cryptogon.com

By early evening, emergency officials had contained the spill of PETN, or the powerful explosive pentaerythritol tetranitrate, according to Karen Fox, a spokeswoman for the North Carolina State Ports Authority.

The port was scheduled to open for business at 8 a.m. on Wednesay and the voluntary evacuation was canceled.

“The incident has been resolved in a safe manner,” she said on Tuesday evening.

The accident occurred about 4:40 a.m., when a forklift operator punctured a container, putting holes in nine 110-pound drums containing PETN, according to Scott Hembrook, a Coast Guard Sector North spokesman. Local officials assured the public that there were no injuries at the port or damage to the environment, according to Ms. Fox.

“They have been able to mitigate a large amount of the explosive hazard, and it’s getting to a manageable point,” Mayor Jerry Jones said in a telephone interview Tuesday afternoon. “They have reduced the potential blast zone to one mile, down from two miles.”

Mr. Jones added: “There have been questions such as do we think it’s terrorism? I can say, ‘absolutely not.’ This was an accident.”While Ms. Fox said that explosive materials are handled routinely at this port, she added: “This is about the first time in two years that cargo like this has come into the port.”

She said that the cargo was shipped by a Spanish-based company, Maxam. According to the company’s North American Web site, the company manufactures and distributes explosives for blasting purposes in “mining, quarrying and construction industries.”

Messages left for the North American headquarters of Maxam, and with the port’s operating company, SSA Marine, were not immediately returned.

Investigators found evidence of the explosive PETN in the underwear of the Nigerian man who was accused of attempting to blow up a jetliner on Christmas Day. It was also the substance that Richard Reid concealed in his shoes during his attempt to blow up a jetliner in 2001.

More than 75 officials with the local fire and police departments, the Cherry Point Marine Corps’ Explosive Ordnance Disposal, and the Coast Guard contained the spill. By noon, nearly all the businesses in the port had closed. A two-mile portion of the waterway was closed to marine traffic, and sections of Interstate 70 were also closed.

In May, the SEC approved a request by AIG to keep secret an exhibit to a year-old regulatory filing that includes some of the details on the most controversial aspect of the AIG bailout: the funneling of tens of billions of dollars to big banks like Societe Generale, Goldman Sachs (GS.N), Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) and Merrill Lynch.

The SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance, in granting AIG’s request for confidential treatment, said the “excluded information” will not be made public until Nov. 25, 2018, according to a copy of the agency’s May 22 order.

The SEC said the insurer had demonstrated the information in the exhibit, called Schedule A, “qualifies as confidential commercial or financial information.”

The expiration date for the SEC order falls on the 10th anniversary of Federal Reserve of New York’s decision to provide emergency financing to an entity set up to specifically acquire some $60 billion in collateralized debt obligations from 16 banks in the United States and Europe.

All the banks that got money from the Fed-sponsored entity — Maiden Lane III — had purchased insurance contracts, or credit default swaps, on those mortgage-related securities from AIG.

The SEC’s decision to approve AIG’s request for confidential treatment got scant attention at the time. But it could spark controversy now following the release last week of 14-month-old emails that reveal that some at the New York Fed had discussions with AIG officials about how much information should be disclosed to the public about the Maiden Lane III transaction.

The New York Fed, then led by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, plays a critical role in the world of finance given its close dealings with all the major Wall Street banks, many of which were counterparties of AIG.

The U.S. Court of Appeals in Manhattan will decide whether the Fed must release records of the unprecedented $2 trillion U.S. loan program launched after the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. In August, a federal judge ordered that the information be released, responding to a request by Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News.

“This case is about the identity of the borrower,” said Matthew Collette, a lawyer for the government, in oral arguments today. “This is the equivalent of saying ‘I want all the loan applications that were submitted.’”

During an interview on C-SPAN’s “Newsmakers” program that aired on Sunday, Shulman said he uses a tax preparer for his own returns.

“I’ve used one for years. I find it convenient. I find the tax code complex so I use a preparer,” Shulman said.

Sixty years of near-constant war, a low tolerance for enduring casualties in conflict, and its high-tech industry have long made Israel one of the world’s leading innovators of military robotics.

