As bitcoin halved in value after several Chinese exchanges halted yuan
deposits, China’s central bank was the target of a hacking attack on
Wednesday, with state media suggesting angry bitcoin investors may be to
blame.
The official site of People’s Bank of China (PBOC) went down around 5
p.m. local time Wednesday, possibly due to an attack by bitcoin traders
after the central bank curbed bitcoin transactions in China, the
state-run China News Service said.
The news agency cited central-bank officials as saying were aware of the
issue and had been working to bring the site back online, but they
didn’t confirm whether the problem was related to bitcoins.
“Some Internet users claimed the central bank was hit by a DDoS
[distributed denial-of-service] attack. We strongly condemn those
hackers,” BTC38, a Chinese bitcoin exchange, said in an online statement
on Wednesday. “Our site has also been DDOS’d several times. No matter
what, those attacks are irrational and illegal.”
Last Thursday, the PBOC and several top regulatory agencies warned in a
joint statement that bitcoin “is not a real currency” and that Chinese
financial institutions and payment processors shouldn’t handle bitcoin
transactions.
The central bank also met on Monday with several third-party payment
processors and ordered them not to provide service for the bitcoin
exchanges, according to China News Service.
On Wednesday, China’s two major bitcoin exchanges — BTC China and OKCoin
— announced they would temporarily stop accepting yuan deposits.
CHBTC, a Chinese bitcoin trading site, also said it would stop allowing
customers to use yuan to buy bitcoins online.
François
Hollande's beleaguered socialist government was under increased
pressure to boost the eurozone's second largest economy after a collapse
in manufacturing orders tonight left it on the cusp of another
recession.
A survey of French manufacturers found that output contracted and
businesses shed jobs in November in response to the fastest slowdown in
new orders since April, accentuating the single currency bloc's sluggish
recovery. The services sector also declined, potentially sending the
country sliding back into recession after having only emerged from one
in the second quarter of 2013.
Hollande is already the most unpopular French president on record and
can expect to face further charges of economic incompetence after the
mainstays of French output and employment failed to reverse their
fortunes ahead of the Christmas break.
French GDP shrank by 0.1% in the three months to the end of September
and a second quarter of decline would put it technically in recession.
The government is under fire for presiding over a moribund economy that
has kept unemployment at a record high. Only 26% of French people have a
positive opinion of Hollande, according to the latest BVA poll, the
worst score for a French leader since it began polling 32 years ago.
A series of climbdowns on tax reforms following violent street protests
and intense lobbying by business groups have further undermined his
authority. French footballers have proved a high-profile thorn in his
side after they complained about a 75% tax on earnings of more than €1m
(£850,000), which will be introduced in 2014. Only last week MPs
conceded that Monaco players would avoid paying it following an appeal
by the principality, a tax haven.
The dismal situation contrasted with Germany, which has enjoyed a
prolonged recovery based on growing orders from new markets. A record
increase in manufacturing output, according to the survey, gave a lift
to the incoming coalition government of the chancellor, Angela Merkel,
and helped to push the reading on the eurozone economy as a whole to its
fastest monthly rate of increase since 2011.
Markit's flash eurozone composite purchasing managers' index (PMI),
which gauges business activity across thousands of firms large and
small, rose to 52.1 in December from 51.7 last month. It was the
second-highest reading since mid-2011 and has been above the 50 mark
that denotes growth since the summer.
But France's recent economic woes have dragged on the eurozone's growth
and have probably weakened the Hollande government's ability to push
through labour reforms while maintaining welfare and pension payments.
With declining tax receipts, Paris will also struggle to make the
investments needed to boost GDP.
Markit's chief European economist, Chris Williamson, said: "This is very
much a manufacturing-led recovery. It's reflective of companies,
especially in Germany, being more competitive and taking advantage of
the upturn in global trade."
The latest signs of the French economy ailing comes as the carmaker
Peugeot Citroën was reported to be close to signing a deal with Dongfeng
Motor, a state-owned Chinese firm, with which it already has a joint
venture, that would see much-needed capital injected into the
manufacturer.
Meanwhile, a survey of French services firms found optimism ebbing, with the index drifting to 47.4 from 48.7 last month.
Moody's Analytics, a unit of the credit-rating firm, said: "This decline
in business sentiment is starting to be a concern, as we were hoping
the November decline was a consequence of the temporary political
context and that December data would have reversed."
Analysts at HSBC were even gloomier, noting that the gap between Germany and France has rarely been bigger in a single month.
They said: "France looks increasingly worrying, with weak services
recovery and manufacturing PMI pointing straight to contraction. One has
only to hope that the looser relationship between PMI and GDP growth
seen in France than elsewhere will play beneficially here. Some
pre-emptive spending of consumers anticipating the tax increases planned
for January may do just that."
France will raise its headline VAT rate from 19.6% to 20% on 1 January
to protests from retailers and consumer groups. The small rise is seen
as an attack on living standards already battered by four years of
faltering recovery from the banking crash.
Business have also complained by a rise from 7% to 10% in the
intermediate VAT rate that affects goods such as imported art works,
which Sotheby's has said could benefit London and New York at the
expense of Paris.
Banks in 'doom loop'
European banks have filled their balance sheets with national debt since
2011, bringing them easy profits but reinforcing a "doom loop" linking
weak banks to governments with shaky finances, the European Union's
banking watchdog has said.
The European Banking Authority(EBA), the European Union's banking
watchdog, said the share of bonds issued by sovereigns under stress held
by their domestic banks had "increased markedly" between December 2010
and June 2013.
The net exposure of banks to sovereign debt fell 9% in 2011 but then rose 9.3% in the 18 months to June this year, data showed.
The data confirms suspicions - that banks, particularly in Italy and
Spain, have ploughed cheap funds from the European Central Bank into
buying more of their own countries' bonds, a move that helps ensure
governments fund their deficits at sustainable rates.
Regulators partly blame a move by banks to rein in cross-border activity
and build up new liquidity buffers made up predominantly of government
debt as a way of reducing risk.
But the EBA's data - which updated core capital and holdings of
sovereign debt and loans at 64 leading European banks - is likely to
reinforce fears that the fortunes of the banks and the states in which
they are based are still too closely intertwined.
It will also fuel a debate over whether all government debt should be
treated as equally risk-free when it comes to calculating bank capital
requirements. Reuters
Spooks at MI5 probing the leaks of military secrets have spied on high-ranking SAS officers.
Special forces
commanders are believed to have initiated the investigation after
becoming increasingly frustrated by SAS operations, training and
disciplinary issues appearing in the media.
A team of hand-picked MI5 agents are understood to have bugged phones,
monitored computer traffic and watched several senior members of the SAS
between 2010 and 2011.
The MI5 operation, said to have caused a lasting and deep rift between
the two covert organisations, led to the arrest of two special forces
officers whose careers were destroyed, even though charges against them
were dropped.
In February 2011, MI5 named the two officers to Metropolitan Police’s Counter terrorist Command (SO15) detectives.
They were identified as suspects because of their friendship with a TV journalist, who they met in Afghanistan in 2008.
He was embedded with the 16 Air Assault Brigade.
One, a major in command of the SAS’s counter-terrorism unit identified
as AB, was with his young son driving on a bridge in Hereford when
detectives stopped him.
The other, a captain known as SF, was arrested at his desk at the SAS’s London HQ by SO15 officers.
Iraq and Afghanistan veteran AB, being groomed as a future SAS commander, had visited his seriously ill wife in hospital.
Detectives took charge of his son and AB was ordered to his HQ where he
was arrested on suspicion of breaching the Official Secrets Act.
AB was taken to Marylebone police station where he was quizzed for 18
hours by detectives who specialise in interrogating terrorists.
He
was fingerprinted, made to pose for a police mugshot and give a DNA
sample but AB denied leaking secret information and told police he was
“a patriot” and “not a liar”.
Released on bail, AB was suspended as the head of the SAS counter-terrorist unit. In October 2011 he resigned from the Army.
All charges were later dropped by the Met, who assured AB neither he nor SF would be investigated further.
The journalist was also close to another senior SAS officer and had
privately communicated with General Sir David Richards, then Chief of
the Defence Staff, but neither officer was questioned.
Details of the spying operation are revealed in a Met police legal document seen by the Sunday People.
AB is now suing the Met and one of the senior officers believed to have
authorised the mission – Lt Gen Jonathan “Jacko” Page, then Director of
Special Forces.
A police source said: “The SAS is supposed to have a very close working relationship with MI5".
“But that trust was shattered after the regiment learnt that MI5 was bugging soldiers’ mobile phones and email accounts.”
This revelation follows the allegation – first revealed by this paper – that the covert unit were involved in the murder of Princess Diana.
The
regiment has been criticised over the treatment of war hero Danny
Nightingale, 38, who is appealing his conviction for illegally
possessing a gun and ammo.
He was sentenced to two years’ suspended for 12 months at a court martial in last summer.
After being away from society for 14 years, Norman Feller is most impressed with KFC's 'Double Down' sandwich. (iStockPhoto)
January 1, 2000 was the day that our computers were meant to fail us and
change our lives forever. It was also the day that 44 year old Norman
Feller headed into his underground bunker over fears of the fallout from
the Y2K virus. Remarkably, Mr. Feller spent the next 14 years in
isolation only to emerge this past September.
In this touching documentary, Peter Oldring visits with Norman to learn
more about his unbelievable decision to live underground.
Megan Mariah Barnes, 37, caused a two-vehicle crash last week in Florida because she was shaving her bikini line, KeysNews.com reports. While Barnes' hands were busy, her ex-husband held onto the steering wheel from the backseat.
So why was Barnes taking care of her hygiene while on the road?
"She said she was meeting her boyfriend in Key West and wanted to be ready for the visit," Trooper Gary Dunick said.
Uh, okay--we won't pass any judgement regarding Barnes's love life.
But back to her driving: Barnes wasn't even supposed to be on the road
because she was convicted of DUI with a prior and driving with a
suspended license just one day earlier.
This time she was charged with driving with a revoked license,
reckless driving, leaving the scene of a wreck with injuries and driving
with no insurance. She faces a maximum of a year in jail. We also hope
the court recommends a good salon.
In goldentowns there are only 100,000
gold in circulation, 100% backed up by real gold. We constantly increase
the real gold reserve so your virtual gold is more and more precious
every second.
GoldenTowns is a political, economic and military simulator in which virtual gold can be converted into real money. You will have to build a town, you will be required to fight, trade and take part in the political life.
Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, two of the biggest filmmakers of all
time, expect some massive upheaval in Hollywood as the division between
TV and film content disappears. Spielberg even forecast that the film industry would "implode."
Both see changes in the way movies are made, the way content is
distributed and to the business itself, they said during a panel
discussion at University of Southern California's School for Cinematic
Arts, where they are board members.
But Spielberg also said that it's like 2008 in the business again, with
the market bottomed and on the way up. There has never been more
exciting potential, he added.
Spielberg and Lucas expect consumers to watch more content, including
movies and TV shows, on giant screens at home, as the separation between
TV and film content disappears and theatrical releases are limited to
fewer, big-budget films.
"There's going to be an implosion
where three or four or maybe even a half-dozen mega-budgeted movies go
crashing into the ground, and that's going to change the paradigm
again," Spielberg said.
Lucas predicted that the movie-going experience would become more of a luxury.
"You're going to end up with fewer theaters, bigger theaters with a lot
of nice things," he said. "Going to the movies will cost 50 bucks or 100
or 150 bucks—like what Broadway costs today, or a football game."
He forecast that the movies that do make it to theaters will stay for a year, similar to the run of a Broadway show.
The two joked that they barely got their films "Lincoln" or "Red Tails"
into theaters. Spielberg ribbed his friend that more people saw
"Lincoln" than saw Lucas' "Red Tails" but admitted that it was a close
call, adding that the presidential biopic almost ended up on Time
Warner's HBO.
In the future environment, neither of those films would have made it
into theaters but would have been available instead on the big screen in
people's living rooms, in a new video-on-demand paradigm, they said.
In a building full of high-tech tools to help the next generation of
filmmakers tell stories, Spielberg and Lucas had warnings for students.
First, technology should never be in the driver's seat, because the narrative is always the most important thing, they said.
"There is going to be a day when the experience is going to be the price
of admission," Spielberg said. "What I fear about that day coming is
that the experience will trump the story or the ability to compel people
through a narrative. And it's going to be more of a ride, a theme park,
than it is going to be a story, and that's what I hope doesn't happen."
Both passed the buck on another Indiana Jones movie. Spielberg said Lucas is the boss and that Indy's future lies with him.
"I'm happy to direct for George," he said. "If George decides to make another one, I'll be happy to shoot it."
Lucas countered that he didn't hold the power, saying that Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy will make the call.
While what little remains of America's middle class is happy and eager
to put in its 9-to-5 each-and-every day, an increasing number of
Americans - those record 91.5 million who are no longer part of the
labor force - are perfectly happy to benefit from the ever more generous
hand outs of the welfare state. Prepare yourself before listening to
this... calling on her self-admitted Obamaphone, Texas welfare recipient
Lucy, 32, explains why "taxpayers are the fools"...
"...To all you workers out there preaching morality about those of us
who live on welfare... can you really blame us? I get to sit around all
day, visit my friends, smoke weed.. and we are still gonna get paid, on
time every month..."
As quantitied, and explained by Alexander, "the single mom is
better off earnings gross income of $29,000 with $57,327 in net income
& benefits than to earn gross income of $69,000 with net income and
benefits of $57,045."
We realize that this is a painful topic in a country in which the
issue of welfare benefits, and cutting (or not) the spending side of the
fiscal cliff, have become the two most sensitive social topics. Alas,
none of that changes the matrix of incentives for most Americans who
find themselves in a comparable situation: either being on the
left side of minimum US wage, and relying on benefits, or move to the
right side at far greater personal investment of work, and energy,
and... have the same disposable income at the end of the day.
