Traders Made Millions on Stocks After Hacking Press Releases

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140513142456-nyse-trading-floor-1024x576A group of stock traders teamed with two Ukrainian-based computer hackers to make $100 million in illegal profits by gaining access to hundreds of press releases of many leading U.S. companies and trading on the stolen news before it became public.

All told 16 individual stock traders, and 14 businesses profited from the illegal trades, according to civil charges from the Securities and Exchange Commission. Nine of those individuals, including the two hackers, also face federal criminal charges. One federal indictment was unsealed in New Jersey and the other in Brooklyn on Tuesday.

The three press release distributors that were hacked were Marketwired, PR Newswire and Business Wire. They are widely used by the nation’s largest corporations to announce earnings reports, mergers and acquisitions, and other news that moves their stock. Business Wire is owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathawa. (BRKA)

The trades were linked to news releases from a wide range of companies including Boeing (BA), Hewlett Packard (HPQ, Tech30), Ford Motor (F), Bank of Amercia (BAC) and Home Depot (HD). The hacking took place between 2010 and 2015, according to authorities.

Authorities said that five of the stock traders facing criminal charges were arrested at their homes in the U.S. on Tuesday morning. Two hackers, and two other traders who face criminal charges are in the Ukraine, although international arrest warrants have been issued for them. Seven other stock traders accused of profiting from the scheme live in Russia and the Ukraine and face only the civil charges at this time. (Read more from “Traders Made Millions on Stocks After Hacking Press Releases” HERE)

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ISIS Invades Afghanistan, Captures Men and Blows Them up to Pieces, in Order to Do This [+video]

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isis-exp-copyBy Walid Shoebat. To ISIS, the way to win is to establish themselves in Afghanistan since in Muslim Prophecy, the battle for Jerusalem stems from Khorasan (Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan …) with Muslims carrying the black flags. This is the spark to all Muslims that they must join the Jihad for Jerusalem.

Yesterday, ISIS did that and has released a new video showing how they exported their terror agenda all the way to Afghanistan as an initiation by ISIS to declare that Afghanistan (Islamic Khorasan) is now in the fold of ISIS. In this video, ten prisoners accused of collaborating with Pakistan’s ISI against ISIS, kneel over explosives, then detonated shattering them into pieces where ISIS tracks the flying fleshly debris on film . . .

[WARNING: extremely graphic content:]

The issue of ISIS showing this footage in Afghanistan is serious to prove that they have control in Taliban infested Afghanistan.

The issue of Afghanistan is the struggle between two Caliphs competing for recognition: Mullah Omar (Mullā Muḥammad ‘Umar Mujáhid is the supreme commander and the spiritual leader of the Taliban) and Caliph Baghdadi of ISIS in Syria and Iraq. (Read more from “ISIS Invades Afghanistan, Takes a Multitude of Men and Blows Them up to Pieces, in Order to Do This” HERE)

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Sickening Video Reveals Isis’s New Method of Execution: Ten Prisoners Made to Kneel Above Bombs That Have Been Buried in the Ground

By Tom Wyke. They have burnt men alive and drowned prisoners in metal cages but now ISIS have released a new video showing off their new horrific method of committing murder.

Filmed in an unknown location in Afghanistan, ISIS militants are shown burying several explosive charges beneath the ground before covering them with earth.

The ten prisoners are blindfolded and led up to where the bombs have been buried before they are forced to their knees. The bloodthirsty jihadis detonate the charges, killing all the prisoners.

All the victims are described as ‘apostates’, according to the ISIS video, which appeared on jihadi social media accounts last night.

It is believed the victims are from the Shinwari tribe and were accused of aiding the Taliban in the Afghan province of Nangarhar, where ISIS was recently expelled. (Read more from this story HERE)

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U.S. Consulate Building in Istanbul Targeted in Turkey Attacks [+video]

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consulate081015Turkish police were searching Monday for a gunman who attacked the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul after a night of violence shook Turkey’s largest city.

