Don’t have time to be terribly clever, given the extensive nature of today’s collection of news economic, political, and environmental [things military and secretuive follow in our second collection].
And the latest consequence of selling out the commons to the 0.001 percent and their lessers via the Washington Post:
White House opens door to tolls on interstate highways, removing long-standing prohibition
With pressure mounting to avert a transportation funding crisis this summer, the Obama administration Tuesday opened the door for states to collect tolls on interstate highways to raise revenue for roadway repairs.
The proposal, contained in a four-year, $302 billion White House transportation bill, would reverse a long-standing federal prohibition on most interstate tolling.
Though some older segments of the network — notably the Pennsylvania and New Jersey turnpikes and Interstate 95 in Maryland and Interstate 495 in Virginia — are toll roads, most of the 46,876-mile system has been toll-free.
And from the Washington Post again, not-so-creative destruction:
U.S. businesses are being destroyed faster than they’re being created
The American economy is less entrepreneurial now than at any point in the last three decades. That’s the conclusion of a new study out from the Brookings Institution, which looks at the rates of new business creation and destruction since 1978.
Not only that, but during the most recent three years of the study — 2009, 2010 and 2011 — businesses were collapsing faster than they were being formed, a first. Overall, new businesses creation (measured as the share of all businesses less than one year old) declined by about half from 1978 to 2011.
The authors don’t mince words about the stakes here: If the decline persists, “it implies a continuation of slow growth for the indefinite future.” This lack of economic dynamism, particularly the steep drop since 2006, may be one reason why our current recovery has felt like much less than a recovery. As Matt O’Brien noted on Wonkblog last week, annual job growth rates have stubbornly refused to budge above 2 percent for the duration of the recovery.
From Al Jazeera America, among those paying the price:
Cuts in public higher education hit minority schools hardest
The recession has seen some states cut their public higher education budget by more than 30 percent
A 2012 study from the Ford Foundation found that five Historically Black Colleges have closed their doors in the last two decades, and many Tribal Colleges and Universities are struggling to keep their faculty on staff because of budget cuts to state and federal aid programs that make up the majority of their budgets.
Things have been rough for public higher education across the board, but for HBCUs, Native American Tribal institutions, Hispanic and other minority serving institutions, the cuts are deeper.
Marybeth Gasman, director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Center for Minority Serving Institutions, told Al Jazeera when states slash their budgets for higher education, minority-serving schools have a much harder time rebounding and absorbing the financial hit because they don’t have the large cash reserves like some of the more prominent public or big-name private universities.
From United Press International, trying to partially right and wrong:
Elizabeth Warren pushes student loan refinancing bill
The Massachusetts Democrat says people holding student loans should be able to refinance them like car or home loans.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren is doing something about the $1.2 trillion in outstanding student federal loan debt she says is dragging down the middle class.
The Massachusetts Democrat is set to introduce a bill Tuesday that will allow people holding federal student loans to refinance them to the lower, current rate.
“When interest rates drop, people can refinance their home, they can refinance their business debt. It’s regarded as a smart move for any consumer or business. But student borrowers are prohibited from doing that under most programs,” Warren said. “This bill says we’re going to change that and let them refinance that down to current low rates.”
Warren, who has forged a reputation as an advocate for consumers, called the $66 billion in interest the government stands to collect from loans issued between 2007 and 2012 is “just plain wrong.”
From Agence France Presse, FYI:
Asians outperform white students because they try harder: study
Scientists at Queens College of New York, the University of Michigan and Peking University in Beijing looked at grades, test scores, teacher ratings, family income and education level, immigration status and other factors.
“Asian-Americans enter school with no discernible academic advantage over whites,” said the study, noting that “advantage grows over time.” By fifth grade, or age 10-11, Asian-Americans “significantly outperform whites,” and the peak difference is reached by grade 10, or age 15-16.
“Overall, these results suggest that the growing achievement gap can be attributed to a widening gap in academic effort rather than to differences in cognitive ability.”
Asian-Americans tend to be motivated by cultural teachings that instill the notion that effort is more important than inborn ability, researchers said. They also endure “greater parental pressures to succeed than in the case of comparable white peers.”
And from China Daily, a decline:
Chinese applicants for US grad schools drop
The number of Chinese applicants for graduate schools in the United States has dropped for the second year in a row, figures from an education group in the US show.
Applications from Chinese students for the 2014 fall enrollment dropped by 1 percent from a year earlier, said the report by the Council of Graduate Schools. Applications for the same period last year fell by 3 percent from those of 2012, the report said.
Overall foreign applications for US graduate schools rose by 7 percent, with the highest growth – 32 percent – coming from India, said the report released recently by the council, which advocates graduate education and research.
From Ars Technica, too much information:
On average, Americans get 189 cable TV channels and only watch 17
A new Nielsen report raises questions about the channel-bundling system.
In a blog post on Tuesday, Nielsen reported that on average, US homes receive 189.1 TV channels, but viewers only watch 17.5 of those channels.
