Baggage handlers to strike at Easter

 

Baggage handlers at Stansted Airport are to strike over Easter in a row over pay, the GMB union announced today. The move follows an overwhelming vote in favour of industrial action by 150 GMB members employed by Swissport after the union claimed that shift changes would lead to wage cuts of up to £1,000. The GMB said strikes will be held on Good Friday, Easter Saturday and Easter Monday, threatening disruption to passengers flying on holiday for the holiday break. GMB official Gary Pearce said: "GMB members have voted overwhelmingly for strike action and for action short of a strike. "Up to now the company has been intent on imposing these changes without agreement and this is completely unacceptable, as this vote shows. "GMB has offered several alternative shift patterns and working arrangements but the company refuses to listen so far. "I have notified Swissport of the ballot result and I have asked them for more talks to try to avert action over these pay cuts. "GMB members consider that Swissport is attempting to make savings at their expense and they are not willing to agree to this. "Unless there is urgent talks and a settlement, this vote for action this will result in disruption over the Easter Bank Holiday weekend. "The travelling public need to be aware that it has been this aggressive move by Swissport to cut our members pay at a time of high inflation that has led to this strike vote. "If the strike goes ahead, Swissport is entirely to blame for the disruption."

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Shawn Tyson guilty of murdering two Britons in Florida

 

An American teenager has been found guilty of the first degree murder of two British tourists in Florida. James Cooper, 25, from Warwickshire, and James Kouzaris, 24, from Northampton, were shot dead on a public housing estate in Newtown, Sarasota. The pair, who met at Sheffield University, were killed after drunkenly wandering into the estate in the early hours of 16 April 2011. The court heard Shawn Tyson, 17, killed them after trying to rob them. Tyson, who was tried as an adult despite being 16 at the time of the shooting, faces life in prison with no chance of parole. 'Shattered soul' The families of Mr Cooper and Mr Kouzaris were not in court but said in a statement they were satisfied with the verdict. They added: "It is a fact that we were given a life sentence when our sons were so brutally and needlessly taken from us. "Ours is a life sentence, with no chance of parole from a broken heart, and a shattered soul." Mr Kouzaris and Mr Cooper had been out drinking in downtown Sarasota before they were shot The families also criticised the Sarasota court system that freed Tyson after a judge warned he was a danger to the public. Hours before he shot the two Britons, Tyson was arrested for a separate shooting incident in which no-one was hurt. In the statement the families said: "The evil of the killer is one thing, but the fact is, he would not have been on the streets had instructions to keep him incarcerated been passed from one judge to another." Killer's boast When the mistake came to light the Mayor of Sarasota, Kelly Kirschener, vowed the city's prosecutors would never let anything similar happen again. During the trial jurors heard how Mr Kouzaris and Mr Cooper had been out drinking in downtown Sarasota before getting lost and wandering into the Newtown area in the early hours. The prosecution said they were confronted by Tyson who tried to rob them and then shot them when he realised they had very little money. The court heard Tyson had boasted to his friend Latrece Washington, who testified against him, that one of the men had begged for his life but he shot him anyway.

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French judges seek arrest of Equatorial Guinea leader's son

 

Two French judges sought an international arrest warrant for the son of Equatorial Guinea's President Teodoro Obiang Nguema on money laundering charges, a judicial source said on Tuesday. The two judges, Roger Le Loire and Rene Grouman, consider there are grounds to suspect that Teodorin Obiang, who is agriculture minister in the small, oil-rich central African country, acquired real estate in France by fraudulent means. The warrant will not be released until a prosecutor has reviewed the request and decides whether to proceed. Teodorin is frequently seen enjoying an extravagant lifestyle abroad with multi-million dollar mansions, jets and yachts. Billboards in the capital Malabo seek to show him at work and in touch with the people, but diplomats and analysts cite his playboy lifestyle as a cause for concern. The French judges, who have been handling the case since 2010 on the basis of "concealment of embezzled public funds," suspect that the properties were purchased with public money from Equatorial Guinea. The judges had previously sought permission from the government of Equatorial Guinea to question Teodorin, but that request was rejected, Olivier Pardo, lawyer for the oil producing nation, told Reuters in Paris. "Unless one wishes to violate the sovereignty of the State of Equatorial Guinea and harm relations between France and Equatorial Guinea, it is absurd to want to launch an arrest warrant," he said. As part of the investigation, French police raided a building belonging to Equatorial Guinea in a wealthy area of Paris in February. After three days they removed art works and fine wines worth several million euros. The building was valued at about 150 million euros and investigators say it housed a nightclub and hairdressers, which suggested it was not being used as a diplomatic residence. Anti-corruption organisation Transparency International had filed the original legal complaint against Teodorin Obiang. On March 1, Teodorin filed for defamation against Daniel Lebegue, the president of the French arm of Transparency, denying he had embezzled funds. President Teodoro Obiang has ruled the former Spanish colony for more than three decades, making him the longest-serving African leader following the demise of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, with rights groups labelling his regime one of the world's most corrupt. The country produces about 240,000 barrels of oil per day. In January, Teodorin asked a U.S. court to dismiss attempts by the Obama administration to seize some $71 million worth of his assets, denying charges that they were obtained with allegedly corrupt funds taken from his country. He argued he had not violated U.S. or Equatorial Guinea law and called the corruption allegations "character assassination" against him and his country. Equatorial Guinea in October said it wanted to appoint Teodorin as its deputy permanent delegate at U.N. cultural agency UNESCO in Paris, a position that would give him diplomatic status in France. Until now the agency has not received any official documentation to proceed further with that request.

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JetBlue plane in emergency landing after captain's apparent breakdown

The captain of a JetBlue plane screamed "They're going to take us down!" and rambled about al-Qaida as passengers pinned him to the floor while another pilot took charge to make an emergency landing. An off-duty airline captain who was a passenger on the flight entered the cockpit, locked the door and landed in Amarillo, Texas, the airline said in a statement. JetBlue Airways said the original pilot on flight 191 from New York's John F Kennedy international airport had been taken to hospital after suffering a "medical situation" on board. The captain had earlier stormed through his plane rambling about a bomb and threats from Iraq until passengers on the Las Vegas-bound flight tackled him just outside the cockpit, passengers said. He had seemed disoriented, jittery and constantly sipped water when he first marched through the cabin, then began to rant about threats linked to Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan after crew members tried to calm him down. "They're going to take us down! They're taking us down! Say the Lord's prayer!" the captain screamed, according to passenger Tony Antolino. Josh Redick, who was sitting near the middle of the plane, said the captain seemed "irate" and was "spouting off about Afghanistan and souls and al-Qaida". Gabriel Schonzeit, who was sitting in the third row, told the Amarillo Globe-News: "He started screaming about al-Qaida and possibly a bomb on the plane and Iraq and Iran and about how we were all going down." "A group of us just jumped up instinctually and grabbed him and put him to the ground," Antolino said after arriving in Las Vegas later Tuesday. "Clearly he had an emotional or mental type of breakdown." Antolino, a security executive, said he and three others pinned down the captain as he ran for the cockpit door and sat on him for about 20 minutes until the plane landed at Rick Husband Amarillo international airport at 10am. Shane Helton, 39, who was seeing off his son at Amarillo airport, said: "They pulled one guy out on a stretcher and put him in an ambulance." The flight had left New York around 7am and was in the air for three and a half hours before landing in Texas. The passengers completed their journey to Las Vegas several hours later on another flight. The FBI was co-ordinating an investigation with the police, the FAA and the Transportation Safety Administration, said FBI spokeswoman Lydia Maese in Dallas. She declined to comment on arrests. Earlier this month an American Airlines flight attendant took over the public address system on a flight bound for Chicago and spoke for 15 minutes about 9/11 and the safety of their plane, saying: "I'm not responsible for this plane crashing," passengers said. She was wrestled into a seat while the plane was grounded at Dallas-Fort Worth international airport. The attendant was taken to hospital. In 2008 an Air Canada co-pilot was forcibly removed from a Toronto to London flight, restrained and sedated after having a mental breakdown. A flight attendant with flying experience helped the pilot make an emergency landing in Ireland. None of the 146 passengers and nine crew members on board were injured. In August 2010 JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater pulled the emergency chute on a flight from Pittsburgh after it landed at John F Kennedy international airport. He went on the public address system, swore at a passenger, grabbed a beer and slid down the tarmac. He was sentenced to probation, counselling and substance abuse treatment for attempted criminal mischief. An aviation expert remembered only two or three cases in 40 years where a pilot had become mentally incapacitated during a flight. John Cox, an aviation safety consultant and former airline pilot, said incidents in which pilots become mentally incapacitated during a flight were "pretty rare". He said he could only recall two or three other examples in the more than 40 years he has been following commercial aviation. Airlines and the FAA strongly encouraged pilots to assert themselves if they thought safety was being jeopardised, even if it meant contradicting a captain's orders, Cox said. Aviation safety experts had studied several cases where first officers deferred to more experienced captains with tragic results. In Tuesday's case the FAA is likely to review the unidentified captain's medical certificate, which must be renewed every six months to a year.

