembering how those Black farmers were denied to avail some settlement loan and were just being deceived by the U.S. Department of Agriculture who promised to give back what they have yearned for.

By Wednesday, all these Black farmers will be given what is due to them. It was delivered by the White House that President Barrack Obama will certainly signed the bill which consist of all the payments for royalties and the loans which these farmers have been dreaming for since the time they were mistreated by the federal administrator over decades ago.

The money given according to the Claims Resolution Act of 2010 will be $4.6 billion. A sufficient amount to put back whatever the Black farmers have lost since the time they had filed their complaints. Some of its amount will be given to the African American farmer, more or less, $1.2 billion. The remaining $3.4 billion will be awarded to the American Indians as payment for royalties of sources.

Many Black farmers were happy now that they have reaped what they sowed, however, some also felt so sorry and sad that many of their comrades who have been fighting for this moment to come have already passed away and were not able to enjoy what they have gotten now.

www.dailyrosetta.com/obama-finally-signs-the-settlement-loan-for-black-farmers/3582.html

[sandi66]

Obama to sign historic settlement to black farmers

Tuesday, December 07, 2010 8:56:02 PM

WASHINGTON (AP) _ Decades-old claims from African-American farmers and Native Americans that the government mistreated and swindled them out of billions of dollars can finally be settled starting Wednesday.



President Barack Obama is set to sign the bill authorizing payment of $4.6 billion to settle claims that arose in class-action lawsuits.
The White House said the president would sign the Claims Resolution Act of 2010 and make remarks at the ceremony next week, but offered no further details.

The House of Representatives passed the bill on Tuesday. The package would award some $3.4 billion to Native Americans for royalties for resources like oil, gas and timber.

Another $1.2 billion would go to African American farmers who claim they were unfairly denied federal loans and other assistance.

www.sfltimes.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5991&Itemid=1



*******************

President's Schedule

Wednesday, December 8 2010

9:30 am The President and the Vice President receive the Presidential Daily Briefing
Oval Office
Closed Press

10:15 am The President holds a bilateral meeting with President Komorowski of Poland
Oval Office
Closed Press

10:30 am The President holds an expanded bilateral meeting with President Komorowski
Oval Office
Closed Press

11:05 am The President and President Komorowski deliver statements to the press and take questions
Oval Office
Pooled Press

Gather Time 10:50AM – Brady Press Briefing Room

2:15 pm The President and the Vice President meet with Secretary of State Clinton
Oval Office
Closed Press

3:30 pm The President holds a Cabinet meeting
Cabinet Room
Pool Spray at the Bottom

Gather Time 4:00PM – Brady Press Briefing Room

4:50 pm The President meets with senior advisors
Oval Office
Closed Press

5:30 pm The President signs the Claims Resolution Act of 2010
South Court Auditorium
Pooled Press

www.whitehouse.gov/schedule/president/2010-12-08

[sandi66]

House Democrats unveil massive budget bill

6:46 a.m. Wednesday, December 8, 2010

WASHINGTON — Democrats controlling the House are promising to freeze the budgets of most Cabinet departments in a massive measure wrapping Congress' unfinished annual spending bills into a single, catchall measure.

The 423-page bill, unveiled overnight, would cap agency operating budgets passed each year by Congress at the $1.2 trillion level of the budget year that ended Sept. 30. That's about 4 percent less than the amount requested by President Barack Obama.

There are many exceptions to the freeze. Health care programs for veterans and the military would get a boost, as would the Pell Grant education program for low-income college students.

The bill also would provide $159 billion to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Senate Democrats are working on a different approach.

___

December 08, 2010 06:46 AM EST

www.ajc.com/business/house-democrats-unveil-massive-769994.html

[sandi66]

BofA to pay Fla. $5.2M in bid-rigging settlement
Orlando Business Journal
Date: Wednesday, December 8, 2010, 6:59am EST



Bank of America will pay Florida $5.2 million of a $67 million multistate bid-rigging settlement.

The agreement resolves allegations that the Charlotte, N.C.-based bank defrauded local governments and nonprofits across the country that purchased municipal bond derivatives.

The multistate settlement is part of a $137 million settlement BofA entered into with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Reserve.

The investigation focused on individuals at BofA and other major financial institutions and certain brokers that marketed and sold the investments. It revealed that from 1998 to 2003, Bank of America and other financial institutions and brokers allegedly rigged bids, improperly assisted in the bidding process and submitted noncompetitive “courtesy bids” on these investments. The alleged schemes “enriched financial institutions or brokers at the expense of state agencies, local government entities and nonprofits,” according to a news release from Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum.

Bank of America is the only entity in the scheme that voluntarily reported the wrongdoing to the DOJ, according to the news release. As a result, under the DOJ’s Corporate Leniency Program, the bank was granted conditional leniency based on its acknowledgment of wrongdoing, significant cooperation and making restitution. To date, the DOJ has brought criminal actions against seven individuals and one company and has obtained guilty pleas against eight others involved in the schemes.

Other states involved in the settlement are Alabama, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Texas.

Bank of America is the second-largest bank in Central Florida, with $6.4 billion in deposits and 71 branches, according to Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. data.=



www.bizjournals.com/orlando/news/2010/12/08/bofa-to-pay-fla-52m-in-bid-rigging.html

[sandi66]

Controversy Over Alleged 'Confession' at Goldman Sachs Trading - Software Trial

Wednesday, December 08, 2010Last Update: 7:00 AM PT

MANHATTAN (CN) - Prosecutors and defense counsel for former Goldman Sachs programmer Sergey Aleynikov, accused of stealing proprietary code for the company's high-frequency trading software, sparred Tuesday over a signed statement that Aleynikov made in the presence of an FBI agent on the night of his arrest.
During cross-examination of FBI Agent Michael McSwain, Aleynikov's defense attorney dripped sarcasm when referring to the statement as a "sworn confession," and said it showed only that Aleynikov wanted to use open-source material from the Goldman Sachs code.
Prosecuting attorney Joseph Facciponti focused on edits made to the original confession and suggested that Aleynikov "changed his story" over the course of his four-hour interrogation.
But Agent McSwain testified that Aleynikov behaved like a "gentlemen" during his arrest and interrogation, cooperated with requests to locate his hardware, provided information, waived his right to an attorney and signed a sworn statement.
McSwain said he arrested Aleynikov on July 3, 2009, as the programmer's flight landed in Newark. A day earlier, Aleynikov allegedly had attended a meeting in Chicago with Teza Technologies, the trading company that recruited him from Goldman Sachs.
Upon his arrest, Aleynikov told the agent, "This must be a mistake," McSwain said.
The government objected, and the comment was stricken from the record because Aleynikov said this before he was read his Miranda rights.
McSwain said that Aleynikov gave him consent to search his home within 11 minutes, agreed on the text of his statement in about 45 minutes, and was interrogated for approximately two hours.
Aleynikov told the FBI agent that he had Goldman Sachs code on multiple computers in his house, may have linked his network to his wife's computer and had files on his flash drive, McSwain said.
The agent said that Aleynikov told him he wanted the code only to study it, "like a person would in college," to remember his strategies for using open-source code.
When asked why he uploaded the files to a German server, Aleynikov replied that he had no idea that the free server that he found online, called SVN.XP-dev.com, was foreign, according to McSwain.
In a statement dictated to the agent, Aleynikov said, "On or about June 5, 2009, I created a tarball in an effort to collect open source work on Goldman Sach's server to which I had no account. I had previously worked on the files ... At a later date, I downloaded the software on my home computer, laptop and thumb drive ... These files have not [been] shared with any person or corporation. It was not my intent to be involved in any malicious action."
He ended the statement by promising to "cooperate fully to find the full allocation of files on my computers I downloaded the software to."
Aleynikov's interrogation at the FBI New York office in Federal Plaza ended at around 1:45 a.m. on July 4, 2009.
The day before McSwain testified, the government filed a motion to exclude evidence that Agent McSwain is a Goldman Sachs shareholder.
The defense did not ask McSwain about his 50 shares of Goldman Sacks stock during cross-examination. It is unclear whether attorneys on either side discussed the motion with presiding U.S. District Judge Denise Cote.
If convicted, Aleynikov could face up to 25 years in prison. The defense plans to call witnesses immediately after the government rests its case, which is expected to happen this afternoon (Wednesday).

www.courthousenews.com/2010/12/08/32412.htm

[sandi66]

* DDT Member Info: Global Trust Settlements
December 8th, 2010 12:13 pm · Posted in CHATS / POSTS
TIDBIT: Below is my correspondence with one of you that I received permission to share, and felt was worth making you aware of. This sheds light on much of what I’ve been alluding to in my past couple of chats regarding to the timing of this event. Let’s hope it all comes to fruition. From all I’m hearing… we’re close… In case you are all wondering what this means for our investment.

Here’s my synopsis in a very simple statement without getting into too much detail… Plain and simple, without the Global Trust Settlements in place, the world would not have the money to back the revaluation of the Iraqi Dinar. It impacts MUCH MORE than this, but it’s a critical piece to the puzzle of the soon-to-be changes and the juggling of currency exchange rates for many nations.

This is a well-orchestrated revaluation of many currencies throughout the world, and this entire plan is anchored by the IQD. It’s definitely part of the plan. I hope this helps you all understand. - DD

Initial “DDT Member” Email:

Hello DD…

I know you and I have communicated in the past about the dinar/global settlements etc. We have had some recent developments in our situation. On Monday, our case against the SEC (3.87 trillion) was dismissed as we were expecting. (we were told it needed to be dismissed as part of the agreement for our funds to be released so no further cases could be brought against the gov regarding our trust/case.).

According to our sources, the Supreme Court ordered that all Global Settlements are to be paid no later than December 31st (which also explains why after 10 delays this year, the black farmers and native american settlements were passed so quickly and Obama is signing today at 5:30.

We are being told that these were the last two and that the signing of these today is the trigger for all global settlements to go. We have also been told all along that the dinar is a MAJOR part of the global settlements going forward worldwide. I know your readers have no idea what I’m talking about, but this all points directly in-line with payments by end-of-year, and is being confirmed with contacts within the DOJ, FBI, CIA and SC.

Please do not share my name as information is being collected on the shareholders who are to receive money from this trust and it makes me nervous for my family’s safety/privacy.

DDT Member

—–

DD Response:

Do you wish for me to post this, just without your name?

—–

DDT Member Response:

You may if you feel it would benefit your readers but yes, please leave my name off. I have purposely stopped posting on the shareholder sites because it has been proven that there are people collecting our information.

Can you also check with Okie on this? I am sure he knows about the global settlements and the relationship with the dinar. I would love to hear his take on this.

Our attorney told us, the shareholders that we will be paid by Christmas.

