Federal agents swept into New Jersey towns across several counties Thursday morning, charging 44 people, including three mayors and religious leaders, in a federal investigation into public corruption and money laundering.
“The rings were international in scope, connected to Deal, N.J., Brooklyn, N.Y., Israel and Switzerland,” said Mr. Marra, the U.S. attorney, at the news conference. “They trafficked in the cleaning of dirty money all across the world.”
Levy Izhak Rosenbaum of Brooklyn was charged separately with conspiring to broker the sale of a human kidney for a transplant, at a cost of $160,000 to the transplant recipient. According to the FBI’s complaint, Mr. Rosenbaum said he had been brokering the sale of kidneys for 10 years. Mr. Rosenbaum couldn’t be reached for comment. A relative of Mr. Rosenbaum who answered the phone at an address belonging to him declined to comment.
“Any corruption is unacceptable – anywhere, anytime, by anybody,” the governor said, referring to Thursday’s arrests. “The scale of corruption we’re seeing as this unfolds is simply outrageous and cannot be tolerated.”
via Dozens Arrested in New Jersey Corruption Probe
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(CNN) — Google is jumping into Microsoft Windows territory — and threatening to change the way personal computers work — with its own version of a computer operating system.
Google’s operating system will augment its Web browser, which is also called Chrome.
The company says the forthcoming Google Chrome OS will revolutionize how computers operate, putting more emphasis on Web functionality, making computers faster and opening them up to helpful tinkering by outside program developers.
“The operating systems that browsers run on were designed in an era where there was no web,” Google said late Tuesday on its official blog. “It’s our attempt to re-think what operating systems should be.”
Chrome OS will be available this coming fall or winter, Google says.
But why should you care?
A trim and speedy Google operating system, which has been buzzed about online for some time, is interesting for several reasons — even if you think it could flop out of the gate.
The first is that Chrome OS will be available as “open-source” technology. That means software developers will be able to mess with the code behind the system, allowing them to develop new applications for it.
via Google takes on Windows with Chrome OS – CNN.com.
When you want to know what’s in your tap water, look at your local water utility’s website or check your mailbox for its annual report. You’ll find the source of the water and any chemical pollutants remaining after treatment.
IT’S THE LAW.
When you pay a premium price of up to 1900 times more for bottled water, you expect more.
But with rare exceptions, you get less.
All too often, you get nothing. Unless you count hyped advertising come-ons like “crisp,” pristine” or “essential.”
In our book, empty rhetoric means zero. Zip. Nada. Pure drinking water is all about the facts.
An 18-month Environmental Working Group investigation of bottled water labels and websites has found that:
Only 2 bottled waters disclose water sources and treatment methods on their labels and offer a recent water quality test report on their websites. These best performers are:
- Ozarka Drinking Water
- Penta Ultra-Purified Water
Just 18% of bottled waters disclose quality reports with contaminant testing results. Among them are all 8 Nestlé domestic brands surveyed:
- Poland Spring
- Nestlé Pure Life
- Arrowhead
- Calistoga
- Deer Park
- Ice Mountain
- Ozarka
- Zephyrhills.
None of the top 10 U.S. domestic bottled water brands label specific water sources and treatment methods for all their products.
via Is your bottled water worth it? | Environmental Working Group.
July 7 Bloomberg — Goldman Sachs Group Inc. may lose its investment in a proprietary trading code and millions of dollars from increased competition if software allegedly stolen by a former employee gets into the wrong hands, a prosecutor said.
Sergey Aleynikov, a 39-year-old ex-Goldman Sachs computer programmer, was arrested July 3 after arriving at Liberty International Airport in Newark, New Jersey, U.S. officials said. Aleynikov, a citizen of America and Russia who joined the bank in 2007, is charged in a criminal complaint with stealing the trading software. Teza Technologies LLC, a Chicago-based firm co-founded by a former Citadel Investment Group LLC trader, said it suspended Aleynikov, who started there on July 2.
via Goldman May Lose Millions From Ex-Worker’s Code Theft Update3 – Bloomberg.com.
The international drug mafia is estimated to be involved in a business whose total transactions cross $600-800 billion year—Drug Report 2009 released by United Nations Office of Drugs & Crime on June 24, 2009 (for complete text visit http://www.unodc.org) The successive governments in Pakistan provided money laundering schemes to the black economy (although these were termed as good economic measures to dig out black money). Our drug barons hardly need any international channels for money laundering because support from the State is available at home. If any drug smuggler remits dirty money in Pakistan through normal banking channels, the tax authorities cannot pose any question about its ‘source’. Millions of dollars come into the country every year from bank accounts maintained in various countries in fictitious names, but no action is taken under the law.
In the Income Tax Ordinance 2001, a special provision [section 111(4)] exists to facilitate the money launderers to remit (laundered is more appropriate term) their ill-gotten money through banking channels and surrender the foreign currency to the State Bank and get Pakistani rupees as encashment. In this way they can escape not only taxation but any criminal proceedings as well. This scheme aimed at bringing huge foreign funds to Pakistani economy has succeeded immensely during Musharraf-Shaukat era when foreign reserves of Pakistan crossed the US$ 15 billion mark. Even today, it is being exploited cleverly by the Pakistani drug syndicates and tax dodgers to launder their money through State patronage. In the presence of this law can anybody take Pakistan seriously in its so-called measures against money laundering?
More at Drug trafficking & black economy
