SaLuSa July13.Fri.2012
Angelo: Good day SaLuSa, would you kindly give us
an update today please or if you have something to talk about.
Good day SaLuSa, Good day Angelo, thank you and you too. I would like to talk about ascension and
coming events also the dark ones! The
energies around the earth will start to rise by the end of the month, this will
lead to more openings for breakthroughs.
You can expect August 2012 to be just as beneficial as July 2012
was! The Financial System is breaking
down even more and will continue, all the plans of the dark ones are failing and will
continue in the war department!
I ’m SaLuSa
of Sirius, wishing all Love and Light, SaLuSa.
Thank you
SaLuSa
Angelo
Telepathic
Transmission concluded
YouTube
*UFOs and
anomalies near the Sun – Review for July 5, 2012. – YouTube
*The UFO Is Still There By The Sun!
*There are delays as you see it, but much more is taking place all over the world. Our overall view and knowledge indicates that the end times are well under way. The immense resources about to be used will ensure success as planned, and with reports from several reliable sources you will soon be aware when the arrests become widespread.
It will be the first big step towards clearing the way for everything else to take place. The main point is that it has commenced and will suddenly burst into large-scale action. It will be of such an impact that by no means can it be kept quiet by those who hold back the real news.
What is encouraging and timely is that day-by-day many more people are beginning to question the actions of those in charge. They are seeing through the lies and cover ups and beginning to question what has happened in the past. That pleases us as it is loosening the controls the cabal have placed upon you, and the power they have exercised over you.
People power is what they fear and it is gathering momentum as groups are being formed that really do have some impact. A most useful method of making your wishes known by way of petitions is now spreading. Let your voices be heard and it becomes more and more difficult for those you are targeting to avoid the issues. In just a few years your position has changed and the scales of justice are swinging your way.
Whatever peaceful means you use to get your leaders’ attention is acceptable, but please avoid hotheads taking over, and beware of infiltrators who are out to cause trouble within your ranks. For various reasons there are people who are against the changes, and in some cases it is a fear of our arrival. In time we hope to have shown everyone that our intentions are pure, and that it is your interests we have at heart.
Either way, provisions will be made for all souls and they will eventually find themselves progressing to the correct level. Bear in mind that your present Earth is also ascending, and only the souls that are ready can go with her. For all others their future is also assured and not one soul will be neglected, as all have their place in the Universe.
You are now in the last few months before the big day, and understandably some are questioning whether they should plan for the future beyond it. They ask about matters like investments or property ownership, and generally about lack and in many cases poverty. We ask you to now take matters on a day-to-day basis, as very soon many problems that beset you now will have been solved by the planned changes.
Abundance and prosperity will soon answer your various needs, and eventually you shall want for absolutely nothing at all. Much is to follow after Ascension, but equally your desperate needs will be seen to as soon as possible We are fully aware of what we need to do to make you happy and able to rest in peace, by knowing that we are authorized to do so. You will do your share working with us as we want you to be involved with us in a joint effort.
All planned is very near to commencing in a way that you will see what is happening, and be kept well informed. We know that so many of you are keen to get involved now, and depending on what skills you have you will certainly be drawn to other people who will be involved, if not directly contacted. By and large we need little help as the advanced computers we use can handle the most difficult tasks.
However it would be nice to work together as we will be doing so for quite some time, even after Ascension. As our relationship progresses you will of course have advanced yourselves, and eventually be equal to the tasks ahead. As you must know by now in reality you are great Beings in your right, and it will not take long before you are back to levels that you used to enjoy.
In some ways you have led simple lives whilst on Earth, but the challenges you faced have furthered your evolution so fast. It may have been tough at times, but when you volunteered you knew that you could get through it. At all times help has never been far away and given you in your hours of need. Your Angelic Guides have held your hands when facing danger, and often intervened to save you from death.
You may well discover that they have done much more for you than you know, and yet they ask for nothing in return but nevertheless are grateful to receive your thanks. The purpose of your guides is to protect you when threatened unless of course it is part of your karmic experiences. They will also do their best to keep you on track so that you fulfil your life plan. So presently they know more about you than you do yourselves.
Ahead of you are many reunions to link again with friends who have not been in your current life, but have been in previous ones. Consider how many souls you have met and become good friends with over hundreds of lives, some much more lasting and closer than others, even some who incarnate with you in the same families.
It makes for loving experiences and links that are never broken. After Ascension, you will have moved into the higher dimensions of harmony, where all Beings relate to each other in loving energies and it remains that way. There is no cause or reason to be otherwise, and life is one of complete happiness.
The Earth is a most beautiful world, yet you have not seen it in her most glorious outfit and splendor. That is to come after Mother Earth has completed her cleansing and is able to return to a pristine condition. When you last experienced it was eons of time ago with civilizations that have long gone.
So as you often say, the best is still to come and you will have a big hand in it. We feel that you are beginning to appreciate exactly what a momentous time it is to be on Earth, indeed, a time to enjoy your release from all of the darkness you have encountered.
I am SaLuSa from Sirius and can tell you that the Galactic Federation of Light applauds your approach to the end times, and know that you now have the strength and resolve to see it through and claim the victory that is yours. Our Love and admiration goes with you forevermore.
Sheila Bair Sees “Significant More Fallout” from LIBOR
Scandal: “It’s Outrageous”
7-12-12
The U.S. market hasn't yet paid much attention to the LIBOR scandal that's gripped London, but it's getting harder and harder to ignore.
This week, the chair of the Senate Banking Committee announced he is calling Fed chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to testify about allegations big banks manipulated LIBOR, a key lending rate in global finance. Separately, the chair of the House Financial Services subcommittee's on investigations petitioned the New York Fed for information about whether the central bank knew banks were low-balling their LIBOR rates during the crisis.
"I assume there is going to be significant more fallout" from the LIBOR scandals, says former FDIC chairwoman Sheila Bair, now a senior adviser to the Pew Charitable Trusts. "How severe and pervasive we just don't know yet."
There are actually two separate scandals here, Bair notes. The first is whether the NY Fed ignored reports of irregularities in the LIBOR market during the financial crisis, as U.K. regulators are alleged to have done.
"The Federal Reserve Bank of New York may have known as early as August 2007 that the setting of global benchmark interest rates was flawed," Reuters reports. "Following an inquiry with British banking group Barclays Plc in the spring of 2008, it shared proposals for reform of the system with British authorities."
The second is that, according to a CFTC complaint, traders at big banks actively colluded to manipulate the price of LIBOR from 2005-2008.
While declaring "it was all wrong," Bair says the allegations of price collusion among big banks is far worse than regulators condoning the low-balling of LIBOR rates during the dark days of 2008.
"Even at the height of the crisis you need to get accurate information out but I might be more understanding of that motivation vs. this collusive trading activity that was purely generated by greed," she says.
Games Bankers Play
Last week, Barclays paid roughly $450 million to settle charges by U.S. and U.K. regulators that its traders manipulated LIBOR. Most observers believe Barclays is just the first firm to settle; global regulators are investigating more than 10 other big banks, including UBS (UBS), JPMorgan (JPM) and Citigroup (C), and a federal grand jury is gathering evidence for potential criminal charges against individual traders, Reuters reports.
Led by the City of Baltimore, several U.S. municipalities have already filed lawsuits, seeking damages for interest rate swaps that were pegged to LIBOR. Analysts at Nomura Equity Research warn banks could be liable for "tens of billions" in related claims, The NY Times reports.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission estimates over $800 trillion of financial instruments are pegged to LIBOR, including $350 trillion in swaps.
"Interest rate swaps are widely used and a very legitimate hedging tool," Bair says. "But you need integrity in the pricing mechanism. When they were based on LIBOR, at least from 2005-2008, there were a lot of games being played."
Echoing the comments here by Cumberland's David Kotok, Bair says this LIBOR scandal "absolutely" hurts confidence in the integrity of the financial market. However, she rejects the view -- commonly heard in conservative circles -- that regulators were to blame.
"Banks are responsible for their own actions," she says. "I cannot believe any regulators knew about what Paul Tucker called a 'cesspit'." (Tucker, a deputy governor at the Bank of England, testified before U.K. Parliament Monday after Barclays executives suggested he condoned LIBOR manipulation back in 2008.)
"It's sad there's not a culture of higher integrity" in the financial services industry, Bair says. "It just underscores why regulators can't defer to the industry itself when they have a self-interested conflict. You had a survey methodology [to determine LIBOR] that lent itself to manipulation. That never should have occurred."
For the record, Bair says she was unaware of any problems with LIBOR during her time at the FDIC. Still, she recalls press reports from 2007 and 2008 raising related concerns because LIBOR rates were set by a survey rather than specific transactions.
"My impression was the survey methodology left itself open to judgment," she says. "That said, this goes far beyond exercising subjectivity. These traders were actively colluding with others to submit information to the survey to manipulate the rates. It's outrageous."
It's an outrageous allegation, to be sure, and one that deserves a wider public hearing. Expect this LIBOR story to move to the front-burner in the days and weeks ahead.
Syria used helicopters and tanks in Tremseh
'massacre', confirms UN
Kofin Annan 'appalled' after UN monitors verified use
of heavy weaponry in attack believed to have killed more than 140 people
The head of the UN monitoring mission in Syria has said that helicopters and tanks were used to shell a town in the centre of the country before a massacre that is believed to have killed more than 140 people on Thursday.
General Robert Mood, who has led the UN presence in Syria since April, said his members were ready to enter the town of Tremseh if a truce there took hold. He said monitors stationed in the area had personally verified that heavy weapons were directed against Tremseh on Thursday.
Late on Friday the UN said observers had been unable to contact the local military commander responsible for the area near Tremseh and its members had been refused access. It claimed the Syrian air force "continued to attack populated urban areas on a large scale" and said its observers had logged more than 100 explosions in an "ongoing military operation".
Residents of the small town of around 6,000 people said they were attacked from outlying areas late on Thursday after many hours of shelling. They blamed the attack on loyalist forces and a pro-regime militia known as the Shabiha which has been accused of being at the vanguard of other mass killings during recent months.
Syrian officials instead blamed "terrorists", who they say have been responsible for much of the violence in Syria since the uprising began almost 17 months ago.
The UN's special envoy to Syria, Kofi Annan, said he was "shocked and appalled" by "intense fighting, significant casualties, and the confirmed use of heavy weaponry such as artillery, tanks and helicopters" in Tremseh, which is in an ethnically mixed area, 22 miles from Hama.
Activists in the area say around 600 casualties are being treated in field clinics and hospitals in surrounding areas. They claim that many bodies remain in crop fields and a final death toll will not be known for days.
It was difficult to obtain first-hand accounts from Tremseh were difficult to obtain on Friday, with communications to the area down and residents unreachable on equipment that had been given to them by activist networks.
Mousab al-Hamadee, an opposition activist living 12 miles away, said people had travelled to the town early on Thursday to warn of an impending regime assault. Hamadee said he had spoken to his sister who said the attack had been relentless. "A big number of the young men were killed in the field when they were trying to escape the army attack," he said. "Helicopters targeted them by heavy machine guns while they were driving their motorcycles – while they were fleeing the village.
"Today the people of Tremseh opened a house that was burned by troops. They found two people who were burned alive. My sister told me that the only two doctors in the village were targeted by mortar shells. Both doctors were killed in their houses."
The massacre took place ahead of a UN security council meeting that is expected to weigh a new response to the crisis in Syria, which has morphed over the past year from a series of anti-regime demonstrations in many towns and cities in Syria into a full-scale insurrection.
Some European states and the US are pushing for the UN to impose sanctions under a Chapter Seven resolution. However, Russia and China, which have staunchly supported Damascus throughout the uprising, have again indicated that they will use their vetoes to block such a move.
Damascus said earlier this week that it is committed to Annan's six-point peace plan and nominated an interlocutor that it said would represent the regime in discussions with the opposition to bring about a ceasefire.
New massacre in Syria amid UN Security Council talks
Published: 13 July, 2012, 01:49
Edited: 13 July, 2012, 23:18
The Syrian opposition claims government forces
stormed Tremseh village in the province of Hama, killing up to 200 people. One
activist said the majority of those killed were rebels while seven were
civilians.
“An army convoy was on its way to
the region of Hama when it was attacked by the FSA,” he said. “The army staged
a counter-attack with the support of [pro-regime] reinforcements from [nearby]
Alawite villages. The FSA resisted for an hour before it was defeated,” said an opposition activist named Jaafar, as reported by AFP.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also
reported that “several dozen rebel fighters were among those killed."
According to the UK-based group’s information, 40
of the rebels killed have been identified. They add that 18 were “summarily
executed” and that 30 corpses were burned.
The so-called Revolution Leadership Council of Hama
told Reuters that the village of Tremseh had been attacked by helicopter
gunships and tanks, and was later stormed by pro-government militia.
Scores of dead bodies were scattered in buildings
across Tremseh, Al Arabiya quoted opposition activists as saying. More than 150
bodies were piled up in the local mosque and the local school was allegedly
destroyed too. These reports could not be independently confirmed.
State television, meanwhile, has put the blame for
the massacre on “terrorists” and described the massacre as a “deliberate
provocation”, adding that government forces only entered the village after
residents asked for their help.
Damascus says the armed opposition massacred the
villagers to swing public opinion against the government ahead of the
forthcoming UN Security Council meeting, and make a case for foreign
intervention before the UN Security Council.
The UN Security Council started a new round of
negotiations on Thursday to discuss two competing drafts of a resolution aimed
at breaking the diplomatic gridlock surrounding Syria as violence continued to
rack the country.
The draft resolution, introduced by Britain,
suggests a mission extension, but with harsh sanctions which come under Chapter
7. The latter allows the authorization of actions ranging from diplomatic and
economic sanctions to military intervention.
If this draft is passed, the sanctions will take
effect immediately if a ceasefire does not take hold within ten days and
government forces do not withdraw heavy weapons from populated areas.
The second draft, proposed by Russia, opposes
sanctions. Moscow says it will not accept the Western-proposed resolution. The
UN has to agree on further actions by July 20, when the mandate for the UN
monitoring mission in Syria expires.
Timing of
atrocities coincidental – again?
The commander of the United Nations Observers
Mission in Syria said that his team had confirmed there had been fighting in
Tremseh.
Speaking to reporters in Damascus on Friday,
General Robert Mood verified that the assault on Tremseh had been targeted, "involving
mechanized units, involving indirect fire impact and involving helicopters.
This is what we have seen from a distance of 5 to 6 kilometers [about 3 to 4
miles]."
The UN Syria mission team reported that they
observed an “ongoing military operation” around the village, saying that they
heard more than 100 explosions.
General Mood said that observers were ready to send
a larger team to the village once there is a "credible cessation of
violence and a local ceasefire."
Meanwhile, Reuters news agency claims to have
obtained the UN mission’s ‘flash’ report , which says that the attack on the
village was “an extension of the SAAF [Syrian Arab Air Force] operation in
Khan Sheikhoun to Souran over the recent number of days," adding that
"the situation in Hama province continues to be highly volatile and
unpredictable."
Russia has harshly condemned the massacre in
Tremseh and expressed its solidarity with the Syrian people, saying that “the
immediate cessation of bloodshed and armed violence against the civilian
population by all parties is necessary.”
In addition, Russia’s Foreign Ministry pointed to
the fact that the latest atrocities “again” coincided with important
discussions on Syria in the
US Security Council. It pointed out that the
massacre in Houla on May 25, which claimed lives of dozens civilians, also took
place during crucial negotiations in the UNSC.
