As debate in Germany intensifies over a planned tax on nuclear power plant operators, the country's leader, Angela Merkel, steps in to try to ease the standoff between the government and the energy sector. 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has tried to defuse an ongoing row with the German energy industry over government plans to introduce a tax on nuclear power providers by striking a conciliatory tone.

"It is important that, along with the critics of nuclear energy, we also hear from those who believe [nuclear energy] to be an essential bridge technology for some time to come," Merkel said in an interview for the Bild am Sonntag weekly newspaper, which was published on Sunday, August 22.

The Christian Democrat leader wants nuclear operators to pay the tax in exchange for an extension of the lifetimes of the country's nuclear plants, which are scheduled to cease operating in 2020.

An informant has told German authorities that he has information showing 250 companies are involved in tax evasion. The Bild am Sonntag newspaper says that up to 800 million euros may be involved in the alleged evasion. 

A whistle-blower claims he has information showing 250 German companies are evading taxes by moving money to Switzerland. The informant has reported his alleged findings to German authorities, according to the Bild am Sonntag newspaper.

The newspaper said the data allegedly points to up to 800 million euros ($1 billion) stashed away in Swiss banks. The information was apparently e-mailed to the finance ministry in the southern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg.

Irish republican dissident groups are targeting the Conservative party conference this autumn, raising fears of a repeat of the 1984 Brighton attack that nearly killed the then prime minister, Margaret Thatcher.

Sources in Northern Ireland said that the October conference in central Birmingham had emerged as the prize target on a hit list drawn up by resurgent republican paramilitaries. Patrick Mercer, ex-chairman of the Commons subcommittee on counter-terrorism, said former senior police and army intelligence officers had informed him that dissident splinter groups had discussed targeting David Cameron's first conference as prime minister.

He said: "They want to kill by the end of August in order to get themselves poised for whatever operations they can mount in September leading up to the Tory party conference in early October. There are doubts over whether they have the capability, but the aspiration is certainly there and West Midlands police would be crazy not to take the threat seriously." The West Midlands force confirmed it was aware of increased activity by dissident republicans and said its counter-terrorism unit was constantly assessing the threat ahead of the Conservative party conference.

The Turkish army has traditionally been considered above the law in its long-running fight against Kurdish rebels. However, now the military is under pressure from the families of slain soldiers.  

Hasan Say took the news of the death of his son stoically.

"I swear to you, I did not cry when they brought me the news that my son had been killed in action," he said.

"But when I saw the pictures transmitted by the drones, I broke down under the sorrow of what had been done to my son and to this nation." 

Say's son, Ayhan, was one of the one-hundred soldiers of the Turkish army killed this summer in bombings, attacks and ambushes by the PKK Kurdish rebel group.

The close ties between the upper echelons of the Ministry of Defence and BAE Systems, Britain's biggest arms company, have come under the spotlight after new documents showed how the multinational firm has regularly wined and dined mandarins and senior military officers.

BAE took top defence officials and military officers out to eat and drink 52 times over a three-year period, according to the documents. Nearly half of the hospitality was given to the head of the RAF, Air Chief Marshal Sir Glenn Torpy.

The firm is billed as the most assiduous in courting the MoD by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, a not-for-profit organisation based at City University, London. Using records disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act, the bureau calculated that BAE took out the ministry's top people nearly five times more than its commercial competitors, Thales and Boeing, between January 2007 and December 2009.

Early Italian election draws closer

A call for an early election in Italy drew closer as Gianfranco Fini, speaker of the lower house and former ally of Silvio Berlusconi, prime minister, gave only conditional support to a legislative agenda that will form the basis of a vote of confidence in the government.

Mr Fini and his break away faction said it agreed with 95 per cent of the document approved by Mr Berlusconi and his senior party officials on Friday, but declared negotiation was needed over some legislation, particularly judicial matters.

"[Mr Berlusconi's] logic belongs to local food markets, not to politics," said Mr Fini, welcoming debate in parliament between the different centre-right political groups.

Since Friday, the prime minister has repeatedly said that he is not prepared to negotiate.

"Even if cohesion among the majority is lacking in only one of the points [of the agenda], we will not allow [anyone] to wear us out and will refuse to negotiate," said Mr Berlusconi.

The decisive vote is expected on September 6, when a draft for the reform of trials will be presented in the justice commission of the lower chamber. The law would limit the length of trials to a total of six-and-a-half years, after which the proceedings would be annulled.

The production of the RFID chips, an integral element of the new generation of German identity cards, has started after the government gave a 10 year contract to the chipmaker NXP in the Netherlands. Citizens will receive the mandatory new ID cards from the first of November....

The responsible German ministry, however, cites the many advantages of employing a RFID chip, such as a longer card lifetime, the option to connect them to other future devices like RFID-reading mobile phones, and saving cost by being compatible with the existing infrastructure for the RFID passports.

