The phone hacking scandal that has ignited a political firestorm in Britain jumped the Atlantic on Thursday as the FBI opened an investigation into whether British reporters tried to access cellphone messages and records of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in violation of U.S. law.
The preliminary probe further rattled the New York-based global media empire of Rupert Murdoch, who was forced this week to withdraw his $12-billion bid to take over Britain's largest satellite broadcaster, and raises new questions about the future of News Corp.
The unfolding scandal sent the company's battered stock down (News Corporation NWSA.O) another 3% in trading. It has lost 17% since the crisis began.
The FBI's New York field office launched the investigation after several members of Congress urged an inquiry into British media reports that journalists at News Corp.'s recently closed News of the World tabloid in London had tried to gain access to phones of Sept. 11 victims and the families of those who died, according to federal law enforcement officials.
Felony convictions in a U.S. court could imperil the 27 federal licenses that News Corp. uses to operate TV stations across the country. The stations are part of the Fox Broadcasting Co. network.
Murdoch defended his company's handling of the widening controversy, saying executives had made only "minor mistakes."
Murdoch said he was "getting annoyed" with press coverage of the scandal, but said, "I'll get over it."
In a letter Wednesday to FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.), who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, had cited reports that News of the World journalists "attempted to obtain phone records of victims of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11th through bribery and unauthorized wiretapping."
King also cited reports that the reporters had solicited a New York police officer "to gain access to the content of private phone records" of the Sept. 11 victims.
Other members of the House and Senate from both parties called for congressional investigations, adding to the political cast of the scandal.
Possible taglines for this fiasco: a) News Corp above the law, b) Too big to care, c) News Corp’s planet, or d) News Corp listens.
Social Justice: Current Affairs, Business, Politics, and all the reasons in the world to Thrive on Creative Discontent!
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Friday, July 15, 2011
Bright blue flame
Working gas in storage was 2,611 Bcf as of Friday, July 8, 2011, according to EIA estimates. This represents a net increase of 84 Bcf from the previous week. Stocks were 218 Bcf less than last year at this time and 52 Bcf below the 5-year average of 2,663 Bcf. In the East Region, stocks were 116 Bcf below the 5-year average following net injections of 59 Bcf. Stocks in the Producing Region were 100 Bcf above the 5-year average of 901 Bcf after a net injection of 14 Bcf. Stocks in the West Region were 36 Bcf below the 5-year average after a net addition of 11 Bcf. At 2,611 Bcf, total working gas is within the 5-year historical range.
The stage is being set for a massive heat wave to develop into next week as a large area of high pressure is anticipated to circulate hot and humid air over much of the central and eastern U.S. Maximum heat index values of at least 100°F are likely across much of this area by the middle of next week, with heat index values in excess of 110°F possible over portions of these areas.
When it’s hot, air conditioning loads increase, power generation and transmission decrease which increase natural gas demand. If our blistering hot summer swings into a remarkably cold winter we could see a real rise in natural gas prices.
In addition, the EPA standards issued let 27 U.S. states from New York to Texas reduce power-plant emissions through trading in which companies exceeding limits can buy credits from those in other states that pollute less. The rules also may force as much as 47.8 gigawatts of electricity, or about 15 percent of coal’s U.S. production capacity to close.
So, short- and long-term natural gas seems to have a bright future. BHP seems to agree, along with Exxon, Shell, et al.
The stage is being set for a massive heat wave to develop into next week as a large area of high pressure is anticipated to circulate hot and humid air over much of the central and eastern U.S. Maximum heat index values of at least 100°F are likely across much of this area by the middle of next week, with heat index values in excess of 110°F possible over portions of these areas.
When it’s hot, air conditioning loads increase, power generation and transmission decrease which increase natural gas demand. If our blistering hot summer swings into a remarkably cold winter we could see a real rise in natural gas prices.
In addition, the EPA standards issued let 27 U.S. states from New York to Texas reduce power-plant emissions through trading in which companies exceeding limits can buy credits from those in other states that pollute less. The rules also may force as much as 47.8 gigawatts of electricity, or about 15 percent of coal’s U.S. production capacity to close.