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Cannabis: Legal high

 

CANNABOOST plant food is one of the best selling products at the Hydroexpress hydroponics store in Stirchley, a working-class part of Birmingham. The small shop, its windows filled with graffiti-style posters, also sells fertilisers with names like “Nirvana” and “Bud Candy”, alongside strong lights and giant rolls of tin foil to line greenhouses. In one corner, a couple of juicy-looking tomato plants grow in a demonstration set-up. But the youth behind the counter guesses that his customers are “not all growing tomatoes”. Birmingham now has 58 hydroponics shops, up from 42 just a year ago. Whether aided by the latest plant-growing technology or not, cannabis production is soaring. According to the Association of Chief Police Officers, the number of cannabis factories detected each year increased from around 800 in 2004 to 7,000 in 2010. Birmingham is one of the most fertile areas; West Midlands Police, which set up a Cannabis Disposal Unit in 2010 to tackle the problem, dismantled more than 500 factories last year. Your correspondent visited one recently closed by police; the gardener was a cocaine-addicted woman growing a few plants in a spare room in the hope of earning a cut. Other set-ups have been found in tents in the bedrooms of high-rise council flats and in the lofts of terraced family houses. Many growers are simply feeding their own habits. As one officer on the West Midlands Police drugs team says, “It’s becoming the most popular cottage industry in the country.” In this section A big splash with little cash Falling flat Earning a hearing The worst job in the world Constituency of the world Mother tongue Money for old metal »Legal high A rock and a hard place The Notting Hill budget Reprints Related topics United Kingdom Birmingham, England Small growers are squeezing out both importers and the well-connected, often Vietnamese, gangs that once dominated domestic production. The big cannabis factories set up by the latter, with their telltale heat hazes, are fairly easy to spot. Smaller operations are often uncovered only when the electric lights start fires, or when local teenagers mount a burglary. The police and the courts can neither keep up with the surge in small-scale production, nor are they desperately keen to do so. Last month the government published new sentencing guidelines that advised judges to treat small cultivators less strictly. Attitudes to smokers are softening, too. The reclassification of cannabis in 2009, from class C to the more stringent class B, was oddly accompanied by a more liberal approach to policing consumption. Users caught on the street are rarely arrested; rather, they are issued “cannabis cautions” (a reprimand which doesn’t appear on a criminal record) or fined. In Brixton, a south London neighbourhood, an open-air cannabis market exists within ten minutes’ walk of the underground station. The dealers are frequently moved on but they soon regroup elsewhere. As one dealer admits, his competitors are a bigger hassle than the police. “They get to fightin’, over money and things,” he says in a deep Caribbean drawl. Violence is far more likely to get a dealer into legal trouble than business. Strangely, this lackadaisical approach is not encouraging people to take up the reefer habit. According to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, the proportion of people who admit to having used cannabis in Britain has fallen more quickly than in any other European country over the past few years. Just 6.8% of adults told another survey that they used cannabis in 2010, down from 10.9% eight years earlier. The herb is now ubiquitous and effectively tolerated—and, perhaps as a result, not all that alluring.

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Cat-Sized Rats Invade Florida

 

Cat-sized rats are causing trouble in the Florida keys. A pack of Gambian giant pouched rats have been breeding in the keys despite officials’ efforts to eradicate them. NBC Miami reports that Officials are worried about the vermin making it over to the mainland, saying that the hungry species could wipe out crops and upset the delicate ecological balance in Florida. Scort Hardin, the exotic species coordinator for Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, said: “We thought we had them whipped as of 2009…. In the early part of 2011, a resident e-mailed me and said he saw one of the rats. We were skeptical but went back and talked to people and [saw] there were rats that we missed.” Hardin believes that there are less than two dozen giant rats roaming Grassy Key where they were trapped during multiple efforts last year. The Wildlife Conservation Commission will set out once again this July in an attempt to trap the Gambian giant pouched rats. Hardin told Keys Net: “I would not imagine there’s more than another couple of dozen at most. We’ve caught them all within a half-mile of each other… We think they have not moved far but they clearly reproduced.” MSNBC reports that the cat-sized rats were introduced to the island by a local rat breeder more than a decade ago. The rats have moved into the wild where they are now breeding and wreaking havoc on the ecosystem.

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Brian Regan: Brookside star to cocaine addict

 

Brian Regan found fame playing loveable rogue Terry Sullivan in the Liverpool soap opera Brookside. In the show's 1980s heyday, his character's antics were regularly watched by up to seven million viewers a week. But when Regan left the soap in 1997, his acting career petered out and he plunged into a life of drug dealing and addiction. Now he is behind bars, serving a five-year jail sentence for lying to police over his role in the murder of Iranian doorman Bahman Faraji and selling drugs. Regan's jail sentence can now be reported following the conviction of Jason Gabbana, 29, for ordering Faraji's murder. Details emerged in court of the actor's descent into drugs and supplying members of Liverpool's criminal underworld. During the trial, Regan told Liverpool Crown Court how he started taking cocaine at weekends at the end of his Brookside career. It was through his use of cocaine he became involved with Edward Heffey, convicted of murdering Mr Faraji with a sawn-off shotgun in a quiet Liverpool street. Simon O'Brien, who played Damon Grant in Brookside, said Regan's involvement with drugs was a "slow burn". Snorting cocaine "It is a very difficult place when you're acting, particularly on something as high-profile as a soap, because fame and infamy attract each other," he said. "Actors and gangsters, for some reason, almost get off on each other. It's a really strange mutual attraction because I think the hard man gives the actor a kind of security out in public and the actor gives the gangster kudos. "The two worlds often get intertwined and when that happens, inevitably drugs become involved. So it was kind of a slow thing from what I remember, it was a slow burn." Regan was charged with Mr Faraji's murder and was cleared - but he was convicted of giving a false alibi to police about where he was on the night in February 2011. Actor and presenter Simon O'Brien said actors and gangsters get off on each other" During the trial, he told Liverpool Crown Court he supplied Heffey with cocaine "about three or four times a day". When Heffey asked him for a lift on the night of the killing, he said he thought he was taking him to collect a debt so he could pay for the drugs. In fact, once they arrived in Aigburth in Regan's Ford Escort, Heffey got out, walked round the corner and shot Mr Faraji in the face with a sawn-off shotgun. Regan told the court he knew nothing about the incident - because he was waiting in the car, snorting a line of cocaine. He said he then "drove away normally" from the scene and took Heffey home. Regan was cleared of murder at his trial which ended in January. 'Lose control' However, when he was first interviewed by police he lied about driving Heffey to the pub, but CCTV evidence put him at the scene and he was found guilty of perverting the course of justice. Mr O'Brien, 46, who was friends with Regan in their Brookside days, said getting involved in drugs was a tragedy that is "not uncommon" in the entertainment industry. "Brian is just one example of what happens when you're in the limelight and everything is flying and you lose control," he said. "You feel you're invincible when you're at the top of the game and you're not. "Sadly, if anyone wants to know what happens if you get involved in taking cocaine, this is an example of someone who was at the top of the tree and because of cocaine, he ends up behind bars."

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Study Suggests Link Between Narcissism And Facebook

There may be a direct link between the number of friends you have on Facebook and just how much of a “socially disruptive” narcissist you are, according to a recent study published in the journal of Personality and Individual Differences. Facebook habits of 294 students between the age of 18 and 65 were studied by researchers at Western Illinois University. They also measured two of what they describe as  ”socially disruptive” elements of narcissism- grandiose exhibitionism (GE- having to be at the center of attention), and entitlement/exploitativeness (EE-  having a sense of self entitlement/deserving of respect) of the students. The study found that those who scored highly on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory questionnaire changed their profile pictures more often, responded more aggressively to negative comment about them on their Facebook walls, tagged themselves more often, and updated their news feeds more regularly. Carol Craig, a social scientist and chief executive of the Centre for Confidence and Well-being stated: “Facebook provides a platform for people to self-promote by changing profile pictures and showing how many hundreds of friends you have. I know of some who have more than 1,000.” According to the Guardian, Christopher Carpenter, who ran the study, said: “If Facebook is to be a place where people go to repair their damaged ego and seek social support, it is vitally important to discover the potentially negative communication one might find on Facebook and the kinds of people likely to engage in them. Ideally, people will engage in pro-social Facebooking rather than anti-social me-booking.” Are we really narcissistic? Or could it simply be we are just bored? Or maybe just really friendly and outgoing, looking to meet new people? Do you think these researchers are reading just a little too much into it?

