Financial fraud at ancient order of monks- Order of Friars Minor

What's the deal with churches & money frauds ? In Singapore we have the City Harvest Church thingie & now the ancient Order of Friars Minor???

Well the Order of Friars Minor is a branch of the 800-year old Franciscan order of monks ( a Roman Catholic order, which was founded by St Francis of Assisi ) , whose members are dedicated to a life of poverty. And now it is in grave financial difficulty after the discovery of a massive financial scandal allegedly involving fraud and embezzlement of tens of millions of euros from its accounts.

 

An internal investigation which began months ago has found extensive financial irregularities at the Order of Friars Minor which has around 14,000 members worldwide and owns churches and convents in more than 100 countries, including the UK.

According to Italian media reports, this allegedly includes making investments in offshore shell companies based in Switzerland, which had been involved in questionable business deals and investments.

A senior friar with expertise in financial affairs has been appointed to lead the investigation into the alleged fraud and will go through records dating back more than a decade. ‘We are encouraged by the example set by Pope Francis in his call for truth and transparency in financial dealings in the church and in human societies,’ Michael Perry, the American monk who is head of the order wrote. The Pope has already initiated a radical clean-up of the Vatican bank since being elected in March last year.

Oh...wow... isn't that a little too late. And who has the money now?

May better days be ahead.... welcome 2015

Today's the first day of the year. Went out for shopping, thought I'll buy myself a gift for just surviving 2014. What a year ! Not so good for Malaysian aviation huh? Then there's the flood that's on going. What's with all these?

Sometimes when the bad gets going, we just have to shoulder on & stay sane by remaining calm, go shopping or what ever that works. Lets Just hope 2015 will be better.

Is your wi-fi too slow?

I was in  a restaurant & heard a teenager complaining about the food being bad, service is lousy & the wi-fi being too slow! I felt like shaking the ungrateful little brat.

My dad said he remembered being amazed the first time he saw a digital watch, being astounded with the first Sony Walkman. And I remember the first time I make a purchase online. And now this little shit could consume all the information & culture at the tip of his fingers & he had the nerve to complain it wasn't fast enough.

Maybe things will be better when society collapses and we return to a medieval bartering system. As we gather on desolate hillsides to tell tales of magic glowing rectangles & huge metal birds in the sky, we'll finally appreciate what we had & understand what spoil little children we are.

That annoying new girl !

Today one of my colleague wrote a list of things that annoy her about the New girl. She said this is what she does to keep herself sane ...lol..

1.The way she kiss-ass the big boss. She mentioned she was a ManU fan the other day & we saw her checking out the ManU Wikipedia site right afterwards.

2. The way she works too hard- didn't she know it made the rest of us look bad by comparison ? Somehow it became my responsibility to have a word with her. Should I???

3.Her total abuse of English. The other day my colleague ask her to a meeting, but she said she cant make it as she's "in the zone" . We all go ...WHAT?????  Could be forgiven if she's some world class Olympic athlete like Micheal Phelps. But she's filling out a spreadsheet. There's no way you can be 'in a zone' while using Excel!

I spotted my colleague writing the list, she didn't even bother to hide it & show it to me. We pass it around, it turns out New girl is very unpopular. We had a great time dissing her ...lol... I don't know why firms spend so much money on company vacation for bonding. Just single out the most hated person & organized an extra hr of  "Dissing session " after lunch for us to bitch about the 'class clown'  behind their back!

Dolphin dies after abuse by Chinese tourists

Have you read this? A dolphin has died in China after tourists hoisted it out of the water to pose with it for photographs !!!!! Isnt that like the strangest thing??? Why would they do it????.

 Images posted online showed a group of tourists manhandling the animal. It was washed ashore on a beach in the southern Chinese province of Hainan, reported the Shanghai Daily, adding that it died of "excessive bleeding".  

The dolphin might have collided with a fishing boat before it became stranded. Instead of trying to help the distressed animal, a crowd of bathers gathered in the water to pose with it, many images posted online showed.  

