A huge amount of fascinating stories about currents in play in our increasingly neoliberalized global physical and fiscal world. We’re following up with another headline set devoted to the dark arts of militarism, espionage. drones, and suchlike.
We open with an ominous report of a global phenomenon from the Times of India:
World’s coastal megacities sinking 10 times faster than rising water levels
Scientists have issued a new warning to the world’s coastal megacities that the threat from subsiding land is a more immediate problem than rising sea levels caused by global warming.
A new paper from the Deltares Research Institute in the Netherlands published earlier this month identified regions of the globe where the ground level is falling 10 times faster than water levels are rising — with human activity often to blame.
In Jakarta, Indonesia’s largest city, the population has grown from around half a million in the 1930s to just under 10 million today, with heavily populated areas dropping by as much as six and a half feet as groundwater is pumped up from the Earth to drink.
The same practice led to Tokyo’s ground level falling by two metres before new restrictions were introduced, and in Venice, this sort of extraction has only compounded the effects of natural subsidence caused by long-term geological processes.
It’s just not the oceans that are rising, at least for the moment. From Reuters, a story to read with tongue in cheek:
U.S. consumer confidence near six-year high, home prices rise
U.S. consumer confidence dipped in April but remained near a six-year high, while home prices rose in February, suggesting the economy continued to regain momentum after a winter lull.
The Conference Board said its index of consumer attitudes dipped to 82.3, the second-highest reading since January 2008, from an upwardly revised 83.9 in March.
An unusually cold and snowy winter disrupted economic activity early in the year.
From The Progressive, predictable results:
Scathing Report Finds Rocketship, School Privatization Hurt Poor Kids
Gordon Lafer, a political economist and University of Oregon professor who has advised Congress, state legislatures, and the New York City mayor’s office, landed at the airport in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, late last night bringing with him a briefing paper on school privatization and how it hurts poor kids.
Lafer’s report, “Do Poor Kids Deserve Lower-Quality Education Than Rich Kids? Evaluating School Privatization Proposals in Milwaukee, Wisconsin,” released today by the Economic Policy Institute, documents the effects of both for-profit and non-profit charter schools that are taking over struggling public schools in Milwaukee.
“I hope people connect the dots,” Lafer said by phone from the Milwaukee airport.
From The Verge, a program to suit the era of standardized tests and computerized grades:
This machine can write a grade-A paper in less than a second
Machines fooling machines
Les Perelman, a now retired former director of writing for MIT, has long been against the idea of using machines to grade essays. “I’m a skeptic,” he told the New York Times in 2012 — and now he’s built his own machine to prove his skepticism right.
Called the Babel Generator — short for Basic Automatic BS Essay Language Generator — the software is able produce complete essays in less than a second, and all you have to do is feed it up to three keywords. The essays are grammatically correct but nonsensical. The goal isn’t to produce great writing, though, it’s to fool other machines: Babel was designed specifically to prove that essay-grading software doesn’t effectively analyze things like meaning and isn’t able to check facts. Perelman’s gibberish essays have managed to get high scores on automated tests like MY Access!, with grades like 5.4 out of 6.
Various studies have shown that automated software often scores papers roughly the same as its human counterparts, and the software is gaining popularity at schools simply because it can grade papers so much faster than teachers. Previously, Perelman had managed to fool these algorithms with essays that employed a few simple tricks, using lengthy words and sentences, as well as connective words like “however.” Some developers — including a team at MIT, building software called EASE (Enhanced AI Scoring Engine) — are even trying to create automated systems that are more human by mimicking how actual professors grade.
From the Los Angeles Times, a reminder that the homeless aren’t homogeneous:
She’s homeless and likes it that way
Annie Moody has been arrested 59 times in six years, as L.A. officers try to get her off the streets of skid row. But to her, that’s home.
Moody has been arrested by Los Angeles police 59 times in roughly six years, according to LAPD arrest data — more than anyone else in the city. Since 2002, she has been tried 18 times, convicted 14 times and jailed for 15 months, costing taxpayers at least a quarter of a million dollars, according to court and law enforcement records.
Under a court settlement, homeless people can sleep on the sidewalk overnight but must be up by 6 a.m. or face charges of resting on the sidewalk or having an “illegal lodging.” Most of the 1,000 or so street dwellers on skid row fear arrest and move along, if only temporarily.
Authorities say she has turned down dozens of offers of shelter or services for the homeless. Friends believe police target her because she stands up for her rights. Police describe her as a homeless “anchor” whose defiance encourages others to remain in the streets, undermining efforts to clean up skid row.
