Today’s global news wrapup covers lots of ground, starting with a New York Times story on the skewed jobs picture resulting from the —ahem — Obama recovery:
Recovery Has Created Far More Low-Wage Jobs Than Better-Paid Ones
The deep recession wiped out primarily high-wage and middle-wage jobs. Yet the strongest employment growth during the sluggish recovery has been in low-wage work, at places like strip malls and fast-food restaurants.
In essence, the poor economy has replaced good jobs with bad ones. That is the conclusion of a new report from the National Employment Law Project, a research and advocacy group, analyzing employment trends four years into the recovery.
“Fast food is driving the bulk of the job growth at the low end — the job gains there are absolutely phenomenal,” said Michael Evangelist, the report’s author. “If this is the reality — if these jobs are here to stay and are going to be making up a considerable part of the economy — the question is, how do we make them better?”
Next, two headlines defining the meaning of Republican Family Values™. Both from USA TODAY.
First, this:
Kissing congressman won’t run for re-election
Rep. Vance McAllister, R-La., said Monday he will not seek re-election in November, after being caught on video kissing a female aide.
McAlllister, who was elected just five months ago in a special election, first informed The News Star in Monroe, La., of his decision. He will serve out this term, which ends in January 2015.
“I am committed to serving the 5th District to the best of my ability through this term, but I also have to take care of my family as we work together to repair and strengthen the relationship I damaged,” McAllister said. He and his wife, Kelly, are returning to Washington later Monday.
And by way of contrast, this:
Rep. Grimm charged with tax fraud, says he won’t quit
A 20-count indictment unsealed Monday charged Rep. Michael Grimm, R-N.Y.,with an alleged tax evasion scheme involving the concealment of more than $1 million in receipts from his New York restaurant where he employed an undisclosed number of undocumented immigrants.
Grimm surrendered to federal authorities Monday and pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy, obstruction, mail fraud and perjury related to the alleged scheme involving his fast-food restaurant Healthalicious. But he said he would not resign his seat in Congress.
“In total, Grimm concealed over $1 million in Healthalicious gross receipts alone, as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars of employees’ wages, fraudulently depriving the federal and New York state governments of sales, income and payroll taxes,’‘ court documents state.
So there it is: Cheat on your wife, lose your position. Cheat Uncle Sam and you soldier on, just like another recent GOP icon.
And from the Toronto Globe and Mail, bad news for Bill Gates:
U.S. advises avoiding Microsoft’s Internet Explorer until bug fixed
Malicious Operation Clandestine Fox campaign targets U.S. defence, financial firms
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security advised computer users to consider using alternatives to Microsoft Corp’s Internet Explorer browser until the company fixes a security flaw that hackers have used to launch attacks.
The bug is the first high-profile security flaw to emerge since Microsoft stopped providing security updates for Windows XP earlier this month. That means PCs running the 13-year old operating system could remain unprotected against hackers seeking to exploit the newly uncovered flaw, even after Microsoft figures out how to defend against it.
The United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team, a part of Homeland Security known as US-CERT, said in an advisory released on Monday morning that the vulnerability in versions 6 to 11 of Internet Explorer could lead to “the complete compromise” of an affected system.
From Want China Times, Motor City looks East for salvation:
Chinese immigrants could save Detroit: governor
Bankrupt Detroit announced its new immigration plan that aims to attract Chinese investors, and the combined investment from China has reached US$100 billion, the ninth highest among the 50 states in the United States.
Although is was seeking Chinese investment, the city’s chronic problems with public disorder, racial conflict, and chaos in urban planning may still put its future at risk, according to the Southern Weekly.
The city, which has a factory that produced the first Ford car, was a major hub for automobile manufacturing worldwide. Its collapse after suffering huge debt and dying industries symbolizes the world’s farewell to the era of traditional industry.
