WORLD NEWS: mayo 2011

lunes, 30 de mayo de 2011

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Obama leads American tributes to war dead

Arlington is the resting place for thousands of soldiers

President Barack Obama has paid tribute to US forces at a ceremony at the military cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, on Memorial Day.

He addressed an audience of serving soldiers, veterans and families of those killed in combat.
Mr Obama said: "The grief of mourning you carry in your hearts is a grief I cannot fully know.
"This day is about you and the fallen heroes that you loved and it's a day that has meaning for all Americans."
Earlier, he met relatives of soldiers who died and he laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Our nation owes a debt to its fallen heroes that we cannot ever fully repay”

President Barack Obama

His speech took place in the Arlington amphitheatre in front of a flag-draped wall.

He said: "To those of you mourn the loss of a loved one today, my heart goes out to you."
He added: "We remember that the blessings that we enjoy as Americans came at a dear cost.
"Our nation owes a debt to its fallen heroes that we cannot ever fully repay. But we can honour their sacrifice, and we must."
Defence Secretary Robert Gates also paid tribute to the armed forces.
On Sunday, an annual motorbike rally and a concert in Washington DC were also part of the memorial celebrations.
Sarah Palin was among those who attended the rally, Rolling Thunder, although she did not address the crowds.

Martin Dempsey named new joint chiefs head

Dempsey was educated at West Point academy Gen Martin Dempsey has been nominated as the new chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, the highest US military post. A veteran of the Iraq war, Army Chief of Staff Dempsey will succeed Navy Admiral Mike Mullen as the president's top military adviser on 30 September.
President Obama made the announcement in the White House garden but it is subject to Senate approval.
Obama has also named Adm James Winnefeld, the head of the US Northern Command, to serve as vice chairman.
Gen Ray Odierno was nominated to replace Gen Dempsey as the Army's chief of staff.
In naming Gen Dempsey, the president described him as "one of our nation's most respected and combat-tested generals".
If confirmed by the Senate, the general would be the top adviser as the scaling down of US forces in Iraq continues and troops in Afghanistan begin to come home later this year.
Time in combat
He would be involved in establishing priorities for cutting the defence budget, working with the incoming Defence Secretary Leon Panetta, an appointment that also requires confirmation from the Senate.
Dempsey only just began his four-year tenure as Army chief of staff in April, but he has extensive experience.
His time in combat includes serving as the commander of the 1st Armored Division in Baghdad in 2003 and helping to train Iraqi security forces in another tour.
He also served as acting commander of the US Central Command, overseeing US military operations in the Middle East, Persian Gulf and Central Asia.
Defence Secretary Robert Gates, who retires this year, praised all three appointments.
He said: "They possess the right mix of intellectual heft, moral courage, and strategic vision required to provide sound and candid advice to the president and his national security team."
The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) is based at the Pentagon in Virginia and advises the secretary of defence, the Homeland Security Council, the National Security Council and the president on military matters. http://trademarks-1.webs.com/index.htm

Christine Lagarde in global charm offensive for IMF bid

Ms Lagarde announced her candidacy for the IMF's top job last week Christine Lagarde is planning to visit China, India and Brazil to drum up support for her bid to head the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The French finance minister said she wanted to visit the three countries in an effort to ease concerns over her candidacy.
Emerging economies have voiced their concerns over the continuing hold of European nations over the IMF.
All 10 of the fund's managing directors since its inception have been European.
Leaders of developing economies have voiced their displeasure, saying that the head of a global body should be chosen purely on merit.
India's prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh was quoted as saying: "We would like to remind the industrialised world that there is a tacit agreement that the top positions in international financial institutions must not go to specific countries as a matter of right," according to a transcript of comments issued by the Foreign Ministry.
Lagarde is set to start her tour in Brazil on Monday, according to messages she posted on Twitter.
On Sunday she posted a message announcing plans to fly to Brasilia where she will meet with fellow finance minister Guido Mantega and the head of Brazil's central bank, Alexandre Tombini.
'A long haul' “Start Quote

You do recognise that those who exercise power, they don't want to give up power and therefore the struggle for a better, balanced world order, a more equitable world order... is going to be a long haul”

Dr Manmohan Singh Indian prime minister

The balance of global financial power has changed drastically in the past few years.

Economies like China and India have grown at a much faster pace that those in the developed world, making them increasingly important players on the world stage.
However their influence at global bodies like the IMF has not altered much during the same period.
And India's prime minister Dr Singh said it will take a long time for that change to happen.
"You do recognise that those who exercise power, they don't want to give up power and therefore the struggle for a better, balanced world order, a more equitable world order, including the management of global institutions like the IMF, World Bank, Security Council… it is going to be a long haul, I am afraid," he said.
His views were echoed by Professor Charles Adams of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore, who said that though the IMF had been moving in the right direction, the pace had been too slow.
"We have seen some changes in the IMF away from the European and major advanced economies to the emerging market economies, but it has been slow, at times painful," he said.
"It does not yet reflect the economic reality," he added.
G8 backing The French foreign minister Alain Juppe said that Ms Lagarde had received the backing of the leaders of the Group of Eight Nations (G8) of developed economies.
"Among the eight heads of state and government, plus the president of the European Commission and the president of the European Council who were there (at the G8 meeting in Deauville, France), there was unanimous support for Christine Lagarde," Mr Juppe was quoted as saying by the Reuters news agency.
The Group of Eight Nations represents some of the biggest and most powerful economies in the world.
Its members are the US, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada and Russia.

Yuan at record high versus dollar after Treasury report

The yuan's pricing has been a contentious issue between China and the developed economies China's yuan has hit a record high against the US dollar after the US Treasury department said the Chinese currency was undervalued but not manipulated.

The People's Bank of China (PBOC) fixed the yuan's mid-point at 6.4856 against the US dollar on Monday.
China has been accused by the US and other developed economies of keeping the value of its currency artificially low to boost its exports.
China is the world's biggest exporter.
The US and other major economies have said that China's policy of keeping the value of its currency low gives an unfair advantage to its manufacturers.
There have also been concerns that China's currency policies have also been responsible in part for big trade imbalances with its trading partners.
'Negative connotation'

They want to do it in a way that is sustainable and gradual. A way that gives Chinese exporters enough time to adjust. The Chinese economy has to be in a position to absorb the appreciating currency”

Peter Esho City Index

There have been repeated calls in the US to label China a currency manipulator, given Beijing's currency policies and reluctance to let the yuan trade freely.

