Amnesty: Italy, Malta at fault for refugee shipwreck deaths

Amnesty International has said some 200 refugees presumed to have died in a major shipwreck last year could have been saved if Italian and Maltese authorities had not dithered over rescue operations.

Deutsche Welle, 30 Sep 2014

Amnesty released the report in Brussels on Tuesday just hours before the European parliamentary confirmation hearing of Dimitris Avramopoulos, Greece's incoming European Commissioner for migration and home affairs.

Amnesty said the EU's new leadership must boost air and naval power in the Mediterranean to rescue migrants who are dying in record numbers trying to reach the continent's shores. In its report, titled: "Lives adrift: Refugees and migrants in peril in the central Mediterranean," the British-based campaign group described a "Fortress Europe" blocking out migrants and refugees, many of them fleeing unrest in Syria and other countries in the Middle East and North Africa.

At least 400 people were on board a boat that capsized in Maltese search and rescue waters on October 11, 2013, according to survivors.

Malta rescued 147 people, Italy picked up another 39, while the other passengers were never found.

"It is reasonable to question whether Italy and Malta acted promptly and with all available resources to save the refugees and migrants and whether a delay in going to their rescue contributed to the shipwreck," the human rights association said in its report.

It said the migrants, whose boat was taking on water after being shot at by a Libyan vessel, were rescued at least 5-6 hours after their first emergency call. They appealed to Italy first, but were told they had to call Malta because of their location.

Once alerted, Maltese authorities were said to have been slow in assuming charge of operations. Malta allegedly didn't alert passing cargo ships, and an the Italian navy is accused of sailing towards the wreck at less than full speed, leaving first rescue duties to Malta.

Italy says more money needed

Italy's navy has been patrolling the waters between Africa and Sicily since 366 people drowned after their boat capsized within sight of the Italian island of Lampedusa. That incident was just a week before the rescue in Maltese waters.

Italy has repeatedly called for more EU help to tackle the emergency as Italy plans to gradually phase out its Mare Nostrum (Our Ocean) search-and-rescue program, which has saved more than 90,000 lives in the past year.

Amnesty warned in its report that European Union countries must devote "considerable" resources for migrant rescues in the Mediterranean Sea before Italy can discontinue its own mission, or "many more lives will be lost at sea."

Amnesty urged the EU to change its asylum policy, which puts the onus on border countries like Italy and Malta to take in refugees, and eventually to establish safe ways for migrants and refugees to reach Europe.

"So long as the EU continues to push those fleeing conflict or poverty to take dangerous sea journeys, it must be prepared - collectively - to meet its obligations to save lives," Amnesty said.

The International Organization for Migration said on Monday that a record 3,072 migrants have drowned trying to cross the Mediterranean in unseaworthy boats so far this year, compared to 2,360 in 2013.

crh/dr (dpa, Reuters, AFP)

Lloyds fires staff and axes bonuses for Libor rigging

Eight workers dismissed for manipulating benchmark interest rate, with cuts to overall bonus pool also expected

The Guardian, Jill Treanor, Monday 29 September 2014

Lloyds Banking Group fires staff for Libor rigging. Photograph: Amer Ghazzal/
Amer Ghazzal/Demotix/Corbis

Lloyds Banking Group has fired eight staff and withheld £3m of bonuses following “unacceptable” actions that led to the bailed out bank being fined for Libor rigging.

The bank also indicated its entire bonus pool could be cut to reflect the £226m of penalties it was forced to pay for manipulating the benchmark interest rate.

Lord Blackwell, the new chairman of the 24% taxpayer owned bank, said: “The board has been clear that it views the actions of those responsible for the misconduct … as being completely unacceptable.”

Lloyds was the seventh bank to be fined for rigging Libor but the first to be punished for depriving the Bank of England of fees it should have received for providing emergency financing during the financial crisis.

Part of the penalty was £7.8m redress to Threadneedle Street for manipulating a separate interest rate – the repo rate – used to calculate the scale of the fees it paid for the Bank’s liquidity scheme to keep down the cost of obtaining money during the credit crisis.

While eight Lloyds staff have been dismissed and lost their bonuses, four more were cleared and allowed back to work.

It is unclear what has happened to the bonuses of 10 bankers who had already left, as Lloyds has no power to claw back the cash. The details of those 10 have been passed to the City regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority.

