The Rolling Thunder as Wall Street writes off Billions ... More to come...

"…Central bankers are surrounded by all sorts of experts and specialists. The problem is that these experts were invariably mistaken over the past year while LEAP/E2020 anticipated correctly the fall of the US dollar, the collapse of US real-estate, the subprime crisis, the bursting of the financial bubble, the ongoing crash of Spanish, French and British housing markets, etc…

At the beginning of last August, most of these experts were still negating the event of any severe crisis. Their incapacity in anticipating the real world’s evolution lies in two very simple (and non-exclusive) reasons: either they cannot tell what they really think because they are hired to say that “everything is fine” (this is the case for most specialised and mainstream media, as well as for ministers and ministries of economy and finance), or they are incapable of understanding the profound nature of this crisis as it does not specifically belong to the financial and economic sphere, but relates to the collapse of the geopolitical system created after 1945. In both cases, due to these conceptual limitations (of expression or understanding), experts are at best useless for the months to come and at worst dangerous, their advice being completely disconnected from reality."

Go for more to this site a fascinating mixture of forecastuing, rant and anti Americanism. Global Europe Anticipation Bulletin.



The median price of US houses has crashed from a peak of $262,600 in March to $211,700 in September. This is an 18pc drop nationwide.

Merrill Lynch has just confessed to a $7.9bn write down on CDO subprime debt and assorted follies, nearly double what it suggested three weeks ago.

Citigroup has reported $6.5 billion in writedowns and losses from credit markets.. we forecast a dividend cut.

The world's largest banks and securities firms have announced more than $30 billion of charges in the third quarter.


...and Mukasey still doesn't know the fucking difference between torture and unhuman and degrading treatment or what the Geneva Conventions say about torure.

Christ CHurch clebrates as another son of the "House" escapes Justice

The BBC reports ..."Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has rejected calls for Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair to resign. "

Naturally, that was the deal, no-one gets fingered for Lord Levy selling Honours for party contributions and no-one gets the sack for murdering Charles de Menezes, in daylight in cold blood, in public. With 5/6/7/8/9... dum dum bullets to the head after being under surveillance for an hour.

Without the killers appearing in court to answer questions.

Without the members of the public who witnessed the nurder being called to give evidence of the threat that Charles de Menezes posed.

Without any public questioning of the illegal delay introduced by Sir Ian Blair to the IPCC undertaking an enquiry immediately whilst evidence was destroyed, doctored, stroies from the hyjm sheet synchronised etc., etc.,

Dog Shoots Man. Dog Fine.

Don't you just the love the shooting season (unless of course you are a hen-harrier and Prince Harry is within range) ...and the stories that follow?

James Harris ,37, was our shoting pheasants on the first day of the season in Iowa. putting his (loaded) gun on the ground to retreive a bird, his trusty dog Karl trod on it and hit him in the calf.

"He had surgery and is doing pretty well," someone is reported saying "He took between 100-120 pellets in about a 4-inch circle to his calf."

No one else was hurt, and the good news is dog was not injured.

Serve the cunt right, why anyone wants to obtain enjoyment from shooting wild life is beyond rational understanding.

Pity the pheasants couldn't gather round and peck the bastard to death.

The Venezualan Experience. Dudamel .. one hot Dude.

We are indebted to the excellent (and vastly underheard and underrated Rod Sharp on BBC Five's Up all Night) for flagging up President Chavez's concerns about 15 year old Venezulean girls on their "quinesa" or 15th birthday being given breast implants by their parents.

Unless hearing is going the way of Alzheimers, the report said that 400,000 Venezuelean women (Total pop. 26Mn !) seek breast "augmentation" every year at a cost of upwards of 2,000 Yanqui dollars a time... which seems highly improbable...but should do wonders for the tourist trade ... especially tha sad bastards who sit up all night or drive lorries up the M1 listening to this.

Chavez himself reminisces fondly about attending past beauty pageants. But when his televised speech to the United Nations interrupted the September 2005 Miss Venezuela broadcast for 15 minutes, hundreds of angry viewers in Caracas protested by banging on pots from their windows, blowing whistles and even firing guns into the air.

At the same time the child prodigies of the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela will make their Bay Area debut(Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco - next up San Francisco, Boston and Carnegie Hall) led by Venezuelan wunderkind Gustavo Dudamel, 26 and the most talked-about conductor on the planet.

Those who have followed the ecstatic response in Europe have watched the superstars fighting to conduct them including Daniel Barenboim, Simon Rattle, Claudio Abbado and Esa-Pekka Salonen all who praise the youhful (and hey girls glamorous)Dudamel.

When Salonen leaves the Los Angeles Philharmonic,in 2 years Dudamel is lated to will take his place in Walt Disney Concert Hall.

For 30 years, Venezuela's music education program, known as "El Sistema" ( the state funded program that puts an instrument in any child's hand by the age of two)- or the "National Network of Youth and Children Orchestras of Venezuela" - has turned tens of thousands of youngsters into classical players. (Chavez takes the credit but it started long before he was elected) Dudamel the dynamic, rock-star-y conductor and the Simón Bolívar band (one of about 200 youth orchestras in the country today) are its shining stars.

