The New Political Party Put In Place To

Catch America’s Impending Fall

When our debt becomes unsustainable, America’s wealth will collapse. Economic failure will follow. Chaos and civil unrest will threaten your family’s safety. America will sink into poverty and chaos…and eventually into tyranny.

The Twelve Visions Party was put in place at this time to catch America’s fall and prevent a civil catastrophe. The existence of the Twelve Visions Party is critical to every American. Whereas third parties in America ultimately exist as platforms to win political awareness and even to influence the two major parties, that is not the case with The Twelve Visions Party. Its end-rule-of-man Prime Law will never influence either major political party. The Twelve Visions Party was put in place at this time as the safe-guard and savior of civilization after the economic collapse.

The Twelve Visions Party (TVP) has little to no effect today in the massive establishment of politics. However, the TVP is the most important political movement in America today. In an economic failure, the TVP will save you and your family from poverty, crime, tyranny. Unlike any other third party, the TVP has a major role in your future.

Third parties stand little to no chance at the presidency. Admirable efforts have been made for decades, from the well-organized Libertarians, the Green Party, United We Stand, and others. With little chance of winning, the purpose of third-party presidential candidates is: getting their party’s ideas out and known…and winning influence upon the two mainstream parties.

Unlike the other third parties, the purpose of the TVP at this time is not about winning political positions, nationally or locally, or even getting our ideas out and known. The purpose of the Twelve Visions Party at this time is something entirely different…something vital to each and every American. The immediate purpose of the TVP is to save you and your loved ones if our country goes into an economic meltdown. Let’s take a closer look:

Most Americans are aware of the mounting debt America has accumulated. Anyone who understands the least bit about economics knows the trouble America is in. Even without a basic understanding of economics, we see on TV and read in the paper warnings from economists, professors, news journalist, even from politicians themselves. America is in deep financial trouble.

We are told we could be heading into disaster, whereby the bottom of our economy falls out. Our futures and our children’s futures could suffer an economic depression unlike the world has ever seen. By looking at America’s debt alone, the long-term future looks dangerous. That threatening future can all turn around if the TVP took hold, but a TVP President is not going to happen now; even gaining widespread state recognition will not happen in time to stop our imminent economic fall. Without a strong TVP direction, we face certain realities that guarantee disaster.

The critically important purpose of the Twelve Visions Party is clear: If America falls hard, if the bottom falls out from under this economy and we go into a systemic economic failure, the Twelve Visions Party with its Prime Law is the only thing there, the net that catches America’s fall and saves us from the horrors of poverty, crime, tyranny. When America experiences a catastrophic economic collapse…America will fall first into severe poverty, then civil unrest, chaos, and finally into tyranny. That failure cycle has been demonstrated throughout history. Prior to TVP, there was nothing in place to stop that failure cycle. Without TVP, we would sink deeper and deeper into poverty, civil unrest, and tyranny. Imagine that future for your children and loved ones…poverty and tyranny. The only thing now set in place that could stop this spiraling fall is the Twelve Visions Party and the entirely new political structure with the Prime Law, its pure and unhindered freedom that releases the geniuses of society, its protection-only government, its service-basis government versus the otherwise power-basis, tyranny-bound government. This entirely new TVP political paradigm in a completely new dimension of politics will be there, in place, as a stopgap, the net to catch America’s collapse and to give its people, our loved ones, a way out.

When you understand that TVP has little to do with third-party agendas of winning political influence, and once you realize that TVP is the ONLY possible net that can catch a collapsing America, then you can understand the importance and urgency of TVP NOW. When the financial failure hits, TVP and its Prime Law will be there to save our country. The TVP can literally save your life. To understand how the TVP will be your safety net and save your future, read How To Make All People Rich, Including the Poor, the TVP National Platform.

19 Dec 2011

Kim Jong-il, the North Korean leader, died aged 69 of a heart attack, plunging the nuclear-armed and deeply isolated nation into a second dynastic succession and the region as a whole into diplomatic uncertainty and instability.

Pyongyang urged people to rally behind Kim’s youngest son Jong-Un, describing him as “great successor” to the leader who presided over a famine that saw hundreds of thousands die, but still built an atomic arms arsenal.

