News Summaries from the WantToKnow.info Archive

Mainstream media often buries important news stories. PEERS is a US-based 501(c)3 nonprofit that finds and summarizes these stories for WantToKnow.info's free weekly email newsletter and website. Explore below key excerpts of revealing news articles from our archive that were published on today's date in previous years. Each excerpt is taken verbatim from the major media website listed at the link provided. The most important sentences are highlighted. If you find a link that no longer works, please tell us about it in a comment. And if you find this material overwhelming or upsetting, here's a message just for you. By educating ourselves and spreading the word, we can and will build a brighter future.

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When corporations bankroll politics, we all pay the price

Published on this day in 2012, by The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)

Original Article Source, Dated 2012-10-29

It's a revolting spectacle: the two presidential candidates engaged in a frantic and demeaning scramble for money. By 6 November, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney will each have raised more than $1bn. Other groups have already spent a further billion. Every election costs more than the one before; every election, as a result, drags the United States deeper into cronyism and corruption. Is it conceivable, for instance, that Romney, whose top five donors are all Wall Street banks, would put the financial sector back in its cage? Or that Obama, who has received $700,000 from both Microsoft and Google, would challenge their monopolistic powers? Or, in the Senate, that the leading climate change denier James Inhofe, whose biggest donors are fossil fuel companies, could change his views, even when confronted by an overwhelming weight of evidence? The US feeding frenzy shows how the safeguards and structures of a nominal democracy can remain in place while the system they define mutates into plutocracy. Despite perpetual attempts to reform it, US campaign finance is now more corrupt and corrupting than it has been for decades. It is hard to see how it can be redeemed. If the corporate cronies and billionaires' bootlickers who currently hold office were to vote to change the system, they'd commit political suicide. We should see this system as a ghastly warning of what happens if a nation fails to purge the big money from politics.

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EU Parliament votes to protect Edward Snowden

Published on this day in 2015, by CNN

Original Article Source, Dated 2015-10-29

The European Parliament voted Thursday in support of a resolution that calls on member states to protect Edward Snowden from extradition. The vote ... has no legal force. The resolution urges nations to drop criminal charges and "consequently prevent extradition or rendition by third parties, in recognition of his status as whistle-blower and international human rights defender." Snowden called Thursday's vote a "game-changer." "This is not a blow against the US Government, but an open hand extended by friends. It is a chance to move forward," he wrote.The Justice Department has said Snowden would face criminal prosecution if he returns to the United States. He's been charged with three felony counts, including violations of the U.S. Espionage Act. Snowden told the BBC this month that he has offered "many times" to go to prison in the United States as part of a deal to return from exile in Russia, but is still waiting for an answer from the American government. In response to Thursday's vote, U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said the U.S. policy on Snowden has not changed. "He needs to come back to the United States and face the due process and the judicial process here in the United States.

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7 countries where Americans can study at universities, in English, for free (or almost free)

Published on this day in 2014, by Washington Post Blog

Original Article Source, Dated 2014-10-29

Since 1985, U.S. college costs have surged by about 500 percent, and tuition fees keep rising. In Germany, they've done the opposite. The country's universities have been tuition-free since the beginning of October. Tuition rates were always low in Germany, but now the German government fully funds the education of its citizens -- and even of foreigners. Explaining the change, Dorothee Stapelfeldt, a senator in the northern city of Hamburg, said tuition fees "discourage young people who do not have a traditional academic family background from taking up study." Germany's higher education landscape primarily consists of internationally well-ranked public universities, some of which receive special funding because the government deems them "excellent institutions." What's more, Americans can earn a German undergraduate or graduate degree without speaking a word of German and without having to pay a single dollar of tuition fees: About 900 undergraduate or graduate degrees are offered exclusively in English, with courses ranging from engineering to social sciences. For some German degrees, you don't even have to formally apply. The vast degree offerings in English are intended to prepare German students to communicate in a foreign language, but also to attract foreign students, because the country needs more skilled workers.

