Category: News

‘Polish-owned companies
with UK offices are encouraging self-employed people who live and work
in Poland to switch their NI payments to Britain.

All that is required is a
one-day visit to London for an appointment at a JobCentre Plus to get a
NI number and open a UK bank account. They are lured by the promise of
a British basic pension of £412.75, compared with just £130
a month in Poland.’

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‘It’s easy to destroy groups with
“cognitive diversity.” You just take up meeting time with
arguments to the point where people don’t come back. You make
protest signs which alienate 90% of colleagues. You demand
revolutionary violence from pacifist groups.’

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Article Tags: ClimateGate, Financial, Headline Story

A major trade group for the insurance industry is warning that it is “exceedingly risky” for companies to blindly accept scientific conclusions around climate change, given the “serious questions” around the extent to which humans cause atmospheric warming.

The assertion was made in a letter (pdf) to insurance regulators, who will administer the nation’s first mandatory climate requirements on corporations in May. Large insurers will have to answer about a dozen questions related to the preparations they are taking to safeguard themselves from climatic hazards.

The National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies believes that the new regulation leaves little room for companies to cast doubt on widely accepted assumptions about global warming. Insurers are hamstrung to provide answers that dovetail with the perception of key regulators who believe climate change threatens the industry’s financial strength, said Robert Detlefsen, the group’s vice president of policy.

Click source to read FULL report by Evan Lehmann

Source: nytimes.com

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Simon Cowell wants Posh Spice on his US adaptation of Britain’ hit talent show The X Factor, tattles marvel. Former girl bander Victoria Beckham is being courted to join the judges’ panel of the US X Factor, it has emerged.

The former Spice Girl appeared alongside Cowell on American Idol this week and it’s thought he might want her for his new show. According to a new scoop, the cranky music mogul is willing to pay mega bucks to get the fashionista onboard for his new venture — which will also reportedly feature ex-Idol judge Paula Abdul.

“Simon was trying to get hold of Victoria for a few days, keen to suggest a few X Factor dates,” The Mirror cites a source as spilling. “When they did finally speak, she was incredibly flattered, not to mention surprised. Money was not discussed but as American TV judges go, the minimum she would be on in a four-show deal is $4 million. However, if she was to become a permanent fixture, she could earn tens of millions.”

However, Posh has not said yes as yet. And she may not — Victoria doesn’t seem to be very popular in the country. American TV reviewers ripped the singer-turned-designer’s Idol debut this week, merciless calling her judging style — and outfit — a disaster.

“Victoria told Simon she needs time to think about it as she is so busy with her fashion work right now. Looking at her hectic schedule, some of the dates mooted could be problematic as David is away, so she wants to work from home and look after the kids,” the insider added. “Simon is incredibly charming so who know. They did have a long conversation and although Victoria thinks she will be too manic to commit, she loved her time on the Idol panel,” the snitch says.

‘B’nai B’rith was
instrumental in gaining U.S. support for the nascent Zionist state of
Israel in the late 1940s. The Jewish secret society of Freemasons used
President Harry Truman’s friend – and their agent – Eddie Jacobson of
Kansas City (standing behind Truman) in off-the-record meetings in the
Oval Office to persuade the president to approve the Zionist land grab
known as the 1947 U.N. Partition Plan of Palestine and then to
recognize the state of Israel the next year following the Zionist
ethnic cleansing of nearly 400 Palestinian villages and towns. By
applying pressure directly on Truman, B’nai B’rith dictated U.S. policy
in spite of strong resistance from the U.S. Department of State.’

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‘This information
concerning the continued rape of a traumatized Palestinian child comes
via my friend at NorthernTruthSeeker who came across it at Incogman’s
site. I just had to post it immediately. When I use the word “rape”, I
am not speaking of sexual rape; first there was her violation by the
Israeli military when they took her family. But then her terrified face
was used by unscrupulous greedy Zionists to raise money.’

