“With America’s drone capabilities expanding, the United Nations has stepped in and is demanding the US stop conducting unmanned airstrikes in Pakistan. The UN is calling the drone program a violation of the country’s sovereignty and the attacks are being carried out without the consent of the people of Pakistan.”
“Should kidnap victims pay their debts? That, roughly, is the question facing Estonia, which issued £700,000 ($3.4m) and $4m in 40-year bonds in 1927, but was then annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940. Most investors swallowed their losses. But not William Hardison, a Florida-based businessman, who holds around $90,000-worth of the septuagenarian paper. Estonia’s booming, debt-free economy is one of the most successful in the ex-communist world. But the situation with Estonia’s kidnapper is rather different. Russia took on the Soviet Union’s assets and liabilities in 1991, and has since bargained hard to get out of paying the latter.”
http://www.economist.com/node/426616
“Holders of Soviet bonds first sold in Communist leader Leonid Brezhnev’s final year are getting in France what they can’t get from President Vladimir Putin: money. The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg ordered Russia last month to pay on part of the 25 trillion rubles ($785 billion), equal to almost half of Russian economic output, the government says it still owes the public from lost Soviet savings. Putin is stalling, most recently signing an order in April to halt payments on the notes until at least 2015. Now, armed with court rulings, veteran speculators are joining pensioners in seeking to cash in.”
“Russia has made no decision yet on whether to extend the duration or ease the terms of a sovereign loan to Cyprus, a government source told Reuters on Monday. European Union officials, who over the weekend agreed a 10 billion euro bailout for the Mediterranean island, have said they expect Russia to extend its 2.5 billion euro ($3.27 billion) loan by five years, until 2021, and refinance terms. The involvement of any Russian investors – private or state – in recapitalization of the island’s struggling banks is still a matter of talks, the government source said.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/18/us-russia-cyprus-loan-idUSBRE92H06020130318
“This is a major setback for the New World Order in Europe. They are barely holding the Eurozone together with promises and fiat money. The voters in tiny Cyprus have called their bluff. Let’s see what they come up with now. Let’s see how they prevent the bank run that their policies triggered. They all seem so clever. But this time, a national parliament has called their bluff. Where is their power now? What rabbit will they pull out of a hat this time?”
http://teapartyeconomist.com/2013/03/20/cyprus-parliament-stuff-it-eurocreeps/
“Now the government must open the banks’ doors with no bailout from the EuroGroup, the officially unnamed group of eurozone finance ministers. Cypriots will be able to pull euro currency out of the banks. That will force the Cypriot banks to sell assets. Their value will fall. They will not be able to cover these losses for long — a few weeks. Maybe less. Would you keep your money in a banking system that needs a bailout? Wait a minute. You already do. So do I. Cyprus was the first system to get to the edge of the abyss.”
http://teapartyeconomist.com/2013/03/20/the-head-of-the-cyprus-central-bank-is-named-panicos/
“The government sent a Royal Air Force plane to crisis-hit Cyprus on Tuesday carrying one million euros in emergency loans for British military personnel, the defence ministry said. The cash cargo flight was a ‘contingency’ plan in case banks in Cyprus stopped giving out money as the island deals with the fallout from a controversial eurozone bailout deal, a spokesman said. ‘An RAF flight left for Cyprus this afternoon with one million euros on board as a contingency measure to provide military personnel and their families with emergency loans,’ the spokesman said in a statement to AFP.”
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/03/20/royal-air-force-plane-takes-one-million-euros-to-cyprus/
“I don’t know how much money you have in your bank account, but I’m willing to bet that if you logged into your banking’s website and saw $0.00 across the board, you might be a little concerned. Some Chase customers earlier this week found themselves in this exact situation, leading many, as you might expect, to believe that they could have been hacked. Fortunately, no such thing occurred.”
http://hothardware.com/News/Chase-Glitch-Makes-Customers-Money-Disappear/
“In a well-publicized move, Illinois decided earlier this week to forgo a $500 million bond offering after the interest rate it had to pay wary investors to buy the bonds rose too high. Illinois must already pay 1.4 percentage points more than states with a AAA rating to attract investors to its debt, thanks to a recent downgrade of the state’s financial status by Standard & Poor’s, which noted among other things the state’s failure to fix its poorly funded pension system. How wary are investors of the state’s debt?”
http://www.publicsectorinc.com/forum/2013/02/is-illinois-a-bigger-default-risk-than-iraq.html
“Illinois, which has the worst-funded state pension system in the United States, agreed on Monday to settle federal civil securities fraud charges alleging it repeatedly misled municipal bond investors about the underfunding of its pensions, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The settlement of charges that Illinois failed from 2005 to early 2009 to fully tell investors the risks of buying $2.2 billion worth of its municipal bonds is the latest blow to the state’s reputation as fiscally troubled and crippled by a pension shortfall of $98.6 billion.”
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2013/03/illinois-lies.html