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Rabobank Fined $1.1 Billion Over Libor, Euribor Manipulation

Published on this day in 2013, by Bloomberg Businessweek

Original Article Source, Dated 2013-10-29

Rabobank Groep, the co-operative formed in 1898 to lend to Dutch farmers, was fined 774 million euros ($1.1 billion) and the chairman resigned as the scandal over the rigging of benchmark interest rates ensnared a fifth firm. The Utrecht, Netherlands-based lender entered into an agreement with the Justice Department to accept responsibility for manipulation of Libor and Euribor to avoid prosecution. The fines are the largest-ever against the bank and second-largest over manipulation of the London interbank offered rate. Global investigations into banks’ attempts to manipulate the benchmarks for profit have led to fines and settlements for Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland, UBS and ICAP. Rabobank derivatives and money-market traders influenced the lender’s submissions to benefit their positions linked to Libor and conspired with employees of other banks to rig rates from May 2005 to January 2011. More than 500 attempts were made by Rabobank to manipulate Libor, according to the regulator. Thirty current and former employees of the Dutch lender were involved, Rabobank executive board member Sipko Schat said today. Five of them were fired, he said, while 14 are still working for the bank. The lender is also clawing back 4.2 million euros in bonuses, Rabobank said in a statement. The manipulation “directly affected the rates referenced by financial products held by and on behalf of companies and investors around the world,” Valerie Parlave, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington field office, said in a statement.

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Canada should investigate Dick Cheney for war crimes

Published on this day in 2013, by Toronto Star (One of Canada's leading newspapers)

Original Article Source, Dated 2013-10-29

As vice-president of the United States, Dick Cheney was a key architect of a post-9/11 response that featured waterboarding and other acts of torture, a global secret detention program where people were held for years without charge, and “extraordinary rendition,” by which innocent men such as Maher Arar were sent to countries like Syria to be tortured. His legacy of “endless war” continues today. Dick Cheney’s $500-a-person book tour appearance in Vancouver in September 2011 resulted in protests, with demonstrators calling for Cheney to be banned or prosecuted as a war criminal. Instead of returning to Canada last year, Cheney cancelled a trip to Toronto, deeming Canada too dangerous because of the likely demonstrators that would greet him. It’s unclear why Cheney now feels safe enough to venture north to Toronto. Bush was also met by hundreds of protestors seeking his arrest when he spoke at a business forum in Surrey, British Columbia in October 2011. In addition, with the support of the Canadian Centre for International Justice and the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, four men who were tortured at Guantánamo initiated a private prosecution for torture against Bush. Canada is a signatory to the United Nations Convention Against Torture. Under the Torture Convention, Canada is obligated to investigate and prosecute known torturers present in its territory (or, when possible, extradite them elsewhere for prosecution). Canada has incorporated this obligation into its domestic criminal code.

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"Inside Job" rigorously shows how financial crisis happened

Published on this day in 2010, by Denver Post (Denver's leading newspaper)

Original Article Source, Dated 2010-10-29

Somebody owes us $20 trillion. "Inside Job," a riveting, eye-opening, infuriating documentary about the financial collapse of 2008, coolly presents a prosecutor's brief against the culprits who engineered the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression. They occupy both sides of the legislative aisle, corporate boardrooms, Ivy League faculty lounges and bank headquarters. They made money — sometimes obscene amounts of it — while rigging a monetary meltdown that left middle-class taxpayers holding the bag, and thousands of less-fortunate former homeowners holding cardboard signs beside freeway on-ramps. This is no dry economics lesson; it is a vital wakeup call. The presentation is articulate and rigorously factual, presented in six chapters, from "How We Got There" to "Accountability." The financial earthquake was not only entirely avoidable, but was utterly predictable given the steady erosion of scrutiny of financial markets here and abroad. Reducing state monitoring under the Reagan administration set the stage for the savings-and-loan crisis and the collapse of the junk-bond market. But that was a luau compared with what lay ahead. Successive administrations, Democratic and Republican alike, heeded advisers pushing for further deregulation, leading to WorldCom, Enron, the dot-com bubble and the 2008 panic. Many of those laissez-faire advocates were prominent academics receiving sizable consulting fees to testify in antitrust cases and in Congress on Wall Street's behalf.

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Twenty-Six Countries Ban GMOs—Why Won’t the US?

