In an unprecedented last-ditch effort to stop Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump, his two remaining rivals announced Sunday night they are divvying up the upcoming primary states to try to block the New York businessman’s path to the GOP nomination.
Top officials from the Ted Cruz and John Kasich campaigns announced the alliance in a pair of statements late Sunday night. The deal will keep Mr. Kasich, the Ohio governor, on the sidelines for Indiana’s May 3 primary, while Mr. Cruz, the Texas senator, won’t compete in contests in Oregon on May 17 and New Mexico on June 7.
“Our campaign will focus its time and resources in Indiana and in turn clear the path for Gov. Kasich to compete in Oregon and New Mexico, and we would hope that allies of both campaigns would follow our lead,” Cruz campaign manager Jeff Roe said.
Mr. Kasich’s top strategist, John Weaver, made an explicit call for super PACs devoted to stopping Mr. Trump to follow the two campaigns’ lead.
“We will focus our time and resources in New Mexico and Oregon,” Mr. Weaver said. “We would expect independent third-party groups to do the same and honor the commitments made by the Cruz and Kasich campaigns.”
The Cruz-Kasich alliance marks a phase both candidates have resisted for months. Both men have rejected calls that they ask supporters to strategically back other candidates in order to stop Mr. Trump, who is the lone Republican with a statistical chance of winning the party’s nomination on the first ballot at the GOP’s national convention, to be held in July in Cleveland.
The agreement comes as Mr. Trump is in the midst of a successful run of states. He won 89 of New York’s 95 delegates on Tuesday and stands to carry all five northeastern states due to vote this week.
If the arrangement is successful, it stands to benefit both men. Mr. Cruz’s campaign is now arranged around the idea that he can clinch the GOP nomination on a second or third ballot at the convention, once delegates bound to Mr. Trump on the first vote become free to vote how they wish. Mr. Kasich’s hope is that not only does Mr. Trump fall short, but Mr. Cruz does too, and eventually Republican delegates choose him as the most electable candidate.
Republican candidates need 1,237 delegates at the party convention to become the presidential nominee.
Mr. Trump responded on Twitter Sunday night Messrs. Cruz and Kasich “are going to collude in order to keep me from getting the Republican nomination. DESPERATION!”
Mr. Trump’s spokeswoman didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The deal will also likely add fuel to Mr. Trump’s long-running argument that the presidential contest is “rigged” against him. Mr. Trump has for weeks claimed the GOP nominating rules are fixed to benefit other candidates.
Sunday, April 24, 2016
Apple should pay more tax - Fortune
Posted: 22 Apr 2016 04:16 AM PDT
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak thinks the company — and all other companies — should be paying a 50% tax rate.
Woz told the BBC that he doesn’t like the idea that Apple is not paying taxes the way he does as an individual, saying he was worried its tax practices may be “unfair.”
“I do a lot of work, I do a lot of travel and I pay over 50% of everything I make in taxes, and I believe that’s part of life and you should do it,” Wozniak said. Asked if Apple should be paying such a rate, he replied: “Every company in the world should.”
Not that Woz, who left Apple over three decades ago, can do anything about it.
“I would not have any power and I don’t think it would be right for me, Steve Wozniak, to try to influence how Apple handles it, and I would have no effect anyway,” he said. “They’re going to take the thing that saves the last little penny. Apple’s so huge they don’t have to give in to anything.”
Apple recently paid $348 millionto settle a dispute with the Italian tax authorities, over the way it funnelled Italian profits through an Irish subsidiary in order to minimize its taxes.
It could also face a bill for billions in back-taxes if the European Commission concludes that Ireland gave it preferential treatment with its tax deal there, in a way that amounted to illegal state aid.
The company (like others) has made use of complex arrangements involving Ireland and Bermuda to cut its tax bill.
However, Apple CEO Tim Cook recently said the accusation that it was avoiding taxes was “total political crap” and the idea of bringing profits back to the U.S. was not “reasonable” because it would “cost me 40% to bring it home.” He also claimed Apple is already the biggest corporate tax payer in the U.S.
This article originally appeared on fortune.com
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak thinks the company — and all other companies — should be paying a 50% tax rate.
Woz told the BBC that he doesn’t like the idea that Apple is not paying taxes the way he does as an individual, saying he was worried its tax practices may be “unfair.”
“I do a lot of work, I do a lot of travel and I pay over 50% of everything I make in taxes, and I believe that’s part of life and you should do it,” Wozniak said. Asked if Apple should be paying such a rate, he replied: “Every company in the world should.”
Not that Woz, who left Apple over three decades ago, can do anything about it.
“I would not have any power and I don’t think it would be right for me, Steve Wozniak, to try to influence how Apple handles it, and I would have no effect anyway,” he said. “They’re going to take the thing that saves the last little penny. Apple’s so huge they don’t have to give in to anything.”
Apple recently paid $348 millionto settle a dispute with the Italian tax authorities, over the way it funnelled Italian profits through an Irish subsidiary in order to minimize its taxes.
It could also face a bill for billions in back-taxes if the European Commission concludes that Ireland gave it preferential treatment with its tax deal there, in a way that amounted to illegal state aid.
The company (like others) has made use of complex arrangements involving Ireland and Bermuda to cut its tax bill.
However, Apple CEO Tim Cook recently said the accusation that it was avoiding taxes was “total political crap” and the idea of bringing profits back to the U.S. was not “reasonable” because it would “cost me 40% to bring it home.” He also claimed Apple is already the biggest corporate tax payer in the U.S.
This article originally appeared on fortune.com
Saturday, April 23, 2016
Uber is killing taxi cab business - TIME
Posted: 21 Apr 2016 08:15 AM PDT
Business travellers are increasingly using ride-hailing services like Uber or Lyft, taking business away from traditional taxi companies and car rentals.
Ride-hailing services make up nearly half (46%) of all rides according to expense management company Certify, who reviewed more than 9 million receipts and expenses by corporate travellers. The number of trips taken with services like Uber and Lyft nearly doubled in 2016’s first quarter compared with the same period in 2015.
“Uber’s continued success and Lyft’s recent growth with the business travel market is really being driven by three factors: cost, convenience and customer satisfaction,” said Certify’s CEO Robert Neveu in a statement. “These ride-hailing services have perfected a model that allows employees to choose the kind of experience they want when traveling for business while also saving the company a great deal of money in the process.
According to Certify, the number taxicab rides fell from a 37% share for taxis in the beginning of 2014 to 14% today.
Business travellers are increasingly using ride-hailing services like Uber or Lyft, taking business away from traditional taxi companies and car rentals.
Ride-hailing services make up nearly half (46%) of all rides according to expense management company Certify, who reviewed more than 9 million receipts and expenses by corporate travellers. The number of trips taken with services like Uber and Lyft nearly doubled in 2016’s first quarter compared with the same period in 2015.
“Uber’s continued success and Lyft’s recent growth with the business travel market is really being driven by three factors: cost, convenience and customer satisfaction,” said Certify’s CEO Robert Neveu in a statement. “These ride-hailing services have perfected a model that allows employees to choose the kind of experience they want when traveling for business while also saving the company a great deal of money in the process.
According to Certify, the number taxicab rides fell from a 37% share for taxis in the beginning of 2014 to 14% today.
Bill Gates on technology - TED Talk
Tech for Teaching
Opening Minds on Ed Tech
By Bill Gates
| April 21, 2016
Every teacher deserves the chance to be phenomenal.
It’s easy to say, and I don’t know anyone who would disagree with the sentiment. But in the history of American education, this vision has proven hard to deliver on. Whenever I talk to teachers, one of their biggest concerns is that they don’t have the tools they need to do their best work. We see the same results in polls of teachers.
I’m optimistic that all of us who are passionate about education can solve this problem. One of the main reasons I’m so hopeful is that advances in technology will make it easier to give teachers the support they deserve. For example, teachers will be able to upload videos of themselves and get advice from their peers, watch the best teachers in the world at work, and get real-time feedback from their students. Software will also help identify which students are having trouble and adjust for their own learning style, leaving teachers more time to focus on the kids who need extra personal attention. (I wrote in more detail about how software will improve education worldwide in last year’s Annual Letter.)
Developers will play a key role in making these advances. I recently had a chance to talk with a number of the leading companies doing this work when I spoke at the ASU GSV Summit, an education-technology conference in San Diego, California. I encouraged them to work more closely with teachers to understand their needs, and to make sure their products deliver measurable results in the classroom. Technology can revolutionize the way teachers and students work together—but only if we base our approaches on evidence about what works.
Below you can read the transcript of my onstage Q&A. I also gave a speech. There’s a lot of exciting work going on in this field, and I definitely left San Diego feeling better than ever about the potential for technology to support teachers and students in a big way.
ASU GSV Q&A
QUESTION: You have concerns about the pace of change and about whether we’re making adequate impact quickly enough and I’m just curious if you have advice for the entrepreneurs out there as they think about it. How do we accelerate this pace and have bigger impact on the students?
BILL GATES: Well, in the K-12 area, the way the products are selected, the way money is budgeted for those, over time, that’s really got to change. We’ve got to free up more of the professional development money. We’ve got to get some example products that are clearly so successful that it really opens peoples’ minds to what the role of technology here is. I’d say we’re pretty early in that process.
There are a lot of teachers who are willing to be the pioneers in this area—that’s where we’ve gotten the adoptions so far. There are a lot of cases where we try and go beyond and get a district-wide adoption. We really have to look at why the uptake by the actual usage isn’t quite there, because then that creates something that other people hear about and they’re very, very reluctant.
We do have the benefit though—the digital tools now with the combination of PC, tablet, and cell phone. The three of those we’re close to universality. The idea that the connection was holding things back or access to a device is holding things back—those haven’t gone away, but particularly if some of the experience can be done on a small screen—then even when you get outside the United States the access levels are starting to be a lot higher.
There’s a very positive framework. There’s a sense of need, you know, as people look at those college residence numbers, they look at those completion numbers, and the whole cost equation, higher education is really staring at a tough set of constraints. So that should serve to drive the demand.
QUESTION: It feels to me like we’re hitting a proverbial tipping point in the embrace of personalization and a better understanding of what adapted means, personalized means. What do you see over the next five years? What’s your prognosis both in K-12 and for higher ed actually?
BILL GATES: Well, personalized learning is a fairly clear definition. But I think there are different things that come under that umbrella.
Math is the most straightforward because the idea of assessing knowledge very efficiently and saying, “OK, if you really can answer those questions, then we’ll move on to the other area.” That’s far more concrete than say, writing or history.
I was pretty amazed in my last visit to Summit to see how they have taken all the different areas and really given the students a sense of some degree of choice in what they’re doing and a real sense of what they need to get done.
The idea of an agency—where the student knows how much they have to get done, they’re making some selections there that really creates a different relationship between the student and teacher. So I’m hopeful that for math, we can get a very broad rollout of that within the next five years.
It does require the schools to be open-minded because when you go to those new classrooms’ locations, they’re not just in a typical classroom. They’ve been allowed to remodel some of that space. So the kids are moving around and it’s quite amazing. But there was an upfront investment there and a decision to get all the teachers engaged in that new model.
It’s a lot easier if you can do the current physical classroom teacher by teacher. Some stuff fits into that. But the biggest impact is where you can make changes in those things as well—it’s a school-wide way of doing things.
As you get up into higher-ed, it’s a lot more straightforward because then there’s an assumption that, largely, the student is motivated. The student knows what they’re doing. And it is there (in higher-ed), the interactivity, the personalization—particularly in the remedial courses where we’ve gone the furthest—that we’ve seen a dramatic payback in.
QUESTION: We have a section called “Tomorrowland” at the Summit this year. Do you think the embrace of these new technologies—virtual reality, augmented reality—are going to accelerate the adoption of personalized learning?
BILL GATES: Yes, I think virtual reality can make things more engaging. And there are certain things where you have more of a sense—even if you can't, say, build a car in the virtual world, you can sit there and put the pieces together and almost feel like you're doing far more than would be practical in the real world.