The Department of Health in Venezuela devoted 29 Mn. Yanqui dollars this year to the program whichproduced 250,000 students who practice or play two to three hours a day ans 30 professional orchestras have sprung up to accommodate them, and 125 youth orchestras.

For a taste, go to www.youtube.com, search on "Gustavo Dudamel," and take your pick of videos: The wunderkind conducts Mahler, Shostakovich or Brahms. Or do an Internet search for "Gustavo Dudamel mambo proms," and click on: "Video gtltornt9 - gtltornt, 9 - Dailymotion Share Your Videos."

Girls, get ya tits out... this Dudamel is one hot Dude ... and he has dimples!

PS. Didn't George Best claim Miss Venezuela (AKA Miss World that year ?) was the best score he ever made ?

Northern Rock - sanderson contin ues the stream of lies about the company's funding

Matt Ridley,then chairman Northern Rock told a Parliamentary committee on Oct. 16 it had borrowed about 13 billion pounds.

His replacement as chairman Bryan Sanderson, told The Newcastle Journal newspaper, in an article posted on their website on Thursday November 1st in an interview with Sanderson in which he was quoted as saying: "The debt is not quite 20 billion pounds just yet but it's getting there and it could be as much as 25 billion pounds by February".

On Thursday afternoon November 1st , figures from the Bank of England showed Northern Rock has now borrowed up to 22.8 billion pounds since being offered emergency funds on Sept. 14.

"If a few little things had been different this might never have happened," Sanderson told the Newcastle Journal.

Such as the Board being involved in a criminal conspiracy, preparing and issueing accounts knowing them to be fraudulent, trading whilst insolvent and continuing to lie and provide misleading information to the Stock Market, the Press, the Public, borrowers and lenders.

A week ago we exposed the soraing debt at the BOE, the controversial history of Sanderson at the Alliance and Leicester and called for administrators to be called in.A week later it is evident that sandersonn hasn't a clue what is gouing on and continuing to make misleading and dishionmest statements.

Trade in the shares is a false market and should be stopped without delay.

Royal Blackmail - a long history ... Amazing Pictures

Once again blackmail and the Royal Family are being used in the same sentence, as Ian Strachan (AKA Paul Einar Ian Adalsteinsson ), 30, and Sean McGuigan, 40, have been arrested and charged with blackmail of a royal cabinet maker.

The problem is that the Royal Family have a long history of blackmailing, using fillums and video. Perhaps the most famous being the need to send the spy Anthony Blunt to Germany at the end of the war on a mysterious mission.

Prince Philip's sister Sophie married Prince Christoph of Hesse who had joined the Nazi Party in 1933. He became the chief of the Forschungsamt (directorate of scientific research) in about 1935 , a special intelligence operation run by Hermann Göring, and he was also Standartenführer (colonel) of the SS on Heinrich Himmler's personal staff. The Forschungsamt used telephone intercepts and listening devices to police the Nazi Party, and worked with the Gestapo against the Catholic Church, the Jews, and labour organizations.They also collected incriminating evidence to arrange for killings, blackmail, extortion etc.,

Prince Philip who had close connections with Edward VIIIth. The once lamost and future King was, Portuguese Secret Service files disclose, in close collaboration with the Nazis in Spain and Portugal to foment a revolution in wartime Britain, that would topple the Churchill government, depose his brother King George VI, and allow him to regain the throne, with Mrs Simpson at his side. Portuguese surveillance revealed that Walter Schellenberg, head of Gestapo counterintelligence, was one point of contact in this plot. After Schellenberg met with the Spanish ambassador to Portugal, Nicolás Franco, brother of fascist Gen. Francisco Franco, Ambassador Franco told a Portuguese diplomat: ``The Duke of Windsor, free from the responsibilities of the war, in disagreement with English politicians, could be the man to put at the head of the Empire.''

Therefore fillum of the future King Edward VIIIth fellating Hitler on the terrace at the Berchetsgaden with the nymphomaniac Wallis doing unmentionable things with Hitler's favourite shepherd dog Prinz, in the background, from Philip's brother in law was dynamite. Whilst the identity of Hilter can be adduced from his monotesticular state and a curious groin scar, and the oddly cut revers of his jacket. Wallis's identity has been disputed as being Eva Braun, but due to Hilter being horizontally challenged she was forbidden to ware high heels which the performer quite evidently is.

Anyway possession of the fillum enabled his mother (and crucially Philip's future mother in law) to ensure that he never again set foot in England.

Anthony Blunt was of course the slim hipped body whose image was used by Burgess to blackmail Mclean as he leisurely buggered the art historian. These famous pictures were taken (along with many, many others) at 6 Bendick Street, the house which Lord Rothschild provided free for the coterie of Marxist plotters for the course of the war. The tastefully furnished bedroom in patriotic red, white and blue with a huge double bed was the sight and location of many filmed orgies.

Paradoxically the address bears a blue plaque as witness to the home of Gibbon who wrote the Decline and Fall of one Empire , and also provided the locale of those seeking to destroy another .. and succeeding.

Of course blackmailing the Royal family is a delicate business as they are such adroit practioners themselves. It is for this reason that they maintain a record of the physical characteristics of each member for reference to check authenticity.

Consequently the many brief fleeting scenes alleged to be of "Squiffy" and Stiffy" have to be cross referenced on an almost daily basis, and that of their brief and amorous "friends".

