Rogue trader convicted: French stock trader Jérôme Kerviel was sentenced to three years in jail this week and ordered to pay $7 billion in damages—roughly the amount lost by his former employer, Société Générale, as a result of his actions. Kerviel’s wild stock bets brought Société Générale, one of France’s largest investment banks, to the brink of collapse in 2008. “By his deliberate actions, he put in peril the existence of the bank that employed 140,000 people,” Judge Dominique Pauthe said. Kerviel, who made no money personally from his deals, claimed that the bank had known he was exceeding his trading limits but looked the other way as long as he produced profits. He said he would appeal the damage award.
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Great War ends: It took nearly a century, but Germany has finally finished paying reparations to the Allied powers for the devastation it wreaked in World War I. Under the Treaty of Versailles, Germany assumed sole responsibility for the war and agreed to pay the equivalent of $400 billion in today’s dollars, mostly to Belgium and France. The crippling debt caused economic hardship and massive resentment, fueling the rise of Hitler, who refused to pay any reparations. Payments to the Allies resumed after WWII, then were suspended for decades before starting again in 1995.
Devecser, Hungary
Toxic sludge spill: Hungary declared a state of emergency this week after a reservoir holding toxic sludge burst, killing four people and forcing the evacuation of three villages. More than 35 million cubic feet of the red sludge, a slightly radioactive byproduct of aluminum production, flowed out of the Magyar Aluminium Zrt. plant, contaminating surrounding land and the Marcal River with heavy metals, including lead. Contact with the sludge, which is the consistency of sour cream, produces chemical burns that can penetrate deep into skin tissue. Hungarian officials began pumping hundreds of tons of plaster into the Marcal, hoping to trap the sludge before it reaches the Danube. “This is an ecological catastrophe,” said Environment Minister Zoltan Illes.
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