Google Bends Over for China
July 21st, 2010Imagine my shock.
Via: Washington Post:
China renewed Google’s Internet license after it pledged to obey censorship laws and stop automatically switching mainland users to its unfiltered Hong Kong site, an official said Tuesday.
It was Beijing’s first public comment on its decision to allow Google to continue operating a China website following a public clash over censorship. The company closed its China search engine in March but still offers music and other services in China.
Google promised to “obey Chinese law” and avoid linking to material deemed a threat to national security or social stability, said Zhang Feng, director of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology’s Telecoms Development Department, at a news conference.
Gordon Brown on Saddam Hussein: “This New World Order That We Were Trying to Create Was Being Put at Risk”
July 21st, 2010Mafia Money-Laundering Profits Swell in Credit Crisis
July 21st, 2010Via: Bloomberg:
The mafia has cranked up money laundering activities in Italy after the credit crunch prompted banks to stop lending, leaving a funding gap that criminal capital has filled, according to the Bank of Italy.
“The crisis has given organized crime room to thrive because access to credit has become more difficult,” said Anna Maria Tarantola, the central bank’s deputy general director, in a July 12 interview in her Rome office. “Whoever holds large amounts of cash, like crime groups, can make investments that aren’t possible for others. They can now invest in fully legal businesses.”
The central bank’s financial intelligence unit tracked 15,000 suspicious transactions in the first half of 2010, up 52 percent from a year earlier, and exceeding the total for all of 2008, said Tarantola, who’s in charge of banking oversight.
Money laundering occurs when criminals hide illegal income by funneling it through legitimate channels. Last year investigators seized Rome’s Café de Paris, famous for its appearance in Federico Fellini’s 1960 film “La Dolce Vita,” alleging it was owned by the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta mafia. Sicily’s Cosa Nostra mafia has used supermarket chains it owns for similar purposes, according to court reports in Palermo.
Amendment Slipped Into Health Care Legislation Would Track, Tax Coin and Bullion Transactions
July 21st, 2010You already knew about this, but just in case…
Via: ABC News:
Those already outraged by the president’s health care legislation now have a new bone of contention — a scarcely noticed tack-on provision to the law that puts gold coin buyers and sellers under closer government scrutiny.
The issue is rising to the fore just as gold coin dealers are attracting attention over sales tactics.
Section 9006 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will amend the Internal Revenue Code to expand the scope of Form 1099. Currently, 1099 forms are used to track and report the miscellaneous income associated with services rendered by independent contractors or self-employed individuals.
Starting Jan. 1, 2012, Form 1099s will become a means of reporting to the Internal Revenue Service the purchases of all goods and services by small businesses and self-employed people that exceed $600 during a calendar year. Precious metals such as coins and bullion fall into this category and coin dealers have been among those most rankled by the change.
This provision, intended to mine what the IRS deems a vast reservoir of uncollected income tax, was included in the health care legislation ostensibly as a way to pay for it. The tax code tweak is expected to raise $17 billion over the next 10 years, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.
More than 700 Dead in Chinese Floods; “Various Disasters Hitting Many Regions”
July 21st, 2010Via: CNN:
Torrential flooding across much of the nation has left 701 dead and hundreds missing, China’s vice minister of water resources said.
At least 347 people are missing, Liu Ning told reporters in Beijing on Wednesday.
Ninety-percent of the casualties were caused by mountain floods, mudslides and landslides triggered by heavy downpours. About 645,500 houses had collapsed, he said.
More than 230 rivers were above warning levels; 25 of them saw their highest levels ever, he said.
More than 100 cities flooded, he said.
Liu cited torrential downpours between June 13 and June 27, and heavy rain on July 8 in southern China as particularly damaging.
“In southern China, the rainfall is 30 to 100 percent higher than the historical average,” he said.
The Three Gorges Dam saw its biggest peak runoff and the rains resulted in “various disasters hitting many regions,” he said.
The floods have affected 117 million people in 27 provinces and seven cities.
“Five Leaks in and Around BP’s Well”?
July 21st, 2010Via: Washington Post:
Five leaks in and around BP’s well are more like “drips” and aren’t yet reason to worry, said retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the national incident commander. He extended testing of the experimental cap by another day, which means the oil will remain shut in. Seepage two miles from BP’s oil cap is coming from another well, he said.
— BP would like to implement a “static kill” of the well, which involves sending mud and later cement down into the well through the cap, according to BP Senior Vice President Kent Wells. The company is waiting for government approval.
The final closing of the well would still have to be performed by a relief well “bottom kill,” scheduled now to begin in late July or early August if the weather remains good.
America’s New Debtor Prison
July 21st, 2010Via: WalletPop:
People who are imprisoned for their debts are technically locked up for contempt of court after failing to appear for a hearing pertaining to their debt. It’s a legal loophole that debt-collection companies are increasingly using. Here’s how it works: First, the collections company files a lawsuit against the debtor, which requires them to appear in court. If the debtor doesn’t show up, the creditor wins a default judgment against them. This allows them to ask the court to schedule another hearing at which the judge can go through the debtor’s assets and determine if actions such as wage garnishments or bank account seizures can take place.