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Minimum price for alcohol introduced in bid to tackle Britain's binge crisis

The cost of a pint of beer will be at least 80p and a pint of strong cider would be at least £1.60. Mr Cameron said he was trying to tackle the country’s binge drinking culture and was targeting those who ‘pre-load’ on cheap supermarket drink before going out. He wants a 40p minimum charge for each unit of alcohol, following similar moves in Scotland. The prime minister said: ‘We’re consulting on the actual price but, if it is 40p, that could mean 50,000 fewer crimes each year and 9,000 fewer alcohol-related deaths over the next decade.’ The minimum price was welcomed by police and health campaigners, who say drink was behind 1.2million hospital admissions and 1million crimes last year, and  cost Britain £21billion a year. Critics, however, say it will unfairly punish the vast majority, who are sensible drinkers and comes just hours after a five per cent rise in duty on drink was confirmed in the budget. Mr Cameron also wants to give pubs more powers not to serve people who are drunk, a zero tolerance approach to drunken behaviour in hospitals, a ban on multi-buy discounts and a late night levy on pubs and clubs to help pay for policing. A consultation will take place in the summer, with a new law introduced by the end of the year. He said: ‘Binge drinking is a serious problem. And I make no excuses for clamping down on it.’ Supermarkets will oppose a minimum price. At Asda, a can of Smartprice lager costs 22p. The supermarket is also selling wine at £2.30 a bottle. It contains 8.3 units of alcohol, meaning it will rise in price by at least £1.

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Whitney Houston drowned after cocaine use, says coroner

Whitney Houston's death was caused by accidental drowning, but drug abuse and heart disease were also factors, a coroner has ruled. Coroner's spokesman Craig Harvey said drug tests indicated the 48-year-old US singer was a chronic cocaine user. The announcement ends weeks of speculation over the cause of Houston's death. She was found submerged in the bath of her Los Angeles hotel room on the eve of the Grammy Awards on 11 February. In a statement, the LA County Coroner's office described Houston's manner of death as an "accident", adding that "no trauma or foul play is suspected". The cause was cited as drowning and "effects of atherosclerotic heart disease and cocaine use". Other drugs found in her blood included marijuana, as well as an anti-anxiety drug, a muscle relaxant and an allergy medication. But these were not factors in her death, the coroner's statement said. Patricia Houston, the singer's sister-in-law and manager, told the Associated Press news agency: "We are saddened to learn of the toxicology results, although we are glad to now have closure." The pop star was laid to rest at a cemetery in her home state of New Jersey after a funeral that was attended by celebrities including Oprah Winfrey, Alicia Keys, Mariah Carey and Mary J Blige. The singer, who was one of the world's best selling artists from the mid-1980s to late 1990s, had a long battle with drug addiction.

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A Nation 'Addicted' To Statins...

Dear Reader,

In the UK alone, more than 7 million people are taking cholesterol-lowering statins. This is extremely worrying when you consider the damage these over-prescribed drugs can inflict, with side effects ranging from liver dysfunction and acute renal failure to fatigue and extreme muscle weakness (myopathy).

Slowly tearing us apart

Even more concerning are the side effects that crop up after long-term use, which are often not linked to statins. For example, one study monitored the symptoms of 40 asthma patients for a year. 20 of these patients started statins at the outset of the study, while the remaining 20 did not.

The results showed that those patients on statins used their rescue inhaler medications 72 per cent more often than they had at the start of the study, compared to a 9 per cent increase in those who were not taking statins. The researchers also reported that patients taking statins had to get up more frequently at night because of their asthma and also had worse symptoms during the day...

Worsening asthma symptoms is just the beginning. More recent research has linked statins with an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes, depression, Alzheimer's disease and dementia.

Still, doctors are very quick to reach for their prescription pads and push these drugs. There appears to be an unofficial (but widely practiced) 'statins for all' approach... especially if you are aged 50 and over.

Luckily, some mainstreamers are slowly catching on to what we've been saying for nearly a decade. In 2011, research published in the Archives of Internal Medicine drew attention to the fact that there is inadequate medical data available that proves the benefits of statins, and that many studies fail to acknowledge the most commonly reported adverse effects of statins.

The fact remains (and your doctor may still deny this) that in total, statins cause serious damage in about 4.4 per cent of those taking them, in comparison to the 2.7 per cent statin users benefiting from them... and it looks as if this message is finally getting through to medical authorities.

A case in point is simvastatin or Zocor. After being on the market for almost 3 decades and causing havoc and distress with its horrendous side effects, the American Food and Drug Administration (FDA) finally issued a warning about the use of this drug... saying that even the approved dosage can harm or even kill you!

Yep! Kill you!

All well and good

It's all fair and well and good that the FDA flagged this warning, but what's the point if doctors continue to prescribe these drugs left, right and centre?

Professor Sarah Harper, director of Oxford University's institute of population ageing, recently said that the UK's "love affair" with prescription medicine, shows how people choose to pop pills rather than follow a healthy lifestyle.

She cited the widespread use of statin drugs to 'help' protect against heart disease and lower cholesterol, instead of eating healthily, quitting smoking, reducing alcohol intake and taking regular exercise.

By all means, I applaud Prof Harper for pushing the message that living a healthy life plays a big part in preventing disease, but why blame patients for being a bunch of pill poppers when doctors hand out drugs with reckless abandon... and recommend taking preventative drugs to ever younger age groups. So in fact, the white coats should be labelled as Big Pharma's drug pushers, because they're part of the problem... especially considering that so many people put their entire trust in their doctor and would never dream of questioning their advice. Most people take what they say as gospel.

Then there's the media, inundating Joe Public with inflammatory headlines like: 'Statins could help fight breast cancer' or 'Statins can prevent infections like pneumonia'... Not to mention their reporting on botch studies showing the 'unintended benefits' of statins, like their potential to prevent pneumonia, combat diabetes, reduce the risk of oesophageal cancer, breast cancer and prostate cancer — all of these so-called benefits are of course not yet proven, and highly unlikely. Still, they reach the front pages!

So, yes we might have turned into a pill popping public, but it's the mainstream and the media that have created this monster all with the help and backing of the puppet master: Big Pharma. Because as you and I know all too well, it's all about the money. 

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18 Best Places to Retire Overseas

