Guided Missile

Russian millionaire Vladimir Antonov, the former owner of Lithuanian bank Snoras and Latvian bank Latvijas Krajbanka, could face a ten-year prison sentence if convicted in Lithuania, and a three-year prison sentence if convicted in Latvia, the newspaper Diena reports today. [TABLE=class: pic] [TR] [/TR] [/TABLE] Antonov has been declared a suspect in Latvia in connection with LVL 100 million that has gone missing from Latvian bank Latvijas Krajbanka, writes LETA. On the other hand, Lithuanian media report that approximately LVL 200 million has gone missing from Snoras bank. As reported, yesterday, Lithuanian Prosecutor General Darius Valys signed a European arrest warrant for Antonov and his partner at Snoras bank Raimondas Baranauskas. Both former Snoras bank executives were named suspects in the case on large-scale misappropriation of assets and document forgery. Baranauskas is also suspected of fraudulent bookkeeping and abuse of authority. LETA also reported, Snoras holds a 67.9% stake in now-troubled Latvian bank Krajbanka. Last week, Snoras was nationalized as Lithuanian authorities shut down the bank after it observed irregularities in the bank's operations. Earlier this week, Latvian State Police Chief Ints Kuzis reported that the assets discovered missing at Krajbanka totals about LVL 100 million. Krajbanka co-owner Antonov has been classified a suspect in the case, and a decision will come soon whether he will be sought and a warrant issued by Latvian authorities.

This...

If any, and I mean any, of the posters on this site was offered a job that paid £1M a year, not one would turn it down on the basis of corporate greed. So, let's admit that any opinions are based on jealousy, as is the case of the majority of Socialist/Communist/Lib Dems. It would be better to concentrate on public, rather than private finances, where billions are wasted on the wages of public sector employees and political appointees. The Socialist/Communist/Lib Dems are first in line at this particular trough, as the Kinnocks, et al demonstrated so well in Brussels and haven't we had value for money from these Euro Parliamentary leaches? The EU? Possibly the most expensive and biggest failure since the Treaty of Versailles.

For me, Ho is a Christmas present that just keeps giving....

This is fascinating... In March 1893, Freemantle reached the final of the Hampshire Senior Cup, where they again met their arch-rivals, Southampton St. Mary's. The Saints had won the cup in each of the two previous seasons and were favourites to retain the trophy. The match, played at the County Ground on 11 March, generated great excitement in the town and produced a crowd of over 6000 and gate receipts of £122. The Bournemouth Guardian reported: "the attendance completely upset all ideas as to the accommodation that would be required, and the magnificent spectacle of between 6,000 and 7,000 excited individuals massed together round the field of play ... was one that Hampshire and indeed none of the counties south of the Thames and this side of London has ever witnessed at an Association football match." Freemantle opened the scoring before the Saints equalised; with the score 1–1 and only a few minutes left to play, a Freemantle forward, Horton, was about to score past Ralph Ruffell in the Saints' goal when he was tripped by William Stride. Although the Saints protested that the foul was outside the penalty area, the referee awarded a penalty to Freemantle, which was converted by Shirley Hawkins, giving Freemantle their first trophy.[7] After the match, the Freemantle supporters "went on a revel"; local legend has it that the Cup was found next early the morning "sitting unattended in the middle of the road outside a local hostelry – presumably the Waterloo Arms".[7] At the club’s end of season dinner the Magpies' captain, George Ridges, told the gathering that he "did not see why they should not call their club Southampton Football Club".[4]

[h=3]xe·no·pho·bia definition [/h]Pronunciation: /ˌzen-ə-ˈfō-bē-ə, ˌzēn-/ Function: n : fear and hatred of strangers or foreigners or of anything that is strange or foreign.