Published on this day in 2013, by The Nation

Original Article Source, Dated 2013-10-29

The 2013 World Food Prize was awarded to three chemical company executives, including Monsanto executive vice president and chief technology officer, Robert Fraley, responsible for development of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The choice of Fraley was widely protested, with eighty-one members of the prestigious World Future Council calling it “an affront to the growing international consensus on safe, ecological farming practices that have been scientifically proven to promote nutrition and sustainability.” The choice of Monsanto’s man triggered accusations of prize buying. From 1999 to 2011, Monsanto donated $380,000 to the World Food Prize Foundation, in addition to a $5 million contribution in 2008. For some, the award to Monsanto is actually a sign of desperation on the part of the GMO establishment. The arguments of the critics are making headway. Owing to concern about the dangers and risks posed by genetically engineered organisms, many governments have instituted total or partial bans on their cultivation, importation, and field-testing. A few years ago, there were sixteen countries that had total or partial bans on GMOs. Now there are at least twenty-six, including Switzerland, Australia, Austria, China, India, France, Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, Greece, Bulgaria, Poland, Italy, Mexico and Russia. Significant restrictions on GMOs exist in about sixty other countries. Already, American rice farmers face strict limitations on their exports to the European Union, Japan, South Korea and the Philippines, and are banned altogether from Russia and Bulgaria because unapproved genetically engineered rice “escaped” during open-field trials on GMO rice.

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Can Ecstasy Help Relieve Social Anxiety Epidemic Among Autistic People?

Published on this day in 2016, by NPR

Original Article Source, Dated 2016-10-29

For a long time, Daniel Au Valencia got the message that she was wrong, wrong, wrong. “There’s a lot of shame around autism,” she says. Last year Valencia heard about an unusual experimental study ... exploring a treatment specifically for social anxiety in autistic adults. Many traditional therapies don’t work for autistic people, says Nick Walker, [a] consultant on the new study, because they reinforce stigma around autism. He sees this new research as a uniquely “culturally appropriate” approach to addressing the “epidemic” of social anxiety in autistic adults. The treatment is MDMA, known more commonly as Ecstacy or Molly. Early studies ... show it can ease or erase symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. In one study, 83 percent of study participants treated with MDMA and psychotherapy were cured of their PTSD. Psychologist Alicia Danforth [is] conducting the social anxiety study at UCLA’s Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute, along with psychiatrist Charles Grob. Valencia is one of just 12 autistic adults participating in the pilot study. It’s impossible to draw a direct line between the treatment and how Valencia is doing right now, but she says she’s doing great. She’s got a steady full-time job, her own apartment, and she just got married. She says her biggest takeaway ... is more about emotions than social anxiety. She says she’s learned that there’s no such thing as good emotions or bad emotions. “All emotions deserve to exist,” she says.

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9/11 theorists are either silly or shrewd

Published on this day in 2006, by Denver Post

Original Article Source, Dated 2006-10-29

They believe the federal government had a hand in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Members of Colorado911Visibility.org include psychologists, lawyers, civil engineers, electrical engineers, an aerospace engineer, physicists and lots of people with doctorates and master's degrees in the sciences. They understand why people want to dismiss them. They say people want to attack them as messengers because it's too disturbing to believe the government that is supposed to protect us would orchestrate the deaths of more than 3,000 Americans. One of the organizers invited three scholars to speak...to "take this out of the realm of conspiracy theory." (Details at denverpostbloghouse.com/rodriguez.) The year-old group has an e-mail list of about 350 people. Among them is Earl Staelin, a 66-year-old civil litigator. He said many of his friends who are engineers didn't believe the official story, that the towers fell because [of] burning fuel from the planes. After he showed films, such as "9-11 Mysteries," they came to the same conclusion: demolition experts must have planned this in advance. Why would the government do it? The explanations are plentiful, as is the evidence that groups such as this one, which exist throughout the nation...share on such websites as 911truth.org. And for those who say these groups are wacko fringe groups, think again: According to a poll by the Scripps Survey Research Center at Ohio University taken this August, 36 percent of Americans believe the government was either complicit in the 9/11 attacks or knew about it and didn't try to stop it. 16 percent believe explosives were used to bring down the towers.

