Bank Robbers don't needs masks and guns

As the few remaining Chinooks available for training RAF crew have been reduced to royal taxis it is worth briefly considering how strapped the MOD has been for cash ...

Throwing money at helicopters

In 1995 the UK MOD ordered 8 Chinook HC3 helicopters from Boeing, especially equipped for Special Services (SAS / SBS) SAS and Special Boat Service, with satellite communications technology, extra fuel tanks and in-flight refuelling probes for long flights at a cost of £260 (£32.5Mn each).

As a cost saving measure the MInistry decided not to have them equipped with a fully digital display.

Since they were delivered in 2001 they ahve sat in a warehouse in St. Asaph, North wales. "Because" as Edward Leigh Chairman of the Public Accouts Committee explained , "of a massively botched job, they cannot be flown when there is a cloud in the sky. The MoD might as well have bought eight turkeys.''

Viz … Select Committee on Public Accounts Minutes of Evidence 25 OCTOBER 2004 -

Q133 Chairman: Thank you very much. But the fact remains, Air Vice Marshal, that for safety reasons you cannot fly this helicopter when it is cloudy; is that correct?
Air Vice Marshal Luker: That is also correct.

Des Browne the part time Minister of Defence announced last year (2007) that the MOD had at last found (or squeezed from the Treasury AKA Gordon Brown) £60-70 Mn to retrofit the machines which might see action in late 2009. In fact he is so delighted to have found the money he has announced it three times.

Throwing money out of helicopters

Now today the Bank of England has been rummaging in the drawers and found £50 Bn. (at least) because ... " banks have on their balance sheets an ‘overhang’ of these assets, which they cannot sell or pledge as security to raise funds. " ... these assets which they cannot sell or
pledge are mysteriously also " high quality mortgage-backed and other securities" (elsewhere
in the statement described as " illiquid assets ") which the BOE are going to swap for UK Treasury Bills.

The fundamental pinciple of preparing financial accounts in the UK is that they present a "true and fair view " (The US GAAP standard is "present fairly"). If the mortgage backed securities held by these banks cannot be traded or cannot be accepted as a pledge they have no value.

The Bank of England in accepting them as security (even with a "haircut" , the bankers quaint description of a discount) is accepting what no-one else will. They are doing it on behalf of the issuers of the bonds which they are swapping them for - the UK Treasury.

1.The banks have shown they can produce fraudulent balance sheets (Northern Rock - on which the Directors colluded to offer dividends in a criminal conspiracy. Ther is every reason to believe that other balance sheets have not similarly included such dishonest valuations of MBS and SIV's derived from them - which have boosted profits, dividends and bonuses. The Big "5" UK banks declared proffits of £37 Billion last year.

2. It has just been shown that in calculating LIBOR, the figures have been manipulated, altered, adjusted, fudged , deliberately to conceal the unwillingness of lenders / borrowers to undertake normal business - because, simply they cannot trust each other as they know the mutual and agreed frauds they have all jointly and severally committed.

3. The parties to these common frauds are still in place , the taxpayer through the BOE / Treasury are now willing to find £50Bn now and as far as can be ascertained unlimited funds in the future - which is at least of 3 years duration. ("Usage of the scheme will depend on market conditions. Discussions with banks suggest that use of the scheme is initially likely to be around £50bn. )

That the Treasury, which could not find £60 Mn for absolutely essential work on Chinooks for over 5 years could find £57 Bn (at the lasta ccounting ) for Northern Rock alone and now £50Bn is a fraud of immense proportions.

Literally worthless bits of paper are being offered by the same crooks that got us into this hole and accepted by the fools and incompetents in the Treasury / BOE and FSI who sat and watched it happen.

Finally today the 2 appealing Royal funsters have been meeting the victims of the ill judged, badly trained and badly supplied forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. They will shortly be sponsoring a fun charity event to raise money for a swimming pool to aid their recovery - many as a result forecast here Friday, January 27, 2006 Reid sends ill equipped troops to certain deaths in S Afghanistan

Regardless of the futilityor the illegality of any actions UK trooops may be involved in, we have, as a society a moral responsibility to equip and train our troops in the best way possible.

Instead we have been saving candle ends, de-pauperating the poorest with ill designed and heartless tax demands. Why ? So we can throw our money at the bankers.

21.04.08 BOE News Release Special Liquidity Scheme
21.04.08 BOE Special Liquidity Scheme: Information (22k) PDF
21.04.08 BOE Special Liquidity Scheme: Market Notice (31k) PDF

RBOS's CEO Fred Goodwin , 49 (£8Mn plus a year) issues his accounts for 2007 on Wednesday - Churchill and Direct Line are on the block £4-6Bn write offs are due to be disclosed, and a £10 Bn cash call on shareholders is expected, plus a savage cut in the divvy. The wunderkind's days are over.

Barclays is next ... do you want to lend them any money ?

PS to put £50Bn into perspective - Exxon Mobil last year posted the largest annual profit by a U.S. company -- $40.6 billion. = £20.3 Bn.

