“The UN has decided to send all non-essential international staff out of Syria and to halt all field trips outside of the capital for now.”-UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
All posts by Hutchins AAron
Government Incompetence & World War 3: U.S. Marines banned from off camp drinking
03 December 2012, after all U.S. military personnel were banned from drinking alcohol off base in Okinawa on Saturday, the USMC has now extended that order to all U.S. Marines throughout Japan.
This comes after months of increased aggressive behavior (including rape and assaults) by U.S. personnel towards Japanese civilians.
World War 3: U.S. occupation of Afghanistan; 27 – 30 November 2012. Britain refuses to hand over prisoners! New U.S. general in Afghanistan? Unknown disease kills fast, chemical warfare? Georgia sending more troops! More evidence of international tax money laundering!
30 November 2012
In Ghazni Province, at least four people killed, one wounded, after they drove over a landmine.
United Kingdom is refusing to hand over prisoners to Afghan control. British say it’s because they suspect the Afghan security officials will torture the prisoners (kettle calling the pot black). This comes after President Hamid Karzai ordered the execution of dozens of suspected Mujahideen held in Afghan controlled prisons.
The U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee is backing the appointment of USMC General Joseph Dunford Junior, to take over command of ISAF in Afghanistan.
U.S. Defense Secretary, Leon Panetta, confirmed that U.S. personnel will stay in Afghanistan past the official 2014 pull out, but refused to say how many: “The fundamental mission in Afghanistan is to establish an Afghanistan that can secure and govern itself and ensure that al Qaeda never again finds a safe haven within Afghanistan from which to conduct attacks on the United States or any other country.”
In Faryab Province, fighting going on in Almar district. At least two Mujahideen killed by airstrikes, and one U.S./NATO armored vehicle destroyed by landmine.
29 November 2012
In Baghlan Province, two people have died and at least five people are sick with an unknown disease in Uruzngan village in Deh-Salah district. Locals say those who died did so within ten minutes of showing symptoms: “One of my relative died after receiving a short shiver and another neighbor died within 10 minutes from the same disease.” (nerve agent?)
In Uruzgan Province, ten people killed and eight wounded after a bus ran over a landmine.
In Helmand Province, U.S./NATO launched heliborne operations in Kajaki district’s Loe Manda area. The battles lasted from the morning until midnight. U.S./NATO forces retreated. Mujahideen at first said one of their own was killed, but later said they suffered no casualties. Also, in Nawzad district Mujahideen claim they destroyed a Georgian tank with multiple rocket propelled grenades (RPG).
28 November 2012
More scandal for the Kabul Bank. After it was revealed that international customers have withdrawn billions in cash from the Afghan bank, a new report shows that bank employees helped 19 individuals and companies take as much as $861 million USD in fraudulent loans (92% of all loans issued), in what the International Monetary Fund called a Ponzi scheme.
In Kandahar Province, at least seven people wounded after a suicide bomber exploded his motorcycle. The bomber was killed.
In Helmand Province, four people killed after they drove over a landmine.
In Badghis Province, three Afghan National Army personnel killed, four wounded, after they drove over a landmine.
U.S. Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Marc Grossman, has resigned. The reason given was that he wanted to “…return to private life”.
The country of Georgia revealed they have increased the number of troops in Afghanistan. They currently have 1,570 personnel in country, which is about double what they originally offered to send. According to Georgian Minister of Defense, Irakli Alasania, they are willing to send more if the U.S. requires, and they will remain past the official 2014 pull out.
27 November 2012
In Herat Province, International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) reports one of their drones crashed while on recon mission in Mujahideen territory. Mujahideen say they did not shoot it down, that it crashed because of technical problems.
ISAF reports that 250 U.S./NATO bases have been turned over to Afghan government forces.
In Baghlan Province, local elections resulted in cop on cop firefights. Police loyal to outgoing district security chief attacked police loyal to the newly elected district police boss. Local officials say at least two people killed, several wounded.
In Uruzgan Province, officials from Char Chino district report that U.S./NATO forces raided local homes in the Kakarki, Gohergeen and Nojoi areas. One man was killed, another wounded.
The government of Germany says Afghanistan is not ready for U.S./NATO pull out in 2014. In the Afghanistan Report, Germany says too many Mujahideen remain operational, and there has been no efforts at reconciliation (blame the U.S. and even U.S. based NGOs for that). Germany is planning on giving the Afghan government the equivalent of $558 million taxpayer dollars every year until the year 2016 (not counting the taxpayer funds going directly to Afghan security forces).
What Economic Recovery? Idaho’s Coldwater Creek still losing money. New CEO? More stores to be closed, bankruptcy near
On 28 November 2012, women’s clothing retailer Coldwater Creek reported a loss of $20.5 million USD. Investors were actually happy, because that was an improvement over the same quarter last year.
Coldwater Creek explained that their losses weren’t as bad as expected because sales actually went up, by 7.3% for same store sales.