A pair of assailants, a man and a woman, opened fire early Monday on the heavily fortified consulate building in the northern Sariyer district, leading to a shootout with police, authorities said.

No U.S. personnel were injured but the consulate announced that it was closing until further notice, according to Turkish media accounts.

The female assailant, who was wounded in the shootout, was captured by police in a nearby building, according to the official Andalou news agency.

The other attacker, a man, was still at large, authorities said. (Read more from “U.S. Consulate Building in Istanbul Targeted in Turkey Attacks” HERE)

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GOP Stars Tight-Lipped on ‘Huge Disaster Waiting to Happen’

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GOP-e1438995592249By WND. Is America headed for an economic collapse?

If so, presidential candidates are remaining eerily quiet about what’s being described as “a huge disaster waiting to happen.”

The U.S. stock market is on the verge of a massive collapse, warned David Stockman, OMB director during the Reagan administration, on CNBC’s “Futures Now” program. He said the recent price action has him even more convinced than ever that the bottom is about to fall out.

Stockman believes the excessive monetary policy from central banks around the world has created a “debt supernova,” and all the signs point to “the end of the central bank enabled bubble,” which could cause a worldwide recession.

In fact, he said, there’s no way to roll back the artificially inflated bubbles the Federal Reserve has caused. (Read more from “GOP Stars Tight-Lipped on ‘Huge Disaster Waiting to Happen'” HERE)

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Economic Reality Now Catching up to Market Fantasy

By Brandon Smith. In the mind of a schizophrenic person, internal elements of fantasy (negative and positive) are made manifest in the psyche and projected out onto the real world. Often, the daydream images of the mind are not merely images to them. Rather, what they imagine subconsciously becomes reality. Their faculties of observation become so limited, either due to a reaction to trauma or merely an inherent inability to cope, that they cannot decipher between fact and fiction. A person could go on like this for quite some time if all his needs are provided for by someone else. But the moment that support ends (and it will), the realities of necessity, not to mention supply and demand, take hold. One cannot live in a schizophrenic world indefinitely.

The current global mishmash of interdependent and socialized economies are, at bottom, schizophrenic. Our markets are not based in any fundamental reality. There is very little tangible foundation left to stand on, and this has been the case for several years. Yet some people might argue that since the derivatives crash of 2008, most of the world has continued to walk on air.

The power of fantasy is that it is self-perpetuating. Fantasies are fueled most commonly by misplaced hopes and unhealthy or unrealistic desires, and such things are darkly and grotesquely energizing. Fantasies can indeed keep economies around the world functionally alive even when they are clinically dead. But again, there is always an end.

Equities and commodities markets in particular have levitated despite economic fact that their fall will be ever more spectacular. That fall has now begun halfway through 2015 . . .

New signals of market crisis are generating every two to four weeks as we grind on toward the third quarter. This is in stark contrast to the heavily predictable market behavior of the past three years. I realize that we are experiencing a “slow boil” and that many people may not even be taking note of the exponential increase in negative economic signs, but really think about it: At the beginning of 2014, what was the general financial sentiment compared to today? (Read more from “Economic Reality Now Catching up to Market Fantasy” HERE)

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Stocks Are a Disaster Waiting to Happen

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downloadBy Amanda Diaz. David Stockman has long warned that the stock market is on the verge of a massive collapse, and the recent price action has him even more convinced than ever that the bottom is about to fall out.

“I think it’s pretty obvious that the top is in,” the Reagan administration’s OMB director said Thursday on CNBC’s “Futures Now.” The S&P 500 has traded in a historically narrow range for the better part of 2015, having moved just 1 percent higher year to date. “It’s just waiting for the knee-jerk bulls, robo traders and dip buyers to finally capitulate.”