The news will appear in Nielsen’s forthcoming “Advertising & Audiences Report,” and while the results seem somewhat intuitive, they articulate a very real problem in cable TV—the fact that consumers often feel forced into paying for a lot of TV they never watch.
Nielsen’s blog post today showed that the number of cable channels in an average US household has grown dramatically over the last five years, but the number of channels that viewers actually watch has hardly changed at all. In 2008, US households received an average of 129.3 channels but only actually viewed 17.3 channels. In 2013, the number of channels received increased 46 percent, but the number of channels viewed only increased 1 percent.
With all those channels, the country is still falling apart. From Salon:
United States plunges to 31st place in global maternal health ranking
“Today, an American woman faces the same lifetime risk of maternal death as a woman in Iran or Romania”
Less than a decade ago, the United States ranked 6th on Save the Children’s list of best places to be a mother. This year, it dropped to 31st place out of 178 countries. “In the U.S., the lifetime risk of maternal death has risen more than 50 percent since we launched our first report in 2000 — from 1 in 3,700 to 1 in 2,400,” said Carolyn Miles, president and CEO of Save the Children. “Today, an American woman faces the same lifetime risk of maternal death as a woman in Iran or Romania.”
In Texas alone, the maternal mortality rate quadrupled over the last 15 years to nearly 25 out of 100,000 births, according to data from the state’s Department of Health Services. The United States is one of the top 10 wealthiest countries in the world.
And it may get worse, as costs of drugs could soar under all those “free trade” agreements both Dubya and Barry O have so ruthelessly promoited, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ Off the Charts blog:
Emerging Trade Agreement Would Make Drugs Less Affordable
Our concerns fall into three main areas.
First, the draft TPP would restrict Medicare’s ability to limit the prices it pays for drugs for Part B beneficiaries. The recent release of Medicare physician payment data has vividly illustrated the large sums spent on Part B drugs, such as Lucentis, a macular degeneration treatment that costs $2,000 per monthly injection. The TPP could allow drug companies to challenge existing Part B payment policies that hold down costs and foreclose some future cost-containment steps, such as discouraging the use of new drugs that are costlier but no more effective than existing alternatives.
Second, the draft TPP would raise health care costs further by expanding patent protections for drugs and medical devices. Drug companies use various strategies — such as making small changes in their products — to extend their patents and fend off competition from generic drugs. The TPP could limit efforts to combat these “evergreening” strategies. It would also make it easier for companies to obtain patents for therapeutic and diagnostic techniques that now aren’t patentable.
Third, the draft TPP would give companies a new legal avenue to challenge U.S. pricing and patent policies for drugs and medical devices: the ability to sue the U.S. government before an international arbitration panel that wouldn’t be subject to normal democratic checks and balances. Under a similar provision of the North American Free Trade Agreement, for example, the drug company Eli Lilly is suing the Government of Canada for $500 million because Canadian courts invalidated patents for two drugs that didn’t meet Canada’s legal standards.
A global story from Deutsche Welle:
OECD predicts moderate growth, unemployment to drop only slowly
The US and the eurozone will see economic output grow at a modest pace this year and next, but the number of people out of a job will remain higher than before the crisis, according to the OECD’s spring outlook.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) predicts modest global growth for 2014 and 2015 in its biannual economic outlook, published on Tuesday. But the group lowered its 2014 global forecast to 3.4-percent growth, down from 3.6 percent predicted in its autumn outlook last year.
Unemployment across the world is to fall only slowly, with 11.25 million more people out of a job at the end of 2015 than at the onset of the global crisis, according to the global forum.
Global growth will increasingly be shaped by Asian countries, specifically by China and India. Their share of the OECD countries’ combined output is to rise to 73 percent in 2060, up from 33 percent in 2010.
More on the warning from the Economic Times:
Slowing Chinese economy likely to pinch US, too
After watching China narrow the US lead as the world’s largest economy, Americans might be tempted to cheer signs that the Chinese economy might be stumbling.
Any schadenfreude would be short-sighted. In an interconnected global economy, bad news for one economic superpower is typically bad news for another — even a fierce rival.
“It hurts,” says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “China is the second-largest economy on the planet. If growth slows there, it affects everybody.”
Getting too testy, via the Guardian:
Global school tests under attack as OECD accused of killing ‘joy of learning’
Leading academics from 12 countries including UK call for next round of OECD Pisa tests on 15-year-olds to be scrapped
Leading academics have accused the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) of acting as an unaccountable super-ministry of education which kills the “joy of learning” and turns schooling into “drudgery”.
A letter signed by 120 leading academics and teachers from 12 countries – including Britain, the US and Germany – argues the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) tests on 15-year-olds distort the curriculum, reduce teachers’ autonomy and increase children’s stress levels.
The results of the Pisa tests, which the signatories say are “widely known to be imperfect” because they focus narrowly on the economic goals of education, are anxiously awaited in the 66 countries that take part.
From Deutsche Welle, geopolitical economics:
G7 drafts energy options to Russian gas
Group of Seven nations represented by their energy ministers have agreed to wean Europe off its dependency on Russian gas. Meeting in Rome, the G7 also said it would help Ukraine cope with Russian threats to cut supply.