The Scary Story Behind the Putin Sex Scandal

Radar online provides an alternative explanation of the story set running about Putin marrying his mistress Alina Kabaeva in Moskovsky Korrespondent which is owned by Putin foe billionaire oligarch Alexander Lebedev (ranked the 194th richest person in the world by Forbes).He also owns a third of Aeroflot, and is part owner of Novaya Gazeta , a constant source of criticism of Putin whose journalist Anna Politkovskaya was murdered, allegedly by state officials.

Now along with fellow dwarf Berlusconi, Putin denies every word of the allegations "There is not a single word of truth... In other publications of the same type, the names of other successful, beautiful young women from Russia are mentioned. I think it won't be unexpected if I say that I like them all—just as I like all Russian women." Pausing to reflect for a moment, Putin added, "Kazan girls really knock me out. They leave the West behind. And Moscow girls make me sing and shout. That Izhevsk's always on my mind."

However if you are looking for fun, and flexibility ...

Facebook - a new form of persuasion...in the hands of PC Plod ?

Coincident with noting that the Greater Manchester Police have introduced their own Facebook Application..Saturday, April 19, 2008 Sign up to Plod's Face Book the BBC have published this fascinating article .

Learning what makes Facebook tick
By Maggie Shiels Technology reporter, BBC News, in San Francisco

A group of students at Stanford University in the heart of Silicon Valley have turned their attention towards a unique course that blends popular culture with the more time-worn principles of psychology.

The Psychology of Facebook is the brainchild of Professor B J Fogg, a pioneering persuasion psychologist who founded the Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford.

He says: "When Facebook came along I was one of the developers at the launch and what struck me was how there was this new form of persuasion. This mass interpersonal persuasion."

Professor Fogg says the pivotal moment came when he watched an application on the site go from "literally zero to more than a million users in a week".

He recalls that it was to do with music sharing and buying tickets and that that was when he had his "oh my gosh moment". It was quickly followed by a light bulb moment.

Straightforward tools

While luck might have played its part in turning Facebook into a major force in social networking, the entrepreneurs attending this course are looking for straightforward tools to help their businesses hit the jackpot. Read on

Talk of persuasion and jackpots does make one stop and wonder what GMP's goal or ..er..jackpot is.

Jacqui Smith stamps on Citizen's Rights...

Spy Blog's authoritative comments in October on today's rather belated revelations by the Daily Telegraph about Jacqui Smith having signed an Exemption Certificate under Section 29 of the Data Protection Act render further comment superfluous.

New anti-terrorism rules 'allow US to spy on British motorists'
By Toby Helm and Christopher Hope

Briefly, many people have now become aware of an Exemption Certificate obtained by the Home Secretary allowing real time data from the London Congestion Zone Automatic Number Plate Recognition systems for use "in real time" by the Metropolitan Police claiming the need for "national security" but also the ability to export such images (including passenger / driver images) to overseas law enfrorcement - who will remove such images in 5 years.

Spy Blog dealt with this in October at considerable length and in detail - pointing to the on-line copies of all the appropriate documents incuding the Certificate of Exemption which it is interesting to note was not actually signed by Jacqui Smith On July 4th .....
Is the Home Secretary too tired ? idle ? unconcerned ? about signing away the Citizen's Rights leaving it to Paul Wylie (who He? .Ed ) to absorb the burden of witness to this shameful departure from Parliamentary oversight. (He was at one time Private Secretary to John Reid)

Spyblog also point to the document prepared by Bircham Dyson Bell LLP , Solicitors and Parliamentary agents which provides a spurious case for the release of such data. Spy Blog also points out that an extension of such an exemption to the London Low Emission Zone is only a matter of time. ... and no doubt other areas covered by ANPR cameras.

Areas such as the North Wales coast which must have frequently caught the Black Range Rover of Chief Constable Michael Todd as he travelled from Manchester to park outside the cottage of the leader of the Llanberis Mountain Rescue Team to proceed alone up Snowdon in the worst gale for 10 years, without ice pick, crampons, having notified anyone of his departure , route, expected time and place of return, to meet his nemesis.

Statewatch aso deserve an honourable mention for having identified this Certificate and Exemption case in their On Line Statewatch News Online on August 29th 2007 - a subscription , readily obtained, is essential to help understand how the Secret State is spreading.

The price of Liberty is eternal vigilance. However even with the alertness of Spyblog and Statewatch and many, many blogistes we can only record history. The move to a controlled, monitored state is well on it's way, from fingerprinting schoolchildren to erecting the biggest DNA database of any nation. Should just point out that CCTV doesn't work on buses that are due to be blown up - especially on the 30 Hackney Wick to Marble Arch bus, the only one to be re-directed on 7/7 .. whose bus driver ,George Psaradakis walked all the way home - 7 miles ....who never saw Hussein get on the bus .. but never mind , Network liaison manager Alan Dell, 45, has been awarded an MBE for his role in running the control room at London Buses during the bombings.

Sign up to Plod's Face Book

The objective of Common Purpose UK is to destroy the national identity of Britain - says the masthead of the Stop Common Purpose website.

This is a (so far) anonymous site that wants to focus attention on the insidious way that the Commpn Purpose organisation is infiltrating many parts of public services. One of their major claims is ..."One of the main targets of Common Purpose is the police because CP wants to create a police state in Britain."