There's a lot of pedagogy about understanding the science and the math (principles) that really won't change much just because we put it in a virtual reality framework.
School is always about motivation. The material has been in the textbooks for a long time. In some subject areas, it hasn't even changed that much. If we can use it to draw people in, then that's incredibly valuable.
I'm just starting this for some of the videos I do—like where I go out to a refugee camp or to a developing country, to actually make a virtual reality movie. So people actually have a sense so they can see what it was like and look around and feel it.
And yes, we see it as we're creating those early stage things. We see a lot of engagement. And so combining that with the underlying concepts and not just having it be a distraction.
In learning science, there are a lot of things about—you make things too animated, too colorful, things like that—it often distracts from what you're really trying to get done, which is the attention to a few basic concepts. So I'm sure we'll be able to abuse virtual reality as well as we have ANY new technology that's out there.
I do think in terms of design, lots of engineering things, there's lots of places where it will play a practical role and hopefully draw people in.
And the cost—particularly where you're just taking the cellphone and repurposing that—we won't have to wait a whole decade before the accessibility is there for the lower-end versions of this. The higher-end versions—having an environment where you spend the $500-$1,000 and have it as a shared device—we should have that in a lot of locations as well.
QUESTION: One of the things I most admire about you and Melinda are that you’re proactive. You’re avid visitors. You visit schools. You’ve talked about some of them a number of times already. You visit schools. You visit universities. What’s the key takeaway you’ve seen in the most recent period in terms of your visits? What are you hearing from educators on the ground that you’re incorporating into your work?
BILL GATES: Well, it’s been very interesting to learn about who online (learning) is working for. And so far, a lot of the people who are engaged online are more of these adult students who are tougher because their scheduling is more difficult, but they’re easier because they come back for a reason. That is, they’re self-selected that, “OK I want to become a nurse.” “I want to get this engineering degree.”
And so, online, because it fits into that time flexibility and because they’re willing to persevere—that’s been the initial audience that that’s worked well for.
But there are people now, including ASU, who are using it for other cohorts. And they’re taking the very latest, which is far more engaging content than we’ve had in the past, and trying to make it work for everyone.
I think in education, there’s two types of visits you can do. When you get discouraged and don’t think that anything can happen—then you’ve got to go visit KIPP or Green Dot, or High Tech High, or Summit, and see classrooms—or Rocket Ship, which actually is doing some very interesting things.
Go to one where it all really came together: great teachers, a new approach, and you get reminded, “Wow—if we could do this for every student this would be phenomenal!” Then if you ever think, “Oh boy! This is great.” Then go and visit a college that has a 19 percent completion rate or go to an inner-city high school and get a sense of the disengagement that’s there and the amount of resources that’s just going to make sure that the environment is secure.
And so we have plenty of opportunity to see both of those. I do more visits to the ones that are doing well, because those are the best practices we want to spread.
My most recent trip this fall was to Appalachia and I thought that would be a mix. But because Kentucky has invested in their schools over the last 10 years, what we saw was mostly uplifting. These are public schools, very low-income kids, and the way those communities have come together around some of the new curriculum, better professional development, was really inspiring. So that gives you maybe a year or two of motivation you need to do it even more.
Opening Minds on Ed Tech
By Bill Gates
| April 21, 2016
Every teacher deserves the chance to be phenomenal.
It’s easy to say, and I don’t know anyone who would disagree with the sentiment. But in the history of American education, this vision has proven hard to deliver on. Whenever I talk to teachers, one of their biggest concerns is that they don’t have the tools they need to do their best work. We see the same results in polls of teachers.
I’m optimistic that all of us who are passionate about education can solve this problem. One of the main reasons I’m so hopeful is that advances in technology will make it easier to give teachers the support they deserve. For example, teachers will be able to upload videos of themselves and get advice from their peers, watch the best teachers in the world at work, and get real-time feedback from their students. Software will also help identify which students are having trouble and adjust for their own learning style, leaving teachers more time to focus on the kids who need extra personal attention. (I wrote in more detail about how software will improve education worldwide in last year’s Annual Letter.)
Developers will play a key role in making these advances. I recently had a chance to talk with a number of the leading companies doing this work when I spoke at the ASU GSV Summit, an education-technology conference in San Diego, California. I encouraged them to work more closely with teachers to understand their needs, and to make sure their products deliver measurable results in the classroom. Technology can revolutionize the way teachers and students work together—but only if we base our approaches on evidence about what works.
Below you can read the transcript of my onstage Q&A. I also gave a speech. There’s a lot of exciting work going on in this field, and I definitely left San Diego feeling better than ever about the potential for technology to support teachers and students in a big way.
ASU GSV Q&A
QUESTION: You have concerns about the pace of change and about whether we’re making adequate impact quickly enough and I’m just curious if you have advice for the entrepreneurs out there as they think about it. How do we accelerate this pace and have bigger impact on the students?
BILL GATES: Well, in the K-12 area, the way the products are selected, the way money is budgeted for those, over time, that’s really got to change. We’ve got to free up more of the professional development money. We’ve got to get some example products that are clearly so successful that it really opens peoples’ minds to what the role of technology here is. I’d say we’re pretty early in that process.
There are a lot of teachers who are willing to be the pioneers in this area—that’s where we’ve gotten the adoptions so far. There are a lot of cases where we try and go beyond and get a district-wide adoption. We really have to look at why the uptake by the actual usage isn’t quite there, because then that creates something that other people hear about and they’re very, very reluctant.
We do have the benefit though—the digital tools now with the combination of PC, tablet, and cell phone. The three of those we’re close to universality. The idea that the connection was holding things back or access to a device is holding things back—those haven’t gone away, but particularly if some of the experience can be done on a small screen—then even when you get outside the United States the access levels are starting to be a lot higher.
There’s a very positive framework. There’s a sense of need, you know, as people look at those college residence numbers, they look at those completion numbers, and the whole cost equation, higher education is really staring at a tough set of constraints. So that should serve to drive the demand.
QUESTION: It feels to me like we’re hitting a proverbial tipping point in the embrace of personalization and a better understanding of what adapted means, personalized means. What do you see over the next five years? What’s your prognosis both in K-12 and for higher ed actually?
BILL GATES: Well, personalized learning is a fairly clear definition. But I think there are different things that come under that umbrella.
Math is the most straightforward because the idea of assessing knowledge very efficiently and saying, “OK, if you really can answer those questions, then we’ll move on to the other area.” That’s far more concrete than say, writing or history.
I was pretty amazed in my last visit to Summit to see how they have taken all the different areas and really given the students a sense of some degree of choice in what they’re doing and a real sense of what they need to get done.
The idea of an agency—where the student knows how much they have to get done, they’re making some selections there that really creates a different relationship between the student and teacher. So I’m hopeful that for math, we can get a very broad rollout of that within the next five years.
It does require the schools to be open-minded because when you go to those new classrooms’ locations, they’re not just in a typical classroom. They’ve been allowed to remodel some of that space. So the kids are moving around and it’s quite amazing. But there was an upfront investment there and a decision to get all the teachers engaged in that new model.
It’s a lot easier if you can do the current physical classroom teacher by teacher. Some stuff fits into that. But the biggest impact is where you can make changes in those things as well—it’s a school-wide way of doing things.
As you get up into higher-ed, it’s a lot more straightforward because then there’s an assumption that, largely, the student is motivated. The student knows what they’re doing. And it is there (in higher-ed), the interactivity, the personalization—particularly in the remedial courses where we’ve gone the furthest—that we’ve seen a dramatic payback in.
QUESTION: We have a section called “Tomorrowland” at the Summit this year. Do you think the embrace of these new technologies—virtual reality, augmented reality—are going to accelerate the adoption of personalized learning?
BILL GATES: Yes, I think virtual reality can make things more engaging. And there are certain things where you have more of a sense—even if you can't, say, build a car in the virtual world, you can sit there and put the pieces together and almost feel like you're doing far more than would be practical in the real world.
There's a lot of pedagogy about understanding the science and the math (principles) that really won't change much just because we put it in a virtual reality framework.
School is always about motivation. The material has been in the textbooks for a long time. In some subject areas, it hasn't even changed that much. If we can use it to draw people in, then that's incredibly valuable.
I'm just starting this for some of the videos I do—like where I go out to a refugee camp or to a developing country, to actually make a virtual reality movie. So people actually have a sense so they can see what it was like and look around and feel it.
And yes, we see it as we're creating those early stage things. We see a lot of engagement. And so combining that with the underlying concepts and not just having it be a distraction.
In learning science, there are a lot of things about—you make things too animated, too colorful, things like that—it often distracts from what you're really trying to get done, which is the attention to a few basic concepts. So I'm sure we'll be able to abuse virtual reality as well as we have ANY new technology that's out there.
I do think in terms of design, lots of engineering things, there's lots of places where it will play a practical role and hopefully draw people in.
And the cost—particularly where you're just taking the cellphone and repurposing that—we won't have to wait a whole decade before the accessibility is there for the lower-end versions of this. The higher-end versions—having an environment where you spend the $500-$1,000 and have it as a shared device—we should have that in a lot of locations as well.
QUESTION: One of the things I most admire about you and Melinda are that you’re proactive. You’re avid visitors. You visit schools. You’ve talked about some of them a number of times already. You visit schools. You visit universities. What’s the key takeaway you’ve seen in the most recent period in terms of your visits? What are you hearing from educators on the ground that you’re incorporating into your work?
BILL GATES: Well, it’s been very interesting to learn about who online (learning) is working for. And so far, a lot of the people who are engaged online are more of these adult students who are tougher because their scheduling is more difficult, but they’re easier because they come back for a reason. That is, they’re self-selected that, “OK I want to become a nurse.” “I want to get this engineering degree.”
And so, online, because it fits into that time flexibility and because they’re willing to persevere—that’s been the initial audience that that’s worked well for.
But there are people now, including ASU, who are using it for other cohorts. And they’re taking the very latest, which is far more engaging content than we’ve had in the past, and trying to make it work for everyone.
I think in education, there’s two types of visits you can do. When you get discouraged and don’t think that anything can happen—then you’ve got to go visit KIPP or Green Dot, or High Tech High, or Summit, and see classrooms—or Rocket Ship, which actually is doing some very interesting things.
Go to one where it all really came together: great teachers, a new approach, and you get reminded, “Wow—if we could do this for every student this would be phenomenal!” Then if you ever think, “Oh boy! This is great.” Then go and visit a college that has a 19 percent completion rate or go to an inner-city high school and get a sense of the disengagement that’s there and the amount of resources that’s just going to make sure that the environment is secure.
And so we have plenty of opportunity to see both of those. I do more visits to the ones that are doing well, because those are the best practices we want to spread.
My most recent trip this fall was to Appalachia and I thought that would be a mix. But because Kentucky has invested in their schools over the last 10 years, what we saw was mostly uplifting. These are public schools, very low-income kids, and the way those communities have come together around some of the new curriculum, better professional development, was really inspiring. So that gives you maybe a year or two of motivation you need to do it even more.
Friday, April 22, 2016
Paris Agreement on climate change to be signed on Earth Day - NBC News
As many as 170 countries are expected to sign the Paris Agreement on climate change Friday as the landmark deal takes a key step toward entering into force years ahead of schedule.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry joins dozens of world leaders for a signing ceremony that is expected to set a record for international diplomacy: Never have so many countries signed an agreement on the first available day. States that don't sign Friday have a year to do so.
Many now expect the climate agreement to enter into force long before the original deadline of 2020. Some say it could happen this year.
After signing, countries must formally approve the Paris Agreement through their domestic procedures. The United Nations says at least 13 countries are expected to do that Friday by depositing their instruments of ratification.
The agreement will enter into force once 55 countries representing at least 55 percent of global emissions have formally joined it. The United States and China, which together account for nearly 40 percent of global emissions, have said they intend to join this year.