China however has maintained that while it is willing to allow the yuan to appreciate, its pace has to be gradual.
It said that a sudden rise in the yuan will not only be detrimental to its export sector but will also have a negative impact on the overall economy.
In its report released on Friday, the US Treasury Department said that although China's currency was undervalued, the country was not a currency manipulator.
Analysts say that while there has been considerable pressure within the US, it seems that the Treasury Department had taken on board China's concerns about a sharp rise.
"Manipulation carries negative connotation. The intention is to mislead", said Peter Esho, chief market analyst at City Index.
"They are acknowledging that their (China's) intentions aren't to mislead," he added.
'Insufficient' progress In an attempt to show its intent on letting the value of its currency rise, China loosened its peg to the US dollar in June 2010.
The yuan has gained more than 5% against the dollar since then.
However the US Treasury report said that the rise has not been up to their expectations. "Treasury's view… is that the progress thus far is insufficient and that more progress is needed."
Many analysts are of the view that China is trying to make sure that the appreciation in its currency has the minimum impact on its economy.
"They want to do it in a way that is sustainable and gradual," said Mr Esho.
"A way that gives Chinese exporters enough time to adjust. The Chinese economy has to be in a position to absorb the appreciating currency", he added.
Mr Esho also said that since China is so reliant on its export sector "the government will not let exporters suffer, just to appease foreign concerns."
Balancing act China's currency policy has not only created problems with its trading partners. It has also contributed to domestic problems. http://quickdivorces.weebly.com/
Inflation in China has been rising sharply as the costs of oil, food and other essential commodities continue to spike.
Consumer prices rose by 5.3% in April compared with the same month a year ago.
Analysts say that while China has to take care of the interests of its export sector, it has also got to keep in mind that a lower valued currency makes imports more expensive and adds to inflation.
"I think really it's a balancing act. If the currency is undervalued you're going to have inflationary pressure on your economy," said Mr Esho.
"That will eventually be a hindrance to growth and that's China's biggest worry," he added.

Kim Kardashian: 'I may start a family this year'

Kim Kardashian and Midori Melon Liqueur launch the Midori Trunk Shows
Kim Kardashian has revealed that she and fiancé Kris Humphries are already planning to start a family.

http://www.wallpaperbay.net/AZCelebrities/Kim-Kardashian/Kim-Kardashian-5.jpg

Kardashian announced her engagement to the New Jersey Nets player earlier this week, and has claimed that they are already thinking about having children together.

"We talk about it all the time," Kardashian told People. "In the next year we want to maybe try and start a family."

http://images4.fanpop.com/image/photos/15000000/Kim-Kardashian-kim-kardashian-15045222-1024-768.jpg

The reality star also confirmed that the couple wouldn't wait long before marrying, suggesting that the wedding would likely happen before the end of the year.

"We want to get married this summer," she explained. "I've always dreamed of a big wedding. I'll probably do something really over-the-top."

http://www.gotceleb.com/wp-content/uploads/celebrities/kim-kourtney/kardashian-in-a-bikini-at-south-beach-hq/kim-kourtney-kardashian-in-a-bikini-at-south-beach-hq-15.jpg

Kardashian's brother Rob recently spoke out about his sister's engagement, describing the news as "shocking", and claimed that he's not yet convinced that the couple will actually end up getting married.

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Kardashian and Humphries plan to split their time between Los Angeles and New Jersey once they move in together.

Germany: Nuclear power plants to close by 2022

Anti-nuclear protester in Munich, 28 May

Germany saw mass anti-nuclear protests in the wake of the Fukushima disaster

Germany's coalition government has announced a reversal of policy that will see all the country's nuclear power plants phased out by 2022.

The decision makes Germany the biggest industrial power to announce plans to give up nuclear energy.
Environment Minister Norbert Rottgen made the announcement following late-night talks.
Chancellor Angela Merkel set up a panel to review nuclear power following the crisis at Fukushima in Japan.
There have been mass anti-nuclear protests across Germany in the wake of March's Fukushima crisis, triggered by an earthquake and tsunami.
'Sustainable energy' Mr Rottgen said the seven oldest reactors - which were taken offline for a safety review immediately after the Japanese crisis - would never be used again. An eighth plant - the Kruemmel facility in northern Germany, which was already offline and has been plagued by technical problems, would also be shut down for good.
Six others would go offline by 2021 at the latest and the three newest by 2022, he said.

Nearly a quarter of German's electricity comes from nuclear power so the question becomes: How do you make up the short-fall?
The official commission which has studied the issue reckons that electricity use can be cut by 10% in the next decade through more efficient machinery and buildings.
The intention is also to increase the share of wind energy. This, though, would mean re-jigging the electricity distribution system because much of the extra wind power would come from farms on the North Sea to replace atomic power stations in the south.
Protest groups are already vocal in the beautiful, forested centre of the country which, they fear, will become a north-south "energie autobahn" of pylons and high-voltage cables.
Some independent analysts believe that coal power will benefit if the wind plans don't deliver what is needed.
And on either side of Germany is France, with its big nuclear industry, and Poland, which has announced an intention to build two nuclear power stations.

Mr Rottgen said: "It's definite. The latest end for the last three nuclear power plants is 2022. There will be no clause for revision."

Mr Rottgen said a tax on spent fuel rods, expected to raise 2.3bn euros (£1.9bn) a year from this year, would remain despite the shutdown.
Mrs Merkel's centre-right Christian Democrats met their junior partners on Sunday after the ethics panel had delivered its conclusions.
Before the meeting she said: "I think we're on a good path but very, very many questions have to be considered.
"If you want to exit something, you also have to prove how the change will work and how we can enter into a durable and sustainable energy provision."
The previous German government - a coalition of the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) and the Greens - decided to shut down Germany's nuclear power stations by 2021.
However, last September Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition scrapped those plans - announcing it would extend the life of the country's nuclear reactors by an average of 12 years.
Ministers said they needed to keep nuclear energy as a "bridging technology" to a greener future.
The decision to extend was unpopular in Germany even before the radioactive leaks at the Fukushima plant.
But following Fukushima, Mrs Merkel promptly scrapped her extension plan, and announced a review.
Greens boosted Germany's nuclear industry has argued that an early shutdown would be hugely damaging to the country's industrial base.
Before March's moratorium on the older power plants, Germany relied on nuclear power for 23% of its energy.
The anti-nuclear drive boosted Germany's Green party, which took control of the Christian Democrat stronghold of Baden-Wuerttemberg, in late March.
Shaun Burnie, nuclear adviser for environmental campaign group Greenpeace International, told the BBC World Service that Germany had already invested heavily in renewable energy.
"The various studies from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change show that renewables could deliver, basically, global electricity by 2050," he said.
"Germany is going to be ahead of the game on that and it is going to make a lot of money, so the message to Germany's industrial competitors is that you can base your energy policy not on nuclear, not on coal, but on renewables." http://registrodemarcas.weebly.com/
Shares in German nuclear utilities RWE and E.On fell on the news, though it had been widely expected.
But it was good news for manufacturers of renewable energy infrustructure.