This photographic collection used to be held at an MI5 safe house in Praed Street but has been moved and amalgamated to accomodate the Princess of Wales personal collection and the collection of glass dildoes that an octogenarian glass worker from Tetbury had fashioned from life from various royal personages, some out of vanity and some by admiring wives and girlfriends. It is essential to keep this updated to keep abreast of thje body piercings, tongue studs, tattoos etc., of the younger Royals and their assorted mistresses, boy friends and drug suppliers.

The advance of the digital age and the digital image is such that the tiny unit had become overwhelmed and is now located in the old stables at Sandringham (more correctly .. underneath).

The tsunami of digital gadgetry has also rendered new methods of collection of "evidence" and one of the royal tearaways ("Squiffy" or "Stiffy" it is unclear) had taken to using a (borowed) military night sight head set whilst roaming the drug fuelled orgies, so that the user could survey the action in the dimly lit purlieues of the royally infested clubs, pubs and boudoirs.( for really sick scense for the "zoo" clientele these can be maounted on dogs ... see pic)

To this had recently been added a tiny digital camera, as worn by the Metropolitan Police.

Unbeknown to the user menacing triple lensed and frightening headgear meant the user was providing a signal faithfully recorded on the banks of recorders deep in the bowels of the Met surveillance Centre. Strachan, a property developer and McGuigan (said to be a part time car valeter) had stumbled upon the footage of Princess Margaret's favourite son and part time DIY woodworker, cocksucking and cocaine sniffing whilst entertaining a "senior London Policeman". (He is also 12th in line for the Throne)

Strachan has applied for bail (his lawyer is the crazy bastard, Giovanni di Stefano - who acted for Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic ) which is being held as we speak at the Old Bailey behind (unusually) closed doors.

Princess Margaret was of course the star of many fillums, the most extraordinmary of which featured John Bindon who was celebrated to be able to nalance thre half pints on his member - which could be extended by a sherry glass (small) by Margaret by the adroit and skilful use of a curiously contrived golden finger stall that Cartier made on her instructions (aided, said by some, by the Duchess of Windsor).

It is said that when she arrived wearing this golden ornament the guests knew they were in for some high jinks and that the more "colourful" the display, the the more likely that the "colourful" house servants of her Caribbean hideaway would be involved in the evening's entertainment.

With thanks for assistance to she boy Tulipa Veeraswamy, "Roland Rat", and the extrordianrily helpful archivist at Baron Desmond's Sexpress Pornographic Film Archive. The fascinating pictures of Lord Levy and friends are safe in our safe.

L'EXpress / Sunday Times start digging ... Rachida Dati's life and lies (?) exposed ?

Sarkozy’s darling minister mired in ‘false’ CV row
My Fair Lady

The 14th Man - yet another of Anthony Blunt's recruits exposed. Amazing pictures.

It was the afternoon of Thursday 15th November 1979 that the Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, prime MInister rose to make a statement in response to a Question from Labour MP for Hartlepool, Edward Leadbitter.

" In April 1964, Sir Anthony Blunt admitted to the Security Services ... he had been recruited by and ... passed information regularly to the Russian intelligence.."

Minutes after finishing her statement to a stunned House, Buckingham Palace announced that Sir Anthony Blunt, Keeper of the Queen's pictures had been stripped of his knighthood, the first instance since the trial and hanging of Sir Roger Casement in 1916. "Old Queen is outraged" was the headline on Private Eye's front page with a picture of the old Queen Sir Anthony Blunt.

Now a new book published in New Zealand reveals that Blunt also recruited fellow Trinity College student , New Zealander Paddy Costello.("The Sixth Man: the Extraordinary Life of Paddy Costello" by James McNeish is published by Vintage New Zealand (NZ$35) ISBN 9781869418915)

The New Statesman has a review of the book, published in New Zealand but not in the UK in which Francis Beckett poses the question ..."Was Paddy Costello a key member of the most notorious Soviet spy network of the 1950s - or was he framed?" Costello was a star of new Zealand diplomacy post war, revealing the Soviet possession of the atom bomb, and the first Western diplomat to penetrate the Nazi death camps at the end of the war.

PS : In The Great City Academy Fraud, published earlier this year Francis Beckett exposes the con which lies at the heart of what is nothing more than the Conservative’s old City Technology Colleges scheme, rehashed and reheated by New Labour. The present facts are these: that that a sponsor willing to put up £2 million may effectively control and run a City Academy, towards which the taxpayer will have paid a vastly greater sum, not to mention running costs and salaries in perpetuity.....Amazon

Paul Quinn, IRA fuel smuggler, murdered by IRA - DUP assist in cover up and Westminster remains silent.Business as usual in Northern Ireland

15 members of the Provisional IRA's South Armagh brigade beat to death lorry driver Paul Quinn 21, at a farm near Oram in County Monaghan last weekend.3 of his friends who had beenn used to entice him to the killing His three friends were later treated in hospital for their injuries. Quin had been driving lories with illegal fuel (probably sourced from the border farm of IRA supremo "Slab" Murphy which had been lost through accidents.

In a 30 minute asault Quinn was beaten to pulp and had many broken bones after upsetting the South Armagh Provisionals after getting the better of a senior veteran republican in the area in a fist fight.

