New UK charity bank will lend to charities and social enterprises. (Voluntary Sector).
LONDON -- UK charity bank--Britain's first not-for-profit bank will begin in September to accept deposits from people who want to use their savings to provide loans to charities and social enterprises. Charity Bank is both a registered charity and a financial institution, regulated by both the Financial...

CryoLife wins permission to resume tissue processing. (Health And Safety).
CryoLife Inc will now be able to resume processing and limited distribution of its non-valved cardiac and vascular tissues, after reaching an agreement with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The agreement allows CryoLife to distribute existing and newly processed non-valved cardiac conduits and patches, saphenous...

Licensing reform: not the spirit of the law. (Broker Focus).
The gramm-leach-bliley act has been successful in motivating states--under threat of federal oversight--to make their broker licensing laws reciprocal. Now they just have to make those laws uniform. At the surface, it would appear that states have been successful in adhering to the producer licensing reform agenda...

Profit from 9-11 prior knowledge? (Insider Report).
Amr I. "Tony" Elgindy, a 34-year-old, Egyptian-born financial analyst, "may have had prior knowledge of the September 11th attacks" derived from "confidential FBI information," reported the June 5th Boston Globe. "He is accused of bribing an FBI agent to give him secrets from federal criminal databases and then using...

Global speculators: a billionaire and a Nobel laureate want to fix international trade agencies. Why bother?
George Soros on Globalization, by George Soros, New York: PublicAffairs, 191 pages, $20 Globalization and Its Discontents, by Joseph E. Stiglitz, New York; W.W.Norton & Co., 282 pages, $24.95 WHEN THE INTERNATIONAL Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank held joint meetings in Washington, D.C., in...

Grimy hands. (Editor's Note).
In the very first issue of this magazine back in 1909, our founder, Senator Robert M. La Follette, warned of the powers of big business. He noted that corporations not only dominate the economy but "rule through the very men elected to represent the people." The battle to take...

The `gate-less community: in any other administration, Bush's scandal-plagued Army secretary would be history. But the rules have changed.
ONE WEDNESDAY MORNING IN LATE May, Army Secretary Thomas White arrived late at his ornate Pentagon office, the strain of a breakfast meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff still visible in his face. Not quite one year into the job, he was suffering through one of the rockiest...

The fraud of corporate "reform". (Insider Report).
This summer's stock market plunge provoked an orgy of corporation-bashing, as politicians from both parties, led by President Bush, laid blame for the debacle exclusively at the feet of supposedly greedy corporate CEOs and corrupt accountants. Of course, such people exist, and they are particularly prominent during a Fed-driven...

Running schools like business. (Executive Perspective).
Because I give speeches often, I am always looking for a good laugh line to loosen up the audience. Lately have found one: "Why don't we make schools more like business?" For years as a superintendent, I had to eat and sleep negative comparisons between schools and...

Stumbling blocks for big brother: the Defense Department's Total Information Awareness program, under sustained attack for the past year, has suffered several recent setbacks.
Score a few points for freedom fighters in the ongoing battle against the total surveillance state. The Defense Department's Total Information Awareness (TIA) program, under sustained attack for the past year, has suffered several recent setbacks. The latest blow came on July 31st with the announcement that TIA's controversial...