Societe Generale – praag.org

G77 want out of the banking cabal

Just a few weeks ago, 132 nations decided they’ve had enough of the banking cabal.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, is the center of a secret global economy that has bailed out American International Group Inc., huge insurance companies like AIG, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co., J.P. Morgan,Societe Generale and Deutsche Bank AG, among others.

The cabal’s control over international markets is becoming less of a mystery as increasing numbers of markets reveal themselves so obviously to be fixed, say the disgruntled nations.

One of the largest coalitions of developing nations in history has urged Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon, to provide, “as soon as possible…alternative options for banking services” for 132 countries, including China.

This comes on the heels of a mass cancellation of bank accounts in U.N. missions and those of foreign US diplomats. The G77 urges the secretary-general to review the “U.N. Secretariat’s financial relations with the JP Morgan Chase Bank and consider alternatives to such financial institutions and to report thereon, along with the information requested.”

JP Morgan is the left arm of the cabal, along with other ‘big banks’ are now the benefactors of billions in tax money.

Banks like these helped crash economies, and they are trying to do the same now, so that they can profit from it.

The problem for countries around the world is simple: Chase bank currently handles billions in accounts maintained by the United Nations and its agencies, in guess where – NYC.

The countries express a ‘deep concern’ over the decisions made by several other banking institutions, known puppets for the cabal, including JP Morgan Chase, in closing bank accounts for mostly developing countries. The resolution proposed, still subject to amendments cites a 1947 agreement between the US and UN, which:

“. . .guarantees the rights, obligations and the fulfillment of responsibilities by member states towards the United Nations, under the United Nations Charter and international law.”

It also points out the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations as a regulatory framework for states and international organizations, specifcically the working relationship between the United Nations and the City of New York.

The countries have put forth the G77 as a means to utilize, “all necessary measures to ensure permanent missions accredited to the United Nations and their staff are granted equal, fair and non-discriminatory treatment by the banking system.”

At secret meetings around the G77 last month, representative after representative from these countries severely criticized the American banking system from cutting off banking services from the diplomatic community, specifically directing their outrage at JP Morgan Chase (formerly Chemical bank).

The accounts were closed when a request from the US treasury asked banks to report every single transaction of 70 ‘blacklisted’ diplomats as part of a monitoring system, just a new way that bankers are spying on all of us. Aside from a network of cameras, run buy the NSA, and a program with a codename of ‘Dishfire’ they also now indulge in practices which make you no different than America’s ‘enemies,’ or diplomats of emerging economies thinking about abandoning the petro-dollar.

nationofchange.org

EU fines 8 big banks for rigging rates

The European Commission has slapped record fines of 1.7 billion euro on eight major banks for manipulating lending rates that play a key role in the global economy. The penalties will add to already escalating costs for leading global lenders.

The EU fines marks the latest to be levied on banks and financial institutions for making profits or masking their problems by fraudulently rigging the rates that reflect the cost of lending money to each other.

The banks fined are Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, JPMorgan, Barclays, Societe Generale, UBS and RP Martin, the EC said in a statement.

The borrowing rates involved – the London interbank offered rate (Libor), the Tokyo and the euro area equivalents – are used to set price of trillions of dollars of financial products, ranging from mortgages to derivatives.

“What is shocking about the Libor and Euribor scandals is not only the manipulation of benchmarks, which is being tackled by financial regulators worldwide, but also the collusion between banks who are supposed to be competing with each other,” said Joaquín Almunia, European Commission Vice-President in charge of competition policy.

“Today’s decision sends a clear message that the Commission is determined to fight and sanction these cartels in the financial sector,” Almunia said in the EC statement. “Healthy competition and transparency are crucial for financial markets to work properly, at the service of the real economy rather than the interests of a few.”

The EC ruling said that the fine for each lender was calculated on the basis of the level of its involvement in the manipulations and how well it was cooperating with the investigation.

The fines from the EU are the first time a US bank has been involved in the rate-rigging scandal, as Citigroup has been fined 70 million pounds.

The record antitrust penalties comes as a reminder of the banks’ past “financial sins,” when global lenders artificially lowered the cost of interbank lending, partially to hide their financial troubles.

