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Yes Mr President, This Is Who We Are
Michael Ratner and Paul Jay analyze President Obama's defense of his drone and Guantanamo policies - a policy based on continuing US dominance in the Middle East; Obama's speech was interrupted by Code Pink's Medea Benjamin
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William K. Black
We have further proof about how thin-skinned Treasury Secretary Geithner was, but we have it in the form of a weird May 29, 2013 story by Ben Protess in the New York Times. The story is in part about me, though it doesn’t mention me, because it is a story that notes that Treasury was able to convince NPR to remove from its December 13, 2013 broadcast a statement I made criticizing Geithner – an action that NPR took and noted, but without naming me as the source of the criticism. The weird part of the NYT story is that while it confirms the accuracy of the statement I made about Geithner it asserts that the statement by the unidentified “academic” criticizing Geithner was false.
I want to stress that this is not a scandalous cover up of some incredible, secret fact that I revealed in my NPR interview. The criticism I made of Geithner has been made publicly in thousands of blog posts and articles. There is a consensus that Geithner holds the position that I ascribed to him. To my knowledge, Geithner has never disputed that he opposed prosecuting HSBC and Standard Chartered for their massive felonies, fearing that it would cause their failure and could lead to a global financial crisis. But the fact that my December 13, 2012 statement of Geithner’s position was accurate, had been made by many experts, had been publicly reported in major publications – particularly Protess’ December 10, 2012 article in the NYT – and was not denied by Geithner was not sufficient to keep Geithner’s aides from intervening with NPR to get my accurate statement about Geithner’s position and my criticism of that position censored. Protess reported in his May 29, 2013 article that Geithner’s aides successfully intervened with NPR to censor my criticism of Geithner.
NPR edited the interview to remove my criticism of Geithner at the request of Geithner’s aides. NPR should not have done that, but it did not prevent the general public from hearing my criticism. I explained that Protess made the same point about Geithner’s position that I made in the NPR interview in a column published in the NYT three days before NPR interviewed me. This makes Protess’ statements in his May 29, 2013 article (prompted by the release of Treasury documents that further support the accuracy of my, and Protess’, statement about Geithner and confirm that Treasury convinced NPR to censor my criticism of Geithner out of their broadcast and the transcript of the broadcast) all the more strange.
“The agency also contacted and persuaded a news organization to withdraw a report that wrongly blamed Treasury for not indicting HSBC, the documents indicate. (It’s the job of the Justice Department to decide criminal charges, Treasury explained.)
When Treasury joined the Justice Department in announcing the case in December, a media outlet ran an overnight article in which a professor speculated that Mr. Geithner had not criminally prosecuted HSBC to avoid putting it out of business.
By dawn that day, Treasury officials e-mailed one another about the article. Shortly after, National Public Radio retracted the quote and issued a statement saying that Treasury had not been involved in the decision not to indict HSBC.”
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/05/29/documents-show-obama-officials-in-tension-over-british-banks/?hp
Clarification: In an early radio version of this story, a former regulator was quoted speculating that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner did not want to put HSBC out of business. We should have made it clear that it is the Justice Department, not the Treasury Department, that made the decision to defer prosecution of HSBC.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/12/13/167089673/will-a-1-9-billion-settlement-be-enough-to-change-banks-behavior
The discerning reader will realize several things immediately. First, I was not “speculating” about Geithner not wanting to put HSBC out of business. Geithner had long made it plain that he did not want to put any systemically dangerous institution (SDI) out of business lest it cause a global financial crisis. Second, I did not say that Geithner “made the decision to defer prosecution of HSBC.” Third, the NYT mischaracterized NPR’s “Clarification.” It is preposterous to claim “that Treasury had not been involved in the decision not to indict HSBC.”
We all know that DOJ “made the decision.” That does not mean that Treasury is not “involved” in the decision-making. Lanny Breuer (then head of the Criminal Division) gave public speeches emphasizing that in making the decision about indicting major firms (or even their senior officers) he was largely concerned by the economic impact that the failure of the firm could have. (The NPR report makes this point.) Had HSBC been convicted of the crimes DOJ charged it committed it would have been bankrupted. One of the documents revealed by Public Citizens’ FOIA request to Treasury revealed that HSBC annually allowed $60 trillion in wire transfers through the U.S. (a trillion is a thousand billion) to be conducted without the required reviews to detect money laundering. HSBC also conveniently ignored reviewing $15 billion in bulk cash transfers over three years. These kind of massive failures are not accidents. On just one portion of its illegal transactions HSBC failed to file over 7,000 required criminal referrals. HSBC was a massive criminal enterprise. Indeed, to our knowledge it is the second largest financial criminal enterprise in world history. The only criminal enterprise we know to be greater in the LIBOR cartel – and HSBC is being investigated by several nations as an alleged co-conspirator in that fraud as well. The scope of HSBC’s money laundering was so vast that it could not possibly survive a prosecution for its crimes.
Geithner made clear that Treasury was appalled by the prospect that any SDI would fail because it could cause a global crisis. Anyone who has worked for DOJ or a financial regulatory agency knows that Treasury expresses its views to DOJ on such cases. I have worked for both DOJ and a financial regulatory agency and I am a white-collar criminologist and attorney. I know that only DOJ can make the formal decision whether to prosecute and that the Treasury seeks to influence that decision in cases it believes pose a risk to the financial system.
Here’s a thought exercise: the Treasury Secretary claims that indicting an SDI will cause it to fail and warns that the failure could cause a global financial crisis. The Attorney General ignores the Treasury Secretary, indicts the bank, and the world is thrown in a second Great Depression. Guess what happens to the Attorney General? Don’t worry; it’s a purely hypothetical question because no AG is going to take the risk. The Attorney General, of course, will make the formal decision not to prosecute, but there’s nothing left for the AG to “decide” when Treasury is warning that the SDIs are IEDs that will blow up the global economy if anyone breathes on them through any prosecution.
Anyone familiar with my work, a group that includes Treasury and DOJ’s senior officials and NPR and the NYT’s financial reporters knows that I have been critical of both Geithner and Holder and Breuer’s embrace of “too big to prosecute” – particularly as it is applied to the SDI’s controlling officers. They also know that I would never have claimed that Geithner could make the formal decision not to prosecute HSBC. Protess is not gullible enough to believe that the members of Geithner’s staff who succeeded in getting NPR to remove my accurate criticism of Geithner’s support for the “too big to prosecute” doctrine would accurately characterize my criticism of Geithner in remarks that they had succeeded in censoring. I did not “wrongly blame” Geithner – I was accurate in my criticism of him.