Read more...

wheat, chaff, mobile money

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

About 150,000 Pakistanis have been forced to flee their homes in southern Sindh province after floodwaters submerged more towns and villages in the region.

A stream of lorries, tractors and donkey carts transported people away from the newly-affected areas on Saturday as floods spread over the rice-growing areas in the north of the province.

"We evacuated more than 150,000 people from interior parts of Sindh in the past 24 hours," Jamil Soomro, a spokesman for the provincial government, said.

Authorities struggled to shore up an embankment holding back a growing tide of water on the edge of Shahdadkot district as defences overflowed in other areas.

At least 50,000 people fled their homes on Saturday after heavy monsoon rains triggered flooding in India's northeast, placing the area on "maximum alert", an official said.

The strong rains caused the Singora river to overflow in Lakhimpur district, 450 kilometres east of Assam state's main city of Guwahati, inundating at least 30 villages, officials said.

About 50,000 people fled their homes to take shelter on higher ground, district official B. Barooah told AFP.

SHANGHAI -- More than 127,000 people were evacuated in northeastern China over the weekend after torrential rains battered the area and led to severe flooding along the border with North Korea, according to the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs.

The government said that four people were killed and one was missing near the port city of Dandong in the northeastern province of Liaoning after some of the worst flooding to hit the region in decades.

Emergency crews were working early Sunday to evacuate and rescue people after the floods, the latest natural disaster to hit China this summer.

China has been suffering from severe flooding in various parts of the country for months and is still trying to cope with massive mudslides that killed at least 1,400 people this month in Gansu Province, in the northwestern part of the country.

The Met Office has issued a severe weather warning for parts of southern England, with up to 8cm (3in) of rain expected to fall and fears of flash flooding.

The swath of the country running diagonally from Land's End to the Wash, in East Anglia, will also get battered by strong winds, causing widespread travel disruption and affecting thousands of people holidaying in south coast resorts.

"Heavy rainfall overnight may give 20-30mm of rain quite widely and 50-80mm locally," a spokesperson for the Met Office said. "This rain will be accompanied by strong, possibly gale force winds.

MOSCOW -- More than 200 people drowned in Moscow this summer as people went swimming to seek relief from Russia's record heatwave, the public health department in the capital said Friday.

The number of drownings was 2.5 times greater than the same period last year, the health department's statistics showed.

"This summer the capital's water spots were particularly popular with citizens," as temperatures hit 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in July and August, the department said, according to the Ria Novosti news agency.

The biggest single number of drownings in a day, 13, was reported on July 26.

Denver fell one degree short of a heat record for the date today [22 August], when afternoon temperatures peaked at 97 degrees [36 C] just before 3 p.m., according to the National Weather Service. The record of 98 degrees was set in 1960.

http://co.water.usgs.gov/drought/ranking/index.cfm

The number and value of mergers and acquisitions in the global asset management industry fell in the first half of the year as market volatility and uncertainty over economic recovery continued.

Deal volume decreased by just over a third to 51, while the value of transactions dropped to just under $6.3bn (£4bn, €4.9bn), 45 per cent of the total in the first half of 2009, according to Jefferies & Co, an investment bank specialising in asset management M&A.>

Assets under management that changed hands fell to $437bn compared with $2,700bn a year earlier.

Kevin Pakenham, international group head, said the decline was due to "a setback in capital markets and [subsequent] asset manager performance.

"When the market goes down, asset managers have a tough time," he said. One of the main sticking points was "the price is not right".

n California's San Joaquin Valley, lawmakers and homeowners still feel left out of the Obama administration's billion-dollar bids to ease the nation's foreclosure crisis.

The latest homeowner assistance program, unveiled with great fanfare, will spread $3 billion nationwide. But while California can expect at least $476 million of the total, the Valley's share remains both ambiguous and a source of heartburn.

"I would call it a drop in the bucket, but it's probably less than that," said Rep. Dennis Cardoza, D-Merced.

Cardoza represents three cities -- Stockton, Modesto and Merced -- whose foreclosure rates consistently rank among the nation's highest. Add in Fresno and some smaller communities like Los Banos, and the greater San Joaquin Valley earns its title as Ground Zero for the housing bubble's violent bursting.

Democrats are reminding voters that their economic problems started under President George W. Bush, while Republicans are taking aim at the Obama administration's handling of record deficits and high unemployment. The Bush administration's tax cuts, due to expire Dec. 31, will be among the points of contention.

"The Republican Party is going to go to the mat to defend the centerpiece of President Bush's economic agenda, and we know where it got us," White House communication director Dan Pfeiffer said in an interview, placing the blame for the financial crisis on the Bush administration. The Obama administration wants tax cuts to remain for households earning less than $250,000. The Republicans want the cuts extended for every income level.