So, short- and long-term natural gas seems to have a bright future. BHP seems to agree, along with Exxon, Shell, et al.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
One more thing we (USA) can be second at or second to last at....whatever
American Electric Power has decided to table plans to build a full-scale carbon-capture plant at Mountaineer, a 31-year-old coal-fired plant in West Virginia, where the company has successfully captured and buried carbon dioxide in a small pilot program for two years.
The technology had been heralded as the quickest solution to help the coal industry weather tougher federal limits on greenhouse gas emissions. But Congressional inaction on climate change diminished the incentives that had spurred A.E.P. to take the leap.
Company officials, who plan an announcement on Thursday, said they were dropping the larger, $668 million project because they did not believe state regulators would let the company recover its costs by charging customers, thus leaving it no compelling regulatory or business reason to continue the program.
“We are placing the project on hold until economic and policy conditions create a viable path forward,” said Michael G. Morris, chairman of American Electric Power, based in Columbus, Ohio, one of the largest operators of coal-fired generating plants in the United States. He said his company and other coal-burning utilities were caught in a quandary: they need to develop carbon-capture technology to meet any future greenhouse-gas emissions rules, but they cannot afford the projects without federal standards that will require them to act and will persuade the states to allow reimbursement.
The decision could set back for years efforts to learn how best to capture carbon emissions that result from burning fossil fuels and then inject them deep under-ground to keep them from accumulating in the atmosphere and heating the planet. The procedure, formally known as carbon capture and sequestration or C.C.S., offers the best current technology for taming greenhouse-gas emissions from traditional fuels burned at existing plants.
The abandonment of the A.E.P. plant comes in response to a string of reversals for federal climate change policy. President Obama spent his first year in office pushing a goal of an 80 percent reduction in climate-altering emissions by 2050, a target that could be met only with widespread adoption of carbon-capture and storage at coal plants around the country. The administration’s stimulus package provided billions of dollars to speed development of the technology; the climate change bill passed by the House in 2009 would have provided tens of billions of dollars in additional incentives for what industry calls “clean coal.”
But all such efforts collapsed last year with the Republican takeover of the House and the continuing softness in the economy, which killed any appetite for far-reaching environmental measures.
The West Virginia project was one of the most advanced and successful in the world. “While the coal industry’s commitment and ability to develop this technology on a large scale was always uncertain, the continued pollution from old-style, coal-fired power plants will certainly be damaging to the environment without the installation of carbon capture and other pollution control updates,” said Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, co-author of the House climate bill. “A.E.P., the American coal industry and the Republicans who blocked help for this technology have done our economy and energy workers a disservice by likely ceding the development of carbon-capture technology to countries like China.”
Public service commissions of both West Virginia and Virginia turned down the company’s request for full reimbursement for the pilot plant. West Virginia said earlier this year that the cost should have been shared among all the states where A.E.P. does business; Virginia hinted last July that it should have been paid for by all utilities around the United States, since a successful project would benefit all of them.
Robert H. Socolow, an engineering professor at Princeton and the co-director of the Carbon Mitigation Initiative there, said he was encouraged that some chemical factories and other industries were working on carbon capture without government incentives.
Mr. Socolow, the co-author of an influential 2004 paper that identified carbon capture as one of the critical technologies needed to slow global warming, said that there was a trap ahead. “Lull yourself into believing that there is no climate problem, or that there is lots of time to fix it, and the policy driver dissolves,” he said in an e-mail.
--------- So since I mention China …what do they have going on?
Some views from Changhua Wu, the Greater China Director of The Climate Group.
Amongst other demonstration efforts globally, would you rate China as fairly active and advanced on CCS?
China is undertaking intense RD&D projects specifically designed to test the technology and financial viability of CCS. There are four facilities with annual capture capacity of a million tonnes in plan, and one geological storage project in operation. The CCS demonstration projects are all newly built and the number exceeds those of other developing countries. Leading state-owned companies such as Huaneng Group, Shenhua Group and national oil and gas companies are all actively involved in CCS demonstration.
There have been reports that China plans to launch pilot emissions trading schemes in six provinces before 2013 and set up a nationwide trading platform by 2015. What are your views on this and how do you think those goals fit with broader CCS policy?