“Without prejudging the outcome
of the investigation of the crime, on the conduction of which we insist, we
would like to emphasize that we have no doubt that this atrocity is of
advantage to the forces that do not seek peace, but persist in trying to grow
on Syrian soil the seeds of sectarian animosity and civil conflict, those for
whom the grief and suffering of the Syrian people do not mean anything,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Aleksandr Lukashevich.
‘UN
should pass a resolution’
Meanwhile, the Syrian National Council has called
for a UN Security Council emergency meeting to discuss the massacre. It is
urging UN observers to head to the site and document what happened there.
International peace envoy Kofi Annan has condemned
the mass killings in the Syrian village, saying he is “shocked and appalled by
news coming out of the village."
"This is in violation of the
government's undertaking to cease the use of heavy weapons in population
centers and its commitment to the six-point plan," Annan said.
He also said that UN observers were ready to go to
Tremseh to investigate the massacre.
Harsh comments from the international community are
also coming in.
“Reports of Traymseh massacre are
nightmarish – dramatically illustrate the need for binding UNSC measures on
Syria,” the United States’ UN Ambassador Susan Rice wrote
in her Twitter microblog.
France says the UN Security council must acts and
pass a resolution backed by the “threat of sanctions from the Security
Council,” said French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero.
He said that France was assuming its
responsibilities, indirectly criticizing Russia and China for being reluctant
to support a resolution backed by sanctions under Chapter 7.
"This tragedy shows how much
the first step towards a cessation of violence must be taken by the Syrian
government," Valero said.
Eurozone crisis live: Italian government blasts Moody's over downgrade
European markets have ended the week on a positive note. The rises have come despite Moody's downgrading Italy, and more details of the Spanish austerity drive, and the continuing worries that the eurozone is struggling to avoid sinking completely.
It was of course China which rode to the rescue, after second quarter GDP grew by 7.6%. This was a decline on the previous three months, but it was in line with forecasts and that was deemed good enough.
So the FTSE 100 has finished 57.88 points higher at 5666.13, although it is virtually unchanged on the week. Germany's Dax has risen 2.15%, France's Cac has climbed 1.46%, Italy's FTSE MIB is up 0.96% and Spain's Ibex is 0.52% better.
Italy even managed to get a bond auction away successfully, despite the Moody's downgrade. But a dip in its bond yields proved short-lived, however, and they are on their way back up.
Meanwhile the Dow Jones Industrial Average is currently 170 points higher.
And with that it's time to shut up shop for another week. Thanks for all the comments and have a good weekend.
Bad news for Spanish consumers, emerging after the day's cabinet meeting. Giles Tremlett in Madrid reports:
Just when they thought it could not get worse, Spaniards
have discovered that the VAT hike of three points announced by prime minister
Mariano Rajoy on Wednesday as part of a new 65bn euro austerity package will
actually see 13 percent added to the costs of some goods and services.
Theatre tickets, cinema tickets, hairdressers, funeral parlours and numerous other services will all see their VAT rate jump from 8 percent to 21 percent, according to budget minister Cristóbal Montoro, who declined to go into more detail.
The rise will be introduced on September 1, presumably in the hope that it will provoke a mini consumer boom before then.
Theatre tickets, cinema tickets, hairdressers, funeral parlours and numerous other services will all see their VAT rate jump from 8 percent to 21 percent, according to budget minister Cristóbal Montoro, who declined to go into more detail.
The rise will be introduced on September 1, presumably in the hope that it will provoke a mini consumer boom before then.
Updated at 17:19 BST
More strike news from Spain. On top of other threatened action, the country's main unions have called on public sector workers to strike sometime in September, with a date to be decided later. And so it rolls on...
Away from Spain for the moment and back to Italy. Sony Kapoor of the Re-Define think tank says Italy's economy is not struggling in the same way as Spain's, but it has been caught up in the general fear that the eurozone crisis is running out of control. He writes:
Despite the [Moody's] downgrade, Italy is not Spain and the fact that the downgrade had a rather limited impact on the pricing of Italian bonds issued in its immediate aftermath reflects some of its fundamental strengths.
Nevertheless, expect this to generate a barrage of strongly worded public criticisms from European leaders, but the truth is that they only have themselves to blame. The single biggest factor weighing on the Italian economy at present is the uncertainty about whether or not the Eurocrisis will be resolved. And it is this, rather than Italy’s own domestic situation (which is also complicated), that is the most serious problem.
While the Spanish economy is already caught in a vicious downward spiral, the Italian economy is not, at least yet. However, unless the Eurozone acts quickly to stem the uncertainties surrounding the Eurocrisis, what has essentially been a liquidity problem for Italy thus far (having to rollover debt at gradually rising interest rates) may well turn into a self-fulfilling solvency problem leading inevitably to a need to restructure its debt. This may not happen through the first order impact of rising interest costs, but through the suffocating impact on the private sector, through rising capital flight and through falling GDP.
Italy’s fate lies in the hands of the Eurozone and the Eurozone’s future in turn depends on what transpires in Italy. [more here]
Updated at 16:11 BST
Back with Spain, and the government has also approved a new €18bn fund to support the country's 17 cash strapped regions.
It will include a €6bn loan from the state lottery with the rest coming from the treasury. Economy minister Luis de Guindos, speaking after the cabinet meeting, said:
There is a guarantee the regions will receive the funds (they need) but they keep the responsibility of paying them back.
Spain's prime minister Mariano Rajoy
(front L) speaks to economy minister Luis de Guindos (front R) before today's
cabinet meeting. Photo: Reuters/J.J. Guillen/Pool
Updated at 15:31 BST
Like the rest of the global markets, Wall Street seems to be shrugging off Moody's downgrade of Italy and the JP Morgan disaster, and concentrating on China.
To recap, Chinese GDP showed a slowdown, but it was pretty much in line with expectations and so sighs of relief have been heard around the world's financial markets.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average has added nearly 150 points in early trading, despite US consumer confidence slipping in July to 72 from 73.2 - a new low for the year - according to the latest Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan survey.
Here's more from the EFSF on Spain, here via the Netherlands. Giles Tremlett in Madrid writes:
In amongst the bad news yesterday, a “confidential” document
posted by the Dutch finance ministry on its website appears to have escaped
wider attention.
It is a July 9 proposal from Europe’s EFSF rescue fund on the timings (and amounts) in the Spanish bank bailout.
Although it only seems to be a working document, the proposal appears to assume that Spain may use some 95bn of the 100bn euros on offer.
It says up to a quarter of the total should be set aside for a bad bank which will absorb the toxic real estate assets (much of it almost worthless building land) of the former savings banks that receive European bailout money.
It sees 30bn euros made available this month, with up to 25 bn more made available at the end of December and 15bn in June. The 25bn euros that would go to the bad bank (which are apparently separate) would be made available in November. This month’s figures and December’s overlap, so are not very clear.
The document, marked “confidential”, can be downloaded here.
It is a July 9 proposal from Europe’s EFSF rescue fund on the timings (and amounts) in the Spanish bank bailout.
Although it only seems to be a working document, the proposal appears to assume that Spain may use some 95bn of the 100bn euros on offer.
It says up to a quarter of the total should be set aside for a bad bank which will absorb the toxic real estate assets (much of it almost worthless building land) of the former savings banks that receive European bailout money.
It sees 30bn euros made available this month, with up to 25 bn more made available at the end of December and 15bn in June. The 25bn euros that would go to the bad bank (which are apparently separate) would be made available in November. This month’s figures and December’s overlap, so are not very clear.
The document, marked “confidential”, can be downloaded here.
Updated at 15:20 BST
Spain's deputy prime minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria has been commenting on some of the reforms agreed.
The government has approved a programme for the second half of the year which will include liberalising its state railway, road and airport companies, according to Reuters. The reforms will also include laws to trim local administrations and a review of the country's pension system.
Meanwhile the EFSF has released an FAQ on the Spanish bailout here (PDF).
Updated at 14:43 BST
Spanish civil servants took to the streets to protest against the country's €65bn austerity package, to co-incide with the Spanish cabinet's meeting (see 14.01pm)
This photo shows demonstrators blocking a road outside the Education Ministry earlier today.
And with that, it's time to hand over to my colleague Nick Fletcher. Have a good weekend all.
Updated at 14:33 BST
Spain's cabinet had been meeting today to approve much of the €65bn austerity package announced by prime minister Mariano Rajoy on Wednesday (Giles Tremlett writes)
And here's a picture from today's cabinet meeting at the Zarzuela Palace in Madrid:
Spanish King Juan Carlos (R), prime
minister Mariano Rajoy (2nd R), Spain's Justice Minister Alberto Ruiz
Gallardon, Spain's Treasury and Public Administration Minister Cristobal
Montoro (2nd L) and Development Minister Ana Pastor (L). Photograph:
Reuters/Angel Diaz/Pool
We will have more detail shortly, with post cabinet meeting press conference scheduled to start at 2pm UK time.
Unions have already called a demonstration for next Thursday in Madrid to protest against the measures - though demonstrations are now becoming a daily routine, with civil servants out over the past couple of days to complain about the increase in their working hours and loss of pay.
Updated at 14:08 BST
The shocking $4.4bn losses at JP Morgan's London offices (see last post) have caused a political firestorm in the US and led to calls for tighter regulation of Wall Street banks.
Wall Street correspondent Dominic Rushe writes:
The bank revealed it had clawed back two years of annual compensation from those involved as it released its second quarter results, which pegged losses at its chief investment office (CIO) at $4.4bn, up from an initial estimate of $2bn.
The bank held a two hour briefing with analysts Friday morning to allay fears about the losses.
JP Morgan chief executive officer Jamie Dimon still sounded defiant ahead of the meeting, saying:
We have put most of this problem behind us and we can now focus our full energy on what we do best - serving our clients and communities around the world.
Full story here.
Updated at 13:59 BST
Beyond the eurocrisis (briefly), JP Morgan has stunned the City with new details of the losses run up by its London-based chief investment office.
Amid reports that the one-time star trader known as The Whale has left the company, JP Morgan is taking a $4.4bn pre-tax loss on its CIO operation.
More alarmingly, JP Morgan also admitted that it was "no longer confident" that traders had marked their credit default swap positions to market "in good faith". That shows that CEO Jamie Dimon's claim that the affair was a "tempest in a teapot", was also wide of the mark....
The JP Morgan results are online here
Over on our Banking Blog, Joris Luyendijk has written a piece about the culture at the heart of banking. Those of you who are interested in the inner workings of the financial sector may find it very useful – Joris has interviewed an ex-investment banker this week, who is also answering questions below-the-line.
It's here.
The euro continues to bob below the $1.22 mark today, close to the two-year low hit yesterday.
Lee McDarby, of Investec Corporate Treasury, said currency traders hadn't been too influenced by the Moody's downgrade, suggesting "it wasn’t a great surprise".
So what's weighing on the euro (apart from the usual)?
One concern is that Spanish bank borrowed another €40bn from the European Central Bank in June, pushing their total support up to €365bn. This suggests Spain's bank's found it even harder to fund themselves in the commerical markets last month [remember, though, that the 'breakthrough' EU Summit only came at the end of June].
Italy's bond auction has now concluded, and it has managed to raise the full €5.25bn it was aiming for.
The sale included 10-year bonds, maturing in 2022, which were sold at average yields of 5.82%. Lower than the 6.19% paid last month (see 10.16am for earlier results).
Analysts are calling the result a success, especially given the timing of Moody's downgrade.
Here's some comment from Nicholas Spiro of Spiro Sovereign Strategy (who also makes the point that Italian commercial banks probably bought much of the debt):
This was a challenging enough auction without the downgrade
which makes the result look all the more impressive. The cut to Italy's credit
rating had been more or less priced in. Once again, the Treasury was able to
get its debt out the door which, right now, is the overriding priority.
Domestic banks continue to hold the fort at Italian actions. The concession,
however, is still hefty and reflects the increasing risks in Italy.
Updated at 11:31 BST
Italy's industry minister has slammed Moody's, claiming that the credit rating downgrade was "entirely arbitrary", and not based on sensible economic logic.
Corrado Passera told reporters in Rome that the two-notch downgrade was:
altogether unjustified and even misleading.
It's normal for government ministers to issue such statements after a downgrade (Athens railed against the credit rating agencies all the way down to 'selective default'). But Passera made an important point – he believes Italy will still hit its target of a balanced structural budget even if the downturn is deeper than expected.
That follows on from Peter Bofinger's comments this morning, that if you look at Italy's budget deficit alone, it's healthier than many other countries (see 8.41am).
As mentioned at 7.21am, Moody's fears that Italy's weakening economy means it will miss its targets; but it also warns that the eurozone crisis could escalate further, taking the situation out of Italy's hands.....
Updated at 10:56 BST
Having sold €3.5bn of three-year debt succesfully in the market (see 10.16), the Italian treasury is now selling other bonds through a seperate process (to take the total raised to around the €5.25bn target). Those results should come soon.
Italian bond auction
The results of Italy's bond auction are coming in, and the early indications are that the sale has gone well.
Italy sold €3.5bn of three-year bonds at an average yield fo 4.65%, sharply lower than the 5.3% it had to pay at a similar auction in mid-June.
So Moody's downgrade has not derailed this morning's debt sale.
The bid-to-cover ratio (the measure of demand) also rose, to 1.73 (versus 1.59 at the last auction). That's still quite a low figure, which one fund manager suggested meant a single buyer (perhaps a domestic bank?) had bid heavily.
Italy auction strong, premium to market but
low bid-cover suggest single very big buyer
Updated at 10:21 BST
Italian bank shares have fallen this morning. Unicredit shares are down by 1.7%, with Intesa San Paulo losing 1.6%.
Italian banks are heavy with sovereign debt, so Moody's downgrade cuts the "book value" of their bonds.
In Italy, there's some anger over Moody's timing.
Massimigliano Storti, a fund manager at Zenit, told Reuters the timing was "inopportune", given Italy's €5.25bn bond sale (kicking off any moment) and also as Mario Monti is away in America.
Updated at 10:47 BST
Back to Italy, where an official from Silvio Berlusconi's People of Freedom (PDL) party has confirmed that the great survivor of Italian politics is planning to run for the prime minister's job next year.
Following a meeting at Berlusconi's home in Rome, Fabrizio Cicchito, PDL parliamentary leader, told local media that Berlusconi had decided to lead the party into next year's general election.
Cicchito said:
Yes, Berlusconi is the candidate for premier.
Which means, I think, that PDL will not hold a leadership campaign. The prospect of another Berlusconi premiership looms larger every day.....
Updated at 09:40 BST
The other important news overnight was the Chinese GDP data, which showed that its economy grew at its slowest pace in three years – a mere 7.6%.
As my colleague Tania Branigan reports:
Second quarter growth of 7.6% – down from 8.1% in the previous three months – was in line with expectations, but dampened hopes that the world's second largest economy would help to offset wider woes.
"The growth rate of 7.6% is already an achievement because the economic situation facing China has been complex and severe," said Sheng Laiyun, of the National Bureau of Statistics.
Updated at 09:26 BST
There are reports this morning that (as feared) Greece has fallen behind in the implementation of its financial programme.
German newspaper Rheinische Post reported that the Troika (which visited Greece last week), has concluded that it has missed 210 of its 300 targets.
Greece has been pleading behind the scenes for more time to bring its economy into line, but Rheinische Post reckons that Angela Merkel has no intention of extending the timescale by two years. Athens might get a few weeks at best.