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams and Northern Ireland's Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness, have condemned the killing and urged the public to co-operate in police investigations on both sides of the border.

As Quinn was buried on Thursday, the DUP deputy leader and finance minister, Peter Robinson, made his budget announcement in Stormont, feet away from his Sinn Fein ministerial colleagues.

Nothing more will be heard until the criminal gangs issue their next fatwah on the dissidents in their criminal ranks.

More

Where are they Now? No 452. D B Cooper . Amazing Pictures

UPDATE 25th March 2008 ... Wednesday, March 26, 2008
D B Cooper's parachute found by FBI?

The Boeing 727 -- first trijet introduced into commercial airline service had the same fuselage width as the Boeing 707 -- advanced , triple-slotted trailing edge flaps and new leading-edge slats, gave the 727 unprecedented low-speed landing and takeoff performance and could use smaller airports than the 707.

It also had a rear loading door for passengers, unique amongst civil airliners of the time.

On Wednesday November 24th 1971, Thanksgiving Eve, a man walked up to the flight counter of Northwest Orient Airlines in Portland Oregon, and bought a ticket for the 30 minute, Flight 305 to Seattle - a 30 minute hop.

He was later described as wearing a dark raincoat, dark suit with skinny black tie, and carrying an attaché case. He had perky ears, thin lips, a wide forehead, receding hair.He sat in the last row of the plane, 18-C, lit a cigarette, and ordered a bourbon and soda. He had given his name as Dan Cooper.

Shortly after the flight set off with 36 passengers and six crew members, he passed Florence Schaffner cute 23 year old stewardess a note. Printed in felt tippen, in capital letters, it read .. “I have a bomb in my briefcase. I want you to sit beside me,” it read. She did as he requested, then asked to see the bomb. She saw a tangle of wires, a battery, and six red sticks.

He told her what he wanted - $200,000 by 5:00 p.m. In cash. In a knapsack. Two back parachutes and two front parachutes. On l;anding a fuel truck ready to refuel. No funny stuff or he added manaceingly ..."I’ll do the job.” She passed these instructions to the captain when she got back, the man was wearing dark sunglasses.

The plane landed at Seattle -Tacoma, re-fuelled and the passengers were disemebarked as Dan Cooper had demanded.

Taking off ,he informed the captain to head for “Mexico City,” with more specific flight instructions: Keep the plane under 10,000 feet, with wing flaps at fifteen degrees, which would put the plane’s speed under 200 knots. He strapped the loads of cash to himself and slipped on two chutes—one in front.

Four United States Air Force F-106 jet fighters tracked the airliner.

Retreating to the rear of the plane he lowered the flight steps and stepped out into the roar of the engines , the night and our over the Cascades.

In late 1978, a placard, which contained instructions on how to lower the aft stairs of a 727, believed to be from the rear stairway of the plane from which Cooper jumped, was found just a few flying minutes north of Cooper's projected drop zone.

Aside from that placard and the later discovery in February 1980 by 14 year old Brian Ingram, of US$5,800 by the Columbia River in vancouver nothing concrete has been discovered about Dan Cooper (The jumper became known as D.B. Cooper after authorities questioned and then released a man named Daniel B. Cooper. That man was cleared, the name stuck).


There have been books, TV shows, documentaries, and death bed confessions even a fillum in 1981 The Pursuit of D.B. Cooper. Boeing also introduced a "Cooper" vane at the insistence of the FBI to prevent the rear steps being deployed in flight after several copycat attempts which all failed.

Nothing signficant has surfaced ... until now.

New York Magazine have a piece about the case "Unmasking D B Cooper" by geoffrey Gray in which the brother of the now dead Kenneth Peter Christiansen; Born Oct. 17, 1926, deceased July 30, 1994 from cancer. Lived in his own home in Bonney Lake, WA. So. Security #473 30 3599. He retired from NWA as a purser. His employee #33983.” ... according to his brother Lyle.

Traced to Lexington , South Carolina, Florence Schaffner, the stewardess who accepted Cooper’s note - she examined the photos of the ex NWA purser ...“I think you might be onto something here,” she said.

More

The FBI have rejected the theory as a solution to the "NORJAK" case, saying that Christiansen was 5-foot-8 and 150 pounds, at least 4 inches shorter and about 30 pounds lighter than Dan Cooper.

PS : Another skyjack started at Portland (Maine not Oregon)according to the FBI .. some timelater .. CCTV pictures released by the FBI supposedly showing Atta and Alomari at Portland Jetport on 9/11/01. Click image for full size photo....More

British Energy - More unplanned Power outages - Credit down rating - more UK energy security problems

The post of Friday, August 17, 2007 -British Energy Nuclear Fleet production down 17%, profits by 14% covered the BE Q1 2007/08 results ending 1st July - BE once produced some 20% of the UK base electricity output - the results showed an astonishing (unplanned) reduction of total output dropped 17% from 17TWh to 14TWh for the period.

Now we learn today that Standard & Poor's Ratings Services have placed its 'BB+' long-term corporate credit rating British Energy Group PLC and its subsidiary British Energy Holdings PLC (BEH) on CreditWatch with negative implications.