Regional emissions trading schemes already exist in China. Among 19 professional environment exchanges, four (Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and Shenzhen) provide a carbon emissions exchange service. Some local governments are also building regional carbon emissions exchange platforms. Considerable work still needs to be done on the methodology, standards and regulations to build a nationwide trading platform.
There is still uncertainty about how a national scheme might develop as the National Development and Reform Commission, who will regulate the carbon market, and the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, who administrates major state-owned companies, may have different attitudes towards how a scheme may operate.
In near term emissions trading will be demonstrated in specific regions and/or in specific sectors. It is difficult to estimate the timetable of implementing a nationwide emissions trading scheme.
Emissions trading in and/or across sectors may benefit CCS more than regional emissions trading by its influence on the major emitters. The emissions trading scheme provides emitters with one more option to reduce emissions. It could help to decrease the cost of CCS provided that CO2 avoided through CCS is valid for trading in the scheme.
The technology had been heralded as the quickest solution to help the coal industry weather tougher federal limits on greenhouse gas emissions. But Congressional inaction on climate change diminished the incentives that had spurred A.E.P. to take the leap.
Company officials, who plan an announcement on Thursday, said they were dropping the larger, $668 million project because they did not believe state regulators would let the company recover its costs by charging customers, thus leaving it no compelling regulatory or business reason to continue the program.
“We are placing the project on hold until economic and policy conditions create a viable path forward,” said Michael G. Morris, chairman of American Electric Power, based in Columbus, Ohio, one of the largest operators of coal-fired generating plants in the United States. He said his company and other coal-burning utilities were caught in a quandary: they need to develop carbon-capture technology to meet any future greenhouse-gas emissions rules, but they cannot afford the projects without federal standards that will require them to act and will persuade the states to allow reimbursement.
The decision could set back for years efforts to learn how best to capture carbon emissions that result from burning fossil fuels and then inject them deep under-ground to keep them from accumulating in the atmosphere and heating the planet. The procedure, formally known as carbon capture and sequestration or C.C.S., offers the best current technology for taming greenhouse-gas emissions from traditional fuels burned at existing plants.
The abandonment of the A.E.P. plant comes in response to a string of reversals for federal climate change policy. President Obama spent his first year in office pushing a goal of an 80 percent reduction in climate-altering emissions by 2050, a target that could be met only with widespread adoption of carbon-capture and storage at coal plants around the country. The administration’s stimulus package provided billions of dollars to speed development of the technology; the climate change bill passed by the House in 2009 would have provided tens of billions of dollars in additional incentives for what industry calls “clean coal.”
But all such efforts collapsed last year with the Republican takeover of the House and the continuing softness in the economy, which killed any appetite for far-reaching environmental measures.
The West Virginia project was one of the most advanced and successful in the world. “While the coal industry’s commitment and ability to develop this technology on a large scale was always uncertain, the continued pollution from old-style, coal-fired power plants will certainly be damaging to the environment without the installation of carbon capture and other pollution control updates,” said Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, co-author of the House climate bill. “A.E.P., the American coal industry and the Republicans who blocked help for this technology have done our economy and energy workers a disservice by likely ceding the development of carbon-capture technology to countries like China.”
Public service commissions of both West Virginia and Virginia turned down the company’s request for full reimbursement for the pilot plant. West Virginia said earlier this year that the cost should have been shared among all the states where A.E.P. does business; Virginia hinted last July that it should have been paid for by all utilities around the United States, since a successful project would benefit all of them.
Robert H. Socolow, an engineering professor at Princeton and the co-director of the Carbon Mitigation Initiative there, said he was encouraged that some chemical factories and other industries were working on carbon capture without government incentives.
Mr. Socolow, the co-author of an influential 2004 paper that identified carbon capture as one of the critical technologies needed to slow global warming, said that there was a trap ahead. “Lull yourself into believing that there is no climate problem, or that there is lots of time to fix it, and the policy driver dissolves,” he said in an e-mail.
--------- So since I mention China …what do they have going on?
Some views from Changhua Wu, the Greater China Director of The Climate Group.
Amongst other demonstration efforts globally, would you rate China as fairly active and advanced on CCS?
