CYPRUS: DEPOSITORS MIGHT BE ISSUED BANK STOCK WORTH 37.5% OF AMOUNTS OVER 100,000 EUROS, “WHILE THE REST OF THEIR DEPOSITS MAY NEVER BE PAID BACK”
March 30th, 2013Via: Reuters:
Big depositors in Cyprus’s largest bank stand to lose far more than initially feared under a European Union rescue package to save the island from bankruptcy, a source with direct knowledge of the terms said on Friday.
Under conditions expected to be announced on Saturday, depositors in Bank of Cyprus will get shares in the bank worth 37.5 percent of their deposits over 100,000 euros, the source told Reuters, while the rest of their deposits may never be paid back.
The toughening of the terms will send a clear signal that the bailout means the end of Cyprus as a hub for offshore finance and could accelerate economic decline on the island and bring steeper job losses.
Officials had previously spoken of a loss to big depositors of 30 to 40 percent.
Related: Betray Your Bank Before Your Bank Betrays You
Florida County Spends Tens Of Thousands On Ambulance For Obese Patients
March 30th, 2013Via: CBS:
The Orange County Fire and Rescue spends tens of thousands of dollars for an ambulance to transport patients that weigh up to 1,100 pounds.
Central Florida News 13 reports that the ambulance was purchased after emergency responders had to transport at least two dozen patients who weighed more than 500 pounds last year.
“With some of these morbidly obese patients, we have to send more firefighters just to lift and to move the patient. So once they’re in and we get them to the hospital, someone has to be at the hospital to unload them,” one Orange County fire official told News 13. “That’s pulling a lot of resources from emergency calls just to do that.”
Orange County paid $23,000 alone for the lift gate and stretcher and the stretcher is 10 inches wider than the average one.
Ex-Schools Chief in Atlanta Is Indicted in Massive Cheating Scandal
March 30th, 2013Via: New York Times:
During his 35 years as a Georgia state investigator, Richard Hyde has persuaded all sorts of criminals — corrupt judges, drug dealers, money launderers, racketeers — to turn state’s evidence, but until Jackie Parks, he had never tried to flip an elementary school teacher.
It worked.
In the fall of 2010, Ms. Parks, a third-grade teacher at Venetian Hills Elementary School in southwest Atlanta, agreed to become Witness No. 1 for Mr. Hyde, in what would develop into the most widespread public school cheating scandal in memory.
Ms. Parks admitted to Mr. Hyde that she was one of seven teachers — nicknamed “the chosen” — who sat in a locked windowless room every afternoon during the week of state testing, raising students’ scores by erasing wrong answers and making them right. She then agreed to wear a hidden electronic wire to school, and for weeks she secretly recorded the conversations of her fellow teachers for Mr. Hyde.
In the two and a half years since, the state’s investigation reached from Ms. Parks’s third-grade classroom all the way to the district superintendent at the time, Beverly L. Hall, who was one of 35 Atlanta educators indicted Friday by a Fulton County grand jury.
Dr. Hall, who retired in 2011, was charged with racketeering, theft, influencing witnesses, conspiracy and making false statements. Prosecutors recommended a $7.5 million bond for her; she could face up to 45 years in prison.
During the decade she led the district of 52,000 children, many of them poor and African-American, Atlanta students often outperformed wealthier suburban districts on state tests.
Those test scores brought her fame — in 2009, the American Association of School Administrators named her superintendent of the year and Arne Duncan, the secretary of education, hosted her at the White House.
And fortune — she earned more than $500,000 in performance bonuses while superintendent.
Judge Dismisses Most Claims In Libor Lawsuits, Ruling In Favor Of Big Banks
March 30th, 2013😯
Via: Reuters:
A judge on Friday dismissed a “substantial portion” of claims facing a number of banks in a barrage of lawsuits accusing them of interest-rate rigging.
U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald in Manhattan ruled for the banks, which include Bank of America Corp , JPMorgan Chase & Co and others, of allegedly manipulating the London Interbank Offered Rate, commonly known as Libor.
The judge granted the banks’ motion to dismiss the plaintiffs’ federal antitrust claims and partially dismissed their claims of commodities manipulation. She also dismissed racketeering and state-law claims.
The decision is a significant setback for private plaintiffs, whose lawsuits had been consolidated before the New York judge as part of a multidistrict litigation proceeding.
In Search Of… The Complete Series
March 30th, 2013This is how it all started for me, the trailhead, if you will. I wonder if there’s a picture of me as a five-year-old watching this… on our orange shag carpet…
In Search Of… The Complete Series (1976):
Leonard Nimoy, hosts and narrates this documentary series that takes you to the world of Unsolved Mysteries and those strange and unusual things in the world that defy explanation and often understanding. The world is filled with unexplained mysteries, paranormal phenomena, strange creatures, and other things that go bump in the night. The topics are entertaining and engrossing. Lost civilizations, extraterrestrials, myths and monsters, missing persons, magic and witchcraft, unexplained phenomena. ”In Search Of…” cameras travel the world, seeking out these great mysteries.
Obama’s ‘No Fly’ List for FedEx and UPS
March 30th, 2013Via: The Future of Freedom Foundation:
The Obama administration is notorious for crony capitalism, through which big businesses reap huge riches by virtue of their cozy association with government. Big oil, big car companies, big agrobusinesses, big banks, and big drug corporations are among the legally privileged cronies who are profiting at the expense of nonprivileged competitors and of customers who pay higher prices.