The Troika has not completed its assessment of the situation yet – prompting analysts at Investec to ask whether "they still have the last 90 targets to check?".
This situation is potentially very serious – Greece needs to satisfy the Troika to keep accessing its second bailout.
With delicious timing, the Moody's downgrade came as one of Germany's economic wise men claimed that the financial markets had failed to recognise Italy's recent progress.
In an interview published this morning, Peter Bofinger said Italy was the second "most solid" member of the G7 [after Germany naturally] in terms of its budget deficit.
Prof Peter Bofinger. Photograph: Tobias
Schwarz/Reuters
Bofinger (one of five men who advise the Berlin government on the economy), argued that it was simply wrong that the UK should be able to borrow so much more cheaply than Italy.
Bofinger told an Italian newspaper:
If one looks at the structural surplus, projected by the OECD at 0.8 percent in 2012, (Italy) is even more solid than Germany, which has a structural deficit of 0.9 percent
One doesn't see why Italy should pay yields of 6.0-6.5 percent with a 1.7 percent deficit while Great Britain, with a 7.7 percent deficit ..., can refinance its debt on the market at around 2 percent.
Well, where shall we begin? Great Britain's control of her own currency is one factor reassuring investors*, along with the ability to set monetary policy for her own needs rather than a large currency union. The Bank of England's vigorous QE programme (mopping up billions of pounds of gilts each month), has also helped to drive down yields to their current record lows.
Britain's also been through the economic reforms which Mario Monti is now trying to impose on Italy – and which might flounder when he leaves.
* - who don't seem worried, yet, that the UK might inflate away its debts ...
Updated at 09:25 BST
Moody's downgrade comes at a pretty bad time for Italy - in two hours time (10am BST), it will auction up to €5.25bn of long-term debt.
As mentioned at 7.35am, Italy's bond yields have risen today - a sign that Italy may be forced to accept higher borrowing costs at this morning's auction.
#italy must be cursing
Moody's after downgrade. Back to the debt market today - Up go the yield: 10 yr
now 6% (+11) @bloombergtvwrold
Updated at 08:02 BST
Financial analysts fear that Moody's downgrade of Italy could be followed by other countries having ratings cut soon, given the underlying problems at the heart of the eurocrisis. Here's some early reaction:
Shane Oliver, chief economist at AMP Capital Markets in Sydney told Reuters:
It's a sign of the times. I suspect we'll be seeing this for a long time to come -- ratings downgrades for key European countries.
Sumino Kamei, senior analyst at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ:
"the focus in the market is returning to European debt problems"
Michael Hewson of CMC Markets:
The head of the country’s business lobby Confindustria said that the Italian economy will probably shrink by 2.4% this year as a best case scenario, further spooking markets worried about how the Italian government will deal with its debt load of nearly €2trn.
This is likely to be the reason why Moody’s downgraded Italy’s government bond rating by two notches and warned it could well cut by more if the country were to lose access to the debt market.
#Italy is slowly becoming a
case study for how liquidity problems can lead 2 solvency problems & the #Eurozone is allowing this 2
happen!
Updated at 08:21 BST
Italian government bond prices have fallen in early trading, as the news of Moody's downgrade hits confidence in its debt.
This has pushed the yield on Italian 10-year bonds back around the 6% mark.
Italian prime minister Mario Monti, who
steps down in 2013. Photograph: Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images
As well as cutting Italy's credit rating to Baa2 – just two notches above Junk – Moody's also left it with a 'negative outlook', meaning the rating could be cut again within months.
The agency did pay prime minister Mario Monti some credit, saying that his "strong commitment to structural reforms and fiscal consolidation has moderated the downward pressure on Italy’s government bond rating"
In other words, the situation would be even worse otherwise....
Updated at 09:22 BST
Moody's said it was downgrading Italy because 1) the crisis in the eurozone has deteriorated over the last few months, and 2) its domestic economy has also weakened.
Here's the key points from this morning's statement:
1) Italy is more likely to experience a further sharp increase in its funding costs or the loss of market access than at the time of our rating action five months ago due to increasingly fragile market confidence, contagion risk emanating from Greece and Spain and signs of an eroding non-domestic investor base.
The risk of a Greek exit from the euro has risen, the Spanish banking system will experience greater credit losses than anticipated, and Spain's own funding challenges are greater than previously recognized.
A blow to European leaders who had hoped that the decisions taken at the EU Summit at the end of June, and ratified by finance ministers on Monday, would calm the markets and restore confidence.
Moody's continued:
2) Italy's near-term economic outlook has deteriorated, as
manifest in both weaker growth and higher unemployment, which creates risk of
failure to meet fiscal consolidation targets. Failure to meet fiscal targets in
turn could weaken market confidence further, raising the risk of a sudden stop
in market funding.
Updated at 09:21 BST
Good morning, and welcome to our rollling coverage of the eurozone crisis.
The big news overnight is that Moody's has cut Italy's credit rating by two notches overnight, to Baa2 - that's just two notches above junk status.
The agency warned that Italy's economic situation has deteriorated, and that there is a greater chance of the eurozone breaking up.
The surprise downgrade comes just hours before Italy holds a bond auction.
More to follow!
*You’re wondering where Italy’s Banks are getting the extra money from! I told them sell bananas!!
Money-Laundering
Tie-in Between JPMorgan and the Vatican Bank
2012 July 10
Although the article’s healdine alleges Jamie Dimon is seeking to confer with the Pope in private, there’s no mention of it in the article. However the article does review the money-laundering of the Vatican bank and JP Morgan. Thanks to Kinslape.
JPMorgan
Complicit In Vatican Bank Money-Laundering: Jamie Dimon Seeks Time Alone With
Pope To “Confess”
Silver Vigilante, July 3rd, 2012
Embroiled in another financial scandal pertaining to the laundering of money, the Vatican bank has been called by Forbe’s “the most secret bank in the world” and faces international scrutiny in its highly secretive banking model. Although details are limited to the public, it is clear that the Vatican bank is facing pressure from Italian and European officials over its innerworkings. In short, the bank has laundered billions of dollars. It has had help of course, in the deeply interwoven network of high finance, and none other than US bank JPMorgan abetted highly suspicious transactions, although the bank has yet to be accused of laundering itself. Though, this is a no-brainer considering the accounts the bank hosted for the Vatican.
This part of the story begins when Gottii Tedeschi, now former head of Vatican bank, was relieved when four men waiting for him in the street while he was on his way to work were not hit men. They were investigators with the Carabinieri, Italy’s national military police force. Before he had reached his car, they had served him a search warrant. They escorted him back to his house, where they for many hours searched through his home office. Simultaneously, the military police force was searching through Gotti Tedeschi’s office in Milan. They confiscated two computers, two cabinets’ full of binders, a planner and his briefcase. The documents confiscated from Gotti Tadeschi, who was once a confidant of the pope, “provided Italian law-enforcement officials insight into the innermost workings of the Vatican bank.” According to Germany’s Der Spiegel:
The secret dossier includes references to anonymous numbered accounts and questionable transactions as well as written and electronic communications reportedly showing how Church banking officials circumvented European regulations aimed at combating money-laundering.
Tedeschi came under pressure from high-level Vatican officials for his running of the Vatican bank. He was pushing a model more transparent than the Vatican establishment could allow. In short, he upset powerful forces within the Roman Curia, the Vatican’s administrative and judicial apparatus. Where fore?
The bank, officially called the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR), has functioned for centuries as a trust company “for clandestine monetary transactions.” The bank is not only used by the Church, but also the mafia, corrupt politicians and transnational corporations. One of Tedeschi’s seized memos purportedly reads: “I’ve seen things in the Vatican that scare me.”
Correspondence from May 22 by a member of the bank’s supervisory board to the Vatican’s Secretariat of State reads that the Vatican bank is currently “in an extremely fragile and precarious position.” The situation, the memo reads, had by then reached “a point of imminent danger.”
On Wednesday, July 4, money-laundering experts from the Council of Europe are set to present a preliminary report on the Vatican in Strasbourg. The group is likely to indicate, in most likely a vague and resigned manner, that the IOR has seemingly taken insufficient steps against money-laundering. Or, the committee will be wholesale bought off and will present a glowing review of the bank, thus “white-listing” the Vatican bank.
Because the bank has kept accounts hidden from Italian authorities, it’s bid for inclusion on the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s so-called “white list” of financial institutions not suspected of money-laundering or terrorism financing remains dubious. Gotti Tedeschi apparently lamented, “If we continue…we’ll never get off the black list.” Der Spiegel maintains:
The Vatican leadership is alarmed. Archbishops and cardinals are far from thrilled that Italian officials are now rummaging around in their secret affairs. Papal spokesman Federico Lombardi has openly threatened Italy’s law-enforcement apparatus and urged it to kindly respect “the sovereign rights of the Holy See.” In other words, he believes that all those documents including confidential details about the Vatican bank that were seized during the search of Gotti Tedeschi’s home should not be in the hands of Italian investigators.
The incidence, when one looks through an historical episteme, should come as no surprise, as, for more than 40 years, the IOR (founded in 1942) has oft gotten caught up in scandal, such as bribery, money in political campaigns, mafia money-laundering and anonymous accounts. For nearly twenty centuries before that, the same was true.
Many persons stuck in the middle of illegal business dealing with the Vatican bank have been killed. Others have spent many years behind bars. Riding the coattails of history, the Vatican remains a cesspit of money-laundering. The bank’s modus operandi is to remain shrouded in mystery, keeping everything possible away from public light. At the bank, many times anonymity is guaranteed, and so capital gains go untaxed, financial statement undisclosed.
The bank is headquartered within a medieval defensive tower called Niccolo V. It sits abutting the Apostolic Palace, the pope’s official residence. On the record, 33,000 accounts totaling $7.6 billion reside at the bank. The direct beneficiary is the pope and the Church. Officially, reported earnings in 2010 for the bank were 55 million euro. These are merely estimates, as the Vatican has yet released its business practices of decades. “There is fear that, owing to the transparency necessary today, one will find something in the past that one doesn’t want to,” says Marco Politi, a Rome-based Vatican expert.
In other words, there is more going on at the bank beyond the already discovered array of ghost accounts and shell companies discovered as Archbishop Paul Casimir Marcinkus was its head in the 1980s. Back then the bank was involved in foreign currency and weapons with the Milanese banker Robert Calvi as well as mafia financier Michele Sidona. The bank helped to launder illegal profits the mafia made via drug-trafficking. Bribes were also paid to Christian-conservative Italian.
Calvi was found hanged beneath Blackfriars Bridge in London. His private secretary fell to her death from the window of his Banco Ambrosiano. In 1986, four years later, Sidona died in prison after a morning espresso came with cyanide. The bank continued its money-laundering activities. On a weekly basis, suitcases were brought to the Vatican filled with “donations” from Italian companies as cash and securities. The origin of the money would be hidden using accounts with numbers, like 001-3-14773-C, which was owned by the nonexistent “Cardinal Spellman Foundation.”
Three years ago, 4,000 documents came to light. They had been amassed and hidden by Vatican financial expert Renato Dardozzi before his death in 2003. In his will Dardozzi wrote: “These documents should be published so that everyone can learned what has happened here.”
In 2009, the year Gotti Tedeschi took over as president of the IOR, the bank opened up an account with the Milan-based branch of JPMorgan Chase. According to Spiegel:
From that point on, millions started flowing on an almost daily basis from JPMorgan’s Milan office to the one in Frankfurt, where the IOR also had a JPMorgan account. Vatican officials opted for a special account in Milan with the number 1365, a so-called “sweep facility account,” which was automatically zeroed out at the end of each day. The Vatican bank confirmed the existence of this account late last week, though it said it was primarily used for handling securities transactions.
This financial account allegedly processed more than a billion euros for the Vatican bank through last year. Italian investigators suspect the account was used to launder funds from “dubious sources.” According to the strict anti-money-laundering laws to which financial institutions are supposed to be held, JPMorgan should be considered a primary suspect in massive money-laundering operations in Europe, centered at the Vatican bank. Considering the blatant record amassed by the Vatican – it’s fraudulent and illegal dealings – JPMorgan worked as one of the pope’s banksters with complete disregard for moral hazard. It was not until JPMorgan was caught naked in bed with the pope, engaging in massive and illegal transfers, did the bank begin scrutinizing the Vatican’s financial dealings to which it was an accomplice. To this point, the mainstream media has focused on the shadyness of the Vatican – an age old story, literally – and not directly implicated JPMorgan in yet further financial crimes.
The transfers did not come with information regarding account holders or purposes for the transfers. Of that amount, 20 million pounds apparently was heading to the Vatican’s JPMorgan account in Frankfurt. The other 3 million euros were heading for an account at a different bank in Rome.
Federal prosecutors in Rome froze the funds. Investigations followed implicating Tedeschi, for one, in violating anti-money laundering regulations. Then, JPMorgan leaped into action late, and “started asking Vatican officials where the money that had been regularly flowing through the Milan account was actually coming from. But they didn’t get any satisfactory answers. As a result, the bank then gave the IOR an internal classification as a high-risk client and started monitoring its transactions for clues that might point to money-laundering.”
By the end of 2010, Pope Benedict issued a decree. The Vatican bank would now abide by EU anti-money-laundering policies. The Financial Information Authority came into existence through this decree. Italian officials released the 23 million euros in frozen IOR funds.
The tempest has not cleared, however. First, there are Strasbourg-based Council of Europe money-laundering experts. The Vatican had to let them investigate their operations. A slew of other agencies out of Europe have evaluated the bank. Further, federal prosecutors in Rome are continuing their investigations. In October of last year, they requested German assistance in obtaining information related to the IOR account at the JPMorgan branch in Frankfurt. A judge in Frankfurt, in November, struck down the request due to “lack of evidence.”
Early this year, JPMorgan closed the IORs transfer account in Milan. The bank wrote that anti-money-laundering regulations no longer make available “additional deposits or withdrawals via account No. 1365.” Cardinal Secretary of State Bertone rewrote Benedict’s decree, restating that monitoring of the Vatican bank is only permissible with the consent of Bertone himself. An undated and anonymous document, which, according to the Roman daily Il Fatto Quotidiano, comes from “the very top,” reads that there is a “concrete risk of a rating downgrade and, thereby, of a significant loss in the prestige of the Holy See.”
It is clear that JPMorgan is complicit in money-laundering in Europe with the Vatican, having abetted Vatican bank money-laundering and fraud by allowing IRS-defined suspicious transactions pass through their institution. The bank, knowing fullwell what it was dealing with, shucked its financial responsibility and put the Vatican’s critical transfers through, never questioning or putting the transactions through the basic financial scrutiny. The US Press has been silent, and the banks $9 billion loss has taken over the headlines – a rehash of an old story. In the meantime, JPMorgan has partaken in the illegal and unconscionable with some of civilization’s deepest-entrenched institutions, in this case the twenty century-old religious center of Catholicism.
SaLuSa July16.Mon.2012
Angelo: Good day SaLuSa, would you kindly give us
an update today please or if you have something to talk about.
