Wednesday 21 July 2010


Audio: Tovia Singer to Discontinue Program


Tovia Singer
Tovia Singer
www.outreachjudaism.com

7/12/2010 10:56:00 AM
A7 Radio's "The Tovia Singer Show" with Tovia Singer
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Tovia Singer has notified us that he is discontinuing his radio program for an indefinite period. Tovia will be focusing more on his holy work at Outreach Judaism. Arutz Sheva thanks Tovia for his years of excellence in broadcasting and wishes him success in all his holy endeavors. Tovia thanks the listeners for their loyalty and support.


An Exercise in Pain and Love

7/19/2010 5:25:00 PM
A7 Radio's "The Tamar Yonah Show" with Tamar Yonah
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The Eidelberg Report, "It doesn't matter who you vote for in Israel "

What was it like to live approx. 2,000 years ago in Jerusalem under Roman occupation? What must it have been like to have lived during the times of the Holy Temple, and then see it ravaged and burned to the ground by the Roman pagans? What was it like to witness your mother and father killed in front of you, your brother dragged away to Rome as a slave, and your sister ravaged by Roman soldiers for their entertainment? What lessons are there to be learned from the loss of our Holy Temple? Tamar has you close your eyes and imagine you are there, in order to help to realize our great loss, and how we can fix it

AJCongress Staff Received Little Notice That Operations Would Be Suspended

By Jacob Berkman (JTA)

Published July 20, 2010.

When the board of the American Jewish Congress decided to suspend its operations last week, it didn’t give its staff much notice.

Employees were notified on Tuesday, July 13, that Thursday, two days later, would be their last day and that they then would receive their final paychecks. Whereas those laid off in previous rounds of cuts received severance pay and compensation for accrued vacation, the employees who lasted till the last round were told they would not receive the same benefits – at least until September.

Some employees who spoke to JTA on condition of anonymity are crying foul, saying the AJCongress still has money remaining from the 2004 sale of its building – an amount they believe adds up to about $2.5 million left in the bank – out of which the organization can pay the estimated $500,000 it owes employees.

Board members insist that employees will get all that is owed them and that there’s just a holdup while the money, which is restricted and cannot be touched unless the board approves the move in two separate votes, is made available by board votes.

According to the AJCongress constitution, the first of those votes cannot happen until 20 days after a proposal is made to unrestrict the funds, and the second vote cannot take place until 30 days after the first vote. Each vote requires at least 75 percent board approval.

“The employees have been kept up to date on every aspect of the finances of the organization. Nothing came as a surprise to them,” AJCongress President Richard Gordon told JTA.

“This has been discussed for months. They knew exactly the financial situation of the organization,” he said. “Shortly after the Madoff situation happened, we let a lot of people go. They were made whole with severance, vacation, etc. I have always believed that those who stayed on should be treated no worse than those let go initially.”

But employees are miffed that the board did not take the votes to unrestrict the money before making the layoffs.

“We never doubted leadership’s assertions and desire to pay the staff,” one employee said. “What was really surprising to us was to learn that the money was restricted and requires a lengthy constitutional process that could take weeks or months before we see the money owed to us.”

Marc Stern, the organization’s co-executive director and its legal counsel, said the board was made aware that it had to unrestrict the money to pay employees, but it chose not to.

Gordon said he didn’t think 75 percent of the board would have voted to unrestrict the money.

“There was a sense that if other things had unfolded in a different manner, we would not have had to do this,” Gordon said. “I might have done things differently. I also thought we would be at a different point and could have reconstituted or merged by now. We were all looking at the finances, and no one said we need to vote on this.”

Board members including Gordon and AJCongress chairman Jack Rosen say they are confident the board will unrestrict the money and take care of its employees as the process allows.


How the Blairs bring shame on Britain


By DAILY MAIL COMMENT


Last updated at 1:18 AM on 20th July 2010



Consumed by greed, deaf to considerations of propriety, Tony and Cherie Blair continue to enhance their reputation as one of the most unedifying couples on the world stage.