The affair gets weirder still for Protess knows I was accurate (or, more precisely, he would know it if he actually listened to what I actually said on NPR about Geithner, or even if he accurately read NPR’s clarification rather than the Treasury censors’ mischaracterizations of both). The reason Protess would know I was accurate is that I was referencing Protess December 10, 2012 article in my criticism of Geithner.
My comments to NPR and the “Clarification” occurred on December 13, 2012. One of the stories supporting my comment ran in the NYT on December 10, 2012 – under Protess’ byline (with Jessica Silver-Greenberg).
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/12/10/hsbc-said-to-near-1-9-billion-settlement-over-money-laundering/?hp
December 10, 2012, 4:10 pm
It is important to realize that their December 10, 2013 story on the HSBC settlement was not critical of Holder, Breuer, and Geithner. The story’s first judgmental statement about the settlement is made in the third paragraph. I find the reporters’ conclusion preposterous: “the settlement with HSBC is a major victory for the government.” Please see my recent column regarding DOJ’s propagandists claiming that crushing defeats for justice represent triumphs. I find it astonishing that the media treats DOJ’s and Treasury’s “Beltway Bob’s” as credible.
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2013/05/how-dare-doj-insult-hsbcs-crooks-as-less-professional-than-liberty-reserves-crooks.html
The first paragraph of their story makes the central point I made in criticizing Geithner and DOJ.
“State and federal authorities decided against indicting HSBC in a money-laundering case over concerns that criminal charges could jeopardize one of the world's largest banks and ultimately destabilize the global financial system.”
Here is NPR’s “Clarification” of my statement that they censored out of the report at the request of Geithner’s aides: “In an early radio version of this story, a former regulator was quoted speculating that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner did not want to put HSBC out of business.” It’s interesting that accurately noting a report in the NYT now constitutes “speculating.” Does anything think that DOJ decides without Treasury input what events would “destabilize the global financial system?”
The December 10 story stated that Treasury had been involved in the discussions and that Treasury remained concerned that indicting HSBC could destabilize the global financial system.
“Four years after the failure of Lehman Brothers nearly toppled the financial system, regulators are still wary that a single institution could undermine the recovery of the industry and the economy.
But the threat of criminal prosecution acts as a powerful deterrent. If authorities signal such actions are remote for big banks, the threat could lose its sting.
Behind the scenes, authorities debated for months the advantages and perils of a criminal indictment against HSBC.
Some prosecutors at the Justice Department's criminal division and the Manhattan district attorney's office wanted the bank to plead guilty to violations of the federal Bank Secrecy Act, according to the officials with direct knowledge of the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The law requires financial institutions to report any cash transaction of $10,000 or more and to bring any dubious activity to the attention of regulators.
Given the extent of the evidence against HSBC, some prosecutors saw the charge as a healthy compromise between a settlement and a harsher money-laundering indictment. While the charge would most likely tarnish the bank's reputation, some officials argued that it would not set off a series of devastating consequences.
A money-laundering indictment, or a guilty plea over such charges, would essentially be a death sentence for the bank. Such actions could cut off the bank from certain investors like pension funds and ultimately cost it its charter to operate in the United States, officials said.
Despite the Justice Department's proposed compromise, Treasury Department officials and bank regulators at the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency pointed to potential issues with the aggressive stance, according to the officials briefed on the matter. When approached by the Justice Department for their thoughts, the regulators cautioned about the effect on the broader economy.”
So, Treasury was involved in the policy debates. It “cautioned” against any indictment of HSBC. It viewed any indictment of HSBC as a “death sentence” for HSBC and countered the argument of some prosecutors that such a death sentence “would not set off a series of devastating consequences.”
Geithner was crafty, so after having his staff argue, successfully, over the course of months, that DOJ should not indict HSBC because doing so would cause the financial skies to fall, he refused to put this in writing. Geithner knew he had won the fight and didn’t want to leave his fingerprints on the charter of freedom for felons – the “too big to prosecute” doctrine.
"The Justice Department asked Treasury for our view about the potential implications of prosecuting a large financial institution," David S. Cohen, the Treasury's under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in a statement. "We did not believe we were in a position to offer any meaningful assessment. The decision of how the Justice Department exercises its prosecutorial discretion is solely theirs and Treasury had no role."
I will do Protess and his colleague the honor of believing that they did not fall for this cynical, self-serving, and silly claim that “Treasury had no role” in the decision because Treasury lacks the competence to make “any meaningful assessment” of the impact of HSBC suffering a catastrophic failure. I will note two obvious categories of questions (neither of which the reporters appear to have asked). First, if Treasury is incapable of making “any meaningful assessment” of the risks that the failure of an SDI like HSBC pose to the global financial system – who is capable of making those assessments and did DOJ obtain their assessment? Second, why didn’t DOJ prosecute HSBC’s senior officers who led the massive frauds and became wealthy due to the frauds? Why did DOJ not even recover the wealth the senior officers gained by leading the second largest criminal enterprise in world history?
The December NYT story refutes Treasury’s claim that it had no involvement in the decision not to prosecute HSBC. It documents that they played a large role over an extended period. I was not “speculating” about Treasury’s involvement and their hostility to any prosecution of HSBC – I was citing facts I learned in part from the NYT.
The newest story by Protess in the NYT about Treasury’s convincing NPR to suppress my accurate criticisms of Geithner should prompt the NYT and NPR to review their coverage. NPR was conned by Treasury’s lawyers, who emphasized the formalistic truism that DOJ makes the formal decision whether to prosecute. I never said anything to the contrary that needed to be “clarified” or “retracted.” What I said, and was censored out of the broadcast at the instigation of Geithner’s aides, was not only accurate but far more important than the formalistic truism. I explained that Geithner’s views on the fragility of the SDIs led DOJ (or gave it the excuse) to make decisions that produced the disgraceful “too big to prosecute doctrine” that repudiates the rule of law and enshrines crony capitalism. I also explained to the NPR reporter that there was no legitimate rationale for not prosecuting HSBC’s senior officers who directed its criminal enterprises. I invite the NYT and NPR to explore these issues in interviews with me. They are important issues and the recent disclosure of documents from Geithner’s aides confirms the accuracy of my criticism and a sad chapter in Treasury’s successful efforts to censor its critics.
William K. Black
Standard Chartered and HSBC’s leaders must be doubly humiliated by the description by Mythili Raman, the acting head of the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Criminal Division, of Liberty Reserve’s money laundering operation. UK laws are, of course, very congenial to those suing for libel and I am sure that these banking titans are meeting with their solicitors to demand a retraction and apology from Raman. In the very first clause of her May 28, 2013 statement to the media on the actions against Liberty Reserve’s controlling officers, Raman emphasized how “professional” they were as money launderers: “Today, we strike a severe blow against a professional money laundering enterprise charged with laundering over $6 billion in criminal proceeds.” In four paragraphs, she used the word “professional” three times and “sophisticated” once to describe Liberty Reserve’s money laundering.