Thanks,

DDT Member


theiraqidinar.com/2010/12/08/ddt-member-info-global-trust-settlements/



ty David

[sandi66]

President's Schedule

Thursday, December 9 2010

9:30 am The President and the Vice President receive the Presidential Daily Briefing
Oval Office
Closed Press

10:15 am The President holds a meeting with the President’s Export Council
EEOB 430
Pooled Press

Gather Time 9:45AM – Stakeout Location
11:05 am The President meets with senior advisors
Oval Office
Closed Press

12:30 pm The President and the Vice President meet for lunch
Private Dining Room
Closed Press

2:30 pm The President and the Vice President receive the Economic Daily Briefing
Oval Office
Closed Press

3:35 pm The President meets with Admiral Mullen
Oval Office
Closed Press

4:55 pm The First Family attends the National Christmas Tree Lighting; The President delivers remarks
Ellipse
Open Press

www.whitehouse.gov/schedule/president/2010-12-09

[sandi66]

Harry Reid Says: The Dems are Bickering Over Potential Changes to Tax Deals

Posted by DaveWade on Dec 9th, 2010

Majority leader – Harry Reid is following the typical political dream that speaks of those promises and hopes of bringing a change in the country. Many a times, we’ve heard this word: “Change”, though no one has lived to see it. Nevertheless, it’s another day of your usual round table arguments, where Democrats are seeking changes to a tax cut agreement, concerning President Barack Obama and the Republican Lawmakers.

Harry Reid is hoping to bring the measure to the floor within this week or the next one. He said that some changes “would make the bill much better, and I’m going to work on those.” Reid further continued by saying that the Senate would take the measure up in the next day or two, which he hopes to be in favor of his party.

If there’s one thing that senators do want to keep intact from the Bush era, it’s those tax cut policies. The proposed 2 year extension of the Bush era Tax cuts for all income levels seem appealing to the common U.S. citizen, but the Democrats are facing a division concerning that matter. Joe Biden thinks that it’s a “now or never” based offer, which has to be taken or dropped down.

From an insider’s perspective, let’s see what our dear old Nancy Pelosi has to say, “I think that the response to Bush tax cuts deal hasn’t been very good so far. It seems like a bridge that hard to tread on.”

www.dailypolitical.com/politics/harry-reid-says-the-dems-are-bickering-over-potential-changes-to-tax-deals.htm

[sandi66]

AP News in Brief

Posted December 9, 2010 at 3:38 a.m.



Unhappy Democrats say tax bill likely to pass as White House warns of possible recession

WASHINGTON (AP) - Slowly, painfully and reluctantly, congressional Democrats are slogging their way toward acceptance of President Barack Obama's tax cut compromise, which would let rich and poor Americans keep Bush-era tax cuts that were scheduled to expire this month.

After Obama publicly defended the plan for a third day Wednesday, and Vice President Joe Biden met with Democratic lawmakers in the Capitol for a second day, several Democrats predicted the measure will pass, mainly because of extensive Republican support.

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., predicted the tax cut compromise "will be passed by virtually all the Republicans and a minority of Democrats." He said he would vote against it.

Even among Democrats, "there's more support in the caucus than there appears," Rep. Gerald Connolly of Virginia told reporters after he and fellow Democrats met with Biden. "I think some people felt they had to vent."

Obama said more congressional Democrats would climb aboard as they studied details of the $900 billion year-end measure.

___

US, Canada are close allies. Classified? Yes, the US says. This message will self-destruct

WASHINGTON (AP) - Wanna hear a secret? The U.S. and Canada are probably going to remain friends. And the conservative and liberal party leaders in England? They don't like each other.

But keep that under wraps. The U.S. doesn't want that sort of sensitive information getting out for a decade or so.

While the recent leak of government documents onto the website WikiLeaks has revealed government secrets on such topics as Iran, North Korea and Yemen, the disclosure also unmasked another closely guarded fact: Much of what the government says is classified isn't much of a secret at all.

Sometimes, classified documents contained little more than summaries of press reports. Political banter was treated as confidential government intelligence. Information that's available to anyone with an Internet connection was ordered held under wraps for years.

Days after President Barack Obama's inauguration, the White House received a classified message from the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa. It was a primer for the president's upcoming trip to Canada and it included this sensitive bit of information, marked confidential:

___

Haitian singer vows to legally challenge presidential vote results amid protests, rioting

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) - A popular singer vowed to legally challenge election results that narrowly ousted him from Haiti's presidential race, while his supporters barricaded streets and set fires in violence that threatened the fragile stability that followed a devastating Jan. 12 earthquake.

Michel "Sweet Micky" Martelly urged his backers on Wednesday to nonviolently protest results from Nov. 28 presidential elections that demonstrators say were rigged. His campaign manager later said they would formally challenge the tallies released late Tuesday to Haiti's Provisional Electoral Council.

His supporters carried pink signs with the smiling face and bald head of Martelly, built street barricades, challenged heavily armored foreign soldiers and used government campaign posters to start fires.

"We want Martelly. The whole world wants Martelly," said James Becimus, a 32-year-old protester near the U.S. Embassy. "Today we set fires, tomorrow we bring weapons."

Other protesters said they would continue to mobilize but do so nonviolently.

___

China's push against awarding Nobel Peace Prize to dissident seen as backfiring

BEIJING (AP) - China's relentless criticism of the Nobel Peace Prize's bestowal on imprisoned Chinese dissident writer Liu Xiaobo showed signs of backfiring Thursday, as criticism of Beijing rose a day ahead of the award ceremony.

Beijing's high-pressure tactics and campaign of vilification have ensured a wave of publicity for Liu, a bookish 54-year-old democracy activist who was formerly all but unknown even inside China.

Its attempts to sabotage Friday's award ceremony in Oslo have sparked a backlash, with the governments of Serbia and the Philippines both receiving brickbats for caving in to China's demands to boycott the event. China and 18 other nations - mostly close allies and fellow authoritarian states - have declined to attend, according to the Nobel committee, although there were reports Colombia had reversed itself and decided to attend.

Rights group Amnesty International said members of Norway's Chinese community were being pressured by Chinese diplomats to attend anti-Nobel protests planned for Friday, and had been threatened with retaliation if they failed to appear.

In China, Liu's wife, Liu Xia, and dozens of friends, colleagues and sympathizers in the country's embattled dissident community remained under house arrest or tight surveillance to prevent them from attending the ceremony.

___

Police: Dad of 2 missing Ala. children charged with murder now that 1 body found

VANCLEAVE, Miss. (AP) - High on sleeping pills and fearing he might get lost, John DeBlase carried his 3-year-old son's lifeless body just 50 feet off a highway into the Mississippi woods, dumped him in the brush and covered the boy with twigs.

Three months later, he discarded his dead 5-year-old daughter in rural Alabama, police say, then went on with his life.

On Wednesday, authorities found the remains believed to be his son Chase, and DeBlase was charged with two counts of murder.

He had been held for child abuse and corpse abuse.

"We believe at this point that he did in fact kill his son" and daughter, Mobile Police Officer Chris Levy said.

___

Positive signs of diplomacy as high-ranking Chinese official meets with NKorean leader

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea's leader met in his capital with China's top foreign policy official Thursday as a U.S. governor announced a trip to the North in a flurry of promising diplomacy two weeks after a deadly artillery exchange between the two Koreas.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a former ambassador to the United Nations who for years has served as a roving diplomatic troubleshooter, will visit North Korea next week in a trip that was announced hours before the North's Kim Jong Il met in Pyongyang with Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo.

Kim and Dai held held "warm and friendly" talks, the North's official Korean Central News Agency reported, without saying whether the two discussed the North's Nov. 23 artillery attack on an island near the Koreas' disputed sea border. The barrage killed four South Koreans, including two civilians.

China's official Xinhua News Agency said the two reached consensus on the situation on the Korean peninsula during candid and in-depth talks, but did not elaborate. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu confirmed the meeting took place but said she had no information about what was said.

The meeting comes amid mounting international pressure on China, North Korea's only major ally, to step in and defuse tensions.

___

FBI: Md. bomb plot suspect knew about alleged terrorist caught in Ore. but wasn't deterred

BALTIMORE (AP) - A 21-year-old arrested when he tried to detonate what he thought was a bomb at a military recruiting center knew about the alleged terrorist in Oregon nabbed in a sting operation and even talked about it with an informant working with the FBI to catch him, authorities said.

Antonio Martinez, a naturalized U.S. citizen who goes by the name Muhammad Hussain after recently converting to Islam, faces charges of attempted murder of federal officers and attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction.

He told the informant he thought about nothing but jihad and wasn't deterred even after a Somali-born teenager was arrested in Portland, Ore., the day after Thanksgiving in an FBI sting, court documents released Wednesday showed.

The Oregon suspect intended to bomb a crowded downtown Christmas tree-lighting ceremony. But - like Martinez - the people he'd been communicating with about the plot were with the FBI. Martinez wondered if he was headed down a similar path, documents say.

"I'm not falling for no b.s.," he told the informant when he heard about the Oregon case. Still he wanted to go ahead with the plan.

___

A bright line on foreign policy as likely GOP presidential hopefuls oppose nuclear treaty

WASHINGTON (AP) - Republicans weighing a White House bid fiercely oppose a new nuclear arms treaty with Russia and stand in stark contrast to two presidents, Democrat Barack Obama and Republican George H.W. Bush, on a critical foreign policy issue.

"It's an obsolete approach that's a holdover from the Cold War and a bilateral treaty without taking into account multilateral threats," former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Wednesday, becoming the latest potential 2012 candidate to object to swift passage of the treaty without changes.

Gingrich joins Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, John Thune and Sarah Palin - all outspoken critics of the pact. The bright line between would-be GOP challengers and the incumbent Democrat raises the likelihood that the New START treaty will become a 2012 issue and its success or failure will reverberate as the next presidential campaign takes shape.

On the treaty, potential candidates are to the right of several prominent Republicans, including former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, an arms control expert and the top GOP lawmaker on the Foreign Relations Committee.

Bush gave the treaty's prospects a potentially significant boost Wednesday, saying, "I urge the United States Senate to ratify the START treaty."

___

Prison-bound actor Wesley Snipes will find plenty of activities, but low pay during Pa. stay

LEWIS RUN, Pa. (AP) - When actor Wesley Snipes enters prison Thursday, he'll leave behind his wife, young children and celebrity neighbors in the wealthy Florida enclave made infamous by next-door neighbor Tiger Woods.

The prison camp in Lewis Run in northwestern Pennsylvania pales by comparison, but is still worlds away from the harsh prison fortresses depicted in the Snipes films "Undisputed" and "Brooklyn's Finest."

Federal Correctional Institution McKean, a minimum-security camp, doesn't have fences around its perimeter. The 300 nonviolent inmates live in barracks that feature two-man rooms, daily showers and double-feature movie showings Friday through Sunday. Alas, no NC-17, R or X ratings allowed, which knocks out much of Snipes' action-heavy repertoire.

The most jarring aspect of the celebrity's stay might be the five daily head counts, three during the overnight hours. And Snipes, who earned a reported $13 million for the "Blade: Trinity" sequel, will have to adjust to earning just pennies an hour handling kitchen, laundry or other campus chores. And, he can spend just $290 a month at the prison commissary.

Snipes has appeared in dozens of studio films, from "White Men Can't Jump" and "Demolition Man" in the early 1990s to the blockbuster Blade trilogy.