State television, which delivered the shock news in a tearful announcement from a female news reader, aired footage of hysterical North Koreans, young and old alike, pounding the ground in a display of abject grief.

South Korea put its military on emergency alert but urged its people to stay calm, and swiftly closed ranks with its close ally the United States. Analysts said there would likely be little turbulence in the North – at least for now.

Neighbouring China and Russia, both influential players in Pyongyang, sent their condolences and observers said Beijing would beef up its all-important patronage to prevent an implosion in the communist North.

There was wariness about where North Korea goes now under Kim Jong-il’s son, but Britain, France and Germany voiced tentative hope for a new dawn at the end of a tumultuous year that has seen regimes topple across the Middle East.

The “Dear Leader”, according to the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), “passed away from a great mental and physical strain” at 8:30am on Saturday (23.30 GMT Friday) while travelling by train on one of his field trips.

It urged people to support the Swiss-educated Kim Jong-Un, who is in his late 20s and was last year made a four-star general and given top ruling party posts despite having had no public profile.

“All party members, military men and the public should faithfully follow the leadership of comrade Kim Jong-Un and protect and further strengthen the unified front of the party, military and the public,” the female announcer, clad in black, said on television.

KCNA said Kim died of a “severe myocardial infarction along with a heart attack”. He suffered a stroke in August 2008 which triggered an acceleration in the succession plans.

Kim’s funeral will be held on December 28 in Pyongyang but no foreign delegations will be invited, KCNA said. National mourning was declared until December 29.

“We must hold high the flag of songun (military-first) policy, strengthen military power a hundred times and firmly defend our socialist system and achievement of revolution,” it said.

North Korea’s propaganda machine has rolled into action to build up the same personality cult for Jong-Un that surrounded his father and late grandfather Kim Il-sung, the founder and “eternal leader” of North Korea who died in 1994.

“The North’s top guys have already sorted out everything and the regime seems to be stable under the new leadership,” said Paik Hak-Soon of Seoul’s Sejong Institute.

“I don’t expect any major turbulence or power struggle within the regime in the foreseeable future.

“The Kim Jong-Un era has already started.”

Kim Jong-il’s only sister Kim Kyong-Hui and her husband Jang Song-Thaek, the country’s unofficial number-two leader, are expected to act as the younger Kim’s mentors and throw their weight behind the son’s leadership.

Analysts stressed that North Korea was entering an uncertain period, although its senior figures were likely to stick closely together for now.

“The North Korean elite has a vested interest in maintaining the system and will assess Jong-Un’s ability to protect its interests,” said Bruce Klingner, a Northeast Asia expert at Washington’s Heritage Foundation.

South Korea summoned a meeting of the National Security Council and President Lee Myung-Bak called an emergency cabinet meeting.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff said it had increased monitoring along the border along with US forces in the country but had detected no unusual activity.

North and South Korea have remained technically at war since their three-year conflict ended only in an armistice in 1953. The United States stations 28,500 troops in the South.

Mr Lee and US President Barack Obama were quick to talk by telephone after Kim’s death was announced at noon (0300 GMT), officials said.

A White House statement said: “The president reaffirmed the United States’ strong commitment to the stability of the Korean peninsula and the security of our close ally, the Republic of Korea.”

Japan, Korea’s former colonial ruler, offered its condolences over the death but also called an emergency security meeting, while Britain said it could be a “turning point” and France hoped that North Koreans could now “find freedom”.

The news shocked South Koreans and some expressed fears of renewed conflict.

“I’m worried there will be a war. I thought it wasn’t true at first,” said student Song Bo-Na, 22.

KCNA, quoting a statement from the national funeral committee headed by Jong-Un, said Kim Jong-il’s body would lie in state in Kumsusan palace where his father’s embalmed body is on display.

Kim took over after his father and founding President Kim Il-sung died in 1994, coming to power with a reputation as a playboy who revelled in the high life.

But in the mid- to late-1990s he presided over a famine which killed hundreds of thousands of his people. Severe food shortages continue and the UN children’s fund estimates one-third of children are stunted by malnutrition.

Kim still found the resources to continue a nuclear weapons programme which culminated in tests in October 2006 and May 2009. The country is believed to have a plutonium stockpile big enough for six to eight weapons.

