Personal details of more than a million bank customers have been found on a computer sold on eBay. Highly- sensitive information on American Express, NatWest and Royal Bank of Scotland customers was stored on the machine’s hard drive.  It includes names, addresses, mobile phone numbers, bank account numbers, sort codes, credit card numbers, mothers’ maiden names and even signatures. Wonder what the winning bid amount was!

A Proof of Virginity Presented To Families Before A Wedding

The surgery in the private clinic off the Champs-Élysées involved one semicircular cut, 10 self-dissolving stitches and a discounted fee of $2,900.

Like an increasing number of other Muslim women in Europe, a 23-year-old French student of Moroccan descent had a “hymenoplasty,” a restoration of her hymen, the thin vaginal membrane that normally breaks during the first act of intercourse. “In my culture, not to be a virgin is to be dirt,” said the student, perched on a hospital bed as she awaited surgery Thursday. “Right now, virginity is more important to me than life.”

Gynecologists report that in the past few years, more Muslim women are asking for certificates of virginity before marriage.

That trend in turn has created a demand among cosmetic surgeons for hymen replacements, which, if done properly, they say, will not be detected and will produce tell-tale vaginal bleeding on the wedding night. The service is widely advertised on the Internet; there are medical tourism packages to countries like Tunisia where the procedure is less expensive.

Expand your possibilities. If you can get citizenship, why not?

For a new generation of Americans of European descent, the Old Country is becoming a new country full of promise and opportunity. The creation of the European Union and its thriving economy is very appealing for Americans in a global economy. Americans can claim citizenship in any of the 27 European countries that are in the EU based on the nationality of their parents, or in some cases, grandparents and great-grandparents. Citizenship in one of those countries allows you to live and work in any EU nation.

Since the United States doesn’t keep statistics on dual citizens, it’s impossible to know exactly how many people have applied for citizenship in Europe. But it’s estimated that more than 40 million Americans are eligible for dual citizenship, and a growing number of Americans want to try their luck elsewhere.

Dual citizenship became a major issue during the War of 1812, when the British military tried recruiting, and in some cases forcing, British-born American citizens to fight on Britain’s side. For years, being a dual citizen was seen as unpatriotic, and until 1967 it was possible for the United States to revoke American citizenship for people who voted in foreign elections. Today, immigrants who become American citizens have to swear that they renounce their previous citizenship, but it’s more of a symbolic gesture.

For those who are moving for the EU economic boom, Hudson Institute senior fellow John Fonte - one of the nation’s leading immigration experts and critics of dual citizenship - warns that it might not last. Noah Pickus, the associate director at Duke University said he’s heard stories of parents getting their children European citizenship as an 18th birthday present - “We didn’t get you a car, but we got you an Italian citizenship.”

Dual Citizenship Criteria

Ireland: Automatically grants citizenship to the child of an Irish-born citizen. A person can also claim descent based on a grandparent or great-grandparent as long as a grandparent had also claimed descent on or before the date of the person’s birth.

Italy: For those born after 1948, citizenship is granted if their father or mother was a citizen at the time of the applicant’s birth.

United Kingdom: Descent based on a grandparent allowable only in exceptional cases.

Greece: Native-born parent or grandparent.

Holland, Finland, Germany and Norway: Applicant must have been born in wedlock with one parent a citizen, or he can claim descent based only on the mother.

All other European Union countries: A parent was a citizen of the given country. People who can’t claim descent can apply after living in the country for a certain number of years.

One billion dollars is no longer enough to gain entry to Russia’s rich list.

Ten billionaires failed to make Forbes magazine’s annual list of the 100 richest Russians that is led by those who built their fortunes on the country’s metals resources. Russia’s richest 100 people had a combined fortune of $522 billion - 3.8 times more than the total when Forbes first published a Russian list in 2004.

Another reason for the increase in dollar billionaires was the fall in the value of the U.S. currency. Boo!

 Wherever you turn, the rise of Asia is making its impact felt on our existence.