In her second sentence she continued her emphasis on how large Liberty Reserve’s money laundering operations were. Raman claimed that DOJ’s action against Liberty Reserve was “the largest international money laundering prosecution in the history of the Department.” She described the scale of Liberty Reserve’s operations as “enormous” and a “massive criminal enterprise.” Paragraph 10 of the indictment labels the scope of operations as “staggering.”
http://www.justice.gov/criminal/pr/speeches/2013/crm-speech-130528.html
The indignant response of Standard Chartered and HSBC’s leaders to Raman has to be: “and what are we, chopped liver?” The government charged Standard Chartered was a massive money launderer that Iran used to escape sanctions designed to keep them from developing nuclear weapons,
I described in a prior article how HSBC hit the money launderer’s trifecta.
To sum it up, just one facet of Standard Chartered’s money laundering and one facet of HSBC’s money laundering operation were, respectively, over 40 and 100 times larger than Liberty Reserve’s “staggering” total money laundering for all purposes. The frauds came from the top and in the case of Standard Chartered the sincerity of the remorse at the top was promptly and publicly demonstrated.
What this all means is that two of the largest banks in the world, which reap massive explicit and implicit subsidies from the government, were criminal enterprises for at least a decade. Each engaged in violations that were vastly larger than Liberty Reserve. Liberty Reserve’s violations were huge, severe, and warranted the toughest possible prosecution – complete with freezing and forfeiting all of its accounts. The violations of the banks, by contrast, were massively larger, occurred over a longer period, led to vastly greater profits for the banks and the officers, and did vastly greater harm to the world including the loss of life and the potential mass loss of life in the future. DOJ refused to prosecute any of the officers for “knowing and willful criminal conduct.” Incredibly, it insisted on only a two-year period of DOJ leverage over Standard Chartered’s operations to ensure (short-term) compliance with the law. Standard Chartered promptly violated the agreement – and DOJ insisted they apologize.
The DOJ’s claim that Liberty Reserve’s leadership was “professional” and “sophisticated” is farcical. They were clowns. Their web site is illiterate (once one gets past the initial screen). Their invitations to join the many Ponzi schemes they pushed on their web pages are so unprofessional (though littered with the word “professional”) and unsophisticated that one cannot have any sympathy for anyone victimized by the Ponzis. Here’s an example of one of the pitches that is more literate in English (but financially illiterate):
For their massive and highly profitable crimes, DOJ took no action against any officer of Standard Chartered or HSBC. It announced, instead, the shameful “too big to prosecute” doctrine that announced DOJ’s surrender to crony capitalism. Now, DOJ wishes to tout Liberty Reserve as the great triumph that proves that money laundering will never succeed. But Liberty Reserve’s criminal customers overwhelmingly succeeded. First, they succeeded because the initial sentence of five years imprisonment for the leaders of what would become Liberty Reserve for their crimes at their prior firm that specialized in money laundering was reduced to probation. The leaders immediately began their new fraudulent scheme. Criminal justice penalties for white-collar frauds are often absurdly low. Second, DOJ failed to act for years even though Raman emphasized that the co-founder of the Liberty Reserve control fraud noted that DOJ knew it was a control fraud.
We know from paragraph 10 of the indictment that once Liberty Reserve ramped up its operations (it began by “growing exponentially,” Indictment, paragraph 13), every year the DOJ delayed closing down Liberty Reserve an average of 12 million unlawful financial transactions occurred totaling $1.2 billion. We also know that during its over six years of operations Liberty Reserve conducted roughly 55 million (“virtually all” criminal) financial transactions totaling over $6 billion and that DOJ has asked the court to issue a forfeiture order for $6 billion.
Paragraph 19 of the Indictment contains this wonderfully revealing insight into DOJ’s willful blindness about Standard Chartered and HSBC’s vastly larger, longer lasting, and more damaging money laundering: “Liberty Reserve users … engaged in criminal transactions with an impunity that would have been impossible in the legitimate financial system.” Right, unless, of course, we consider Standard Chartered and HSBC. The DOJ shares the unintentional irony of the finance professors who recently authored a study that concluded that control fraud was “pervasive” at our “most reputable” banks during the run-up to the ongoing crisis.
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2013/02/pervasive-fraud-by-our-most-reputable-banks.html http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2215422
Paragraph 26 of the Indictment reveals that FinCEN sent out an alert on November 18, 2011 that Liberty Reserve was being used by criminals to launder funds.
Raman boasted at the press conference that DOJ and its international partners had succeeded in “restraining over $25 million in criminal proceeds.” That represents less than one-half of one percent of the money that was laundered. Raman claims that the greatly delayed prosecution of Liberty Reserve sent the message that law enforcement always triumphs over money laundering. The reality (revealed by DOJ’s own indictment) is that over a million criminals were able to launder over $6 billion in criminal proceeds through Liberty Reserve for over six years. Other criminals were able to launder far greater amounts through Standard Chartered and HSBC for over a decade. DOJ keeps calling massive defeats stirring victories.
The thing that is most troubling about Liberty Reserve is that it had no political power in the U.S. No one in power in the U.S. would have pushed back if DOJ had put Liberty Reserve out of business in 2006 or early 2007. The FBI, DEA, Secret Service, and Treasury would have learned about Liberty Reserve’s illegal operations almost immediately – they were too large, too open, and it was run by felons who were known money launderers. With a million money launderers using the site we must have had scores of informants who knew that Liberty Reserve was being used to launder proceeds and there must have been thousands of criminals arrested who had the incentive and ability to reduce their sentence by informing on Liberty Reserve. The fact that a money laundering operation as blatant and crude as Liberty Reserve’s (the web site screams “fraud”) with no political patrons in the U.S., and no concerns about “too big to prosecute” could stay in operation for over six years despite the government’s knowledge that it was engaged in massive money laundering and be allowed to “grow exponentially” and become “the bank of choice for the criminal underworld” (Indictment, paragraphs 13, 19) demonstrates how badly our criminal justice system has failed against control frauds.
We use the phrase “Pyrrhic victory” because of the candor of King Pyrrhus of Epirus. He won multiple victories over the Romans, already renowned for their military prowess, in southern Italy. When he was offered congratulations on these victories he replied that one more such victory would ruin his army. Pyrrhus’ victories were real. He inflicted greater losses on the Roman troops and he held the field after the battles. Pyrrhus demonstrated competence as a military leader and bravery in the field. Pyrrhus understood, however, that his lines of supply were long and that he could not replenish his lost men and experienced officers while the Romans could do so. The Justice Department has been losing the struggle against control frauds for well over a decade. Pyrrhus was competent and candid enough to proclaim that his tactical victories represented a strategic defeat. DOJ propagandists are now expert at claiming that abject defeats represent triumphs. In honor of the unintentional comic genius dubbed “Baghdad Bob” who announced Iraqi forces’ fictional triumphs over the U.S. army, we should honor the DOJ’s propagandists with the sobriquet: “Beltway Bob.”
