Pace of U.S. bank failures not seen in 2 decades
Total of 143 financial institutions shut in 2010 surpasses last year’s high
By MARCY GORDON
WASHINGTON – Regulators shut down four more banks Friday, bringing the 2010 total to 143, topping the 140 shuttered last year and the most in a year since the savings-and-loan crisis two decades ago.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over K Bank, based in Randallstown, Maryland, with $538.3 million in assets, and Pierce Commercial Bank, based in Tacoma, Washington, with $221.1 million in assets. The FDIC also seized two California banks: Western Commercial Bank in Woodland Hills, with $98.6 million in assets, and First Vietnamese American Bank in Westminster, with assets of $48 million.
Investigators Zero in on Massive Art Forgery Scandal
The Hippy and the Expressionists
By SPIEGEL Staff
Flickering torches lit the path up to the villa. The guests were led through a modernistic gate, past a glass-covered swimming pool and on to a series of minimalist bungalows, the facades of which were freshly clad in Siberian larch. Champagne was served out of Magnum bottles. A Flamenco band had been brought in from Spain. Wolfgang Beltracchi, the owner of the property, stood in front of his studio welcoming the guests as they arrived, long blond hair hanging down to his shoulders.Beltracchi’s villa is situated in the hills above Freiburg among the city’s high society: professors, lawyers and managing directors.
USA
Republicans map out their agenda of less
By Lori Montgomery
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 6, 2010; 12:33 AM
Republicans are mapping an agenda for the new Congress that calls for a radical reduction in government spending, a hard-line stance against new taxes and a “sustained” battle against federal regulators – all aimed at easing the concerns of voters desperate for jobs and anxious about the soaring national debt.
The path charted in the party’s “Pledge to America” and in a new blueprint released this week by Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the No. 2 Republican in the House, is certain to provoke clashes with the White House. It is already stirring dissension among Republicans who say it doesn’t go far enough. Less certain is its ability to make progress on the nation’s top economic priorities, particularly job creation.
Wealthy hopefuls fail to cash in
Dan Eggen
November 6, 2010
The US congressional midterm elections have proved that money can’t buy a candidate political happiness most of the time.Tuesday’s elections featured an unusually large crop of moguls who sought to ease their way into power by pouring millions of their own dollars into their campaigns.
In most cases, they failed spectacularly.
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The most obvious example came in the California gubernatorial election, where the Republican Meg Whitman, the former president and chief executive officer of eBay, spent $US175 million of her $1.3 billion fortune to lose badly to the Democratic former governor Jerry Brown. That works out to about $US57 for each of the roughly 3 million votes she won.
Europe
Iraqi prisoners were abused at ‘UK’s Abu Ghraib’, court hears
Detainees were starved, deprived of sleep and threatened with execution at JFIT facilities near Basra, high court told
Ian Cobain
The Guardian, Saturday 6 November 2010
Evidence of the alleged systematic and brutal mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners at a secret British military interrogation centre that is being described as “the UK’s Abu Ghraib” emerged yesterday during high court proceedings brought by more than 200 former inmates.The court was told there was evidence that detainees were starved, deprived of sleep, subjected to sensory deprivation and threatened with execution at the shadowy facilities near Basra operated by the Joint Forces Interrogation Team, or JFIT.
It also received allegations that JFIT’s prisoners were beaten, forced to kneel in stressful positions for up to 30 hours at a time, and that some were subjected to electric shocks.
Outspoken French Muslim leader’s views inspire respect and hatred
The Irish Times – Saturday, November 6, 2010
RUADHÁN Mac CORMAIC
HASSEN CHALGHOUMI arrives, flanked by two plain-clothed police bodyguards and a small entourage, looking mildly embarrassed to find himself amidst such a fuss. He must be accustomed to it by now.Tall, mild-mannered and reserved, the 39-year-old imam of Drancy mosque, north of Paris, has become one of France’s most prominent Muslim leaders.
