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MI6 has pulled its spies out of 'hostile countries' and America's intelligence agencies are on high alert after Russia and China cracked encrypted files leaked by fugitive whistleblower Edward Snowden. The top-secret documents contain information that could lead to the identification of British and American spies, according to senior officials in Downing Street, the Home Office and the security services. A senior Home Office official accused Snowden - the former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor responsible for the biggest confidential information leak in US history - of having 'blood on his hands' after they gained access to over one million...

ISIS fighters reported today that the ISLAMIC STATE has Attacked Israel.

Not Every Leak Is Fit to Print Why have federal prosecutors subpoenaed a New York Times reporter?by Gabriel Schoenfeld 02/18/2008, Volume 013, Issue 22 Investigations of national-security leaks in Washington are not all that rare. But until Judith Miller of the New York Times was sent to jail for 85 days by a special prosecutor digging into the Valerie Plame imbroglio, investigations of such leaks in which journalists are subpoenaed were about as common as unicorns wandering the National Mall. We now have another such unicorn. On January 24, a federal grand jury in Alexandria issued a subpoena to...

Secret intelligence files held by Yemeni security forces and containing details of American intelligence operations in the country have been looted by Iran-backed militia leaders, exposing names of informants and plans for U.S.-backed counter-terrorism operations, U.S. officials say. U.S. intelligence officials believe additional files were handed directly to Iranian advisors by Yemeni officials who have sided with the Houthi militias that seized control of the capital of Sana last September and later toppled the U.S.-backed president. For American intelligence networks in Yemen, the damage has been severe. Until recently, U.S. forces deployed in Yemen had worked closely with President Abdu...

Chevron Corp. said Tuesday it would sell off more assets and cut back on capital spending, as the integrated oil and gas giant looks to protect its finances from lower crude prices. Chevron said it would put about $15 billion of assets up for sale through 2017 — up from a previous $10 billion target — and cut capital spending incrementally to roughly $30 billion in 2017. In January, Chevron had said it would trim capital spending to $35 billion in 2015, down about $5 billion from its 2014 budget. Despite the cuts, the San Ramon, California-based company said it...

The British government says it is committed to regulations issued by UN and EU on freezing potential assets of the deposed Yemeni president and two Houthi leaders The British authorities refused to comment on whether they have frozen any assets owned by former Yemeni president Ali Abdallah Saleh and two leaders of the Houthi rebels. On 18 December, the EU Council decided to impose financial sanctions, including asset freezes, on Saleh, the president of Yemen’s General People’s Congress Party Abd Al-Khaliq Al-Houthi, and the Houthi group's second-in-command Yahya Abdullah Al-Hakim. The council blacklisted Saleh for obstructing peace in Yemen, notably...

Ex-CIA Officer Indicted for Leaking Classified Info to New York Slimes Reporter Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA officer, was indicted today for leaking classified information to New York Times reporter James Risen. The indictment shows that the federal government had access to their e-mail and phone contacts going back several years. Sterling served on the Iran desk of the CIA in the 1990s, and oversaw a classified program aimed at sabotaging the development of its nuclear programming. He left the CIA in 2000 and sued for racial discrimination (he is African American) in a case that went all the way...

A New York Times reporter will be subpoenaed to answer questions ahead of an upcoming trial of a former CIA officer accused of leaking classified information, though a Tuesday hearing indicated there is much confusion about what the journalist may be asked to reveal. Prosecutors say they will not ask James Risen if ex-CIA man Jeffrey Sterling was his anonymous source for part of the 2006 book “State Of War” that detailed a botched CIA effort to cripple Iran’s nuclear program. However, they do want to know if the two had a prior, on-the-record source relationship. Risen’s lawyer, Joel Kurtzberg,...

After losing a landmark decision on November 20 allowing them to be tried for terrorism charges in a $1 billion case, the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) have now filed a very rare appeal to the Second Circuit of courts trying to squash the case. Shurat Hadin (Israel Law Center) is leading the legal charge against the PA and PLO. In a press release on Thursday they noted that the appeal, known as a motion for a writ of mandamus, "concerns personal jurisdiction and should have been filed months ago." "This is a desperate attempt by the...

Russian courts could get the green light to seize foreign assets on Russian territory under a draft law intended as a response to Western sanctions over the Ukraine crisis. The draft, which was submitted to parliament on Wednesday by a pro-Kremlin deputy, would also allow state compensation for an individual whose property is seized in foreign jurisdictions. Italian authorities this week seized property worth about 30 million euros ($40 million) belonging to companies controlled by Arkady Rotenberg, an ally of President Vladimir Putin targeted by the U.S. and European Union sanctions. The draft law, published on a parliamentary database, would...

