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Ex-Paratrooper having served two tours in Iraq with the 82nd Airborne.

“‘Geek Squad’ geek stole racy photos from phone, demanded she come to house to get them back”

A mother who went to have her cell phone fixed at Best Buy has spoken of her fury after a male employee copied racy photos of her to a CD before later inviting her to his home to collect them.

Last April, Sophia Ellison hired a Geek Squad employee in Fairfax, Virginia to transfer hundreds of photos, numbers and contacts to a newly purchased iPhone for her.

Instead, he copied them on to his own computer and demanded that she see him in person if she wanted to get them back.

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Spanish protests swell as jobless march on Madrid

(Reuters) – Hundreds of unemployed Spaniards who had walked hundreds of kilometers (miles) to Madrid joined protests on Saturday against Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s government and its handling of an economic crisis.

Demonstrations have swollen across Spain since the center-right government announced 65 billion euros ($79 billion) in new spending cuts two weeks ago to cut its deficit and avert a full-blown bailout, with firefighters and police joining a mass protest on Thursday.

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Debt crisis: Greek economy is in a ‘Great Depression’ says Samaras

Greek GDP is expected by the end of this to have shrunk by about a fifth in five consecutive years of recession since 2008, hammered by tax hikes, spending cuts and wage reductions required by two EU/IMF bailouts. Unemployment climbed to a record 22.6pc in the first quarter.

“You had the Great Depression in the United States,” Samaras told Clinton, who was visiting Greece as part of a delegation of Greek-American businessmen. “This is exactly what we’re going through in Greece – it’s our version of the Great Depression.”

Athens must reduce its budget deficit below 3pc of GDP by the end of 2014, from 9.3pc of GDP in 2011 – requiring almost another €12bn euros in cuts and higher taxes on top of the 17 billion successive governments have cut from the budget shortfall.

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China Central Bank Adviser Forecasts Growth Slowdown To 7.4%

A Chinese central bank adviser predicted the nation’s expansion may cool to 7.4 percent this quarter, adding to concern that the world’s second-biggest economy has yet to bottom out.

Song Guoqing, an academic member of the People’s Bank of China monetary policy committee, also warned that a decline in producer prices in tandem with consumer inflation may hurt investment returns of industrial companies, damping their desire to expand.

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Asian Indices Up, US Futures Slightly Down

Asian stocks and the South Korean won advanced for a second day as Premier Wen Jiabaosaid China’s economic recovery hasn’t gained momentum, fueling speculation policy makers will boost stimulus. Grains rose on concern a U.S. drought will damage crops.

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index added 0.2 percent as of 8:10 a.m. in Hong Kong as Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index climbed 0.9 percent. Japan is closed today for a public holiday. U.S. equity futures fell 0.2 percent, after the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index’s biggest single-day gain in two weeks. The won advanced 0.2 percent to 1,148.10 per U.S. dollar. Corn futures jumped 3.6 percent, while wheat and soybeans rose at least 1.7 percent. Oil in New York fell 0.2 percent to $86.94 a barrel, snapping three days of gains.

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North Korea Relieves Army Chief Ri Yong Ho Of All Posts

North Korea relieved its army chief, Vice Marshal Ri Yong Ho, of all his posts, citing illness.

The Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea made the decision yesterday, the official Korean Central News Agency said today, without providing details on Ri’s illness or his replacement.

Ri led a parade on April 25 marking the 80th anniversary of the foundation of the North Korean military. In December he and leader Kim Jong Un led the funeral procession through the streets of Pyongyang after the death of Kim Jong Il.

Ri helped Kim Jong Un gain control of the military following the death of his father, according to South Korea’s Yonhap News.

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New security fears as Heathrow checks miss terror suspects

Terror suspects on the Home Office watch list are entering the UK in the runup to the Olympics without the necessary security checks, according to frontline officials at Heathrow.

One senior border officer told the Observer that inexperienced new recruits, deployed to shorten queues after complaints over lengthy waiting times, are repeatedly “missing” passengers of interest who should be referred to counterterrorism officers when they reach passport control.