China is undertaking intense RD&D projects specifically designed to test the technology and financial viability of CCS. There are four facilities with annual capture capacity of a million tonnes in plan, and one geological storage project in operation. The CCS demonstration projects are all newly built and the number exceeds those of other developing countries. Leading state-owned companies such as Huaneng Group, Shenhua Group and national oil and gas companies are all actively involved in CCS demonstration.
There have been reports that China plans to launch pilot emissions trading schemes in six provinces before 2013 and set up a nationwide trading platform by 2015. What are your views on this and how do you think those goals fit with broader CCS policy?
Regional emissions trading schemes already exist in China. Among 19 professional environment exchanges, four (Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and Shenzhen) provide a carbon emissions exchange service. Some local governments are also building regional carbon emissions exchange platforms. Considerable work still needs to be done on the methodology, standards and regulations to build a nationwide trading platform.
There is still uncertainty about how a national scheme might develop as the National Development and Reform Commission, who will regulate the carbon market, and the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, who administrates major state-owned companies, may have different attitudes towards how a scheme may operate.
In near term emissions trading will be demonstrated in specific regions and/or in specific sectors. It is difficult to estimate the timetable of implementing a nationwide emissions trading scheme.
Emissions trading in and/or across sectors may benefit CCS more than regional emissions trading by its influence on the major emitters. The emissions trading scheme provides emitters with one more option to reduce emissions. It could help to decrease the cost of CCS provided that CO2 avoided through CCS is valid for trading in the scheme.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Tic, Tic, Tic…that’s the sound of your world as you know it running out.
Credit rating agencies moved closer to an unprecedented downgrade of the U.S. government's debt amid deteriorating talks in Washington, with President Barack Obama abruptly walking out of a key meeting Wednesday with Republicans seeking a deal to raise the federal borrowing limit.
Moody's Investors Service said it was reviewing the government's top Aaa bond rating for a possible downgrade, citing the "rising possibility" that the government's $14.29 trillion borrowing limit won't be raised soon enough to prevent the U.S. from running out of money to pay its bills.
The U.S., rated Aaa since 1917, was put on review for the first time since 1995 on concern the debt threshold will not be raised in time to prevent a missed payment of interest or principal on outstanding bonds and notes even though the risk remains low, Moody’s said in a statement yesterday. The rating would likely be reduced to the Aa range and there is no assurance that Moody’s would return its top rating even if a default is quickly cured.
“It’s obviously very serious in so many different ways,” said James Caron, head of U.S. interest-rate strategy at Morgan Stanley in New York, one of 20 primary dealers that trade bonds with the Federal Reserve. “Most people still believe there will be some type of an agreement struck to avoid all this stuff, and that’s what the market’s banking on.”
The Aaa ratings of financial institutions directly linked to the U.S. government, including Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Federal Home Loan Banks, and the Federal Farm Credit Banks, were also put on review for cuts, Moody’s said. It also placed 7,000 municipal ratings on review for possible downgrade.
“What we’re looking for is a raising of the limit. It doesn’t matter the process that they get there,” Steven Hess, the senior credit officer at Moody’s in New York, said in a telephone interview.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell proposed a “last choice option” on July 12 that effectively would grant Obama power to raise the debt limit in installments. McConnell’s plan would let the president raise the limit in three stages unless Congress disapproves by a two-thirds majority, while Obama would also be required to propose offsetting spending cuts. The spending reductions would be advisory, and the debt-ceiling increase would occur regardless of whether lawmakers enact the cuts.
S&P would lower its sovereign top-level AAA ranking to D, the last rung on its scale, if the U.S. can’t make its payments because of a failure to raise the debt ceiling, John Chambers, chairman of the sovereign rating committee, said June 30.
Mr. President it is in the darkest hours that you were voted into office to lead. Senator McConnell has given you the path to provide the leadership necessary for an unruly Congress. President’s Reagan, Clinton and Kennedy would not have blinked an eye. The course is clear.
Moody's Investors Service said it was reviewing the government's top Aaa bond rating for a possible downgrade, citing the "rising possibility" that the government's $14.29 trillion borrowing limit won't be raised soon enough to prevent the U.S. from running out of money to pay its bills.
