Beijing Is Planning to Avoid U.S. Financial Sanctions on Iran by Paying for Oil with Gold
May 6th, 2012Via: Forbes:
So how can Beijing keep both Iran’s ayatollahs and President Obama happy at the same time? Simple, the Chinese can avoid the U.S. sanctions through barter. China has already been trading its produce for Iran’s petroleum, but there is only so much gai lan and bok choy the Iranians can eat. That’s why Iran is also accepting, among other goods, Chinese washing machines, refrigerators, toys, clothes, cosmetics, and toiletries.
The barter trade works, but Iran needs cash too. As it is being cut off from the global financial system, the next best thing is gold. So we should not be surprised that in late February the Iranian central bank said it would accept that metal as payment for oil. Last year, China imported $21.7 billion in Iranian oil and exported $14.8 billion in goods and services. As the NDAA goes into effect, look for Beijing to ship gold to Iran to make up the difference.
FBI: We Need Wiretap-Ready Web Sites – Now
May 5th, 2012Via: Cnet:
CNET learns the FBI is quietly pushing its plan to force surveillance backdoors on social networks, VoIP, and Web e-mail providers, and that the bureau is asking Internet companies not to oppose a law making those backdoors mandatory.
The FBI is asking Internet companies not to oppose a controversial proposal that would require firms, including Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, and Google, to build in backdoors for government surveillance.
In meetings with industry representatives, the White House, and U.S. senators, senior FBI officials argue the dramatic shift in communication from the telephone system to the Internet has made it far more difficult for agents to wiretap Americans suspected of illegal activities, CNET has learned.
The FBI general counsel’s office has drafted a proposed law that the bureau claims is the best solution: requiring that social-networking Web sites and providers of VoIP, instant messaging, and Web e-mail alter their code to ensure their products are wiretap-friendly.
“If you create a service, product, or app that allows a user to communicate, you get the privilege of adding that extra coding,” an industry representative who has reviewed the FBI’s draft legislation told CNET. The requirements apply only if a threshold of a certain number of users is exceeded, according to a second industry representative briefed on it.
The FBI’s proposal would amend a 1994 law, called the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, or CALEA, that currently applies only to telecommunications providers, not Web companies. The Federal Communications Commission extended CALEA in 2004 to apply to broadband networks.
NATO Summit in Chicago: Airport-Style Security Screenings for Trains
May 4th, 2012Via: CBS:
Some stations on the Metra Electric Line and South Shore Line could be shut down during the upcoming NATO summit, and passengers at other stations could face airport-style security screenings, due to the Secret Service security plan that could be released as soon as Friday afternoon.
CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine has exclusive details on those security measures, which the Secret Service is expected to officially unveil on Friday, or at the very latest, on Monday. Federal officials have promised the announcement will include a “comprehensive list of street closures and parking restrictions surrounding the NATO summit.”
Restricted U.S. Army Internment and Resettlement Operations Manual
May 4th, 2012Via: Public Intelligence:
The goal of military police conducting detainee operations is to provide stability within the population, its institutions, and its infrastructure. In this rapidly changing and dynamic strategic environment, U.S. forces will compete with local populations for the same space, routes, and resources. The modular force’s ability to positively influence and shape the opinions, attitudes, and behaviors of select populations is critical to tactical, operational, and strategic success.
More Americans Stashing Cash in Home Safes
May 4th, 2012My guess is that the chances of people being robbed by the police are much higher than the chances of being robbed by more traditional criminals.
Remember: In the eyes of the police, cash is evidence of criminal activity.
Via: Smart Money:
One thing that isn’t driving the safe boom, apparently, is crime. Indeed, U.S. burglary rates have been plunging for years. Still, experts say that many savers and investors feel a lingering sense of insecurity in their finances — a hard-to-shake fear borne out of the jolting recession and, at times, wobbly recovery — which is helping to spur the new safeguarding mentality. Tyler D. Nunnally, founder and CEO of Upside Risk, an Atlanta firm that researches investor psychology, says sticking tangible assets in a safe can be a natural reaction to volatility in the markets. “People dislike loss twice as much as they like gains,” he says. “They want to protect what they have.” Growing numbers of these fearful types simply don’t trust their banks to protect them: In a Gallup poll last year, a record-high 36 percent of Americans said they had “very little” or “no” confidence in U.S. banks. (In 2008 and 2009, when the financial crisis was peaking, that figure stood at 22 and 29 percent, respectively.) And growing concern about identity theft has made some people more eager to keep their assets in a form they can see and count, says R. Brent Lang, an investment manager in Surrey, British Columbia: “By acquiring one password, someone can wipe out all your digital wealth,” he says.
Young Italians Flock to Become Shepherds
May 4th, 2012Via: Telegraph:
Pay is poor and the hours are long, but there is job security, fresh air and as much pecorino cheese as you can eat.
As Italy’s unemployment rate topped 10pc this week, it emerged that young people are flocking to become shepherds.
Traditionally the preserve of older men, the profession has recently attracted 3,000 young Italians, according to agricultural body Coldiretti.