Libya: South Africa's Jacob Zuma in peace mission

Supporters of Col Muammar Gaddafi in Tripoli (28 May 2011)

Unnamed sources have said the purpose of the visit is to persuade Col Gaddafi to step down South African President Jacob Zuma is in Libya's capital, Tripoli, for talks with Col Muammar Gaddafi to seek a diplomatic solution to the conflict.

A spokesman said his main objective was a ceasefire and denied he would discuss exit strategies with the Libyan leader.
One of Col Gaddafi's advisers has told the BBC there is no prospect of him stepping down, as the rebels demand.
On Sunday, Mr Zuma's governing African National Congress condemned Nato's air and missile strikes in Libya.
"We... join the continent and all peace-loving people of the world in condemning the continuing aerial bombardments of Libya by Western forces," the party said after a two-day meeting of its executive council.
Nato imposed a no-fly zone in Libya and began bombing Col Gaddafi's forces in March as they threatened to overrun rebel-held parts of the country, a month after nationwide anti-government protests began.
International pressure on Col Gaddafi continues to grow, with the G8 calling for his departure on Friday and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev saying on Saturday he no longer had the right to lead Libya.
The chairman of the Benghazi-based rebel Transitional National Council (TNC), Mustafa Abdul Jalil, welcomed the statements, saying: "The entire world has reached a consensus that Col Gaddafi and his regime have not only lost their legitimacy but also their credibility."
But the Libyan government said it was not concerned by the G8's decisions, saying it was merely an economic summit.
"We are an African country. Any initiative outside the AU framework will be rejected," Deputy Foreign Minister Khalid Kaim said.
Attack helicopters Mr Zuma walked down the red carpet at Tripoli's airport on Monday afternoon to the sound of a band and children waving Libyan flags and chanting "We want Gaddafi" in English, the Reuters news agency reports.
Col Gaddafi - who was last seen on state television meeting tribal leaders on 11 May - was not among the dignitaries who greeted him.

One of Col Gaddafi's advisers admits the South African president's visit may be their last chance of a diplomatic way out, but says there's no possibility of the man they call the Brother Leader stepping aside - as both Nato and the rebels are demanding.
There is support for the alliance, though, on the streets of Tripoli, even as life gets tougher. Petrol shortages are now so severe that people report queuing for up to five days.
No-one likes being bombed, said one resident and anti-Gaddafi campaigner, but we need Nato to get rid of him.
But his opponents are still too scared to protest openly in Tripoli.

Mr Zuma's office said the main objective of his visit was to discuss with Col Gaddafi an immediate ceasefire, the delivery of humanitarian aid and the implementation of reforms needed to end the crisis.

It also rejected as "misleading" reports that their talks would focus on agreeing an exit strategy for Col Gaddafi.
South Africa voted for the UN Security Council resolution authorising the use of force to protect civilians in Libya despite the AU's concerns. Since then, Mr Zuma has joined other African leaders in accusing Nato of overstepping its mandate and calling for an end to the bombardment.
The BBC's Andrew North in Tripoli says some hope Mr Zuma's charm and personal relationship with Col Gaddafi will make a deal possible.
But the prospects for this peacemaking bid look just as thin as last time, our correspondent says.
An African Union "roadmap", which was drawn up in February and called for an immediate ceasefire, was swiftly rejected by both the TNC and Nato because it did not call on Col Gaddafi to step down.
His supporters insist there is no possibility of him either leaving office or Libya, and point out that even if he did he could then face being arrested and taken to the International Criminal Court at The Hague on war crimes charges, our correspondent adds.

Libya - Key diplomatic initiatives

22 Feb - Arab League suspends Libya
26 Feb - UN Security Council resolution 1970 imposes sanctions on Col Gaddafi and his family, and refers crackdown to International Criminal Court
10 Mar - France recognises rebel Transitional National Council as sole representative of Libyans
17 Mar - UN Security Council resolution 1973 authorises no-fly zone over Libya and use of "all necessary measures" to protect civilians
29 Mar - Governments and organisations agree at meeting in London to set up Libya Contact Group to co-ordinate efforts in post-Gaddafi Libya
10 Apr - Col Gaddafi accepts African Union's "roadmap" for ending conflict after visit by South African President Jacob Zuma; rebels reject plan as it does not require Col Gaddafi to step down
5 May - Ministers from Contact Group agree in Rome to set up non-military fund to help rebels
16 May - ICC's prosecutor seeks arrest of Col Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam, and intelligence chief Abdullah al-Sanussi for crimes against humanity
27 May - G8 leaders call on Col Gaddafi to go

On Saturday evening, Mr Abdul Jalil reiterated the TNC's stance and accused government forces of attacking rebel-held towns in the western Nafusa mountains "with heavy artillery, tanks and rocket launchers" and continuing to besiege the rebel-held city of Misrata.

"We witness how Col Gaddafi presents initiatives to fool the world and create the illusion that he is in search of peace," he said.
"It is with this in mind that we would like to reconfirm that the basis of any consideration for the resolution of the Libyan crisis is the removal of the main reason for this crisis, Col Gaddafi. As such, there is no room for negotiation until his departure and the departure of his regime."
On Monday, rebel spokesman Guma al-Gamati told the BBC World Service that he believed Mr Zuma's visit would make a difference as Col Gaddafi was far weaker and more isolated than he was last month.
"The people around him and the aides and people who are fighting for him are diminishing; some are deserting," he added.
Mr Zuma's visit comes days after the UK and France announced they were sending attack helicopters to join the Nato effort, as the alliance attempts to break the deadlock which has left the rebels in control of eastern Libya and the government running most of the west.
The UK also said it could start using "bunker-busting" bombs, capable of penetrating reinforced buildings.

sábado, 28 de mayo de 2011

Fiat to take majority stake in Chrysler

Chrysler repaid $7.6bn of government loans earlier this week

Fiat says it will buy the US government's 6% stake in Chrysler, which will give the Italian carmaker a majority share in the US company.

After Chrysler emerged from bankruptcy protection in 2009, Fiat agreed with the US government to share technology and management in return for a 20% stake and has quickly built that up.
Buying out the government would give Fiat 52% ownership of Chrysler.
The price will be negotiated within 10 business days, Fiat said.
In a statement, Fiat notified the US Treasury that it was exercising its option to buy the government's share.
Its stake is likely to increase to 57% by the end of the year, when it is expected to have met certain government targets.
On Tuesday, Chrysler said it had repaid $7.6bn (£4.7bn) in US and Canadian government loans, six years ahead of schedule.
Earlier this month, it reported a profit of $116m (£69m) in the first three months of the year, its first quarterly profit since it emerged from bankruptcy protection.