His public declarations of support for Nicolas Sarkozy’s face veil ban, his work to improve relations with Jewish groups and his warnings about the rise of radical Islam in France have brought him the embrace of the French establishment – and death threats from Muslims whose wrath he has provoked. To the former, his stance speaks of courage and steel; to the latter, publicity-seeking opportunism and betrayal.
Middle East
General writes to troops: follow Israel’s moral code
Harriet Sherwood November 6, 2010
The Israeli military chief of staff has sent a letter outlining his ”personal thoughts on ethics” which will be read to every soldier under his command.The letter comes in response to a campaign that has targeted the military prosecutor for bringing cases against troops accused of misconduct.
Lieutenant-General Gabi Ashkenazi sent it to all commanders with orders for it to be read to ”each and every soldier”.
Al-Qaeda claims parcel bomb plot
Group’s Yemen wing says it was behind plan to hit US targets, and caused earlier Dubai air crash.
Last Modified: 06 Nov 2010
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula says it orchestrated a failed bomb plot on cargo headed for the US last month, and it also claimed responsibility for the crash of an aircraft in Dubai in September.The claims were made in a statement published by the Yemen-based group on al-Qaeda-linked websites and subsequently translated by the SITE Intelligence Group on Friday.
SITE said that Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) called for more explosive parcels to “enlarge the circle of its application to include civilian aircraft in the West as well as cargo aircraft”.
Two bomb attempts in October were foiled by security services in the UK and Dubai, where parcels containing the explosives were in transit, having originating from Yemen.
Asia
Burmese junta pushes people to the polls
On the eve of sham elections, our correspondent in Rangoon finds a nation bitterly divided over the value of its votes
Saturday, 6 November 2010
Twenty-seven million Burmese were yesterday being exhorted to go to the polls in an election that is viewed by many as the national junta’s means of securing a new lease of life with a veneer of constitutional propriety.Democracy campaigners have been bitterly split throughout the campaign on whether or not to dignify the process with their participation. But as the final preparations for the election went ahead, some prospective voters were steeling themselves to give the process a grudging endorsement..
Union leader warns of violence during G20 protests in South Korea
As demonstration organizers today revealed plans for their G20 protests next week in South Korea, an unprecedented security force of 50,000 police geared up.
By Donald Kirk, Correspondent / November 5, 2010
Seoul, South Korea
The chief of South Korea’s largest trade union professes a belief in nonviolence – but he offers no guarantees if police try to stop protests during next week’s G20 summit of world leaders here.
“Excessive [police] force will result in violence that nobody wants,” said Kim Young-hoon, president of the powerful Korean Confederation of Trade Unons, whose 600,000 members dominate motor vehicle plants, shipyards, and the government-owned national rail system.
Africa
Greens angered over C4 claims they ’caused starvation’
By Daniel Howden, Africa Correspondent Saturday, 6 November 2010
A Channel 4 documentary accusing the green movement of causing mass starvation in Africa by getting it wrong on genetically-modified food has been attacked as “malicious” and “ridiculous” by farm groups on the continent.“What the Green Movement Got Wrong”, broadcast this week, by the same channel that aired the hugely controversial “Great Climate Change Swindle” suggests that the Western green consensus against GM foods had impoverished the southern hemisphere..
Latin America
Haiti prime minister warns of triple disaster as hurricane Tomas hits
With Haiti recovering from an earthquake and cholera outbreak as hurricane Tomas hit, Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive told the Monitor, ‘It’s just piling on us, just making bigger and bigger problems.’
By Isabeau Doucet, Contributor / November 5, 2010
Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive says his government is preparing for three simultaneous humanitarian disasters, as hurricane Tomas began dumping up to 10 inches of rain on the island today.
“It’s not like we had the earthquake, then cholera, and now a hurricane,” he told the Monitor in an interview Thursday at his private residence in Pétionville. “We still have the consequences of the earthquake, we are facing the cholera … and now we’re preparing for the hurricane coming, so it’s just piling on us, just making bigger andbigger problems.”