INTEL INSIDE …

… THE OCCUPATION!

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“These investments will directly create an additional 1,000, and tens of thousands of jobs indirectly, all for the Israeli middle class.”

What about creating tens of thousands of jobs for unemployed workers in the U.S.A.???

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Israel, Intel announce $6B deal set to create over 1,000 jobs  A $6 billion investment from Intel will expand Kiryat Gat factory; government to provide 300-600 million dollars for project. Lapid: This is a vote of confidence for the Israeli economy. Avital Lahav FOR * American technology giant Intel announced its intentions on Wednesday to invest six billion dollars in upgrading its plant in Kiryat Gat where the company plans to add 1,000 employees to its workforce. Representatives from Intel informed Finance Minister Yair Lapid and Economy Minister Naftali Bennett of the plans. Israel in turn agreed to cover 5-10 percent of the costs of renovation, amounting to anywhere from 300 to 600 million dollars. Intel didn’t confirm the statements made by the Israeli government, which put the full cost of the project at six billion dollars. The final business plan is set to be delivered to the ministers on Thursday. The company has spent the last two years examining which of their factories should be upgraded with the latest and most advanced technologies. Its choice of renovation in Israel means that it sees its future of production in Israel which could lead to additional factories. According to Israeli sources, if Intel had chosen to invest in a country other than Israel, the Israel factory would likely be closed in the near future due to ageing facilities and all the jobs it currently holds would be lost. “This is excellent news for Israel and an excellent gift for its 66th birthday,” Bennett told Ynet. “This is one of the biggest investments that have ever been made in Israel and the significance for the periphery and technological education is tremendous.” Photo: AP Bennett, who lead negotiations on the deal with Intel said: “There are also demands for industrial cooperation. I also want to take this opportunity to thank Yair Lapid who took this journey with me.” Lapid also welcomed the successful conclusion of negotiations, saying: “We will continue to promote investments in advanced industries in Israel. This is a vote of confidence for the Israeli economy.” “These investments will directly create an additional 1,000, and tens of thousands of jobs indirectly, all for the Israeli middle class,” said Lapid. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the investment and said, “the plans for this investment are the result of a process that we’ve been working on for a few years already. Israel is a world center of technology and investing in it yields profits both for the investors and for the citizens of Israel. “I call on additional international companies to expand their investment in Israel, and for those who still haven’t taken advantage of the benefits of the Israeli market to come and invest here,” said the Prime Minister. Director of Intel in Israel and Vice President of Intel Maxine Fassberg, said, “Over the last 40 years, Intel’s exports added up to 35 billion dollars and most of that came from Intel’s production factories in Kiryat Gat.” “During 2013, Intel’s factory in Kiryat Gat won Intel’s prize for prestigious quality, the Intel Quality Award (IQA)… Intel is committed to continuing the sequence of achievements in qualitative results of operations in Kiryat Gat,” said Fassberg. The Fab28 Intel factory in Kiryat Gat produces 22 nanometer technology chips and the company is interested in beginning to produce the more advance 10 nanometer chips in Israel. Intel’s first factory in Israel was built in 1996 at the cost of 1.7 billion dollars of which the government paid 680 million or 40 percent of the cost. The second Intel factory built in 2011 came at a cost of 2.7 billion and the government paid 200 million or seven percent of the investment.

FATCA: New Tax Effective July 1, 2014

Catherine J. Frompovich

Activist Post

Recently I spent an hour listening to what I consider some extremely miserable and depressing prognostications, if they materialize, from Porter Stansberry's latest sales pitch about what he feels will happen when a new law enacted in 2010 goes into effect July 1, 2014: FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act) HR2847 passed by Congress and signed into law by President Obama. Apparently, there are some unknown surprises within it.

According to American Citizens Abroad, 

FATCA also requires US citizens who have foreign financial assets in excess of $50,000 (higher for bona fide residents overseas – $200,000 for single filers and $400,000 for joint filers – see the IRS website for more details) to report those assets every year on a new Form 8938 to be filed with the 1040 tax return. Instructions for form 8938 were published in December 2011 and can be found on the IRS website. [1]

Any U.S. citizens living abroad should take note of a new form, i.e., Form 8938, which will have to be filed with the annual 1040, starting with the 2014 tax return.