Pyongyang test-fired a short-range missile off its east coast on Monday, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said, but quoted an unnamed government official as saying it was unrelated to the announcement of Kim’s death.

Such test launches are relatively common in the North, which has an arsenal of chemical and conventional weapons including thousands of short- and medium-range missiles.

Kim Jong-un: North Korea’s enigmatic heir apparent .

Dec 19, 2011

Kim Jong-un, the third and youngest son of North Korea’s late leader Kim Jong-il, appears to be the successor to the dictator who died on the weekend.

A statement from the ruling Workers Party broadcast by state media referred to the son as “the great successor to the revolution” and “the eminent leader of the military and the people.”

Little is known about Kim Jong-un, who is believed to be in his late 20s or early 30s, but after his father suffered a stroke in 2008, the leader began moves to establish his youngest son as a successor.

Kim Jong-un apparently attended the International School of Bern in Switzerland under the pseudonym Pak Chol, studying English, German and French. Classmates described him as timid and introverted but an avid skier and basketball player.

In September 2010, the official Korean Central News Agency reported that the heir apparent had been promoted to a four-star general and appointed to the Central Military Commission.

His appearance with his father during a massive military parade in Pyongyang in October 2010 was regarded as a further sign the son was being groomed as a successor. He had also reportedly made a visit to China with his father earlier in the year.

Foreign affairs analyst Eric Margolis described Kim Jong-un to CBC’s News Network as a “non-entity … but the son will probably emerge as a figurehead behind different competing factions, namely the Communist Party, hardliners and the military, who will agree on him to prevent a power struggle.”

Kim Jong-il’s eldest son, Kim Jong-nam, who is about 40, was once thought a likely successor, but displayed erratic behaviour in 2001 when he was deported from Japan after attempting to enter the country under a false Dominican Republic passport in a bid to visit Tokyo’s Disneyland.

Kim Jong-il’s other son is Kim Jong-chol, who apparently was not considered a prospect for leadership.

By Martha Raddatz

Dec 18, 2011

It was pitch dark when we left Iraq.

A line of more than 100 U.S. vehicles, and nearly 500 soldiers headed out to make history.

Some of the soldiers were on their fourth deployments to Iraq, but many more on their first.

A significant number of the soldiers were just children when the war began.

But all of us knew how profound this trip would be. I was in an MRAP, those massive mine resistant vehicles, with five soldiers from the 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division based in Fort Hood, Texas.

There is no U.S. Army division I have spent more time with in the last 9 years than 1st Cavalry.

I sat with courageous soldiers in 2004 in Sadr City, who had been in one of the most ferocious battles of the war.

Eight of the soldiers from the 2/5 Cavalry lost their lives that April night, the very first night the battalion took over in Sadr City.

Sixty more were wounded. So it especially poignant for me to climb into the MRAP on the way out of Iraq, one of the few reporters on the last convoy, to see 28-year-old Staff Sgt. Larry Hains.

Sgt. Hains had been there in 2004. He lost friends. He saw another paralyzed from the neck down. He was the most somber on the trip. It means something to him beyond a historical first.

While some of the younger soldiers understandably talked of the first beer they would have when they get home, Sgt. Hains and I reflected on this nine year war.

He was near tears as we crossed into Kuwait.

“I’m thinking about all of them, all of my friends, all of the soldiers who weren’t able to make this journey.” He quietly said “Mission Accomplished” but he did not mean it as a boast of victory.

He meant his personal mission, to give meaning to the loss.

To show his “brothers” that the 1st Cav would finish the job they started long ago.

While many in the nation may not look at this war as worth it, or feel it should ever have been started, for Sgt. Hains that trip across the border with the sun rising over Kuwait brought closure and pride.

Barry Neild

Saturday 17 December 2011

Southern Philippines storm kills more than 400 people, many of whom were swept away while they slept

The death toll from the devastating flash floods that swept across the southern Philippines in the wake of a tropical storm has risen to more than 400.

The Philippine National Red Cross (PNRC) said 436 people are now confirmed dead based on a body count in funeral parlours.

The storm sent walls of water cascading through coastal cities in the country’s Mindanao group of islands, with 215 killed in Cagayan de Oro and 144 in nearby Iligan and the rest in other southern and central provinces, said the aid agency’s secretary general Gwen Pang.

