Saturday, Dec 20th
Last update10:11:42 AM GMT
An alleged $50 billion fraud by Wall Street financier Bernard Madoff has caused deep ripples in the Jewish philanthropic world, forcing the closure of two prominent U.S.-based charities and threatening the financial lifeline of a slew of other groups.
The huge alleged fraud - possibly the largest in history - has reached Israel, too. Among those invested in Madoff's funds and Ponzi scheme are an impressive list of Israeli insurance companies: Harel, Clal and the Phoenix.
Congress wanted to guarantee that the $700 billion financial bailout would limit the eye-popping pay of Wall Street executives, so lawmakers included a mechanism for reviewing executive compensation and penalizing firms that break the rules.
But at the last minute, the Bush administration insisted on a one-sentence change to the provision.
A surprise visit by US President George Bush to Iraq has been overshadowed by an incident in which two shoes were thrown at him during a news conference.
An Iraqi journalist was wrestled to the floor by security guards after he called Mr Bush "a dog" and threw his footwear, just missing the president.
Israel has proposed annexing 6.8 per cent of the illegally occupied West Bank, the chief Palestinian negotiator has said in his first detailed comments about the stalled US-backed negotiations.
Israel proposed a swap of some of its own territory in return for the annexed area but the Israeli land was not an equal trade in size and quality, Ahmed Qurei said, adding that the Palestinians rejected the offer.
Neither the Times nor anybody else has suggested Emanuel went on to do the bidding of the financial industry. But there's little question his days as a banker have helped shape Emanuel's perspective.
Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and businessman Bernard Kerik made millions selling the idea to police departments across the country.
But Tasers have killed more than 400 people since 2001, according to a new study commissioned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
Police departments across Canada began banning use of Tasers by their officers after the report found that Tasers deliver more power than the manufacturer says is possible.
It is unknown if U.S. police departments will follow suit.
The study includes a medical analysis that concluded someone shot with a Taser could face as high as a 50 percent chance of cardiac arrest.
An unpublished US government report says US-led efforts to rebuild Iraq were crippled by bureaucratic turf wars, violence and ignorance of the basic elements of Iraqi society, resulting in a 100-billion-dollar failure, The New York Times reported on its website.
The newspaper said it had gotten hold of a copy of the 513-page federal history titled 'Hard Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience,' that is circulating in Washington in draft form among a tight circle of technical reviewers, policy experts and senior officials.
TVNL Comment: This was not a "failure!" It was a looting. This was all about the friends of the Bush admin making a killing on government contracts.
Founded in 1776 by a Bavarian professor named Adam Weishaupt, the Illuminati joined radical politics and Jesuit-style hierarchy to fanatical secrecy. The aims of the order were ambitious, all right: They intended to change the world and had a plan to do it. The means were not to be by violent revolutions. The idea was to form a cadre of enlightened men who would steathlily infiltrate governments everywhere and slowly bring them to a kind of secular-humanist Elysium under the guidance of a secret ruling body. Said Adam Weishaupt: "Princes and nations shall disappear from the face of the earth peacefully, mankind shall become one family, and the world shall become a haven of reasonable people. Morality shall achieve this transformation, alone and imperceptibly."
President-elect Barack Obama's right-hand man reportedly gave the disgraced Blagojevich administration a list of four women Obama considered acceptable to fill his U.S. Senate seat.
Rahm Emanuel, the Illinois congressman who will serve as Obama's White House chief of staff, was heard discussing the issue on court-approved wiretaps with Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's chief of staff, the Chicago Tribune said.
The candidates "acceptable" to Obama on the list Emanuel provided included a trio of female Democrats: longtime Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett, Illinois Veterans Affairs chief Tammy Duckworth and U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Chicago.
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