The G7 industrialized powers agreed on Tuesday to help Ukraine to “strengthen its energy security” and warned Russia that “energy should not be used as a means of political coercion.”
Russia recently said that it could restrict gas supplies to Ukraine if Kyiv failed to make a pre-payment in May.
The Paris-based International Energy Agency, which took part in Tuesday’s consultations in Rome, was asked to submit an assessment within six months.
And our first purely European story, via Deutsche Welle:
European financial tax to be levied as of 2016
European Union finance ministers announced a planned tax on transactions will come into effect in 10 member countries in January 2016. But some nations remain opposed to the levy.
Meeting in Brussels, EU finance ministers said Tuesday a controversial tax on financial transactions would be levied in an initial group of 10 countries as of 2016. Some nations hope the project could help win over voters ahead of European elections in late May.
“We have agreed to put our money where our mouth is,” Austrian Finance Minister Michael Spindelegger told reporters. “On January 1, 2016, the first part of the tax initiative should come into effect.”
The minister said he expected the levy to generate “considerable revenues.” But the tax has been facing criticism from a number of non-participating EU nations, and from some business associations which fear the levy may have a negative impact on business investment.
On the edge with Reuters:
ECB seen on hold as inflation picks up, QE a way off
The European Central Bank will likely hold off policy action on Thursday, waiting for new forecasts from its staff in June before deciding whether to counter low inflation that ticked up last month.
The ECB Governing Council meets in Brussels against the backdrop of a Franco-German spat over ECB policy towards the euro’s exchange rate – one factor the bank’s president, Mario Draghi, has identified as a potential trigger for policy action.
Ahead of the meeting, markets pushed the euro above $1.39 and towards its high for this year after surveys showed euro zone firms enjoyed a brisk start to the second quarter.
On to Britain with the Guardian and a human rights disaster:
Manus Island block a ‘rape dungeon’, Salvation Army worker tells inquiry
Parliamentary inquiry also told of inadequate medical care, poor workplace safety and fears of violent attacks
Part of Manus Island detention centre was known as a “rape dungeon” to some guards, a former Salvation Army worker has alleged. In a submission to the Manus Island parliamentary inquiry, Nicole Judge said concerns she raised about possible sexual assaults in another part of the camp were ignored.
Other submissions make allegations of inadequate medical care, poor workplace safety and fears of violent attacks from local staff.
“I have heard P1 block in foxtrot being referred to by G4S guards as a ‘rape dungeon’,” Judge’s submission said. “I have been told never to enter this building due to heightened sexual activity in this particular building.”
From the Guardian, well-grounded opposition:
Fracking trespass law changes opposed by 74% of British public, poll finds
Move to allow shale gas companies to drill under homes without owner’s permission is widely-opposed, YouGov survey says
Signs at the anti-fracking protest camp set up at Barton Moss in Salford where energy company iGas has built a vertical test well to assess the suitability for shale gas tracking An anti-fracking protest camp set up at Barton Moss in Salford where energy company iGas has built a vertical test well to assess the suitability for shale gas tracking. Photograph: Christopher Thomond for The Guardian
The government faces widespread opposition to plans to change trespass laws to allow shale gas companies to drill under homes without the owner’s permission, a poll has revealed.
The YouGov survey of 1,898 people found that 74% opposed the controversial move, which ministers are thought to be considering as part of efforts to drive a “shale gas revolution” that could see fracking across swathes of the UK.
More than 45,000 people around the country have joined legal moves to block energy companies from fracking under their properties, but a change to the trespass laws could allow companies to explore for shale gas without needing their permission.
A bubble alarm from the London Telegraph:
Bank must burst housing bubble
Force buyers to find bigger deposits, says OECD think tank, to slow booming market that could put economic recovery at risk
The Bank of England should invoke new legal powers allowing it to rein in Britain’s booming housing market for the first time, an influential international think tank has said.
Would-be housebuyers should have to put down bigger deposits and George Osborne’s Help to Buy scheme should be cut back, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said.
The intervention from the OECD comes after senior figures at the Bank identified the housing market as the biggest threat to Britain’s financial stability.
On to Iceland and the growing scandal around a deceptive memo from a cabinet aimed at smearing Nigerian asylum seeker Tony Omos. From the Reykjavík Grapevine:
Interior Minister Digs Deeper
Minister of the Interior Hanna Birna Kristjánsdóttir has made false statements about certain facts of the Tony Omos memo scandal.
Kjarninn reports that while the minister has often said that she cannot comment on the Tony Omos case while police are still investigating ministry computers and questioning staff, this is actually not the case. In fact, there is nothing legally preventing her from commenting on the matter.
Hanna Birna has also told members of the press, and members of parliament, that the leaked memo on Tony Omos was “not comparable to any document in the ministry”. In fact, the police have concluded, that the memo in question was created in the ministry at the behest of the office manager, and then sent to at least eight people in the ministry, including Hanna Birna and her two assistants, Þórey Vilhjálmsdóttir and Gísli Freyr Valdórsson. The next day, what would later prove to be false information contained in the memo appeared on news website mbl.is.
