Banks Face Suits as States Weigh Libor Losses

The New York Times - Nathanial Popper, 9/4/12

Janet Cowell, the treasurer of North Carolina, is examining the extent of the state’s possible losses related to Libor. (Peter W. Stevenson for The New York Times)

The scandal over global interest rates has state officials like Janet Cowell of North Carolina working intensely behind the scenes to build a case for suing the nation’s largest banks.

Freedom Project

France providing money, arms to Syrian insurgents: Report

Press TV - 9/6/12

France has embarked on providing direct financial and arms aid to insurgent-held areas of Syria and is even supplying anti-aircraft weapons to terrorists fighting Syrian Army forces.

Freedom Project

Exclusive: Libor probe claims Barclays executive and a trader

Reuters
By Jennifer Ablan and Matthew Goldstein, 9/4/12

(Reuters) - The fallout from an investigation into the attempted manipulation of global benchmark interest rates has again rocked Barclays Plc, as the bank recently ousted a top executive and a trader in New York for their roles in the scandal, according to regulatory filings obtained on Tuesday.

Barclays bank headquarters in Canary Wharf, east London August 30, 2012. Credit: Reuters/Olivia Harris

Barclays formally notified the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority on August 29 that the executive, Ritankar "Ronti" Pal, was "discharged" on July 30 because the bank had a "loss of confidence" in him as a manager for failing "to properly supervise individuals on his team", one of the filings stated. His departure had been previously reported but no explanation had been given.

Freedom Project

The Marijuana Myth: What If Everything You Think You Know About This Plant Is Wrong?

Huff Post - Laurel Dewey, 9/4/12

What if everything you were ever told and believed about a subject wasn't true? What if the well-meaning, trusted and respected people who told you those lies were just parroting the propaganda that they heard?

That's the exact dilemma I found myself in about three years ago. For most of my life, I bought into the grim and terrifying stories I heard about -- dare I say it? -- marijuana.

More: HuffingtonPost.com

Freedom Project

Declassified CIA document reveals US analytic errors before Iraq war

Press TV - 9/6/12

The American spy agency, CIA has declassified a document, admitting to “analytic liabilities” that resulted in false US intelligence estimates on Iraq’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction, leading to a major war.

The heavily-redacted 2006 review, declassified on Wednesday, shows that the case for war against Iraq rested on a number of falsehoods, all of which came from the US intelligence community’s failures in assessing Iraqi weapons programs in the lead-up to the Bush administration’s 2003 invasion.

The document highlights that such “analytic liabilities” kept US analysts from seeing the issue “through an Iraqi prism” and generated findings that helped justify the Iraq war.

More: PressTV.com.

Freedom Project

Lock mess: Austin cops supplied incriminating devices to Occupy protesters

RT.com - 9/7/12

Ronnie Garza, one of the defendants, wearing lockboxes on his arms during a protest. (Image from Occupy Austin Facebook account)

A US court is reviewing Austin police emails for possible evidence of entrapment. It was revealed that Occupy protesters, who face felony charges for using special devices to create human chains, received the locks from an undercover officer.

The officer was one of the three APD agents who infiltrated the movement. He helped them obtain lockboxes, homemade devices consisting of a plastic or metal tube with a bolt running across in the center.

More: RT.com.