ALBANY -- Hate crimes across New York state jumped 14 percent in 2009, led by an increase in attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions, state records released yesterday show.
There were 683 hate crimes reported to police authorities across the state in 2009 compared with 599 in 2008, according to a report released by the state Division of Criminal Justice Services.
In New York City, reported hate crimes rose 6 percent, from 259 to 275. The city accounted for 40 percent of all hate crimes in the state last year.
Brooklyn was the borough with the highest number of hate crimes, 92, followed by Manhattan, 70, Queens, 61, The Bronx, 33, and Staten Island, 19.
Nassau County had 82 reported incidents, down from 100 in 2008, Suffolk County had 80 incidents, up from 62, and Westchester County had 23 incidents, up from 16.
One of the most notorious hate crimes in recent years occurred in Suffolk, where Ecuadorean immigrant Marcelo Lucero was beaten and stabbed to death near the Patchogue train station by a slur-shouting mob.
Jeffrey Conroy, one of seven youths connected to the November 2008 attack, was convicted of manslaughter as a hate crime last year and sentenced to 25 years in prison. The others are serving sentences ranging from five to seven years.
The report found that nearly a quarter of all attacks in 2009 were carried out by two or more people. More than 7 percent were carried out by four or more people.
Also, 31 percent of all known offenders were 24 or younger, and 12.2 percent of all known offenders were women.
Most of the hate crimes in the new state records involved assaults or intimidation, 45 percent, or damage and destruction to property, 44 percent. A total of 179 individuals were arrested on hate-crime charges in connection with the incidents.
Anti-Semitic incidents, which made up 37 percent of the reported hate crimes, were up 15 percent in one year, from 219 in 2008 to 251 in 2009.
The report found anti-black crimes, 21 percent of the total, were down slightly from 147 in 2008 to 144 in 2009. Anti-white hate crimes increased from 21 to 29.
Anti-gay hate crimes were up sharply, with those targeting male homosexuals jumping 32 percent, from 62 to 82, and those aimed at lesbians up by more than 200 percent, from eight to 25.
Crimes motivated by anti-Muslim sentiment rose from eight to 11.
"A hate crime is an offense not only against a specific individual, but against an entire community," said Sean Byrne, acting commissioner of the Division of Criminal Justice Services.
He called it a "form of domestic terrorism."
The report also showed that nearly 30 percent of those convicted of a hate crime were sentenced to prison and 18 percent were given probation.
fredric.dicker@nypost.com
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/ny_sees_surge_in_hate_IM7xmcNGdI0pEowrCRZZII#ixzz19imjl0l1
Friday, December 31, 2010
Housing Pain Pits Neighbor Against Neighbor in Florida
But it galls him when neighbors stop paying their mortgages and maintenance fees, and leave the cost of community upkeep to others. "I am paying for these guys," said the 75-year-old sitting poolside, a diamond stud in his left ear.
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Last year, he took matters into his own hands. Near the mailbox of each condo building he posted a list of residents delinquent on their maintenance fees, with the message "Pay up or move out" and the same in Spanish, Pague O Mudese. He also tried, unsuccessfully, to get the cable company to cut off service to nonpayers.
The public shaming angered some of those named. "You know where I live—come and tell me that to me face," said Lorena Garcia, 36, who lost her job and ability to pay.
The storm that struck the housing market has strewn many casualties—lenders, builders, real-estate agents, mortgage-bond investors.
Add to the list the comity of certain communities where residents live close together, some of them paying their mortgages and homeowner-association fees, and some not.
As banks slow foreclosures amid concerns about sloppy record keeping, some delinquent homeowners get to stay put even longer without paying. The delays are further inflaming some neighbors who consider that unfair.
The condo complex Mr. Schulman and Ms. Garcia share, called International Village, has installed a fingerprint-scanning device at its central clubhouse, to keep residents who are more than 90 days behind on their maintenance fees from swimming in the pools, playing on the racquetball courts and using the game room, where canasta and mah-jongg competitions are held.
In a particularly stark example of housing tensions found in many places to varying degrees, the International Village homeowners association responded to the banks' slowdown in foreclosures with an aggressive step: It began its own foreclosure process. Florida law permits that under certain circumstances. A nonprofit homeowners association can take temporary title of residential units from people who aren't paying monthly fees they agreed to pay.
The scene of these frictions is a 28-acre community in southeastern Florida's Broward County that spreads out on a peninsula, surrounded by a canal, a lake and an eight-foot stone wall. Oak trees shade the gated entrance to International Village, at the center of which is the Bavarian clubhouse, built with a 24-foot ceiling and stone fireplace. Three-story residential buildings, each with about 76 condos, are grouped according to their architectural roots, bearing names like Yorkshire and Bordeaux. In the morning, residents gather at the pool for "aquacise."
Early marketing brochures for the complex, built in the 1970s, lured well-off retirees and snowbirds by promising "seventh heaven for people who insist on living first class."
Later, easy lending during the housing boom put the condos within reach of lower-income buyers. According to Michael Schenkel, a real-estate professional who owns three units in the complex and manages others, average prices for its one-bedroom condos peaked at about $120,000 in 2006.
Then Florida's sagging economy started costing residents their livelihoods and ability to pay. Ms. Garcia bought a two-bedroom in International Village in 2005 for $190,000, but she lost her job. With her cash dwindling as she went through a divorce, she says, she stopped making her $1,500 monthly mortgage payments in 2008.
Special assessments pushed up the monthly maintenance fee she owed to the homeowners association. Ms. Garcia didn't pay that, either.
Now, owners of about 128 of the 832 units at International Village, just over 15%, are 90 days or more behind on their fees. Banks won't lend on residences in the complex until the percentage of fee delinquents drops below 15, according to Mr. Schenkel.
The problems feed on themselves: "Banks will not write mortgages in communities with high delinquencies," he said, "and property values will not increase until we get financing from major banks." He says the value of one-bedroom units has tumbled as much as 75%.
With the homeowners association unable to collect maintenance from so many units, the complex is showing the wear: torn screen doors, roofs in need of repair, carpets getting shabby. Earlier this year, the total of delinquent fees passed $1 million, equal to a third of the association's annual budget.
"The foreclosure process takes over two years," Mr. Schenkel said. "You can get away with living for free for two years, not paying mortgage and maintenance."
Larry Kornblith takes a dim view of that. "The ones who are delinquent are parasites," the 82-year-old bluntly declared, relaxing near the pool in a Fila shirt and white Nike tennis shoes. "If you can't afford it, get out."
There are divisions, too, among the people current on their payments, because they don't all agree on how the homeowners association should deal with those who aren't.
Doug Meyers, a resident who owns more than a dozen units and is up to date on his payments, voted on the association's board against installing the fingerprint scanner. He was skeptical it would work. He says some neighbors accused him of protecting residents who were delinquent.
"They make it personal. It bothers me, personally. It hurts me," said Mr. Meyers, 54, adding that he now tries to avoid some fellow residents.
Others wanted the association to get tougher. Among these was Michele Tersigni, a 53-year-old resident who works as an administrator at a doctor's office. She won a seat on the homeowners-association board early this year and in May became its president.
She quickly made changes, such as hiring security guards directly instead of through a service, to save money. And, responding to residents' complaints about people staying on in homes they were no longer paying on, she hired new lawyers who would be more aggressive.
After foreclosure problems such as "robo-signing" of documents erupted this fall, new applications for court approval of foreclosures in Broward County—which totaled 1,693 in September—tumbled to 224 in November and 137 in December through the 23rd of the month, according to Legalprise Inc., a data firm. Countywide, foreclosure applications on more than 38,000 residential units are awaiting a court's approval to proceed.
The homeowners association countered the delays. Acting under the Florida law, it took temporary title to two condos in October and another in November. It plans four to five more in January. The move enables the association to rent out the units and get them back to producing income.
If lenders eventually foreclose on the condos, the association can start proceedings against the lenders to obtain some past-due maintenance fees. Lenders that take over units are liable for maintenance fees as long as they own them.
Ms. Tersigni says something had to be done because maintenance was slipping. "I just want to give people who are paying the rights they deserve," she said.
The village is abuzz, she added, with stories of owners not paying even though they could afford to. Ms. Tersigni's predecessor as board president, Scott Samuels—who admits to not being aggressive enough in dealing with the delinquency problem—said some owners were letting their units go into foreclosure while renting them out to tenants not registered with the association.
"Owners are collecting money, and we are not getting our money," he said.
Ms. Tersigni said some owners "make the money—they just refuse to pay because they can get away with it. They will put money aside and buy something else."
Ms. Garcia says that was never true in her case. "Every house has its own problems. You can't judge people," Ms. Garcia said. The homeowners association, to her mind, is "taking advantage of people who really have problems."
In August, about two years after she stopped paying her mortgage, Ms. Garcia lost her apartment to a foreclosure by the lender, although she continued to live in International Village in someone else's unit.
On the day she and her husband were vacating their own apartment, two female neighbors openly celebrated while making their way to the pool. "Thank God they are moving out," said one, a blue ball cap pulled over her eyes.
The other, wearing an olive-green dress and sunglasses, said she couldn't understand why Ms. Garcia had been allowed to stay so long. "It takes so long to get them out," she said, and then listed others she said were behind on payments.
Some residents are troubled by the tensions, which are reflected in a sign put up near the clubhouse: "The prior leadership did not take a pro-active position with delinquents who failed to pay. We must not let this happen again."
"I feel like we are being singled out, like we're not part of the community," said one young resident, who added that he wasn't going to provide a fingerprint for access to the clubhouse because he knew he would be denied. "What do they want next, my DNA?"
Franck Noel, 32, said the homeowners association moved to foreclose on his unit even after he paid $1,753.79 in late fees. When he brought his situation up at a board meeting it got unruly. Someone called the police, who Mr. Noel says stayed out by the gate and didn't enter the clubhouse.
The police department says it was informed there was hostility inside the clubhouse relating to a foreclosure and there was a request that the subject be removed. But no police report was filed on the incident.
Mr. Noel said a resident dragged him out by his collar. Ms. Tersigni said he left without being forcibly removed.
She acknowledged that the move against his residential unit was an error and said the association eventually recognized this and dealt with it.
Mr. Noel, noting that some board members own multiple units, alleged that the association was eager to foreclose because some on the board "want to buy these units cheap and own them for themselves." Mr. Meyers, a board member who owns a number of units, dismissed any talk of his manipulating the system as "lies" and "slander."
Said Mr. Noel: "I don't trust anybody here."
Thursday, December 30, 2010
For disabled feds, workers' comp better than retirement
The Federal Employees' Compensation Act of 1916 was never intended to be a retirement plan, but critics say for thousands of government employees, that's just what it's become.
That's because under the federal system, disabled employees unable to return to work get to choose between receiving higher-paying workers' compensation benefits or the lower-paying federal retirement plan.
For most, the choice is clear.
The money is almost always better under the workers' compensation program, which pays up to 75 percent of the employees' salaries tax-free, compared with the 60 percent they would receive under the retirement system.
Across government, more than 7,000 injured employees continue to collect workers' compensation after retirement age, and a few have even gotten payouts lasting decades well into their 90s, government records show.
Recent legislation by Sen. Susan Collins, Maine Republican, proposes to transfer workers' compensation recipients to the retirement system when they reach retirement age.
"These individuals aren't out on workers' comp for a period of time to recover from their injuries and then returning to work," she said at a recent Senate hearing, citing as an example 132 U.S. Postal Service employees age 90 or older continuing to currently receive workers' compensation.
"These individuals should be switched to the retirement system. They're never going to return to work over age 90.
"In most states, this could not happen," she added. "I would mention this is a reform we should implement governmentwide, and it would have real savings for the federal government and for the Postal Service," she said.
