“Russia does not plan to sell,” Lavrov told reporters. He stressed that Russia has only been fulfilling contracts that have already been signed with Syria for defensive weapons.DETAILS TO FOLLOW … Read More
Russia’s Audit Chamber to inspect Gazprom first time in five years
“Many speak of the closed nature of this company, but I’d like to emphasize that Gazprom fully cooperates with the auditors of the Audit Chamber, providing them with all the necessary papers,” Audit Chamber head Sergey Stepashin said. Plans to carry out a thorough audit of Gazprom were announced earlier this year, and is due to be over by November. “It’s the first checkup in 5 years, we had planned an overall examination of Gazprom… the company’s efficiency, incidental expenses, including the questions regarding the pipes and other issues,” Stepashin was quoted as saying in January. “By law, we ought to do it. We took a pause because international contracts were signed [at the time], and we didn’t want to be an elephant in a china shop.” Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) has repeatedly voiced concerns over Gazprom’s mechanisms for holding tenders for high-diameter pipes. According to FAS, current procedures leave no room for competition between pipe manufacturers. Gazprom’s lots during the auctions exceed pipe manufacturers’ opportunities in production and delivery, so they engage intermediate parties that assemble them and then supply them to Gazprom.“There’s no price-related competition between pipe manufacturers right now; only two or three mediators who don’t compete with each other take part; oftentimes only one North European Pipe Project [takes part]. In our book, pipe manufacturers must take part in the tenders, not mediators,” FAS said, according to Interfax. President Vladimir Putin has previously criticized Gazprom for buying pipes through third parties, often at margins of up to 30 percent: “Complaints about how Gazprom runs business can be heard more and more often, saying there are corruptive elements. Probably there are, but the police must catch and take to prison for this. And I think, it would be the right thing to do.” Earlier this month, Gazprom said it managed to save $1 billion in foreign contracts in 2012 by negotiating better prices with foreign clients. According to the company’s 2012 report, for the first nine months of the year the gas major set aside about $4.3 billion for retroactive payments but spent only $3.3 billion. According to Gazprom CEO Aleksey Miller, in January 2012 Gazprom gave a 10 percent discount to France’s GdF Suez, Germany’s Wingas, Slovakia’s SPP, Italy’s Sinergie Italiane and Austria’s Econgas. … Read More
Illegal rentals thrive in Stockholm flat crunch
The black market for first-hand rental contracts in Stockholm is alive and well as Swedes desperate for a place to live won’t report illegal sales to the police, an investigation has revealed. … Read More
US Justice Department investigating IBM bribery allegations
The US Justice Department is investigating whether IBM violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, Bloomberg reported on Friday. In Poland, the probe is examining a transaction that the Polish Central Anti-Corruption Bureau was already in the process of studying, the company said. The DoJ probe comes as IBM is attempting to settle with the SEC over activity in China and South Korea. In March 2011, the company said it had agreed to pay $10 million to settle with the SEC over allegations that it bribed officials to win at least $54 million in government contracts. The alleged bribes in IBM’s SEC case took place from 1998 through 2009 and were made by employees at three subsidiaries of IBM, as well as LG IBM PC Co., a joint venture with LG Electronics Inc., according to the SEC filing. The SEC said cash payments to South Korean officials from 1998 to 2003 totaled $207,000. In China, IBM created “slush funds” at local travel agencies that were used to pay for overseas vacations by government officials, according to the SEC. IBM employees also gave presents, such as cameras and laptop computers, to Chinese officials, according to the complaint. US District Judge Richard Leon, who has had the case under review, said a condition of the deal is that IBM would be required to report any future law enforcement or administrative probes to the court, according to Bloomberg. IBM is cooperating with the investigations, the company said in the filing. The 1977 Foreign Corrupt Practices Act prohibits companies or individuals headquartered in the US from paying bribes to foreign officials in order to win business. At the same time, foreign companies and nationals also can be prosecuted if their corrupt acts were committed in the US. IBM’s filing doesn’t give further detail on the transactions in Argentina, Bangladesh and Ukraine that the DoJ is investigating. Ed Barbini, an IBM spokesman, said in an email on Thursday that the company has a “robust and effective compliance program.”“While we will not comment on the specifics of this investigation, it is noteworthy that many such investigations result in no findings of wrongdoing,” Barbini said. “However, if it turns out that our Business Conduct Guidelines have been violated then we will address it promptly and effectively.” Despite the probe, IBM shares rose 1.4 per cent to $202.39 yesterday in New York. The stock has climbed 5.7 per cent this year. … Read More
Audit finds Scott Walker’s job creation agency repeatedly broke law
Gov. Scott Walker’s job creation agency has been plagued by repeated law-breaking and mismanagement, according to an audit released by the state’s non-partisan Legislative Audit Bureau.In a report that was almost 100 pages, the Bureau sharply criticized the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., created in 2011 by Walker and the state legislature, and called for much more oversight.From the Associated Press:The audit faulted WEDC for not having sufficient policies to administer its $520 million worth of grant, loan and tax credit programs effectively, including some policies required by law. It awarded $80 million in its first year. The agency did not consistently follow the law or existing policies when making awards, and had no policies for determining how to handle delinquent loan amounts, the audit said. It lacked invoices or other contractually required documentation showing authorized costs for seven of 29 grants reviewed, the audit said. Four contracts gave $906,000 total in tax credits for job creation and employee training that had already occurred, the audit said. Twelve of 14 recipients of grant and loan contracts worth at least $100,000 did not submit verified financial statements as required by law, the audit found.”This audit dates back to 2011 and largely reflects information that WEDC has known for some time,” a Walker spokesman said in a statement. “This new agency has taken proactive and positive measures to address its issues, and Governor Walker is confident in the direction of WEDC as an agency that aims to promote job creation and economic growth for Wisconsin.”Continue Reading… … Read More
Real ‘price tag’ for gold and silver manipulation by Wall St.