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American fuel additive brand STP will challenge the 2010 Avon Tyres British GT Championship title, supporting a Chad Racing Ferrari 430 Scuderia GT3 for Daniel Brown and Chris Hyman. Joining STP in supporting the team is car styling accessory brand, Brown & Geeson, and MOMO, who have both been backing up Daniel Brown since he entered motorsport at the age of 14, in the T-Car series.

Brown had three race wins in the MOMO Mosler last year, at just 17 years of age, that earned him the title of B… (read more)

‘Villagers in southern
Afghanistan have claimed that Afghan and Nato forces killed 13
demonstrators after a group of people took to the streets to protest
the alleged desecration of the Quran. Residents
in Garmsir district of Helmand province on Tuesday said that Nato-led
forces raided a house in the area on Sunday and destroyed copies of the
holy book in a local mosque.

Haji Abdul Manan, one of
the protesters, told the German Press Agency, DPA: “The people came out
of their homes today to protest this action of foreign forces in a
peaceful way, but the Afghan and international forces opened fire on
us.” He said more than 20 others were wounded in the firing.’

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Google may not be too interested in giving their US market native app multitouch in the Nexus One, but Motorola aims to please, with CEO Sanjay Jha promising to “deliver multitouch in the majority of our devices.”

Going on, he told Laptop Mag “There’s a complex set of factors, not all of them technical,” which makes us wonder is he’s referring to Google’s thoughts on multitouch Androids. Google’s motto may be “don’t be evil,” but giving European Nexus One owners native multitouch and ignoring other countries is frankly baffling. [Laptop Mag via Phone Arena via Engadget]

‘The United States has
offered its full-fledged support for the building of a wall by Egypt to
disrupt the Gaza Strip’s lifeline that moves basic items underground
past the Israeli-imposed blockade.

The construction of the
steel tunnel-impervious wall, believed to have started some time in
November, comes in line with Israeli and Egyptian accusations that
Palestinians resistance fighters use the tunnels for procuring and
storing weapons for use against the Israelis.

Washington, the chief
Israeli baker, echoed the allegations on Tuesday and voiced support for
installing the steel walls, which are reported to be designed by the US
army engineers.’

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‘Quite the most striking
aspect of Alastair Campbell’s evidence to the Iraq War inquiry is that
most of it was untrue. Blatantly, breathtakingly untrue.
Take his claim that he was not making the case for war when he produced
his dossier on Saddam Hussein’s (non-existent) weapons of mass
destruction.
Oh, yes you were, Mr Campbell. That was the whole point of the exercise.

Or take his assertion: ‘I
don’t think we were ever saying, “look, Saddam has got these weapons
and can whack them off to Cyprus in 45 minutes”.’
Isn’t that precisely what he was saying? Or if it wasn’t, why didn’t he
set the record straight when the whole country ‘misinterpreted’ him?

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Fernando Alonso did his first interview as an official Ferrari driver during the Wrooom event at the Madonna di Campiglio ski resort, and obviously the Spaniard was asked plenty of questions about his new teammate and new challenge for the 2010 season. However, the thing that interested the media the most was how he sees Michael Schumacher’s return to the sport next season.

Alonso admitted that Schu’s return to the series in a great thing for the sport, especially after a so-and-so season in … (read more)

Investors are starting to return to the commercial real estate market in force. A lot of substantial deals have been done in recent weeks as highlighted by the Financial Times.

Either previous commercial real estate crisis fears were overdone or these new investors are about to get creamed. Success will probably all come down to the particular property in question. At least that must be the logic.

FT: A public sign of such activity came on Friday when Colony Capital won a Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation auction for $1bn of commercial property loans formerly held by failed banks in states hit hard by the real estate downturn.

…

Earlier last week, SL Green, a real estate investment trust, said it had refinanced a Times Square tower it owns with Canada’s Caisse de Dépôt et Placement du Québec in a $475m deal ed by Bank of China.

In December, JPMorgan Chase raised $625m for Inland Western, a real estate investment trust, of which $500m was in the form of securities backed by commercial real estate assets.