Dan Adcock, legislative director for the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association, said the organization opposes such a move. He said forcing employees into retirement represents a broken promise to injured workers, who in deciding to take workers' compensation payments have given up their rights to sue the government over their injuries.
He also said because of the injuries and time out of work, workers likely would not receive the retirement benefits they would be entitled to had they not been injured in the first place.
Government watchdog organizations welcome the move.
"Allowing the government to move workers' comp recipients to the retirement system would make fiscal sense even in a strong economic and fiscal situation, but under the current circumstances, it is imperative," said Pete Sepp, executive vice president of the National Taxpayers Union.
"There may not be huge savings at stake relative to the overall financial picture, but there's no reason to let this opportunity to slip by when the bottom line looks so terrible."
Moving workers' compensation recipients into retirement isn't a new idea.
In 1996, the General Accounting Office (since renamed the Government Accountability Office), the investigative arm of Congress, pointed out that a 1981 proposal by the Reagan administration included a provision to convert workers' compensation benefits to retirement benefits at age 65, but the measure did not become law.
In 2004, Shelby Hallmark, director of the Office of Workers' Compensation Programs at the Department of Labor, testified to Congress about the problem.
"Under current law, the thousands of long-term FECA (Federal Employees' Compensation Act) beneficiaries who are over normal retirement age have a choice between federal retirement system benefits and FECA benefits, but they overwhelmingly elect the latter because FECA benefits are typically far more generous," he said.
In a prepared statement to The Washington Times, the Labor Department said, "Language addressing this issue and other reform measures was put forth in the President's (fiscal) 2011 budget submission to Congress."
David Williams, vice president of policy for the Citizens Against Government Waste, a watchdog organization, said, "It's ridiculous to give people a choice" between receiving retirement benefits or collecting workers' compensation.
"It's just another example of why people are frustrated with the government," he said.
Over the years, several little-noticed government reports have raised concerns about the issue.
A 2005 audit by the Office of Inspector General for the Veterans Administration found that beneficiaries can remain on workers' compensation rolls until they die.
Citing Labor Department figures, the office estimated annual savings across the government of nearly $500 million by moving workers into a retirement system.
In 2003, the U.S. Postal Service's inspector general cited potential savings of $19 million over 10 years if only 255 totally disabled postal employees were required to retire.
That same report found there were 81 employees who had been collecting workers' compensation payments for between 40 and 50 years.
A spokesman for the Postal Service said the agency doesn't have any control over the federal workers' compensation system.
A 2007 report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) summed up both sides of the issue.
Under the current system, "FECA (the Federal Employees' Compensation Act) provides what could be considered a windfall for permanently disabled employees who otherwise would be retired, indefinitely paying them benefits that are higher than those offered by their retirement plans," the CBO noted.
On the other hand, the CBO pointed out that injured workers who reached retirement age might have higher living expenses than their non-injured counterparts "and thus need higher compensation."
According to the Labor Department, there are roughly 50,000 workers across government on the so called "periodic roll" of federal employees who haven't returned to work and who are receiving ongoing wage-loss payments.
Among those 50,000 recipients, about 7,200 workers who have been judged to have no potential to return to work are over the age of 65, according to the department.
"If an injured worker can demonstrate through medical evidence that he or she is still unable to work because of the original work-related injury, he or she continues to be eligible for FECA benefits annually adjusted for inflation for as long as that medical status continues, or until death," the department said in a statement.
That's because under the federal system, disabled employees unable to return to work get to choose between receiving higher-paying workers' compensation benefits or the lower-paying federal retirement plan.
For most, the choice is clear.
The money is almost always better under the workers' compensation program, which pays up to 75 percent of the employees' salaries tax-free, compared with the 60 percent they would receive under the retirement system.
Across government, more than 7,000 injured employees continue to collect workers' compensation after retirement age, and a few have even gotten payouts lasting decades well into their 90s, government records show.
Recent legislation by Sen. Susan Collins, Maine Republican, proposes to transfer workers' compensation recipients to the retirement system when they reach retirement age.
"These individuals aren't out on workers' comp for a period of time to recover from their injuries and then returning to work," she said at a recent Senate hearing, citing as an example 132 U.S. Postal Service employees age 90 or older continuing to currently receive workers' compensation.
"These individuals should be switched to the retirement system. They're never going to return to work over age 90.
"In most states, this could not happen," she added. "I would mention this is a reform we should implement governmentwide, and it would have real savings for the federal government and for the Postal Service," she said.
Dan Adcock, legislative director for the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association, said the organization opposes such a move. He said forcing employees into retirement represents a broken promise to injured workers, who in deciding to take workers' compensation payments have given up their rights to sue the government over their injuries.
He also said because of the injuries and time out of work, workers likely would not receive the retirement benefits they would be entitled to had they not been injured in the first place.
Government watchdog organizations welcome the move.
"Allowing the government to move workers' comp recipients to the retirement system would make fiscal sense even in a strong economic and fiscal situation, but under the current circumstances, it is imperative," said Pete Sepp, executive vice president of the National Taxpayers Union.
"There may not be huge savings at stake relative to the overall financial picture, but there's no reason to let this opportunity to slip by when the bottom line looks so terrible."
Moving workers' compensation recipients into retirement isn't a new idea.
In 1996, the General Accounting Office (since renamed the Government Accountability Office), the investigative arm of Congress, pointed out that a 1981 proposal by the Reagan administration included a provision to convert workers' compensation benefits to retirement benefits at age 65, but the measure did not become law.
In 2004, Shelby Hallmark, director of the Office of Workers' Compensation Programs at the Department of Labor, testified to Congress about the problem.
"Under current law, the thousands of long-term FECA (Federal Employees' Compensation Act) beneficiaries who are over normal retirement age have a choice between federal retirement system benefits and FECA benefits, but they overwhelmingly elect the latter because FECA benefits are typically far more generous," he said.
In a prepared statement to The Washington Times, the Labor Department said, "Language addressing this issue and other reform measures was put forth in the President's (fiscal) 2011 budget submission to Congress."
David Williams, vice president of policy for the Citizens Against Government Waste, a watchdog organization, said, "It's ridiculous to give people a choice" between receiving retirement benefits or collecting workers' compensation.
"It's just another example of why people are frustrated with the government," he said.
Over the years, several little-noticed government reports have raised concerns about the issue.
A 2005 audit by the Office of Inspector General for the Veterans Administration found that beneficiaries can remain on workers' compensation rolls until they die.
Citing Labor Department figures, the office estimated annual savings across the government of nearly $500 million by moving workers into a retirement system.
In 2003, the U.S. Postal Service's inspector general cited potential savings of $19 million over 10 years if only 255 totally disabled postal employees were required to retire.
That same report found there were 81 employees who had been collecting workers' compensation payments for between 40 and 50 years.
A spokesman for the Postal Service said the agency doesn't have any control over the federal workers' compensation system.
A 2007 report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) summed up both sides of the issue.
Under the current system, "FECA (the Federal Employees' Compensation Act) provides what could be considered a windfall for permanently disabled employees who otherwise would be retired, indefinitely paying them benefits that are higher than those offered by their retirement plans," the CBO noted.
On the other hand, the CBO pointed out that injured workers who reached retirement age might have higher living expenses than their non-injured counterparts "and thus need higher compensation."
According to the Labor Department, there are roughly 50,000 workers across government on the so called "periodic roll" of federal employees who haven't returned to work and who are receiving ongoing wage-loss payments.
Among those 50,000 recipients, about 7,200 workers who have been judged to have no potential to return to work are over the age of 65, according to the department.
"If an injured worker can demonstrate through medical evidence that he or she is still unable to work because of the original work-related injury, he or she continues to be eligible for FECA benefits annually adjusted for inflation for as long as that medical status continues, or until death," the department said in a statement.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Groupon Files for $950M Equity Financing RoundEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Groupon has been granted approval to raise up to $950 million in equity financing
EW YORK (TheStreet) -- Groupon has been granted approval to raise up to $950 million in equity financing. According to a report from Reuters, Gropupon made a filing with the state of Delaware on Dec. 17 saying that it intended to sell equity stakes in the company for $31.59 each, valuing the company at between $6.4 billion and $7.8 billion.Those equity stakes would automatically be converted into common share should the company go public at some point in the future. Groupon has been looking to grow as it thwarts offers from potential buyers and faces growing competition. Recently the company named a former Amazon(AMZN_) executive as its chief financial officer. Jason Child, formerly the vice president of international business for Amazon, will move to Chicago, where Groupon is based. Child's hiring was interpreted as a sign that Groupon is considering a near-term IPO. Earlier this month, Groupon rejected a $6 billion buyout from Google(GOOG_). The company, which offers discounts on restaurants, spas and other consumer services in more than 300 cities, is expected to generate revenue of around $800 million, according to reports. Amazon recently invested $175 million in LivingSocial, Groupon's biggest rival.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Indiana Bill Would Allow Cities to Declare Bankruptcy
A bill in the Indiana legislature would allow local governments to declare bankruptcy. Given Governor Mitch Daniels is backing this plan, I expect it to pass. Best of all, the bill gives an emergency manager the ability to renegotiate labor contracts, and approve or veto contracts, expenses, loans and hiring.
Please consider Bill would allow Indiana cities to declare bankruptcy
A plan backed by Gov. Mitch Daniels would allow local governments in Indiana to ask for a state takeover and declare bankruptcy if necessary. Daniels says he hopes there won't be many local governments that seek bankruptcy, but says the state needs to have the law clarified and on standby in case it happens.I salute this bill and look forward to the bankruptcy of a handful of Indiana cities. Gary has a population of around 100,000 and is Indiana's fifth largest city. Lake Station has a population of about 14,000.
Republican state Sen. Ed Charbonneau of Valparaiso is sponsoring a bill to outline the procedure. His bill would allow a local government in financial trouble to ask the Indiana Distressed Unit Appeals Board to appoint an “emergency manager” to run the government.
The emergency manager would have the power to cut the budget, renegotiate labor contracts, and approve or veto contracts, expenses, loans and hiring.
The bill states that if the emergency manager can't turn around the local government's finances, the unit would be allowed to seek federal bankruptcy protection.
The State Board of Accounts in recent audits has questioned the abilities of the city governments in Gary and Lake Station to “continue as a going concern” because of continued high city spending despite significantly reduced city revenues because of statewide property tax caps.
How the GOP plans to block Obama’s executive branch power next year
In the nearly two months since the November midterms, the conventional wisdom has centered on the idea that President Obama's agenda will be largely protected from an influx of Republicans by the Senate's arcane rules and his own veto pen. With 47 members in the 112th Congress, the GOP will lack a majority, let alone a supermajority, to pass the legislation they'd need to pass to undo Obama's accomplishments and blunt his progress -- as if he'd sign those bills anyway.
But Republicans are all too aware of this conundrum, and have been looking for ways around it. What they found is an obscure authority provided by a 1996 law called the Congressional Review Act. It provides Congress with an expedited process by which to evaluate executive branch regulations, and then give the President a chance to agree or disagree.
House Republicans will have carte blanche next year, and will be able to pass as many of these "resolutions of disapproval" as they want. The key is that a small minority in the Senate can force votes on them as well, and they require only simple-majority support to pass. If they can find four conservative Democrats to vote with them on these resolutions, they can force Obama to serially veto politically potent measures to block unpopular regulations, and create a chilling effect on the federal agencies charged with writing them.
"I think that's one of many tactics that will be used," Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told me in an interview on the last day of the 111th Congress.
"We've got several bills -- I've got one the REINS Act, which would force any regulation that costs over $100 million to come back to Congress for approval," Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) told me Wednesday. "There's several other things. We're looking at ways to do that, either through oversight, but it's clearly out of control and I think what the FCC's done has gotten everyone alarmed that they're ignoring the courts and the Congress there in the administration."
Earlier this year, Republican leaders endorsed REINS (Regulations from the Executive In Need of Scrutiny) which, if passed and signed, would give them much broader authority over the rule-making and regulatory process.