The official said he was personally aware that three terror suspects – all of whose names are registered on the Home Office suspect index system – had been waved through by staff on his shifts since the start of July. Border officials should immediately notify counterterrorism police or MI5 if they suspect that “SX travellers” are attempting to enter the UK. Another colleague alleged that five suspects were “missed” in one day earlier this month.

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Asian Stocks, Oil Drop On Signs Europe Slump Is Worsening

Asian stocks retreated from an eight- week high and crude oil dropped after data indicated a worsening economic slump in Europe. The yen weakened against most major peers as Japansignaled further monetary easing.

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index slid 0.4 percent as of 11:25 a.m. in Tokyo, while futures on theStandard & Poor’s 500 Index declined 0.4 percent. The yen traded weaker than 80 versus the dollar for the first time since June 25. The Philippine peso rose toward a four-year high after a Standard & Poor’s upgrade, while crude oil fell 0.8 percent in New York, where financial markets were closed yesterday for a holiday. Treasuries gained before U.S. jobs reports today and tomorrow.

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Gold Climbs As ECB Rate Reduction May Help Fan Inflation

Gold climbed to near a two-week high on speculation that a decision by the European Central Bank to cut interest rates may help to fan inflation, and after holdings in exchange-traded products expanded to an all-time high.

Immediate-delivery gold gained as much as 0.2 percent to $1,619.13 an ounce and was at $1,619.07 at 10:37 a.m. in Singapore. Holdings in exchange-traded products rose to a record 2,412.42 metric tons on July 3, data tracked by Bloomberg show.

The ECB will probably reduce the benchmark rate 25 basis points to a record low of 0.75 percent today, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of 62 economists, as policy makers battle the region’s debt crisis. The Bank of England may raise its target for bond purchases today, boosting it by 50 billion pounds ($78 billion), another survey shows.

 

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Europe, Asia Stocks Gain On Factory Gauges; Euro Weakens

European stocks rose for a second day and Asian equities headed for their longest winning streak since March as manufacturing indicators in Japan and China beat forecasts. The euro fell before factory and jobs data for the currency bloc and oil declined from a one-month high.

The Stoxx Europe 600 (SXXP) Index added 0.2 percent as of 8:01 a.m. in London, while theMSCI Asia Pacific (MXAP) Index gained 0.3 percent in its fourth day of gains. Standard & Poor’s 500 Index futures slipped 0.3 percent. The euro dropped against most of its major peers after gaining 1.8 percent against the dollar on June 29. Oil in New York sank 1.5 percent to $83.72 a barrel after surging the most in three years. Corn rose to the highest since September. The Markit iTraxx indexes tracking credit- default swaps for Asia ex-Japan, Japan and Australia all fell.

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Euro Rises After EU Leaders Renounce Spain Loan Seniority

The euro surged the most this year after European leaders agreed to drop the condition that emergency loans to Spanish banks give their governments preferred creditor status.

The European Union has “addressed the issues on the seniority of Spanish loans,” said Roy Teo, a currency strategist in Singapore at ABN Amro Private Bank. “That should help push down Spanish yields. It’s positive for the euro.”

The 17-nation euro surged as much as 1.5 percent, the biggest intraday advance since Nov. 30. It was up 1.2 percent to $1.2591 at 12:28 p.m. in Tokyo from the close in New Yorkyesterday. The euro jumped 1.1 percent to 99.93 yen after earlier falling as much as 0.3 percent. The Japanese currency fetched 79.35 per dollar from 79.46.

The Australian dollar added 0.9 percent to $1.0136 and the New Zealand dollar rallied 0.7 percent to 79.35 U.S. cents.

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Asian Stocks Rise As Euro Leaders Drop Spain Conditions

Asian stocks climbed, with the regional benchmark index posting its biggest gain in three weeks, after European leaders meeting in Brussels agreed to ease repayment rules to Spanish banks and make it easier to recapitalize the region’s troubled lenders.