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Sugar Ray Leonard: I was child sex abuse victim

Published on this day in 2012, by Chicago Tribune/Reuters

Original Article Source, Dated 2012-10-29

Boxing legend Sugar Ray Leonard recounted his own sexual abuse by coaches he trusted, telling a Penn State audience [that] he hoped to encourage other victims to report abuse to police. Leonard spoke at a sold-out conference on child sex abuse hosted by Penn State weeks after former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, 68, was sentenced to prison for 30 to 60 years for sexually assaulting 10 boys he befriended through his charity for at-risk youth. Leonard, 56, who retired after winning world boxing titles in five different weight classes, said as a youth he was sexually assaulted by men he trusted as his boxing coaches. The former champion said he used drugs and alcohol to “numb” his shame of being a victim of child sexual abuse. Now Leonard said he wants to step into the spotlight as a leader in the fight against child sex abuse in the hopes it will help other victims find the courage to report crimes to police. Since Sandusky's sentencing, The Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, or RAINN, says the volume of calls to its sexual assault hotline has increased 47 percent.

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U.S. Investigates Voting Machines' Venezuela Ties

Published on this day in 2006, by New York Times

Original Article Source, Dated 2006-10-29

The federal government is investigating the takeover last year of a leading American manufacturer of electronic voting systems by a small software company that has been linked to the leftist Venezuelan government of President Hugo Chávez. The inquiry is focusing on the Venezuelan owners of the software company, the Smartmatic Corporation...and its subsidiary, Sequoia Voting Systems of Oakland, Calif.. Smartmatic was a little-known firm with no experience in voting technology before it was chosen by the Venezuelan authorities to replace the country’s elections machinery ahead of a contentious referendum that confirmed Mr. Chávez as president in August 2004. With a windfall of some $120 million from its first three contracts with Venezuela, Smartmatic then bought the much larger and more established Sequoia Voting Systems, which now has voting equipment installed in 17 states and the District of Columbia. The concern over Smartmatic’s purchase of Sequoia comes amid rising unease about the security of touch-screen voting machines and other electronic elections systems. The concerns about possible ties between the owners of Smartmatic and the Chávez government have been well known to United States foreign-policy officials since before the 2004 recall election in which Mr. Chávez...won by an official margin of nearly 20 percent. But after a municipal primary election in Chicago in March, Sequoia voting machines were blamed for a series of delays and irregularities. Smartmatic’s new president, Jack A. Blaine, acknowledged in a public hearing that Smartmatic workers had been flown up from Venezuela to help with the vote.

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CDC Scientist Admits Data of Vaccines and Autism Was Trashed

Published on this day in 2015, by CBS Atlanta/TruthInMedia.com (A leading media watchdog)

Original Article Source, Dated 2015-10-29

Over 100 protesters gathered outside of the Centers for Disease Control offices in Atlanta demanding transparency when it comes to vaccines. [They] say that the information being provided to the public about vaccines isn’t honest. On August 27, 2014 [CDC scientist Dr. William Thompson] made an admission that got very little media coverage. But it was a major statement. That statement read in part, “I regret that my co-authors and I omitted statistically significant information in our 2004 article published in the journal Pediatrics. “The omitted data suggested that African American males who received the MMR (mumps, measles and rubella) vaccine before age 36 months were at increased risk for autism. Decisions were made regarding the findings ... and I believe that the final study protocol was not followed.” Thompson ... hired a whistleblower attorney and turned over documents to Congress. As many as 100,000 documents were turned over. Congressman [Bill] Posey brought this information to the floor of Congress and what he read there was stunning - that authors of the study not only hid the actual findings, but also attempted to destroy evidence [by throwing it] into a trash can. What you might not know is that all vaccines in all quantities for all people are not safe. Every year hundreds of children are injured by vaccines, and since 1986 the United States Government has paid out $3 billion to the vaccine injury compensation program. Raise even one question about why that is, and you’ll get pushback.

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How the Anthony Weiner sexting scandal hit the Hillary Clinton campaign in bombshell 'October surprise'

Published on this day in 2016, by The Telegraph (One of the UK's leading newspapers)