But it won't survive a filibuster, let alone a veto. The CRA will be the GOP's most effective tool.
"They're pushing through a lot of bad policy at the executive level," DeMint said. "We need to figure out how to rein it in."
Democrats aren't terribly worried. But they're definitely annoyed. In an interview Wednesday, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) -- outgoing chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee -- laid it out.
They can pass legislation, presumably through the House where they have a strong majority, but I can't see them getting 60 votes [in the Senate] on a lot of what they say they want to do. They can attach amendments to the appropriations bills, but I don't see how that would be successful because the President can refuse to sign it, the Senate refuse to pass it. They could use the ... Review Act. Force votes. If they got a majority, the President could veto it.
"I think what they're going to do is try to keep on dramatizing the issues that they think are helpful to them," Waxman said. "The next two years I expect all their actions to be campaign oriented.... They're all about messaging, they're all about power, they're all about politics. What they don't seem to be concerned about is governing."
There's a lot to that critique. But it won't deter the GOP.
"We need to make sure Americans know what's going on," DeMint said.
Monday, December 27, 2010
Real estate market expected to hit bottom in 2012
As South Florida's housing crisis enters its sixth year, steep price declines have leveled off, helping to lift the gloom that once gripped the market.
Still, experts envision more angst for sellers in 2011 as uncertainty on the job front and an avalanche of looming foreclosures conspire to keep home values depressed.
Other sectors of real estate also are projected to remain weak next year, although one analyst says condominium pricing along the coast may start to rebound.
"If we're lucky, we'll start seeing a recovery in the second half of 2012," said Lewis Goodkin, a longtime housing consultant in Miami.
Goodkin's forecast generally matches one offered by Moody's Analytics, a West Chester, Pa., data provider. It says Broward County prices for existing homes will tumble another 16 percent or so and hit bottom in the latter part of 2012.
Moody's outlook for Palm Beach County is slightly better: Prices will slide another 11 percent, reaching bottom in the second quarter of 2012.
If those predictions hold true, median prices in the two counties will have plummeted by close to 60 percent since peaking in November 2005. Palm Beach County's median topped out at $421,500, while Broward's median soared to $391,000, according to the Florida Realtors.
Demand from short-term investors and lax lending standards fueled a historic run-up in prices from 2000 to 2005, before the market tanked.
Analysts insisted the price increases were unsustainable, but few anticipated such a calamitous fall because prior to 2006, national home prices hadn't declined on an annual basis in the post- World War II era.
Cheryl Baker, a New Jersey resident who is considering a move to South Florida, said she and other buyers have to balance their concerns about further price declines with plans to live their lives.
"You can't wait around forever," she said.
Here are the 2011 outlooks for other aspects of the real estate industry:
Condos
The median prices for existing condos in Broward and Palm Beach counties stayed below $100,000 for most of 2010, but recent bulk deals by investors could help boost condo values east of Interstate 95 next year.
Bulk buyers snapped up empty condos by the dozens in a rash of deals in Broward and Palm Beach counties. The largest: A Miami company's $160 million purchase of the mortgage on Trump Hollywood, which lenders took back from the Related Group last month. Only about 10 percent of the 200 luxury units have sold.
In Palm Beach County, a private equity firm paid $117.3 million for the remaining 146 oceanfront condos at 2700 N. Ocean Drive on Singer Island in Riviera Beach. The firm brought in Ritz-Carlton to lend its name to the project, now known as the Ritz-Carlton Residences.
Peter Zalewski, principal at CondoVultures.com, a Bal Harbour consulting firm, said bargain hunters are likely to be disappointed as bulk buyers gradually increase prices.
"Now, suddenly, if you're looking to get X price for a condo, you'll have to settle for something out west," he said.
New homes
Housing starts hit bottom in South Florida in 2009, and construction activity remained mostly soft in 2010, said Brad Hunter, head of the Metrostudy research firm in Palm Beach Gardens.
Local builders press ahead, but don't expect a major turnaround in 2011. "It's pretty hard for home builders to compete with values in the used-home market," said Anthony Trella, an industry consultant in Deerfield Beach.
C.C. Devco's 1,600-home Monterra development in Cooper City is a popular draw for new buyers in Broward. Minto Communities of Coconut Creek and Centerline Homes of Coral Springs also remain active in Broward, while Toll Brothers is returning to the county with new homes after buying Parkland Golf & Country Club from WCI Communities Inc.
In Palm Beach County, construction continues at Valencia Reserve, a 55-and-over community west of Boynton Beach. Sunrise-based GL Homes sold 250 homes there this year — 27 percent of its total of 920 companywide.
In fact, GL is faring better than many builders. Through Sept. 30, privately held GL had a 41 percent increase in overall home closings, the third-best showing in the nation, according to Hanley Wood Market Intelligence, an independent real estate research firm.
GL plans to open new developments next year in Boca Raton and Naples.
Division President Marcie DePlaza said the inventory of resale homes is down in many of the company's markets. And she doesn't expect mortgage rates to increase dramatically.
While it's tougher to get loans, DePlaza insists that plenty of qualified buyers remain.
"It's not easy," she said. "But if you really work hard at giving buyers a good product, people will still come out to buy homes."
Commercial real estate
Retail, office and industrial vacancies have been rising in recent years, but that trend is ending as more tenants seek landlord concessions, such as free rent, real estate brokers say.
BGT Partners, an Aventura-based digital media advertising company, recently signed a lease to move to bigger digs at the Village at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach. The retail and office center once had about 80,000 square feet of office vacancies, but by year's end it was down to about 30,000 square feet.
"Tenants are acting on their concerns that they'll miss their window of opportunity," said Jonathan Kingsley, managing director of Grubb & Ellis Co. of Boca Raton and Miami.
Commercial foreclosures likely will continue, however. Already this year, lenders took back a 137,000-square-foot former Office Depot call center in Boca Raton. An 85,000-square-foot Delray Beach retail center anchored by PetSmart and Sports Authority also is facing the same fate.
Amid the economic turmoil of the past few years, commercial property owners negotiated with lenders to avoid foreclosure. Now, in many instances, lenders realize they can do only so much, Kingsley said.
"They just can't help the borrowers any more, and they're moving forward with a true foreclosure," he said. "Over the next few years, there will be some high-quality commercial assets available."
Paul Owers can be reached at Powers@SunSentinel.com or 561-243-6529.
Still, experts envision more angst for sellers in 2011 as uncertainty on the job front and an avalanche of looming foreclosures conspire to keep home values depressed.
Other sectors of real estate also are projected to remain weak next year, although one analyst says condominium pricing along the coast may start to rebound.
"If we're lucky, we'll start seeing a recovery in the second half of 2012," said Lewis Goodkin, a longtime housing consultant in Miami.
Goodkin's forecast generally matches one offered by Moody's Analytics, a West Chester, Pa., data provider. It says Broward County prices for existing homes will tumble another 16 percent or so and hit bottom in the latter part of 2012.
Moody's outlook for Palm Beach County is slightly better: Prices will slide another 11 percent, reaching bottom in the second quarter of 2012.
If those predictions hold true, median prices in the two counties will have plummeted by close to 60 percent since peaking in November 2005. Palm Beach County's median topped out at $421,500, while Broward's median soared to $391,000, according to the Florida Realtors.
Demand from short-term investors and lax lending standards fueled a historic run-up in prices from 2000 to 2005, before the market tanked.
Analysts insisted the price increases were unsustainable, but few anticipated such a calamitous fall because prior to 2006, national home prices hadn't declined on an annual basis in the post- World War II era.
Cheryl Baker, a New Jersey resident who is considering a move to South Florida, said she and other buyers have to balance their concerns about further price declines with plans to live their lives.
"You can't wait around forever," she said.
Here are the 2011 outlooks for other aspects of the real estate industry:
Condos
The median prices for existing condos in Broward and Palm Beach counties stayed below $100,000 for most of 2010, but recent bulk deals by investors could help boost condo values east of Interstate 95 next year.
Bulk buyers snapped up empty condos by the dozens in a rash of deals in Broward and Palm Beach counties. The largest: A Miami company's $160 million purchase of the mortgage on Trump Hollywood, which lenders took back from the Related Group last month. Only about 10 percent of the 200 luxury units have sold.
In Palm Beach County, a private equity firm paid $117.3 million for the remaining 146 oceanfront condos at 2700 N. Ocean Drive on Singer Island in Riviera Beach. The firm brought in Ritz-Carlton to lend its name to the project, now known as the Ritz-Carlton Residences.
Peter Zalewski, principal at CondoVultures.com, a Bal Harbour consulting firm, said bargain hunters are likely to be disappointed as bulk buyers gradually increase prices.
"Now, suddenly, if you're looking to get X price for a condo, you'll have to settle for something out west," he said.
New homes
Housing starts hit bottom in South Florida in 2009, and construction activity remained mostly soft in 2010, said Brad Hunter, head of the Metrostudy research firm in Palm Beach Gardens.
Local builders press ahead, but don't expect a major turnaround in 2011. "It's pretty hard for home builders to compete with values in the used-home market," said Anthony Trella, an industry consultant in Deerfield Beach.
C.C. Devco's 1,600-home Monterra development in Cooper City is a popular draw for new buyers in Broward. Minto Communities of Coconut Creek and Centerline Homes of Coral Springs also remain active in Broward, while Toll Brothers is returning to the county with new homes after buying Parkland Golf & Country Club from WCI Communities Inc.
In Palm Beach County, construction continues at Valencia Reserve, a 55-and-over community west of Boynton Beach. Sunrise-based GL Homes sold 250 homes there this year — 27 percent of its total of 920 companywide.
In fact, GL is faring better than many builders. Through Sept. 30, privately held GL had a 41 percent increase in overall home closings, the third-best showing in the nation, according to Hanley Wood Market Intelligence, an independent real estate research firm.
GL plans to open new developments next year in Boca Raton and Naples.
Division President Marcie DePlaza said the inventory of resale homes is down in many of the company's markets. And she doesn't expect mortgage rates to increase dramatically.
While it's tougher to get loans, DePlaza insists that plenty of qualified buyers remain.
"It's not easy," she said. "But if you really work hard at giving buyers a good product, people will still come out to buy homes."
Commercial real estate
Retail, office and industrial vacancies have been rising in recent years, but that trend is ending as more tenants seek landlord concessions, such as free rent, real estate brokers say.
BGT Partners, an Aventura-based digital media advertising company, recently signed a lease to move to bigger digs at the Village at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach. The retail and office center once had about 80,000 square feet of office vacancies, but by year's end it was down to about 30,000 square feet.
"Tenants are acting on their concerns that they'll miss their window of opportunity," said Jonathan Kingsley, managing director of Grubb & Ellis Co. of Boca Raton and Miami.
Commercial foreclosures likely will continue, however. Already this year, lenders took back a 137,000-square-foot former Office Depot call center in Boca Raton. An 85,000-square-foot Delray Beach retail center anchored by PetSmart and Sports Authority also is facing the same fate.
Amid the economic turmoil of the past few years, commercial property owners negotiated with lenders to avoid foreclosure. Now, in many instances, lenders realize they can do only so much, Kingsley said.
"They just can't help the borrowers any more, and they're moving forward with a true foreclosure," he said. "Over the next few years, there will be some high-quality commercial assets available."
Paul Owers can be reached at Powers@SunSentinel.com or 561-243-6529.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Houston Mayor Wants Pension Benefit Cuts
The Houston Chronicle reports Houston mayor wants benefits cut, takes fight to Legislature
The mayor ought to grant Gonzales his watered-down wish and outsource police and fire to the lowest bidder. Then again, the City of Houston is Bankrupt (So are California, Oregon, and Pension Plans in General) so arguably the best thing for Houston to do is admit it and file for bankruptcy. The police and fire departments can then see what benefits they get in bankruptcy court.
Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
C
Instability in its three pension systems is the greatest threat to Houston's financial solvency, city officials and financial analysts say.The firefighters don't want "watered-down collective bargaining". Well, I don't want collective bargaining at all. Collective bargaining is one of the problems.
Within three years, according to an actuarial study commissioned by the city, the pension for firefighters will require the city to contribute 45 percent of its payroll costs for that retirement plan, a burden Mayor Annise Parker says is unsustainable.
The other two plans are in even worse shape. The police and municipal employee pensions are underfunded by $2.1 billion, roughly the equivalent of what the city spends annually for public safety and general operations.
"The bottom line is the whole system is completely unsustainable with current benefit levels and the city's financial position," said John Diamond, a Rice University public finance fellow and governmental tax consultant.
The opening salvo in what may be a long fight over city pensions is expected to take place in the upcoming state legislative session. The city is taking direct aim at the firefighters' pension, seeking help from state lawmakers to force pension officials to negotiate in hopes they can reduce benefits and lower annual contributions.
"Voters elected me to make tough choices, and voters elected me to get the city's budget in order," Parker said. "We are hemorrhaging right now … in some of our pension costs. … There's a difference between a fair pension and a gold-plated pension, and the citizens of Houston have to know that we can find a fair balance in there."
Christopher Gonzales, executive director of the firefighter pension, said the fund does not want to join the city in a "meet and confer" agreement, a sort of watered-down collective bargaining. Those negotiations with the two other employee pensions in recent years have only resulted in reduced benefits for the workers and annual contributions to the system that were not enough to ensure its financial security, he said.
The mayor ought to grant Gonzales his watered-down wish and outsource police and fire to the lowest bidder. Then again, the City of Houston is Bankrupt (So are California, Oregon, and Pension Plans in General) so arguably the best thing for Houston to do is admit it and file for bankruptcy. The police and fire departments can then see what benefits they get in bankruptcy court.
Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
C
Budget; New York City's $76 Billion Shortfall;
The Empire Center for New York State Policy discusses New York's Exploding Pension Costs
Public pension costs in New York are mushrooming—just when taxpayers can least afford it. Over the next five years, tax-funded annual contributions to the New York State Teachers’ Retirement System (NYSTRS) will more than quadruple, while contributions to the New York State and Local Retirement System (NYSLRS) will more than double, according to estimates presented in this report. New York City’s budgeted pension costs, which already have increased tenfold in the past decade, will rise by at least 20 percent more in the next three years, according to the city’s financial plan projections.Note that those shortfalls assume New York meets its expected rates of return of 7.5-8.0% based on plan. The odds of that happening are slim. Please see the article for more facts, figures, and charts.
NYSTRS and NYSLRS are “fully funded” by government actuarial standards, but we estimate they have combined funding shortfalls of $120 billion when their liabilities are measured using private-sector accounting rules. Based on a similar alternative standard, New York City’s pension funds had unfunded liabilities of $76 billion as of mid-2008—before their net asset values plunged in the wake of the financial crisis.
In November 2003, the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research issued a report de-scribing New York State’s public pension system as “a ticking fiscal time bomb.”
The bomb is now exploding—and New Yorkers will be coping with the fallout for years to come.
New York’s state and local taxpayers support three public pension funds encom-passing eight different retirement systems—five covering different groups of New York City employees, and three covering employees of the state, local governments, school districts and public authorities outside the city. Between 2007 and 2009, these funds lost a collective total of more than $109 billion, or 29 percent of their combined assets. Two of the three funds ended their 2010 fiscal years with asset values below fiscal 2000 levels; the third has barely grown in the past decade.
Meanwhile, the number of pension fund retirees and other beneficiaries has risen 20 percent and total pension benefit payments have doubled in the past 10 years. Tax-payers will now have to make up for the resulting pension fund shortfalls.
Assuming the pension systems all hit their rate-of-return targets:
- Taxpayer contributions to NYSTRS could more than quadruple, rising from about $900 million as of 2010-11 to about $4.5 billion by 2015-16. The projected increase is equivalent to 18 percent of current school property tax levies.
- State and local employer contributions to NYSLRS will more than double over the next five years, adding nearly $4 billion to annual taxpayer costs even if most opt to convert a portion of their higher pension bills into IOUs that won’t be paid off until the 2020s.
- New York City’s budgeted pension contributions, which already have in-creased by more than 500 percent ($5.8 billion) in the last decade, are projected to increase at least 20 percent more, or $1.4 billion, in the next three years.
Pension costs would be even higher if New York’s state and local retirement funds were not calculating pension contributions based on permissive government ac-counting standards, which allow them to understate their true liabilities.
While New York’s two state pension systems officially are deemed “fully funded,” we estimate that NYSLRS is $71 billion short of what it will need to fund its pension obligations, and that NYSTRS has a funding shortfall of $49 billion, based on valua-tion standards applied to corporate pension funds.
New York City’s pension systems are not as flush as NYSLRS and NYSTRS, which is the main reason why the city spends more for pension contributions than all of the state’s other public employers combined. The official “funded ratios” for the five city retirement systems ranged from 56 percent to 80 percent as of June 30, 2008. This would indicate they were $42 billion below fully funded status before the financial market meltdown wiped out more than 20 percent of their net assets. However, the city actuary also has computed alternative measures of funded status based on the kind of more conservative assumptions used in the private sector. These measures show the city’s pension system was underfunded by $76 billion in 2008.
The shortfalls in the city systems undoubtedly have grown much larger in the last two years, but the full dimensions of the problem won’t be known until the pension plans issue their financial reports for fiscal 2010.
Pensions Eat 70% of Decatur, Illinois' Budget;
Public pension woes continue to escalate. Here are three more stories highlighting problems at various cities in Illinois, New York, and Texas.
Pensions Eat 70% Decatur, Illinois Budget
Please consider Pensions eat up growing portion of city of Decatur's property tax revenue
As the Decatur City Council prepares to convene Monday to discuss setting its portion of the local property tax levy, the largest burden on those revenues - funding the pensions of police, firefighters and city employees - remains a persistent and growing challenge.Long-term fixes won't do Decatur much good now if it runs out of money a few years from now. Property tax hikes certainly are not the answer either. I suggest bankruptcy, followed by outsourcing the police and fire departments to the lowest qualified bidder.
City Manager Ryan McCrady and Finance Director Ron Neufeld highlighted some telling statistics in the city's attempts to maintain its pension funds over the last decade.
"We've been putting in what we're required to put in, but the unfunded liability keeps growing," McCrady said.
In 2001, about 30 percent of the city's property tax levy went into paying down the pensions of its retired police and firefighters. In 2011, 70 percent of it will go toward pensions, even as recent years have seen cuts to other services that draw their funds from the same source, including the Decatur Public Library.
The state legislature sets all of the rules for pension contributions, and over the years it has mandated that municipalities make ever increasing payments. The result, McCrady said, has been a higher and higher cost for the city.
Recent pension reforms that passed the General Assembly and await the Gov. Pat Quinn's signature could provide long-term relief, McCrady said, but in the short term, city staff and the council have to figure out how to meet their obligations in a fiscal climate that leaves little breathing room.
"It's to the point now where taxpayers can't sustain a property tax levy to the point where we can fund these out of the property taxes," McCrady said. "We're starting to draw from other operations to pay for these obligations."
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Cairo hits back at Moscow-Jerusalem-S. Sudan ties with anti-Israel spy charges
A secret meeting in Tel Aviv last Thursday, Dec. 16 between the high-ranking Russian emissary Mikhail Margelov and representatives of the South Sudanese semi-autonomous government so infuriated Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak that he ordered his intelligence minister Gen. Omar Suleiman to hit back by accusing Israel of recruiting Egyptian agents to spy on Lebanon and Syria.
According to debkafile's intelligence sources, Cairo has only just begun settling the score with Jerusalem for bringing Russia into its quiet support for oil-rich South Sudan, whose President Silva Kiir Mayardit plans to lead his Christian-dominated province to independence of the Muslim North in a referendum on Jan. 9.
The Egyptians suspect that the recent delivery of Russian arms to South Sudan, mainly combat helicopters, is part of a joint Russian-Israeli armament program.
Sudan is not expected to take its breakup lying down, especially when a separate referendum on the same day may lead a second province Abyei to secede, a double blow to Khartoum's oil industry: 85 percent of its oil is pumped in the South and most of its exports are piped through Abyei to Port Sudan on the Red Sea.
Margelov, who is Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation, as well as the Chairman of the European Democrat group of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, had previously opposed South Sudan's secession, voicing fears of "a new Somalia" emerging. However, after appreciating its inevitability after decades of bloody war, the Kremlin changed its tune.
Margelov's get-together with South Sudanese officials last Thursday - first revealed by the Israel-Russian IZRus website and believed to have been set up by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman – was noted in the several world capitals which are keeping an eagle eye on the January 9 plebiscites.
Four days later, Cairo announced Egyptian Tareq Abd Al Rezak Hassan had been arrested and charged with working for the Israeli Mossad. Not a day has gone by since without lurid revelations about his clandestine activities.
The Sudan question was pressing enough to bring Hosni Mubarak and the Libyan ruler Muammar Qaddai on a visit to Khartoum On Dec. 21 for talks with President Omar Bashir. They arrived together to try and persuade him to postpone the referenda fearing they would lead to more bloodshed. But their agendas were essentially quite different:
Qaddafi abhors the very notion of a new oil power rising next door to Libya - and especially under Christian rule. Mubarak fears the momentous changes overtaking Sudan will upset the colonial treaties which grant Egypt 85 percent of Nile waters. Most of it comes from the river's main tributary, the Blue Nile, which flows in from Ethiopia; less from the White Nile which rises in Uganda. The two tributaries merge near Khartoum and flow north as a single river which has been Egypt's lifeline for millennia.
Egypt feels threatened not only by the Sudan upheavals to come, but by a new initiative launched by Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi which challenges Egypt's monopoly over Nile Waters and demands equitable shares for the river's seven upstream nations, most of them extremely poor.
The Mubarak government regards its control of the Nile an existential issue and will if need be fight for it. Zenawi remarked recently: "I am not worried that the Egyptians will suddenly invade Ethiopia. Nobody who has tried that has lived to tell the story."
Both Cairo and Addis Ababa are therefore sharpening their teeth over the Nile.
And that is the point at which Israel has entered the picture, debkafile's intelligence and military sources report.
President Kiir maintains a covert office in Tel Aviv, the hub through which his diplomatic, military and intelligence relations with Israel are funneled. Egypt and western military sources believe Israel has been steadily arming South Sudan through a third party, thereby backing its drive for independence.
Ethiopia, too, is a friend of Israel and maintains strong military and intelligence ties with the Jewish state. This month, Cairo was dismayed to discover that Israel had developed connections and influence in East African countries south of Egypt powerful enough to override the Mubarak government's dominant role on the Palestinian issue.
For Mubarak, the covert meeting between Russian and South Sudanese officials in Tel Aviv, of all places, was the last straw. He saw it as the culmination of an Israeli gambit to enlist Russian support for the new ventures Jerusalem had launched as a disconnect from Washington's falling prestige in the Middle East and a means of circumventing the Iranian-fueled radicalization of its neighbors.
Cairo thereupon put its foot down on Israel's Sudan venture, making the Mossad the object of its ire.
Tareq Abd Al Rezak Hassan is now charged with conducting contacts with Israel harmful to state security and hostile activities against Syria. Indictments have also been filed against "Eddy and Moshe Joseph Dimor," described as Hassan's handlers,
Cairo has taken care not to go all the way and charge Israel with spying against Egypt – only other Arab states. But it has made the affair public as a warning to Israel to back off from its diplomatic forays in East Africa or face more embarrassments.