At the weekend, the Mail exposed Mr Blair's secret visit to Colonel Gaddafi last month, days after he had denied being an adviser to the Libyan dictator behind the Lockerbie bombing.

Today, we reveal how his wife flew in a private jet to Albania as the guest of an oil tycoon who faces criminal charges of beating up an anti-corruption journalist.

Cherie Blair opens a TV station belonging to notorious Albanian businessman Rezart Taci

Cherie Blair opens a TV station belonging to notorious Albanian businessman Rezart Taci

Without a hint of irony, Mrs Blair even congratulated the unsavoury Rezart Taci on his commitment to Press freedom, as she performed an inauguration ceremony at his Alsat TV station.

Is there anything the Blairs won't say or do at the behest of the mega-rich?

It's not just their own reputations they are dragging into the gutter. They bring Britain into disrepute, too, as they travel the lecture circuit, shamelessly cashing in (at up to £80,000 an hour, in Mr Blair's case) on their years at Number 10.

Meanwhile, as taxpayers' bills for the couple's security and expenses at the best hotels top £6million a year, international protests are growing over the former prime minister's neglect of his duties as a Middle east peace envoy.

Aren't we entitled to ask why we should go on contributing to their opulent lifestyle - and why Mrs Blair, with her shocking lack of wisdom, remains a judge in the British courts?

No position to judge

The Mail has no doubts about the integrity of Sir Peter Gibson, the 76-yearold former High Court judge appointed by David Cameron to head an inquiry into allegations that our intelligence services have been complicit in the torture of terrorist suspects.

But doesn't his job as Intelligence services Commissioner, responsible for overseeing the conduct of MI5 and MI6, place him in a highly awkward position?

Clive Stafford smith, who represents several of the accusers, argues sir Peter ought to be giving evidence to the inquiry, rather than chairing it.

Though we hold no brief for the lawyer's clients, he has a powerful point.

Unhealthy obsession

Doesn’t it defy belief that at least 90 English councils have been secretly sifting through householders' rubbish, including discarded mail, to gather information on different social and ethnic groups' attitudes to recycling?

This obsession with the contents of our bins - which, of course, doesn't extend to collecting them - is beyond satire.

It's not only a time-consuming waste of ratepayers' money, at this moment of acute crisis in the public finances. It's an unjustifiable intrusion into our privacy.

Where household rubbish is concerned, councils should do only what we pay them for. And that's dispose of it - at least once a week.

Justice gone nuts

A 58-year-old window cleaner has been landed with a criminal record - and costs of more than £1,500 - after drowning a grey squirrel that had been raiding his bird-feeders.

According to the RSPCA, squirrels and other pests should be taken to the vet to be put down (for up to £40 a time).

Meanwhile, the Government says chasing them into a sack and cracking their skulls is more humane.

The Mail abhors cruelty to animals. But when it comes to these pests, which feed on songbirds' eggs and do such terrible damage to trees, aren't we in danger of losing our sense of proportion?



British Banks Face £390bn 'Funding Gap'

British banks face a funding crunch next year as they attempt to refinance debt amounting to double the amount they raised on average

during the years of the credit boom.

British banks face £390bn 'funding gap'
British banks face £390bn 'funding gap'

Banks must raise about £390bn in new debt in 2011, or more than £30bn every month just to replace their existing funding as they are hit by a combination of maturing bonds and the closure of major Government-guaranteed financing schemes.

Nomura analysts in a presentation yesterday, pointed to last month's Bank of England Financial Stability Report (FSR) as they warned of the funding crunch facing the UK's major banks.

While the banks of other major European countries, such as France, Germany and Italy, face their own funding issues next year, none has to refinance anything like the same amount as the UK banks, which must replace debt worth just over 200pc of the average raised in the years 2005 to 2007.

"UK banks face significant refinancing requirements over the next few years, as funds raised prior to the credit crisis mature," said Robert Law, co-head of banking research at Nomura.

"Lloyds and RBS are undertaking substantial medium-term restructuring of their balance sheets. This target includes targets to reduce assets in nominal terms over five years.

"In our view, this restructuring is partly aimed at managing their refinancing requirements, as well as reducing wholesale funding an particularly the proportion of short-term financing within that."