When choosing a place to spend your retirement years, the cost of living is important. But it is only one consideration. The ideal retirement spot is a place where you can live a rich life filled with friends, travel, discovery, physical and intellectual distractions, and opportunities for growth. A super-low cost of living is great, but more important is the quality of life your retirement budget is buying you. Many of the best options for enjoying an enormously enriched retirement lifestyle on even a very modest budget can be found overseas. Here are the world’s 18 top retirement havens, where an interesting, adventure-filled lifestyle is available for a better-than-reasonable cost. The Americas 1. Panama. Panama is the world's top retirement haven. Panama City no longer qualifies as cheap, but other spots in this country certainly do. Panama continues to offer the world's gold standard program of special benefits for retirees. The currency is the U.S. dollar, so there is no exchange rate risk if your retirement savings and income is in dollars. The climate in Panama City and on the coasts is tropical, hot, and humid. However, the climate in the highlands can be temperate and tempting. Panama is the hub of the Americas, meaning it's easily accessible from anywhere in North and South America and Europe. 2. Belize. Belize is a great place for reinventing your life in retirement. This tiny, under-developed, sparsely populated country offers two distinct lifestyle options: Ambergris Caye is the best of the Caribbean at a discount, while the Cayo is a frontier where independent-minded pioneers can make their own way and do their own thing, peacefully and privately. The climate is tropical, warmer on the coast, and cooler in the mountainous interior. The official language is English, so there’s no foreign language barrier for Americans. You’ll find a well-established and welcoming community of expats in San Pedro and on Ambergris Caye, and an emerging community of expats in the Cayo around San Ignacio. 3. Colombia. Medellin, a city of springtime and flowers, is the unsung jewel of Colombia. This city is pretty, sophisticated, cosmopolitan, safe, and affordable. Perhaps the most appealing advantage in Medellin is the cost of real estate. It's an absolute global bargain. You can buy property in a good neighborhood for as little as $1,000 per meter. Medellin’s second biggest appeal is its climate, which is spring-like year-round, thanks to the high elevation. Medellin is a more developed city than you might imagine, with five of the best hospitals in Latin America, universities, museums, art galleries, and an efficient and reliable metro system. It also has international-standard shopping and many interesting nightlife options. If you fancy Paris or other Continental city choices, but don't want or can't afford Europe, I strongly recommend you take a look at Medellin. This city is one of the best places in the world to hang your hat. 4. Uruguay. It seems that the more troubled the rest of the world becomes, the more people are finding appeal in Uruguay, a stable commodity-based economy with a sound banking system. Uruguay is neither an aggressor nor a target of aggression in the world arena, and it's not a high-stakes player in world politics. Costs have risen in recent years thanks to the strength of the Uruguayan peso and the sinking value of the dollar. But, even as the cost of living and of real estate rose, Uruguay has become even more popular as a lifestyle and retirement destination. Accordingly, people are coming to Uruguay in record numbers, with residency applications up over 300 percent since 2007, many of these coming from the United States. 5. Ecuador. Ecuador is perhaps the best choice in the Americas for a retiree looking to enjoy a rich and interesting quality of life on a limited budget. I recommend Cuenca, the former Inca and Spanish capital, a current UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the intellectual heart of Ecuador. Cuenca is home to about 1,500 full-time residents from North America. This is not a big number compared with some more recognized Mexican retirement choices, but Cuenca clearly qualifies as an expat-friendly city, offering one of the most interesting retirement lifestyles available anywhere. Amenities include theater, orchestra, shows, restaurants, broadband Internet service, reliable electricity and telephone, and drinkable tap water. Cuenca’s appeal as a retirement haven is expanding in important ways, thanks to a recently developed program promoting the city as a medical tourism destination. The city's five top hospitals have joined together to offer bundled programs of medical tests, procedures, and services available for from $66 to $401. Costs for comparable services in the United States would be multiples of these amounts. In addition, Cuenca is now offering nursing care of a standard suitable for and appealing to the expat retiree at a cost of just $450 per month, including 24-hour doctor and nurse attendance, food, laundry, personal care, and occupational and rehabilitative therapy. 6. Nicaragua. Another top choice for a retiree with a very limited budget is Nicaragua. This country’s Pacific coastline is every bit as dramatically beautiful as that of neighboring Costa Rica. Infrastructure is under-developed in both countries, but the cost of living and especially real estate are noticeably lower in Nicaragua, making the pot-holed roads easier to bear. Nicaragua also boasts two of the top Spanish-colonial cities in the Americas: Granada, a pretty and romantic city that everyone should see once, and Leon. Both places were founded in the early 16th century by Cordoba. 7. Roatan, Honduras. I’m not a big fan of mainland Honduras, which is under-developed and, in some places, unsafe. However, the Bay Island of Roatan is a world apart and one of my two top picks for affordable retirement in the Caribbean (the other is Ambergris Caye, Belize). 8. Argentina. Argentina is a dynamic and charming nation that rides perpetually between crisis and boom. This rich country boasts abundant natural resources and offers many appealing retirement lifestyle choices, including the eclectic and cosmopolitan neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, the provincial capitals, a finca in the countryside, and a boutique vineyard in Mendoza. Retirement life in Argentina could be many things, but never dull. The downside is a rising cost of living, thanks to local inflation and the falling value of the U.S. dollar versus the Argentine peso. 9. Mexico. This is historically one of the most recognized retirement havens for Americans. But Mexico today is suffering from a lot of bad press thanks to its drug wars. However, Mexico is a big country, and the drug goons haven’t overtaken it entirely. It continues to offer some of the best coastal lifestyle and retirement options in the Americas, including Puerto Vallarta, my number-one choice for an affordable life of luxury on the Pacific. A couple could enjoy a a five-star retirement in this beautiful and romantic coastal town of marinas, golf courses, yacht clubs, and fine dining on a budget of as little as $2,500 per month. 10. Chile. Chile is a developed, First World destination that is also quiet, safe, and stable. Unlike its more scandalous neighbor, Argentina, Chile offers a cultured, comfortable lifestyle that is relatively calm. Santiago is a city of classic-style architecture, cobblestoned streets, and cafes with outdoor seating, in many ways reminiscent of Paris or Barcelona. This city of 7 million is also remarkably clean and friendly and boasts a diverse and expanding property market that is affordable on a global scale. You could own property at some of the city’s best addresses for less than $2,000 a meter. One important downside to retirement in Santiago is the air pollution, which is a serious problem, especially during the winter months. A better option could be the country’s beautiful Lake District to the south of Santiago, which is a favorite retirement choice among Chileans themselves. Europe 11. France. France is a land of superlatives. Its capital has been called the most beautiful, most romantic, and most touristed city on earth. It also boasts some of the world’s best wines, cheeses, restaurants, shopping, castles, gardens, parks, beaches, museums, cafes, galleries, vineyards, and architecture. The typical concern for anyone who has ever dreamed of a new life in France is that it's too expensive for the average retiree to consider seriously. Not so. Paris isn't cheap. But elsewhere in France you can find realistic options, even if your retirement budget is modest. Perhaps the most retirement friendly region in this country is in the southwest, north of Spain, where small country towns offer a way of life that is quintessentially French and also very affordable. 12. Italy. The cost of living in Rome, Florence, Venice, and Tuscany might be beyond the limits of your retirement budget. But that doesn't mean you should take Italy off your list entirely if this is the country that stirs your imagination and speaks to your soul. A retiree on a budget interested in Italy could look at Abruzzo. From this beautiful Old World base, within a half-day's drive of both the coast and the mountains, you could plan excursions to Italy's better-known and more expensive outposts as often as you liked. 13. Ireland. Americans have long dreamed of retirement on the Emerald Isle and with good reason. Ireland is safe, peaceful, relaxed, welcoming, friendly, hospitable, and English-speaking, making it an ideal retirement choice for many. Ireland today is also more affordable than it has been in more than a decade, and its property market has fallen off a cliff. Real estate prices are down 50 percent or more in many markets and are still falling. If you, like so many others, have dreamed of wiling away your retirement years on your own little piece of the Auld Sod, this could be the best time in your lifetime to think about making that purchase. 14. Spain. Spain is known among expats for its Atlantic and Mediterranean coastlines, especially its infamous (and unfortunately over-developed) Costa del Sol. But there's more to this country than its costas. Barcelona, for example, is a world-class city on the ocean, perfect if you're looking for a cosmopolitan life near the water. Real estate prices in this country have fallen tremendously since the highs of four or five years ago. If retirement in Spain appeals to you, this could be the time to search for a great deal on Spanish retirement digs. 15. Croatia. Croatia, a country with an extraordinarily complicated history and an extremely open-minded, forward-looking population, is at another turning point in its long history. Countries at turning points are interesting places to be. I recommend the country’s Istrian Peninsula, which serves up some of the most delightful scenery on the planet. The land seems to rise up to embrace you, and everywhere you look, something nice is growing like olives, grapes, figs, tomatoes, pumpkins, blackberries, and wildflowers. Even the buildings seem to be part of the earth, built of its white stone and red clay. This sun-soaked region offers one of the most appealing lifestyle options in Europe today. Asia 16. Thailand. Thailand boasts both really cheap and developed and comfortable lifestyle choices. It is also noteworthy as being one of the few countries in this part of the world that offers formal options for long-term and retirement visas. Hua Hin is one of the few classic retirement havens in Southeast Asia, complete with golf courses, factory outlets, and gated communities. Foreigners make up approximately 15 percent of that population, and most of them are retired. With 12 golf courses in operation and another 3 under construction, this is definitely the place to go if you're a golfing enthusiast. Hua Hin is a place where, if you were so inclined, you could live a North American lifestyle and never have to involve yourself more than superficially with the local Thai culture. This could be a plus or a minus for you, but it is worth noting when discussing options in this typically exotic part of the world. 17. Vietnam. While Thailand is well-established as an interesting option for expats and foreign retirees, Vietnam is an emerging choice, which could get a lot more attention in the coming few years. Nha Trang offers an interesting coastal retirement option for adventuresome retirees. Nha Trang’s total population of more than 200,000 includes an expat population of about 1,000 people, meaning foreigners here are still pioneers. You'll find no organized activities for foreigners, such as expat clubs or softball leagues. The lack of a big foreign population makes it easier to have meaningful interactions with the locals. The major attraction in Nha Trang is its cost of living, which can amount to much less than $1,000 per month for a retired couple. If you're a budget-minded retiree with an interest in Asia, this town should be on top on your list. 18. Malaysia. After Thailand, Malaysia is the easiest country to navigate in this part of the world. The country's capital, Kuala Lumpur, is a city of contrasts. The shining stainless steel Petronas Towers, two of the tallest skyscrapers in the world, anchor a startlingly beautiful skyline that is truly unique to this city. Modern, air-conditioned malls flourish, selling everything from beautifully handcrafted batik clothing to genuine Rolex watches and Tiffany jewelry. In the shadows of these ultra-modern buildings, the ancient Malay village of Kampung Baru still thrives, with free-roaming roosters and a slow pace of life generally found in rural villages. Less than a 20-minute walk from the city center, you can find yourself conversing with monkeys in the city-jungle surrounding one of the highest telecommunications towers in the world. A walk of less than 30 minutes leads you to Chinatown and Little India, where merchants offer their wares, foods, and culture in happy neighborhoods that showcase the amazing diversity of the city. Unlike some places in Asia, foreigners are genuinely welcomed in Kuala Lumpur. Language isn't a problem, as almost everyone speaks adequate English. Immigration is easy, and it is possible to stay for an extended period with a simple tourist visa. Although Kuala Lumpur is more expensive than rural Malaysia, it can be marvelously inexpensive by Western standards. You can realistically expect to cut your living expenses by a third and still enjoy a lifestyle comparable to what you are accustomed to now.

