GFBC NEWS NETWORK

Carnival Vessel in Costa Concordia

Shares of the Miami based company, Carnival Cruises took a free fall in U.S. equities trading after officials at the company verified huge losses stemming from one of it’s ship running aground in Costa Concordia. Carnival Cruises which trades under the ticker symbol CCL, plummeted as the cost of the damages from the accident were revealed. Although the company has revealed that insurance policies would cover the losses at least $40 million will be paid out in deductible premiums to cover the losses.

Official also stated “The vessel is expected to be out of service for the remainder of our current fiscal year, if not longer,” said the company. “In addition, the company anticipates other costs to the business that are not possible to determine at this time.” n addition, the loss of use of the ship will likely cost the company between $85 million and $95 million during its current fiscal year, which ends Nov. 30.

GFBC NEWS NETWORK

January 16, 2012

Standard & Poor’s Rating agency Monday has downgraded the creditworthiness of the euro zone’s rescue fund making it difficult for the fund to raise money to bailout at risk euro zone countries cheaply. Germany, the largest of four triple-A economies in the eurozone has refused to increase commitments to the fund, which will hamper the efforts to resuscitate the fledging countries in the euro zone. The euro zone bailout fund’s aim was to raise 720-billion euro secured by the guarantees of the 14 member countries that the union is comprised of.

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US markets are closed in the remembrance of Dr. Martin Luther King’s Birthday. However, the Euro remains weak since the news of the downgrade has broken.

The United States will soon have a new ambassador to the Caribbean island nations of Barbados, St. Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. President Barack Obama nominated Senior Foreign Service member Larry Leon Palmer on November 1, 2011. If confirmed, Palmer will be the first Foreign Service officer to serve in this post since President Jimmy Carter sent Frank V. Ortiz, Jr., in 1977.

The son of a minister, Palmer was born in Augusta, Georgia, and graduated from T.W. Josey High School as valedictorian in 1966. He earned a scholarship to Emory University and graduated with a B.A. in history in 1970. Shortly after graduating from Emory, Palmer joined the Peace Corps and served as a volunteer in Liberia from 1971 to 1973, teaching high school biology, science, chemistry, physics and American literature. Back in the U.S., he received an M.Ed. in African History at Texas Southern University in 1973, and then began an academic career as assistant director of financial aid at the University of Virginia from 1973 to 1974.

Returning to Liberia, he taught history as an assistant professor at Cuttington College in Suakoko from 1974 to 1976. He earned an Ed. D. in Higher Education Administration and African Studies at Indiana University in 1978 and then taught at Wake Forest University in Winston Salem, North Carolina, from 1978 to 1981.

Palmer entered the U.S. Foreign Service in 1982. He served as vice consul at the embassy in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, from 1982 to 1984, and then as personnel officer at the embassy in Montevideo, Uruguay, with concurrent responsibility for personnel posted to Asuncion, Paraguay, from 1984 to 1986. Returning stateside in 1986, Palmer served as staff assistant to the Assistant Secretary for African Affairs from 1986 to 1987, and then served a tour in Africa as counselor for administration at the embassy in Freetown, Sierra Leone, from 1987 to 1989.

In 1989, Palmer became a Pearson Fellow, serving as assistant to Diana Natalicio, the president of the University of Texas at El Paso, with the task of promoting the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), creating faculty and student exchange opportunities in universities throughout Mexico, and serving as university consultant for International Affairs. At the end of his two years as a Fellow, Palmer served as personnel officer at the embassy in Seoul, South Korea, from 1991-1994, and then returned to the embassy in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, as counselor for administration from 1994 to 1998. From 1998 to 1999, Palmer attended the State Department Senior Seminar. He returned to South America in August 1999 to serve as chargé d’affaires at the embassy in Quito, Ecuador, remaining until July 2002.

Palmer began his first ambassadorship on September 9, 2002, as ambassador to Honduras, where he served until July 2005. He was then named president of the Inter-American Foundation, an independent agency that provides grants to Latin American communities to foster economic development, serving until June 2010.

On June 28, 2010, President Obama nominated Palmer as United States Ambassador to Venezuela, and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved the nomination. However, in September 2010, Venezuela announced that it would not allow Palmer to enter the country because at his Senate hearing Palmer had testified that morale in the Venezuelan army was low and that members of Venezuela’s government had ties to leftist Colombian rebels. (All nations have the right to approve foreign diplomats; for example, Vatican City in 2009 rejected three American nominees for being insufficiently anti-abortion.) On December 28, 2010, Venezuela confirmed the finality of its rejection of Palmer’s nomination, and the next day the U.S. revoked the visa of Venezuela’s ambassador, Bernardo Álvarez Herrera.
Palmer and his wife, Lucille, have one son.

Source: ALL GOV

“As Iran’s second biggest oil customer, Japan’s action will be particularly significant,” said AJC Executive Director David Harris. “Iran’s leaders must recognize that the international community is determined to impose crippling economic and financial sanctions to stop Tehran’s nuclear weapons program.”

Japan imports about ten percent of its oil from Iran, and already has begun to explore increasing the flow from other oil-producing countries.

European leaders are expected to meet in Brussels on January 23, and approve a plan for all 27 EU member states to end their imports of Iranian oil. The EU accounts for 18 percent of Iranian oil exports.

Harris praised the Obama Administration for following up with other nations after the president signed, on December 31, a law that ends all U.S. dealings with Iran’s Central Bank and with foreign entities that do business with the bank.

Increasing support for sanctioning Iran’s banking and energy sectors also comes in the wake of IAEA confirmation this week that Iran has begun enriching uranium up to 20 percent, a major step towards making uranium weapons-grade, and following the IAEA’s devastating November report on Iran’s nuclear program.

SOURCE American Jewish Committee

More than 52 people have been murdered in recent days alone by Boko Haram, a Muslim sect that carried out deadly assaults on three churches on Christmas Day and countless other terrorist attacks against Nigeria’s Christian population.

“Such indiscriminate killings of Christians in Nigeria is beyond deplorable and despicable,” said AJC Executive Director David Harris. “We look to Nigeria’s religious leaders to stand together in forcefully condemning such atrocities in the name of a religious group.”

Boko Haram, which aims to install strict Shariah, or Islamic, law across Nigeria, has vowed to keep killing Christians in the multiethnic country.

In today’s attack, at least eight worshippers attending Sunday mass were killed at the Apostolic Church in Yola. More than 20 people were killed yesterday in Mubi.

The latest murderous assaults come after the Christmas Day bombings at the St. Theresa Catholic Church in Madalla and Mountain of Fire and Miracles Church in Jos, which left more than 40 worshippers dead.

“We join with the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom in calling on the Administration to press the Nigerians to do their utmost to put to an end this wanton violence by Boko Haram,” said Harris.

SOURCE: American Jewish Committee