"We definitely want to be in the first wave of ratifying countries," Maros Sefcovic, the energy chief for another top emitter, the 28-nation European Union, told reporters Thursday.
Countries that had not yet indicated they would sign the agreement Friday include some of the world's largest oil producers, including Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Nigeria and Kazakhstan, the World Resources Institute said Thursday.
The Paris Agreement, the world's response to hotter temperatures, rising seas and other impacts of climate change, was reached in December as a major breakthrough in U.N. climate negotiations, which for years were slowed by disputes between rich and poor countries over who should do what.
Under the agreement, countries set their own targets for reducing emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The targets are not legally binding, but countries must update them every five years.
Already, states face pressure to do more. Scientific analyses show the initial set of targets that countries pledged before Paris don't match the agreement's long-term goal to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), compared with pre-industrial times. Global average temperatures have already climbed by almost 1 degree C. Last year was the hottest on record.
The latest analysis by the Climate Interactive research group shows the Paris pledges put the world on track for 3.5 degrees C of warming. A separate analysis by Climate Action Tracker, a European group, projected warming of 2.7 degrees C.
Either way, scientists say the consequences could be catastrophic in some places, wiping out crops, flooding coastal areas and melting Arctic sea ice.
The United States is a key concern for the Paris Agreement as other countries worry what the next president might do. Analysts say that if the agreement enters into force before President Barack Obama leaves office in January, it would be more complicated for his successor to withdraw from the deal, because it would take four years to do so under the agreement's rules.
"Walking away from the agreement would instantly turn the U.S. from a leader to a defector" with serious diplomatic consequences, Elliot Diringer of the U.S.-based Center for Climate and Energy Solutions think tank told reporters Thursday.
The Obama administration is expected to treat the deal as an executive agreement, which needs only the president's approval.
As the Paris Agreement moves forward, there is some good news. Global energy emissions, the biggest source of man-made greenhouse gases, were flat last year even though the global economy grew, according to the International Energy Agency.
Still, fossil fuels are used much more widely than renewable sources like wind and solar power.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry joins dozens of world leaders for a signing ceremony that is expected to set a record for international diplomacy: Never have so many countries signed an agreement on the first available day. States that don't sign Friday have a year to do so.
Many now expect the climate agreement to enter into force long before the original deadline of 2020. Some say it could happen this year.
After signing, countries must formally approve the Paris Agreement through their domestic procedures. The United Nations says at least 13 countries are expected to do that Friday by depositing their instruments of ratification.
The agreement will enter into force once 55 countries representing at least 55 percent of global emissions have formally joined it. The United States and China, which together account for nearly 40 percent of global emissions, have said they intend to join this year.
"We definitely want to be in the first wave of ratifying countries," Maros Sefcovic, the energy chief for another top emitter, the 28-nation European Union, told reporters Thursday.
Countries that had not yet indicated they would sign the agreement Friday include some of the world's largest oil producers, including Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Nigeria and Kazakhstan, the World Resources Institute said Thursday.
The Paris Agreement, the world's response to hotter temperatures, rising seas and other impacts of climate change, was reached in December as a major breakthrough in U.N. climate negotiations, which for years were slowed by disputes between rich and poor countries over who should do what.
Under the agreement, countries set their own targets for reducing emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The targets are not legally binding, but countries must update them every five years.
Already, states face pressure to do more. Scientific analyses show the initial set of targets that countries pledged before Paris don't match the agreement's long-term goal to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), compared with pre-industrial times. Global average temperatures have already climbed by almost 1 degree C. Last year was the hottest on record.
The latest analysis by the Climate Interactive research group shows the Paris pledges put the world on track for 3.5 degrees C of warming. A separate analysis by Climate Action Tracker, a European group, projected warming of 2.7 degrees C.
Either way, scientists say the consequences could be catastrophic in some places, wiping out crops, flooding coastal areas and melting Arctic sea ice.
The United States is a key concern for the Paris Agreement as other countries worry what the next president might do. Analysts say that if the agreement enters into force before President Barack Obama leaves office in January, it would be more complicated for his successor to withdraw from the deal, because it would take four years to do so under the agreement's rules.
"Walking away from the agreement would instantly turn the U.S. from a leader to a defector" with serious diplomatic consequences, Elliot Diringer of the U.S.-based Center for Climate and Energy Solutions think tank told reporters Thursday.
The Obama administration is expected to treat the deal as an executive agreement, which needs only the president's approval.
As the Paris Agreement moves forward, there is some good news. Global energy emissions, the biggest source of man-made greenhouse gases, were flat last year even though the global economy grew, according to the International Energy Agency.
Still, fossil fuels are used much more widely than renewable sources like wind and solar power.
Thursday, April 21, 2016
Volkswagon's big fix for air pollution cars scandal - Fortune
.
This Is Volkswagen's Big Fix for Its 'Dirty Diesel' Scandal
Some customers will get $5,000 each.
Volkswagen AG and U.S. officials have reached a framework deal ahead of a Thursday court deadline offering to buy back hundreds of thousands of vehicles emitting up to 40 times legally allowable pollution, two sources briefed on the matter said Wednesday.
The German automaker is expected to tell a federal judge in San Francisco Thursday that it has agreed to offer to buy back up to 500,000 2.0-liter diesel U.S. vehicles that used sophisticated software to evade U.S. emission rules.
Volkswagen has also agreed to a compensation fund for owners, but it is not clear how much owners might receive, a person briefed on the matter said.
Volkswagen may also offer to repair polluting diesel vehicles if U.S. regulators approve the fix as workable at a future date, the sources said.
VW will pay cash compensation to owners who either sell their vehicles back or get them fixed, a source briefed on the matter said. Owners selling back their vehicles will get an additional cash payment on top of receiving the estimated value of the vehicles from before the emissions scandal became public in September 2015.
The compensation fund is expected to represent more than $1 billion on top of the cost of buying back the vehicles, a person briefed on the matter said.
Owners are expected to have around two years to decide whether to sell back vehicles or get them repaired. It is not clear whether VW will be allowed to resell vehicles they buy back, the source said.
A VW spokeswoman, the EPA and the Justice Department declined to comment Wednesday.
Separately, Germany’s Die Welt newspaper reported Wednesday that the deal to settle the case would involve it paying each affected customer $5,000. But a person briefed on the matter said no decisions on how individual compensation will be awarded have been made.
In December, VW said it was creating an independent claims program for owners of vehicles with excess emissions.
It named compensation expert Ken Feinberg, who administered funds for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, BP Plc Deepwater Horizon oil spill and General Motors Co ignition switch crashes, to create and administer the program.
The framework deal with U.S. officials was reached after lengthy talks in recent days at the Washington law office of Robert Mueller, the former FBI director and court appointed mediator named to help settle more than 500 civil suits.
Some elements of the settlement are still being worked out and details are not expected to be announced Thursday at a court hearing.
A final settlement is also expected to include an environmental remediation fund to address excess pollution emitted by the vehicles since 2009. It is not clear if the deal will resolve the Justice Department’s civil suit filed in January against VW or if VW will agree to pay a civil penalty.
U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in March gave VW until Thursday “to announce a concrete proposal for getting the polluting vehicles off the road.”
Breyer said in March the “proposal may include a vehicle buy-back plan or a fix approved by the relevant regulators that allows the cars to remain on the road with certain modifications.”
In September VW admitted to cheating on emissions tests for 11 million vehicles worldwide since 2009, which prompted VW Chief Executive Martin Winterkorn to resign.
VW still faces ongoing criminal investigations by the U.S. Justice Department and other prosecutors around the world.
This Is Volkswagen's Big Fix for Its 'Dirty Diesel' Scandal
Some customers will get $5,000 each.
Volkswagen AG and U.S. officials have reached a framework deal ahead of a Thursday court deadline offering to buy back hundreds of thousands of vehicles emitting up to 40 times legally allowable pollution, two sources briefed on the matter said Wednesday.
The German automaker is expected to tell a federal judge in San Francisco Thursday that it has agreed to offer to buy back up to 500,000 2.0-liter diesel U.S. vehicles that used sophisticated software to evade U.S. emission rules.
Volkswagen has also agreed to a compensation fund for owners, but it is not clear how much owners might receive, a person briefed on the matter said.
Volkswagen may also offer to repair polluting diesel vehicles if U.S. regulators approve the fix as workable at a future date, the sources said.
VW will pay cash compensation to owners who either sell their vehicles back or get them fixed, a source briefed on the matter said. Owners selling back their vehicles will get an additional cash payment on top of receiving the estimated value of the vehicles from before the emissions scandal became public in September 2015.
The compensation fund is expected to represent more than $1 billion on top of the cost of buying back the vehicles, a person briefed on the matter said.
Owners are expected to have around two years to decide whether to sell back vehicles or get them repaired. It is not clear whether VW will be allowed to resell vehicles they buy back, the source said.
A VW spokeswoman, the EPA and the Justice Department declined to comment Wednesday.
Separately, Germany’s Die Welt newspaper reported Wednesday that the deal to settle the case would involve it paying each affected customer $5,000. But a person briefed on the matter said no decisions on how individual compensation will be awarded have been made.
In December, VW said it was creating an independent claims program for owners of vehicles with excess emissions.
It named compensation expert Ken Feinberg, who administered funds for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, BP Plc Deepwater Horizon oil spill and General Motors Co ignition switch crashes, to create and administer the program.
The framework deal with U.S. officials was reached after lengthy talks in recent days at the Washington law office of Robert Mueller, the former FBI director and court appointed mediator named to help settle more than 500 civil suits.
Some elements of the settlement are still being worked out and details are not expected to be announced Thursday at a court hearing.
A final settlement is also expected to include an environmental remediation fund to address excess pollution emitted by the vehicles since 2009. It is not clear if the deal will resolve the Justice Department’s civil suit filed in January against VW or if VW will agree to pay a civil penalty.
U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in March gave VW until Thursday “to announce a concrete proposal for getting the polluting vehicles off the road.”
Breyer said in March the “proposal may include a vehicle buy-back plan or a fix approved by the relevant regulators that allows the cars to remain on the road with certain modifications.”
In September VW admitted to cheating on emissions tests for 11 million vehicles worldwide since 2009, which prompted VW Chief Executive Martin Winterkorn to resign.
VW still faces ongoing criminal investigations by the U.S. Justice Department and other prosecutors around the world.
Wednesday, April 20, 2016
Russia succeeds in overturning Dutch court ruling on Yukos Oil arbitration - Bloomberg
Russia succeeded in its battle to overturn a $50 billion arbitration ruling, the biggest ever, after a Dutch court ruled that the panel of judges never should have reviewed the matter.
A district court in The Hague ruled that the tribunal misinterpreted a treaty that Russia signed but never ratified and wasn’t qualified to issue the award to the former owners of Yukos Oil Co., according to a copy of the judgment.
The victory for Russia may free up accounts and property belonging to state companies abroad that were frozen while GML Ltd., a holding company belonging to four former Yukos owners, attempted to collect the award. France froze about $1 billion in assets -- much of which was later released -- as it enforced a 2014 judgment. Russia’s legal team will file a motion to overturn asset seizures in Belgium and France, said Andrey Kondakov, the general director of the International Center for Legal Protection, which is coordinating Russia’s defense.
GML said it plans to appeal the decision.
“The Russian Federation was not bound by the provisional application of the arbitration regulations,” according to the ruling. “The Tribunal wrongly declared itself competent in the Arbitration to take cognizance of the claims and issue the ensuing award."
A district court in The Hague ruled that the tribunal misinterpreted a treaty that Russia signed but never ratified and wasn’t qualified to issue the award to the former owners of Yukos Oil Co., according to a copy of the judgment.
The victory for Russia may free up accounts and property belonging to state companies abroad that were frozen while GML Ltd., a holding company belonging to four former Yukos owners, attempted to collect the award. France froze about $1 billion in assets -- much of which was later released -- as it enforced a 2014 judgment. Russia’s legal team will file a motion to overturn asset seizures in Belgium and France, said Andrey Kondakov, the general director of the International Center for Legal Protection, which is coordinating Russia’s defense.