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5 Top Ways Stars Lose All Their Cash

Last week Gary Busey passed a mandatory online financial management course in an attempt to convince a U.S. Bankruptcy court he'll start sensibly managing his money.  The veteran actor recently filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. But in Hollywood, going broke is just about as as common as a leaked nude photos; just ask Toni Braxton, Larry Wilcox, Vince Neil, Mike Tyson, and Stephen Baldwin, all of whom have recently filed for bankruptcy. Not to mention Zsa Zsa Gabor’s husband, who was forced to put their Bel Air mansion on the market last year to pay the ailing star’s medical bills; Wesley Snipes, who was imprisoned for three tax-related misdemeanor convictions; and Nicolas Cage, who lost one of his homes to foreclosure and has been plagued by IRS issues. So how is it that some of the most well-paid people on the planet can end up with next to nothing? We talked to financial management experts and they ticked off the top five ways rich celebs lose it all (or close to it). 5. They have no idea how money management works.  “Most celebrities have extremely creative minds. But in my experience, the most creative folks tend not to want to spend time dealing with business issues,” tax and business expert Joseph M. Doloboff, Partner at Blank Rome LLP in Los Angeles told FOX411’s Pop Tarts column. But don’t famous folks hire financial planners and business managers to take good care of their millions? “Most of them do, but at the end of the day, these accounts are still in a celebrities’ name, which gives them ultimate control over their wealth,” said Certified Financial Counselor for Financial Advice for the Artist, Erin Elizabeth Burns. Which can mean big spending, big mistakes and… 4. Bad advice.  Pete Krainik, Founder and CEO of The CMO Club, a networking resource for top marketing executives, noted that some celebrities do not have the skill sets to identify and determine the right business/financial managers for their needs. “Because they don’t think of themselves as brands, they don’t put the efforts or plans in place to maximize their value for endorsement deals,” he explained. “They should have themselves significant additional revenue streams – it is not just about getting the next role, but getting the next deal.” But some such "additional revenue streams" can also run in the red.. Last year, the Las Vegas rendition of Beso – the restaurant/nightclub co-owned by Eva Longoria – filed for bankruptcy to restructure nearly $5.7 million in debt and other liabilities. Prior to that, the Jay-Z owned 40/40 sports bar in Sin City shut its doors a mere eight months after opening. Britney Spears’s southern-inspired Nyla Restaurant reportedly hit monetary blows before she also severed ties, and both Jennifer Lopez’s “Sweetface” clothing line and restaurant Madres went dark. 3. Theft and fraud.  Hollywood's highest profile people are actually human, which means they too are susceptible to being screwed by business managers, badly worded deals and corrupt advisors. Just ask Kevin Bacon and wife Kyra Sedgwick, who were taken to the cleaners by Ponzi schemer Bernie Maddoff. Doloboff also said prominent factors in a celeb’s financial crumbling is their tendency to bring "friends" -- or family -- into the fray as business partners or employees. “Many professional athletes and entertainers want to help their friends while simultaneously helping themselves,” he said. “The best advice is to refrain from doing business with friends. True friends don’t condition their friendship upon doing business together.” Comedian Dan Cook will probably adhere to that – in 2010, his half-brother Darryl McCauley was ordered to pay the comic $12 million in restitution after pleading guilty to embezzling funds from him. McCauley allegedly stole $12,500 a month as Cook’s business manager. Friends and fraud – double whammy! 2. Drugs, booze, and bad habits. Stars are known to fall when the temptations of drugs/alcohol/hard partying turns into a dangerous addiction. It can also be more than an expensive habit, as addiction often impacts other areas. “You are far more likely to make poor decisions when under the influence of drugs or alcohol. When you’re dealing with celebrities, the problem is that their support groups, (friends, family, entourages, et al), often consist of enablers,” explained Richard Taite, the Founder and CEO of rehab center Cliffside Malibu. “It comes as no surprise that a successful celebrity can face financial destitution if they are abusing drugs or alcohol and are left to their own devices.” 1. Ridiculous overspending. Last but not least, some beautiful yet broke folks just lead foolishly fabulous lives (we're talking to you, MC Hammer) and refuse to accept that fame (and its fortune) can be fleeting. “Most celebrities have luxuries such as a cook, a driver, a personal stylist, a personal assistant etc.,” said Burns. “They become accustomed to this lifestyle, but when their contract isn’t renewed, or when the films offers stop coming in, they are still living this life of luxury with the expectation that they will always be in demand.” Yes, sadly, not every Hollywood tale has a happy ending. But with some good financial advise, the ending doesn't have to be tragic.

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Health board owed £130k for treatment of foreign nationals

FOREIGN nationals not entitled to free treatment are said to owe Swansea Bay's ABM University Health Board more than £130,000 — the second highest figure in Wales. According to figures obtained by the Welsh Conservatives, only Cardiff and Vale UHB is owed more, at just over £200,000. ​ Darren Millar AM The Welsh Government has now said it is looking at further measures to help health boards recoup their costs. Figures obtained by the Tories following a Freedom of Information request show the money owed to the NHS in Wales more than doubled between 2008 and 2011. Of the £380,000 that was unpaid, at least £199,311 is still outstanding to Wales's seven health boards, while a minimum of £185,700 was written off after bosses exhausted efforts to be reimbursed. Shadow Health Minister Darren Millar AM expressed concern at the figures, arguing the Welsh NHS was in no position to be owing substantial sums of money. He said: "There are strict guidelines in place for explaining details of charges to patients who are required to pay. "The Welsh Government should look carefully at how well these rules are followed. "Any money written off by the NHS is regrettable when budgets are being squeezed so hard. The big rise evident in these figures is of great concern." The figures show that, in 2008/09, £70,815 had not been paid back. In 2010/11 that had increased to £257,713. And the Tories also claim there was been a downward trend in the rate of collecting money owed, down from 71 per cent in 2008/09 to 43 per cent in 2010/11. Some treatments, such as medical emergencies at A&E or compulsory psychiatric care, remain free of charge for everyone in Wales — regardless of where they are from or how long they have lived in the country. Other procedures, which include non-life-threatening outpatient care, are supposed to be paid for by non-EU residents. But the process and guidelines are far from straightforward as some countries have signed healthcare agreements with the UK. This makes its citizens exempt from some charges. ABM officials could not be contacted for comment. A Welsh Government spokesman said: "All visitors to Wales requiring NHS treatment are assessed as to their eligibility for free NHS treatment. "All treatment received in an accident and emergency department is free to all. "We have issued clear guidance to NHS organisations which states that they should recover the cost of caring for overseas patients who are not entitled to free care. "We are looking at what further measures can be introduced to support NHS organisations recover costs."

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Spanish state will need outside help – or even go bankrupt.