___

Red Sox strike again at winter meetings, reach deal with Crawford for $142 million, 7 years

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (AP) - A night after Carl Crawford enjoyed a steak dinner with the New York Yankees, he served up a meaty surprise: He's going to play for the rival Boston Red Sox.

The Red Sox struck again at these winter meetings, reaching agreement with the star left fielder on a $142 million, seven-year contract.

A person familiar with the talks told The Associated Press late Wednesday the agreement was subject to Crawford passing a physical. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the deal was not yet finalized.

Crawford's free-agent deal was first reported by The Boston Globe on its website.

On Monday, the Red Sox announced they had acquired slugging first baseman Adrian Gonzalez in a trade with San Diego. Boston's big deals came after they failed to make the playoffs and will certainly increase pressure on the Yankees to make a splash - that could mean Cliff Lee.

www.vcstar.com/news/2010/dec/09/ap-news-in-brief/

[sandi66]

Unhappy Dems Say Tax Cut Bill Likely to Pass

Published December 09, 2010



WASHINGTON -- Slowly, painfully and reluctantly, congressional Democrats are slogging their way toward acceptance of President Barack Obama's tax cut compromise, which would let rich and poor Americans keep Bush-era tax cuts that were scheduled to expire this month.

After Obama publicly defended the plan for a third day Wednesday, and Vice President Joe Biden met with Democratic lawmakers in the Capitol for a second day, several Democrats predicted the measure will pass, mainly because of extensive Republican support.

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., predicted the tax cut compromise "will be passed by virtually all the Republicans and a minority of Democrats." He said he would vote against it.

Even among Democrats, "there's more support in the caucus than there appears," Rep. Gerald Connolly of Virginia told reporters after he and fellow Democrats met with Biden. "I think some people felt they had to vent."

Obama said more congressional Democrats would climb aboard as they studied details of the $900 billion year-end measure.

Raising the direst alarm yet, his administration warned fellow Democrats that if they defeat the plan, they could jolt the nation back into recession.

Larry Summers, Obama's chief economic adviser, told reporters that if the measure isn't passed soon, it will "materially increase the risk the economy would stall out and we would have a double-dip" recession. That put the White House in the unusual position of warning its own party's lawmakers they could be to blame for calamitous consequences if they go against the president.

With many House and Senate Republicans signaling their approval of the tax cut plan, the White House's comments were aimed mainly at House Democrats who feel Obama went too far in yielding to Republicans' demands for continued income tax cuts and lower estate taxes for the wealthy.

Obama says the compromise was necessary because Republicans were prepared to let everyone's taxes rise and to block the extension of unemployment benefits for jobless Americans if they didn't get much of what they wanted.

Economists say the recent recession officially ended in June 2009. But with unemployment at 9.8 percent, millions remain out of work or fearful of losing ground economically, and the notion of the nation falling back into a recession would strike many as chilling. It also could rattle markets and investors.

The deal Obama crafted with Senate Republican leaders would prevent the scheduled Dec. 31 expiration of all the Bush administration's tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003, even though Obama had often promised to end the cuts for the highest earners.

House Democrats, who will lose their majority in January, still hold a 255-179 edge in the current Congress. To pass a big bill with mostly Republican votes would mark a dramatic departure from recent battles, such as the health care overhaul, which was enacted with virtually no GOP support in either chamber.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other House Democratic leaders remained outwardly neutral to the tax cut compromise, criticizing some aspects but stopping short of urging or predicting its demise.

After the meeting with Biden, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said he still had reservations about the package, indicating he hopes changes are made before the Senate acts.

"We'll see what the Senate passes," Hoyer said.

Biden took a tough stance, warning that any changes might unravel the compromise plan, said several House Democrats who attended the meeting. "The vice president said, 'This is the deal, take it or leave it,"' said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif.

The White House ballyhooed almost any elected Democrat who endorsed the tax plan, with no state or city too small to justify a press release. Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas and Charlotte, N.C., Mayor Anthony Foxx were among those praising the plan, the White House announced.

But many House Democrats were unmoved. They particularly criticized Obama's proposed estate tax rates, which are far more generous than most Democrats had expected.

The concession seemed gratuitous, said Rep. David Price, D-N.C. For now, he said, "there's a mood to resist" the overall package.

Passage of Obama's plan seems more assured in the Senate, where numerous Democrats have agreed that the president had little choice in making the compromises with Republicans. Still, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he and colleagues are considering possible changes, and action could come within days.

Changes designed to ease some Democrats' concerns might include a provision for bonds to help state and local governments pay for construction projects, tax breaks for wind power and clean-energy subsidies, lawmakers said.



www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/12/09/unhappy-dems-say-tax-likely-pass/

[sandi66]

David S. Broder: At last, a divorce from the Pelosi Democrats

December 9, 2010

WASHINGTON — It took a month for Barack Obama to make clear what he has learned from the midterm election “shellacking,” but the time has not been wasted. Future political historians are likely to trace his recovery — and re-election, if that’s what happens — back to decisions made in December.

In these last few days, he has regained the economic initiative from the victorious Republicans, separated himself from the left of his own party and staked a strong claim to the territory where national elections are fought and won: the independent center.
In opting to accommodate reality by acceding to the Republican demand for maintaining all the Bush tax cuts and obtaining a better price than many expected for his concessions, Obama has done almost all that is possible at the moment to create a favorable economic environment for the 2012 campaign. Add in a South Korean trade pact of help to the rebounding auto industry — and the Midwest, that key battleground where Republicans romped in 2010, begins to look salvageable.


Obama still faces great challenges — in managing the world hotspots from Afghanistan to North Korea to Iran, and the unresolved question of how to turn back the threat of runaway debt and deficits.


But after a shaky period where his own leadership image became hazy, he has begun to regain focus as the pragmatic liberal that he is — not the hard-line socialist Republicans make him out to be but a president far more practical and down to earth than his critics on the liberal flank of the Democratic Party.


He has set the stage for follow-on proposals that can convert the cumbersome tax system into a growth-spurring mechanism — and force Republicans to explain and defend their preference for serving their wealthiest business backers.


That is a winning posture for a president seeking a second term.


Without resort to the obvious “triangulation” repositioning that Bill Clinton employed to recover from the Republican resurgence in 1994 and set the stage for his own second-term win, Obama has managed to place himself where he wants to be: in the center of the American political spectrum.

By yielding temporarily to the GOP on its insistence for preserving the top-bracket tax cuts, Obama has avoided a larger threat to a greater number of voters: the hike in taxes that could easily have jeopardized a fragile economic recovery.


In return, he won an extension of unemployment benefits and, more importantly, a temporary reduction in payroll taxes that will provide a large shot in the arm to economic growth.


When their constituents see the fatter paychecks, Democratic members of Congress will have a hard time sustaining their carping about the lost opportunity to engage the GOP in an old-fashioned campaign against the fat cats.


Also, the $900 billion this deal will add to the national debt increases the pressure on Obama and Congress to undertake the kind of tough-love budgetary changes outlined by the presidential commission on deficits.


But this simply improves the odds for tax reform, an effort that Obama is now perfectly positioned to lead. Expect to see the White House offering a plan to reduce individual and corporate income tax rates in return for purging the IRS code of the thousands of loopholes that benefit special interests.


That will put House Republicans in a position where they have to choose between cooperating in giving Obama a major victory or accepting the opprobrium of defending the status quo against the wishes of tea party voters across the country. While opening that constituency to an Obama foray, the events of the last few weeks have also signaled a clear breach between the president and increasingly unpopular left wing of his congressional party.


The divorce from the Pelosi Democrats has been brewing for a long time, but it came visibly into view when so many House members whined about the tax and budget deal with the Republicans.


If this wasn’t a Sister Souljah moment, it was at least comparable to Bill Clinton’s decision to sign the 1996 welfare reform bill passed by a Republican Congress — a step that sank Bob Dole’s presidential campaign before it really began.


Obama used his news conference Tuesday to define himself, more clearly than ever before, as a raging moderate — a man who recognizes that compromise is the key to serving a broad and diverse set of constituencies, rather than fit some ideological standard of intellectual purity.


This was the best showing for Obama in many months.

www.delawareonline.com/article/20101209/OPINION16/101208031/1004/OPINION/David-S.-Broder--At-last--a-divorce-from-the-Pelosi-Democrats

[sandi66]

House Republicans Unite Behind Key Committee Chairmen

by Emily Miller

12/08/2010


The House Republican Conference met on Wednesday morning and unanimously voted for the slate of committee chairmen, who were selected by the House Steering Committee last night. The committee chairs will be tasked with implementing the Republican “Pledge to America” governing agenda when the GOP takes control of the House in January.

Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) will be Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which will handle the process of repealing ObamaCare. Upton, a moderate Republican, has served on the committee for 12 years.

Upton campaigned hard to prove that he was conservative enough to enact the Republicans’ Pledge to America policies. “My vision for the Energy and Commerce Committee is a conservative agenda that focuses on cutting spending, removing the regulatory burden, restoring freedom, keeping government accountable through rigorous oversight, and jobs,” wrote Upton in a letter to his GOP colleagues.



In addition to health care, The Energy and Commerce Committee has jurisdiction over energy, telecommunications, broadcasting, and environmental issues. Upton has vowed to call EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to testify before the committee regularly to explain the new government regulations in Clean Air Act.

"The Obama administration is on notice—they will not be allowed to regulate what they have been unable to legislate.”

"We face many challenges, but priority number one is to repeal the job-killing Obamacare law,” Barton said in a statement.

Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.), who wanted an extension to the six-year term limit for committee chairs, waged a strong campaign for chairman against Upton. The other contenders for chair, Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) and Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), gave their support to Upton.

Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) will be Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, which determines all of the government spending levels. Rogers campaigned for the chairmanship against current ranking member Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) and Jack Kingston (R-Ga.). Lewis was term-limited so he needed a waiver to have another two-year term. Kingston ran as the fiscal conservative alternative to Rogers and Lewis.

Conservative groups opposed Rogers because of his history of earmarks for his district during the 27 years he has been on the Appropriations Committee. House Republicans voted for a moratorium on earmarks, and Rogers, consequently, signed onto the pledge.

Kingston was endorsed for the position by Club for Growth and other conservative groups because of his fiscal discipline. In the end, however, the leadership decided against upsetting the system of rankings and terms, and selected Rogers.

Rogers released a statement in which he promised to fight “for serious reforms of the Committee, bringing fiscal sanity back to our budgeting process, performing vigorous oversight of the failed job-creation policies of the Obama Administration and moving our nation forward."

The other contested chair race was for the Financial Services Committee, which oversees banking regulations and Wall Street. The current ranking member, Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.) was selected to take over the committee. Bachus was nominally challenged by Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.), who ran on the platform that he was better able to fix the stimulus-funded Freddie Mae and Fannie.

Bachus released a statement after the conference meeting, which said that the committee will “protect taxpayers by ending ‘too big to fail’ and the Administration’s unlimited bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.”

He also stated that, “we are committed to going title by title through the 2,300 page Dodd-Frank Act to correct, replace, or repeal the job killing provisions that unnecessarily punish small businesses and community banks that did nothing to cause the financial crisis.”

