With little room for rate cuts to stimulate the economy the Bank has been pumping money into the banking system through quantitative easing.

The process involves the Bank effectively printing money to buy government and corporate bonds.

...apparently isn't too keen on this website.

Tehran's police chief, who was reportedly discovered in a brothel, has been arrested, it has been confirmed.

Local media have reported that General Reza Zarei was found with six naked women in a house of prostitution in the Iranian capital last month.

He has been taken to jail while his case is investigated, a spokesman for Iran's judiciary said.

Gen Zarei was in charge of enforcing Iran's strict anti-vice laws, which include a ban on prostitution.

9/11 Conspiracy Theories 'Ridiculous,' Al Qaeda Says

The deputy defence minister said the stepped-up rocket fire would trigger what he called a "bigger holocaust" in the Hamas-controlled coastal strip.

Israeli air strikes have killed about 30 Palestinians, including six children in the past two days.

cringe!! anyone else got any weird sensations reading about jews holocausting fellow semites? or is it just me?

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early

Lecturers and students at a prestigious university in Rome want a planned visit by the Pope to be cancelled as they object to his position on Galileo.

...

Pope Benedict was in charge of Roman Catholic doctrine in 1990 when, as Cardinal Ratzinger, he commented on the 17th-Century Galileo trial. He has been quoted as saying the trial was "reasonable and just".

Galileo's inquisitors maintained the scriptures indicated the Earth was stationary.

Galileo, a devout Catholic, was forced to renounce his findings publicly.

...

Fifteen years ago Pope John Paul II officially conceded that in fact the Earth was not stationary.

gotta love the god crew

Butto, a student at Harvard and Oxford for six years in the 1970s, has been a vocal critic of "avaricious politicians." In a Harvard commencement speech in 1989, she said that such people had looted developing countries and left them without the means to tackle their social problems. Since she was ousted as prime minister during her second term, on Nov. 5, 1996, on charges that included gross corruption, she has been the leader of Pakistan's main opposition group, the Pakistan People's Party.

[...]

Officials leading the inquiry in Pakistan say that the $100 million they have identified so far is only a small part of a much larger windfall from corrupt activities. They maintain that an inquiry begun in Islamabad immediately after Bhutto's dismissal in 1996 found evidence that her family and associates generated more than $1.5 billion in illicit profits through kickbacks in virtually every sphere of government activity -- from rice deals, to the sell-off of government land, even rake-offs from government welfare schemes. more

Another great write up from Lenin's Tomb

Sata from a report to the US Congress: Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq











Meanwhile the Humanitarian/Health/Hunger situation is looking grim... look at this Oxfam report

Labels: Iraq

In The Know: Is Our Wealth Hurting Africa's Feelings?