For background on a most peculiar case, see this post at Tony Nwajei Post.
Finland next and withdrawal symptoms from Deutsche Welle:
Euroskeptic Finns Party has ‘changed the political landscape’
Finland sees itself as Europe’s star pupil. But the upstart Finns Party, with its euroskeptic party line, is polling at about 20 percent and is influencing the views of the country’s more established parties.
Angry with the establishment, many voters – predominantly male, factory workers, the unemployed – turned away from established parties and gave their support to Perussuomalaiset, as the party is known in Finnish. The result: the party garnered more than 19 percent of the votes in the in 2011 parliamentary election.
In the last decades, the now disbanded Finnish Rural Party was only able to capture a few seats in parliament; today, Lindström heads a faction of 39 representatives. “We have permanently changed the political landscape,” he said. “Instead of three big parties, there are now four.”
The party has not only shaken up parliament’s configuration, it has also introduced new topics into the national conversation. “We have made euroskepticism part of the discussion in Finland,” said Lindström. “Without us, no one would be discussing the bailouts. And nobody would be discussing migration, or the conversation would be completely different.”
France next, and a bad review from the Independent:
François Hollande versus the French people: president flops in TV questioning
François Hollande, the most unpopular French president in living memory, demonstrated the perils of wanting to be known as the “normal” leader by subjecting himself to a surreal hour-long television and radio grilling to mark the second anniversary of his election.
He took questions from listeners, including a 61-year- old woman who asked him whether he could live on her €662 (£550) monthly pension. “No,” he replied.
Earlier, the BFM TV interviewer Jean-Jacques Bourdin took a leaf out of Jeremy Paxman’s book to accuse the President of “amateurism” and of conducting a “reckless” private life which had cheapened the presidency. “You talk about [economic] recovery,” said Bourdin, “where is it?”
France 24 gives its spin:
France was ‘on verge of bankruptcy’, Hollande says
Marking the two-year anniversary on Tuesday since being elected and facing the lowest opinion polls in modern French history, President François Hollande urged his countrymen to reserve judgement until the end of his mandate in 2017.
The 59-year-old French leader said he would feel “impatient, but not disappointed” if he had been one of the people who had voted for him.
“I prefer making my decisions, assuming my responsibilities and then being judged on my results… The results will come,” he said during an interview with media group RMC and BFM TV. “I’ve asked to be judged at the end of my mandate.”
From TheLocal.fr, blood on the newsroom floor:
Editors at Le Monde newspaper quit en masse
A majority of chief editors at French daily Le Monde resigned from their posts on Tuesday amid a conflict with management over editorial reforms. The mass resignation comes while staff at another French newspaper are in uproar over plans to turn into a “social network”.
“A lack of confidence in and communication with editorial management prevents us from fulfilling our roles as chief editors,” seven of the newspaper’s senior editors said in an internal letter to management.
They said they remained available to help out until a new team is appointed to replace them, to avoid damaging the daily running of the newspaper.
Switzerland next, with business as usual from TheLocal.ch:
Credit Suisse to set up US ‘bad bank’: reports
Credit Suisse, facing potential criminal charges for helping Americans dodge taxes, has created a “bad bank” unit for US clients, Swiss media reported on Tuesday.
According to Swiss daily Tages Anzeiger, Switzerland’s second largest bank aims to drop all funds belonging to US citizens not residing in Switzerland, into a newly created bank called CS International Advisors AG, headquartered in Zurich and with its own separate banking licence.
The bank has reportedly been informing its off-shore US clients of the shift in recent days.
Off to Lisbon and bleak numbers from the Portugal News:
Budget cuts until 2030, debt to reach 131.8% GDP – OECD
Portugal is going to have to adopt budget consolidation measures of 1.9% a year until 2030, if it wants to reduce public debt to 60% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said on Tuesday.
In its ‘Economic Outlook’, released Tuesday, the OECD said that Portugal is in the group of countries that needed budget consolidation until 2030 to comply with the public debt objective but which had already done a lot of the work.
According to today’s forecasts, Portugal’s public debt is going to continue rising at least until 2015, when it will reach 131.8%.
This forecast runs contrary to government optimism, which expects the debt to start falling in 2015.
Spain next, with some qualified good news from ANSAmed:
Spain’s joblessness rate drops 2.3% in April
PM Rajoy calls figure ‘encouraging’
Some 111,565 fewer people were unemployed in Spain in April, equal to -2.3% on the previous month. The reduction was due to term contracts for the week of Easter, resulting in 133,000 more registered with the social security agency.
According to the figures released on Tuesday by the labor ministry, the decline in unemployment was the largest in the month of April since 1996. Despite the reduction, the overall number of those signed up with unemployment agencies was 4,684,301 people, a 6.1% (304,892 people) drop on the year.
