March 2, 2015 nº 1,599 - Vol. 11
"Had the price of looking been blindness, I would have looked."
Ralph Ellison
Insider's view: see how local concerns shape up the global world. Read the daily press review in Migalhas International
_____________
Read Migalhas LatinoAmérica in Spanish every Tuesday and Thursday. Visit the website at www.migalhas.com/latinoamerica
_____________
Get Migalhas International on your mobile
You can now read the newsletter on your mobile device, through the migalhas.com/mobile website. The content of the main sections is the same as that found on the newsletter, but optimized for small-screen displays on mobile devices. Migalhas International Mobile, advancing legal news.
Health-law foes face hurdle as Justices weigh subsidies
Health-care law opponents face a challenge Wednesday in persuading the Supreme Court to strike down nationwide insurance subsidies: Doing so could put the law at odds with part of the court's health-care decision three years ago. A win for the challengers would mean states that declined to set up their own health-insurance exchanges might be forced to choose between creating one or forfeiting billions of dollars in government subsidies to make health insurance more affordable for state residents.
Visit our new 'Magic Eye' page and boost your career
Migalhas International, with the support of executive search firms, brings the best career and professional development opportunities to its readers. We call this service the "Magic Eye". Click here to go to our special webpage and find your next lease on life.
1 - U.S. bans Internet providers from blocking or slowing web traffic in landmark net neutrality ruling - click here.
_____________
100% Migalhas: www.migalhas.com
_____________
China cuts interest rates to stimulate slowing economy
China's central bank made the announcement on its website, saying that the one-year bank lending rate would drop 0.25 percentage point to 5.35 percent.
China draft counterterror law strikes fear in foreign tech firms
China is weighing a far-reaching counterterrorism law that would require technology firms to hand over encryption keys and install security "backdoors", a potential escalation of what some firms view as the increasingly onerous terms of doing business in the world's second largest economy. A parliamentary body read a second draft of the country's first anti-terrorism law this week and is expected to adopt the legislation in the coming weeks or months. The initial draft requires companies to also keep servers and user data within China, supply law enforcement authorities with communications records and censor terrorism-related internet content.
_____________
Tell your friends and colleagues you've read it in Migalhas International
_____________
Austria is taking controversial steps to tighten a 100-year-old 'Law on Islam'
Igniting fresh controversy, Austria's parliament has approved significant changes to the country's "Law on Islam" — a revamping of a 103-year-old law to expand certain legal protections while also placing new restrictions on Muslim organizations and how adherents practice their faith. While the changes were proposed years ago — long before attacks in France and Denmark by homegrown terrorists with extremist views — the reforms passed Wednesday are intended to "clearly combat" the influence of radical Islam. Lawmakers made the changes to a 1912 law that codified Islam as an official religion in Austria. Now, Austria's roughly 450 Muslim organizations face new limits on foreign funding, a move that has generated criticism from around the world, since other religious communities can still receive international support. Many of Austria's roughly 500,000 Muslims hail from Turkey, which finances and sends imams to the European nation. According to Austria's foreign ministry, imams cannot receive continuous financing under the law. The approved bill — referred to as the "Law on Islam" by the foreign ministry — also requires imams to be able to speak German. Muslim organizations are not required to use a standardized German translation of the Koran, but central tenets of the religion must be presented in German.
'Hundreds' of S Sudan boys seized
Hundreds of South Sudanese boys have been kidnapped and forced to become child soldiers, the UN says, blaming a government-allied militia. South Sudan is in a state of civil war with forces loyal to President Salva Kiir pitted against rebels led by former Vice-President Riek Machar. The campaign group Human Rights Watch has accused both sides of using child soldiers.
Mass anti-immigration rally in Rome
Thousands of supporters of Italy's Northern League have poured into one of Rome's biggest squares for a rally against immigration, the EU and Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's government. League leader Matteo Salvini accused Renzi of substituting the country's interests to those of the EU. He also criticized the government's record in dealing with Romanian truck drivers, tax, banks and big business.
Killing the LSAT is a bad deal for students
Its a trap. Law schools are not dispensing with the LSAT to help you, they're doing it to trick you. Instead of dropping $170 on a fee, plus whatever you spend on a prep course, to figure out if you might actually be good at law school, they want to strike down any barrier that might make you reconsider taking on $150,000 or more in debt. Oh, you'll still have to take a massively important standardized test, it's called the bar exam. But the school will have already gotten your money/debt obligations by the time you sit for it. The house wins the moment you step into the casino. And those are just the surface problems. Those are just the obvious issues with law schools dropping the LSAT requirement. The news from the University of Iowa and SUNY Buffalo is actually even more nefariously designed to trick students when you start peeling back additional layers.
Venezuela limits US diplomats
Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro has announced measures to impose limits on US diplomats working in the country. US citizens visiting the country would also need visas and there would be a list of politicians who would be banned from entry. Earlier this month the United States imposed visa restrictions on unnamed Venezuelan officials it accused of human rights violations and corruption.