Well somebody does, as the last ten years have seen the massive transfer of powers not only to the Police but as the recent case in Poole chasing parents for registration of their children at school but also other civil arms of the state.

Where for example does the Suffolk Police get the titles "Head of Protective Services", "Head of Citizen Focus", "Director of Criminal Justice Change" and "Director of Knowledge Architecture".... these suggest a mindset going beyond nabbing car thieves and burglars.

Today ,Greater Manchester Police has announced they have become the first police force in the country to use the social networking website Facebook. This will they claim will help them fight crime.

A special application has been developed by the Force's Web Unit to raise awareness of local incidents, operations and appeal for information, allowing members of Facebook to install it on to their profile for regular updates.

"Facebook has 59 million users, 7 million of which live in the UK, so we realised that this was an excellent way of spreading our messages to people on a more personal basis", says Assistant Chief Constable Rob Taylor .

Around 750 people have installed the application since it's official launch yesterday and can be shared amongst a user's friends or can be added directly from htttp://apps.facebook.com/gmpupdates.

Just look what they would like you to sign up to ..

If you are unwise enough to sign up and accept their Platform Application Terms of Use this is just one item you sign up to ..

II. Consent Regarding Use of Facebook Site Information

(b) Examples of Facebook Site Information. The Facebook Site Information may include, without limitation, the following information, to the extent visible on the Facebook Site: your name, your profile picture, your gender, your birthday, your hometown location (city/state/country), your current location (city/state/country), your political view, your activities, your interests, your musical preferences, television shows in which you are interested, movies in which you are interested, books in which you are interested, your favorite quotes, the text of your "About Me" section, your relationship status, your dating interests, your relationship interests, your summer plans, your Facebook user network affiliations, your education history, your work history, your course information, copies of photos in your Facebook Site photo albums, metadata associated with your Facebook Site photo albums (e.g., time of upload, album name, comments on your photos, etc.), the total number of messages sent and/or received by you, the total number of unread messages in your Facebook in-box, the total number of "pokes" you have sent and/or received, the total number of wall posts on your Wall™, a list of user IDs mapped to your Facebook friends, your social timeline, and events associated with your Facebook profile.

A Police state doesn't need the help of Common Purpose.

Peter Andreas Thiel who helped invent PayPal put in the first US$500,000 that got Mr Zuckerman and his pals off the ground to build up Face Book. Not only a Board Director of Face Book he is also an activist with TheVanguard.Org which is an offshoot of the Soros funded MoveOn (as is Grover Norquist) ....."We empower regular people to exercise their rights and fulfill their civic responsibilities, by organizing with them for effective action; by training candidates and citizens in the nuts and bolts of how to win; and by promoting policy ideas calculated to reshape America and the globe."

Many of TheVanguard's staff and advisors are members of the secretive conservative group the Council for National Policy.
Peter Thiel is also involved with the strange Singularity Institute...

Götterdämmerung

Financial Collapse will End the Occupation by Mike Whitney Information Clearing House

How Will It End?

The Bush administration has decided to pursue a strategy that is unprecedented in US history. It has decided to continue to prosecute a war that has already been lost morally, strategically, and militarily. But fighting a losing war has its costs. America is much weaker now than it was when Bush first took office in 2000; politically, economically and militarily. US power and prestige around the world will continue to deteriorate until the troops are withdrawn from Iraq. But that's unlikely to happen until all other options have been exhausted. Deteriorating economic conditions in the financial markets are putting enormous downward pressure on the dollar. The corporate bond and equities markets are in disarray; the banking system is collapsing, consumer spending is down, tax revenues are falling, and the country is headed into a painful and protracted recession.

The US will leave Iraq sooner than many pundits believe, but it will not be at a time of our choosing. Rather, the conflict will end when the United States no longer has the capacity to wage war. That time is not far off.

Mike Whitney has an apocalyptic view of Iraq .. much of which also applies to Afghanistan. Sooner or later the Presidential candidates are going to have to anser the hard questions.. abortion, the collapse of Wall Stret, the lack of support for the war. Read what he says.

Visitors - queueuing up

Mr Goody Two Shoes

Twat, Spyess and Iraqi Sanctions buster get seats in the House of Lords.

Sir John Mogg KCMG is the feeble and totally fucking useless Non-Executive Chairman of OFGEM and is also Chairman of the EU Energy Regulators which he fits in with also being Chair of the Board of Governors at the University of Brighton.

He is one of 3 Three new non-party-political peers recommended by the House of Lords Appointments Commission announced yesterday.

Which is odd, because he has been a lifelong member of the Labour Party.

The others are Lady Handbag and top spyess Dame Elizabeth Manningham-Buller DCB who will join all the other spyesses alongside us.

Sir Robert Smith is Chairman of both The Weir Group (Board members include Ex Nato secretary-general Lord Robertson of Port Ellen (George) GCMG, FRSE, PC) and of Scottish and Southern Energy. He was once a Director of Maxwell Communications Corporation. Many will remember that the Weir group were heavily involved in sanctions breaking with a Mr Saddam Hussein. (Hansard )

A Mr Andrew Macleod a low level meber of the Weir group staff made an illegal paymentof £4.3 Mn to Mr Saddam Hussein who said in his defence, "I did as I was told".