GML said it plans to appeal the decision.
“The Russian Federation was not bound by the provisional application of the arbitration regulations,” according to the ruling. “The Tribunal wrongly declared itself competent in the Arbitration to take cognizance of the claims and issue the ensuing award."
Tuesday, April 19, 2016
iPhone sales fell off a cliff last quarter - Fortune
Posted: 18 Apr 2016 07:21 AM PDT
Apple’s iPhone business had a rough first quarter, according to new data from research firm TrendForce.
Apple shipped 42 million iPhones in the first quarter, representing a 43.8% decline compared with the fourth quarter of 2015. It was also down more than 10 million units from the 55 million shipments Apple notched in the first quarter of 2015, according to TrendForce.
“Sales of iPhone 6s have been lackluster as the model lacks exciting new features,” the company said of Apple’s first quarter. TrendForce added that Apple itself has become “more conservative” with its smartphone inventory in preparation of launching its next handset.
Apple’s troubles in the first quarter provided it just 14.4% market share, down significantly from the 20.9% share it had secured in the fourth quarter. Apple had 19.9% market share in the first quarter of 2015.
The findings come on the heels of Apple announcing its latest iPhone, the iPhone SE. The device, which comes with a 4-inch screen, is designed to appeal to the midrange of the market and attract more customers who might be turning to cheaper devices in emerging markets. However, TrendForce, which has offices in Beijing and Shenzhen, says Apple’s latest handset could have some trouble attracting customers in the critical Chinese market.
“As the budget model, iPhone SE will support Apple’s overall shipments in the second quarter before the next major iPhone release,” TrendForce smartphone analyst Avril Wu said in a statement. “However, iPhone SE is going to face severe price competition from Chinese branded products in its target market, which is the mid-range device segment.”
Wu was bearish on Apple’s chances of success with the iPhone SE, projecting that the company will ship fewer than 15 million units this year.
The weak iPhone SE, combined with Apple’s own “conservative” handling of its supply chain, prompted TrendForce to project Apple would ship 213 million iPhones this year, down 10% compared with the previous year.
Despite the bearish outlook on Apple, TrendForce was surprised by Samsung’s success in the first quarter, saying that shipments “exceeded expectations” and reached 81 million units, a gain of 2.5% compared with the fourth quarter. Samsung’s shipments were, of course, boosted by its Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge flagship devices, but nonetheless helped it take the top spot in the first quarter with 27.8% market share. The successful first quarter prompted TrendForce to raise its annual Samsung smartphone shipments to 316 million units, nearly matching its total shipments last year.
In addition, TrendForce noted that the first quarter was a solid one for Chinese companies, which combined to ship 125 million smartphones. It was the first time those companies, including Huawei, Lenovo, and Xiaomi, among others, combined to ship more smartphones than Apple and Samsung together. Huawei was the leading China-based smartphone maker during the first quarter.
“Huawei won’t be able to overtake Apple and become the No. 2 smartphone brand worldwide any time soon,” Wu said in a statement. “Still, the market share gap between Huawei and Apple are expected to narrow with each passing year.”
That said, this is just one quarter and it’s unknown at this point what Apple has up its sleeve for the rest of the year. The company is expected to launch the iPhone 7 later this year, which should come with a new design and several improved features. Apple has been doubted before, but one exciting new device could flip forecasts on their heads. Whether the iPhone 7 could be the device to do that remains to be seen.
Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the TrendForce report.
This article originally appeared on Fortune.com
Apple users I/D scam - The Independent
Apple users are receiving phishing messages designed to trick them into handing over their Apple ID passwords and other pieces of personal information.
People hit by the scam usually receive an unsolicited message which claims to come from Apple, urging them to immediately change their Apple ID password before it expires.
Victims are then directed to an unoffical but legitimate-looking website like AppleIDLogin.co.uk, where they are asked to input their username and password.
Anyone else received one of these Apple ID texts? Is it all above board or is it some kind of phishing scam?
After that, they are told their account has been locked for "security reasons," and are directed to enter other personal information like address and credit card details, in order to "unlock" the account, according to security expert Graham Cluley.
Of course, the site isn't genuine - it's all part of an elaborate phishing attack, designed to get users to hand over information which could be used by cybercriminals.
Many security-savvy people wouldn't be taken in by such a scheme, but the scammers have taken some measures to appear as real as possible, by using the recipient's real name in the text message and making their name appear in targets' phones as 'AppleInc'.
A number of Apple users appear to have been hit with the scam messages recently
There have been previous reports of this scam being carried out over emailbefore, but it appears to have reared its head once again.
Apple's phishing support page advises users to "never send credit card information, account passwords, or extensive personal information" to someone, unless they've fully verified the senders are who they say they are.
By carefully reading suspicious emails or texts and thinking critically about the message's claims, it should be easy to avoid such scams.
It also pays to look closely at the address bar of a website - if it's a genuine Apple site, 'Apple Inc', sometimes alongside a padlock, will appear in green on one side, depending on which browser you use.
It also helps to look at the URL itself - official Apple websites, like AppleID.Apple.com usually contain the company's actual domain. If you see something like AppleExpired.co.uk or AppleIDLogin.co.uk, you know something's amiss.
As usual, the best defence against phishing attacks is to stay vigilant and ignore or delete any messages that look even slightly suspicious. If you're still in doubt, contact the actual company directly, and they'll be able to verify whether there's any real problems or not.
People hit by the scam usually receive an unsolicited message which claims to come from Apple, urging them to immediately change their Apple ID password before it expires.
Victims are then directed to an unoffical but legitimate-looking website like AppleIDLogin.co.uk, where they are asked to input their username and password.
Anyone else received one of these Apple ID texts? Is it all above board or is it some kind of phishing scam?
After that, they are told their account has been locked for "security reasons," and are directed to enter other personal information like address and credit card details, in order to "unlock" the account, according to security expert Graham Cluley.
Of course, the site isn't genuine - it's all part of an elaborate phishing attack, designed to get users to hand over information which could be used by cybercriminals.
Many security-savvy people wouldn't be taken in by such a scheme, but the scammers have taken some measures to appear as real as possible, by using the recipient's real name in the text message and making their name appear in targets' phones as 'AppleInc'.
A number of Apple users appear to have been hit with the scam messages recently
There have been previous reports of this scam being carried out over emailbefore, but it appears to have reared its head once again.
Apple's phishing support page advises users to "never send credit card information, account passwords, or extensive personal information" to someone, unless they've fully verified the senders are who they say they are.
By carefully reading suspicious emails or texts and thinking critically about the message's claims, it should be easy to avoid such scams.
It also pays to look closely at the address bar of a website - if it's a genuine Apple site, 'Apple Inc', sometimes alongside a padlock, will appear in green on one side, depending on which browser you use.
It also helps to look at the URL itself - official Apple websites, like AppleID.Apple.com usually contain the company's actual domain. If you see something like AppleExpired.co.uk or AppleIDLogin.co.uk, you know something's amiss.
As usual, the best defence against phishing attacks is to stay vigilant and ignore or delete any messages that look even slightly suspicious. If you're still in doubt, contact the actual company directly, and they'll be able to verify whether there's any real problems or not.
Monday, April 18, 2016
Crude oil prices still volatile - CNBC
Crude markets are poised to become more volatile as Saudi Arabia flexes its muscles in the region and seeks to turn the screws on U.S. and Iranian oil production, Again Capital partner John Kilduff said Monday.
Negotiations to freeze crude production at January levels fell apartover the weekend after Iran snubbed the gathering and top oil exporter Saudi Arabia refused to follow through with the deal without Tehran's participation.
Kilduff pinned the aggressive stand on Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Ahead of the Doha meeting, the 30-year-old prince said Saudi Arabia could increase production by 1 million barrels per day.
The 30-year-old prince who is changing the world
"I think there's going to be one more beat down for prices that's really going to inflict the kind of pain the Saudis really want to [inflict] to the rest of the higher cost producers," Kilduff told CNBC's "Squawk Box."
OPEC's decision in 2014 to maintain high output levels rather than cut production to balance a market oversupplied by about 1.5 to 2 million bpd has been widely seen as a bid to pressure high-cost producers like U.S. shale oil drillers. U.S. production had surged through last year, contributing significantly to global oversupply.
The number of rigs in U.S. oil fields has fallen by nearly 80 percent from a peak of about 1,600 in October 2014 to roughly 350 last week. Oil production has fallen by about 600,000 bpd from a peak of nearly 9.7 million last year.
The Saudis are "not done with us yet. They are not done fixing our wagon yet," Kilduff said, referring to U.S. producers.
‹
*
‹
The Saudis are also targeting its regional rival Iran, which has ramped up oil exports after sanctions on the country were lifted, he said.
While a strike among oil workers in Kuwait is temporarily supporting oil prices, the downward pressures on crude futures will be "intense" as the Saudis compete for market share with other producers, he added.
The last key to the further pressure on oil prices could be slowdown in crude demand following the International Monetary Fund's downward revision to its world growth forecast last week, Kilduff said.
Negotiations to freeze crude production at January levels fell apartover the weekend after Iran snubbed the gathering and top oil exporter Saudi Arabia refused to follow through with the deal without Tehran's participation.
Kilduff pinned the aggressive stand on Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Ahead of the Doha meeting, the 30-year-old prince said Saudi Arabia could increase production by 1 million barrels per day.
The 30-year-old prince who is changing the world
"I think there's going to be one more beat down for prices that's really going to inflict the kind of pain the Saudis really want to [inflict] to the rest of the higher cost producers," Kilduff told CNBC's "Squawk Box."
OPEC's decision in 2014 to maintain high output levels rather than cut production to balance a market oversupplied by about 1.5 to 2 million bpd has been widely seen as a bid to pressure high-cost producers like U.S. shale oil drillers. U.S. production had surged through last year, contributing significantly to global oversupply.
The number of rigs in U.S. oil fields has fallen by nearly 80 percent from a peak of about 1,600 in October 2014 to roughly 350 last week. Oil production has fallen by about 600,000 bpd from a peak of nearly 9.7 million last year.
The Saudis are "not done with us yet. They are not done fixing our wagon yet," Kilduff said, referring to U.S. producers.
‹
*
‹
The Saudis are also targeting its regional rival Iran, which has ramped up oil exports after sanctions on the country were lifted, he said.
While a strike among oil workers in Kuwait is temporarily supporting oil prices, the downward pressures on crude futures will be "intense" as the Saudis compete for market share with other producers, he added.
The last key to the further pressure on oil prices could be slowdown in crude demand following the International Monetary Fund's downward revision to its world growth forecast last week, Kilduff said.
Sunday, April 17, 2016
Brazil president's impeachment - Financial Times
Brazil’s congress voted on Sunday evening to impeach President Dilma Rousseff, ushering in a new period of heightened political uncertainty in Latin America’s biggest country.
Pro-impeachment politicians erupted into cheers and patriotic songs when the vote tally reached 342 in favour of the motion — the two-thirds of the 513-seat lower house needed to approve the motion, compared with 126 against. The final result had yet to be counted.
The decision threatens to bring an abrupt end to 13 years of Ms Rousseff`s socialist Workers’ party, or PT, rule and allow her vice-president Michel Temer to form a new government.
The baton now passes to the senate, which analysts expect to open the formal impeachment process, essentially a political trial, in the first half of next month.
“Dilma has ruined our country,” said Ilmo Buzo, a fireman in São Paulo carrying a 3m-wide flag, who joined the hundreds of thousands of people who turned out to protest for and against impeachment across Brazil.
“Many people out here today even voted for the PT once … we believed in them but they tricked us,” he said. “They promised to fight corruption but power corrupted them!”
Markets are expected to applaud the decision when they open tomorrow amid investor optimism that any new government led by Mr Temer’s centrist PMDB will better manage the economy than Ms Rousseff`s PT.