Cairo hits back at Moscow-Jerusalem-S. Sudan ties with anti-Israel spy charges
A secret meeting in Tel Aviv last Thursday, Dec. 16 between the high-ranking Russian emissary Mikhail Margelov and representatives of the South Sudanese semi-autonomous government so infuriated Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak that he ordered his intelligence minister Gen. Omar Suleiman to hit back by accusing Israel of recruiting Egyptian agents to spy on Lebanon and Syria.
According to debkafile's intelligence sources, Cairo has only just begun settling the score with Jerusalem for bringing Russia into its quiet support for oil-rich South Sudan, whose President Silva Kiir Mayardit plans to lead his Christian-dominated province to independence of the Muslim North in a referendum on Jan. 9.
The Egyptians suspect that the recent delivery of Russian arms to South Sudan, mainly combat helicopters, is part of a joint Russian-Israeli armament program.
Sudan is not expected to take its breakup lying down, especially when a separate referendum on the same day may lead a second province Abyei to secede, a double blow to Khartoum's oil industry: 85 percent of its oil is pumped in the South and most of its exports are piped through Abyei to Port Sudan on the Red Sea.
Margelov, who is Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation, as well as the Chairman of the European Democrat group of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, had previously opposed South Sudan's secession, voicing fears of "a new Somalia" emerging. However, after appreciating its inevitability after decades of bloody war, the Kremlin changed its tune.
Margelov's get-together with South Sudanese officials last Thursday - first revealed by the Israel-Russian IZRus website and believed to have been set up by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman – was noted in the several world capitals which are keeping an eagle eye on the January 9 plebiscites.
Four days later, Cairo announced Egyptian Tareq Abd Al Rezak Hassan had been arrested and charged with working for the Israeli Mossad. Not a day has gone by since without lurid revelations about his clandestine activities.
The Sudan question was pressing enough to bring Hosni Mubarak and the Libyan ruler Muammar Qaddai on a visit to Khartoum On Dec. 21 for talks with President Omar Bashir. They arrived together to try and persuade him to postpone the referenda fearing they would lead to more bloodshed. But their agendas were essentially quite different:
Qaddafi abhors the very notion of a new oil power rising next door to Libya - and especially under Christian rule. Mubarak fears the momentous changes overtaking Sudan will upset the colonial treaties which grant Egypt 85 percent of Nile waters. Most of it comes from the river's main tributary, the Blue Nile, which flows in from Ethiopia; less from the White Nile which rises in Uganda. The two tributaries merge near Khartoum and flow north as a single river which has been Egypt's lifeline for millennia.
Egypt feels threatened not only by the Sudan upheavals to come, but by a new initiative launched by Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi which challenges Egypt's monopoly over Nile Waters and demands equitable shares for the river's seven upstream nations, most of them extremely poor.
The Mubarak government regards its control of the Nile an existential issue and will if need be fight for it. Zenawi remarked recently: "I am not worried that the Egyptians will suddenly invade Ethiopia. Nobody who has tried that has lived to tell the story."
Both Cairo and Addis Ababa are therefore sharpening their teeth over the Nile.
And that is the point at which Israel has entered the picture, debkafile's intelligence and military sources report.
President Kiir maintains a covert office in Tel Aviv, the hub through which his diplomatic, military and intelligence relations with Israel are funneled. Egypt and western military sources believe Israel has been steadily arming South Sudan through a third party, thereby backing its drive for independence.
Ethiopia, too, is a friend of Israel and maintains strong military and intelligence ties with the Jewish state. This month, Cairo was dismayed to discover that Israel had developed connections and influence in East African countries south of Egypt powerful enough to override the Mubarak government's dominant role on the Palestinian issue.
For Mubarak, the covert meeting between Russian and South Sudanese officials in Tel Aviv, of all places, was the last straw. He saw it as the culmination of an Israeli gambit to enlist Russian support for the new ventures Jerusalem had launched as a disconnect from Washington's falling prestige in the Middle East and a means of circumventing the Iranian-fueled radicalization of its neighbors.
Cairo thereupon put its foot down on Israel's Sudan venture, making the Mossad the object of its ire.
Tareq Abd Al Rezak Hassan is now charged with conducting contacts with Israel harmful to state security and hostile activities against Syria. Indictments have also been filed against "Eddy and Moshe Joseph Dimor," described as Hassan's handlers,
Cairo has taken care not to go all the way and charge Israel with spying against Egypt – only other Arab states. But it has made the affair public as a warning to Israel to back off from its diplomatic forays in East Africa or face more embarrassments.
According to debkafile's intelligence sources, Cairo has only just begun settling the score with Jerusalem for bringing Russia into its quiet support for oil-rich South Sudan, whose President Silva Kiir Mayardit plans to lead his Christian-dominated province to independence of the Muslim North in a referendum on Jan. 9.
The Egyptians suspect that the recent delivery of Russian arms to South Sudan, mainly combat helicopters, is part of a joint Russian-Israeli armament program.
Sudan is not expected to take its breakup lying down, especially when a separate referendum on the same day may lead a second province Abyei to secede, a double blow to Khartoum's oil industry: 85 percent of its oil is pumped in the South and most of its exports are piped through Abyei to Port Sudan on the Red Sea.
Margelov, who is Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation, as well as the Chairman of the European Democrat group of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, had previously opposed South Sudan's secession, voicing fears of "a new Somalia" emerging. However, after appreciating its inevitability after decades of bloody war, the Kremlin changed its tune.
Margelov's get-together with South Sudanese officials last Thursday - first revealed by the Israel-Russian IZRus website and believed to have been set up by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman – was noted in the several world capitals which are keeping an eagle eye on the January 9 plebiscites.
Four days later, Cairo announced Egyptian Tareq Abd Al Rezak Hassan had been arrested and charged with working for the Israeli Mossad. Not a day has gone by since without lurid revelations about his clandestine activities.
The Sudan question was pressing enough to bring Hosni Mubarak and the Libyan ruler Muammar Qaddai on a visit to Khartoum On Dec. 21 for talks with President Omar Bashir. They arrived together to try and persuade him to postpone the referenda fearing they would lead to more bloodshed. But their agendas were essentially quite different:
Qaddafi abhors the very notion of a new oil power rising next door to Libya - and especially under Christian rule. Mubarak fears the momentous changes overtaking Sudan will upset the colonial treaties which grant Egypt 85 percent of Nile waters. Most of it comes from the river's main tributary, the Blue Nile, which flows in from Ethiopia; less from the White Nile which rises in Uganda. The two tributaries merge near Khartoum and flow north as a single river which has been Egypt's lifeline for millennia.
Egypt feels threatened not only by the Sudan upheavals to come, but by a new initiative launched by Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi which challenges Egypt's monopoly over Nile Waters and demands equitable shares for the river's seven upstream nations, most of them extremely poor.
The Mubarak government regards its control of the Nile an existential issue and will if need be fight for it. Zenawi remarked recently: "I am not worried that the Egyptians will suddenly invade Ethiopia. Nobody who has tried that has lived to tell the story."
Both Cairo and Addis Ababa are therefore sharpening their teeth over the Nile.
And that is the point at which Israel has entered the picture, debkafile's intelligence and military sources report.
President Kiir maintains a covert office in Tel Aviv, the hub through which his diplomatic, military and intelligence relations with Israel are funneled. Egypt and western military sources believe Israel has been steadily arming South Sudan through a third party, thereby backing its drive for independence.
Ethiopia, too, is a friend of Israel and maintains strong military and intelligence ties with the Jewish state. This month, Cairo was dismayed to discover that Israel had developed connections and influence in East African countries south of Egypt powerful enough to override the Mubarak government's dominant role on the Palestinian issue.
For Mubarak, the covert meeting between Russian and South Sudanese officials in Tel Aviv, of all places, was the last straw. He saw it as the culmination of an Israeli gambit to enlist Russian support for the new ventures Jerusalem had launched as a disconnect from Washington's falling prestige in the Middle East and a means of circumventing the Iranian-fueled radicalization of its neighbors.
Cairo thereupon put its foot down on Israel's Sudan venture, making the Mossad the object of its ire.
Tareq Abd Al Rezak Hassan is now charged with conducting contacts with Israel harmful to state security and hostile activities against Syria. Indictments have also been filed against "Eddy and Moshe Joseph Dimor," described as Hassan's handlers,
Cairo has taken care not to go all the way and charge Israel with spying against Egypt – only other Arab states. But it has made the affair public as a warning to Israel to back off from its diplomatic forays in East Africa or face more embarrassments.
Cairo hits back at Moscow-Jerusalem-S. Sudan ties with anti-Israel spy charges
A secret meeting in Tel Aviv last Thursday, Dec. 16 between the high-ranking Russian emissary Mikhail Margelov and representatives of the South Sudanese semi-autonomous government so infuriated Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak that he ordered his intelligence minister Gen. Omar Suleiman to hit back by accusing Israel of recruiting Egyptian agents to spy on Lebanon and Syria.
According to debkafile's intelligence sources, Cairo has only just begun settling the score with Jerusalem for bringing Russia into its quiet support for oil-rich South Sudan, whose President Silva Kiir Mayardit plans to lead his Christian-dominated province to independence of the Muslim North in a referendum on Jan. 9.
The Egyptians suspect that the recent delivery of Russian arms to South Sudan, mainly combat helicopters, is part of a joint Russian-Israeli armament program.
Sudan is not expected to take its breakup lying down, especially when a separate referendum on the same day may lead a second province Abyei to secede, a double blow to Khartoum's oil industry: 85 percent of its oil is pumped in the South and most of its exports are piped through Abyei to Port Sudan on the Red Sea.
Margelov, who is Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation, as well as the Chairman of the European Democrat group of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, had previously opposed South Sudan's secession, voicing fears of "a new Somalia" emerging. However, after appreciating its inevitability after decades of bloody war, the Kremlin changed its tune.
Margelov's get-together with South Sudanese officials last Thursday - first revealed by the Israel-Russian IZRus website and believed to have been set up by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman – was noted in the several world capitals which are keeping an eagle eye on the January 9 plebiscites.
Four days later, Cairo announced Egyptian Tareq Abd Al Rezak Hassan had been arrested and charged with working for the Israeli Mossad. Not a day has gone by since without lurid revelations about his clandestine activities.
The Sudan question was pressing enough to bring Hosni Mubarak and the Libyan ruler Muammar Qaddai on a visit to Khartoum On Dec. 21 for talks with President Omar Bashir. They arrived together to try and persuade him to postpone the referenda fearing they would lead to more bloodshed. But their agendas were essentially quite different:
Qaddafi abhors the very notion of a new oil power rising next door to Libya - and especially under Christian rule. Mubarak fears the momentous changes overtaking Sudan will upset the colonial treaties which grant Egypt 85 percent of Nile waters. Most of it comes from the river's main tributary, the Blue Nile, which flows in from Ethiopia; less from the White Nile which rises in Uganda. The two tributaries merge near Khartoum and flow north as a single river which has been Egypt's lifeline for millennia.
Egypt feels threatened not only by the Sudan upheavals to come, but by a new initiative launched by Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi which challenges Egypt's monopoly over Nile Waters and demands equitable shares for the river's seven upstream nations, most of them extremely poor.
The Mubarak government regards its control of the Nile an existential issue and will if need be fight for it. Zenawi remarked recently: "I am not worried that the Egyptians will suddenly invade Ethiopia. Nobody who has tried that has lived to tell the story."
Both Cairo and Addis Ababa are therefore sharpening their teeth over the Nile.
And that is the point at which Israel has entered the picture, debkafile's intelligence and military sources report.
President Kiir maintains a covert office in Tel Aviv, the hub through which his diplomatic, military and intelligence relations with Israel are funneled. Egypt and western military sources believe Israel has been steadily arming South Sudan through a third party, thereby backing its drive for independence.