To many Victorians, British supremacy was a simple matter of racial supremacy - Europeans, and the English in particular, were fated to be the masters. The truth is that they are masters of the world no more.  The global power shift from the West to the East is no longer just a matter of debate confined to learned journals and newspaper columns - it is a reality that is beginning to have a huge impact on our daily lives.

Napoleon III compared China to a sleeping giant and warned: “When China awakes, she will shake the world.” After a long hibernation, China, and her 1.3 billion people (twice the population of the U.S. and EU combined) is awaking almost overnight. And not just China. The world’s second most populous country, India, is industrialising at a historically unprecedented pace.

Like anything, there are downsides that are becoming more apparent. Unskilled workers in the West have become unsettled by the threat to their jobs as production moves East. The most vulnerable Western workers have found their wages stagnate as they struggle to compete in an increasingly global market place. And competition for raw materials is pitting East against West.

Europeans have, for half a millennium, been unchallenged as the global colonisers, but last month the respected Economist magazine dubbed the Chinese “The New Colonists“.  The dire warnings from the International Monetary Fund this week that the West now faces the largest financial shock since the Great Depression, while the Asian economies are still powering ahead, simply underlines our vulnerability in this new world order.

There is an infectious confidence in Bollywood, and the price of Chinese antiques is rocketing as the newly rich Chinese decide they want a slice of their history.

Asian countries are not just buying up foreign raw materials, but as their companies try to become global leaders, they are buying up Western companies. From Kazakhstan to Indonesia to Latin America, Chinese firms are gobbling up oil, gas, coal and metals. Canadian authorities were recently alarmed to find the Chinese interested in exploring the Arctic Ocean, in a bid to get a share of the minerals beneath the thawing icecap.

 And Western governments are concerned that the rules of the game are changing. Most worryingly, as China’s brutal suppression of the once independent Tibet shows, this is not a superpower that respects Western standards on human rights. Western attitudes of superiority to China and the rest of the East will also subside, as Westerners realise they are no longer the masters of the world.

Europe, Here They Come 

European MBA programs may have traditionally lacked the brand recognition of their U.S. counterparts, but that’s changing fast. The continent’s increasingly dynamic business environment, improvements to curricula, and growing corporate demand for employees with international experience are attracting top-notch candidates from all over the world. In addition, most Europe management programs are cheaper, shorter, smaller, and more diverse than their U.S. rivals, which is drawing a growing number of American students to studies in the Old World.

Applications from the U.S. to INSEAD, an elite French business school with campuses in Fontainebleau and Singapore, grew 20% in the past year and the school’s 2008 enrollment of Americans grew nearly 24% since 2007, to 73 students.

Young people are recognizing the value of an MBA but don’t want to spend two years earning one—the length of most U.S. programs. Others credit the U.S. recession. The average tuition at the top 10 European schools is less than $73,000, vs. $86,600 at Harvard Business School, and about $95,000 at Wharton. Furthermore, MBA students are increasingly looking to pursue social justice through business, and many European schools have responded with a wealth of new courses on corporate social responsibility, social entrepreneurship, and doing business in developing countries.

A potential threat to the growth of European MBA programs is 46 European countries have pledged to adopt an Anglo-American system of higher education by 2010 and to recognize each other’s degrees more than in the past. Rather than spending as many as six years at one school to earn one degree, students will complete a bachelor’s degree in three to four years and have the option to do a master’s elsewhere.

To build on their growing reputations, many European institutions are now opening satellite campuses in other parts of the world, particularly the Middle East and Asia. While the repercussions for Europe’s MBA programs remain to be seen, the current outlook is bright: Applications are up, admissions are increasingly selective, and ever more companies are demanding multilingual recruits with global polish.

Now You Can Own Your Very Own ‘Perfusor’! 

One press of a button and you can end your life with a swift injection of potassium chloride. That is the boast of Roger Kusch, once one of Germany’s most promising conservative politicians and now the improbable promoter of a mercy-killing machine.