From The Guardian, a story that should weigh on the minds of folks who probably don’t even care:
US death row study: 4% of defendants sentenced to die are innocent
Deliberately conservative figure lays bare extent of possible miscarriages of justice suggesting that the innocence of more than 200 prisoners still in the system may never be recognised
At least 4.1% of all defendants sentenced to death in the US in the modern era are innocent, according to the first major study to attempt to calculate how often states get it wrong in their wielding of the ultimate punishment.
A team of legal experts and statisticians from Michigan and Pennsylvania used the latest statistical techniques to produce a peer-reviewed estimate of the “dark figure” that lies behind the death penalty – how many of the more than 8,000 men and women who have been put on death row since the 1970s were falsely convicted.
Apathy by the numbers from United Press International:
Poll: Most millennials not planning to vote in November
Higher percentage of young conservatives plan to vote in November than young liberals.
23 percent of the millennial generation plan to vote in the U.S. midterm elections in November, according to a poll released Tuesday.
The Harvard Institute of Politics said there has been a marked drop in political enthusiasm among those aged 18 to 29 in the past few months. In November, 34 percent of that age group said they would probably vote.
The news is bad for the Democrats, since the current generation of 20-somethings tends to lean in their direction. Even worse, the poll found, that millennials with conservative views are more likely to say they will be voting than those who lean liberal.
SINA English covers imperial expansion:
Disney says to spend $800M on Shanghai theme park
Disney says it and its Chinese partner will spend $800 million more on their Shanghai theme park, bringing the total investment to nearly $5.5 billion.
The extra spending will go toward more attractions, entertainment and other offerings. Most of the additions are targeted to be completed by opening day, which is aimed for the end of 2015.
CEO Bob Iger said in a statement that Disney has been impressed with the growth of China’s economy, the expansion of the middle class and a significant increase in travel and tourism.
While Computerworld frets:
White House sees ‘real danger’ China will soon take R&D lead
Spending on research drops as Congress pursues austerity
Compared to the rest of the world, the U.S. continues to lead in spending on research and development (R&D). But the rate of spending by other nations — China, in particular — is increasing at a faster pace. This fact is creating angst in Congress.
At a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing today on U.S. R&D spending, Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) the committee chairwoman, said that much of America’s “exceptionalism” comes from its investment in science. “We cannot afford to let other countries out-invest or out-innovate the U.S.,” she said.
But the committee’s ranking member, Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), threw cold water on Mikulski’s rallying call for R&D support, by linking federal debt and mandatory spending to science spending.
From New Europe, The Lobby swings into action [unction?]:
Kerry backs off Israel ‘apartheid’ remark after withering criticism
Secretary of State John Kerry says he chose the wrong word in describing Israel’s potential future after coming under withering criticism for saying the Jewish state could become an “apartheid state” if it doesn’t reach a peace deal with the Palestinians.
In a statement released by the State Department Monday, Kerry lashed out against “partisan political” attacks against him, but acknowledged his comments last week to a closed international forum could have been misinterpreted. While he pointedly did not apologize for the remarks, he stressed he was, and is, a strong supporter of Israel, which he called a “vibrant democracy.”
He said his remarks were only an expression of his firm belief that a two-state resolution is the only viable way to end the long-running conflict. And, he stressed, he does not believe Israel is, or is definitely track to become, an “apartheid state.”
TheLocal.ch gives it up for Rummy:
Donald Rumsfeld ‘gets Swiss social benefits’
Donald Rumsfeld, the controversial former US secretary of defence, is receiving around 5,000 francs ($5,680) a year in benefits from the Swiss social security system (AHV), according to a news report.
Rumsfeld, condemned for authorizing torture in the Iraq as head of the military under former president George W. Bush, receives 400 francs a month from the AHV, the Tages Anzeiger newspaper reported on Tuesday.
The 81-year-old and his wife have probably been receiving the pension since the summer of 1997, the Zurich-based daily said.
He was entitled to this pension benefit from his position on the board of directors of Swiss engineering and technology company ABB, Tages Anzeiger said.
And here at home, a less harmonious scene from Frontera NorteSur:
Life, Death and Struggle on New Mexico’s Mean Streets
Albuquerque’s Wyoming Boulevard bustles on the edge of what some people call the War Zone and others name the International District. Both names really fit, but perhaps in ways not completely envisioned by the architects of popular lingo.
Here, the urban geography is imprinted with the social shrapnel of foreign and domestic wars, global migration and the cycles of capitalism. Gang conflicts, domestic violence, substance abuse, and prostitution have long rattled the zone, where many families nonetheless live, love, work and attempt to get ahead.