Here's the official IRS/government spin about FATCA.
http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Corporations/Foreign-Account-Tax-Compliance-Act-FATCA

One of the things Stansberry mentions is a probable new wealth tax of 10% on EVERYTHING we own, plus nationalizing 401k and pension plans! A while back I had heard the Obama administration realized that USA 401k and pension plans total values were close to the national debt, so that could be a way to save the country from bankruptcy while everyone will have an opportunity to pay his/her fair share to help bail out the country – apparent Socialism in action! Here we go – again – bailing out those who muck up!

Some of the unsettling statistics Stansberry relates include:

• One-sixth of U.S. citizens are on food stamps—up 65% since 2008
• Forty-three percent of U.S. families are broke
• As of January 2014, the actual unemployment rate in the U.S. was 13.1%
• The U.S. now has the highest corporate tax rate in the world – we beat Japan
• Almost every state in the USA is close to being bankrupt
• The Obama administration’s fiscal policy of printing money got us to this point [2,3,4]

Do readers realize that “The Fed is printing $85 billion each and every month to prop up the economy and the big banks”? [4]

Additionally, I'd been hearing about a 10% "haircut" on all USA bank customer accounts similar to the Cyprus-style event ever since that Cyprus bank fiasco [5], which probably was a "trial balloon" to see how it would "fly". However, Stansberry seems to think something like it may become a reality for the USA starting in July 2014 since the U.S. dollar is in the process of being shunned as the “world reserve currency.” Who would have thought that the Chinese Yuan would be considered to take its place? See what buying all those cheap “Made in China” goods did for US?

Who knows what will happen, especially with the turkeys we have running Washington, DC. Anything, I guess, is possible. So, I'm sharing this with you in order that you may have a leg up just in case you haven't heard about the new tax, plus IRS law enforcement taking effect July 1, 2014.

Are you prepared?

Notes:

[1] http://americansabroad.org/issues/fatca/
[2] http://dailycaller.com/2010/11/08/obama-defends-fed-decision-to-print-more-dollars-in-face-of-growing-criticism/
[3] http://www.forbes.com/sites/charleskadlec/2012/09/14/the-feds-futile-effort-to-bail-out-obamanomics/
[4] http://usawatchdog.com/weekly-news-wrap-up-11-1-13/
[5] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/mar/26/cyprus-banks-closed-prevent-run-deposits

Catherine J Frompovich (website) is a retired natural nutritionist who earned advanced degrees in Nutrition and Holistic Health Sciences, Certification in Orthomolecular Theory and Practice plus Paralegal Studies. Her work has been published in national and airline magazines since the early 1980s. Catherine authored numerous books on health issues along with co-authoring papers and monographs with physicians, nurses, and holistic healthcare professionals. She has been a consumer healthcare researcher 35 years and counting.

Catherine’s latest book, published October 4, 2013, is Vaccination Voodoo, What YOU Don’t Know About Vaccines, available on Amazon.com.

Her 2012 book A Cancer Answer, Holistic BREAST Cancer Management, A Guide to Effective & Non-Toxic Treatments, is available on Amazon.com and as a Kindle eBook.

Two of Catherine’s more recent books on Amazon.com are Our Chemical Lives And The Hijacking Of Our DNA, A Probe Into What’s Probably Making Us Sick (2009) and Lord, How Can I Make It Through Grieving My Loss, An Inspirational Guide Through the Grieving Process (2008).

Oekraïne voert drastische verhoging gasprijzen door

© epa.

Onder druk van internationale kredietverleners heeft Oekraïne de gasprijzen drastisch verhoogd. Gezinnen moeten sinds donderdag 40 procent meer neertellen. Voor 1 mei 2016 en 1 mei 2017 zijn stijgingen van telkens 20 procent gepland.

Daarmee komt de prowesterse regering in Kiev tegemoet aan een eis van het Internationaal Muntfonds (IMF). De instelling verstrekte de gewezen Sovjetrepubliek een levensnoodzakelijke lening van 12,3 miljard euro.

Oekraïne hoopt reeds tegen 8 mei over een eerste schijf van 3 miljard dollar te beschikken. Het moet alleen al aan buurland Rusland voor meer dan 3 miljard dollar schulden voor gasleveringen terugbetalen.

