Month: February 2009

– Czech leader attacks EU (Independent):
The Czech Republic President said the EU was undemocratic, elitist and reminiscent of Soviet-era Communist dictatorships in an attack which provoked an angry response from EU legislators.

– Binyamin Netanyahu to be Israel’s next Prime Minister (Times Online):
(I am sure Iran has raised the threat level to ‘blood’ red already.)

– Gold rises over $1000 on haven buying (Reuters):
NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) – Gold rose above $1,000 an ounce on Friday for the first time since March last year as nervous investors piled into the yellow metal to preserve wealth amid a tumbling stock market.

– Police documents linking New York governor Eliot Spitzer to prostitutes to be released (Telegraph):
A US federal judge ordered the release of documents from the investigation that linked former New York governor Eliot Spitzer to a prostitution ring.

– White House says world can’t delay on Iran (AP):
WASHINGTON — The White House says the international community must work together to urgently address Iran’s uranium enrichment activities.

– Iran has enough uranium ‘to build a nuclear bomb’ (Telegraph):
(Iran’s uranium is enriched at 3%, for a nuclear weapon Iran needs 95% enriched uranium. Still a looong way to go. I just saw a documentary (aired by a big German TV station) that for only $ 5 million you can get a suitcase nuke. Besides everything that Iran does is “perfectly legal” says Ron Paul.)

– Official: Pentagon report says Gitmo is humane (AP):
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon says the Guantanamo Bay prison meets the standard for humane treatment laid out in the Geneva Conventions, according to a report for President Barack Obama, who has ordered the terrorist detention center closed within a year.

– Former RNC director convicted in phone jamming case gets off without penalty (Raw Story)

– AP IMPACT: Jobless Hit With Bank Fees on Benefits (ABC News):
First, Arthur Santa-Maria called Bank of America to ask how to check the balance of his new unemployment benefits debit card. The bank charged him 50 cents. He chose not to complain. That would have cost another 50 cents. So he took out some of the money and then decided to pull out the rest. But that made two withdrawals on the same day, and that was $1.50.

– US bank stocks fall to 17-year low (Financial Times):
US banking shares hit their lowest level since 1992 on Thursday as fears mounted that the government would be forced to nationalise a key institution.

– No TARP Can Mend the Economy Now (International Forecaster):
The collapse we see in the distance will bring about social dislocation and Martial law.

– Russians Retrench as Crisis Evokes Memories of 1998 ‘Nightmare’ (Bloomberg)

– Qantas Rating Cut to Baa2 at Moody’s on Travel Plunge (Bloomberg):
Feb. 20 (Bloomberg) — Qantas Airways Ltd., Australia’s largest carrier, had its credit rating cut for the first time in more than 15 years by Moody’s Investors Service as the global recession hammers demand for air travel.

– Anglo American to shed 9,000 jobs (Financial Times)

– Newly Poor Swell Lines at Food Banks (New York Times):
MORRISTOWN, N.J. — Once a crutch for the most needy, food pantries have responded to the deepening recession by opening their doors to what Rosemary Gilmartin, who runs the Interfaith Food Pantry here, described as “the next layer of people” — a rapidly expanding roster of child-care workers, nurse’s aides, real estate agents and secretaries facing a financial crisis for the first time.

– Saab seeks bankruptcy protection in battle for survival (Times Online)

– Japan turns to ‘work-sharing’ to avoid layoffs (AP):
Work-sharing is the latest buzzword in Japan Inc. Proponents say it’s a good way to avoid American-style layoffs in a society that has long fostered lifetime employment. Toyota Motor Corp., Mazda Motor Corp., Toshiba Corp. and Fujitsu Inc., have all taken up some kind of work-sharing. Nissan Motor Co. and others are considering it.