Stockman, whose past claims have yet to come to fruition, still believes that the excessive monetary policy from central banks around the world has created a “debt supernova,” and all the signs point to “the end of the central bank enabled bubble,” which could cause a worldwide recession. (Read more from “Stocks Are a Disaster Waiting to Happen” HERE)


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Everybody Preparing for a ‘September Event’ That Coincides With Shemitah

By J. D. Heyes. [A]s September approaches, some are warning of a … provable threat – one rooted in the Jewish religion and in history – called the Shemitah Year, a 3,000-year-old mystery that is remains part of the Jewish faith.

What is the Shemitah? It is the “Sabbath year,” which is also known as the sabbatical or sheviit; the seventh year of a seven-year agricultural cycle mandated by the Torah, Judaism’s religious guidance, for the Land of Israel. . .

While that may not seem important to most Americans, InvestmentWatchBlog provided further evidence that the “seventh year” is again upon us:

Rabbi Johnathan Cahn noted that the Shmitah in 2001 caused the stock market collapse at the end of September, and then in 2008 the Shmitah also caused the economy trouble. The next Shmitah happens to be at the end of the 29th day of Elul this September. . .

Carl Gallups, pastor of Florida-based Hickory Hammock Baptist Church, host of a Christian radio show and author of “Final Warning: Understanding the Trumpet Days of Revelation,” agrees that time is growing short. . .

There can be no doubt that there is an amazing convergence of end-time prophecies occurring right before our eyes,” he told the news site. “Think of where we are in history – Israel is back in its land – a 2,500-year-old prophecy fulfillment – Jerusalem is in the hands of Israel, the nations of the world are rallying against Israel, including the U.S., and Israel is now literally surrounded by Islamic enemies who are publicly calling for the complete destruction of the Jewish state.

(Read more from “Everybody Preparing for a ‘September Event’ That Coincides With Shemitah” HERE)

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Emerging Market Mayhem: Economist Warns Of “Debacle” as Currencies, Bonds Collapse

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downloadThings are getting downright scary in emerging markets. Just ask Bill Gross:

Or have a look at this week’s headlines:

– UK rate hike fears recede, emerging markets on edge
– EMERGING MARKETS-Currencies retreat on talk of a Fed rate hike
– Lost Decade in Emerging Markets: Investors Already Halfway There
– Some Greek Lessons for Emerging Markets
– Currencies in Freefall Handcuff Bankers From Chile to Colombia

And on, and on.

One particularly alarming case that we’ve been keen to document lately is that of Brazil which, you’ll recall, is “up sh*t creek without a paddle” both figuratively and literally. For one thing, as Goldman recently noted, there’s not a single period in over a decade “with a strictly-worse growth-inflation outcome than that of 2Q2015.” In other words, “since 1Q2004 there has not been a single quarter in which we had simultaneously higher inflation and lower growth than during 2Q2015.” (Read more from “Emerging Market Mayhem: Gross Warns Of “Debacle” as Currencies, Bonds Collapse” HERE)

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Report: Russia Hacks the Pentagon

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Pentagon-Building-in-Wash-007U.S. officials tell NBC News that Russia launched a “sophisticated cyberattack” against the Pentagon’s Joint Staff unclassified email system, which has been shut down and taken offline for nearly two weeks. According to the officials, the “sophisticated cyber intrusion” occurred sometime around July 25 and affected some 4,000 military and civilian personnel who work for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Sources tell NBC News that it appears the cyberattack relied on some kind of automated system that rapidly gathered massive amounts of data and within a minute distributed all the information to thousands of accounts on the Internet. The officials also report the suspected Russian hackers coordinated the sophisticated cyberassault via encrypted accounts on social media . . .

Almost immediately after the cyberattack was detected, the Pentagon took the aggressive step of shutting down the entire Joint Staff unclassified email system and Internet during its investigation. The system should be back online before the end of this week. (Read more from “Report: Russia Hacks the Pentagon” HERE)

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Watch: Most-Wanted Terrorist Emerges From Shadows to Issue Chilling Threat to America

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downloadIn a new video, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) leader Khalid Batarfi called for more lone wolf attacks on America and glorified the attacks in Tennessee and Texas as part of the overall jihadist offensive against the United States.

