May 3, 2010 Nº 901 - Vol. 8
"Don't be so humble, you're not that great."
Golda Meir
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Greece bail-out package agreed
The IMF and EU have set a hard bargain. In exchange for bailing Greece out they are demanding £30bn of new budget cuts over three years. This is on top of cuts already announced and this is a country already in severe recession. The economy will shrink by 4% this year. Greece has been called on to make a "basic choice between collapse or salvation". There are serious questions about whether the harsh austerity measures Greece committed to are sustainable. The unions have vowed to fight the round of austerity measures. This unprecedented rescue package is intended not just to save Greece but to prevent other eurozone countries, with large deficits, from facing similar crises. Eurozone members and the IMF have agreed a 110bn-euro ($146.2bn) three-year bail-out package. The EU will provide 80bn euros in funding and the rest will come from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The deal is designed to prevent Greece from defaulting on its massive debt. However, it must first be approved by some parliaments in the 15 other eurozone countries. 30bn euros would be disbursed to Greece in the first year. The first loan tranche will be released before 19 May - the date of Greece's next debt repayment. Rescuing Greece remains very unpopular, especially in Germany it is basically the only way to ensure the stability of the single currency.
Web's users against its gatekeepers
With the majority of Internet traffic expected to shift to congestion-prone mobile networks, there is growing debate on both sides of the Atlantic about whether operators of the networks should be allowed to treat Web users differently, based on the users' consumption. Proponents of the current system — called network neutrality — see that principle as a kind of civil rights declaration of the digital age, one that requires the gatekeepers of the global Internet to treat all users equally, regardless of application, source or download limit. While operators have never been required to maintain neutrality, the industry has created that expectation largely by charging users a flat rate for unlimited Internet access. But there is a big flaw in the concept, according to the operators: Networks have never been neutral. They have always been actively managed to some extent since their inception in the 1980s to ensure that all customers get a basic "best effort" level of service. If an operator could not restrain bandwidth hogs, who typically make up 15 percent of customers but who generate 80 percent of the traffic, most Internet users would experience poor service. The Internet has never been a neutral environment left to develop freely on a first-come, first-serve basis. The arcane issue of network management, and the free speech and competition issues it raises, has taken on broader political importance as operators have increasingly micromanaged the flow of data, favoring some users over others as they have sought to handle exploding levels of traffic or deliver premium broadband service at guaranteed speeds to heavy users and businesses.
Scrutiny of Chapter 11 cases increasing
Fast-moving Chapter 11 sales are of particular concern to the SEC. In the past six months, three of the four companies that were publicly traded when they entered Chapter 11 exited by means of a sale rather than a traditional plan process. Economic conditions often necessitate quick sales, but protecting creditors' and investors' rights must also be on the mind of regulators. It is highly important to make sure the ability for other parties to bid and the ability to generate value is not destroyed. From an enforcement prospective, the SEC is carefully looking at unsecured creditors committees. The agency is currently prosecuting a case in which an unsecured creditor allegedly made trades based on information obtained from his position on the committee.
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China passes tighter information law
China's legislature has imposed tighter requirements on Web and telecommunications companies to shield the nation's state secrets, which are often defined as including a broad array of information the authorities deem detrimental to security. The amendment to the state secrets law, adopted Thursday and set to take effect Oct. 1, obligates network operators and service providers to cooperate with the police, state security officials and prosecutors in investigating leaks of state secrets. On discovering a leak, they must promptly block it and report it to higher authorities, according to a final draft distributed at a news conference in Beijing. Regulatory or security authorities would punish those who fail to comply.
Chinese rules said to threaten proprietary information
China is expected to issue regulations on Saturday requiring technology companies to disclose proprietary information like data-encryption keys and underlying software code to sell a range of security-related digital technology products to government agencies, American industry officials said on Friday. But they said it remained unclear how vigorously Chinese officials would enforce the new rules, which already are watered down from a sweeping proposal first raised in 2007. Both the American and European technology industries have contended that the rules are unworkable and that they amount to trade protectionism. One concern is that the rules will allow the leak of crucial foreign technologies to Chinese competitors who are seeking to build a technology industry on a par with the West.
