We begin in the U.S., first with a corporate fail quickly amended from the Los Angeles Times:
McDonald’s kills employee-resource website critical of fast food
McDonald’s has taken down its resource website for its employees — the one that advised that fast food was unhealthy — after realizing, the company says, that the site linked to “irrelevant or outdated” information.
The fast-food giant was a subject of ridicule and other unwanted attention this week after photos surfaced of infographics on the website, McResource Line. Under a section of the site titled “fast food tips,” a picture of a meal of fries, a burger and a soft drink were labeled “unhealthy choice,” while a picture of a submarine sandwich, salad and water was labeled “healthier choice.”
The infographics and posts were created by a third-party provider for the McDonald’s site.
Reuters boosts:
U.S. jobless claims fall, holiday retail sales rise
The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell last week to the lowest level in nearly a month, a hopeful sign for the labor market, while holiday retail sales rose in November and December.
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits decreased 42,000 to a seasonally adjusted 338,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday.
Los Angeles Times covers a corporate giveaway:
Hollywood’s new financiers make deals with state tax credits
Brokers take the credits given to studios for location filming and sell them to wealthy people and companies looking to shave their state tax bills.
About $1.5 billion in film-related tax breaks, rebates and grants were paid out or approved by nearly 40 states last year, according to Times research. That’s up from $2 million a decade ago, when just five states offered incentives, according to the nonprofit Tax Foundation.
Film tax credits have become so integral to the filmmaking process that they often determine not only where but if a movie gets made. Studios factor them into film budgets, and producers use the promise of credits to secure bank loans or private investment capital to hire crews and build sets.
CNBC entitles:
New mortgage rules may favor wealthiest borrowers
New mortgage rules that go into effect Jan. 10 are designed to protect borrowers and lenders from the ills of the last housing crash. If lenders apply the rules, they are protected from legal recourse by borrowers or investors should the loans go bad.
The rules, however, are not mandatory, and some lenders say they will make loans outside of them, especially in the jumbo and adjustable-rate spaces.
The Hill backs down:
Regulators agree to revisit ‘Volcker Rule’
Financial regulators are considering a fresh exemption to the “Volcker Rule” just weeks after they finalized the long-awaited crackdown on risky trading.
Facing a legal challenge from banks, the Federal Reserve and other Wall Street watchdogs on Friday said they were reviewing whether it would be appropriate to exempt a small subset of securities from the rule. A final decision will be announced by Jan. 15.
Industry groups have threatened to sue the government if the exemption is not granted.
The Independent has a Randian wet dream:
Super-yacht not big enough? ‘Seasteads’ offer libertarians the vision of floating cities for the future
For (very) wealthy libertarians, seasteads – floating cities – might be the way forward, with their ambition of ‘guaranteeing political freedom and enabling experimentation with alternative social systems’
Available soon, for sale or rent: brand new island with sea views from the terrace, fresh fish daily and swimming pool in the resort hotel. An ideal base for 225 pioneers with £100m-plus to spare and a yearning for a new political and social system.
And if you don’t like it, no problem. Hitch the house to the back of a tug boat and try somewhere else.
For the right-wing American libertarian with deep-seated problems with Big Government, the 19th century challenge to “Go West, young man” retains a powerful appeal. But for the current target audience – the free-wheeling capitalist dotcom millionaire in Silicon Valley – going west means getting wet.
The London Daily Mail calls up an austerian posse in Oregon:
Residents form ‘vigilante groups’ after cuts to sheriff department’s budget mean police only respond to life-threatening incidents
12-strong ‘response team’ armed with guns will operate around the clock
Follows government cuts, and residents refusing tax hike, forcing state-funded departments to scale back operations
Josephine County police dept has had to release prisoners and cut hours
POLITICO exposes a farce:
‘Small typo’ casts big doubt on teacher evaluations
A single missing suffix among thousands of lines of programming code led a public school teacher in Washington, D.C., to be erroneously fired for incompetence, three teachers to miss out on $15,000 bonuses and 40 others to receive inaccurate job evaluations.
The miscalculation has raised alarms about the increasing reliance nationwide on complex “value-added” formulas that use student test scores to attempt to quantify precisely how much value teachers have added to their students’ academic performance. Those value-added metrics often carry high stakes: Teachers’ employment, pay and even their professional licenses can depend on them.
The Nation covers another Obama corporate surrender:
Ted Mitchell, Education Dept. Nominee, Has Strong Ties to Pearson, Privatization Movement
As head of the NewSchools Venture Fund, Mitchell oversees investments in education technology start-ups. In July, Zynga, the creators of FarmVille, provided $1 million to Mitchell’s group to boost education gaming companies. Mitchell’s NewSchool Venture Fund also reportedly partners with Pearson, the education mega-corporation that owns a number of testing and textbook companies, along with one prominent for-profit virtual charter school, Connections Academy.
Jeff Bryant, a senior fellow with the Campaign for America’s Future, says it seems likely that Mitichell will “advocate for more federal promotion of online learning, ‘blended’ models of instruction, ‘adaptive learning’ systems, and public-private partnerships involving education technology.”
From the Atlantic Monthly, doctorates on aisle 4:
‘We Are Creating Walmarts of Higher Education’
As colleges feel pressure to graduate more students for less money, professors worry that the value of an education may be diminished.
Universities in South Dakota, Nebraska, and other states have cut the number of credits students need to graduate. A proposal in Florida would let online courses forgo the usual higher-education accreditation process. A California legislator introduced a measure that would have substituted online courses for some of the brick-and-mortar kind at public universities.
Some campuses of the University of North Carolina system are mulling getting rid of history, political science, and various others of more than 20 “low productive” programs. The University of Southern Maine may drop physics. And governors in Florida, North Carolina and Wisconsin have questioned whether taxpayers should continue subsidizing public universities for teaching the humanities.
Salon delivers a smackdown:
Paul Ryan lectures the pope
The Catholic conservative who insists he cares about the poor says Pope Francis doesn’t understand capitalism
“The guy is from Argentina, they haven’t had real capitalism in Argentina,” Ryan said (referring to the pope as “the guy” is a nice folksy touch.) “They have crony capitalism in Argentina. They don’t have a true free enterprise system.”
Independent.ie unfriends:
Young users see Facebook as ‘dead and buried’
A study of how older teenagers in eight countries use social media has found that Facebook is “not just on the slide, it is basically dead and buried”.
Professor Daniel Miller of University College London, one of the researchers working on the project, said in a blog post: “Mostly they feel embarrassed even to be associated with it.
“This year marked the start of what looks likely to be a sustained decline of what had been the most pervasive of all social networking sites. Young people are turning away in their droves and adopting other social networks instead, while the worst people of all, their parents, continue to use the service.
Off to Britain with BBC News booming:
UK could be Europe’s ‘largest’ economy by 2030
The UK will be in a position to overtake Germany as Europe’s largest economy, according to the think tank the Centre for Economic and Business Research (CEBR).
The CEBR predicts that Germany will lose its current top spot in Europe by 2030.
It cites the UK’s population growth as an aid to economic acceleration.
The Guardian admonishes:
Rising household debt is cause for alarm, warns thinktank IPPR
IPPR warns Help to Buy scheme risks pumping up housing market bubble and puts recent recovery at risk
George Osborne has been warned that his policies to boost the economy will lead to ballooning household debt.
The Institute for Public Policy and Research (IPPR), the left-of-centre thinktank, said the chancellor’s attempts to increase business lending had been a failure and that by resorting to policies such as Help to Buy in the housing market he risked undermining the recent recovery.
Intolerance from The Independent:
Islamophobia: Surge revealed in anti-Muslim hate crimes
Many forces reported a particular rise in anti-Islam hate crimes following the murder of soldier Lee Rigby
Islamophobic hate crimes across Britain have risen dramatically this year, new figures have revealed.
Hundreds of offences were perpetrated against the country’s Muslim population in 2013, with the Metropolitan police alone – Britain’s largest force – recording 500 Islamophobic crimes, compared with 336 incidents in 2012 and 318 in 2011.
From The Guardian, unsurprising:
Fury with MPs is main reason for not voting — poll
Poll reveals anger, not boredom, lies behind drop in political engagement
Nearly half of Britons say they are angry with politics and politicians, according to a Guardian/ICM poll analysing the disconnect between British people and their democracy.
The research, which explores the reasons behind the precipitous drop in voter turnout – particularly among under-30s – finds that it is anger with the political class and broken promises made by high-profile figures that most rile voters, rather than boredom with Westminster.
Sweden next with TheLocal.se and profits from poverty:
Financier fears ‘populist welfare profit debate’
A high-profile financier has withdrawn his support from the Social Democrats, stating that both the opposition and the government risk populist pandering with moves to curtail profits in the welfare sector.
Swedish businessman Carl Bennet, who owns shares in companies that employ over 17,000 people, said on Friday he would no longer voice his support for the socialist opposition due to its critique against venture capital firms making a profit in the tax-funded welfare sector.
“Populism is concealing something that fundamentally is good for the Swedish people,” Bennet told the business daily Dagens Industri (DI).
Germany next, with that good old money via The Local.de:
Germans still have €7 billion worth of D-Marks
Germany’s central bank believes nearly €7 billion-worth of the country’s old currency is still floating around, 12 years after the switch to the euro.
The Bundesbank’s last check in November revealed that there were around 170 million Deutsch Mark (D-Mark) notes unaccounted for, and 24 billion coins. This would make 13.05 billion D-Marks, or €6.67 billion.
But the Bundesbank said this was not a problem, according to the Süddeutsche Zeitung on Friday. “A huge amount of D-Marks have been handed over anyway,” it said in a statement.
France next and a fail from The Independent:
François Hollande heading for crisis as he fails to deliver his promise to reduce unemployment
President François Hollande suffered a blow tonight to what remains of his credibility with news that he had failed to deliver his promise to reduce unemployment by the end of this year.
Anxiously awaited jobless figures for November showed that the number of people without employment in France had increased by 17,500, almost wiping out a modest a reduction in French dole queues in October.
More from the London Telegraph:
François Hollande ‘in denial’ over France’s unemployment
François Hollande accused of cooking unemployment statistics after he insists he is still on track for reversing the jobless trend by year’s end despite figures suggesting the reverse
François Hollande’s credibility is lying in tatters after figures indicated he had failed to deliver on a central government promise to “turn the tide” on unemployment by year’s end.
Riding lower in the polls than any of his postwar predecessors, the Socialist leader chose to defy predictions by the IMF, the European Commission and the vast majority of private economists to bank on a turnaround in French unemployment by the end of 2013.
The Guardian crashes, doesn’t burn:
Elysée palace protester against arts cuts used car as weapon, say French police
Director angered by his theatre’s subsidy loss tried to crash through presidential palace gates
The director of a Paris theatre was arrested on Thursday after trying to force his way into the Elysée presidential palace by crashing his car against its gates.
A security cordon was thrown around the building after police took 67-year-old Italian Attilio Maggiulli into custody on charges of damaging a public utility, endangering lives and violence against a public servant with an weapon, his car.
The suspect wanted to bring to President François Hollande’s attention the cuts in public subsidies to his theatre, the Comédie Italienne, police said. He was reported to have sprayed his car with white spirit and “lightly tapped” the gates “at a slow speed” at around 10am.
On to Spain with El País and a chill:
Cabinet to approve minimum wage freeze, say unions
CCOO and UGT argue that workers’ purchasing power has not stopped falling since 2007
The Cabinet is expected today to approve a freeze on the minimum wage for next year, unions said Thursday.
This would mean that salaries will remain at a minimum of 645.30 euros per month in 14 payments. In other words, workers who put in a full day’s work in Spain will earn at least 9,034.20 euros annually.
The CCOO and UGT unions made the government’s proposed freeze public in joint statements in which they rejected the government’s plan.
thinkSPAIN inflates:
Train fares and electricity rise at 10 times the level of inflation
TRAIN fares on regional lines will go up by 1.9 per cent on January 1, the same day that electricity will rise in price by 2.3 per cent, the PP government has announced.
Both are way above inflation – which is 0.2 per cent in the last year – but lower than the train fare increase of January 1, 2013 when these rose by three per cent.
Medium-distance and provincial lines, known as Cercanías, are considered ‘public services’, which means their prices are State-controlled.
El País dissents:
Dissenting voices against abortion reform grow within Popular Party
Central government delegate in Madrid and Basque assembly spokesman speak out against restrictive bill
Socialists vow to take opposition to the measure onto European stage
The central government delegate in Madrid, Cristina Cifuentes, has expressed her personal opposition to the government’s draft abortion reform. Although Popular Party (PP) official Cifuentes, who recently returned to the public eye after sustaining serious injuries in a motorcycle accident, recognized that the legislation was an electoral promise that had to be carried through, she said that she preferred the previous system of time periods to the government’s proposal to return to a system of scenarios.
Under 2010 legislation introduced by the previous Socialist government, a woman could freely terminate a pregnancy up to 14 weeks. The new draft law, passed by the Cabinet this month ahead of debate on the floor of Congress, allows for abortion in only two instances: rape, and the risk of serious psychological or physical harm to the mother.
Off to Lisbon with the Portugal News:
Portuguese among Europe’s most pessimistic
Portuguese citizens are among the most pessimistic in Europe when it comes to the economic outlook and only outstripped in their negativity by the Cypriots and Greeks according to a recent Eurobarometer study.
A total of 64 percent of Portuguese citizens declared they were pessimistic about the future of the European economy with only citizens in Cyprus and Greece, 66 percent and 69 percent respectively, returning more negative outlooks as against a European Union average in which 51 percent managed to express optimism.
Of the 1,047 Portuguese citizens who responded, 77 percent identified unemployment as a cause for concern, against a European Union average of 49 percent while the economic situation concerned 39 percent of respondents against an average 33 percent.
Xinhua warns:
Interview: IMF official warns next year not to be cakewalk for Portugal
Portugal seems to be ending 2013 on a good note. Earlier this month the Portuguese central bank improved its 2013 and 2014 economic outlook and on Friday the national institute of statistics (INE) unveiled that Portugal might have reached the target it agreed with its international creditors commission for this year.
However, Portugal’s implementation of the bailout program with the troika of the European Union, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Central Bank next year “won’t be a cakewalk”, IMF Resident Representative in Lisbon Albert Jaeger told Xinhua in a recent interview.
“The economy is still at the early stages of recovery following a pretty long slump in activity,”he said,”so big challenges are still to be tackled.”
The Portugal News walks out:
Chaos looms as strikes are promised to continue into the New Year
This year’s New Year celebrations could be spoiled for many should a series of strikes announced for New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day by airlines, airport ground-staff, public transport companies and even hotel workers go ahead as planned, causing widespread travel disruption and general frustration and disappointment from north to south of the country.
The Portugal News with another walkout:
Tax offices shut down
Tax and customs offices around Portugal were closed for much of the past week as workers protested against planned cuts to the service and worsening prospects for public employees’ pay and conditions.
Off to Italy and a necessary move from The Local.it:
Italy transfers migrants from scandal-hit centre
Italy on Tuesday transferred migrants from a centre on the tiny island of Lampedusa at the heart of a controversy over unsanitary conditions and mistreatment, as protests continued in other facilities.
Nine migrants at an expulsion centre near Rome’s airport have also sewn their mouths shut and a total of 37 are on hunger strike, said the director of the centre, Vincenzo Lutrelli, Italian media reported.
“I hope that this being Christmas Eve there will be an end to the protest,” said Lutrelli, who has supported the initiative to draw attention to the long months in which migrants are held in prison-like condition
TheLocal.it unstitches:
Migrants end sewn mouths protest in Italy
A dozen migrants who had sewn their mouths shut in an immigrant detention centre outside Rome ended their protest on Friday, officials at the facility and a visiting parliamentary delegation said.
The last of the migrants taking part allowed medical personnel to remove the thread he had used to stitch his lips and the migrants also ended a hunger strike.
ANSAmed loses:
South Italy has lost ‘600,000 jobs in 6 years’
South GDP eroded of 43.7 billion euros during crisis
Southern Italy has lost 600,000 jobs over the past six years and the economic crisis has wiped out some 43.7 billion euros of area’s gross domestic product, according to data released by industrial employers’ association Confindustria Friday.
And TheLocal.it ponies up:
Italy pledges €800m to fight poverty in 2014
Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta said on Friday that the coalition government will spend €800 million on fighting poverty next year as more Italians struggle to make ends meet.
A report by Eurostat in early December revealed that 29.9 percent of Italians were suffering, or risked suffering, poverty in 2012, a figure surpassed in the Eurozone only by Greece.
Letta said on Friday that the government had raised an extra €300 million in addition to the €500 million already allocated to fight poverty.
After the jump, Greek crisis, Russian woes, Indonesian anxiety, Chinese transformations continue, environmental threats, and the latest edition of Fukushimapocalypse Now!
Greece next, and from To Vima, hopes:
Barnier expresses confidence that the Greek economy will recover
European Commissioner for the Internal Market praised the Greek people’s efforts during the financial crisis
The European Commissioner for the Internal Market Michel Barnier expressed his opinion that the Greek economy will not only recover, but that Greece will also be amongst those in a most advantageous position. Mr. Barnier, who spoke to Acheloos TV, offered his support and solidarity to the Greek people, while maintaining that in order to overcome crises, types of efforts and sacrifices that Greece has had to face are necessary.
The Internal Market Commissioner added that the domestic economy will recover with the support of Greek Members of European Parliament, irrespective of their political affiliation, by contributing towards the creation of new regulations in the European banking sector, so that there is greater transparency and accountability than in the past.
More decline from ANSAmed:
Greece: sales fall further after Christmas bonus cut
Down some 800 million euros compared with 2012
Up until Christmas Eve – according to shopkeepers in Greece’s major cities – stores had seen an increase in traffic but a drop in sales this festive season, as daily Kathimerini reports. Although the decent weather last weekend allowed for a stroll in city centers, above all in Athens, and big shopping malls, the value of total purchases made by consumers to date is at least 10 percent lower than the level recorded last year.
Tradesmen estimate that the holiday season turnover – including that of food stores – is expected to end up below the 7-billion-euro level, at around 6.8 billion euros, and down some 800 million euros compared to last year. If these estimates prove correct, the holiday turnover will come to just one-third of that recorded in 2008, when it had amounted to 21.9 billion euros.
And ANSAmed again, with still more decline:
Greek exports fell 2% in the first 10 months of 2013
Greek exports fell 2% in the first 10 months of the year compared to the same period in 2012, daily Kathimerini reports quoting Hellenic Statistical Authority data released on Tuesday, confirming that export firms have reached their limit. However imports have registered a fresh decline, leading to a further reduction in the trade deficit. The total value of exports in October 2013 came to 2.32 billion euros, against 2.57 billion in October 2012, dropping 9.6%. Excluding fuel, the drop is down 2.3% year-on-year.
Imports fell to 4.17 billion euros from 4.53 billion a year earlier. In January-October, Greek exports including fuel came to 23.2 billion euros, against 22.37 billion euros in 2012, or a 3.7% increase.
Neos Kosmos relies:
Average Greek retires before 58
ELSTAT survey shows huge dependence on public sector social security funds
The average retirement age in Greece stands at just 57 years and eight months according to a survey conducted by the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT).
The survey used a sample from the quarterly work force report from the April-June 2012 period for people aged between 50 and 69 years, and reached some very interesting conclusions.
Greek Reporter pleads:
Greek Families Ask Samaras and Papoulias to Adopt their Children
Several families that are a three-child household from a region in central Greece, called Almyros, made a symbolic move, indicative of their desperation. They asked the Greek Prime Minister, Antonis Samaras, the President of Greek Republic, Karolos Papoulias, as well as the President of Greek Parliament to adopt their children as they cannot afford to raise them on their own.
Many families in Greece have suffered painful cuts in salaries; their members are jobless, while the State has reduced the grants to multi-child families. All these strict measures have affected all Greek families and namely multiple children households as they cannot make ends meet and are unable to cover even the basic needs of their children.
According to the local newspaper, “Taxidromos,” there were 40 applications with which the parents called the President of Greek Republic, the President of Greek Parliament and the Greek Prime Minister to adopt their children. All these applications were sent on Monday, by the Almyros’ Association of three-child families. Those three political leaders were asked to adopt a total of 120 children from Almyros
Keep Talking Greece takes the fall:
No crisis can heal Greek public officials from corruption: president of children’s hospital arrested
“God and justice” cannot save many people in a country where corruption keeps on infecting public officials. On Christmas Eve the president of Aglaia Kyriakou children’s hospital in Athens was arrested by police on suspicion of accepting bribe. “What suspicion?” one would wonder. Haris Tombouloglou was found to be in possession of marked banknotes given to him by an advertisement company managers in the context of a ‘bribe’ deal. Juicy 25,000 euro.
The company had allegedly pay him the money in order to win a tender to run a program to combat children obesity. The program was funded by the European Union.
Russia next, with decline foreseen by the Moscow Times:
Economists Gloomy on GDP Growth Prospects in 2014
The economy is now forecast to have grown in 2013 at less than half the pace expected at start of the year and will perform only slightly better in 2014, weighed down by weak investment and tapering consumer demand.
A Reuters poll of 15 economists said that gross domestic product had risen just 1.4 percent this year, when last December they had predicted an expansion of 3.2 percent.
Economists are also more pessimistic about the economy’s wellbeing next year than the government, envisaging growth of 2.0 percent, against the Economic Development Ministry’s forecast of 2.5 percent.
Latin America next, with inflationary news from MercoPress:
Inflation in Argentine provinces expected to reach over 30% at the end of 2013
Consumer prices in the Argentine province of San Luis climbed 2.9% in November over October, 27.8% over December 2012 and 29.3% in the last twelve months, according to the provincial stats office. San Luis is ruled by dissidents from the ruling Peronist coalition headed by President Cristina Fernandez.
The item with greatest incidence on the index was Food and Beverage, which climbed 4.3%, pushed by fruit prices (13.3%); infusions, bottled water, bakery, beef, chicken, sausages, cooking oil alcoholic and non alcoholic drinks, among others” said the San Luis Stats and Census office. However there was a slight drop in legumes and vegetables because of the season.
Nevertheless for the lowest income bracket of the population, “the food item has accumulated so far this year 30.7% and 31.5% in the last twelve months”.
Off to Asia, first with an Indian refusal from Channel NewsAsia Singapore:
Call to prosecute Modi over deadly India riots blocked
An Indian court Thursday rejected a petition to prosecute opposition prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi over his role in 2002 religious riots that killed some 2,000 people.
A magistrate said insufficient evidence existed against Modi, who was chief minister of the western state of Gujarat at the time of the riots in which mobs went on the rampage leaving mostly Muslims dead.
The ruling is a boost to Modi, a Hindu nationalist with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), who leads in opinion polls just months before the general election but still divides voters over his role in the riots.
A diplomatic spat continues to inflate from Reuters:
India seeks possible U.S. tax violations as stand hardens in diplomat row
India has sought details about staff in American schools in the country for possible tax violations and revoked ID cards of U.S. consular officials and their families, retaliatory steps for the arrest of an Indian diplomat in New York.
An Indian government official said on Friday that New Delhi had asked the U.S. embassy to provide details about people working in American schools and other U.S. government facilities to determine if they had permission to do so and if they were paying taxes that are mandatory under Indian law.
Diplomats’ spouses who take up work in schools or other embassy facilities are supposed to inform the host country.
Thailand next, with a plea from the New York Times:
Thai Election Body Urges Vote Delay as Unrest Flares
After chaotic clashes between the police and antigovernment protesters in Bangkok on Thursday left one police officer dead and dozens of people injured, the Election Commission of Thailand urged that national elections scheduled for Feb. 2 be postponed, further clouding the country’s future after a month of debilitating street protests.
The protesters struck a Bangkok stadium where political parties were finishing pre-election activities.
The proposed delay was rejected by Phongthep Thepkanjana, a deputy prime minister, who said that the government had no power to postpone the elections and warned that a delay could lead to “prolonged violence.”
The Guardian hints at overthrow:
Thai army chief calls for end to violence but fails to rule out coup
General Prayuth Chan-ocha says ‘door is neither open nor closed’ to military intervention after two months of protests
Thailand’s army chief has urged both sides in the country’s bitter political dispute to show restraint, but did not explicitly rule out the possibility of a coup.
Thailand has been rocked by two months of violent street protests and political tensions pitting the government of the prime minister, Yingluck Shinawatra, against protesters seeking to remove her from power. The army has staged 11 successful coups in the country’s history; in the current volatile climate, its intentions are being watched carefully.
And Al Jazeera America examines:
The antidemocratic roots of the Thai protesters
Demonstrations represent struggle between royalist bureaucrats and electoral democracy
Protesters in Thailand are demanding the end of electoral democracy, saying it is a dictatorship by the majority that came to power buying votes and is ruling the country through corruption. They are calling for a rule instead by “moral” people whom they would select without a popular election. They represent a threat to Thai democracy that remains fragile after a decade of turmoil.
Indonesian anxiety with the Jakarta Globe:
Property Developers Cutting Back on Concerns of Policy and Economic Uncertainty
Stricter mortgage rules and an election might act as brakes on the housing market
The Jakarta Globe restricts:
Indonesia to Regulate Metal Exports for Miners With Smelters
Indonesia, the world’s largest mined nickel producer, will proceed with a plan to ban mineral-ore exports for mining companies without smelters next month, while regulating shipments by miners that do process ore.
The government will issue a regulation before the prohibition starts from Jan. 12, Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Jero Wacik told reporters in Jakarta today. The rule will provide details on the minerals that can be exported, said Coordinating Minister for the Economy Hatta Rajasa.
China next, first with the London Telegraph:
China warns on 2014 as growth slows
Cabinet ministers said China faced headwinds from rising labour costs and weak global demand
Growth in China slowed to 7.6pc in 2013, officials said on Thursday, as they warned that the world’s second largest economy was likely to decline further next year.
The government’s forecast is below 2012′s growth rate of 7.7pc, but above its 7.5pc target, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
Cabinet ministers said China faced headwinds from rising labour costs and weak global demand. “We cannot deny a downward pressure on economic growth,” said Xu Shaoshi, China’s planning minister.
Aspirations from the China Daily:
Reform plans give US ‘hope about trade’
Washington has new hopes for fairer trade since Beijing endorsed a “decisive role” for market forces, an annual report on China’s World Trade Organization practices has suggested.
The United States is “encouraged” by a number of far-reaching economic reform pronouncements drawn up at the Third Plenum of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, according to the 2013 Report to Congress on China’s WTO Compliance, which was released on Tuesday.
The report is compiled by the Office of the US Trade Representative.
The Hill offers another perspective:
US trade push threatens China
Congress and the White House are pushing broad trade deals that risk triggering an economic fight with China.
Pacts the Obama administration is negotiating with the European Union and Pacific Rim countries are intended to help the U.S. compete with China, a growing economic power that drives much of the global economy.
The administration is worried the U.S. could lose influence to China, particularly in Asia, as trading partners fight for access to the region’s largest economy, which is growing at a 7 percent clip.
China Daily lowers the temperature:
Accounting fraud chills US investors
A recent US Securities and Exchange Commission probe into potential securities violations by China-based pork company AgFeed Industries may impact confidence among American investors with US-listed Chinese companies, experts said this week.
The company, which filed for bankruptcy in July with acknowledgement of “fictitious sales” logged between 2008 and 2011, is accused of misrepresenting “formula-based analysis” of its accounts, overstating assets and underreporting debts and expenses to create an illusion of increased profitability.
Additionally, the company is alleged to have “created fraudulent account receivables”, underreporting revenue figures for divisions intended for sale by more than $50 million in 2008 and 2009 and by $21.3 million in 2010.
The Global Times regulates:
China outlines measures to protect small investors
China’s cabinet on Friday outlined a slew of measures aimed at better protecting the interests of small and medium investors in the capital market.
Small and medium investors are the main players in China’s capital market, but their interests are more likely to be infringed upon due to the lack of information and relatively weak risk-prevention and self-protection capabilities, the State Council said in a document.
Safeguarding the interests of small investors is the foundation for healthy and sustainable development of the capital market, it said.
Boing Boing critiques:
Replace bank chiefs with small dogs: Chinese top economist
China’s former chief economist has excoriated the nation’s banking system, which charges high fees and maintains a greedy-large gap between its deposit interest and lending interest rates.
Such a business provides no value, and is merely parasitic on the people: “With this kind of operational model, banks will continue making money even if all the bank presidents go home to sleep and you replaced them by putting a small dog in their seats.”
BBC News loosens up:
China reforms one-child policy
China’s top legislature has formally adopted a resolution easing the country’s one-child policy, the state news agency Xinhua reports.
The Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress passed a resolution allowing couples to have two children if either parent is an only child.
A proposal to abolish re-education through labour camps was also approved.
Japan next, with a wiseguy story from The Independent:
Miss Japan Ikumi Yoshimatsu joins battle against mafia in the media
A beauty queen is in hiding after exposing a major talent agency’s alleged links to a crime syndicate
A softly spoken, willowy beauty who weeps when she describes her ordeal, Ikumi Yoshimatsu seems an unlikely figure to lead a fight against one of Japan’s most powerful talent agencies. Yet she has become the heroine in a drama that her supporters say has exposed one of the nation’s dirtiest secrets: claims that the Yakuza helps to run the entertainment industry.
Since she became the first Japanese woman to win the Miss International title, Ms Yoshimatsu says she has been blackballed by the industry, stalked and threatened for refusing to join a talent agency. She is now in hiding after filing a criminal complaint against a top executive with the firm. “I am afraid for my life,” she said in a telephone interview.
Last week, Ms Yoshimatsu went public and accused the executive, Genichi Taniguchi, of starting a campaign of intimidation against her shortly after she was crowned Miss International Japan in 2012. She claimed she refused to sign a contract with Mr Taniguchi when an internet search revealed allegations that his company had alleged links to the Yamaguchi-gumi – Japan’s largest crime syndicate. “I told them, morally and ethically I cannot work with such people,” she said.
The Yomiuri Shimbun equates:
Job offers-seekers ratio rises to 1.00
The ratio of job openings to job seekers in Japan in November rose to 1.00 for the first time since October 2007, government data showed Friday.
The seasonally adjusted reading means that the number of job offers matched that of job seekers. The ratio was up 0.02 point from the previous month and marked the second straight month of increase, according to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry.
Job offers grew in a wide range of industries thanks to a moderate economic recovery and last-minute demand prior to the April 2014 consumption tax hike.
BBC News approaches reversal:
Japan moves close to beating 15 years of falling prices
Shoppers at a store in Tokyo Falling consumer prices made shoppers cautious, putting a brake on Japan’s attempts to boost domestic consumption
Japanese consumer prices have risen at the fastest pace in five years, showing government policies to end its deflation problem may be taking effect.
Core inflation excluding food rose 1.2% in November from the previous year, surpassing market expectations.
Japan is now more than half-way towards meeting the central bank’s goal of achieving 2% inflation by about 2015.
On to Fukushimapocalypse Now!
NHK WORLD diagnoses:
Deteriorated joints may be cause of water leaks
The operator of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant says deteriorated resin filler probably caused water leaks from barriers surrounding contaminated water tanks.
Tokyo Electric Power Company found a total of 225 tons of water leaked from 2 concrete barriers at the plant on Tuesday.
It also found that the remaining water in the barriers contained radioactive strontium at a level of up to 44 times higher than the government limit.
Kyodo News sets a new deadline:
Japan eyes completion of Fukushima radiation cleanup by March 2017
The Environment Ministry said Thursday that it now aims to complete radiation cleanup activities in the most seriously contaminated areas outside the accident-stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex by the end of March 2017.
The ministry had hoped to finish the work at 11 cities, towns and villages in Fukushima Prefecture by the end of next March, or about three years after the nuclear crisis began. But the schedule has been delayed due to the difficulties of securing enough places to temporarily store the contaminated soil and other waste.
Jiji Press approaches criticality:
N-Plant Restart Essential to TEPCO’s Turnaround
An envisioned turnaround of Tokyo Electric Power Co. hinges on the restart of a central Japan nuclear power station over which the firm has failed to gain consent from the local prefecture.
A special rehabilitation plan submitted Friday envisions that TEPCO will swing back to a recurring profit of some 100 billion yen in fiscal 2014 if the firm can restart reactors at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa power station in Niigata Prefecture from July 2014.
The restart of the nuclear plant will help TEPCO to slash fuel costs, which nearly doubled to 2,788.5 billion yen in fiscal 2012 from fiscal 2010. In fiscal 2013, the costs have stayed high as all of the firm’s nuclear reactors remain halted following the nuclear accident at its Fukushima No. 1 power station in northeastern Japan in March 2011.
The Asahi Shimbun compensates:
TEPCO to pay evacuees additional 7 million yen for ‘loss of hometowns’
The government will order Tokyo Electric Power Co. to pay an additional 7 million yen ($66,700) in compensation for each person who will likely be unable to return home over their lifetimes due to the Fukushima nuclear accident.
The science and technology ministry’s Dispute Reconciliation Committee for Nuclear Damage Compensation on Dec. 26 decided to order TEPCO, operator of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, to compensate nuclear disaster victims for the loss of their hometowns.
The committee will also order TEPCO to help the victims purchase new homes.
NHK WORLD gives an incomplete:
Just over 20% answered radioactive exposure survey
Officials of Fukushima Prefecture say only just over 20 percent of its residents have answered a survey to estimate the amount of radioactive exposure the public suffered after the nuclear disaster in 2011.
The prefectural government began the survey a few months after the disaster to find out the effects of radiation on the population’s health.
