“Man with 30-year record sentenced in bank robbery - Newsday” plus 4 more

Man with 30-year record sentenced in bank robbery - Newsday
Greens support banking inquiry - Irish Times
UPDATE 2-Jordan's Islamic Bank H1 net profit rises 3 pct - Forbes
StanChart India to hire 120 for priority banking - Reuters
'For IEC to hire World Bank is a scandal' - Haaretz.com

Man with 30-year record sentenced in bank robbery - Newsday

Posted: 18 Aug 2009 08:03 AM PDT

August 18, 2009 By JOSEPH MALLIA joseph.mallia@newsday.com

Photo credit: NCPD | Eugene Peetz, 46, of Freeport was arrested and charged with robbery shortly after a November holdup of a Baldwin bank. Police said Peetz was carrying a pellet gun and cash from the holdup when he was arrested a short distance from the bank.

A career criminal pleaded guilty Monday to robbing a Baldwin bank with a pellet gun, and in exchange a judge has agreed to sentence him to 16 years to life in prison.

Eugene Peetz, 47, of Freeport, used a pellet gun when he held up a Washington Mutual kiosk bank in Baldwin on Nov. 3. He was arrested a short time later after a witness followed him and alerted the police.

Peetz on Monday pleaded guilty to second-degree robbery, and he is due back in court Oct. 2 before Nassau County Judge Meryl Berkowitz for sentencing, District Attorney Kathleen Rice's office said.

The conviction is the latest in a list of Peetz's crimes dating back 30 years, according to the New York State Department of Correctional Services.

Peetz was only 17 when, in 1979, he was convicted of attempted robbery; then, released on parole he absconded in 1982.

By 1985 he was again arrested and convicted of assault and sentenced to 2-4 years at Sing Sing.

By 1988, out of prison, and was convicted of attempted burglary, getting a sentence of 3-6 years at Green Haven.

In 1991 he was convicted of burglary and sentenced to a term of 2-4 years at Marcy.

In 2001 he was convicted of attempted burglary and was sentenced to a term of 6 years to life at Queensboro, and was released on parole May 7, 2008. He violated that parole - by robbing the Baldwin bank - and was returned to prison Feb. 19 to serve out a sentence of life without possibility of parole.

Now, with Monday's guilty plea for the Baldwin bank heist, another sentence of 16 years to life has been added to his existing life sentence.

Peetz's criminal record deems him a "mandatory persistent violent felony offender," a status that automatically adds life to the end of any sentence imposed by a judge.

Prosecutors said that Peetz entered the WaMu kiosk bank at 2:25 p.m. on Nov. 3 armed with a black pellet gun, Peetz pointed the weapon at the teller and demanded money. At this kiosk bank, tellers do not hold money, but instead cash is dispensed by machine.

The bank manager entered a code into the kiosk cash machine and gave Peetz $1,000. As Peetz left the bank, a customer inside called a friend waiting outside the bank. The friend, an information technology employee with the Nassau County Police Department, pursued Peetz on foot through the parking lot and into a residential neighborhood. Peetz turned and pointed the gun at his pursuer and threatened to shoot him if he did not stop following him.

The pursuer continued to follow Peetz, eventually losing him on Edna Court. Police located Peetz hiding in an Edna Court backyard.

"Mr. Peetz deserves a lengthy prison sentence and that's exactly what he's going to get as a result of this conviction," Rice said in a statement.

"The bravery of the police department employee helped take this defendant off the streets."

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Greens support banking inquiry - Irish Times

Posted: 18 Aug 2009 06:15 AM PDT

Greens support banking inquiry

The Green Party has supported the suggestion by the author of the McCarthy report that an Oireachtas committee inquiry should be set up to examine failures in the banking system in the State.

Economist Colm McCarthy, lead author of the report of the special group on public service numbers and expenditure programmes delivered to Government last month, said yesterday a "Dirt-style" inquiry would greatly improve the public understanding of how banks had "got into this mess".

In a statement today Green Party finance spokesman Dan Boyle said he agreed with Mr McCarthy's opinion that the "general public still hasn't had a thorough explanation of what went wrong with the Irish banking system".

"The role of that our financial regulators played in the banking collapse will be examined in a different forum, and I have strong hopes that the ongoing investigations of the Director of Corporate Enforcement and others will lead to the prosecutions of those in the banking system that broke the law."

Mr Boyle said there had been no opportunity as of yet for senior bankers – some of the best-paid people in society – to "account for the catastrophic failures in their organisations, for which we will all have to pay".

He noted the Dáil and Seanad would, in the coming weeks, examine the legislation to establish the National Asset Management Agency (Nama).

"This is probably the most significant piece of legislation that this Government or any government in recent decades will have had to pass, and because of that there is genuine public concern – especially as some of the people who got us into this mess have yet to be called to account for their actions," he said.

The Labour Party yesterday supported McMcCarthy's call for the establishment of an Oireachtas inquiry into the failures of the banking system.

Michael Moynihan, the Fianna Fáil TD who chairs the all-party Oireachtas Committee on Economic Regulatory Affairs, said the committee would examine the proposal closely, but added that it had already been examining this possibility over the past few months.

"It would need to be deeper than the Dirt inquiry. It would have to look at how money was loaned, to whom it was given, why it was given and who called the shots. The question of the bonus system in the banks would also need to be looked at."

