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Goldman bankers get rich betting on food prices as millions starve

Tom Bawden
The Independent, UK
Mon, 21 Jan 2013 09:55 UTC
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Bank criticised for making £250m after destructive spikes in global food market

Goldman Sachs made more than a quarter of a billion pounds last year by speculating on food staples, reigniting the controversy over banks profiting from the global food crisis.

Less than a week after the Bank of England Governor, Sir Mervyn King, slapped Goldman Sachs on the wrist for attempting to save its UK employees millions of pounds in tax by delaying bonus payments, the investment bank faces fresh accusations that it is contributing to rising food prices.

Goldman made about $400m (£251m) in 2012 from investing its clients' money in a range of "soft commodities", from wheat and maize to coffee and sugar, according to an analysis for The Independent by the World Development Movement (WDM).

Comment: The banks may actually have a point. They are not solely to blame for food price increases; extreme weather has devastated crops in recent years. Nevertheless, the fact remains that the few continue to enrich themselves at the expense of the many.

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Snakes in Suits

Japan should let elderly 'hurry up and die': finance minister Taro Aso


Raw Story
Mon, 21 Jan 2013 10:08 UTC
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© AFP File/Yoshikazu TsunoJapanese Finance Minister Taro Aso
Japan's finance minister Taro Aso said Monday the elderly should be allowed to "hurry up and die" instead of costing the government money for end-of-life medical care.

Aso, who also doubles as deputy prime minister, reportedly said during a meeting of the National Council on Social Security Reforms: "Heaven forbid if you are forced to live on when you want to die. You cannot sleep well when you think it's all paid by the government.

"This won't be solved unless you let them hurry up and die," he said.

"I don't need that kind of care. I will die quickly," he said adding he had left written instructions that his life is not artificially prolonged.

During the meeting, he reportedly referred to "tube people" when talking of patients who cannot feed themselves.
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Dollars

A simple solution to end banker control: Bankers, bradburys, carnage and slaughter on the western front

Justin Walker
The UK Column
Mon, 19 Nov 2012 00:00 UTC
A little known historical fact that will collapse even further the reputation of the City of London.

Bradbury Treasury Note
© Unknown
As I start to write this article, today is Remembrance Sunday and I'm listening live to the sombre but magnificent strains of Elgar's Nimrod as the parade at The Cenotaph assembles for the nation's annual act of remembrance to the fallen. Like almost everyone else, I'm always humbled and moved by the veterans' march-pass to pay their respects to fallen friends and comrades - but this year I will find it particularly poignant in the light of my recent research concerning a little known fact about the outbreak of the First World war. Let me explain.

Yesterday, I watched by sheer chance the spectacle of the Lord Mayor's Show on television. This year's parade for the inauguration of the 685th Lord Mayor of London, Alderman Roger Gifford, was no different from any other. As ever it was a combination of centuries old, corporate traditions, with floats and vintage vehicles representing the various Worshipful Companies, combined with local units from the armed forces along with enthusiastic and diverse community groups of children and young people. It was pageantry and modern day life parading together side by side to show off all that is best about our capital city.
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Eye 1

Algerian hostage toll rises to 81 with reports of nine Japanese deaths

Luke Harding, Andrew Sparrow, Kim Willsher
Guardian
Mon, 21 Jan 2013 10:03 UTC
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© Photograph: ReutersPaul Thomas Morgan, who was killed during the hostage crisis at the In Amenas gas plant and the first British victim to be identified.
At least nine Japanese nationals reported killed in attack claimed by veteran Islamist fighter on behalf of al-Qaida.

The death toll from the four-day siege at an Algerian gas plant deep in the Sahara has risen to at least 81, with nine Japanese nationals also reported killed in an attack claimed by a veteran Islamist fighter on behalf of al-Qaida.

The Algerian prime minister, Abdelmalek Sellal, is expected to give details at a news conference on Monday about one of the worst international hostage crises in decades, which left British, American, French, Japanese, Norwegian and Romanian workers dead or missing.

A security source said on Sunday that Algerian troops had found the bodies of 25 hostages, raising the total number of hostages killed to 48 and the total number of deaths to at least 80. He said six militants were captured alive and troops were searching for others.

That number climbed further on Monday when a Japanese government source said the Algerian government had informed Tokyo that nine of its citizens had been killed, the biggest toll so far among foreigners at the plant.
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USA

Torture of prisoners persists in Afghanistan: UN


Raw Story
Mon, 21 Jan 2013 09:58 UTC
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© AFP File/Behrouz MerhiA police officer attempts to prevent photographer from taking photos of Afghan prisoners in Herat, on August 16, 2009
Afghan police and intelligence agents persist in torturing suspected insurgents through beatings, electric shocks and other means, despite foreign efforts to curb abuse, the United Nations says.

The UN issued a follow-up to a report on torture a year ago, as Kabul seeks full control over prisons and prisoners from NATO's International Security Assistance Force despite the misgivings of the US-led ISAF.

Other forms of torture included hanging suspects by the wrists from chains for long periods and threatening them with sexual violence, the UN mission in Afghanistan said in its 139-page analysis released late Sunday.

Many of those tortured to extract confessions were children under the age of 18, it said.

