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LOL: 12 Rockets Hit Israel In the First Hours of a Ceasefire

“AFP – Twelve rockets fired from the Gaza Strip hit Israel on Wednesday in the first hours that followed a ceasefire agreement ending hostilities in the week-long Gaza conflict, a police spokesman told AFP.

The Israeli spokesman added that the attacks caused no injuries or damage, with the rockets mostly landing in open fields in the south of the Jewish state.”

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Report: French Officials Accuse U.S. of Hacking Sarkozy’s Computers

“The United States used U.S.-Israeli spy software to hack into the French presidential office earlier this year, the French cyberwarfare agency has concluded, according to the newsmagazine l’Express.

The magazine reported late Tuesday that the computers of several close advisers to then-president Nicolas Sarkozy – including Chief of Staff Xavier Musca – were compromised in May by a computer virus that bears the hallmarks of Flame, which was allegedly created by a U.S.-Israeli team to target Iran’s nuclear program. Anonymous French officials pointed the finger at the United States.”

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SEC Sues Hedge Fund in What They Describe As the Largest Insider Trading Case Ever

“WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The Securities and Exchange Commission said Tuesday it’s suing a hedge-fund manager and a doctor over what it says may be the largest insider-trading scheme ever charged.

The SEC alleged that $276 million in illegal profits or avoided losses were made by investment advisers and their hedge funds, by trading ahead of negative news in July 2008 on clinical trial involving an Alzheimer’s drug developed by Elan Corp. ELN -0.10%  and Wyeth, now a Pfizer Inc. PFE +0.02%subsidiary.

Neither company is facing charges. Read related story on Elan-Wyeth trial.

In a suit filed with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the SEC alleged that a professor of neurology at the University of Michigan Medical School tipped off a hedge fund run by CR Intrinsic to liquidate $700 million in positions in Elan and Wyeth as well as establish $960 million in short positions against the companies’ shares.”

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Ex-UBS Trader Adoboli Guilty of $2.3 Billion U.K. Fraud

“Former UBS AG (UBSN) trader Kweku Adoboli was found guilty of fraud in relation to a $2.3 billion loss, the largest from unauthorized trading in British history.

Adoboli was convicted following a two-month-long London trial during which lawyers for the 32-year-old argued UBS managers pushed traders to take more risks and rule-breaking at the bank was rampant.”

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Banks in Germany Continue to Clash Over a Banking Union

“The effort to establish a euro-area banking regulator in Frankfurt is exposing deepening fault lines among the city’s banks as policy makers jostle over the shape of the industry.

Deutsche Bank’s co-Chief Executive Officer Juergen Fitschen, an advocate, is among top executives and officials meeting at the Euro Finance Week conference in the currency union’s financial capital today. At the center of the debate will be how much power the European Central Bank, based in Frankfurt, should be allowed to wield.

The argument pits Fitschen, who favors centralized ECB regulation, against more than 1,500 smaller banks who lend more cash to Europe’s biggest economy than he does. The discord over banking union mirrors a wider dispute between politicians, regulators and central banks across the continent that has led the Bundesbank, also based in Frankfurt, to lock horns with the ECB. At stake is a revival of last year’s bank share sell-off, prompted by foot-dragging on steps to stem Europe’s debt crisis.

“The path to banking union leads through Frankfurt and that’s where the conflicts will be focused,” Markus Rudolf, a professor of banking and finance at the WHU Otto Beisheim School of Management in Vallendar, Germany, said by phone. “Frankfurt is the site of very different competing opinions.” ”

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$JPM to be Served Formal Notice for Anti -Money-Laundering Charges

“U.S. regulators are expected to serve a formal notice to JPMorgan Chaseaccusing the nation’s biggest bank of having weaknesses in its anti-money-laundering systems, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people close to the situation.

Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s (OCC’s) cease-and-desist order to JPMorgan[JPM  Loading…      ()   ] is part of a broader crackdown on the nation’s largest banks, the people told the paper.

The OCC is expected to require JPMorgan to beef up its procedures and examine past transactions, the Journal said.

Investigators and regulators are examining risk controls surrounding a multibillion-dollar trading loss within the company’s Chief Investment Office.