Chairman, Sir Robert Smith, said: "It is most regrettable that previous statements, whilst made in good faith, were incorrect. The problem dates back to 2000.

"We undertook a thorough review of these contracts and although the investigation has not yet concluded the board considered it essential that we make public the current information." BBC

Weir Group chief executive (he still is) Mark Selway has admitted that the company did make payments to Saddam's regime, saying: "The company did wrong. We are not proud of this."

On January 18th 2006 Mr MacLeod left the Weir Group... he is not a member of the House of Lords.

To justify the description of Mogg go here Wednesday, February 06, 2008 There is something very badly wrong at OfGEM... The UK consumer is being suckered and they stand by and do nothing but bleat. and Thursday, February 21, 2008 OfGEM - a case for a clean sweep, bag and baggage, Chairman and Directors.... and Monday, July 24, 2006 Energy price riser for UK

British Bankers Association caught lying about LIBOR rates

The Daily Telegraph has an extrordinary article today;

First things first .

The London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) is the rate at which members of the British Bankers' Association (BBA) lend money to each other for a variety of currencies. This is a benchmark reference such that , for example the Granite Bonds isued by Northern Wreck were offered in different tranches paying above Dollar LIBOR. Rates are calculated by 16 panel banks across 10 currencies and 15 lending periods ranging from overnight to one year. (Helpful BBA notes here)

This is calulated (see below) and published daily by Reuters and is accessible here - along with historic data in the form of Excel files which can be downloaded.

Yesterday LIBOR soared 8 basis points (0.08% the largest jump since it rose 0.12% on August 9th 2007), this followed commentators who have begun to question the credibility of the published figures suggesting it was being deliberately understated in an attempt to minimise the extent of the banks funding problems..

In brief they are fiddling the published figure because borrowing is more costly than stated.

WSJ report that Thursday was a different story. The highest quote of the morning was submitted by HBOS PLC, which submitted a 2.86% rate for a three-month loan. That was up 0.10 percentage point from Wednesday. HSBC Holdings PLC posted a rate of 2.85%, up 0.12 percentage point from Wednesday.

The DT reports that BBA Libor director John Ewan acknowledged that banks, " were likely to have reconsidered the information they supplied for use in setting Libor."... this was due more to "concerns about difficult market place conditions than questions about credibility," Mr Ewan said.

The DT quote Nomura rate strategist Sean Maloney who says the jump in dollar Libor was "an account to honesty". i.e after a period of fibs they had decided to 'fess up.

Mr Ewan said the reason for the jump in dollar reference rates yesterday, while sterling and euro-denominated Libor were broadly steady, was "tricky to call because it's difficult to disentangle cause and effect". Dollar three-month Libor rose to 2.8175pc, while three-month sterling Libor dipped to 5.90625pc and three-month euro Libor edged up to 4.78pc.

Mr Ewan said the association board had discussed the Libor concerns at a regular meeting yesterday, and added: "I think as a result of that, banks have been looking again at the definition of what they should submit to us." i.e they decided to 'fess up.

But market effects had also played a role and the dollar-denominated Libor was more volatile as a key reference for the derivatives market, "which is almost exclusively a dollar market", Mr Ewan said. Blather, blather, blather ...bollocks.

Anyway (who regularly pummels the Today presenters) to issue a notice :

Commenting on today’s movements in interbank lending rates, Angela Knight, Chief Executive of the British Bankers' Association, said:

"The continued rise in BBA LIBOR rates reflects increasing liquidity pressures in funding markets internationally. These were referred to in the coordinated statement by the major central banks last Tuesday."

"This is the quarter–end reporting period for many banks internationally: it was always anticipated that rates would tighten further at this time."
i.e PR ese for - we decided to 'fess up.

How is LIBOR calculated? (This is the BBA explanation )

The BBA uses Reuters to fix and publish the data daily, usually before 12 noon UK time. It assembles the interbank borrowing rates from 16 contributor panel banks at 11am, looks at the middle 50 per cent of these rates and uses these to calculate an average, which then becomes that day’s BBA LIBOR rate.

This process is followed 150 times to create rates for all 15 maturities (ranging from overnight to 12 months) and all 10 currencies for which a BBA LIBOR rate is quoted.

Plenty of room for wriggle room there then. What is plainly obvious is that the recent figure for LIBOR (especially $LIBOR) have been fiddle / adjusted / amended / reviewed to provie the market with a misleading impression.

How strapped the banks are for cash is the notice by the RBOS of the neeed to shore their Balance sheet with £10Bn from the shareholders. The success or otherwise of this offer will really tell us how flush the banks are with cash. It will be fascinating to see who the underwriters are and what discount they want.

Similiar reports in Reuters WSJ ..."The world's most widely used interest rate took its largest jump since the advent of the credit crisis in a sign that banks could be responding to increasing concerns that the rate doesn't reflect their actual borrowing costs."

....In a note to clients Thursday, UBS AG strategist William O'Donnell suggested that banks were responding to the heightened scrutiny, saying that the BBA's announcement of its inquiry was an attempt "to bring publicly posted rates back into line with the shadow interbank money rate market."