US avoids homeland security shutdown
Lawmakers in the US avoid a partial shutdown of the Homeland Security Department after passing a one-week funding extension two hours before a deadline.
Egypt declares Hamas 'terrorist' group
A court in Egypt has declared Hamas a "terrorist organization." The verdict concerning Hamas, which controls Gaza, is seen as part of the government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi's crackdown on Islamist groups. Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist party that was banned in Egypt after President Mohamed Morsi was ousted in 2013.
Mexican Attorney General who handled case of vanished students will step down
Embattled Mexican Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam will be stepping down. The announcement came Friday after Murillo Karam weathered months of criticism over the way he handled the investigation into the disappearance of 43 college students. The student disappearances took place on Sept. 26 of last year and sparked massive protests in Mexico and dealt a blow to the administration of President Enrique Peña Nieto. The investigation, which was widely criticized for missteps and insensitivity toward family members, uncovered a complex network of collusion among local government officials, police and drug cartels. The government says the students, who were en route to a protest in the state of Guerrero, were abducted by corrupt police officers and handed over to drug traffickers, who then burned the students' bodies and threw their remains into a river.
US state considers baby drop-off boxes
Indiana could be the first US state to introduce baby boxes - anonymous drop-off points designed to prevent the deaths of abandoned infants. Many states allow parents to hand over infants at public facilities, but the boxes have not been used in the US. The boxes offer people who will not give up a child in person an alternative to abandonment or infanticide, proponents say. But they have been criticized in Europe and Asia, where they are more common. Other concerns over baby boxes include the need for medical care provided at safe haven sites like hospitals or police stations. The involvement of a trained professional at the point of handover can also help assess whether the mother simply needs financial support or other help. Since 1999, a number of US states have passed "safe haven" laws that allow parents to surrender newborns at hospitals, police stations and other facilities without fear of prosecution, so long as the child hasn't been harmed.
Whatapp's near-suspension in Brazil highlights legal concerns for web firms
The decision by a county judge that nearly forced the suspension of Facebook Inc.'s Whatsapp throughout Brazil this week has added to legal concerns for Web firms in the fast-growing market.
Report urges Britain to take small-claims cases online
Instead of settling low-value civil cases in court, a new report from the Civil Justice Council says these disputes should be settled online. Could the courtroom be the next place to be outsourced to the Internet? Well, that's the idea behind a new report from the Civil Justice Council in Great Britain. Small claims civil court cases - those are under 25,000 pounds or about $39,000 - would be dealt with online rather than in person.
Holder vows to lower threshold for US civil rights charges
Attorney General Eric Holder says he will try to change the standard needed to bring federal civil rights cases in his last few weeks in the job. He said "if we adjust those standards, we can make the federal government a better backstop". His comments come after his department said it would not bring such charges in the Trayvon Martin case. Holder, who has spoken out strongly about minorities communities relations with law enforcement, said he would use his last days as the US' top lawyer to talk about how the justice department decides to bring civil rights cases. The proposal takes eBay's dispute resolution system as a kind of inspiration.
Egypt court strikes down part of election law
Egypt's Supreme Constitutional Court on Sunday ruled part of an election law unconstitutional, possibly delaying the upcoming parliamentary elections. The law was enacted by Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi to set up voting districts, creating 567 new seats in parliament, of which 420 could go to individual candidates, 120 would be handed down according to party lists, and 27 would be appointed by the president. Voting was scheduled to begin March 21 through April. After the ruling, el-Sissi immediately asked for the law to be amended within a month to prevent delays to the election. However, Egypt's Supreme Election Committee is reportedly implementing a new schedule for the election.
Fines remain rare even as health data breaches multiply
The US ederal government's health watchdogs have delivered a stern message: They are cracking down on insurers, hospitals and doctors offices that don't adequately protect the security and privacy of medical records. "We've now moved into an area of more assertive enforcement." Allegedly 80 million company records were accessed in what may be one of the largest health care data breaches to date. But as breaches of patient records proliferate — just this month, insurer Anthem revealed a hack that exposed information for nearly 80 million people — federal overseers have seldom penalized the health care organizations responsible for safeguarding this data.
Pentagon overturns rule that forced relocation of military judges to Guantanamo
The US Department of Defense (DOD) on Friday rescinded a new rule that required military judges presiding over war crimes tribunals at the US Navy base in Guantanamo Bay to relocate to Cuba. The DOD claimed that the rule was enacted, in part, to help speed up the litigation process in military commission prosecutions, but overturned the rule in response to a judge's suspension of a 9/11 terrorism case.
Oligarch Mikhail Fridman in row over North Sea deal
The UK government has said it will block the sale of 12 North Sea oil and gas fields to a Russian oligarch. The Department of Energy said it opposed the deal "in its current form". The North Sea assets are owned by German company RWE Dea, which is being sold to a group backed by Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman. There are fears that the deal could run counter to sanctions imposed over the crisis in Ukraine, since Mr Fridman is a potential target for such measures.