Good day Angelo, Good day SaLuSa, thank you and you too. I would like to talk about ascension and
coming events, also the dark ones! You
will start to notice more people participating in rallies around the world, for
the betterment of mankind! The energy
that you’re receiving is awakening more people at this time than previously,
some people are on the edge of moving up to another level in Angelo system
(look at the past posts to find the percentage that I gave at that time). The
dark ones are at a total loss worldwide! The Angelo question, how will Angelo protect them when he drops them
off back to their homes on the planet Earth, meaning they will have no privacy
at all? Angelo that’s easy, Lydia
will live on the Mothership (first I will have to find out the Laws on this
before anything happens)… the brunette,
if the same things happens will live on the Mothership (the Law will apply here
also) so when things die down in a month to two they can go back to the
planet/if they choose to go back earlier!
Nothing will happen until I have
full consciousness!
I ’m SaLuSa
of Sirius, wishing all Love and Light, SaLuSa. Your new world is closer than you think!
Thank you
SaLuSa
Angelo
Telepathic
Transmission concluded
YouTube
*UFOs and
anomalies near the Sun – Review for July 5, 2012. – YouTube
*The UFO Is Still There By The Sun!
West inviting civil war in
Syria - Lavrov
Published: 16 July, 2012, 13:34
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov speaks during a press
conference in Moscow, July 16, 2012 (AFP Photo / Kirill Kudryavtsev)
Announcing that it is not taking sides in the Syrian crisis, Russia is calling for an immediate ceasefire in order to let the Annan Plan bring about the necessary conditions for lasting peace.
Dismissing Western criticism of Russia’s adherence to the Annan Plan, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reiterated Moscow’s call for both sides in the 16-month conflict to lay down their arms and enter into peace talks.
"In order to halt the violence, both sides in the conflict must be forced simultaneously to cease hostilities, synchronize withdrawal of heavy weaponry from cities and place all armed people under the UN mission's control," Lavrov told a press conference on Monday.
Russia’s staunch defense of the Annan Plan was given a boost as Kofi Annan, UN-Arab League Special Envoy to Syria, began a two-day visit to the Russian capital. During the talks, Moscow will also be negotiating vigorously for an extension of the UN Supervision Mission in Syria.
Lavrov said Annan’s visit underscores Russia’s dedication to enforcing “the six-point peace plan, which involves a political diplomatic settlement of the Syrian conflict."
Annan will meet with President Putin on Tuesday, the Russian minister added.
Meanwhile, Lavrov did not miss an opportunity to address Russia’s detractors – specifically the United States – which, he said, seeks to “blame” Russia and China for the ongoing hostilities in Syria.
"It is not right to blame the situation [in Syria] on Russia and China, to say nothing about threats like 'they are going to pay for this'," he said.
Earlier this month, Clinton told an international conference: “The only way that will change (Russia and China supporting Syria) is if every nation represented here directly and urgently makes it clear that Russia and China will pay a price.”
Lavrov slammed the remarks as “undiplomatic” and “simply uncivilized.”
The Russian minister then criticized Moscow's western partners for provoking a civil war in the country.
"Some of my Western colleagues even proposed that the resolution [the Western draft resolution that mentions Chapter 7 of the UN Charter] declare an economic, financial and communication blockade against the Syrian government,” the minister said. “In other words, even talks with [the Syrian government] are ruled out.”
"This is a direct invitation to a civil war, not the implementation of the Geneva communique," Lavrov declared.
Stressing that Russia is not supporting the Syrian government in the conflict, Lavrov said Moscow wants all parties to follow the set of internationally-accepted proposals for ending the violence.
"We are not supporting Bashar al-Assad,” he said bluntly. “We are supporting what everybody has agreed upon: Kofi Annan's plan, the Security Council resolution and the Geneva communique, and we fully support these documents."
Lavrov added the caveat that the proposals for bringing about the conditions for peace must not be manipulated by outside parties.
"These documents can only be implemented entirely, and not in individual parts that someone might be favoring," the minister said. "We shall accept any decision by the Syrian people as to who will run Syria, as long as it is a decision made by the Syrian people themselves."
What began in March 2011 as pockets of public protests in Syria has swelled into a violent conflict that is pitting an armed opposition against the government of President Bashar al-Assad, who assumed leadership in 2000.
In keeping with Moscow’s efforts to engage both sides in the conflict, Lavrov met prominent Syrian opposition activist Michael Kilo in Moscow on July 9; the negotiation process continued two days later when Lavrov held talks with Abdel Basset Sayda, the head of the oppositional Syrian National Council (SNC).
Meanwhile, Lavrov downplayed the defection of some Syrian officials and military personnel, saying such incidences would not affect Russia's attitude to the Syrian settlement.
"Such things [as the defection of government supporters to the opposition] happen,” he said. "There is no magic figure when a certain number of defectors would mean a radical change in the situation.”
Russia is more concerned about the future of the Syrian people than individual generals diplomats, the minister added.
Lavrov revealed one of the problems hindering the peace process, which involved members of the armed opposition being encouraged "to reject any proposals of ceasefire or truce, to put forward unilateral demands so that the government would disarm unilaterally."
“The [Syrian government] will not do that, everyone understands that perfectly well," he concluded.
*Our allies are being bold and you are seeing more evidence of their work to bring out the truth, and to put in action the long-overdue plan to clear out the dark Ones. It shall continue and become more widespread, and it is revealing to us who amongst you are still under their influence.
It is fear and favour that keeps others under their control, and we are intent on changing such situations. As you are also seeing, political parties from all over the world are revealing their true colours, with little compassion or action to deal with the heavy burden being placed upon the people resulting from the criminal activities within the banks.
We shall introduce the forgiveness of debt, as it is clearly the only way to enable every country and those individuals’ worst affected to recover and start anew. That will come with new technologies and other innovations that will put your feet firmly in the New Age.
The Internet continues to be your best source of information, but people are still taken in by disinformation websites. Dear Ones, if the information they give does not ring true, set it aside, and also if it advocates the use of violence it is certainly not of the Light. Stick to what you have found to be reliable and well tried and tested.
In time you will not need as much reliance on the Internet as you do now, as it will not be too long before we can give our own broadcasts. Everything is ready for such advancements and, as usual, it is a matter of timing. Your involvement in these matters is important, but if it became a necessity, we would go ahead alone as the changes must soon commence as planned. However, whatever situation comes up it presents no real problem to us, as we allow for all possibilities.
The issues that are presently expressed through religion will need a complete re-assessment if you are ever to progress. On the one hand you do not necessarily need teachers as all knowledge is within, but because you have not been given the truth it will help to guide you onto the correct path.
As it stands you are getting nowhere fast, and still bound by inaccuracies and absolute falsehoods. There are many decent and loving souls within the churches, and their true potential will not be released until they can break away from religious controls.
Your time and energy will be better used furthering your own understanding. This is not to infer that all religious teachings are unhelpful, but they are confusing and misleading compared to the truth. You have freewill choice and it will be up to you to decide how your future development proceeds.
We come to you for many reasons and we make a point of informing you that we are all One. We may be from quite different civilisations and, in some respects, appear different to you, but like you we are experiencing life as you also do for your spiritual evolution. At a higher level there is no difference at all as we come from the same Source, but have simply elected to follow different paths.
Like myself as a Sirian, quite a few of the Galactic Federation of Light members are directly linked with you, as you came to Earth from their civilisations to be of service. You will find that “service to others” are the key words once you move out of duality into the higher dimensions.
We are One in all we do, not just for the millions upon millions of souls in the Universe, but for all life including the planets, as they also have a high level of consciousness. It is not without reason that you talk of the Earth as Mother Earth and, when you understand her role, pay her due respect and gratitude for what she does for you.
There are many subjects that up to now have not been fully explained, as there has to be an appropriate time when your level of consciousness is ready to receive advanced knowledge. It would be no good overloading your brain with material that was too far ahead of your present understanding.
Up to now spiritual evolution has come slowly and allowed you through personal experience to integrate it into your understanding. These processes have however been speeded up to hasten your progress towards Ascension. It is because there are those amongst you who have moved ahead and are ready to go much further.
Duality has in some ways sorted out the wheat from the chaff, and we do not mean that in a derogatory way, but there is a great chasm between those who have advanced themselves and those who have not. Clearly the time has come for the Ascension of those who are ready, and should no longer be held back.
Having the intent to ascend is a start but it must continue with an expanding consciousness. Thus your vibrations are lifted up and, as long as your sights are focused on bringing more Light to yourself, you are certain to be one who ascends.
That opportunity has been open to every soul, and it is no disgrace if you have not yet reached that point. There is no limit to the time you can take to prepare yourself, and it would not be expected that everyone would reach the same level together. That is where your freewill comes in although you are naturally encouraged to raise your vibrations at every opportunity. As a group your experiences are not complete until the very last soul has returned.
You presently have no way of knowing what a marvellous achievement you have made in having overcome the attention of the dark Ones. They have tried every trick in the book to prevent you ascending and rising up again into the Light.
It would be true to say that things were loaded against you, but that was by design and it was known that it would be hard going. However, it was also realised that if you won the battle your gains would be enormous. That Dear Ones is where you stand now, and you have achieved a wonderful expansion of consciousness that will remain with you.
Not all Ascended Beings have taken the same remarkable path as you have chosen. Now do you see why in your Universe you are looked upon as very special souls? It is not egotistical to accept such adulation, as you are entitled to give yourselves a pat on the back for your achievements.
I am SaLuSa from Sirius, and would confirm that as slow as events are unfolding they are nevertheless taking off, and will continue to escalate until the momentum proves to be unstoppable. We send our love to you Dear friends and fellow co-workers, because that is what you are.
*The Great Work continues. Each of you has been releasing the cycle patterns of pain and disempowerment from the very cells of your Being. We see that this process has not been an easy one for you and we ask you to remember that you are the Ones blazing a path for others to follow in the days ahead. All pioneers such as yourselves walk each step into the unknown and so there is pressure to be born as you go against the grain of established conditioning. We say to you that you do a greater task than you can conceive at this moment in time.
Know that you never walk this lonely path alone, for we are always with you. We, as your Family of Light, support you in the as yet unseen realms and in the days ahead, you will be more able to see past the density you have been traversing into the realms of Light and multi-dimensionality. As multi-dimensional Beings, you exist and work on many different levels and that is why we say that you are doing so much more than you are currently aware of. Each day, you are surpassing yourselves and former limitations are melting away as though they were just a dream.
It is important to firmly establish a mental intention at the start of each day to be in a state of joy and gratitude, for these will assist you to step into the new frequencies that are inundating the Planet from the Cosmos. This intention also assists in the breaking up of the densities of mass consciousness thinking that has been accepted as the normal way of thinking, doing and Being for Humanity. By choosing a different solution to the problems besetting your World, you are creating the changes necessary to align to the Divine Plan for yourselves and for the Earth and all Her inhabitants.
As always, we counsel that you be kind to yourselves and those around you. You are all learning how to use your energy and personal power in constructive, life enhancing ways and many times, this is a learning process for all. What you do and what you accomplish by overcoming former tendencies that were not for your highest good is that you establish a way for those around you to also become aware that there is a better way to fulfill their most dearest wishes and desires for a happier life. You are the pattern breakers and the pattern makers and this is a most important focus in these current times.
Keep on shining your incredible and beautifully luminescent Light as you go about your daily labors. This is all that is required of you, Beloved Ones that your hearts glow with purity and kindness for all, that you let go of all ego justifications that have been keeping you from your rightful place as Divine Humans stepping into the new Golden Age, the new template for all upon the Earth.
French Arrest Warrant Issued for Equatorial Guinea VP
Teodoro
Nguema Obiang Mangue outside one of his many lavish villas.
French
Arrest Warrant for Equatorial Guinea VP
sage: Equatorial Guinea, a tiny island off Africa’s coast, has the dubious honour of being one of the top 12 corrupted states, as listed by Transparency International. A resource rich country, less than half the population has access to clean drinking water and 20% of the children die before age five.
President Obiang took over after leading a successful coup against his predecessor, Francisco Macias Nguema, who had, himself, allegedly committed genocide of the main ethnic minority, the Bubi. He is also suspected of ordering the death of thousands of suspected opponents, closing churches and forcing out approximately a third of the population that was left.
President Obiang feels that “oil revenues are a state secret”. The family-led dictatorship has used the oil boom to siphon huge payments from US oil companies like Exxon Mobil, according to Human Rights Watch and a 2004 US Senate Investigation.
Obiang, the son, has long been under suspicion and investigation by the United States as well as France. He was appointed Vice-President by his father in May 2012, possibly to seek his immunity against legal proceedings.
French
Arrest Warrant for Equatorial Guinea VP
By Elaine
Ganley and Nicolas Vaux-Montagny, Associated Press, Paris, July 13, 2012
France has issued an arrest warrant for the son of the president of Equatorial Guinea, a suspect in an investigation into the alleged misspending of public funds, a judicial official said Friday.
The warrant followed Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue’s failure to show up for questioning, and eventual preliminary charges, on Wednesday by investigative judges handling the probe, which targets the acquisition of properties in France by the leaders of Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Republic of Congo, the official said.
News of the warrant, initially revealed by the daily Le Monde, came on the same day that UNESCO, the U.N. cultural arm, announced that it will go ahead with presenting a controversial $3 million research prize from Equatorial Guinea next week that pitted nations against each other at the institution dedicated to world harmony through education and culture.
The prize has drawn condemnation from scholars, human rights groups and Western and other nations because of the poor human rights record of oil-rich Equatorial Guinea and corruption within the ruling clan.
The head of the Paris-based U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Irina Bokova, had herself called the award divisive and tried to pressure Equatorial Guinea to withdraw it. With the board’s passage of the prize despite the controversy, she had said she would seek legal counsel about how to proceed and was apparently left with no choice.
The name of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema was removed from the prize, first approved by UNESCO in 2008, to make it less objectionable to detractors, but that failed to calm the fires.
“We condemn UNESCO’s decision to award this prize against the wishes of many of its own member states and international human rights community,” the U.S. ambassador to UNESCO David Killion said in a strongly worded statement. “We simply cannot promote this award given the concerns regarding the questionable source of the prize funds.”
The UNESCO-Equatorial Guinea International Prize for Research in the Life Sciences will be awarded Tuesday to Egypt’s Maged Al-Sherbiny who heads his country’s Academy of Scientific Research and Technology; South Africa’s Felix Dapare Dakora, of Tshwane University of Technology; and Mexico’s Rossana Arroyo, who teaches at National Polytechnic Institute’s Center for Research and Advanced Studies.
It was not immediately clear whether the timing of the two developments was linked.
The warrant seeks the arrest of Obiang, the president’s son, for money laundering and misappropriation of public funds among other things — charges that would have been leveled at the missed hearing as part of the probe, the official said. The judicial official is not authorized to speak publicly about the case and asked not to be identified.
The son’s lawyer, Emmanuel Marsigny, contended that the arrest warrant is worthless because his client, recently named second vice president of his country, is covered by immunity.
“You can think what you want about the Obiang family, but Equatorial Guinea is a sovereign state and he (Obiang, the son) is vice-president and recognized as such,” Marsigny said in an interview.
Last September, French police seized 16 luxury cars of the son, including a Bugatti whose value was estimated at more than €1 million, expenditures suspected of being looted from the country whose population lives
That was followed by a search in mid-February of his vast and luxurious Paris apartment building — a move considered illegal by Equatorial Guinea on the grounds, it said, that the building was part of its diplomatic mission.
The U.S. also has zoned in on Obiang, the son, who is the subject of a U.S. criminal investigation after he moved many millions of dollars of money into the country and, among other things, bought a $30 million home in Malibu, California.
The French arrest warrant “is excellent news which sanctions the flagrant bad faith of Mr. Obiang,” said Joseph Breham, a lawyer with Sherpa, the anti-corruption association at the origin of the French complaint.