Closer to home, The Guardian covers ranching chaos in the Golden State:
California drought drives exodus of cattle ranchers to eastern states
Ranchers herd their stock away from dying grasslands as beef prices reach record highs and industry faces uncertain future
In the midst of the worst California drought in decades, the grass is stunted and some creeks are dry. Ranchers in the Golden State are loading tens of thousands of heifers and steers onto trucks and hauling them eastward to Nevada, Texas, Nebraska and beyond.
“If there’s no water and no feed, you move the cows,” said Gaylord Wright, 65, owner of California Fats and Feeders Inc. “You move them or they die.”
The exact headcount for livestock on this cattle drive is not known. But a Reuters review of state agriculture department records filed when livestock cross state borders indicates that up to 100,000 California cattle have left the state in the past four months alone.
While the McClatchy Washington Bureau covers another impact of water shortages combined with drug war rules:
With no federal water, pot growers could be high and dry
Newly licensed marijuana growers in Washington state may find themselves without a key source of water just as spring planting gets under way.
Federal officials say they’ll decide quickly whether the U.S. government can provide water for the growers or whether doing so would violate the federal Controlled Substances Act, which makes possession of the drug illegal.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which controls the water supply for two-thirds of Washington state’s irrigated land, is expected to make a decision by early May, and perhaps as soon as this week, said Dan DuBray, the agency’s chief spokesman.
And on the subject of pot, United Press International covers dires predictions unfulfilled in the Centennial State:
Only 15 percent of Colorado residents say they have bought recreational marijuana
The Quinnipiac Poll finds most Colorado residents say legalizing pot has not eroded state’s “moral fiber” and more than half expect it to help state budget.
While almost half of Colorado residents say they have used marijuana, only 15 percent say they have done so since the state legalized it Jan. 1, a new poll finds.
Generally, residents still support legalization, with 67 percent saying it has “not eroded the moral fiber” of Coloradoans, a Quinnipiac poll reported Monday. Only 30 percent said it has.
Half of those polled said they expect legalization to aid the criminal justice system, and 54 percent said that it has not made driving in Colorado more dangerous. More than half, 53 percent, said legalization “increases personal freedoms in a positive way,” and the same percentage expect the change to save the state money.
And from MIT Technology Review, more consequences of the mare’s nest exposed by Edward Snowden:
Spying Is Bad for Business
Can we trust an Internet that’s become a weapon of governments?
The big question in this MIT Technology Review business report is how the Snowden revelations are affecting the technology business. Some of the consequences are already visible. Consumers are favoring anonymous apps. Large Internet companies, like Google, have raced to encrypt all their communications. In Germany, legislators are discussing an all-European communications grid.
There is a risk that the Internet could fracture into smaller national networks, protected by security barriers. In this view, Brazil’s new cable is akin to China’s Great Firewall (that country’s system for censoring Web results), or calls by nationalists in Russia to block Skype, or an unfolding German plan to keep most e-mail traffic within its borders. Nations are limiting access to their networks. The result, some believe, could be the collapse of the current Internet.
Analysts including Forrester Research predict billions in losses for U.S. Internet services such as Dropbox and Amazon because of suspicion from technology consumers, particularly in Europe, in the wake of Snowden’s revelations. “The Snowden leaks have painted a U.S.-centric Internet infrastructure, and now people are looking for alternatives,” says James Lewis, director of the strategic technologies program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.
One business is really booming, as Homeland Security News Wire reports:
Demand for terrorism insurance remains strong
The fourth edition of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Report has found that demand for terrorism insurance remains strong and the renewal of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Program Reauthorization Act (TRIA) plays a key role in making coverage available and affordable. A survey of roughly 2,600 organizations found that the demand and price for terrorism insurance has remained constant since 2009. Education organizations purchase property terrorism insurance at a higher rate, 81 percent, than companies in any other industry segment surveyed in 2013, followed by healthcare organizations, financial institutions, and media companies.