A rainbow of the human race inhabits this section of the city’s Southeast Heights-refugees from Southeast Asian wars, Native Americans from the reservations of Manifest Destiny, Mexicans from the collapsing campo and imploding cities of the NAFTA zone, struggling retirees from the USA of yesteryear.
And from the Associated Press, it oughta be a crime:
Oklahoma inmate dies after execution is botched
An Oklahoma inmate whose execution was halted Tuesday because the delivery of a new drug combination was botched died of a heart attack, the head of the state Department of Corrections said.
Director Robert Patton said inmate Clayton Lockett died Tuesday after all three drugs were administered.
Patton halted Lockett’s execution about 20 minutes after the first drug was administered. He said there had been vein failure.
On to Europe and waning homes from Reuters:
Euro zone sentiment, inflation expectations dip in April
Euro zone economic sentiment deteriorated slightly in April, defying forecasts of further improvement, while inflation expectations continued to fall, European Commission data showed on Tuesday.
The monthly Commission survey showed that economic sentiment in the 18 countries sharing the euro eased to 102.0 in April from 102.5 in March, mainly because of a dip in confidence in the construction sector and in services.
Economists polled by Reuters had expected an improvement to 103.0 in April.
EUbusiness concentrates power:
EU anti-fraud chief sees need for Europe-wide prosecutor
The head of Europe’s anti-fraud agency has backed calls to establish a public prosecutor’s office to probe and prosecute crimes committed against the European Union’s financial interests.
Giovanni Kessler, director general of the EU’s anti-fraud office OLAF, told AFP the mooted public prosecutor would be a “natural evolution” which would allow for “fully fledged criminal investigations.”
OLAF, which was established in 1999, has the power to investigate fraud and corruption in EU institutions. However, it must then hand over evidence gathered to national prosecutors in the EU’s 28 member states.
And from The Independent, a polarizing threat from 10 Downing Street:
David Cameron would quit as Prime Minister after general election if he could not deliver on in-out EU referendum pledge
David Cameron pledged tonight to step down as Prime Minister after next year’s general election if he could not deliver on his promise to hold a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union.
His comments indicate that the pledge to stage the EU vote in 2017 would be a “red line” for the Conservatives in any post-election negotiations to form a Coalition government.
In a conference call with party stalwarts, Mr Cameron said he would not “barter or give away” his in-out referendum promise.
Last year the Prime Minister said he would wrest back powers from Brussels and put the deal he negotiates to the public in the first referendum on EU for more than 40 years.
Meanwhile, the HeraldScotland discovers another threat, Mother Nature:
Volcanic blast ‘as great a threat to UK security as nuclear terrorism’
AN ERUPTION of a supervolcano in Iceland should pose as great a threat to Britain as nuclear terrorism, according to a high level UK government report.
The warning was made by a group of academics and scientists from the British Geological Survey and the Met Office, which also involved geologists from Edinburgh University.
They argue that certain types of eruptions of Icelandic volcanoes, known as effusive gas-rich eruptions, should be considered an immediate risk to human health and the environment for much of northern Europe.
On to Ireland, where rich crooks get the usual wrist-slap, via TheJournal.ie:
No jail time for convicted Anglo pair, judge says prison sentences would be ‘incredibly unjust’
Pat Whelan and Willie McAteer will now be assessed for suitability for community service.
ANGLO EXECUTIVES PAT Whelan and Willie McAteer will be assessed for community service following their conviction for their roles in providing illegal loans totalling €450 million to 10 individuals.
Judge Martin Nolan said that it would be ‘unjust’ to impose prison sentences on the Anglo pair because a State agency “led them into error and illegality”.
The judge said that he could not be certain Whelan or McAteeer knew they were in breach of the law but were, nonetheless, in breach.
Next up, Germany, starting with bankster anxieties from Deutsche Welle:
Deutsche Bank still waiting for profit boost
Germany’s biggest lender is still struggling to enhance its profit. Although first-quarter business was ‘resilient’ and legal costs could be curbed, sluggish investment banking weighed on earnings.
Deutsche Bank announced Tuesday its net profit dropped by no less than 34 percent in the first three months of the year as slower trading of bonds and foreign exchange factors weighed on its business.
Deutsche said it earned 1.10 billion euros ($1.52 billion), compared with 1.66 billion euros in the same period last year.
The Frankfurt-based lender also took over half a million euros in losses from its non-core unit keeping assets intended to be sold or wound down. The write-downs came at a special commodities group that took a huge hit on US power trading due to a price spike amid severe winter weather.
From Associated Press, echoes of another, earlier economic crisis:
Germany sees spike in left-wing violence
German authorities are reporting a rise in politically-motivated crimes over the last year, driven by a spike in left-wing violence and other illegal activity.