The showdown over taxes and policy comes as the economy shows fresh signs of slowing. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell 0.26 percent to 1,072.83 at 3:34 p.m. in New York, a second day of losses after reports yesterday showed manufacturing in the Philadelphia area unexpectedly contracted in August and claims for unemployment benefits last week jumped to the highest level since November.

Bundesbank President Axel Weber, the frontrunner to succeed European Central Bank President Jean- Claude Trichet next year, said diplomacy isn't necessarily a pre-requisite for the job.

"It's important to be a diplomat for the diplomatic corps, it's not so important for a central bank," Weber said in an interview in Frankfurt yesterday when asked if he's diplomatic enough to head the ECB. "I think it's very important for central banks to be clearly focused and also, if necessary, to deliver undiplomatic messages to governments."

Weber's public opposition to the ECB's government-bond purchase program in May exposed a lack of unity on the bank's Governing Council at a time of crisis, prompting some observers to question whether he has all the credentials required to replace Trichet when his term expires on Oct. 31 next year. Weber, 53, declined to comment on whether he's a candidate for the position, saying he's focused on his role as Bundesbank chief.

A federal agency is moving to prohibit "private transfer fees" on all mortgages funded by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But its proposed ban may extend to transfer fees routinely collected by community associations across the country -- potentially forcing some of them to raise assessments.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency [FHFA], which oversees the two mortgage giants in conservatorship, issued proposed "guidance" this month that would prohibit Fannie and Freddie and the federal home loan banks from investing in mortgages carrying private-transfer-fee covenants.

Private transfer fees differ from fees imposed by local-government authorities to raise revenue for public services when properties change hands. In a private-transfer-fee arrangement, a developer or property owner records a long-term covenant requiring payments to trustees or other private parties every time a resale occurs.

A widely used version of this plan is promoted by Freehold [BWAH!] Capital Partners of New York. The Freehold program, which the company says has attracted the participation of development projects around the country, imposes a 1% fee that must be paid by the seller every time a house is resold during the next 99 years. The money flows from the closing to a trustee, who distributes shares of it to private investors and others, including the developer in some cases.

Freehold's activities have raised widespread opposition -- 18 state legislatures have either restricted or banned the use of private transfer fees in varying forms. The proposal from the Federal Housing Finance Agency seeks to cut off federally related funding or guarantees for the underlying conventional mortgages that support private-transfer-fee programs such as Freehold's.

Read more...

... and an end to an era of expropriation, one hopes

ht Mr Dawg

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

Monday [16 Aug 2010] at the Treasury: an overlong exegesis

Last Monday, I had the privilege to meet up with a bunch of bloggers and Treasury officials for what might be described as a "rap session". The meeting was less formal than a previous meeting. There were no presentations, and no obvious agenda. Refugees from the blogosphere included Tyler Cowen, Phil Davis, John Lounsbury, Mike Konczal, Yves Smith, Alex Tabarrok, and myself. Our hosts at Treasury were Lewis Alexander, Michael Barr, Timothy Geithner, Matthew Kabaker, Mary John Miller, and Jake Siewart. You will find better write-ups of the affair elsewhere [Konczal, Lounsbury (also here), Smith, Tabarrok]. Treasury held another meeting, with a different set of bloggers, on Wednesday.

It is bizarro world for me to go to these things. First, let me confess right from the start, I had a great time. I pose as an outsider and a crank. But when summoned to the court, this jester puts on his bells. I am very, very angry at Treasury, and the administration it serves. But put me at a table with smart, articulate people who are willing to argue but who are otherwise pleasant towards me, and I will like them. One or two of the "senior Treasury officials" had the grace to be a bit creepy in their demeanor. But, cruelly, the rest were lively, thoughtful, and willing to engage as though we were equals. Occasionally, under attack, they expressed hints of frustration in their body language -- the indignation of hardworking people unjustly accused. But they kept on in good spirits until their time was up. I like these people, and that renders me untrustworthy. Abstractly, I think some of them should be replaced and perhaps disgraced. But having chatted so cordially, I'm far less likely to take up pitchforks against them. Drawn to the Secretary's conference room by curiosity, vanity, ambition, and conceit, I've been neutered a bit. There's some irony to that, because some of the people I met with may have been neutered, in precisely the same way and to disastrous effect, by their own meetings and mentorings with the Robert Rubins and Jamie Dimons of the world.

Read more...

ht rosethorn

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

• Revenue Recognition Project: Potential Effects on the Real Estate Contracts

• Topic 944: Accounting for Costs Associated with Acquiring or Renewing Insurance Contracts

• Plan Accounting -- Defined Contribution Pension Plans: Reporting Loans to Participants by Defined Contribution Pension Plans

This new rule, proposed on August 17th by the two regulators, has shocked companies everywhere. It is up for public comment until December, but could be enacted as soon as June next year.

Today, companies can opt either for a "capital lease", which goes on the balance-sheet, or an "operating lease", which does not.