The fourth edition of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Report has found that demand for terrorism insurance remains strong and the renewal of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Program Reauthorization Act (TRIA) plays a key role in making coverage available and affordable.
The 2014 Marsh & McLennan Companies survey of roughly 2,600 clients found that the demand and price for terrorism insurance has remained constant since 2009. Education organizations purchase property terrorism insurance at a higher rate, 81 percent, than companies in any other industry segment surveyed in 2013, followed by healthcare organizations, financial institutions, and media companies.
On to Europe and rising doubts, reported by The Guardian:
Anti-EU vote could rise above 30% in European elections, says thinktank
Hardline sceptics could get 29% of vote and critical reformers 5%, although Open Europe’s definitions of groups are disputed
Anti-EU parties could win more than 30% of the vote across the continent in the European elections, according to calculations by the Open Europe thinktank, up from 24.9% on the vote in 2009.
The calculation – challenged by other analysts – suggests hardline sceptics could take as many as 218 (29%) of the 751 available seats, up from 164 out of 766 (21.4%) in the current parliament. Open Europe says this bloc is diffuse, ranging from mainstream governing parties to neo-fascists.
It forecasts that the European parliament will continue to be dominated by parties that favour the status quo or further integration, although their vote share is set to fall slightly.
BBC News covers good news for us, bad news for the banksters:
RBS plan for 200% bonuses blocked by Treasury body
Royal Bank of Scotland has abandoned attempts to pay bonuses twice the size of salaries after being told the move would not be approved.
UKFI, the body that manages the Treasury’s 81% stake in the bank, told RBS it would veto plans for a 2:1 bonus ratio at the next shareholder meeting.
“There will be no rise” while RBS is “still in recovery”, the Treasury said.
New EU rules mean the bank has to ask its shareholders for approval of annual bonuses above 100% of base salaries.
On to Germany and a warning from TheLocal.de:
Bundesbank warns of German slowdown
German economic growth is heading for a significant slowdown in the second quarter of 2014 after a robust first three months, the German central bank said on Monday.
“After the extremely strong start to the year, economic growth in Germany is expected to see a noticeable slowdown in the second quarter,” the Bundesbank said in its latest monthly report.
Growth in industrial orders has not continued with the “same intensity” as in the first two months of the year, it said.
Lisbon next, and embarrassing hacks from the Portugal News:
Attorney general’s office hacked, passwords accessible online
The web page of the Lisbon attorney general’s office has been hit by a hacker attack by ‘Anonymous Portugal’.
Saturday’s edition of Portuguese paper ‘Dário de Notícias’ said that personal details of more than 2,000 public prosecutor magistrates had been accessible online including their mobile and land line number and their passwords to reserved areas on the site.
The paper said that the hack, code named ‘national Blackout’, had also affected companies, political parties and the criminal investigation police.
On to Spain and a bare minimum protest from thinkSPAIN:
Naked police protest in council meeting
LOCAL Police officers burst into a council meeting in Torrevieja (Alicante), stripped down to their underpants and protested over forced changes to their working hours.
The 30 or so policemen bore slogans on their naked backs which said ‘no more chaos’ and ‘we’ve had enough’, among others.
Torrevieja’s PP council ordered the police off the premises and said it had no intention of changing officers’ duty hours back again, because their new timetables were ‘more efficient’.
Next up, Italy, and more Bunga Bunga blowback from EUbusiness:
Scandal-hit Berlusconi insists ‘friend of Jews, Germans’
Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi insisted he is a friend of Jewish people and Germany on Monday in a bid to quell international outrage sparked by his controversial remarks about the Holocaust.
The former premier said he was “a historic friend of the Jewish people and the state of Israel” and it was “surreal to attribute to me anti-German sentiment or a presumed hostility towards the German people, to whom I am a friend.”
The 77-year-old’s statement, posted on the website of his centre-right Forza Italy party, came after an international outcry over his claim on Saturday that Germans denied the existence of Nazi concentration camps.