Among those fired were three of the four unnamed individuals who may have been involved in depriving the central bank of emergency funding fees.

Blackwell appeared to indicate that further cuts could be made to bonuses, saying: “The remuneration committee is tasked with ensuring that the outcome of the disciplinary process and the significant reputational damage and financial cost to the group are fully and fairly reflected in the options considered in relation to other staff bonus payments.”

António Horta-Osório, the Lloyds boss who joined after the offences took place – between 2006 and 2009 – said he was determined the bank should have high levels of integrity.

“Having now taken disciplinary action against those individuals responsible for the totally unacceptable behaviour identified by the regulators’ investigations, the board and the group’s management team are committed to preventing this type of behaviour happening again,” he said.

When the bank was fined, regulators published a string of embarrassing emails and electronic chats, including one remark from a Lloyds employee who quipped when asked about reducing a Libor rate: “Every little helps … It’s like Tescos.” The trader replied: “Absolutely every little helps.”

The fine was imposed by the FCA as well the US department of justice and the US regulator, the Commodities Futures Trading Commission. Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, issued a furious response because of the steps taken by traders to reduce the fees that Lloyds, which also owns Bank of Scotland and Halifax, paid for emergency funding.

“Such manipulation is highly reprehensible, clearly unlawful and may amount to criminal conduct on the part of the individuals involved,” Carney said at the time. He also asked the Prudential Regulation Authority, the Bank’s regulation arm, to investigate.

The Serious Fraud Office is investigating a number of firms, including Lloyds, for rigging interest rates and has brought charges against 12 individuals.

Professor Mark Taylor, dean of Warwick Business School, said: “Many will see this as closing the stable door too late, but the fact is that the City has begun to clean up its act and wants to be seen to be doing so.

“We have already seen the setting of Libor passing from a cosy conversation between a few City traders to being professionally managed by NYSE Euronext based on actual market trades, and that has done a great deal to restore confidence and belief in the integrity of the world’s most important financial centre.”

This is the second issue for which Lloyds has taken high-profile action to claw back or withdraw bonuses from staff. In February 2012, it became the first bank to publicly hold back pay from senior staff – including its former boss Eric Daniels – for losses incurred from payment protection insurance misselling.

Lloyds has been fined £4.3m for delaying payouts for customers claiming they were missold PPI and last year was hit with a £28m fine for linking bonuses to sales to such an extent that staff were offered “a grand in your hand” and one employee even sold products to himself, his wife and a colleague to avoid demotion.

The Libor rigging incident, first exposed in 2012 when Barclays was fined £290m, hammered the reputation of the industry and further fines for manipulating the benchmark rate are expected before the end of the year.

Six banks are also facing fines for rigging the £3.5tn a day currency markets and facing pressure from the FCA to settle in eight weeks.

Related Article:

Bank of England blasts Lloyds for rigging bailout funding

Belgian court upholds rapist Van Den Bleeken's right to die

An appeals court in Belgium has upheld convicted murderer and rapist Frank Van Den Bleeken's approval to be euthanized. He will be the first detainee in the country put to death for psychiatric reasons.

Deutsche Welle, 29 Sep 2014

The appeals court in Brussels upheld the decision on Monday, after a separate court had approved Van Den Bleeken's right to seek assisted suicide in mid-September.

"He can leave the jail for 24 hours in order to seek euthanasia," a court press spokesman said.

The exact date of Van Den Bleeken's euthanasia is not known.

Seeking an end to 'psychological pain'

Van Den Bleeken was found guilty of murder and rape on multiple instances, and has spent nearly 30 years behind bars. He considers himself a danger to the public. The 50-year-old says he suffers from "psychological pain" that cannot be treated and is unable to control his sexual urges.

"I am a human being, and regardless of what I've done, I remain a human being. So, yes, give me euthanasia," Van Den Bleeken told VRT Flemish Belgian television.

His lawyer, Jos Vander Velpen, defended the court's ruling, saying his "client suffers endlessly."

A sister of one of Van Den Bleeken's victims expressed dismay at the decision. "He should die in his cell," she told the daily Het Laatse Nieuws newspaper earlier this month.

Increase in assisted suicide

After Van Den Bleeken became the first Belgian to be granted the right to euthanasia earlier this month, 15 further long-time inmates the country asked to seek assisted suicide.