Original Article Source, Dated 2016-10-29

One of Hillary Clinton’s closest aides is at the centre of the new FBI investigation into the Democrat candidate's emails after it emerged the evidence was discovered during an investigation into her husband. Anthony Weiner is being investigated over allegations that he sent sexually explicit text messages to a 15-year-old girl. New York prosecutor [Preet Bharara] issued a subpoena for Mr Weiner's mobile phone and other electronic records after the “sexting” came to light in September. It is believed this sparked the reopening of the closed [Clinton] investigation. Mr Weiner [is] the estranged husband of Huma Abedin, 40, Mrs Clinton’s closest aide. Mrs Clinton thought that the issue of her email server – which has been a millstone round her neck since 2012 – was finally settled, with the FBI deciding in July not to charge her with any criminal offence. Mrs Clinton was supposed to have handed over all evidence relating to her use of a private email server – something she instigated in 2009, when she was appointed secretary of state. The Weiner investigation shows she did not. Critics claim there was a security risk if restricted government business was sent over personal email servers. They also say Clinton could skirt around freedom of information requests and have sole control of what information was handed over to interested parties – such as the congressional committee investigating 2012’s attack on the US consulate in Benghazi.

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Swirling Scandal Involving Shamanistic Cult Threatens S. Korean President

Published on this day in 2016, by NPR

Original Article Source, Dated 2016-10-29

Tens of thousands demonstrated in cities across South Korea on Saturday, demanding President Park Geun-hye step down from office. Revelations [that] an unelected, unappointed confidant was receiving advance copies and altering dozens of confidential policy speeches ... have led to charges that the friend is a secret "puppet master" and the real power behind "the throne." This scandal involves not only tens of millions of dollars and charges of influence-peddling, but of spiritual guides from a "Shamanistic prophet." The old friend of the president's, Choi Soon-sil ... is the daughter of a man the president considered her mentor, Choi Tae-min. He claimed to be a pastor from a tiny pseudo-Christian sect. His "church" is described by Korean media as more of a "Shamanistic cult." The New York Times explains further: "Mr. Choi was the founder of an obscure sect called the Church of Eternal Life. He befriended Ms. Park, 40 years his junior, soon after her mother was assassinated in 1974. Mr. Choi initially approached Ms. Park by telling her that her mother had appeared in his dreams, asking him to help her. He became a mentor to Ms. Park." The public's beliefs about how much control the Choi family enjoyed over the president, and how much they privately benefited as a result, is putting the president's remaining year in office in serious jeopardy. For her part, Park hasn't addressed the matter since her 90-second apology early in the week. But she did call for the en masse resignations of her senior staff late Friday night.

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Doubts About the Promised Bounty of Genetically Modified Crops

Published on this day in 2016, by New York Times

Original Article Source, Dated 2016-10-29

Genetic modification in the United States and Canada has not accelerated increases in crop yields or led to an overall reduction in the use of chemical pesticides. The promise of genetic modification was twofold: By making crops immune to the effects of weedkillers and inherently resistant to many pests, they would grow so robustly that they would become indispensable to feeding the world’s growing population, while also requiring fewer applications of sprayed pesticides. Twenty years ago, Europe largely rejected genetic modification at the same time the United States and Canada were embracing it. Comparing results on the two continents ... shows how the technology has fallen short of the promise. The United States and Canada have gained no discernible advantage in yields - food per acre - when measured against Western Europe. Also, a recent National Academy of Sciences report found that “there was little evidence” that the introduction of genetically modified crops in the United States had led to yield gains beyond those seen in conventional crops. At the same time, herbicide use has increased in the United States. And the United States has fallen behind Europe’s biggest producer, France, in reducing the overall use of pesticides, which includes both herbicides and insecticides. Pesticides are toxic by design ... and have been linked to developmental delays and cancer. The same companies make and sell both the genetically modified plants and the poisons.

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Was Bin Laden's last video faked?

Published on this day in 2007, by MSNBC

Original Article Source, Dated 2007-10-29

When [the] first Osama Bin Laden video in nearly three years [appeared], most of the media attention was focused on Bin Laden's beard. It appeared either dyed — or perhaps even pasted on. He was ridiculed and a variety of theories were offered to explain it. But now, there is a running debate among video analysts about whether, rather than being new, the September 7 [video] may have been something recorded at the same time as [the] last video in October 2004 (and then released with new audio). Of the 25 minutes of video tape, only three and a half minutes, were moving video. The rest was covered by a still image or a frozen still. Moreover, the still covered the only time references on the 25 minutes of tape— references to political developments in Iraq, Britain and France. This led to the suspicion that the video is not new, but disguised to appear as new. The leading proponent of the theory is computer scientist ... Dr. Neal Krawetz of Colorado ... who [says] that the similarities between the October 29, 2004 tape and the September 7, 2007 tape are too great to be coincidental. “Here is Bin Laden in the same clothing, same studio, same studio setup, and same desk three years later,” [said] Krawetz ... in an interview with NBC News. “In fact, [the] papers that he reads are moved between the exact same stacks. What are the chances of nothing changing (except his beard) in three years? Virtually zero. The clips appear to have been recorded three years ago. I am saying the two videos were likely made either on the same day or within days of each other.” The CIA will not say what it thinks about the possibility, but a senior U.S. intelligence official tells NBC News the U.S. believes the tape is new. He would not discuss the reasons why intelligence analysts feel that way.