Ethiopia, too, is a friend of Israel and maintains strong military and intelligence ties with the Jewish state. This month, Cairo was dismayed to discover that Israel had developed connections and influence in East African countries south of Egypt powerful enough to override the Mubarak government's dominant role on the Palestinian issue.
For Mubarak, the covert meeting between Russian and South Sudanese officials in Tel Aviv, of all places, was the last straw. He saw it as the culmination of an Israeli gambit to enlist Russian support for the new ventures Jerusalem had launched as a disconnect from Washington's falling prestige in the Middle East and a means of circumventing the Iranian-fueled radicalization of its neighbors.
Cairo thereupon put its foot down on Israel's Sudan venture, making the Mossad the object of its ire.
Tareq Abd Al Rezak Hassan is now charged with conducting contacts with Israel harmful to state security and hostile activities against Syria. Indictments have also been filed against "Eddy and Moshe Joseph Dimor," described as Hassan's handlers,
Cairo has taken care not to go all the way and charge Israel with spying against Egypt – only other Arab states. But it has made the affair public as a warning to Israel to back off from its diplomatic forays in East Africa or face more embarrassments.
According to debkafile's intelligence sources, Cairo has only just begun settling the score with Jerusalem for bringing Russia into its quiet support for oil-rich South Sudan, whose President Silva Kiir Mayardit plans to lead his Christian-dominated province to independence of the Muslim North in a referendum on Jan. 9.
The Egyptians suspect that the recent delivery of Russian arms to South Sudan, mainly combat helicopters, is part of a joint Russian-Israeli armament program.
Sudan is not expected to take its breakup lying down, especially when a separate referendum on the same day may lead a second province Abyei to secede, a double blow to Khartoum's oil industry: 85 percent of its oil is pumped in the South and most of its exports are piped through Abyei to Port Sudan on the Red Sea.
Margelov, who is Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation, as well as the Chairman of the European Democrat group of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, had previously opposed South Sudan's secession, voicing fears of "a new Somalia" emerging. However, after appreciating its inevitability after decades of bloody war, the Kremlin changed its tune.
Margelov's get-together with South Sudanese officials last Thursday - first revealed by the Israel-Russian IZRus website and believed to have been set up by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman – was noted in the several world capitals which are keeping an eagle eye on the January 9 plebiscites.
Four days later, Cairo announced Egyptian Tareq Abd Al Rezak Hassan had been arrested and charged with working for the Israeli Mossad. Not a day has gone by since without lurid revelations about his clandestine activities.
The Sudan question was pressing enough to bring Hosni Mubarak and the Libyan ruler Muammar Qaddai on a visit to Khartoum On Dec. 21 for talks with President Omar Bashir. They arrived together to try and persuade him to postpone the referenda fearing they would lead to more bloodshed. But their agendas were essentially quite different:
Qaddafi abhors the very notion of a new oil power rising next door to Libya - and especially under Christian rule. Mubarak fears the momentous changes overtaking Sudan will upset the colonial treaties which grant Egypt 85 percent of Nile waters. Most of it comes from the river's main tributary, the Blue Nile, which flows in from Ethiopia; less from the White Nile which rises in Uganda. The two tributaries merge near Khartoum and flow north as a single river which has been Egypt's lifeline for millennia.
Egypt feels threatened not only by the Sudan upheavals to come, but by a new initiative launched by Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi which challenges Egypt's monopoly over Nile Waters and demands equitable shares for the river's seven upstream nations, most of them extremely poor.
The Mubarak government regards its control of the Nile an existential issue and will if need be fight for it. Zenawi remarked recently: "I am not worried that the Egyptians will suddenly invade Ethiopia. Nobody who has tried that has lived to tell the story."
Both Cairo and Addis Ababa are therefore sharpening their teeth over the Nile.
And that is the point at which Israel has entered the picture, debkafile's intelligence and military sources report.
President Kiir maintains a covert office in Tel Aviv, the hub through which his diplomatic, military and intelligence relations with Israel are funneled. Egypt and western military sources believe Israel has been steadily arming South Sudan through a third party, thereby backing its drive for independence.
Ethiopia, too, is a friend of Israel and maintains strong military and intelligence ties with the Jewish state. This month, Cairo was dismayed to discover that Israel had developed connections and influence in East African countries south of Egypt powerful enough to override the Mubarak government's dominant role on the Palestinian issue.
For Mubarak, the covert meeting between Russian and South Sudanese officials in Tel Aviv, of all places, was the last straw. He saw it as the culmination of an Israeli gambit to enlist Russian support for the new ventures Jerusalem had launched as a disconnect from Washington's falling prestige in the Middle East and a means of circumventing the Iranian-fueled radicalization of its neighbors.
Cairo thereupon put its foot down on Israel's Sudan venture, making the Mossad the object of its ire.
Tareq Abd Al Rezak Hassan is now charged with conducting contacts with Israel harmful to state security and hostile activities against Syria. Indictments have also been filed against "Eddy and Moshe Joseph Dimor," described as Hassan's handlers,
Cairo has taken care not to go all the way and charge Israel with spying against Egypt – only other Arab states. But it has made the affair public as a warning to Israel to back off from its diplomatic forays in East Africa or face more embarrassments.
Cairo hits back at Moscow-Jerusalem-S. Sudan ties with anti-Israel spy charges
A secret meeting in Tel Aviv last Thursday, Dec. 16 between the high-ranking Russian emissary Mikhail Margelov and representatives of the South Sudanese semi-autonomous government so infuriated Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak that he ordered his intelligence minister Gen. Omar Suleiman to hit back by accusing Israel of recruiting Egyptian agents to spy on Lebanon and Syria.
According to debkafile's intelligence sources, Cairo has only just begun settling the score with Jerusalem for bringing Russia into its quiet support for oil-rich South Sudan, whose President Silva Kiir Mayardit plans to lead his Christian-dominated province to independence of the Muslim North in a referendum on Jan. 9.
The Egyptians suspect that the recent delivery of Russian arms to South Sudan, mainly combat helicopters, is part of a joint Russian-Israeli armament program.
Sudan is not expected to take its breakup lying down, especially when a separate referendum on the same day may lead a second province Abyei to secede, a double blow to Khartoum's oil industry: 85 percent of its oil is pumped in the South and most of its exports are piped through Abyei to Port Sudan on the Red Sea.
Margelov, who is Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation, as well as the Chairman of the European Democrat group of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, had previously opposed South Sudan's secession, voicing fears of "a new Somalia" emerging. However, after appreciating its inevitability after decades of bloody war, the Kremlin changed its tune.
Margelov's get-together with South Sudanese officials last Thursday - first revealed by the Israel-Russian IZRus website and believed to have been set up by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman – was noted in the several world capitals which are keeping an eagle eye on the January 9 plebiscites.
Four days later, Cairo announced Egyptian Tareq Abd Al Rezak Hassan had been arrested and charged with working for the Israeli Mossad. Not a day has gone by since without lurid revelations about his clandestine activities.
The Sudan question was pressing enough to bring Hosni Mubarak and the Libyan ruler Muammar Qaddai on a visit to Khartoum On Dec. 21 for talks with President Omar Bashir. They arrived together to try and persuade him to postpone the referenda fearing they would lead to more bloodshed. But their agendas were essentially quite different:
Qaddafi abhors the very notion of a new oil power rising next door to Libya - and especially under Christian rule. Mubarak fears the momentous changes overtaking Sudan will upset the colonial treaties which grant Egypt 85 percent of Nile waters. Most of it comes from the river's main tributary, the Blue Nile, which flows in from Ethiopia; less from the White Nile which rises in Uganda. The two tributaries merge near Khartoum and flow north as a single river which has been Egypt's lifeline for millennia.
Egypt feels threatened not only by the Sudan upheavals to come, but by a new initiative launched by Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi which challenges Egypt's monopoly over Nile Waters and demands equitable shares for the river's seven upstream nations, most of them extremely poor.
The Mubarak government regards its control of the Nile an existential issue and will if need be fight for it. Zenawi remarked recently: "I am not worried that the Egyptians will suddenly invade Ethiopia. Nobody who has tried that has lived to tell the story."
Both Cairo and Addis Ababa are therefore sharpening their teeth over the Nile.
And that is the point at which Israel has entered the picture, debkafile's intelligence and military sources report.
President Kiir maintains a covert office in Tel Aviv, the hub through which his diplomatic, military and intelligence relations with Israel are funneled. Egypt and western military sources believe Israel has been steadily arming South Sudan through a third party, thereby backing its drive for independence.
Ethiopia, too, is a friend of Israel and maintains strong military and intelligence ties with the Jewish state. This month, Cairo was dismayed to discover that Israel had developed connections and influence in East African countries south of Egypt powerful enough to override the Mubarak government's dominant role on the Palestinian issue.
For Mubarak, the covert meeting between Russian and South Sudanese officials in Tel Aviv, of all places, was the last straw. He saw it as the culmination of an Israeli gambit to enlist Russian support for the new ventures Jerusalem had launched as a disconnect from Washington's falling prestige in the Middle East and a means of circumventing the Iranian-fueled radicalization of its neighbors.
Cairo thereupon put its foot down on Israel's Sudan venture, making the Mossad the object of its ire.
Tareq Abd Al Rezak Hassan is now charged with conducting contacts with Israel harmful to state security and hostile activities against Syria. Indictments have also been filed against "Eddy and Moshe Joseph Dimor," described as Hassan's handlers,
Cairo has taken care not to go all the way and charge Israel with spying against Egypt – only other Arab states. But it has made the affair public as a warning to Israel to back off from its diplomatic forays in East Africa or face more embarrassments.
According to debkafile's intelligence sources, Cairo has only just begun settling the score with Jerusalem for bringing Russia into its quiet support for oil-rich South Sudan, whose President Silva Kiir Mayardit plans to lead his Christian-dominated province to independence of the Muslim North in a referendum on Jan. 9.
The Egyptians suspect that the recent delivery of Russian arms to South Sudan, mainly combat helicopters, is part of a joint Russian-Israeli armament program.
Sudan is not expected to take its breakup lying down, especially when a separate referendum on the same day may lead a second province Abyei to secede, a double blow to Khartoum's oil industry: 85 percent of its oil is pumped in the South and most of its exports are piped through Abyei to Port Sudan on the Red Sea.
Margelov, who is Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation, as well as the Chairman of the European Democrat group of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, had previously opposed South Sudan's secession, voicing fears of "a new Somalia" emerging. However, after appreciating its inevitability after decades of bloody war, the Kremlin changed its tune.
Margelov's get-together with South Sudanese officials last Thursday - first revealed by the Israel-Russian IZRus website and believed to have been set up by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman – was noted in the several world capitals which are keeping an eagle eye on the January 9 plebiscites.
Four days later, Cairo announced Egyptian Tareq Abd Al Rezak Hassan had been arrested and charged with working for the Israeli Mossad. Not a day has gone by since without lurid revelations about his clandestine activities.
The Sudan question was pressing enough to bring Hosni Mubarak and the Libyan ruler Muammar Qaddai on a visit to Khartoum On Dec. 21 for talks with President Omar Bashir. They arrived together to try and persuade him to postpone the referenda fearing they would lead to more bloodshed. But their agendas were essentially quite different:
Qaddafi abhors the very notion of a new oil power rising next door to Libya - and especially under Christian rule. Mubarak fears the momentous changes overtaking Sudan will upset the colonial treaties which grant Egypt 85 percent of Nile waters. Most of it comes from the river's main tributary, the Blue Nile, which flows in from Ethiopia; less from the White Nile which rises in Uganda. The two tributaries merge near Khartoum and flow north as a single river which has been Egypt's lifeline for millennia.
Egypt feels threatened not only by the Sudan upheavals to come, but by a new initiative launched by Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi which challenges Egypt's monopoly over Nile Waters and demands equitable shares for the river's seven upstream nations, most of them extremely poor.