Apple-Google no-poach deal may turn on lawyers taking pay cut
The $415 million settlement wrangled out of Silicon Valley behemoths including Apple Inc. and Google Inc. over an alleged wage-fixing conspiracy may win approval because of lawyers' willingness to take a pay cut. In a second bid to end a four-year battle over claims the companies conspired to avoid hiring from one another, employees would get $90.5 million more than in the original accord rejected by a judge in August, while their lawyers' take remains fixed at $81 million. For what the attorneys say is the second-largest settlement of a group case on behalf of workers, their pay day would be about $23 million less than they would pocket from a typical 25 percent cut of the total.
Data security is becoming the sparkle in Bitcoin
With the price of Bitcoin plummeting, the technology that stores the currency's transactions is gaining value as a safe and open way to keep other kinds of records. Underlying Bitcoin — created as a way to make payments directly, anonymously and outside government control — is the block chain, a decentralized database that is driven by cryptography. At a basic level, the block chain is a searchable ledger where all transactions are confirmed, in a matter of minutes, by a network of computers working to perform complex algorithms. Each part of the network maintains a copy of the ledger. About six times an hour, a new group of accepted transactions — a block — is created, added to the chain and broadcast to the other parts of the network. In this manner, all transactions are recorded and linked and thus can be traced. It is nearly impossible to modify past blocks in the chain. By simply downloading the Bitcoin software, anyone can gain access to the block chain, search it and submit transactions to the network. Entrepreneurs worldwide are now working to harness that technology for use beyond Bitcoin transactions.
Time
The ISIS trap
Newsweek
In Moscow, March Commemorates Murdered Nemtsov
Business Week
Who Killed Tony the Tiger?
The Economist
Smartphones. Planet of the phones
Der Spiegel
Die Weltregierung. Wie das Silicon Valley unsere Zukunft steuert
L'Espresso
Santa Romana Spesa
Bangladeshi mourners pay tribute to slain blogger
Al Jazeera, Doha, Qatar
The unlikely broker between Hamas and Egypt: Islamic Jihad
Haaretz, Liberal daily, Tel Aviv, Israel
'Jihadi John was cold and a loner'
BBC News, Centrist newscaster, London, England
U.S., South Korea holding war games
CNN International, London, England
BAZ BAMIGBOYE: Now Queen Helen is putting Blair in the hot seat
Daily Mail, Conservative daily, London, England
ROWAN PELLING: Help! I've never had an orgasm!†
Daily Mail, Conservative daily, London, England
Memorial march: 'My hope for Russia has died with the death of Boris Nemtsov'
EuroNews, International news, Ecully Cedex, France
France divided over cooperation with 'butcher' Assad
France 24, Issy-les-Moulineaux, France
AKP seeking ways to speed up contentious security bill
Hurriyet Daily News, (Liberal, English-language), Istanbul, Turkey
North Korea fires missiles in protest at US military drills
Telegraph The, Conservative daily, London, England
Sexism is worse in the music industry now than it was in the 1960s, says Lulu
Telegraph The, Celebrity news, London, England
Former DPP chairman calls for 'no' vote option
China Post, English-language daily, Taipei, Taiwan
Spring Starts Earlier
Chosun Ilbo, Conservative daily, Seoul, South Korea
Netanyahu goes to US takes his Iran nuclear fight along
Hindustan Times, New Delhi, India
Students envisage a corruption-free Aurangabad
India Times, Conservative daily, New Delhi, India
DNA screening trial OK'd for in vitro embryos
Japan Times, Independent centrist, Tokyo, Japan
Ukraine President cancels trip over protests in eastern Ukraine
Straits Times, Pro-government, Singapore
Horsepark Drive now open after motorcycle crash caused closures
Sydney Morning Herald, Centrist daily, Sydney, Australia
Former Washington basketball star Christian Welp dies at 51
Taiwan News, English-language daily, Taipei, Taiwan
China Feb HSBC PMI at 7-month high but more rate cuts seen on the cards
The Economic Times, Business, Mumbai, India
Sierra Leone's VP in self-quarantine after guard dies from Ebola
Canadian Broadcasting Centre, Toronto, Ontario
Canada supports marchers protesting Nemtsov killing, Nicholson says
Globe and Mail The, Centrist daily, Toronto, Canada
Liberty Reserve Brought Down By 'Joe Bogus': How The Feds Arrested Arthur Budovsky
International Business Times, Business news organization, New York, U.S
Tobacco Workers in Cuba Dubious About Opening of U.S. Market
IPS Latin America, International cooperative of journalists, Rome, Italy
NXP to buy Freescale Semiconductor, merge operations in $40 billion deal
Reuters, Business News, New York, U.S
North Korea, angered by drills, fires short-range missiles off coast
Reuters, World News, New York, U.S
London school board failed in response to sexual assault, jury finds
Toronto Star, Toronto, Ontario
'Hundreds' of S Sudan boys seized
BBC News, Centrist newscaster, London, England
-----