She said the hardest-hit areas were in the cities of Iligan and Cagayan de Oro, with many houses being swept into the sea. Most of the dead were swept away while they slept when floodwaters tore through their homes following 12 hours of torrential rain.

Earlier Colonel Leopoldo Galon, an army spokesman, said emergency workers had recovered 97 bodies, most of them children, in Cagayan de Oro.”I can’t explain how these things happened, entire villages were swept to the sea by flash floods,” Galon told Reuters. He said the death toll was expected to rise.

“I have not seen anything like this before. This could be worse than Ondoy,” he said, referring to a 2009 storm that killed hundreds of people in the capital, Manila.

Iligan mayor Lawrence Cruz said many people were caught by surprise as rainfall from tropical storm Washi caused floodwaters to rise more than a metre in less than an hour.

“Most of them were already sleeping when floodwaters entered their homes,” he said. “This is the worst flooding our city had experienced in years.”

Floodwaters were waist-high in some neighbourhoods, with scores of residents scrambling onto their rooftops to escape the rising waters, Cruz said.

Ayi Hernandez, a former congressman, said he and his family were evacuated to a neighbour’s two-storey house after a loud “swooshing sound” brought water surging into their home.

“It was a good thing because in less than an hour the water rose to about 11 feet,” the height of the ceiling of his house, he said.

Rufus Rodriguez, a politician in Cagayan de Oro, said that about 20,000 residents of the city had been affected with evacuees being moved to temporary shelters.

As the floodwaters subsided, rescuers in boats search coastlines for survivors swept out to sea. About 180 people were pulled alive from the ocean off the northern coast of Mindanao, said Teddy Sabuga-a, a disaster official.

Benito Ramos, a civil defence administrater, said 18 drowned in floodwaters in central Negros Oriental province, where the centre of the storm, which packed winds of up to 56 miles per hour, hit on Saturday.

Ramos said the high casualties caused by Washi, the 19th storm in the Philippines this year, could be attributed “partly to the complacency of people because they are not in the usual path of storms” despite four days of warnings by officials.

Forecasters say the storm is expected to blow out of the country late on Sunday.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is making recently passed voter ID laws a top priority, raising questions about whether the Obama administration will sue several states in an attempt to block implementation leading up to the 2012 election.

Fourteen states, including Rhode Island, have passed some form of voter ID legislation over the last year. The Ocean State’s law, enacted by the overwhelmingly Democratic legislature, is considered to be the most liberal in the country. But civil rights groups have still argued that it will disenfranchise several blocks of voters, including the elderly, minorities and the poor.

Locals Raise Concern

Still, some local organizations continue to raise questions about the changes to voting laws. Last week, ten groups submitted testimony to Mollis’ office calling for significant changes to the way the state issues voter ID cards.

Their concern is that many of the acceptable forms of ID are more likely to be held by those that already have an ID and the elderly, minorities and poor may still struggle to have the right documents. The state maintains that it will have a mobile voter ID unit in order to make sure everyone who wants to vote has proper identification.

“Requiring the other nineteen acceptable documents to include a current date and address will severely limit the availability of these documents for people needing to qualify for a voter card,” the testimony said. “Public housing cards, student ID, insurance and drug discount cards, RIPTA bus passes, and ID documents by government homeless shelters, for example, are unlikely to have a current date or address or both. Indeed, the mere fact that an address is required largely eliminates their availability for anybody who is homeless.”

But Barnett pointed to a recent Brennan Center study which singled out Rhode Island’s legislation as being “significantly less restrictive and differs substantially from the others that passed this session.” He said the state should have no problems moving forward.

“While the Brennan Center estimates that Voter ID laws in other states will make it harder for millions of their voters to cast ballots in 2012, it specifically excluded Rhode Island because our ‘requirements are less onerous than those in other states,’” Barnett said.

Job market brightens as unemployment claims sink .

By CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER

Dec. 15, 2011

The outlook for the job market is looking brighter.

Far fewer people are seeking unemployment benefits than just three months ago – a sign that layoffs are falling sharply.

The number of people applying for benefits fell last week to 366,000, the fewest since May 2008. If the number stayed that low consistently, it would likely signal that hiring is strong enough to lower unemployment.

