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NEW YORK – Newly released records reveal details on how U.S. intelligence officials used and protected some Nazi Gestapo agents after World War II, tracked Holocaust administrator Adolf Eichmann and relied on a suspected war criminal from Ukraine living in New York to try to disrupt the USSR, according to a report to Congress obtained by The Associated Press.

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The Federal Aviation Administration is missing key information on who owns one-third of the 357,000 private and commercial aircraft in the U.S. — a gap the agency fears could be exploited by terrorists and drug traffickers.

The records are in such disarray that the FAA says it is worried that criminals could buy planes without the government’s knowledge, or use the registration numbers of other aircraft to evade new computer systems designed to track suspicious flights. It has ordered all aircraft owners to re-register their planes in an effort to clean up its files.

A very scary article – but I wonder which contractor managed to “sell” this idea, and a system to do the re-registration of course, to the government…

State department republishes Wikileaks’ doc. Will they now try to sue themselves? | http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/116764.pdf

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"I opened up this Word document in Word," writes Matt, "and it looks like someone embedded a Word document in the Word document. When I tried to open that, Word told me I needed to install Word."

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The Nordic economy grew at 1.2pc in the third quarter and looks poised to rebound next year. It ends a gruelling slump caused largely by the "New Viking" antics of Landsbanki, Glitnir and Kaupthing, the trio of lenders that brought down Iceland’s financial system in September 2008.

The economies of the two "over-banked" countries have both contracted by around 11pc of GDP, but Iceland has achieved it with inflation that devalues debt, while Ireland has done it under an EMU deflation regime that raises the burden of debt.

This has led to vastly different debt dynamics as they enter Year III of the drama. Iceland’s budget deficit will be 6.3pc this year, and soon in surplus: Ireland’s will be 12pc (32pc with bank bail-outs) and not much better next year.

The pain has been distributed very differently. Irish unemployment has reached 14.1pc, and is still rising. Iceland’s peaked at 9.7pc and has since fallen to 7.3pc.

[..]

Iceland’s president, Olafur Grimsson, irritated EU officials last month when he said his country was recovering faster because it had refused to bail out creditors – mostly foreigners.

“The difference is that in Iceland we allowed the banks to fail. These were private banks and we didn’t pump money into them in order to keep them going; the state should not shoulder the responsibility,” he said.

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Irish Finance Minister Brian Lenihan said on Thursday he would impose a 90 per cent tax on bankers’ bonuses, in a move to try to silence critics who have said the banking sector drove Ireland into the ground.

“As far as the future is concerned I do propose to introduce the amendment to the finance bill to put this matter beyond any doubt and provide a high rate, a 90 per cent rate of charge on any … bankers’ bonuses,” Mr. Lenihan told local radio.

[..]

“Let me make this clear, they’re entitled to be paid it, we’re entitled to tax it,” he said.

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One of the two Swedish women who have filed sex complaints against the founder of WikiLeaks has reportedly left Sweden and may no longer be cooperating with the criminal investigation.

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Oilfield services company Halliburton is in negotiations with the Nigerian government to keep its former CEO, Dick Cheney, out of prison, according to a news report.

Sources inside Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission told GlobalPost this week that a settlement keeping the charges against Cheney out of court could cost as much as $500 million.

I wonder how much money the US would accept to keep Assange out of jail… now that we know freedom is for sale, all that remains is negotiating about the price.