SaLuSa July18.Wed.2012
Angelo: Good day SaLuSa, would you kindly give us
an update today please or if you have something to talk about.
Good day Angelo, Good day SaLuSa, thank you and you too. I would like to talk about ascension and
coming events, also the dark ones! The
Mood on your planet Earth is changing with all the people on this planet Earth
to benefit from the wealth which all shall have a share of it! You can expect things to escalate as more
Light is absorbed into people’s DNA, this will lead to a breakthrough on many
fronts, which the dark ones are in total disbelief now! Angelo
has a wildcat
on his hands now [Angelo
(L.O.L.),
that’s life!]*Angelo when you get to full
consciousness, those things don’t matter at all!!
I ’m SaLuSa
of Sirius, wishing all Love and Light, SaLuSa.
Thank you
SaLuSa
Angelo
Telepathic
Transmission concluded
YouTube
*UFOs and
anomalies near the Sun – Review for July 5, 2012. – YouTube
*The UFO Is Still There By The Sun!
Syria's top security ministers slain in Damascus
bombing
Published: 18 July, 2012, 14:21
Edited: 18 July, 2012, 19:36
Four key Syrian military officials including Defense Minister Gen. Daoud Rajha and Assad’s brother-in-law Assef Shawkat, who served as his deputy, were killed at the top-level meeting in central Damascus.
Syrian General Hassan Turkmani – a former defense minister and senior military official – and Interior Minister Mohammad al-Shaar have died from wounds sustained in the blast.
Another prominent governmental figure targeted by the attack is Syrian intelligence chief Hisham Bekhtyar. Bekhtyar is currently undergoing surgery for injuries sustained in the blast, a security source told Reuters.
A number of attendees received serious injuries, and some of them remain in critical condition, the agency reported.
It has been confirmed by the Free Syrian Army (FSA) groups inside Damascus that Maher al-Assad, the president’s younger brother and the commander of the Army's elite Fourth Armored Division, was also injured.
The “confirmed” information the FSA claims they received suggests that he is most likely being treated by his personal medical team at the Presidential palace or at a secret location.
“We have been able to hear the sound of this explosion and we have to admit that is was a very intense and massive blast,” RT’s Maria Finoshina reported from Damascus.
She said the blast occurred in a traditionally safe and calm upscale region where many government buildings are located.
“So of course security has been very tight, specifically in this area,” Finoshina says.
There have also been multiple reports saying more explosions have been heard at an army base in Damascus.
Reuters has reported about five blasts close to the military base.
However, there have not been any official comments confirming the latest information.
The bomber who detonated the explosive worked as a bodyguard for President Bashar Assad’s inner circle, the news agency cites its sources as saying.
A Syrian rebel Islamist group, Liwa Al-Islam, has claimed responsibility for the attack, saying in a statement on Facebook that it "targeted the cell called the crisis control room in the capital of Damascus."
It has been confirmed by the group’s spokesman Qassim Saadedine by phone.
A rebel commander identified as Riyad al-Assad says the bomb was planted inside a room where senior government officials were meeting. However, he denied information which suggested the deadly blast was a suicide bombing.
The Syrian government put the blame for the "terrorist bomb attack" on "hired hands" and pledged to pursue perpetrators and wipe out "criminal gangs," state TV reported.
A meeting of Syrian ministers and security officials was taking place on the premises at the time of the blast. Several top Syrian officials have been badly wounded by the bombing. The area around the national security building in Rawda district has been cordoned off.
Damascus has already appointed a new defense minister, state TV reports. Gen Fahad Jassim al-Freij, who was previously the chief of staff of the armed forces, will now take the top cabinet post.
It is the highest-profile killing of a Syrian official during the 17-month-long conflict in the country. Earlier lower-ranking officials and military officers had reportedly been killed or abducted by the armed opposition.
The attack comes amid a major armed opposition offensive in the city. The fourth day of fighting has seen gunfights erupting within sight of Bashar Assad’s presidential palace.
The violence comes ahead of a UN Security Council session which is tasked with deciding whether to prolong an observer mission in Syria before it expires on Friday. All members agree that the mission should continue its work, but differ on the wording of a resolution which would allow it happen.
Following the killing of the Syrian officials, international envoy Kofi Annan asked to postpone voting on an UN-backed Syria resolution, which had been scheduled for Wednesday.
Moscow has noticed a “dangerous pattern”, whereby discussions over a resolution of the Syrian conflict in the United Nations Security Council are met with ramped up operations on the part of militants.
"A dangerous pattern
[has emerged]: when the UN Security Council debates resolving the crisis in
Syria, militants launch attacks, tearing down all attempts [at a peaceful
settlement],"
Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov posted on Twitter.
Russia and China propose a neutral resolution calling on a cessation of all hostilities. Western members have called for a stronger document which would open the way for sanctions or even military action against the Syrian government if it fails to stop using heavy weapons against the rebels and withdrawal its troops from the streets.
*For some time now we have been
limiting the extent to which the dark Ones can interfere with your progress
towards Ascension. Working with our allies, we have given them every
opportunity to go forward with the changes. However there is still hesitancy in
some quarters, but we wish to assure you that the time has come for you to take
action. We know that you can succeed, and we will be overseeing what takes
place. All of the Light forces are lined up against the dark Ones, and will
ensure that you are able to complete your objectives to remove those who stand
in your way. These measures will be the commencement of a whole string of moves
to propel you into the New Age. What is happening is part of your battle
against those who have plotted your demise, and it is important that you are
seen to overcome them. Whatever course you adopt you will succeed, but we want
you to abide by the "rules" that have been laid down. You do not need
to meet fire with fire, as you have the Law on your side along with us and many
great Beings of Light.
With so much Light reaching you, we find
consciousness levels are rising and many souls are being awakened as a result.
This is wonderful news as it means the Forces of Light are growing all of the
time, and dissipating the lower energies that the dark Ones feed upon. You must
have noticed that when you meet Lightworkers they carry an air of calmness that
is very uplifting. That Dear Ones is where you will all eventually find
yourselves, and you will know that you have at last found the peace you have
been seeking. No one can take it away from you, as it becomes a powerful state
of being that is also your protection. Be true to your Higher Self and do your
best to live your life as you envisage one who has ascended.
Again we remind you how powerful your thoughts are,
and that it is you who are creating your own future. In particular guard
against allowing your emotions to run away with you when confronted by
challenging situations. In the heat of the moment Humans tend to lose their
composure, and end up doing or saying things they later regret. Negative
reactions damage your own aura and lower your Light levels, and it takes time
to recover. Sometimes it is best not to get too involved in personal argument,
or at least to know when to pull out. There are often no winners on such
occasions, and it is only your ego that will feel hurt. In extreme cases of
loss of temper, there are also the inevitable lessons to be learnt that will
come back to you in the form of karma. That is indeed what life is about and is
intended to help you along your evolutionary path.
Now more than ever, it is extremely important how
you carry yourself, so try to live up to your highest expectations, and in so
doing you will set a good example to other people. Like attracts like and you
will find that as you lift up, so others of a similar level will gravitate
towards you.
Those who are coarse and drawn to things of the
lower energies will no longer interest you, and you will find yourself enjoying
the finer things in life. For example your taste in music may change as you
search for things that give you more pleasure and satisfaction. Fulfilment is
no longer found in most of what is presented to you as entertainment, and you
are almost certainly going to look for spiritual upliftment. As a reader you
are no doubt already seeking it from the enormous number of good authors that
are sufficiently illuminated to do so.
There will always be souls that are slow to awaken,
but with time racing by they need a boost to get going. People look far and
wide for their salvation, and although guidance will help, we repeat our advice
that all knowledge is within. It is a matter of "knowing" without
being able to explain why. So follow your intuition and you will not go far
wrong as it usually only the ego that will interfere, it being that part of you
that you have programmed to look after your interests. So think before you act and you will live a
much calmer life without too many of the usual ups and downs.
We often bring you news about the activities of the
dark Ones, as it would not otherwise reach your ears. However, it is
approaching a time when our focus is changing even more to the growth of the
Light. The dark Ones are no longer the force or threat that they were, and
should be left to face the consequences of their actions. Concentrate on your
own preparations for Ascension knowing that the path is open, and no one can be
prevented from completion of this cycle as intended. We ask you, what else matters
now that you have the end times in sight. The day approaches when you can
finally leave duality behind having had so many lives and experiences within
it. Enjoy
that thought because you have such a wonderful future to look forward to and
one that you fully deserve there is to be a sharing of the worlds wealth,
currently held by about 300 families. Most of it has been illegally obtained and we know
exactly how to recover it as no hiding place is beyond our knowledge.
Along with
debt forgiveness, it will give everyone a chance to enjoy being able to have a
share of whatever is produced upon Earth. Also, many helpful pieces of
equipment will be freely issued to raise your quality of life. It will of
course initially centre around those who are in the most need.
Each day brings you a bit closer to the government announcements
that shall trigger the commencement of the benefits that are to go to you.
There will be no stealing within such schemes, and only our appointed and
trusted allies shall be given the responsibility to look after them. It all has
to commence very soon, and will continue well after Ascension. What we are
lining up to do is to get things moving, but not before those who are against
our actions are safely out of the way. It is clearly worth waiting those extra
few days and see matters working out as planned.
I am SaLuSa from Sirius, and fortunate to have a view of what is
going on that far exceeds your authorities own vision. The Galactic Federation
of Light has technologies that can track any ones activities, and record their
speech if necessary. So be assured you are safe and protected by us.
Libor
Mess Gets Worse (Or Should That Read: ‘Better’?)
Fed Chairman
Ben Bernanke and former New York Fed President (and current Treasury Secretary)
Tim Geithner. The New York Fed unveiled documents showing its handling of the
Libor scandal.
Libor Mess
Gets Worse (Or Should That Read: ‘Better’?)
Stephen: The depth and breadth of the Libor scandal could well be the final catalyst in the complete unwinding of the world’s corrupt financial system.
My gut is that it will open everyone’s eyes and ensure that no stone is unturned in getting to the bottom of the many other ways our lives have been manipulated by those who control our global monetary system – and more.
Scott Mowry told me on my radio show that he felt the financial system would be a major tipping point to uncovering many other truths.
I have to say, I wholeheartedly agree: if enough deception is uncovered in one totally enslaving part of all our lives; it will only be more questions about how the rest of our lives have been ‘ruled’ by deception.
The dominoes are stacked and toppling…they WILL fall…
New York
Fed’s Libor Documents Reveal Cozy Relationship Between Regulators, Banks
By Mark Gongloff, The Huffington Post – July 13, 2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/13/new-york-fed-libor-documents_n_1671524.html
The New York Federal Reserve on Friday released documents showing it knew banks were manipulating a key interest rate more than four years ago.
The documents, which date back to 2007, show that the Fed became fully aware that banks were lying about their borrowing costs when setting Libor, and chose to take no action against them.
The documents will likely feed growing concerns about whether the New York Fed, its former chief Timothy Geithner and other market watchdogs did everything they could to stop the manipulation.
The documents also raise more questions about whether the New York Fed and other regulators were too cozy with the banks involved, looking the other way in order to spare the banks too much pain at a time when the financial crisis was still brewing.
“We know that we’re not posting um, an honest LIBOR,” a Barclays employee tells a New York Fed analyst in an April 11, 2008, call, “and yet we are doing it, because, um, if we didn’t do it, It draws, um, unwanted attention on ourselves.”
The New York Fed representative expresses sympathy and understanding:
“You have to accept it,” she says. “I understand. Despite it’s against what you would like to do. I understand completely.”
The widespread manipulation of Libor, an interest rate set by banks self-reporting what they pay to borrow money for short periods, may have cost borrowers (when rates were manipulated higher) and state and local governments (when rates were manipulated lower) untold millions of dollars. And it could end up costing several banks billions of dollars in penalties and lawsuits.
In the documents released Friday — at the request of Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-Tex.), Chairman of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations — the New York Fed shows it was aware of problems with Libor as early as the fall of 2007.
The documents also show a swirl of activity by the New York Fed in the early months of 2008 relating to Libor, including memos and meetings and phone calls with bankers. Those calls included several conversations with people at Barclays, which recently agreed to pay $450 million to settle charges of manipulating Libor.
The activity culminated in a six-point memo written by then-New York Fed President Tim Geithner to Bank of England chief Mervyn King on June 1, spelling out ways to fix Libor. The documents also show that King agreed with Geithner’s suggestions, and said he had passed them on to the proper British authorities.
Up to 16 banks in the U.S. and U.K. are under investigation in the scandal, which appeared to go on for years despite the knowledge of regulators in the U.S. and U.K., raising questions about whether those regulators were complicit in the scandal.
The release of the documents on Friday appears to be an effort to demonstrate that the New York Fed took an active role in trying to stop Libor manipulation — while also pushing blame off on regulators in London.
“The New York Fed helped to identify problems related to LIBOR and press the relevant authorities in the UK to reform this London-based rate,” the New York Fed said in a statement on its Web site.
But though the Fed said it continued to follow developments in Libor after mid-2008, it offers little documentation of that interest, beyond a handful of phone calls. There is no evidence that Geithner’s recommendations were acted upon or that the Fed tried to make sure that they were.
“Our contacts at LIBOR contributing banks have indicated a tendency to under-report actual borrowing costs… in order to limit the potential for speculation about the institutions’ liquidity problems,” one New York Fed analyst wrote in April 2008.
In late October 2008, several months after Geithner’s memo to King, a Barclays employee told a New York Fed representative that Libor rates were still “absolute rubbish.”
Adding to the story above is this:
Rep. Peter
Welch (D-Vt.) is urging Attorney General Eric Holder to hold banks accountable
for the Libor scandal.
Peter Welch
On Libor: DOJ Should ‘Aggressively Prosecute’ All Involved
By Nate Willis, The Huffington Post – July 13, 2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/13/peter-welch-libor-scandal_n_1671087.html
Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder Thursday, recommending he seriously look into the high profile Libor scandal that’s swept across the U.K. and the U.S.
News of the scandal entered national headlines when Barclays Bank recently admitted to rigging the Libor rate, which is the average interest rate at which banks lend to one another, between 2005 and 2009.
“We urge the Department of Justice to carefully investigate and aggressively prosecute all senior bank officials who participated in manipulating the London interbank offered rate [Libor] throughout the financial crisis,” the letter says in its opening statement.
According to the Financial Times, the scandal affects thousands of U.S. households. “There are at least 900,000 outstanding U.S. home loans indexed to Libor that were originated from 2005 to 2009, the period the key lending gauge may have been rigged,” Shahien Nasiripour, reporter for the Financial Times, said in his column.
Whether the Libor rate was manipulated higher or lower, it had a direct correlation to how much a household would pay on its mortgage.
Barclays, a multinational banking institution, agreed to pay $450 million in a settlement on June 27 amid allegations of Libor manipulation. The Libor rate affects as much as $800 trillion in affiliated interest rates on anything from mortgages and pensions to government bonds and financial securities.
“This goes to the heart of the integrity of the financial system. It contributes to immense financial pain that ripples through the economy,” Welch told The Huffington Post. “To the extent that people who overpay as a result of the Libor manipulation, they should be able to get their money back. Individuals who have mortgages, pension funds who had pensioner investments — whoever was ripped off is entitled to get their money back.”
Other banks headquartered in the U.S. are under investigation for their alleged involvement in the scandal, including Bank of America, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase.