WHERE DOES IT "GO"?! WHERE DOES IT "GO," IF IT DOESN'T "GO" IN EITHER SHORT TERM LIABILITIES OR LONG TERM LIABILITIES? OPERATING EXPENSES OR NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENT?!!1!

This distinction makes a certain sense. But the IASB and FASB think it is open to abuse. By labelling leases as "operating", firms can appear less indebted than they really are. The new rules would put the right to use [?] the leased item in the assets column. [?] The obligation to pay for it would go in the debit [SIC] column.

This is genius. Topic 820 --fair value, mark-to-market, of intangible property-- is back in the snooze! ZOMG.

The proposals would result in a consistent approach to lease accounting for both lessees and lessors -- 'right-of-use' approach. Among other changes, this approach would result in the liability for payments arising under the lease contract and the right to use the underlying asset being included in the lessee's statement of financial position, thus providing more complete and useful information to investors and other users of financial statements.

Check it out

For example, balance actual payments (formerly OpEx input) to maintain a "right-to-use" a software against the fair value of the software to the lessor. This intails, according to Contents of the Proposed Standards Update, calculation of

• Periodic reassement of the liability to make lease payments
  
• Amortization of the right-of-use asset [NOT BALANCE of CONTRACT VALUE, mind]
  
• Revaluation of the right-of-use asset
  
• Impairment of the right-of-use asset [WTF? Maintenance costs of operation??]
  
• Application of "performance obligation" or "derecognition" [!] to assessment of lease payments

Short version: we are in a Keynesian liquidity trap; factors that, in the 20th century, worked in our behalf are now turned against us; we need, instead, to be creating high value jobs domestically instead of feeding financial parasites. ---  Interestingly illustrated in 11 minutes.

As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

It couldn't happen to a nicer group of pirates. After a year-long campaign by Zero Hedge warning about the ongoing threat to market structure by the HFT plague, culminating in a the May 6 crash, whose incipient conditions exist to this day, the FT reports that the even more worthless regulator, FINRA, is beginning a clampdown on broker dealers who allowed high-frequency traders to have access to the markets without undertaking proper checks. As this means all of them, there is about to be a huge change in market structure as arguably more than half of the market "participants" are suddenly excluded from constant daily churning activity. What the outcome of this will be is anyone's guess, but definitely expect strange things if this is truly a first step towards reverting to some form of normalcy.

The FT reports:

   The Financial Industry Regulatory Association is undertaking a "sweep" of broker-dealers that offer market access to high-frequency traders to find out if they allowed these firms to run computerised trading programs - algorithms - without undertaking proper risk-management controls.

    "We're looking to find out if the brokers understood what was being done with the algorithm and whether the high-frequency trader had thought through how it would work under big market changes," Richard Ketchum, chairman and chief executive of Finra, told the Financial Times.

    Brokers also face scrutiny of their checks on the ownership of the firms they allow - directly or through sponsorship arrangements - to access the markets.

    "The brokers should be satisfied they know who's really operating these systems," Richard Ketchum, chairman and chief executive of Finra, told the Financial Times. "The sub-custodian chain can bury the identity of high-frequency traders in Eastern Europe and elsewhere who raise serious regulatory concerns."

And you thought those pesky Eastern European were only responsible for reverse engineering any softward that ever came out and movie piracy - guess what: it turns out they now can just as easily hack the entire market too. And now please put back all your capital in stocks.

Giovanni Arrighi in his book The Long Twentieth Century argues that there have been four major phases of capitalist development since the Middle Ages, starting in Genoa and moving on to Holland and Britain before the start of American dominance during the Great Depression of 1873-96.

It was during this period, Arrighi argues, that commerce started to play second fiddle in Britain to finance, just as it had in Genoa and Holland when their phases of pre-eminence were drawing to a close. The financialisation of the American economy in turn can be traced back to the mid-1970s, so by this interpretation of history, the dotcom collapse of 2000-01 and the financial crisis of 2007-08 (with the military entanglements in Iraq and Afghanistan sandwiched in between) are part of a much longer term development. According to this thesis, the concentration of economic power on Wall Street, the stagnation of incomes for all but the rich, the structural trade deficit, the military overreach, the switch from being the world's biggest creditor nation to its biggest debtor add up to a simple conclusion: we are in the twilight years of the long American century.

Such a conclusion is contested in Washington but may help explain why, as Albert Edwards of Société Générale puts it: "Unprecedentedly strong monetary and fiscal stimulus has led to unprecedentedly weak recovery." This will worry Bernanke, who made his name explaining how policy makers could avoid repeating the mistakes made during Japan's lost decade and can anticipate the dire consequences of a period of deflation for a nation wallowing in debt.

So, the following are 50 very revealing statistics about the U.S. economy that are almost too crazy to believe....

#50) In 2010 the U.S. government is projected to issue almost as much new debt as the rest of the governments of the world combined.

#43) There are now 8 counties in the state of California that have unemployment rates of over 20 percent.

#42) In the area around Sacramento, California there is one closed business for every six that are still open.

#41) In February, there were 5.5 unemployed Americans for every job opening.

#40) According to a Pew Research Center study, approximately 37% of all Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 have either been unemployed or underemployed at some point during the recession.

#39) More than 40% of those employed in the United States are now working in low-wage service jobs.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has held initial talks with independent candidates to try to form a government after an inconclusive election.

Ms Gillard said she would continue to provide "stable" government as final votes are counted.

She acknowledged that neither her Labor Party nor the opposition conservative coalition was likely to win the 76 seats needed for an outright majority.

Australia's ABC is forecasting 72 seats for Labor and 73 for the conservatives.

With 78% of votes counted, Labor is already set to win 72 seats, and Tony Abbott's Liberal/National coalition is on course for 70, according to national broadcaster ABC.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- A Taliban campaign focusing on the Afghan police appears to have intensified in recent days, with five attacks reported Saturday in which at least 15 policemen were killed throughout the country. Three of the policemen died in a NATO airstrike.

The latest casualties were in addition to a Taliban massacre of private security guards in Helmand Province on Friday morning, in which the death toll has now risen to 25; the poisonings of six policemen in Kandahar Province on Monday, reportedly by a cook who defected to the Taliban; and the suicide bombing deaths of four policemen, including a district commander, in Kandahar Province on Wednesday.

Afghanistan's police officers have long had the largest share of casualties on the government side of the conflict, with 646 policemen killed in 2009, compared with 412 foreign coalition troops and 282 Afghan National Army soldiers, according to figures compiled by Brookings Afghanistan Index.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is hailing the country's first domestically built drone bomber.  The unmanned aircraft, unveiled Sunday, is the latest in a series of Iranian announcements of military advances.

The Iranian military displayed the drone, dubbed the Karrar - or "striker" - at a ceremony attended by top officials.  State media say it can carry out long-range attacks up to 1,000 kilometers carrying a 200-kilogram bomb.

President Ahmadinejad called the Karrar a symbol of death to Iran's enemies.

But he also argued the drone serves as "a messenger of salvation and dignity for humanity".  The Iranian leader said it is aimed at deterring any act of foreign aggression.

Ahead of the first direct negotiations between the two sides in 20 months, the Israeli government has said that security issues should take precedence over borders in discussions with the Palestinians.

Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, told reporters at his regular cabinet meeting on Sunday that a peace deal is "difficult but achievable".

"We are seeking to surprise the critics and the sceptics, but in order to do this, we need a real partner on the Palestinian side," he said.

SANTIAGO, Chile - Chile's president says all 33 miners trapped in a collapsed mine for 17 days are alive.

Scenes of Police brutality against striking teachers in Honduras:
More HERE in English.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 22, 2010 (Tierramérica) - Brazil has begun a counterattack on the European Union's measures for certifying crop-based fuels, which could lead to import barriers for this energy source coming from the South American giant. Brazil is the world's leading producer of sugarcane ethanol.

In an interview by Likud Knesset Member Danny Danon, speaking with WND senior reporter Aaron Klein, who hosts an investigative program on New York's WABC 770 AM Radio, the Israeli said that "Israel is preparing for a time of war...We are ready for all scenarios, and we are able to defend our civilian population. I cannot tell you how long we can wait more. But we prefer to wait and see if the international bodies are acting, or [whether] it will be only the burden of Israel, like it was in the early '80s, when the great leader, Menachem Begin, [made] the great decision to bomb the nuclear reactor in Iraq." He concluded: "We don't want this to be a war of Jews against Muslims. It should be a war of Western civilization [against] Iran." Good luck explaining that to 1.5 billion Muslims around the world.

Singer-songwriter Björk Gudmundsdottir is spearheading a push that one poll shows is backed by 85 percent of Icelanders to put foreign energy takeovers to referenda if enough people oppose the deals.

The popular movement would block an acquisition by Canada's Magma Energy Corp. of geothermal power generator HS Orka hf, which was approved by a parliamentary commission on March 22. More than 17,000 Icelanders have signed a petition demanding the deal be reversed, about half the number Premier Johanna Sigurdardottir has said should be enough to hold a referendum.

A July 21-28 Capacent Gallup poll of 1,200 voters showed 85 percent "would like to regain the rights to their energy source," Björk, 44, said in an e-mailed reply to questions. "Why not let the people of Iceland decide? We are asking the government to stop the sale and organize a national referendum on how Icelanders feel about whether access to their energy sources should be privatized or not."...

The government will probe whether Magma circumvented Icelandic and European laws by setting up a company in Sweden for the sole purpose of investing in Iceland, Sigfusson said July 27. The island's laws prevent the sale of majority stakes in energy companies outside the European Economic Area.

Sigurdardottir, who has tried to push a bill through parliament allowing for referenda if 15 percent of voters want one, said last month her government wants to "wind down the privatization in the energy sector; our primary objective is to ensure public ownership." ...

Orka, which generated 8.3 percent of all the energy produced in Iceland in 2009, is the island's third-biggest energy producer after state-owned Landsvirkjun, and Orkuveita Reykjavikur, owned by the city of Reykjavik.  

Read more...

Possibly related commentary:
"dear ross noticed your message for me"
Best Energy in Reykjavik

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

ScienceDaily (Aug. 21, 2010) -- Global plant productivity that once was on the rise with warming temperatures and a lengthened growing season is now on the decline because of regional drought, according to a new study of NASA satellite data.

Plant productivity is a measure of the rate of the photosynthesis process that green plants use to convert solar energy, carbon dioxide and water to sugar, oxygen and eventually plant tissue. Compared with a 6 percent increase in plant productivity during the 1980s and 1990s, the decline observed over the last decade is only 1 percent. The shift, however, could impact food security, biofuels and the global carbon cycle.

Researchers Maosheng Zhao and Steven Running of the University of Montana in Missoula discovered the global shift from an analysis of NASA satellite data. The discovery comes from an analysis of plant productivity data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer on NASA's Terra satellite, combined with other growing season climate data, including temperature, solar radiation and water.

"We see this as a bit of a surprise, and potentially significant on a policy level because previous interpretations suggested global warming might actually help plant growth around the world," Running said.

ScienceDaily (Aug. 20, 2010) -- The extent of the sea ice in the Arctic will reach its annual minimum in September. Forecasts indicate that it will not be as low as in 2007, the year of the smallest area covered by sea ice since satellites started recording such data. Nevertheless, sea ice physicists at the Alfred Wegener Institute are concerned about the long-term equilibrium in the Arctic Ocean.

They have indications that the mass of sea ice is dwindling because its thickness is declining. To substantiate this, they are currently measuring the ice thickness north and east of Greenland using the research aircraft Polar 5. The objective of the roughly one-week campaign is to determine the export of sea ice from the Arctic. Around a third to half of the freshwater export from the Arctic Ocean takes place in this way -- a major drive factor in the global ocean current system.

The question of when the Arctic will be ice-free in the summer has been preoccupying the sea ice researchers headed by Prof. Dr. Rüdiger Gerdes from the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association for a long time now. Satellites have been recording the extent of the Arctic ice for more than 30 years. In addition to the area covered, the thickness of the ice is a decisive factor in assessing how much sea ice there is.

Fifty-nine percent of the endangered species recovery plans issued by the U.S. government between 2005 and 2008 mention climate change as one of the major threats facing the species, according to a study published in Conservation Biology.

The study, which examined 1,209 species recovery plans published between 1975 and 2008, was authored by Tony Povilitis, president of Life Net Nature, and Kierán Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD).

The mention of climate change in these species recovery plans is a fairly recent occurrence. Of the 87 recovery plans issued between 2001 and 2004, only 16 mentioned climate change as an extinction threat. That rose to 73 out of 123 plans issued from 2005 to 2008.

Three years ago, I saw a television program about a new breed of youngster: the nonconsumer. Japanese in their late teens and early 20s, it said, did not have cars. They didn't drink alcohol. They didn't spend Christmas Eve with their boyfriends or girlfriends at fancy hotels downtown the way earlier generations did. I have taught many students who fit this mold. They work hard at part-time jobs, spend hours at McDonald's sipping cheap coffee, eat fast food lunches at Yoshinoya. They save their money for the future.

These are the Japanese who came of age after the bubble, never having known Japan as a flourishing economy. They are accustomed to being frugal. Today's youths, living in a society older than any in the world, are the first since the late 19th century to feel so uneasy about the future.

I saw young Japanese in Paris, of course, vacationing or studying, but statistics show that they don't travel the way we used to. Perhaps it's a reaction against their globalizing elders who are still zealously pushing English-language education and overseas employment. Young people have grown less interested in studying foreign languages. They seem not to feel the urge to grow outward. Look, they say, Japan is a small country. And we're O.K. with small.

It is, perhaps, a sort of maturity.

Read more...

[A]n admission from the federal government that it hasn't been testing Gulf seafood for toxic heavy metals, and news that fishermen are being forced to sign waivers making them liable for toxins in their catch, suggest not everyone is convinced of the safety of Gulf seafood.

Louisiana fishermen's activist Kindra Arnesen says dock owners are asking fishermen to sign waivers that put the full responsibility for toxins found in the catch on the fishermen themselves. "This liability cannot fall with our fishermen," she said in a video posted to blogger Alexander Higgins' Web site....

During questioning by House Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA), FDA Acting Deputy Director Donald Kraemer said his agency isn't monitoring for the presence of heavy metals such as arsenic and mercury in Gulf seafood. He suggested that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration may be handling that area. But NOAA senior scientist Bill Lehr didn't have an answer for Markey as to whether the NOAA is monitoring for heavy metals, and said only, "We'll get back to you with an answer on that."