Belgium has allowed assisted suicide since 2002 for the terminally-ill. Across the country last year, 1,807 people opted for assisted suicide, 27 percent more than in 2012.

In February, Belgium became the first country in the world to allow assisted suicide without an age limit. Thus, terminally ill children can choose to take their own lives in certain circumstances.

Among European countries, assisted suicide is also legal in the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

dr/bw (KNA, dpa, AP, Reuters, AFP)

Related Articles:

Belgian law on euthanasia for children, with no age limit, will be first in world

Nearly 5,000 people died via euthanasia in the Netherlands in 2013

Big four accountants under fire in Holland for poor audit work

DutchNews.nl, Thursday 25 September 2014

(NOS/ANP)

Finance minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem has pledged to get tough on the big four accountancy firms after a damning report from the financial services regulator.

The AFM said on Thursday that all four firms - KPMG, Deloitte, PwC and EY - have done little to improve the quality of their annual report audits since the last inspection in 2010.

The problems are structural and require 'fundamental reforms and a cultural shift,' the AFM said.

In a reaction, Dijsselbloem said 'the checks which accountants are required to carry out by law should be above reproach... It is unacceptable that the quality is not up to standard.'

Measures

In an effort to force the firms to improve, the AFM is planning a series of reforms. Accountancy groups will be required by law to have a supervisory board. Senior officials will have to be vetted by the AFM and the supervision of semi-public bodies such as hospitals and housing corporations will be stepped up.

According to the NRC, KPMG is the worst performer of the big four in the Netherlands. Of the 10 audits which the AFM looked at, seven were branded 'insufficient' - which means the books were signed off without the accountant being certain they were accurate.

Four out of 10 PwC and Deloitte audits failed to make the grade as did three carried out by EY.

Related Articles:

KPMG Nederland overhauls partner bonuses, supervisory board

Tesco must change culture and reinvent brand, new boss tells employees - New

Belgrade sealed off for first Gay Pride since 2010

Yahoo – AFP, Jovan Matic, 28 Sep 2014

Gay activists hold a rainbow-coloured flag during the Pride Parade in Belgrade

on September 28, 2014 (AFP Photo/Andrej Isakovic)

Belgrade (AFP) - Serbian gays and lesbians staged their first Belgrade Pride Parade in four years on Sunday, in what is seen as a test of the EU hopeful's commitment to protecting minority rights.

With tight security, the march went off without incident, led off from the main government building, with hundreds of participants carrying rainbow-coloured balloons and flags, and banners proclaiming "Pride", "Peace" and "Love".

Gay activists march during the Pride 

Parade in Belgrade on September 28,

2014 (AFP Photo/Andrej Isakovic)

Thousands of special police, with armoured vehicles and water cannon, were deployed to oversee order, following a rash of threats of disruption by far-right groups.

At Belgrade's first-ever gay pride march in 2010, hardline nationalists attacked participants and clashed with police, leaving 150 people injured and prompting officials to ban the parade for the next three years.

"I hope the vandals won't spoil the celebration, and that starting from this year, the parade will become a regular event," Kosmogina, a bisexual and gay rights activist, told AFP.

But in the crowd of up to 1,000 -- isolated with the security cordon -- the atmosphere was relaxed, with marchers dancing to music pumped in from loud speakers.

Only accredited reporters, organisers and participants wearing special bracelets were allowed to enter the area in central Belgrade closed off to traffic, which was patrolled by anti-riot and special police forces and helicopters flying overhead.

Serbian ultra-nationalists stand off with

police during the Pride Parade in Belgrade

 on September 28, 2014 (AFP Photo/

Andrej Isakovic)

The two-kilometre (one-and-a-half mile) march passed by parliament before ending in front of Belgrade City Hall.

A 26-year old gay man, who declined to give his name, nevertheless said he was happy to be able to "march freely in my Belgrade."

"I really hope that this will help people to understand our needs, and that it'll be the first step toward respecting our rights," he said.

Organisers hailed what they called a warmer reception for the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual) event than in previous years.

"For the first time, institutions have publicly supported the Pride Parade, and media reports were more favourable for the LGBT community," Boban Stojanovic told reporters on Saturday.

Several foreign diplomats, including the head of the EU's delegation to Serbia Michael Davenport, US ambassador Michael Kirby and European Parliament member Terry Reintke, attended the march.