Sens. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), both of whom sit on the Senate Banking Committee, wrote a letter to Holder on behalf of 12 Senate Democrats regarding the scandal. The letter urges Holder and the Financial Stability Oversight Council, which was established in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform And Consumer Protection Act, to conduct a thorough investigation into the matter of banking malfeasance that they say has had a ripple effect on the economy and individuals across the U.S.
“We are troubled that several of the world’s largest financial institutions, including several based in the United States, may be involved in an effort to purposely misstate the London Inter-Bank Offered Rate (LIBOR), a key interest rate used in as much as $800 trillion worth of financial instruments,” they say in the letter.
“Any illicit profits should be ‘clawed back’ from the banks and from the individual participants. The folks who participated in this violation of the law should spend some time behind bars. Senator Brown is right to be aggressive in this investigation,” Welch said.
“There has to be a cop on the beat,” he added. “We have to send a message to these people who are entrusted with bank deposits that they can’t use them for their personal gain.”
HSBC
‘Allowed Drug Money Laundering’
Senate
report: HSBC ‘allowed drug money laundering’
BBC News, July 17, 2012
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18866018
HSBC executives will appear before the Senate committee
A US Senate probe has disclosed how lax controls at Europe’s largest bank left it vulnerable to being used to launder dirty money from around the world.
The report into HSBC, released ahead of a Senate hearing on Tuesday, says huge sums of Mexican drug money almost certainly passed through the bank.
Suspicious funds from Syria, the Cayman Islands, Iran and Saudi Arabia also passed through the British bank.
HSBC said it expected to be held accountable for what went wrong.
The report into HSBC was issued by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, a Congressional watchdog that looks at financial improprieties.
It also concluded that the US bank regulator, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, failed to properly monitor HSBC.
Miami officeMany of HSBC’s breaches of US anti-money laundering relate to its use of bearer share accounts. Under the rules for these accounts, ownership of shares and the income they incur can be passed from person to person in secrecy.
HSBC’s US subsidiary HBUS had opened more than 2,550 accounts for bearer share corporations.
Related
Stories
Banks guilty of more mis-selling
These businesses are commonly set up in tax havens such as the British Virgin Islands.
Most of the bearer share accounts – some 1,670 – were opened at the Miami office of HBUS.
At their peak, these Miami accounts held $2.6bn of assets and generated annual revenues of $26m.
The report highlights the case of Miami Beach hotel developers, Mauricio Cohen Assor and Leon Cohen Levy.
The father and son used HBUS accounts opened under the names Blue Ocean Finance Ltd. and Whitebury Shipping Time-Sharing Ltd. to help hide $150m in assets and $49m of income.
The pair were jailed for 10 years for criminal tax fraud and filing false tax returns in 2010.
‘Held accountable’
“Start Quote
We take responsibility for fixing what went wrong ”
Stuart Gulliver Chief executive, HSBC
The year-long inquiry, which included a review of 1.4 million documents and interviews with 75 HSBC officials and bank regulators, will be the focus of a hearing on Tuesday at which HSBC executives are scheduled to testify.
These will include HSBC’s chief legal officer Stuart Levey, who joined the bank in January and was previously one of the top officials on terrorism and finance at the US Treasury Department.
In a memo released ahead of the hearing, HSBC chief executive Stuart Gulliver said: “It is right that we will be held accountable and that we take responsibility for fixing what went wrong.
“As well as answering the subcommittee’s questions, we will explain the significant changes we have already made to strengthen our compliance and risk management infrastructure and culture,” he said.
A separate HSBC statement said its executives will offer a formal apology at the hearing.
“We will apologise, acknowledge these mistakes, answer for our actions and give our absolute commitment to fixing what went wrong,” the bank said.
Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the sub-committee, spoke of a “polluted” system that allowed black-market funds to move through the US banking system.
In 2010, Wachovia agreed to pay $160m as part of a Justice Department probe that examined Mexican transactions.
Last month, ING agreed to pay $619m to settle US government allegations that it violated US sanctions against Cuba and Iran.
Guess
Who Gets A Huge Check From JPMorgan Chase Every Year?
By Alexander Eichler, The Huffington Post – July 12, 2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/12/ann-darby-new-york-fed-jpmorgan-chase_n_1669178.html
The relationship between JPMorgan Chase and its regulators is gaining a bit more attention these days.
Plenty of people have already registered their concern over the fact that Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan, sits on the board of directors at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, one of the bodies meant to act as a watchdog for the bank.
But the ties don’t end there.
Ann Darby, the wife of New York Fed president William Dudley, used to work at JPMorgan Chase, according to financial disclosure records for Dudley.
And she’s still getting deferred-income checks for the work she did there, to the tune of $190,000 a year.
A recent post by finance blogger Pam Martens, which ran at Martens’s site and at AlterNet, flags the disclosure form in question, which was filed in January 2009.
The form, which was filed by two lawyers for the New York Fed, goes on to say that the payments to Darby “will wind down and cease in 2021,” and that the lawyers are “in discussions with Mr. Dudley, representatives from the Board of Governors and JPMC” about the money.
“These interests would only give rise to a conflict in the event that Mr. Dudley were to work on a matter having a direct and predictable effect on JPMC’s ability or willingness to continue paying these amounts to Mr. Dudley’s spouse,” the form states. “We hope to come back to you with an update on this issue in the near future to let you know how it has been resolved.”
In an e-mailed statement, a spokesperson for the New York Fed told HuffPost that “[a]fter further discussions and analysis by the Bank’s lawyers, it was agreed that Ms. Darby’s fixed deferred compensation from her previous employer neither posed a conflict nor required a waiver.”
Still, the fact that Darby gets regular checks from JPMorgan Chase while her husband presides over a major financial regulator underscores the trouble with regulating complex and interwoven financial institutions.
Senator Bernie Sanders and former financial regulator Elizabeth Warren, among other people, have criticized Dimon for remaining on the board of the New York Fed in the wake of JPMorgan’s recent multibillion-dollar trading loss.
Meanwhile…
JPMorgan
Profit Falls on $4.4 Billion Trading Loss
By Reuters reporters, News Daily – July 13, 2012
http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/bre86c0g4-us-jpmorgan-earnings/
JPMorgan Chase & Co, the biggest U.S. bank, said it had generated $4.4 billion of credit trading losses in its London offices, but posted overall profit that was barely dented by the trades.
The bank lost money on bad derivatives trades in its Chief Investment Office, but said the events were isolated to the CIO, and that it has overhauled the group.
JPMorgan’s overall net income was $4.96 billion, or $1.21 a share, compared with $5.43 billion, or $1.27 a share, a year earlier. Results for both periods included special items.
The derivative loss after taxes reduced earnings per share by 69 cents, the company said.
The shares fell 1.4 percent in trading before the New York Stock Exchange opened.
US
Brokerage PFG Files for Bankruptcy
BBC News,
July 11, 2012
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18793472
US futures broker Peregrine Financial Group, which has been accused of fraud, has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, meaning it will be liquidated.
Its accounts were frozen on Monday following the attempted suicide of its founder, Russell Wasendorf Sr.
The Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has alleged that PFG defrauded customers and lied to regulators.
It said PFG misused clients’ funds to hide a $200m (£130m) shortfall.
Mr Wasendorf, 64, is reported to be in a coma at a University of Iowa hospital.
The bankruptcy filing showed that on 3 July, Mr Wasendorf had given power of attorney to his son, Russell Wasendorf Jr, who is the chief operating officer of PFG.
The CFTC said it did not know what had happened to the lost $200m of clients’ money.
Media reports in Minnesota and Iowa since February have been suggesting links between PFG and a $200m Ponzi scheme run by Trevor Cook, who is now serving a prison sentence.
A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment scheme, in which existing investors are paid returns from their own capital, or from the money of new investors.
There has been anger among investors that regulators did not spot the problems at PFG earlier, especially after the collapse of the much larger broker, MF Global.
Some clients moved their accounts from MF Global to PFG, following MF Global’s demise in October.
Another
California City Declares Bankruptcy
San Bernardino Bankruptcy: Third CA City in Less Than Two Weeks To Seek Bankruptcy Protection
By AP reporters, Huffington Post – July 11, 2012
SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. — The City Council in San Bernardino voted Tuesday night to seek Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection, making it the third California city in less than two weeks to make the rare move.
The Southern California city of about 210,000 people will also become the second largest in the nation ever to file for bankruptcy. Stockton, the Northern California city of nearly 300,000, became the biggest when it filed for Chapter 9 on June 28.
The City Council directed the city attorney to make the move during a meeting where administrators explained the dire fiscal circumstances and urged them to choose the bankruptcy option.
“We have an immediate cash flow issue,” Interim City Manager Andrea Miller told Mayor Patrick Morris and the seven-member City Council, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Miller said the city is facing a budget shortfall of $45.8-million. It has already stopped paying some vendors, and may not be able to make payroll over the next three months.
Four council members voted for the authorization, two opposed it, and one abstained.
“This is probably the hardest decision this councilwoman will ever have to make in this chair,” Councilwoman Wendy McCammack said, according to the San Bernardino Sun.
The councilman who abstained from voting, John Valdivia, said he did not trust the information presented at the meeting, and having only served since March believed he should not be held responsible for the money mess.
“The taxpayers of this city have been duped, hoodwinked and misguided for the past several years,” Valdivia said, according to the Sun.
It was not immediately clear when the city planned to file.
Sixty miles east of Los Angeles, San Bernardino is in a region that soared economically during the housing boom, and suffered accordingly after the crash.
It joins a number of other cities and counties across the nation that have plunged into financial crisis as the recession made it tough to cover rising costs involving payroll, pensions, bondholders and vendors.
Before Stockton, a California city had not filed for bankruptcy since Vallejo in 2008.
Now, with Mammoth Lakes also voting to declare Chapter 9 on July 3, the state has seen three in two weeks.
Since Congress added Chapter 9 to the bankruptcy code in 1937 to allow municipalities to seek protection, about 640 government entities have filed.
SaLuSa July20.Fri.2012
Angelo: Good day SaLuSa, would you kindly give us
an update today please or if you have something to talk about.
Good day SaLuSa, Good day Angelo, thank you and you too. I would like to talk about ascension and
coming events, also the dark ones! The
new events starting to expand will keep on growing until the big bang (Angelo
as the big
bang started for our universe all our seven levels all at once, so it will be
with all the projects starting at once it will seem like) kicks in and then things will change forever, as
you start to experience the beginning of life on the higher dimension! The protests around the world is given an
extra boost of energy which will interlock the consciousness of this planet
Earth civilization, that is why you do not feel the destruction of your
electrical grid system with that X solar flare, coming to the planet Earth
arrival on July 15,2012. It is just like
April, May 2012 which the planet Earth was to rise up certain areas on the
planet, which will leave your ships and submarine’s useless to travel to
certain parts of this world. Angelo
some people say nothing happened, in March and April 2012 things were happening
in certain areas so people had to be taken to Inner Earth for their safety, I
have some female security forces co-workers to meet in Inner Earth and also
others that like to meet me (I know two hands are up in the air now),
I’ll have to make an official visit first, and what the rules are before
anything can be said to the both of you and if the other Laws allow you on my mothership)!!* I’ll
be the only one with a camera!!! So keep on
reading.
I ’m SaLuSa
of Sirius, wishing all Love and Light, SaLuSa.
Thank you
SaLuSa
Angelo
Telepathic Transmission
concluded
* The
dark ones our trying to hide!
YouTube
*UFOs and
anomalies near the Sun – Review for July 5, 2012. – YouTube
*The UFO Is Still There By The Sun!
*The days pass by and the work of our allies is becoming more coordinated, and it is bearing results. The scale of activities is becoming bigger and soon there will be an overwhelming push forward that will be very noticeable.
*We are working now on many fronts and expect to see some rapid developments very shortly. Your role in what is happening is to hold your focus on what you perceive as the outcome, thus giving it more energy where it is needed. At the same time powerful streams of energy are reaching the Earth from many other sources and Galaxies.
*The interest and assistance being given to you is immense, and certain to help you achieve your goal which is Ascension. For our part we stop any attempt to prevent it, and use our technologies to ensure both you and Mother Earth reach your destination. It is necessary as the dark Ones will resort to any means, even if it threatens their own existence. Have no fear, we are in control and they are well aware that we stand in their way.
Those souls, who are unaware of the end times, obviously put a different interpretation on events that are going on around them. It is understandable that they fear the outcome, but be assured that as our allies follow their course of action it will be evident that a force for good does exist.
Like you we wish to see an ever growing purge of the criminals who are responsible for taking away your rights. Once it becomes public knowledge it will enforce the idea that you are not alone in your fight against evil. Indeed that has been the case for a very long time, and members of the Galactic Federation of Light can take credit for guiding your experiences in such a way that you have survived.
There has additionally been careful planning over a long period of time to keep the balance of energies upon the Earth. That was partly achieved by arranging for highly enlightened souls to incarnate at appropriate times to lead you forward in the Light.
Understand that your experiences are the result of the Law of Attraction that has allowed the souls of a lower vibration to join you. The vibrations of Earth in comparatively recent times have in fact dropped considerably, and as a freewill planet it has been left to find its own level. However, when the decision was made to increase the vibrations, we became more involved in your upliftment.
Today you stand tall and realize that you have achieved a remarkable turnaround in a very short period, particularly during the last 40 years or so. There is no going back, as the Light is now well established upon Earth and still growing. It is increasing exponentially and will soon reach a point when Ascension can take place.
Many people look for some outlet for their abilities to contribute to the changes. You are known to us and at the right time you will find an opportunity to use them. In the present time, by merely being a point of Light and spreading your peace around you will help others. There will also be occasions when questions will be asked for which you can give answers, so do not hesitate to do so.
Clearly some people are not ready to hear the truth, but there is no longer the time left to hide it away. There is ultimately only the One Truth and that will be made fully known in good time, as there are souls who are ready to receive it. Hitherto you have followed your inclinations and achieved your own understanding, but there has to come a time when the Truth is needed to bring you all together.
Your personal path to Ascension is the one that is important, so do not be unduly concerned as to how more general events work out. Certainly the changes we have promised you will come to pass, as the old structures must make way for those of the New Age. Your awareness has been opened to all of the new possibilities and they will come into your lives, but some are more long term and will follow on the after the initial changes have occurred.
The Governmental changes are obviously vital to allow a more spiritual representation amongst those who will lead you. Instead of putting self first they will honor their oath to serve you, and will be chosen for that reason. Most governments throughout the world stopped serving the people a long time ago, and allowed themselves to become vassals of the powerful banking families.
They also must be removed from power plus their largely ill gotten gains, and also their minions who are to be found all over the world. The extent of the Illuminati power will astonish you, and it reaches into the most high places, including royalty and religion.
A vast empire such as the Illuminati’s cannot be dismantled overnight, but now it has been severely weakened it will fall apart. Those at the top know their time is nearly up, and we still hope that they will surrender and cease their actions against you.
Their plans cannot be viewed as less than horrific, and set out to severely reduce the population of Earth by whatever means they could use. Two World Wars and many others since the first one took place have caused the loss of millions of lives, and have been started deliberately to engulf the world in turmoil and disaster.
A third World War was planned but we have stepped in and prevented steps to start it in the Middle East. Indeed, we have put a stop to the use of nuclear devices as weapons of war, as divinely decreed.
Peace will suddenly come upon you as there is a plan to enforce it by preventing the use of all weapons that will have become de-activated. There will no hiding place where they can avoid our detection, and underground bases will be destroyed so that they cannot be used again.