If the debtor doesn’t show up to that hearing, the hammer of justice can come down hard and fast. From there, the judge can order the debtor in contempt of court and issue a warrant for their arrest. If this seems unnecessarily punitive, the price to get out of jail is even more so, say consumer advocates: Generally, the judge sets the cost of bail at the amount of the disputed debt, an amount which is then turned over to the creditor.
“This is the private use of government resources to collect debt,” Pete Barry, partner at law firm Barry & Slade LLC, told Walletpop.
Killer Drones Get Stealthy
July 20th, 2010Via: Wired:
Today’s killer drones are sitting ducks. Loud, slow-moving, and simple to spot, any air defense more potent than a militant with an AK is liable to take one of the robotic planes down.
But the next generation of unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs) won’t be the airborne equivalent of fish in a barrel. They’ll fly faster and higher than the current drone crop. And they’ll be somewhat stealthy, as well.
Take the Avenger UCAV, unveiled last year by General Atomic Aeronautical Systems, the company behind the Predator and Reaper drones. With a 41-foot long fuselage and 66-foot wingspan, the Avenger is capable of staying in the air for up to 20 hours, and operating at up to 50,000 feet. Powered by a 4,800-lb. thrust Pratt & Whitney PW545B jet engine, it can fly at over 400 knots — 50 percent faster than the turboprop-powered Reaper unmanned plane, and more than three times as quick as the Predator.
General Atomics says the first Avenger is now flying two to three times a week. “Over the past 15-plus months, only one launch has been canceled due to parts and/or maintenance,” the company notes in a statement. A second and third Avenger are now in production. It’ll be a little longer than the first — 44 feet — and able to haul a 6,000 pound payload. That’s a 50 percent improvement over what the Reaper can carry.
BP Had Blow Out Preventer Modified in China to Save Money
July 20th, 2010Via: Guardian:
BP ordered the owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig, whose explosion led to the worst environmental disaster in US history, to overhaul a crucial piece of the rig’s safety equipment in China, the Observer has learnt. The blow-out preventer – the last line of defence against an out-of-control well – subsequently failed to activate and is at the centre of investigations into what caused the disaster.
Experts say that the practice of having such engineering work carried out in China, rather than the US, saves money and is common in the industry.
This weekend BP remained cautiously optimistic that the cap placed on top of the Gulf of Mexico well on Thursday night would continue to hold back the torrent of oil. It is the first time the flow has been stopped since the accident happened almost three months ago. But BP said that the pressure readings from the Macondo well were not as high as it had hoped, which could indicate that it has ruptured and that oil could be leaking out somewhere else.
There is no evidence that the significant modifications to the blowout preventer (BOP), which were carried out in China in 2005, caused the equipment to fail. But industry lawyers said BP could be made liable for any mistakes that a Chinese subcontractor made carrying out the work. It would be almost impossible to secure damages in China, where international law is barely recognised.
It is understood that lawyers for Cameron International, the manufacturer of the BOP, will argue the device was so significantly modified in China that it no longer resembled the original component, and that Cameron should therefore not be held liable.
Transocean, the owner of the Deepwater Horizon, which bought the BOP from Cameron, has already told congressional hearings into the disaster that the modifications were carried out at BP’s request and “under its direction” as the lessee of the rig. BP and Cameron declined to comment this weekend.
New Revenue Source for British Government: Dormant Bank Accounts
July 19th, 2010Via: Bloomberg:
U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron announced plans to use “hundreds of millions of pounds” from dormant bank accounts to fund community projects, while Business Secretary Vince Cable said lenders “ripped off” customers.
Cameron said he will press ahead with a proposal set out in the coalition government’s program to establish a “Big Society Bank” to finance moves by charitable groups and not-for-profit companies to take over jobs currently done by the government.
“These unclaimed assets, alongside the private-sector investment that we will leverage, will mean that the Big Society Bank will over time make available hundreds of millions of pounds of new finance to some of the most dynamic social organizations in our country,” Cameron said in a speech in Liverpool, northwest England, today.
Cameron said the idea ties in with his plans for a general overhaul of the public services, as the government tries to narrow a record budget deficit. The new Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts that 490,000 public-sector jobs will be lost by April 2015.
“We’ve got to get rid of the centralized bureaucracy that wastes money and undermines morale,” Cameron said. “In its place, we’ve got to give professionals much more freedom and open up public services to new providers like charities, social enterprises and private companies so we get more innovation, diversity and responsiveness to public need.”
Existing Legislation
A law passed in 2008 under Gordon Brown’s Labour government allows the government to use money from dormant bank and building-society accounts “for social or environmental purposes.” An account is dormant if the holder has made no transactions over a period of 15 years.
