One of the world's largest insurances companies has blacklisted a trio of American cluster bomb manufacturers that have benefited from investment by British banks despite a growing global ban on the deadly weapons.
British insurer Aviva has created a "stop list" of 12 arms manufactures which include the US defence giants Lockheed Martin, Textron and Alliant Techsystems. All three companies have received hundreds of millions of pounds in investment from British high street banks.
UK insurer blacklists American cluster bomb makers
Pentagon: Army improperly tested body armor plates
The Army improperly tested new bullet-blocking plates for body armor and cannot be certain that 5 million pieces of the critical battlefield equipment meet the standards to protect U.S. troops, the Defense Department's inspector general found.
The Pentagon report focused on seven Army contracts for the plates, known as ballistic inserts, awarded between 2004 and 2006 and totaling $2.5 billion. The inspector general's audit, carried out over a two-year period ending in March, found the tests were incomplete, conducted with the wrong size plates or relied on ballistic test rounds that were inconsistent. Due to the demands of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, tests under certain temperatures and altitudes were scrapped altogether.
Is the SEC Covering Up Wall Street Crimes?
Imagine a world in which a man who is repeatedly investigated for a string of serious crimes, but never prosecuted, has his slate wiped clean every time the cops fail to make a case. No more Lifetime channel specials where the murderer is unveiled after police stumble upon past intrigues in some old file – "Hey, chief, didja know this guy had two wives die falling down the stairs?"
No more burglary sprees cracked when some sharp cop sees the same name pop up in one too many witness statements. This is a different world, one far friendlier to lawbreakers, where even the suspicion of wrongdoing gets wiped from the record.
That, it now appears, is exactly how the Securities and Exchange Commission has been treating the Wall Street criminals who cratered the global economy a few years back.
Phone hacking: James Murdoch admits 'hush money' payout
James Murdoch has admitted that News International paid “hush money” to a phone hacking victim, despite telling MPs that they didn't try to buy his silence.
The admission that money was paid to ensure Mr Taylor’s silence is likely to exacerbate claims that News International tried to cover up the scale of phone hacking at the News of the World. Mr Murdoch also admitted that News International paid a convicted criminal almost £250,000 after his employment was terminated.
Leiby Kletzky Murder Spurs Stricter Child Laws In Orthodox Jewish Community
"For decades, our community's leadership has been protecting pedophiles," Ben Hirsch, president of Survivors for Justice, told the newspaper. "This is going to sound shocking, but the safest place for a sex offender to reside is within the Hasidic and strictly Orthodox community, employed as a teacher."
Survivors For Justice is a child-safety advocacy organization and support group for abuse victims in the Orthodox community.
Verizon to suspend basic health-insurance and medical benefits for strikers
In the latest escalation of an increasingly bitter labor battle, Verizon Communications Inc. has been telling union members it will suspend basic health-insurance and medical benefits on Aug. 31 for all workers still on strike at that time.
Verizon issued the threat in letters sent to 45,000 workers, who walked off the job to protest proposed cuts to their benefits that the telecommunications company says are necessary to stem a sales decline in its traditional wireline business.
Oxygen May Have Existed Undersea 300 Million Years Before Its Atmosphere Debut: MIT Scientists
Oxygen may have been present on Earth 300 million years before it was breathed into the atmosphere, scientists concluded from a new research.
Researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology discovered evidence that small aerobic organisms could have evolved to survive on extremely low levels of the gas in undersea "oxygen oases," keeping a low profile in the oceans before its debut in the atmosphere.
Must-Reads: The Late, Great Molly Ivins on Rick Perry
As Texas Gov. Rick Perry embarks on his Obama-bashing, evangelical-courting, tea party-outdoing campaign for the presidency, we miss Molly Ivins more than ever.
The late and celebrated liberal columnist was known as a writer of sparkling political commentary infused with a trenchant wit and copious shots of zero-bullshit humor. She was the consummate Texan, a ferocious populist critic of the American right wing, and a sorely missed Mother Jones contributor. Here's the C-SPAN footage of Ivins speaking at a Mother Jones fundraising event in 1992:
For first time, foreign worker's child born and educated in Israel to be deported
In an unprecedented move, the Interior Ministry announced Tuesday that it intends on deporting a four-year-old girl, the daughter of a foreign worker, who was born and educated in Israel.
Israel's Population and Immigration Authority on Tuesday arrested the girl and her mother, originally from the Philippines, who are currently in a holding facility in Ben-Gurion International Airport, ahead of their deportation from the country.
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