– Highland Capital CDO Fund Is Insolvent, Wiping Out Investors (Bloomberg)

– Obama Picks Bilderberger for Health Secretary (Prison Planet):
Obama has picked a Bilderberger to be his choice for health secretary — Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius. Obama initially picked former Senate Democrat leader Tom Daschle for the position, but Daschle “withdrew because of personal tax issues,” in other words he didn’t bother to pay any taxes because minions of the elite are not required to do so, except for public relations reasons. (Obama has also given 10 key positions to members of the Trilateral Commission. Obama is a New World Order puppet.)

– GM shares hit 74-year low (AP)

– Berkshire stock hits 5-year low below $74000 (BusinessWeek)

– Sun-powered device converts CO2 into fuel (New Scientist):
Powered only by natural sunlight, an array of nanotubes is able to convert a mixture of carbon dioxide and water vapour into natural gas at unprecedented rates.

– China recalls more than 320000 doses of flawed rabies vaccine: official (Xinhua)

– Drinking two cups of coffee a day ‘cuts stroke risk by 20 per cent’ (Telegraph):
A study involving more than 80,000 women over a period of more than 20 years showed those who consumed several cups a day were much less likely to suffer a clot on the brain.

– Texans to shoot wild pigs from helicopters (Telegraph):
Texans may be allowed to take to the air in helicopters to gun down the millions of pigs that are running wild in the state’s countryside.

– Brian Eno: The well of freedom is running dry (Independent):
Nobody bothers about civil liberties until they’ve gone. As the old country song warns: “You don’t miss your water till your well runs dry.”

– Brzezinski: US Recession Could Lead to Riots (U.S. News & World Report):
And if we don’t get some sort of voluntary National Solidarity Fund, at some point there’ll be such political pressure that Congress will start getting in the act, there’s going to be growing conflict between the classes and if people are unemployed and really hurting, hell, there could be even riots.

– Kabul on the edge (Stars and Stripes):
“People are saying that for six or seven years we have all these international troops, but everything is getting worse … security, the economy, everything. So they think America must be supporting the Taliban.”

– Russian navy accused of sinking Chinese cargo ship (Telegraph):
The New Star was pursued out of port in Nakhodka in the Siberian Far East on Sunday by a Russian naval vessel which believed it was involved in smuggling. The pursuing ship fired at least 500 rounds, forcing it to turn back to port, but it sank on the way.

– California Lawmakers Approve Tax Increases to Close $42 Billion Budget Gap (Bloomberg):
A $13 billion tax increase passed….

– Rising debt may overwhelm Barack Obama’s effort to rescue the economy (Times Online):
President Obama was hit with another wave of grim financial news yesterday, amid signs that his Administration is in danger of being overwhelmed by the scale of the economic crisis.

– Pentagon issues performance pay and bonuses averaging 8.35 percent (GovExec.com):
Nearly all of the employees in the Defense Department’s new personnel system were rewarded for their job performance in their first paychecks of 2009, with the average pay raise and bonus totaling 8.35 percent.

– Feb. could be worst month yet for jobless claims (AP):
WASHINGTON – February is shaping up to be another brutal month of job losses: The number of laid-off workers receiving unemployment benefits hit an all-time high of nearly 5 million, and new jobless claims are at levels not seen since the early 1980s.

– Stock Decline Hits Depression Levels (BusinessWeek):
During the darkest 10 years of the Great Depression, from September 1929 to September 1939, the stock market dropped roughly 50%, adjusted for inflation. With today’s drop in the stock market, the U.S. has now matched that unfortunate milestone.

– Greenwald: U.S. Is Bound By Treaty to Prosecute Torture Crimes (Crooks and Liars)

– SEC Uncovers Ponzi Scheme Targeting Deaf Investors (CNBC)

– Benefits neglected for civil retirees (USA Today):
State and local governments have set aside virtually no money to pay $1 trillion or more in medical benefits for retired civil servants, a USA TODAY survey found. With bills coming due as Baby Boomers start to retire, states, cities, school districts and other governments may be forced to raise taxes, cut benefits or both — a task made especially difficult in an economic downturn.