UK rural broadband plans move on

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The government is keen to see fast net services in all rural areas Homes in Devon, Somerset, Norfolk and Wiltshire will get super-fast broadband, the government has said.

Making sure rural areas have fast net services is part of a wider drive to make the UK the best place for broadband by 2015.
Each county will receive a portion of the £530m fund the government has set aside to fund rural broadband.
The Department for Culture said that all the UK's local authorities will receive funding in the next few years.
"This is part of our plan for virtually every community in the UK to have access to super-fast broadband," said culture secretary Jeremy Hunt.
The government acknowledges that its £530m pot - which is money left over from an earlier digital switchover fund - will not be enough to give the entire country fast broadband.
Private investment will also be needed.
Fibre homes The successful counties were among 18 which originally bid for the money.
Devon and Somerset will receive around £30m, Norfolk £15m and Wiltshire £4m and they will then choose a contractor and technology best suited for their needs.
The government anticipates that the technologies will be a mix of mobile, satellite and fibre connections.
Wiltshire Council has already pledged to spend £16m on broadband services across the county.
The government announced the first tranche of its rural broadband plan in October 2010, setting up three pilots in North Yorkshire, the Highlands and Islands of Scotland and Cumbria and Herefordshire.
It has been accused of being far too slow to get the trials up and running. So far none are live and only two have begun the process of finding a firm able to offer services.
Fujitsu has pledged to build a super-fast network across the whole of rural Britain. It has said it will offer fibre-to-the-home technology to around five million homes. That could provide homes with speeds of up to 100Mbps (megabits per second).
In order to do so it will rely on using BT's infrastructure - the ducts and poles that provide telephone and broadband services around the UK.
Ofcom has forced the telco to open up its network but some have argued that the prices it is planning to charge for access are too high.
Revised pricing is expected in June.
According to BT, Fujitsu has yet to join its ducts and poles trial.

Tornado death toll in Joplin, Missouri, rises to 142

Bee Hicks salvages items from her mother-in-law's home. 28 May 2011

Residents are still salvaging items from the wreckage of their homes The number of people killed by last Sunday's massive tornado that struck the city of Joplin, Missouri, has risen to 142, officials say. The toll, released by city manager Mark Rohr, is an increase of three from the previous total.
Also on Saturday, a list of 156 people missing dropped to 105 after more were accounted for.
President Barack Obama will visit Joplin on Sunday to take part in a memorial service.
Among the newly confirmed victims was teenager Will Norton, who was sucked from his father's car as they drove home from his high school graduation.
More than 600 volunteers and 50 dog teams are still scouring the shattered remains of homes and offices for survivors or victims.
"We're going to be in a search and rescue mode until we remove the last piece of debris," Mr Rohr said earlier.
Joplin police say they have made 17 arrests for looting. http://registrodemarcas.weebly.com/
The tornado, with winds of 200mph (322km/h), was one of the most destructive in US history. It injured more than 900 people and carved a swathe of destruction through the city.
Day of prayer Missouri Governor Jay Nixon has declared Sunday an official State Day of Prayer and Remembrance.
US and Missouri flags will fly at half-mast over all government buildings in the state throughout the day.
The memorial service will be held at the Taylor Performing Arts Center on the campus of Missouri Southern State University.

Stephen Dickson in front of his parents' home

Joplin officials have vowed to rebuild the city

Gov Nixon said in a statement: "During this day of prayer and this memorial service, I invite all Missourians to pause and remember their neighbours and draw upon the resources of their faith in support of their fellow Missourians."
On Saturday the US National Weather Service said 2011 was already the deadliest year for tornadoes since 1950, when precise figures were first kept.
The death toll so far this year stands at 520. The previous highest recorded death toll in a single year was 519 in 1953.
The first funeral of a confirmed victim from the Joplin tornado was held on Friday.
Hundreds of mourners gathered at a church in Galena, just over the Kansas border, for the funeral of Adam Dewayne Darnaby, 27.
So far at least 19 bodies have been released to families, but many are yet to be formally identified.
Officials say that, wherever possible, they prefer to base identifications on DNA, medical records and also distinguishing features such as tattoos and piercings.
However, some families of victims say the delays are adding to their distress.

Afghanistan: Suicide blast kills top police commander

General Daud was attending a meeting with other officials when the bomber struck, reports say The police commander for northern Afghanistan has been killed in a suicide bomb attack on the provincial governor's compound in Takhar. Gen Mohammad Daud Daud is one of at least six people killed in the attack, claimed by the Taliban.
Two German soldiers were killed and Gen Markus Kneip, commander of foreign troops in north Afghanistan, wounded.
Afghanistan has seen a series of attacks in recent months by militants on police and military targets.
Takhar provincial Governor Abdul Jabar Taqwa is among those wounded, officials said.
Gen Daud was former military commander of the Northern Alliance, the Afghan forces who fought the Taliban.
Police uniform The latest attack will be seen as significant because it has struck an area of the country's north which has been seen as relatively secure.

Powerful, charismatic, controversial - General Daud played a critical role as Afghan forces prepare to take over from Isaf in key cities this year.
When I last saw him in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif in March, he was calm and confident as he organised a major security operation during Nawroz (New Year) celebrations.
Despite reports of suicide bombers in the city, there were no attacks. But he came under criticism weeks later when the UN compound was stormed by a violent mob.
There were persistent allegations he played a key role in the drugs trade he was meant to stop. But his charm and capabilities won him allies among foreign forces - although some expressed suspicion there was an "agenda" of greater autonomy for the North.
The attack will heighten concerns over the Taliban's campaign to assassinate key Afghan figures.

One intelligence official who survived the attack in Taloqan told the BBC's Bilal Sarwary that Gen Daud had left a meeting and was heading to the second floor of the building when there was a huge explosion.

"There was fire. Daud and the police chief of Takhar province were laying on the ground. There were shouts and crying. There was chaos all over the place," the official said.
Intelligence officials said Gen Daud had been warned about a threat to his life and that security was extremely tight.
However, the attacker was wearing a police uniform and passed several security checks.
Gen Daud was in charge of all interior ministry forces in northern Afghanistan and is the most senior figure to be killed so far in a Taliban "spring offensive".
He was highly thought of by Nato because he got the job done, correspondents say.
Last week he told our correspondent, Bilal Sarwary: ''The Haqqanis and Taliban groups have tried to offer money to some of the police. Some of my guards.
"I am very vigilant. I have made a lot of changes in my movements and who guards the front and rear of the my headquarters. But I have to travel all over northern Afghanistan, to different provinces. I can't stop doing this.''
Gen Daud was a former deputy interior minister for narcotics.