Some Serbian cabinet ministers also joined, including Deputy Prime Minister Kori Udovicki and Culture Minister Ivan Tasovac, as well as Belgrade mayor Sinisa Mali.

Ultra-nationalist threat

"Queer struggle is class struggle", an activist's

 flag states at the Pride Parade in Belgrade

 on September 28, 2014 (AFP Photo/

Andrej Isakovic)

Several ultra-nationalist groups had threatened anti-gay protests to counter Belgrade Pride.

Members of Dveri were on the streets of the capital on Saturday night while another group, Obraz, called its supporters to join a march in another central Belgrade area Sunday. But none of ultra-nationalists were seen in town during the pride march.

Belgrade has been under pressure to improve protection for minorities, including the LGBT community, since starting accession talks with the European Union this year.

Homophobia is widespread in Serbian and other conservative Balkan societies.

Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic, a former ultra-nationalist who has re-branded himself as pro-European, refused to attend the Pride Parade, saying he had "better things to do".

But visiting a flooded town in eastern Serbia on Sunday Vucic also said that "in our country there are rights and freedoms guaranteed by the constitution and we respect these rights and freedoms. Nobody should jeopardise" the Belgrade Pride event.

Serbian special police units stand guard

 ahead of the Pride Parade in Belgrade on

 September 28, 2014 (AFP Photo/Andrej

Isakovic)

Tensions have been running high ahead of the event.

The head of the influential Serbian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Irinej, denounced the parade as "immoral" and asked why "gay sexual orientation has the right to be propagated and not paedophilia and incest".

The march had been "violently imposed by a gay lobby and their mentors from (western) Europe," he said.

Earlier this month a German LGBT rights speaker was hospitalised after being beaten in Belgrade.

Vucic warned earlier this week that "whoever tries to provoke incidents will be very, very severely punished".

Tory minister Brooks Newmark resigns from government

BBC News, 27 September 2014

Mr Newmark appealed for the privacy of his family to be "respected at this time"

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• Second Tory MP defects to UKIP

Tory MP for Braintree Brooks Newmark has resigned as minister for civil society following Sunday Mirror allegations he shared sexually explicit images of himself with an undercover reporter over social media.

He said in a statement he remained "a loyal supporter of this government".

His resignation comes on the eve of the Conservative party conference.

It was announced hours after fellow Tory MP Mark Reckless said he was quitting the party to join UKIP.

It is alleged the reporter was posing as a young female activist.

A Downing Street spokesman said Prime Minister David Cameron had accepted Mr Newmark's resignation as a minister.

UKIP defection

Mr Newmark, 56, said: "I have decided to resign as minister for civil society having been notified of a story to be published in a Sunday newspaper.

"I would like to appeal for the privacy of my family to be respected at this time.

"I remain a loyal supporter of this Government as its long term economic plan continues to deliver for the British people."

Mr Newmark, who has been the MP for Braintree since 2005, became minister for civil society in July.

No 10 said later that Rob Wilson, Conservative MP for Reading East, had been appointed as Mr Newmark's replacement as minister for civil society.

Mark Reckless earlier told the UKIP conference he had resigned as an MP, triggering a by-election in Rochester and Strood.

He will seek re-election in his constituency for UKIP.

'Unfaithful' Bishop of Arundel and Brighton resigns

BBC News, 27 September 2014

Bishop Kieran Conry said he had been "unfaithful" to his promises as
a Catholic priest

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The Catholic Bishop of Arundel and Brighton has resigned, saying he has brought "shame" on the diocese.

The Rt Rev Kieran Conry, whose diocese covers Sussex and Surrey, said he had been "unfaithful" to his promises as a Catholic priest.

He said his actions "were not illegal and did not involve minors".

He apologised to those "hurt by my actions and then to all of those inside and outside the diocese who will be shocked, hurt and saddened".

He said his resignation would take immediate effect, and he would now take time to consider his future.

Bishop Kieran's statement did not specify in what way he had been "unfaithful" to his promises but it will be read in all Catholic churches over the weekend.

His statement ended: "I am sorry for the shame that I have brought on the diocese and the Church and I ask for your prayers and forgiveness."

Cardinal Vincent Nichols, head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, said: "This is a sad and painful moment.

"It makes clear that we are always a Church of sinners called to repentance and conversion and in need of God's mercy.