 

If the negative development in the Spanish housing market continues, it can – worst case – lead to renewed concern over that the Spanish state will need outside help – or even go bankrupt. Banks might face several hundred billion Euros in losses on the Spanish real estate market. This will mean a recapitalization of the Spanish banks – capital that can only come from the Spanish state. Now there is nothing new in that; but what is interesting is the free admission of a need to nationalize the Spanish banks. If you glace at the graph you will see the Danish housing market has dropped between 22% and 30% from the top – time and actual drop depending on market segment. As Danske Bank is roughly half the Danish finance sector it is hard to escape the conclusion that Danske Bank is in at least as big trouble as the banks in one of the more notorious frivolous and irresponsible economies in Europe. Danske Bank will presumably peg their flag to the difference in unemployment figure (Spain hovers around 20%). True as that may be; but unemployment figures are notoriously difficult to compare between countries. Not only do criteria differ; but the criteria differs over time – according to political convenience. It is kind of discussing distress on board the Titanic: “It’s only your end that is under water! I’m fine!!” That is the nearest to a Freudian slip admission of life threatening financial distress we can expect from Danske Bank. But it is time to bust a few myths before they come too much of age – and be established as “truths” – and draw some conclusions. 1)    Looking at the graph again prices on condominiums/flats/apartments had begun to drop way before the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Two years in fact. That was more due to a temporary rise in interest rates that made the calculations of monthly payments  – even to the least lunatic bank manager – clearly unrealistic. 2)    Generally sales were falling from mid 2007 – I trust the reader is can see through the regular seasonal variation to distinguish the trend. 3)    The collapse of Lehman Brothers and the perhaps inept handling of the resulting Credit Default Swap disaster had indeed nothing to do with the much deeper issue of banking irresponsibility and incompetence. Alan Greenspan has been quoted for saying that what surprised him was that banks had not taken preventive measures in their own interest. The forces of the free market self-regulating controls do NOT apply in the financial sector. 4)    The next major meltdown – which clearly is underway (Spain will not be able to meet the budget target agreed upon by Rajoy) – will in essence have nothing to do with the Greek debacle. Greece was/is – all things considered – handled more effectively than the collapse of Lehman Brother. To be fair: There was more advance warning and the cacophony of idiotic optimism had been quenched by German lack of sentimentality. 5)    You can see the lack of linkage to the Greek situation by the fact that the Danish and Spanish drop in housing prices (and lack of trade) is simultaneous. Danish banks were not exposed to Greek sovereign debt to ANY appreciable extend. Furthermore Denmark has a reasonably healthy export which is more than can be said about Spain. Still a near similar and at least simultaneous price drop in Denmark and Spain points to a factor nobody has wished to mention: The banks of both countries are to all intents and purposes deceased and with no future without state ownership.

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Spain has been surprised at the magnitude of this property down slide. thinking thought it would be around 10 percent.

Home-owners in Spain received yet another blow when figures released by the National Statistics Institute (INE) show that house prices fell even further in the last quarter of 2011.

House prices in Spain have been in free-fall since the start of the economic crisis with the construction industry coming to a virtual standstill. The figures show that the price of new build properties dropped by 8.5 percent in the final quarter of 2011 compared to The equivalent period in 2010. Those trying to sell their used homes are suffering even further with a drop of 13.7 percent.Analysts are blaming the recession, unemployment and uncertainty about Spain's economy as major factors, according to a report in El Pais. Property expert Julio Gil said:

“We have been surprised at the magnitude of this down slide. We thought it would be around 10 percent.”

With more and more people defaulting on their mortgages, the banks are being left with huge stockpiles of homes that they can't sell, even at knock-down prices, whilst the immigrants from Northern European countries that helped create the property boom in Spain have all but disappeared. This is the worst quarterly drop since the INE started recording the statistic, with Madrid the worst affected region.

Stop Desahucios

Logo of action group aiming to help families facing eviction.

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The Wall Street Journal reports that Spanish banks now hold "more than €400 billion worth of loans to the construction and real estate sector, " an amount that is equivalent to 40 percent of gross domestic product for Spain. Early figures show that the price drop is continuing in this first quarter of 2012.The personal tragedies behind the stark figures are very sad. An action group, called 'Stop Desahucios', has been formed to try and stop people being forcibly evicted from their homes. With unemployment rising at an alarming rate, many more people are finding themselves unable to pay their mortgages and discover that the banks are less than sympathetic to their plight, despite the fact the banks are overloaded with properties they can't sell. The action group try everything to help the families and if that fails they literally stand in front of the homes preventing officials from getting in to evict the families, many of whom have small children.Many foreigners with homes in Spain, whether permanent or holiday, just hand in the keys to the bank and head home leaving huge debts behind them.What is certain is that property prices in Spain will continue to spiral downwards and it will be some years before the property market begins to recove

Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/321327#ixzz1pOewnM7S

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Prosecutors charge Catholic nun in alleged stolen baby scheme at Madrid hospitals

A Catholic nun has been charged with being part of a child stealing operation that ran over four decades in Spain. Sister María Gómez Valbuena is the first person to be indicted in connection with the probe into more than 100 cases of babies snatched from hospitals between the 1950s and 1980s. She was subpoenaed to testify before investigators recently but refused to answer questions, according to sources at the Madrid prosecutor's office. Identity crisis: Randy Ryder as a baby being cradled in a Malaga hospital in 1971 by the woman who bought him Her name has surfaced in dozens of complaints filed by mothers who claim they were robbed of their babies after giving birth at San Ramón and Santa Cristina hospitals in Madrid. Sister María was the assistant to Dr Eduardo Vela Vela, whose name also appears in the complaints filed by mothers. Prosecutors have decided that there is sufficient evidence to file charges against Sister María in one case, based on a woman's testimony that her daughter was taken from her in 1982 after she gave birth at the Santa Cristina Hospital.   More... The doctor who broke up families: Psychiatrist who damned hundreds as 'unfit parents' faces GMC probe Is legend of St Patrick just a bit of blarney? He was a runaway tax collector turned slave trader, says expert The woman, identified as María Luisa, states that she was told that her baby had died at birth but claims she was actually given to another family. Shortly after giving birth, María Luisa saw an ad published in a magazine taken out by a nun — Sister María Gómez Valbuena — who offered her services to help single mothers. María Luisa was separated at the time and had another daughter. When she went to see her, María Luisa discovered that the nun was actually offering to take her daughter away to give to a family. Reunited: Randy Ryder with Manoli Pagador, who believes she may be his real mother The children were trafficked by a secret network of doctors, nurses, priests and nuns in a widespread practice that began during General Franco’s dictatorship and continued until the early Nineties. Hundreds of families who had babies taken from Spanish hospitals are now battling for an official government investigation into the scandal. Several mothers say they were told their first-born children had died during or soon after they gave birth. But the women, often young and unmarried, were told they could not see the body of the infant or attend their burial. In reality, the babies were sold to childless couples whose devout beliefs and financial security meant that they were seen as more appropriate parents. Official documents were forged so the adoptive parents’ names were on the infants’ birth certificates. In many cases it is believed they were unaware that the child they received had been stolen, as they were usually told the birth mother had given them up. Experts believe the cases may account for up to 15 per cent of the total adoptions that took place in Spain between 1960 and 1989. It began as a system for taking children away from families deemed politically dangerous to the regime of General Franco, which began in 1939. The system continued after the dictator’s death in 1975 as the Catholic church continued to retain a powerful influence on public life, particularly in social services. It was not until 1987 that the Spanish government, instead of hospitals, began to regulate adoptions. The scandal came to light after two men, Antonio Barroso and Juan Luis Moreno, discovered they had been stolen as babies. Mr Moreno’s ‘father’ confessed on his deathbed to having bought him as a baby from a priest in Zaragoza in northern Spain. He told his son he had been accompanied on the trip by Mr Barroso’s parents, who bought Antonio at the same time for 200,000 pesetas – a huge sum at the time. DNA tests have proved that the couple who brought up Mr Barroso were not his biological parents and the nun who sold him has admitted to doing so. When the pair made their case public, it prompted mothers all over the country to come forward with their own experiences of being told their babies had died, but never believing it. One such woman was Manoli Pagador, who has begun searching for her son. A BBC documentary, This World: Spain’s Stolen Babies, followed her efforts to discover if he is Randy Ryder, a stolen baby who was brought up in Texas and is now aged 40. In some cases, babies’ graves have been exhumed, revealing bones that belong to adults or animals. Some of the graves contained nothing at all.

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€500 REWARD is on offer to anyone who can provide information leading to the arrest of the people who broke into a Marbella clothing store.

 

€500 REWARD is on offer to anyone who can provide information leading to the arrest of the people who broke into a Marbella clothing store.

 

The incident took place at The Jeans Factory Outlet around 5.30am last Friday and around 600 pieces of clothing were stolen worth €45,000.