Dogged by a corruption scandal in Petrobras, the state-owned oil company, Ms Rousseff has presided over what is expected to be the country’s worst recession in more than a century, with the International Monetary Fund predicting a 3.8 per cent economic contraction in Brazil this year after a similar decline last year.
“We don’t have the right to deliver a country to our children that is worst than what we received from our parents,” said Jovair Arantes, a lawmaker from the minority PTB party who authored a special congressional report recommending impeachment.
Mr Temer has promised to adopt more orthodox economic principles, including a balanced budget and removing structural impediments to Brazil’s long-term fiscal health, such as the indexation of salaries, benefits and other payments to inflation.
But the decision by congress to pass the impeachment process after a marathon three-day session of speeches and behind-the-scenes politicking also threatens to increase political risk in Brazil.
The lower house of congress must now pass the impeachment process to the senate, which is expected by this Friday to install a special commission on the impeachment process.
The commission will have 10 days to submit its own report on the proposal, which will then be put to a vote in the senate on about May 11. If the senate votes by a simple majority of its 81 members to accept the motion, the formal impeachment trial will begin.
Brazil's Rousseff faces impeachment
Play video
Ms Rousseff will be suspended for up to six months and Mr Temer will take over as acting president.
If two-thirds of the senate’s 81 members vote to impeach her in a session expected by the opposition to be held in late June, Mr Temer will lead the country until the next elections in 2018.
During the coming month, however, Ms Rousseff will still be president and will be able to use her office to try to persuade the senate to reject the impeachment motion by offering jobs and other financial incentives, opposition politicians fear.
Mr Temer, meanwhile, could face further strikes and protests by the PT’s militant support base in trade unions and social movements.
The Petrobras investigation will also continue, with major construction companies involved in the scandal believed to be negotiating new plea bargains that could implicate further members of Mr Temer’s PMDB party who are already accused of corruption.
Pro-impeachment politicians erupted into cheers and patriotic songs when the vote tally reached 342 in favour of the motion — the two-thirds of the 513-seat lower house needed to approve the motion, compared with 126 against. The final result had yet to be counted.
The decision threatens to bring an abrupt end to 13 years of Ms Rousseff`s socialist Workers’ party, or PT, rule and allow her vice-president Michel Temer to form a new government.
The baton now passes to the senate, which analysts expect to open the formal impeachment process, essentially a political trial, in the first half of next month.
“Dilma has ruined our country,” said Ilmo Buzo, a fireman in São Paulo carrying a 3m-wide flag, who joined the hundreds of thousands of people who turned out to protest for and against impeachment across Brazil.
“Many people out here today even voted for the PT once … we believed in them but they tricked us,” he said. “They promised to fight corruption but power corrupted them!”
Markets are expected to applaud the decision when they open tomorrow amid investor optimism that any new government led by Mr Temer’s centrist PMDB will better manage the economy than Ms Rousseff`s PT.
Dogged by a corruption scandal in Petrobras, the state-owned oil company, Ms Rousseff has presided over what is expected to be the country’s worst recession in more than a century, with the International Monetary Fund predicting a 3.8 per cent economic contraction in Brazil this year after a similar decline last year.
“We don’t have the right to deliver a country to our children that is worst than what we received from our parents,” said Jovair Arantes, a lawmaker from the minority PTB party who authored a special congressional report recommending impeachment.
Mr Temer has promised to adopt more orthodox economic principles, including a balanced budget and removing structural impediments to Brazil’s long-term fiscal health, such as the indexation of salaries, benefits and other payments to inflation.
But the decision by congress to pass the impeachment process after a marathon three-day session of speeches and behind-the-scenes politicking also threatens to increase political risk in Brazil.
The lower house of congress must now pass the impeachment process to the senate, which is expected by this Friday to install a special commission on the impeachment process.
The commission will have 10 days to submit its own report on the proposal, which will then be put to a vote in the senate on about May 11. If the senate votes by a simple majority of its 81 members to accept the motion, the formal impeachment trial will begin.
Brazil's Rousseff faces impeachment
Play video
Ms Rousseff will be suspended for up to six months and Mr Temer will take over as acting president.
If two-thirds of the senate’s 81 members vote to impeach her in a session expected by the opposition to be held in late June, Mr Temer will lead the country until the next elections in 2018.
During the coming month, however, Ms Rousseff will still be president and will be able to use her office to try to persuade the senate to reject the impeachment motion by offering jobs and other financial incentives, opposition politicians fear.
Mr Temer, meanwhile, could face further strikes and protests by the PT’s militant support base in trade unions and social movements.
The Petrobras investigation will also continue, with major construction companies involved in the scandal believed to be negotiating new plea bargains that could implicate further members of Mr Temer’s PMDB party who are already accused of corruption.
Saturday, April 16, 2016
China record steel output - Bloomberg
China's Giant Steel Industry Just Churned Out Record Supply
Bloomberg News
April 15, 2016 — 12:16 PM AEST
Updated on April 15, 2016 — 5:43 PM AEST
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* Steel production rises in March, while quarterly figure drops
* `This is a significant increase,' says CRU Group's Bai
The world’s biggest steel producer pushed output to a record in March as mills in China fired up plants to take advantage of a price surge since the start of the year that’s rescued profit margins.
Output rose 2.9 percent to 70.65 million metric tons from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Friday. That’s the highest ever, according to data from state-owned researcher Beijing Antaike Information Development Co. Still, for the first quarter, supply fell 3.2 percent to 192 million tons.
The country’s steelmakers are ramping up output after cuts at the end of 2015 fueled a major price surge that has rippled out to world markets. The mills’ busiest-ever month came as figures showed that China’s economy stabilized, aided by a rebound in the property market. Last year, the country’s steel output shrank for the first time since 1981 as demand contracted and mills battled surging losses and too much capacity, and forecasters including Australia’s government expect a further decline in 2016.
“It’s normal to see higher output in March but this is a significant increase,” said Kevin Bai, a Beijing-based researcher at consultancy CRU Group. “Right now, the mills are making money. The market is still relatively tight and this has encouraged some producers to return.”
Surging Prices
The domestic price of benchmark hot-rolled sheet has surged 45 percent this year, while rebar futures on the Shanghai Futures Exchange advanced 30 percent. The increase has aided mills’ profitability even as iron ore prices rallied 36 percent in 2016.
The steel rally will soon end as Chinese mills lift output and traders end a flurry of restocking, HSBC Holdings Plc analysts said in a note on Thursday. China accounts for about half of global supply, with output used in everything from cars to skyscrapers.
The rise in Chinese output in March, coupled with figures earlier this week that showed a 30 percent increase in export volumes, will be a further concern to a beleaguered global steel industry. China exported a record amount last year, triggering a rise in trade tensions, battering profits at world producers and forcing India’s Tata Steel Ltd. to offload its ailing U.K. business.
Floor Space
The gross domestic product figures showed Asia’s top economy grew 6.7 percent in the first quarter, in line with expectations. Major steel-using sectors showed improvement as new floor space under construction expanded 19.2 percent in the quarter on-year while automobile output rose 8.9 percent in March.
Most observers still expect China’s steel production and demand to drop this year as policy makers pivot away from heavy industry. Output will probably decline to 781 million tons this year from 806 million in 2015, according a projection from Australia, the world’s largest shipper of iron ore.
Steel rebar on the Shanghai Futures Exchange dropped 1 percent on Friday to trim its weekly advance to 4.7 percent, while iron ore on the Dalian Commodity Exchange dropped the most this month by 2.2 percent.
China’s aluminum industry, also the world’s biggest and facing overcapacity, followed a similar dynamic to steel in the first quarter. Production of primary aluminum rose 2.7 percent to 2.62 million tons in March from a year earlier, while output was 2 percent lower at 7.34 million tons for the three months. Aluminum was unchanged on the Shanghai Futures Exchange after posting its highest close in nearly seven months on Thursday.
Bloomberg News
April 15, 2016 — 12:16 PM AEST
Updated on April 15, 2016 — 5:43 PM AEST
Share on FacebookShare on WhatsApp
* Steel production rises in March, while quarterly figure drops
* `This is a significant increase,' says CRU Group's Bai
The world’s biggest steel producer pushed output to a record in March as mills in China fired up plants to take advantage of a price surge since the start of the year that’s rescued profit margins.
Output rose 2.9 percent to 70.65 million metric tons from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Friday. That’s the highest ever, according to data from state-owned researcher Beijing Antaike Information Development Co. Still, for the first quarter, supply fell 3.2 percent to 192 million tons.
The country’s steelmakers are ramping up output after cuts at the end of 2015 fueled a major price surge that has rippled out to world markets. The mills’ busiest-ever month came as figures showed that China’s economy stabilized, aided by a rebound in the property market. Last year, the country’s steel output shrank for the first time since 1981 as demand contracted and mills battled surging losses and too much capacity, and forecasters including Australia’s government expect a further decline in 2016.
“It’s normal to see higher output in March but this is a significant increase,” said Kevin Bai, a Beijing-based researcher at consultancy CRU Group. “Right now, the mills are making money. The market is still relatively tight and this has encouraged some producers to return.”
Surging Prices
The domestic price of benchmark hot-rolled sheet has surged 45 percent this year, while rebar futures on the Shanghai Futures Exchange advanced 30 percent. The increase has aided mills’ profitability even as iron ore prices rallied 36 percent in 2016.
The steel rally will soon end as Chinese mills lift output and traders end a flurry of restocking, HSBC Holdings Plc analysts said in a note on Thursday. China accounts for about half of global supply, with output used in everything from cars to skyscrapers.
The rise in Chinese output in March, coupled with figures earlier this week that showed a 30 percent increase in export volumes, will be a further concern to a beleaguered global steel industry. China exported a record amount last year, triggering a rise in trade tensions, battering profits at world producers and forcing India’s Tata Steel Ltd. to offload its ailing U.K. business.
Floor Space
The gross domestic product figures showed Asia’s top economy grew 6.7 percent in the first quarter, in line with expectations. Major steel-using sectors showed improvement as new floor space under construction expanded 19.2 percent in the quarter on-year while automobile output rose 8.9 percent in March.
Most observers still expect China’s steel production and demand to drop this year as policy makers pivot away from heavy industry. Output will probably decline to 781 million tons this year from 806 million in 2015, according a projection from Australia, the world’s largest shipper of iron ore.
Steel rebar on the Shanghai Futures Exchange dropped 1 percent on Friday to trim its weekly advance to 4.7 percent, while iron ore on the Dalian Commodity Exchange dropped the most this month by 2.2 percent.
China’s aluminum industry, also the world’s biggest and facing overcapacity, followed a similar dynamic to steel in the first quarter. Production of primary aluminum rose 2.7 percent to 2.62 million tons in March from a year earlier, while output was 2 percent lower at 7.34 million tons for the three months. Aluminum was unchanged on the Shanghai Futures Exchange after posting its highest close in nearly seven months on Thursday.
Friday, April 15, 2016
Bank of England warning on Brexit - The Independent
The Bank of England has issued its starkest warning yet over the consequences of Brexit for the British economy, stating that the country would be likely to face a long period of uncertainty if it left the EU, that would dampen demand and impact on UK assets.
Minutes from the latest meeting of the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee also state that the looming referendum is already having a dampening effect on the economy, noting that many major capital spending decisions and property transactions were being delayed, pending the outcome of the vote.
Its warning, which was roundly criticised by the Leave campaign, came as the former Labour Chancellor Alistair Darling, who presided over the UK’s response to the 2008 global financial crisis, said that “dark clouds” were again “gathering on our horizon” and slammed Brexit campaigners for “turning a blind eye to credible warnings of economic disaster”.
In its minutes, the Bank of England said that a vote to leave the EU would “result in an extended period of uncertainty about the economic outlook including about the prospects for export growth”.
“This uncertainty would be likely to push down on demand in the short run…(and) have significant implications for asset prices, in particular the exchange rate.”
In a further warning, the Lloyds Banking Group became the first commercial bank to speak out officially on the referendum, stating that a vote to leave would cause short-term “economic uncertainty”.
