Puppet Masters
BP has admitted to losing a laptop that contained the details of thousands of people who had made claims following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill incident.
The firm said that the laptop, which was password-protected, was lost during "business-related travel" and had contained personal information of about 13,000 people.
The personal details included names, addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth and social security numbers, all of which were stored in a spreadsheet, according to BP.
The company added that the loss of the laptop had been immediately reported to the police and its own security teams, but stressed that there was no evidence that it had been accessed or compromised.
The firm said that the laptop, which was password-protected, was lost during "business-related travel" and had contained personal information of about 13,000 people.
The personal details included names, addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth and social security numbers, all of which were stored in a spreadsheet, according to BP.
The company added that the loss of the laptop had been immediately reported to the police and its own security teams, but stressed that there was no evidence that it had been accessed or compromised.
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"Israeli lobby in America is definitely talking to Washington and helping the decisions about which populations are worth of the international intervention and which ones are not and which ones they are going to ignore," Sarah Marusek made the comments in an interview with Press TV on Tuesday.
She reiterated that double standards can clearly be seen if one looks at the US position on Libya and compares it with what is going on in Bahrain and Yemen.
"It is absolutely ridiculous that this intervention can happen in Libya and at the same time not even a discussion happens about the ridiculous oppression that was happening and continues to happen in Bahrain as well as Yemen," said Marusek.
© The Associated Press / Karim Kadim
An Iraqi soldier inspects the scene of a rocket attack in Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday, March, 29, 2011. The rocket landed near a small hotel across the Tigris River from the heavily fortified area that houses government offices and foreign embassies.
An Iraqi soldier inspects the scene of a rocket attack in Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday, March, 29, 2011. The rocket landed near a small hotel across the Tigris River from the heavily fortified area that houses government offices and foreign embassies.
Gunmen wearing explosives belts under military uniforms charged into the provincial council building in Tikrit, north of Baghdad, Tuesday afternoon, shooting hostages execution-style, and spraying bullets and grenades throughout the building during the five-hour standoff.
Dr. Raied Ibrahim, the health director for Salahuddin province where the attack took place, said 57 people have so far been counted dead and 98 wounded.
Funeral processions on Wednesday crisscrossed the nearby city of Samarra, where officials said many of the victims lived, while those from Tikrit, 80 miles (130 kilometres) north of Baghdad, had mostly already been buried.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said he would launch an investigation into how the government compound could so easily be overrun by insurgents.
"Such crimes will not deter our people and security forces from chasing and eliminating them," al-Maliki said. "The criminals who planned and carried out this crime will not escape punishment."
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People who got them called the FBI and CBS 2′s Kristyn Hartman learned, the Bureau's Chicago office is leading the investigation.
FBI Special Agent Andre Zavala said, "Yes, they alarmed a lot of people."
Attorney Tracy Rizzo was alarmed. A number of days ago, an envelope, with a Chicago postmark and a hand-written address to her private investigations firm, came in the mail.
© Matt Sayles/AP
Williams
Williams
In spite of robust profits of $14.2 billion worldwide, GE has calculated a corporate tax bill for 2010 that adds up to zero, via a creative series of tax referrals and revenue shifts. (This was, indeed, the second year running that the company - which has an enormous, and famously nimble, 975-employee tax division, led by former Treasury official John Samuels - paid nothing in U.S. taxes; indeed by claiming a series of losses and deductions, GE came up with a negative tax of 10.5 percent in the admittedly dismal business year of 2009, and realized a $1.5 billion "tax benefit.")
The curious thing about this year's tax story is that it turned up in many major news outlets, with one key exception: NBC News. As the Washington Post's Paul Farhi notes, the network's Nightly News broadcast, hosted by Brian Williams, has not mentioned anything about its corporate parent's resourceful accounting, even though the story has been in wide circulation in the business and general-interest press for nearly a week. "This was a straightforward news decision, the kind we make daily around here" network spokeswoman Lauren Kapp told the Post.
One press critic who begs to differ: Daily Show host Jon Stewart, who noted that the Nightly News found the time for a dispatch on the inclusion of slang expressions in the Oxford English Dictionary, such as "LOL" and "OMG." Of course, Comedy Central's corporate parent, Viacom, is also no slouch when it comes to tax strategy: Earlier this year it sold its struggling videogame unit Harmonix for $50 - so that it could claim a tax credit of $50 million.