The Quebec government
sought to stifle student protest with emergency legistlation that
included measures banning demonstrations within 50 metres of a college,
and changing the route of a protest at short notice.
The Spanish government's punitive anti-protest draft laws are, critics say, an attack on democracy. That is precisely what they are.
In
a number of recent front lines of popular protest, state capacities
have been reconfigured to meet the challenge. In some instances, as in
Greece, this has meant periods of emergency government. In Chicago, in
Quebec and now in Spain, it has meant the expansion of anti-protest
laws.
In 2011, the Chicago mayor, Rahm Emanuel, requested that the
city council pass "temporary" anti-protest measures in response to the
planned protests around the Nato and G8 summits. The laws included a $1m
insurance mandate for public protests, heavy policing and greater
obstacles to obtaining a protest permit. By early 2012, the legislation
had been made permanent.
Later
that same year, as the administration of Jean Charest in Quebec sought
to deal with a tumultuous uprising of students against increased tuition
fees, it passed a piece of emergency legislation named Bill 78.
With the support of the state's employers, it imposed severe
restrictions on the ability to protest, including banning protests
within 50 metres of a college and giving the right to change the route
of a protest at short notice, with severe fines for those protesters who
did not co-operate.
The "public safety" legislation proposed in
Spain has an essentially similar basis. Demonstrating near parliament
without permission will result in steep fines, while participation in
"violent" protests can result in a minimum two-year jail sentence.
In each case, the logic is to put a chill on protest. It is not just
that it is a protest deterrent; it has a domesticating effect on such
protests as do occur.
To understand why this is happening, it is
necessary to grasp the relationship between neoliberal austerity and
popular democracy.
In a previous era, when neoliberal austerity
was first being prepared in tandem with a racist, authoritarian
crackdown, Greek political sociologist Nicos Poulantzas
spoke of the "redeployment of legal-police networks" as a constitutive
element in a new "authoritarian statism". In this regime, formal
parliamentary apparatuses would be retained even while substantive
democracy was eroded. Stuart Hall,
writing a few years later, remarked of Thatcherite neoliberalism that
"under this regime, the market is to be free; the people are to be
disciplined".
Why this authoritarianism? Why, in freeing "the
market", was it necessary to discipline the people? If the focus is
limited to austerity – neoliberalism in its "shock doctrine" form – then
the problem can be interpreted simply as one of crisis management. The
state assumes measures for enhanced popular control at just the moment
when it is trying to manage an unpopular reorganisation of public
services, welfare and capital-labour relations. But in fact, this is
merely a conjunctural form of a wider problem.
In a simple
genealogical sense, neoliberalism can be read as an adaptation of the
concerns of classical liberalism to the problems posed by the age of
mass democracy. At a political level, neoliberalism responded to a
supposed surfeit of democracy, an excess of popular demands upon the
state. This not only trapped the state in a web of special interests but
ultimately produced a crisis of "ungovernability". For the state to be
able to do its business, its authority had to be restored; hence the
salience of "law and order".
The "primary purpose of the state,"
said Thatcher, "is to maintain order." By designating the problem in
this manner, and identifying political opponents through the ideology of
crime and disorder, she was able to link her successes to a simple
assertion of common sense. But the proliferation of laws designed to
restrain protest and strike action, the growth of a centralised and
militarised policing apparatus and the boom in prison construction, all
beginning during her reign, not only transformed the relationship of
citizens to the state but in so doing weakened popular constituencies
relative to dominant business elites.
This expansion and
refinement of the technologies of containment is, by itself, rarely
sufficient. It has generally been accompanied by the deployment of new
ideologies of crime and legality. For protest policing under
neoliberalism does not simply entail more repressive behaviour. In fact,
the secular trend across European states is for a convergence around a
more differentiated system of strategies toward protests.
In
dealing with larger protests representing "official" bodies, police tend
to prefer consensual and negotiated approaches, and tend to take a
greater physical distance from the people whose activities they are
policing. By contrast, smaller groups of protesters representing loose
social coalitions, campaign alliances and so on, are more likely to be
deemed extremist, terrorist or even – theatrical gasp – anarchist, and
thus subject to militarised policing, direct surveillance and physical
coercion, with the invocation of "anti-terrorist" or other repressive
legislation.
Just as the definition of crime is inherently
ideological, so the decision as to what constitutes an "official"
protest or an "extremist" outrage is in part ideological and normative,
deriving from the legal and political culture of policing in a given
state and bureaucratic categories deployed by local and national forces.
Necessarily, then, this is an inherently politicised form of policing.
It is not merely demonstrative, showing by example what styles of
protest are tolerated (ineffectual ones, largely), but practical in the
sense that it drastically foreshortens democratic possibilities.
The
reorganisation of states today in an authoritarian direction is part of
a longer-term project to contain democracy while retaining a minimum of
democratic legitimacy. That is what the anti-protest laws are about.
The
US has flown two B-52 bombers over disputed islands in the East China
Sea in defiance of new Chinese air defence rules, officials say.
China
set up its "air defence identification zone" on Saturday insisting that
aircraft obey its rules or face "emergency defensive measures".
A Pentagon spokesman said the planes had followed "normal procedures".
The islands, known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, are a source of rising tension between the two nations.
Japan has dismissed the Chinese defence zone as "not valid at all" and
two of its biggest airlines announced on Tuesday they would abide by a
request from the government in Tokyo not to implement the new rules.
'Normal procedures'
"We have conducted operations in the area of the Senkakus," said US Colonel Steve Warren.
"We
have continued to follow our normal procedures, which include not
filing flight plans, not radioing ahead and not registering our
frequencies."
Bitcoin, everyone’s favourite decentralised, peer-to-peer digital cryptocurrency, is making headlines around the world.
Entrepreneur and journalist Xiaogang Cao posted pictures of a new HK-based mining operation being set up in an Kwai Chung industrial building…
Bitcoins are generated by ‘miners’ who devote computing power to
solving mathematical puzzles. Whilst users could once mine bitcoins at
home, setting up a mining operation nowadays involves a lot more
infrastructure…
As more bitcoins come into circulation, the puzzles
involved become increasingly difficult. The rewards are halved at
regular intervals until 21 million bitcoins have been created – at which
point, production will cease.
Over the coming years, even when accounting for Moore’s law,
mining will only require more resources to be worthwhile… Though some
governments are hesitant about the world’s first cryptocurrency,
entrepreneurs are hoping Hong Kong will jump on the bandwagon.
HK’s new bitcoin farm involves one meter high transparent glass
tanks, copper piping, cooling machines and computer boards soaked in
bubbling 3M cooling liquid. LED lights flash constantly, though the facility is cool, safe and quiet.
Construction began in August, 2013. A crane was used to install
cooling systems onto the roof . The cooling technique is one of the
world’s most advanced, maintaining temperatures of below 37 degrees.