However, the Bank’s statement added that the decision was “a matter for the UK electorate” and that the long-term impact was “unclear” because of uncertainty over the UK’s future relationship with Europe in the event of Brexit.
The trio of economic warnings will be welcomed by the Government, which has made financial stability a key pillar of its argument for backing a Remain vote.
Brexit campaigners have branded the approach “Project Fear”. Conservative MP Philip Davies accused Bank of England governor Mark Carney of “diminishing himself” with the Bank’s latest statement.
And John Longworth, chairman of the official campaign group Vote Leave’s business council, criticised Lloyds for its former support for the UK joining the Euro, 20 years ago.
“They were wrong then and they are wrong now,” he said. “What right do multinationals have to lecture us? The EU may work for the handful of large multinational banks that can afford the reams of red tape, but it will be the dynamic SMEs that will benefit if we Vote Leave on 23 June.”
However, in his speech on the EU, Mr Darling, who chaired the Better Together campaign during the Scottish Referendum, condemned the Brexit camp for failing to explain what form a new deal with the EU would take, branding their campaign “Project Fantasy”.
“They can’t guarantee trade without tariffs, which would push prices up. They can’t guarantee investors won’t leave Britain, risking jobs. They can’t guarantee our service sector will have free access to Europe, hitting growth…They are offering a fantasy future where we keep all the benefits of being in Europe without being part of the single market,” he said.
With the official EU campaigning period beginning today economics and security remain the two key battlegrounds.
Downing Street, which has argued that remaining in the EU makes Britain safer, welcomed a vote in the European Parliament which will pave the way for the bloc’s 28 member states to share airline passenger name records data, to assist in the fight against international crime and terrorism.
The Prime Minister’s spokesperson said: “This is something we have been calling for for a long time, particularly in wake of the rise in terror attacks that we have seen.
“Today’s vote shows that Britain can benefit and be safer staying in a reformed EU.”
Downing Street insisted that were no guarantees that Britain would be able to gain access to the EU-wide data in the event of Brexit.
Minutes from the latest meeting of the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee also state that the looming referendum is already having a dampening effect on the economy, noting that many major capital spending decisions and property transactions were being delayed, pending the outcome of the vote.
Its warning, which was roundly criticised by the Leave campaign, came as the former Labour Chancellor Alistair Darling, who presided over the UK’s response to the 2008 global financial crisis, said that “dark clouds” were again “gathering on our horizon” and slammed Brexit campaigners for “turning a blind eye to credible warnings of economic disaster”.
In its minutes, the Bank of England said that a vote to leave the EU would “result in an extended period of uncertainty about the economic outlook including about the prospects for export growth”.
“This uncertainty would be likely to push down on demand in the short run…(and) have significant implications for asset prices, in particular the exchange rate.”
In a further warning, the Lloyds Banking Group became the first commercial bank to speak out officially on the referendum, stating that a vote to leave would cause short-term “economic uncertainty”.
However, the Bank’s statement added that the decision was “a matter for the UK electorate” and that the long-term impact was “unclear” because of uncertainty over the UK’s future relationship with Europe in the event of Brexit.
The trio of economic warnings will be welcomed by the Government, which has made financial stability a key pillar of its argument for backing a Remain vote.
Brexit campaigners have branded the approach “Project Fear”. Conservative MP Philip Davies accused Bank of England governor Mark Carney of “diminishing himself” with the Bank’s latest statement.
And John Longworth, chairman of the official campaign group Vote Leave’s business council, criticised Lloyds for its former support for the UK joining the Euro, 20 years ago.
“They were wrong then and they are wrong now,” he said. “What right do multinationals have to lecture us? The EU may work for the handful of large multinational banks that can afford the reams of red tape, but it will be the dynamic SMEs that will benefit if we Vote Leave on 23 June.”
However, in his speech on the EU, Mr Darling, who chaired the Better Together campaign during the Scottish Referendum, condemned the Brexit camp for failing to explain what form a new deal with the EU would take, branding their campaign “Project Fantasy”.
“They can’t guarantee trade without tariffs, which would push prices up. They can’t guarantee investors won’t leave Britain, risking jobs. They can’t guarantee our service sector will have free access to Europe, hitting growth…They are offering a fantasy future where we keep all the benefits of being in Europe without being part of the single market,” he said.
With the official EU campaigning period beginning today economics and security remain the two key battlegrounds.
Downing Street, which has argued that remaining in the EU makes Britain safer, welcomed a vote in the European Parliament which will pave the way for the bloc’s 28 member states to share airline passenger name records data, to assist in the fight against international crime and terrorism.
The Prime Minister’s spokesperson said: “This is something we have been calling for for a long time, particularly in wake of the rise in terror attacks that we have seen.
“Today’s vote shows that Britain can benefit and be safer staying in a reformed EU.”
Downing Street insisted that were no guarantees that Britain would be able to gain access to the EU-wide data in the event of Brexit.
Thursday, April 14, 2016
IMF down grades global outlook - Economist
IS THERE a global economic crisis on the horizon? Probably not. Is the world in danger of falling into recession? Not soon. Yet the IMF’s latest update of its forecasts is nevertheless resolutely downbeat. Speaking this week in Washington, DC, its chief economist, Maurice Obstfeld, outlined yet another downward revision to its prediction for global GDP growth. It is likely that the next revision will again be down. One of the big threats to the world economy, he said, is from “non-economic risks”—fund-speak for grubby politics. A world economy stuck in the doldrums, he cautioned, may be a perilous place politically.
The actual forecasts are far from horrible. The fund nudged down its estimate of global growth for 2016 from 3.4% to 3.2%. That is still a shade faster than in 2015. The revisions are broad-based: America, Europe and the emerging world as a bloc all saw similar downgrades (see chart). The forecast for sub-Saharan Africa was pared back the most, in large part because of a gloomier outlook for oil-rich Nigeria, the continent’s bigest economy. The recent recovery in crude prices will take some pressure off oil producers, but “we won’t be seeing prices at the $100 a barrel level for some time, if ever,” said Mr Obstfeld. Of biggish economies, only China escaped a downgrade. The fund is more confident than it was in January that stimulus measures there will work. But there is a concern about the quality of China’s growth, said Mr Obstfeld, as fresh credit is directed towards sputtering industries.
Related topics
* Europe
* World politics
* Chinese politics
* Asia-Pacific politics
* China
The scenario the fund seems most concerned about is a steady slide in global GDP growth that feeds on itself by discouraging investment, thereby exacerbating political tensions, which in turn make fixing the economy even harder. Brazil shows how a bad economy can be made worse by political paralysis. Low growth might add to the “rising tide of inward-looking nationalism” in the rich world, said Mr Obstfeld. Politics in America is moving against free trade. And there are various threats to Europe beyond the perennial problem of Greece. The refugee crisis has already put pressure on the European Union’s open-borders policy and there is a “real possibility” that Britain might leave the EU.
The IMF has some familiar remedies for the global economy: keep monetary policy loose, augment it with fiscal stimulus where possible and add some pro-growth reforms to the mix. Such action is needed to insure against the risks the fund identifies. But the world should also be making contingency plans for a co-ordinated response if a financial shock hits. “There is no longer much room for error,” said Mr Obstfeld, with a certain weariness.
From the print edition: Finance and economics
The actual forecasts are far from horrible. The fund nudged down its estimate of global growth for 2016 from 3.4% to 3.2%. That is still a shade faster than in 2015. The revisions are broad-based: America, Europe and the emerging world as a bloc all saw similar downgrades (see chart). The forecast for sub-Saharan Africa was pared back the most, in large part because of a gloomier outlook for oil-rich Nigeria, the continent’s bigest economy. The recent recovery in crude prices will take some pressure off oil producers, but “we won’t be seeing prices at the $100 a barrel level for some time, if ever,” said Mr Obstfeld. Of biggish economies, only China escaped a downgrade. The fund is more confident than it was in January that stimulus measures there will work. But there is a concern about the quality of China’s growth, said Mr Obstfeld, as fresh credit is directed towards sputtering industries.
Related topics
* Europe
* World politics
* Chinese politics
* Asia-Pacific politics
* China
The scenario the fund seems most concerned about is a steady slide in global GDP growth that feeds on itself by discouraging investment, thereby exacerbating political tensions, which in turn make fixing the economy even harder. Brazil shows how a bad economy can be made worse by political paralysis. Low growth might add to the “rising tide of inward-looking nationalism” in the rich world, said Mr Obstfeld. Politics in America is moving against free trade. And there are various threats to Europe beyond the perennial problem of Greece. The refugee crisis has already put pressure on the European Union’s open-borders policy and there is a “real possibility” that Britain might leave the EU.
The IMF has some familiar remedies for the global economy: keep monetary policy loose, augment it with fiscal stimulus where possible and add some pro-growth reforms to the mix. Such action is needed to insure against the risks the fund identifies. But the world should also be making contingency plans for a co-ordinated response if a financial shock hits. “There is no longer much room for error,” said Mr Obstfeld, with a certain weariness.
From the print edition: Finance and economics
Wednesday, April 13, 2016
New Facebook features coming - TIME
Posted: 11 Apr 2016 10:59 AM PDT
Facebook’s future ambitions will be on full display at the company’s annual F8 developer conference, taking place on April 12 and 13.
The Menlo Park, Calif. firm began life as a way for college students to connect. Over a decade later, it wants a slice of everything we do online, from booking airline flights to watching cat videos. After all, the more Facebook knows about our Internet behavior, the more attractive it looks to big-spending advertisers.
Facebook should make its future plans more clear at F8. Here’s what to expect from the conference.
Chat Bots
Messenger bots aren’t new — think SmarterChild, from the AIM days. But Facebook and other firms are betting they’ll see a big renaissance thanks to improved artificial intelligence and other factors. The firm is expected to announce new tools that will help businesses create their own “chatbots” for Facebook Messenger, which could handle customer service queries, process transactions or help with marketing campaigns.
Chatbots are already alive and well on Messenger performing a variety of tasks. Disney built a Miss Piggy bot that chats with fans of her Facebook Page in order to promote ABC’s Muppets show. Uber’s bot helps users hail rides from within Facebook’s app. And KLM Royal Dutch Airlines just launched the first airline bot.
Facebook’s hope is that chatbots will keep more users glued to its app, where it can profit from their attention. The firm won’t make money from bots right away. But if they take off, Facebook could start taking a slice of other companies’ transactions on the platform. That would help Facebook finally monetize e-commerce, which it has largely failed to do. For Messenger bots to succeed, Facebook will have to convince users it’s easier to chat with a robot than open up another app.
Live Video
Again, online live-streaming is not a new innovation. But Facebook’s massive scale is bringing new life to the format via Live, the company’s new instant broadcasting feature. Facebook unleashed a torrent of Live updates last week, including a world map showing livestreams as they’re happening and a video portal that makes it easier for people to find Live videos after they’ve disappeared from the News Feed.
Currently, Facebook’s Live videos can only be shot using a smartphone. Facebook may announce the ability to shoot using higher-quality cameras at F8, according to Recode. That could help the company entice more media companies, especially from the world of television, to commit significant resources to Live. Already some unusual videos have managed to attract large audiences. A BuzzFeed stream of a watermelon exploding under pressure from rubber bands gained 800,000 live viewers.
Virtual Reality
Facebook-owned Oculus VR just released its Rift virtual reality headset, so it’s likely Facebook will be crowing about VR’s potential to change the way we communicate. F8’s schedule includes multiple sessions dedicated to optimizing optimizing 360-degree video for the Rift, so it’s possible Facebook will sneak in an announcement or two related to the format.
Facebook’s future ambitions will be on full display at the company’s annual F8 developer conference, taking place on April 12 and 13.
The Menlo Park, Calif. firm began life as a way for college students to connect. Over a decade later, it wants a slice of everything we do online, from booking airline flights to watching cat videos. After all, the more Facebook knows about our Internet behavior, the more attractive it looks to big-spending advertisers.