The Libor rate is seen as an indicator of a lender’s stability. Put simply, the stronger the bank, the lower the interbank lending rate it has.

Barclays, RBS, UBS, Rabobank and brokerage ICAP have already paid out a total of $3.5 billion in fines to settle the accusations related to Libor rate-rigging, the Financial Times reported. – RT

France names suspect in Paris newspaper shooting

by Nicolas Gaudichet, Pauline Talagrand

France said Thursday the suspect arrested over this week’s shootings in Paris is a man previously jailed for his role in a “Bonnie-and-Clyde” style multiple murder that gripped the country 20 years ago.

Abdelhakim Dekhar was arrested on Wednesday after a major manhunt following a shooting at the left-wing newspaper Liberation that left an assistant photographer seriously hurt and another at the headquarters of the Societe Generale bank.

His DNA matched samples from the scenes of the attacks, officials said.

“All the evidence today points to his involvement in the events that he has been charged with,” Interior Minister Manuel Valls said.

Dekhar, who is in his late 40s, was convicted in 1998 of buying a gun used in an October 1994 shooting attack by student Florence Rey and her lover Audry Maupin. Three policemen, a taxi driver and Maupin himself were killed in a case that shook France.

He served four years in jail for his role in the killings, and his former lawyers have described him as “enigmatic” and “strange”.

Dekhar was arrested Wednesday evening in a vehicle in an underground parking lot in the northwestern Paris suburb of Bois-Colombes, after apparently trying to commit suicide.

Valls said that “everything appears to point to a suicide attempt”, and sources told AFP Dekhar was semi-conscious when he was found.

The head of the Paris criminal police department, Christian Flaesch, said he was in custody in a “medical environment” and was not in a fit state to speak to investigators.

Valls said investigators would need more information to be able to “understand his motivation”, adding that “one or two letters” had been found.

Investigators said the letters were “confused” and sought to “explain this act.”

In a press conference, Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said the letters spoke of a “fascist plot,” touched on “how suburbs are run” and accused the media of participating in the “manipulation of the masses”.

Molins said Dekhar was in detention for attempted murder and kidnapping.

The arrest came after a witness statement to police, who had on Tuesday released a new photograph of the suspect and received hundreds of calls from potential witnesses.

One of them was a man who had housed the suspect, said a source connected with the investigation.

The witness quoted the suspect as saying “I’ve made a stupid mistake.”

The shooter opened fire with a 12-gauge shotgun at the offices of Liberation early on Monday, hitting a 23-year-old photographer’s assistant as he hauled gear in the lobby, then firing another blast that hit the roof before leaving within seconds.

He then crossed the city to the La Defense business district on its western edge, where he fired several shots outside the main office of the Societe Generale bank, hitting no one.

He hijacked a car and forced the driver to drop him off near the Champs Elysees in the centre of the French capital, before disappearing.

Police say he was the same man who last Friday stormed into the Paris headquarters of a 24-hour TV news channel, BFMTV, briefly threatening staff with a gun before hurrying out.

Dekhar was suspected of being the third man in the so-called Rey-Maupin affair in 1994, which shocked France.

Investigators at the time compared the young couple to the infamous American outlaws Bonnie and Clyde.

Witnesses at the trial in 1998 described him as a mentor to the couple and accused him of exploiting their youth to manipulate them.

He argued that he had been a secret agent in the pay of Algerian security services, charged with infiltrating the radical left in France in search of those acting in coordination with Islamists in Algeria.

In the early 1990s Dekhar was known to hang out at squats used by left-wing radicals and which were often under police surveillance.

Maupin died of injuries sustained during a shootout with police and Rey, a middle-class student hitherto unknown to the police, was tried and sentenced to 20 years in jail. She was released in 2009.

Dekhar was acquitted of armed assault but found guilty of procuring the weapon and sentenced to four years. He was released soon afterwards, having already served his time in pre-trial detention.

This week’s attacks set off a major manhunt and raised concerns about violence against media outlets.

The photographer, who suffered wounds to the chest and stomach, appeared to be in better condition on Wednesday.

Hospital officials said he had regained consciousness and was no longer on an artificial respirator. – AFP