The Republican Conference election was a quick vote to approve the Steering Committee’s slate. The Steering Committee is made up of 34 Members, which includes all of the Republican leadership, key committee chairs and regional representatives. Speaker of the House designate John Boehner (R-Ohio) has four votes, Majority Leader to-be Eric Cantor (R-Va.) has two votes, and the rest have one vote each.

“The members of our new majority have made a pledge to America to focus on the American people’s priorities—helping small businesses create jobs, cutting spending, repealing the job-killing health care law, protecting life, and reforming the way Congress works,” said Boehner in a statement released Tuesday evening.

“Each of the candidates recommended by the Steering Committee today has committed to advancing these priorities if entrusted with the responsibility of serving the people of this nation as a committee chair.”

The chairs of the other important House committees were not contested, and given to the ranking member of the committee. Rep Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) will chair the Budget Committee. Rep. David Dreier (R-Calif.) will once again be Chairman of the important Rules Committee. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) will be Chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) will chair the Judiciary Committee.

And Rep. David Camp (R-Mich.) will be the Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, which determines tax policies. In a statement, Camp said that the committee “will focus on a job-creating agenda and reducing out-of-control federal spending.”



www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=40459

[sandi66]

MP: Government will be formed within constitutional period. Notes no obstacles to face

Posted: December 9, 2010 by Justhopin in Iraqi Dinar/Politics
Tags: Ayad Allawi, Iraq, Jalal Talabani, Member of Parliament, National Alliance, Nouri al-Maliki, Nuri al-Maliki, Voice of Iraq 0(Voice of Iraq) – BAGHDAD / Aswat al-Iraq: MP from the National Alliance on the Keywords, Wednesday, that the government will be formed how long specific constitutional, noting there were “no obstacles” facing its formation.

The Keywords, told (Voices of Iraq), that the next two days “could see the approach to resolve differences on the political blocs,” adding that the government “will be specified in the constitutional period.”

He reported that “reassuring in the case is the lack of general obstacles to form a government,” explaining that “there are dialogues and perceptions of the political blocs need to be understanding may take a few days to come.”

And on the distribution of ministerial portfolios, he said: it should, “has not been decided about the final yet because of the demands of the blocks and compete for some of the ministries,” pointing out that the distribution
of “a deal will resolve one of the ministries of the whole and not each of them alone.”

The working masses since the days of the selection of candidates for positions in the next government, including Vice President and the Prime Minister and the sovereign ministries, amid heated competition between them.

The leaks that the distribution of ministries between the blocks, will be under a number of parliamentary seats and according to a points system for each type of ministries or important positions.

He was President Jalal Talabani, the cost in (11/25/2010) officially Nuri al-Maliki to form a new Iraqi government.

bit.ly/gwoNK3

currencynewshound.wordpress.com/2010/12/09/mp-government-will-be-formed-within-constitutional-period-notes-no-obstacles-to-face/

[sandi66]

Iraqi parliament approves key national government posts

12/11/10 07:38 CET


Iraq has a new national government. The question now is, will it last?

The latest power-sharing deal ends eight months of deadlock and gives each of the country’s three main factions a piece of the political pie.

Iraq’s Kurdish leader, Jalal Talabani, retains the presidency. He was re-elected despite a walkout by two thirds of the Sunni led alliance.

Talibani’s re-appointment in turn paved the way for Shi’ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to keep his job,

The newly elected president swore in Iraq’s incumbent prime minister for another four-year term shortly after his own confirmation.

The final piece of the political jigsaw sees the Sunni-backed Iraqiya alliance get their man -Osama Nujaifi – in the parliamentary speaker’s chair.

Many Sunni politicians, however, remain unhappy that al-Maliki has been able to hold on to his post and the large walkout by the group’s MPs hints at the fragile nature of the fledgling government.

Nevertheless, the pact brings together all of Iraq’s ethnic factions and with it the hope that the country may finally emerge from sectarian bloodshed.

Copyright © 2010 euronews

www.euronews.net/2010/11/12/iraqi-parliament-approves-key-national-government-posts/


ty David

[sandi66]

Vatican Bank mired in laundering scandal

AP – FILE - This Dec. 1981 file picture shows Italian financier Roberto Calvi. A financial advisor to the …


By VICTOR L. SIMPSON and NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press Victor L. Simpson And Nicole Winfield, Associated Press– 2 hrs 24 mins ago


VATICAN CITY – This is no ordinary bank: The ATMs are in Latin. Priests use a private entrance. A life-size portrait of Pope Benedict XVI hangs on the wall.

Nevertheless, the Institute for Religious Works is a bank, and it's under harsh new scrutiny in a case involving money-laundering allegations that led police to seize euro23 million ($30 million) in Vatican assets in September. Critics say the case shows that the "Vatican Bank" has never shed its penchant for secrecy and scandal.

The Vatican calls the seizure of assets a "misunderstanding" and expresses optimism it will be quickly cleared up. But court documents show that prosecutors say the Vatican Bank deliberately flouted anti-laundering laws "with the aim of hiding the ownership, destination and origin of the capital." The documents also reveal investigators' suspicions that clergy may have acted as fronts for corrupt businessmen and Mafia.

The documents pinpoint two transactions that have not been reported: one in 2009 involving the use of a false name, and another in 2010 in which the Vatican Bank withdrew euro650,000 ($860,000) from an Italian bank account but ignored bank requests to disclose where the money was headed.

The new allegations of financial impropriety could not come at a worse time for the Vatican, already hit by revelations that it sheltered pedophile priests. The corruption probe has given new hope to Holocaust survivors who tried unsuccessfully to sue in the United States, alleging that Nazi loot was stored in the Vatican Bank.

Yet the scandal is hardly the first for the centuries-old bank. In 1986, a Vatican financial adviser died after drinking cyanide-laced coffee in prison. Another was found dangling from a rope under London's Blackfriars Bridge in 1982, his pockets stuffed with money and stones. The incidents blackened the bank's reputation, raised suspicions of ties with the Mafia, and cost the Vatican hundreds of millions of dollars in legal clashes with Italian authorities.

On Sept. 21, financial police seized assets from a Vatican Bank account at the Rome branch of Credito Artigiano SpA. Investigators said the Vatican had failed to furnish information on the origin or destination of the funds as required by Italian law.

The bulk of the money, euro20 million ($26 million), was destined for JP Morgan in Frankfurt, with the remainder going to Banca del Fucino.

Prosecutors alleged the Vatican ignored regulations that foreign banks must communicate to Italian financial authorities where their money has come from. All banks have declined to comment.

In another case, financial police in Sicily said in late October that they uncovered money laundering involving the use of a Vatican Bank account by a priest in Rome whose uncle was convicted of Mafia association.

Authorities say some euro250,000 euros, illegally obtained from the regional government of Sicily for a fish breeding company, was sent to the priest by his father as a "charitable donation," then sent back to Sicily from a Vatican Bank account using a series of home banking operations to make it difficult to trace.

The prosecutors' office stated in court papers last month that while the bank has expressed a "generic and stated will" to conform to international standards, "there is no sign that the institutions of the Catholic church are moving in that direction." It said its investigation had found "exactly the opposite."

Legal waters are murky because of the Vatican's special status as an independent state within Italy. This time, Italian investigators were able to move against the Vatican Bank because the Bank of Italy classifies it as a foreign financial institution operating in Italy.

However, in one of the 1980s scandals, prosecutors could not arrest then-bank head Paul Marcinkus, an American archbishop, because Italy's highest court ruled he had immunity.

Marcinkus, who died in 2006 and always proclaimed his innocence, was the inspiration for Francis Ford Coppola's character Archbishop Gilday in "Godfather III."

The Vatican has pledged to comply with EU financial standards and create a watchdog authority. Gianluigi Nuzzi, author of "Vatican SpA," a 2009 book outlining the bank's shady dealings, said it's possible the Vatican is serious about coming clean, but he isn't optimistic.

"I don't trust them," he said. "After the previous big scandals, they said 'we'll change' and they didn't. It's happened too many times."
He said the structure and culture of the institution is such that powerful account-holders can exert pressure on management, and some managers are simply resistant to change.

The list of account-holders is secret, though bank officials say there are some 40,000-45,000 among religious congregations, clergy, Vatican officials and lay people with Vatican connections.

The bank chairman is Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, also chairman of Banco Santander's Italian operations, who was brought in last year to bring the Vatican Bank in line with Italian and international regulations.
Gotti Tedeschi has been on a very public speaking tour extolling the benefits of a morality-based financial system.

"He went to sell the new image ... not knowing that inside, the same things were still happening," Nuzzi said. "They continued to do these transfers without the names, not necessarily in bad faith, but out of habit."

It doesn't help that Gotti Tedeschi himself and the bank's No. 2 official, Paolo Cipriani, are under investigation for alleged violations of money-laundering laws. They were both questioned by Rome prosecutors on Sept. 30, although no charges have been filed.

In his testimony, Gotti Tedeschi said he knew next to nothing about the bank's day-to-day operations, noting that he had been on the job less than a year and only works at the bank two full days a week.

According to the prosecutors' interrogation transcripts obtained by AP, Gotti Tedeschi deflected most questions about the suspect transactions to Cipriani. Cipriani in turn said that when the Holy See transferred money without identifying the sender, it was the Vatican's own money, not a client's.

Gotti Tedeschi declined a request for an interview but said by e-mail that he questioned the motivations of prosecutors. In a speech in October, he described a wider plot against the church, decrying "personal attacks on the pope, the facts linked to pedophilia (that) still continue now with the issues that have seen myself involved."

As the Vatican proclaims its innocence, the courts are holding firm.
An Italian court has rejected a Vatican appeal to lift the order to seize assets.

The Vatican Bank was founded in 1942 by Pope Pius XII to manage assets destined for religious or charitable works. The bank, located in the tower of Niccolo V, is not open to the public, but people who use it described the layout to the AP.

Top prelates have a special entrance manned by security guards.

There are about 100 staffers, 10 bank windows, a basement vault for safe deposit boxes, and ATMs that open in Latin but can be accessed in modern languages. In another concession to modern times, the bank recently began issuing credit cards.

In the scandals two decades ago, Sicilian financier Michele Sindona was appointed by the pope to manage the Vatican's foreign investments. He also brought in Roberto Calvi, a Catholic banker in northern Italy.

Sindona's banking empire collapsed in the mid-1970s and his links to the mob were exposed, sending him to prison and his eventual death from poisoned coffee. Calvi then inherited his role.

Calvi headed the Banco Ambrosiano, which collapsed in 1982 after the disappearance of $1.3 billion in loans made to dummy companies in Latin America. The Vatican had provided letters of credit for the loans.

Calvi was found a short time later hanging from scaffolding on Blackfriars Bridge, his pockets loaded with 11 pounds of bricks and $11,700 in various currencies. After an initial ruling of suicide, murder charges were filed against five people, including a major Mafia figure, but all were acquitted after trial.

While denying wrongdoing, the Vatican Bank paid $250 million to Ambrosiano's creditors.