The Interior Ministry said Tuesday the far-right accounted for most such crimes with 17,042 acts in 2013, down 3.3 percent from 2012. More than two-thirds of those crimes were classified as propaganda, such as displaying the swastika or other banned symbols. Violent crimes dropped 0.6 percent to 837.
By contrast, leftist crimes rose 40.1 percent to 8,673 acts in 2013, nearly half of which were property damage. Violent crimes rose 28.4 percent to 1,659 — largely attacks on police and others during demonstrations.
Germany saw an 11.2 percent increase in anti-foreigner crimes to 3,248, but a 7.2 percent drop in anti-Semitic incidents to 1,275.
On to Paris and a “socialist” [sic] government’s austerian agenda from France 24:
French lawmakers approve €50bn deficit-reduction plan
France’s lawmakers Tuesday voted narrowly in favour of a plan to slash €50 billion from the country’s budget deficit by 2017, but a high abstention rate underscored discord within the Socialist majority.
The plan, designed to allow the eurozone’s second-largest economy to meet deficit-reduction commitments, passed with 265 votes in the National Assembly, France’s lower house of parliament, with 232 voting against and 67 abstaining.
The programme can now be submitted for approval to the European Commission, which has already granted France two extra years to bring its deficit below EU-mandated limits.
And from TheLocal.fr, hard times beget the usual scapegoats:
Paris cops told to ‘purge’ Roma from posh area
Police in Paris’s posh 6th arrondissement have been ordered to count up Roma people and “systematically purge” them from the area, media reports said [15 April]. The public outrage prompted by the orders forced France’s top cop to wade into the row.
An internal memo revealing police in the upscale 6th arrondissement of the French capital have orders to purge Roma people, their children and animals from the neighborhood has prompted outrage among officials and activists.
The memo, which was leaked to French daily Le Parisien, notes the order come directly from “police headquarters” and commands: “Effective immediately and until further notice, day and night personnel of the 6th arrondissement are ordered to find Roma families living in the street and systematically purge (évincer in French) them.”
While The Guardian covers French toxic worries:
French children exposed to dangerous cocktail of pesticides, campaigners say
Analysis of hair samples from youngsters living or studying near farms or vineyards found total of 624 pesticide traces
Children in agricultural areas are being exposed to a dangerous cocktail of pesticides, some of which are banned substances, a French health and environment group has claimed.
Générations Futures did independent analysis of the hair of young people living or studying near farms and vineyards after parents expressed worries about their children being exposed to poisons that could disrupt their endocrine system.
The group, a non-profit organisation specialising in the use and effects of pesticides on humans and the environment, says its findings confirmed their fears.
Next, on to Lisbon and another austerian agenda adopted from the Portugal News:
Government approves budget strategy document with €1.4bn in 2015 cuts
Portugal’s government on Monday approved a Budget Strategy Document (DEO) for the year covering the period to 2018, at a cabinet meeting that lasted around five hours, a government official told Lusa News Agency.
Government approves budget strategy document with €1.4bn in 2015 cuts
The document is understood to contain details of the spending cuts for next year 2015 that, according to the finance minister, Maria Luís Albuquerque, are to total €1.4 billion.
The DEO is a document that the government presents each year in April, and which looks ahead to revenues and spending to the coming years.
Spain next, starting with worrisome numbers from ANSAmed:
Spain’s jobless rate hits 25.9% in Q1
Almost 2 million households lack breadwinner
Spain’s unemployment rate rose in the first quarter of 2014 to 25.9% from a previous 25.73%, said the national institute of statistics INE on Tuesday.
There are almost two million households in the country in which all the members are unemployed. In the first quarter this category rose by 2.7% (53,100) to 1,978,900, but dropped on an annual basis by 1.7%.
INE noted that in the first quarter some 184,600 jobs had been lost (-1.08% on an annual basis), the smallest first quarter decrease since 2008. (ANSAmed).
TheLocal.se turns the tables:
Scores of Swedes beg in Spain’s tourist hotspots
A Swedish magazine sold by homeless people has caught the attention of the national media after it covered the homeless Swedes who beg in Spain’s most popular tourist areas.
Talk of Sweden and begging conjures images of eastern European migrants begging for change on Stockholm street corners. But few Swedes realize that hundreds of their own people are out begging on the streets of southern Europe — Spain, to be precise.
Faktum magazine, which is sold by homeless people in Gothenburg, released an issue on Tuesday that took a closer look at the phenomenon.
“The response has been tremendous really, gives people an important perspective on the debate in Sweden about poor EU migrants. There’s been a lot of discussion about Romanians and Bulgarians, but virtually nothing about Swedes who are begging in Spain, hoping for a somewhat better life,” Faktum editor Aaron Israelson told The Local.
