WcP.Watchful.Eye's blog

(quote)

A man who said he had to give up his job because he couldn't pay for the gasoline required for his commute set fire to his own BMW car in front of the German city of Frankfurt's most iconic skyscraper Friday to protest soaring fuel costs. Police said the man, who identified himself only as Michael, parked the car in a grassy area near the tower, poured a canister of gasoline over it and set it alight. Lettering painted on the car said "Gas Profiteering" and showed the address of his protest site on the internet.

By the time police and fire crews arrived, the car had been gutted. Police detained the man, 30, who lives in neighboring state of Bavaria. They said the damage, including the loss of the car, totaled about 10,000 euros ($15,700 dollars). The man had said he had wanted to burn the car in Berlin, but it had been too far to drive.

He said he had left his job 23 days earlier because he had had to pay 250 euros ($394) a month for fuel to drive to his place of employment located 80 kilometers (50 miles) from his home. Police spokesman Karlheinz Wagner said the protester would probably be charged with pollution and would receive a hefty invoice from the fire brigade. "The guy was quite lucky because the gas tank did not explode," he added.

(unquote)

Original Source: Deutsche Welle

(quote)

Petroleum is also the raw material for many chemical products, including pharmaceuticals, solvents, fertilizers, pesticides, and plastics. The industry is usually divided into three major components: upstream, midstream and downstream. Midstream operations are usually included in the downstream category. Petroleum is vital to many industries, and is of importance to the maintenance of industrialized civilization itself, and thus is critical concern to many nations.

From the mid 1980s to September 2003, the inflation adjusted price of a barrel of crude oil on NYMEX was generally under $25/barrel. During 2004 the price rose above $40, then $50. A series of events led the price to exceed $60 by August 11, 2005, briefly exceed $75 in the middle of 2006, fall back to $60/barrel by the early part of 2007, then rise steeply to $92/barrel by October 2007 and $99.29/barrel for December futures in New York on November 21, 2007[1] Throughout the first half of 2008, oil regularly reached record high prices. On February 29, 2008, oil prices peaked at $103.05 per barrel,[2] and reached $110.20 on March 12, 2008,[3] the sixth record in seven trading days.[4] [5] The most recent price per barrel maximum of $140.05 was reached on June 26, 2008.[6]

(unquote)

Images courtesy of Wikipedia

Original Source: Wikipedia

(quote)

More than 400 real estate industry players have been indicted since March, including dozens over the last 2 days, in a crackdown on mortgage fraud stemming from America’s housing crisis.

Two former Bear Stearns hedge fund managers today became the first executives to face criminal charges related to the collapse of the subprime mortgage market, following a federal criminal probe into the collapse of two funds they oversaw. In an indictment unsealed in New York, Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin were charged with conspiracy, securities fraud and wire fraud. Cioffi was also charged with insider trading. Cioffi, 52, and Tannin, 46, surrendered to officials and were paraded in handcuffs in front of reporters and onlookers en route to their arraignment today. Their lawyers said they will fight the charges.

Since the beginning of March, 406 people have been arrested in the sting dubbed Operation Malicious Mortgage resulting from 144 cases across America. Sixty people were arrested yesterday alone, including in Chicago, Miami, Houston and a dozen other regions policed by the FBI. Law enforcement officials said their stepped-up focus on mortgage cases aims to combat problems that have grown out of the risky lending practices prevalent until the mortgage market collapse started last year.

Across the country, reports of mortgage fraud have soared over the past year as the subprime mortgage market collapsed, and defaults and foreclosures soared. Banks reported nearly 53,000 cases of suspected mortgage fraud last year, up from more than 37,000 a year earlier and about 10 times the level of reports in 2001 and 2002, according to the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. In recent months, the FBI has been investigating more than 1,400 mortgage fraud cases and 19 companies - including Bear Stearns - tied to the subprime mortgage crisis.

Edward Little, lawyer for Cioffi, said the two men were being used as scapegoats in a crisis that was not their fault. “The subprime crisis took everyone by surprise, including the Fed and Treasury, and dozens of the largest financial institutions have lost over $US300 billion to date on the same investments,” the lawyer said in a statement. “We are shocked and disappointed that the government has seen fit to fix blame on these two decent men. The good news though is that there will be a trial, and we look forward to the day they will be vindicated.”

Officials declined to say who might be the next corporate target, but FBI Director Robert Mueller said the investigations focus on accounting fraud, insider trading, and failure to disclose the value of mortgage-related securities and other investments. Under review for potential fraud are: investment banks, hedge funds, credit rating agencies, brokerage houses and due diligence firms - which evaluate loans packaged into investments. Similar to the federal investigations of Enron Corp. and WorldCom Inc., the cases are complex and rely on intense scrutiny of documents, Mueller said.