The 'BB' issue rating on BEH's GBP550 million senior unsecured bonds was also placed on CreditWatch with negative implications.

This results from the previous day's announcement of problems in a boiler closure unit at one of the two reactors at Hartlepool which led the company to take the precaution of shutting down the other reactor and another of its units at Heysham, south of Morecambe.

The problem found during a statutory outage at Hartlepool's first reactor relates to a wire winding. The discovery will delay the restart of the unit, which was originally scheduled for early November.

The second reactor at Heysham 1 is currently on a refuelling outage but its return to service will be delayed. British Energy said it was currently assessing when the units might return to service.

There are eight steel and concrete boiler closure units in each reactor. All are pre-stressed with nine layers of wire winding at the outer periphery. Hinkley Point B and Hunterston B returned to service in May but output is still being affected by load restrictions.

These windings are somewhat like alternate armature windings on an electric motor. They areactually massive steel ropes designed purely to contain any explosion - they only get really tested when things go very badly wrong. Engineers who worked on them originally faced enormous problems, as the 3 dimensional geometry whilst ideal in purpose, presented huge problems is construction and they were subject to massive forces to get them in place.

The concern expressed and the rapid closure of Heysham suggests that there could be a major problem and prolonged outages... another consequence of the rash of one off designs used in the 60's designed reactors.

The shares dropped 40p on the news and trade at 540p off 2 year highs of 700p.

Do not discount a merger with DRAX. (lse DRX) whose shares have risen from 610 when this news was announced to nearly 650p. Drax, as the next largest UK electricity supplier will benefit as electricity wholesale prices rise resulting from BE's shortage of output and their need to buy in onthe market to meet sales contract requirments.

This is not good news for any plans the Gubment have for reintroducing nuclear power as part of the UK power mix ... another consequence of their delay and procrastination.

Northern Rock - BOE Borrowings now exceed £25 Bn. and rising - Is there an alternative to calling in the administrators ?

The funding of Northern Rock becomes even more bizarre as Simon Ward, of New Star Asset Management in London,has examined the Bank Book at the BOE and concluded that borrowings by Northern Wreck W/E October 24th exceed 21 Bn. Pounds... and the rate of borrowing is accelerating ..£4.7 BN this last week compared with £3 Bn. last week. (You can probably add another £4 Bn at least this week so the ttal today is probably £25 Mn.!!!)

The shares mystically stay supported at 180-odd pence (ish) as bottom feeders JC Flowers claim they are nearer a buyout claiming a line up of heavyweights - Richard Pym 58,former head of Alliance & Leicester Plc, and Chairman of Halfords plc, as prospective CEO (see pic) , Paul Myners 59 , a former chairman of Marks & Spencer Group Plc, as chairman -he was voted public company non-executive director of the year by readers of Sunday Times in 2006. Hugh Scott-Barrett, former CFO of ABN Amro Holding NV, to take the same position . Bob Bennett, the former CFO of Northern Rock, Peter Birch, former CEO of Abbey National Plc, and Martin Jacomb, former chairman of Prudential Plc, have also been asked to advise the buyout firm, J.C. Flowers said yesterday.

Northern Rock plc is also being advised by the Credit Suisse Group and JP Morgan Cazenove.

The problem is that the retail lenders have fled and are continuing to flee, (a City guesstimate £5bn outflow of savings is probably underestimate says Simon Ward) borrowers cannot be forced to pay more yet borrowing costs (not to mention the horrendous legal / advisory fees the City will be milking) now exceed potential income.

Surely there can be no other route than administration and an effective nationalisation and run-off of the mortgage book. Continued support by the Government of the Board is absurd if not criminal.

Speaking earlier this week to MPs at a hearing of the Treasury Select Committee, Alastair Darling said there were lessons to be learned from the banking fiasco. He added that Northern Rock could have handled the situation better. "There are certainly great lessons to be learned from the interface of the Bank of England and FSA," he said. "There needs to be clarification between the two bodies about their roles. Clearly there is some overlap between the two."

...and this is the clever structure that the twat who is now Minister of Education, Mr Ed Balls constructed. It failed at the first jump.

The first lesson to learn is to sack the whole Board, call in the Administrators, refund the retail lenders immediately and face the folks who funded Granite and all the other specious SIV's with their criminal schemes which all hung on a slemder leagl thread that the structure was determined to benefit a charity - the The Down's Syndrome North east who were unaware of their part in this whole fraud.

PS : Richard Pym when at the A & L shared the dubious distinction of (with surprisingly) Northern Rock of having the highest "redemption fee" of £295 for moving your mortgage... so he is not unused to chiselling the customer.

Is there an alternative to calling in the administrators ?

In one word - Absolutely fucking not.

PS Sir John Gieve (happily refreshed from his holidays whilst the ordure hit the air conditioning) has ben unaccountably silent as the Director responsible for Market Stability.Sir John readers will recall left the Home Office accounts in such a state that the Government Auditor refused to pass them.... he also let Sir Ian Blair spend a weekend fending off the IPCC collecting evidence of the nurder of Charles de Menezes.