Speaking to Meridian Tonight, Marc Jackson was asked what his background is and who was behind his consortium. He told the programme... 'I was trained by Xerox, many many many years ago. I'm a business strategist, many people say I'm a photocopying salesman, which I always find quite amusing.' 'I actually have been in the past,been heavily involved in the fitting out of Southampton football club stadium. Obviously I have an IT background, sales background, but also I have had involvement at Southampton Academy and scouting for many, many years.' 'To give you an instance I was involved in the scouting of Adam Lallana from Bournemouth sadly, to Southampton.' 'I have many, many contacts in football, I have many contacts abroad as well, in American MLS football as well as in Dubai.' 'So it's a mixture of many many things, all put together with a vision for a football club and we are going to drop the blueprint into here, but all will be revealed.' When asked if it was his money he was investing in AFC Bournemouth, Jackson smiled and said... 'It is a consortium' When pushed on who is in the consortium, he added... 'That is, something that really and honestly will never be answered properly and completely, but the truth of the matter is, there will be answers to that to an extent in tomorrow's (Thursday) press conference.'

There was no charge for the Lend Lease aid delivered during the war, but the Americans did expect the return of some durable goods such as ships. Congress had not authorized the gift of supplies after the war, so the administration charged for them, usually at a 90% discount. Large quantities of undelivered goods were in Britain or in transit when Lend-Lease terminated on 2 September 1945. Britain wished to retain some of this equipment in the immediate post war period. In 1946, the post-war Anglo-American loan further indebted Britain to the U.S. Lend-lease items retained were sold to Britain at 10% of nominal value, giving an initial loan value of £1.075 billion for the Lend Lease portion of the post-war loans. Payment was to be stretched out over 50 annual payments, starting in 1951 and with five years of deferred payments, at 2% interest.[26] The final payment of $83.3 million (£42.5 million), due on 31 December 2006 (repayment having been deferred in the allowed five years), was made on 29 December 2006 (the last working day of the year). After this final payment Britain's Economic Secretary to the Treasury, Ed Balls, formally thanked the U.S. for its wartime support. I guess a 90 % discount on US wartime aid and thousands of US lives lost in Europe wasn't enough for you lot. What we repaid was about 10% value of the durable goods we kept, like battleships and the post war Anglo-American loan, that funded the NHS, amongst other Socialist experiments. At least Ed Balls had some gratitude, unlike you lot. The US making a fortune out of the UK from the aid they gave us? Yeah, that's right....

A 1942 Gallup poll conducted after Pearl Harbor, before the arrival of US troops and Churchill's heavy promotion of the special relationship, showed wartime ally Russia was still more popular than the United States among 62% of Britons. However only 6% had ever visited the United States and only 35% knew any Americans personally. In 1986, 71% of Britons, questioned in a Mori poll the day after Reagan’s bombing of Libya, disagreed with Thatcher's decision to allow the use of RAF bases, while two thirds in a Gallup survey opposed the bombing itself, the reverse of American opinion. The above 2 polls and subsequent history have shown how clueless the UK general public is, demonstrated so well by many of the posters on this thread.

I am saying that they obviously shared our values enough, to die for the freeedom you are exercising, spouting xenophobic rubbish. I would call that a "special-relationship". Personally, I'd be happier restricting the bandwidth you are currently inhabiting...

The Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial is a World War II cemetery and memorial in Colleville-sur-Mer, Normandy, France, that honors American soldiers who died in Europe during World War II. The cemetery is located on a bluff overlooking Omaha Beach (one of the landing beaches of the Normandy Invasion) and the English Channel. It covers 70 ha (172 acres), and contains the remains of 9,387 American military dead, most of whom were killed during the invasion of Normandy and ensuing military operations in World War II. Included are graves of Army Air Corps crews shot down over France as early as 1942. Only some of the soldiers who died overseas are buried in the overseas American military cemeteries. When it came time for a permanent burial, the next of kin eligible to make decisions were asked if they wanted their loved ones repatriated for permanent burial in the U.S., or interred at the closest overseas cemetery.

This...

Rain stopped play, from where I'm sitting....