TheLocal.es covers a taxing white sale:
Spanish tax office sells bras for extra cash
Fancy getting your hands on an oil painting, several tennis club memberships, or even a box of 50 bras? All of these items and many more are being auctioned off by Spain’s cash-strapped tax office.
Spain’s economic crisis has been hard on the country’s tax office.
While Spanish tax rates have shot up and are now among the highest in Europe, an unemployment rate of 26 percent and inefficient tax collection means the country is struggling to fill its public coffers.
But Spain’s tax office has found a hugely popular way to raise some much needed cash: online auctions.
From Rome, the threat of another Italian government collapse fr0m ANSA:
Renzi ready to quit if Senate reform fails
Premier not ready to go forward at all costs
Matteo Renzi reiterated Tuesday that he was ready to quit if his planned institutional reforms do not come to fruition.
He also told a meeting of his centre-left Democratic Party (PD) that he did “not accept” those who call his institutional reforms, including a revamp of the Senate, “authoritarian”. . The executive is trying to find a compromise over its bill to change the Constitution to overhaul the country’s slow, costly political apparatus, after recent friction about its intended transformation of the Senate.
The support of the opposition centre-right Forza Italia (FI) party for the reforms has looked in doubt in recent weeks, with its leader Silvio Berlusconi alternating between criticism of the plan and pledges to uphold it. Renzi won the agreement of three-time premier Berlusconi for the reforms at a meeting in January, a month before he toppled Enrico Letta, his colleague in the centre-left Democratic Party (PD), to become Italy’s youngest-ever premier at 39. The central part of the package is to turn the Senate into a leaner assembly of local-government representatives with minimal law-making powers to make passing legislation easier.
And a trip to Eastern Europe from EUobserver:
Anti-Roma views rampant across all Romanian political parties
Snow, wind and sub-zero temperatures descended on Romania in February, gridlocking the roads, isolating villages, killing pensioners and causing panic across the country.
Social Democratic Party (PSD) MP for Bucharest Dan Tudorache, a member of the Parliament’s foreign relations commission, chose this moment to post a public message on Facebook.
“It is minus 14 in Bucharest! Very cold!!!” he wrote. “So cold that I actually saw a gypsy with his hands in his pockets.”
For those unfamiliar with racist humour against Romania’s Roma minority, Tudorache was referring to the myth that ‘gypsies’ always have their hands exposed in the street so they can steal wallets and phones from passers-by.
After the jump, the latest tortuous twists in the Greek crisis, calls for regime change and car production in Brazil, Mexican telephonic discontent, poop protests, rare earths, and more from China, GMO rebuke, pollution woes, haughty sales staff justified, and questions raised about medical research. . .
For our first Greek item, another troubling decline from ANSAmed:
Trade: Greek exports down 5.5% in January and February
Greek exports dropped by 5.5% in January and February 2014, while imports also dropped by 4.1%, daily To Vima online reports quoting the national statistics authority Elstat.
Furthermore, Elstat found the trade deficit to be 3.60 billion euros, compared to 3.68 billion euros in the same two-month period in 2013, marking a 2.4% reduction. If oil products are excluded, Elstat documented a 430.4 million euros (20.2%) increase.
The overall value of exports in the two-month period was 4.18 billion euros, compared to 4.42 billion euros in 2013, indicating a 5.5% drop. By not including oil products, the value of exports dropped by 127 million euros (4.8%).
ANA-MPA blows smoke:
PM Samaras says country’s indications of energy resources ‘extremely auspicious’
Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, addressing a forum on “The Future of Greek Gas and Power Markets: Looking Ahead with Optimism and Realism” on Tuesday, said that “indications of the country’s energy resources are extremely auspicious”, adding that more and more Europeans are stressing the importance of the country’s wealth of energy sources.
“From energy alone we can achieve growth that will meet every target,” Samaras noted. “Of course, we shall not rely on energy alone. All this necessitates investments, stability, serious planning, consistent implementation, trust in Greece, open communication by Greece with the world and a stabilising role of Greece in our region instead of isolationist behaviour”, the premier further said, adding that “energy is the outstanding issue that reflects distortions of the Greek economy”
From To Vima, state-sponsored intolerance decried:
Amnesty International condemns Greece for refugee expulsions
The NGO calls for the EU to impose sanctions on Greece for failing to address the unlawful expulsions
Amnesty International has published a report regarding “the ongoing, persistent and shameful treatment by the Greek authorities of people risking their lives to find refuge in Europe” and has called for the European Union to impose sanctions for direct violations of international human rights obligations.