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progeny:
1. (uncountable) Offspring or descendants.
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"A man who kills on his own is a murderer. A man who kills at his government's request is a national hero." - Ramman Kenoun
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guess every generation is doomed to fight its war...suffer the loss of
the same old illusions, and learn the same old lessons on its own." - Phillip Caputo
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The New York Times Butchers the Story of How Treasury Got NPR to Censor My Criticism of It
Friday, 31 May 2013 10:59
We have further proof about how thin-skinned Treasury Secretary Geithner was, but we have it in the form of a weird May 29, 2013 story by Ben Protess in the New York Times. The story is in part about me, though it doesn’t mention me, because it is a story that notes that Treasury was able to convince NPR to remove from its December 13, 2013 broadcast a statement I made criticizing Geithner – an action that NPR took and noted, but without naming me as the source of the criticism. The weird part of the NYT story is that while it confirms the accuracy of the statement I made about Geithner it asserts that the statement by the unidentified “academic” criticizing Geithner was false.
I want to stress that this is not a scandalous cover up of some incredible, secret fact that I revealed in my NPR interview. The criticism I made of Geithner has been made publicly in thousands of blog posts and articles. There is a consensus that Geithner holds the position that I ascribed to him. To my knowledge, Geithner has never disputed that he opposed prosecuting HSBC and Standard Chartered for their massive felonies, fearing that it would cause their failure and could lead to a global financial crisis. But the fact that my December 13, 2012 statement of Geithner’s position was accurate, had been made by many experts, had been publicly reported in major publications – particularly Protess’ December 10, 2012 article in the NYT – and was not denied by Geithner was not sufficient to keep Geithner’s aides from intervening with NPR to get my accurate statement about Geithner’s position and my criticism of that position censored. Protess reported in his May 29, 2013 article that Geithner’s aides successfully intervened with NPR to censor my criticism of Geithner.
NPR edited the interview to remove my criticism of Geithner at the request of Geithner’s aides. NPR should not have done that, but it did not prevent the general public from hearing my criticism. I explained that Protess made the same point about Geithner’s position that I made in the NPR interview in a column published in the NYT three days before NPR interviewed me. This makes Protess’ statements in his May 29, 2013 article (prompted by the release of Treasury documents that further support the accuracy of my, and Protess’, statement about Geithner and confirm that Treasury convinced NPR to censor my criticism of Geithner out of their broadcast and the transcript of the broadcast) all the more strange.
“The agency also contacted and persuaded a news organization to withdraw a report that wrongly blamed Treasury for not indicting HSBC, the documents indicate. (It’s the job of the Justice Department to decide criminal charges, Treasury explained.)
When Treasury joined the Justice Department in announcing the case in December, a media outlet ran an overnight article in which a professor speculated that Mr. Geithner had not criminally prosecuted HSBC to avoid putting it out of business.
By dawn that day, Treasury officials e-mailed one another about the article. Shortly after, National Public Radio retracted the quote and issued a statement saying that Treasury had not been involved in the decision not to indict HSBC.”
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/05/29/documents-show-obama-officials-in-tension-over-british-banks/?hp
Documents Show Obama Officials in Tension Over British Banks
Here’s the statement that NPR ran about removing my criticism of Geithner from their program.Clarification: In an early radio version of this story, a former regulator was quoted speculating that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner did not want to put HSBC out of business. We should have made it clear that it is the Justice Department, not the Treasury Department, that made the decision to defer prosecution of HSBC.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/12/13/167089673/will-a-1-9-billion-settlement-be-enough-to-change-banks-behavior
The discerning reader will realize several things immediately. First, I was not “speculating” about Geithner not wanting to put HSBC out of business. Geithner had long made it plain that he did not want to put any systemically dangerous institution (SDI) out of business lest it cause a global financial crisis. Second, I did not say that Geithner “made the decision to defer prosecution of HSBC.” Third, the NYT mischaracterized NPR’s “Clarification.” It is preposterous to claim “that Treasury had not been involved in the decision not to indict HSBC.”
We all know that DOJ “made the decision.” That does not mean that Treasury is not “involved” in the decision-making. Lanny Breuer (then head of the Criminal Division) gave public speeches emphasizing that in making the decision about indicting major firms (or even their senior officers) he was largely concerned by the economic impact that the failure of the firm could have. (The NPR report makes this point.) Had HSBC been convicted of the crimes DOJ charged it committed it would have been bankrupted. One of the documents revealed by Public Citizens’ FOIA request to Treasury revealed that HSBC annually allowed $60 trillion in wire transfers through the U.S. (a trillion is a thousand billion) to be conducted without the required reviews to detect money laundering. HSBC also conveniently ignored reviewing $15 billion in bulk cash transfers over three years. These kind of massive failures are not accidents. On just one portion of its illegal transactions HSBC failed to file over 7,000 required criminal referrals. HSBC was a massive criminal enterprise. Indeed, to our knowledge it is the second largest financial criminal enterprise in world history. The only criminal enterprise we know to be greater in the LIBOR cartel – and HSBC is being investigated by several nations as an alleged co-conspirator in that fraud as well. The scope of HSBC’s money laundering was so vast that it could not possibly survive a prosecution for its crimes.
Geithner made clear that Treasury was appalled by the prospect that any SDI would fail because it could cause a global crisis. Anyone who has worked for DOJ or a financial regulatory agency knows that Treasury expresses its views to DOJ on such cases. I have worked for both DOJ and a financial regulatory agency and I am a white-collar criminologist and attorney. I know that only DOJ can make the formal decision whether to prosecute and that the Treasury seeks to influence that decision in cases it believes pose a risk to the financial system.
Here’s a thought exercise: the Treasury Secretary claims that indicting an SDI will cause it to fail and warns that the failure could cause a global financial crisis. The Attorney General ignores the Treasury Secretary, indicts the bank, and the world is thrown in a second Great Depression. Guess what happens to the Attorney General? Don’t worry; it’s a purely hypothetical question because no AG is going to take the risk. The Attorney General, of course, will make the formal decision not to prosecute, but there’s nothing left for the AG to “decide” when Treasury is warning that the SDIs are IEDs that will blow up the global economy if anyone breathes on them through any prosecution.