The U.S., rated Aaa since 1917, was put on review for the first time since 1995 on concern the debt threshold will not be raised in time to prevent a missed payment of interest or principal on outstanding bonds and notes even though the risk remains low, Moody’s said in a statement yesterday. The rating would likely be reduced to the Aa range and there is no assurance that Moody’s would return its top rating even if a default is quickly cured.
“It’s obviously very serious in so many different ways,” said James Caron, head of U.S. interest-rate strategy at Morgan Stanley in New York, one of 20 primary dealers that trade bonds with the Federal Reserve. “Most people still believe there will be some type of an agreement struck to avoid all this stuff, and that’s what the market’s banking on.”
The Aaa ratings of financial institutions directly linked to the U.S. government, including Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Federal Home Loan Banks, and the Federal Farm Credit Banks, were also put on review for cuts, Moody’s said. It also placed 7,000 municipal ratings on review for possible downgrade.
“What we’re looking for is a raising of the limit. It doesn’t matter the process that they get there,” Steven Hess, the senior credit officer at Moody’s in New York, said in a telephone interview.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell proposed a “last choice option” on July 12 that effectively would grant Obama power to raise the debt limit in installments. McConnell’s plan would let the president raise the limit in three stages unless Congress disapproves by a two-thirds majority, while Obama would also be required to propose offsetting spending cuts. The spending reductions would be advisory, and the debt-ceiling increase would occur regardless of whether lawmakers enact the cuts.
S&P would lower its sovereign top-level AAA ranking to D, the last rung on its scale, if the U.S. can’t make its payments because of a failure to raise the debt ceiling, John Chambers, chairman of the sovereign rating committee, said June 30.
Mr. President it is in the darkest hours that you were voted into office to lead. Senator McConnell has given you the path to provide the leadership necessary for an unruly Congress. President’s Reagan, Clinton and Kennedy would not have blinked an eye. The course is clear.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Euro & Dollar Race to the Bottom....while China grows at 9.4%
One can only be entertained by the economies in the West!!! Because we certainly can't be taught anything -- except about mismanagement.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke takes his push for long-term deficit cuts to Congress today as a fiscal-policy deadlock threatens to reverse the decline in borrowing costs he gained through record stimulus.
Should Congress fail to avert a U.S. debt default by Aug. 2, the 10-year Treasury note’s yield, now 2.88 percent, would rise 0.5 percentage point within a month, said Priya Misra, head of U.S. rates strategy at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Stocks and the dollar may tumble and the 10-year yield would rise to nearly 9 percent during the next decade, former Fed Governor Laurence Meyer said.
“We’re flirting with catastrophe,” said Meyer, senior managing director and co-founder of Macroeconomic Advisers LLC. “Bernanke is going to emphasize that. Irresponsible fiscal policy is a threat to the economy and makes Bernanke’s job more difficult.”
A rise in unemployment last month to 9.2 percent has increased pressure on Bernanke to consider spurring growth with a third round of bond buying, said Allen Sinai, chief global economist for Decision Economics Inc. Yet with the Fed’s balance sheet already at a record $2.87 trillion, Bernanke’s immediate goal will probably be to safeguard the economy’s gains by warning lawmakers about the damage from a default, Sinai said.
Bernanke is scheduled at 10 a.m. to begin two days of testimony in Washington on monetary policy and the outlook for the economy with a visit to the House Financial Services Committee. He appears before the Senate Banking Committee tomorrow at the same time.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke takes his push for long-term deficit cuts to Congress today as a fiscal-policy deadlock threatens to reverse the decline in borrowing costs he gained through record stimulus.
Should Congress fail to avert a U.S. debt default by Aug. 2, the 10-year Treasury note’s yield, now 2.88 percent, would rise 0.5 percentage point within a month, said Priya Misra, head of U.S. rates strategy at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Stocks and the dollar may tumble and the 10-year yield would rise to nearly 9 percent during the next decade, former Fed Governor Laurence Meyer said.
“We’re flirting with catastrophe,” said Meyer, senior managing director and co-founder of Macroeconomic Advisers LLC. “Bernanke is going to emphasize that. Irresponsible fiscal policy is a threat to the economy and makes Bernanke’s job more difficult.”