He also served as the bodyguard to Ahmad Shah Massoud, who commanded the Northern Alliance.
At least six people were killed in the explosion, including Gen Daud and the provincial police chief Shah Jahan Nuri.
At least 10 Afghans were injured, including the governor, he added.
Early reports said three German soldiers had been killed, but this was later corrected to two, with three wounded.
An spokesman for the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) confirmed that Gen Kneip was in the compound at the time but "was not killed".
German troops are based in neighbouring Kunduz province, and have oversight of Takhar.

Lt Gen Mohammad Daud Daud

Fought for mujahideen against Soviet invasion
Friend and deputy of famed mujahideen leader Ahmed Shah Masood
Led Northern Alliance troops in 2001 Western-backed campaign against the Taliban
Served as governor of Takhar province and deputy interior minister for counter-narcotics
Head of police in northern Afghanistan when killed

The province was until recently a relatively quiet area of Afghanistan, but tensions rose in May after a Nato-led night raid in Taloqan which killed four people.

A crowd of 2,000 people took to the streets to protest against the attack, claiming the victims were civilians.
Nato said the group were insurgents.
Police opened fire on the demonstrators, killing 12 people and wounding 80.
A smaller protest the following day saw the provincial police chief's compound attacked.

Consumer Complaints Made Easy. Maybe Too Easy.

PHONE trees that lead nowhere. Customer service drones chained to a script. The modern corporation has invented a thousand ways to tell customers with a grievance: You’re out of luck. And, no, contrary to our dulcet recording, your call is not important to us.

But today unhappy consumers have Facebook and Twitter on their side. The new social media provide free megaphones that carry a customer’s complaint around the world. Perhaps a little too easily.

Gripe, a company that describes itself as a “better Better Business Bureau for the Twitter age,” is devoted to spreading word of a problem quickly. It provides a mobile app for iPhone and Android that makes posting a complaint simultaneously to one’s Facebook friends and Twitter followers effortless.

“The B.B.B. has a bureaucracy in the middle,” says Farhad Mohit, the company’s chief executive. You have to fill out a form, you have to put up with some hassle. “There’s a high degree of friction,” he says.

Gripe, which was started last year, removes the friction. With a little typing, its users can send off a gripe, which goes to Facebook, Twitter and the named company’s customer service department. The company is invited to remedy the problem and remove the stain of the publicized gripe, earning a “cheer.” Users can also send out a “cheer” in the first place, to applaud customer service well done.

Sending Gripes to one’s Facebook friends solves the problem of frivolous complaints, Mr. Mohit argues. “You don’t want to be viewed as a jerk by your friends and family,” he says. (I don’t know; how self-aware are jerks?)

Mr. Mohit sees the service as helpful to businesses because it gives them an opportunity to resolve the complaints posted through the service.

Gripe attempts to give all of its users a powerful persona by displaying the user’s “word of mouth” power. Mr. Mohit’s personal word-of-mouth power, as of last week, was “1,644,483 people.” This number is displayed prominently by the app and can be shown to recalcitrant store owners.

It turns out, however, that Gripe arrives at word-of-mouth power by adding together the friends of one’s Facebook friends and the followers of one’s Twitter followers. This greatly inflates the actual number of people who are likely to see a gripe or a cheer, which by default goes out only to one’s immediate friends and followers.

From the vendor’s perspective, a small number of complaining customers who use social media receive disproportionate attention. This is “social bullying,” in the opinion of Ashutosh Roy, the chief executive of eGain, which provides customer service products for its corporate clients. He observes that his clients determine their response to complaints registered by a given customer “not just by how much business you do with the company but also by how much pain you inflict on the company in social channels.”

One person who used the power of Twitter to inflict great pain upon one particular company is Heather P. Armstrong, the proprietress of Dooce, a widely read blog. Her story, from 2009, seems at first glance like an example of the individual bullying a company. It circulated widely and you may have already heard it: Exasperated with Maytag’s inability to provide her family with a functioning washing machine despite many calls and several visits by a repair person, Ms. Armstrong recounted in her blog what she told a Maytag customer service representative: “Do you know what Twitter is? Because I have over a million followers on Twitter. If I say something about my terrible experience on Twitter do you think someone will help me?” She was told, “Yes, I know what Twitter is. And no, that will not matter.”

Ms. Armstrong proceeded to post comments like this on Twitter: “So that you may not have to suffer like we have: DO NOT EVER BUY A MAYTAG. I repeat: OUR MAYTAG EXPERIENCE HAS BEEN A NIGHTMARE.” Shortly thereafter, Ms. Armstrong heard from an executive at Whirlpool, the parent company of the Maytag brand, and her machine was soon fixed.

This is a shortened version of Ms. Armstrong’s account of what happened. The full version runs almost 6,000 words: To my mind, the literary expression of her misadventures gives legitimacy to her complaint. She did not use an app like Gripe to frictionlessly send out a complaint to her million Twitter followers at the first twinge of irritation. She endured much and then invested the time to compose a long cri de coeur.

Without any hesitation, Brian P. Snyder, Whirlpool’s senior manager of social and emerging media, owns up to Whirlpool’s providing Ms. Armstrong in 2009 with “an unsatisfactory customer service experience.”

I think Whirlpool does deserve a “cheer,” however, for subsequently setting up Facebook pages for its Maytag, KitchenAid, and Whirlpool brands, in which visitors are permitted to let loose.

Mr. Snyder says that “patently offensive” items or spam are deleted, but negative feedback stays. He says Whirlpool is following advice provided by Intel at a conference about social media: “Keep the bad.” His company allows discussion threads like “Failed Dishwasher” and “Defective Dishwashers” in full public view.

IN the old days of Yellow Pages and rotary phones, filing a complaint with the Better Business Bureau entailed a small hassle. But that was good: it increased the likelihood that a fellow consumer had endured considerable frustration before going to the trouble of registering a complaint. With services like Gripe, a few seconds’ investment is all you need.

Nothing seems to prevent all of that word-of-mouth power from creating a din of complaints.

Advertise on NYTimes.com Retro Russian Import Lures Older, Easier Riders

IRBIT, Russia — This is the story of how a dying Soviet-era industry and an aging biker population in the United States met and found happiness together on the streets and highways of America.

Think of it as Easy Rider, the golden years.
It started as a matter of survival for the Irbit Motor Works, which for decades had churned out its signature Ural motorcycle with sidecar attachment, but which discovered that its business was sputtering into the Post-Communist sunset like so many other Soviet enterprises.
Irbit found salvation in an unlikely niche market: older American riders seeking utility, not thrills or spills. Suddenly the sidecar, a seemingly anachronistic product evoking a World War II newsreel, had a new life among the late middle-aged.
The company shifted its sales strategy overseas in the 1990s and today, despite its deeproots in Russia as the purveyor to the Red Army, it sends 60 percent of its output to the United States.