In commenting on the figures in a radio interview with Cadena Ser, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said that the figures were positive and encouraging and that he was hopeful about the future.
Culture wars, via TheLocal.es:
Spanish PM ‘open to debate’ on abortion law
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy Tuesday stuck by his government’s plan to curb women’s abortion rights but said he was open to debate on the bill which has sparked angry protests.
The government has approved a draft law to end women’s right to have the procedure on demand up to 14 weeks of pregnancy, but the text has not yet gone to parliament for a vote amid dissent within Rajoy’s Popular Party.
“We are not going to withdraw the law,” Rajoy vowed on Tuesday in an interview on Spanish radio station Cadena Ser.
Italy next, and a lingua no longer franca via TheLocal.it:
Milan university to teach most degrees in English
The rector of one of Italy’s top universities in Milan is pushing ahead with a plan for degree courses to be taught in English despite a Lombardy court ruling against the move.
Twenty-nine out of 36 degree courses will be taught in English at the Politecnico di Milano from the start of the next academic year, La Repubblica reported.
The plans were initially announced by the university’s rector, Giovanni Azzone, in 2012, with the aim of rolling out all degree courses in English from 2014.
From ANSA, Bunga Bunga bounceback, dudes!:
Berlusconi not ruling out entering govt
Silvio Berlusconi on Tuesday said he was not ruling out the possibility that his opposition centre-right Forza Italia (FI) party could join the alliance supporting Premier Matteo Renzi’s coalition government after this month’s European elections. “We’ll have to see what happens with the economy. I don’t exclude the possibility that we could be together to take the decisions for the good of the country,” Berlusconi told the Radio Anch’io radio station.
Berlusconi’s party was part of the weak left-right grand-coalition government that was led by Enrico Letta after last year’s inconclusive general election. But after causing a series of crises for the administration, Berlusconi finally pulled his support for it in November, just before being ejected from parliament after a definitive tax-fraud conviction.
And from Europe Online, Bunga Bunga declamation:
Berlusconi: Italy could leave euro if ECB doesn’t soften policy
Italy and several other countries will have no choice but to leave the euro unless the European Central Bank drops its hardline monetary policies, former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi said Tuesday.
The ECB, whose governing council is due to hold a rate-setting monthly meeting Thursday, is under pressure to ease its stance to stave off the risk of deflation in Europe.
“Today it would be reckless, and nobody knows what would really be the consequences of our immediate exit from the euro,” Berlusconi said in a radio phone-in with state broadcaster RAI.
After the jump, the latest from Greece, Cyprus-testing, BRICs to BRICAS?, Chinese bubble deflation, Academic woes in China and Japan, a bad report card for Tokyo accompanied by political counterblasts, environmental alarm bells, and the latest from Fukushiumapocalypse Now!. . .
From ANA-MPA, our first Greek headlines Greeces the skids:
Twelve large energy infrastructure PCI projects to be ‘fast tracked’
The Environment, Energy and Climate Change Minister Yiannis Maniatis requested from the Interministerial Committee of Strategic Investments (DESE) on Tuesday the inclusion of 12 large energy projects in the “fast track” swift procedures for strategic investments.
The cumulative budget of these strategic projects – all of which have been adopted as key energy infrastructure projects of common interest (PCI) by the European Commission – is 11.4 billion euros, of which half is associated with the Israel -Cyprus-Greece gas pipeline.
Three out of the twelve energy projects which the minister petitions to transform into “fast track” projects are electricity projects, while the remaining nine projects are all natural gas projects.
From Keep Talking Greece, gas from a spent windbag:
Minister: Greece to turn into Ukraine, if Greeks downvote PASOK
If Elia will be down-voted, Greece will turn into Ukraine on elections night. This unbelievable claim was reportedly made by deputy interior minister Leonidas Grigorakos, a PASOK member in Greek coalition government.
Speaking at an event, Grigorakos made this claim, when he was asked to comment of PASOK leader Venizelos’ threat, that if Elia – a PASOK formation for the EU elections – received below 10% political stability in the country would be in danger.
“At some point we all need to answer some questions and dilemmas. Do we want the country to come out from the impasse and the loan agreement and to follow the path of stability or do we want the country on elections night to turn into a country suffering like the countries of North Africa, Ukraine, Turkey?” Grigorakos said.
That threat, via Greek Reporter:
Venizelos Says No Government Without PASOK
Following a meeting with Greek Prime Minister and New Democracy Conservative leader Antonis Samaras, his coalition partner, PASOK chief Evangelos Venizelos, said regardless of the outcome of critical elections this month for Greek municipalities and the European Parliament that the government can’t stand without his party. – See more at:
While New Democracy is locked in a tight battle with the major opposition Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) for the top spot, PASOK has faded almost into oblivion after backing continued pay cuts, tax hikes, slashed pensions and worker firings that the Socialists instituted when ruling alone in a previous administration.
In return for supporting austerity and the firing of workers last year at the now-defunct public broadcaster ERT, Venizelos was named Deputy Premier/Foreign Minister. His party had hovered at 3-5 percent support in polls before aligning itself with a new center-left movement of intellectuals and academics called Elia, or Olive Tree.
And party animals return, from Kathimerini English:
Jailed GD MPs to appear in Parliament
Lawmakers detained pending trial to get permission to attend immunity votes
Detained lawmakers of the ultra-right Golden Dawn party who face having their immunity to prosecution lifted are to be given permission to attend Parliament on the days that the House is due to discuss their cases, Kathimerini has learned.
Giorgos Germenis and former GD MP Stathis Boukouras are due in Parliament on Wednesday at around noon ahead of a vote on whether their immunity should be lifted for prosecution on charges of the illegal possession of explosives and weapons.
Lawmakers are also scheduled to vote on whether to lift the immunity of GD MP Nikos Michos and another former GD legislator, Chrysovalantis Alexopoulos, who quit the party in March, shortly before Boukouras left. Michos faces drug-related charges while Alexopoulos faces charges of belonging to a criminal organization.
Damned again, from ANA-MPA:
Investigators: Golden Dawn party ‘founded as criminal organization’
The extreme-right Golden Dawn (Chryssi Avgi) party, whose leader and certain of its deputies are currently detained pending trial, was founded in 1987 as a criminal organization with “political and operational branches,” according to investigating magistrates drawing up a case file against four newly-charged deputies who were given an extension on Monday to testify in the first half of June.
Appeals investigating magistrates Ioanna Klapa and Maria Dimitropoulou, said the organisation “Golden Dawn” was a criminal organisation that gradually accepted all four as of 1987 on. They said that the small and tight-knit group of neo-Nazi indoctrination of 1987 “morphed into a political group under the same name, ‘Popular Union-Golden Dawn’,” following the same ideological direction as Adolf Hitler’s party.
In their charges, the two investigators noted that their “political” section focused on “destroying the enemies of the nation”, which for the party included migrants, Roma and anyone not belonging to the (Aryan) Caucasian race – in direct violation of the Greek Constitution and international treaties on full protection of residents of the Greek state without discrimination on the basis of nationality, race, language, religion or political beliefs. The “operational” section, they said, ran along military lines and hierarchy, and used attack units with members who were physically trained to intimidate.
From Greek Reporter, viewed from the north:
German Press: Greece Resembles Third World Country
A recent article in German magazine Focus states that “the good news from Greece is misleading,” and that “this exhausted country will depend for many years on the support mechanism.” – See more at:
The article, referring to the food giveaways in Greek street markets, reports that thousands of people were rushing past producers’ stalls and raiding their trucks to get free fruits and vegetables, likening the scenes to those of a third world country.
According to Focus, the gaps between classes are huge – many people don’t have enough money to cover their basic needs, while others have found extremely creative ways to hide their wealth from the Greek state.
However, the German magazine claims the Greek media is presenting a completely different picture, citing recent headlines such as “Greece is saved,” “Greece achieved primary surplus,” or “Return to markets”.
Heading south with EUbusiness:
Troika begins fourth review of bailed-out Cyprus economy
A delegation from the troika of international lenders Tuesday began its fourth assessment of Cyprus’s economy and troubled banking system to see whether Nicosia is meeting its obligations under the bailout.
Cyprus has completed three similar reviews by the troika, which is made up of the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund.
The latest examination will focus on bank restructuring, a proposed national health scheme and dealing with non-performing loans.
Across the Atlantic with MercoPress:
India, Brazil and South Africa want Argentina to join the BRICS club
India, Brazil and South Africa are interested in having Argentina join the BRICS group of emerging economies which also includes Russia and China, according to Indian ambassador in Buenos Aires Amarenda Khatua in an interview with Clarin.
The New Delhi ambassador also revealed that he is working to arrange a visit to Argentina for the next Indian Prime Minister, following the BRICS summit in Fortaleza, Brazil scheduled for next 15 July. The Chinese foreign ministry has confirmed that president Xi Jinping will be visiting Buenos Aires on 19 July.
India is currently in the process of electing a new parliament and prime minister, which started on 7 April and will continue until 12 May, given the vastness of the country and the 815 million registered voters. On 16 May the new PM will be known and all indicates that the leading party is Bharatiya Janata, BJP, that supports Narendra Modi, but there is nothing definitive.
Asia next, and on to China with the sound of a deflating bubble with Bloomberg News:
China Property Slump Adds Danger to Local Finances
China’s weakening property market poses an increasing danger to local governments, threatening to strain their finances and intensify an economic slowdown.
Land sales in 20 major cities fell 5 percent in March from a year earlier, the biggest drop in at least a year, according to China Real Estate Information Corp. data compiled by Bloomberg. The value of land sales in third-tier cities declined 27 percent last month, according to SouFun Holdings Ltd., the nation’s biggest real-estate website owner.
Failure to find other revenue sources increases the risk of defaults and financial turmoil that curb economic expansion already projected this year at the slowest pace since 1990. Some cities plan to reverse controls implemented to make home prices more affordable or give residency benefits to out-of-town buyers, a state-run newspaper reported this week.