President Bashar al-Assad defied calls on Wednesday to lift a decades-old emergency law and said Syria was the target of a foreign conspiracy to stir up protests in which more than 60 people have been killed.
Speaking in public for the first time since the start of the unprecedented demonstrations, inspired by uprisings across the Arab world, Assad said he supported reform but offered no new commitment to change Syria's rigid, one-party political system.
"Implementing reforms is not a fad. When it just a reflection of a wave that the region is living, it is destructive," Assad, making clear he would not concede to pressure from mass protests which toppled other Arab leaders.
Ending emergency law, the main tool for suppressing dissent since it was imposed after the 1963 coup that elevated Assad's Baath Party to power, has been a central demand of protesters.
They also want political prisoners freed, and to know the fate of tens of thousands who disappeared in the 1980s.
© Reuters/Syrian State TV via Reuters TV
Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad addresses the parliament in Damascus
Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad addresses the parliament in Damascus
"Implementing reforms is not a fad. When it just a reflection of a wave that the region is living, it is destructive," Assad, making clear he would not concede to pressure from mass protests which toppled other Arab leaders.
Ending emergency law, the main tool for suppressing dissent since it was imposed after the 1963 coup that elevated Assad's Baath Party to power, has been a central demand of protesters.
They also want political prisoners freed, and to know the fate of tens of thousands who disappeared in the 1980s.
Dr. Bruce Jessen's handwritten notes describe some of the torture techniques that were used to "exploit" "war on terror" detainees in custody of the CIA and Department of Defense.
Bush administration officials have long asserted that the torture techniques used on "war on terror" detainees were utilized as a last resort in an effort to gain actionable intelligence to thwart pending terrorist attacks against the United States and its interests abroad.
Bush administration officials have long asserted that the torture techniques used on "war on terror" detainees were utilized as a last resort in an effort to gain actionable intelligence to thwart pending terrorist attacks against the United States and its interests abroad.
© Unknown
Axis of Evil: At the London summit of 2 November 2010, France decided to pool defense assets with the British, who depend on the United States.
Axis of Evil: At the London summit of 2 November 2010, France decided to pool defense assets with the British, who depend on the United States.
It was France, the United Kingdom and the United States who submitted to the UN Security Council the text which was adopted as resolution 1973, establishing a no-fly zone over Libya.
This initiative must be understood in two ways:
First, vis-à-vis public opinion at home Barack Obama could not afford to take on a third war in the Muslim world after those in Afghanistan and Iraq, where his country is still mired. Washington thus preferred to delegate this operation to its allies.
Secondly, acting on behalf of U.S. interests favourable to the "special relationship" between London and Washington, Nicolas Sarkozy's priority since the beginning of his mandate has been to bring French and British defenses closer together. He achieved this through the defense agreements of 2 November 2010 and found in the Libyan crisis an opportunity for joint action.
© KI PRICE
A protester smashes a window of The Ritz in Piccadilly last Saturday
A protester smashes a window of The Ritz in Piccadilly last Saturday
MPs are demanding to know why the police arrested and charged so many peaceful protesters at Saturday's anti-cuts demonstration, while letting off those who attacked shops and banks and damaged monuments.
Demonstrators who took part in the sit-in at luxury grocer Fortnum & Mason, organised by campaign group UK Uncut, are bearing the brunt of police and prosecutors' attentions.
The Metropolitan Police detained 201 people on Saturday, as they battled break-away factions of activists targeting shops in London's West End. A total of 149 have been charged in connection with the protests - 138 of them (94 per cent) face criminal charges of aggravated trespass at the high-end store, with only 11 charged for the more violent protests elsewhere in the capital, including serious disturbances in the West End during which police were pelted with ammonia-filled lightbulbs.
Campaigners insist no major criminal damage was committed inside the store, whose management said the only physical losses from the protest consisted of the theft of an unspecified number of bottles of wine and champagne. The company said the closure of its business on Saturday afternoon had cost it £80,000 in lost trade.
Comment: A great number of comments on this article showing a healthy number of American's see this propaganda stunt for what it is: