Ministers in Norway -- a major and rich oil-producing country -- are under increasing public pressure to reduce perks and tax breaks for booming electric car sales.
"It's become a problem," said Erik Haugstad, a bus driver in the Oslo region who complains about the numerous electric cars clogging bus lanes, which they have the right to use in Norway.
The cars are also exempt from urban toll payments or fees at public parking spaces, where they can recharge batteries without cost.
But above all, they are exempt from Norway's sky high sales taxes and VAT.
Norway brought in the generous incentives to cut back on greenhouse gas emissions from traffic, which accounts for 10 percent of total emissions in the Nordic nation.
The policy has been so successful that 32,000 electric cars are now on the road -- by far the highest rate per capita in the world, in a country with a 5.1 million population.
"I'm a bus driver and I want to transport my passengers as quickly as possible. So, I'd like electric cars to leave the bus lanes, where they're getting in my way," Haugstad said.
"These delays have a cost for society. Time lost by thousands of our passengers in traffic is far greater than that gained by a few dozen electric car drivers."
He said the cars can create a vicious circle -- tired of being stuck in traffic, bus users could be tempted to buy an electric car themselves, worsening the congestion problem.
Electric cars already represent 85 percent of traffic in bus lanes during rush hour, according to a study by the Norwegian Public Roads Administration on a busy stretch of road outside Oslo.
"It's a subject we discuss very often with colleagues during lunch break. Many of them are far more aggressive and don't measure their words as much as me," Haugstad said.
No decision has been made so far, but it looks increasingly likely that authorities will take action to unclog congested areas -- especially during rush hour.
In the meantime, electric car sales keep growing. From the popular Leaf by Japan's Nissan to high-end US-made Tesla S, they have accounted for 13 percent of new car sales since the beginning of 2014, far ahead of the rest of the world.
In March, the Tesla became the highest selling car in a single month in Norway's history, despite its relatively high price.
Although a basic model costs about 60,000 euros ($79,000), it still sounds like a bargain considering that a price including taxes would be roughly double.
The popularity of electric cars has caught the authorities off guard, as they expected to keep the incentives in place until 2017, or until they number 50,000.
At the current pace, that figure could be reached in the beginning of 2015, forcing the government to rethink its costly policy.
The tax exemptions alone account for up to 4 billion kroner (500 million euros, $650 million), according to the state's own estimates.
"We might make lowering adjustments in the future," Prime Minister Erna Solberg recently told Norwegian newspaper VG.
"But I can promise drivers that there will still be fiscal advantages to driving an electric car."
The commitment is important, because 48 percent of electric car owners say their main reason for buying them was to save money.
According to a survey by the Norwegian Electric Vehicle Association, only 27 percent said it was for environmental reasons and 12 percent to gain time in their rides.
"It's too early to remove the fiscal incentives. The market isn't competitive enough yet" compared to that of fossil-fuel-driven cars, said Christina Bu, general secretary of the association.
"If the tax and VAT exemption ends, the market could collapse and it would be hard for Norway to reach its climate goals. We must increase the number of electric cars, not reduce it."
Sunday, August 31, 2014
One Judge to Decide the Future of Detroit
DETROIT — In a trial set to open in the federal courthouse here on Tuesday, nothing short of this city’s future is at stake.
If Judge Steven W. Rhodes approves a blueprint drawn up by Detroit officials to eliminate more than $7 billion of its estimated $18 billion in debts and to invest about $1.5 billion into the city’s now dismal services, it will mark the beginning of the end of the nation’s largest-ever municipal bankruptcy. The outcome will set this troubled city’s new course for the coming decades, perhaps longer.
In deciding whether the city’s plan is equitable, feasible and in the best interest of creditors, Judge Rhodes will send significant messages beyond Detroit about the rarely tested powers and limits of municipal bankruptcy, at a time when many cities are struggling with underfunded pensions, neglected infrastructure and declining industries.
Municipal bankruptcy, known as Chapter 9, was designed to give creditors, and even judges, less power than Chapter 11 corporate bankruptcy does, but the law has never before been tested on this scale. Leaders of other cities will be watching closely, turnaround experts said, as the judge decides whether a city may shelter municipal retirees even as it imposes harsher losses on financial creditors; whether it can use bankruptcy to repudiate some capital-markets debts entirely; and whether a city in bankruptcy may avoid selling off valuable assets to raise money for its creditors, as Detroit hopes to do with its art collection.
For months, as the city’s lawyers struck deals during mediation with retirees and other creditors, Detroit’s passage through bankruptcy has gained momentum, raising the possibility that after seeking bankruptcy protection just one year ago, it might emerge with relative ease and remarkable speed, by fall. Yet, as Judge Rhodes prepares to hear what is expected to be more than a month of testimony on the city’s blueprint, serious impediments and numerous unknowns remain.
In voting that is part of the bankruptcy process, majorities of six classes of the city’s creditors cast ballots in favor of the city’s plan in recent months, but five other voting classes rejected it. Some opponents, including the bond insurers Syncora and Financial Guaranty, have vehemently fought the plan, saying it improperly favors some creditors over others, and uses a questionable transaction to put the riches of the art collection beyond the creditors’ reach.
Syncora went so far as to file an objection calling that transaction “a quasi-political maneuver” hatched by the chief mediator of the bankruptcy, Gerald E. Rosen, who Syncora said was biased in favor of Detroit’s retirees. Judge Rosen is also the chief judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, the seat of the bankruptcy court.
“It’s going from hardball to really hardball,” said David Skeel, a bankruptcy law professor at the University of Pennsylvania. “It sure seems like Syncora has concluded that they will not get what they want either out of the mediator or the bankruptcy judge, and they’re using a scorched-earth policy to see if they can win on some kind of appeal.”
Last week, Judge Rhodes called Syncora’s accusations “manifestly improper and false” and ordered them stricken from the court record.
Beyond those problems, Judge Rhodes must grapple with larger, essential questions about Detroit’s fate: Even if the city’s debt-cutting answers Detroit’s immediate financial crisis, will it go far enough to prevent the city from sliding back into the same miserable circumstances of overwhelming debt, annual operating deficits and the threat of default and another bankruptcy in the years ahead? And will new spending to improve firefighting, police protection and archaic computer technology, and to remove tens of thousands of dilapidated buildings, be enough to restore city services and stop decades of departure and decline?
“This is a unique situation when you think about it,” said Craig A. Barbarosh, a bankruptcy lawyer with the firm Katten Muchin Rosenman who is based in Costa Mesa, Calif., and represents some creditors. “It’s not like a company, where the judge can say, ‘O.K., I’m going to liquidate the city.’ ”
Under the plan the city hopes Judge Rhodes will confirm, Detroit’s more than 100,000 creditors would get a wide range of returns on their claims. Investors who bought $1.4 billion of certificates the city issued in 2005, to raise money for its pension system, could come away nearly empty-handed, since Detroit now calls the borrowing a sham transaction that should be voided entirely. By contrast, investors that bought a type of general obligation bond that was backed by a special, dedicated tax are slated to recover 74 cents on the dollar.
Thousands of retirees from the city’s fire and police departments would expect no cuts to monthly pension checks, but smaller than expected cost-of-living increases in future years. General municipal retirees could see 4.5 percent cuts to their monthly pension checks, an end to cost-of-living increases and a clawback of previous payments from the pension system that are now deemed to have been improper. The more desirable outcomes for workers and retirees are possible with a separate, newly pledged pot of money: hundreds of millions of dollars from foundations, the state and other donors in an unusual, mediated deal called the grand bargain, to raise fresh money for the pension system and protect from sale the works of the Detroit Institute of Arts.
Creditors slated to get little or no money from the grand bargain hope to persuade Judge Rhodes that it cannot be approved, arguing that it discriminates unfairly and is not in the best interests of creditors.
During the trial, city lawyers will attempt to present evidence and witnesses, including Mayor Mike Duggan and Kevyn D. Orr, the emergency manager who has overseen this city for more than a year, to back up the need for their plan. A consultant hired by Judge Rhodes, Martha E. M. Kopacz, is to be questioned on her finding that Detroit’s plan of debt adjustment is feasible.
An outright rejection of the city’s blueprint would leave Detroit with no clear alternative. In municipal bankruptcy, unlike the corporate version, only the bankrupt government can propose an exit strategy. The judge can signal his preferences but cannot order amendments, and creditors cannot submit rival plans.
In the end, the up-or-down decision will belong to Judge Rhodes, a hard-to-read, sometimes intimidating force in the courtroom. Judge Rhodes, who got his law degree from the University of Michigan, was appointed as a bankruptcy judge in the Eastern District of Michigan in 1985. He is seen by those involved in the case as an expert on the bankruptcy code and a tough overseer of the proceedings, whose courtroom demeanor gives little hint at other aspects of his life, like his playing rhythm guitar in a classic rock band, the Indubitable Equivalents.
For all sorts of political and legal reasons, leaders here are hoping for quick approval and a finish to the city’s bankruptcy by the end of September. As of Sept. 27 — 18 months after Mr. Orr was assigned to take control of this city — he may be removed by a vote of elected officials in Detroit. Many residents have seen the state’s appointment of an emergency manager as an undemocratic takeover of a mostly black city by the white Republicans who currently control the state government. Gov. Rick Snyder, the Republican who authorized a bankruptcy filing for the state’s biggest city, is seeking re-election in November and if the city were to become bogged down in bankruptcy,it could become a campaign issue.
But even after Detroit leaves bankruptcy court, its issues will by no means be over. Legal appeals of the city’s blueprint are likely. The city can expect years of financial oversight from a commission that includes representatives of the state as part of the deal struck to send state money to help spare pension cuts. And the city’s larger questions will still loom: can it actually begin rebuilding its tax base, financial stability and population, which has fallen below 700,000 and some demographers predict will drop still more?
If Judge Steven W. Rhodes approves a blueprint drawn up by Detroit officials to eliminate more than $7 billion of its estimated $18 billion in debts and to invest about $1.5 billion into the city’s now dismal services, it will mark the beginning of the end of the nation’s largest-ever municipal bankruptcy. The outcome will set this troubled city’s new course for the coming decades, perhaps longer.
In deciding whether the city’s plan is equitable, feasible and in the best interest of creditors, Judge Rhodes will send significant messages beyond Detroit about the rarely tested powers and limits of municipal bankruptcy, at a time when many cities are struggling with underfunded pensions, neglected infrastructure and declining industries.
Municipal bankruptcy, known as Chapter 9, was designed to give creditors, and even judges, less power than Chapter 11 corporate bankruptcy does, but the law has never before been tested on this scale. Leaders of other cities will be watching closely, turnaround experts said, as the judge decides whether a city may shelter municipal retirees even as it imposes harsher losses on financial creditors; whether it can use bankruptcy to repudiate some capital-markets debts entirely; and whether a city in bankruptcy may avoid selling off valuable assets to raise money for its creditors, as Detroit hopes to do with its art collection.
For months, as the city’s lawyers struck deals during mediation with retirees and other creditors, Detroit’s passage through bankruptcy has gained momentum, raising the possibility that after seeking bankruptcy protection just one year ago, it might emerge with relative ease and remarkable speed, by fall. Yet, as Judge Rhodes prepares to hear what is expected to be more than a month of testimony on the city’s blueprint, serious impediments and numerous unknowns remain.
In voting that is part of the bankruptcy process, majorities of six classes of the city’s creditors cast ballots in favor of the city’s plan in recent months, but five other voting classes rejected it. Some opponents, including the bond insurers Syncora and Financial Guaranty, have vehemently fought the plan, saying it improperly favors some creditors over others, and uses a questionable transaction to put the riches of the art collection beyond the creditors’ reach.
Syncora went so far as to file an objection calling that transaction “a quasi-political maneuver” hatched by the chief mediator of the bankruptcy, Gerald E. Rosen, who Syncora said was biased in favor of Detroit’s retirees. Judge Rosen is also the chief judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, the seat of the bankruptcy court.
“It’s going from hardball to really hardball,” said David Skeel, a bankruptcy law professor at the University of Pennsylvania. “It sure seems like Syncora has concluded that they will not get what they want either out of the mediator or the bankruptcy judge, and they’re using a scorched-earth policy to see if they can win on some kind of appeal.”
Last week, Judge Rhodes called Syncora’s accusations “manifestly improper and false” and ordered them stricken from the court record.
Beyond those problems, Judge Rhodes must grapple with larger, essential questions about Detroit’s fate: Even if the city’s debt-cutting answers Detroit’s immediate financial crisis, will it go far enough to prevent the city from sliding back into the same miserable circumstances of overwhelming debt, annual operating deficits and the threat of default and another bankruptcy in the years ahead? And will new spending to improve firefighting, police protection and archaic computer technology, and to remove tens of thousands of dilapidated buildings, be enough to restore city services and stop decades of departure and decline?
“This is a unique situation when you think about it,” said Craig A. Barbarosh, a bankruptcy lawyer with the firm Katten Muchin Rosenman who is based in Costa Mesa, Calif., and represents some creditors. “It’s not like a company, where the judge can say, ‘O.K., I’m going to liquidate the city.’ ”
Under the plan the city hopes Judge Rhodes will confirm, Detroit’s more than 100,000 creditors would get a wide range of returns on their claims. Investors who bought $1.4 billion of certificates the city issued in 2005, to raise money for its pension system, could come away nearly empty-handed, since Detroit now calls the borrowing a sham transaction that should be voided entirely. By contrast, investors that bought a type of general obligation bond that was backed by a special, dedicated tax are slated to recover 74 cents on the dollar.
Thousands of retirees from the city’s fire and police departments would expect no cuts to monthly pension checks, but smaller than expected cost-of-living increases in future years. General municipal retirees could see 4.5 percent cuts to their monthly pension checks, an end to cost-of-living increases and a clawback of previous payments from the pension system that are now deemed to have been improper. The more desirable outcomes for workers and retirees are possible with a separate, newly pledged pot of money: hundreds of millions of dollars from foundations, the state and other donors in an unusual, mediated deal called the grand bargain, to raise fresh money for the pension system and protect from sale the works of the Detroit Institute of Arts.
Creditors slated to get little or no money from the grand bargain hope to persuade Judge Rhodes that it cannot be approved, arguing that it discriminates unfairly and is not in the best interests of creditors.
During the trial, city lawyers will attempt to present evidence and witnesses, including Mayor Mike Duggan and Kevyn D. Orr, the emergency manager who has overseen this city for more than a year, to back up the need for their plan. A consultant hired by Judge Rhodes, Martha E. M. Kopacz, is to be questioned on her finding that Detroit’s plan of debt adjustment is feasible.
An outright rejection of the city’s blueprint would leave Detroit with no clear alternative. In municipal bankruptcy, unlike the corporate version, only the bankrupt government can propose an exit strategy. The judge can signal his preferences but cannot order amendments, and creditors cannot submit rival plans.
In the end, the up-or-down decision will belong to Judge Rhodes, a hard-to-read, sometimes intimidating force in the courtroom. Judge Rhodes, who got his law degree from the University of Michigan, was appointed as a bankruptcy judge in the Eastern District of Michigan in 1985. He is seen by those involved in the case as an expert on the bankruptcy code and a tough overseer of the proceedings, whose courtroom demeanor gives little hint at other aspects of his life, like his playing rhythm guitar in a classic rock band, the Indubitable Equivalents.
For all sorts of political and legal reasons, leaders here are hoping for quick approval and a finish to the city’s bankruptcy by the end of September. As of Sept. 27 — 18 months after Mr. Orr was assigned to take control of this city — he may be removed by a vote of elected officials in Detroit. Many residents have seen the state’s appointment of an emergency manager as an undemocratic takeover of a mostly black city by the white Republicans who currently control the state government. Gov. Rick Snyder, the Republican who authorized a bankruptcy filing for the state’s biggest city, is seeking re-election in November and if the city were to become bogged down in bankruptcy,it could become a campaign issue.
But even after Detroit leaves bankruptcy court, its issues will by no means be over. Legal appeals of the city’s blueprint are likely. The city can expect years of financial oversight from a commission that includes representatives of the state as part of the deal struck to send state money to help spare pension cuts. And the city’s larger questions will still loom: can it actually begin rebuilding its tax base, financial stability and population, which has fallen below 700,000 and some demographers predict will drop still more?
Thursday, August 28, 2014
Armed Canadian fighter jets move to Russia’s doorstep
OTTAWA—As NATO leaders prepare to beef up the military presence in eastern Europe as a deterrence to Russia aggression, Canadian fighter pilots are already there.
Six CF-18 fighter jets were sent to Romania in early May, dispatched to Europe as part of a show of force in the face of Russian military moves in Ukraine.
The Canadian fighter jets have now moved to Lithuania to patrol the skies at the front lines of what some worry could be the next standoff with Russia.
Those tensions aren’t lost on the fighter pilots deployed overseas but it doesn’t influence their day-to-day flying, said Lt.-Col. Jonathan Nelles, deputy commander and chief of staff of the air task force during its time in Romania.
“We all want to understand the political situation and why it is we are in the location that we are, why we have been sent here,” Nelles said.
“But at the tactical level, we have a mission to execute,” Nelles told the Star in a telephone interview from Campia Turzii, Romania, where the Canadians were recently stationed.
“We are close to where those tensions are but our daily activities do not involve those tensions,” he said.
Yet those tensions will top the agenda when the leaders of the NATO military alliance, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper, gather in Wales next week to discuss their response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and ongoing backing of separatist rebels fighting in Ukraine.
The deployment of the six CF-18s and several hundred military personnel to Romania in April was part of “reassurance” measures by NATO to step up its presence in eastern Europe in the wake of Russia’s military moves.
In Lithuania, those fighters will be flying missions on Russia’s doorstep — a mere 300 kilometres away as the CF-18 flies — where they will be until at least December.
“Through the hard work of our men and women in uniform, Canada will continue to demonstrate the strength of allied solidarity in response to Russian aggression,” Defence Minister Rob Nicholson said in a statement confirming the Lithuanian mission.
The deployments are a throwback to the era when Canadian fighters and army units were permanently based in West Germany, helping to maintain a nervous peace on the front-lines of the Cold War.
In those days, when Canadian CF-104 Starfighter jets thundered off the runways and into the sky, pilots knew well the deadly serious nature of their missions.
“Back then, during my flying in Europe it was during the Cold War, so 150 miles east of us were people who wanted to kill us. Our job was to prepare to do it to them,” said former fighter pilot Laurie Hawn.
“We weren’t just there to be a flying club. We were there for potentially a pretty serious reason,” said Hawn, now the Conservative MP for Edmonton Centre.
Indeed, the pilot-turned-politician got his call-sign “Hawnski” after flying for 20 minutes through East German airspace in his sleek Starfighter jet.
“I was chased out by some East German MiGs. They didn’t catch me,” said Hawn, adding that a fellow pilot thought that if he was going to fly in Soviet airspace, he should at least have a Russian-sounding name.
The times have changed. The end of the Cold War and shrinking defence budgets prompted Canada to shutter its European bases.
NATO jets still patrol European skies. NATO has been flying so-called air policing missions over the Baltic states — Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia — since 2004, when the three countries joined the 28-member military alliance.
Though not a new mission, it has taken new urgency as geopolitical tensions rise. Since April, NATO has committed additional fighters to patrol the Baltic airspace.
This is the first time Canadian fighter jets have participated. Indeed, the deployments to Romania and Lithuania mark the first time Royal Canadian Air Force fighters have operated so far east in Europe, past the Cold War-era borders that divided east and west.
“Our fighter aircraft have certainly not operated in this area of the world, eastern Europe, in the past,” Nelles said.
Flying from an airbase in Siauliai, part of their mission over the Baltics will be to conduct air patrols and intercept any aircraft — usually Russian — that infringe on the sovereign airspace over the three countries.
It’s similar to the missions now flown by Canadian and U.S. jets under the umbrella of North American Aerospace Defense Command to protect airspace over Canada and the U.S.
“Same concept, just a different location,” Nelles said.
Yet because of the nature of that intercept mission, the CF-18s will be armed when they fly from Lithuania, unlike their time in Romania.
Canada’s deployment of fighters could be the prelude of a larger NATO commitment to position troops and equipment in the Baltic States to ensure they are not seen as an “easy target” by Russia.
That’s the advice from a July report from the British House of Commons defence committee, which warned that Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are especially vulnerable “due to their position, their size and their lack of strategic depth.”
It quoted one retired Swedish general as saying the territories could be overrun in a couple of days. Without forces based in the Baltic states, it’s unlikely NATO could respond to a surprise attack.
It said that the attack on Ukraine has raised the possibility — albeit “unlikely” — of an attack on the Baltic states and said NATO must step up its readiness.
The report recommends that NATO leaders consider whether to pre-position equipment in the Baltic states, keep NATO troops on exercise there and establish a headquarters to focus on eastern Europe and the Baltic states.
Because all three countries are NATO members, under the alliance’s treaty 5, an attack on one would be seen as an attack on all of the alliance, potentially triggering a sweeping military response.
Academic Roland Paris, of the University of Ottawa, says the vulnerability of the Baltic states may have prompted Canada’s decision to contribute the air assets.
“They are more vulnerable that the other countries and there are signs that Russia has been connecting with Russian-speaking minorities in the Baltic countries in a way that is worrisome,” Paris said in an interview.
“In the end, six CF-18s are not going to change the strategic calculus. It’s symbolic. The deployment of six CF-18s means we are putting skin in the game,” he said.
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said he fears that the ambitions of Russian President Vladimir Putin go beyond Ukraine. But he said the best security of the Baltic states is their membership in NATO.
“I think the leaders in the Kremlin are very well aware that any attempt to test our determination to defend and protect our allies would provoke a very firm response from our side,” Rasmussen said, vowing that the alliance would take “all measures” to protect a member state.
In Romania, the Canadians got a chance to work with a NATO partner overcoming differences in culture, language, tactics and procedures.
And because Romania flies Soviet-era MIG-21 Lancer fighters, Canadian pilots got a chance to fly alongside — and mock fight against — aircraft they don’t normally see.
The lessons learned during peacetime collaboration are vital for those times when “things get more complex,” Nelles said.
“Knowing how someone else is going to react and respond and knowing other’s capabilities is truly important,” he said.
“We had a lot more integration than just flying jets in the air. It was developing a camaraderie, a rapport, an understanding and a trust which I think is vital for defining what interoperability really is,” Nelles said.
Six CF-18 fighter jets were sent to Romania in early May, dispatched to Europe as part of a show of force in the face of Russian military moves in Ukraine.
The Canadian fighter jets have now moved to Lithuania to patrol the skies at the front lines of what some worry could be the next standoff with Russia.
Those tensions aren’t lost on the fighter pilots deployed overseas but it doesn’t influence their day-to-day flying, said Lt.-Col. Jonathan Nelles, deputy commander and chief of staff of the air task force during its time in Romania.
“We all want to understand the political situation and why it is we are in the location that we are, why we have been sent here,” Nelles said.
“But at the tactical level, we have a mission to execute,” Nelles told the Star in a telephone interview from Campia Turzii, Romania, where the Canadians were recently stationed.
“We are close to where those tensions are but our daily activities do not involve those tensions,” he said.
Yet those tensions will top the agenda when the leaders of the NATO military alliance, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper, gather in Wales next week to discuss their response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and ongoing backing of separatist rebels fighting in Ukraine.
The deployment of the six CF-18s and several hundred military personnel to Romania in April was part of “reassurance” measures by NATO to step up its presence in eastern Europe in the wake of Russia’s military moves.
In Lithuania, those fighters will be flying missions on Russia’s doorstep — a mere 300 kilometres away as the CF-18 flies — where they will be until at least December.
“Through the hard work of our men and women in uniform, Canada will continue to demonstrate the strength of allied solidarity in response to Russian aggression,” Defence Minister Rob Nicholson said in a statement confirming the Lithuanian mission.
The deployments are a throwback to the era when Canadian fighters and army units were permanently based in West Germany, helping to maintain a nervous peace on the front-lines of the Cold War.
In those days, when Canadian CF-104 Starfighter jets thundered off the runways and into the sky, pilots knew well the deadly serious nature of their missions.
“Back then, during my flying in Europe it was during the Cold War, so 150 miles east of us were people who wanted to kill us. Our job was to prepare to do it to them,” said former fighter pilot Laurie Hawn.
“We weren’t just there to be a flying club. We were there for potentially a pretty serious reason,” said Hawn, now the Conservative MP for Edmonton Centre.
Indeed, the pilot-turned-politician got his call-sign “Hawnski” after flying for 20 minutes through East German airspace in his sleek Starfighter jet.
“I was chased out by some East German MiGs. They didn’t catch me,” said Hawn, adding that a fellow pilot thought that if he was going to fly in Soviet airspace, he should at least have a Russian-sounding name.
The times have changed. The end of the Cold War and shrinking defence budgets prompted Canada to shutter its European bases.
NATO jets still patrol European skies. NATO has been flying so-called air policing missions over the Baltic states — Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia — since 2004, when the three countries joined the 28-member military alliance.
Though not a new mission, it has taken new urgency as geopolitical tensions rise. Since April, NATO has committed additional fighters to patrol the Baltic airspace.
This is the first time Canadian fighter jets have participated. Indeed, the deployments to Romania and Lithuania mark the first time Royal Canadian Air Force fighters have operated so far east in Europe, past the Cold War-era borders that divided east and west.
“Our fighter aircraft have certainly not operated in this area of the world, eastern Europe, in the past,” Nelles said.
Flying from an airbase in Siauliai, part of their mission over the Baltics will be to conduct air patrols and intercept any aircraft — usually Russian — that infringe on the sovereign airspace over the three countries.
It’s similar to the missions now flown by Canadian and U.S. jets under the umbrella of North American Aerospace Defense Command to protect airspace over Canada and the U.S.
“Same concept, just a different location,” Nelles said.
Yet because of the nature of that intercept mission, the CF-18s will be armed when they fly from Lithuania, unlike their time in Romania.
Canada’s deployment of fighters could be the prelude of a larger NATO commitment to position troops and equipment in the Baltic States to ensure they are not seen as an “easy target” by Russia.
That’s the advice from a July report from the British House of Commons defence committee, which warned that Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are especially vulnerable “due to their position, their size and their lack of strategic depth.”
It quoted one retired Swedish general as saying the territories could be overrun in a couple of days. Without forces based in the Baltic states, it’s unlikely NATO could respond to a surprise attack.
It said that the attack on Ukraine has raised the possibility — albeit “unlikely” — of an attack on the Baltic states and said NATO must step up its readiness.
The report recommends that NATO leaders consider whether to pre-position equipment in the Baltic states, keep NATO troops on exercise there and establish a headquarters to focus on eastern Europe and the Baltic states.
Because all three countries are NATO members, under the alliance’s treaty 5, an attack on one would be seen as an attack on all of the alliance, potentially triggering a sweeping military response.
Academic Roland Paris, of the University of Ottawa, says the vulnerability of the Baltic states may have prompted Canada’s decision to contribute the air assets.
“They are more vulnerable that the other countries and there are signs that Russia has been connecting with Russian-speaking minorities in the Baltic countries in a way that is worrisome,” Paris said in an interview.
“In the end, six CF-18s are not going to change the strategic calculus. It’s symbolic. The deployment of six CF-18s means we are putting skin in the game,” he said.
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said he fears that the ambitions of Russian President Vladimir Putin go beyond Ukraine. But he said the best security of the Baltic states is their membership in NATO.
“I think the leaders in the Kremlin are very well aware that any attempt to test our determination to defend and protect our allies would provoke a very firm response from our side,” Rasmussen said, vowing that the alliance would take “all measures” to protect a member state.
In Romania, the Canadians got a chance to work with a NATO partner overcoming differences in culture, language, tactics and procedures.
And because Romania flies Soviet-era MIG-21 Lancer fighters, Canadian pilots got a chance to fly alongside — and mock fight against — aircraft they don’t normally see.
The lessons learned during peacetime collaboration are vital for those times when “things get more complex,” Nelles said.
“Knowing how someone else is going to react and respond and knowing other’s capabilities is truly important,” he said.
“We had a lot more integration than just flying jets in the air. It was developing a camaraderie, a rapport, an understanding and a trust which I think is vital for defining what interoperability really is,” Nelles said.
Google's secret lab working on fleet of self-flying vehicles to deliver packages more quickly
SAN FRANCISCO - Google's secretive research laboratory is trying to build a fleet of drones designed to bypass earthbound traffic so packages can be delivered to people more quickly.
The ambitious program announced Thursday escalates Google's technological arms race with rival Amazon.com Inc., which also is experimenting with self-flying vehicles to carry merchandise bought by customers of its online store.
Amazon is mounting its own challenges to Google in online video, digital advertising and mobile computing in a battle that also involves Apple Inc.
Google Inc. calls its foray into drones "Project Wing."
Although Google expects it to take several more years before its fleet of drones is fully operational, the company says test flights in Australia delivered a first aid kit, candy bars, dog treats and water to two farmers after travelling a distance of roughly one kilometre, or just over a half mile, two weeks ago. Google's video of the test flight, set to the strains of the 1969 song "Spirit In The Sky," can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRTNvWcx9Oo .
Besides perfecting their aerial technology, Google and Amazon still need to gain government approval to fly commercial drones in many countries, including the U.S. Amazon last month asked the Federal Aviation Administration for permission to expand its drone testing. The FAA currently allows hobbyists and model aircraft makers to fly drones, but commercial use is mostly banned.
Project Wing is the latest venture to emerge from Google's "X'' lab, which has also been working on self-driving cars as well as other far-flung innovations that company CEO Larry Page likens to "moonshots" that push the technological envelope. The lab's other handiwork includes Internet-connected eyewear called Google Glass, Internet-beaming balloons called Project Loon and a high-tech contact lens that monitors glucose levels in diabetics.
Google says it is striving to improve society through the X's lab's research, but the Glass device has faced criticism from privacy watchdogs leery of the product's ability to secretly record video and take pictures. Investors also have periodically expressed frustration with the amount of money that Google has been pouring into the X lab without any guarantee the products will ever pay off.
A team led by Massachusetts Institute of Technology aeronautics professor Nick Roy already has been working on Project Wing for two years, according to Google. The Mountain View, California, company didn't disclose how much the project has cost.
Drones clearly could help Google expand an existing service that delivers goods purchased online on the day that they were ordered. Google so far is offering the same-day delivery service by automobiles in parts of the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles and New York.
"Self-flying vehicles could open up entirely new approaches to moving goods, including options that are cheaper, faster, less wasteful and more environmentally sensitive than what's possible today," Google said in a pamphlet outlining Project Wing.
Google, though, seems to see its drones as something more than another step in e-commerce delivery. The aerial vehicles also could make it easier for people to share certain items, such as a power drill, that they may only need periodically and carry emergency supplies to areas damaged by earthquakes, hurricanes and other natural catastrophes, according to Google's Project Wing pamphlet.
The ambitious program announced Thursday escalates Google's technological arms race with rival Amazon.com Inc., which also is experimenting with self-flying vehicles to carry merchandise bought by customers of its online store.
Amazon is mounting its own challenges to Google in online video, digital advertising and mobile computing in a battle that also involves Apple Inc.
Google Inc. calls its foray into drones "Project Wing."
Although Google expects it to take several more years before its fleet of drones is fully operational, the company says test flights in Australia delivered a first aid kit, candy bars, dog treats and water to two farmers after travelling a distance of roughly one kilometre, or just over a half mile, two weeks ago. Google's video of the test flight, set to the strains of the 1969 song "Spirit In The Sky," can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRTNvWcx9Oo .
Besides perfecting their aerial technology, Google and Amazon still need to gain government approval to fly commercial drones in many countries, including the U.S. Amazon last month asked the Federal Aviation Administration for permission to expand its drone testing. The FAA currently allows hobbyists and model aircraft makers to fly drones, but commercial use is mostly banned.
Project Wing is the latest venture to emerge from Google's "X'' lab, which has also been working on self-driving cars as well as other far-flung innovations that company CEO Larry Page likens to "moonshots" that push the technological envelope. The lab's other handiwork includes Internet-connected eyewear called Google Glass, Internet-beaming balloons called Project Loon and a high-tech contact lens that monitors glucose levels in diabetics.
Google says it is striving to improve society through the X's lab's research, but the Glass device has faced criticism from privacy watchdogs leery of the product's ability to secretly record video and take pictures. Investors also have periodically expressed frustration with the amount of money that Google has been pouring into the X lab without any guarantee the products will ever pay off.
A team led by Massachusetts Institute of Technology aeronautics professor Nick Roy already has been working on Project Wing for two years, according to Google. The Mountain View, California, company didn't disclose how much the project has cost.
Drones clearly could help Google expand an existing service that delivers goods purchased online on the day that they were ordered. Google so far is offering the same-day delivery service by automobiles in parts of the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles and New York.
"Self-flying vehicles could open up entirely new approaches to moving goods, including options that are cheaper, faster, less wasteful and more environmentally sensitive than what's possible today," Google said in a pamphlet outlining Project Wing.
Google, though, seems to see its drones as something more than another step in e-commerce delivery. The aerial vehicles also could make it easier for people to share certain items, such as a power drill, that they may only need periodically and carry emergency supplies to areas damaged by earthquakes, hurricanes and other natural catastrophes, according to Google's Project Wing pamphlet.
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
Russian hackers attacked JPMorgan
Hackers believed to be from Russia broke into the computer systems of JPMorgan Chase and a second US bank earlier this month, sparking a federal investigation, US media reported Wednesday.
Bloomberg said two people familiar with the probe confirmed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was examining the case to see if it is retaliation for US sanctions against Moscow over its support of Ukraine's secessionist rebels.
Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal, which also reported the hacking case but without naming Russians as behind it, said it was not clear what damage the hackers caused or what data they may have stolen.
Bloomberg said the hackers showed a high level of skill to get through layers of security in the bank's systems, "a feat several security experts said appeared far beyond the capability of ordinary criminal hackers."
It said investigators, who also include the National Security Agency, are also studying whether the attack may have come from criminals in Russia or eastern Europe.
They are also examining whether the online break-in is related to similar incidents involving European banks.
The FBI declined to comment.
A JPMorgan spokeswoman did not confirm the specific case, but said in a statement that "Companies of our size unfortunately experience cyber attacks nearly every day."
"We have multiple layers of defense to counteract any threats and constantly monitor fraud levels."
A source familiar with the matter said the bank regularly informs law enforcement agencies when it sees suspicious activity.
"A critical part of our response is monitoring for fraud," the source said, but "we are not seeing any increased activity at this time."
Bloomberg said two people familiar with the probe confirmed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was examining the case to see if it is retaliation for US sanctions against Moscow over its support of Ukraine's secessionist rebels.
Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal, which also reported the hacking case but without naming Russians as behind it, said it was not clear what damage the hackers caused or what data they may have stolen.
Bloomberg said the hackers showed a high level of skill to get through layers of security in the bank's systems, "a feat several security experts said appeared far beyond the capability of ordinary criminal hackers."
It said investigators, who also include the National Security Agency, are also studying whether the attack may have come from criminals in Russia or eastern Europe.
They are also examining whether the online break-in is related to similar incidents involving European banks.
The FBI declined to comment.
A JPMorgan spokeswoman did not confirm the specific case, but said in a statement that "Companies of our size unfortunately experience cyber attacks nearly every day."
"We have multiple layers of defense to counteract any threats and constantly monitor fraud levels."
A source familiar with the matter said the bank regularly informs law enforcement agencies when it sees suspicious activity.
"A critical part of our response is monitoring for fraud," the source said, but "we are not seeing any increased activity at this time."
Snapchat valued at $10bn by backers
The popular messaging app Snapchat has reportedly been valued at $10bn (£6bn) by one of Silicon Valley's most established investment firms.
The evaluation, detailed by the Wall Street Journal, puts the start-up in the same bracket as young tech titans Dropbox and AirBnB.
The newspaper also reported that Snapchat now has more than 100 million monthly users, approximately half of its rival Instagram.
Snapchat was founded in 2011.
The mobile app, which is the brainchild of two US university students, lets users communicate by sending each other photos that automatically delete after a few seconds.
In just a few years, it has grown to compete with messaging and photo apps such as WhatsApp and Instagram - both now owned by Facebook - as well as Chinese companies such as Line and WeChat.
'Facebook territory'Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a renowned technology investment firm in California that was an early backer of Google and Amazon, has agreed to invest $20m in Snapchat, the Wall Street Journal reported, valuing the company at $10bn.
The evaluation, detailed by the Wall Street Journal, puts the start-up in the same bracket as young tech titans Dropbox and AirBnB.
The newspaper also reported that Snapchat now has more than 100 million monthly users, approximately half of its rival Instagram.
Snapchat was founded in 2011.
The mobile app, which is the brainchild of two US university students, lets users communicate by sending each other photos that automatically delete after a few seconds.
In just a few years, it has grown to compete with messaging and photo apps such as WhatsApp and Instagram - both now owned by Facebook - as well as Chinese companies such as Line and WeChat.
'Facebook territory'Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a renowned technology investment firm in California that was an early backer of Google and Amazon, has agreed to invest $20m in Snapchat, the Wall Street Journal reported, valuing the company at $10bn.
The valuation puts Snapchat "instantly in Facebook and Twitter territory", says Ian Maude, of research firm Enders Analysis.
However, he added, those firms "already have substantial revenues", while Snapchat does not.
"The bet investors are making is that it is going to be worth the amount of Facebook and Twitter one day.
"If you have got an audience, you can develop a substantial multibillion-dollar business."
Snapchat's latest round of funding comes after it reportedly rejected a $3bn takeover offer from Facebook.
In February, Facebook paid $19bn (£11.5bn) for WhatsApp.
Apple will unveil the iWatch on Sept. 9—here’s what to look for
The so-called “iWatch” is supposedly real. Apple “plans to unveil a new wearable” device alongside two new iPhones at an event on Sept. 9, Re/code’s plugged-in John Paczkowski reports. While Apple has been widely reported to be working on some sort of new wearable gadget, surprisingly few details have leaked—including its expected arrival date.
What is it? This seems basic, but very little has actually been reported about what the “iWatch” looks like or does. Is it actually a band you wear on your wrist? Paczkowski writes that it “will, predictably, make good use of Apple’s HealthKit health and fitness platform.” But that leaves many possibilities for everything from its shape to how it attaches to the body. Does it even have a screen?
Why will people buy it? The idea that Americans, in particular, will suddenly start caring about their health and fitness en masse has always seemed amusing. So what’s the real selling point: Fashion or function?
How often will it need to be charged? Another thing to plug in daily—unless there’s some novel way to charge it—doesn’t sound fun.
How much will it cost? If it’s really getting announced alongside new iPhones, is it intended to be an iPhone accessory? The Apple TV streaming media player—also, arguably, an iPhone accessory—costs $99. That would be a great price for a wearable, especially compared to the $200+ price tags attached to disappointing Google Android-based wearables.
What will it need to work? Will it work only with Apple’s newest iPhones? Or any iOS device? Or could someone—a kid, for example—use it independently? Will it also require some sort of subscription?
Is it cool? This isn’t Apple’s first wearable—it’s been making them for more than a decade, if you count earbuds and clip-on iPods. Some have become iconic; others haven’t. Apple has been hiring people from the fashion and luxury industries, theoretically to help develop and market this device. How have they influenced it?
What is it? This seems basic, but very little has actually been reported about what the “iWatch” looks like or does. Is it actually a band you wear on your wrist? Paczkowski writes that it “will, predictably, make good use of Apple’s HealthKit health and fitness platform.” But that leaves many possibilities for everything from its shape to how it attaches to the body. Does it even have a screen?
Why will people buy it? The idea that Americans, in particular, will suddenly start caring about their health and fitness en masse has always seemed amusing. So what’s the real selling point: Fashion or function?
How often will it need to be charged? Another thing to plug in daily—unless there’s some novel way to charge it—doesn’t sound fun.
How much will it cost? If it’s really getting announced alongside new iPhones, is it intended to be an iPhone accessory? The Apple TV streaming media player—also, arguably, an iPhone accessory—costs $99. That would be a great price for a wearable, especially compared to the $200+ price tags attached to disappointing Google Android-based wearables.
What will it need to work? Will it work only with Apple’s newest iPhones? Or any iOS device? Or could someone—a kid, for example—use it independently? Will it also require some sort of subscription?
Is it cool? This isn’t Apple’s first wearable—it’s been making them for more than a decade, if you count earbuds and clip-on iPods. Some have become iconic; others haven’t. Apple has been hiring people from the fashion and luxury industries, theoretically to help develop and market this device. How have they influenced it?
Growing up poor erodes a sense of control over life well into adulthood, study finds
More than a half century after Stanford University’s landmark marshmallow test, in which children who managed to defer the pleasure of eating a candy for a few minutes were rewarded with two, self-control is still said to be the key to success. And current educational thinking exalts the value of overcoming obstacles with grit and perseverance.
But those very qualities, said to lead to achievement and happiness, are eroded by the experience of childhood poverty, researchers say. A University of Minnesota study (pdf), released Wednesday by the American Psychological Association, presents evidence suggesting that growing up poor can influence people’s sense of control over their lives well into adulthood, even if they have become much wealthier. The result, the researchers say, is more impulsive decision-making and giving up quickly on challenging tasks in uncertain situations.
“Persistence is directly tied to myriad important outcomes, including self-control, academic achievement, substance abuse, criminal behavior, healthy eating and overspending,” one of the study’s co-authors, Vladas Griskevicius, said in a release on the paper. “Future research should investigate strategies to prevent individuals from poor childhoods from potentially quitting challenging tasks in the face of adversity.”
The researchers conducted five experiments with adults in different age and income brackets and at different stages of their life, to test how exposure to economic uncertainty influenced their sense of control. Researchers asked how much they agreed with statements such as “I can do just about anything that I really set my mind to” or “Whether or not I am able to get what I wa
One of the more revealing tests found that among 95 people, those who grew up poor had a lower sense of control after looking at photos depicting economic hardship, such as unemployment lines, home foreclosure signs, and empty office buildings.
But those very qualities, said to lead to achievement and happiness, are eroded by the experience of childhood poverty, researchers say. A University of Minnesota study (pdf), released Wednesday by the American Psychological Association, presents evidence suggesting that growing up poor can influence people’s sense of control over their lives well into adulthood, even if they have become much wealthier. The result, the researchers say, is more impulsive decision-making and giving up quickly on challenging tasks in uncertain situations.
“Persistence is directly tied to myriad important outcomes, including self-control, academic achievement, substance abuse, criminal behavior, healthy eating and overspending,” one of the study’s co-authors, Vladas Griskevicius, said in a release on the paper. “Future research should investigate strategies to prevent individuals from poor childhoods from potentially quitting challenging tasks in the face of adversity.”
The researchers conducted five experiments with adults in different age and income brackets and at different stages of their life, to test how exposure to economic uncertainty influenced their sense of control. Researchers asked how much they agreed with statements such as “I can do just about anything that I really set my mind to” or “Whether or not I am able to get what I wa
One of the more revealing tests found that among 95 people, those who grew up poor had a lower sense of control after looking at photos depicting economic hardship, such as unemployment lines, home foreclosure signs, and empty office buildings.
The researchers conclude, however, that sometimes persistence is not the most logical behavior, especially when people are faced with an impossible task. “Although past research has viewed persistence on such impossible tasks as good and desirable, the adaptive behavior is to quit, since persisting on the task is not all that different from dancing in hopes that it will start raining,” they write. “Time and energy are limited resources, and sometimes it is adaptive to stop expending effort on an endeavor one cannot control in order to pursue more promising opportunities.”
nt is in my own hands.” To hone in on the issue of childhood poverty, they asked participants to describe their childhood household incomes by indicating agreement with statements such as: “My family usually had enough money for things when I was growing up,” or “I felt relatively wealthy compared to the other kids in my school.”
Monday, August 25, 2014
Liverpool signs striker Balotelli from AC Milan
Liverpool signed Italy striker Mario Balotelli from AC Milan for 16 million pounds ($26.5 million) on Monday, taking a calculated gamble on a headline-grabbing player known as much for his controversies as his goals.
Nineteen months after ending a 2 1/2-year spell with Manchester City to play for his boyhood club, Balotelli will return to the English Premier League as a replacement for Luis Suarez — another of world football’s talented but disruptive stars.
"I’m happy to be back because I left England and it was a mistake," Balotelli said. "I wanted to go to Italy but I realized it was a mistake."
Balotelli, who has signed what Liverpool said is a "long-term deal," spent his first day with his new team watching the Reds lose 3-1 to City in a Premier League game at Etihad Stadium later Monday. He wasn’t registered in time to play.
Liverpool has been looking to strengthen its strikeforce after selling Suarez to Barcelona for $130 million but left it to the last week of the transfer window to secure one of the summer’s most high-profile and intriguing signings.
During his time at City, in which he won the league title, Balotelli was sent off four times, threw a dart at a youth-team player and was involved in an incident that saw fireworks explode in his bathroom. Days before news of the fireworks incident emerged, Balotelli had revealed a T-shirt under his City jersey with the question, "Why Always Me?" after scoring in the team’s 6-1 win over Manchester United.
Balotelli, with his physique, technical ability and qualities as a finisher, is one of the world’s best strikers and, at 24, the best times of his career could still lie ahead of him. At Milan, he scored 26 goals in 43 league matches and he is the Italian national team’s top striker, scoring 13 goals in 33 games.
But with trouble always seeming to follow him, some are questioning whether Balotelli is worth the risk for Liverpool, which has fostered a strong team spirit under manager Brendan Rodgers that helped it finish second in the Premier League last season. Jose Mourinho described Balotelli as "unmanageable" during their time together at Inter Milan, which the striker left in 2010 to join City.
"He knows himself this is probably is last chance," Rodgers said. "Mario is someone we can improve both as a footballer and as a person."
"He has a reputation but we hope he can curb that behaviour," Rodgers added after the City game. "He knows his flaws and faults and he is looking for someone to help him. There is no better club for him. Of course it is a risk."
Rodgers, however, got the best out of Suarez and current first-choice striker Daniel Sturridge, who both had turbulent pasts before arriving at Anfield. Sections of the British media have reported that Balotelli has had to agree to behaviour clauses being included in his contract with Liverpool.
"I believe we have the infrastructure, culture and environment to get the best out of him and help him achieve his true potential," Rodgers said. "We are a strong group here, committed to hard work and he will benefit from being around it.
"I am looking forward to working with him and helping him learn more, improve and progress as a player."
Rodgers’ attempts to bring in a striker has seen him look at France forward Loic Remy of Queens Park Rangers, whose switch to Anfield broke down at the last minute, and former Barcelona, Inter Milan and Chelsea star Samuel Eto’o. Last month, during Liverpool’s tour of the United States, Rodgers was linked with a bid for Balotelli but said "I can categorically tell you that he will not be at Liverpool."
The U-turn was completed on Monday.
"This transfer represents outstanding value for the club and I think we have done a really smart piece of business here," Rodgers said. "There is no doubting Mario’s ability; he is a world-class talent and someone who, for such a young age, has vast experience of playing at the very highest level."
Asked what his targets at Liverpool were, Balotelli said: "I want to take this team to the Champions League."
Nineteen months after ending a 2 1/2-year spell with Manchester City to play for his boyhood club, Balotelli will return to the English Premier League as a replacement for Luis Suarez — another of world football’s talented but disruptive stars.
"I’m happy to be back because I left England and it was a mistake," Balotelli said. "I wanted to go to Italy but I realized it was a mistake."
Balotelli, who has signed what Liverpool said is a "long-term deal," spent his first day with his new team watching the Reds lose 3-1 to City in a Premier League game at Etihad Stadium later Monday. He wasn’t registered in time to play.
Liverpool has been looking to strengthen its strikeforce after selling Suarez to Barcelona for $130 million but left it to the last week of the transfer window to secure one of the summer’s most high-profile and intriguing signings.
During his time at City, in which he won the league title, Balotelli was sent off four times, threw a dart at a youth-team player and was involved in an incident that saw fireworks explode in his bathroom. Days before news of the fireworks incident emerged, Balotelli had revealed a T-shirt under his City jersey with the question, "Why Always Me?" after scoring in the team’s 6-1 win over Manchester United.
Balotelli, with his physique, technical ability and qualities as a finisher, is one of the world’s best strikers and, at 24, the best times of his career could still lie ahead of him. At Milan, he scored 26 goals in 43 league matches and he is the Italian national team’s top striker, scoring 13 goals in 33 games.
But with trouble always seeming to follow him, some are questioning whether Balotelli is worth the risk for Liverpool, which has fostered a strong team spirit under manager Brendan Rodgers that helped it finish second in the Premier League last season. Jose Mourinho described Balotelli as "unmanageable" during their time together at Inter Milan, which the striker left in 2010 to join City.
"He knows himself this is probably is last chance," Rodgers said. "Mario is someone we can improve both as a footballer and as a person."
"He has a reputation but we hope he can curb that behaviour," Rodgers added after the City game. "He knows his flaws and faults and he is looking for someone to help him. There is no better club for him. Of course it is a risk."
Rodgers, however, got the best out of Suarez and current first-choice striker Daniel Sturridge, who both had turbulent pasts before arriving at Anfield. Sections of the British media have reported that Balotelli has had to agree to behaviour clauses being included in his contract with Liverpool.
"I believe we have the infrastructure, culture and environment to get the best out of him and help him achieve his true potential," Rodgers said. "We are a strong group here, committed to hard work and he will benefit from being around it.
"I am looking forward to working with him and helping him learn more, improve and progress as a player."
Rodgers’ attempts to bring in a striker has seen him look at France forward Loic Remy of Queens Park Rangers, whose switch to Anfield broke down at the last minute, and former Barcelona, Inter Milan and Chelsea star Samuel Eto’o. Last month, during Liverpool’s tour of the United States, Rodgers was linked with a bid for Balotelli but said "I can categorically tell you that he will not be at Liverpool."
The U-turn was completed on Monday.
"This transfer represents outstanding value for the club and I think we have done a really smart piece of business here," Rodgers said. "There is no doubting Mario’s ability; he is a world-class talent and someone who, for such a young age, has vast experience of playing at the very highest level."
Asked what his targets at Liverpool were, Balotelli said: "I want to take this team to the Champions League."
Sunday, August 24, 2014
Ancient Mayan cities uncovered in Mexican jungle
Archaeologists have found two ancient Mayan cities hidden in the jungle of southeastern Mexico, and the lead researcher says he believes there are "dozens" more to be found in the region.
Ivan Sprajc, associate professor at the Research Center of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, said his team found the ancient cities of Lagunita and Tamchen on the Yucatan peninsula in April by examining aerial photographs of the region.
Sprajc said the two cities reached their heyday in the Late and Terminal Classic periods (600-1000 AD). At each site, researchers found palace-like buildings, pyramids and plazas. One of the pyramids is almost 20 metres high.
They also found a facade featuring a monster-mouth doorway, which probably marked one of the main entrances to the center of the city. Photographs from the sites showed stone pyramids jutting out from beneath dense foliage.
"The entrance apparently symbolizes the entrance to a cave and to the underworld ... Someone entering through this doorway would have entered sacred precincts," he told Reuters by telephone from Slovenia on Friday.
Sprajc said his team mapped 10-12 hectares at each site, but the cities were probably larger.
"We elaborated a map but only of the religious and administrative centers of the two sites," he said, "that's only like downtown."
His team has not yet excavated the sites.
"There are dozens of sites that I already have seen on the aerial photographs," he added, noting that additional discoveries depend on further funding.
Last summer, Sprajc discovered another ancient Mayan city, Chactun, 10 km north of Lagunita and 6 km northwest of Tamchen.
Ivan Sprajc, associate professor at the Research Center of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, said his team found the ancient cities of Lagunita and Tamchen on the Yucatan peninsula in April by examining aerial photographs of the region.
Sprajc said the two cities reached their heyday in the Late and Terminal Classic periods (600-1000 AD). At each site, researchers found palace-like buildings, pyramids and plazas. One of the pyramids is almost 20 metres high.
They also found a facade featuring a monster-mouth doorway, which probably marked one of the main entrances to the center of the city. Photographs from the sites showed stone pyramids jutting out from beneath dense foliage.
"The entrance apparently symbolizes the entrance to a cave and to the underworld ... Someone entering through this doorway would have entered sacred precincts," he told Reuters by telephone from Slovenia on Friday.
Sprajc said his team mapped 10-12 hectares at each site, but the cities were probably larger.
"We elaborated a map but only of the religious and administrative centers of the two sites," he said, "that's only like downtown."
His team has not yet excavated the sites.
"There are dozens of sites that I already have seen on the aerial photographs," he added, noting that additional discoveries depend on further funding.
Last summer, Sprajc discovered another ancient Mayan city, Chactun, 10 km north of Lagunita and 6 km northwest of Tamchen.
Burger King reportedly in talks to buy Tim Hortons
Burger King Worldwide Inc. is looking to buy Tim Hortons Inc., according to reports, a move that would create the third-largest fast food company in the world and mark the second time in as many decades that the iconic Canadian coffee chain was gobbled up by an American burger behemoth.
The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that the companies were approaching a deal to forge a new holding company based in Canada. Together, the two restaurant titans — one classically American, the other iconically Canadian — are worth about $18 billion.
Tim Hortons could not be reached for comment by press time.
The tentative deal appears to be a so-called tax inversion scheme, an increasingly common legal manoeuvre that allows U.S. corporations to take on the nationality, and lower tax burden, of another country by buying a company there. The U.S. Congress has recorded 47 major American companies using “inversion” in the last decade.
By flying the Maple Leaf rather than the Stars and Stripes, Burger King stands to pay a 15 per cent corporate tax rate, rather than the 35 they would owe the U.S. government.
Buying Tim Hortons would also give the Miami-based based burger chain a boost in the lucrative coffee market, which their chief rival McDonald’s has pursued aggressively.
Burger King has already partnered with the Starbucks-owned Seattle’s Best Coffee to make headway in the high-margin java business.
Although being bought by an American company might seem like an odd move for a Canadian retail icon like Timmy’s, it wouldn’t be the first time a U.S. firm ran the coffee giant.
In 1995 Tim Hortons was purchased by Wendy’s International Inc. for $400 million. Even after it was spun off by Wendy’s in 2006, it remained incorporated in Delaware. It wasn’t until 2009 that it moved its corporate headquarters to Oakville and reclaimed its legal status as a Canadian company.
In recent years, Tim Hortons has expanded rapidly south of the 49th parallel, where it now boasts over 800 restaurants and has plans for 300 more by the end of 2018.
But Canada remains Tim Hortons’ meal ticket. Last year, two U.S. hedge funds announced they had bought stock in the company and urged it to curb its American blitz.
And the company’s most recent American partnership, with the U.S. ice cream company Cold Stone Creamery, has been fraught. In February, Tim Hortons announced it was pulling the dairy outlets from its Canadian restaurants at a cost of some $19 million in the fourth quarter, but keeping the pairing in its U.S. stores.
The bulk of the chain’s business still comes from Canadian customers, who account for 90 per cent of sales. Tim Hortons has over 3,500 restaurants in Canada, with plans for 500 more in the next five years.
The company has a market capitalization of about $8.4 billion.
The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that the companies were approaching a deal to forge a new holding company based in Canada. Together, the two restaurant titans — one classically American, the other iconically Canadian — are worth about $18 billion.
Tim Hortons could not be reached for comment by press time.
The tentative deal appears to be a so-called tax inversion scheme, an increasingly common legal manoeuvre that allows U.S. corporations to take on the nationality, and lower tax burden, of another country by buying a company there. The U.S. Congress has recorded 47 major American companies using “inversion” in the last decade.
By flying the Maple Leaf rather than the Stars and Stripes, Burger King stands to pay a 15 per cent corporate tax rate, rather than the 35 they would owe the U.S. government.
Buying Tim Hortons would also give the Miami-based based burger chain a boost in the lucrative coffee market, which their chief rival McDonald’s has pursued aggressively.
Burger King has already partnered with the Starbucks-owned Seattle’s Best Coffee to make headway in the high-margin java business.
Although being bought by an American company might seem like an odd move for a Canadian retail icon like Timmy’s, it wouldn’t be the first time a U.S. firm ran the coffee giant.
In 1995 Tim Hortons was purchased by Wendy’s International Inc. for $400 million. Even after it was spun off by Wendy’s in 2006, it remained incorporated in Delaware. It wasn’t until 2009 that it moved its corporate headquarters to Oakville and reclaimed its legal status as a Canadian company.
In recent years, Tim Hortons has expanded rapidly south of the 49th parallel, where it now boasts over 800 restaurants and has plans for 300 more by the end of 2018.
But Canada remains Tim Hortons’ meal ticket. Last year, two U.S. hedge funds announced they had bought stock in the company and urged it to curb its American blitz.
And the company’s most recent American partnership, with the U.S. ice cream company Cold Stone Creamery, has been fraught. In February, Tim Hortons announced it was pulling the dairy outlets from its Canadian restaurants at a cost of some $19 million in the fourth quarter, but keeping the pairing in its U.S. stores.
The bulk of the chain’s business still comes from Canadian customers, who account for 90 per cent of sales. Tim Hortons has over 3,500 restaurants in Canada, with plans for 500 more in the next five years.
The company has a market capitalization of about $8.4 billion.
Saturday, August 23, 2014
Your Sushi May Be Getting Smarter
Every year, some 48 million people in the United States get sick from something they ate. And thousands of them die from these foodborne illnesses, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But the food that can make you sickest often doesn't even look or smell tainted. Simply giving a food an expiration—or use-by—date doesn't do much to protect people from bacteria like salmonella and e. Coli. After all, it's not just time that spoils perishables; it's also temperature.
Americans end up throwing away tons of food—thousands of dollars' worth per grocery store each day, according to one report—in an abundance of caution, and then many of them get sick anyway.
One of the key factors contributing to this ongoing public-health problem is the question of which way the data is flowing. The systems we have in place now to track food safety are largely centralized: Huge agencies like the CDC and FDA collect information, track sickness as it's reported, and disseminate crucial public-safety notices.
But what if individual food items had smart labels that gave consumers the information—beyond simple expiration dates—to determine whether something is safe to eat from the moment they pick it up at the store? Thinfilm, for example, makes paper-thin electronic labels that are bendable and rewritable. Its CEO, Davor Sutija, says there's value in offering more item-by-item information without relying on centralized infrastructure to make sense of it.
Increasingly we hear talk about smart refrigerators linked to temperature-sensitive smart labels that might jointly tell you when to toss a particular item. ( The Atlantic recently wrote about such technologies here .) And it's easy to imagine how useful it would be to connect smart labels with a larger database—the FDA's trove of food recalls, for instance. But Sutija says consumers increasingly want smart technologies that don't plug into that kind of networked infrastructure.
"We're not offering big data, we're offering small data," Sutija told me. What he means is data that relies not on a larger database, but rather on specific information that a consumer can glean just by looking at a given product.
Imagine, for instance, a tray of salmon sashimi with an electronic label that has tracked the temperature of the fish at each stage in the supply chain—from the warehouse in Norway to the local processing plant to the plane to the truck to the grocery store and, eventually, to the display case where customers decide whether to buy it. While a best-by date might hint at when the dish was prepared, an electronic label gives a much more precise backstory of the fish's path from the boat to your chopsticks.
Sure, some people might love the idea of integrating those labels with a centralized database of recalls and setting up related push notifications so they receive up-to-the-minute alerts about food they purchased that might not be safe. But others, especially as people grow weary about sharing personal data, might prefer smart data that's first "sensed in the periphery" and then moved to the center, rather than the other way around.
This is, as Sutija describes it, "data that doesn't have to be aggregated with all of the data in the cloud." And that is why, he claims, it's part of an overall system that is good for consumers. A single label costs "in the dimes," he points out, and not only is there "a cost advantage for those offering it," there is also "a privacy advantage for those using it."
"This is not Big Brother," Sutija says. "This is allowing smart objects to be the agent of the consumer, to sense things about the environment around them."
But the food that can make you sickest often doesn't even look or smell tainted. Simply giving a food an expiration—or use-by—date doesn't do much to protect people from bacteria like salmonella and e. Coli. After all, it's not just time that spoils perishables; it's also temperature.
Americans end up throwing away tons of food—thousands of dollars' worth per grocery store each day, according to one report—in an abundance of caution, and then many of them get sick anyway.
One of the key factors contributing to this ongoing public-health problem is the question of which way the data is flowing. The systems we have in place now to track food safety are largely centralized: Huge agencies like the CDC and FDA collect information, track sickness as it's reported, and disseminate crucial public-safety notices.
But what if individual food items had smart labels that gave consumers the information—beyond simple expiration dates—to determine whether something is safe to eat from the moment they pick it up at the store? Thinfilm, for example, makes paper-thin electronic labels that are bendable and rewritable. Its CEO, Davor Sutija, says there's value in offering more item-by-item information without relying on centralized infrastructure to make sense of it.
Increasingly we hear talk about smart refrigerators linked to temperature-sensitive smart labels that might jointly tell you when to toss a particular item. ( The Atlantic recently wrote about such technologies here .) And it's easy to imagine how useful it would be to connect smart labels with a larger database—the FDA's trove of food recalls, for instance. But Sutija says consumers increasingly want smart technologies that don't plug into that kind of networked infrastructure.
"We're not offering big data, we're offering small data," Sutija told me. What he means is data that relies not on a larger database, but rather on specific information that a consumer can glean just by looking at a given product.
Imagine, for instance, a tray of salmon sashimi with an electronic label that has tracked the temperature of the fish at each stage in the supply chain—from the warehouse in Norway to the local processing plant to the plane to the truck to the grocery store and, eventually, to the display case where customers decide whether to buy it. While a best-by date might hint at when the dish was prepared, an electronic label gives a much more precise backstory of the fish's path from the boat to your chopsticks.
Sure, some people might love the idea of integrating those labels with a centralized database of recalls and setting up related push notifications so they receive up-to-the-minute alerts about food they purchased that might not be safe. But others, especially as people grow weary about sharing personal data, might prefer smart data that's first "sensed in the periphery" and then moved to the center, rather than the other way around.
This is, as Sutija describes it, "data that doesn't have to be aggregated with all of the data in the cloud." And that is why, he claims, it's part of an overall system that is good for consumers. A single label costs "in the dimes," he points out, and not only is there "a cost advantage for those offering it," there is also "a privacy advantage for those using it."
"This is not Big Brother," Sutija says. "This is allowing smart objects to be the agent of the consumer, to sense things about the environment around them."
Iceland: Subglacial eruption is underway
REYKJAVIK, Iceland - Iceland's Meteorological Office says a sub-glacial eruption is underway at the Bardarbunga volcano, which has been rattled by thousands of earthquakes over the past week.
Volcanologist Melissa Pfeffer said seismic data indicates that lava from the volcano is melting ice beneath the Vatnajokull glacier. She said it was not clear when, or if, the eruption would melt the ice and send steam and ash into the air.
Minutes earlier, Iceland raised its aviation alert for the volcano to the highest level of red on Saturday, indicating an eruption that could cause "significant emission of ash into the atmosphere." Red is the highest alert warning on a five-point scale.
Scientists had planned to fly over the glacier later Saturday to look for changes on the surface but it was not clear if that would still take place.
Authorities had evacuated several hundred people earlier this week from the highlands north of the Vatnajokull glacier as a precaution. The area is uninhabited but popular with hikers.
Iceland sits on a volcanic hot spot in the Atlantic's mid-oceanic ridge and eruptions have occurred frequently, triggered when the Earth's plates move and when magma from deep underground pushes its way to the surface.
A 2010 eruption of the Eyjafjallajokul volcano produced an ash cloud that caused a week of international aviation chaos, with more than 100,000 flights cancelled. Aviation regulators since have reformed policies about flying through ash, so a new eruption would be unlikely to cause that much disruption.
Pfeffer said the amount of ash produced would depend on the thickness of the ice.
"The thicker the ice, the more water there is, the more explosive it will be and the more ash-rich the eruption will be," she said.
Volcanologist Melissa Pfeffer said seismic data indicates that lava from the volcano is melting ice beneath the Vatnajokull glacier. She said it was not clear when, or if, the eruption would melt the ice and send steam and ash into the air.
Minutes earlier, Iceland raised its aviation alert for the volcano to the highest level of red on Saturday, indicating an eruption that could cause "significant emission of ash into the atmosphere." Red is the highest alert warning on a five-point scale.
Scientists had planned to fly over the glacier later Saturday to look for changes on the surface but it was not clear if that would still take place.
Authorities had evacuated several hundred people earlier this week from the highlands north of the Vatnajokull glacier as a precaution. The area is uninhabited but popular with hikers.
Iceland sits on a volcanic hot spot in the Atlantic's mid-oceanic ridge and eruptions have occurred frequently, triggered when the Earth's plates move and when magma from deep underground pushes its way to the surface.
A 2010 eruption of the Eyjafjallajokul volcano produced an ash cloud that caused a week of international aviation chaos, with more than 100,000 flights cancelled. Aviation regulators since have reformed policies about flying through ash, so a new eruption would be unlikely to cause that much disruption.
Pfeffer said the amount of ash produced would depend on the thickness of the ice.
"The thicker the ice, the more water there is, the more explosive it will be and the more ash-rich the eruption will be," she said.
Thursday, August 21, 2014
Johannesburg is South Africa’s largest city. It is also one of the most crowded and densely populated. As a result, mobile phone signal often suffers from too many people trying to connect to one cell tower. The dense built-up environment doesn’t do phone reception any favors either.
MTN, one of Africa’s largest mobile operators, has an ingenious solution: The company is installing cell towers on streetlights in the crowded west and north and of the city. The first two streetlight-towers went up this week in Bryanston, a wealthy suburb. MTN recently won a three-year contract with City Power, Johannesburg’s electricity supplier, as part of the utility’s push to commercialize its infrastructure. Although MTN has a license to replace any of the 110,000 lampposts in the city, its initial rollout will be small, with just 100 poles planned for installation by Christmas, reports TechCentral, a tech blog. More will follow, depending on the results of the first phase.
The installation of a new cell-enabled streetlight takes about 11 hours, making it a much faster process than building a traditional mobile base station, Eben Albertyn, MTN’s tech boss, told TechCentral. However, the lamppost-towers also have a much smaller operating radius of 400 to 600 meters (1,300-2000 feet). Traditional towers can, in theory, extend their range over 30 kilometers (18 miles), but in practice tend to be located only a couple of kilometers apart in urban areas. The smaller footprint of MTN’s streetlight means fewer people will be using the same tower, which should allow for fewer dropped calls and faster data connection.Johannesburg’s electricity supplier, as part of the utility’s push to commercialize its infrastructure. Although MTN has a license to replace any of the 110,000 lampposts in the city, its initial rollout will be small, with just 100 poles planned for installation by Christmas, reports TechCentral, a tech blog. More will follow, depending on the results of the first phase.
The installation of a new cell-enabled streetlight takes about 11 hours, making it a much faster process than building a traditional mobile base station, Eben Albertyn, MTN’s tech boss, told TechCentral. However, the lamppost-towers also have a much smaller operating radius of 400 to 600 meters (1,300-2000 feet). Traditional towers can, in theory, extend their range over 30 kilometers (18 miles), but in practice tend to be located only a couple of kilometers apart in urban areas. The smaller footprint of MTN’s streetlight means fewer people will be using the same tower, which should allow for fewer dropped calls and faster data connection.
MTN is not the first company to think of using streetlights for other purposes. Quartz wrote in March about Sensity Systems, an American company, which is one of many with ambitious plans to turn the world’s streetlights into sensor-packed, data-gathering mobile and i
MTN, one of Africa’s largest mobile operators, has an ingenious solution: The company is installing cell towers on streetlights in the crowded west and north and of the city. The first two streetlight-towers went up this week in Bryanston, a wealthy suburb. MTN recently won a three-year contract with City Power, Johannesburg’s electricity supplier, as part of the utility’s push to commercialize its infrastructure. Although MTN has a license to replace any of the 110,000 lampposts in the city, its initial rollout will be small, with just 100 poles planned for installation by Christmas, reports TechCentral, a tech blog. More will follow, depending on the results of the first phase.
The installation of a new cell-enabled streetlight takes about 11 hours, making it a much faster process than building a traditional mobile base station, Eben Albertyn, MTN’s tech boss, told TechCentral. However, the lamppost-towers also have a much smaller operating radius of 400 to 600 meters (1,300-2000 feet). Traditional towers can, in theory, extend their range over 30 kilometers (18 miles), but in practice tend to be located only a couple of kilometers apart in urban areas. The smaller footprint of MTN’s streetlight means fewer people will be using the same tower, which should allow for fewer dropped calls and faster data connection.Johannesburg’s electricity supplier, as part of the utility’s push to commercialize its infrastructure. Although MTN has a license to replace any of the 110,000 lampposts in the city, its initial rollout will be small, with just 100 poles planned for installation by Christmas, reports TechCentral, a tech blog. More will follow, depending on the results of the first phase.
The installation of a new cell-enabled streetlight takes about 11 hours, making it a much faster process than building a traditional mobile base station, Eben Albertyn, MTN’s tech boss, told TechCentral. However, the lamppost-towers also have a much smaller operating radius of 400 to 600 meters (1,300-2000 feet). Traditional towers can, in theory, extend their range over 30 kilometers (18 miles), but in practice tend to be located only a couple of kilometers apart in urban areas. The smaller footprint of MTN’s streetlight means fewer people will be using the same tower, which should allow for fewer dropped calls and faster data connection.
MTN is not the first company to think of using streetlights for other purposes. Quartz wrote in March about Sensity Systems, an American company, which is one of many with ambitious plans to turn the world’s streetlights into sensor-packed, data-gathering mobile and i
Don’t buy the 97-cent iPhone
Perhaps you’ve heard: Walmart has “slashed” Apple’s iPhone 5C down to $0.97, Mashable reports, down from its previous price of $29.
Don’t buy it.
Why not? Unless you absolutely need a new iPhone right now—or you are completely set on an iPhone 5C, with its colored plastic casing—it’s worth waiting a few weeks.
Apple is expected to unveil its new iPhones on Sept. 9, and they are likely to go on sale 10 days later, on Sept. 19. If things go as in years past, prices for all the available models of the iPhone will shift down a rung, which means the 5C would be free. And the superior 5S could become pretty cheap, as well. Or you might find yourself more interested in Apple’s newest phone, which will supposedly feature a larger screen, albeit at a likely higher price.
Either way, it’s important to remember than $0.97—or even $29—isn’t the real cost of the iPhone. Both prices require signing a 2-year contract for mobile service, which typically runs $60 to $100 per month—easily more than $1,000 over the length of the contract, and often more than $2,000. In that context, saving $28.03 just isn’t that great of a deal.
Don’t buy it.
Why not? Unless you absolutely need a new iPhone right now—or you are completely set on an iPhone 5C, with its colored plastic casing—it’s worth waiting a few weeks.
Apple is expected to unveil its new iPhones on Sept. 9, and they are likely to go on sale 10 days later, on Sept. 19. If things go as in years past, prices for all the available models of the iPhone will shift down a rung, which means the 5C would be free. And the superior 5S could become pretty cheap, as well. Or you might find yourself more interested in Apple’s newest phone, which will supposedly feature a larger screen, albeit at a likely higher price.
Either way, it’s important to remember than $0.97—or even $29—isn’t the real cost of the iPhone. Both prices require signing a 2-year contract for mobile service, which typically runs $60 to $100 per month—easily more than $1,000 over the length of the contract, and often more than $2,000. In that context, saving $28.03 just isn’t that great of a deal.
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Bank of America reaches record $17B settlement with U.S.
Bank of America has reached a record $17 billion settlement to resolve an investigation into its role in the sale of mortgage-backed securities before the 2008 financial crisis, officials directly familiar with the matter said Wednesday.
One of the officials, who spoke with The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the announcement isn't scheduled until Thursday at the earliest, said the bank will pay $10 billion in cash and provide consumer relief valued at $7 billion.
The deal is the largest settlement arising from the economic meltdown in which millions of Americans lost their homes to foreclosure. It follows agreements in the last year with Citigroup for $7 billion and with JPMorgan Chase & Co. for $13 billion.
Like the Bank of America deal, those settlements were a mixture of hard cash and "credits" for various forms of consumer aid that the banks promised to provide in coming years.
The Bank of America settlement was negotiated through a joint federal and state working group established by President Barack Obama two years ago with the Justice Department and other federal and state authorities. Individual states are expected to share in the settlement.
Justice Department spokeswoman Ellen Canale declined to comment, as did New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, a co-chairman of the group. The bank also declined comment.
The deal requires Bank of America to acknowledge making serious misrepresentations about the quality of its residential mortgage-backed securities issued by itself and by Countrywide Financial and Merrill Lynch. Those institutions were acquired by the bank when they were on the brink of failure in 2008 and they were responsible for the bulk of the questionable loans.
The deals are intended to offer some financial relief to homeowners, whose mortgages were bundled into securities by the banks in question and then sold to investors.
The securities contained residential mortgages from borrowers who were unlikely to be able to repay their loans. Still, the securities were promoted as relatively safe investments until the housing market collapsed and investors suffered billions of dollars in losses.
The poor quality of the loans led to huge losses for investors and a slew of foreclosures, kicking off the recession that began in late 2007. The cash totals now being paid by some of the country's largest banks are not nearly enough to reverse the damages caused by the bursting of the housing bubble and the ensuing recession.
Bank of America had argued that it shouldn't be held liable for the subprime mortgages issued by Countrywide and Merrill Lynch. Combined, those three firms issued $965 billion in mortgage-backed securities from 2004 to 2008, according to public records. Roughly 75 per cent of that total came from Countrywide.
In a federal lawsuit last year, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Bank of America and two subsidiaries with defrauding investors in an offering of residential mortgage-backed securities by failing to disclose key risks and misrepresenting facts about the underlying mortgages.
The Justice Department filed a parallel civil action against Bank of America alleging violations of the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act.
One of the officials, who spoke with The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the announcement isn't scheduled until Thursday at the earliest, said the bank will pay $10 billion in cash and provide consumer relief valued at $7 billion.
The deal is the largest settlement arising from the economic meltdown in which millions of Americans lost their homes to foreclosure. It follows agreements in the last year with Citigroup for $7 billion and with JPMorgan Chase & Co. for $13 billion.
Like the Bank of America deal, those settlements were a mixture of hard cash and "credits" for various forms of consumer aid that the banks promised to provide in coming years.
The Bank of America settlement was negotiated through a joint federal and state working group established by President Barack Obama two years ago with the Justice Department and other federal and state authorities. Individual states are expected to share in the settlement.
Justice Department spokeswoman Ellen Canale declined to comment, as did New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, a co-chairman of the group. The bank also declined comment.
The deal requires Bank of America to acknowledge making serious misrepresentations about the quality of its residential mortgage-backed securities issued by itself and by Countrywide Financial and Merrill Lynch. Those institutions were acquired by the bank when they were on the brink of failure in 2008 and they were responsible for the bulk of the questionable loans.
The deals are intended to offer some financial relief to homeowners, whose mortgages were bundled into securities by the banks in question and then sold to investors.
The securities contained residential mortgages from borrowers who were unlikely to be able to repay their loans. Still, the securities were promoted as relatively safe investments until the housing market collapsed and investors suffered billions of dollars in losses.
The poor quality of the loans led to huge losses for investors and a slew of foreclosures, kicking off the recession that began in late 2007. The cash totals now being paid by some of the country's largest banks are not nearly enough to reverse the damages caused by the bursting of the housing bubble and the ensuing recession.
Bank of America had argued that it shouldn't be held liable for the subprime mortgages issued by Countrywide and Merrill Lynch. Combined, those three firms issued $965 billion in mortgage-backed securities from 2004 to 2008, according to public records. Roughly 75 per cent of that total came from Countrywide.
In a federal lawsuit last year, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Bank of America and two subsidiaries with defrauding investors in an offering of residential mortgage-backed securities by failing to disclose key risks and misrepresenting facts about the underlying mortgages.
The Justice Department filed a parallel civil action against Bank of America alleging violations of the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act.
Russia shuts four McDonald's as food war flips to burgers
Russian authorities shuttered four Moscow McDonald's due to alleged sanitary violations Wednesday, including a restaurant that once symbolised reviving Soviet-US ties, as tensions sizzled over Ukraine.
The Moscow office of Russia's powerful consumer safety agency Rospotrebnadzor said inspections of the food and premises at the four restaurants of the US fast food giant found "numerous violations of sanitary legislation requirements".
The announcement comes in the wake of Russian bans on US and EU food imports in response to Western sanctions over Moscow's perceived backing for rebels in eastern Ukraine.
Among the restaurants closed was the first McDonald's opened in the Soviet Union in 1990 off Moscow's central Pushkin Square.
Some 30,000 Soviets queued for hours for a taste of American fast food on the day that restaurant opened, setting a company record.
The company -- which has strived to support the local economy and relies almost exclusively on Russian-produced food -- said in a statement that it was studying the complaints and that "McDonald's top priority is to provide safe and quality products".
McDonald's added that it would do everything possible to ensure the company's continued successful operation in Russia, where it has some 430 restaurants and employs more than 37,000 people.
It only confirmed three restaurants had been closed, however, while Rospotrebnadzor said four were on its list.
One of the restaurants closed was in an underground shopping mall in the shadow of the Kremlin's walls.
Rospotrebnadzor had already last month expressed doubts about the "quality and safety of food products in the entire McDonald's chain" and said it was taking the company to court for quality violations and improper labelling.
That action coincided with Moscow's decision to start banning numerous food products, ostensibly for health reasons, from countries that imposed sanctions on Russia over its backing of rebels in eastern Ukraine.
Russia later banned most food imports from the European Union and United States in a tit-for-tat response to tighter Western sanctions.
Rospotrebnadzor said last month it found violations in two McDonald's locations in the town of Novgorod north of Moscow, including for improper labelling of the food items' calorie contents.
"The products did not conform to standards of safety or food value," Rospotrebnadzor spokeswoman Anna Popova was quoted as saying at the time.
McDonald's said last month it calculates food and energy values of its products based on methodology approved by the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences.
While offering a taste of America, the burger chain has been one of the most aggressive in developing a network of local suppliers, and was in a good position to survive the food sanctions without radical changes to its menu.
The company said earlier this month that over 85 percent of its products were provided by more than 160 Russian suppliers.
"We are continuously studying the possibility of expanding our cooperation with Russian producers," it said in a statement.
The Moscow office of Russia's powerful consumer safety agency Rospotrebnadzor said inspections of the food and premises at the four restaurants of the US fast food giant found "numerous violations of sanitary legislation requirements".
The announcement comes in the wake of Russian bans on US and EU food imports in response to Western sanctions over Moscow's perceived backing for rebels in eastern Ukraine.
Among the restaurants closed was the first McDonald's opened in the Soviet Union in 1990 off Moscow's central Pushkin Square.
Some 30,000 Soviets queued for hours for a taste of American fast food on the day that restaurant opened, setting a company record.
The company -- which has strived to support the local economy and relies almost exclusively on Russian-produced food -- said in a statement that it was studying the complaints and that "McDonald's top priority is to provide safe and quality products".
McDonald's added that it would do everything possible to ensure the company's continued successful operation in Russia, where it has some 430 restaurants and employs more than 37,000 people.
It only confirmed three restaurants had been closed, however, while Rospotrebnadzor said four were on its list.
One of the restaurants closed was in an underground shopping mall in the shadow of the Kremlin's walls.
Rospotrebnadzor had already last month expressed doubts about the "quality and safety of food products in the entire McDonald's chain" and said it was taking the company to court for quality violations and improper labelling.
That action coincided with Moscow's decision to start banning numerous food products, ostensibly for health reasons, from countries that imposed sanctions on Russia over its backing of rebels in eastern Ukraine.
Russia later banned most food imports from the European Union and United States in a tit-for-tat response to tighter Western sanctions.
Rospotrebnadzor said last month it found violations in two McDonald's locations in the town of Novgorod north of Moscow, including for improper labelling of the food items' calorie contents.
"The products did not conform to standards of safety or food value," Rospotrebnadzor spokeswoman Anna Popova was quoted as saying at the time.
McDonald's said last month it calculates food and energy values of its products based on methodology approved by the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences.
While offering a taste of America, the burger chain has been one of the most aggressive in developing a network of local suppliers, and was in a good position to survive the food sanctions without radical changes to its menu.
The company said earlier this month that over 85 percent of its products were provided by more than 160 Russian suppliers.
"We are continuously studying the possibility of expanding our cooperation with Russian producers," it said in a statement.
Sunday, August 17, 2014
Russia’s food import ban is a boon for these Brazilian, Swiss, and Turkish companies
It’s been a week since Russia banned food imports from the US, EU, Norway, Canada, and Australia in retaliation for the sanctions imposed by those countries. Markets have been on edge since then, as the violence escalates in eastern Ukraine.
But investors also know that Russia will need to find new sources of food to replace the billions of dollars worth of imports that it has banned. Thus, the companies at home and abroad that are unaffected by the sanctions stand to benefit. The share prices of some of these firms have shot up in recent days, the flip side of the pain felt by producers in Europe and other countries now hit by Moscow’s import embargo.
Naturally, local food firms will be expected to fill the gap created by the embargo, at least in the short term. That’s why agribusiness groups like Razgulay and Rusgrain are way up over the past week:
Russia already imports more than $1 billion in food from Turkey, with companies like dairy group Pinar Sut and meat processors Pinar Et and Banvit looking to boost sales as a result of the ban:
Brazilian meat producers reckon that they can triple exports to Russia, mainly the poultry that Russia currently gets from the US. Although the shares of producers like BRF and JBS haven’t jumped like some other firms, they are still outperforming the broader local market:
Switzerland escaped Moscow’s censure, making it a key source of cheeses that Russians can no longer get from the rest of Europe. This turned around the flagging shares of Emmi, a Lucerne-based dairy group:
But investors also know that Russia will need to find new sources of food to replace the billions of dollars worth of imports that it has banned. Thus, the companies at home and abroad that are unaffected by the sanctions stand to benefit. The share prices of some of these firms have shot up in recent days, the flip side of the pain felt by producers in Europe and other countries now hit by Moscow’s import embargo.
Naturally, local food firms will be expected to fill the gap created by the embargo, at least in the short term. That’s why agribusiness groups like Razgulay and Rusgrain are way up over the past week:
Russia already imports more than $1 billion in food from Turkey, with companies like dairy group Pinar Sut and meat processors Pinar Et and Banvit looking to boost sales as a result of the ban:
Brazilian meat producers reckon that they can triple exports to Russia, mainly the poultry that Russia currently gets from the US. Although the shares of producers like BRF and JBS haven’t jumped like some other firms, they are still outperforming the broader local market:
Switzerland escaped Moscow’s censure, making it a key source of cheeses that Russians can no longer get from the rest of Europe. This turned around the flagging shares of Emmi, a Lucerne-based dairy group:
Friday, August 15, 2014
SeaWorld’s attempt to recover: bigger tanks and water treadmills
SeaWorld Entertainment, which confirmed this week that the outcry over its treatment of killer whales is damaging the theme-park operator’s financials, struck back today with a pledge to build bigger and better habitats for its captive orcas.
The new habitats, dubbed the Blue World Project, would pump 10 million gallons of water into its San Diego tank, up from 5.6 million gallons currently, and provide a “fast water current” for the orcas to exercise.
The company’s other killer whale tanks, in Florida and Texas, will be similarly enlarged, with features “customer designed” to the whales’ needs. SeaWorld also vowed to contribute $10 million to research on killer whales, and will establish an independent advisory committee of scientists to oversee the health and general well-being of the company’s orcas.
The efforts might not be enough to appease animal rights activists who object to killer whale captivity as a general concept. But SeaWorld CEO Jim Atchison is hoping the move soothes the concern of more casual critics, like those who may have been swayed by the 2013 documentary Blackfish, which questioned the ethics and practices of the company’s killer whale program and aired on CNN.
The new habitats, dubbed the Blue World Project, would pump 10 million gallons of water into its San Diego tank, up from 5.6 million gallons currently, and provide a “fast water current” for the orcas to exercise.
The company’s other killer whale tanks, in Florida and Texas, will be similarly enlarged, with features “customer designed” to the whales’ needs. SeaWorld also vowed to contribute $10 million to research on killer whales, and will establish an independent advisory committee of scientists to oversee the health and general well-being of the company’s orcas.
The efforts might not be enough to appease animal rights activists who object to killer whale captivity as a general concept. But SeaWorld CEO Jim Atchison is hoping the move soothes the concern of more casual critics, like those who may have been swayed by the 2013 documentary Blackfish, which questioned the ethics and practices of the company’s killer whale program and aired on CNN.
Thursday, August 14, 2014
Mount Polley tailings pond breach investigated by B.C. privacy watchdog
B.C.'s information and privacy commissioner plans to investigate whether the provincial government should have notified the public about potential risk connected to the Mount Polley tailings pond.
The pond burst last week, sending millions of cubic metres of water and silt into nearby streams and waterways.
Privacy commissioner Elizabeth Denham says concerns are being raised about what the provincial government knew about the condition of the Mount Polley mine and whether the public should have been notified of the potential risks before the disaster occurred.
Denham says she's acting on a complaint her office received and will determine whether the government was legally bound to disclose information about the gold and copper mine.
In a news release, Denham notes that the Freedom of Information and Privacy Protection Act imposes legal requirements on public bodies to provide people with timely information where there is a significant risk of harm or where information is in the public interest.
Denham has the power to compel disclosure of documents, interview government and company officials, make determinations of compliance within the law, and recommend changes.
The pond burst last week, sending millions of cubic metres of water and silt into nearby streams and waterways.
Privacy commissioner Elizabeth Denham says concerns are being raised about what the provincial government knew about the condition of the Mount Polley mine and whether the public should have been notified of the potential risks before the disaster occurred.
Denham says she's acting on a complaint her office received and will determine whether the government was legally bound to disclose information about the gold and copper mine.
In a news release, Denham notes that the Freedom of Information and Privacy Protection Act imposes legal requirements on public bodies to provide people with timely information where there is a significant risk of harm or where information is in the public interest.
Denham has the power to compel disclosure of documents, interview government and company officials, make determinations of compliance within the law, and recommend changes.
Wednesday, August 13, 2014
Man United bans tablet computers
Manchester United has banned fans from bringing tablets and laptops to football matches at its stadium.
The club said it was reacting to "security intelligence", adding the restriction was in line with new checks on electronic equipment at airports.
It said that unlike at airports, it would be "impractical" at the stadium to check the devices were genuine by asking for them to be powered up.
Greater Manchester Police said it was not involved with the ban "in any way".
A statement on the club's site says the ban extends to large and small tablets "including iPad minis", as well as larger electronic devices.
Smartphones are still permitted as long as their dimensions are smaller than 15cm by 10cm (5.9in by 3.9in).
"The regulations at each stadium are a matter for the relevant stadium management authorities, however, the scale of Old Trafford and profile of Manchester United mean that the risk at this venue is unique," it adds.
A spokesman for the club told the BBC it had made the move after receiving "advice", but would not say from whom this had come.
He added the action was unrelated to concerns about fans using tablets to record video of matches, potentially blocking the view of others, as had been reported elsewhere.
A spokesman for the Premier League said: "This is not something we are responsible for or involved in."
A spokesman for the Football Association was unable to provide comment.
But Manchester United's rival Arsenal issued a statement: "Our ground regulations haven't changed. Our stadium management team are happy with our procedures."
The government announced in July that passengers flying to the US or elsewhere who passed through UK airports needed to show that devices carried in their hand luggage were charged and could be powered on. The move followed a warning that US officials had become aware of a "credible" unnamed terrorist threat.
The airport restrictions cover phones, MP3 players and cameras in addition to larger kit.
The club said it was reacting to "security intelligence", adding the restriction was in line with new checks on electronic equipment at airports.
It said that unlike at airports, it would be "impractical" at the stadium to check the devices were genuine by asking for them to be powered up.
Greater Manchester Police said it was not involved with the ban "in any way".
A statement on the club's site says the ban extends to large and small tablets "including iPad minis", as well as larger electronic devices.
Smartphones are still permitted as long as their dimensions are smaller than 15cm by 10cm (5.9in by 3.9in).
"The regulations at each stadium are a matter for the relevant stadium management authorities, however, the scale of Old Trafford and profile of Manchester United mean that the risk at this venue is unique," it adds.
A spokesman for the club told the BBC it had made the move after receiving "advice", but would not say from whom this had come.
He added the action was unrelated to concerns about fans using tablets to record video of matches, potentially blocking the view of others, as had been reported elsewhere.
A spokesman for the Premier League said: "This is not something we are responsible for or involved in."
A spokesman for the Football Association was unable to provide comment.
But Manchester United's rival Arsenal issued a statement: "Our ground regulations haven't changed. Our stadium management team are happy with our procedures."
The government announced in July that passengers flying to the US or elsewhere who passed through UK airports needed to show that devices carried in their hand luggage were charged and could be powered on. The move followed a warning that US officials had become aware of a "credible" unnamed terrorist threat.
The airport restrictions cover phones, MP3 players and cameras in addition to larger kit.
North Korea fires three short-range rockets as pope visits South Korea
SEOUL - North Korea fired three short-range rockets off its east coast on Thursday, South Korea's Ministry of Defense said, shortly before Pope Francis arrived in Seoul on his first visit to Asia.
The rockets were fired from multiple launchers in the North Korean port city of Wonsan and traveled 220 km (135 miles) before landing in waters east of the Korean peninsula, a defense ministry official said.
The last rocket was fired 35 minutes before Pope Francis was due to arrive at an air base in Seoul, where the pontiff started a five-day visit to South Korea.
The launches came ahead of U.S.-South Korean military exercises scheduled to start on Monday. Seoul and Washington say the exercises are defensive in nature but North Korea regularly protests against the drills, which it sees as a rehearsal for war.
North Korea last fired short-range rockets in late July but has since said repeatedly that the launches are specifically designed as counter measures against those drills.
"Given that the U.S. and the puppet forces of South Korea continue staging nuclear war exercises against us in particular, we will take countermeasures for self-defense which will include missile launches, nuclear tests and all other programs," a statement carried by North Korean state media last Friday said.
Pyongyang is under heavy U.N. and U.S. sanctions related to its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Short-range rockets do not defy the ban but Pyongyang has in recent months changed its propaganda style to include photographs of leader Kim Jong Un personally supervising the launches.
The rockets were fired from multiple launchers in the North Korean port city of Wonsan and traveled 220 km (135 miles) before landing in waters east of the Korean peninsula, a defense ministry official said.
The last rocket was fired 35 minutes before Pope Francis was due to arrive at an air base in Seoul, where the pontiff started a five-day visit to South Korea.
The launches came ahead of U.S.-South Korean military exercises scheduled to start on Monday. Seoul and Washington say the exercises are defensive in nature but North Korea regularly protests against the drills, which it sees as a rehearsal for war.
North Korea last fired short-range rockets in late July but has since said repeatedly that the launches are specifically designed as counter measures against those drills.
"Given that the U.S. and the puppet forces of South Korea continue staging nuclear war exercises against us in particular, we will take countermeasures for self-defense which will include missile launches, nuclear tests and all other programs," a statement carried by North Korean state media last Friday said.
Pyongyang is under heavy U.N. and U.S. sanctions related to its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Short-range rockets do not defy the ban but Pyongyang has in recent months changed its propaganda style to include photographs of leader Kim Jong Un personally supervising the launches.
Guessing game over Putin's next move
The toing-and-froing between the Russian aid effort and Ukraine has been going on for days. Is propaganda a military invention or real soldiers? What are Russia's real motives?
It's as much a war of nerves as it is a war of pictures. At least 260 lorries - three kilometers worth - are transporting medicine, berries, baby food and sleeping bags, but they won't be allowed across the border. The Ukrainian government has denied them access. These are the pictures that are shown in the Russian media and present the Russian president in more than a glowing light. From Moscow's perspective, the government in Kyiv poses an unrelentingly hard line - one that attacks cities, kills civilians and now prevents the arrival of humanitarian aid.
Whoever believes Russia to be the less hostile of the two, can refer to a YouTube video that appears to show green lorries with black military symbols being painted in white. The recording has yet to be verified, but the suspicion remains that Russia's real intentions are far from a humanitarian perspective.
And not for the first time in this crisis, the media has to ask what the truth really is. Has Putin's heart really discovered Ukraine's pain? Or is this really just a grim pretence to display themselves as the heroes? Christian Democrat Karl-Georg Wellmann, chairman of the German-Ukraine parliamentary group, has no doubt that the latter is the case. "The instigator is now attempting to become the police and that's not right," said Wellmann in an interview with DW.
In the last few days, Russia has already aroused concern in the West through a number of games, half truths and misinformation of trust. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov grandly asserted that the aid efforts had already been cleared with the Red Cross, but in an interview with DW, Andre Loersch, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), revealed that the organization was just as surprised by Russia's revelations as the rest of the western world. The Russian government has since informed the ICRC of the details of its planned aid.
On Tuesday, the confusion was widespread after a Russian news agency revealed a message stating that the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) could take charge of the effort. Since then, the OSCE has denied this to DW. It is prepared to support any humanitarian aid that is organized by the ICRC, but only "if the aid is requested by the Ukrainian government and the effort is agreed by all the parties involved."
The trust has disappeared so quickly that some have already alleged Russia of using the humanitarian convoy as a way of preparing for a military intervention. "Every angle has to be considered," said Wellmann, before adding that trust in Russia has reached "rock bottom."
Political scientist Andreas Umland from the University of Kyiv believes that Ukraine is right to be concerned about the convoy. "This is a propaganda war and that makes it very difficult to differentiate between fact and fiction," he said to the German World Service.
On the other hand, it's pointless to speculate about Russia's possible motives according to Wolfgang Gerke, foreign political spokesman for the Left Party. "You have to consider the facts and, following them, Donetsk is under threat from a humanitarian catastrophe," said the politician to DW.
Gerke thinks little of the suggestions that Putin is wielding propaganda. "That just means that every one of the federal government's relief efforts could be devalued with the argument: There are only looking to create propaganda!" Putin using the effort as a Trojan horse, so as to smuggle weapons and soldiers into the land, is something Gerke sees as "making little sense."
"If Putin really wanted to attack Ukraine, then he would have set his army into motion long ago," he continued. "It's just like it was at the height of anti-communism - only that communism no longer exists. The image of the enemy has remained though," said Gerke.
The Polish government sees the humanitarian aid that has caused so much tension as a positive sign. According to Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, the principal willingness of the government in Moscow to put the convoy under instruction from the ICRC has reduced the threat of a Russian military intervention on the eastern Ukraine border. The Polish government must now also acknowledge Russia's attempts to enter talks with the Ukrainian government and the Red Cross. This is all the more exceptional considering Poland has taken a hard line throughout the Ukraine crisis.
Political scientist and Ukraine expert Andreas Umland sees a change of heart in Moscow as a possible outcome. "It's feasible that the armament and support of the separatists has exposed Moscow in the wrong light."
Externally though, it still remains difficult to assume what is actually happening inside Russia's power circles. "It's not really a democratic process in which institutions, such as parliament, political parties, government and so on, play a part. It's more about informal power structures."
Whether there's a U-turn or not, Left Party politician Wolfgang Gerke recommends that the Ukrainian president allows the humanitarian convoy through. "If I was in his position, I would welcome the Russian convoy with open arms and say please come and help our people."
The government in Kyiv seems less inclined to allow Russia to perform, in its eyes, such provocative acts. The battle of nerves continues, and the pictures continue to be taken.
It's as much a war of nerves as it is a war of pictures. At least 260 lorries - three kilometers worth - are transporting medicine, berries, baby food and sleeping bags, but they won't be allowed across the border. The Ukrainian government has denied them access. These are the pictures that are shown in the Russian media and present the Russian president in more than a glowing light. From Moscow's perspective, the government in Kyiv poses an unrelentingly hard line - one that attacks cities, kills civilians and now prevents the arrival of humanitarian aid.
Whoever believes Russia to be the less hostile of the two, can refer to a YouTube video that appears to show green lorries with black military symbols being painted in white. The recording has yet to be verified, but the suspicion remains that Russia's real intentions are far from a humanitarian perspective.
And not for the first time in this crisis, the media has to ask what the truth really is. Has Putin's heart really discovered Ukraine's pain? Or is this really just a grim pretence to display themselves as the heroes? Christian Democrat Karl-Georg Wellmann, chairman of the German-Ukraine parliamentary group, has no doubt that the latter is the case. "The instigator is now attempting to become the police and that's not right," said Wellmann in an interview with DW.
In the last few days, Russia has already aroused concern in the West through a number of games, half truths and misinformation of trust. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov grandly asserted that the aid efforts had already been cleared with the Red Cross, but in an interview with DW, Andre Loersch, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), revealed that the organization was just as surprised by Russia's revelations as the rest of the western world. The Russian government has since informed the ICRC of the details of its planned aid.
On Tuesday, the confusion was widespread after a Russian news agency revealed a message stating that the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) could take charge of the effort. Since then, the OSCE has denied this to DW. It is prepared to support any humanitarian aid that is organized by the ICRC, but only "if the aid is requested by the Ukrainian government and the effort is agreed by all the parties involved."
The trust has disappeared so quickly that some have already alleged Russia of using the humanitarian convoy as a way of preparing for a military intervention. "Every angle has to be considered," said Wellmann, before adding that trust in Russia has reached "rock bottom."
Political scientist Andreas Umland from the University of Kyiv believes that Ukraine is right to be concerned about the convoy. "This is a propaganda war and that makes it very difficult to differentiate between fact and fiction," he said to the German World Service.
On the other hand, it's pointless to speculate about Russia's possible motives according to Wolfgang Gerke, foreign political spokesman for the Left Party. "You have to consider the facts and, following them, Donetsk is under threat from a humanitarian catastrophe," said the politician to DW.
Gerke thinks little of the suggestions that Putin is wielding propaganda. "That just means that every one of the federal government's relief efforts could be devalued with the argument: There are only looking to create propaganda!" Putin using the effort as a Trojan horse, so as to smuggle weapons and soldiers into the land, is something Gerke sees as "making little sense."
"If Putin really wanted to attack Ukraine, then he would have set his army into motion long ago," he continued. "It's just like it was at the height of anti-communism - only that communism no longer exists. The image of the enemy has remained though," said Gerke.
The Polish government sees the humanitarian aid that has caused so much tension as a positive sign. According to Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, the principal willingness of the government in Moscow to put the convoy under instruction from the ICRC has reduced the threat of a Russian military intervention on the eastern Ukraine border. The Polish government must now also acknowledge Russia's attempts to enter talks with the Ukrainian government and the Red Cross. This is all the more exceptional considering Poland has taken a hard line throughout the Ukraine crisis.
Political scientist and Ukraine expert Andreas Umland sees a change of heart in Moscow as a possible outcome. "It's feasible that the armament and support of the separatists has exposed Moscow in the wrong light."
Externally though, it still remains difficult to assume what is actually happening inside Russia's power circles. "It's not really a democratic process in which institutions, such as parliament, political parties, government and so on, play a part. It's more about informal power structures."
Whether there's a U-turn or not, Left Party politician Wolfgang Gerke recommends that the Ukrainian president allows the humanitarian convoy through. "If I was in his position, I would welcome the Russian convoy with open arms and say please come and help our people."
The government in Kyiv seems less inclined to allow Russia to perform, in its eyes, such provocative acts. The battle of nerves continues, and the pictures continue to be taken.
Sunday, August 10, 2014
Scientist warns heading footballs ‘not safe for children’ as West Brom star Jeff Astle’s family meet FA to discuss his death
Heading footballs may not be safe for children because their bodies cannot yet cope with the repetitive strain, one of Britain’s leading neuroscientists has said.
It comes as the family of a former England footballer was set to meet with representatives from the FA to discuss what is being done to research and raise awareness of the issue in the game.
Jeff Astle played more than 350 games up front for West Bromwich Albion in the 1960s and ‘70s, and earlier this year a pathologist found that he died in 2002 from an “industrial disease” – brain damage clearly linked to heading a heavy ball throughout his career.
Astle’s family are now calling for a parliamentary inquiry, and US studies have suggested that heading a football 1,000 times can lead to “untreatable problems”.
Dr Michael Grey, reader in Motor Neuroscience at the University of Birmingham's School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation Sciences, told Sky News that he and “many of [his] colleagues” believed it was not safe for children to head the ball.
“The reason for that is two-fold. First, the neck muscles aren't yet developed for the size of the children's head at that age.
“The other reason is that their brains are still developing so they're still in a very vulnerable period for taking a blow to thehead, and I should say these concussive events, we don't yet know if repetitive injury such as this is safe for professionals either.”
This week the FA released a set of new guidelines and rules covering concussion and head injuries in football, and produced an educational film starring current and former England players including Steven Gerrard.
The issue made headlines last season when the Tottenham Hotspur goalkeeper Hugo Lloris was allowed to play on despite losing consciousness after being kneed in the head.
But the FA said it had no new information on the link between heading and brain damage because a the young players involved in a 10-year study, commissioned after Astle’s death, didn’t make it to a professional standard and stopped playing.
Speaking ahead of their meeting today with the FA chairman Greg Dyke and the neurosurgeon Dr Willie Stewart, Jeff’s daughter Dawn Astle told Sky: “We know what killed dad, the coroner's court said it was industrial disease: heading footballs killed dad and the Football Association just don't acknowledge it.
“We have real worries, not just for current footballers, and of course not just professionals - we're talking about amateurs as well - but about football's future, about the children in the game.
“They need to know the risks, then they can make informed choices.”
It comes as the family of a former England footballer was set to meet with representatives from the FA to discuss what is being done to research and raise awareness of the issue in the game.
Jeff Astle played more than 350 games up front for West Bromwich Albion in the 1960s and ‘70s, and earlier this year a pathologist found that he died in 2002 from an “industrial disease” – brain damage clearly linked to heading a heavy ball throughout his career.
Astle’s family are now calling for a parliamentary inquiry, and US studies have suggested that heading a football 1,000 times can lead to “untreatable problems”.
Dr Michael Grey, reader in Motor Neuroscience at the University of Birmingham's School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation Sciences, told Sky News that he and “many of [his] colleagues” believed it was not safe for children to head the ball.
“The reason for that is two-fold. First, the neck muscles aren't yet developed for the size of the children's head at that age.
“The other reason is that their brains are still developing so they're still in a very vulnerable period for taking a blow to thehead, and I should say these concussive events, we don't yet know if repetitive injury such as this is safe for professionals either.”
This week the FA released a set of new guidelines and rules covering concussion and head injuries in football, and produced an educational film starring current and former England players including Steven Gerrard.
The issue made headlines last season when the Tottenham Hotspur goalkeeper Hugo Lloris was allowed to play on despite losing consciousness after being kneed in the head.
But the FA said it had no new information on the link between heading and brain damage because a the young players involved in a 10-year study, commissioned after Astle’s death, didn’t make it to a professional standard and stopped playing.
Speaking ahead of their meeting today with the FA chairman Greg Dyke and the neurosurgeon Dr Willie Stewart, Jeff’s daughter Dawn Astle told Sky: “We know what killed dad, the coroner's court said it was industrial disease: heading footballs killed dad and the Football Association just don't acknowledge it.
“We have real worries, not just for current footballers, and of course not just professionals - we're talking about amateurs as well - but about football's future, about the children in the game.
“They need to know the risks, then they can make informed choices.”
Even Babies Have Wearable Tech Now
Everyone wants to be high-tech these days, but the creators of Sproutling believe your baby could be the most high-tech family member of all.
They've created a wearable baby monitor, which looks like a more cushiony, adjustable FitBit. The team behind Sproutling comes from Apple and Google, so they know a thing or two about easy-to-use tech products. In the simplest terms, Sproutling is a monitor of a baby's activity, instead of a traditional video or audio watchdog.
It lets you know what your baby is up to, but the notifications are unique. Instead of simply hearing the little nugget make a noise, Sproutling alerts you to his or her various activities through their application. The app will keep track of whether they are awake or asleep, and specify how long they have been sleeping and what kind of mood your baby is in. So, if your baby wakes up at 3:00 a.m., the app notification would read "Awake and fussy."
It will also warn you if outside noise might wake your baby up. And if anything unusual happens, like a strange roll over, a spike in temperature, or change in heart rate, you will get a bright red notification immediately.
Right now, the Sproutling app is available for iOS only, but is coming to Android soon. It comes with three pieces: a band for the sensor; the sensor which measures heart rate, temperature, position, movement, and if the band has been removed; and a wireless charger. A two-hour charge offers three days of usage.
Sproutling will retail for $299, though the presale price is $249. It's pricey, but for new parents who are hoping to eek out an extra hour or two of sleep, it seems worth the cost.
They've created a wearable baby monitor, which looks like a more cushiony, adjustable FitBit. The team behind Sproutling comes from Apple and Google, so they know a thing or two about easy-to-use tech products. In the simplest terms, Sproutling is a monitor of a baby's activity, instead of a traditional video or audio watchdog.
It lets you know what your baby is up to, but the notifications are unique. Instead of simply hearing the little nugget make a noise, Sproutling alerts you to his or her various activities through their application. The app will keep track of whether they are awake or asleep, and specify how long they have been sleeping and what kind of mood your baby is in. So, if your baby wakes up at 3:00 a.m., the app notification would read "Awake and fussy."
It will also warn you if outside noise might wake your baby up. And if anything unusual happens, like a strange roll over, a spike in temperature, or change in heart rate, you will get a bright red notification immediately.
Right now, the Sproutling app is available for iOS only, but is coming to Android soon. It comes with three pieces: a band for the sensor; the sensor which measures heart rate, temperature, position, movement, and if the band has been removed; and a wireless charger. A two-hour charge offers three days of usage.
Sproutling will retail for $299, though the presale price is $249. It's pricey, but for new parents who are hoping to eek out an extra hour or two of sleep, it seems worth the cost.
Friday, August 1, 2014
Broken robots 'learn to keep going'
Engineers have taken a step towards having machines that can operate when damaged by developing a robot that can teach itself to walk, even with a broken leg.
Using "intelligent trial and error", their six-legged robot learned how to walk again in less than 2 minutes.
"This new technique will enable more robust, effective, autonomous robots," the engineers behind the robot said.
They said the aim was to mimic the behaviour of injured animals.
The trial-and-error methodology could have ramifications for robots used in the workplace and for military purposes. A robot that can keep attacking - no matter how damaged - brings to mind the relentless android from the Terminator films. The Terminator - though fictional - could figure out how to keep going when injured
According to one expert, adaptive robotics is the cutting edge of the field. Most robots currently sit in factories and perform very specific functions. Scientists want to get robots to understand new and changing situations.
"The real challenge we are pursuing in robotics is robots that can adapt to uncertain and unstructured environments," Dr Fumiya Iida, of the Machine Intelligence Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, told the BBC.
The scientists - Antoine Cully and and Jean-Baptiste Mouret of the Sorbonne in Paris and Jeff Clune of the University of Wyoming - published a research paper on their robot on Arxiv, a platform to release early versions of academic research that is overseen by Cornell University's library.
"When animals lose a limb, they learn to hobble remarkably quickly," Arxiv said in a blog post on the research. "And yet when robots damage a leg, they become completely incapacitated."
The scientists' robot has solved this by trying to mimic animals - by discovering which leg is broken and then then using trial and error to figure out the best way to continue walking.
"Locomotion is a major challenge," Dr Iida said. "It's an issue of energy efficiency. Robots are unusually very inefficient compared to animals."
Other companies are also trying to mimic animals, such as Boston Dynamics, which is now owned by Google. It makes a variety of robots, including the internet sensation Big Dog, which can attain locomotion on a variety of different and difficult terrains.
Big Dog was funded by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) and Boston Dynamics contracts for the US military - which is an area where the trial-and-error algorithms could be applied, especially to machines injured in warfare.
But Dr Iida said that military use was only one aspect of better adaptive robots.
"There are lots of applications beyond the military," he said. "You can think of robots in extreme environments, so not only in warfare, but in space such as robots on the Moon and Mars, and in nuclear power plants. Think of Fukushima, for example, where humans can't go."
While these engineers are focused on self-learning robots, others are developing robots and materials that can "heal themselves" when they are damaged.
BAE Systems said recently that in the future, it could build drones that contained a lightweight fluid that would allow jets to heal themselves from damage sustained in flight, as well as on-board 3D printers that can make new parts, while a new plastic that can fix itself has been developed by engineers at the University of Illinois.
Using "intelligent trial and error", their six-legged robot learned how to walk again in less than 2 minutes.
"This new technique will enable more robust, effective, autonomous robots," the engineers behind the robot said.
They said the aim was to mimic the behaviour of injured animals.
The trial-and-error methodology could have ramifications for robots used in the workplace and for military purposes. A robot that can keep attacking - no matter how damaged - brings to mind the relentless android from the Terminator films. The Terminator - though fictional - could figure out how to keep going when injured
According to one expert, adaptive robotics is the cutting edge of the field. Most robots currently sit in factories and perform very specific functions. Scientists want to get robots to understand new and changing situations.
"The real challenge we are pursuing in robotics is robots that can adapt to uncertain and unstructured environments," Dr Fumiya Iida, of the Machine Intelligence Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, told the BBC.
The scientists - Antoine Cully and and Jean-Baptiste Mouret of the Sorbonne in Paris and Jeff Clune of the University of Wyoming - published a research paper on their robot on Arxiv, a platform to release early versions of academic research that is overseen by Cornell University's library.
"When animals lose a limb, they learn to hobble remarkably quickly," Arxiv said in a blog post on the research. "And yet when robots damage a leg, they become completely incapacitated."
The scientists' robot has solved this by trying to mimic animals - by discovering which leg is broken and then then using trial and error to figure out the best way to continue walking.
"Locomotion is a major challenge," Dr Iida said. "It's an issue of energy efficiency. Robots are unusually very inefficient compared to animals."
Other companies are also trying to mimic animals, such as Boston Dynamics, which is now owned by Google. It makes a variety of robots, including the internet sensation Big Dog, which can attain locomotion on a variety of different and difficult terrains.
Big Dog was funded by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) and Boston Dynamics contracts for the US military - which is an area where the trial-and-error algorithms could be applied, especially to machines injured in warfare.
But Dr Iida said that military use was only one aspect of better adaptive robots.
"There are lots of applications beyond the military," he said. "You can think of robots in extreme environments, so not only in warfare, but in space such as robots on the Moon and Mars, and in nuclear power plants. Think of Fukushima, for example, where humans can't go."
While these engineers are focused on self-learning robots, others are developing robots and materials that can "heal themselves" when they are damaged.
BAE Systems said recently that in the future, it could build drones that contained a lightweight fluid that would allow jets to heal themselves from damage sustained in flight, as well as on-board 3D printers that can make new parts, while a new plastic that can fix itself has been developed by engineers at the University of Illinois.
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