(unquote)

Images courtesy of Lanzano/AP, Hermann for News and AFP/Getty Images/File

Original Source: The West Australian

(quote)

Conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan drive up world refugee numbers, accounting for more than half of the world’s refugees in 2007. More than two million Iraqis have sought refuge in Syria and Jordan, and three million Afghans have fled to Pakistan and Iran, the refugee agency said. Iraq and Afghanistan are behind a rise in the number of refugees worldwide for the second year in a row.

The U.N. refugee agency says the number of people fleeing violence and repression worldwide has risen to 11.4 million, largely due to the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. VOA's Sonja Pace reports from London on UNHCR's status report for 2007.

Launching the report, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, said that for the second year in a row the number of people fleeing their countries and displaced from their homes is on the rise. "We have today 11.4 million refugees worldwide, but we have 26 million people displaced within the borders of their own countries," he said.

Guterres says conflicts are largely to blame. Refugees from Iraq and Afghanistan alone make up half the world's total. The 11.4 million tally does not include the millions of Palestinians living as refugees in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world.  read more »

(quote)

Iran has withdrawn around $75 billion from Europe to prevent the assets from being blocked under threatened new sanctions over Tehran's disputed nuclear ambitions, an Iranian weekly said. "Part of Iran's assets in European banks have been converted to gold and shares and another part has been transferred to Asian banks," Mohsen Talaie, deputy foreign minister in charge of economic affairs, was quoted as saying.

Iranian officials were not immediately available to comment on the report in Shahrvand-e Emrouz, a moderate weekly, which did not specify the time period for the withdrawals which it said were ordered by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

"About $75 billion of Iran's foreign assets which were under threat of being blocked were wired back to Iran based on Ahmadinejad's order," the weekly said. Iran's Etemad-e Melli newspaper, also quoting Talai, last week also reported that the world's fourth-largest oil exporter was withdrawing assets from European banks but did not give any figures.

Britain will freeze overseas assets of Iran's largest bank, Bank Melli. "Action will start today," Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Monday.

(unquote)

Photos Courtesy of Reuters and The Jerusalem Post

Original Source: Javno and Associated Press

"Madrid and Tokyo would seem to be the cities to beat in the race for the 2016 Olympics following the release of the short list determined Wednesday by the IOC Executive Board meeting in Athens. Cut from the field of seven cities were Baku, Doha and Prague. The EB decided on the short list after receiving a report on the seven cities prepared by a panel of IOC experts. The cities were scored by the experts on a 10-point scale across 11 categories. Based on the maximum score received in each category, Madrid and Tokyo ranked consistently higher than the rest of the field and tied in some categories.

In the category of government support, legal issues and public opinion, Madrid scored 9, followed by 8.8 for Rio de Janeiro, 8.5 for Tokyo and 7.9 for Chicago. For general infrastructure, Madrid and Tokyo tied with 8.9, followed by Chicago at 7.4 and Rio de Janeiro with 7.2. Sports venues scores put Madrid at the top with 8.8, followed by 8.7 for Tokyo. Rio de Janeiro scored 7.4 and Chicago 7.2. Tokyo took top spot for its Olympic Village – 8.9 -- with Madrid next at 8.7, Chicago following with 8.6 and Rio de Janeiro trailing with 7.7. In environmental conditions and impact, Madrid and Tokyo tie at 8.8, Chicago scored 8 and Rio de Janeiro 7.6.  read more »

(quote)

*Update Sep. 11, 2012*

Curbing Suicide Now a National Priority - Hoping to curb the escalating suicide rate in the United States, especially among military personnel and young Americans, health officials are spearheading a program that encompasses Facebook and other private companies.
"America loses approximately 100 Americans every 24 hours from suicide," said Pamela Hyde, administrator of the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, at a press conference Monday morning. Among people 18 to 24, suicide is now the third leading cause of death, officials said.

U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Regina Benjamin said, "It's time to turn our attention to prevention." The new strategy brings together government, the private sector, schools and communities to raise suicide awareness, increase prevention efforts and develop new treatments for those at risk, she said, speaking at the news conference.

In 2009, more than 37,000 Americans took their own lives, and "more than 500,000 Americans were depressed enough to have actually tried it," Hyde said. This is as critical a public health issue as good drinking water, safe food and infectious-disease prevention, Hyde said.

The military has been hit particularly hard. "Right now we are losing more of our soldiers to suicide than we are to combat," said Army Secretary John McHugh. Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, said that in July alone "the Army lost 38 soldiers to suicide - an all-time and month high."

*Update Feb. 25, 2012*  read more »