Anyone familiar with my work, a group that includes Treasury and DOJ’s senior officials and NPR and the NYT’s financial reporters knows that I have been critical of both Geithner and Holder and Breuer’s embrace of “too big to prosecute” – particularly as it is applied to the SDI’s controlling officers. They also know that I would never have claimed that Geithner could make the formal decision not to prosecute HSBC. Protess is not gullible enough to believe that the members of Geithner’s staff who succeeded in getting NPR to remove my accurate criticism of Geithner’s support for the “too big to prosecute” doctrine would accurately characterize my criticism of Geithner in remarks that they had succeeded in censoring. I did not “wrongly blame” Geithner – I was accurate in my criticism of him.
The affair gets weirder still for Protess knows I was accurate (or, more precisely, he would know it if he actually listened to what I actually said on NPR about Geithner, or even if he accurately read NPR’s clarification rather than the Treasury censors’ mischaracterizations of both). The reason Protess would know I was accurate is that I was referencing Protess December 10, 2012 article in my criticism of Geithner.
My comments to NPR and the “Clarification” occurred on December 13, 2012. One of the stories supporting my comment ran in the NYT on December 10, 2012 – under Protess’ byline (with Jessica Silver-Greenberg).
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/12/10/hsbc-said-to-near-1-9-billion-settlement-over-money-laundering/?hp
December 10, 2012, 4:10 pm
HSBC to Pay $1.92 Billion to Settle Charges of Money Laundering
By BEN PROTESS and JESSICA SILVER-GREENBERGIt is important to realize that their December 10, 2013 story on the HSBC settlement was not critical of Holder, Breuer, and Geithner. The story’s first judgmental statement about the settlement is made in the third paragraph. I find the reporters’ conclusion preposterous: “the settlement with HSBC is a major victory for the government.” Please see my recent column regarding DOJ’s propagandists claiming that crushing defeats for justice represent triumphs. I find it astonishing that the media treats DOJ’s and Treasury’s “Beltway Bob’s” as credible.
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2013/05/how-dare-doj-insult-hsbcs-crooks-as-less-professional-than-liberty-reserves-crooks.html
The first paragraph of their story makes the central point I made in criticizing Geithner and DOJ.
“State and federal authorities decided against indicting HSBC in a money-laundering case over concerns that criminal charges could jeopardize one of the world's largest banks and ultimately destabilize the global financial system.”
Here is NPR’s “Clarification” of my statement that they censored out of the report at the request of Geithner’s aides: “In an early radio version of this story, a former regulator was quoted speculating that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner did not want to put HSBC out of business.” It’s interesting that accurately noting a report in the NYT now constitutes “speculating.” Does anything think that DOJ decides without Treasury input what events would “destabilize the global financial system?”
The December 10 story stated that Treasury had been involved in the discussions and that Treasury remained concerned that indicting HSBC could destabilize the global financial system.
“Four years after the failure of Lehman Brothers nearly toppled the financial system, regulators are still wary that a single institution could undermine the recovery of the industry and the economy.
But the threat of criminal prosecution acts as a powerful deterrent. If authorities signal such actions are remote for big banks, the threat could lose its sting.
Behind the scenes, authorities debated for months the advantages and perils of a criminal indictment against HSBC.
Some prosecutors at the Justice Department's criminal division and the Manhattan district attorney's office wanted the bank to plead guilty to violations of the federal Bank Secrecy Act, according to the officials with direct knowledge of the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The law requires financial institutions to report any cash transaction of $10,000 or more and to bring any dubious activity to the attention of regulators.
Given the extent of the evidence against HSBC, some prosecutors saw the charge as a healthy compromise between a settlement and a harsher money-laundering indictment. While the charge would most likely tarnish the bank's reputation, some officials argued that it would not set off a series of devastating consequences.
A money-laundering indictment, or a guilty plea over such charges, would essentially be a death sentence for the bank. Such actions could cut off the bank from certain investors like pension funds and ultimately cost it its charter to operate in the United States, officials said.
Despite the Justice Department's proposed compromise, Treasury Department officials and bank regulators at the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency pointed to potential issues with the aggressive stance, according to the officials briefed on the matter. When approached by the Justice Department for their thoughts, the regulators cautioned about the effect on the broader economy.”
So, Treasury was involved in the policy debates. It “cautioned” against any indictment of HSBC. It viewed any indictment of HSBC as a “death sentence” for HSBC and countered the argument of some prosecutors that such a death sentence “would not set off a series of devastating consequences.”
Geithner was crafty, so after having his staff argue, successfully, over the course of months, that DOJ should not indict HSBC because doing so would cause the financial skies to fall, he refused to put this in writing. Geithner knew he had won the fight and didn’t want to leave his fingerprints on the charter of freedom for felons – the “too big to prosecute” doctrine.
"The Justice Department asked Treasury for our view about the potential implications of prosecuting a large financial institution," David S. Cohen, the Treasury's under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in a statement. "We did not believe we were in a position to offer any meaningful assessment. The decision of how the Justice Department exercises its prosecutorial discretion is solely theirs and Treasury had no role."
I will do Protess and his colleague the honor of believing that they did not fall for this cynical, self-serving, and silly claim that “Treasury had no role” in the decision because Treasury lacks the competence to make “any meaningful assessment” of the impact of HSBC suffering a catastrophic failure. I will note two obvious categories of questions (neither of which the reporters appear to have asked). First, if Treasury is incapable of making “any meaningful assessment” of the risks that the failure of an SDI like HSBC pose to the global financial system – who is capable of making those assessments and did DOJ obtain their assessment? Second, why didn’t DOJ prosecute HSBC’s senior officers who led the massive frauds and became wealthy due to the frauds? Why did DOJ not even recover the wealth the senior officers gained by leading the second largest criminal enterprise in world history?
The December NYT story refutes Treasury’s claim that it had no involvement in the decision not to prosecute HSBC. It documents that they played a large role over an extended period. I was not “speculating” about Treasury’s involvement and their hostility to any prosecution of HSBC – I was citing facts I learned in part from the NYT.
The newest story by Protess in the NYT about Treasury’s convincing NPR to suppress my accurate criticisms of Geithner should prompt the NYT and NPR to review their coverage. NPR was conned by Treasury’s lawyers, who emphasized the formalistic truism that DOJ makes the formal decision whether to prosecute. I never said anything to the contrary that needed to be “clarified” or “retracted.” What I said, and was censored out of the broadcast at the instigation of Geithner’s aides, was not only accurate but far more important than the formalistic truism. I explained that Geithner’s views on the fragility of the SDIs led DOJ (or gave it the excuse) to make decisions that produced the disgraceful “too big to prosecute doctrine” that repudiates the rule of law and enshrines crony capitalism. I also explained to the NPR reporter that there was no legitimate rationale for not prosecuting HSBC’s senior officers who directed its criminal enterprises. I invite the NYT and NPR to explore these issues in interviews with me. They are important issues and the recent disclosure of documents from Geithner’s aides confirms the accuracy of my criticism and a sad chapter in Treasury’s successful efforts to censor its critics.