Both the Calvi and Sindona cases remain unsolved.

___
AP reporter Martino Villosio contributed from Rome.

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/eu_vatican_god_s_bankers




ty joye

[sandi66]

China Inflation `Fight' May Widen as Growth Withstands Tightening Measures

By Bloomberg News - Dec 12, 2010 6:23 AM ET

China’s economic data for November showed growth is withstanding government curbs and extra measures may be needed to tame the highest inflation rate in more than two years.


Industrial-output gains accelerated to 13.3 percent last month from a year earlier, exceeding economists’ median estimate, a statistics bureau report showed in Beijing yesterday. Consumer prices rose a more-than-forecast 5.1 percent, the most since July 2008.



The world’s fastest-growing major economy is maintaining momentum after an interest-rate increase in October, curbs on energy consumption and a crackdown on real-estate speculation. So far, officials have held off on the rate increase predicted for this weekend by firms including UBS AG. Instead, the central bank boosted lenders’ reserve requirements on Dec. 10.


“With both inflation and growth figures surprising on the upside, Beijing can and will focus on fighting inflation whole- heartedly,” said Qu Hongbin, an economist at HSBC Holdings Plc in Hong Kong. An “immediate” increase in rates is likely and lenders’ reserve ratios may keep climbing, Qu said.



China’s leaders pledged tonight to give a greater priority to stabilizing prices in 2011 and better manage liquidity, in comments reported by the Xinhua News Agency after an annual conference in Beijing to set economic policy guidelines.

Curbing Investment
The government will also seek to prevent officials “blindly” starting investment projects as the government’s next five-year plan takes effect, Xinhua said.

London-based Capital Economics Ltd. said Dec. 10 that a rate increase after the economic policy meeting “cannot be ruled out.” The Politburo has already announced that the nation will officially switch next year to a tighter, “prudent” monetary stance.


Besides industrial output, urban fixed-asset investment also grew at a faster pace, climbing 24.9 percent in the first 11 months of 2010 from a year earlier, the report showed. Retail sales gained 18.7 percent in November from a year earlier.



Bank of America-Merrill Lynch economist Lu Ting said that industrial-production growth may settle at about a 13 percent annual rate, satisfying policy makers and leaving “more room to fight against CPI inflation and asset bubbles.”



Inflation Target
Inflation for the first 11 months was 3.2 percent, more than the government’s full-year target of 3 percent. Producer prices climbed 6.1 percent in November, more than any of 28 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News had estimated.

China, which overtook Japan as the world’s second-largest economy in the second and third quarters, lags behind Asian countries including Malaysia and South Korea in boosting borrowing costs.


November’s consumer prices rose by more than the 4.7 percent median forecast of analysts. In October, inflation was 4.4 percent.

Yesterday’s data leaked ahead of the announcement, with the Economic Information Daily reporting the inflation number on Dec. 10.



“Inflation is shaping up to be the primary challenge facing policy makers in coming months, and it makes sense for them to bring out the big guns,” Brian Jackson, a Hong Kong- based analyst at Royal Bank of Canada, said before yesterday’s data. Tools may include a faster pace of yuan appreciation, as well as higher rates by year-end, he said.



Food Costs
Food prices rose 11.7 percent in November from a year earlier, the most in more than two years, and residence-related costs such as charges for water, electricity and rent were also a key driver of inflation, the statistics bureau said. Overall consumer prices rose 1.1 percent from the previous month.

The jump in producer prices topped analysts’ median forecast of a 5.1 percent increase. Costs of manufacturers’ raw- materials such as cement, steel, fuel and cotton have surged, a survey of purchasing managers indicated Dec. 1.


The benchmark one-year deposit rate stands at 2.5 percent, less than the annual pace of inflation, and the lending rate is 5.56 percent. The Shanghai Composite Index of stocks has fallen 10 percent from a Nov. 8 high, extending this year’s loss to 13 percent, on concern tighter monetary policy will cut economic growth and profits.



On Dec. 10, the central bank announced a 50 basis point increase in reserve ratios, effective Dec. 20. A basis point is 0.01 percentage point. That move may lock up about 350 billion yuan ($53 billion), according to Barclays Capital Asia Ltd.

Price Controls
Besides monetary policy, Wen is using administrative tools, such as sales of state food reserves, to cool prices.


Signs of inflationary pressure have included McDonald’s Corp., the world’s biggest restaurant chain, pushing up prices, citing rising costs. The southwestern city of Kunming has imposed temporary price ceilings on “daily necessities,” telling retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Carrefour SA to report any planned price rises.



Cash flowing into the economy from trade, foreign direct investment and bets on gains by the yuan has added to a domestic credit boom in exacerbating inflation risks. The trade surplus was $22.9 billion in November and, in addition, banks extended a more-than-estimated 564 billion yuan of local-currency loans.



Broad money supply, or M2, rose last month by 19.5 percent, the fastest gain in six months, the People’s Bank of China reported Dec. 10. M2 has surged 55 percent over the past two years and outstanding yuan-denominated loans have climbed to 47.4 trillion yuan, 60 percent more than in November 2008.



Officials are seeking slower credit growth and economists, including at Societe General SA, expect the government to set a lower loan ceiling for 2011 than this year’s target of 7.5 trillion yuan.


Inflation may have peaked in November and will probably soften this month as “price intervention” takes effect and the impact of earlier price increases washes out of year-on-year comparisons, Wang Qing, a Hong Kong-based economist at Morgan Stanley, said in Dec. 6 note.


www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-11/china-s-inflation-tops-5-adding-pressure-for-wen-to-raise-interest-rates.html

[sandi66]

"The Largest Fraud in History"
Editor's Note: For more than 11 years, Bill Murphy and Chris Powell of the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA), and others, have been working tirelessly to document and expose the deliberate and fraudulent manipulation of the gold and silver markets by multiple governments and large banks. We urge you to become familiar with the details of these issues, as this ticking time bomb is unraveling more and more every day.
December 12 — Jim Rickards: The central banks don't consider it manipulation, they consider it part of their job (chaostheorien.de)
tinyurl.com/322kjsh

December 10 — Some banks unwilling to hand over client-held physical gold and silver? (mineweb.com)
www.mineweb.com/mineweb/view/mineweb/en/page34?oid=116632&sn=Detail&pid=92730

December 10 — Roundtable: All about gold with John Hathaway, Peter Munk, & James Grant (Charlie Rose)
www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11330

December 10 — Something’s Wrong in the Silver Pit: But It’s Much Bigger than J.P. Morgan (Rob Kirby)
news.silverseek.com/SilverSeek/1292004828.php

December 10 — JP Morgan and the Massive Silver Short: The Greatest Story Ever Told (Seeking Alpha)
tinyurl.com/37c7wvv


*****************

More Than Half of Americans Want Fed Reined In or Abolished
By Joshua Zumbrun (bloomberg.com)

December 9 — A majority of Americans are dissatisfied with the nation’s independent central bank, saying the U.S. Federal Reserve should either be brought under tighter political control or abolished outright, a poll shows.
The Bloomberg National Poll underlines the extent to which the central bank’s standing has suffered as it has come under fire in Congress, first from Democrats for regulatory lapses before the financial crisis and then from Republicans for failing to revive an economy in which the jobless rate hovers near 10 percent. Voters from both parties have criticized the Fed’s $3.3 trillion in aid to the financial system.

www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-09/more-than-half-of-americans-want-fed-reined-in-or-abolished.html

***********

Global bond rout deepens on US fiscal worries
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (telegraph.co.uk)

December 9 — Agreement in Washington on a fresh fiscal package has set off dramatic rise in yields of US Treasuries and bonds across the world, threatening to short-circuit any benefits of stimulus. The bond rout raises concerns that the US authorities may be losing control over events.
The yield on 10-year Treasuries – the benchmark price of money worldwide and the key driver of US mortgages rates – has rocketed to 3.3pc, up 35 basis points since President Barack Obama agreed on Monday to compromise with Senate Republicans on tax cuts. Read more.





The Case for $60 Silver
by Ed Steer, Casey Research
$60 silver — roughly triple today's price — is a bold prediction, I know. Yet when I look at two important factors, I tend to see it as a fairly conservative and well-founded estimate.
First is what we can call "the supply-demand tight-rope act." And second is the Fed's pro-inflation "quantitative easing" policy. Let's look at each — and why together they support a strong case for a steep increase in silver's price. Read more.


Christopher Whalen: Foreclosure Peak Still Ahead for US
By Greg Brown and Kathleen Walter (finance.yahoo.com)

December 7 — The foreclosure crisis will peak sometime next year, causing the economy to struggle to stay in positive territory, pressuring California and other states into default, and likely triggering the restructuring of an “insolvent” Bank of America, predicts banking analyst Christopher Whalen. Read more and watch the video.

Investors Intelligence - Important Bull/Bear Chart Watch Out!
By Eric King (kingworldnews.com)
December 10 — This is an extremely important chart from Investors Intelligence showing 10 years of up to date Bull/Bear surveys. From their report, “The Investors Intelligence Advisors Sentiment Survey bull-bear spread is once again moving towards the +40% danger zone. When the spread last broke above 40%, in October 2007, the market collapsed spectacularly.” Read more


More Than Half of U.S. Wants Fed Curbed or Abolished
By Joshua Zumbrun (bloomberg.com)

December 9 — A majority of Americans are dissatisfied with the nation’s independent central bank, saying the U.S. Federal Reserve should either be brought under tighter political control or abolished outright, a poll shows.
The Bloomberg National Poll underlines the extent to which the central bank’s standing has suffered as it has come under fire in Congress, first from Democrats for regulatory lapses before the financial crisis and then from Republicans for failing to revive an economy in which the jobless rate hovers near 10 percent. Read more.

U.S. fiscal health worse than Europe's: China adviser
By Zhou Xin (reuters.com)

December 9— The U.S. dollar will be a safe investment for the next six to 12 months because global markets are focused on the euro zone's troubles but America's fiscal health is worse than Europe's, an adviser to the Chinese central bank said on Wednesday.
Li Daokui, an academic member of the central bank's monetary policy committee, said that U.S. bond prices and the dollar would fall when the European economic situation stabilized. Read more.

Direxion Launches Leveraged Gold Miners ETFs
By Eric Dutram (etfdb.com)

December 9— Direxion, a leading provider of both 2x and 3x leveraged ETFs, rolled out three new additions to its product line on Wednesday. In addition to a paired offering of 2x leveraged ETFs delivering amplified exposure to gold miners, Direxion also debuted its first non-leveraged product. Read more.






12/10/10 - Cowardice Of Compromise As Spineless Politicians Sink U.S. Deeper Into Debt


By Peter Schiff
President of Euro Pacific Capital
This week Washington displayed the kind of “bipartisanship” that will bankrupt our country and wreck our currency. Coming at a time when both parties say they want to address our long-term fiscal imbalances, the compromise extension of the Bush era tax cuts should be a wake-up call to anyone who somehow expected the American leadership to ever have an “adult conversation” about the country’s long term economic health. Read more.