Dennis C. Pence is stepping down as Chief Executive Officer, to be replaced by Jill Brown Dean (current Chief Merchandising Officer) on 01 January 2013. Pence will stay on as Chairman, so actually no new blood is being added to the executive branch, so don’t expect any real changes.
A year ago Coldwater Creek had 366 stores, now it has 354. They plan to close more stores throughout 2013.
According to GMI Ratings, Coldwater Creek is showing all the signs of going into bankruptcy within the next 12 months.
Corporate Evil: More evidence the demise of Sears & Kmart is all part of Romney/Bain style vulture capitalist scheme to intentionaly run the business into the ground!
“You make Sears sound like a liquidation play, not a retail recovery.”-from Fortune magazine
“The retail recovery is a potential upside. Regardless, you’ll see gigantic cash flows from the closing of locations, the pulling-out of the cash from inventory, work in process, and distribution centers. They’re not idiots when it comes to real estate. They understand that today’s standalone store can be tomorrow’s multi-use hotel/residential-retail center. I think Eddie Lampert [chairman of Sears Holdings] will end up being one of a few unbelievable case studies on what it means to be a long-term investor.”-answer from Bruce Berkowitz, a major stockholder in Sears Holdings
Fortune published a recent interview with Bruce Berkowitz, in which he basically said Sears and Kmart could make more profits for investors by being closed down and selling off their inventories and real estate. I warned of this last year.
An InvestorPlace contributor, Will Ashworth, explained how the Romneyesque scheme is actually working.
For real estate, Ashworth says Berkowitz values the land property owned or leased by Sears Holdings to be about $17 billion USD. Then there’s inventory. Berkowitz estimates that a net profit of $2.5 billion could be made by selling off inventory. Ashworth himself is more conservative, thinking it be about a $1 billion net gain for investors.
Of course you can only sell off land and inventory by closing down the stores: “Many see Lampert using Sears as the next Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.B), taking the proceeds of assets sales and reinvesting them elsewhere until Sears, the retailer, ceases to exist. It might take awhile, but Berkowitz is willing to patiently wait because deep down he knows Sears is worth far more dead than alive.“-Will Ashworth, InvestorPlace
26 years later: Chernobyl expected to remain a threat for the next 100 years, at least! Warning for worse things to come from Fukushima Daiichi!
29 November 2012, two days ago workers in Ukraine raised steel arches over the entombed Chernobyl reactor: “This is a very significant milestone, which is a tribute to the ongoing commitment of the international donor community, and an important step towards overcoming the legacy of the accident.”-Suma Chakrabarti, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
Those new steel arches weigh 5000 metric tons (5,511.5 tons), and are 22 meters (72 feet) tall! The steel container won’t be finished until 2015. It’ll weigh 20000 metric tons (22,046 tons) and is designed to allow ongoing decontamination work for the next 100 years!
26 years ago the Soviet designed reactor melted down, and it’s still spewing radiation.
The Soviets slammed Chernobyl with tons of concrete, sand and boric acid. The impromptu concrete tomb was breaking down and a new one was built. But even that one is breaking down, so a new massive steel tomb is being built, hopefully to contain the radiation for the next century.
Now realize that Chernobyl is only one reactor, with no spent fuel storage, and Japan’s General Electric designed Fukushima Daiichi melt down disaster involves at least four damaged reactors with four spent fuel pools that contained hundreds of fuel rods, each.
Initially Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCo) said they could have Fukushima Daiichi cleaned up by July 2011!!! In December 2011 the Japanese government published their own report, saying cleanup will take at least 40 years, TEPCo downplayed the government report. Then in March 2012, TEPCo admitted that reactors actually melted down. Now, at the beginning of November 2012, TEPCo is admitting that clean up will take much longer, and they’ve even doubled their estimated cleanup and compensation costs from $62.5 billion USD to $125 billion!
Global Economic War: Japanese car production crashing in China! Japanese exports to China crashing!
29 November 2012, anti-Japanese sentiment in China is having a drastic effect on Japanese car production in the (supposedly) communist country.
Overall, the six Japanese car companies operating in China saw a 48.9% drop in production in October (compared to October 2011). It’s even more drastic when you look at production for each company.
Mazda down 27.6%
Suzuki down 32.6%
Nissan down 44%
Honda down 54.2%
Toyota down 61.1%
Mitsubishi down 84.6%
Even cars made in Japan for the Chinese market are not going anywhere fast:
Nissan exports to China down 75.9%
Toyota exports to China down 91.3%
Mazda exported zero cars to China in October!
There might be some good news for the United States. Japanese car company officials say they will now shift focus of production of many vehicles to South East Asian countries, and the U.S.
Sears & Kmart news: Fail to pay off loans received in 2010! Kmart reneges on new layaway policy? Sears looking for independent store operators
29 November 2012, a retail real estate watchdog, CoStar Group, revealed that Sears, Kmart and even JCPenny have fallen behind in payments on loans they got back in 2010.
CoStar says about 24% of Commercial Mortgaged Backed Security (CMBS) loan payments are 30 to 90 days late, and that “…two of the largest three tenants were either a Sears, Kmart or JCPenney [mall] anchor.”