In a race against time, bitcoin mining began in October. And with an
eye on the future, there is extra capacity built into the site…
The company behind the operation is Asicminer, who own multiple
mining facilities. Cao said the facility was ‘quieter than a library’
Earlier this month, it was reported that a HK-based Bitcoin trading platform disappeared, taking with it up to US$5million worth of investment. One study showed that 45 percent of Bitcoin exchanges end up closing
Hong Kong could become a hub for Bitcoin use and mining. Hong Wrong’s Tony Wong said that the city has an edge due to ‘sound property rights, cheap electricity, widely available technology and service technicians’.
In a maddening scandal that
is rocking the state of Massachusetts, a government crime lab chemist
has been caught intentionally forging signatures and tampering with
evidence in as many as 40,000 cases, destroying the lives of countless innocent Americans.
Annie Dookhan worked as a chemist for the State of Massachusetts, and it turns out she had close relations with prosecutors.
These prosecutors were able to successfully convict innocent
Americans because Dookhan would chemically taint the “evidence,”
resulting in career boosts for the prosecutors while innocent men and
women were torn from their families and locked in cells.
Prosecutors praised Dookhan’s work and depended on her to get the convictions they wanted.
Hundreds of “convicts” and defendents have already been released, and
there are potentially thousands more waiting to be set free.
Norfolk
County District Attorney Michael Morrissey is reviewing thousands of
files to determine which cases must be thrown out or retried because of
potentially tainted evidence. | Source: Tovia Smith/NPR
“You can see the entire walls full of boxes… in one of these cardboard boxes, there could be hundreds of cases … in each box,” says Morrissey.
Hundreds of defendants and “convicts” had been arguing that they were
framed and claiming that the evidence used to convict them was
mishandled. They were right.
In one recent case, a man was charged with “selling cocaine and
heroin.” His public defender, Julieann Hernon, believes that this man
was a potential victim of Dookhan’s fake evidence and ought to be
released.
“[Dookhan] was mis-testing evidence, dry-labbing evidence, saying she
had ‘conducted tests’ when she had not, deliberately tainting drugs,” Hernon said.
“Certainly, I think, we have to presume a taint here when Annie Dookhan was the chemist in the case,” Hernon says.
In another recent case, defense attorney William Sullivan was able to
successfully reverse his client’s prior “guilt” because Dookhan was the
secondary chemist involved in the conviction.
Many other innocents have lost their careers, lost their children, and lost their marriages.
“This is a lab that was pretty much wholly and fully contaminated by Ms. Annie Dookhan,” Sullivan told the judge. “She had full access to everyone’s drugs.”
While many have been set free, they will never get the lost years of their lives back.
“The tragedy is that my client already did four years on this,” Sullivan says. “I mean, that is disturbing in itself.”
Many other innocents have lost their careers, lost their children, and lost their marriages.
Michael Morrissey, Norfolk County District Attorney, is now sifting
through thousands of files to find out which should be thrown out
because of Dookhan’s corruption and deceit.
In federal court, many innocents received even harsher sentences due
to prior convictions based on Annie Dookhan’s fake “evidence.”
Several civil suits are getting started by those accused of crimes
based on Dookhan’s tampering, accusing Dookhan of trampling on their
rights to fair trials.
“I screwed up big time. I messed up. I messed up bad. It’s my fault. I
don’t want the lab to get in trouble,” Dookhan was reported as saying.
Of course, Dookhan’s “screw up” — a “screw up” that she intentionally
committed for nearly a decade — will never bring back the lives that
have been destroyed.
In analyzing Dookhan’s career, it was found that she also routinely
invented fanciful job titles for herself. Examples include “special
agent of operations” and “on-call terrorism supervisor.” She would
testify in court as an “expert.”
She maintained her composure year after year as innocents were bound and forced into prison cages.
The relationships she had with prosecutors are also under scrutiny.
Dookhan once told a prosecutor in an email that she couldn’t use her
expert testimony at a trial. The prosecutor replied, “No no no!!! I need
you!!!”
Was the prosecutor intentionally depending on Dookhan’s deception to score a conviction and a career boost?
Many of the prosecutors became devoted fans of Dookhan and wanted to
take her out for drinks, saying she was on their “dream team.” The Boston Globe provided an email between Dookhan and a prosecutor with whom she had a particularly friendly relationship:
“Glad we are on the same team,” he once
wrote Dookhan — including one day in May 2010 when he told her he needed
a marijuana sample to weigh at least 50 pounds so that he could charge
the owners with drug trafficking.
“Any help would be greatly appreciated!” he wrote, punctuating each sentence with a long string of exclamation points. “Thank you!”
Two hours later, Dookhan responded: “OK . . . definitely Trafficking, over 80 lbs.” Papachristos thanked her profusely.
Boston attorney David Meier found that in Dookhan’s nine-year government position, over 40,ooo people may have had their cases tainted by Dookhan.
But the devastation done to families is impossible to calculate.
Dookhan is now facing charges of her own. If she is convicted she
will receive a relatively light sentence of three to five years, which
has outraged citizens even more.
Israel's political establishment arose in unison on Sunday to
denounce as inadequate an interim agreement hammered out with Iran to
rein in its nuclear programme.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, led the chorus of
indignation, calling the deal struck in Geneva between Iran and the
so-called P5 plus one – the US, Britain, France, Russia, China and
Germany – "a historic mistake".
"What was achieved last night in Geneva is not a historic agreement; it is a historic mistake,"
he told Sunday's weekly cabinet meeting "Today the world has become a
much more dangerous place because the most dangerous regime in the world
has taken a significant step toward attaining the most dangerous weapon
in the world.
Condemning the six powers for "ignoring the UN Security Council
decisions that they themselves led", he added: "This agreement and what
it means endanger many countries including, of course, Israel. Israel is
not bound by this agreement. The Iranian regime is committed to the
destruction of Israel and Israel has the right and the obligation to
defend itself, by itself, against any threat.
Mr Netanyahu's comments came after a procession of ministers and senior
officials had earlier taken aim at a "bad deal" which they said
effectively left Iran as a nuclear threshold state.
In the most graphic criticism, Naftali Bennett, the trade and
industry minister and leader of the far-Right Jewish Home party, warned
that it could be the precursor to a nuclear "suitcase bomb" attack on a
major Western city.
"If in another five years a suitcase nuke explodes in New York or Madrid, it will be because of the deal that was signed this morning," Mr Bennett, a member of the Israeli security cabinet, told Army Radio.
The USS Zumwalt getting a coat of paint at
Bath Iron Works. The ship is exotic in many ways, but it runs on
off-the-shelf computing technology.
General Dynamics Bath Iron Works
When the USS Zumwalt (DDG 1000)
puts to sea later this year, it will be different from any other ship
in the Navy's fleet in many ways. The $3.5 billon ship is designed for
stealth, survivability, and firepower, and it's packed with advanced
technology. And at the heart of its operations is a virtual data center
powered by off-the-shelf server hardware, various flavors of Linux, and
over 6 million lines of software code.