More, with a stark twist, from the Wall Street Journal:
China’s Property Bubble Has Already Popped, Report Says
China’s great real-estate bust has begun, says Nomura.
A combination of a huge oversupply of housing and a shortage of developer financing is producing a housing market downturn that could drive China’s GDP to less than 6% this year.
“To us, it is no longer a question of ‘if’ but rather ‘how severe’ the property market correction will be,” three Nomura analysts wrote in a report released Monday. And there isn’t much the government can do to head off problems. “There is no policy that is universally right,” says Nomura analyst Zhiwei Zhang.
More from Want China Times:
Local gov’ts in China move to ease home buying restrictions
A number of local governments across China have recently announced plans to ease restrictions on property purchases to rescue the flagging real estate market, reports the Beijing-based China Times (not our sister paper).
Authorities in cities such as Nanning, Wuxi, Fuzhou and Zhengzhou are increasingly concerned about the state of sector as property prices continue to fall, the paper said.
Local governments have in the past relied too much on selling land plots to finance their operations, a property developer told the paper. “We know very well that domestic governments will jump in to rescue the property market,” the executive said, adding that developers do not need to cut prices now.
From Global Times, the globalization blues:
Foreign barriers
Overseas returnees have hard time with official jobs
China has long cherished overseas students who return to their motherland. Many were honored in a new book published in March. But while names of elites in science and business fields, the prominent politicians are rarely mentioned.
“Politicians are sometimes controversial. If Sun Yat-sen and Zhou Enlai were included in the book, what about Chiang Kai-shek?” said the chief compiler Wang Huiyao. Sun and Chiang were both educated in Japan, and Zhou in France.
However, officials returned from overseas studies have undeniably played a significant role in China. They have been active in the political arena since the era of the Republic of China (1912-49). The group includes some recent senior officials, such as State Councilor Yang Jiechi, who studied at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) from 1973 to 1975.
But the number of officials who have studied abroad is dwindling, in stark contrast with the rising number of overseas students returning to China after graduation.
Off to Tokyo with autohornblowing from JapanToday:
Abe tells OECD ‘Abenomics’ has yielded great results
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Tuesday launched a spirited defense of his “Abenomics” reforms aimed at kickstarting the world’s third-largest economy, saying the policy blitz had yielded great results.
The reforms, based on big government spending, central bank monetary easing and structural change, had been hailed internationally as an opportunity to reverse deflation and sluggish growth after Abe launched them in 2012 when elected for a second term.
But they have recently lost some of their global shine, with the International Monetary Fund cutting its 2014 growth forecast for Japan last month and warning that “Abenomics still needs to translate into stronger domestic private demand.”
A contrarian alert from Kyodo News:
OECD warns Japan’s economy may suffer inflation without wage growth
Japan’s economy may face a slowdown if inflation goes up without wage expansion, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development warned Tuesday, cutting its projections for the country’s economic growth in 2014.
The Paris-based club of 34 advanced nations said in its biannual report that the world’s third-biggest economy would expand 1.2 percent this year, downgraded from its November forecast of 1.5 percent in terms of inflation-adjusted gross domestic product growth.
The OECD, meanwhile, urged Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government to promote structural reforms and raise Japan’s consumption tax rate to 10 percent next year as scheduled to attain its goal of restoring the country’s precarious fiscal health.
From the Japan Times, Abe sketches out the road
Abe says OECD should promote fair international trade rules
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Tuesday called on the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development to play a key role in promoting fair international trade rules, stressing the importance of creating a new economic order based on healthy competition.
Japan will accelerate efforts to conclude multinational free trade negotiations, including a deal with the European Union and a large-scale Pacific tariff-cutting pact, Abe said in a speech at a ministerial meeting of the OECD in Paris.
“Together with nations sharing basic views, I will create a big economic zone that ensures free competition under fair rules,” Abe said.
And Abe zones out, via Jiji Press:
Abe Mulls Economic Sphere with Countries Sharing Values
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe Tuesday proposed creating an economic sphere with countries that share fundamental values.
“Together with countries that share our fundamental values, I will create a major economic sphere that ensures competition under fair and impartial rules,” Abe said.
From the Japan Times, a complication to another of those freakin’ FTAs:
EU demands human rights clause linked to economic partnership agreement with Japan
The European Union is insisting on a human rights clause linked to a proposed economic partnership agreement (EPA) with Japan, it was learned Monday.
In negotiations between the EU and Japan on a strategic partnership agreement (SPA), which are held in parallel with their EPA talks, the EU is calling for a clause that allows Brussels to suspend the EPA if Japan engages in human rights violations, informed sources said.
While the EU says the clause in the SPA also allows Japan to do the same if the EU violates human rights, Tokyo is strongly opposed to the demand, the sources said.
The Yomiuri Shimbun spots a decline:
Former powerhouse Japan’s waning academic might
Japan is facing the harsh reality of losing ground to other Asian countries in math and science, and it must urgently nurture children who are talented in these academic areas.