Neither will there be any escape for the guilty who are known to us, and will be prevented from continuing their actions against you. One day they will fully understand the extent to which they have contributed to the Illuminati plan, and its total effect upon the population right down to how each individual has been affected.
It will be a time to reflect upon their disobedience of the Laws of the Universe, and they will answer to God. As with any soul who has fallen so far as to have forgotten that their true selves are of Light, they will be given every chance to find their way back.
I am SaLuSa from Sirius, and tell you that the fallen are equally loved by God, who does not judge any soul but surrounds them in Love and Light.
*Angelo
you both can come onto my mothership
when the time comes for pick up!!
Bernanke says Fed's
hands were tied on Libor
WASHINGTON
|
WASHINGTON (Reuters)
- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke defended the U.S. central bank on
Tuesday from accusations it did not move aggressively enough to address
problems with the setting of the global lending benchmark rate Libor, saying it
was in the hands of a private banking group.
The reliability of the London interbank offered rate, a benchmark that underpins transactions worth trillions of dollars, has been shaken with revelations that bankers manipulated the rate to profit on trades and hide their own borrowing costs during the 2007-09 financial crisis.
To compile Libor, the British Bankers' Association polls a panel of banks, which submit estimates of how much they believe they have to pay to borrow from each other.
Bernanke called the process "structurally flawed" and said he wanted to see changes. "I would like to see additional reforms to the Libor process, assuming that Libor will continue to be a benchmark for financial contracts," he told the Senate Banking Committee.
Dozens of big banks, including JPMorgan Chase & Co and Deutsche Bank, are under investigation in the rate-rigging scandal, and Barclays Plc has already settled with U.S. and UK regulators, agreeing to pay a $453 million penalty.
Barclays alerted the New York Federal Reserve Bank as early as August 2007 of concerns that banks were under-reporting their borrowing costs, according to documents released last week by the Fed.
At the hearing, lawmakers pressed Bernanke to explain why so many years could pass without an overhaul of the system.
"Why have we allowed it to go on the old way when we know it was flawed for the last four years?," asked Republican Senator Pat Toomey.
Fellow Republican David Vitter suggested that U.S. regulators were weak given that the central bank still did not know whether U.S. banks were also guilty of rigging the rate.
"If we don't know that, it seems like somebody dropped that ball, the fact that we're four years later and we don't know that," Vitter said.
Bernanke noted that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, then the head of the New York Fed, emailed Bank of England Governor Mervyn King in 2008 with recommendations on how to boost the credibility of Libor, but he said the Fed's hands were largely tied.
"We are and need to continue advocating for reforms to the Libor process. It is constructed by private organization in the UK, and so our direct ability to influence that is limited," he said.
Bernanke said the early warning signals had only been picked up by junior employees at the New York Fed, and he cited one Fed document that he said showed one of those employees clearly did not know what Libor was or how it was constructed.
The Fed chief offered two ways to address the problems with Libor that have been uncovered.
He said the process for setting the rate could be overhauled to reduce the ability of any given bank or trader to influence it, while increasing the monitoring of the reporting process.
The other approach would be to replace it with an observable market rate. "There are a number of possible candidates that have been advanced that might ultimately replace Libor," Bernanke said.
However, he admitted it would be hard to move away from Libor given that the rate is used for $550 trillion of interest rate derivatives contracts and influences a wide array of financial products from mortgages to credit cards.
At a separate hearing, Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Gary Gensler said the CFTC would "continue vigorously to use our enforcement and regulatory authorities" to ensure that benchmark rates such as Libor are free of manipulation.
(Additional reporting by Sarah N. Lynch in Washington and Jonathan Spicer in New York; Editing by James Dalgleish, Tim Ahmann and Tim Dobbyn)
Geithner defends U.S.
response to 2008 Libor concerns
NEW YORK |
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner defended himself against criticisms that regulators should have taken bigger steps to address concerns over the credibility of the benchmark Libor interest rate, saying on Wednesday that U.S. authorities had pushed early and forcefully for reforms.
The reliability of the London interbank offered rate, which underpins transactions worth trillions of dollars, has been rattled by revelations that bankers manipulated it to profit on trades and hide their own borrowing costs during the 2007-09 financial crisis.
Britain's Barclays PLC is the only bank so far to admit any wrongdoing in giving false information as part of the complex process of setting the rate, but documents released last week indicate the practice may have been widespread during the financial crisis.
Geithner said that resolving problems with Libor would not be left just to British authorities and that the response to his suggestions for reform in 2008 "didn't go far enough."
"We acted very early in response to the concerns that the processes to set this rate were impaired and flawed, and vulnerable to misrepresentation," Geithner said at the CNBC Institutional Investor Delivering Alpha conference.
"The U.S., to its credit, set in motion at that stage a very, very powerful enforcement response, the first results of which we have now seen," he said.
"There is more to come," he added, but provided no details.
Geithner, then head of the New York Federal Reserve, sent an email to Bank of England Governor Mervyn King in June 2008, recommending six ways to enhance the credibility of Libor after Barclays had flagged concerns as early as 2007.
The BoE passed on Geithner's thoughts in an email to the British Bankers Association - the group responsible for Libor - which at that stage had already decided to start a review of the rate.
But few of Geithner's measures were adopted, and questions linger over what U.S. and UK regulators have done since then to fix the issues with Libor.
"They took some modest reforms in response to our suggestions in '08, but they didn't go far enough," Geithner said. "And we have now taken the initiative to set up a broader effort involving all the countries that matter around the world, that have a big stake in this, to try to make sure we push" for reforms.
King, governor of the BoE since 2003, dismissed accusations on Tuesday that he was asleep at the helm while Barclays traders tried to skew Libor. He said he would raise the issue of reform when he meets with fellow central bank governors from around the world in Basel, Switzerland, in September.
Libor is calculated daily in London when panels of banks submit estimates of how much it costs them to borrow. It is a major index that helps judge the health of banks and influences rates from mortgages to student loans to credit cards.
On Tuesday, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke called the process "structurally flawed" and said he wanted to see changes.
More than a dozen banks are being investigated for their roles in setting Libor, including Citigroup Inc, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Deutsche Bank, HSBC Holdings Plc, UBS AG and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc.
Britain's Financial Services Authority is due to complete a review of how Libor should be regulated by the end of the summer, with changes expected to be inserted into a financial law currently before Parliament.
(Additional reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)
Are
Spain's Banks, Bailouts Breaking Europe?
By
Holly
Ellyatt
| CNBC – 1 hour 24 minutes ago, 7-18-12
Opposition to Spain's bailout from Holland and Finland, continued German resistance to Eurobonds, the possibilities of fiscal union out of sight and arguments growing over who owns Spain's debt are a signal that the recent EU summit has resolved nothing, senior economists told CNBC.
Banks, bailouts and bonds are top of the agenda in Europe this week as questions remain over who is liable for Spain's 100 billion euro ($122.9 billion) debts - the banks benefiting from the bailout package or the government, and ultimately, the taxpayer.
Senior economists speaking to CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe” said that they also believed that Spain's debt crisis was deeper and that they expected the Spanish state will need a bailout, as well as its banks.
European Central Bank Head, Mario Draghi, has said that the discussion about burden-sharing of European debt held by senior bond holders is "evolving" and there have been rumors that there might be a shift in the ECB's position towards the seniority of bond holders.
However, who should take a loss, or "haircut, on their bondholdings, and when this should happen is undecided.
Spain's borrowing costs fell on Tuesday with yields on 12 and 18-month bills down to around 3 and 4 percent from a previous rate above 5 percent a month ago, leading to a glimmer of hope that the further austerity measures announced by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy demonstrated the country's resolve to reduce their debt and public spending.
Ahead of a testing 5, 7 and 10-year Spanish bond auction on Thursday, Nick Beecroft, Senior Bonds Consultant at SaxoBank, told CNBC that Europe was in a period of inertia.
"I think we're in something of a summer lull after the EU summit at the end of June. There's some kind of brief belief in the possibilities of 'pretend and extend' from the euro zone politicians for a few weeks but nothing's been changed. The EU summit wasn't a game changer at all, and it left many questions un-answered."
He added that the strength of opposition to the bailout package was unknown.
"We don't have clarity on that and we don't have clarity on Finnish and Dutch opposition -the strength of opposition from Finland and Holland on various parts of the package. We don't' have deposit insurance, we don't have even a move to a Redemption Fund for debts over 60 percent of GDP, we don't have a move to certainly to eurobonds or eurobills because of German resistance," he said.
More of a concern for markets is whether the Spanish state itself will need a sovereign bailout (something that Mariano Rajoy had tried to avoid by requesting liquidity be injected directly into banks rather than the state). Beecroft told CNBC that, unfortunately, he believed Spain would need a direct loan.
"I think, in the fullness of time that unfortunately [a loan] will be necessary. We're in a world where the markets don't have enough answers," he said, though he added that the ECB would only act to buy up peripheral debt once it saw that there was "the royal flush of the banking union, the fiscal union and the transfer union before acting more aggressively."
Discussions about the future of Spanish debt is hot on the lips of euro zone officials ahead of Germany's Bundesbank's vote on the rescue package on Thursday. The country's Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has said that Spain's government is responsible for paying back a bailout of up to 100 billion euros ($122.9 billion), and not its banks.
Tensions are rising throughout Spain with austerity measures fuelling public dissent with national protests and strikes planned by two labor unions against austerity measures and growing public anger that the debt of the banks bailout could be passed to the Spanish taxpayer.
Thanos Vamvakidis, Head of European G10 FX Strategy at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, told CNBC that questions over debt re-payment liability remained un-answered since the EU summit.
"I think the most important hypothetical step of the recent summit was that the money...was given directly to the banks, but since then we have faced many questions marks over this step," he said.
"First, they said they would only apply it to Spain and now there are discussions that it might be extended to Ireland (LINK). Secondly, now they say that the Spanish government will be liable for this exposure, if this happens it defeats the purpose...the whole thing becomes an accounting trick not to increase the Spanish debt dynamics."
Vamvakidis and Beecroft agreed that fiscal union was "the ultimate solution" for the euro zone to resolve its financial crisis.
German Bundestag
approves $122 billion bailout for Spanish banks
Published: 19 July, 2012, 20:00
Edited: 19 July, 2012, 23:39
German
Chancellor Angela Merkel (C) lines up to vote on a Spanish bank aid package in
the Bundestag, the lower house of parliament in Berlin, July 19, 2012.
(Reuters/Thomas Peter)
Germany’s
lower house approved a $122 billion rescue package for Spanish banks in a bid
to help the country cope with "excessive" market fears and prevent
the eurozone's debt crisis from spreading further.
Lawmakers
voted 473-97 to support the bailout of the country's financial industry, with
13 abstentions.
The
vote was widely anticipated, as lawmakers were called back from summer
vacations to vote on the measure in a special session. Even so, 37 lawmakers
did not turn up to vote.
German
Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble had called earlier for lawmakers to approve
the package, saying it would help Spain cope with
"exaggerated nervousness"
in
financial markets and contribute to financial stability across the eurozone.
The
details of the package are to be agreed upon Friday during a conference call of
eurozone finance ministers.
After
that, Spain and the finance ministers are expected to officially sign a
“memorandum of understanding” – the formal agreement to terms and conditions of
the bailout.
Spain
hopes to receive the first portion of the 30 billion euro ($37 billion), which
will allow the country to refinance its banks, by the end of July. In return
for the financial help, Spain agreed to a raft of banking reforms and EU
inspections to ensure the restructuring process is effective.
Madrid
has yet to specify how much of the total it intends to take.
Earlier,
independent auditors said Spain's banks would need about 62 billion euro in the
worst-case scenario.
The
EU financial authorities say Spanish banks could be directly recapitalized from
the eurozone rescue fund without state guarantee, as a single European banking
supervisor would be set up next year.
EU
ministers extended a deadline for Spain to cut its public deficit to the bloc's
3% limit by 2014 in exchange for further budget savings. Earlier, the European
Commission proposed easing Madrid's deficit target for this year to 6.3% of
economic output, 4.5% for 2013 and 2.8% for 2014. Spain originally meant to cut
its budget shortfall to 4.4% this year, but later revised that to 5.3%.
Spanish
banks faced the fastest-yet rate of capital flight last month since the launch
of the single currency in 1999. Residents’ deposits fell 2.5 per cent in April
from March, while non-residents withdrew 24.6 billion euro of stock and bond
investments in April, compared to 4.54 billion euro in all of 2011.
Any
amount not used for bank recapitalization out of the up to 100 billion euros
could be used to buy public debt, Spanish daily El Pais reports.
Merkel
on defensive amid worries Germany too generous to Spain
Published: 19 July, 2012, 18:35
The EU Commission is worrying the remains of the 100 billion euro ($122 billion) intended for recapitalizing Spanish banks will be used for other needs such as bond market intervention.
Meanwhile Angela Merkel is having a tough time trying to persuade Germany that a 30% injection to the aid cushion will not hit it too hard in the wallet.
"The up to 100 billion euro, which the euro zone has undertaken to provide to Spanish banks is to do just that, it is only for that purpose and not for any other," says the EU Commission spokesman Simon O'Connor. "There is no link between assistance for bank recapitalization in Spain and any other type of financial assistance, which might be requested at some further juncture by Spain or anybody else," he added.
The Commission spokesman’s comments come after Spanish daily El Pais wrote that any amount not used for bank recapitalization out of the up to 100 billion euro could be used to buy public debt.
"The press reports have been based on a misinterpretation of the legal document," O'Connor said.
However, the terms of the agreement reached with the euro zone for a bank bailout of up to 100 billion euro says that unused money from the bank recapitalization could be used for different purposes. Madrid has yet to specify how much of the total it intends to take.
But for that to happen, Spain would formally have to ask the euro zone finance ministers for their agreement which would move Spain much closer to a full sovereign bailout, which Madrid has been trying to avoid, because of what it sees as humiliating strings attached to such aid.
Meanwhile German lawmakers look set to approve Berlin's contribution to a euro zone aid package for Spain's ailing banks in a vote seen as a test of Chancellor Angela Merkel's authority within her centre-right coalition. Some members of her own coalition are nervous about the rising costs of the euro zone debt crisis for Germany and may rebel.
Germany, Europe's largest economy, is expected to guarantee about 30% of the total aid package, which is valued at up to 100 billion euro.
The greatest concern is that the Spanish banks, not the Spanish state, will be getting the funds, increasing the risks for German and other euro zone taxpayers.
Spanish
take to streets in protest as MPs pass €65bn austerity package
Spain's cost of borrowing hits record high as
Germany approves potential bond-buying with leftovers from €100bn banks bailout
- Giles Tremlett in Madrid and Ian Traynor Brussels
- guardian.co.uk, Thursday 19 July 2012 19.25 BST
Spanish civil servants protest against government austerity
measures in front of the headquarters of the governing People's party.
Photograph: Andrea Comas/Reuters
Protesters are set to take to the streets of 80 Spanish cities as Spain's government pushed a €65bn austerity package through parliament and the country paid record prices to borrow money from sceptical markets.
Angry civil servants had blocked traffic in several main Madrid avenues earlier on Thursday, with protesters puncturing the tyres on dozens of riot police vans amid growing upset at austerity, recession and 24% unemployment.
The prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, was able to get the measures through parliament comfortably, using only the votes of his majority centre-right Popular party.