Focusing on gold and silver: the way it works is this, whenever real cash buyers emerge for gold and silver in India, Russia, China, and amongst hard money advocates in the West – Wall St. and the City of London dump hundreds of tons of ‘naked-shorts’ on various futures exchanges (counterfeit futures contracts) that kills the price in the short term.Conversely, even though the central banks and their Wall St. friends are floating trillions in government bonds, the prices for these bonds are currently trading at 300-year highs. Never in America’s 237-year history or, if you go back in British history 300 years, do you find government bonds trading as high as they are now (i.e. record low interest rates).Historic demand for gold and vanishing supply is driving the prices lower while record supply of bonds with no natural demand only fabricated ‘quantitative easing’ demand driving prices higher. This is a complete repudiation of the laws of supply and demand that is not only unsustainable, but causing immeasurable hardships and now many cases of suicide as well.Price tagging’ is a good comparison to make when grappling to understand what’s happening in the gold and bond market these days. Price tagging refers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_tag_policy) to the practice on the part of Israel, whenever the international community pressures them on illegally expanding settlements into the occupied territories, they kill some Palestinians.That, we are told by the Israelis is the ‘price tag’ for insisting on compliance with the law.The price tag for cash buyers of gold and silver – who want to escape the matrix of the US dollar and the financial hegemony that comes with the dollar’s role as world reserve currency – is to suffer the ordeal of having Wall St. (principally JP Morgan) dump hundreds of tons of paper gold ‘naked-shorts’ on to the market to crash the price and destroying economies around the world.We shall overcome. Eventually, the cash buyers of gold and silver will triumph over the paper ‘price taggers’ and their pathetic schemes and the world will be a better place. … Read More
Feds investigate gains after AP Twitter hack
A fraudulent tweet sent from the official Associated Press Twitter account on Tuesday announced that United States President Barack Obama was injured following an explosion at the White House. In a matter of only seconds, the stock market took an immediate nose dive, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropping 150 points before the AP’s tweet was reported to be the work of a hacker.Moments later the AP responded, “The @AP Twitter account has been suspended after it was hacked. The tweet about an attack on the White House was false.”It only took minutes for the markets to regain the $136 billion or so initially lost after the fake tweet was published, but federal authorities want answers nonetheless. A group of computer hackers supportive of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian Electronic Army, has taken credit for this compromise and others in recent weeks which have targeted western media for allegedly unjust coverage of that country’s ongoing civil war. Without clear confirmation, however, authorities continue to ask questions in hopes of preventing another potentially catastrophic stock market crash.Bart Chilton, the commissioner of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, tells the New York Post that authorizes are examining a 10-minute window from last Tuesday that include the precise moment the fraudulent tweet was published. Although claims that the hack originated with pro-Assad hackers indeed plausible, Chilton says investigators need confirmation before they can jump to conclusions.“We’re looking at who was trading right before and right after that,” Chilton tells the Post. “This is a full-fledged effort to look at this period of time to make sure that nothing nefarious in markets took place.”According to the New York Times, the CFTC is now investigating 28 different futures contracts in hopes of seeing precisely how the hack impacted the markets.“To think it was all lost because of this hack attack is very disconcerting,” Chilton said. “We would be irresponsible if we turned a blind eye to these debacles.”The New York Times adds that both the Securities and Exchange Commission and the CFTC are now conducting investigations into the compromise, and authorities plan to host a public meeting in Washington, DC on Tuesday to discuss what kind of safeguards, if any, should be implemented to prevent future compromises.“In 2010, we passed Dodd-Frank, the big financial reform bill, but nowhere in there do they mention high-speed trading or technology,” Chilton adds to the Times. “That’s how quickly markets are morphing. Now, here we are three years later, woefully unprepared.”The Syrian Electronic Army has previously taken credit for hacking the Twitter accounts of the BBC, CBS News and others. The AP’s main Twitter account and another affiliated one were both compromised last week following what employees say were “impressively disguised” phishing attempts to hack into corporate email accounts. The Federal Bureau of Investigation previously confirmed that they had opened a probe of their own into the matter. … Read More