On October 10, I flew up to Rhode Island to visit Raytheon's Seapower
Capability Center in Portsmouth, where engineers assembled and
pre-tested the systems at the heart of the Zumwalt and are preparing to
do the same for the next ship in line, the USS Michael Monsoor—already
well into construction. There, Raytheon's DDG-1000 team gave me a tour
of the centerpiece of the ship's systems—a mockup of the Zumwalt's
operations center, where the ship's commanding officer and crew will
control the ship's sensors, missile launchers, guns, and other systems.
Over 20 years ago, I learned how to be a ship watch stander a few
miles from the Raytheon facility at the Navy's Surface Warfare Officer
School. But the operations center of the Zumwalt will have more in
common with the fictional starship USS Enterprise's bridge than it does
with the combat information centers of the ships I went to sea on. Every
console on the Zumwalt will be equipped with touch screens and software
capable of taking on the needs of any operator on duty, and big screens
on the forward bulkhead will display tactical plots of sea, air, and
land.
Perhaps it's appropriate that the first commanding officer of the
Zumwalt will be Captain James Kirk (yes, that's actually his name). But
considering how heavily the ship leans on its computer networks, maybe
they should look for a chief engineer named Vint Cerf.
Off the shelf and on the ship
Enlarge/ Data center in a box: Electronic Modular Enclosures being configured at Raytheon's Portsmouth, Rhode Island, facility.
In the past, you couldn't just put off-the-shelf computer systems
aboard a ship for mission critical tasks—when I was aboard the USS Iowa,
we had to shut down non-tactical systems before the guns were fired
because the shock and vibration would crash systems hard. So typically,
individual computer systems are ruggedized. But that adds heavily to the
cost of the systems and makes it more difficult to maintain them.
The design of the Zumwalt solves that problem by using off-the-shelf
hardware—mostly IBM blade servers running Red Hat Linux—and putting it
in a ruggedized server room. Those ruggedized server rooms are called
Electronic Modular Enclosures (EMEs), sixteen self-contained, mini data
centers built by Raytheon.
Measuring 35 feet long, 8 feet high, and 12 feet wide, the 16 EMEs
have more than 235 equipment cabinets (racks) in total. The EMEs were
all configured and pre-tested before being shipped to Bath, Maine, to be
installed aboard the Zumwalt. The EME approach lowered overall cost of
the hardware itself, and allows Raytheon to pre-integrate systems before
they're installed. "It costs a lot to do the work in the shipyard,"
said Raytheon's DDG-1000 deputy program manager Tom Moore, "and we get
limited time of access."
Each EME has its own shock and vibration damping, power protection,
water cooling systems, and electromagnetic shielding to prevent
interference from the ship's radar and other big radio frequency
emitters.
The EMEs tap into the Total Ship Computing Environment, the Zumwalt's
shipboard Internet. Running multiple partitioned networks over a mix of
fiber and copper, TSCE's redundantly switched network system connects
all of the ship's systems—internal and external communications, weapons,
engineering, sensors, etc.—over Internet protocols, including TCP and
UDP. Almost all of the ship's internal communications are based on Voice
Over IP (with the exception of a few old-school, sound-powered phones
for emergency use).
Enlarge/ A diagram of the Zumwalt's control systems and their connections to the Total Ship Computing Environment.
There's also some wireless networking capability aboard the Zumwalt,
but Raytheon officials giving me the tour were not at liberty to discuss
just what sort of wireless this is. Still, that capability is supposed
to allow for roving crew members to connect to data from the network
while performing maintenance and other tasks.
Systems that weren't built to be wired into an IP network—other
"programs of record" within the ship, which are installed across
multiple classes of Navy ships—are wired in using adaptors based on
single-board computers and the Lynx OS real-time Linux operating system.
Called Distributed Adaptation Processors, or DAPs, these systems
connect things like the ship's engineering systems, fire suppression
systems, missile launchers, and radio and satellite communications gear
into the network so they can be controlled by networked clients.
It looks like you want to launch a missile
Enlarge/
The mock-up of the Zumwalt's operations center at Raytheon's Portsmouth
facility, complete with haze-gray paint, has the exact dimensions of
the space on the ship itself. The Zumwalt will include a second level to
host the operations of units deployed with the ship.
Some of those networked clients were what I was looking at in the
mocked-up Zumwalt operations center. The operations center isn't just
where screens are watched and commands are shouted—the whole ship can be
practically run from the space, from guns and missiles to engines.
There's no "radio room" on the Zumwalt; all the communications are
managed from the operations center. The ship's guns are fully automated
and operated by an operations center watch stander instead of a gunner's
mate in the mount. Theoretically, the ship could even be steered from
the ops center—the ship is piloted by computer, not a helmsman. And all
of these tasks are performed from the same type of console.
Enlarge/
The Mark 57 vertical launch system, developed by Raytheon, can carry a
mix of anti-ship, anti-aircraft, and land attack cruise missiles. It
communicates with the operations center over the ship's network.
Called
the Common Display System, or CDS (pronounced as "keds" by those who
work with it), the three-screen workstations in the operations center
are powered by a collection of quad-processor Intel motherboards in an
armored case, which gives new meaning to the nautical phrase "toe
buster." Even the commanding officer's and executive officer's chairs on
the bridge have CDS workstations built-in.
Each CDS system can run multiple Linux virtual machines atop
LynuxWorx's LynxSecure, a separation kernel tthat has been implemented
in CDS as a hypervisor. This allows the workstation to connect
to various networks partitioned by security level and purpose. "Every
watch stander station runs out of the same box," Raytheon's DDG-1000
developer lead Robert Froncillo told me. "So they can sit at any CDS and
bring up their station."
This may not seem like a big deal to most people. But on past ships,
workstations tended to be purpose-built for a specific weapons system or
sensor. That meant every system had a different configuration and
interface, and you couldn't have a watch stander handle multiple tasks
without having to switch seats. The CDS workstation uses common USB
interfaces for its peripheral devices (such as trackballs and
specialized button panels) and is equipped with touchscreens, as well,
so that watch standers have a choice between "classic" and touch
interfaces.
That doesn't mean there's necessarily a "Clippy" to help new
operators master their systems. The Raytheon team has had sailors in to
perform usability assessments from before code was even written, showing
them screen shots of interfaces to get feedback from users. "We had a
chief that said, 'We don't want any 'wizards,'" said Froncillo.
A
digital illustration of how the Zumwalt's operations center will look,
complete with its second-level suite for hosting operations for air
detachments and other units deployed aboard.
Raytheon
Putting all of the pieces together is a collection of middleware
running on those IBM blade servers. Many of the shipboard systems use a
commercial publish/subscribe middleware platform to send updates to
operator consoles. But for other systems that need to be more tightly
coupled (like, for example, missile launch commands), the Navy has
specified the use of the Common Object Request Broker Architecture
(CORBA)—the military's favorite mission-critical middleware model. (The
software for the Joint Tactical Radio System's software-defined radios
was also developed using CORBA.)