The media mogul, who is campaigning for the European elections on behalf of his party despite a tax-fraud conviction, made the comment while lashing out at European Parliament chief Martin Schultz, the centre-left candidate in the race to lead the EU Commission.
After the jump, the latest mixed messages from Greece, a Ukrainian bailout, mass death sentences in Egypt, Chinese Brazilian dreams, a tension-filled Indian elections, printing houses in China, ramping up the Asian Game of Zones, nuclear nightmares, and tales of birds and bees. . .
ANA/MPA offers up our first Greek headline and a plea from Athens:
FinMin: Greece to raise debt restructuring issue at Eurogroup meeting
Greece will raise the issue of beginning a discussion on the restructuring of Greek debt at the next Eurogroup meeting scheduled for May 5, Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras said on Monday.
Addressing Greek-Chinese Business Conference, organized by the Economics University of Athens and the Institute for Economic and Industrial Research, Stournaras said that “Eurostat’s announcement paved the way for a discussion over a restructuring of Greek debt, based on an agreement reached with our partners. The Greek government will raise the issue at the next Eurogroup to begin a discussion on the issue,” the Greek FinMin said, adding that “Greece was eliminating a triangle of deficits (fiscal, productive, competitiveness) and supported the knowledge triangle (education, research, innovation)”.
“The Economic Adjustment Program is bringing positive results. The road map of the Greek economy will be proper fiscal management and healthy growth initiatives focusing on a new export-orientated and sustainable growth model,” Stournaras noted. He underlined that the Greek economy has significant comparative advantages unexploited so far, excellent potential and therefore offered business opportunities both in the medium-term and in the long-term.
More bad news on the jobless front from To Vima:
Average duration of unemployment rises to 9 months
International Labor Organization is also conducting a study into the effects of collective redundancies
The General Director of the International Labor Organization Guy Ryder will present an ILO report on the Greek job market prospects in Parliament on Tuesday, during a common session between the European and Social Affairs committees.
According to the 2014 edition of the annual Global Employment Trends report, the average duration of unemployment in Greece has grown to 9 months, while the average duration in Spain in 8 months.
The ILO considers the situation in Greece to remain critical and expects that a lot needs to be done in order to improve the situation. Should the growth rate in Greece stabilize around 3.5%, then the ILO predicts that the rate of unemployment may drop to 22% by 2019.
Another clothing optional protest from Greek Reporter:
Greek Farmers’ Markets Employees Protest… With Their Underwear
Greek agricultural producers and merchants who sell their produce at weekly street markets organized all across Greece, held earlier on Monday an original and “unique” demonstration outside the Greek parliamentary building in downtown Athens, throwing men’s and women’s underwear towards the building while also using them as banners.
“They even took our underwear,” said the gathered crowd, figuratively, accusing New Democracy and PASOK’s ruling coalition government for the harsh austerity measures that are driving farmers’ markets out of business and further impoverish the Greek households solely relying on agriculture, while also handing a resolution of their positions to the Greek Agriculture Ministry.
Since Monday, April 28, Greek farmers’ markets employees are on an indefinite strike, protesting against a new outdoor commerce bill deliberated in Parliament.
Next, a handout for Kyiv from New Europe:
EU approves €1 billion program for Ukraine
European Commission Vice-President Siim Kallas today signed the Memorandum of Understanding on the new €1 billion macro-financial assistance (MFA) loan programme to Ukraine, which was approved by the EU Council of Ministers on 14 April. The new MFA programme is intended to assist Ukraine economically and financially in the current critical stage of its development. It is part of the package to support Ukraine announced by the European Commission on 5 March and endorsed by the European Council on 6 March.
“This assistance, combined with the previously decided €610 million MFA programme, will provide much-needed help to the Ukrainian Government for its financing needs. It is a concrete sign of the EU’s support to the Ukrainian people in a difficult situation, along with the other long-term financial assistance,” said European Commission Vice-President Siim Kallas.
