ECB’s Trichet Pushes for a European Finance Ministry
June 3rd, 2011Via: Telegraph:
Jean Claude Trichet has called for the creation of a European finance ministry whose powers to intervene in national economic policy would be “well over and above the reinforced surveillance that is presently envisaged”.
The boss of the European Central Bank (ECB) said that “strengthening the institutions of economic union” was vital to Europe’s future success, in a radical speech that is likely to alarm the UK Government. David Cameron has pledged to halt the creep of European powers.
Mr Trichet, who was speaking after being awarded the annual Charlemagne prize for services to European unity, said that the European Union (EU) needed tougher tools – including the ability to veto national economic decisions – to deal with imprudent member states.
He criticised the system whereby countries are effectively able to ignore EU fiscal austerity measures, “even if this attitude triggers major difficulties for other member countries”. In his vision “it would be not only possible, but in some cases compulsory, for the European authorities… to take themselves decisions applicable in the economy concerned.”
Related: Nigel Farage: Trapped Inside an Economic Prison
China: Teenager Sells Kidney for iPad, Laptop Computer
June 3rd, 2011Via: BBC:
A teenager in China has sold one of his kidneys in order to buy an iPad 2, Chinese media report.
The 17-year-old, identified only as Little Zheng, told a local TV station he had arranged the sale of the kidney over the internet.
Nickname for CIA’s Bin Laden Team: ‘The Manson Family’
June 3rd, 2011Via: Telegraph:
Terrorist hunter Michael Scheuer tells Duncan Gardham and Iain Hollingshead how he was repeatedly ordered not to stop the al-Qaeda chief.
There are not many sane people who can say with confidence that, had a president of America only listened to them, they could have saved $1.3 trillion and many hundreds of thousands of lives. Michael Scheuer can.
During his 22 years in the CIA – three and a half as head of a 18-man Osama bin Laden unit – he told his bosses at Langley on 10 occasions that he had a clear opportunity to kill or capture the terrorist chief. On all 10 he was told to hold his fire.
To look at Scheuer, 59, bespectacled, bearded and apparently every inch the academic and author he has become, you would not guess at his espionage past. The unit he led between 1995 and 1999 was codenamed Alec station, after his son, but it was nicknamed the “Manson family”, after the criminal Charles Manson, for the zeal with which it approached its task.
Major Israeli Shipping Firm Accused by Washington of Doing Illicit Business with Iran
June 3rd, 2011Update: And now: Scandal-Hit Israeli Billionaire Sami Ofer Found Dead
Via: BBC:
Sami Ofer, an Israeli billionaire at the centre of a scandal over business contacts with Iran, has died at his home in Tel Aviv.
Israeli media reported the 89-year-old had passed away after a long illness.
The US last month imposed sanctions on the Ofer Brothers Group, co-owned by Mr Ofer and his brother Yuli, accusing it of selling an oil tanker to a blacklisted Iranian firm.
The Ofers denied any wrongdoing, saying the US had made an unfortunate mistake.
Forbes magazine recently said the brothers were the richest men in Israel with interests in shipping, chemicals, real estate worth $10.3bn (£6.3bn) in total.
—End Update—
Via: Reuters:
A secret note passed in parliament to halt a televised oversight committee meeting has stoked a scandal in Israel over a major shipping firm accused by Washington of doing illicit business with Iran.
Ofer Brothers Group, owned by Israel’s richest family, denied wrongdoing after its surprise inclusion on a U.S. State Department blacklist last week, but its refusal to address a slew of media speculation about past links with Israel’s security services only deepened the mystery.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, seeing influential compatriots charged with undermining the sanctions against Tehran that he has championed, gave a muted response, saying that his government had approved no deals with the Iranians.
Lawmakers met on Tuesday to discuss legal aspects of the case in an economic oversight panel. But the meeting, aired live on television, was adjourned abruptly within minutes after the chairman, Carmel Shama-Hacohen, received a note from an aide.
The freshman legislator, a member of Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party, went stone-faced and did not reveal its contents.
“Let’s just be clear the note is not from a political figure and not from a business figure,” Shama-Hacohen said, leaving open the possibility of an appeal by the defence establishment.
“It turns out that reality is much more complex, much more complicated and touchy than the average imagination can handle.”
Research Credit: afterhours
‘A Trader, an F.B.I. Witness, and Then a Suicide’
June 3rd, 2011Suuuuure.
Via: New York Times:
In a Manhattan courtroom last week, federal prosecutors played for a jury a secretly recorded telephone conversation between two Wall Street traders exchanging stock tips.
Two days later, one of those traders, Ephraim G. Karpel, hanged himself in his Fifth Avenue office, according to a law enforcement official.