For the target male consumer, the born-to-run ideal of a motorcycle mama on the back has given way to a spouse or girlfriend riding alongside, holding the dog or the groceries.

Irbit and its dealerships say older bikers represent their core market, but the bike-sidecar combination has also begun to catch on with a younger generation of riders, couples who find its retro look appealing.

“In the Soviet Union, our motorcycle was a workhorse,” said Vladimir N. Kurmachev, Irbit’s factory director. “Now it is an expensive toy.”

David Reich, 65, a retired carpenter in Salem, Ore., bought a white Ural Patrol from a dealership there last year.

“It’s something my wife and I can both enjoy,” he said in a telephone interview. They considered buying two bikes, he said, but decided on the sidecar so his wife, Jeanne, would not have to get a motorcycle license. Also, they could chat while touring.

“I am having a ball!” Jeanne Reich wrote in an e-mail. “I enjoy cruising along a few inches off the road with nothing to do but take in the view.”

Peter terHorst, the spokesman for the American Motorcyclist Association, said the average age of its 230,000 members was 48. As people’s strength and coordination wane, he said, “you see them transitioning to the sidecar.”
“Older couples say it’s just not comfortable to double up,” Mr. Kurmachev said during a tour of the shop floor, where sidecars are polished, painted and installed standard on nearly every bike.
Irbit, known by its Russian acronym IMZ, says it is the only motorcycle manufacturer in the world selling stock sidecars in volume; some BMW and Harley-Davidson dealers have sold them as options, though Harley is discontinuing sidecar production.
Sidecars, while popular with some riders, still account for a fraction of the motorcycle market in the United States, said Ty van Hooydonk, a spokesman for the Motorcycle Industry Council, a trade group. The makers do not disclose sales figures, he said.
Irbit’s factory sits on the rim of a ramshackle town of wooden buildings and rutted dirt roads on the Siberian side of the Urals, with a statue of Lenin still in the main square. It is operating, but at greatly diminished capacity compared with its 1970s heyday, when it produced up to 130,000 vehicles a year. Assembly lines have closed and the motorcycles are now built by hand.
A ride in a sidecar can be either exhilarating or, for those not accustomed to the sensation, terrifying. Set low to the ground, the sidecar tends to rise into the air on right-hand turns. The bike is street legal in all 50 states. But because the entire three-wheel contraption is legally a motorcycle, no seat belt is provided or required. With United States sales rising, Irbit says it is studying an air bag for the sidecar.
The Ural is a heavy, 40-horsepower motorcycle whose two cylinders jut sideways from the frame. It is modeled after a late-1930s BMW sidecar bike called the R71, which Nazi Germany provided to the Soviet Union after the countries signed a nonaggression pact in 1939. When the Nazis broke this pact and invaded, the Russians used the bike to fight them.
Irbit stopped building military models in 1955 and began focusing on a civilian market of hunters, outdoor enthusiasts and owners of summer homes.

Funny or Die: Groupon’s Fate Hinges on Words

RACHEL HANDLER is struggling to say something funny or perhaps amusing or at least clever about horses. Her mind is empty. She can’t recall the last time she was on a horse or even saw a horse. The minutes fly by. Horses are nothing to joke about.

Ms. Handler writes for Groupon, the e-mail marketer that was casually founded in the pit of the recession and almost immediately became a sensation worth billions. The musicians, poets, actors and comedians who fill its ranks are in a state of happy disbelief over the company’s success. In the age-old tradition of creative folk, they were just looking for a gig to support their art. Now stock options have made some of them seriously wealthy, at least on paper.

Poets who work here give away copies of their verse in the reception area. One poem begins like this:

closed my eyes and I was nothing

yeah, I was running

I was nothing

and then I was flying

That just about sums up Groupon’s brief history, which has been meteoric even by dot-com standards. Groupon, which is expected to go public within the next year, is either creating a new approach to commerce that will change the way we eat and shop and interact with the physical world, or it is a sure sign that Internet mania is once again skidding out of control. Or both.

The big Internet companies owe their dominance to something singular that shut out potential competitors. Google had secret algorithms that gave superior search results. Facebook provided a way to broadcast regular updates to friends and acquaintances that grew ever more compelling as more people signed up, which naturally caused more people to sign up. Twitter introduced a new tool to let people promote themselves.

Groupon has nothing so special. It offers discounts on products and services, something that Internet start-up companies have tried to develop as a business model many times before, with minimal success. Groupon’s breakthrough sprang not just from the deals but from an ingredient that was both unlikely and ephemeral: words.

Words are not much valued on the Internet, perhaps because it features so many of them. Newspapers and magazines might have gained vast new audiences online but still can’t recoup the costs from their Web operations of producing the material.

Groupon borrowed some tools and terms from journalism, softened the traditional heavy hand of advertising, added some banter and attitude and married the result to a discounted deal. It has managed, at least for the moment, to make words pay.

IN 177 North American cities and neighborhoods, 31 million people see one of the hundreds of daily deals that Ms. Handler and her colleagues write, and so many of them take the horseback ride or splurge on the spa or have dinner at the restaurant or sign up for the kayak tour that Groupon is raking in more than a billion dollars a year from these featured businesses and is already profitable.

There used to be a name for marketing things to clumps of people by blasting messages at them: spam. People despised it so much it nearly killed e-mail. The great achievement of Groupon — a blend of “group” and “coupon” — is to have reformulated spam into something benign, even ingratiating.

Ms. Handler is working on an offer for Pine River Stables in St. Clair, Mich., a place she has never been to. It is the stables’ first deal on Groupon: $18 for a one-hour ride for two people, half the regular price.

It takes Ms. Handler about 50 minutes to assemble the write-up, which is a few straightforward paragraphs explaining the details with the occasional gag as sweetener (The stables are closed “on Wednesdays, in the event of bad weather and on Horse Christmas.”) She puts off writing the first sentences, the ones that are supposed to seduce every Groupon subscriber in Detroit — either to go horseback riding or at least keep reading Groupon’s e-mails. http://registrodemarcas.weebly.com/
Still stumped, she browses an online thesaurus. She studies the Pine River Web site for the umpteenth time. She wishes she lived in a world without horses.

viernes, 27 de mayo de 2011

Obama in Poland to boost bilateral ties

US President Barack Obama, accompanied by Polish officers, lays a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Warsaw, 27 May

Mr Obama visited Warsaw's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

US President Barack Obama is in Poland on the final stage of his six-day European tour.