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen’s assets rose in value by at least 8 percent during 2013, raising their total to between $5.3 million and $14.1 million, according to her latest financial disclosure released Thursday. Yellen’s biggest asset is a trust fund she set up in 1992 with her husband, George Akerlof, a Nobel Prize-winning economist. The value of the trust fund is estimated at between $1 million and $5 million. Yellen’s assets have likely been driven up in value by a rebounding economy and a rising stock market. In 2012, her disclosure form estimated her assets at between $4 million...

This policy brief was prepared under contract #HHS-100-03-0022 between the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Office of Disability, Aging and Long-Term Care Policy (DALTCP) and Thomson/MEDSTAT. For additional information about the study, you may visit the DALTCP home page at http://aspe.hhs.gov/_/office_specific/daltcp.cfm or contact the ASPE Project Officer, Hunter McKay, at HHS/ASPE/DALTCP, Room 424E, H.H. Humphrey Building, 200 Independence Avenue, SW, Washington, DC 20201. His e-mail address is: Hunter.McKay@hhs.gov.

Marc Faber: People With Assets Are All Doomed Jason Farrell June 19, 2013. When the always cheerful Dr. Marc Faber, Daily Reckoning contributor and Vancouver veteran, gave his midyear forecast to Barron’s, it was, as you might expect, predictably sunny. “People with assets are all doomed,” he began, “because prices are grossly inflated globally for stocks, bonds and collectibles.” Faber warns the Fed’s low interest rates could lead to a global crash. Faber acknowledged the Fed’s role in rising equity prices this year. And suggested the party wouldn’t last, due to the uneven flow of money through the economy. Something...

As a chronic prognosticator of doom, I’m often asked, “Do you heed your own warnings?” I sure didn’t the last time the stock market crashed. Despite forecasting the dot-com collapse in November 1999 (in an article titled, “Living in the Shadow of Vesuvius, The Dotcom Economy Parties On”) I froze like a deer in the headlights as I watched $2 million in newly earned wealth evaporate before my eyes, all the while chanting, “It’ll come back, it’ll come back!” Never again. This time I am making contingency plans. Perhaps these will motivate you to make your own, if the recent...

Despite repeated, self-serving claims by Obama officials that the Administration did everything it could to head off and then respond appropriately to the violence against American facilities in Libya and Egypt last week, their blunders in policy, intelligence and security illustrates an incompetence every bit as profound as exhibited by the administration of Jimmy Carter in Iran 33 years ago. It appears nothing has been learned in more than three decades; despite significant gains in technology available to the U.S. government during those intervening years. In 1979, the Carter Administration precipitously abandoned the Shah of Iran, Washington’s long-time and loyal...

General Motor Co's (GM.N) underfunded pension plan has found a buyer for its illiquid private equity assets - the Chinese government, which is willing to pay between $1.5 billion and $2 billion, the Financial Times reported on its website...

If we’re richer than Americans, it’s not because of socialismA new facteroid circling the media planet suggests Canada is sweeping ahead of the United States economically. Here it is: The average Canadian household had net worth of $363,202 at the end of last year, compared with $319,970 for the average American household.A surprising number and, in many respects, a heartening statistic to boost the economic confidence of Canadians. How much of a boost? That’s a bigger question. The bald calculation is simple enough: The average Canadian household now looks to be more than $40,000 richer than the average American...

The Fed Balance Sheet: What Is Uncle Sam's Largest Asset? By Doug Short June 8, 2012 (Note from dshort: I've updated the quiz based on yesterday's (Thursdays) Q1 Flow of Funds release. Hint: The correct answer is the same, just more incredible.) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pop Quiz! Without recourse to your text, your notes or a Google search, what line item is the largest asset on Uncle Sam's balance sheet? A) U.S. Official Reserve Assets B) Total Mortgages C) Taxes Receivable D) Student Loans The correct answer, as of the latest Flow of Funds report for Q1 2012, is ... Student Loans....

View Over at Salon, Glenn Greenwald has the goods on the latest astounding power grab by the Obama Administration. According to The Washington Post, Obama has just issued an executive order claiming the power to freeze any assets you own, if you "directly or indirectly" obstruct the new government of Yemen. There are hardly any criteria for judging just how broadly this order can be interpreted. Here's the background: Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi is the new Yemeni president, and the former Vice President of long-time dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh. Hadi was recently installed after an "election" where he ran unopposed,...

Fast running out of money, solar-panel maker Solyndra LLC last summer sold off nearly $60 million worth of inventory for less than $20 million in cash to a newly formed corporate entity closely tied to the company’s biggest investors, records show. Backed by $535 million in federal loan guarantees but burning through the little cash it had left, Solyndra made its first sale in late July to a corporate entity that had been formed just a day earlier. Three more transactions followed over the next few weeks with the same buyer, Solyndra Solar II.