The next release
Enlarge/ The Zumwalt bow-on at Bath Iron Works. DDG-1001, the USS Michael Monsoor, sits behind her, more than 60 percent complete.
The Zumwalt may not have sailed yet, but its software has already
shipped six times. When Release 5 was completed, Raytheon brought in
more sailors to test the system, tethering it to the company's Total
Ship System Simulator to run through a number of combat scenarios. "We
did antisubmarine warfare, air, and land attack missions," Froncillo
said. The lessons learned were incorporated into release 6, and 7 will
be installed on the ship before the ship's "shakedown" cruise. Another
upgrade will be installed post-delivery, and continual improvements will
be made as the software is deployed to the other two ships in the
class.
But the life of the technology being deployed on the Zumwalt won't
end there. CDS will be used as part of the Navy's Aegis Modernization
Program to upgrade the systems of the fleet's guided missile cruisers
and destroyers. "And there are a lot of things we're developing that
will be reused," Moore said.
Considering how much has been spent over the past decade trying to
get the Zumwalt built, and the other technologies that were developed in
the process, one can hope that more than just the software gets some
reuse.
Remains of the world’s oldest known stone-tipped throwing spears,
described in a new paper, and so ancient that they actually predate the
earliest known fossils for our species by 85,000 years.
There are a few possible implications, and both are mind-blowing. The
first is that our species could be much older than previously thought,
which would forever change the existing human family tree.
The second, and more likely at this point, is that a predecessor species
to ours was extremely crafty and clever, making sophisticated tools
long before Homo sapiens emerged.
Homo heidelbergensis, aka Heidelberg Man, lived in Africa, Europe and
western Asia from at least 600,000 years ago. He clearly got around, and
many think this species was the direct ancestor ofHomo sapiens in
Africa and Neanderthals in Europe and Asia.
The new paper, published in the latest PLoS ONE, focuses on the newly
identified stone-tipped spears, which date to 280,000 years ago. They
were found at an Ethiopian Stone Age site known as Gademotta.
Sahle, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California at
Berkeley’s Human Evolution Research Center, and his team analyzed the
weapons. They determined that the spears were made from obsidian found
near the site. The toolmakers had to craft the pointy spearhead shapes
and spear shafts. They then needed to attach the points securely to the
shafts. Even today, all of this would require skill, concentration and
multiple steps.
Could a Steve Jobs-like innovator within the Heidelberg Man set have come up with this useful tool and production process?
Possibly, according to Sahle.
“Technological advances were not necessarily associated with anatomical
changes (among Homo species),” he said. “The advances might have started
earlier.”
The intelligence needed to create such tools could therefore have
predated our present body type. Based on the recreations I’ve seen of
Heidelberg Man (and Heidelberg Woman), they did look very much like us.
They were known to have been fairly tall and muscular.
As for why innovative tools from this period are known only from this site in Ethiopia, Sahle has some ideas.
“High-quality raw materials were nearby, so those could have allowed for the full expression of technological skills,” he said.
“Second, a bigger population was supported at the site,” he continued.
With more individuals around, there would have been a greater chance for
the spread of innovative ideas. If there was indeed a Steve Jobs-type
in the mix, he would have been able to influence more individuals and
perhaps even created a prehistoric spear-making assembly line of sorts.
“Thirdly, there was a mega lake at the site,” Sahle said. “It might have
attracted stable occupations there, further fueling technological
advances.”
It’s not clear yet what the prehistoric ancestral humans were hunting
with the spears. A mishmash of animal remains was found, but the
researchers haven’t been able to tease them apart yet.
What is clear is that the spears were thrown from a distance at prey, instead of thrust into victims, Neanderthal-style.
Here’s an idea for how to end corporate greed and reverse the trend of
growing income inequality worldwide: impose a new rule that would limit
the pay of top executives to just 12 times that of the lowest-paid
employees at the same firm. In other words, prevent CEOs from earning
more in one month than the lowliest shop-floor worker earns in a year.
This proposal might sound like something cooked up by Occupy Wall Street
or another radical protest movement, but in fact it comes from the
heartland of a nation not usually known for its disdain of money-making:
Switzerland. On Nov. 24, the Swiss will vote in a referendum on whether
to enshrine the 1:12 pay ratio — in their national constitution, no
less.
The initiative is backed by an assortment of mainstream political
groups, including the Social Democratic Party and the Greens, who argue
that CEO pay in Switzerland has gotten out of control and needs to be
reined in. They quote a raft of figures to show that the ratio of top to
bottom earners in Swiss firms has grown from about 1 to 6 in 1984, to 1
to 43 today. And that’s just the average. In some companies, especially
banks, the gap is much wider, with top executives such as Brady Dougan,
the American CEO of Credit Suisse, and Andrea Orcel, head of investment
banking at UBS, earning hundreds of times as much as their juniors.
The campaign’s backers consider salary inequality to be a social
injustice. A video cartoon made by the Social Democrats features a Swiss
nurse who is astounded by the way top manager salaries have grown to
“astronomical” proportions, even as hers has barely increased. Regula
Rytz, a co-head of the Greens, says that a constitutional amendment is
necessary because neither the government nor business has “a recipe
against the self-service mentality in corporate suites.”
Swiss business, meanwhile, has made a so-far successful effort to sway
public opinion. A month ago, public opinion for and against the
initiative was split at about 44 percent. Swiss business launched a
public relations campaign, warning that the measure would spark an
exodus of corporations. Employers’ associations commissioned studies
that predicted lost jobs and higher taxes if the measure is passed. The
latest polls this week suggest that the measure is unlikely to be
approved, with just over 50 percent opposing it.
Even so, the issue isn’t likely to go away, and is gaining traction
beyond Switzerland. Kristina Schüpbach, leader of the youth wing of the
Social Democrats and one of the campaign initiators, says that “the main
thing this time is to get a result that sends a strong signal” — to
business and government. Significantly, the 1:12 campaign has made
inroads in Spain, where the opposition Social Democrats have just
adopted it as official policy. Schüpbach says the idea of setting a
ceiling on pay ratios is also being discussed within the opposition
Social Democratic Party in Germany. And more broadly, the issue of
executive pay has become a red-hot political topic in France and
elsewhere on the continent.
Bruce Kogut, director of the Sanford C. Bernstein Center for Leadership
and Ethics at Columbia Business School, says the issue resonates in
Europe “because people care more about equity” than they do in the U.S.
But he also sees salary caps as a reaction to the pain of the financial
crisis. “There have not been major consequences. Collective expiation of
guilt and responsibility is lacking,” Kogut says.
Switzerland, with its history of Calvinism and the Protestant work
ethic, is particularly fertile ground for this issue. The nation has
lived through a series of corporate calamities in the past decade,
including the collapse of Swissair in 2001 after it racked up an
unmanageable level of debt. One of the most shocking blows to many Swiss
was the state rescue of UBS in 2008, after the bank incurred giant
losses from its foray into American mortgage-backed securities and other
derivatives.
