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First the Fed increased by US$25 billion the amount of money it will auction to banks (commercial and investment) through its Term Auction Facility (TAF). Here banker people, borrow more. Please.

Second, the Fed expanded the list of collateral it will accept for asset-swapping through its Term Securities Lending (Facility). Remember, that’s the one that lets banks and prime brokers swap mortgage-backed securities for Treasury bonds for up to 28-days.

The new generation

Long gone are the days of simple wiretapping, when the worst your phone could do was let someone listen in to your conversations. The new generation of cell phone spying tools provides a lot more power.

In one of the harshest environments imaginable, where temperatures regularly rise to 50C and sandstorms can limit visibility to a few metres, construction has begun on what will be the greenest city on Earth.

Abu Dhabi is developing the world’s first solar-powered, car-free subdivision. Called Masdar City, the initiative is harnessing the region’s enormous wealth, and zeal for glitzy construction, to build an eco-friendly community of 50,000 in the heart of the Persian Gulf.

If successful, Masdar City will become a haven for green living in one of the most polluted areas in the world; showing what’s possible when governments and business leaders join forces.

From futuristic pods that transport residents to work on solar-powered magnetic rails, and state-of-the-art composting and recycling facilities, developers are billing Masdar City as the world’s only zero-carbon, waste-free city.

Produce will be grown in local greenhouses and fresh water will come from a nearby desalination plant. Buildings must adhere to strict energy conservation regulations and air conditioners will be powered by wind towers.

Masdar City is expected to cost more than $20 billion and will take a decade to complete.

While it may seem ironic for a place that relies almost exclusively on oil wealth to be building a car-free city, Abu Dhabi’s project is an important step toward developing alternative energy technology. With gas prices soaring, supplies dwindling and concerns over global warming, our reliance on oil has again come under scrutiny. But progress on breaking this dependence has been painstakingly slow.

Masdar City is only one element of Abu Dhabi’s push toward clean, renewable energy. In 2006, the UAE capital launched its Masdar Initiative (Masdar means “the source” in Arabic), a multi-billion dollar investment into the research and development of environmentally friendly technology, such as solar and wind power.

An aspiring leading producer of green energy solutions, Abu Dhabi partnered with Massachusetts Institute of Technology to build a graduate university in Masdar City to study alternative energy.

A news broadcast on the state-run station said Tuesday that 22,464 people had been confirmed dead after Cyclone Nargis. The broadcast added that 41,000 more were missing.

The U.N. estimated up to a million could be homeless.

China’s state-run Xinhua news agency, quoting officials, reported a death toll of 10,000 alone in the township of Bogalay, where bodies were being dumped into the river.

CNN’s Dan Rivers, the first Western journalist in Bogalay, said destroyed homes could be seen for 30 kilometer stretches.

In one area only four homes remained from a total of 369.

Rivers said people were now sheltering under canvas covers. They had little food bar a small amount of eggs and rice. The area’s rice had been destroyed, leaving Bogalay with a five-day supply. Water pumps were also ruined, and fuel was scarce. Video Watch family huddle in ruined home »

Rivers had seen the army and Red Cross in the area, but the weather remained awful and conditions were miserable.

The aftermath has pushed Myanmar’s normally secretive ruling military junta to ask for aid and release details of the devastation. However, the U.N. said its aid workers were still waiting for visas to enter the country. It, the Red Cross and other aid organizations have been gathering supplies to ship to the country.

U.S. President George Bush Tuesday called on the military junta to allow it to help with disaster assistance.

Bush, who made the comments while signing legislation awarding the Congressional Gold Medal to Myanmar democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi, said the U.S. was ready to “come and help.”

“The United States has made an initial aid contribution, but we want to do a lot more,” Bush said.

“We are prepared to move U.S. Navy assets to help find those who have lost their lives, to help find the missing, and help stabilize the situation. But in order to do so, the military Junta must allow our disaster assessment teams into the country.”

The U.S. Navy is making preparations to respond to any requests for assistance, U.S. military officials told CNN. The Navy has calculated it would take its nearest ships four days sailing time to get to the affected area.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino later seemed to back away from Bush’s hard line over the access of assessment teams.

Asked if the United States would refuse to help Myanmar if U.S. teams were not allowed to evaluate the situation, she said: “The president and Mrs. Bush have set the standard of putting aside political differences and getting help to people in need. And that’s exactly what we would do here.”

The problem thus far, she said, was that Washington had “not heard back from the government [of Myanmar] and we would … hope to hear from them soon.”