A rise in unemployment last month to 9.2 percent has increased pressure on Bernanke to consider spurring growth with a third round of bond buying, said Allen Sinai, chief global economist for Decision Economics Inc. Yet with the Fed’s balance sheet already at a record $2.87 trillion, Bernanke’s immediate goal will probably be to safeguard the economy’s gains by warning lawmakers about the damage from a default, Sinai said.
Bernanke is scheduled at 10 a.m. to begin two days of testimony in Washington on monetary policy and the outlook for the economy with a visit to the House Financial Services Committee. He appears before the Senate Banking Committee tomorrow at the same time.
Monday, July 11, 2011
Never o Borrower be....
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said on Thursday that the Constitution may trump the debt ceiling, allowing the administration a way out of the default impasse.
Negotiators are considering gutting the social safety net in exchange for a vote to lift the debt ceiling. Grassley, in a conference call with local reporters, said that there may be another way out.
"The 14th Amendment includes a public debt clause that insists the obligations of the government 'shall not be questioned.'"
"So people are looking at the fact that maybe the debt ceiling bill that Congress presumably has to pass for the government to borrow more maybe is contrary to that constitutional provision, and that the administration may take out [loans] on their own -- just to borrow money," he said.
Grassley said that he was personally supportive of the debt ceiling, because it focuses attention on spending, but that if its existence was unconstitutional, there was nothing he or his colleagues could do. "I think it's a discipline that Congress uses effectively from time to time, maybe not to cut down on the amount of spending but to have a refresher course," he said. "It's a good discipline, so it bothers me if the Constitution provision would trump it, but that would be up to the courts to say. But who's going to argue against the Constitution? It's the basis of our government; it's the law of our land, and everybody has to abide by it."
"The Constitution trumps the law, obviously," he said.
Seems logical that the supreme world power would also know how to manage its budget and not send the world into an economic tailspin by defaulting – but then again it is the US Congress that is involved….
Negotiators are considering gutting the social safety net in exchange for a vote to lift the debt ceiling. Grassley, in a conference call with local reporters, said that there may be another way out.
"The 14th Amendment includes a public debt clause that insists the obligations of the government 'shall not be questioned.'"
"So people are looking at the fact that maybe the debt ceiling bill that Congress presumably has to pass for the government to borrow more maybe is contrary to that constitutional provision, and that the administration may take out [loans] on their own -- just to borrow money," he said.
Grassley said that he was personally supportive of the debt ceiling, because it focuses attention on spending, but that if its existence was unconstitutional, there was nothing he or his colleagues could do. "I think it's a discipline that Congress uses effectively from time to time, maybe not to cut down on the amount of spending but to have a refresher course," he said. "It's a good discipline, so it bothers me if the Constitution provision would trump it, but that would be up to the courts to say. But who's going to argue against the Constitution? It's the basis of our government; it's the law of our land, and everybody has to abide by it."
"The Constitution trumps the law, obviously," he said.
Seems logical that the supreme world power would also know how to manage its budget and not send the world into an economic tailspin by defaulting – but then again it is the US Congress that is involved….
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Body of Lies
Dec 22 2008 (Reuters) - Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), the world's largest sovereign wealth fund, said it had no direct investments in a firm managed by Bernard Madoff, a newspaper reported on Monday.
ADIA was denying a New York Times report which said the fund had "entrusted some $400 million" in a firm of the U.S. fund manager accused of running a $50 billion fraud.
ADIA said it had invested $132 million three years ago in a fund that had partial investment in Madoff's Investment Securities, which could have suffered some losses, al-Ittihad newspaper reported.
"ADIA affirmed that is has not invested directly in Investment Securities," the Arabic-language daily reported.
Madoff, who U.S. authorities say confessed to running a $50 billion fraud, was put under 24-hour detention in his apartment on Friday.
Madoff also agreed to the extension of court orders freezing his assets and the appointment of a receiver for his firm as investigators pored over masses of documents and conducted interviews into an alleged scam that has caused losses for charities and businesses around the world.
Madoff feeder fund liquidators sue ADIA for $300 million over redemptions
Apr 7, 2011 The National
Lawyers overseeing the liquidation of one of Bernard Madoff's so-called "feeder funds" have filed suit against the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), seeking to recover US$300 million (Dh1.1 billion) allegedly redeemed more than five years ago.