The finance minister, Cristóbal Montoro, who on Wednesday warned "there is no money" to pay civil service wages, said Spain could not go deeper into debt. "Financing public services with more deficit and more debt will doom us," he said.
Proof of Spain's growing financing problems came when it paid on Thursday a record interest rate of 6.459% to sell five-year bonds, while rates on 10-year bonds rose back above the unsustainable 7% level.
France paid less than 1% for similar five-year bonds as investors shun southern economies for what they see as the eurozone's safer core.
A bailout for Spain's ailing banks was approved at a key vote by German legislators, though a last minute surprise in the package saw a move towards enabling potential bond-buying with leftover money from the €100bn on offer.
Officials in Brussels and Madrid insisted that bond-buying and bank bailouts were not connected, even though they appeared in a bailout document released on Thursday.
"The aid programme for bank recapitalisation is destined only for that and not for the purchase of bonds on the primary or secondary markets," a Spanish government source said.
European commission spokesman Simon O'Connor said: "There is no link between assistance for bank recapitalisation in Spain and any other type of financial assistance, which might be requested at some further juncture by Spain or anybody else."
But a draft European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) bailout contract published by the German parliament lays out the conditions by which Spain might request the funds to buy bonds with money currently earmarked only for banks.
Madrid would have to formally ask eurozone finance ministers for their agreement and then renegotiate the memorandum of understanding as specific terms for that aid were drawn up.
"What Spain and the market need is some reassurance on the eurozone agreement that the Spanish state would not be responsible for the bank bailout," said Luis Garicano of the London School of Economics. "Leaving the door confusingly ajar as to a larger rescue does not help Spain, whose financial needs would anyway be much larger."
Germany's finance ministry said Spain would need €300bn in "European refinancing funds" between now and the end of 2014 if cut out of the bond markets.
The bailout package, which offers up to €100bn to Spanish banks bloated with toxic real estate assets, is due to be signed on Friday. Banks are expected to request €65bn of that loan, leaving around €35bn.
The German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, on Thursday insisted Madrid remained liable for the bailout money – despite eurozone plans to eventually move that liability directly to the banks.
He warned German MPs the slightest perceived risk of Spanish insolvency could trip up the entire 17-nation eurozone.
"We have a strong interest in helping Spain continue with its fundamental economic reforms," he said. "It can only work if the problems in the banking sector are solved. It's a matter of breaking a vicious circle."
His department, in a separate document, stressed that last month's EU summit agreed, "unmistakably at German insistence", there could only be direct aid to banks once a new European banking supervisory authority was operating.
"Supervision on paper is not enough for that. It must be properly established and functioning. The initiative corresponds to the German demand that control and liability are inseparable," it said. "These conditions do not apply in the current case of Spain."
Syrian rebels seize multiple border checkpoints
Published: 20 July, 2012, 01:00
Syria,
Idlib: A handout picture released by the Syrian opposition's Shaam News Network
on July 13, 2012 shows Free Syrian Army fighters from Katibat al-Farouk
training on the outskirts of Idlib on July 12, 2012. (AFP Photo / Shaam News
Network)
Syrian
rebels have allegedly captured one of the country's four major border posts
with Iraq, killing at least 21 government troops in the process. Meanwhile,
other reports suggest all border crossings with Iraq have been commandeered.
Rebels
launched a major assault on a Syrian army outpost in the remote Sinjar mountain
range near the Iraqi border, said Iraqi Army Brig. Gen. Qassim al-Dulaimi, as
cited by AP. They have killed at least 20 soldiers and their commander and
seized control of the outpost, he said.
“We have security concerns because the border crossing now is out of the
Syrian government's control, and nobody can anticipate what will happen,” al-Dulaimi said.
After
the Free Syrian Army took control of the post, they detained a Syrian army
lieutenant colonel, cut off his arms and then “executed 22 Syrian soldiers in front
of the eyes of Iraqi soldiers,” AFP cited Iraq's Deputy Interior
Minister Adnan al-Assadi as saying.
Earlier
on Thursday, about a half-dozen rebels reportedly stormed another Syrian border
crossing near the Iraqi town of Qaim, forcing the border guards to leave their
posts.
Two
other major border crossings remain in control of the Syrian government,
including the port city at al-Walid, which accounts for almost 90 per cent of
traffic between Iraq and Syria, according to a spokesman for the governor of
Iraq's western Anbar province, Mohammed Fathi.
However,
other reports suggest that the Free Syrian Army has managed to capture all
crossings with Iraq. "All the border points between Iraq and Syria are under the control
of the Free Syrian Army," al-Assadi said as cited by AFP.
There
were also unconfirmed reports that rebels had seized control of a post on the
border with Turkey.
Spanish rallies turn violent as million people protest in 80
cities (VIDEO, PHOTOS)
Published: 20 July, 2012, 02:23
Edited: 20 July, 2012, 10:49
Spain,
Madrid: Waste containers burn after a demonstration against the Spanish
government's latest austerity measures in downtown Madrid on July 19, 2012 (AFP
Photo / Dominique Faget)
Spanish
police have clashed with protesters marching against the latest batch of
austerity measures. Over a million public employees, trade union members and
fed-up citizens have taken to the streets in over 80 Spanish cities.
Violence
erupted in Madrid around midnight after dozens of protesters reached the city’s
Puerta del Sol square and clashed with riot police. Security forces used
batons, rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse the crowd as it tried to enter
the congress building located on the square. Some of the protesters lobbed
bottles at officers.
In
some urban areas, activists set trash cans on fire and tried to block police
vehicle access with barricades of plastic bins and cardboard boxes. No injuries
or arrests have been reported.
Demonstrators
carried flags and banners decorated with scissors, symbolizing the country's harsh
spending cuts. The streets of Madrid were paralyzed by the boundless crowds of
people bellowing “Hands up, this is a robbery!” An estimated 100,000 people
participated in the demonstrations in the capital.
In
Barcelona, similar scenes were reported. About a dozen protesters were arrested
outside the local parliament building.
Eight
firemen stripped naked in the northern town of Mieres near Oviedo. "With so many
cuts we have been left naked," declared a banner on the wall
above them.
The
demonstrations were organized by unions who have been outraged by the
government’s new measures. One such measure is an end to Christmas bonuses for
civil servants, which amounts to a 3.5 to 7 per cent reduction in annual pay.
"There's nothing we can do but take to the street. We have lost
between 10 and 15 per cent of our pay in the past four years," demonstrator Sara Alvera,
51, a worker in the justice sector, told AFP.
"We are two and a half million votes. I hope they are thinking
about that," said Jose Luis Martinez, 52, who works at the interior ministry, told
Reuters.
"We have to make some noise, because they're making fun of us and of all working people," said Iria, 34, an auditor in the treasury.
"We have to make some noise, because they're making fun of us and of all working people," said Iria, 34, an auditor in the treasury.
Earlier
Thursday, Spanish Parliament approved a new package of spending cuts and tax
hikes aiming to save $80 billion in a bid to take a bite out of the budget
deficit. Since the measure was announced last week, Spain has witnessed a
series of daily demonstrations, some of which have erupted
into violence.
Europe's
fourth-largest economy also has the EU's highest unemployment rate. About a
quarter of working-age Spaniards are unable to find work.
Meanwhile,
Germany’s lower house approved a $122
billion rescue package for Spanish banks in a bid to help the country cope with
"excessive" market fears and prevent the eurozone's debt crisis from
spreading further.
Spain, Madrid: Riot policemen remain on a street of Madrid during a protest against the Spanish government's latest austerity measures, on July 19, 2012. (AFP Photo / Pedro Armestre)
Spain, Madrid: A man stands in front of riot policemen on a street of Madrid during a protest against the Spanish government's latest austerity measures, on July 19, 2012. (AFP Photo / Pedro Armestre)
Spain, Madrid : A man holds a sign reading "Spaniards, Franco is back" on a street of Madrid during a protest against the Spanish government's latest austerity measures, on July 19, 2012. (AFP Photo / Pedro Armestre)
Spain, Madrid : people demonstrate against the Spanish government's latest austerity measures in the center of Madrid on July 19, 2012.(AFP Photo / Dominique Faget)
Firemen spray water over demonstrators during a protest against government austerity measures in Madrid. (REUTERS / Sergio Perez)
Protesters march during a demonstration against government austerity measures, in central Valencia
Demonstrators fill Madrid's Puerta del Sol square during a protest against government austerity measures. (REUTERS / Sergio Perez)
Firefighters pose naked in front of a banner during a demonstration against government cuts inside their fire station in Mieres (REUTERS / Eloy Alonso)
A demonstrator dresses as an skeleton during a protest against government austerity measures in Madrid (REUTERS / Sergio Perez)
Civil servants shout slogans during a protest against government austerity measures in Madrid (REUTERS / Sergio Perez)
Firemen participate in a protest against government austerity measures in Barcelona.(REUTERS / Albert Gea)
SPAIN, Barcelona : A woman holds a banner rwhich translates as "culture is not a luxury" during a demonstration organized by Unions on July 19, 2012 in Barcelona, against the government's welfare cuts. In the latest measures to lower Spain's deficit, conservative Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy announced 65 billion euros' ($80 billion) worth of savings measures. (AFP Photo / Josep Largo)
Spain, Madrid : Thousands of people protest against the Spanish government's latest austerity measures, in Madrid, on July 19, 2012. AFP Photo / Pedro Armestre)
Spain, Barcelona : A man protests during a demonstration organized by Unions on July 19, 2012 in Barcelona, against the government's welfare cuts. (AFP Photo / Josep Lago)
Spain, Madrid : Spanish actors Javier Bardem his brother Carlos Bardem and their mother Pilar Bardem demonstrate against the Spanish government's latest austerity measures in Madrid on July 19, 2012. (AFP Photo/ Dominiwue Faget)
Spain, Seville: A woman protests against the Spanish government's latest austerity measures, in Seville, on July 19, 2012. (AFP Photo / Cristina Quicler)
Wall
Street falls as Spain bailout feared
By
Edward
Krudy
| Reuters – 3 hrs ago, 7-20-12
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks broke
a three-day winning streak on Friday as Europe's
debt crisis engulfed markets with renewed fears that Spain
may be unable to dodge a costly bailout.
The news that the heavily indebted region of Valencia asked Madrid for financial aid interrupted a period of relative calm for Wall Street and raised the specter that the euro zone's fourth-largest economy may itself need to be rescued.
Bank shares, sensitive to signs of trouble in Europe, were among the biggest losers. The KBW bank index <.BKX> fell 1.9 percent, taking its weekly decline to 2.3 percent. Shares in Morgan Stanley fell 3.5 percent to $12.78.
Valencia, which already used several government credit lines in the first half of the year to meet debt repayments, still needs to repay 2.85 billion euros by the end of the year. That figure is not huge compared to the billions used in other EU bailouts, but investors are concerned about the overall stability of the country and its banks.
"We don't want to go to a full Spanish bailout if we don't have to," said Paul Mendelsohn, chief investment strategist at Windham Financial Services in Charlotte, Vermont. "Maybe the market is just over reacting to it, but these days you never know."
The Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> was down 120.79 points, or 0.93 percent, at 12,822.57. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.SPX> was down 13.85 points, or 1.01 percent, at 1,362.66. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.IXIC> was down 40.60 points, or 1.37 percent, at 2,925.30.
The euro slid broadly, setting a two-year low against the dollar. The single currency fell as low as $1.2143, its weakest level since mid-June 2010. Spanish benchmark bond yields hit euro-era highs as the yield on the 10-year bond reached 7.3 percent.
The news overshadowed another round of strong-than-expected corporate earnings, including a profit beat by General Electric and strong advertising revenue at Google . GE shares gained 0.3 percent to $19.87, giving up some of its earlier gains, and Google added 3 percent to $610.82.
Europe had been on the back burner for much of July, allowing Wall Street to move higher. Since early June the S&P 500 <.SPX> has gained about 7 percent, helped by a deal to save Spanish banks and a European Union summit that pointed to greater resolve among EU leaders.
Even with Friday's loss, the S&P 500 posted its second weekly gain in a row, climbing 0.4 percent. The Dow ended up 0.4 percent and the Nasdaq composite index rose 0.6 percent for the week.
The resurfacing of euro zone debt problems in the headlines was a reminder that the bloc's problems are far from over. Spain's government also cut its economic growth forecast, indicating the country would stay mired in recession well into next year.
"It looks as if Europe is taking center stage again, with Spain as the main act," said Quincy Krosby, market strategist at Prudential Financial in Newark, New Jersey.
A gauge of European banks <.SX7P> dropped 3.7 percent and Spain's equity benchmark <.IBEX> fell 5.8 percent, its largest daily percentage drop in more than two years.
The S&P on Thursday hit a 2-1/2 month high as record high prices in Treasuries kept yield-seekers focused on stocks despite a softening economy. Bets on further Federal Reserve action in support of the economy are also credited for helping equities to hold up despite poor economic data.
Microsoft on Thursday adjusted earnings and revenue that beat expectations, but its first-ever quarterly loss discouraged investors and shares fell 1.8 percent to $30.11.
Schlumberger Ltd and Baker Hughes Inc , the No. 1 and No. 3 oilfield service companies, posted higher-than-expected profits as revenue piled up outside North America despite dark clouds looming over the world economy.
Schlumberger climbed 1 percent to $69.33, while Baker Hughes jumped 9 percent to $45.59.
The S&P energy sector <.GSPE> has gained for 6 straight days, rising 4.4 percent over the period and 0.3 percent on Friday.
Xerox Corp fell 4.4 percent to $6.87 after cutting its full-year profit forecast, as it braces for tough economic conditions in Europe.
Kayak Software shares soared 27.6 percent to $33.18 on their Nasdaq debut and Palo Alto Networks also jumped, up 26.5 percent to $53.
About 6.7 billion shares changed hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and Amex, inline with the 50-day moving average.
Decliners beat advancers by a ratio of about 2 to 1 on the NYSE and on the Nasdaq by almost 3 to 1.
(Additional reporting by Rodrigo Campos, editing by Kenneth Barry)
Bahraini
police fired tear gas on thousands of protesters
Published: 21 July, 2012, 02:53
Violent clashes erupted in Bahrain as thousands protested the government’s move to limit political marches. Police used tear gas and, reportedly, rubber bullets to disperse the crowd, which responded with firebombs.
Clashes erupted in the Bahraini capital Manama and several other places. Police were using tear gas against the crowds as the protests continued into the night.
The ruling elite want to ban anti-government marches to prevent the disruption to traffic and curb street violence, as at least 50 people have been killed in the country since February 2011.
The opposition described the move as a new attempt by the monarchy to silence it.
The kingdom has been engulfed by more than 17 months of clashes between the Sunni monarchy and kingdom's Shiite majority protesters, who claim systematic discrimination.
The insurrection was originally crushed during a period of martial law, but unrest has continued with repeated clashes between riot police and youths who say the monarchy marginalizes them.
Sayed Hadi al-Mosawi, a member of the opposition who participated in the protests, told RT that Bahraini security forces are deliberately targeting protesters for killing.
“Anyone who is trying to participate in a protest in Bahrain could be in danger, because the riot police forces, they don’t care about people’s lives and they don’t even care of how they treat [the protesters],” he said. “They don’t just prevent you or warn you, they shoot at your body.”
Al-Mosawi says that the government is trying to completely strip people of their freedom of expression.
“They know very well that our protests and our marchers and gatherings are totally peaceful,” he said. “They know that thousands of people come to our protests and they come peacefully, participate peacefully and leave peacefully.”