Huge payouts to executives at struggling companies have added fuel to
the flames. The referendum campaigners point out that last year, UBS
paid out a total of 2.5 billion Swiss francs in bonuses, at the same
time as it reported a 2.5 billion franc loss. Pro-reform activists have
calculated that it would take an ordinary bank employee as much as 385
years to earn the 18.5 million franc ($20 million) compensation package
given to Orcel, the investment bank head, when he joined UBS from
Merrill Lynch last year. (UBS has defended the package, claiming that it
compensates Orcel for a loss of deferred pay when he left Merrill
Lynch. The total bonus pool, the bank says, was paid out to a range of
employees and not just top management.)
Orcel was already at UBS last March, when in a previous referendum, the
Swiss approved an initiative that gives shareholders of listed Swiss
companies a binding say in the compensation paid to their directors. It
also sharply curtailed “golden handshakes” and other special bonuses.
Still, imposing caps on pay ratios turns out to be quite a bit harder
than it sounds. Coming up with reliable statistics is a particular
challenge. Publicly-traded companies in America and in many European
countries are required to disclose the salaries and benefits paid to
their CEO and other top executives. But obtaining data for the
lowest-paid workers is much harder. Some Swiss opponents of the
referendum question the accuracy of the figures issued by the campaign
initiators.
The U.S. is an example of how difficult and politically fraught such an
exercise can be. Three years ago, under section 953(b) of the Dodd-Frank
Act, Congress ordered public companies to disclose the ratio of CEO pay
to the annual median compensation of employees. So far, however, this
stipulation has not been enforced, and the HR Policy Association’s
Center on Executive Compensation, for one, believes the enforcement is
“not worth the cost” to companies.
Supporters of income equality would argue that in the United States,
even more so than Switzerland, such an investment is worthwhile. The
Economic Policy Institute calculates that the CEO-to-worker compensation
ratio in the top 350 largest U.S. firms is 231:1, including realized
stock options. That’s more than five times the gap in Switzerland.
According to the institute, CEO compensation grew by more than 725
percent between 1978 and 2011, at a time when the annual compensation of
a typical private-sector worker grew by just 5.7 percent.
In both the U.S. and Switzerland, the public debate over pay ratios is
just getting started. Schüpbach, the organizer of the Swiss initiative,
says that even if the referendum doesn’t produce a majority vote in
favor of the measure on majority on Nov. 24, the campaign will continue.
“There’ll be a second, third or fourth attempt,” she says.
It remains to be seen whether even these renewed efforts will put a
brake on runaway executive pay. But at the least, they put business on
the defensive to justify huge packages.
Ms. Yellen told the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in 2010 that she
and other San Francisco Fed officials pressed Washington for new
guidance, sharing the problems they were seeing. But Ms. Yellen did not
raise those concerns publicly, and she said that she had not explored
the San Francisco Fed’s ability to act unilaterally, taking the view
that it had to do what Washington said.
“For my own part,” Ms. Yellen said, “I did not see and did not
appreciate what the risks were with securitization, the credit ratings
agencies, the shadow banking system, the S.I.V.’s — I didn’t see any of
that coming until it happened.” Her startled interviewers noted that
almost none of the officials who testified had offered a similar
acknowledgment of an almost universal failure.
Pope Francis has delivered a fiery sermon against corruption, quoting a
passage from the Bible in which Jesus said some sinners deserve to be
tied to a rock and thrown into the sea.
In one of his strongest-worded homilies since he was elected in March,
the Argentinean pontiff said Christians who lead “a double life” by
giving money to the Church while stealing from the state are sinners who
deserve to be punished.
Quoting from the Gospel of St Luke in the New Testament, he said “Jesus
says: It would be better for him if a millstone were put around his neck
and he be thrown into the sea.”
While he did not allude directly to corruption within the Catholic
Church, his remarks come just days after a scandal erupted inside an
ancient religious order linked to the Vatican, and as he forges ahead
with a determined effort to root out cronyism within the Holy See and
financial irregularities in the scandal-tainted Vatican bank.
The Pope described people engaged in corruption as “whitewashed tombs”,
explaining that “they appear beautiful from the outside, but inside they
are full of dead bones and putrefaction.” A life based on corruption is
“varnished putrefaction”, the Pope said.
The Jesuit Pope may have been hailed for adopting a softer, more
inclusive stance on sensitive subjects such as homosexuality and divorce
since his election in March, but his sermons and homilies often include
stern, fire-and-brimstone language and references to the Devil.
Pope Francis made the remarks during his daily morning Mass inside Casa
Santa Marta, the Vatican guesthouse which he has chosen to live in after
spurning the much grander apostolic apartments on the other side of St
Peter’s Basilica.
It was the second time in just a few days that he had targeted the evils of corruption.
On Friday he had strong words for Catholics who grow wealthy from graft
and use tainted money to shower their children with gifts and send them
to expensive schools.
“Those who take kickbacks have lost their dignity and give their children dirty bread”, he said.
Corruption was as much of an addiction as taking drugs — “We might start with a small bribe, but it’s like a drug,” he said.
He prayed “that the Lord may change the hearts of those who worship the kickback god”.
The most recent scandal to hit the Catholic Church was exposed last
week, when the head of a 440-year-old religious order was arrested on
suspicion of bringing trumped-up charges against rivals in a bid to be
re-elected.
Renato Salvatore, 58, was allegedly so desperate to be re-elected
Superior General of the Camillians, also known as the Order of Ministers
to the Sick, that he invented false charges against two rival priests
who were opposed to his nomination.
The unfounded charges resulted in the two priests, Rosario Messina and
Antonio Puca, being hauled off to a police station in Rome, with the
result that they were unable to cast their votes against Father
Salvatore at a general assembly of the order, which was founded in 1582
and recognised by Pope Sixtus V in 1586.
Members of the order wear black cassocks emblazoned with red Crusader-style crosses — the origins of the Red Cross symbol.
Father Salvatore was chosen by Pope Benedict XVI to participate in a
general synod of bishops in October last year, five months before the
German pontiff decided to resign from the papacy.
Dave Wilson chuckles as he talks about his unorthodox political campaign.
"I'd always said it was a long shot," Wilson says. "No, I didn't expect to win."
Still, he figured he'd have fun running, because he was fed up with what
he called "all the shenanigans" at the Houston Community College
System. As a conservative white Republican running in a district whose
voters are overwhelmingly black Democrats, the odds seemed
overwhelmingly against him.
Then he came up with an idea, an advertising strategy that his opponent
found "disgusting." If a white guy didn't have a chance in a mostly
African-American district, Wilson would lead voters to think he's black.
And it apparently worked. In one of the biggest political upsets in
Houston politics this election season, Wilson -- an anti-gay activist
and former fringe candidate for mayor -- emerged as the surprise winner
over 24-year incumbent Bruce Austin. His razor thin margin of victory,
only 26 votes, was almost certainly influenced by his racially tinged
campaign.
