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International Developments

❖ “ Somali poet Warsame Shire Awale killed by gunmen” in Mogadishu. Very popular poet, he was critical of al-Shabab “who he accused of misleading people in the name of Islam.” He urged youth to reject violence.

❖ After months of protests, the Bahrain government has banned all demonstrations and rallies by those pushing for “a greater political voice” in the spirit of the Arab Spring.

❖ “ Two Nato soldiers shot dead by man wearing Afghan police uniform”. There have been 53 such killings of NATO soldiers this year.

❖ “A senior Syrian air force general has been killed by rebels in central Damascus . . . Abdullah Mahmoud al-Khalidi was shot dead late on Monday”.

International Finance

❖ Andrew Haldane, senior official of the Bank of England, “praised [Occupy] protesters for their role in triggering an overhaul of the financial services sector.” Seems the Occupiers were “right to focus on inequality as the chief reason for the 2008 crash, following studies that showed the accumulation of huge wealth funded by debt was directly responsible for the domino-like collapse of the banking sector in 2008.”

❖ They’ve delayed the Parliament vote by a week, so it’s not official, but Greece has agreed to make another $17.4 billion in cuts in order to receive bailout funds from the EU-IMF.

Money Matters USA

❖ Home prices in 20-city composites increased by 2.0% between August 2011 and August 2012. Of those 20 cities, only one–Seattle–showed a decrease, and that by only 0.1%.

❖ Eller & Sons Trees, Inc ., a Georgia forestry contractor company, has been ordered to pay approximately 4,000 Guatemalan and Mexican guest workers $11.8 million they were not paid under the federal minimum wage for work performed between 1999-2008.

Politics

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