The suit is one of more than 200 cases filed by lawyers overseeing the liquidation of Fairfield Sentry, a fund that solicited investments across the globe that were then pumped into Madoff's Ponzi scheme.
Fairfield Sentry's liquidators are seeking money they allege ADIA withdrew in 2005 and 2006, plus interest and court expenses.
Several investors from the region, including some from Bahrain and the UAE, have been singled out in cases involving Madoff's scheme as a result of investments they made and exited years ago - well before the scheme was exposed.
Madoff's Ponzi scheme imploded in December 2008 and the disgraced financier is now serving a 150-year sentence.
The suits, filed by the feeder fund and a group of lawyers overseeing its liquidation, are part of a complex chain of cases originating with Madoff's bankruptcy proceedings.
So-called clawback suits against investors who left Madoff's scheme before its collapse have become a controversial part of legal proceedings aimed at compensating victims who kept their money with Madoff until the end and lost billions of dollars.
Irving Picard, the trustee in Madoff's main bankruptcy case, has filed his own set of clawback suits against the feeder funds, including a $3.2bn claim against Fairfield Sentry.
---------------------------------------------------------------BoL----------------------------------------------
FOUR months ago (March 2011) some prominent citizens of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) addressed a petition to the country’s ruler, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan. Couched in elaborate terms of courtesy, it noted that the UAE’s constitution calls for progress towards “a complete system of representative democracy”. Perhaps, they suggested, his highness might consider turning the Federal National Council (FNC), a legislative body with limited powers that is half appointed and half chosen by a select college of voters, into a real parliament elected by universal suffrage.
The government has shown no sign of changing the FNC’s toothless mandate to “discuss” legislation into anything like lawmaking. More to the point, several of the 133 original petitioners complain of receiving anonymous death threats. Five of them, including well-known bloggers and a distinguished economics lecturer, have languished in jail since being arrested in early April. Charged with threatening national security and insulting the UAE’s rulers, they may face five years behind bars. A crowd of government supporters mobbed a preliminary court hearing in mid-June to heckle them as “traitors” and “Iranian agents”, in what looked like a staged echo of similar taunts from loyalist commentators in the local press.
Many are perplexed by what appears to be a mounting campaign against even mild dissent. Consider, for instance, the fate of two of the country’s oldest civil-society institutions, the teachers’ and lawyers’ associations. On April 6th they issued a joint statement appealing for greater democracy. Within a month the government had dissolved both organisations’ elected boards and replaced them with state appointees. In June the Gulf Research Centre, a respected privately funded think-tank that has been based for more than a decade in Dubai, one of the UAE’s seven statelets, regretfully announced it was closing its offices owing to the government’s unexplained failure to renew an operating licence. Other academic and research bodies complain of increasingly intrusive government scrutiny, particularly of any activity related to political reform.
A recent report by the New York Times on an effort by Sheikh Muhammad bin Zayed, Abu Dhabi’s crown prince and the brother of its ruler, to create a crack battalion made up of foreign mercenaries has worried the reformers even more. An 800-man contingent is apparently to be trained in, among other things, crowd-control tactics against unarmed civilians.
The UAE sent some 500 police to bolster Bahrain’s Sunni ruling family in a bloody surpression of unarmed civilians.
Dubai’s success also brought cachet to its model of freewheeling economics and an open society. This has spurred many of the emirates’ royals to take a harder political line and to heed the criticism, long whispered in Abu Dhabi, that Dubai’s openness, particularly to a huge influx of foreign workers, endangers its status quo.
Yet the openness was also to ideas, including political ones. In the longer run, a lack of those may prove to be the bigger threat.
ADIA was denying a New York Times report which said the fund had "entrusted some $400 million" in a firm of the U.S. fund manager accused of running a $50 billion fraud.
ADIA said it had invested $132 million three years ago in a fund that had partial investment in Madoff's Investment Securities, which could have suffered some losses, al-Ittihad newspaper reported.
"ADIA affirmed that is has not invested directly in Investment Securities," the Arabic-language daily reported.