Facebook should make its future plans more clear at F8. Here’s what to expect from the conference.
Chat Bots
Messenger bots aren’t new — think SmarterChild, from the AIM days. But Facebook and other firms are betting they’ll see a big renaissance thanks to improved artificial intelligence and other factors. The firm is expected to announce new tools that will help businesses create their own “chatbots” for Facebook Messenger, which could handle customer service queries, process transactions or help with marketing campaigns.
Chatbots are already alive and well on Messenger performing a variety of tasks. Disney built a Miss Piggy bot that chats with fans of her Facebook Page in order to promote ABC’s Muppets show. Uber’s bot helps users hail rides from within Facebook’s app. And KLM Royal Dutch Airlines just launched the first airline bot.
Facebook’s hope is that chatbots will keep more users glued to its app, where it can profit from their attention. The firm won’t make money from bots right away. But if they take off, Facebook could start taking a slice of other companies’ transactions on the platform. That would help Facebook finally monetize e-commerce, which it has largely failed to do. For Messenger bots to succeed, Facebook will have to convince users it’s easier to chat with a robot than open up another app.
Live Video
Again, online live-streaming is not a new innovation. But Facebook’s massive scale is bringing new life to the format via Live, the company’s new instant broadcasting feature. Facebook unleashed a torrent of Live updates last week, including a world map showing livestreams as they’re happening and a video portal that makes it easier for people to find Live videos after they’ve disappeared from the News Feed.
Currently, Facebook’s Live videos can only be shot using a smartphone. Facebook may announce the ability to shoot using higher-quality cameras at F8, according to Recode. That could help the company entice more media companies, especially from the world of television, to commit significant resources to Live. Already some unusual videos have managed to attract large audiences. A BuzzFeed stream of a watermelon exploding under pressure from rubber bands gained 800,000 live viewers.
Virtual Reality
Facebook-owned Oculus VR just released its Rift virtual reality headset, so it’s likely Facebook will be crowing about VR’s potential to change the way we communicate. F8’s schedule includes multiple sessions dedicated to optimizing optimizing 360-degree video for the Rift, so it’s possible Facebook will sneak in an announcement or two related to the format.
Tuesday, April 12, 2016
China hospitals ticket touts problem - Reuter
As day breaks, hundreds of patients wait to see doctors in a line that snakes around the Peking Union hospital in Beijing. Many will wait in vain - "scalpers" like Yu Wei have already illegally bought and sold appointment tickets for the day ahead.
Yu, 32, makes a living touting the tickets that Chinese hospitals sell in advance for consultations. His tickets will get a patient in front of a doctor in two days, he says, compared with a wait that can be up to a fortnight.
Dodging passing police patrols as part of his daily routine, Yu charges 850 yuan ($131) for a "special care" appointment ticket - almost three times the face value. He told Reuters he keeps 200 yuan from each sale, with the rest of the profit going to hospital insiders who he said help him secure the tickets.
"The city's upper middle class are always willing to pay this amount or even higher - as long as they can get an appointment," Yu said, speaking between frequent phone calls that he said came from would-be clients. In the background, other scalpers competed for custom, shouting out their prices.
The street crime casts light on the scale of the challenge President Xi Jinping faces as he looks to overhaul a creaking and underfunded public health system to deliver on a promise of affordable and accessible care for all.
In line with this drive, authorities have tried to crack down on healthcare corruption and police say they have detained some 240 scalpers in Beijing alone this year. Many patients and doctors say, though, the time-served practice is just a symptom of deeper issues: a dearth of doctors and low salaries meaning graft is endemic.
"Scalpers are a real headache for us," a spokeswoman for the Peking Union hospital surnamed Chen told Reuters by phone. "There's a crackdown on them, but it's a hard problem to cure."
The spokeswoman added the hospital and its doctors were victims of scalpers and were not involved in the practice.
DOZENS OF SCALPERS
A viral video earlier this year of a woman with her sick mother raging against scalpers brought a public outcry and calls for arrests and tough jail sentences. (here)
Authorities have promised to intensify their crackdown. But when Reuters visited hospitals in Shanghai and Beijing, dozens of scalpers operated in plain sight, loudly offering tickets for sale.
A spokesman at the Beijing city health department said police needed to "strengthen" their efforts, and it would take some time to see any real results. China's national health ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Feng Jianqi, a police officer involved in leading the crackdown on scalpers in Beijing, said the police could not resolve the issue alone. Part of the problem was that so many patients wanted to see the same doctors, he said.
"It's just not realistic to totally eradicate scalpers. It's just too hard," he told Reuters by phone.
The problem is acute for patients like Cao Dongxian. The middle-aged school teacher traveled to Beijing in May last year from his home in Shandong province after local doctors refused to carry out a risky intestinal cancer operation.
State insurance coverage is limited in China, meaning patients often have to pay a large part if healthcare costs themselves, especially those with major long-term diseases like cancer or diabetes.
Keen to avoid paying scalpers, Cao spent months queuing in hospital lines for repeat tests before doctors eventually said his cancer needed an urgent operation. Cao was then told he would have to begin queuing again: this time for a hospital bed.
"It was October by the time I got to have my operation ... more than four months," Cao said. "On top of that your body's in pain - it really hurts."
'MARKET PRICE'
In hindsight, Cao said he wished he had gone to scalpers straight away. Doctors also appear resigned to the practice, as wealth spreads in China and patients accept the reality that paying more will bring speedier treatment.
"(Basic) appointment fees don't reflect the economic value of doctors' skills and experience," said Wu Yuan, an eye doctor at the Peking University First Hospital in Beijing.
"Scalpers are simply selling the doctor's appointment at a price the market is prepared to pay," Wu said. He said the practice was routine but that he had no knowledge of any doctor involvement in ticket resales.
Even as China's hospitals suffer, the broader market for drugs and services is a lure for firms like e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding and hospital operator Phoenix Healthcare, attracted by a wider healthcare bill that is set to hit $1.3 trillion by 2020.
For patients like Cao or Zhang Pengyu, a 38-year-old realtor from the outskirts of Beijing, scalpers are source of frustration and anger, but sometimes a necessary evil.
He waited unsuccessfully for three nights to see an ear, nose and throat doctor at Beijing Tongren Hospital. He finally gave in to scalpers, paying 3,000 yuan for a 10-minute appointment that should have cost just 200 yuan.
"I wanted to queue myself and not pay so much money, but I just couldn't wait any more. I didn't have time," said Zhang.
(Reporting by SHANGHAI newsroom and Adam Jourdan; Additional reporting by Elaine Tan in MANILA and Natalie Thomas in BEIJING; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell)
Monday, April 11, 2016
SpaceX first shipment for ISS - TIME
Posted: 09 Apr 2016 06:01 AM PDT
(CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.) — SpaceX resumed station deliveries for NASA on Friday, and in a double triumph, successfully landed its booster rocket on an ocean platform for the first time.
The unmanned Falcon rocket soared into a clear afternoon sky, carrying a full load of supplies for the International Space Station as well as a futuristic pop-up room.
After sending the Dragon capsule on its way, the first-stage booster peeled away. Instead of dropping into the Atlantic like leftover junk, the 15-story booster steered to an upright touchdown on the barge, withstanding 50 mph gusts. Engines slowed its descent, supporting legs popped out and the final touchdown appeared neat and clean.
“The rocket landed instead of putting a hole in the ship — or tipping over — so we’re really excited about that,” SpaceX founder and chief executive Elon Musk told reporters at the Florida launch site.
His employees gathered outside the company’s glassed-in mission control in Hawthorne, California, cheered wildly, jumped up and down, and chanted, “USA, USA, USA!” when the booster touched down. President Barack Obama later chimed in via Twitter, praising SpaceX as an innovator.
Bigelow Aerospace, the Nevada company behind the equally innovative inflatable compartment bound for the space station, offered congratulations for the “beautiful launch and barge landing.”
Although SpaceX managed to land a spent booster rocket on the ground at Cape Canaveral in December, touchdowns at sea had proven elusive, with several attempts over the past year ending in explosions on the barge.
Musk’s goal is to make rockets as reusable as airplanes and as cost-effective, too. He hopes to reuse this particular booster in June on another orbital flight, following 10 test firings on the pad.
SpaceX stands to save tens of millions of dollars per flight, Musk said, by recycling the boosters. He’s looking forward to the day when booster landings become boring: “So when it’s like, ‘Oh yeah, another landing, OK, no news there.’ That’s actually when it will be successful.”
Sea touchdowns are actually quite tricky, Musk said, since the targets are relatively small — about the size of a football field — and bobbing in the waves. The boosters will need to land at sea, versus the shore, when they are traveling too fast and using too much fuel to get their spacecraft into super-high orbits — or out of Earth’s orbit altogether.
Blue Origin, run by another high-tech billionaire, Jeff Bezos, successfully has landed his rockets in West Texas in recent months, but those flights were suborbital and therefore not flying nearly as fast or high as the SpaceX Falcon.
This marks SpaceX’s first shipment for the space station in a year. Its last delivery attempt in June ended in flames after just two minutes, doomed by a snapped strut in the oxygen tank of the upper stage. The company resumed Falcon launches late last year with satellites.
The Dragon and its 7,000 pounds of freight — including the attention-grabbing payload — should reach the spacestation Sunday.
Bigelow Aerospace’s expandable compartment will swell to the size of a small bedroom, once inflated next month. It’s a testbed for orbiting rental property that the Nevada company hopes to launch in four years, and also for moon and Mars habitats.
Traffic has been heavy lately at the 260-mile-high complex. NASA’s other commercial shipper, Orbital ATK, made a delivery at the end of March, then Russia just last weekend. SpaceX’s Dragon will join three cargo carriers and two crew capsules already parked there.
Besides a bevy of biological experiments — including 20 mice for a muscle study, and cabbage and lettuce plants for research as well as crew consumption — the Dragon capsule holds the pioneering pod.
The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, or BEAM, will be attached to the space station in about a week, but won’t be inflated until the end of May.
BEAM is a 21st-century reincarnation of NASA’s TransHab, which never got beyond blueprints and ground mock-ups in the 1990s. Hotel entrepreneur Robert Bigelow bought rights to TransHab, then persuaded NASA to host BEAM at the space station.
Empty except for sensors, the experimental BEAM is Bigelow’s first soft-sided space structure meant for people. Astronauts will enter periodically during the two years it’s at the station.
Bigelow hopes to have two station-size inflatables ready to launch around 2020 for commercial use, potentially followed by inflatable moon bases. NASA, meanwhile, envisions using inflatable habitats during 2030s Mars expeditions.
On the eve of the launch, Bigelow said the mission promises to “change the entire dynamic for human habitation.”
As does the booster landing for the future of spaceflight, Musk said.
“It’s another step toward the stars. In order for us to really open up access to space, we’ve got to achieve full and rapid reusability,” he said.
Musk said it will take a few years to make the landing process smooth and efficient, and failures likely will occur, “but I think it’s proven that it can work.”
(CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.) — SpaceX resumed station deliveries for NASA on Friday, and in a double triumph, successfully landed its booster rocket on an ocean platform for the first time.
The unmanned Falcon rocket soared into a clear afternoon sky, carrying a full load of supplies for the International Space Station as well as a futuristic pop-up room.
After sending the Dragon capsule on its way, the first-stage booster peeled away. Instead of dropping into the Atlantic like leftover junk, the 15-story booster steered to an upright touchdown on the barge, withstanding 50 mph gusts. Engines slowed its descent, supporting legs popped out and the final touchdown appeared neat and clean.
“The rocket landed instead of putting a hole in the ship — or tipping over — so we’re really excited about that,” SpaceX founder and chief executive Elon Musk told reporters at the Florida launch site.
His employees gathered outside the company’s glassed-in mission control in Hawthorne, California, cheered wildly, jumped up and down, and chanted, “USA, USA, USA!” when the booster touched down. President Barack Obama later chimed in via Twitter, praising SpaceX as an innovator.