He praised the July attack in Chattanooga, Tenn., in which a gunman killed five American servicemen at a military installation. He called for blessings upon Mohammad Abdulazeez, who “penetrated the base killing and injuring American marines in a blessed Jihadi operation.”

The gunman who sought to attack a cartoon contest in Garland, Texas, in May was also praised as part of the exhortations supporting more such attacks:

And our words cannot give justice to their sacrifice and heroism, of which the later (operations), was the killing of many among those who insult Islam and the honorable Prophet. In … the targeting of an offensive drawings exhibition in Texas, supported and protected by the American government. By the Grace of Allah, lone jihad (has) proven to be and always will prove to be a strategic weapon successfully hitting and penetrating the enemy’s fort.

In the video, Batarfi condemned “America, France, and other kufr [disbeliever] nations” that “assist and make legislations to protect those who abuse Islam and the Prophets.” To that point he stressed, “And as you put limits to freedom of expression and punish whomever goes against them, it is upon us to punish whoever transgresses out boundaries and sanctities.” (Read more from “Most-Wanted Terrorist Emerges From Shadows to Issue Chilling Threat to America” HERE)

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Malaysian Prime Minister: Found Wing Part “Conclusively Confirmed” to be From MH370

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Photo Credit: CNN

Photo Credit: CNN

When a piece of plane debris was found last week on a remote French island in the Indian Ocean, family members of Chinese passengers on missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 made it clear what they expected: Certainty. . .

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said the wing part, known as a flaperon, has been “conclusively confirmed” to be from Flight 370. . .

Boeing officials have concluded that the part’s technical features — such as its color and the structure of its joints — confirm that it’s from a 777 aircraft, the same model as MH370, he said.

Drawing on documentation provided by Malaysia Airlines, the prosecutor said, experts also identified “common technical characteristics” between the flaperon found on Reunion and that of Flight 370. But he stopped short of making a definitive link.

The softer language used by the French prosecutor highlights the complex, multinational nature of the investigation into what happened to MH370, which disappeared on March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board. (Read more about the statement from the Malaysian Prime Minister HERE)

US Allows Ally Turkey to Bomb Only Group Effectively Fighting ISIS

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Syria1_0Late in July, the Anti-Media reported that Turkey joined the U.S. led coalition conducting airstrikes against the Islamic State (IS, ISIS, ISIL). Since then, it has become clear that Turkey’s strategy is part of a larger agreement with the U.S. to conduct a war against “extremism” in the region.

The deal between the U.S. and Turkey has the following contours: Turkey will allow the U.S. to use its military base at Incirlik to conduct airstrikes against the Islamic State. In exchange, the U.S. will allow Turkey to create a buffer zone on Syrian soil free of Islamic State and Kurdish fighters. The stated aim of the “safe zone” is to create a refuge for internally displaced Syrian civilians inside Syria. According to the New York Times,

“The plan would create what officials from both countries are calling an Islamic State-free zone controlled by relatively moderate Syrian insurgents, which the Turks say could also be a ‘safe zone’ for displaced Syrians.”

For Turkey, however, the real aim is to prevent the YPG Kurdish fighters from linking up their three zones of control (Efrin, Kobani, and Cizir pictured below; Tal Abyad is already under YPG control) in northern Syria with each other. These Kurdish fighters also happen to be the sole force that has shown the ability to effectively defeat ISIS in battle. However, the real aim of Turkey was voiced by the leader of the Kurdish opposition party—HDP— in the Turkish parliament, Selahattin Demirtas:

“‘Turkey doesn’t intend to target IS with this safe zone. The Turkish government was seriously disturbed by Kurds trying to create an autonomous state in Syria,’ he said, adding that ‘the safe zone is intended to stop the Kurds, not IS.'”

(Read more from “US Allows Ally Turkey to Bomb Only Group Effectively Fighting ISIS” HERE)

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