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Caution: Killing Germs May Be Hazardous to Your Health

Published on this day in 2007, by Newsweek

Original Article Source, Dated 2007-10-29

Our war on microbes has toughened them. Now, new science tells us we should embrace bacteria. Any part of your body that comes into contact with the outside world ... is home to bacteria, fungi and protozoa. There are thousands of different species ... says Stanford biologist David Relman, who is investigating the complex web of interactions microbes maintain with our digestive, immune and nervous systems. Relman is a leader in rethinking our relationship to bacteria, which for most of the last century was dominated by the paradigm of Total Warfare. He says, "people still think the only good microbe is a dead one." The body's natural microbial flora aren't just an incidental fact of our biology, but crucial components of our health. Our microbes ... regulate our immune systems and even our serotonin levels: germs, it seems, can make us happy. What we need is more exposure to the good microbes. "Modern sanitation is a good thing, and pavement is a good thing," says [science writer Jessica] Sachs, "but they keep kids at a distance from microbes." The effect is to tip the immune system in the direction of overreaction, either to outside stimuli or even to the body's own cells. If the former, the result is allergies or asthma. Sachs writes that "children who receive antibiotics in the first year of life have more than double the rate of allergies and asthma in later childhood." But if the immune system turns on the body itself, you see irritable bowel syndrome, lupus or multiple sclerosis, among the many autoimmune diseases that were virtually unknown to our ancestors but are increasingly common in the developed world.

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Loosening of F.B.I. Rules Stirs Privacy Concerns

Published on this day in 2009, by New York Times

Original Article Source, Dated 2009-10-29

After a Somali-American teenager from Minneapolis committed a suicide bombing in Africa in October 2008, the Federal Bureau of Investigation began investigating whether a Somali Islamist group had recruited him on United States soil. Instead of collecting information only on people about whom they had a tip or links to the teenager, agents fanned out to scrutinize Somali communities. The operation unfolded as the Bush administration was relaxing some domestic intelligence-gathering rules. The F.B.I.’s interpretation of those rules was recently made public when it released, in response to a Freedom of Information lawsuit, its “Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide.” The disclosure of the manual has opened the widest window yet onto how agents have been given greater power in the post-Sept. 11 era. But the manual’s details have alarmed privacy advocates. “It raises fundamental questions about whether a domestic intelligence agency can protect civil liberties if they feel they have a right to collect broad personal information about people they don’t even suspect of wrongdoing,” said Mike German, a former F.B.I. agent who now works for the American Civil Liberties Union.The manual authorizes agents to open an “assessment” to “proactively” seek information about whether people or organizations are involved in national security threats. Assessments permit agents to use potentially intrusive techniques, like sending confidential informants to infiltrate organizations and following and photographing targets in public. When selecting targets, agents are permitted to consider political speech or religion as one criterion.

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Number of global billionaires has doubled since the financial crisis

Published on this day in 2014, by The Independent (One of the UK's leading newspapers)

Original Article Source, Dated 2014-10-29

The number of billionaires has doubled since the start of the financial crisis, according to a major new report from anti-poverty campaigners. According to Oxfam, the world’s rich are getting richer, leaving hundreds of millions of people facing a life “trapped in poverty” as global “inequality spirals out of control”. The report found that the number of billionaires in the world has more than doubled to 1,646 since the financial crisis of 2009, and Oxfam says is evidence that the benefits of a return to economic growth are “not being shared with the vast majority”. The influential report is supported by Bank of England chief economist Andrew Haldane and Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz. Mark Goldring, Oxfam’s chief executive, said: “Inequality is one of the defining problems of our age. In a world where hundreds of millions of people are living without access to clean drinking water and without enough food to feed their families, a small elite have more money than they could spend in several lifetimes. Earlier this month the OECD said global inequality was at its worst levels since 1820. Mr Haldane agreed, saying: “In highlighting the problem of inequality Oxfam not only speaks to the interests of the poorest people but also the wider collective interest: there is rising evidence that extreme inequality harms, durably and significantly, the stability of the financial system and growth in the economy. It slows development of the human, social and physical capital necessary for raising living standards and improving well-being.”