It covers all of the about 2 million in the prefecture, asking about time outside the home, eating habits and other behavior in the early days of the crisis.
The Asahi Shimbun restricts:
Fukushima salmon industry in peril with hatcheries stuck in evacuation zone
In normal times in the town of Naraha, located along the Kidogawa river, salmon are caught in autumn and then their eggs are artificially inseminated. The hatchlings are released the following spring, and return to the river, where they were born, four or five years later to spawn.
But the majority of hatchlings released into the Kidogawa river immediately before the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 are believed to have been wiped out by the tsunami.
Since then, no salmon have been hatched or released because the disaster destroyed hatcheries, which cannot be repaired because they lie within the evacuation zone of the nuclear accident.
Kyodo News takes the lead:
Ex-steelmaker president Sudo seen as next chairman of TEPCO
The government is making final arrangements to appoint Fumio Sudo, a former president of steelmaker JFE Holdings Inc., as the next chairman of Tokyo Electric Power Co., which is trying to restructure itself in the wake of the crisis at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, sources close to the matter said Friday.
Sudo, 72, who has been an outside director of TEPCO since June 2012, would have the task of helping the utility to continue its cleanup activities at the plant and at the same time reviving its battered business.
The Mainichi readies:
No. of reactors applying for safety checks toward restart rises to 16
Tohoku Electric Power Co. applied Friday for a state safety assessment on its No. 2 reactor at the Onagawa nuclear power plant in northeastern Japan, making it the 16th reactor for which procedures have begun toward restarting operations.
The plant in Miyagi Prefecture was the nuclear complex located closest to the focus of the magnitude 9.0 earthquake in March 2011, which was followed by huge tsunami waves that set off a nuclear crisis at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima Daiichi plant in neighboring Fukushima Prefecture.
NHK WORLD, almost faultless:
NRA set to declare Ohi plant fault not active
Japanese nuclear regulators are set to declare that a fault running beneath the Ohi nuclear plant in central Japan is unlikely to shift.
The conclusion is in line with a draft report the Nuclear Regulation Authority broadly approved in November.
The report was compiled after experts repeatedly inspected a fault called F-6 that runs under the plant in Fukui Prefecture.
The Guardian goes transglobal:
Toshiba to buy majority stake in UK nuclear consortium
Japanese company keen to kickstart ambitious reactor building programme that stalled after 2011 disaster at Fukushima
Japanese group Toshiba has confirmed that it is in the final stages of securing a majority stake in a British nuclear power consortium, bringing a further boost to the UK’s ambitious nuclear programme.
Toshiba’s chief executive, Hisao Tanaka, said an agreement to take a controlling shareholding in the NuGen consortium could be in place as early as January. NuGen is a joint venture between Spanish power company Iberdrola and French utility firm GDF Suez that is developing a plant at Sellafield in Cumbria, where the owners plan to build 3.6 gigawatts of nuclear capacity on a disused reactor site.
From the Los Angeles Times, toxic and slow:
Toxic waste watchdog can be glacially slow
The California Department of Toxic Substances Control is supposed to use regulations, fines and the threat of legal action to protect the environment. But its oversight is often ineffectual.
The Washington Post covers up:
The dark money in climate change
A new study from Drexel University has broken down the financial structure of the climate-denial movement, and the findings are essential for plotting out a map to success on combating global warming. It’s the first peer-reviewed analysis of its kind.
The thrust of the study, done by Dr. Robert J. Brulle, is that climate-denial money has largely been driven underground to dark-money sources. About 75 percent of the money backing climate-denial efforts is untraceable, primarily via conservative foundations and shadowy tax-exempt groups that obscure their funding sources.
What’s notable is that many of the big industrial funders — ExxonMobil and Koch Industries chief among them — have withdrawn their publicly traceable funding in recent years, and that withdrawal tracked closely with an increase in untraceable funding. You don’t have to be a genius to figure out what’s happening there.
Bloomberg resists:
Elderly Homes Weak Link in Battle Against Superbugs
New findings are giving credence to the idea that superbugs, which resist the most powerful antibiotics, thrive just where the frailest people dwell: nursing homes.
A report published last month in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology found that more than a quarter of residents in 26 Orange County, California, nursing homes carried a bacterium known as MRSA, a rate that surprised researchers. Another study in April found that retirement-home residents in one area of Japan had three times more of another type of resistant bug than healthy locals.
And for our final item, from the Washington Post, wasn’t this a movie:
Argentina: 70 injured in carnivorous fish attack
An attack by a school of carnivorous fish has injured 70 people bathing in an Argentine river, including seven children who lost parts of their fingers or toes.
Director of lifeguards Federico Cornier said Thursday that thousands of bathers were cooling off from 100-degree temperatures in the Parana River in Rosario on Wednesday when bathers suddenly began complaining of bite marks on their hands and feet. He blamed the attack on palometas, “a type of piranha, big, voracious and with sharp teeth that can really bite.”