Maung Maung Swe, Myanmar’s social welfare minister, earlier told reporters that the country needed aid now, The Associated Press reported.

“Instead of waiting for figures on casualties and damage, it will be practical to send humanitarian aid to victims as soon as possible,” Swe said.

He revealed that that 95 percent of the homes in Bogalay — a city of 190,000 — had been destroyed, AFP reported. Video Watch how the cyclone crippled Yangon »

“Many people were killed in a 12-foot tidal wave,” Swe said.

“High rates of delinquency and foreclosure can have substantial spillover effects on the housing market, the financial markets and the broader economy,” Bernanke said Monday in a dinner speech to Columbia Business School in New York. “Therefore, doing what we can to avoid preventable foreclosures is not just in the interest of lenders and borrowers. It’s in everybody’s interest,” he said.

Some 1.5 million U.S. homes entered into the foreclosure process last year, up 53 percent from 2006, Bernanke said. The rate of new foreclosures looks likely to be even higher this year, he said.

To provide more relief, Bernanke again called on Congress to give the Federal Housing Administration, which insures mortgages, more flexibility to help distressed borrowers at risk of losing their homes. He also again urged lawmakers to move ahead on legislation revamping Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which finance mortgages. And, he called on the two mortgage giants to quickly raise new capital.

House leaders plan action on those and other housing measures this week.

Detective Chief Inspector Mick Neville said it was a “fiasco” that only 3 per cent of street robberies in London were solved using CCTV.

Mr Neville, who heads the Visual Images, Identifications and Detections Office (Viido) unit, told the Security Document World Conference that the use of CCTV images as evidence in court has been very poor.

“Billions of pounds have been spent on kit, but no thought has gone into how the police are going to use the images and how they will be used in court,” he told the conference.
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“It’s been an utter fiasco: only 3 per cent of crimes were solved by CCTV. Why don’t people fear it? [They think] the cameras are not working.”

The aim of the Viido unit is to improve the way that CCTV footage is processed, turning it into a third forensic specialism alongside DNA analysis and fingerprinting.

Now, an influential group of physicians has drafted a grimly specific list of recommendations for which patients wouldn’t be treated. They include the very elderly, seriously hurt trauma victims, severely burned patients and those with severe dementia.

The suggested list was compiled by a task force whose members come from prestigious universities, medical groups, the military and government agencies. They include the Department of Homeland Security, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Health and Human Services.

Does it mean U.S. kids are being over-treated? Or that U.K. children are being under-treated?

Experts say that’s almost beside the point, because use is rising on both sides of the Atlantic. And with scant long-term safety data, it’s likely the drugs are being over-prescribed for both U.S. and U.K. children, research suggests.

Among the most commonly used drugs were those to treat autism and hyperactivity.

In the U.K. study, anti-psychotics were prescribed for 595 children at a rate of less than four per 10,000 children in 1992. By 2005, 2,917 children were prescribed the drugs at a rate of seven per 10,000 — a near-doubling, said lead author Fariz Rani, a researcher at the University of London’s pharmacy school.

The study is being released Monday in the May edition of the journal Pediatrics.

By contrast, an earlier U.S. study found that nearly 45 American children out of 10,000 used the drugs in 2001 versus more than 23 per 10,000 in 1996.

There are big differences that could help explain the vastly higher U.S. rate.

A recent report in The Lancet suggested that the U.K.’s universal health care system limits prescribing practices there. The report also said direct-to-consumer ads are more common in the United States. These ads raise consumer awareness and demand for medication.

While drug company ties with doctors are common in both the U.S. and U.K., Vanderbilt University researcher Wayne Ray said U.K. physicians generally are more conservative about prescribing psychiatric drugs. Ray co-authored the U.S. study, published in 2004.

The new U.K. study, involving 1992-2005 health records of more than 16,000 children, is the first large examination of these drugs in U.K. children. It found the increase was mostly in medicines that haven’t been officially approved for kids. They were most commonly prescribed for behavior and conduct disorders, which include attention deficit disorder.

Side effects including weight gain, nervous-system problems and heart trouble have been reported in children using these drugs and there’s little long-term evidence about whether they’re safe for them, the study authors said.

“This highlights the need for long-term safety investigations and ongoing clinical monitoring,” they said, “particularly if the prescribing rate of these medicines continues to rise.”

One of the most commonly used anti-psychotics in the U.K. study was Risperdal, a schizophrenia drug that is sometimes used to treat irritability and aggression in autism. Its side effects include drowsiness and weight gain.

…

Dr. William Cooper, a Vanderbilt pediatrician, said the study shows the drugs are being used “without full understanding about the risks.”