Bigelow Aerospace, the Nevada company behind the equally innovative inflatable compartment bound for the space station, offered congratulations for the “beautiful launch and barge landing.”
Although SpaceX managed to land a spent booster rocket on the ground at Cape Canaveral in December, touchdowns at sea had proven elusive, with several attempts over the past year ending in explosions on the barge.
Musk’s goal is to make rockets as reusable as airplanes and as cost-effective, too. He hopes to reuse this particular booster in June on another orbital flight, following 10 test firings on the pad.
SpaceX stands to save tens of millions of dollars per flight, Musk said, by recycling the boosters. He’s looking forward to the day when booster landings become boring: “So when it’s like, ‘Oh yeah, another landing, OK, no news there.’ That’s actually when it will be successful.”
Sea touchdowns are actually quite tricky, Musk said, since the targets are relatively small — about the size of a football field — and bobbing in the waves. The boosters will need to land at sea, versus the shore, when they are traveling too fast and using too much fuel to get their spacecraft into super-high orbits — or out of Earth’s orbit altogether.
Blue Origin, run by another high-tech billionaire, Jeff Bezos, successfully has landed his rockets in West Texas in recent months, but those flights were suborbital and therefore not flying nearly as fast or high as the SpaceX Falcon.
This marks SpaceX’s first shipment for the space station in a year. Its last delivery attempt in June ended in flames after just two minutes, doomed by a snapped strut in the oxygen tank of the upper stage. The company resumed Falcon launches late last year with satellites.
The Dragon and its 7,000 pounds of freight — including the attention-grabbing payload — should reach the spacestation Sunday.
Bigelow Aerospace’s expandable compartment will swell to the size of a small bedroom, once inflated next month. It’s a testbed for orbiting rental property that the Nevada company hopes to launch in four years, and also for moon and Mars habitats.
Traffic has been heavy lately at the 260-mile-high complex. NASA’s other commercial shipper, Orbital ATK, made a delivery at the end of March, then Russia just last weekend. SpaceX’s Dragon will join three cargo carriers and two crew capsules already parked there.
Besides a bevy of biological experiments — including 20 mice for a muscle study, and cabbage and lettuce plants for research as well as crew consumption — the Dragon capsule holds the pioneering pod.
The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, or BEAM, will be attached to the space station in about a week, but won’t be inflated until the end of May.
BEAM is a 21st-century reincarnation of NASA’s TransHab, which never got beyond blueprints and ground mock-ups in the 1990s. Hotel entrepreneur Robert Bigelow bought rights to TransHab, then persuaded NASA to host BEAM at the space station.
Empty except for sensors, the experimental BEAM is Bigelow’s first soft-sided space structure meant for people. Astronauts will enter periodically during the two years it’s at the station.
Bigelow hopes to have two station-size inflatables ready to launch around 2020 for commercial use, potentially followed by inflatable moon bases. NASA, meanwhile, envisions using inflatable habitats during 2030s Mars expeditions.
On the eve of the launch, Bigelow said the mission promises to “change the entire dynamic for human habitation.”
As does the booster landing for the future of spaceflight, Musk said.
“It’s another step toward the stars. In order for us to really open up access to space, we’ve got to achieve full and rapid reusability,” he said.
Musk said it will take a few years to make the landing process smooth and efficient, and failures likely will occur, “but I think it’s proven that it can work.”
Sunday, April 10, 2016
What are Panama papers & why they matter ? - Economist
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN had not heard of Mossack Fonseca when he observed “nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes,” and the Panama-based law firm might have changed his mind. Mossack is at the centre of a huge tax and money-laundering scandal, now coming to light thanks to the so-called “Panama papers”. What exactly are these papers and why do they matter?
Companies such as Mossack specialise in helping foreigners hide wealth. Clients may want to keep money away from soon-to-be ex-wives, dodge sanctions, launder money or evade taxes. The main tools for doing so are anonymous shell companies (which exist only on paper) and offshore accounts in tax havens (which often come with perks such as banking secrecy and low to no taxes). These structures obscure the identity of the true owner of money parked in or routed through jurisdictions such as Panama.
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But authorities (and disgruntled ex-wives) just caught a break. Over 11m documents have been leaked from Mossack’s secretive offices. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) this weekend went public with its findings that the firm had, wittingly or unwittingly, helped clients evade or avoid tax, launder money or mask its origins. More astonishing than their methods, which are well known, was the scale of activity and the people involved. The 2.6 terabytes of data are thought to contain information about 214,500 companies in 21 offshore jurisdictions and name over 14,000 middlemen (such as banks and law firms) with whom the law firm has allegedly worked. Although by no means all of these are criminal or even shady, the first public examples make for telling reading. On the naughty list are people such as Ukraine’s president, Petro Poroshenko, who promised to sell his business interests on taking office. He seems to have merely transferred assets to an offshore shell. Other heads of government, such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Iceland’s Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson are suspected of hiding ownership of offshore assets by putting them in the names of friends or relatives. Mossack denies any wrongdoing, as does Mr Gunnlaugsson. A spokesman for Mr Putin has denounced the allegations as a case of “Putinophobia”.
After the initial naming and shaming, it will become clearer in the coming weeks who was using these structures for dodgy reasons. While examples of the offshore industry enabling dictators, terrorists and drug cartels will (rightly) capture much of the attention, it would be a shame if other miscreants escape. The global industry of service providers, which sell financial secrecy to those who can afford it, have in some cases done more than just feast on poorly designed tax policies. The Panama documents suggest that some actively looked the other way when faced with a less-than-clean client. An estimated 8% of the world’s wealth ($7.6 trillion according to Gabriel Zucman, an economist) is stuffed away in offshore accounts, most of it done perfectly legally, as a raft of public relations people hasten to say as their clients’ names are flung around in the press. But legal or not, the newspapers taking aim at Mossack and the like will strike a chord. They are in tune with contemporary sentiment: the fundamental disconnect between global elites and the rest, for whom taxes are as certain as death.
European Central Bank minutes - Financial Times
News
APRIL 7, 2016
ECB minutes expose divisions
Accounts of the European Central Bank’s latest policy vote have laid bare divisions between the eurozone’s monetary policymakers over their new stimulus package.
Last month the ECB cut interest rates to fresh record lows, expanded its quantitative easing package by €20bn to €80bn-worth of purchases a month, and unveiled series of auctions to lower banks’ funding costs, writes Claire Jones.
The minutes also reveal that the 25-member governing council discussed the introduction of a Bank of Japan-style tiered deposit rate system, protecting lenders from the levy imposed on them by negative rates. A shift to this system was rejected by most officials on the grounds that it was too complex operationally and that there was, as yet, “little evidence” of the negative side effects of negative rates on banks’ profitability.
The ECB confirmed that its deposit rate, cut by 10 basis points to minus 0.4 per cent in March, could fall further should inflation and growth in the single currency area weaken again. The lower bound on interest rates had not been reached.
Two of the 21 voting members of the governing council were against the package that did pass, while another two non-voting members objected, according to a person familiar with the matter. Those four include the council’s two German members, Bundesbank president Jens Weidmann and board member Sabine Lautenschlaeger, and head of the Dutch central bank Klaas Knot.
“These views are a minority, but they indicate that Mr. Draghi is taking the central bank down an uncomfortable path from the point of view of the Bundesbank,” said Claus Vistesen at Pantheon Macroeconomics.
Jonathan Loynes at Capital Economics said the minutes “may reinforce concerns that the Governing Council is starting to run out of ammunition.”
The minutes highlight disagreement over several elements of the package — including four new auctions of ECB cash which will in effect subsidise lending by eurozone’s banks, the rate cuts and the expansion of QE to include corporate bonds.
The auctions, known in central bank parlance as Targeted Longer-Term Refinancing Operations or TLTROs, will run each quarter from June until next March.
The account said there was “very broad support” for the view that the central bank should provide “strong price incentives” through the new auctions in order to spur lending to the eurozone’s businesses and households.
However, “a few members” of the governing council were concerned about the size of the incentives offered. The auctions will pay banks up to 0.4 per cent to bloat their loan book to businesses and households. The rate tallies with the deposit rate, which now stands at minus 0.4 per cent.
“The price reduction of up to the level of the deposit facility rate seemed to be rather generous, could lead to market distortions and could contribute to the preservation of weak business models by some banks,” the minutes said.
Other members thought the decision to purchase high-grade corporate bonds under the QE programme could lead to market distortions.
The minutes said:
In the euro area, the market for these bonds was generally not very liquid or large. The direct impact on corporate financing conditions and investment behaviour appeared doubtful, as the eurosystem (of central banks) would mainly purchase bonds from highly-rated, cash-rich corporations, whose financing costs were already very low.
The inclusion of corporate bonds in QE was seen by others as “strengthening the credibility” of the ECB keeping to its target of €80bn-worth of bond buying from now until at least March 2017.
It could also benefit credit conditions for smaller companies, with no access to bond markets, by forcing banks to lend to them rather than large corporates which can issue debt themselves.
APRIL 7, 2016
ECB minutes expose divisions
Accounts of the European Central Bank’s latest policy vote have laid bare divisions between the eurozone’s monetary policymakers over their new stimulus package.
Last month the ECB cut interest rates to fresh record lows, expanded its quantitative easing package by €20bn to €80bn-worth of purchases a month, and unveiled series of auctions to lower banks’ funding costs, writes Claire Jones.
The minutes also reveal that the 25-member governing council discussed the introduction of a Bank of Japan-style tiered deposit rate system, protecting lenders from the levy imposed on them by negative rates. A shift to this system was rejected by most officials on the grounds that it was too complex operationally and that there was, as yet, “little evidence” of the negative side effects of negative rates on banks’ profitability.
The ECB confirmed that its deposit rate, cut by 10 basis points to minus 0.4 per cent in March, could fall further should inflation and growth in the single currency area weaken again. The lower bound on interest rates had not been reached.
Two of the 21 voting members of the governing council were against the package that did pass, while another two non-voting members objected, according to a person familiar with the matter. Those four include the council’s two German members, Bundesbank president Jens Weidmann and board member Sabine Lautenschlaeger, and head of the Dutch central bank Klaas Knot.
“These views are a minority, but they indicate that Mr. Draghi is taking the central bank down an uncomfortable path from the point of view of the Bundesbank,” said Claus Vistesen at Pantheon Macroeconomics.
Jonathan Loynes at Capital Economics said the minutes “may reinforce concerns that the Governing Council is starting to run out of ammunition.”
The minutes highlight disagreement over several elements of the package — including four new auctions of ECB cash which will in effect subsidise lending by eurozone’s banks, the rate cuts and the expansion of QE to include corporate bonds.
The auctions, known in central bank parlance as Targeted Longer-Term Refinancing Operations or TLTROs, will run each quarter from June until next March.
The account said there was “very broad support” for the view that the central bank should provide “strong price incentives” through the new auctions in order to spur lending to the eurozone’s businesses and households.
However, “a few members” of the governing council were concerned about the size of the incentives offered. The auctions will pay banks up to 0.4 per cent to bloat their loan book to businesses and households. The rate tallies with the deposit rate, which now stands at minus 0.4 per cent.
“The price reduction of up to the level of the deposit facility rate seemed to be rather generous, could lead to market distortions and could contribute to the preservation of weak business models by some banks,” the minutes said.
Other members thought the decision to purchase high-grade corporate bonds under the QE programme could lead to market distortions.
The minutes said:
In the euro area, the market for these bonds was generally not very liquid or large. The direct impact on corporate financing conditions and investment behaviour appeared doubtful, as the eurosystem (of central banks) would mainly purchase bonds from highly-rated, cash-rich corporations, whose financing costs were already very low.
The inclusion of corporate bonds in QE was seen by others as “strengthening the credibility” of the ECB keeping to its target of €80bn-worth of bond buying from now until at least March 2017.
It could also benefit credit conditions for smaller companies, with no access to bond markets, by forcing banks to lend to them rather than large corporates which can issue debt themselves.
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