How Dare DOJ Insult HSBC’s Crooks as Less “Professional” than Liberty Reserve’s Crooks?
Thursday, 30 May 2013 10:02
Standard Chartered and HSBC’s leaders must be doubly humiliated by the description by Mythili Raman, the acting head of the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Criminal Division, of Liberty Reserve’s money laundering operation. UK laws are, of course, very congenial to those suing for libel and I am sure that these banking titans are meeting with their solicitors to demand a retraction and apology from Raman. In the very first clause of her May 28, 2013 statement to the media on the actions against Liberty Reserve’s controlling officers, Raman emphasized how “professional” they were as money launderers: “Today, we strike a severe blow against a professional money laundering enterprise charged with laundering over $6 billion in criminal proceeds.” In four paragraphs, she used the word “professional” three times and “sophisticated” once to describe Liberty Reserve’s money laundering.
In her second sentence she continued her emphasis on how large Liberty Reserve’s money laundering operations were. Raman claimed that DOJ’s action against Liberty Reserve was “the largest international money laundering prosecution in the history of the Department.” She described the scale of Liberty Reserve’s operations as “enormous” and a “massive criminal enterprise.” Paragraph 10 of the indictment labels the scope of operations as “staggering.”
http://www.justice.gov/criminal/pr/speeches/2013/crm-speech-130528.html
The indignant response of Standard Chartered and HSBC’s leaders to Raman has to be: “and what are we, chopped liver?” The government charged Standard Chartered was a massive money launderer that Iran used to escape sanctions designed to keep them from developing nuclear weapons,
[T]he New York State Department of
Financial Services [NYDFS] accused Standard Chartered of laundering $250
billion for the state of Iran and other Iran-based clients over a
10-year period which, the regulator said, "left the US financial system
vulnerable to terrorists, weapons dealers, drugs kingpins and corrupt
regimes, and deprived law enforcement investigators of crucial
information used to track all manner of criminal activity".
NYDFS found that Standard Chartered laundered funds for Iran for a
decade and made elaborate efforts to prevent regulators from learning of
their frauds. Like fish, Standard Chartered rotted from the head.
When an American officer objected to the bank’s frauds the response was
heated.
“Richard Meddings, Standard Chartered's
executive director, was quoted using expletives to disparage America's
insistence on an economic blockade of Iran. He told an official in the
bank's New York branch:. ‘You f***ing Americans. Who are you to tell us,
the rest of the world, that we're not going to deal with Iranians?’"
http://www.heraldscotland.com/business/company-news/banking-industry-must-rebuild-from-new-foundations.18556736I described in a prior article how HSBC hit the money launderer’s trifecta.
1. Laundered billions of dollars for some
of the most murderous drug gangs in the world. These gangs have
murdered many thousands of Mexicans and devastated much of the nation.
2. Aided Iranian entities to evade U.S.
financial sanctions on Iran. If Iran is actually developing a nuclear
weapon and if it uses such a weapon to attack it could kill tens of
thousands of people and HSBC and Standard Chartered will likely have
proven useful to Iran in developing the weapon..
3. Aided Hamas, Hezbollah, and al Qaeda to evade U.S. financial sanctions. The U.S. considers them terrorist organizations.
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2012/12/the-second-great-betrayal-obama-and-cameron-decide-that-banks-are-above-the-law.html
“In total, the bank’s U.S. and Mexican
units failed to monitor more than $670 billion in wire transfers and
more than $9.4 billion in purchases of U.S. dollars from HSBC Mexico
(BIBC), Breuer said.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-12/hsbc-mexican-branches-said-to-be-traffickers-favorites.html To sum it up, just one facet of Standard Chartered’s money laundering and one facet of HSBC’s money laundering operation were, respectively, over 40 and 100 times larger than Liberty Reserve’s “staggering” total money laundering for all purposes. The frauds came from the top and in the case of Standard Chartered the sincerity of the remorse at the top was promptly and publicly demonstrated.
“Peace, who told reporters at a March 5
press conference that the firm had no ‘willful’ intention to dodge U.S.
rules, said in a statement today that earlier claim was ‘wrong.’
Standard Chartered Plc Chairman John Peace said his original comment “directly contradicts
Standard Chartered’s acceptance of responsibility in the deferred prosecution agreement.”
Standard Chartered Plc Chairman John Peace said his original comment “directly contradicts
Standard Chartered’s acceptance of
responsibility in the deferred prosecution agreement.” Under the
settlement it reached with U.S. regulators last year, the bank entered
into a deferred prosecution agreement with the Department of Justice.
As part of that deal, the U.S. charged the bank with conspiring to
violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a charge that
will be dismissed after two years as long as the bank abides by the
agreement.
‘As part of these agreements, we
rigorously monitor the banks for continued compliance, and subsequently
addressed this violation by Standard Chartered
for not accepting responsibility for its misconduct,’ Joan Vollero, a
spokeswoman for the Manhattan District Attorney, said by e-mail. ‘We
demanded a public repudiation and they complied.’
Peace, 64, said his original comment
‘directly contradicts Standard Chartered’s acceptance of responsibility
in the deferred prosecution agreement.’ The firm ‘unequivocally
acknowledges and accepts responsibility, on behalf of the bank and its
employees, for past knowing and willful criminal conduct in violating
U.S. economic sanctions.’”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-21/standard-chartered-chairman-apologizes-for-sanctions-claim-1-.html What this all means is that two of the largest banks in the world, which reap massive explicit and implicit subsidies from the government, were criminal enterprises for at least a decade. Each engaged in violations that were vastly larger than Liberty Reserve. Liberty Reserve’s violations were huge, severe, and warranted the toughest possible prosecution – complete with freezing and forfeiting all of its accounts. The violations of the banks, by contrast, were massively larger, occurred over a longer period, led to vastly greater profits for the banks and the officers, and did vastly greater harm to the world including the loss of life and the potential mass loss of life in the future. DOJ refused to prosecute any of the officers for “knowing and willful criminal conduct.” Incredibly, it insisted on only a two-year period of DOJ leverage over Standard Chartered’s operations to ensure (short-term) compliance with the law. Standard Chartered promptly violated the agreement – and DOJ insisted they apologize.
The DOJ’s claim that Liberty Reserve’s leadership was “professional” and “sophisticated” is farcical. They were clowns. Their web site is illiterate (once one gets past the initial screen). Their invitations to join the many Ponzi schemes they pushed on their web pages are so unprofessional (though littered with the word “professional”) and unsophisticated that one cannot have any sympathy for anyone victimized by the Ponzis. Here’s an example of one of the pitches that is more literate in English (but financially illiterate):
“By far our most popular investment pays
investors a daily return of 900% daily [sic] for a period of 4 days for a
total return of 3600% with a minimum investment of only $50,000 USD!”