They are choosing a simple life in the great outdoors because their aspirations to become doctors, lawyers or engineers have been thwarted by Italy’s negligible economic growth, which has been compounded by grinding austerity measures.
Obama Regime Wants Prosecutors to Have Easier Access to Cell Phone Records
May 4th, 2012Via: Reuters:
The U.S. Congress should pass a law to give investigators freer access to certain cellphone records, an Obama administration official said on Thursday, in remarks that raised concern among advocates of civil liberties and privacy.
Jason Weinstein, a deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s criminal division, argued that requirements for warrants at early stages of investigations would “cripple” prosecutors and law enforcement.
UC San Diego Student Left Unattended for Five Days in DEA Cell
May 4th, 2012Via: Los Angeles Times:
Elected officials are demanding answers after Daniel Chong, a 23-year-old UC San Diego student, was left unattended for five days in a Drug Enforcement Administration detention cell.
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) called on U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. asking for an “immediate and thorough” Department of Justice investigation into the matter.
“After the investigation is completed, I ask that you please provide me with the results and the actions the department will take to make sure those responsible are held accountable and that no one in DEA custody will ever again be forced to endure such treatment,” she wrote.
The DEA apologized Wednesday to Chong, who was accidentally left unattended in a holding cell for five days and reportedly drank his own urine to survive.
San Diego attorney Gene Iredale said his client was “still recovering” from the ordeal. The attorney submitted the initial paperwork needed for a lawsuit Wednesday. The claim seeks $20 million in compensation for the incident.
“He is glad to be alive,” Iredale said of Chong. “He wants to make sure that what happened to him doesn’t happen to anyone else.”
News of the incident came to light when Chong told a San Diego television station he spent nearly a week in the cell without food, water or access to a toilet after an April 21 raid on a house in San Diego.
The DEA, which identified Chong only as “the individual in question,” said he and eight others were swept up during a raid of a suspected Ecstasy distribution operation, where agents found guns, ammunition, 18,000 Ecstasy pills and other drugs.
The nine suspects were taken to a DEA area headquarters, where they were fingerprinted, photographed and interviewed, the agency said. After processing, seven were taken to a county detention facility and one was released.
Chong, the agency said, was “accidentally left in one of the cells.” He told NBC San Diego he kicked the door “many, many times” in a futile attempt to get agents’ attention.
When they finally found Chong, he was taken to Sharp Memorial Hospital, where he stayed for five days. Iredale said Chong, who was close to kidney failure and had trouble breathing, spent three of those days in the intensive care unit.
Chong also suffered hallucinations and “thought he was going insane,” Iredale said. Chong told NBC San Diego he tried to kill himself by breaking his glasses and cutting his wrists.
“I didn’t care if I died,” he told the station. “I was completely insane.”
William R. Sherman, acting special agent in charge of the DEA’s San Diego Division, apologized in a statement Wednesday and said he had ordered “an extensive review” of DEA policies and procedures.
Unmasked: Meet The FBI’s Bridge Bomb Plot Snitch
May 3rd, 2012Via: The Smoking Gun:
The paid informant who helped orchestrate the FBI sting that resulted in the arrest of five anarchists for allegedly plotting to blow up an Ohio bridge is a convicted felon who was arrested on bad check and theft charges in the midst of his cooperation with federal investigators, The Smoking Gun has learned.
Shaquille Azir, 39, was named in a pair of felony indictments filed in January in Cuyahoga County, according to court records. Azir, who TSG has identified as the informant in the federal bombing case, is accused in the indictments of passing bad checks on July 25, 2011 and December 22, 2011.
Azir, pictured in the mug shot at right, “has been working as a source for the FBI since July 20, 2011,” according to the U.S. District Court complaint filed yesterday against the alleged bomb plotters. Wearing a body recorder, Azir captured the five self-styled anarchists plotting to use C-4 explosive to take down a Cleveland-area bridge.
Azir arranged for the purchase of the C-4 from an undercover FBI agent. He also fronted the alleged conspirators money for the buy of the material, which had been rendered inert by federal investigators. If the bombing case goes to trial, defense lawyers will certainly portray the 6’ 5”, 350-pound Azir as the plot’s instigator, a snitch who pocketed the FBI’s money to help entrap the five defendants, who range in age from 20 to 35.
KBR on Shortlist to Run UK Police Services
May 3rd, 2012Via: Guardian:
A US Pentagon contractor that was involved in building Guantánamo Bay is on a shortlist of seven private consortiums bidding for a £1.5bn contract to run key policing services in the West Midlands and Surrey.
The Texas-based, Kellogg Brown & Root, which was sold off by the controversial Halliburton corporation in 2007, is part of a consortium which has made it to the final shortlist for a contract that will see the large scale involvement of the private sector in British policing for the first time.
When KBR was still part of Halliburton it won a large share of Pentagon contracts to build and manage US military bases in Iraq after the 2003 invasion. Its former chief executive, Dick Cheney, was US vice-president.
The Guardian has learned that 15 groups of companies and individual firms have made it onto the most recent shortlist. More than 200 firms initially expressed an interest in a “bidders’ conference” held in March.
The list includes several private security companies who are already involved in running private prisons, escorting and deporting prisoners or providing other criminal justice services.