• Als eerste op de hoogte van nieuws en leuke aanbiedingen? Meld u aan voor de nieuwsbrieven van De Morgen

Two Days After Swearing Market Isn't Rigged, SEC Slaps NYSE Wrists For Rigging Markets

It is somewhat ironic, actually make that criminal, that two days after new SEC head Mary Jo White (whose conflict of interest list is so vast courtesy of her prior position as defending every Wall Street from their criminal acts she now has to recuse herself from virtually every enforcement action) solemnly promised Congress under oath that the "markets are not rigged", the SEC comes out swinging and slaps the wrist of the NYSE with an intolerable $4.5 million fine for allowing market rigging "for a period of time from 2008 to 2012."
From the SEC complaint:

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced an enforcement action against the New York Stock Exchange and two affiliated exchanges for their failure to comply with the responsibilities of self-regulatory organizations (SROs) to conduct their business operations in accordance with Commission-approved exchange rules and the federal securities laws.  Also charged was the NYSE exchanges’ affiliated routing broker Archipelago Securities.

The details:

“The order highlights instances where the exchanges conducted business without a rule in place due to weak or inadequate policies and procedures,” said Antonia Chion, an associate director in the SEC’s Division of Enforcement.  “In other instances, the exchanges did not operate in compliance with their effective rules.  Both failures reflect a troubling lack of compliance with the requirements and obligations imposed on securities exchanges.”
The violations detailed in the SEC’s order occurred during periods of time from 2008 to 2012.  The SEC’s order finds that the NYSE exchanges violated Section 19(b) and 19(g) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 through misconduct that included the following:

• NYSE, NYSE Arca, and NYSE MKT (formerly NYSE Amex) used an error account maintained at Archipelago Securities to assume and trade out of securities positions without a rule in effect that permitted such trading and in a manner inconsistent with their rules for the routing broker, which limited Archipelago Securities’ activity primarily to outbound and inbound routing of orders on behalf of those exchanges.
• NYSE provided co-location services to customers on disparate contractual terms without an exchange rule in effect that permitted and governed the provision of such services on a fair and equitable basis.
• NYSE operated a block trading facility (New York Block Exchange) that for a period of time did not function in accordance with the rules submitted by NYSE and approved by the SEC.
• NYSE distributed an automated feed of closing order imbalance information to its floor brokers at an earlier time than was specified in NYSE’s rules.
• NYSE Arca failed to execute Mid-Point Passive Liquidity Orders (MPLOs) in locked markets (where the bid and ask prices are the same) contrary to its exchange rule in effect at the time.

In addition, the SEC’s order finds that NYSE Arca accepted MPLOs in sub-penny amounts for National Market System stocks trading at over $1.00 per share, in violation of Rule 612(a) of Regulation NMS.

The SEC’s order further finds that Archipelago Securities failed to establish and maintain policies reasonably designed to prevent the misuse of material, nonpublic information in connection with error account trading.  Archipelago Securities also violated and failed to give the SEC timely notice of its violation of the net capital rule – a critical federal securities law provision intended to ensure that brokers and dealers remain solvent and can meet their financial obligations.  

Or in other words, the SEC is claiming that for 5 years the NYSE was aiding and abetting the very same rigged market that the SEC swears does not exist.
It. Just. Does. Not. Compute.

Gov't releases preliminary report, cargo manifest

The Malaysian government has released copy of the preliminary report into the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which it submitted to the International Civil Aviation Organisation early last month.