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Red Cross 'Diverted Assets' During Storms' Aftermath To Focus On Image

Published on this day in 2014, by National Public Radio

Original Article Source, Dated 2014-10-29

Within hours of Superstorm Sandy slamming the East Coast two years ago, Americans opened their wallets to help — donating millions to the first charity that came to mind: the American Red Cross. In the months after the disaster, the Red Cross touted its success in delivering food, clothes and shelter to tens of thousands of people left homeless by the storm. The venerable charity's track record in dealing with the megastorm is now being challenged. Multiple internal documents obtained by NPR and ProPublica along with interviews with top Red Cross officials ... depict an organization so consumed with public relations that it hindered the charity's ability to provide disaster services. Among NPR and ProPublica's findings: The Red Cross national headquarters in Washington "diverted assets for public relations purposes." A former Red Cross official managing the Sandy effort says 40 percent of available trucks were assigned to serve as backdrops for news conferences. Distribution of relief was "politically driven instead of [Red Cross] planned." Relief organizers were ordered to produce 200,000 additional meals one day — to drive up numbers. They did it at extraordinary cost, even though there was no one to deliver them to and most went to waste. It wasn't just Sandy. When Isaac hit Mississippi and Louisiana earlier in 2012 ... one Red Cross official had 80 trucks drive around empty or largely empty "just to be seen," as one of the drivers recalls.

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Top Bank of England director admits Occupy movement had a point

Published on this day in 2012, by The Independent (One of the UK's leading newspapers)

Original Article Source, Dated 2012-10-29

The Occupy movement received vindication from an unlikely source tonight, as a senior executive at the Bank of England credited it with stirring a “reformation of finance”. Andrew Haldane, executive director of financial stability, said Occupy protesters had been “both loud and persuasive”, and had attracted public support because “they are right”. “Some have suggested … that Occupy’s voice has been loud but vague, long on problems, short on solutions. Others have argued that the fault-lines in the global financial system, which chasmed during the crisis, are essentially unaltered, that reform has failed,” Mr Haldane said. “I wish to argue that both are wrong – that Occupy’s voice has been both loud and persuasive and that policymakers have listened and are acting in ways which will close those fault-lines. In fact, I want to argue that we are in the early stages of a reformation of finance, a reformation which Occupy has helped stir.” Speaking at an Occupy Economics event in central London, Mr Haldane said that Occupy had been “successful in its efforts to popularise the problems of the global financial system for one very simple reason: they are right.” He added that protesters ... “touched a moral nerve in pointing to growing inequities in the allocation of wealth”. Mr Haldane ended with a direct appeal to activists to continue putting pressure on governments and regulators. He said: “You have put the arguments. You have helped win the debate. And policymakers, like me, will need your continuing support in delivering that radical change.”

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Teddy Roosevelt Was Snubbed By His Rich Harvard Classmates For Being Anti-Wall Street

Published on this day in 2011, by Forbes Magazine

Original Article Source, Dated 2011-10-29

Former President Teddy Roosevelt returned to Harvard for his 30th reunion and graduation in 1910, and as he entered the proceedings all his classmates ... turned their backs on him in unison. TR’s latest biographer Edmund Morris believes this shocking snub in public of a former President was due to TR’s strong belief in regulating Wall Street, breaking up monopolies and not allowing a few wealthy men run the nation. Think of that extraordinary event; some 22 years before TR’s 5th cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt was called “a traitor to his class,” Teddy was getting the same treatment. The Gilded Age was followed by the Progressive Era of tough laws and court actions against Robber Barons who controlled state legislatures and Congress with their anti-trust legislation. Then came the Roaring Twenties and the Crash, followed by the Great Depression – and then the New Deal – which created the blessed Glass-Steagall Act – which separated investment banking from commercial banking, plus the WPA and other ... work programs that gave the unemployed a reason for living and put food in their mouths. Both Roosevelts ... stabilized the financial industry to help finance American industry. Once again, the wealthy ... want to cut social programs to the retired and the middle class, while holding onto all their gains, even in death if the estate tax is deep sixed.