The EU MFA is designed to help Ukraine cover part of its urgent external financing needs in the context of the stabilisation and reform programme recently prepared by the Ukrianian authorities with the help of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The assistance is aimed at reducing the economy’s short-term balance of payments and fiscal vulnerabilities.
Off the Egypt and a draconian collection verdict from the Los Angeles Times:
Egyptian court sentences 683, including Brotherhood leader, to death
A court in southern Egypt on Monday decreed a mass death sentence for nearly 700 people, including the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, the movement of Egypt’s ousted Islamist president.
On the same day, another Egyptian court banned the April 6 movement, which was among the primary engines behind the landmark 2011 uprising against President Hosni Mubarak.
Egypt’s sharp turn toward authoritarianism in the nearly 10 months since an interim government took power has provoked expressions of concern from human rights groups and Western governments, but little in the way of meaningful punitive actions against the military-backed regime. Last week, the Obama administration resumed some of the military aid it had cut off in the wake of the coup last year against Egypt’s first democratically elected president.
Brazil next, and a TPP counter from Beijing via MercoPress:
Chinese minister underlines the ‘strategic’ significance of Brazil for Beijing
The relationship between China and Brazil has “extensive significance” due to their position as two primary emerging market countries and economies, visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said here in Brasilia.
“China and Brazil are the largest developing countries in their own hemisphere. Being an important part of the emerging economic entities, our relationship is beyond the traditional scope of bilateral ties, and has strong strategic meanings and extensive significance,” said Wang.
Wang’s remark came during his meeting with Brazilian Foreign Minister Luiz Aberto Figueiredo Machado in the framework of the first comprehensive strategic dialogue between their foreign ministers.
On to India with Index on Censorship, no holds barred:
Why it is open season for hate speech in India’s elections
Cynical politicians make the most of ineffective laws and a weak regulator
The cauldron has always been simmering, despite abundant shibboleths about this election not being about hate or Hindutva (the communal political ideology of the Hindu Right wing) but about development.
Therefore it came as no surprise when on 19 April, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s (VHP) International President Praveen Togadia exhorted a mob in Bhavnagar to storm a house which had recently been purchased by a Muslim businessman. And in case he refused to vacate the house within 48 hours, Togadia raged, go after him with stones and tyres. After all, since those who went on the rampage in the 1984 Delhi riots have enjoyed impunity, there’s nothing to fear, he thundered. Ram Madhav, a senior functionary of the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh), stoutly defended Togadia. But the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi have remain tight-lipped about the entire affair.
It is unfortunate, alarming, but true that hate propaganda has always yielded rich political dividends, and the BJP and its allies of the Hindu right have been frontrunners in making the most of it. If that wasn’t bad enough, the Election Commission, the supreme authority in charge of managing and conducting polls, has been woefully inept at dealing with this malaise. Consider this, Amit Shah, Modi’s henchman and campaign manager, got away with a mere censure after egging on people in riot-torn Muzaffarnagar to vote for the BJP if they wanted revenge on Muslims.
And for our first Game of Zones headline comes from Channel NewsAsia Singapore:
Obama seeks to soothe China while boosting ties with Philippines
President Barack Obama said on Monday he had no desire to contain or counter China despite clinching a defence pact with the Philippines which will inject US forces close to the volatile South China Sea.
In the Philippines on the final leg of an Asian tour, Obama directly addressed leaders in Beijing, telling them that maritime territorial disputes needed to be addressed peacefully, not with “intimidation or coercion”.
China’s claims to various islands, reefs and atolls in the South and East China Sea have been a constant theme of Obama’s tour of countries which fear being squeezed by the giant nation’s emergence as a regional superpower.
And when it came to soothing, the Chinese probably had to pinch themselves when they heard this claim, reported by Xinhua:
U.S. not trying to contain China: Obama
U.S. President Barack Obama said here on Monday that Washington was not trying to “contain” China when it signed a new military pact with the Philippines.
The United States and the Philippines signed on Monday a 10- year Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement to expand the rotational presence of American forces in the country.
“Our goal is not to counter China, our goal is not to contain China. Our goal is to make sure that international rules and norms are respected,” Obama told a joint press briefing with Philippine president Benigno Aquino III in Malacanang, the presidential palace.
Want China Times reaches out, cash in hand:
China’s newly affluent pump money into Australian property
In 2013, Chinese buyers invested A$4 billion (US$3.7 billion) in buying properties in Australia, focusing especially on Sydney, Australian Property Information (Sydney) reports, citing Australia’s government statistics.
There are about 135 million people in China who are considered middle class, and this number will surge to 540 million by 2020, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. This emerging moneyed middle class will generate solid demand for property in Australia, the report said.
Chinese investors especially favor Sydney, with a new generation of investors having already jumped in or preparing to do so.
Nikkei Asia Review covers one reason overseas investments are looking better to mainland Chinese:
Can China shrink inequality with controversial real estate tax?
Chinese leaders know that they can ill afford to ignore the massive gap between the rich and the poor. But one of the government’s most promising tools for addressing inequality, a real estate tax, faces stiff opposition from local governments as well as the country’s rich and well-connected “vested interests.”
Even moderately affluent Chinese tend to own several apartments purchased as speculative investments. But things look different for the massive swath of the population that is poor.
For them, homeownership is nothing more than a dream. It is not uncommon to see a family sharing a residence with strangers, and some live cramped together in dimly lit basement accommodations.
Meanwhile, China — the nation with the world’s largest workforce — has come up with a new way to put more of them out of work, specifically, those who work in housing construction. From Russia Today:
Giant Chinese 3D printer builds 10 houses in just 1 day
A private company located in eastern China has printed ten full-size houses using a huge 3D printer in the space of a day. The process utilizes quick-drying cement, but the creators are being careful not to reveal the secrets of the technology.
China’s WinSun company, used a system of four 10 meter wide by 6.6 meter high printers with multi-directional sprays to create the houses. Cement and construction waste was used to build the walls layer-by-layer, state news agency Xinhua reported.
“To obtain natural stone, we have to employ miners, dig up blocks of stone and saw them into pieces. This badly damages the environment,” stated Ma Yihe, the inventor of the printers. Yihe has been designing 3D printers for 12 years and believes his process to be both environmentally friendly and cost-effective.
And the accompanying video clip:
From Xinhua, ramping up rhetoric:
Proof of Japan’s brutality “undeniable”: People’s Daily
Wartime archives not only expose Japanese brutality in China during WWII but also the vile intent of those who have denied the facts for decades, said the People’s Daily.
The People’s Daily, flagship newspaper of the Communist Party of China, carried a commentary on Monday following the release of 89 wartime documents detailing atrocities perpetrated by Japanese troops in China , from the archives of Jilin Province in northeast China.
These documents are some of nearly 100,000 files left behind by fleeing Japanese troops as the war drew to a close. They contain details of organized programs for abduction and transportation of Chinese women to be forced into sexual slavery, the so-called “comfort women”.
But the Japanese Prime Minister, possibly prompted by Obama, tried to tone it down, as NHK World reports:
Abe express readiness to improve ties with China
Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe expressed readiness to improve strained ties with China ahead of the summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum later this year. China will be the host country.
The view came during Abe’s talks on Monday with Tokyo Governor Yoichi Masuzoe. The governor made a recent 3-day visit to Beijing.
Masuzoe said the Chinese government is apparently ready to improve bilateral relations. But the governor said that dignitaries he met were critical of Abe’s interpretation of history. Abe courted controversy during his visit to Yasukuni Shrine last year. The shrine is dedicated to Japan’s war dead.
But the remilitarization push in Japan continues, with a reach out to the south via Kyodo News:
Japan, Australia eye boosting tech cooperation in defense equipment
Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera and his Australian counterpart David Johnston agreed Monday to expand technological cooperation in defense equipment after Japan relaxed its arms embargo.
Johnston also expressed support for Japan’s move toward lifting its ban on exercising the right to collective self-defense, Onodera told reporters after the talks in the western coastal city of Perth in Australia.
The meeting came after summit talks in early April between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Australian counterpart Tony Abbott in Tokyo. The leaders agreed to start negotiations for a framework agreement on joint development of defense equipment.
More outreach from Channel NewsAsia Singapore:
Japan PM set for European trade and security trip
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe leaves on Tuesday for a six-nation European tour, hoping to move ahead on trade talks and possible security deals at a time when China is flexing its muscles.
The premier’s nine-day visit, which will take him to Germany, Britain, Portugal, Spain, France and Belgium, comes less than a week after Japan hosted US President Barack Obama on a state visit.
Despite high hopes, Tokyo and Washington failed to find common ground on a Pacific-wide free trade deal known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
A year ago, the European Union and Japan launched their own trade talks aimed at boosting business between the continent and the world’s number three economy, a tie-up that would account for about 40 per cent of global trade.
And from Tokyo via BBC News, anticipatory revenues:
Japan retail sales surge on tax hike
Policymakers are hoping that rising prices may prompt Japanese consumers to start spending more money and boost domestic consumption
Retail sales in Japan grew at the fastest pace in 17 years in March as consumers rushed to make purchases ahead of the sales tax hike in April.
Sales jumped 11% during the month, from a year ago – the most since March 1997.
Japan raised its sales tax, also known as consumption tax, to 8% from 5% from 1 April, the first hike in 17 years.
Nikkei Asian Review adds a complication:
US conflict mineral rules rattling global supply chain
A U.S. financial reform law imposing new disclosure requirements for products using conflict minerals is having far-reaching consequences, affecting even small businesses in Japan.
Most people think of the Dodd-Frank financial reform act as a law regulating risk-taking on Wall Street, but its section 1502 does something else entirely.
It requires listed companies using materials designated as conflict minerals — tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold — to file annual reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission disclosing whether the materials are sourced from the Democratic Republic of the Congo or neighboring countries. The first reporting deadline, May 31, is drawing closer.
And the New York Times brings us the latest in the unfolding events that make up Fukushimapocalypse Now!
Forced to Flee Radiation, Fearful Japanese Villagers Are Reluctant to Return
Ever since they were forced to evacuate during the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant three years ago, Kim Eunja and her husband have refused to return to their hilltop home amid the majestic mountains of this rural village for fear of radiation.
But now they say they may have no choice. After a nearly $250 million radiation cleanup here, the central government this month declared Miyakoji the first community within a 12-mile evacuation zone around the plant to be reopened to residents. The decision will bring an end to the monthly stipends from the plant’s operator that have allowed Ms. Kim to relocate to an apartment in a city an hour away.
“The government and the media say the radiation has been cleaned up, but it’s all lies,” said Ms. Kim, 55, who is from South Korea, and who with her Japanese husband runs a small Korean restaurant outside Miyakoji. “I want to run away, but I cannot. We have no more money.”
And sure to generate more fears of the quake and tsunami that gave us the Fukushima disaster, there’s this from the Mainichi:
Sea of Japan coast hit by at least 4 huge tsunamis over past 2,000 years: study
Over the past 2,000 years, the northern Sea of Japan coast has been hit by at least four huge tsunamis hitherto unknown to history or science, according to new findings by a Japanese-Russian research team.
The four giant waves went unrecorded by contemporaries, as did most ancient tsunamis to hit the Sea of Japan coast, leaving how often they occur and other important details a bit of a mystery. The research team — a collaboration between Hokkaido University Institute of Seismology and Volcanology assistant professor Yuichi Nishimura, and the Far Eastern branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences — focused its investigation on wetlands on the Russian coast where signs of past tsunamis were likely to be preserved.