If the “Perfusor”, designed to sidestep strict laws banning assisted suicide, goes into production then Germany rather than Switzerland could soon become the destination of choice for those seeking to kill themselves. Assisted suicide has been legal in Switzerland since 1942 providing a doctor has been consulted and the patient is aware of the consequences of his decision.

The machine would be lent or rented so that the patients could insert the needles themselves and then push the button releasing the potassium chloride, used to execute Death Row prisoners in some US states. How much and do they take credit cards?

Gas prices are exploding in Germany at $8.60 per gallon

Record prices on the international oil markets have driven gas prices across Europe sky high, with a gallon of unleaded gas costing about $8.60 per gallon in Germany.  (In Germany, gas is sold by the liter with one liter of unleaded fuel selling for an average of $2.29).  Hopefully, we are seeing oil in its last days as a use for energy.

Just Made It Into The Guinness World Records

Swiss gunsmith SwissMiniGun has developed a tiny revolver that’s so small, it’s banned in the United States. The Miniature Revolver is less than 2.2 inches long, but it has all the features of a full-size gun, according to the company. And from short range, it can kill you. Sign me up!

All Miniature Revolvers are custom-made. The basic model is stainless steel and costs 6,500 Swiss francs (about $6,300). How do you shoot a gun so small? There’s an extra trigger.

Britain Bows To China 

Beijing Olympic organisers said Monday they backed a ban on political protests by athletes attending this year’s Games, amid uproar over an effort to silence British athletes. China is believed to be concerned that some of the 10,000 athletes expected here for the Games could be used by human rights activists and other groups to stage protests designed to draw attention to their causes.

The controversy erupted in Britain after a Sunday newspaper reported that the British Olympic Association (BOA) had threatened that any athlete who refused to sign the gag order would not be allowed to travel to China. Basically, any British participant who signed the order and then spoke out during the Games would be sent home, according to the initial plan.

Prince Charles has already let it be known that he will not be going to China, even if he is invited by Games organisers.  His views on the Communist dictatorship are well known, after this newspaper revealed how he described China’s leaders as “appalling old waxworks” in a journal written after he attended the handover of Hong Kong. The Prince is also a long-time supporter of the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan leader.

The controversial clause in the contract stated that athletes “are not to comment on any politically sensitive issues.” It then refers to Section 51 of the Olympic Charter, which says, “No kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas.” Issues considered politically sensitive in communist-ruled China range from human rights, religious freedom, Tibet, Taiwan to Beijing’s role in Sudan.

The BOA took the decision even though other countries – including the United States, Canada, Finland, and Australia – have pledged that their athletes would be free to speak about any issue concerning China. To date, only New Zealand and Belgium have banned their athletes from giving political opinions while competing at the Games.

…Thanks To This Guy.  Daniel Bouton/Jerome Kerviel Goes Down In History

Société Générale, one of the largest banks in Europe, was thrown into turmoil Thursday after it revealed that a rogue employee had executed a series of “elaborate, fictitious transactions” that cost the company more than $7 billion, the biggest loss ever recorded in the financial industry by a single trader. Daniel Bouton, the Société Générale chairman, said the employee, later identified by other bank employees as Jérôme Kerviel, had confessed to the €4.9 billion fraud.

The bank has started legal proceedings against the employee, whom the governor of the Bank of France, Christian Noyer, said was currently “on the run.” Here’s a list of biggest losses EVER.

 A Power Shift Is Underway

The US looks poised to lose its mantle as the world’s dominant financial market because of a rapid rise in the depth and maturity of markets in Europe, a study suggests. The change may have occurred already, not least because US markets are beset by credit woes, according to research by McKinsey Global Institute. “We think the differential growth rates are so significant that it is quite likely Europe has overtaken the US,” said Diana Farrell, author of the report. The credit crisis has dented confidence in the health of America’s financial institutions and its model of finance.