Pfizers Exubera bombs and boosts Lilly prospects, but Prasrugel uncertainty sees Lilly have biggest one day fall for 4 years

Eli Lilly stockholders, Directors amd employees would relish a boner without using longer lasting Cialis, on the news last week that Pfizer have junked their inhaled insuling delivery system Exubera (2007 sales US$12 Mn against projected US$2 Bn.) and taken a US$2.8 Bn. hit on the Balance sheet.Ouch!!!! They will return the rights for marketing to Nektar.See post March 28th Pfizer's Exubera inhaled insulin another dog for Pfizer

Today Pfizer announced 60 jobs to go during 2008 of the 3000 at Portage their largest pharmaceutical manufacturing operation in North America related to this decision.

San Carlos based Nektar Therapeutics Inc.,(NASDAQ: NKTR) who developed the product have announced today they are looking for a new partner.

Of all Nektar's total revenue of US$150.9 million through Q1 and Q2Pfizer was responsible for US$108Mn leaving a loss of US$53 Mn.for the 2 Qtrs.

Lilly have however seen their share price take a dive as uncertainty prevails over the expected announcement on November 4th about a heart pill, Prasrugel, it has licensed from Daiichi Sankyo. Set to challenge Plavix ( US$6 Bn. annual sales) marketed by Sanofi-Aventis (nyse: SNY ) and Bristol-Myers Squibb (nyse: BMY ), prevents the blood from clotting. Blood clots that form in the arteries around gunked-up plaque are the major cause of heart attacks and strokes.

The results of a Harvard medical School study of 14,000-patient study will be presented next week at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association in Orlando which it is hoped (and intended) will impress the FDA.

Prasrugel is theoretically superior to Plavix because it is said to work on the thrid of pateinets that don't respond to Plavix due to them being genetically determined to be unable to metabolise Plavix into it's active constituent.

However on Wednesday night (after the market closed) Lilly issued a press release under pressure from the Wall Street Journal saying it had stopped giving patients medicine in two small studies while it considers adjusting the dose - "after data raised concerns about the dosage used in certain patient groups. " Lilly provided little information but studies are generally suspended because of side effects and other problems.

A consequence has been that the spin meisters of Wall Street have fluttered their feathers and Oppenheimer and Morgan Stanley downgraded Eli Lilly shares,Goldman Sachs kept its "buy" rating but took Lilly off a list of preferred stocks. An analysts at Deutsche Bank has consulted the chicken entrails end believes that prasugrel is excreted through the kidneys which may lead to bleeding in patients with kidney problems.(Deutsche owns at least one percent of LLY shares, makes a market in the stock and has done and wants to do more investment banking for the company).

Lilly closed Thursday down 7.7% at US452.43 its worst one-day loss in 4 years the biggest one-day fall since Oct. 23, 2002--almost five years to the day.

Northern Rock - rat leaves sinking ship

NORTHERN 2 VCT PLC
Director declaration
Pursuant to Listing Rule 9.6.14, Northern 2 VCT PLC ('the Company') announces
that Dr Matt Ridley, the non-executive chairman of the Company, resigned as a
non-executive director of Northern Rock (LSE: NRK.L - news) plc with effect from Monday 22 October
2007.
END

...which will probably save him from being charged with issuing fraudulent accounts and running a company whilst insolvent.

Israel - Pig sty ?

Established 4 years ago Zalul, is a non-profit and totally privately funded organization for the environment and conservation of the Red Sea, and now takes in projects to protect the seas and rivers of Israel.

Their website (in Israeli) detauils their work in exposing the problems of the Tel Abviv beaches and the Gershon river.

This was brought to mind when our favourite war criminal Tzipi Livni was berating poor old President Lykushenko of Byelorussia for calling a jewish village in hiscountry as a "pigsty" - a viallge which had sent 20,000 to the holocaust.

A recent UN report showed that Israel was one of the ten most polluted areas of the Mediterranean.Over half of the wastewater entering the Mediterranean Sea is untreated and they estimate that it will cost US$56 Mn. to deal with this problem alone. Zalul in their 2007 report " The State of the Sea" idebntify the official issuing ofover 100 permits allowing the discharge of 140 tons of heavy metals (Ca,Cr,Pb) 130 tons of pesticide residues, 5 tons of arsenic, 1,300 tons of ammonia and a ton of cyanide.

As if this is not enough the River Gershon is fed with untreated astes from the petrochemical and pharma industries.

Perhaps the biggest poluution is due to the Dan region Association of Towns for Treatment of sewage and Environmental issues that re-cycle water but discharge 4% as "sludge" in outfall pipes at sea, making Tel Aviv beaches unsafe for bathers.(Beware the Tel Baruch beach and parking lot - hookers on the prowl day and night)

Plans are afoot for treating the sludge with calcine to produce building blocks and one hare brained scheme by Biopetrol wants to turn the sludge into bio-fuel. This is what their website says.http://www.bio-petrol.com/

Pyrolysis and gasification offer more scope for recovering products from sewage sludge than incineration. When sludge is burnt in a modern incineration the only practical product is energy, whereas the gases, oils and solid char from pyrolysis and gasification can not only be used as fuel, but also purified and used as a feedstock for petrochemicals and other applications. Obviously, there is a growing demand for sludge management technologies capable of: 1). Meeting increasingly stringent regulatory requirements. 2.) Effectively utilizing potential for material and/or energy recovery.