Westpac Banking Corp. (WBC) rose 1.4 percent in Sydney as banks provided the biggest support to the Asian benchmark after leaders of the 17 euro countries dropped a requirement that governments get preferred creditor status on crisis loans to Spain’s banks. Toyota Motor Corp. (7203) advanced 2.4 percent, leading gains among Japanese exporters. BHP Billiton Ltd. (BHP), the world’s largest mining company, climbed 2.6 percent as metals prices soared.

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index (MXAP) climbed 1.8 percent to 117.03 as of 1:41 p.m. in Tokyo. The gauge fell 12 percent through yesterday from a February high amid concern growth in China and the U.S. is slowing as the euro-zone debt crisis escalates.

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Mr. Schiff Returns to Washington

Peter Schiff, the investment seer and radio show host best known around here for engaging with Occupy Wall Street scenesters, got a chilly reception at a House hearing on Oversight of Federal Housing Administration’s Multifamily Insurance Programs the other day, and has posted a highlight reel at the Youtubes.

Schiff breaks out his plays of the day:

6:06 – My Opening Statement

11:16 – “I don’t know whether to go to Mr. Schiff or not, but I guess I will” – Judy Biggert (R)
I explain to Chairwoman Judy Biggert why federal involvement in home lending has created more problems than it has solved.

16:22 – “Despite all the sound and fury, there’s not a lot of details…” – Robert Hurt (R)
My proposals that old regulations be repealed, rather than new ones proposed, in order for the free market to come up with solutions are repeatedly lost on Congressman Robert Hurt.

25:16 – “Mr. Schiff, I just have one question…” – Emanuel Cleaver (D)
Congressman Emanuel Cleaver II unsuccessfully tries to ‘nail’ me. Instead, a spirited discussion ensues in which I remind the congressman of the moral hazard and economic costs of government subsidies.

30:38 – “Maybe that happens in an Ayn Rand novel…” – Dan Sherman (D)
Congressman Dan Sherman asserts that as a practical matter the federal government, in one way or another, insures all homes, and that only characters in an Ayn Rand novel would believe otherwise.

Correction: That’s not Dan Sherman but Rad Brad Sherman, the Sherman Oaks Democrat, occasional critic of Obama Administration policies and weather machine expert who I was interested to see seems to have a substantial lead over smart-money favorite Howard Berman in their squabble over a jerrymandered San Fernando Valley seat.

Sherman, who voted against the 2008 TARP bailout, is refreshingly post-ethical in his calls for taxpayers to support lifestyles and political structures he knows to be unsustainable. In 2009, when I asked about the wisdom of having the Federal Housing Administration continue to underwrite loans on million-dollar houses, Sherman replied, “The economy of Los Angeles would tank if prices fell another 50 percent.” The pattern holds here. His argument to Schiff is that government must subsidize insurance because to avoid doing so would subject Washington, DC to extortion during “front-page natural disasters.”

 

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China Trade Surprise Signals Domestic Stimulus Focus: Economy

June 11 (Bloomberg) — China’s exports grew in May at more than double the pace analysts estimated while industrial output and retail sales trailed forecasts, signaling last week’s cut in interest rates was aimed at countering a domestic slowdown.

Overseas shipments climbed 15.3 percent from a year earlier, the customs bureau said yesterday, exceeding all 29 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey. Industrial output rose by less than 10 percent for a second month and retail sales increased the least in almost six years excluding holiday-month distortions, statistics bureau reports showed June 9.

China’s resilience in trade indicates Europe’s debt crisis has yet to produce a collapse in world commerce on the scale of the 2008 global recession, even as the plight of Spain’s banks threatens to deepen the trauma. Stronger exports and imports also support the case for Premier Wen Jiabao to adopt a more restrained stimulus than the credit boom that started in late 2008 and stoked a property bubble.

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FLASH: Man Claims His Genitals Were Burned By Urinal In Arby’s

What happens to bears tomorrow….