A power shift is also under way in Asia as the Chinese market continues to boom while markets such as Japan stagnate. McKinsey suggests China’s booming trade surplus has put it into the position of being the world’s largest net exporter of capital, topping Japan, Germany and the oil exporters for the first time. The findings are likely to attract attention from bankers and policymakers since they come amid an intensifying debate about the changing pattern of financial power.  

Meanwhile, since the launch of the single currency in 1999, European markets have been steadily growing in liquidity and size. And other parts of the world, such as Asia and the Gulf, are enjoying rapidly growing financial clout due to their large surpluses - a shift exemplified by the recent decision of Asian and Gulf Sovereign Wealth Funds to take large stakes in big US banks.

In 2006, McKinsey calculates that America’s markets had some $56,100bn ofassets. Europe, including the UK, had $53,200bn of assets, a sharp increase on recent years. On recent trajectories, this implies that Europe overtook the US in 2007.

Consider Bermuda As An Alternative? 

Bermuda’s main commercial district is home to thousands of the world’s top hedge funds. But the British colony has been struggling to catch up to its Caribbean cousins, the Caymans and British Virgin Islands, in the race for the $2 trillion hedge fund industry’s fast-growing offshore business. That could soon change.

In the next 12 months, the 22-square-mile land of pink beaches and rolling golf courses expects to raise the number of registered funds by 50% to 3,000. While Bermuda dominates the offshore insurance industry, the Cayman Islands is the epicenter for hedge funds, with about 9,000 of these loosely regulated investments registered in the British territory. But Bermuda is competing hard, having recently made registration quicker, easier and cheaper. It also touts its proximity to the United States. It is only a two-hour flight from New York, while a trip to Caymans is much longer and often involves a stopover in Florida.  

Managers who invest for foreigners or tax-exempt U.S. clients, such as pension funds and colleges, are attracted to offshore centers because costs are lower and regulatory requirements less stringent than in the United States. In return, hedge funds bring lucrative business to the offshore centers at a time when many islands are trying to diversify revenue away from tourism. To reach the ambitious goal of registering roughly 1,000 new hedge funds in the next year, Bermudans are jetting to international conferences. The primary targets are in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. For years, U.S. lawyers have urged hedge funds to set up in the Caymans. The Caymans occasionally suffer from a reputation of relaxed oversight, thanks to several recent hedge fund collapses. And the 1993 Hollywood movie “The Firm” is about a law firm whose nefarious activities include money-laundering in the Caymans.

Those Europeans!

1. Luxembourg
2. France
3. Ireland
4. Hungary
5. Czech Republic
6. Spain
7. Denmark
8. Portugal
9. Switzerland
10. Austria
11. Germany
12. United Kingdom
13. Belgium
14. Netherlands
15. Australia

The Mafia’s Ten Commandments have been found after police arrested a top Godfather in Sicily.

The list of rules emerged from documents seized after the arrest of Salvatore Lo Piccolo, 65, at a secret mob meeting in Palermo, along with his son Sandro, 32, and two other godfathers.

The 10 ‘Mafiosi’ commandments are:

1. No one can present himself directly to another of our friends. There must be a third person to do it.

2. Never look at the wives of friends.

3. Never be seen with cops.

4. Don’t go to pubs and clubs.

5. Always be available for Cosa Nostra (the mafia), even if your wife’s about to give birth.

6. Appointments must be respected.

7. Wives must be treated with respect.

8. When asked for any information, the answer must be the truth.

9. Money cannot be appropriated if it belongs to others or to other families.

10. People who can’t be part of Cosa Nostra are anyone with a close relative in the police, with a two-timing relative in the family, anyone who behaves badly and doesn’t hold to moral values.

Along with the rules, police found a holy image bearing the Mafia initiation ritual. The wording is: “I swear to be faithful to Cosa Nostra. If I should betray it, my flesh must burn, just as this image burns.” Lo Piccolo apparently carried the papers everywhere with him in a brown leather briefcase.