Japan ranked fifth in the world in terms of the number of scientific papers published from 2009 to 2011, down from second 10 years ago. In a breakdown by country of the top 10 percent of the most-cited academic papers, Japan dropped from fourth to seventh. Meanwhile, the number of academic papers issued in China, South Korea and India has been sharply increasing.
A particular cause of Japan’s weakening presence in academics is believed to be the decrease in the number of Japanese people studying abroad, as coauthoring papers with overseas scholars has become common practice among researchers in recent years.
The paper also posted these testing results from the 2012 Program for International Student Assessment:
On to Fukushimapocalypse Now!, starting with this from NHK WORLD:
More than 3,000 evacuees die since 3/11 disaster
An NHK survey has found that the number of evacuees who have died from poor health since the 2011 disaster has topped 3,000.
NHK asked local authorities about the deaths of evacuees as of the end of March. Most victims are believed to have died due to poor health brought on by the fatigue and stress of moving to temporary shelters.
The survey found that 3,076 people have died in 10 prefectures. The number rose by 388 from last year’s figure.
NHK WORLD again, with another growing number:
Culling of wild boars near Fukushima nuclear plant
Areas around the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant are still designated as evacuation zones 3 years after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
But the areas have become home to an increasing number of wild boars and their offspring with domestic pigs, and the animals have been causing damage to empty houses and farms.
The Environment Ministry plans to expand its culling of the animals to prevent further property damage.
From Want China Times, evidence that Japan’s nuclear nightmare has prompted sober, second thoughts across the China Sea:
Experts disagree on China’s plans for inland nuclear plants
Energy experts in China are divided in polarized camps over inland nuclear power projects. Debate over the desirability of building nuclear power plants in China’s interior regions has arisen due to the possibility of their inclusion in Beijing’s next five-year national development plan, according to Shanghai’s China Business News.
In an article published in the Chinese-language China Energy News on April 14, Wang Yinan, a researcher at the Development Research Center of the State Council, contended that inland nuclear facilities are unsuited to China, immediately eliciting a strong response from his peers in the latest replay of the debate which emerged in the wake of the Fukushima meltdown in Japan in 2011.
Wang argued that inland nuclear power facilities are unsuited to China in terms of safety, cleanness and economic value, adding that the outlook for such facilities, mostly on rivers or lakes, as opposed to coastal areas, is dim due to operational difficulties.
And for other environmental news, we begin with this from the National Center for Atmospheric Research:
Climate Change Threatens to Worsen U.S. Ozone Pollution
Ozone pollution across the continental United States will become far more difficult to keep in check as temperatures rise, according to new research led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). The detailed study shows that Americans face the risk of a 70 percent increase in unhealthy summertime ozone levels by 2050.
This is because warmer temperatures and other changes in the atmosphere related to a changing climate, including higher atmospheric levels of methane, spur chemical reactions that lead to ozone.
Unless emissions of specific pollutants that are associated with the formation of ozone are sharply cut, almost all of the continental United States will experience at least a few days with unhealthy air during the summers, the research shows. Heavily polluted locations in parts of the East, Midwest, and West Coast in which ozone already frequently exceeds recommended levels could face unhealthy air during most of the summer.
From the Guardian, political opportunism:
Senator says Ukraine instability makes case for Keystone XL pipeline
Head of energy and natural resources committee argues needs for energy independence in the US is greater than ever
The head of the Senate energy and natural resources committee said Tuesday that instability in Ukraine makes the case for building the Keystone XL oil pipeline in the United States.
“Progress has been too slow,” said senator Mary Landrieu. She said the proposed pipeline from Canada to the United States would contribute only marginally to air quality problems.
Landrieu sidestepped a question about President Barack Obama’s hesitance to proceed with the pipeline. “I think he has some serious questions about how much it would contribute to the deteriorating climate situation,” she said.
But The Hill offers another assessment:
Pipeline deal on verge of collapse
An impasse over amendments is threatening to scuttle a vote on legislation to build the Keystone XL pipeline, despite Sen. Mary Landrieu’s (D-La.) insistence Tuesday that she is within two or three votes of a filibuster-proof majority.
The deal offered by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) gave Keystone supporters a vote on their pipeline, but only if Republicans allowed an up-or-down vote on an energy efficiency bill now on the Senate floor.
Republicans are now demanding votes on five GOP amendments to the energy efficiency bill, and Reid on Tuesday said he would not allow any of them.
For our final headline, Bloomberg News cashes out:
Stanford University Says It Will Divest From Coal Companies
Stanford University said it will stop investing in coal companies in response to a student-led campaign aimed at curbing climate change.
The university’s board of trustees voted today to no longer make direct investments in publicly traded companies that mine coal for energy generation. The vote followed the recommendation of a panel including students, faculty, staff and alumni that has been studying the impact of fossil-fuel companies for several months, Stanford said.
“Moving away from coal in the investment context is a small but constructive step while work continues at Stanford and elsewhere to develop broadly viable sustainable energy solutions for the future,” John Hennessy, Stanford’s president, said in a statement.