The unemployment rate is now 8.6 percent. The last time applications were this low, the rate was 5.4 percent.

The big question is whether fewer layoffs will translate into robust hiring. It hasn’t happened yet, even though job growth has been rising consistently each month.

The four-week average of weekly unemployment applications, which smooths out fluctuations, dropped last week to 387,750. That’s the lowest four-week since July 2008. The four-week average has declined in 10 of the past 12 weeks.

“Labor market conditions have taken a turn for the better in recent weeks,” Michael Gapen, an economist at Barclays Capital, said in a note to clients. “Payroll growth should improve in the coming months.”

Applications for unemployment benefits are a measure of the pace of layoffs. Job cuts have fallen sharply since the recession. Employers have been hiring at only a modest pace. But when applications fall below 375,000 – consistently – that usually signals that hiring is strong enough to lower the unemployment rate.

The downward trend suggests that companies are cutting fewer workers as the economy picks up. It also comes as Congress is wrangling over whether to extend emergency unemployment benefits, which are set to expire at the end of this year.

Growth may top 3 percent in the final three months of this year, according to many economists. That would be up from 2 percent in the July-September quarter.

Other recent reports suggest the job market is improving a bit. In the past three months, net job gains have averaged 143,000 a month. That compares with an average of 84,000 in the previous three months.

In November, employers added 120,000 jobs, and the unemployment rate fell to 8.6 percent from 9 percent. That was the lowest unemployment rate in 2 1/2 years. But about half that decline occurred because many of the unemployed gave up looking for work. When people stop looking for a job, they’re no longer counted as unemployed.

Employers posted fewer jobs in October than in the previous month, the government said Tuesday, though the decline was modest.

Job openings have risen by about 35 percent since the recession officially ended in June 2009. But they’re still about 25 percent below pre-recession levels.

About 6.7 million people are receiving unemployment benefits. About 2 million will lose their benefits by mid-February if the emergency program expires.

Lawmakers differ over how long benefits should last. The House passed a Republican bill Tuesday that would renew emergency aid but reduce the maximum duration to 59 weeks from the current 99 weeks.

Democrats want to keep the full 99 weeks. The measure is part of broader legislation in the Democratic-led Senate that would also extend a Social Security tax cut.

BY Nancy Dillon

Wednesday, December 14 2011

Just 51% of American adults are married, down from 72% in 1960

Fewer American adults are jumping on the wedding bandwagon.

Barely half of all adults in the United States – a record low – are currently hitched, a new report from the Pew Research Institute found.

And the median age for first marriages has never been higher for brides, 26.5 years, and grooms, 28.7 years, the new Pew analysis of U.S. Census data revealed.

The report, released Wednesday, said that the number of new marriages in the U.S. declined by 5% between 2009 and 2010, a startling drop that could be related to tough economic times, growing acceptance of unmarried cohabitation and more people delaying a waltz down the aisle to attend college and start their careers.

If the current trend continues, the share of married American adults will drop to below half within a few years, Pew said.

In 1960, 72% of all U.S. adults ages 18 and older were married. Today just 51% are.

The new decline is most dramatic among young adults, Pew reported.

Today, just 20% of Americans between the ages of 18 to 29 are married, compared with 59% in 1960.

Clearly attitudes are changing, but that doesn’t mean people are disavowing the ritual in droves, Pew said.

A Pew survey last year found that nearly four in ten Americans believe marriage is becoming obsolete.

Still, most people who have never married – some 61% – dreamed of tying the knot someday, the same survey found.

As for divorce, it’s undoubtedly a factor in diminishing marriage’s “market share.”

But divorce rates have leveled off in the past two decades after climbing through the 1960s and 1970s, so divorce plays less of a role than it used to, the Pew researchers said.

ndillon@nydailynews.com

By Sarah Jones

Dec 12, 2011

European stocks retreated for the fourth day in five as Moody’s Investors Service said it will review the credit ratings of all countries in the region following last week’s debt summit.

Axa (CS) SA led insurers lower after Standard & Poor’s placed 15 companies on watch negative. Xstrata Plc (XTA) slid 5.4 percent as copper retreated. London Stock Exchange Group Plc (LSE) lost 4.6 percent as S&P also placed the bourse’s credit rating on review for a downgrade.

