In May 2008, a unit of Koch Industries Inc., one of the world’s largest privately held companies, sent Ludmila Egorova-Farines, its newly hired compliance officer and ethics manager, to investigate the management of a subsidiary in Arles in southern France. In less than a week, she discovered that the company had paid bribes to win contracts.
“I uncovered the practices within a few days,” Egorova- Farines says. “They were not hidden at all.” She immediately notified her supervisors in the U.S. A week later, Wichita, Kansas-based Koch Industries dispatched an investigative team to look into her findings, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its November issue.
Koch Brothers Flout Law Getting Richer With Secret Iran Sales
Secret US-Israeli Nuke Transfers Led To Fukushima Blasts
Sixteen tons and what you get is a nuclear catastrophe. The explosions that rocked the Fukushima No.1 nuclear plant were more powerful than the combustion of hydrogen gas, as claimed by the Tokyo Electric Power Company. The actual cause of the blasts, according to intelligence sources in Washington, was nuclear fission of. warhead cores illegally taken from America's sole nuclear-weapons assembly facility. Evaporation in the cooling pools used for spent fuel rods led to the detonation of stored weapons-grade plutonium and uranium.
Protesters Arrested While Wall Street Crooks Go Free
By Saturday, the hundreds of protesters appeared to have lit a fuse with New York City police. There were rough arrests that bordered on brutality. Pepper spray brought tears and pain.
And to a nation’s shock, not one of the police targets was a banker.
So much for law and order.
State Department Keystone XL Hearings Run By TransCanada Contractor
In a stunning conflict of interest, public hearings on federal approval for a proposed tar sands pipeline are being run by a contractor for the pipeline company itself. The U.S. Department of State’s public hearings along the proposed route of the TransCanada Keystone XL tar sands pipeline this week are under the purview of Cardno Entrix, a “professional environmental consulting company” that specializes in “permitting and compliance.”
Cardno is not only running the State Department hearings, but also manages the department’s Keystone XL website and drafted the department’s environmental impact statement. Comments from the public about the pipeline go not to the government, but to a cardno.com email.
U.S. Sold Bunker Busters To Israel
Two years ago, the Obama Administration secretly authorized the sale of 55 deep-penetrating bombs — or bunker busters — to Israel. That's according to an investigation by Newsweek magazine. The bombs could potentially be used in Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear sites. Weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz talks with Eli Lake, the reporter who broke the story.
Newsweek is set to publish a piece on Monday that back in 2009, the Obama administration secretly provided Israel with 55-deep penetrating bombs, so-called bunker busters. And there's some speculation that those bombs could be used in the event Israel decides to launch a military strike against suspected Iranian nuclear development sites.
Not so simple: U.S. spy agency trying to go mobile
Troy Lange knows that just mentioning cellphones is enough to give security officers heartburn at the National Security Agency.
Lange, as the NSA's mobility mission manager, is developing a smartphone that he wants to bring inside the super-secret U.S. spy agency to access classified information and apps while on the move. He wants it to work as easily as any of the smartphones those that are so ubiquitous in the outside world.
WTF?!, No Seriously, WTF! - Bank Of America Holds Patent On 'Changing Your Emotions' During Customer Service Call
Systems and methods for inducing a change in a human physiological characteristic. The physiological characteristic may correspond to an emotional state of a dialogue participant. The dialogue participant may be an individual participating in a conversation. The outcome of the conversation may be related to a business objective, such as providing high quality call center services. A sensor may monitor the physiologic characteristic. A processor may relate the physiologic characteristic to an emotional state. The processor may provide feedback to the individual based on the emotional state. The feedback may be formulated to change the individual's emotional state.
We wonder, do they also have patents on the following:
- Ken Lewis' genius decision to buy Countrywide and assume billions in liability.
- Having the worst customer service of any U.S. bank.
- Overpaying for Merrill Lynch.
- Robbing shareholders.
- Using Repo 105s to hide true balance sheet exposures.
- Foreclosing on homeowners in violation of 400-year-old contract law.
- Destroying lives.
- Losing the mortgage note.
More Articles...
Page 78 of 167