Now the Department of Justice (DOJ) is trying to institute the shipping version of a “no fly” list on behalf of the big pharmaceutical companies and in the name of the war on drugs. The DOJ wants America’s two largest courier/delivery services to open and report on the shipments from online pharmacies, allegedly to staunch the flow of illegal pharmaceuticals. Here’s the catch: the DOJ wants packages opened even when there is no reason to suspect illegal contents.
FedEx spokesman Patrick Fitzgerald explained, “sealed packages … are being sent by, as far as we can tell, licensed pharmacies. These are medicines with legal prescriptions written by licensed physicians.” Fitzgerald added, “We are a transportation company that picks up and delivers close to 10 million packages every day. They are sealed packages, so we have no way of knowing specifically what’s inside and we have no interest in violating the privacy rights of our customers.”
…
Online and foreign pharmacies are popular sources of legal pharmaceuticals because they usually offer low prices and high convenience. This competition constitutes a widening crack in the pharmaceutical monopoly that big drug companies would like to enjoy in the United States.
Research Credit: alvinroasting
Shocker: ‘Underwear Bomber’ Run by U.S. Intelligence
March 30th, 2013Via: Atlantic Wire:
According to five people familiar with the call, Brennan stressed that the plot was never a threat to the U.S. public or air safety because Washington had “inside control” over it.
Brennan’s comment appears unintentionally to have helped lead to disclosure of the secret at the heart of a joint U.S.-British-Saudi undercover counter-terrorism operation.
Research Credit: alvinroasting
Number Of Teens Expecting To Depend On Parents Into Adulthood Has Doubled Since 2011
March 30th, 2013Via: Consumerist:
In what could be an indicator of either a massive drop in teens’ financial prospects or the fact that teens today are getting more realistic about their financial futures, a new survey shows that the percentage of teenagers who expect to remain dependent on mom and/or dad until at least age 27 has doubled in just the last two years.
In 2011, only 12% of respondents to the Junior Achievement Teens and Personal Finance Survey said they would probably be financially dependent on a parent or guardian until the age of 27. According to the newly released 2013 survey [PDF], that rate now stands at 25%. Meanwhile, those who are completely unsure of when or if they will ever be dependent has jumped from 1% in 2011 to 11% in 2013.
U.S. Army Veteran Charged with Fighting with Al-Qaida in Syria
March 30th, 2013“I know he was doing some work for the CIA over there… I know for a fact that he was passing information on to the CIA.”
Via: Washington Post:
A U.S. Army veteran, who boasted on Facebook of his military adventures with Syrian rebels, was charged Thursday with firing rocket propelled grenades as part of an attack led by an al-Qaida group against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Eric Harroun, 30, of Phoenix, was charged in U.S. District Court in Alexandria with conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction — specifically, a rocket propelled grenade launcher — outside the U.S.
According to an FBI affidavit, Harroun, who served three years in the Army before being medically discharged, was engaged in military action in Syria, siding with rebel forces against the Syrian government, from January to March of this year.
Harroun told FBI investigators that he traveled to Turkey in November hoping to join the Free Syrian Army, a rebel group. In January, he crossed the border and made contact with the Free Syrian Army, which outfitted him two Russian rifles, according to the affidavit.
Within days, Harroun participated in an attack on a Syrian army encampment that was carried out jointly by the Free Syrian Army and the al-Nusrah Front, commonly known as “al-Qaida in Iraq” and designated a terrorist group by the U.S., according to the affidavit.
After that battle, Harroun retreated in the back of an al-Nusrah truck. Harroun told the FBI that at the al-Nusrah camp, he was initially treated like a prisoner but was later accepted by the other members and participated in several attacks with them, according to the affidavit.
Harroun said al-Nusrah fighters would ask him why the U.S. had designated them as terrorists, according to the affidavit.
Harroun used RPG launchers in the attacks and once, on his Facebook page, claimed credit for downing a Syrian helicopter. According to the affidavit, Harroun told the FBI that he shot an estimated 10 people in his various battles, though he was unsure if he had ever killed anyone.
On the Facebook page, Harroun also stated that “the only good Zionist is a dead Zionist” and that he intended to travel to the Palestinian territory because of Israeli atrocities there, according to the affidavit. The affidavit states that Harroun served in the Army from 2000 to 2003, when he received a medical discharge after he was injured in a car accident.
An Army spokesman said Harroun served at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri and Fort Riley in Kansas, and that his record listed no overseas deployments.
Canadian Researchers Claim Fuel Cell Breakthrough
March 30th, 2013Via: Vancouver Sun:
Researchers at the University of Calgary say they’ve made a breakthrough that could make renewable energy much more practical and affordable.
Their paper published in the journal Science says they’ve found a much easier and cheaper way to build an electrolyzer, which uses electricity to break up water into hydrogen and oxygen, the basic requirements of fuel cells.
Fuel cells take those gases and generate energy by recombining them. Water is the only waste product. The cells are seen as a possible source of clean, reliable power that could be built on almost any scale required.
Electrolyzers depend on rare, difficult-to-work-with and sometimes toxic metals, but the method developed by Chris Berlinguette and Simon Trudel uses metals as common as rust. It delivers results comparable to current techniques but costs about 1,000 times less.
That could make it easier to use hydrogen to store intermittent energy produced by renewable sources such as wind or solar generators — cheaper, more efficient and with fewer toxic materials than the batteries currently used.
Research Credit: DF