The word DOJ should have ascribed to the leaders of the Liberty
Reserve control fraud was “audacity” – not any variant of “professional”
or “sophisticated.” Audacity is the characteristic that separates the
most dangerous frauds from their peers.For their massive and highly profitable crimes, DOJ took no action against any officer of Standard Chartered or HSBC. It announced, instead, the shameful “too big to prosecute” doctrine that announced DOJ’s surrender to crony capitalism. Now, DOJ wishes to tout Liberty Reserve as the great triumph that proves that money laundering will never succeed. But Liberty Reserve’s criminal customers overwhelmingly succeeded. First, they succeeded because the initial sentence of five years imprisonment for the leaders of what would become Liberty Reserve for their crimes at their prior firm that specialized in money laundering was reduced to probation. The leaders immediately began their new fraudulent scheme. Criminal justice penalties for white-collar frauds are often absurdly low. Second, DOJ failed to act for years even though Raman emphasized that the co-founder of the Liberty Reserve control fraud noted that DOJ knew it was a control fraud.
“His co-founder doubled down on that
sentiment in an online chat captured by law enforcement, noting that
‘everyone’ in the United States, such as ‘DOJ,’ knows that Liberty
Reserve is a ‘money laundering operation that hackers use.’”
The obvious question for reporters to ask is when DOJ first knew that
Liberty Reserve was a money laundering operation. Given the criminal
records of its controlling officers, the public manner in which Liberty
Reserve operated, its structuring of every aspect of the firm’s
operations to assist money laundering, and the fact that the DOJ states
that the users of Liberty Reserve’s services were “virtually all”
criminals (including 200,000 in the U.S.) DOJ should have had ample
intelligence on Liberty Reserve’s criminal nature within weeks of when
it began operation in 2006. (See Indictment, paragraph 10.) The
government eventually had an investigator open Liberty Reserve accounts,
which confirmed the anonymity and lack of anti-money laundering
systems. The government could have done so at any time.We know from paragraph 10 of the indictment that once Liberty Reserve ramped up its operations (it began by “growing exponentially,” Indictment, paragraph 13), every year the DOJ delayed closing down Liberty Reserve an average of 12 million unlawful financial transactions occurred totaling $1.2 billion. We also know that during its over six years of operations Liberty Reserve conducted roughly 55 million (“virtually all” criminal) financial transactions totaling over $6 billion and that DOJ has asked the court to issue a forfeiture order for $6 billion.
Paragraph 19 of the Indictment contains this wonderfully revealing insight into DOJ’s willful blindness about Standard Chartered and HSBC’s vastly larger, longer lasting, and more damaging money laundering: “Liberty Reserve users … engaged in criminal transactions with an impunity that would have been impossible in the legitimate financial system.” Right, unless, of course, we consider Standard Chartered and HSBC. The DOJ shares the unintentional irony of the finance professors who recently authored a study that concluded that control fraud was “pervasive” at our “most reputable” banks during the run-up to the ongoing crisis.
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2013/02/pervasive-fraud-by-our-most-reputable-banks.html http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2215422
Paragraph 26 of the Indictment reveals that FinCEN sent out an alert on November 18, 2011 that Liberty Reserve was being used by criminals to launder funds.
Raman boasted at the press conference that DOJ and its international partners had succeeded in “restraining over $25 million in criminal proceeds.” That represents less than one-half of one percent of the money that was laundered. Raman claims that the greatly delayed prosecution of Liberty Reserve sent the message that law enforcement always triumphs over money laundering. The reality (revealed by DOJ’s own indictment) is that over a million criminals were able to launder over $6 billion in criminal proceeds through Liberty Reserve for over six years. Other criminals were able to launder far greater amounts through Standard Chartered and HSBC for over a decade. DOJ keeps calling massive defeats stirring victories.
The thing that is most troubling about Liberty Reserve is that it had no political power in the U.S. No one in power in the U.S. would have pushed back if DOJ had put Liberty Reserve out of business in 2006 or early 2007. The FBI, DEA, Secret Service, and Treasury would have learned about Liberty Reserve’s illegal operations almost immediately – they were too large, too open, and it was run by felons who were known money launderers. With a million money launderers using the site we must have had scores of informants who knew that Liberty Reserve was being used to launder proceeds and there must have been thousands of criminals arrested who had the incentive and ability to reduce their sentence by informing on Liberty Reserve. The fact that a money laundering operation as blatant and crude as Liberty Reserve’s (the web site screams “fraud”) with no political patrons in the U.S., and no concerns about “too big to prosecute” could stay in operation for over six years despite the government’s knowledge that it was engaged in massive money laundering and be allowed to “grow exponentially” and become “the bank of choice for the criminal underworld” (Indictment, paragraphs 13, 19) demonstrates how badly our criminal justice system has failed against control frauds.
We use the phrase “Pyrrhic victory” because of the candor of King Pyrrhus of Epirus. He won multiple victories over the Romans, already renowned for their military prowess, in southern Italy. When he was offered congratulations on these victories he replied that one more such victory would ruin his army. Pyrrhus’ victories were real. He inflicted greater losses on the Roman troops and he held the field after the battles. Pyrrhus demonstrated competence as a military leader and bravery in the field. Pyrrhus understood, however, that his lines of supply were long and that he could not replenish his lost men and experienced officers while the Romans could do so. The Justice Department has been losing the struggle against control frauds for well over a decade. Pyrrhus was competent and candid enough to proclaim that his tactical victories represented a strategic defeat. DOJ propagandists are now expert at claiming that abject defeats represent triumphs. In honor of the unintentional comic genius dubbed “Baghdad Bob” who announced Iraqi forces’ fictional triumphs over the U.S. army, we should honor the DOJ’s propagandists with the sobriquet: “Beltway Bob.”
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M40s
somehow came into the hands of rebels in Libya and Syria. Suddenly,
the 106mm - light, cheap, easily transportable, simple to operate, and
packing a punch all out of proportion to its modest size - has emerged
as a possible Great Asymmetric Weapon of the Day.
McCain crosses paths with rebel kidnapper:
U.S.
Senator John McCain was photographed with a known affiliate of the
rebel group responsible for the kidnapping of 11 Lebanese Shiite
pilgrims one year ago, during a brief and highly publicized visit
inside Syria this week.
FSA Merges with Jabhat al-Nusra in Aleppo: Video - :
Three
militant groups, Ahrar al-Sham, Jabhat al-Nusra and the Free Syrian
Army are seen represented by commanders, are seen announcing a merger.
