Houla massacre: US military warns Syria as pressure builds on Obama

The US’s top military officer has warned Syria it could face armed intervention as international outrage grows over the massacre of women and children by tanks and artillery in Houla.

General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said that following the UN security council’s condemnation of the slaughter – in which more than 100 people were killed, many of them children – there needed to be increased diplomatic pressure on Damascus. But he added that the US would be prepared to act militarily if it was “asked to do so

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Greece will leave the euro zone on June 18 if the populist government wins the country’s elections on the 17 as the rest of the euro zone rounds on “cheaters,” Nick Dewhirst, director at wealth management firm Integral Asset Management, told CNBC.com Monday.

“The euro zone is a club but you get cheaters who get away with it until everyone finds out and at that point you need to remove them otherwise everyone will cheat. It’s better for Greece to leave,” Dewhirst said.

He added that Greek society was built on cheating and scheming, saying “everyone does it” but that voters elsewhere in the euro zone were now calling Greece to account.

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Spanish banks are masking their full exposure to soured property loans while they continue to prop up insolvent “zombie” developers, leading to credit-rating downgrades and plummeting share prices.

Spain is trying to clean up its banks, requiring lenders to set aside more for possible losses on loans deemed performing to developers like Metrovacesa SA (MVC), which hasn’t completed a project in more than a year and has none under way. While that represents about 30 billion euros ($38 billion) of increased provisions, it’s not enough because many of the loans said to be performing aren’t, said Mikel Echavarren, chairman of Irea, a Madrid-based finance companyspecializing in real estate.

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Portugal’s government will approve a 1 billion-euro ($1.3 billion) credit line to municipalities to help them repay short-term debt to suppliers, said Miguel Relvas, the country’s minister for parliamentary affairs.

“The credit line, with a total value of 1 billion euros, aims to inject money into the local economy,” Relvas said at a news conference in Lisbon today after meeting the president of the country’s association of municipalities, Fernando Ruas.

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Over the weekend, MSNBC host Chris Hayes told his viewers that he’s “uncomfortable” with calling “war dead and the fallen … ‘heroes.'” Now, the Veterans of Foreign Wars group have responded by saying that Hayes’s comments “are reprehensible and disgusting” and are asking for the MSNBC host to apologize.

“Chris Hayes’ recent remarks on MSNBC regarding our fallen service members are reprehensible and disgusting,” Richard DeNoyer, a VFW official, told Fox News in a statement. “His words reflect his obvious disregard for the service and sacrifice of the men and women who have paid the ultimate price while defending our nation. His insipid statement is particularly callous because it comes at a time when our entire nation pauses to reflect and honor the memory of our nations’ fallen heroes.”

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The Iraqi bourse is asking local companies to list shares and depositary receipts in London andNew York to attract investors and increase volumes, the bourse’s chief executive officer said.

“We are encouraging our companies” to list on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) or the Nasdaq Stock Market “to allow shareholders to turn some of their shares into global depositary receipts or American depositary receipts,” CEO Taha Ahmed Abdul Salam al-Rubaye said in Baghdad yesterday. Exchange officials held meetings with Bank of New York Mellon regarding ADRs, he said.

The Iraq Stock Exchange (BBOB) General Index has tumbled 21 percent since reaching the highest in at least two years on Oct. 4. It was little changed today at 116.20. There are 86 listed companies on the exchange, from industries including banking, agriculture, tourism and insurance. Financial companies made up 70 percent of the bourse’s $4 billion market value at the end of 2011, al-Rubaye said.

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(Reuters) – Security experts have discovered a highly sophisticated computer virus in Iran and the Middle East that they believe was deployed at least five years ago to engage in state-sponsored cyber espionage.

Evidence suggest that the virus, dubbed Flame, may have been built on behalf of the same nation or nations that commissioned the Stuxnet worm that attacked Iran’s nuclear program in 2010, according to Kaspersky Lab, the Russian cyber security software maker that claimed responsibility for discovering the virus.

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This is just plain stupid, and so is “Beiber Fever”

Teen idol Justin Bieber is wanted for questioning by Los Angeles County Sheriff’s investigators –  after a paparazzo complained of being roughed up by the young pop star at a shopping center.

The scuffle allegedly happened when the photographer tried to snap pictures of the 18-year-old and his girlfriend Selena Gomez, after they walked out of a theater at The Commons at Calabasas today.

Sheriff Lt. Robert Wiard says the photographer in question called 911 on Sunday and complained of pain to his chest.

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MOSCOW (AP) — Gay activists tried to stage two demonstrations in Moscow on Sunday to demand the right to hold a gay pride parade in the Russian capital, but they were blocked first by Orthodox Christian opponents and then by police, who detained a total of about 40 people from both sides.