The WSJ also report William Porter, credit strategist at Credit Suisse, says the 3 months LIBOR is 0.4% undersated, Scott Peng, of Citigroup Inc. says it is 0.3 % below the actual level.

Ian Campbell offers this postscript at L'Agefi
Is there no end to the unhappy saga of banks’ loss of prestige? The suitability of the London Interbank Offered Rate, known to its familiars as Libor, as a benchmark interest rate is now being called into question. The reason is that banks themselves supply the figures upon which Libor is based—and now do not trust them.

Meanwhile the job cuts have started

Senlis Council produce yet another despairing report on poppy cultivation, heroin production and trafficking in Afghanistan

"In the past year (2007-2008), opium production in Afghanistan reached a record level, estimated at 8,200 tons of raw opium. Traffickers also refined much of the opium into heroin before exporting it. The Taliban-led insurgency supported by al-Qaida spread to new areas in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. The level of terrorism, especially suicide bombings, set record
levels in both countries, hitting high-profile targets such as Pakistan’s most popular politician, Benazir Bhutto, and the Serena Hotel in Kabul. After six years of assistance to the Afghan government by the UN, NATO, the world’s major military powers, the world’s largest aid donors, and international specialists on all subjects, the expansion of both the illicit industry and the insurgency constitutes a powerful indictment of international policy and capacity."

"In Afghanistan, nearly a third of the economy and probably an equal percentage of the population depends economically on the opium economy. Drug production affects not just farm income. It affects the balance of payments, tax revenues (through imports), the rate of exchange, employment, retail turnover, and construction."

Counter-Narcotics to Stabilize Afghanistan: The False Promise of Crop Eradication by Barnett R. Rubin & Jake Sherman, Senlis Council April 2008

This paints a bleak picture of the program for poppy eradication and that any such program will takes many years , if not decades. This brief sentence sums up the whole desperate and futile campaign .... " .. law enforcement cannot defeat an elite consensus. And the elite consensus in Afghanistan right now is that foreigners have offered no credible alternative to the opium economy."

Child trafficking

One remarkable fact (if true) is contained within a survey by Charney Research Page 12 .."
one out of seven respondents in poppy growing provinces and one in four in Helmand said they knew of farming families who had sold their children (most likely girls) in payment of opium debts as a result of eradication.

Farmers are advanced money "salaam" as a sort of futue contract on their crop, if this is destroyed b the US / NATO forces the debt stands.

Antique Gollywog biffs Brown whilst he is out - "The Invisible Hand" at work

My geriatric colleague Lord Desai (108), has taken the opportunity whilst Gordon Brown is interviewing the Pope and George Bush in the US to make some unfortunate remarks about both English and Scots cooking.

In the cookery pages of the Eveming Standard he says mysteriously that the Prime Minister is like porridge or Haggis. Such tosh, this foreigner has probably never wielded a porringer nor been involved in a haggis hunt in his life.
He is right however ... Gordon does dither and his answers to Parliamentary answers are a serious rival to sleep inducing narcoleptics.

However the fonctionnaires of No 10 have resolved this as we pointed out some time ago by skilful editing of the record...Friday, November 30, 2007 Nu Labour - Daggers out as the blame shifting starts over dodgy donors

Now here's a funny thing .. if you want to go to the No 10 Downing street site to get the official record of the PM's Press Conference you will find that a great deal is missing / redacted / removed . e.g it starts ....

Prime Minister:
[party political content]
Question:
[party political content]
Prime Minister:
[party political content]
Question:
[party political content]
Prime Minister:
[party political content]
I think everybody has known that when Lord Hayden Phillips was looking at party funding that things had to change. We have been waiting for the results of his review to see what has to be done.
[party political content]
Question:
[party political content]
...and so on until we get to the naming of Teddy Bears.

If you follow the link to helpful notes on transcript editing you get ..

Sometimes it is necessary to edit the transcripts. This is either because in accordance with long-standing practice under the Ministerial and Civil Service codes, government websites cannot carry party political content, or because the audio quality has made it impossible to transcribe

Regretfully the NU Labour spin machine has no such control over the sweating Hansard hacks who faihtuflly reproduce his interminable drivel and mind crushing delivery.

Well done Lord Desai! This nice nurse will get you a cup of tea and then you can go back to sleep, and she will wake you up in time for the General Election.. The Nu Labour Party needs more people like you, so the Cameronian Low Lifers can get back again. Meanwhile here's a nice fat brown envelope (gedditt!) from that nice David Milliband - you used to know his Dad.

Meanwhile over at Threadneedle Street my other friend Lord King is attaching the "Get Well" cards to the bundles of money ready to throw out of the helicopters over Bishopsgate and Canary Wharf.

PS : Lord Gollywog wrote a book : Marx's Revenge: The Resurgence of Capitalism and the Death of Statist Socialism

Dmitry Shorin - darling of the silovaki

Dmitry Shorin is a young Saint-Petersburg artist who has an exhibition opening today at the Marble Palace in St Petersburg of the Russian State Museum.