According to the report, Greece’s treatment of refugees and immigrants on the borders is “deplorable”, with the report detailing that violence, intimidation and humiliation tactics have become widespread and routine practices.
And a rare bit of modestly upbeat news from ANA-MPA:
Moody’s upgrades outlook for Greek banking system to stable?
Moody’s Investors Service on Tuesday upgraded the outlook for the Greek banking system to stable from negative, reflecting expectations that the Greek economy would return to growth in 2014-2015 after six years of contraction.
The credit rating agency, in a report, said that “the gradual economic recovery, coupled with Greek banks’ recapitalisations and regained access to inter-bank and international capital markets, will further ease funding pressures and lead to a gradual recovery of pre-provision profitability in 2015. In addition, the outlook also takes into account the expected deterioration in asset quality and capital metrics in 2014, although at a much reduced pace than before”.
The rating agency considers that despite continued weak domestic demand in the wake of wage cuts and a still elevated unemployment rate the operating environment for Greek banks will gradually improve, signalling the re-emergence of more normalised financial metrics over the 12-18 month outlook horizon.
Followed by yet more declines from MacroPolis:
Credit contracts by 4.1 pct in March, loans down by 3.4 pct
The year on year (YoY) credit contraction in the Greek market slightly accelerated to 4.1 percent in March from 4 percent in the preceding two months, with balances reaching 215.88 billion euros, according to the BoG.
Loan balances slipped 0.4 percent MoM for the twelfth successive month with net deductions broadly stable at 718 million in March from 773 million in February. This month’s negative net flow reflects corporate and household lending net deductions of 405 and 312 million respectively similar to that evident in February.
The key reasons for the prevailing negative credit expansion at around 4 percent over the past two years are increasing non-performing loans, continued deleveraging and restrained deposit flow, all resulting from the ongoing recession.
Off the Latin America, starting close to home with the Journalism in the Americas Blog:
Thousands protest in Mexico against telecommunications bill
On Saturday April 26, around 7,000 people formed a human chain in front of Mexico’s Senate in protest of a new proposed communications bill that President Enrique Peña Nieto presented last Monday.
The bill, which would complement the federal telecommunications and radio broadcasting law that has been in effect since 1995, is being tauted as having the objective of balancing the relationship between telecom giants and smaller businesses, but the text of the bill has drawn strong criticism for certain articles that would give the executive branch the power to control media content.
Peña Nieto said he wants to encourage pluralism and fight against the media monopoly that America Móvil and Televisa represent. However, some fear that the bill would also threaten the independence of the autonomous Federal Institute of Telecommunications and would grant the executive branch the power to temporarily block telecommunications signals.
MercoPress finds nostalgia further south:
Brazilian coalition members want ‘Lula back’ for October’s election
At least twenty members of Brazil’s Lower House belonging to the ruling coalition have formally asked for the return of former president Lula da Silva as candidate for next October’s election given ‘the current economic situation of the country’, which in practical terms means dumping Dilma Rousseff’s re-election pretensions.
Under the heading of “Back Lula” most members of a junior member of the ruling coalition, the Partido Republicano, have signed a manifesto which they have posted in Congressional offices next to a picture of Lula da Silva with the presidential sash.
“We believe that in the current moment of crisis, both domestically and overseas, the strength of a leadership with experience and brilliance such as that of Lula da Silva would be enlightening”, says the manifesto. Although they will continue to support president Rousseff, “we are not saying we want Dilma out, but rather we want Lula back to help address the challenge of the coming economic crisis”. Twenty of the 32 PR representatives signed the petition.
And form MercoPress again, driving ambitions:
Argentina and Brazil plan to prop economies by stimulating the auto industry
Argentine Economy Minister Axel Kicillof and Industry Minister Débora Giorgi fly to Brasilia on Tuesday in a bid to swing the automobile trade balance in Argentina’s favor, with the sector accounting for the majority of a total 3.15 billion dollars trade deficit. From Brazil Finance minister Guido Mantega confirmed bilateral discussions on the auto industry and exports.
Minister Kicillof and Deborah Giorgi are expected Tuesday in Brazil to talk bilateral trade Minister Kicillof and Deborah Giorgi are expected Tuesday in Brazil to talk bilateral trade
With car production down 16% in Argentina and 8.4% in the first quarter of 2014 compared to the same three months last year, both parts are keen to extend the existing pact.
Both countries have a history in collaborating to protect their respective auto sectors, with multinational firms including Fiat, Renault and Volkswagen setting up major plants in both Brazil and Argentina.