The benchmark Stoxx Europe 600 Index lost 1.5 percent to 236.97 at 3:28 p.m. in London, extending this year’s decline to 14 percent. The gauge slid 0.1 percent last week as the European Central Bank damped speculation it would boost bond purchases, overshadowing an agreement by European Union leaders to step up measures to fight the debt crisis.

“A lot and nothing has changed following the most recent EU summit,” Dan Morris, a strategist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in London, wrote in a report today. “It will be a combination of ECB support for banks and sovereigns, plus individual country progress on reform and austerity packages, which will determine how markets move over the next several months.”

Moody’s said it will review the ratings of all EU countries in the first quarter, saying the summit failed to deliver “decisive policy measures” to end the debt crisis. The review will be completed in the first quarter of next year.

ECB Role

Germany’s top central banker yesterday cooled speculation that the ECB will extend its role after European leaders agreed a new fiscal accord last week.

Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung that while the new accord represents “progress,” the onus is on governments rather than the ECB to resolve the crisis. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said euro-area policy makers will now focus on implementing last week’s pact.

National benchmark indexes retreated in all 18 western European markets. France’s CAC 40 slid 2.1 percent, the U.K.’s FTSE 100 fell 1.5 percent and Germany’s DAX lost 2.7 percent.

The Stoxx 600 earlier pared its decline to as little as 0.3 percent after Italy sold 7 billion euros ($9.3 billion) of one- year bills, the maximum for the auction, with a reduced yield. Borrowing costs fell to 5.952 percent today from 6.087 percent at the last sale on Nov. 10 after Prime Minister Mario Monti’s government approved a 30 billion-euro emergency economic plan.

Insurers Fall

Axa, Europe’s second-biggest insurer, dropped 6.1 percent to 10.49 euros. Allianz SE (ALV), the region’s largest, declined 6.3 percent to 74.42 euros and Italy’s Assicurazioni Generali SpA (G) lost 3.5 percent to 12 euros.

S&P placed all three insurers on watch negative after the ratings company started reviewing the credit scores of 15 euro- area governments on Dec. 5.

“Depending on the outcome of our review of the ratings on the euro zone member governments, the long-term ratings on these insurers could be lowered by one or two notches, and short-term ratings for some issuers could be lowered by one notch,” S&P said in a statement.

ING Groep NV (INGA), the biggest Dutch financial-services company, sank 7.3 percent to 5.41 euros. The company offered to buy back and exchange 5.8 billion euros of subordinated debt to bolster its finances as regulators demand higher capital reserves.

Xstrata dropped 5.4 percent to 957.3 pence, Kazakhmys Plc slid 4.5 percent to 891.5 pence and BHP Billiton Ltd. (BHP) slipped 3.4 percent to 1,894 pence. Copper fell as much as 2.5 percent in London trading as China’s exports cooled.

China Exports

China’s export growth slowed in November to the weakest pace since 2009, making the government more likely to further ease policies to sustain the economy’s expansion. Overseas shipments rose 13.8 percent from a year earlier, the customs bureau said on Dec. 10.

Eurasian Natural Resources Corp. (ENRC) sank 8.8 percent to 624.5 pence even after denying a report in the Sunday Times that Britain’s Serious Fraud Office started an inquiry into allegations of corruption at a Kazakh iron ore unit.

“There is no formal SFO investigation into the company,” said an ENRC spokesperson. “There was nothing new in the Sunday Times story. The internal audit committee investigations and liaison with appropriate regulators, including the SFO, is entirely normal practice for a major company that is serious about investigating all allegations properly and striving to meet corporate governance best practice.”

LSE Rating

LSE declined 4.6 percent to 782.5 pence. The equity-market operator that also owns a clearinghouse in Italy may have its credit rating cut by S&P because Italian banks’ finances are deteriorating.

Separately, the exchange agreed to buy the 50 percent of FTSE International Ltd. that it doesn’t already own from Pearson Plc (PSON) for 450 million pounds ($702 million). Pearson shares slid 1 percent to 1,133 pence.

Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc (RBS) dropped 5.9 percent to 20.70 pence after the Financial Services Authority said in a report that the lender was being investigated before its bailout after it wrongly told regulators it held more cash to cover client withdrawals than the required minimum.

RBS, Lloyds

RBS overstated its Sterling Stock Liquidity Ratio, a measure of a bank’s ability to withstand customer withdrawals without access to wholesale funding, between March 2006 and July 2007, the FSA said in a report today into the bank’s near collapse. RBS’s ratio averaged 69 percent, below the 100 percent minimum, the FSA said.

Rival Lloyds Banking Group Plc (LLOY) retreated 7.7 percent to 24.67 pence.

Swedbank AB (SWEDA) declined 3.7 percent to 86.80 kronor as Latvians withdrew at least $19 million from the Swedish bank’s automatic teller machines amid concern the lender may close its Estonian business and speculation the ATMs were malfunctioning.

Maris Mancinskis, the head of Swedbank’s Latvian unit, said the speculation was “not only false, but also completely absurd.”

EDP-Energias de Portugal SA gained 1.8 percent to 2.49 euros after Cia. Energetica de Minas Gerais and Centrais Eletricas Brasileiras SA, two Brazilian power companies, said they made binding offers for a stake in EDP that Portugal’s government is selling.

11 Dec 2011

A general strike was being observed on Sunday in several regions of Syria to step up the pressure on the regime, activists said, as fears grew of an “invasion” of the besieged protest hub of Homs.

In the latest bloodshed, two civilians were killed by heavy machinegun fire in Kfar Takharim, in Idlib province bordering Turkey, where deserters and troops fought heavy clashes, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The casualties raised to almost 60 the number of people reported killed since Friday.

The general strike was being “very widely observed” in southern Syria’s Daraa province, cradle of the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad that broke out in mid-March.

The Observatory said shops also kept their shutters down in most parts of Jebel al-Zawiya, another town in Idlib, on Sunday, the start of the working week.

In towns near the capital, security forces tried to open shops by force and carried out arrests, said the rights watchdog and other activists. But “90 per cent” of businesses in Douma, in the Damascus area, were closed.

The Observatory said schoolchildren and civil servants stayed at home, although life carried on as normal in central districts of Damascus.

“The strike was observed 100 per cent in districts opposed to the regime” in the central city of Homs, such as Baba Amro, Deir Baalbeh, Khalidiyeh and Bayyada, it said.

In the wake of the general strike, activists are planning a campaign of civil disobedience to shut down universities, public transport, the civil service and major highways.

The opposition Syrian National Council and activists have warned of a looming bloody final assault on Homs.

Witnesses in Homs, besieged by government troops, have reported a build-up of troops and pro-regime “shabiha” militiamen in armoured vehicles who have set up more than 60 checkpoints, the SNC said.

The Syrian Observatory warned of “inhabitants’ fears of a large invasion of the city,” in a statement issued on Saturday.

“The arrival of hundreds of armoured vehicles to the city of Homs during the last two weeks estimated, according to witnesses,” to number more than 200, the Britain-based rights watchdog said in the English-language statement.

“The spread of security leaks that the regime decided to extinguish the revolution in Homs within 72 hours by giving the security forces and shabiha unlimited powers to not be merciful towards the unarmed civilians.”

The United States, France and Britain have all warned Damascus against any bloody assault on Homs.

The bloodshed, meanwhile, continues to claim more lives, with the Observatory saying at least 41 civilians, including seven children, were shot dead by security forces on Friday.

The Damascus region and Homs paid the heaviest price.

And at least 14 civilians were reported killed on Saturday, including four hit when security forces fired live ammunition and tear gas at mourners in Maaret Numan in Idlib province.

UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay, who has said more than 4,000 people have been killed in the government crackdown on dissent, is to brief the UN Security Council on Syria at a meeting on Monday.

Assad refuses to let investigators from two UN human rights inquiries enter Syria and is resisting Arab League calls to accept monitors despite being hit by regional sanctions on top of US and EU measures.

Syria, which blames the violence on armed “terrorist” gangs, wants the bloc to lift sanctions in return for allowing in observers.

A League official said Arab foreign ministers will hold an emergency session on Syria by the end of this week in Cairo, following a smaller meeting of a ministerial task force.