"All involved in this situation are much in my prayers today."

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Bishop who quit over affair claims says he wants to remain a priest - New

In defiance of Spain, Catalonia calls secession vote

The president of the Catalonia region in Spain has signed a decree calling for an independence referendum. Spain's central government has vowed to block the ballot.

Deutsche Welle, 27 Sep 2014

 People hold letters forming the word 'independence' as they gather at the regional government headquarters in support of the referendum for independence at Sant Jaume square in Barcelona, Spain, 27 September 2014.

Catalan President Artur Mas on Saturday signed a formal decree calling for a referendum to be held on November 9, to ask Catalonians whether their region should break from Spain.

The powerful and wealthy northeastern region has a long-standing movement for independence, which has gained momentum in recent years due to Spain's struggling economy.

However, the Spanish government insists the planned referendum is illegal. It is expected to call an emergency cabinet meeting in the next days to launch an appeal to the country's constitutional court, aimed at blocking the vote.

Mas' push forward with independence plans comes just after people in Scotland voted against leaving the United Kingdom.

se/glb (AFP, Reuters, AP)

Related Articles:

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Will ET Be Here Soon? NASA Brings Scientists, Theologians Together To Prepare

Huffington Post, Lee Speigel, 09/22/2014

Looking for extraterrestrial life is akin to a search for a cosmic needle-in-a-haystack, as evidenced by the above incredible Hubble Space Telescope image showing approximately 10,000 galaxies.

In large part, thanks to NASA's Kepler spacecraft, more than 1,400 planets have been identified beyond Earth.

A few days ago, NASA tried closing the gap between life on Earth and the possibilities of life elsewhere. The space agency and the Library of Congress (image below left) brought together scientists, historians, philosophers and theologians from around the world for a two-day symposium, "Preparing For Discovery." Their agenda: To explore how we prepare for the inevitable discovery of extraterrestrial life, be it simple microbial organisms or intelligent beings.

"We're looking at all scenarios about finding life. If you find microbes, that's one thing. If you find intelligence, it's another. And if they communicate, it's something else, and depending on what they say, it's something else!" said astronomer, symposium organizer and former chief NASA historian, Steven J. Dick.

"The idea is not to wait until we make a discovery, but to try and prepare the public for what the implications might be when such a discovery is made," Dick told The Huffington Post. "I think the reason that NASA is backing this is because of all the recent activity in the discovery of exoplanets and the advances in astrobiology in general.

"People just consider it much more likely now that we're going to find something -- probably microbes first and maybe intelligence later," he added. "The driving force behind this is from a scientific point of view that it seems much more likely now that we are going to find life at some point in the future."

Among the many speakers at last week's astrobiology symposium, one has raised a few international eyebrows in recent years.

"I believe [alien life exists], but I have no evidence. I would be really excited and it would make my understanding of my religion deeper and richer in ways that I can't even predict yet, which is why it would be so exciting," Brother Guy Consolmagno, a Jesuit brother, astronomer and Vatican planetary scientist told HuffPost senior science editor David Freeman.

Consolmagno has publicly stated his belief that "any entity -- no matter how many tentacles it has -- has a soul," and he's suggested that he would be happy to baptize any ETs, as long as they requested it.

"There has to be freedom to do science. Being a good scientist means admitting we never have the whole truth -- there's always more to learn." Consolmagno also doesn't think the public would panic when or if it's revealed that alien life has been found.

"I really think it would be a three-day wonder and then we'd go back to worrying about reality TV or the crazy things going on in Washington -- that's the way human beings are. Because I think most people are like me: we expect it's out there. And our reaction would be, 'Wow, thank heavens. It's about time."

Earth is no longer the center of the universe, nor is it flat -- at least that's the currently accepted thinking among most scientists. And we now know, conclusively, that there are a lot more planets than the ones in our own solar system.

"The number of habitable worlds in our galaxy is certainly in the tens of billions, minimum, and we haven't even talked about the moons. And the number of galaxies we can see, other than our own, is about 100 billion," Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at California's SETI Institute told HuffPost.

Watch this video zooming and panning through the night sky to show 10,000 galaxies photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope.