"It's my understanding that compounds like mercury, arsenic and other heavy metals that are present in crude oil have the ability to accumulate in the tissues of fish in levels that may cause harm particularly to pregnant women and children," Markey said. But the FDA's Kraemer told Markey that his agency "does not expect to see an increase" in heavy toxins from the spill.

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Possibly related litigation:
A brief in support of United States' motion to dismiss plaintiff's amended complaint, Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund et al. v. Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary US Dept of Health and Human Services et al. (26 April 2010) pdf, Table of Contents, IV Argument

B. Plaintiffs fail to state a claim upon which relief can be granted

1. Plaintifgs have failed to exhaust their administrative remedies
   
2. FDA's regulations to not violate the non-delegation doctrine nor do they exceed FDA's statutory authority
   
3. FDA's regulations do not implate the constitutional right to travel
   
4. FDA's regulations do not infringe upon substantive due process rights: (a.) There is no right to consume or feed children any particular food; (b.) There is no generalized right to bodily and physical health; (c.) There is no fundamental right to freedom of contract.
   
5. FDA's regulations rationally advance the agency's public health mission

foodfreedom.wordpress.com

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

A three-year investigation by the United Nations will almost entirely exonerate Royal Dutch Shell for 40 years of oil pollution in the Niger delta, causing outrage among communities who have long campaigned to force the multinational to clean up its spills and pay compensation.

The $10m (£6.5m) investigation by the UN environment programme (UNEP), paid for by Shell, will say that only 10% of oil pollution in Ogoniland has been caused by equipment failures and company negligence, and concludes that the rest has come from local people illegally stealing oil and sabotaging company pipelines.

The shock disclosure was made by Mike Cowing, the head of a UN team of 100 people who have been studying environmental damage in the region.

Cowing said that the 300 known oil spills in the Ogoniland region of the delta caused massive damage, but added that 90% of the spills had been caused by "bunkering" gangs trying to steal oil.

A traffic jam on China's Beijing-Tibet Expressway that started nine days ago is still going strong, stretching over 60 miles. Drivers are playing cards on the road, and some have suggested holding concerts to entertain stranded motorists. 60 miles!

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Julian Assange, the secretive founder of the whistle-blowing WikiLeaks website, has today denied allegations of rape and sexual molestation and insisted he has never had non-consensual sex.

The 39-year-old Australian - whose website was behind the biggest leak of US military documents in history - was the subject of a Swedish arrest warrant on Friday after separate complaints made by two women.

But prosecutors withdrew the warrant to arrest him on suspicion of rape within 24 hours, saying the accusations against him lacked substance.

In a brief statement, the chief prosecutor, Eva Finne, said: "I don't think there is reason to suspect that he has committed rape".

Karin Rosander, from the Swedish Prosecution Authority, said Assange, believed to be in Sweden, remained suspected of molestation - a less serious charge that would not lead to an arrest warrant.

Two Italian men have been arrested attempting to leave Cairo airport on suspicion of stealing a famous painting by Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh. Police said, however, the painting was still missing. 

Egyptian police have arrested two Italians at Cairo airport suspected of stealing a famous van Gogh painting taken from a museum earlier on Saturday, August 21.

The painting, "Poppy Flowers," worth an estimated 39 million euros ($50 million) was stolen from the Mahmoud Khalil museum in the Egyptian capital after it was cut from its frame.

Egyptian Culture Minister Farouk Hosni confirmed that the painting was still missing, retracting an earlier statement that it had been found.

Two farms that recalled some 450 million potentially-tainted eggs have links to an Iowa businessman who "has been cited for numerous health, safety, and employment violations over the years," according to a report Sunday.

The Associated Press reports that businessman Austin DeCoster owns Wright County Egg, the first farm that recalled eggs linked to reported cases of salmonella poisoning. Mr. DeCoster also owns Quality Egg, which supplies chickens and feed to Wright County Egg and to Hillandale Farms of Iowa. On Friday, Hillandale Farms became the second farm to recall potentially-contaminated eggs.

"DeCoster is no stranger to controversy in his food and farm operations," the AP reports.

Over the years, DeCoster's company has agreed to pay large fines to settle charges involving health, safety, and employment discrimination issues. DeCoster's farms also have been the target of immigration raids and animal-cruelty allegations.

Mafia clans have used a popular football show on Italian television to send secret messages to jailed godfathers held in isolation, a magistrate has revealed.

Imprisoned crime bosses were kept up to date on mob business through mobile phone texts sent to the show, Quelli Che il Calcio, which unwittingly scrolled them across the bottom of the screen, among innocent messages from supporters of Italian football teams.