“My alarm company called me straight away,” said Dutch owner Roy Samshuyzen. At first Roy thought it might be a false alarm as was the case a few months ago.

“Looking at the camera system from home I could not see anything so I headed straight over, still in my pijamas.

When I arrived five minutes later there were around seven police cars already there with the alarm company.”

This would have given the three burglars less than three minutes after the alarm went off to make off with their bounty.

“Since the glass is 8mm thick, like that of a bank’s, the burglars must have rammed it with a truck with a metal bar on the front.” Although the glass was replaced that same afternoon, Roy estimates that it will take “between eight and nine weeks to recover the losses from the robbery.”

The Jeans Factory Outlet is located on the main road on the approeach to Marbella coming from Malaga direction, so Roy believes there is a “good possibility that someone saw something,” hence the reward offer.

Roy was surprised that the “gang ignored the expensive jeans including Ed Hardy, Tommy HiIlfinger and Guess and took around 35 pairs of Antony Morato jeans and pairs from his own brand that are sold exclusively in the store”.

Roy thinks this could be because the gang saw a security screen and cameras on the side of the shop were the more expensive items are kept, but the cameras cover the whole store.

CCTV footage clearly shows three men, one of them wearing a hood covering his face, grabbing as many clothes as they can.

Roy will be heading down to the various markets over the coming days to see if he can find any of the 600 pieces of clothes, which he says would have retailed at about €45,000.

“The frustrating thing is that since it will be on the black market they will only be sold for around €50 to €10 each. Roy is “fed-up” at the unfairness of the situation.

“We do everything by the book, do everything to protect yourself and then sh*t like this happens”.

“I am not worried about the robbery; the money or the damaged store front. All of these things can be taken care of through the insurance.

It is the future of Marbella and of the world I am worried about. I worry for my five-year-old son, what is the world going to be like when he grows up. What kinds of things will he have to deal with?"

Meanwhile, although Roy has never had his business broken into before, his Mercedes Benz car was stolen from outside the store last year.

He was “talking to two men inside the shop about buying a pair of jeans.”

One of them “slipped away and somehow he managed to get behind the store desk and take the car key off the ring".

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Goldman Sachs director quits 'morally bankrupt' Wall Street bank

 

A Goldman Sachs director in London has resigned after publishing a devastating open letter accusing senior staff of being "morally bankrupt" and bent on extracting maximum fees from clients by offloading unsuitable investment products. Greg Smith, who has left his post as executive director of the firm's equity derivatives business in Europe, claimed that chief executive Lloyd Blankfein and president Gary Cohn have "lost hold of the firm's culture on their watch". He added that "this decline in the firm's moral fibre represents the single most serious threat to its long-run survival".. Smith's charges, which were swiftly denied by the bank, were published in Wednesday's New York Times and raised questions about the firm's relationship with existing clients, whom Smith claimed were referred to as "muppets". Lord Oakeshott, the Liberal Democrat peer and his party's former Treasury spokesman in the Lords, said the matter raised questions about any relationship between the UK government and Goldman. Smith, who joined Goldman as a summer intern and worked at the firm for 12 years, first in New York and then in London, claimed managing directors made their remarks about "muppets" in internal email. "I attend derivatives sales meetings where not one single minute is spent asking questions about how we can help clients. It's purely about how we can make the most possible money off them." Selected as one of 10 people, out of a firm of 30,000, to appear in a Goldman recruiting video which is played on college campuses around the world, Smith has hired and mentored new recruits and managed a summer intern programme for the bank. "I knew it was time to leave when I realised I could no longer look students in the eye and tell them what a great place this was to work," he wrote. He said junior analysts are absorbing a culture in which the most important question is "how much money did we make off the client?", and that hearing talk of "muppets," "ripping eyeballs out" and "getting paid" will not turn them into "model citizens". "Leadership used to be about ideas, setting an example and doing the right thing. Today, if you make enough money for the firm (and are not currently an axe murderer) you will be promoted to a position of influence." In response, Goldman Sachs denied that Smith was giving an accurate view of life at the company. "We disagree with the views expressed, which we don't think reflect the way we run our business. In our view, we will only be successful if our clients are successful. This fundamental truth lies at the heart of how we conduct ourselves," the bank said. Fast-track to promotion Smith claims to have advised the five largest US asset managers, Middle East and Asian sovereign wealth funds, and the world's two largest hedge funds. His letter did not name them, but Bloomberg ranks Man Group and Bridgewater Associates as the biggest hedge funds. The LibDem peer Oakeshott said: "We know in the City that Goldmans help themselves before their clients. Now here's the proof. Greg Smith says you get promoted there if you make enough money for the firm and you are not an axe murderer - and the people of Greece and the rest of the eurozone are paying the price after Goldmans cooked their books and Greece joined the euro at an unsustainably high exchange rate. Until this culture is stamped out, Goldmans are not fit and proper to receive a penny of British taxpayers' money or advise our government in any way." Goldman is among the gilt-edged market makers which help to facilitate trading in UK government bonds. Smith claims the fast-track to a Goldman promotion involves persuading clients to invest in stocks or other products "that we are trying to get rid of because they are not seen as having a lot of potential profit"; getting clients to trade "whatever will bring the biggest profit to Goldman" – referred to internally as "hunting elephants" and securing a job trading "any illiquid, opaque product with a three-letter acronym". Goldman has lost the "secret sauce" that allowed it to endure for 143 years and is at risk of losing its clients' trust, wrote Smith: "Goldman Sachs is one of the world's largest and most important investment banks and it is too integral to global finance to continue to act in this way. The firm has veered so far from the place I joined right out of college that I can no longer in good conscience say that I identify with what it stands for."

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Taliban fire at delegates visiting Afghan massacre site

 

Taliban militants opened fire on an Afghan government delegation visiting one of the two villages in southern Afghanistan where a US soldier is suspected of killing 16 Afghan civilians. The delegation was talking with families of the victims in Balandi village on Tuesday when they heard shooting, said Qayum Karzai, a brother of the Afghan president who was part of the group. He said he did not believe anyone was killed in the attack, but he had heard reports of one person wounded in the foot. "We were giving them our condolences, then we heard two very, very light shots," said Karzai. "Then we assumed that it was the national army that started to fire in the air." He said that the members of the delegation were safe and were heading back to Kandahar city. An Associated Press reporter accompanying the delegation said the gunfire came from two different directions. The US is holding an army staff sergeant in custody who is suspected of carrying out the killings before dawn on Sunday in two villages close to his base in Kandahar province's Panjwai district, considered the birthplace of the Taliban. Villagers have described him stalking from house to house in the middle of the night, opening fire on sleeping families and then burning some of the bodies. Nine of the 16 killed were children, and three were women, according to Karzai. Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid vowed to take revenge for the attack in a statement sent to reporters on Tuesday. He said the soldier should be tried as a war criminal and executed by the victims' relatives. Also on Tuesday, hundreds of students in eastern Afghanistan shouted angry slogans against the US and the American soldier accused of carrying out the killings, the first significant protest in response to the tragedy. The killings have caused outrage in Afghanistan but have not sparked the kind of violent protests seen last month after American soldiers burned Muslim holy books and other Islamic texts. Afghans have become used to dealing with civilian casualties in over a decade of war. Some have said the deaths in Panjwai were more in keeping with Afghans' experience of deadly night raids and air strikes by US-led forces than the Qur'an burnings were. But the students protesting at a university in Jalalabad city, 80 miles east of the capital Kabul, were incensed. "Death to America!" and "Death to the soldier who killed our civilians!" shouted the crowd. Some carried a banner that called for a public trial of the soldier, whom US officials have identified as a married, 38-year-old father of two who was trained as a sniper and recently suffered a head injury in Iraq. Other protesters burned an effigy of Barack Obama. "The reason we are protesting is because of the killing of innocent children and other civilians by this tyrant US soldier," said Sardar Wali, a university student. "We want the United Nations and the Afghan government to publicly try this guy." Obama has expressed his shock and sadness and extended his condolences to the families of the victims. But he has also said the horrific episode would not speed up plans to pull out foreign forces, despite increasing opposition at home to the war in Afghanistan.