The Mubarak government regards its control of the Nile an existential issue and will if need be fight for it. Zenawi remarked recently: "I am not worried that the Egyptians will suddenly invade Ethiopia. Nobody who has tried that has lived to tell the story."
Both Cairo and Addis Ababa are therefore sharpening their teeth over the Nile.
And that is the point at which Israel has entered the picture, debkafile's intelligence and military sources report.
President Kiir maintains a covert office in Tel Aviv, the hub through which his diplomatic, military and intelligence relations with Israel are funneled. Egypt and western military sources believe Israel has been steadily arming South Sudan through a third party, thereby backing its drive for independence.
Ethiopia, too, is a friend of Israel and maintains strong military and intelligence ties with the Jewish state. This month, Cairo was dismayed to discover that Israel had developed connections and influence in East African countries south of Egypt powerful enough to override the Mubarak government's dominant role on the Palestinian issue.
For Mubarak, the covert meeting between Russian and South Sudanese officials in Tel Aviv, of all places, was the last straw. He saw it as the culmination of an Israeli gambit to enlist Russian support for the new ventures Jerusalem had launched as a disconnect from Washington's falling prestige in the Middle East and a means of circumventing the Iranian-fueled radicalization of its neighbors.
Cairo thereupon put its foot down on Israel's Sudan venture, making the Mossad the object of its ire.
Tareq Abd Al Rezak Hassan is now charged with conducting contacts with Israel harmful to state security and hostile activities against Syria. Indictments have also been filed against "Eddy and Moshe Joseph Dimor," described as Hassan's handlers,
Cairo has taken care not to go all the way and charge Israel with spying against Egypt – only other Arab states. But it has made the affair public as a warning to Israel to back off from its diplomatic forays in East Africa or face more embarrassments.
Cairo hits back at Moscow-Jerusalem-S. Sudan ties with anti-Israel spy charges
A secret meeting in Tel Aviv last Thursday, Dec. 16 between the high-ranking Russian emissary Mikhail Margelov and representatives of the South Sudanese semi-autonomous government so infuriated Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak that he ordered his intelligence minister Gen. Omar Suleiman to hit back by accusing Israel of recruiting Egyptian agents to spy on Lebanon and Syria.
According to debkafile's intelligence sources, Cairo has only just begun settling the score with Jerusalem for bringing Russia into its quiet support for oil-rich South Sudan, whose President Silva Kiir Mayardit plans to lead his Christian-dominated province to independence of the Muslim North in a referendum on Jan. 9.
The Egyptians suspect that the recent delivery of Russian arms to South Sudan, mainly combat helicopters, is part of a joint Russian-Israeli armament program.
Sudan is not expected to take its breakup lying down, especially when a separate referendum on the same day may lead a second province Abyei to secede, a double blow to Khartoum's oil industry: 85 percent of its oil is pumped in the South and most of its exports are piped through Abyei to Port Sudan on the Red Sea.
Margelov, who is Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation, as well as the Chairman of the European Democrat group of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, had previously opposed South Sudan's secession, voicing fears of "a new Somalia" emerging. However, after appreciating its inevitability after decades of bloody war, the Kremlin changed its tune.
Margelov's get-together with South Sudanese officials last Thursday - first revealed by the Israel-Russian IZRus website and believed to have been set up by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman – was noted in the several world capitals which are keeping an eagle eye on the January 9 plebiscites.
Four days later, Cairo announced Egyptian Tareq Abd Al Rezak Hassan had been arrested and charged with working for the Israeli Mossad. Not a day has gone by since without lurid revelations about his clandestine activities.
The Sudan question was pressing enough to bring Hosni Mubarak and the Libyan ruler Muammar Qaddai on a visit to Khartoum On Dec. 21 for talks with President Omar Bashir. They arrived together to try and persuade him to postpone the referenda fearing they would lead to more bloodshed. But their agendas were essentially quite different:
Qaddafi abhors the very notion of a new oil power rising next door to Libya - and especially under Christian rule. Mubarak fears the momentous changes overtaking Sudan will upset the colonial treaties which grant Egypt 85 percent of Nile waters. Most of it comes from the river's main tributary, the Blue Nile, which flows in from Ethiopia; less from the White Nile which rises in Uganda. The two tributaries merge near Khartoum and flow north as a single river which has been Egypt's lifeline for millennia.
Egypt feels threatened not only by the Sudan upheavals to come, but by a new initiative launched by Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi which challenges Egypt's monopoly over Nile Waters and demands equitable shares for the river's seven upstream nations, most of them extremely poor.
The Mubarak government regards its control of the Nile an existential issue and will if need be fight for it. Zenawi remarked recently: "I am not worried that the Egyptians will suddenly invade Ethiopia. Nobody who has tried that has lived to tell the story."
Both Cairo and Addis Ababa are therefore sharpening their teeth over the Nile.
And that is the point at which Israel has entered the picture, debkafile's intelligence and military sources report.
President Kiir maintains a covert office in Tel Aviv, the hub through which his diplomatic, military and intelligence relations with Israel are funneled. Egypt and western military sources believe Israel has been steadily arming South Sudan through a third party, thereby backing its drive for independence.
Ethiopia, too, is a friend of Israel and maintains strong military and intelligence ties with the Jewish state. This month, Cairo was dismayed to discover that Israel had developed connections and influence in East African countries south of Egypt powerful enough to override the Mubarak government's dominant role on the Palestinian issue.
For Mubarak, the covert meeting between Russian and South Sudanese officials in Tel Aviv, of all places, was the last straw. He saw it as the culmination of an Israeli gambit to enlist Russian support for the new ventures Jerusalem had launched as a disconnect from Washington's falling prestige in the Middle East and a means of circumventing the Iranian-fueled radicalization of its neighbors.
Cairo thereupon put its foot down on Israel's Sudan venture, making the Mossad the object of its ire.
Tareq Abd Al Rezak Hassan is now charged with conducting contacts with Israel harmful to state security and hostile activities against Syria. Indictments have also been filed against "Eddy and Moshe Joseph Dimor," described as Hassan's handlers,
Cairo has taken care not to go all the way and charge Israel with spying against Egypt – only other Arab states. But it has made the affair public as a warning to Israel to back off from its diplomatic forays in East Africa or face more embarrassments.
According to debkafile's intelligence sources, Cairo has only just begun settling the score with Jerusalem for bringing Russia into its quiet support for oil-rich South Sudan, whose President Silva Kiir Mayardit plans to lead his Christian-dominated province to independence of the Muslim North in a referendum on Jan. 9.
The Egyptians suspect that the recent delivery of Russian arms to South Sudan, mainly combat helicopters, is part of a joint Russian-Israeli armament program.
Sudan is not expected to take its breakup lying down, especially when a separate referendum on the same day may lead a second province Abyei to secede, a double blow to Khartoum's oil industry: 85 percent of its oil is pumped in the South and most of its exports are piped through Abyei to Port Sudan on the Red Sea.
Margelov, who is Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation, as well as the Chairman of the European Democrat group of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, had previously opposed South Sudan's secession, voicing fears of "a new Somalia" emerging. However, after appreciating its inevitability after decades of bloody war, the Kremlin changed its tune.
Margelov's get-together with South Sudanese officials last Thursday - first revealed by the Israel-Russian IZRus website and believed to have been set up by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman – was noted in the several world capitals which are keeping an eagle eye on the January 9 plebiscites.
Four days later, Cairo announced Egyptian Tareq Abd Al Rezak Hassan had been arrested and charged with working for the Israeli Mossad. Not a day has gone by since without lurid revelations about his clandestine activities.
The Sudan question was pressing enough to bring Hosni Mubarak and the Libyan ruler Muammar Qaddai on a visit to Khartoum On Dec. 21 for talks with President Omar Bashir. They arrived together to try and persuade him to postpone the referenda fearing they would lead to more bloodshed. But their agendas were essentially quite different:
Qaddafi abhors the very notion of a new oil power rising next door to Libya - and especially under Christian rule. Mubarak fears the momentous changes overtaking Sudan will upset the colonial treaties which grant Egypt 85 percent of Nile waters. Most of it comes from the river's main tributary, the Blue Nile, which flows in from Ethiopia; less from the White Nile which rises in Uganda. The two tributaries merge near Khartoum and flow north as a single river which has been Egypt's lifeline for millennia.
Egypt feels threatened not only by the Sudan upheavals to come, but by a new initiative launched by Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi which challenges Egypt's monopoly over Nile Waters and demands equitable shares for the river's seven upstream nations, most of them extremely poor.
The Mubarak government regards its control of the Nile an existential issue and will if need be fight for it. Zenawi remarked recently: "I am not worried that the Egyptians will suddenly invade Ethiopia. Nobody who has tried that has lived to tell the story."
Both Cairo and Addis Ababa are therefore sharpening their teeth over the Nile.
And that is the point at which Israel has entered the picture, debkafile's intelligence and military sources report.
President Kiir maintains a covert office in Tel Aviv, the hub through which his diplomatic, military and intelligence relations with Israel are funneled. Egypt and western military sources believe Israel has been steadily arming South Sudan through a third party, thereby backing its drive for independence.
Ethiopia, too, is a friend of Israel and maintains strong military and intelligence ties with the Jewish state. This month, Cairo was dismayed to discover that Israel had developed connections and influence in East African countries south of Egypt powerful enough to override the Mubarak government's dominant role on the Palestinian issue.
For Mubarak, the covert meeting between Russian and South Sudanese officials in Tel Aviv, of all places, was the last straw. He saw it as the culmination of an Israeli gambit to enlist Russian support for the new ventures Jerusalem had launched as a disconnect from Washington's falling prestige in the Middle East and a means of circumventing the Iranian-fueled radicalization of its neighbors.
Cairo thereupon put its foot down on Israel's Sudan venture, making the Mossad the object of its ire.
Tareq Abd Al Rezak Hassan is now charged with conducting contacts with Israel harmful to state security and hostile activities against Syria. Indictments have also been filed against "Eddy and Moshe Joseph Dimor," described as Hassan's handlers,
Cairo has taken care not to go all the way and charge Israel with spying against Egypt – only other Arab states. But it has made the affair public as a warning to Israel to back off from its diplomatic forays in East Africa or face more embarrassments.
17 Facts About China That Will Blow Your Mind
http://wallstcheatsheet.com/breaking-news/economy/17-facts-about-china-that-will-blow-your-mind.html
Friday, December 24, 2010
Part 2-JP Morgan Silver Manipulation Explained
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPg4qTNTP-E&feature=player_embedded#!
Early days for the Groupon-ing of the Internet
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — I signed up only this April for Groupon — the Chicago-based start-up everyone is talking about after it entertained, and then turned down, Google’s reported $5 billion to $6 billion offer — and I’m now getting at least five rival emails a day offering various fabulous discounts.
Other people may be receiving even more half-price offers (that’s the average discount) from local businesses in their areas. Depending on whom you talk to, there are at least 180 purportedly competing daily-deal Web sites. One start-up executive says there are about 250, and Groupon’s founder and chief executive, Andrew Mason, told NBC there are over 500 “clones.” Read about the collapse of the talks between Google and Groupon.
“It’s crazy,” said Jim Moran, chief executive and co-founder of Yipit.com, a site that offers only the types of daily deals its subscribers have signed up to receive, such as offers only from restaurants. “When we started, there were maybe 20 [daily-deal sites] in the U.S.” Moran only started his seven-person New York company in February. He also has 15 curators working to find the best deals.
Clearly, a shakeout looms, but for now the daily deal is shaping up to be the next Internet Gold Rush.
Beyond Groupon
Two weeks ago, Amazon.com Inc. /quotes/comstock/15*!amzn/quotes/nls/amzn (AMZN 182.59, 0.00, 0.00%) invested $175 million in LivingSocial, Groupon’s biggest rival. The Washington-based firm, which boasts AOL /quotes/comstock/13*!aol/quotes/nls/aol (AOL 24.39, 0.00, 0.00%) co-founder Steve Case as an investor, and other executives from AOL and Revolution Health, said it is booking average revenue of more than $1 million a day and projects “well over” $500 million in revenue in 2011. See Amazon news here.