He was born in Omsk in 1971 and initially studied at the Omsky Technological University , folowed by four years at the Textile Institute, St. Petersburg. He won a prize in the St. Petersburg Camel exhibition and has initiated joint projects with other artists in St. Petersburg. He has held solo exhibitions in Russia and Belgium.

As the centre of gravity moves toward St Petersburg fluttering around Putin and his silovaki Shorin achieves notable status with the oligarchs by these bright, clean images. The image above was promoted by Red Bull in their Hangar 7 exhibition of modern artists ..."Fly By"

Victor Bout - Thai charges dropped

The Thai authorities have dropped all charges against Victor Bout and he is still held in bangkok awaiting extradition to the US.

Putin to marry world class Uzbek gymnast Alina Kabaeva

Lord Patel posted this fascinating story Thursday, September 27, 2007 Alina Kabaeva - World Class Uzbek / Russian artistic gymnast with a fascinating life story - Amazing pictures !

Now Vladimir (56) has pensioned off Mrs Putin (June 16th in St petersburg) and he will soon marry the graceful and beautiful gymnast (aged 25)whom we explained was not only friendly with Mr Alisher Usmanov, part owner of a struggling North London football team but also with President Mr Putin.

Not many people were interested at the time.

We also had a nice photograph of her Friday, September 28, 2007 Northern Rock plc given £7.75 Bn. of tax payers dosh by thrifty, prudent Scots, Brown + Darling - technically a loan but actually thrown away

"Pic is of the beautiful, delightfully athletic, and artistic gymnast Alina Kabaeva who can do remarkable things with balls and ribbons accompanied by music and the Russian President, Mr Putin, with whom I would be delighted to discuss the complex world of global finance especially in relation to the beautiful country of Uzbekistan.

Alina retired as a gymnast in February and joined the United Russia party at the suggesion of Putin. Svetlana Khorkina, 28, Olympic champion and Olympic speed skating champion Svetlana Zhurova, 35, both became members at the same time - they were called "Putin's Babes" a la Blair's Babes . Here is her official Duma website page

Ex President Vladimir will solemnize the union at Tsarskoe Selo, th magnificent Summer Palace of the late Russian Tsars.

Many thanks to Mr Vagit Alekperov who does not infrequently slip the odd interesting nugget of pure gold our way.

Enjoy


UPDATE : Wednesday The Daily Telegraph catches up with the news

UPDATE Thursday : Now the Daily Mail catches up

Condi - she likes bombing AS WELL as torture

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Remarks At Air University, Maxwell-Gunter Air Air Force Base - Montgomery, Alabama April 14, 2008 Secretary Rice receives the first honorary degree at Air University, Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base, Alabama.

"General Lorenz, General Trey Obering, Secretary Beth Chapman, Dr. Bruce Murphy, distinguished guests, faculty, again, members of the Board of Visitors, ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to speak with you today about one of our most important missions and, indeed, one of our strategic opportunities, and that’s Afghanistan. But I want to thank all of you by helping to make possible what we are doing there. Much attention is paid to what is happening on the ground in Afghanistan and, of course, in Iraq. But we can never forget that our gains on the ground are possible because of our superiority in the sky. With our soldiers, sailors, and Marines, many of you, both active duty and reservists, have deployed to the Afghanistan theater, often for multiple tours. And we are winning in Afghanistan because of you.

Our Air Force is essential to that difficult form of warfare that we have had to learn, or perhaps I should say relearn, in recent years. We tend to think of counterinsurgency warfare as a ground-based activity. But again, our entire effort on the ground depends on the lift, precision strike, and reconnaissance that our Air Force provides."

Condi must Go - Fucking Lying Bitch ™ - Amazing Pictures

You must watch this



Don't hesitate and sign the petition now


This film is a follow on to Lord patel's post Wednesday, December 07, 2005 - Fucking lying bitch™

7/7 Show Trial - Stooge tells of Government funded Iqra bookshopwho employed ex SAS Muhajiroun " muslim converts "

Yesterday Shabaz Fazal explained to the court trying Waheed Ali, 24, Mr Ali, Mohammed Shakil, 31, and Sadeer Saleem, 27 on charges of aiding the 7/7 bombers, that he was involved in running the Beeston area's Iqra bookshop.

This would of course be the Iqra Islamic bookshop which shared the same building as Leeds Community School, which obtained a Goverment grant of over £106,000 for 'staffing and construction costs.'

The 'al-Qaeda gym' in the basement of a nearby mosque used by the alleged Edgware Road bomber Khan, 30, was also equipped with money provided by Leeds City Council.

Leeds City Council also funded the nearby The Hamara youth centre, which received two huge £200,000 grants for building costs and an £189,000 EU building grant.

Both Iqra and the Leeds Community School were registered as charities but neither have never
filed accounts.

The Iqra bookshop was also of course a home from home for ex (?) SAS/ SBA/ Royal Marines
special forces soldier Martin Abdullah McDaid who was an eary (if not founding member) of member of MI5/6/7/8/9/ sponsored and run Al Mahajaroun.

When The Sunday Times approached McDaid (in late 2005) asking about a man called Yacoub , McDaid said: "Whether he was at the Iqra bookstore or not is none of your business you should fear Allah. "

The man called Yacoub who the Sunday Times wanted to meet was of course Mohammed Yacoub who was also better known as a Scots born Roman catholic (Dundee) James McLintock AKA "The Tartan Taliban".

