Federal Reserve tells banks not to talk about 'stress tests'
Cost of Iraq war will surpass Vietnam's by year's end --If Congress approves the latest funding request, as expected, the Iraq war will have cost about $694 billion, making it the second most expensive conflict in U.S. history behind World War II. The amount of U.S. money spent on the Iraq war will surpass the cost of Vietnam by the end of the year, making it the second most expensive military conflict in American history, behind World War II, according to Pentagon figures provided Friday. If Congress approves the supplemental funding request submitted this week by the Obama administration, the cost of the war will rise by $87 billion for 2009, including a previous supplement approved during the Bush administration.
Contractor Must Pay in Iraq Fraud, Court Rules A federal appeals court ruled Friday that a contractor [mercenaries] found to have committed widespread fraud in Iraq could not avoid paying millions of dollars in damages by claiming that the United States law governing false claims essentially did not apply there, as a previous judge had found on technical grounds. The earlier decision set aside a jury’s verdict in 2006 that the contractor, Custer Battles, must pay about $10 million in damages and penalties to the United States government and two whistle-blowers.
Iraqi babies for sale: people trafficking crisis grows in corrupt system --At least 150 children a year sold for £200 to £4,000 --Some bartered youngsters become sex abuse victims Corruption, weak law enforcement and porous borders are compounding a growing child trafficking crisis in [Bush's] Iraq, according to officials and aid agencies, with scores of children abducted each year and sold internally or abroad. Criminal gangs [Xe/KBR] are profiting from the cheap cost of buying infants and the bureaucratic muddle that makes it relatively easy to move them overseas. Accurate figures are difficult to obtain because there is no centralised counting procedure, but aid agencies and police say they believe numbers have increased by a third since 2005 to at least 150 children a year.
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