So sad huh??? Why is it that this people often  damage/deface/destroy/dirty every damn thing?  Remember the graffiti on the Egyptian tourist site?

Fake wines are finally here !!!

You know of fake bags, fake t-shirt & even fake milk. Now we officially welcome the new fake……Wines!!!!!

Liquor stores, restaurants and supermarkets in the world's most populous country- China, is having a unique problem- fake wines! Yes move over LVs & Guccis, we have fake wines now. Also did you know that China is also the  fifth-largest wine consumer in the world?

Wow, I did a double take when I heard that too…lol…  

This is the result of the rapidly increasing wealth which in turn, transformed lives and tastes in the world's fastest growing major economy. However, it is observed that wine & on the whole very expensive ones are more for bragging than a genuine liking of taste.

Experts have no idea how much of the market is cornered by fakes and copycats. Fakes target mainly the expensive wines. As such the iconic Chateau Lafite has become the poster child for wine forgery. Several wines on the market are branded with names close to Chateau Lafite, including "Chatelet Lafite". Poor thing….lol….

Cab Scam @ Bangkok Airport

I know many of us like to go Bangkok for the shopping & food & massages.
I came across this guy's experience, thought I post it here FYI- & he's definitely an Ang Mo, whose probably in Bangkok for the first time!

His account:
We hadn't been in Thailand for 10 minutes before we got scammed.
We were in the airport and needed to get to a cheap hotel .There were some guys on the floor above us looking down at us saying, "Taxi!" So we went up to follow them to their taxi.

First red flag - none of these guys had any official taxi company logos on their shirts and none of them were wearing an official badge. But I kept following them thinking that it's just done a little differently here in Thailand.

Second red flag - we got to the car and it was unmarked. This looks shady as heck. I told the guys, "Look, this car doesn't say 'Taxi' on it." They ensured me that it was the official airport taxi, that's why. William had already put his bag in the trunk. A little hesitant, I slid into the back of the car.

Third red flag - all three of the guys that were taking us to the car got in with us.
That was it. Something seriously wrong is going on here. The car started to pull out but I demanded that they pull over and let us out. They acted all confused but eventually let us out. One of the guys kept hassling me all the way back inside the airport. We eventually lost him though.

We headed back out to see if we could get into a car that actually said, "Taxi" on it with a single taxi driver. Were met by some other guy who tried to get us into another unmarked car. I told him that I was only going in a car that said "Taxi" on it. So he took us across the road to several marked taxis. There stood the shady guy who hassled me into the airport. It was the guy's friend I guess. He told us it'd be $20 USD to get us to our hotel. All we had were baht . He said, ok, just 1,500 baht then.

At the time I didn't do the math, but 1,500 baht is the equivalent of $42. Rip off.

So we get in and the hassle guy got in with us. As the driver started to drive away from the airport the hassle guy started saying, "You pay now! You pay now!" We were like, "Dude, chill!" And then he made the taxi driver pull over and demanded that we pay $1,500 apiece. I was like, "Hail-no! You told us 1,500 baht total, not 1,500 baht apiece." He wouldn't move until we paid. So, just to get out of the situation, we agreed to pay a total of 2,000 baht ($57 USD) which is way more than you're supposed to pay for a taxi here.

I gave him 1,500 baht and told him we'd pay final 500 baht when we got to the destination. He didn't like that deal, but he took the money and got out of the cab. Then the taxi driver took us to the hotel where we paid him 500 baht. Then the taxi driver tried to hit us up for more money saying that he paid two tolls on the way over and we owed him 70 more baht. I obviously didn't give him anything more.
A few tips when you travel to Thailand:

• Get a random taxi off the street - not one that someone suggests to you.
• Insist that the taxi driver use the meter. If he say's it's broken, find another cab.
• Some taxi and tuk-tuk drivers will tell you that some special attraction is open today only for a special holiday. They're full of crap and trying to scam you.
• Go to tripadvisor before you travel & check with them all the latest prices- lots of very helpful people there who will give you the best info!!!!

This only happen to Ang Mo right????....lol.....