– US military develops anti-aircraft laser (Telegraph):
The Laser Avenger successfully shot down a series of unmanned aerial vehicles during recent tests and is being hailed as a revolutionary weapon for future warfare.
– Chinese TV station sorry for accidentally burning down brand-new luxury hotel (Daily Mail)
– RBS to axe 2300 jobs.. but still plans to pay out £1bn in bonuses to bankers (Daily Mail)
– RBS slashes 2300 jobs (Scotsman):
‘The four ex-chiefs of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and HBOS admitted to having no formal banking qualifications.’
– Asian shares fall after President Obama says US faces ‘full-blown’ crisis (Telegraph)
– Geithner unveils bank rescue plan (Los Angeles):
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner this morning unveiled the Obama administration’s $1.5-trillion-to-$2-trillion plan for stabilizing the nation’s malfunctioning financial markets, including a public-private partnership to boost lending, warning that the new strategy “will cost money, involve risk and take time.” (… the new strategy will fail, continue to loot taxpayers’, destroy the dollar and create the ‘Greatest Depression’.)
– $2,000bn US bank clean-up (Financial Times):
US shares tumbled on Tuesday as investors gave a thumbs-down to plans by the Obama administration to deploy up to $2,000bn to clean up toxic assets in the financial system and restart credit markets.
– New Bailout May Top $1.5 Trillion (Washington Post)
– Senate backs Obama’s bank bailout as details of new $1.5trillion rescue deal are revealed (Daily Mail)
– Treasury revamps financial rescue plan (Financial Times)
– US Treasury plans to set up ‘aggregator bank’ to buy toxic assets (Guardian)
– ‘Top Brown adviser sacked and gagged me for warning banks were taking too many risks’, says whistleblower (Daily Mail):
One of Gordon Brown’s key advisers was today accused of sacking a whistleblower who warned banks were heading for disaster years before the financial meltdown.
Paul Moore, HBOS’s head of risk between 2002 and 2005, alleges he told directors as early as 2004 that the company was in danger of becoming out of control.
‘Anyone whose eyes were not blinded by money, power and pride’ would have realised problems were mounting for HBOS and the other high street banks, he said.
– Czech PM attacks eurozone governments (Financial Times)
– Europe ambushes Germany on debt bail-out (Telegraph)
– UBS makes £11.3bn loss and axes another 2000 jobs (Guardian)
– Temasek portfolio falls 31% (Financial Times):
Temasek Holdings, the Singapore state investment company, suffered a 31 per cent fall in the value of its portfolio from S$185bn ($123bn) to S$127bn in the eight months to the end of November last year, the government said on Tuesday.
– Air freight drops as global trade siezes up (Telegraph)
– Even elderly are facing eviction (Seattle Post Intelligencer)
– Gordon Brown calls for World Bank and IMF reform (Telegraph)
– Parents find cure for son’s ‘untreatable’ blood disorder (Telegraph):
(Western medicine is in most aspects so unbelievable backwards, especially if you know what is possible with alternative medicine.)
– Bank chiefs admit buying ABN was a ‘bad mistake’ (Financial Times)
– Bad economy forcing immigrants to reconsider US (CNN)
– FBI Believed that Bombs Were Used on 9/11:
Following the massive terrorist attacks against New York and Washington, the FBI dedicated 7,000 of its 11,000 Special Agents and thousands of FBI support personnel to the PENTTBOM investigation. “PENTTBOM” is short for Pentagon, Twin Towers Bombing.