Enzo Macri, a magistrate tipped off after a letter advising a jailed boss to watch the show was intercepted, cited one of the texts, "Everything is OK - Paolo," as being sent by a clan affiliate.

For six years, The X Factor has been Saturday night TV's ratings powerhouse, courting controversy and criticism with each new series. Accusations of miming, unfair editing and shabby treatment meted out to hopefuls have all been lobbed at the programme.

So it is no surprise that after it launched its seventh series on Saturday night, ITV's karaoke-style contest finds itself embroiled in another row as hundreds of viewers took to social networking sites to accuse the programme's makers of "autotuning" the voices of contestants the judges favour to make them sound better than those set to be dropped.

Post-production technology had, the viewers claim, deprived the public of hearing the singing contest's competitors as nature intended.

The row follows the broadcasting of the audition rounds - the annual stomach-squirming spectacle where genuine talent shines through while the hopeless are encouraged to embarrass themselves before a baying live audience.

Amid cries of "cheat" and "shame", the programme stands charged with deceiving viewers, with many registering complaints on the official X Factor Facebook site and on Twitter.

The Daily Mail waste no opportunity to take a dig at the BBC, and yet apparently they find their content good enough to repost at DailyMail.co.uk, even when it's more than a year out of date (H/T to @jaffathecake).

On May 21st 2009, an article was posted on the BBC about an attack on the file-sharing site Youtube, in which 4Chan users posted porn videos under the pretense that they were videos about children's stars such as Hannah Montana and the  Jonas Brothers. For some reason, this old article became one of the "Most Read" items on the BBC website today, 15 months after it happened:

... [Jonathan L.] Zittrain argues that the demise of the all-encompassing, wide-open Web is a dangerous thing, a loss of open standards and services that are "generative" -- that allow people to find new uses for them. "The prospect of tethered appliances and software as service," he warns, "permits major regulatory intrusions to be implemented as minor technical adjustments to code or requests to service providers."

But what is actually emerging is not quite the bleak future of the Internet that Zittrain envisioned. It is only the future of the commercial content side of the digital economy. Ecommerce continues to thrive on the Web, and no company is going to shut its Web site as an information resource. More important, the great virtue of today's Web is that so much of it is noncommercial. The wide-open Web of peer production, the so-called generative Web where everyone is free to create what they want, continues to thrive, driven by the nonmonetary incentives of expression, attention, reputation, and the like. But the notion of the Web as the ultimate marketplace for digital delivery is now in doubt.

The Internet is the real revolution, as important as electricity; what we do with it is still evolving. As it moved from your desktop to your pocket, the nature of the Net changed. The delirious chaos of the open Web was an adolescent phase subsidized by industrial giants groping their way in a new world. Now they're doing what industrialists do best -- finding choke points. And by the looks of it, we're loving it.

Things seem awfully heated in America right now; so heated you could probably toast a marshmallow by jabbing it on a stick and holding it toward the Atlantic. Millions are hopping mad over the news that a bunch of triumphalist Muslim extremists are about to build a "victory mosque" slap bang in the middle of Ground Zero.

For the past three years, Marilyn Bess has operated MS Philly Organic, a small, low-traffic blog that features occasional posts about green living, out of her Manayunk home. Between her blog and infrequent contributions to ehow.com, over the last few years she says she's made about $50. To Bess, her website is a hobby. To the city of Philadelphia, it's a potential moneymaker, and the city wants its cut.

In May, the city sent Bess a letter demanding that she pay $300, the price of a business privilege license.

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A Franco-Israeli entrepreneur is hoping to rekindle some of the optimism of the dotcom boom with a new social networking site that combines the mass-audience reach of eBay with the trend for grassroots funding of small businesses.

Serge Bueno, who relaunched the SodaStream soft drinks maker in mainland Europe, is hoping that his latest project, called the Tribe, will help the next generation of business leaders and entrepreneurs get off the ground by providing them with a ready-made market.

His plan comes as the UK government continues to press high street banks to start lending to small businesses again. Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England, admitted this month that the credit crunch was lasting longer than he expected. While large companies have access to other sources of funding, small and medium-sized companies are still struggling to obtain the cash they need for investment.

Former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair started a company to offer investment services to funds and individuals, The Sunday Times reported, citing Financial Services Authority documents.

Firerush Ventures No. 3 is registered with the U.K.'s FSA and does business as Tony Blair Associates, the London-based newspaper said.

"In the second round, we're going to put a defense on, I'm sure," Blagojevich said, vowing to call Emanuel, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), DSCC Chairman Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) to testify in his defense.

Blagojevich also said he would again attempt to subpoena Obama. That attempt was rejected during the first trial.

"We would call Rahm Emanuel and a whole bunch of other people in the second trial to show what was really going on," Blagojevich said.  "The decision I made was to try to make a political deal. Rahm Emanuel a day before my arrest was going to make it happen. They did nothing wrong either."

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Frank Delaney ~ Ireland