By Vicki Allen
Reuters Wed Jun 14, 2006 WASHINGTON - The U.S. Senate voted unanimously on Wednesday to force President George W. Bush to submit a budget for the
Iraq and Afghanistan wars instead of financing them in emergency bills that are pushed through Congress with minimal scrutiny. As Congress prepared to pass an emergency bill with $65.8 billion the Pentagon urgently wanted for the wars, the Senate voted 98-0 to end the practice and make the administration lay out the wars' expected costs in its annual budget submitted to Congress in February. The vote came on an amendment to legislation spelling out defense policies for next year that is expected to trigger a broader debate on Iraq. Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts said he would push an amendment calling for the withdrawal of U.S. troops by the end of this year, while other Democrats are considering measures calling for a phased withdrawal. |
The Boston Channel
13/06/2006 WASHINGTON -- Despite record low approval ratings, House lawmakers Tuesday embraced a $3,300 pay raise that will increase their salaries to $168,500.
The 2 percent cost-of-living raise would be the seventh straight for members of the House and Senate. Lawmakers easily squelched a bid by Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, to get a direct vote to block the COLA, which is automatically awarded unless lawmakers vote to block it. |
By MARY DALRYMPLE
AP June 14, 2006 WASHINGTON - Lawmakers caught up in ethics investigations have plenty of cash - just in case they someday face hefty lawyers' bills.
House and Senate members detailed their finances Wednesday in the midst of public and government scrutiny of certain dealings that have caused Congress' popularity to drop. The reports require lawmakers to list last year's assets and debts, along with any income beyond the $162,100 salary for the rank-and-file House and Senate members. Rules require lawmakers to donate their speaking fees to charity and to limit gifts from any individual to $100 in a year. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., holds blind trusts worth $7.5 million to $36 million. He reported making $5 million last year from the largest, worth between $5 million to $25 million. Frist faces a Securities and Exchange Commission insider trading investigation over selling stock in a hospital company his family founded. He denies any wrongdoing and said he ordered the sales to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest as he considers running for president in 2008. |
Bloomberg
June 13, 2006 Goldman Sachs Group Inc., the world's biggest securities firm by market value, said fiscal second- quarter profit more than doubled on higher revenue from trading securities and arranging mergers.
Net income climbed to $2.31 billion, or $4.78 a share, in the quarter ended May 26 from $865 million, or $1.71, a year earlier, Goldman said today in a statement. Earnings got a boost from the sale of a power plant to General Electric Co. Profit exceeded the $4.28-a-share mean estimate in a Thomson Financial survey of 19 analysts. While Goldman's profits were its second-best ever, shares of the New York-based firm fell 3.3 percent yesterday on concern that tumbling stocks and rising interest rates will limit profit growth. Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman's former trading chief, is taking over as chairman and chief executive officer from Henry Paulson, who was nominated as next U.S. Treasury Secretary on May 30 after leading the firm to record profits the past two years. |
AP
June 14, 2006 NEW YORK - A state agency on Wednesday approved using $1.6 billion in tax-exempt bonds to build three office towers at the World Trade Center site.
The Empire State Development Corp. approved use of the Liberty Bonds for towers that are under private developer Larry Silverstein's control. Silverstein retained control of those towers after his lease was renegotiated earlier this year. |
By Greg Palast
AlterNet 06/14/06 Did the U.S. invade Iraq to tap its oil reserves or to make sure they stayed under the sand?
World oil production today stands at more than twice the 15-billion a-year maximum projected by Shell Oil in 1956 -- and reserves are climbing at a faster clip yet. That leaves the question, Why this war? Did Dick Cheney send us in to seize the last dwindling supplies? Unlikely. Our world's petroleum reserves have doubled in just twenty-five years -- and it is in Shell's and the rest of the industry's interest that this doubling doesn't happen again. The neo-cons were hell-bent on raising Iraq's oil production. Big Oil's interest was in suppressing production, that is, keeping Iraq to its OPEC quota or less. This raises the question, did the petroleum industry, which had a direct, if hidden, hand, in promoting invasion, cheerlead for a takeover of Iraq to prevent overproduction? |
By DAVE LINDORFF
Baltimorechronicle.com 15/06/2006 Who's Following the Iraq Money?
During the days of the Nixon Watergate scandal investigation, reporter Bob Woodword was famously advised by his mysterious source, Deep Throat, to "follow the money" as a way of cracking the story. Well, there is a lot of money to follow in the current scandal that can be best described as the Bush/Cheney administration, and so far, nobody's doing it. My bet for the place that needs the most following is the more than $9 billion that has gone missing without a trace in Iraq--as well as $12 billion in cash that the Pentagon flew into Iraq straight from Federal Reserve vaults via military transports, and for which there has been little or no accounting. |
AFP
Thursday June 15, 2006 Japan's embattled central bank chief Toshihiko Fukui has apologized for keeping a scandal-tainted investment and pledged to improve transparency as the opposition urged him to quit.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, in likely his last parliamentary debate before he steps down later this year, stood by Fukui in a show of support in an often tense three-and-a-half-hour session. Fukui has faced a torrent of criticism for putting 10 million yen (87,700 dollars) into the fund of controversial investor Yoshiaki Murakami -- arrested last week on allegations of insider trading -- and keeping it even after his appointment as governor. |
by Suleiman Nimr
AFP Tue Jun 13, 2006 HAIL, Saudi Arabia - Saudi Arabia unveiled plans to build a northern economic city at a cost of eight billion dollars (6.4 billion euros), the latest massive project in the oil-rich kingdom.
The city, announced by King Abdullah at a night ceremony in Hail, 720 kilometers (450 miles) north of Riyadh, will be built over 10 years and host agricultural and mineral industries, an education zone and a residential area with 30,000 housing units. Saudi Arabia, reaping a windfall from record high oil prices, announced in December a plan to build the "King Abdullah Economic City" north of the Red Sea port of Jeddah with investments of 26.6 billion dollars. |
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