Off to Asia, starting with, well, this from SINA English:
Hong Kong: Disputes escalate in “poop protest”
Clashes between Chinese mainlanders and HongKongers escalated last Sunday, when 30 Hongkongers protested with props of fake excrement in a mall of the prosperous Tsim Sha Tzui, Hong Kong.
A mainland couple allowed their 2-year-old son to relieve himself by the road at Mangkok, Hong Kong and conflicted with local pedestrians who took photos of the child caused quite a stir among Chinese netizens.
While the majority of mainland netizens show understanding for the couple, HongKongers think differently. On April 27, 30 Hong Kong natives demonstrated against mainland tourists in a shopping mall at Tsim Sha Tzui, Hong Kong’s main tourism and commercial zone.
And from SINA English again, those American GMOs hit the Great Wall of China:
China returns U.S. transgenic corn
China has returned over one million tonnes of maize imported from the United States that contained an unapproved transgenic component, the country’s leading quality watchdog announced on Tuesday.
As of April 21, 1.124 million tonnes of corn and maize-based products contaminated with MIR162, a transgenic component yet to be approved by Chinese authorities, had been returned to the U.S., said Chen Xitong, spokesman of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine.
The administration has asked entry-exit inspectors nationwide to strengthen their monitoring efforts and have allowed them to return or destroy any agricultural products with unapproved transgenic components.
From Bloomberg, another consequence of globalization:
Rich-poor income gap worse in China than U.S.
The income gap between the rich and poor in China has surpassed that of the United States and is among the widest in the world, according to a report.
A common measure of income inequality almost doubled in China between 1980 and 2010 and now points to a “severe” disparity, according to researchers at the University of Michigan. That conforms to what many Chinese people already say they believe—in a 2012 survey, they ranked inequality as the nation’s top social challenge, above corruption and unemployment, the report found.
“Chinese recognize income inequality as a serious social problem; on the other hand, they seem to have high tolerance for income inequality,” said co-author Yu Xie, a sociology professor and a researcher with the university’s Institute for Social Research in Ann Arbor, Michigan. “They don’t like it, but they seem to accept it as a fact of life. Something they have to pay for fast economic growth.”
While The Diplomat examine a Chinese hole card:
China’s Rare Earths Advantage
An adverse WTO ruling will do little to upset the dominance China enjoys in this critical sector.
In late March, a dispute settlement panel of the World Trade Organization (WTO) found China’s rare earth element (REE) export regulations to be in violation of trade rules and deemed them to be an attempt to “secure preferential use” for domestic firms and to attract foreign investment. The ruling, which China is likely to challenge by May, has already been dismissed as “irrelevant” by the Chinese REE industry, perhaps reflecting the fact that China is the world’s largest consumer of REEs in addition to being the largest producer.
In fact, China’s holds key techno-economic advantages across the REE value chain that has actually led to emerging foreign mines becoming dependent on it for growth, especially at a time when REE prices have fallen dramatically from their 2011 highs. At the moment it is difficult for any single country to challenge China’s advantage in this sphere and the lack of forward movement in India-Japan cooperation hasn’t helped matters.
Meanwhile, confidence remains, via China Daily:
China’s CEOs confident: PwC
Faith in China’s economy, the world’s second largest, is increasing and about half the country’s chief executive officers are “very confident” in their company’s prospects over the next 12 months, a survey showed. Globally, 33 percent of CEOs rank China as their top market for expansion in the period.
PwC’s 17th Annual Global CEO Survey polled 1,344 corporate heads in 68 countries from October through December, including 66 from the Chinese mainland. It showed that compared with the previous year, twice as many CEOs around the world believe the global economy will improve in the next 12 months.
In China, 47 percent of CEOs are “very confident” about their company’s growth prospects. Compared with global peers, they are the least likely to be looking at new geographic markets for growth – 5 percent compared to the global average of 14 percent – and are clearly focused on the domestic market.
On to Tokyo, a a threat from Washington via the Japan Times:
TPP may leave Japan behind: U.S. farm chief
A Pacific Rim trade agreement may have to proceed without Japan if Tokyo fails to open its agricultural markets to imports, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said.
“It is incumbent upon us to have market access, and if the Japanese are unwilling and unable to provide that market access, then the other alternative is that you have a less comprehensive agreement in which the Japanese are not part,” Vilsack told reporters and editors in Washington on Monday.
“We don’t want that. We think it’s really important for the benefit” of the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal “that Japan be part of this.”
And the Prime Minister’s showcase policies take a hit, via the Japan Times:
‘Abenomics’ not aiding Asia: IMF
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s raft of economic policies, dubbed “Abenomics,” has delivered “a significant pickup in growth” in Japan, but the impact on other Asian economies has so far been “modest,” the International Monetary Fund has said in a report.