12/09/10 - How a Dull Investment Can Be a Great Investment

By EWI Editorial Staff
...until it isn't any more. An important story for today's bond investors.
... I asked what kind of bonds they got into. "High-yield bond funds," was the answer. What kind of bonds are these funds invested in? To this question I got blank stares. How long do you plan on staying in these funds? This got the reply I was afraid I'd hear: ?Why would we get out when they are so much safer than stocks?? That's when my new interest in these once boring investments turned to fear — for my friends. Read more.

12/10/10 - Chart of the Month: TSX-V Speaks Volumes - Gold Mania Still Ahead


By Andrey Dashkov
Casey's International Speculator

With the gold price hitting nominal highs last month, there is a lot of “mania” and “bubble” ranting going on in the gold community. Should we start selling?
A bull market typically progresses through 3 phases: the Stealth Phase, in which early adopters start buying; the Wall of Worry Phase (or Awareness Phase), when institutions begin buying and every significant fluctuation makes investors worry that the bull market is over; and the Mania Phase when the general public piles on, driving prices beyond reason or sustainability.

Read more...

12/02/10 - Simple Tools for Competent Trades

By EWI Editorial Staff
Improve your Financial Decision-Making Skills with Guidance from EWI Chief Commodity Analyst Jeffrey Kennedy.
"Simple tools are what separate us from the animals." At Elliott Wave International, our technical analysts provide you with simple, practical tools that can help your analysis and trading. EWI Senior Analyst Jeffrey Kennedy has spent years using and mastering many technical trading tools, including several well-known moving average techniques. Read more.






Global Stock Market News
As growth outlook improves, some investors swap bonds for stocks - Los Ange...
Reuters As growth outlook improves, some investors swap bonds for stocks Los Angeles Times Millions...
Investors burn as stocks crash - The Daily Star
Investors burn as stocks crash The Daily Star The government last month directed dozens of state-ow...
Has the Stock Market Gotten Riskier? - Smartmoney.com
Smartmoney.com Has the Stock Market Gotten Riskier? Smartmoney.com The Chicago Board Options Exchan...
SEC decisions that kill market and ruin small investors - Sunday Times.lk
SEC decisions that kill market and ruin small investors Sunday Times.lk Most market players being n...

More news from around the globe...

Bear Market Reader

More news of the day.hand-picked by our editors, as well as guest contributions.
12/08/10 — Euro collapse 'possible' amid deepening divisions over bail-out
By Philip Aldrick (telegraph.co.uk)
12/07/10 — Inflation vs. Deflation: Peter Schiff and Gary Shilling Discuss, Debate and Argue
By Peter Gorenstein (finance.yahoo.com)
12/07/10 — Gold Stocks Still Cheap 2
By Adam Hamilton
12/07/10 — The Fed Has a $110 Billion Problem with New Benjamins
By Eamon Javers (cnbc.com)
12/07/10 — Tax Cuts Extension Will Prompt Congress to Ignore Budget Limits
By Richard Rubin (bloomberg.com)
Much more






"Don't gamble; take all your savings and buy some good stock and hold it till it goes up, then sell it. If it don't go up, don't buy it." — Will Rogers
Don't we all wish it were that simple!
In the real world, education is the key to investment success, in both bull and bear markets. We are pleased to offer you these outstanding educational resources. There's something for newbies as well as self-proclaimed know-it-alls. Many of these training sessions are absolutely FREE!
Tutorials on the Elliott Wave Principle
Online Webinars from optionsXpress
Stock Market Investing 101 from Wall Street Survivor
Video Training Sessions from INO.TV
Home Study Courses from Online Trading Academy




[ The following youtube video titles/links at www.bearmarketcentral.com ]

12/07/10 - Why SIlver, Why Nnow?




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
12/07/10 - Jim Rogers at Reuters 2011 Investment Summit


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
12/03/10 - JP Morgan Silver Manipulation Explained


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
11/28/10 - "Madd Maxx" Keiser: Crash JP Morgan!"


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
11/14/10 - Quantitative Easing Explained

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Web Gems
Alan Greenspan
Classic Essay from 1967
"Gold and Econmic Freedom"

F.A. Hayak
Interview with the Austrian economist.
"The Futility of Socialism"



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Conversations with
Doug Casey"

12/09/10 - Doug Casey on Ben Bernanke: Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid (Part 1)


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


www.bearmarketcentral.com/


ty joye

[sandi66]

Madoff, Goldman, Moody’s, HSBC, SocGen in Court News

By Elizabeth Amon - Dec 13, 2010 6:32 AM ET

The trustee liquidating Bernard L. Madoff’s investment firm filed more than $50 billion in so- called clawback suits to compensate victims of the con man’s fraud since his arrest two years ago for masterminding the biggest Ponzi scheme in U.S. history.

Irving Picard, the trustee, filed hundreds of suits against banks, feeder funds, investors and others alleged to have profited from Madoff’s decades-long fraud. Among those sued was Madoff’s son Mark, who was found dead Dec. 11 in Manhattan of an apparent suicide.

The deadline for Picard to file claims expired at midnight Dec. 11. So far, he has recovered about $2.5 billion. Last week, he sued Bank Medici AG and its founder, Sonja Kohn, as well as Bank Austria, UniCredit SpA and dozens of other parties. He is seeking $19.6 billion from them, which could potentially triple to $58.8 billion under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. It’s the biggest claim filed by Picard.

Kohn, 62, whom Picard called Madoff’s “criminal soul mate,” used a relationship with the financier that began in 1985 to help build the Vienna-based bank, feeding more than $9.1 billion of investor money into his company, Picard said in a complaint last week in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York.

Andreas Theiss, a lawyer for Kohn and Medici in Vienna, said in an interview that, “Kohn and Medici are victims of Madoff. What is being claimed in the lawsuit has nothing to do with reality.”

UniCredit said in an e-mailed statement on behalf of itself, Bank Austria and its fund management unit Pioneer Global Asset Management SpA, which is also a defendant, that they will fight the lawsuit.

Their “attorneys are reviewing the matter and we will manage this through the normal course legal process,” the bank said in a statement.

Madoff, 72, who pleaded guilty, is serving a 150-year sentence in federal prison in North Carolina.

The case is Picard v. Kohn, 10-5411, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

For more, click here.

Verdicts/Settlements

Ex-Goldman Sachs Programmer Found Guilty of Stealing Secrets

Former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. computer programmer Sergey Aleynikov was found guilty of two counts of stealing the firm’s trade secrets by appropriating part of a high-frequency computer source code.

Aleynikov went on trial Nov. 29 in federal court in New York on charges of violating the Economic Espionage Act and the Interstate Transportation of Stolen Property Act. He faces as long as 10 years in prison on the espionage charge and five years for the interstate transportation charge.

U.S. District Judge Denise Cote set sentencing of Aleynikov for March 18. He and his lawyer both declined comment. He will be under home confinement and electronic monitoring, Cote ruled.

Assistant Manhattan U.S. Attorney Rebecca Rohr, in her closing statement on Dec. 9, told jurors that Aleynikov was a “thief.” On his last day of work at New York-based Goldman Sachs in June 2009, Aleynikov uploaded hundreds of thousands of lines of source code from the firm’s trading system, she said.

He circumvented Goldman Sachs’s security system, sent the code to an outside server in Germany, and later compressed and encrypted the code, Rohr said. Aleynikov took the code with him to a meeting with his new employers in Chicago in July 2009, she said.

While Aleynikov may have broken a confidentiality rule of Goldman Sachs, he didn’t commit a crime, said his attorney, Kevin Marino.

“He violated the policy, OK, but that’s not a crime,” Marino told jurors. “A crime is when you act to harm the victim and benefit yourself.”

The case is U.S. v. Aleynikov, 1:10-cr-00096, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

For more, click here.

Moody’s Ratings Are Protected Speech, Judge Says

Ratings by Moody’s Investors Service Inc., Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings Ltd. are protected speech, a California judge said Dec. 10 in a tentative ruling in a $1 billion lawsuit by California Public Employees’ Retirement System against the companies.

Judge Richard Kramer in San Francisco state court said the companies’ ratings of three structured investment vehicles that the retirement system lost money on are a form of speech about an issue of public interest that is protected under a California law designed to fend off lawsuits meant to chill public debate.

The case is Calpers v. Moody’s, 09-490241, Superior Court of California, County of San Francisco.

Vivendi to Pay $87.8 Million to Settle GVT Fraud Case

Vivendi SA agreed to pay a record 150 million reais ($87.8 million) to settle allegations by Brazil’s securities regulator that it fraudulently misled investors in its 7.2 billion reais purchase of telephone carrier GVT Holding SA.

Paris-based Vivendi was accused of providing incomplete information that led investors to believe it had enough GVT shares to fend off rival bids for the company, according to e- mailed statement announcing the accord by Brazilian securities regulator CVM.

Vivendi, the owner of the world’s largest music and video- game companies, outbid Telefonica SA late last year for control of GVT, raising its initial bid to top the Spanish rival. Vivendi, which operates France’s second-largest mobile-phone company SFR together with Vodafone Group Plc, has said it will use GVT to expand into pay television in Brazil.

The French company said in an e-mailed statement Dec. 10 that the payment didn’t imply the acknowledgment of wrongdoing. The payment concludes the investigation, Vivendi said.

For more, click here.

Ex-Morgan Crucible Chief Gets 18 Months in Prison

Ian Norris, the former chief executive officer of Morgan Crucible Co., was sentenced to 18 months in prison for his role in a scheme to fix prices for carbon and graphite products.

U.S. District Judge Eduardo Robreno in Philadelphia also ordered Norris, 67, to pay a $25,000 fine and serve three years’ probation after his prison term. A federal jury convicted Norris in July of conspiring to obstruct justice. The same jury acquitted him of trying to influence others’ grand jury testimony and of intent to induce the destruction of records.

“Obstruction of justice is an extremely serious crime,” Robreno said before imposing the sentence. “It strikes at the heart of the rule of law and it makes other crimes possible. Mr. Norris has not yet come completely to the realization of his factual guilt, as far as I can tell.”

Norris was extradited from the U.K. this year, the first foreign defendant sent to the U.S. to face charges arising from a criminal antitrust investigation, Justice Department officials said in March.

Christopher Curran, a defense attorney for Norris, said Dec. 10 that his client will appeal the conviction.

The case is U.S. v. Norris, 03-cr-632, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia).

For more, click here.

For the latest verdict and settlement news, click here.

New Suits

Leahy, Pillet Charged in EADS Insider-Trading Probe

Airbus SAS Chief Operating Officer John Leahy and Erik Pillet, the former human resources director at the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. unit, were charged by a Paris investigating judge with insider trading.

Leahy was placed under investigation Nov. 5, and Pillet Oct. 1 after they were called in for questioning, said a spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office who declined to be named citing office policy.

Criminal investigators are looking into allegations that as many as 17 current and former EADS officials engaged in insider trading ahead of the announcement about production problems that would delay the A380, the world’s biggest passenger plane. The report precipitated a 26 percent drop in the share price on June 14, 2006.

France’s market regulator cleared the officials and the company of any wrongdoing in December 2009 in a parallel probe.