The deal was particularly notable because it was done without help from the term asset-backed securities loan facility, or Talf, which was set up to provide financing for investors in such deals.

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See Also:

• Jamie Dimon: The Commercial Real Estate Trainwreck Is A Thing Of The Past
• Commercial Real Estate Delinquencies Are Up 5x Already And They Still Won’t Peak Until 2012
• Bludgeoned Commercial Real Estate Has Begun To Entice Chinese Bottom Feeders

‘Since April this year
Rich joined me in using the process of NCRTS against the police, the
courts (including the high court), credit card companies, the DVLA,
councils and many others, in fact anyone who sends us
‘paper’ through the post we do not wish to receive. The
objective is very clear; we do not want to or have to contract with
anyone we wish not to contract with. After serving our affidavits on
the queen we instructed Elizabeth that we no longer wish to play their
game and this is all we needed to do. The NCRTS process is the action
needed to show that we mean what we say, i.e. walking the walk rather
that just talking the talk. We said ‘NO’ and we mean
‘NO’.’

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‘At the start of the last
decade, in March 2000, the European Union heads of state announced the
Lisbon Strategy. Its aim, by 2010, was to make Europe “the most
competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable
of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater
social cohesion.” This would create “the conditions for
full employment and the strengthening of regional cohesion in the
European Union.”

As the second decade of
the 21st century begins, the aspirations set forth in the Portuguese
capital have evaporated. Instead of full employment, Europe is gripped
by mass unemployment; instead of economic growth, there is stagnation;
in place of cohesion, there is discord. Even the common currency, the
foundation of the lofty plans of Lisbon, is in acute danger.’

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‘If the government isn’t doing anything to fix this dangerous situation, we’ll have to do it ourselves. As
a start, if Congress won’t reimplement the Glass-Steagall Act (the
Depression-era law which previously separated depository functions from
speculative investing), let’s manually separate these two types of
businesses. How?

Simple: let’s pull our money out of the too big to fails and put it into small community banks and credit unions. The
giant banks may still make bucketloads of cash on their casino style
speculative gambling (for now, at least), but after we’ve moved our
deposits to more responsible, smaller banks which don’t gamble as much,
then we will have manually separated depository banking functions from
the giant banks’ speculative investing.’

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‘A Saudi scholar says Riyadh’s
allegation that ‘Iran is meddling in Yemen’s domestic affairs’ is part
of a US conspiracy against the Islamic Republic.

Ali Al-Ahmed, the founder and director
of an independent think-tank in Washington told Press TV that Saudi
Arabia follows the United States’ policy and fuels the West “anti-Iran
wave” in the region.’

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Big kisses to the boys–and they are all boys–over at Endgadget, who finally helped BoomTown, via the magic of Photoshop, to finally come up with the right nickname for All Things Digital blogger-reporter Peter Kafka.

Super Mario, of course, a moniker that somehow seems perfect for the fast-moving, quick-talking and speed-scooping MediaMemo writer.

Here’s the lovely picture they ginned up–in honor of a deal struck with Nintendo Wii–from the ATD event in Las Vegas last week at the Consumer Electronics Show, where Peter interviewed Netflix (NFLX) CEO Reed Hastings.

Oddly, the Super Mario video game head on his body works unusually well:

And here is the video of Peter’s actual interview with Hastings in its entirety:

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‘Many people have asked for a simple explanation as to the intent behind the CAFR and what happened over the decades? Well, in a nut shell here is the foundation block that allowed government to take it all over by investment. It started in the mid 40’s and grew into what we have in government now seventy years latter come 2009.

Government started out as
a “pay as you go” structure. By transforming into a corporate liability
company over the decades, this gave them the ability to use “advance
projections” to strip annual operating funds and create advance forward
liability accounts whereby in doing so they were able to by stealth
build numerous “wealth bases” of equity in many designated fund
balances separate from the budget reports that were exclusively
presented for public viewing.’

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