– Foreign firms and investors flee from wounded Celtic Tiger (Guardian):
Brussels lumped Ireland together with Greece and Latvia yesterday on a hit list of countries with “excessive” government deficits, in the latest blow to the pride of the economy once envied across Europe and dubbed the Celtic Tiger.

– Nicolas Sarkozy announces 2.65 bn euro in aid in bid to avert French unrest (Telegraph):
His speech came as violence in the French island of Guadeloupe put pressure on him to avert unrest on the mainland.

– Anger over Labour’s ‘secret plan to push up council taxes’ (Daily Mail):
Labour was last night accused of secretly plotting to raise extra cash from millions of households with a nationwide council tax revaluation. The Government has quietly renewed a multi-million pound deal with one of Britain’s leading property websites to access details of sale prices and floorplans of tens of thousands of homes.

– UK overshoots borrowing target (Financial Times):
… in the 12 months to the end of January 2009, tax revenues have been so weak that borrowing has already exceeded the pre-Budget report forecast and reached £79.3bn. For the past two months, the degree to which the government’s finances have been in deficit over the most recent year of data has deteriorated by £10bn a month.

– UK public finances deteriorate dramatically (Telegraph):
The UK’s public finances deteriorated dramatically in January as the Government’s bank bail-out boosted debt levels and tax revenues dropped sharply.

– Civil servants to benefit from £26 million bonuses (Telegraph)

– Brown leads global drive to close down tax havens (Independent):
Britain is leading moves to end the privileged status of tax havens as part of a planned “global new deal” to tackle the international recession. (Can’t hide from the New World Order.)

– EU fights plan to ring-fence British banks’ toxic assets (Guardian)

– Banks agree to European CDS clearer (Financial Times):
Weeks of battling between regulators in Brussels and some of the biggest players in the huge $60,000bn credit derivatives industry ended on Thursday when the industry agreed to clear most EU-based credit default swap contracts in Europe.

– Brown calls on world to strike ‘grand bargain’ to solve economic crisis (Times Online)

– Venezuela Takes Over Local Bank Owned by Stanford (Bloomberg)

– BNP Paribas, Axa Post Losses After Financial Markets Tumble (Bloomberg):
BNP Paribas, the biggest French bank, had a 1.37 billion- euro ($1.72 billion) fourth-quarter loss…
Axa, Europe’s second-largest insurer, had a deficit of 1.24 billion euros in the second half…

– Bank of Japan Widens Asset-Purchase Program to Ease Credit Woes (Bloomberg)

– Germany ready to help eurozone members (Financial Times):
Germany signalled that it would support emergency action to protect the eurozone if one of its 16 member-states found itself in such serious difficulties that it could not refinance its debt.

– China Feasts on Miners as ‘Bank of Last Resort’ (Bloomberg):
“China has turned out to be the bank of last resort,” said Glyn Lawcock, head of resources research at UBS AG in Sydney. “China is a net importer of copper, bauxite, alumina, nickel, zircon, uranium. China is looking for ways to secure supply of these raw materials.” (Excellent investment strategy, because commodities will go through the roof.)

– World Bank president Zoellick urges EU to help east Europe (Financial Times):

– European banks warn of more job cuts (Guardian):
Mainland European banks today warned of a worsening economic environment throughout this year as they confirmed they had plunged into the red in the final quarter of 2008 and warned of thousands of job losses to come.

– US Sen. Kerry goes to Gaza Strip, avoids Hamas (AP)

– Geronimo’s kin sue Skull and Bones over remains (AP):
HARTFORD, Conn. – Geronimo’s descendants have sued Skull and Bones the secret society at Yale University linked to presidents and other powerful figures claiming that its members stole the remains of the legendary Apache leader decades ago and have kept them ever since.

– What a mess! Experts ponder space junk problem (AP):
VIENNA – Think of it as a galactic garbage dump. With a recent satellite collision still fresh on minds, participants at a meeting in the Austrian capital this week are discussing ways to deal with space debris — junk that is clogging up the orbit around the Earth.