Madoff, who U.S. authorities say confessed to running a $50 billion fraud, was put under 24-hour detention in his apartment on Friday.
Madoff also agreed to the extension of court orders freezing his assets and the appointment of a receiver for his firm as investigators pored over masses of documents and conducted interviews into an alleged scam that has caused losses for charities and businesses around the world.
Madoff feeder fund liquidators sue ADIA for $300 million over redemptions
Apr 7, 2011 The National
Lawyers overseeing the liquidation of one of Bernard Madoff's so-called "feeder funds" have filed suit against the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), seeking to recover US$300 million (Dh1.1 billion) allegedly redeemed more than five years ago.
The suit is one of more than 200 cases filed by lawyers overseeing the liquidation of Fairfield Sentry, a fund that solicited investments across the globe that were then pumped into Madoff's Ponzi scheme.
Fairfield Sentry's liquidators are seeking money they allege ADIA withdrew in 2005 and 2006, plus interest and court expenses.
Several investors from the region, including some from Bahrain and the UAE, have been singled out in cases involving Madoff's scheme as a result of investments they made and exited years ago - well before the scheme was exposed.
Madoff's Ponzi scheme imploded in December 2008 and the disgraced financier is now serving a 150-year sentence.
The suits, filed by the feeder fund and a group of lawyers overseeing its liquidation, are part of a complex chain of cases originating with Madoff's bankruptcy proceedings.
So-called clawback suits against investors who left Madoff's scheme before its collapse have become a controversial part of legal proceedings aimed at compensating victims who kept their money with Madoff until the end and lost billions of dollars.
Irving Picard, the trustee in Madoff's main bankruptcy case, has filed his own set of clawback suits against the feeder funds, including a $3.2bn claim against Fairfield Sentry.
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FOUR months ago (March 2011) some prominent citizens of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) addressed a petition to the country’s ruler, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan. Couched in elaborate terms of courtesy, it noted that the UAE’s constitution calls for progress towards “a complete system of representative democracy”. Perhaps, they suggested, his highness might consider turning the Federal National Council (FNC), a legislative body with limited powers that is half appointed and half chosen by a select college of voters, into a real parliament elected by universal suffrage.
The government has shown no sign of changing the FNC’s toothless mandate to “discuss” legislation into anything like lawmaking. More to the point, several of the 133 original petitioners complain of receiving anonymous death threats. Five of them, including well-known bloggers and a distinguished economics lecturer, have languished in jail since being arrested in early April. Charged with threatening national security and insulting the UAE’s rulers, they may face five years behind bars. A crowd of government supporters mobbed a preliminary court hearing in mid-June to heckle them as “traitors” and “Iranian agents”, in what looked like a staged echo of similar taunts from loyalist commentators in the local press.
Many are perplexed by what appears to be a mounting campaign against even mild dissent. Consider, for instance, the fate of two of the country’s oldest civil-society institutions, the teachers’ and lawyers’ associations. On April 6th they issued a joint statement appealing for greater democracy. Within a month the government had dissolved both organisations’ elected boards and replaced them with state appointees. In June the Gulf Research Centre, a respected privately funded think-tank that has been based for more than a decade in Dubai, one of the UAE’s seven statelets, regretfully announced it was closing its offices owing to the government’s unexplained failure to renew an operating licence. Other academic and research bodies complain of increasingly intrusive government scrutiny, particularly of any activity related to political reform.
A recent report by the New York Times on an effort by Sheikh Muhammad bin Zayed, Abu Dhabi’s crown prince and the brother of its ruler, to create a crack battalion made up of foreign mercenaries has worried the reformers even more. An 800-man contingent is apparently to be trained in, among other things, crowd-control tactics against unarmed civilians.
The UAE sent some 500 police to bolster Bahrain’s Sunni ruling family in a bloody surpression of unarmed civilians.
Dubai’s success also brought cachet to its model of freewheeling economics and an open society. This has spurred many of the emirates’ royals to take a harder political line and to heed the criticism, long whispered in Abu Dhabi, that Dubai’s openness, particularly to a huge influx of foreign workers, endangers its status quo.
Yet the openness was also to ideas, including political ones. In the longer run, a lack of those may prove to be the bigger threat.
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