After flying in from the G8 summit in France, Mr Obama laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and visited the Warsaw Ghetto Memorial.
He is also attending a dinner with more than a dozen leaders of central and eastern EU countries.
Mr Obama will hold talks with Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski on Saturday before returning to the US. www.wdalaw.com
However, Mr Obama also has some fence mending to attend to, he adds.
Normally close relations between Warsaw and Washington were strained after Mr Obama cancelled plans by his predecessor, George W Bush, to site interceptor missiles in Poland.
This shift was seen in some quarters in Warsaw as an attempt by the new administration to curry favour with Moscow.
In 1989, Poland became the first country in the Soviet bloc to shed communism in a peaceful transition negotiated by the Solidarity opposition movement, led by Lech Walesa.
Mr Obama has said that the experience of countries once behind the Iron Curtain could help Arab nations struggling for democracy.
Hours before Mr Obama's arrival, Polish headlines were dominated by reports that Mr Walesa was refusing to meet him. www.wdalaw.com
Mr Walesa said he feared such a meeting would only be a "photo opportunity".
"I believe one day I will meet with Obama but not this time," he told AFP news agency.
He wished the US president "very well", then added, "but sometimes things just don't work out".

Fifa president Sepp Blatter under investigation

Page last updated at 11:12 GMT, Friday, 27 May 2011 12:12 UK

Blatter is bidding for a fourth presidential term at Fifa

Fifa has opened an ethics investigation against its president, Sepp Blatter.

The action follows a charge by Mohamed Bin Hammam, his rival in next week's presidency election, that Blatter knew about alleged cash payments.
Bin Hammam and vice-president Jack Warner will also be at Sunday's hearing to answer charges of bribery.
Blatter issued a statement saying: "I cannot comment on the proceedings that have been opened against me. The facts will speak for themselves."
The ethics committee are bound by their rules to investigate any complaint by an executive committee member under article 16 of the ethics code.
Bin Hammam and Warner face allegations from executive committee member Chuck Blazer that they offered bribes at a meeting of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) on 10 and 11 May.
A file of evidence claims bundles of cash of up to $40,000 were handed over to members of the CFU at the meeting in Trinidad.

Click to play

Fifa needs to take the opportunity to change - Hugh Robertson

In turn, Bin Hammam is effectively claiming Blatter was aware of some wrongdoing but did not report it, in itself a breach of the code.
The committee, chaired by Namibian judge Petrus Damaseb, will also be investigating two other CFU officials - Debbie Minguell and Jason Sylvester.
Bin Hammam issued a statement via his website on Friday concerning the "increasing evidence of a conspiracy against his candidacy" and attempted to clear up the bribery allegations made against him.
"After having analysed and answered the accusations of bribery made against Mohamed Bin Hammam, it seems obvious that they are without substance," the statement read.
"It is true that Mr Bin Hammam addressed representatives of the CFU at an extraordinary meeting in Port of Spain, Trinidad on May 10 and 11. Nobody has ever tried to hide the fact that Mr Bin Hammam paid for the delegates' travel and accommodation expenses and covered the meeting's administrative costs.
"Mr. Bin Hammam reiterates that any allegations about him trying to buy votes are completely false.
"It is quite obvious that, following previous failed attempts, this is part of a final effort to prevent Mr. Bin Hammam from running for the Fifa presidency."

The move to place Blatter, one of the most powerful men in football, under investigation is the latest twist in an increasingly bitter fight for the presidency of the sport's global governing body.
And it also follows weeks of damaging headlines and allegations in the wake of the vote for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.
BBC sports editor David Bond said: "Fifa is now an organisation completely at war. They cannot possibly continue in this way and many people will say they should suspend the presidential election, which takes place next Wednesday.
"Under Fifa's ethics code, they are duty bound, if a member of the executive committee makes a complaint to the ethics committee, to then investigate it.
"So, it may be that the allegations against Blatter don't come to much, and the allegations against Bin Hammam and Warner could be far more serious. Ultimately it seems the evidence against Blatter is only Bin Hammam's word against his.

"It is very difficult to predict exactly what will happen next, but it's hard to see this as anything other than a watershed moment for Fifa.
"It feels like at last the dam is breaking around them. It is a bit like the scene at the end of Reservoir Dogs when everyone has a gun pointed at each other's heads."
Blatter has been president of Fifa since 1998. Michel Platini, the president of European football's governing body, Uefa, who is tipped to run for the Fifa presidency in four years' time, described the latest development as "a very interesting moment".
He said there would only be a postponement of Wednesday's presidential elections if three-quarters of Fifa's general assembly agreed.
But sports minister Hugh Robertson was in no doubt that the election should be postponed.
"The Fifa presidential election campaign has descended into a farce," he said. "With both of the candidates having allegations of corruption aimed at them the election should be suspended."
Platini, whose organisation have thrown their weight behind Blatter's bid for re-election, described himself as "incorruptible".
"You know the people who are corrupt, they know who can be corruptible," he said. "They know I am incorruptible."
He also argued that corruption was an issue not only in football, but the whole of society. "Football is the most beautiful and popular game in the world and we have to resolve these problems," he said.

Click to play

Michel Platini dismisses football's 'little problems'

"[But] it is not only a fight in football. Football is a mirror for the society and what happens in football can arrive in every part of the society."
Meanwhile, an FA inquiry into claims by ex-chairman, Lord Triesman, that Warner and three other executive committee members made improper requests during England's 2018 World Cup bid has found evidence of several possible rules breaches.
The report, written by barrister James Dingemans QC, has been sent to Fifa and raises "outstanding issues" with Fifa's ethics code and bidding rules.
It is understood that only the claims against Warner have been corroborated by witnesses.
The claim that Warner asked for financial help to build an education centre has been backed up by Premier League chairman Sir Dave Richards, while Dingemans' file also includes an email from Warner to Triesman asking the FA to pay for Haiti's World Cup TV rights.
An FA spokesman said: "Mr Dingemans cannot make a final determination on whether there has been any wrongdoing because he does not have jurisdiction to speak to the Fifa executive committee members.
"It is for Fifa to do this and for Fifa to determine whether any of its rules have been breached."

Scottie Pippen: LeBron ‘may be the greatest player to ever play’

At the ripe age of 26, LeBron James(notes) has won two MVP awards, he has two NBA Finals appearances, several All-Star berths, and his Miami Heat team will be the odds-on favorite to win the NBA title next week as they prepare to take on the Dallas Mavericks. He also has zero NBA titles.

At the same age, NBA legend Michael Jordan had just as many titles, just as many MVP awards, and his Bulls weren't even the favorites (despite home court advantage) as they prepared to take on the Los Angeles Lakers in the 1991 NBA Finals.

All this was enough for Jordan teammate and guy-who-should-know Scottie Pippen to toss this out, while appearing on ESPN Radio Friday morning:

"Michael Jordan is probably the greatest scorer to ever play the game. I may go so far as saying LeBron James may be the greatest player to ever play the game."

Whoa, guy. Seriously?