While NHK WORLD offers cause for more worries:
Japan to improve anti-nuclear terrorism
Japan’s nuclear regulator has told the nation’s utilities to strengthen their efforts to guard against nuclear terrorism.
The Nuclear Regulation Authority held a meeting with senior management of utilities to impress upon them the importance of securing nuclear related material and facilities against terrorism.
During the meeting on Friday, NRA member Kenzo Oshima said that compliance with laws and regulations is not enough. He said that discipline and a proper organizational culture must be maintained.
From the New York Times, the lingering fight against an earlier disaster:
Chernobyl: Capping a Catastrophe
Against the decaying skyline here, a one-of-a-kind engineering project is rising near the remains of the world’s worst civilian nuclear disaster.
An army of workers, shielded from radiation by thick concrete slabs, is constructing a huge arch, sheathed in acres of gleaming stainless steel and vast enough to cover the Statue of Liberty. The structure is so otherworldly it looks like it could have been dropped by aliens onto this Soviet-era industrial landscape.
If all goes as planned, by 2017 the 32,000-ton arch will be delicately pushed on Teflon pads to cover the ramshackle shelter that was built to entomb the radioactive remains of the reactor that exploded and burned here in April 1986. When its ends are closed, it will be able to contain any radioactive dust should the aging shelter collapse.
And whilst on the subject of things nuclear, consider this from Ars Technica:
60 Minutes shocked to find 8-inch floppies drive nuclear deterrent
Air Force says archaic systems aid cyber security of Minuteman missiles.
In a report that aired on April 27, CBS 60 Minutes correspondent Leslie Stahl expressed surprise that part of the computer system responsible for controlling the launch of the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles relied on data loaded from 8-inch floppy disks. Most of the young officers stationed at the launch control center had never seen a floppy disk before they became “missileers.”
An Air Force officer showed Stahl one of the disks, marked “Top Secret,” which is used with the computer that handles what was once called the Strategic Air Command Digital Network (SACDIN), a communication system that delivers launch commands to US missile forces. Beyond the floppies, a majority of the systems in the Wyoming US Air Force launch control center (LCC) Stahl visited dated back to the 1960s and 1970s, offering the Air Force’s missile forces an added level of cyber security, ICBM forces commander Major General Jack Weinstein told 60 Minutes.
“A few years ago we did a complete analysis of our entire network,” Weinstein said. “Cyber engineers found out that the system is extremely safe and extremely secure in the way it’s developed.”
And our final items focus on birds, bees, and other misbehavin’, starting with this American story from News Corp Australia:
Outrage after Chase bank closes accounts of porn industry workers
A BANK has got hundreds of porn stars hot and fired up after writing to them to tell them their bank accounts would be closed.
The move has sparked fury throughout the adult entertainment industry with workers saying they had no idea why they were being targeted.
Chase bank sent letters to industry workers revealing the accounts would be closed next month.
And from TheLocal.fr, a peculiar story — peculiar because studies have shown the Frenchmen have Europe’s largest, er, junk.
Porn films leave young Frenchmen with complex
A study that looks into the impact of pornographic films on the sex lives and psyche of the French people has revealed that many young men have been left with a complex over the size of their penis and more and more French couples are making sex tapes.
Watching porn films is not good for the confidence of young French men, it seems.
According to a new survey by polling agency Ifop into the impact of viewing porn movies on the psyche and sexual habits of French people more than a third of Frenchmen under the age of 25 admitted to having a complex about the size of their penis when watching X-rated movies.
And for our final item, a depressing tale from the London Daily Mail:
Being married makes you MORE depressed: Constant nagging triggers deep-rooted stress, study reveals
Domestic spats outweigh positive aspects of wedlock, 11-year study finds
Tension in marriage ‘makes people less responsive to happy experiences’
Research contradicts long-held link between singletons and stress