Russia may revise ban on Syrian arms exports - Minister:
Russia
is disappointed with the EU move to end the ban on arms sales to the
Syrian opposition and may reconsider its own commitments to
restrictions on weapons deliveries to the war-torn country, Defense
Minister Sergei Shoigu said Wednesday.
Netanyahu indicated to Putin: 'We'll destroy your missiles if you deliver them to Assad':
Putin
reportedly guaranteed that Assad wouldn't transfer the S-300s to a
third party, such as Hezbollah, and that should Israel strike such an
arms convoy, Russia didn't believe Syria would retaliate. Despite this,
Netanyahu reportedly made clear that Israel was concerned over the
deal in and of itself.
Russia to Sell at Least 10 MiG Fighters to Syria:
Russia's
MiG aircraft maker said Friday it plans to sign a new agreement to
ship at least 10 fighter jets to Syria, a move that comes amid
international criticism of earlier Russian weapons deals with Syrian
President Bashar Assad's regime.
Syria's opposition won't attend international peace talks:
The best hope yet for ending Syria's civil war has suffered a serious setback
Syria's Bashar Assad says a peace pact would face a referendum:
Syrian
President Bashar Assad says voters would have the ultimate say on any
peace deal arising from talks sponsored by the U.S. and Russia.
U.N. investigators say most Syria rebels not seeking democracy:
Most
Syrian rebel fighters do not want democracy and the country's civil
war is producing ever worse atrocities and increasing radicalization,
independent U.N. investigators said on Tuesday.
Turkey returns fire after troops shot at from Syria:
The
troops returned fire after three to five gunmen shot between 15 and 20
rounds at the vehicle patrolling a stretch of the shared border in
Turkey's southern Hatay province on Wednesday
Turkey arrests 12 in raids on Syrian 'terrorist' organization planning chemical attack:
Turkish
newspapers had reported that 12 people from Syria's al Qaeda-linked
al-Nusra Front who allegedly had been planning an attack inside Turkey
and were in possession of 2 kg (4.5 pounds) of sarin, had been detained
in Adana.
Turkish police 'arrest 12 (Al-Nusra Front) terror suspects' in raids:
Adana provincial governor Huseyin Avni Cos did say that unknown chemicals had been found and were being investigated.
Syria's President Bashar al-Assad: We now have Russia's advanced S-300 anti-aircraft missiles:
The
announcement, reportedly made by president Bashar al-Assad to
Lebanon's Hezbollah-owned television station, will further ramp up
tensions in the region and could undermine efforts to hold UN peace
talks in the region.
Israeli defense chief indicates if Russia ships advanced missiles to Syria, they could be hit:
Israel's
defense chief said Tuesday a Russian plan to supply sophisticated
anti-aircraft missiles to Syria was a "threat" and signaled that Israel
is prepared to use force to stop the delivery.
Assad: Syria will strike back at any future Israeli attack:
President
Bashar Assad has said that Syria "will respond in kind" to any future
Israeli airstrike on its territory and expressed confidence in the
victory over the foes of the Syrian state, RIA Novosti reported.
Kerry: Russia's plans to send S-300 missiles to Assad put Israel at risk:
U.S.
Secretary of State and his German counterpart warn Russia against
sending Assad regime sophisticated air defense system, say this would
harm Syria peace efforts.
Iran cuts Hamas funding for failing to show support for Assad: Report:
Hamas
has denied that it is in financial crisis but says it faces liquidity
problems stemming from inconsistent revenues from tax collection in the
Gaza Strip and foreign aid.
Israel OK's 300 new illegal settler units:
Housing
Ministry spokesman Ariel Rosenberg said on Thursday that the new units
will be built in Ramot neighborhood, which lies in the territory
Israeli occupied in 1967.
Libya becomes 'the new Mali' as Islamists shift in Sahara:
Security
officials say lawless southern Libya has become the latest haven for
al Qaeda-linked fighters after French-led forces drove them from
strongholds in northern Mali this year, killing hundreds.
UN expert demands freeze on robot weapons:
The
international community must impose a moratorium on robot weapons, a
UN expert told the world body's top human rights forum Thursday,
warning that they could enable war crimes to go unpunished.
Retired Gen. David Petraeus Heads To Wall Street: :
Retired
Gen. David Petraeus is headed to Wall Street where he will join
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, a firm that invests globally in everything
from real estate to coffee to biotech.
Guantánamo Bay hunger strike worsens:
On
the eve of Obama's address, there were 103 prisoners on hunger strike,
with 31 being force-fed by military authorities and one in hospital.
Since then, not a single prisoner has stopped their strike, and now 36
of the detainees are being force-fed to keep them alive, with five of
them being hospitalised.
The Inside Story Of The Hunger Strike And Force-Feeding At Guantanamo:
The
international community, including the United Nations, unanimously
agree that the Conventions are being violated daily in Guantanamo."
Guantánamo Bay hunger strikers demand new doctors in letter of protest:
Force-fed detainees tell military doctors 'dual loyalties make trusting you impossible' and insist upon independent treatment
Guantanamo guard converts to Islam, demands release of detainees :
Terry
Holdbrooks was deployed to the Guantanamo Bay detention center to
guard detainees. The Phoenix, Ariz., resident has become a devout
Muslim and an unlikely advocate for the prisoners' rights.
Ecuador says UK violating WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's 'human rights':
"What
greater affront to human rights is there than to have a person unable
to leave an embassy, when the state concerned has granted him political
asylum?" Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa said in a radio interview.
Student Activist, Says She Was Violated During TSA Pat-Down (VIDEO)
A
27-year-old Ph.D. student says a TSA agent touched her vaginal area
during a pat-down at a California airport; however, a representative
told The Huffington Post the agents followed procedure.
Euro zone unemployment hits record high - again:
Eurostat
figures found that an additional 95,000 people lost their jobs -
bringing the total of unemployed Europeans to a painful 19.38 million,
on track to pass 20 million this year.
Germany fears revolution if Europe scraps welfare model: -
German
Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble warned on Tuesday that failure to
win the battle against youth unemployment could tear Europe apart, and
dropping the continent's welfare model in favor of tougher U.S.
standards would spark a revolution.
Wisconsin proposal would reduce benefits to unemployed:
Benefits
paid to unemployed people in Wisconsin would be more difficult to
receive, thereby saving the state $37 million over the next two years,
under an expansive Republican-backed plan approved Wednesday by the
Legislature's budget committee.
Richest 20 percent get half the overall savings from U.S. tax breaks, CBO says:
The
richest 1 percent of households, those with at least $327,000 in
annual income, get an especially big haul - about 17 percent of the
total savings, according to the report by the Congressional Budget
Office.
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