"Every time a politician talks, he's out there deceiving voters," he says.
Wilson, a gleeful political troublemaker, printed direct mail pieces
strongly implying that he's black. His fliers were decorated with
photographs of smiling African-American faces -- which he readily admits
he just lifted off websites -- and captioned with the words "Please
vote for our friend and neighbor Dave Wilson."
One of his mailers said he was "Endorsed by Ron Wilson," which longtime
Houston voters might easily interpret as a statement of support from a
former state representative of the same name who's also
African-American. Fine print beneath the headline says "Ron Wilson and
Dave Wilson are cousins," a reference to one of Wilson's relatives
living in Iowa.
"He's a nice cousin," Wilson says, suppressing a laugh. "We played baseball in high school together. And he's endorsed me."
Austin tried to answer the mailer with his own fliers showing Wilson's
face, calling him a "right-wing hate monger" and saying he "advocated
bringing back chain gangs to clean highways." But the campaign clearly
caught him off guard.
"I don't think it's good," he said. "I don't think it's good for both
democracy and the whole concept of fair play. But that was not his
intent, apparently."
Just how much a role Wilson's mailers played in the campaign is unclear.
Other incumbents running for re-election were forced into runoffs,
perhaps because the community college system has come under intense
criticism for insider business deals and spending money on overseas
initiatives. And after 24 years in office, Austin's name should have
been somewhat familiar to his constituents.
"I suspect it's more than just race," says Bob Stein, the Rice
University political scientist and KHOU analyst. "The Houston Community
College was under some criticism for bad performance. And others on the
board also had very serious challenges."
Austin has said he plans to ask for a recount. But in an era of
electronic voting, political analysts said Wilson's victory will
probably hold and send him into office for a six-year term.
The bank bail-in rumble is growing louder. After the events in
Cyprus, a small country and potentially meaningless in the eyes of most
people, it seems that bail-in idea has spread like a virus across the
Western world.
Only in the last week, we saw the following developments:
Slovenian parliament has approved bank bail-in rules. (source)
The leader of the Eurogroup Working Group (Thomas Wieser)
revealed that the eurozone should introduce bank bail-in rules from
2016, as reported by the German Der Spiegel. (source)
UK based Co-operative Bank announced a bondholder bail-in rescue plan. (source)
All these events come right after the IMF super tax proposal of
10% on savings accounts of households with a positive net worth in
Europe (reported on this site) earlier this month.
One could rightfully ask the question why this type of measures
are considered in a world which is being flooded with liquidity on a
scale that mankind has never seen before (whether one calls it money
printing, quantitative easing, easy money, or helicopter money).
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With JPM having stolen the spotlight for every possible instance of
fraud and market manipulation in the past year, it was easy to forget
there are other prominent banks that engage in precisely the same
deceptive practices as, well, everyone else. One such prominent bank is
none other than everyone's old favorite bloodthirsty mollusc, Goldman
Sachs, which in a filing reported that "currencies and commodities were added to a list of financial products and related activities that are subject to investigation.
The filing also added options trading and technology systems and
controls to the list." So, pretty much everything is being investigated.
Bloomberg reports that "Investigators are looking at the firm’s “trading
activities and communications in connection with the establishment of
benchmark rates,” Goldman Sachs said in the filing. The company "is
cooperating with all such regulatory investigations and reviews."
As noted above, Goldman is merely the latest bank to join pretty much everyone else, who is now under investigation.
At least eight banks including Citigroup Inc. (C) and JPMorgan Chase
& Co. (JPM) have said they are being investigated by authorities
examining the $5.3 trillion-a-day foreign-exchange market and are
co-operating. Citigroup, JPMorgan and Barclays Plc (BARC) have suspended
or put on leave some of their most senior currency traders amid the
inquiry. No one has been accused of wrongdoing.
The U.S. Federal Reserve is examining legal and regulatory
exemptions that have allowed banks including Goldman Sachs to trade and
own raw materials such as oil, coal and metals, a person with knowledge
of the matter said last month.
None of this should be surprising. What should, however, come as a big
shock is that while JPM reported it has not had one trading loss either
in Q3 or all of 2013 to date, Goldman just announced it lost money on a
far more realistic 23% of all trading days, or 15 of 64, in the quarter.
It seems that unlike JPM, Goldman is taking the government's fraud investigations seriously.
For the first time ever, scientists have documented a widespread
extinction of bees that occurred 65 million years ago, concurrent with
the massive event that wiped out land dinosaurs and many flowering
plants. Their findings, published this week in the journal PLOS ONE, could shed light on the current decline in bee species.
Lead author Sandra Rehan, an assistant professor of biological sciences
at UNH, worked with colleagues Michael Schwarz at Australia’s Flinders
University and Remko Leys at the South Australia Museum to model a
mass extinction in bee group Xylocopinae, or carpenter bees, at the end
of the Cretaceous and beginning of the Paleogene eras, known as the
K-T boundary.
Previous studies have suggested a widespread extinction among
flowering plants at the K-T boundary, and it’s long been assumed that
the bees who depended upon those plants would have met the same fate.
Yet unlike the dinosaurs, “there is a relatively poor fossil record of
bees,” says Rehan, making the confirmation of such an extinction
difficult.
Rehan and colleagues overcame the lack of fossil evidence for
bees with a technique called molecular phylogenetics. Analyzing DNA
sequences of four “tribes” of 230 species of carpenter bees from every
continent except Antarctica for insight into evolutionary relationships,
the researchers began to see patterns consistent with a mass
extinction. Combining fossil records with the DNA analysis, the
researchers could introduce time into the equation, learning not only
how the bees are related but also how old they are.
“The data told us something major was happening in four different groups of bees at the same time,” says Rehan, of UNH’s College of Life Sciences and Agriculture. “And it happened to be the same time as the dinosaurs went extinct.”
While much of Rehan’s work involves behavioral observation of
bees native to the northeast of North America, this research taps the
computer-heavy bioinformatics side of her research, assembling genomic
data to elucidate similarities and differences among the various
species over time. Marrying observations from the field with genomic
data, she says, paints a fuller picture of these bees’ behaviors over
time.
“If you could tell their whole story, maybe people would care
more about protecting them,” she says. Indeed, the findings of this
study have important implications for today’s concern about the loss in
diversity of bees, a pivotal species for agriculture and biodiversity.
“Understanding extinctions and the effects of declines in the
past can help us understand the pollinator decline and the global
crisis in pollinators today,” Rehan says.
The article, “First evidence for a massive extinction event
affecting bees close to the K-T boundary,” was published in the Oct.
23, 2013 edition of PLOS ONE
(click to link to the article). Funding for the research was provided
by Endeavour Research Fellowships (Rehan) and Australian Research
Council Discovery Grants (Schwarz).
The University of New Hampshire,
founded in 1866, is a world-class public research university with the
feel of a New England liberal arts college. A land, sea, and
space-grant university, UNH is the state's flagship public institution,
enrolling 12,300 undergraduate and 2,200 graduate students.