Which sounds desperately like a scam, despite the august qualifications of it's supporters.

The picture is a reminder that a turd is not the only dangerous thing on a beach - a family were shelled on the beach in Gaza by the Israeli military shortly after they left on June 9th 2006 killing 9 including one whole family of 8 .

Cyprus - a leaky hole for refugees seeking asylum in the EU

Christos Patsalides , Interior Minister of Cyprus claims that Cyprus has the largest asylum seeker population per capita in the whole of the EU.

The Turkish Cypriot paper Afrika says that since Cyprus joined the EU in 2004, 12,000 illegal immigrants have arrived in the North. Last Saturday it was announced that another 45 had been smuggled trhough the North over the Green Line into Cyprus.

Most immigrants are from Syria, Iraq and Palestine, but destroy their papers once they have reached the island.

On Thursday there was a demonstration outside Xylotympou roundabout in the British sovereign base area of Dhekelia,( a historically important forum for protest - the UK forces helpfully provide Portaloos) which Cypriot Police kept citizens away from. Photography is illegal on the base area.

Now with the commencement of the ferry from Latakia to Famagusta many more refugees are expected.

Gangs, a mixture of Russian, East European and Turkish criminals more used to trafficking prostitutes to staff the bars and brothels of Aphrodite's Island have been exploiting a curious legal loophole in what is alleged to be a very profityable business. Once the immigrant reaches the Green Line (having piad the gangs thousands) the UN cannot interfere as the boundary is not a recognised International Boundary. Once in Cyprus they cannot be returned to a region which has a Government which is not recognised by anyone. On top of this the UK Sovereign base area is actually UK territory and the cause of the protests on Thursday was immigrants / refulgees demanding UK citizenship, and (hopefully) shipment to the UK.

To mucky murky waters still further the UK sovereign base has had refugees housed in "temporary housing " since the American / Turkish invasion from the North so recent immigrants can claim precedence of treatment.

The Syrians who have seen 2 million refugees flee Iraq in the past 4 years are of course happy to see them move on. As Latakia and the coastal area is the fiefdom of the Alawhite ruling claon of the Assads such wholesale smuggling cannot be operating without some degree of official sanction.

The ferry service between Latakia and Famagusta is said by the Syrians to encourage tourism.

Cyprus remains the last of the 10 accession states in 2004 to sign the Schengen agreement, which would allow free movement of EU nationals without the need for passports.

Rachida Dati seen by a billion on TV with President

Show me a girl with patent red leather high heels and I will show you a racing certainty", Chris Bernard once said, so the sight of Rachida Dati , Minister of Justice and Nicolas Sarkozy's mistress du jour in her trademark high heels and scarlet scarf at the Stades du France on Saturday confirmed that she is still as addicted to her favourite colour as ever.

Although when her "rise horizontale" started under the wing of Arnaud Lagardere whose media empire (Lagardere Active Media LAM ) includes Paris Match - and Elle, Europe 1 TV, and the Journal du Dimanche hleped finance his frequent visits to the French Turf she did for a while (as Lord Patel can attest) unclothe herself in the pink and grey racing colours of the Lagardere stable from a becoming little lingeriste just of the Rue de Fauborg St.Honore.

Therefore vision mixers at ITV must have been delighted when they could squeeze in the ravishing features of the 41 year old beautiful divorcee (and once the top selling Avon rep in Burgundy) when showing the beaming South African President , Thabo Mbeki in the Diplomatic boxes at the World Cup Final on Saturday.

It was of course Arnaud's Paris Match which was exposed (Lord Patel post here) as having removed the pint sized President's "love handles" or poignees d'amour which L'Express exposed as a heavily photoshopped images from the Dati / Sarkozy holiday at a at a luxury resort in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire this summer.

Rachida (known to the President as "Roc" ,a diminutive lovers name contracted from la Marocaine) tells me that he is peculiarly sensitive to his poignees d'amour and gets pissed off when she teases him about them. They are she says essential for when "le Jockey" (as he is known to her) becomes passionate he is as they say at Longchamps, liable to "dismount" - Toni Fabuloso has an alternative and rather coarse expression from the world of horse racers which discloses more knowledge of equine anatomy and physiology than she should have or we are willing to disclose.

Rachida also disclosed recently to us that her predescessor in the Ministry of Justice had been a great help in her career. Albin Chalandon was France's justice minister under Jacques Chirac when Dati approached him (he was then 66) at an Algerian embassy party in 1986 and asked for help. He ws ablwe to oblige and got her a job as an accountant at the oil giant ELF-Acquitaine where he had been in charge from 1977 to 1983... and he was there at the ceremony when she was sworn into office earlier this year.

Meanwhile the ex Mrs Sarkozy, Cecilia ,will soon be publishing a book , "Why I divorced the President", she tells us.

Charles de Menezes - Criminal mastermind who led gang of shoplifters ?

'Drew(that's short for Andrew) who used to work in a men's outitters on Oxford Street Identified Charles de Menezes today on CCTV from film taken shortly after he left the shop.

Asked if he identified de Menezes he said that he remebered the short, dark, curly haired man carrying the jacket to the till and paying for his purchases.