Leahy’s lawyer Patrick Bernard and EADS spokesman Pierre Bayle declined to comment. Calls for comment to the men’s offices weren’t immediately returned.

Four former executives including former EADS co-chief executive officer Noel Forgeard and one current official have also been preliminarily charged in the probe. The investigation began after EADS investors filed a criminal complaint following the 2006 share price slide.

HSBC, Kingate Global Fund Sued in London Over Madoff Fraud

HSBC Holdings Plc and Kingate Management Ltd. were sued in London by Irving Picard, the trustee liquidating Bernard Madoff’s investment firm in New York.

The lawsuits, filed Dec. 10 at the High Court, follow cases filed by Picard against HSBC and Kingate in New York bankruptcy court. Picard sued HSBC last week for $9 billion over claims it aided Madoff’s fraud through a network of feeder funds in Europe, the Caribbean and Central America.

The trustee sued two Kingate “feeder funds” in April, arguing that he can retrieve $255 million in fake profit the funds withdrew from Madoff’s business within 90 days before his arrest in December 2008.

Picard, facing a deadline to file claims to retrieve money for victims of Madoff’s fraud, is filing lawsuits in London for the first time. Picard and the liquidators of Bernard Madoff Securities International Ltd., the U.K. arm of the convicted con man’s investment firm, sued the unit’s former directors, seeking at least $80 million, on Dec. 8.

Picard won a court order in London in May forcing investment firm FIM Advisers LLP to hand over additional documents about whether it knew about Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. FIM managed the Kingate Global and Kingate Euro hedge funds, now in liquidation in Bermuda, which funneled more than $1.7 billion to Madoff.

Madoff, 72, pleaded guilty in March 2009 to using money from new investors to pay off old ones in a Ponzi scheme, sparking investigations and dozens of lawsuits. U.K. prosecutors dropped a criminal probe into Madoff’s London unit in February after they found “insufficient evidence” to charge anyone.

Adrian Russell, a spokesman for HSBC, declined to immediately comment. Federico Ceretti and Carlo Grosso, who head FIM Advisers, didn’t immediately respond to a call seeking comment.

Kevin McCue, a spokesman for Picard, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The cases are Irving H. Picard (as Trustee for the Liquidation of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC) v. Kingate Management Ltd. & 11 ors, case no. 10-1478, and Irving H. Picard v. HSBC Plc, case no. 10-1479, High Court of Justice, Queen’s Bench Division (London.)

Kerviel, SocGen Sued by Employees for Stress, Lost Savings

Jerome Kerviel and Societe Generale SA were sued by four bank employees who said they suffered emotionally and financially after his unauthorized trading cost the bank 4.9 billion euros ($6.5 billion) in 2008.

The women are seeking 15,000 euros each in “moral damages” and as much as 3,973 euros in financial damages for the hit their savings took when the bank’s shares fell, according to the lawsuit filed Dec. 10 in Nanterre, near Paris.

The women “had sizable losses wiped from their savings,” according to an e-mailed copy of the lawsuit. The financial losses “aggravated the moral prejudice they suffered, adding to their state of anxiety and resentment.”

The employees sued two months after the former trader was sentenced to three years in jail and ordered to repay the loss, for which the court said he alone was responsible. Kerviel, who is free pending his appeal, said throughout the trial that the bank knew of his trading and condoned it. The lawsuit quotes extensively from a report by the French Banking Commission, which fined Societe Generale 4 million euros for lax controls related to Kerviel.

Societe Generale had no comment on the lawsuit, said Laura Schalk, a spokeswoman for the bank. Calls to lawyers for Kerviel and the bank for comment weren’t immediately returned.

Former Vitesse Chief Tomasetta Charged in Backdating

Former Vitesse Semiconductor Corp. Chief Executive Officer Louis Tomasetta and ex-Executive Vice President Eugene Hovanec were charged by the U.S. with securities fraud stemming from an options-backdating scheme.

Tomasetta, 62, of Ojai, California, and Hovanec, 60, of Westlake Village, California, were named in an indictment unsealed Dec. 10 in U.S. District Court in New York that also charged them with conspiracy, making false entries with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in a scheme which prosecutors said ran between 2001 and mid-2006.

Prosecutors in the office of Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, whose office is prosecuting the case, allege that Tomasetta, who co-founded the company, and Hovanec “engaged in an illegal scheme to deceive Vitesse’s auditors, investors and others” concerning the company’s true financial condition.

Knowing that the company wasn’t going to meet its own goals for revenue or earnings, Tomasetta, Hovanec and others “devised a scheme to falsely inflate Vitesse’s revenues,” prosecutors said.

The two men also backdated numerous stock options granted to Vitesse employees from 2001 to 2004 by backdating the options, prosecutors said.

Both defendants pleaded not guilty Dec. 10 before U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael Dolinger in New York and were released on $1 million bond, said Ellen Davis, a spokeswoman for Bharara’s office.

The case is U.S. v. Tomasetta, 10-CR-1205, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

For more, click here.

For the latest new suits news, click here. For copies of recent civil complaints, click here.

Lawsuits/Pretrial

GMAC Allowed to Proceed With Maine Foreclosure Sales

GMAC Mortgage LLC can sell foreclosed homes in Maine after defeating a bid by homeowners in the state who sought a federal court order blocking sales and evictions.

U.S. District Judge D. Brock Hornby, at a hearing Dec. 10 in Portland, Maine, declined to grant a temporary restraining order that a plaintiff’s lawyer said would have kept GMAC from selling foreclosed homes and evicting residents.

The judge said his decision hinged on the power of federal courts to stop proceedings in state courts, where foreclosures take place. He said individual homeowners who face losing their homes in a foreclosure sale can go to state court to stop the sales, he said.

“This decision is based on the limited authority federal courts have,” Hornby said.

The Maine case, filed in state court in October and moved to federal court by GMAC in November, involves five homeowners who are suing GMAC, claiming the company relied on defective court documents in seizing homes. The plaintiffs are seeking to represent all Maine homeowners who are facing foreclosure by GMAC or who lost their homes in a GMAC foreclosure during the past six years, according to court documents.

Maine Attorney General Janet Mills is considering joining the GMAC lawsuit, Assistant Attorney General Linda Conti said in an interview Dec. 10. The office is also considering filing its own lawsuit against GMAC, she said.

GMAC had agreed to suspend foreclosure sales and evictions in the state until the judge ruled on the restraining order, Andrea Bopp Stark, a lawyer for the plaintiffs said. That agreement expired Dec. 10.

The case is Bradbury v. GMAC Mortgage LLC, 10-00458, U.S. District Court, District of Maine (Portland).

For the latest lawsuits news, click here.

Trials/Appeals

Ex-Network Associates Finance Chief Wins Reversal

Prabhat Goyal, the former Network Associates Inc. chief financial officer convicted in 2007 of securities fraud and of making false statements to auditors, won reversal on all 15 counts on appeal.

The U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco agreed Dec. 10 with Goyal’s argument that, based on the evidence presented by prosecutors at his trial, no jury should have convicted him.

“Even viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, no reasonable juror could have found Goyal guilty beyond a reasonable doubt on any of the charges against him,” the three-member panel said in its ruling.

A federal grand jury indicted Goyal in 2004 for conspiring to secretly pay distributors to buy more inventory than they could sell during a given quarter and to hold onto the excess instead of returning it to the company.

The fraud caused Network Associates to overstate revenue by more than $470 million and understate losses by about $330 million from 1998 to 2000, according to the indictment.

“We’re extremely gratified by the court of appeals’ careful and unassailable opinion,” said attorney Seth Waxman, who argued the case on appeal for Goyal.

Goyal, in October 2008, was sentenced to serve one year and one day in prison for each count, with the terms to run concurrently, according to the trial court’s electronic docket. Waxman said his client never served that time and was free on bail pending the outcome of the appeal.

“We are in the process of reviewing the decision,” said Jack Gillund, a spokesman for the office of U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag in San Francisco.

The case is U.S. v. Goyal, 08-10436, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (San Francisco). The lower court case is U.S. v. Goyal, 04-cr-00201, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).

For the latest trial and appeals news, click here.

Court Filings

Countrywide Foreclosure Suit Most Popular Docket on Bloomberg

A bankruptcy lawsuit against New Jersey home owner John T. Kemp, whose mortgage company, a judge ruled, had failed to deliver the note to the trustee, was the most-read litigation docket on the Bloomberg Law system last week.

The rejection of the claim came after Linda DeMartini, a mortgage-litigation management division team leader at Bank of America Corp., which acquired Kemp’s company, Countrywide Financial Corp. in 2008, said during a bankruptcy hearing in Camden last year that it was routine for the lender to keep mortgage promissory notes even after loans were bundled by the thousands into bonds and sold to investors. Contracts for such securitizations usually require the documents to be transferred to the trustee for mortgage bondholders. That could leave the trustee with no standing to take the property, and raises the question of whether other foreclosures could similarly be blocked.

The bank disavowed the statements by DeMartini, whom it had flown in from California to testify. It was the policy of Countrywide, to deliver notes as called for in its securitization contracts, according to Larry Platt, an attorney at K&L Gates LLP in Washington designated by the Bank of America to answer questions about the case.

The case is In the Matter of John T. Kemp, Kemp v. Countrywide Home Loans Inc., 08-02448, U.S. bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey (Camden).

For more, click here.

On the Docket

Raj Rajaratnam Insider Trading Trial to Start Feb. 28

Galleon Group LLC founder Raj Rajaratnam is scheduled to go on trial Feb. 28 on charges he used tips from company executives, hedge-fund employees and others in a multimillion- dollar insider-trading scheme.

U.S. District Judge Richard J. Holwell, in an order filed Dec. 10 in federal court in Manhattan, said the charges against Rajaratnam will be tried separately from those against his co- defendant Danielle Chiesi. The trial of Chiesi, a former hedge fund consultant, is scheduled to start April 25.

Rajaratnam, 53, was arrested last year and is the central figure in a probe of insider trading at hedge funds that has led to 14 guilty pleas. He and Chiesi, a former consultant at New Castle Funds LLC, deny wrongdoing. Theirs is the largest insider-trading case involving hedge funds.

Rajaratnam and Chiesi last month lost a bid to block the first-ever use of wiretap evidence in an insider-trading case. Evidence at an October hearing showed that the government secretly recorded about 2,400 conversations between Rajaratnam and more than 130 friends, business associates and alleged accomplices.

The case is U.S. v. Rajaratnam, 09-1184, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan.)

www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-13/goldman-moody-s-vivendi-eads-hsbc-socgen-in-court-news.html

[sandi66]

Madoff Trustee, Charities Negotiating Settlements

Monday, 13 December 2010

Irving H. Picard, a partner with Baker & Hostetler LLP and the SIPA Trustee for the liquidation of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC ("BLMIS") today announced that he has reached settlements with a number of charities and nonprofit organizations. To date, settlements total more than $80 million and resolve potential claims against charities which withdrew more than they deposited in the Madoff Ponzi scheme and, in some cases, were the recipients of donations that were made with other people's money.