McLintock, who lived in Bradford in the 1990s, was arrested by Pakistani police near the
Afghan border in December 2001 and questioned by the CIA and Scotland Yard anti-terrorism
officers. He claimed he was working for a charity and was released a month later.... unlimke anyo else who the Pakistani police arrested after 9/11 who either ended up ;
1. Dead
2. In Bagram prison
3. Eventually in Guantanamo
4. Like James McLintock AKA "The Tartan Taliban" back in the UK.

Two years ago he was arrested in Manchester and questioned by police investigating possible
al-Qaeda links but released without charge. He has always denied having terrorist links or
knowledge of terrorist activity.

Martin Abdullah McDaid was also associated at the bookshop with Mohammad Tafazal,
and Naveed Fiaz - Mohammed Afzal worked as a volunteer at Iqra bookshop after 7/7 and a spectacular raid by the police on the bookshop arrested by police (They were given the keys but smashed the door in in front of TV cameras) was taken to Paddington Green police station in London, some 200 miles away. He was quizzed for 13 days then released without charge.

More information was contained in the TV fillum, " Cult of the Suicide Bomber" . Channel 4, 8pm September 11 2006.

Martin 'Abdullah' McDaid and James 'Mohammed Yacoub/Yaqub' McLintock don't only share conversio to Islam , a life in Beeston, involvement with the Iqra bookshop, but neither of them are mentioned in the Home Office report / timeline for 7/7. Which is not suprising because of course they had no involvement or connectuion with the event. Did they ?

Here is another fine tangle to unravel ...

18 Alexandra Grove flat was said to be the bombers laboratory and the kicking off point for their fatal journey on 7/7 when they kissed their "industrial size regrigerator "goodbye before
slipping off their rucsacs , scattering their ID's Mobile Phones about, and dlipped off their mortal coils.

Their kicking off point was the 18 Alexandra Grove flat owned by a housing association but apparently let to or in the charge of Shakir Mahmoud Al-Ani (AKA Adnan Shakri) which he allegedly rented / allowed to use an Egyptian chemist Magdi El-Nashar pursued at one time as the mystery Fifth Bomber . He skipped to Egypt jusy before 7/7 and hasn't been seen since and was "was later eliminated from police enquiries. "

Shakir Mahmoud Al-Ani (AKA Adnan Shakri) is said to be a 'respectable hospital consultant'
who has a business registered at 2A The Drive, in the swanky northern Leeds suburb of Adel,
which is called Samara Medical Services
Directors are/ were

Shakir Mahmoud Al-Ani (AKA Adnan Shakri)
Zahra Alani (Wife - daughter ?),
Hassan Al Katib (Chairman of Leeds Muslim Forum - Arshad Chawdhry is also said to be the chairman of the Leeds Muslim Forum. )
Ahmed Albazie ( fined £3,000 under Health and Safety regulations in October 2002.)
Lena Al-Bazie
Daniel James Dwyer (a director of Resourcing the Community along with Rifhat Malik)
Philip Mark Croshaw - He had held over 2,400 directorships by the time the DTI handed down a
12-year disqualification in 1999 as a director of Oldham Vehicle Contracts,
which went into liquidation. He is mentioned in a Fairplay article regarding fraudulent online
job search sites and was rumoured 4 ears ago to be living in Cyprus. His court case in Manchester (which he failed to attend) is covered here . It appears his Sark background (former resident of the Isle of Sark (the Avenue Sark)) allowed him to peddle himself for companies registered offoshore for a "nominal" fee.

Croshaw has featured regularly in job offers as the president of Caledonian Offshore. In his letters to applicants, he claimed that salaries of $42,000-$46,000 were achievable. But the catch is that applicants had to pay $438 as a joining fee, with “£189 to be paid immediately as the retainer’s fee to start processing.

Two websites to follow by indefatigable researchers : here and here

King of the Bank of England caused the Credit Crunch

The annual speech at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet for Bankers and Merchants
of the City of London at the Mansion House by the Governor of the Bank of England has a lengthy history - it is a tradition. It is the time of year when the Governor provides a broad review of past activity and future expectations. The Oracle speaks.

What he said last year at the Mansion House on Wednesday 20 June 2007 to the City Glitterati as they fumbled over their 3rd or 4th brandy, adjusted their weskits and lit up their vast cigars .... on expectations for inflation (and how totally fucking wrong they were) has been examined here before.

Our central view remains that inflation will fall back this year as the rises in domestic gas and electricity prices last year drop out of the annual comparison, and the recent cuts in prices feed through to household bills.

How wrong could he be ?

As ever, there is room for differences of judgement as to the appropriate level of Bank Rate – as shown by the differing views within the MPC. But every member of the Committee is determined to bring inflation back to target and keep it there – or as close to the target as possible – indefinitely.

So as a result he and the MPC have three times reduced Bank rate since then. ... resulting in what the Daily Mail has today ... (Brent is US$114 a barrel as the market open today)

Elsewhere he delivered a surprising (and in retrospect a shattering message) ...