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How Wall Street Bankers Use Seamless To Feast On Free Lobster, Steak, And Beer

A former Morgan Stanley banker recently described his weekend food-ordering ritual at the height of the recession. While pulling Saturday hours, for example, he'd log onto the bank's account on Seamless, the online food-ordering service, and redeem his meal allowance--plus a few allowances from phantom coworkers who weren't actually in the office, allowing him to eat well above his pay grade. Sure, someone could have cross-checked actual office attendence with the online orders, but is such effort worth the investment bank's time? "If people weren't around, it was totally acceptable to take their allowance, and pool it together when you ordered," the banker recalls. "Almost every weekend I was at the office, I'd have a $90 dinner of steak, lobster, mac & cheese, and calamari." Until several years ago, corporate giants like Morgan Stanley made up roughly 85% of Seamless's customer base. That figure has now tipped in favor of individual consumers, but enterprise clients still represent a significant (and growing) part of the New York-based company's revenue--companies offer Seamless as a benefit to those who typically work long or late hours. But for employees of these roughly 3,500 corporate Seamless customers, the benefit represents a huge opportunity to game the system. And no one has worked the system for financial gain better than Wall Street hustlers. "Abuse of the system was rampant," recalls another former Morgan Stanley staffer. "I added up how much I ordered in my first year: It was more than $3,000 of food." Here's how it works. Typically, junior professionals are allotted about $25 per meal at the office. But there are tricks to leverage this cash on Seamless. If employees want to order dinner, for example, they have to stay until 8 p.m. "But you could still order for a 7 p.m. delivery at 6 p.m., then call the restaurant directly and tell them to bring it right away," one employee says. "So I'd finish work around 6:30 p.m., hit the company gym, and then grab my sushi--spicy tuna rolls--on the way out." A Seamless Scam How Gordon Gekko Orders On Seamless 1// Top Seamless Fiend According to Seamless' statistics, the highest ordering corporate user placed more than 2,600 orders in 2011, or more than 7 meals per day. 2// Top Cuisine By Industry Employees Investment Bankers: Sushi; Educators: Pizza 3// Top Ordering Patterns Corporate dinner-orders in New York's Financial District peak at 8 p.m. In Midtown, corporate orders peak at 7 p.m. Corporate dinner-orders are higher, on average, from 4-5 p.m. and lower between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. Ordering groceries on Seamless was--and likely still is--another practice. (Representatives at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have not responded to requests for comment.) One employee, who lived by Morgan Stanley's Midtown offices, would even remote into her office computer from her apartment, place an order on Seamless, and then call the restaurant and change the delivery address to her apartment. The lobster-loving Morgan Stanley banker's take on that old switcheroo? "Classic." Another trick: Since employees aren't allowed to order beer or alcohol on the system, it's not uncommon to pool money together, place a large order for random items, then call the store and request that they bring beer instead. "We definitely get a lot of random orders," says Seamless CEO Jonathan Zabusky. "Once in a while, I'll sit on the customer-care desk, just to get a feel on the pulse of what's going on. You see these orders come through, and you're like, 'Why are 20 rolls of toilet paper going to 200 Vesey Street [the World Financial Center]? What the hell?'" One former employee at Morgan Stanley said he wasn't sure how pervasive the "switch-for-beer order" was at the investment bank, but said he personally pulled the move several times. "Wow, I feel so lame now because when I'd order from Seamless, I'd just get dinner," says one former Goldman Sachs employee. "I never heard of anyone else pulling a fast one [like that], but that doesn't mean it never happened." The daily Seamless stipend is considered sacred for employees, and any abuse of the system appears generally overlooked by higher-ups. When Lehman Brothers went under, for instance, Morgan Stanley lowered the Seamless limit from $30 to $25, much to the anger of workers. "People went nuts," recalls a former employee. "Every so often there were these fireside chats with [Morgan Stanley CEO] John Mack 'Da Knife' and a collection of analysts. One of the women on the call asked Mack to raise the limit to $30 again. Mack, not really having paid much attention to expenses, was surprised to hear it had been reduced. Concerned, he asked her why she needed $30 instead of just $25. She said that with the new reduction, 'I can't order my Perrier anymore.'" The next day, as legend has it, there was an entire case of Perrier on her desk--courtesy of John Mack. "What a baller," an employee says. Zabusky is sure abuse exists on Seamless, but says it's not likely that widespread. "I think it's pretty funny," the Seamless chief chuckles. "I mean, I know it probably frustrates a CFO at Goldman, who is giving these guys $25 to order while they work on deals, and they're ordering toilet paper and jars of mayonnaise and all this other stuff. But in the overall scope, it's probably pretty small." Small as the abuses might be in terms of Seamless's bottom line, there's no doubt it has a big impact on the morale of employees, who seem to take pride in manipulating money one way or another. According to Seamless's statistics, for example, the highest ordering corporate user placed more than 2,600 orders in 2011. "There's nothing grosser or more magnificent than eating $25 of delivered Taco Bell under the fluorescent, sober lights of an office building," says one employee. "Do you have any idea how much baja sauce you can get for that money?"

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San Diego tax preparer for the wealthy accused of ordering hit on 2 witnesses in fraud trail

 former Internal Revenue Service agent whose tax preparation business catered to a wealthy clientele is accused of ordering at least two former customers killed as they prepared to testify against him on fraud charges. Federal prosecutors say the targets were key witnesses against Steven Martinez, 50, who was charged last year with stealing $11 million by preparing bogus tax returns for his customers. 0 Comments Weigh InCorrections? Personal Post Martinez’s limousine driver — Norman Russell Thellmann, 64 — was charged Monday with conspiracy to tamper with witnesses. Prosecutors allege he was ordered to deliver money to a hit man who was promised $100,000 for the two killings. Martinez did not enter a plea during his initial court appearance Monday on a charge of witness tampering. A federal magistrate judge ordered him held without bail. “I find it almost impossible to believe,” said David Demergian, his attorney. Martinez, an IRS agent from 1988 to 1992, faces a pretrial hearing March 19 on federal fraud charges and was free on bail until his arrest last week. An FBI agent’s affidavit says Martinez gave a former employee documents on four people about two weeks ago, including photos of one target from the wealthy suburb of Rancho Santa Fe and another target’s condominium in the upscale La Jolla area of San Diego. Martinez recommended the former employee use two different pistols for the killings and get a silencer, according to the affidavit. The former employee contacted the FBI, which recorded a meeting Thursday in which Martinez allegedly gave additional instructions like how to break into the La Jolla condominium. The targets were identified as 86-year-old Monique Siegel of La Jolla and Marianne Harmon of Rancho Santa Fe. The fraud complaint alleges that Martinez told customers to deposit their taxes into one of his bank accounts, promising to forward the money to state and federal authorities. He stated lower income on their tax returns without telling them, allowing him to pocket $11 million. The complaint identifies victims only by their initials. One “M.H.” had an income of $20.7 million in 2006 but Martinez filed a tax return for $2.1 million. One “M.S.” earned $200,046 in 2006 but Martinez’s return reported $32,900. Another customer who earned $12.2 million in 2005 reported income at $1.6 million, according to the complaint. The same customer earned $11 million in 2006, also reported as $1.6 million. Demergian, his attorney, said the fraud case was “certainly very defensible.” “He had a very dedicated loyal clientele,” Demergian said. “He was very successful.” Thellmann, who was arrested Friday night, told the FBI that Martinez sold him a limousine about three years ago and hired him as a chauffeur. He said Martinez told him to give $40,000 to a person who would call him with code. Thellmann denied he knew the money was to pay a hitman. FBI agents found $42,400 cash in a cereal box at his home.

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BP reaches £4.9bn Gulf oil spill deal

 

The UK oil company will pay damages to the thousands of hoteliers, shrimpers and oystermen along the Gulf Coast who were caught up in America's worst oil spill. The settlement follows a week of intense talks in New Orleans between lawyers for the local businesses and BP's legal team. Following the agreement, US District Judge Carl Barbier delayed for a second time the trial into who should shoulder the blame for the explosion that killed 11 people and injured many more in April 2010. The trial had been rescheduled to start tomorrow after Judge Barbier had given BP another week to find a deal. "The proposed settlement represents significant progress toward resolving issues from the accident and contributing further to economic and environmental restoration efforts along the Gulf Coast," said Bob Dudley, BP's chief executive. BP said that the $7.8bn will come from the $20bn fund - known as the Gulf Coast Claims Facility (GCCF) - the company established in the summer of 2010 to compensate local individuals and businesses hit by the spill. Just $6.1bn of that pot of money has so far been spent. The agreement, which requires the approval of Judge Barbier, covers economic damages for the tens of thousands of plaintiffs who had opted for a day in court rather than apply for compensation from the GCCF. It also covers medical damages suffered by locals in the wake of a spill that led to the release of more than 4m barrels of oil into the waters of the Gulf before the Macondo well was capped in July 2010. Of the $7.8bn, BP said that $2.3bn would go to compensate those who work in the Gulf's seafood industry.

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