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(Reuters) – Most of the cadets who graduated on Saturday from West Point were in elementary school when hijacked planes hit the World Trade Center and Pentagon on September 11, 2001, and enrolled in the U.S. military academy with wars raging in Iraq andAfghanistan.

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Deep in the rainforest of south-east Cameroon, the voices of the men rang through the trees. “Where are the white people?” they shouted. The men, who begin to surround us, are poachers, who make their money from the illegal slaughter of gorillas and chimpanzees. They disperse but make it known that they are not keen for their activities to be reported; the trade they ply could not only wipe out critically endangered species but, scientists are now warning, could also create the next pandemic of a deadly virus in humans.

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Scary times indeud

The chief executive of the multi-billion pound Lloyd’s of London has publicly admitted that the world’s leading insurance market is prepared for a collapse in the single currency and has reduced its exposure “as much as possible” to the crisis-ridden continent.

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House lawmakers will consider an international proposal next week to give the United Nations more control over the Internet.

The proposal is backed by China, Russia, Brazil, India and other UN members, and would give the UN’s International Telecommunication Union (ITU) more control over the governance of the Internet.

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The high mortality rate in Mexico’s drug war has seen women progress quickly in the shadowy underworld of the cartels and they are increasingly taking on key management roles, a new book says.

“Female Bosses of Narco-Traffic,” by Arturo Santamaria, a researcher at the Autonomous University of the State of Sinaloa, traces the ascent of women in drug trafficking organizations.

“The narco-traffickers will become stronger as a result of this,” wrote Santamaria. “They will be more difficult to fight because the women appear to be acting smarter.”

An estimated 50,000 people have been killed since 2006 in a government crackdown on organized crime that has set off turf wars among rival groups even as they fight off the Mexican military’s counter-narcotics units.

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Carlos Slim sees Europe’s debt crisis as a “good moment” to apply his strategy of investing in times of turmoil, said the billionaire’s son, America Movil SAB (AMXL) Co- Chairman Carlos Slim Domit.

America Movil, controlled by the elder Slim, announced a $3.4 billion bid to increase its stake in former Dutch phone monopoly Royal KPN NV (KPN) earlier this month. While the acquisition would be Slim’s first major European foray, it follows a longstanding pattern, his son said. America Movil tries to stay as efficient and financially sound as possible so that it can quickly capitalize on fresh opportunities, he said.

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Wait, what? This makes far too much sense…

Greece’s New Democracy party placed first in all six opinion polls published in the country today as its leader Antonis Samaras said the cost of leaving the euro area would be greater than staying in the shared currency.

New Democracy, which supports Greece’s international bailout agreements, led by a margin of as much as 5.7 percentage points over Syriza, the main party opposed to implementing the terms of financial aid packages, according to a poll by Kapa Research SA for To Vima newspaper.

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International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde says she has more sympathy for deprived children in sub-Saharan Africa than for many of those facing poverty in Greece.

Greek parents have to take responsibility if their children are being affected by spending cuts and “have to pay their tax,” Lagarde said in an interview with the U.K.’s Guardian.

“I think more of the little kids from a school in a little village in Niger who get teaching two hours a day, sharing one chair for three of them, and who are very keen to get an education,” Lagarde told the newspaper. “I have them in my mind all the time. Because I think they need even more help” than people in Greece.

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A plan to build Australia’s largest brothel is poised to overcome local government opposition in a victory for Sydney’s sex industry over creeping regulation.

The A$12 million ($11.7 million), three-story extension to the Stiletto brothel near the city center can be approved once client numbers are capped, Commissioner Susan O’Neill of the Land & Environment Court of New South Wales said in Sydney May 25. She asked for submissions from lawyers on how to limit customers before giving final approval.

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There’s so much trouble at the NYT, it’s kinda hard…

 The tension between Robinson and Gonzalez, with Sulzberger in the middle, seemed to signal a shift at the paper. The relationship between Robinson and Sulzberger began “cooling” through the period that Gonzalez was emerging publicly, say people familiar with the matter. And when Sulzberger fired Robinson in December, out of the blue, giving her an astounding exit package of nearly $24 million, some top executives at the newspaper thought that the influence of Gonzalez was decisive. It was a scenario that appealed to those relish­ing a catfight between “Arthur’s women,” but it is not quite the true story.

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Several media outlets have again pulled or edited already-published articles about the activities of President Barack Obama’s daughter, even though the stories appeared to pose no active security risk to the first family.

On Thursday, 14-year-old Malia Obama attended a concert by the British boy band One Direction at the Patriot Center in Fairfax, Va., flanked by Secret Service agents who attempted unsuccessfully to blend in with the crowd of mostly pre-teen girls.

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