Your decision to grant independence to the Bank of England ten years ago is widely and rightly regarded as a fundamental improvement to the conduct of economic policy in this country, and we in the Bank are grateful to you for giving us the opportunity to demonstrate the benefits of an independent central bank.

This is of course a delusion - for example King , 30 odd working days later he was asked by Loyds Bank to be allowed to take over Northern Wreck with support from the BOE but handed this hot potato very swiftly (within hours) to the Chancellor in the lievely expectation that he would refuse. Which he did.

Financial stability more generally is a topical concern in financial markets. More than
one banker and merchant in the City has said to me recently, “I cannot recall a time when credit was more easily available”. How worried should we be?

His answer takes some time to deliver - it is one that changed the world. It's force has been overlooked, misjudged and largely unheard.

Securitisation is transforming banking from the traditional model in which banks
originate and retain credit risk on their balance sheets into a new model in which credit risk is distributed around a much wider range of investors. As a result, risks are no longer so concentrated in a small number of regulated institutions but are spread across thefinancial system. That is a positive development because it has reduced the market failure associated with traditional banking – the mismatch between illiquid assets and liquid liabilities – that led Henry Thornton and, later, Walter Bagehot to promote the role of the Bank of England as the “lender of last resort” in a financial crisis.

Distributing credit risk around may spread it, but it fails to reduce it. The result is that the "the mismatch between illiquid assets and liquid liabilities" is further from understanding, monitoring and control. The total risk is the same but identification is more difficult and deliberate concealment on many, many more balance sheets, not only within the control of the FSA but often offfshore is not only made possible , but certain. Control by the Central Bank has evaporated.

New and ever more complex financial instruments create different risks. Exotic instruments are now issued for which the distribution of returns is considerably more complicated than that on the basic loans underlying them. A standard collateralised debt obligation divides the risk and return of a portfolio of bonds, or credit default swaps, into tranches. But what is known as a CDO-squared instrument invests in tranches of CDOs. It has a distribution of returns which is highly sensitive to small changes in the correlations of underlying returns which we do not understand with any great precision. The risk of the entire return being wiped out can be much greater than on simpler instruments. Higher returns come at the expense of higher risk.

Mervyn has identified the increase in risk - he fails to say what he intends to do about it, unless the key is here ...

Whether in banking, reinsurance or portfolio management, risk assessment is a matter of judgement as much as quantitative analysis. Ever more complex instruments are designed almost every day. Some of the important risks that could affect all instruments – from terrorist attacks, invasion of computer systems, or even the consequences of a flu pandemic – are almost impossible to quantify, and past experience offers little guide.

Then he adds a lesson we all learnt at a very early age... are we to assume this modest understatement encapsulates a policy ?

Be cautious about how much you borrow is not a bad maxim for each and every one of us here tonight.

The wonderfully understated double negative is a kicker - he continues....

The development of complex financial instruments and the spate of loan arrangements without traditional covenants suggest another maxim: be cautious about how much you lend, especially when you know rather little about the activities of the borrower. It may say champagne – AAA – on the label of an increasing number of structured creditinstruments. But by the time investors get to what’s left in the bottle, it could taste rather flat. Assessing the effective degree of leverage in an ever-changing financial system is far from straightforward, and the liquidity of the markets in complex instruments, especially in conditions when many players would be trying to reduce the leverage of their portfolios at the same time, is unpredictable. Excessive leverage is the common theme of many financial crises of the past.

To which he adds ..

Are we really so much cleverer than the financiers of the past?

So there we have it , Uncle Mervyn's Old fashioned Home Remedy for Financial Stability ...be careful how much you borrow - be careful how much you lend

The result ... well, 200 miles up the Great North Road the Northern Wreck were getting ready to ready to close their accounts for the half year 11 days later. Within a month the FSA had approved their Basle II arrangements so they could having seen a massive 40% growth in lending with a rise in attributable profits of less than 1% agree on a dividend rise (eventiually of course to remain unpaid) of 33%.

Nearer at home the rate at which bankers charged for interbank lending reflected Uncle Mervyn's Old fashioned Home Remedy for Financial Stability be careful how much you borrow - be careful how much you lend .... was kicking in.

36 days later Northern Wreck released their accounts and the shares dropped £1 in minuutes - a gleeful and unconcerned CEO had unloaded all his shares at the top of the market in January.

Another 9 days after that the gap between Bank Rate and Libor had reached the limit - the bankers had absorbed Uncle Mervyn's Old fashioned Home Remedy for Financial Stability - be careful how much you borrow - be careful how much you lend

The Bankers stopped lending and borrowing ....

Read the full speech here

Big Knobs and Royalty found to hang out in all the best places

This curious story which appears in the Daily Telegraph ..

Has absolutely no connection with this November 2007 post - Royal Blackmail - a long history ... Amazing Pictures

Nor has it any connection with the remarkable story in the Daily Telegraph about.. (They are short of helicopters for bad guys to do ..er. er bad things ... er in Afghan ...er )

which probably has no connection with a Hooray Hazz Peter party at the Anchor ...

... as Autumn draws on for the mother in law from hell. Apparently the stagger shares a cottage ...