Of the £390bn that must be raised next year, about £200bn will be in the form of maturing bonds and residential-backed mortgage securities that will require refinancing.

The remaining £190bn consists of Government funding programmes; the Credit Guarantee Scheme; and the Special Liquidity Scheme, which the Bank of England insists will be phased out by the end of 2012.

Mr Laws at Nomura is sceptical that Britain's banks will be able to wean themselves off Government support so quickly, but concedes that the authorities cannot let up the pressure on UK financial institutions to become fully-privately funded.

In the FSR the Bank of England admitted that replacing all this funding would be a "substantial challenge", and put the total figure on the amount that UK banks need to refinance by the end of 2012 at between £750bn and £800bn, working out an average monthly fundraising rate for the next two and a half years of more than £25bn.

This is double the fund raising rate for the years between 2001 and 2007 of £12bn.

Raising this money will come against a much tougher backdrop for the banking industry, which though improved from the months immediately following the financial crisis of late 2008, is still far from the easy money years of the credit boom.

In particular banks and investors will be looking for this Friday's publication by the European authorities of the results of a series of stress tests on the region's banks.

The stress tests are intended to counter market scepticism surrounding the financial state of many of Europe's banks, ranging from the major financial institutions of Spain to Germany's small landesbanks.

Since the beginning of July, no southern European bank has been able to access the international capital markets, while bond issues even from major northern European banks have not proved easy.

Mr Laws and the Nomura banks research team are sceptical that the publication of the stress tests will soothe investor fears, and warn that any lack of transparency will be taken badly by the market.

Gold Coin Sellers Angered by New Tax Law


Amendment Slipped Into Health Care Legislation Would Track, Tax Coin and Bullion Transactions

Those already outraged by the president's health care legislation now have a new bone of contention -- a scarcely noticed tack-on provision to the law that puts gold coin buyers and sellers under closer government scrutiny.

California authorities investigating Goldline's sales practices.

More Photos

The issue is rising to the fore just as gold coin dealers are attracting attention over sales tactics.

Section 9006 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will amend the Internal Revenue Code to expand the scope of Form 1099. Currently, 1099 forms are used to track and report the miscellaneous income associated with services rendered by independent contractors or self-employed individuals.

Related

Coin Dealers Flipping

Starting Jan. 1, 2012, Form 1099s will become a means of reporting to the Internal Revenue Service the purchases of all goods and services by small businesses and self-employed people that exceed $600 during a calendar year. Precious metals such as coins and bullion fall into this category and coin dealers have been among those most rankled by the change.

This provision, intended to mine what the IRS deems a vast reservoir of uncollected income tax, was included in the health care legislation ostensibly as a way to pay for it. The tax code tweak is expected to raise $17 billion over the next 10 years, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.


"Coin dealers not only buy for their inventory from other dealers, but also with great frequency from the public," Piret said. "Most other types of businesses will have a limited number of suppliers from which they buy their goods and products for resale."Taking an early and vociferous role in opposing the measure is the precious metal and coin industry, according to Diane Piret, industry affairs director for the Industry Council for Tangible Assets. The ICTA, based in Severna Park, Md., is a trade association representing an estimated 5,000 coin and bullion dealers in the United States.

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Max Keiser:


NSA & CIA:


The Secret America –


Alex Jones Tv


The Alex Jones Channel
July 21, 2010

Alex talks with film-maker, broadcaster and former broker and options trader Max Keiser. Max formerly hosted The Oracle with Max Keiser on BBC World News and produced and appeared regularly in the TV series People & Power on the Al-Jazeera English network. He currently hosts a weekly financial commentary show which started in 2009 and is broadcast on Press TV, with weekly appearances by financial commentator Stacy Herbert and featuring interviews with well known alternative economists.

Alex discusses the removal of his video, The Obama Deception, from Google’s YouTube. On Thursday, Alex challenged activists to drive the popular documentary up in search engine ranking. Google trends rankings revealed a few hours later that it was the #1 search term, above Lindsay Lohan, the BP Oil Spill or the death of George Steinbrenner.