Offshore Banking

LITTLE ROCK (AP) - A congressional hearing is scheduled next week into the Federal Emergency Management Agency's response to requests for aid in recovering from tornadoes last month in south Arkansas, Rep. Mike Ross said Wednesday.

Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., said FEMA has given him only "lame excuses" for not helping tornado-damaged Desha County, and he called for a Senate committee hearing on the agency's performance since the Feb. 24 storms.

Ross, D-Ark., whose district includes Desha County, said the House Committee on Homeland Security would hold a hearing he requested on March 15.

"It has been 11 days since these two tornadoes hit Desha County and FEMA has done nothing," Ross said in a news release. "This is a symbol of what is wrong with FEMA and why so many people have lost confidence in their government."

Speaking to reporters in his weekly teleconference, Pryor said he would work with Sen.

Scamsters 'eliminate the middle man'

The Securities and Exchange Commission has frozen the assets of a Latvian-based bank's trading account that was being used in a new twist on the old pump-and-dump scheme, the SEC said today.

"These perpetrators effectively cut out the middleman of the old fashioned pump-and-dump scheme, eliminating phony stock promotions, creating their own artificial trading demand, and consummating their frauds in as little time as a couple of hours," said SEC Office of Internet Enforcement chief John Reed Stark, in a statement.

In an action filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia yesterday, the SEC alleged that the account maintained by JSC Parex Bank of Riga, Latvia had been used by one or more unknown offshore sub-account holders to launch a "pump and dump" manipulation scheme involving the stocks of fifteen different public companies.

We've all failed our soldiers

Since an insurgent's bullet ripped through the left side of Staff Sgt. John Daniel Shannon's head two years ago, he has been a prisoner of war, trapped like so many other wounded soldiers in a bureaucratic mire of our making.

Sadly, it will likely be a life sentence.

Dressed in a freshly starched uniform, Shannon appeared last week before a House subcommittee investigating problems at Walter Reed Medical Center. A black patch, embroidered with a Purple Heart, covered the hole where his left eye used to be.

Shannon has been at the center since mid-August 2004 and awaits a final operation that will allow him to wear a prosthetic eye. Shannon will still carry around less visible injuries — a traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder — that cause him to become violent on occasion.

Signposting The Way To Better Out Of Hours Services For Patients, UK

Doctors' leaders have produced a 10 point plan to help patients navigate their way through the "maze" of out-of-hours (OOH) services.

The Royal College of General Practitioners says that services are confusing, fragmented, of highly variable quality and that urgent action is needed to restore confidence in out-of-hours services. It is publishing the plan in direct response to concerns from members and patients and in advance of a Department of Health Review of 'urgent' care services.

The RCGP plan recognises the pivotal role of GPs and includes across-the-board recommendations for the Department of Health, Primary Care Trusts (PCTs), GP practices and health organisations to improve urgent care services for patients.

Patients - and doctors - say out of hours services have been a cause of confusion since 2004 when the new GMS contract was introduced and PCTs took over responsibility for commissioning out of hours care in England.