The authorities are also probing whether a JPMorgan energy unit manipulated trading markets in California and how the bank’s Bear Stearns unit packaged and sold home loans to investors before the financial crisis, the paper said.”

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Hostess Brands Inc. Will Shut Their Doors and Liquidate Assets, 18k Employees to be Pink Slipped

“Hostess Brands Inc., the maker of Wonder bread and Twinkies, said it will shut down and liquidate after a strike by members of its bakery workers’ union “crippled” the company’s operations.

“We deeply regret the necessity of today’s decision, but we do not have the financial resources to weather an extended nationwide strike,” Chief Executive Officer Gregory F. Rayburn said in a statement.  “Hostess Brands will move promptly to lay off most of its 18,500-member workforce and focus on selling its assets to the highest bidders.”

The Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union went on strike Nov. 9 after a bankruptcy judge in White PlainsNew York, imposed contract concessions that 92 percent of the union’s workers rejected.”

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$OSG Files for Bankruptcy

“The company intends to use the Chapter 11 process to significantly reduce its debt profile, reorganize other financial obligations and create a strong financial foundation for the Company’s future. Certain subsidiaries, including those that manage the Company’s facilities in Manila, Singapore, Greece, London and Newcastle, have not filed for Chapter 11 reorganization. A complete list of the OSG entities which filed, and those which did not file, Chapter 11 petitions, is available at www.kccllc.net/osg. OSG intends to work with its constituencies to emerge from bankruptcy as quickly as possible while maintaining the company’s market position, business model and strategy.”

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Europe Protests Austerity With Strikes in Spain, Italy

“Spanish workers staged a second general strike this year as unions across Europe prepared the biggest coordinated protests yet against budget cuts that policy makers say are needed to end the region’s debt crisis.

In Spain, unions said most auto and metal workers joined the strike, even as demand for electricity was just 12 percent below usual. One of Portugal’s two biggest labor groups also called a strike. Partial walkouts are planned in Greece and Italy, and French unions are urging workers to join protest marches.

Opposition to Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s cuts in health, education and welfare benefits is growing while those measures are failing to rein in the budget deficit or bring down borrowing costs. Demands for less austerity are gaining traction as the International Monetary Fund recommends nations including Spain slow the pace of budget cuts.

“This is a strike against the suicidal economic policies of the government,” Ignacio Fernandez Toxo, head of Spain’s CCOO union, told supporters late yesterday.

Rajoy, who won a landslide election victory a year ago, is wrestling with the second-largest budget deficit in the euro region while trying to revive the economy from a five-year slump that pushed the jobless rate to 26 percent. He is trying to avoid following Portugal, Greece and Ireland into seeking a sovereign bailout as Spaniards resist the measures being implemented as a condition for the 100 billion-euro ($127 billion) European bank rescue he agreed to in June.”

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U.K. Lawmakers Try to Discern How $GOOG, $AMZN, & $SBUX Paid So Little Taxes in the U.K.

“LONDON (Reuters) – UK lawmakers will quiz executives of Starbucks , Google and Amazon on Monday about how they have managed to pay only small amounts of tax in Britain while racking up billions of dollars worth of sales here.

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which is charged with monitoring government financial affairs, has invited the companies to give evidence amid mounting public and political concern about tax avoidance by big international companies.

“It is hard for the ordinary person to believe it’s fair,” said Margaret Hodge, a member of parliament for the opposition Labour party and chairman of PAC.

“It makes people incredibly angry in the current fiscal climate,” she added, in reference to the austerity measures which large budget deficits have forced on the UK, and other countries.

Britain and Germany last week announced plans to push the Group of 20 economic powers to make multinational companies pay their “fair share” of taxes following reports of large firms exploiting loopholes to avoid taxes.”

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Billionaire Acts Like a Douche-Bag, Gets Banned From Nobu for Life

“It wasn’t the happiest of evenings for pharmaceutical billionaire Stewart Rahr at swank New York restaurant Nobu the other night, Brad Hamilton of the New York Post reports.

Rahr apparently showed up at Nobu Fifty Seven and was outraged to find that other diners were sitting at “his” table. He then marched up to the table and offered to pay the people’s tab to get them to leave.

The restaurant’s manager says he later “called me the C-word and said he would kill me.”

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