In October 2012, ISAF suspended the transfer of detainees to some Afghan facilities for a second time over the reports of torture.
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Star of David

Israel orders Palestinian protest camp removed


Raw Story
Sun, 20 Jan 2013 09:50 UTC
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© AFP Photo
The Israeli army ordered Palestinian demonstrators on Sunday to evacuate a protest encampment in the West Bank consisting of four tents and a building under construction, a military spokesman said.

Three of the tents and the building near the Palestinian village of Beit Iksa were on land owned by the Jewish state, and the fourth tent was on the route of a planned separation barrier, the spokesman told AFP.

Activists on Friday set up the encampment to protest against Israel's intention to confiscate at least 124 acres (50 hectares) of land near the village, located on the northwestern outskirts of Jerusalem.

The activists said they were naming the village extension Bab al-Karama, Arabic for Gate of Dignity.

About 100 residents and activists were at the site when Israeli soldiers issued the "invasion removal orders," and minor scuffles broke out before the troops left the scene.
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Dollars

Strauss-Kahn paid hotel maid $1.5 million: report


Raw Story
Sun, 20 Jan 2013 09:34 UTC
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© Diallo/AFP
Disgraced former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn paid a settlement of $1.5 million (1.1 million euros) to the New York hotel maid who accused him of sexual assault, a French newspaper reported Sunday.

Citing sources close to Strauss-Kahn, Le Journal du Dimanche said Nafissatou Diallo had received the payment under a confidential deal reached to settle her civil suit against him.

The newspaper said Diallo went away with about 70 percent of the sum after paying her defence team.

A judge announced the deal last month, with reports at the time suggesting Strauss-Kahn had paid up to $5 million in the settlement.
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Bad Guys

The frog has boiled: Pentagon says protests are acts of "Low-level terrorism"

M. Frank Drover
The Daily Sheeple
Thu, 17 Jan 2013 00:00 UTC
First, the government responds to the September 11th attack by passing the Patriot Act, which is purportedly designed to protect us from foreign terrorists. Most of America cheers it on, never realizing that within the act is a broad definition for something categorized as domestic terrorism, or "activities that appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, or to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion."

Second, they pass the National Defense Authorization Act, which allows them, under the definitions for domestic terrorism set forth by the Patriot Act, to detain someone without trial and forever if they appear to be subverting the newly established status quo.

Third, they declare all federal property, or property being used for political events where Secret Service protection is present, as "events of national significance" through the Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act. Undesirable demonstrators operating counter to the official narrative in these areas are herded into court approved free speech zones.
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Attention

Israeli politician: Palestinian ghettos were always the plan

Amira Hass
Haaretz
Sun, 20 Jan 2013 19:58 UTC
Right-wing politician Naftali Bennett's plan to annex Israeli-controlled parts of the West Bank is just the logical next step in Israel's historic effort to ghettoize the Palestinians.

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© Tomer AppelbaumHabaiyt Hayehudi's Naftali Bennett.
When Habayit Hayehudi party leader and rising political star Naftali Bennett calls for annexing Area C, the part of the West Bank under full Israeli security and civil control, he is following the logic of every single Israeli government: maximize the territory, minimize the Arabs.

Some may even interpret this as elections propaganda in favor of Habayit Hayehudi and endorse it warmly.

Bennett can propose annexation because every governing coalition since the Six-Day War - whether it was led by the Likud or Labor (or its precursor, Alignment) party, and whether its partners were Mafdal, Shas or Meretz - laid the spiritual and policy groundwork for him.

According to Bennett, about 60 percent of the West Bank - a.k.a. Area C - is annexable. What's important about Area C is not whether 50,000 Palestinians live there, as democratic, benevolent Bennett claims, while suggesting to naturalize them and grant them Israeli citizenship, or whether the number is around 150,000 (as my colleague Chaim Levinson reminded us earlier this week).
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Attention

Israeli news broadcasters don't cry: Shlomi Eldar reflects on the live television report that profoundly changed the way he sees the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Ayelett Shani
Haaretz
Sat, 19 Jan 2013 19:35 UTC
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© Gali EytanShlomi Eldar
As a commentator, you're considered an odd bird.

Let's say that for a time I was a person whom people liked not liking. It's very easy to be a well-liked commentator: you simply tell the public what it wants to hear. But I always chose to tell the truth. And regrettably, I was never wrong. Both in Operation Cast Lead [the 2008-09 campaign in Gaza] and [last November's follow-up] Operation Pillar of Defense, people were furious at me. People cursed me, sent messages, found me on Facebook and called me a Hamas man. But I saw where it was all going, and said so.

Not as a provocation.

No. I just say what I think. I read the situation, I don't go by gut feelings or political beliefs. I thought it was wrong to assassinate Ahmed Jabari [the head of Hamas' military wing]. Not because he didn't deserve to die. He deserved to die. But the method of eliminating some top person and thinking someone better will replace him is wrong. All you do is heighten the problem. A top figure in the defense establishment told me, "Israel built up Hamas, not by its deeds but by its failures."

Because we are always putting out fires.

All the decisions of the political leadership are made ad hoc, and aimed at putting out fires.
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