MONUMENT, Colo. (CBS4) – An Aurora man is upset with an Arby’s restaurant and has filed a lawsuit after he said he was badly burned by the store’s urinal.

The incident allegedly happened two years ago at the Arby’s in Monument, but the man just filed the bizarre lawsuit against the restaurant.

Kenneth Dejoie claims his genitals were badly burned while using this urinal inside the store’s men’s room.

The five-page lawsuit was filed in El Paso County District Court on May 25. The lawsuit claims that Dejoie was “utilizing the urinal in the men’s restroom when it caused a jet of steam to shoot forth from the urinal and burn his genitals.”

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IRANIAN GENERAL: OUR FINGER ON WAR TRIGGER

With Western pressure growing on Bashar Assad over the latest massacres of defenseless women and children in Syria, Iranian officials again are warning the world against any action against the Middle East dictator.

The pro-Assad “resistance” has its finger on the trigger and the aggressors will not survive the conflict, a senior commander of the Revolutionary Guards, Brig. Gen. Massoud Jazaeri, told Mashregh, a media outlet run by the Guards. Iranian officials often refer to Iran, Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon as the resistance front.

Mashregh reported in March that Iran’s armed forces had formed a joint war room that included officers from Syria, Iran and Hezbollah for a coordinated military response to an attack on Syria.

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Euro Breakup Precedent Seen When 15 State-Ruble Zone Fell Apart

I never thought of this but there are definite parallels.

It was a currency union of 15 states in 1992. Two years later, as budget deficits spiraled out of control, hyperinflation reigned and economies shriveled, just two members of the Soviet Union’s ruble zone were left.

As Greek politicians threaten to break terms of the country’s bailout with international lenders, Spain calls for financial help, and northern European nations balk at funding the south, historians are asking whether the euro region is about to face a similar Exodus. They take a longer view of the European Union’s crisis than economists, and it’s much bleaker.

The Soviet experience tells us “an exit like this is messy and leads to loss of income and inflation, and people are right to be scared of it,” said Harold James, a professor of history atPrinceton University whose books include “The End of Globalization: Lessons From the Great Depression.” “It isn’t an attractive analogy at all because the Soviet Union states all had serious troubles for the whole of the 1990s.”

While differences between the Soviet Union and the EU are greater than their similarities, there are parallels that may prove helpful in assessing the debt crisis, historians say. Both were postwar constructs set up in response to a collective trauma; in both cases, the founding generation was dying out as crisis hit and disintegration loomed.

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Spain Seeks $125 Billion Bailout As Bank Crisis Worsens

Spain asked euro region governments for a bailout worth as much as 100 billion euros ($125 billion) to rescue its banking system as the country became the biggest euro economy so far to seek international aid.

“The Spanish government declares its intention of seeking European financing for the recapitalization of the Spanish banks that need it,” Spanish Economy Minister Luis de Guindos told reporters in Madrid today. A statement by euro region finance ministers said the loan amount will “cover estimated capital requirements with an additional safety margin.”

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GREEK MADNESS ON TEE-VEE

Greek parliament candidates fighting on a Greek talk show, including the Fascist party candidate, a man, repeatedly punching the communist candidate, a woman, in the face. FACT: socialism has failed.

Video Here

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Asian Stocks Gain As Policy Makers Signal More Stimulus

Asian stocks climbed, with the benchmark regional gauge heading for its biggest three-day gain this year, as global policy makers signaled they may take steps to stimulate economic growth.

BHP Billiton Ltd. (BHP), the world’s largest mining company, advanced 1.8 percent in Sydney as Australian employment unexpectedly rose in May, driven by hiring amid the nation’s minerals boom. Mitsubishi Corp. (8058), the No. 1 Japanese trading house, rose 1.4 percent and Komatsu Ltd., a mining-equipment maker, gained 1.9 percent in Tokyo as investors bought shares of companies with profits closely tied to economic growth.

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