At the NASA/Library of Congress symposium, Shostak gave out some startling numbers about how many stars there are in the part of the universe that we can see. "It's a big number: 10,000 billion, billion. And we know that most of those stars have planets -- 70 or 80 percent. If all of those planets are sterile, and you're the only interesting thing happening in the cosmos, then you are a miracle. That would be exceptional in the extreme. So, the middle-of-the-road approach is to say, 'You're not a miracle, you're just another duck in a row of ducks.'"

"The bottom line of this," Shostak said, "is something like one in five of all stars may have an analog to Earth. That's a lot of habitable worlds, and, indeed, the number of Earths in our own galaxy might be on the order of 50 billion."

Those are big numbers to ponder.

The D.C. conference included a great deal of discussion about the upcoming mission of the Hubble's long-anticipated successor: the James Webb Space Telescope. As large as a tennis court, this deep space observatory is scheduled for a 2018 launch and will orbit beyond our moon. The Webb telescope will focus on new planetary discoveries and collect data from the atmospheres of those planets, looking for certain things that might point to what we would consider possible indicators of life.

HuffPost asked Dick, an astrobiologist, for his opinion on the continuing output of UFO reports around the world.

"I try to keep an open mind on this. Ninety-some percent can be explained by natural phenomena, etc. The question is what to do with the other 3 or 4 percent," Dick said. "My opinion is that they should be studied further, on the one hand. By definition, they're something that we don't know what they are. They could be some physical, psychological or social phenomena that we don't know about. But I think it's jumping to a conclusion that they're extraterrestrial. I don't see that evidence.

"I haven't looked at the evidence close enough to say that there's intelligence behind it. But I've seen enough to know that there are unexplained things that we should look at more, and right now, the U.S. government is not doing that."

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China looks to quantum mechanics to protect secrets from US hackers

"FUTURE AND PHYSICS (#)" - May 16-17, 2014 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) -

(#) New major Discoveries (This channel will become a historical channel in the future, prove that Kryon is a real communication to humanity from the Creative Source) - (Text version Physics)

1 To see and measure multi-dimensional/quantum physics, instrument (super cooling quantum plasma lens)

2 Two more laws of multi-dimensional physics revealed: explanation of dark matter & acknowledgement of free energy (controlling mass)

3 God in the atom. God has - provable - part in physics. Intelligent/benevolent design. (Will bring religion and science together.)

4 Human Consciousness is an attribute of physics. (Pleiadians - Humans ancestors / Humans free choice only planet in the Milky Way Galaxy. Other galaxies have their own spiritual systems and physics)

5.Coherent DNA. Multidimensional DNA coherent between dimensions will give Enhanced DNA

"Earth, the only planet with free choice in the Milky Way Galaxy"

"The Big Picture - You Are Not Alone" - (a message from Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll)

"The Quantum Factor" – Apr 10, 2011 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Galaxies, Universe, Intelligent design, Benevolent design, Aliens, Nikola Tesla (Quantum energy), Inter-Planetary Travel, DNA, Genes, Stem Cells, Cells, Rejuvenation, Shift of Human Consciousness, Spontaneous Remission, Religion, Dictators, Africa, China, Nuclear Power, Sustainable Development, Animals, Global Unity.. etc.) - (Text Version)


"Recalibration of the Universe"– Jan 25, 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Text Version)

“… The entire galaxy revolves as one plate, in a very counter-intuitive way. The stars and the constellations do not orbit within the rules of Newtonian physics that you are used to seeing all around you in your own solar system. For the stars and clusters in your galaxy, distance from the center does not matter. All the stars rotate as one. This is because the galaxy is entangled with the middle of itself. In that state, there is no time or distance. The change of consciousness on this planet has changed the center of the galaxy. This is because what happens here, dear one, is "known" by the center.

It's interesting to us what your reaction to all this is scientifically. You saw that the "creative event" of your Universe is missing some energy in order for it to have formed as it did. In addition, the unusual way the galaxy rotates, as I just stated, was also noted. So you have calculated that for all this to be in place, there has to be missing 3D matter, and you have given it a name - dark matter. How funny! Did you ever think that there could be a multidimensional effect going on that you now can observe and calculate - that has immense power, but can't be seen? It's not "matter" at all and it's not 3D. It's quantum energy.

Let me tell you something about physics. Yet again, I'll make it simple. Everything your scientists have seen in physics happens in pairs. At the moment, there are four laws of physics in your three-dimensional paradigm. They represent two pairs of energy types. Eventually, there will be six. At the center of your galaxy is what you call a black hole, but it is not a single thing. It is a duality. There is no such thing as "singularity". You might say it's one energy with two parts - a weak and a strong quantum force. And the strangest thing is it knows who you are. It is the creator engine. It's different in other galaxies than this one. It's unique.