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BPA Ruling Flawed, Panel Says

Published on this day in 2008, by Washington Post

Original Article Source, Dated 2008-10-29

The Food and Drug Administration ignored scientific evidence and used flawed methods when it determined that a chemical widely used in baby bottles and in the lining of cans is not harmful, a scientific advisory panel has found. In a highly critical report ... the panel of scientists from government and academia said the FDA did not take into consideration scores of studies that have linked bisphenol A (BPA) to prostate cancer, diabetes and other health problems in animals when it completed a draft risk assessment of the chemical last month. The panel said the FDA didn't use enough infant formula samples and didn't adequately account for variations among the samples. Taking those studies into consideration, the panel concluded, the FDA's margin of safety is "inadequate". The panel is part of the Science Board, a committee of advisers to the FDA commissioner, and was set up to review the FDA's risk assessment of BPA. Many of the studies that the panel said the FDA ignored were reviewed by the National Toxicology Program, which concluded in September that it had "some concern" that BPA can affect brain and behavioral development in infants and small children. Officials at FDA, which regulates the chemical's use in plastic food containers, bottles, tableware and the plastic linings of food cans, accepted some of the criticism in the report. "FDA agrees that due to the uncertainties raised in some studies relating to the potential effects of low doses of bisphenol-A that additional research would be valuable," said spokeswoman Judy Leon. The agency has commissioned new research on BPA.

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Waxman Seeks Bank Data On Use of Bailout Funds

Published on this day in 2008, by Washington Post

Original Article Source, Dated 2008-10-29

Congressional investigators yesterday demanded that the nation's nine largest banks prove they are not using an emergency infusion of $125 billion in taxpayer funds to lavish their executives with wealthy bonuses. "I question the appropriateness of depleting the capital that taxpayers just injected into the banks through the payment of billions of dollars in bonuses, especially after one of the financial industry's worst years on record," [Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,] wrote in a letter to the banks. Lawmakers across the political spectrum want to ensure that the government's bailout program results in increased lending, not bigger paydays for executives. But a new study suggests that financiers are still bullish about their bonuses. More than two-thirds of Wall Street professionals are expecting a bonus this year, and 36 percent are anticipating a larger bonus than last year, according to a survey by eFinancialCareers, a career networking company. "Some experts have suggested that a significant percentage of this compensation could come in year-end bonuses and that the size of the bonuses will be significantly enhanced as a result of the infusion of taxpayer funds," Waxman said. In his letter to the banks, Waxman asked them to provide detailed data on compensation packages since 2006, as well as the projected salaries and bonuses for the rest of the year. The request was sent to Bank of America, Bank of New York Mellon, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, State Street, and Wells Fargo.

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Cluster bomb trade funded by world's biggest banks

Published on this day in 2009, by The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)

Original Article Source, Dated 2009-10-29

The deadly trade in cluster bombs is funded by the world's biggest banks who have loaned or arranged finance worth $20bn (£12.5bn) to firms producing the controversial weapons, despite growing international efforts to ban them. HSBC, led by ordained Anglican priest Stephen Green, has profited more than any other institution from companies that manufacture cluster bombs. The British bank ... has earned a total of £657.3m in fees arranging bonds and share offerings for Textron, which makes cluster munitions described by the US company as "leaving a clean battlefield". HSBC will face protests outside its London headquarters today. Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, JP Morgan and UK-based Barclays Bank are also named among the worst banks in a detailed 126-page report by Dutch and Belgian campaign groups IKV Pax Christi and Netwerk Vlaanderen. Goldman Sachs, the US bank which made £3.19bn proft in just three months, earned $588.82m for bank services and lent $250m to Alliant Techsystems and Textron. Last December 90 countries, including the UK, committed themselves to banning cluster bombs by next year. But the US was not one of them. So far 23 countries have ratified the convention. The UK has yet to do so.

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With best wishes for a transformed world,
Mark Bailey and Fred Burks for PEERS and WantToKnow.info