"We are pleased that a number of nonprofit organizations came forward to negotiate with us," said Mr. Picard. "Through these settlements, these admirable groups can continue with their good works and social programs. By settling, these charities remove the uncertainty generated by either potential claims or litigation, and, importantly, their donors can continue to contribute with confidence to their favorite charities.

"While it is our legal and fiduciary duty to recover funds for distribution to BLMIS customers with valid claims, we are mindful of the philanthropic missions of the charities which were drawn into the Madoff deception," said Mr. Picard. "We consider the good works of the charities involved, as well as special circumstances such as restricted gift structures, when we negotiate with these groups. We don't want to compound the damage done by Madoff or hamper the work of these worthy organizations.

"Not only do the charities benefit by putting the Madoff fraud behind them, but also, by settling rather than litigating, they enable us to recover funds that belong to other BLMIS customers sooner," Mr. Picard said.

"The law and basic fairness require that, to the degree possible, these funds be recovered and returned," said David J. Sheehan, counsel for the Trustee and a partner at Baker & Hostetler LLP, the court-appointed counsel for the Trustee.

SIPC's President Stephen Harbeck stated, "SIPC believes the settlements are practical and equitable solutions to the terrible problems caused by Bernard Madoff. The settlements balance the genuine concerns of both the charities that innocently received stolen funds, and the people who will receive distributions as a result of these agreements."

The Trustee noted that one recent charity settlement was with the American Jewish volunteer women's organization, Hadassah. Subject to Bankruptcy Court approval, the settlement will add $45 million to the Customer Fund for equitable distribution among Madoff customers with valid claims. Settlements such as this one obviate the need for litigation and resolve all claims by the Trustee against the charities.

"Among the many sad realities of Madoff's massive crime is the fact that charities lost millions of dollars in donor contributions that they deposited with Madoff and never withdrew," said Mr. Sheehan. "In addition, there are charities which unknowingly withdrew, over time, more than they had deposited and, as difficult as it is, we must work with these organizations to recover excess withdrawals. As the Hadassah agreement illustrates, when working with nonprofit organizations, we seek to craft settlements that avoid the costs and delays of litigation, provide significant recoveries for the customer fund, and still allow these charities to move forward with their important charitable endeavors."

Mr. Picard again encouraged all BLMIS customers – individuals as well as businesses and nonprofits – who are subject to recoveries by the Trustee to come forward and try to reach an amicable solution that takes into consideration financial circumstances, case by case.

Media Contact:

Kevin McCue

[e-mail]

216-861-7576





SOURCE Irving H. Picard

pr-usa.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=564297&Itemid=32

[sandi66]

Investigator: Mark Madoff was 'next up' in probe

Originally published: December 12, 2010 4:15 PM

With his fortune under assault and federal investigators focusing more attention on him, Mark Madoff, the 46-year-old son of the architect of Wall Street's greatest scam, took his own life in his Soho apartment yesterday, New York City police said.

Madoff, who had been a key official in Bernard Madoff's investment firm, was found hanging by a black dog leash from a pipe in the living room of his apartment, two years to the day after his father was arrested by the FBI in a Ponzi scheme that destroyed the lives of thousand of investors, wiped out charities and decimated estates.

Madoff was discovered by his wife's stepfather about 7:30 a.m. Saturday, police said. Madoff's wife, Stephanie, in Florida with their 4-year-old daughter, became concerned about the well-being of the couple's 2-year-old son after an exchange of e-mails with her husband, a police official said. She alerted her stepfather, who discovered Madoff in the couple's apartment at 158 Mercer St.

PHOTOS: Madoff family | Madoff's property | The victims

MORE: Complete coverage

The son was asleep in a nearby bedroom and unharmed, along with the family dog, police said.

Madoff had sent at least two e-mails to his wife and one to his lawyer in the early morning, a police official said. In the e-mails to his wife, he asked her to take care of their son and said that he loved her, the official said.

"This is a terrible and unnecessary tragedy," Martin Flumenbaum, the attorney representing Mark Madoff and his brother, Andrew, said in a statement. "Mark was an innocent victim of his father's monstrous crime who succumbed to two years of unrelenting pressure from false accusations and innuendo. We are all deeply saddened by this shocking turn of events."

In recent weeks, federal investigators had charged a number of Bernard Madoff associates in indictments. The latest under indictment was key operative Annette Bongiorno, who was charged last month with fabricating documents and securities fraud in connection with the Ponzi scheme that investigators believe lost investors $20 billion.

Agents investigating the scheme recently had focused more attention on Mark Madoff, one investigator said.

"He was next up to the tee," said the investigator, who didn't want to be named because of the pending probe, referring to the shift of attention to Mark Madoff.

Mark Madoff wasn't viewed as a major insider with vast knowledge of his father's fraud but he is believed to have had some awareness of the fraudulent nature of the operation, the investigator said.

Irving Picard, the bankruptcy trustee in the Bernard Madoff case, said Mark Madoff, Ruth Madoff and Andrew Madoff knew or should have known about the fraud when they received tens of millions of dollars from the investment company.

Picard sued the Madoff family members, including Mark, last year and also this past week in an effort to get back any profit that they may have received from the scheme.

"This is a tragic development, and my sympathy goes out to Mark Madoff's family," Picard said in a statement yesterday.

One person who had recent contact with Madoff told The Associated Press that he was despondent over coverage of his father's case and his struggle to rebuild his life.

The intense scrutiny approaching the anniversary "became too much for him," the person said.

Ira Sorkin, the attorney for Bernard Madoff, said he had been trying to reach out to the Federal Bureau of Prisons to learn if his client had been told of the death of his son. Madoff is serving a 150-year prison term in North Carolina.

"This is a great tragedy on many levels," said Sorkin.

Calls to relatives of Ruth Madoff in Florida, with whom she is believed to be living at times, were not returned.

Mark and Andrew Madoff had turned their father over to the FBI on Dec. 10, 2008, after Bernard Madoff confessed to them that his investment business was a scam and had caused massive losses to investors. Bernard Madoff was arrested a day later.

Investors of the defunct Madoff firm were saddened by Madoff's death.

Jeff Wilpon, chief operating officer of the New York Mets, who went to Roslyn High School with Madoff in the 1980s, said, "It is shocking, it is sad, it is tragic."

Wilpon, who said in December 2008 that Mark Madoff had been a friend of his for 30 years, has been sued along with other members of his family by Picard in one of hundreds of lawsuits the trustee has filed to get back profits from Madoff investors.

Richard Friedman, 61, an accountant from Jericho who lost money investing with Bernard Madoff, said no one was taking any joy in the son's suicide. "We see this as a family tragedy," said Friedman. "Nobody envisioned this happening, nor did anybody want Mark Madoff to kill himself."

Stephanie Madoff, Mark's wife, petitioned a Manhattan court in February to change her and her children's last names to Morgan to avoid harassment and threats.

Mark Madoff graduated from the University of Michigan. He was a licensed broker with his father's firm since 1987. He has two other children from a previous marriage, ages 18 and 16. Madoff and his first wife, Suzanne, divorced in 2000.

www.newsday.com/business/investigator-mark-madoff-was-next-up-in-probe-1.2534803

[sandi66]

Madoff Scandal and Market Impacts (RFMK, BAC, MSFT, AAPL, C)

Posted on 12/12/10 at 3:00am

(
EMAILWIRE.COM, December 12, 2010 ) MINNEAPOLIS, MN - The eldest son of disgraced financier Bernard Madoff hanged himself by a dog leash in his apartment Saturday after two years of "unrelenting pressure" following his father's arrest in a multibillion-dollar fraud that enveloped the entire family, law enforcement officials and a family attorney said.

So what impacts, if any, will this have on the stock market? Probably none, according to the investment firm Mega Stock Picks. Mega Stock Picks, which produces an online newsletter, says there are some stocks to keep an eye on.

Among them is Rapid Fire Marketing (RFMK), which is involved in producing smokeless cigarettes and medical marijuana. Both are very popular currently.

Bernard Madoff, 72, swindled a long list of investors out of billions of dollars. He admitted that he ran his scheme for at least two decades, cheating thousands of individuals, charities, celebrities and institutional investors. Losses are estimated at around $20 billion, making it the biggest investment fraud in U.S. history.

Bank of America Corporation (NYSE: BAC) , Microsoft Corporation (NasdaqGS: MSFT [FREE Stock Trend Analysis]) , Apple Inc. (NasdaqGS: AAPL) and Citigroup, Inc. (NYSE: C) all continue to be stocks with increasing volume.

www.benzinga.com/press-releases/10/12/e691085/madoff-scandal-and-market-impacts-rfmk-bac-msft-aapl-c

[sandi66]

Banc of America Securities charged with fraud

Monday, 13 December 2010 11:35am

US corporate watchdog SEC has charged Banc of America Securities with fraud for its part in an effort to rig bids relating to the investments of municipal securities.

The bank has agreed to pay more than $36 million in disgorgement and interest to settle the SEC's charges.

Meanwhile, BAS and its affiliates will pay another $101 million to other federal and state authorities for its conduct.

"This ongoing investigation has helped to expose wide-spread corruption in the municipal reinvestment industry," said Robert Khuzami, director of the SEC's division of enforcement, in a statement.

"The conduct was egregious - in return for business, the company repeatedly paid undisclosed gratuitous payments and kickbacks and affirmatively misrepresented that the bidding process was proper."

When investors buy municipal securities, the municipalities generally invest the proceeds temporarily in reinvestment products before the money is used for the intended purposes.

Under relevant IRS regulations, the proceeds of tax-exempt municipal securities must generally be invested at fair market value. The most common way of establishing fair market value is through a competitive bidding process, whereby bidding agents search for the appropriate investment vehicle for a municipality.

In its order, the SEC found that the bidding process was not competitive because it was tainted by undisclosed consultations, agreements, or payments.

Therefore, it could not be used to establish the fair market value of the reinvestment instruments.

As a result, these improper bidding practices affected the prices of the reinvestment products and jeopardised the tax-exempt status of the underlying municipal securities, the principal amounts of which totaled billions of dollars, said the SEC.

BAS is now known as Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated following a merger.

www.financialstandard.com.au/news/view/31065/

[sandi66]

FedEx Gears Up for Busiest Day of 2010

By HUGH COLLINS Posted 7:05 AM 12/13/10

FedEx (FDX) is gearing up its busiest day of the year, confident that holiday shopping will help push traffic above its 2009 peak.

The Memphis, Tenn.- based shipping giant, expects to handle about 16 million packages worldwide today, according to The Wall Street Journal. That's nearly 13% higher than its busiest day in 2009.

Last month, FedEx CEO Fred Smith said he was ""optimistic about the volumes during the holiday shipping season."

UPS (UPS) is less bullish, saying shipments could be flat at 24 million shipments on Dec. 22, which it says will be its busiest day.

Still, the Atlanta-based company expects full-season volume to be up about 7.5% from last year, at about 430 million packages.

www.dailyfinance.com/story/company-news/fedex-gears-up-for-busiest-day-of-2010/19757859/