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Bolivia nationalizes three private electricity firms
Morales has ordered the nationalisation of four private electricity companies: Corani, which is half owned by a subsidiary of France's GDF Suez, Guaracachi's main partner is Britain's Rurelec, ELFEC and Valle Hermoso, which are local. The four companies seized on Saturday account for more than half of Bolivia's electricity market. Morales said that the government now controlled 80% of electricity generation in the country. Last year, Morales announced the takeover of a subsidiary of British oil company BP, which supplied jet fuel across the Andean nation. He has recently nationalized oil and gas reserves to redistribute wealth to Bolivia's indigenous majority. He says he wants to put wealth in the hands of Bolivians
British Judge: Christian beliefs have no legal standing
A top British judge has ruled that Christian beliefs have no standing under secular law because they lack evidence and cannot be proven. Lord Justice John Grant McKenzie Laws made the declaration on Thursday in throwing out a defamation suit by Christian relationship counselor who refused to offer sex therapy to gay couples. Gary McFarlane protested that he was fired because offering sex therapy to same-gender couples violates his Christian principles. But Laws said "religious faith is necessarily subjective, being incommunicable by any kind of proof or evidence." He added that to use the law to protect "a position held purely on religious grounds cannot therefore be justified." No religious belief, said the judge, can be protected under the law "however long its tradition, however rich its culture."
Brazil: No change to amnesty law
The Supreme Court has rejected a motion to modify an amnesty law so that officials accused of human-rights abuses under Brazil's military dictatorship would have to stand trial. The Brazilian Bar Association had proposed that people who committed torture should be excluded from the 1979 Amnesty Law, which pardoned civilians and military personnel for crimes committed under the dictatorship. The court voted 7 to 2 against the motion Thursday. Most justices said the law should remain as is because it had been approved by society as a whole, including the bar association, armed forces and political exiles. Unlike Argentina, Uruguay and Chile, Brazil never prosecuted members of the armed forces for rights abuses committed during the country's military rule.
Obama's sombre oil leak warning
Obama says the Gulf oil slick is a "potentially unprecedented" environmental disaster, and BP must pay.
Iran row looms at UN nuclear talks
Delegates from nearly 200 nations were gathering at the UN to review efforts to check the spread of nuclear weapons. They meet every five years to try to strengthen the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. But this time the unresolved Iranian nuclear crisis threatens to overshadow the conference in New York. Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made a last-minute decision to attend to defend his country against US claims it wants to build a bomb. The nuclear non-proliferation treaty, or NPT, is a grand bargain: nations with nuclear weapons promise to disarm, while those without promise not to get them, in exchange for the right to peaceful use of nuclear energy. But the regime has come under heavy strain in recent years, and veteran observers say Monday's conference cannot afford to fail.
Legal education system needs dramatic reform
India's legal education system needs 'dramatic reform' to improve the economic environment and ensure citizens get speedy and affordable access to justice, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said. 'If we are to have a society... where the common man and common woman gets speedy and affordable access to justice, if we are to have in our country the turbulence in effect of the rule of law, if we are to have an economic environment where contracts are easily enforceable, then we must ensure that our law teachers, practicing advocates, corporate legal luminaries, legal advisors, judicial officers and legal facilitators are indeed men and women of very high intellectual caliber,' he said while inaugurating the National Consultation for Second Generation Reforms in Legal Education here. 'And this is possible only if there is dramatic reform and improvement in the scope and quality of our legal education system.' Noting that India had a 'small number of dynamic and outstanding law schools', Manmohan Singh, however, lamented that 'they remain islands of excellence amidst a sea of institutionalized mediocrity'. 'We are not even marginally nearer to profound scholarship and enlightened research in law.'
Who knew bankruptcy paid so well?
More than $263,000 for photocopies in four months. Over $2,100 in limousine rides by one partner in one month. And $48 just to leave a message. Explanations for these charges? Priceless. The lawyers, accountants and restructuring experts overseeing the remains of Lehman Brothers have already racked up more than $730 million in fees and expenses, with no end in sight. Anyone wondering why total fees doled out in the Lehman bankruptcy alone could easily touch the $1 billion mark merely has to look at the bills buried among the blizzard of court documents filed in the case. They're a Baedeker to the continuing bankruptcy bonanza, a world where the meter is always running — sometimes literally. Analysts, lawyers and others involved in the larger bankruptcy boom say that some fees are legitimate — and that others are, at a minimum, highly questionable. Analysts say that nickel-and-diming might be worth a laugh or two — if some of the larger fees weren't snowballing so quickly as well. They say these bounteous fees reduce the money left for creditors in the bankruptcy cases.
Appeal in Salinger copyright case
An appeal against the banning of a book promoted as a sequel to JD Salinger's Catcher in the Rye has been given the go-ahead. In July, a judge in Manhattan's federal court blocked the US publication of 60 Years Later: Coming Through The Rye by Swedish novelist Fredrik Colting. On Friday, an appeals court sent the case back to the federal court. But in its ruling, the appeals court made it clear it expected Salinger's trust to prevail. "Most of the matters relevant to Salinger's likelihood of success on the merits are either undisputed or readily established in his favour," the court ruled. Salinger died in January at the age of 91.
Repsol says it may sell 40% of Brazil assets in IPO
Repsol YPF SA, Spain's biggest oil company, is considering the sale of about 40 percent of its Brazil assets in an initial public offering as early as this year. The IPO is among options being considered as the Madrid- based company seeks to raise cash for investments in Brazil.
China-led African boom lures investors as economic growth is set to double
Investment in Africa from countries such as China and India has rekindled optimism in a continent that sits on the world's biggest deposits of platinum, chrome and diamonds, attracting a record number of delegates to this year's World Economic Forum on Africa.
Federal judge dismisses suit over order to remove headscarf in court
A judge in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit against a Michigan judge who ordered a Muslim woman to remove her headscarf in court. The suit was filed in August by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) on behalf of Raneen Albaghdady against Judge William Callahan of the Wayne County Circuit Court. Callahan has a policy against hats in his courtroom, and when he asked Albaghdady to remove her headscarf, or hijab, she did so without objection. Judge Marianne Battani ruled: “This is not a situation where a government actor required removal of a hijab after the wearer asserted her First Amendment rights. There simply is no evidence that Callahan would have required the removal of a head covering if he had known of its religious significance. Although an individual present in the courtroom stated it was a scarf, no one mentioned it was a hijab. No one mentioned that removal would violate Albaghdady's religious beliefs. Plaintiffs lacks standing given the facts and circumstances upon which Albaghdady bases her claims. Because Plaintiffs lack standing, the Court dismisses this action in its entirety.”
Time
The 100 Most Influential People in the World. Our annual list of the people whose ideas, innovations and actions are shaping our world
Leaders
Sarah Palin, Manmohan Singh and other global movers and shakers
Heroes
The inspiring feats of an urban farmer, an air-traffic controller in Haiti and icons like Bill Clinton
Thinkers
Steve Jobs plus scientists, statesmen and a Supreme Court Justice
Newsweek
Why Men Love War. The reasons and causes—territory, ideology, WMDs—may change with the times, but our lust for it is eternal.
Business Week
GM's Impatient Giant. Brought in by Obama's car czar to help revive the automaker after bankruptcy, "Big Ed" fired CEO Fritz Henderson and took the wheel himself. GM's sales are bouncing back, but Whitacre's redesign is just beginning.
The Economist
Acropolis now The Greek debt crisis is spreading. Europe needs a bolder, broader solution—and quickly.
Le Nouvel Observateur
Comment ils sont devenus français. On pensait tout connaître de ces personnalités qui incarnent la France. Mais se souvient-on que leurs familles venaient d'ailleurs ?
Der Spiegel
Der iKult - Wie Apple die Welt verführt.
Obama defends US oil spill response
Al Jazeera, Doha, Qatar
Four killed in Darfur protest -- aid source
Asharq Al-Awsat, Pan-Arab daily, London, England
Mohammad orders expansion of roads
Gulf News, Independent daily, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Welcome to the new Haaretz.com website
Haaretz, Liberal daily, Tel Aviv, Israel
When Israel is 64
IPS Middle East, International cooperative of journalists, Rome, Italy
Proximity talks to begin Wednesday
JPost, Conservative, Jerusalem, Israel
UAE carriers set to drive regional air traffic growth
Khaleej Times, English-language daily, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Alcoa, Maaden grant contracts for aluminum JV
Middle East North African Network, Online financial portal, Amman, Jordan
Pakistani Taliban Promise U.S. Attacks Post-NY Bomb Scare
Nahamet, Online news portal, Beirut, Lebanon
Panel formed on Lebanon poll law
Saudi Gazette, English-language daily, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Kuwaiti MPs want Iran envoy expelled over 'spy cell'
The Daily Star, Independent daily, Beirut, Lebanon
Palestinian leader says to meet Obama in Washington
Times of Oman, English-language daily, Muscat, Oman
Removing the Veil on the Streets of Paris
Yemen Observer, Sana'a, Republic of Yemen
Flashpoint: Al-Qaida anxiety
The terrorist threat exists far away, but also looms near
Yemen Times, (Independent weekly), Sana'a, Republic of Yemen
NY car bomb plot 'not al-Qaeda'
BBC News, Centrist newscaster, London, England
Tribesmen open up Championship with a win
BreakingNews.ie, Online news portal, Cork, Ireland
Dead British soldier to be named
Daily Express, Conservative tabloid, London, England
'Hypocrite' Harman and her family's inheritance tax dodge
Daily Mail, Conservative daily, London, England
RIM moves into top 5 handset vendors in Q1
DMeurope, Online news portal, Amsterdam, Netherlands
USA: Manhunt underway for suspect in failed Times Square car bombing
France 24, Issy-les-Moulineaux, France
LOOK Loves ASOS Short Bright Bib Necklace, GBP 24
Look Magazine, London, England
Pedestrian dies in crash near Workington
News & Star, Independent daily, Carlisle, England
The Rundown - May 3
Radio Free Europe, Prague, Czech Republic
Manhunt After Failed New York Bomb Attack
Sky News, Independent newscaster, Middlesex, England
'Hey Man, Good Food': G-8 Chefs Baffled By Laura Bush's 'Poisoning' Claims
Spiegel International, Liberal newsmagazine, Hamburg, Germany
David Cameron: Six months to lay out spending cuts
The Guardian, Liberal daily, London, England
Suu Kyi wins right to mend roof
The Independent, London, England
Wexford deny Clare at Semple
The Irish Times, Centrist daily, Dublin, Ireland
Austria Finds Strong Links to Kadyrov in Israilov's Murder
The Moscow Times, Independent daily, Moscow, Russia
Super sniper's world record kill
The Sun, London, England
Forgotten songs by Dame Vera Lynn unearthed after more than 60 years
The Telegraph, London, England
Times Square bomb: Who are the Pakistani Taliban?
The Telegraph, Conservative daily, London, England
Spider-Man thwarts robbery in comic shop caper
Times Online, Conservative daily, London, England
TNI Chief opens Asia-Pacific military conference
Antara News, News agency, Jakarta, Indonesia
Taiwan asks China to extradite bomb hoaxer
China Post, English-language daily, Taipei, Taiwan
10th Seoul International Financial Forum Kicks Off
Chosun Ilbo, Conservative daily, Seoul, South Korea
Pakistani Taliban chief ruthless and theatrical
Dawn, English-language daily, Karachi, Pakistan
Anthony Lake begins his tenure as UNICEF's Executive Director
Gazeta.kz, Official online newspaper, Kazakhstan
Roadside blast kills eight civilians: Afghan police
Hindustan Times, New Delhi, India
26/11: Tahaliyani to deliver verdict shortly
India Express, News portal, Mumbai, India
Kolkata: Lightning strikes kill 5
India Times, Conservative daily, New Delhi, India
Albirex sweep Grouses after double overtime
Japan Times, Independent centrist, Tokyo, Japan
Oil palm planters urged to create corridors for wildlife
Malaysian Star, Online news portal, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia
Taleban video promises US attacks
New Zealand Herald, Conservative daily, Auckland, New Zealand
Commander surrenders
Pajhwok Afghan News, (Independent news agency), Kabul, Afghanistan
UAE reiterates support for Palestinian efforts in establishing sovereign state
People's Daily Online, English-language, Beijing, China
Iraq begins Baghdad vote recount requested by PM
Sify News, Chennai, India
'Comeback' torpedoed
Sydney Morning Herald, Centrist daily, Sydney, Australia
China Cosco posts annual loss
Taiwan News, English-language daily, Taipei, Taiwan
Parents no longer required to OK surname changes
Taiwan Today, Government Information Office, Taipei, Taiwan
Clarke says Australians put up a brilliant show against Pakistan
Thaindian News, Bangkok, Thailand
BJP forced to wait in Jharkhand
The Hindu, Left-leaning daily, Chennai, India
Obama promises to clean up Gulf oil spill
Canadian Broadcasting Centre, Toronto, Ontario
Toddler, pastor among Jamaicans murdered
Caribbean360, Online news portal, St. Michael, Barbados
Premier blasts AG Duguay
Cayman Net News, Online news portal, George Town, Cayman Islands
Dominican Republic, OAS sign electoral observation agreement
Dominican Today, Independent daily, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
Pressure Mounts on Honduras as Journalist Death Toll Rises
IPS Latin America, International cooperative of journalists, Rome, Italy
Scouts Association hunting new talent
Jamaica Gleaner, Independent daily, Kingston, Jamaica
US anti-drug cooperation with Peru may total US$ 150 million this year
Living in Peru, News portal, Lima, Peru
Celtics need more than just Rondo
The Globe and Mail, Centrist daily, Toronto, Canada
Residents unaware of roof blaze
Toronto Star, Toronto, Ontario
PNM Candidates/constituencies
Trinidad Guardian, Independent daily, Port-of-Spain, Trinidad
ANC's youth leader faces hearing
BBC News, Centrist newscaster, London, England
UN chief warns against early withdrawal from DR Congo
CongoPlanet.com, Independent online news aggregator
Old Guards pledge support for the Government
GhanaWeb, Online news portal, Amsterdam, Netherlands
'Predators of the press'
iafrica, Online news portal, Cape Town, South Africa
Guards held hostage at Rand Airport
Independent Online, News portal, Cape Town, South Africa
Ethiopia: Jimma University wins national moot court competition
Jimma Times, Online news portal, Jimma, Ethiopia
NGO vows to expose defaulting IPP contractors
Vanguard, Independent daily, Lagos, Nigeria
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