“We’re trying to get to unmanned vehicles everywhere on the battlefield for each platoon in the field,” says Lt. Col. Oren Berebbi, head of the Israel Defense Forces’ technology branch. “We can do more and more missions without putting a soldier at risk.”

In 10 to 15 years, one-third of Israel’s military machines will be unmanned, predicts Giora Katz, vice president of Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd., one of Israel’s leading weapons manufacturers.

Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
January 11, 2010
President Obama Signs Executive Order Establishing Council of Governors

Executive Order will Strengthen Further Partnership Between the Federal and State and Local Governments to Better Protect Our Nation

The President today signed an Executive Order (attached) establishing a Council of Governors to strengthen further the partnership between the Federal Government and State Governments to protect our Nation against all types of hazards. When appointed, the Council will be reviewing such matters as involving the National Guard of the various States; homeland defense; civil support; synchronization and integration of State and Federal military activities in the United States; and other matters of mutual interest pertaining to National Guard, homeland defense, and civil support activities.

The bipartisan Council will be composed of ten State Governors who will be selected by the President to serve two year terms. In selecting the Governors to the Council, the White House will solicit input from Governors and Governors’ associations. Once chosen, the Council will have no more than five members from the same party and represent the Nation as a whole.

Federal members of the Council include the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, the Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Americas’ Security Affairs, the U.S. Northern Command Commander, the Commandant of the Coast Guard, and the Chief of the National Guard Bureau. The Secretary of Defense will designate an Executive Director for the Council.

The Council of Governors will provide an invaluable Senior Administration forum for exchanging views with State and local officials on strengthening our National resilience and the homeland defense and civil support challenges facing our Nation today and in the future.

The clashes began Thursday night in Rosarno, a working-class city amid citrus groves in Calabria, the toe of Italy’s boot, after a legal immigrant from Togo was lightly wounded in a pellet-gun attack in a nearby city. It is not clear who pulled the trigger — the authorities said they were investigating whether organized crime had provoked the riots — but the consequences were severe.

Blaming racism for the attack, dozens of immigrants burned cars and smashed shop windows in Rosarno in two days of riots, throwing rocks at local residents and fighting with the police. More than 50 immigrants and police officers were wounded, none seriously, and 10 immigrants and locals were arrested before the authorities began sending the immigrants to detention centers elsewhere in southern Italy on Saturday.

The images emerging from Calabria over the weekend — of torched cars and angry African immigrants hurling rocks — were the most vivid example of the growing racial tensions in Italy, which have been exacerbated by an economic crisis whose depth has only recently been acknowledged in the national dialogue. Both the official and underground economies increasingly rely on immigrants, while Italy remains torn between acceptance and xenophobia.

The riots also shone a bright light on a side of the country rarely seen in tourist itineraries. On Sunday, the authorities began bulldozing the makeshift encampments outside Rosarno where hundreds of immigrants live in what human rights groups describe as subhuman conditions. They are often paid less than $30 a day picking fruit, a job that many Italians see as beneath them. Organized crime syndicates are known to have a strong grip on every level of the Calabrian economy.

“This event pulled the lid off something that we who work in the sector know well but no one talks about: That many Italian economic realities are based on the exploitation of low-cost foreign labor, living in subhuman conditions, without human rights,” said Flavio Di Giacomo, the spokesman for the International Organization for Migration in Italy.

…

Unemployment and the specter of instability it creates will really shape the behavior of Generation Recession. A weaker dollar will make all Americans feel poorer by raising the cost of goods, but the young generation graduating and going to work now may actually end up poorer in real terms. Unemployment among 20- to 24-year-olds in the U.S. is more than 15 percent, compared with the nationwide average of 10 percent, and statistics show that for every percentage point in higher unemployment, new graduates take a 6 percent pay cut—an effect that lasts for decades. Skills loss could be a huge issue, too, especially because the average duration of unemployment has increased. Although wages in the U.S. have been relatively flat since the 1970s, Generation Recession may be the first in 30 years to see theirs actually fall.

…