In a statement, acting Transport and Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said the decision to release the report, dated April 9, was made after an internal team of experts have concluded its review of the document.
Alongside the report, the government also released audio recordings of the communication between the cockpit and air traffic control on March 8 just before the aircraft lost contact, a map of the plane's flight path, as well as plane's seating plan and cargo manifest .
They also released additional information detailing the actions taken between 1:38am and 06:14am on March 8.
"Last week, the Prime Minister (Najib Abdul Razak) appointed an internal team of experts to review all the information the government of Malaysia possesses regarding MH370, with a view to releasing as much as possible to the general public.
"The prime minister set, as a guiding principle, the rule that as long as the release of a particular piece of information does not hamper the investigation or the search operation, in the interests of openness and transparency, the information should be made public," Hishammuddin said in the statement.
Recommendation - real-time tracking
The confidential report of Transport Ministry's Office of the Chief Inspector of Air Accident made one recommendation - for the possible implementation of real-time tracking of commercial flights.
"There have now been two occasions during the last five years when large commercial air transport aircraft have gone missing and their last position was not accurately known.
"This uncertainty resulted in significant difficulty in locating the aircraft in a timely manner," said the report.
"Therefore, the Malaysian Air Accident Investigation Bureau makes the following safety recommendation to ICAO:
"It is recommended that the International Civil Aviation Organisation examine the safety benefits of introducing a standard for real time tracking of commercial air transport aircraft."
However, the preliminary report, failed to detail the Malaysian military's immediate action in the hours proceeding the plane's disappearance aside a brief mention that search was "extended to the Straits of Malacca".
The Malaysian government had come under intense scrutiny from foreign media and the families of passengers on board Beijing-bound MH370, most of whom are Chinese nationals, for its failure to release the cargo manifest and preliminary report to the ICAO.
Prior to this, the government had only released the transcript of the final communication with air traffic control.
This came after the Department of Civil Aviation corrected its ealier claim that the last words from the cockpit were, "All right, good night" but was instead "Good night, Malaysian three-seven-zero."

Hudud an issue because Najib is weak, says Dr Mahathir

Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad today said the reason PAS was making the implementation of hudud an issue was because of the weaknesses displayed by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

The former prime minister said that PAS never played up the hudud issue when he was in office as the government then was strong.
"Maybe PAS thinks the current government needs support, because during my time, we held absolute power with the two-thirds majority," Dr Mahathir said today.
PAS is attempting to implement hudud in Kelantan because they want to be popular and win votes, Dr Mahathir said.
"PAS is doing this just to gain political mileage, it is not about Islam," he said.
"If PAS goes ahead with their plan to implement hudud in Kelantan, Muslims will call it ‘Islamic’ and support the party."
He said the hudud issue was simply about becoming popular because Malaysia was a democratic country, popularity will win a party votes.
Dr Mahathir said his stand on hudud had never changed, even though he was no longer in office.
"There is no justice if hudud is implemented because the hands of a Muslim thief are cut while a non-Muslim spends two months in prison.
"Is that justice? If it is not justice, then it is not Islamic," Dr Mahathir said.
He said he had written a letter to PAS spiritual adviser Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat with an explanation that was based on Islam.
"My letter was not based on any secular issues or anything else. It was simply based on Islam.
"The Quran stresses that when a punishment is meted out, it must be fair and just.
"In Malaysia, there will be no justice if hudud is implemented because it is only applicable to Muslims, and exempts non-Muslims."
Dr Mahathir was speaking to reporters at the Institute Diplomacy and Foreign Relations along Jalan Wisma Putra today.
He was officiating the launch of a book written by Malaysia's former permanent representative to the United Nations, Tan Sri Razali Ismail, entitled “A UN Chronicle”.
Ever since Kelantan Menteri Datuk Ahmad Yakob had announced a private member's bill which allowed the state to enforce shariah law, there was fierce opposition.
DAP national organising secretary Anthony Loke urged PAS to leave Pakatan Rakyat if it goes through with its plans to enforce hudud in Kelantan.
Najib reportedly said that the time was not right for Malaysia to have hudud.
PAS information chief Datuk Mahfuz Omar had appealed to all parties to respect the democratic right of the Islamic party to present the private member's bill.
"Irrespective of whether other parties supported or opposed PAS's hudud plans, they should still respect the party's democratic right to raise the issue in Parliament," he said.
"If the democratic process is not in favour of PAS, we will abide and are prepared to accept whatever decision," Mahfuz said. – April 30, 2014.

Last Conversation Between MH370 Cockpit and Ground Control

The Malaysian government has released a recording of the last conversation between the crew of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 and air traffic controllers in Kuala Lumpur before the plane went off radar on March 8. The flight, heading for Beijing, was carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew members when it disappeared, and is believed to have crashed into the ocean. Repeated searches over a wide area failed to turn up anything. Credit: YouTube/Minister of Transport Hishammuddin Hussein