The very physics of your galaxy is postured by what you do here. The astronomers can look into the cosmos and they will discover different physics in different galaxies. Could it be that there's something going on in the other galaxies like this one? I'm not going to answer that. … “

Tesco must change culture and reinvent brand, new boss tells employees

Dave Lewis writes to staff in wake of £250m accounting scandal as share lose 16.5% in week, wiping £3bn off firm’s value

The Guardian, Sarah Butler and Sean Farrell, Friday 26 September 2014

A Tesco Extra supermarket in London. Photograph: Alex Segre/Rex Features

Tesco needs to change its culture and reinvent its brand, the company’s new chief executive, Dave Lewis, has told employees after a torrid week for the supermarket chain.

In an email to thousands of staff in the wake of a £250m accounting scandal, Lewis said: “Turning our business around will require change in our culture, as well as in our processes and our brand proposition. We want to work in a business which is open, transparent, fair and honest. We all expect Tesco to act with integrity and transparency at all times.”

Shares in Tesco dived 16.5% this week, knocking £3bn off the firm’s value after it found possible errors in the handling of payments from suppliers equivalent to nearly a quarter of its anticipated profits for the first half of this financial year.

The revelation came as Tesco sales also fell, down 6.1% in the three months to mid-September according to figures released on Friday by the market analyst Nielsen. That is an even grimmer picture than the 4.5% decline analysts at Kantar Worldpanel envisaged earlier this week.

Tesco’s difficulties with supplier payments have sent shockwaves through the industry, in which retailers widely demand such transactions in return for promotions, prime shelf space or hitting certain sales targets.

On Friday one of the world’s largest credit rating agencies said supermarkets’ profits could be made up entirely from supplier kickbacks, and called on the retail industry to be more transparent about them.

Fitch Ratings suggested payments from suppliers could make up €5.6bn or 81% of Tesco’s underlying operating profits. Earlier this week the accountants Moore Stephens also estimated such payments to be worth several billions of pounds a year to the top 10 supermarkets.

“Better disclosure would make it easier to spot errors, aggressive accounting policies or misuse: red flags could include a rapid acceleration in attributable allowances, or a continued increase even as sales volumes decline,” Fitch said.

“The extent of vendor allowances in Europe is uncertain, but if they are as widespread as they are in the US they could approach, or even exceed, the entire operating profit of some supermarkets.”

While European retailers do not break out contributions from suppliers, some US retailers have revealed that they are equivalent to 8% of the cost of goods sold, or virtually all their profits, according to Fitch.

The agency’s comments come as Tesco conducts an internal investigation into its handling of supplier payments which will be closely watched by analysts and regulators. Shareholders and analysts are also preparing to quiz Sainsbury’s about its approach when the supermarket delivers its second quarter trading statement on Wednesday.

Worries about how supermarkets generate income come as the industry is experiencing major structural challenges. The rise of discounters such as Aldi and Lidl and the expansion of upmarket Waitrose have meant more competition at a time when shoppers are tightening their belts.

Nielsen indicated that shoppers spent 1.6% less at the UK’s leading supermarkets in the four weeks to 13 September, while the volume of items bought sank 1.9%. It also confirmed a poor trading period at Sainsbury’s indicating a 1.8% decline in sales, in line with Kantar’s estimate.

On Friday shares in Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and Tesco all fell in response to further evidence of difficulties in the market and bearish comments from one of the UK’s most influential fund managers.

Neil Woodford, who sold his Tesco shares after it issued its first profit warning for decades in early 2012, said it would take a long time before the company, or other UK supermarkets, are worth investing in. He told BBC Radio 4’s Today progamme that the industry may need a complete overhaul.

“The industry, in the near term, faces a long road to exit this period of depressed margins and crushed profitability, and maybe asset bases [and] balance sheets need to be rebalanced in time before the industry can re-emerge as an investable proposition from my point of view. The immediate future is going to be tough for the sector, but particularly for Tesco,” he said.

Woodford managed Britain’s biggest investment fund at Invesco Perpetual before going it alone with his £7bn fund at Woodford Investment Management.

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