“This is the next frontier,” said Peter Krasilovsky, an analyst with the BIA/ Kelsey Group. “It’s the most exciting thing that’s happened in local for several years,” he said, referring to the local media and advertising markets.
he bigger players in the Internet are starting to wake up to the daily deal. It’s simple in concept, and, for now, it’s a high-margin one for the service provider.
For example, a neighborhood bistro offers a coupon that costs $25 for a dinner valued at $50. If enough people sign up for the deal, the deal is on, and the restaurant gets a big influx of customers, many of them new, and Groupon, LivingSocial or whichever rival firm sent the email, typically gets a 50% cut of the coupon sale.
“Many small businesses would like to do this kind of thing on their own,” Krasilovsky said. “It’s a lot more efficient than placing a quarter-page ad in the yellow pages.”
Some coupons have also had a viral effect, especially when mentioned by friends in social networks, such as Facebook or Twitter. Some especially hot offers have shown that the daily-deal concept can work even beyond a local market. For example, this summer, Groupon had a smash hit with a nationwide offer of a $50 coupon costing $25 for use at Gap Inc. /quotes/comstock/13*!gps/quotes/nls/gps (GPS 21.46, 0.00, 0.00%) stores.
That’s why companies like Yahoo Inc. /quotes/comstock/15*!yhoo/quotes/nls/yhoo (YHOO 16.72, 0.00, 0.00%) and privately held Yelp are getting into the game, as are media companies, like the Chicago Tribune, which is working on offers with Groupon, one of the hottest tech start-ups Chicago has ever seen.
LivingSocial's O'Shaughnessy
Tim O'Shaughnessy, the former AOL exec who runs LivingSocial, which ranks No. 2 behind Groupon in the group-discount category.
But there are only so many coupons a consumer is going to look at in an overloaded email in-box. And being mysteriously added to new distribution lists by unfamiliar companies is an annoyance regardless of what’s on offer. How much more can the already bogged-down in-box take? Though the barriers to entry are low, this is a category where the first to market really does stake a powerful claim, and many of these start-ups will end up as roadkill.
All together now
There is today a second growing area: aggregation. Yipit.com, for example, was among the first aiming to help users cope with the barrage of offers. “It was 2,000 subscribers when we launched,” said Moran. “And now we are 90,000. It’s all been word of mouth, and we are growing faster and faster.”
Groupon and quirky founder Mason created the idea of leveraging collective buying power to experience “all the great stuff in Chicago,” the company’s website says. Living Social had been founded in February 2008, before Groupon’s founding in November of that year. Living Social was intended as a social discovery site and has morphed into one offering daily deals.
“Groupon is enjoying unprecedented growth,” said Ray Valdes, a Gartner Inc. analyst. “However, the space is crowded with competitors, direct and indirect, and there is a novelty aspect to the business that will fade over time.” Its value is seen as more beneficial to consumers than to businesses, he said, citing a Rice University study from September that reported more than 40% of Groupon business customers would not run their promotions again. See Rice University study results here.
In August, Forbes put Groupon on its cover and dubbed it the “fastest-growing company ever,” noting that it was on track to reach $1 billion in revenue at a faster rate than any company had ever done.
What’s more, Groupon has to be given credit for turning down Google Inc.’s /quotes/comstock/15*!goog/quotes/nls/goog (GOOG 604.23, 0.00, 0.00%) heady offer. Maybe fears about regulatory concerns were a decisive factor right alongside its own desire to make it as a stand-alone company. But it will also be challenging to prove it is not a flash in the pan, with big and deeper-pocketed companies at its heels and copycats everywhere. The clones, of course, face the same issues.
“As these deals become more pedestrian — we have all seen the ‘Buy a balloon trip’ — it’s not so exciting anymore,” said Krasilovsky. “They have to keep it fresh.”
Therese Poletti is a senior columnist for MarketWatch in San Francisco.
Let states go bankrupt
After two years of bailouts, “stimulus” spending, TARP and earmarks, the country took a deep breath and is now beginning a discussion about the unsustainable trajectory of federal expenditures and the reforms necessary to right the country’s fiscal ship.
This is all good and healthy. However, Washington is not the only place with an overspending problem. We are now starting to see greater attention being paid to the dire financial straits of state governments — which pose just as grave a threat to the country.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who knows what it’s like to begin fixing a state where profligacy has carried the day for far too long, said on “60 Minutes” last Sunday, that, for states, the “day of reckoning has arrived.”
This day of reckoning has convinced policy experts, political observers and some on Capitol Hill that federal legislation allowing states to file bankruptcy might be the only way to avoid a federal bailout of the most fiscally reckless states in the union.
Many states, including those with the country’s largest population centers, are now on a path to insolvency. This is primarily due to fiscally promiscuous lawmakers, skyrocketing Medicaid costs and unsustainable gold-plated government employee pension plans that most Americans could never dream of.
These states’ ballooning obligations simply cannot be met without either soaking state taxpayers or federal assistance — read: taking taxpayer dollars from properly managed states.
Heading into 2011, states are facing an overspending-generated budget shortfall of $72 billion, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Coupled with unfunded state and local pension obligations estimated in excess of $3 trillion — a half-trillion in California alone — one understands the concern that states are the next “too big to fail.”
In a recent Wall Street Journal interview, Richard Ravitch — the New York state lieutenant governor and real estate developer, who is best known for helping save New York City from financial ruin in the 1970s — laid out why bankruptcy may be the only way to sort out the mess in Albany.
Facing an $40 billion budget deficit generated by projected overspending in the next three years, along with soaring Medicaid costs and pension obligations, Ravitch has concluded that there doesn’t seem any solution other than to “stop lending money and enabling politicians to have cash to spend.”
The University of Pennsylvania law professor David Skeel, in a Weekly Standard article last month, also concluded that permitting state bankruptcy is the best option to avoid a monumental federal bailout of state governments. “Letting states file for bankruptcy to shed some of their obligations,” Skeel wrote, “could save American taxpayers a great deal of money.”
In fact, a bill that may well serve as a precursor to state bankruptcy legislation was introduced early this month by Reps. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Darrell Issa (R-Calif.). This legislation would require states and municipalities to provide an accurate assessment of their public pension liabilities.
Thanks to inflation of assets’ fair market value as well as high discount rates, state and local governments currently under-report their pension liabilities by approximately $2 trillion. The bill also makes clear that these pension obligations are the sole responsibility of state and local governments.
Some critics allege that a state bankruptcy code would be used as a tool to “smash unions.” On the contrary, government employee unions and their dogged defense of the status quo are, in fact, smashing budgets and credit ratings in California, Illinois, New York and other states where they are dominant and have outsized influence in the state capitol.
Though it is true that the bond market might not be happy with a state filing for bankruptcy, as Skeel noted, the market is already beginning to take the possibility of default in certain states into account. California, for example, put $10 billion in revenue anticipation notes on the market in November — yet was only able to sell $6 billion worth.
Advocacy for permitting state bankruptcy should not be confused with a desire for states to go bankrupt. In fact, simply having bankruptcy as a tool at states’ disposal is likely to be a boon to lawmakers trying to rectify their unsustainable financial plight.
The mere “threat of bankruptcy,” as Michael Barone recently noted in National Review Online, “would put a powerful weapon in the hands of governors and legislatures: They can tell their unions that they have to accept cuts now or face a much more dire fate in bankruptcy court.”
States cannot afford to continue on their current path. Federal taxpayers, who have been hit with more than $350 billion in higher taxes in just the past two years, cannot afford to absorb the $3 trillion in unfunded liabilities run up by state governments.
Passing a law to allow states the option of bankruptcy — an option available to cities for more than 70 years — would protect both federal and state taxpayers and give honest political leaders a tool to reform state spending commitments.
Grover Norquist is the president of Americans for Tax Reform. Patrick Gleason is director of state affairs at Americans for Tax Reform.
This is all good and healthy. However, Washington is not the only place with an overspending problem. We are now starting to see greater attention being paid to the dire financial straits of state governments — which pose just as grave a threat to the country.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who knows what it’s like to begin fixing a state where profligacy has carried the day for far too long, said on “60 Minutes” last Sunday, that, for states, the “day of reckoning has arrived.”
This day of reckoning has convinced policy experts, political observers and some on Capitol Hill that federal legislation allowing states to file bankruptcy might be the only way to avoid a federal bailout of the most fiscally reckless states in the union.
Many states, including those with the country’s largest population centers, are now on a path to insolvency. This is primarily due to fiscally promiscuous lawmakers, skyrocketing Medicaid costs and unsustainable gold-plated government employee pension plans that most Americans could never dream of.
These states’ ballooning obligations simply cannot be met without either soaking state taxpayers or federal assistance — read: taking taxpayer dollars from properly managed states.
Heading into 2011, states are facing an overspending-generated budget shortfall of $72 billion, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Coupled with unfunded state and local pension obligations estimated in excess of $3 trillion — a half-trillion in California alone — one understands the concern that states are the next “too big to fail.”
In a recent Wall Street Journal interview, Richard Ravitch — the New York state lieutenant governor and real estate developer, who is best known for helping save New York City from financial ruin in the 1970s — laid out why bankruptcy may be the only way to sort out the mess in Albany.
Facing an $40 billion budget deficit generated by projected overspending in the next three years, along with soaring Medicaid costs and pension obligations, Ravitch has concluded that there doesn’t seem any solution other than to “stop lending money and enabling politicians to have cash to spend.”
The University of Pennsylvania law professor David Skeel, in a Weekly Standard article last month, also concluded that permitting state bankruptcy is the best option to avoid a monumental federal bailout of state governments. “Letting states file for bankruptcy to shed some of their obligations,” Skeel wrote, “could save American taxpayers a great deal of money.”
In fact, a bill that may well serve as a precursor to state bankruptcy legislation was introduced early this month by Reps. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Darrell Issa (R-Calif.). This legislation would require states and municipalities to provide an accurate assessment of their public pension liabilities.
Thanks to inflation of assets’ fair market value as well as high discount rates, state and local governments currently under-report their pension liabilities by approximately $2 trillion. The bill also makes clear that these pension obligations are the sole responsibility of state and local governments.
Some critics allege that a state bankruptcy code would be used as a tool to “smash unions.” On the contrary, government employee unions and their dogged defense of the status quo are, in fact, smashing budgets and credit ratings in California, Illinois, New York and other states where they are dominant and have outsized influence in the state capitol.
Though it is true that the bond market might not be happy with a state filing for bankruptcy, as Skeel noted, the market is already beginning to take the possibility of default in certain states into account. California, for example, put $10 billion in revenue anticipation notes on the market in November — yet was only able to sell $6 billion worth.
Advocacy for permitting state bankruptcy should not be confused with a desire for states to go bankrupt. In fact, simply having bankruptcy as a tool at states’ disposal is likely to be a boon to lawmakers trying to rectify their unsustainable financial plight.
The mere “threat of bankruptcy,” as Michael Barone recently noted in National Review Online, “would put a powerful weapon in the hands of governors and legislatures: They can tell their unions that they have to accept cuts now or face a much more dire fate in bankruptcy court.”
States cannot afford to continue on their current path. Federal taxpayers, who have been hit with more than $350 billion in higher taxes in just the past two years, cannot afford to absorb the $3 trillion in unfunded liabilities run up by state governments.
Passing a law to allow states the option of bankruptcy — an option available to cities for more than 70 years — would protect both federal and state taxpayers and give honest political leaders a tool to reform state spending commitments.
Grover Norquist is the president of Americans for Tax Reform. Patrick Gleason is director of state affairs at Americans for Tax Reform.
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