The lending agency said it had suggested in a previous analysis that the policy combination of aggressive monetary easing, traditional fiscal stimulus and growth strategies would create positive spillovers, such as encouraging capital flows into these countries after it was unveiled when Abe began his second stint as prime minister after the December 2012 general election.
But these effects were found to vary across the economies and the “spillover effects within Asia so far have been modest,” the IMF said in its Regional Economic Outlook report on Asia and Pacific on Monday.
On to Fukushimapocalypse Now!, a one-item entry consisting of a chilling story of domestic breakup from the Asahi Shimbun:
Survey: Half of Fukushima evacuee households split up; distress rife in families
Nearly half of households that evacuated following the Fukushima nuclear disaster have been split up while close to 70 percent have family members suffering from physical and mental distress, a survey showed.
The number of households forced to live apart exceeds the number that remain together, according the survey, the first by the Fukushima prefectural government that attempted to survey all households that evacuated.
The results were announced on April 28.
From The Guardian, other fuels, other problems:
Diesel engine pollution linked to early deaths and costs NHS billions
Environmental experts warn high percentage of diesel engines in public transport may cause quarter of all air pollution deaths
Diesel engines in buses, vans, cars and trains may be responsible for thousands of premature deaths a year and cost the NHS billions of pounds, say air pollution health experts.
With government figures for 2008 showing 29,000 people dying prematurely from air pollution each year, diesel fuel burned in vehicles could be responsible for around one in four of all air pollution deaths, said Frank Kelly, professor of environmental health at King’s College, London.
“We have walked blindly into a situation where we have a high percentage of diesels in the transport sector. All taxis and buses are diesel. From one in 10 private cars being diesel in 2000 it is now nearly half today. A lot of the minute particulate matter [emitted from exhausts] comes from diesels in cities. It is estimated that 50% of the particulate matter in London is from transport and that diesel makes up about half of all the transport,” he said.
From The Guardian, a dirty sort closer to home:
Almost half of Americans live with unhealthy levels of air pollution
Report finds 148m living in areas where smog and soot particles are health risk with climate change likely to worsen conditions
Nearly half of all Americans live in areas with unhealthy levels of air pollution, according to an American Lung Association (ALA) report released Wednesday.
Nearly 148 million people live in areas where smog and soot particles make it unhealthy to breathe the air, according to the ALA’s annual study on US air quality.
From RFI, a very wise proposal:
French environment minister wants Bisphenol A banned from shop receipts
France is to propose that Bisphenol A – a molecule which could be dangerous for pregnant women, babies and children – be banned from use on shop and restaurant receipt paper within the European Union.
Environment minister Ségolène Royal made the announcement during a presentation of her national strategy on dealing with the causes of hormone disruption.
It’s thought that Bisphenol A could affect growth, sleep patterns, blood circulation and behaviour.
From CBC News, haughty sells”
Why lousy retail service makes you come back again
University of B.C. research suggests rejection can be a powerful motivator in buying decisions
Getting rude and snobby service at a high-end retailer doesn’t make you boycott the store, and in fact compels you to come back in the future, new research out of the University of British Columbia suggests.
In a paper soon to be published in the Journal of Consumer Research, Sauder marketing professor Darren Dahl lays out the findings of his research, where he looked at the correlation between the quality of customer service that a shopper receives in a store with their likelihood to return to make more purchases in the future.
The results were counterintuitive. Broadly, Dahl’s research found that the more luxurious a store is perceived to be, the more likely it is to be able to get away with poor customer service. “Rejection by a brand increases consumers’ desire to affiliate with it, and they do so by increasing their willingness to purchase, pay for and wear or display items from the rejecting brand,” the paper says.
Finally, from io9, a finding that casts doubt on massive amounts of medical and behavioral research:
Lab Mice Become Stressed And Timid Around Men — But Not Women
In what is being considered a serious problem for biomedical research, scientists from McGill University have discovered that rodents become stressed and more timid when they can smell a male researcher, while the presence of a woman has no effect on them.
This is yet another example of why mice models are among the most unreliable test subjects. As this new Nature Methods study shows — and as has been long suspected — the presence of researchers affects the behavior of rodents. But now it appears that the level of experimental contamination is exacerbated and complexified by markedly different responses to the presence of male and female researchers. Clearly, the finding could have major implications for laboratory experiments using mice and rats.
“Scientists whisper to each other at conferences that their rodent research subjects appear to be aware of their presence, and that this might affect the results of experiments, but this has never been directly demonstrated until now,” noted lead researcher Jeffrey Mogil of McGill University in a statement.