Mr. Karpel was never charged with any wrongdoing, and until last week his name had not emerged in connection with the government’s vast investigation of insider trading.
Yet while working for a New York commodities firm, he had agreed in 2008 to cooperate with federal authorities, and for about a year he taped conversations with fellow traders, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter who insisted on anonymity to discuss it.
Sony Hacked Again, One Million Accounts Compromised
June 3rd, 2011Via: Reuters:
A hacker group has engineered yet another attack on the computer networks of Sony Corp, a setback to the Japanese company’s efforts to move past a security crisis that erupted in April.
The group, which calls itself LulzSec, said on Thursday that it broke into servers that run Sony Pictures Entertainment websites, and then compromised the personal information of more than 1 million Sony customers.
Sony officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
It posted some of the data it accessed on the Web — including the names, home and email addresses, and passwords of some customers. But said it did not have the resources to extract and publish all of what it collected.
“From a single injection, we accessed EVERYTHING,” the hacking group said in the statement. “Why do you put such faith in a company that allows itself to become open to these simple attacks?”
Dozens of Child Sex Victims of Belgian Catholic Church Are Launching Legal Action Against Holy See
June 2nd, 2011Via: AFP:
DOZENS of victims of a child-sex scandal in the Belgian Catholic Church are launching legal action against the Holy See, the first such suit in Europe.
Lawyers and victims said on Wednesday at a news conference that a summons was on its way to Rome, as well as to Belgian bishops, to appear before a civil court for failing to stop sexual abuse by priests and church workers. Lawyers said the group of some 80 plaintiffs was growing by the day.
”The Pope is the head of the Holy See,” said lawyer Walter Van Steenbrugge.
”He neglected to intervene himself and to give instructions, which meant that abuse was liable to continue and the damage was able to increase.”
Flashback 1969: GE Walking Truck
June 2nd, 2011Look familiar?
Injections Can Sterilize Men for Ten Years
June 2nd, 2011You can almost tell who’s name is going to come up in a story like this.
Via: Wired:
Ever since the birth control pill was approved by the FDA in 1960, scientists in the West have been looking for a male equivalent. It’s been a rocky road, in part for biological reasons: Hormonally, it’s much easier to control a single monthly event like ovulation than to try to stop the endless onslaught of sperm.
An equivalent “pill” for men would somehow have to stop sperm production without neutralizing their libido or erectile function. Pharmaceutical companies and government agencies have sunk millions into hormone-based contraceptive research that has yielded few viable products.
And then there’s RISUG. Rather than shutting down sperm production, with the potential side effects that entails, it acts more like a tollbooth on the sperm superhighway. As the negatively charged sperm pass by, they are essentially zapped by the positive charge of the SMA polymer. So a RISUG-injected man will still ejaculate millions of sperm, but most will be dead: tails snapped off, cell membranes ruptured.
As a contraceptive, RISUG faces a far more difficult road to approval and commercial acceptance than, say, a new antidepressant medication. While an antidepressant would be considered a success if it worked in 75 percent of patients, a contraceptive like RISUG will be compared to a conventional vasectomy, which works more than 99 percent of the time. Furthermore, it has to be free from the serious side effects that were common with early experimental hormone-based male contraceptives. And it cannot cause birth defects down the line—ever. “Nobody wants another thalidomide,” says Ron Weiss, the Canadian vasectomy doctor.
…
“If it’s no longer a crazy Indian idea and it’s something that’s working in India and in rabbits in Ohio and in the first 20 men in the US,” Lissner says, “then there’s got to be a point where there’s just no excuse for a Gates or a Buffett not to get on board.”
Just this past year, in fact, Guha received a $100,000 Gates Foundation grant to pursue a variation of RISUG in the fallopian tubes as a female contraceptive.
‘Homeland-Security Business Still Booming Ten Years Later’
June 2nd, 2011Via: CNBC:
A decade after the 9/11 terror attacks, homeland security is still a growth business.
The niche—that includes James Bond-like tools such as infrared cameras, explosive detectors and body scanners—is expected to grow 12 percent annually through 2013, according to Morgan Keegan.
“Homeland security is reactive,” says Tim Quillen, a senior equity analyst at investment banking firm Stephens Inc. “The stocks are hedges against bad things happening.”
One example: the underwear bomber, who was thwarted in late 2009. After that a bell weather homeland security stock OSI Systems rocketed 30 percent within a month. “The stock went on a tear,” says Brian Ruttenbur, a research analyst at Morgan Keegan. Why? OSI makes X-ray and metal detectors used to scan people, baggage and cargo that it sells worldwide. During the past 12 months ending yesterday, the stock has popped from $25 to $40, driven by border and port growth.
Related: They Made a Killing: The Use of Knowledge of Covert Operations in the Stock Market