There are other retail mall based businesses behind on their loan payments as well, click here to see the list.
In a report on The Consumerist, a frustrated Kmart shopper revealed that Kmart might be lying about their new no fees layaway policy: “…Kmart was not honoring the prices I agreed to pay or the no layaway service charge that is advertised on their website.”
She says she was told it was a software glitch, but when she tried to cancel the whole thing they wanted to charge a $10.00 per item cancellation fee! She claims she even got a Kmart executive on the phone, but he hung up on her.
The Argus Press just posted a notice that Sears Holdings is looking for an independent owner to operate a Sears Hometown Store in Owosso, Michigan.
Corporate Evil: After blaming Unions for their shut down, Hostess now wants to pay out big bonuses to their execs! Shut down really part of Romney style crony vulture capitalist plan!
29 November 2012, gee after saying they didn’t have the money, and blaming unionized labor for the shut down of Hostess, suddenly they’ve got the bucks to pay bonuses to their incompetent executives!
Hostess officials are asking a bankruptcy judge to approve the paying out of $1.8 million USD in bonuses to their 19 executives. Company officials say it’s necessary to keep the execs on board until they finish selling off their brands.
It’s starting to look like the running into the ground and eventual shut down of Hostess is really a Romneyesque vulture capitalist plan to chop up and sell the company off. Hostess officials say there are more than 100 potential buyers chomping at the bit.
Hostess product sales were down, but last week a company official told the bankruptcy judge they still had $2.3 billion in sales last year!
So 18,500 people lost their jobs, and Hostess wants to pay $1.8 million in bonuses to 19 executives, that’s about $94,736 each (if my math is correct). And those execs are still being paid big salaries as well; for example, CEO Gregory Rayburn has a monthly salary of $125,000!
I don’t think the Hostess shut down is about not having enough money.
Corporate Evil: Was Sears involved in counterfeit clothing? “Books” show Sears was client of illegal fashion factory! Don’t think 18 cents per hour is good money in Bangladesh, it’s not! Walmart blames you!
“It was my fault. But nobody told me that there was no emergency exit, which could be made accessible from outside. Nobody even advised me to install one like that, apart from the existing ones. I could have done it, but nobody ever suggested that I do it.”-Delowar Hossain, factory owner
Days after a fire killed more than 120 people (reports now say there will be more bodies found, as the initial body count was a guess) and injured 200, the factory owner accepts blame, and three of his supervisors are now charged with locking the workers in the building because they thought the fire alarm was fake (they actually believed the workers were trying to escape their wretched working conditions), another ‘illegal’ fashion factory goes up in flames (this time no one was locked in, but there were injuries), and the disaster reveals that unAmerican Corporate America is involved more than ever in slave wage factories (to get those high profits to make their investors happy, it’s not about keeping prices cheap for the lowly consumer).
The police and the Prime Minister of Bangladesh said they believe the fire was “an act of sabotage”. A disgruntled employee perhaps?
Other reports say the factory was operating illegally anyway. Both Walmart and Disney issued statements saying they canceled contracts with the factory at least 12 months ago, on the grounds the factory was dangerous. Yet clothing with their brands on them were being made right up ’till the fire broke out.
Here’s some other companies/brands that were having clothing made at the illegal factory: ENYCE, Teddy Smith and Edinburgh Woollen Mill. But another company was found listed in the factory account books: Sears. If companies like Walmart and Disney swear they canceled their contracts a year ago, then who were those shirts, sweaters and hoodies (with Walmart’s Faded Glory label, and the Disney label) being made for?
I hear Sears is in big trouble money wise and has been struggling to get its profits up. Just sayin’. But of course Sears Holdings denies they’re involved, and yet at the same time plans to rectify the fire safety issue: “We can also confirm that Sears Holdings does not source from this factory….In addition, Sears recognizes that fire safety is a critical international issue that we intend to address through specialized training for management in those factories that produce merchandise for Sears Holdings.”-Sears Holdings statement
If they’re not involved then why is Sears in the fashion factory’s client account books and why did Sears say they will address fire safety at such factories?
According to the Associated Press, since 2006 at least 313 people have died in fashion factories in Bangladesh.
According to industry watchdog groups, labor rights groups and even the World Bank, the average pay for a fashion factory worker in Bangladesh is the equivalent to $38 USD per day! And that’s double what they were being paid last year, they had to go on violent strikes to get the $38 per day!!!
Another report said they get paid the equivalent of 50 cents per hour in the United States!!!
And don’t think the fashion industry in Bangladesh can’t afford to pay more, last year they made $20 billion USD, making up 80% of Bangladesh’s Gross Domestic Product!!!
Companies that help retailers like Walmart hook up with fashion suppliers, blamed the U.S. consumer: “You have relentless pressure that consumers put on retailers and that retailers put on their suppliers to deliver lower and lower prices. And that pressure is a key reason why you see factories cutting corners.”-Josh Green, Panjiva
The only reason the average U.S. consumer “demands” lower prices is because their pay and benefits continue to go down year after year. Blame unAmerican Corporate America!