In the spirit of a previous poster: UC AlbinoLeffe (Italy) Blooming (Bolivia) Burntisland Shipyard FC (Scotland) Civil Service Strollers (Scotland) Club Destroyers (Bolivia) Colonel Bolognesi (Peru) Deportivo Moron (Argentina) FC Englebert (Congo) FL Fart (Norway) Gala Fairydean (Scotland) Go Ahead Eagles (Holland) Golspie Sutherland (Scotland) Hallelujah FC (South Korea) FC Holy Paul (Congo) Inverurie Loco Works FC (Scotland) Joe Public FC (Trinidad and Tobago) Wigtown and Bladnoch (Scotland) Jorge Wilstermann (Bolivia) KFC Winterslag (Belgium) Mito Hollyhock (Japan) Old Boys Basel (Switzerland) Pele FC (Guyana) Prima Ham FC (Japan) Shooting Stars FC (Nigeria) Sint-Eloois Winkel Sport (Belgium) South Georgetown Ballweavers (Guyana) The Strongest (Bolivia) Total Clean Football Club (Peru) Wikki Tourists FC (Nigeria) Wormatia Worms (Germany) Young Boys (Switzerland) Young Fellows Juventus (Switzerland)

Don't think I've forgotten about the comparative performance of our two companies, Johnny Big Bo££ox....

...and advice which that well known cheese eating, surrender monkey of a bank should have heeded. I'm talking about BNP Paribas, Jonah's employer. Yes, they're French, they're smelly and they couldn't help sniffing condesendingly in our direction, when it came to the state of our respective economies. I was thinking of this thread that was an attempt to describe the actual strength of the UK economy, when compared to the shifty French and their shoulder shrugging approach to debt. In particular, over 2 years ago, Jonah posted, in reply to me: Well, Jonah's own bank, BNP Paribas recently reported holding the most Greek debt of any of the French banks, about 5bn euros of sovereign debt and has set aside 534m euros to cover its Greek exposure. My forecast? Watch a French banking crisis emerge over the next few weeks and whether Sarkozy and the French government can bail them out. 534m euros set aside for the Greek debt? Try 1.5b euros and you might be closer to the mark.... Of course, my opening post about Saints avoiding administration by paying off the £5M overdraft to Barclays was completely wrong, but I'm more of a broad brush, macro-economic kind of a guy.....

We took our usual seats for the Leeds game, noticing that the seat next to us was empty. An young chinese guy moved along to the seat, holding the seat ticket a camera and wearing a signed Saints shirt. He took about 20 photos before kick off, and we settled down to watch the game. First goal and my son and I are jumping up and down, high fiving and shouting. The next goal and we are hugging each other, in between jumping up and down. We sit down for half time, as the chinese guy goes down to the pitchside for more photo opportunities. Second half and we watch the third goal, go in. I glance to my left and my son is hugging the Chinese guy and jumping up and down. "What was that about, mate?" I asked my son, smiling. "He was watching us hugging each other for the second goal, Dad and it looked like he wanted to join in, as he came on his own, so I thought I'd better give him a hug for the third goal."

At least let us speculate. Com'on Alps, you know what they say. If you can't laugh at yourself, at least let me do it for you....

To be fair, I think calling obesity a fairly serious illness is stretching it...

I miss the old Riot Act, to be fair: Unfortunately, these were replaced by the Public Order Act, 1986, which I think, provides enough power, if we had enough police on the streets, instead of paper shuffling behind a desk:

Pity they didn't think as carefully when they used real ones, that kicked the whole thing off. Am I the only one, post De Mendez, to think that arming the Met is akin to letting them play "Call of Duty", for real...

Your adopted country was founded by thugs and criminals....

These riots are the direct result of a generation, that has grown reliant on the benefits system that rewards dysfunctional families. The sense of entitlement without the responsibility to earn that right has been instilled in a large number of families, that have been housed and fed at taxpayers expense. The welfare state in broken and we will go through a lot of pain to fix it. I hope the government has the balls to continue with the difficult task, in the face of pressure from the unions and the criminals. (and I don't mean Ed Balls)

Has anyone noticed that the fee is about what Marcus paid for the club, stadium included... Business Genius....