The Dirt inquiry a decade ago focused on the evasion of Deposit Interest Retention Tax (Dirt) from its introduction in 1986 up to 1998. It found the practice was "large-scale, systematic and carried out over many years".

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UPDATE 2-Jordan's Islamic Bank H1 net profit rises 3 pct - Forbes

Posted: 18 Aug 2009 07:13 AM PDT

By Suleiman al-Khalidi

AMMAN, Aug 18 (Reuters) - Jordan's Islamic Bank, (JIB) , a subsidiary of Bahrain-based Albaraka Banking Corp , said first-half net profit rose 3 percent to 20.7 million dinars ($29.2 million) on the same period a year ago, helped by healthy growth in Islamic banking services.

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The bank's total assets rose 5 percent to 2.28 billion dinars ($3.2 billion) at the end of June 2009 against 2.17 billion dinars at the end of 2008, the bank said on Tuesday in a statement sent to Reuters.

Musa Abdelaziz Shihadeh, deputy chairman and CEO of the bank, said the results reflected the consolidation and growth of Islamic banking services in Jordan in a commercial banking sector whose profitability has suffered from the global downturn.

'We are seeing growth in profits, assets and the deposit base of the bank... this proves the success of Islamic banking services in Jordan,' Shihadeh said in a statement.

Jordan Islamic Bank is the largest and the oldest among three Islamic banks operating in Jordan in a market with tough competition among 23 commercial banks.

The bank's loan portfolio increased 9 percent in the first six months of the year to 1.216 billion dinars at end of June 2009 from 1.115 billion dinars at end of 2008.

Shihadeh said the bank was able to maintain robust lending despite a global downturn that has seen many banks in Jordan adopting tighter credit policies as the result of slower growth and a slump in domestic consumption.

The bank had capitalised on rising interest in Shari'ah-compliant banking in Jordan, according to bankers.

Total customer deposits rose 8.8 percent in six months to 1.685 billion dinars from 1.550 billion dinars at end of 2008.

An extra-ordinary AGM of the bank last month approved a board recommendation to raise its capital to 100 million dinars from 81.25 million dinars through a bonus share, voluntary reserves and retained earnings.

The bank's main shareholder with 66 percent of its capital is Albaraka Banking Group, which is Bahrain's largest Islamic bank by market value and has operations in twelve countries and also plans to enter the French banking market.

Gulf Arab investors, including Kuwait-based Global Investment House which has a 3 percent stake, along with Jordanian businessmen own the remaining shares of the bank.

(Reporting by Suleiman al-Khalidi; editing by Mariam Karouny;

($1=0.709 dinars)Keywords: JORDANISLAMIC EARNINGS

(Reuters Messaging: suleiman.al-khalidi.reuters.com@reuters.net; Amman newsroom +9626 4623776)

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StanChart India to hire 120 for priority banking - Reuters

Posted: 18 Aug 2009 04:06 AM PDT

MUMBAI, Aug 18 (Reuters) - Standard Chartered (STAN.L) said on Tuesday it plans to hire 120 bankers in India over 12-18 months to double the relationship managers for its priority banking arm that focuses on the mid-tier wealth segment.

The drive is part of global plan to hire 850 bankers under the priority banking unit to take on the likes of Citigroup (C.N) and HSBC (HSBA.L) in the quest for more affluent customers. [ID:nSP309558]

StanChart, which has emerged relatively unscathed from the global financial crisis, has been hiring staff from rivals to boost its Asian operations at a time when many competitors are distracted by problems in their home markets.

"The priority banking segment is a sweet spot in Asia as the financial needs of this segment have been underserved," Mee Har Foo, global head of Group Premium Banking said at a news conference.

In India, the bank's priority banking would target customers with 2 million rupees ($41,000) in deposit or 10 million rupees of mortgage.

The segment has about 30,000 customers and the bank targets to double it in three years or less, said Shyam Srinivasan, the head of consumer banking in India.

The bank's Indian operations are its second-largest outside Hong Kong, contributing 19 percent to group profits. It has 90 branches in the country.

StanChart, which is adding 1,500 employees this year in India, employs 9,000 at the bank and 7,000 at its offshore centre in the country. ($1 = 48.7 rupees) (Reporting by Narayanan Somasundaram; Editing by Ranjit Gangadharan)

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'For IEC to hire World Bank is a scandal' - Haaretz.com

Posted: 18 Aug 2009 03:45 AM PDT

The utility waived the tender process for the services, which will cost an estimated $500,000, arguing that no other entity - inside or outside of Israel - is capable of performing such a study.

But Czamanski says that although the World Bank does advise governments on the structuring of electricity markets and methods for supervising electricity companies, it is not an expert in designating rates. "The appointment of the bank without a tender process, with the reasoning that no other entity in the world is able to do the job, is at best incorrect," Czamanski added. "Hundreds of consulting companies are able to do the job better than the World Bank - and more cheaply too."

Czamanski says the standard procedure adopted by IEC is part of a battle that the utility has been waging for the past fourteen years to stave off the Electricity Economy Law. "There is just one reason to hire the World Bank, Czamanski says. "IEC is trying, as it has in the past, to blind both the Electricity Authority and the public - as it does every time it feels the threat of the reform closing in - enlists impressive sounding names and political clout to avoid implementation of the law," he said. He called on the Electricity Authority to not approve the expense of the study.

IEC vehemently denied that the company was seeking to squirm out of implementing the reform, and reiterated that the choice of the World Bank was made after careful consideration by the utility's management and board.