Asked how he knew it was de Menezes , 'Drew told the court that when the Police asked him to view the film 6 weeks ago he was certain it was him. "It was definitely him, because the the copper with him jumped up and said, "There he is the the thieving lying, fucking Paki bastard".

Asked how he knew he was leader of a gang of shoplifters who had been plaguing Oxford Street, he said it was obvious, buying things "on the straight" was a well known method of concealing their criminality.

He had learnt that when he was in Woodham Ferrars Youth Prison and palled up with a Paki.

PC Peter Clarke when further questioned admitted that when the witness had seen Menezes he did "confirm" the identity of the subject.He couldn't remember having described in the way the witness had..."but it was all a long time ago".

President Sarkozy's mistress now to be the new Mme Presidente ?

Glamorous Rachida Dati (Arabic رشيدة داتي rašīda dātī, born November 27, 1965 in Saint-Rémy, Burgundy) has a Moroccan father who worked as a bricklayer and an Algerian mother who herself worked as a cleaning lady, she is one of 12 children . She Has also been the mistress of President Sarkozy fro some time.

Plucked from relative obscurity to be the new Justice Minister on the 18th of May 2007 by Nicolas Sarkozy. She was ...er ... Nicolas Sarkozy's...er.... spokeswoman during the 2007 French presidential election.

She went to Catholic school, for the children of the haute bougeoisie. At 16, she started working at night as a paramedical assistant. She then worked for three years as an accountant at Elf Aquitaine while continuing her studies in economics and business management.

After meeting Jean-Luc Lagardère in 1990 she entered the audit management team of Matra Nortel communication. She later spent one year in London at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development again in the financial auditing department. In 1994 she was an auditing supervisor and secretary general of the bureau of urban development studies at Lyonnaise des eaux. From 1995 to 1997, she worked as a technical advisor at the legal management division of the Ministry of Education.

In 2002, she became Nicolas Sarkozy's advisor for whom she worked on a law project on prevention of minor offenses (prévention de la délinquance). In 2006, she joined the UMP party. On January 14th 2007 she was named spokeswoman for Nicolas Sarkozy as he was himself chosen that same day to be the UMP presidential candidate for the forthcoming April 2007 elections.

After Nicolas Sarkozy's victory in the French presidentials' second round on May 6th 2007, she was appointed Ministry of Justice.One of Rachida's brothers, Jamel Dati, already a felon, was convicted of drug trafficking in 2007. He was sentenced to a six-month suspended sentence. Judicial observers say the "letter of the Sarkozy/Dati project on multi-recidivism" means he should go straight to jail, as a repeat offender. Another one of Rachida's brothers, Omar, is also a felon, due to be sentenced in November. Like Jamel, he got caught for international drug trafficking. Rachida stated that she does not recall receiving any cash money from them, at any point.

Those watching the French play at the Milennium Stadium may have glimpsed the lady sat in the row immeduately behind the French President.

Mr & Mrs Sarkozy have announced their separation today.

Syria / Turkey / Cyprus in spat over new Famagusta - Latakia Ferry Services

"The link by ferry between the two port cities of Famagusta and Latakia is now assured every Monday and Thursday," a Syrian official is quoted by AFP today as the new ferry service got under way. The harbour of Famagusta in the north is a declared "closed access point" to and from the Northern Cyprus and the Cypriot Government claims this is backed by UN resolutions.

It is not without signifiance that the first sailing were timed to coincide with the Muslim Ramadan Bayram celebration on the 10th - 14th October.

However EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn is quoted as saying the use of occupied Famagusta port was not illegal under international law and that the issue was a bilateral one between Cyprus and Syria.The EU would not (and could not) intervene, because neither the EU nor the UN had ever imposed an embargo on ports in the north.

This is not only a threat to Cypriot sovereignty but also the current tourist trips from Limassol to Latakia.

Louis Lines, the Russian owned cruise operator will take you on a 3 day weekend cruise on their ship "Serenade" with the option of a tour of the Crac de Chevaliers , St George Monastery and shopping in Latakia enade" this weekend for 185 Cyprus Pounds and a partner at 50% extra. Departing Limassol 19th and staying in Latakia, Syria for 2 nights to return on Monday 22nd.

Consequently , this apparent recognition by Cyprus of the Northern Turkish regime is under heavyweight criticism and to show how concerned they Government is, Foreign Minister Erato Kozakou Marcoullis expects to visit Damascus before the end of the year.

Before then the self important honorary president of socialist EDEK Vassos Lyssarides will fly to Damascus on Saturday as an envoy of the government - and will acheive nothing but probably have a very enjoyable weekend being entertained.


Up to press , it is said that there have been Ministerial contacts at foreign minister level but Syria has yet to give a clear response as to whether it recognises the self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), currently recognised only by Ankara.

There is local speculation that Syria has done a deal with the TRNC after receiving assurances from Turkey that it would not let Israeli jets fly over Turkish territory to attack Syria.

The Cypriot government says opening such a ferry operation is illegal as the harbour of Famagusta in the north is a declared "closed access point" to and from the republic. It says this is backed by UN resolutions.

A similar link started in 1978 -- four years after the US / Turkish invasion and seizure of the north of the island -- but it lasted only about a year.

This does not have anything to do with Cyprus being used as an entrepot port for human trafficking, money laundering, drug shipments, not at all, nothing, nada.