(And is he actually wrong?)

No, James hasn't surpassed Jordan in any meaningful way yet. He hasn't won jack, in comparison to MJ's six titles. He hasn't simultaneously won a Defensive Player of the Year in the same season he led the NBA in scoring, though that might be Dwight Howard's(notes) fault more than anything else. And because James joined the Miami Heat midway through his career, he'll never be looked at as the singular drive behind any championships he earns. After all, when Jordan won his first ring in 1991, Pippen hadn't even made an All-Star team by then.

But parsed correctly, tossing in a "might be" before "the greatest player to ever play the game," and following that with a "when all is said and done," Pip has to be taken seriously, here. James is 26, and he might be the greatest player to ever play the game when all is said and done. A lot of us have felt that for years.

Code-cracking machine returned to life

Click to play

The working replica of the Tunny machine in actionThe National Museum of Computing has finished restoring a Tunny machine - a key part of Allied code-cracking during World War II.

Tunny machines helped to unscramble Allied interceptions of the encrypted orders Hitler sent to his generals.
The rebuild was completed even though almost no circuit diagrams or parts of the original machines survived.
Intelligence gathered via code-cracking at Bletchley underpinned the success of Allied operations to end WWII.
Time synch Restoration work on Tunny at the museum in Bletchley was re-started in 2005 by a team led by computer conservationists John Pether and John Whetter.
Mr Pether said the lack of source material made the rebuild challenging.
"As far as I know there were no original circuit diagrams left," he said. "All we had was a few circuit elements drawn up from memory by engineers who worked on the original."
The trickiest part of the rebuild, he said, was getting the six timing circuits of the machine working in unison.
The Tunny machines, like the Colossus computers they worked alongside, were dismantled and recycled for spare parts after World War II.
The first Tunny machine was built in 1942 by mathematician Bill Tutte. He drew up plans for it after analysing intercepted encrypted radio signals Hitler was sending to the Nazi high command.

The rebuild of the Tunny machine involved a formidable amount of re-wiring

These orders were encrypted before being transmitted by a machine known as a Lorenz SZ42 enciphering machine.
Bill Tutte's work effectively reverse-engineered the workings of the SZ42 - even though he had never seen it.
Tunny worked alongside the early Colossus computer, which calculated the settings of an SZ42 used to scramble a particular message. These settings were reproduced on Tunny, the enciphered message was fed in, and the decrypted text was printed out.
By the end of WWII there were 12-15 Tunny machines in use and the information they revealed about Nazi battle plans aided the Russians during the battle of Kursk and helped to ensure the success of D-Day.
"We have a great deal of admiration for Bill Tuttle and those original engineers," said John Whetter.
"There were no standard drawings they could put together," he said. "It was all original thought and it was incredible what they achieved."
One reason the restoration project has succeeded, said Mr Whetter, was that the machines were built by the Post Office's research lab at Dollis Hill.
All the parts were typically used to build telephone exchanges, he said.
"Those parts were in use from the 1920s to the 1980s when they were replaced by computer-controlled exchanges," he said.
Former BT engineers and workers involved with The National Museum of Computing have managed to secure lots of these spare parts to help with restoration projects, said Mr Whetter.
The next restoration project being contemplated is that of the Heath Robinson machines, which were used to find SZ42 settings before the creation of Colossus.
That, said Mr Whetter, might be even more of a challenge.
"We have even less information about that than we had on Tunny," he said.

Japan's car production plunges due to parts shortages

A worker assembles cars at Honda Motor's factory

Carmakers have been amongst the hardest hit businesses by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan

Honda's Japanese output plummeted 81%, while Nissan reported a 48.7% decline at its factories in Japan.
Japan's carmakers have been facing a shortage of parts as the 11 March earthquake and tsunami disrupted the country's supply chain.
As a result, the country's top car manufacturers have been forced to suspend or slow down production at their factories.
Global impact The effects of the disruption in Japan's supply chain have been felt well beyond the country's shores.
Leading Japanese carmakers have reported a sharp drop in their global production numbers as well.
Toyota Motors, which has curbed production at its plants in various countries, said its factories outside Japan produced 25% fewer vehicles in April.
Honda Motors has reported a decline of 43.5% in output at its overseas factories, while Nissan Motors said its foreign output dipped by 12.7%.

Japan beats deflation for the first time in two years

Japan has been fighting falling prices for more than a decade Japan has beaten deflation for the first time in two years, as fuel imports surged following the earthquake and tsunami. Consumer prices rose by 0.6% in April, from a year earlier, according to the Statistics Bureau.
However, credit ratings agency Fitch has downgraded its outlook on Japan's debt to negative from stable.
Fitch said it was worried about the high levels of Japanese government debt.
"Japan's sovereign credit-worthiness is under negative pressure from rising government indebtedness," said Andrew Colquhoun of Fitch.
"A stronger fiscal consolidation strategy is necessary to buffer the sustainability of the public finances against the adverse structural trend of population ageing."
In January this year, rating agency Standard & Poor's downgraded Japan's credit rating from AA to AA-, also citing Japan's worsening debt situation for the move.
One-off? The rise in Japan's core consumer price index in April, which excludes food prices, was largely in line with expectations.
Including food, consumer prices rose by 0.3% in April, compared with a year earlier.
Japan has been battling deflation, or falling prices, for more than a decade.

Although I expect consumer spending will recover in May and the months ahead in the wake of the disaster, wages and salaries haven't risen.”

Hiromichi Shirakawa Chief economist, Credit Suisse

While potentially positive for bargain-hungry shoppers, deflation actually leads to companies and most consumers putting off purchases, in hopes that prices will continue to fall.

The April data is unlikely to reverse that trend, because the gains came largely from higher fuel prices.
The 11 March earthquake and tsunami left more than 24,000 people dead or missing.
It also destroyed some of Japan's ability to generate electricity.
The country has been importing large amounts of fuel in order to make up the difference.
"The commodities and crude oil prices are pushing the inflation figures up," said Credit Suisse chief economist Hiromichi Shirakawa.
"Although I expect consumer spending will recover in May and the months ahead in the wake of the disaster, wages and salaries haven't risen."
He added: "I'm concerned about consumer spending towards the summer".
Japan's economy, the world's third largest, has slid back into recession after the devastation caused by the earthquake and tsunami.
Gross domestic product shrank 0.9% in the first three months of the year.
Japan's economy has now contracted for two quarters in a row, the generally accepted definition of a recession.

Mladic due at extradition hearing

Ratko Mladic appears in court in Belgrade

Ratko Mladic Captured Former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic is due back in court in the Serbian capital Belgrade for the resumption of an extradition hearing.

The session against the 69-year-old was halted on Thursday when his lawyer said he was in "poor physical state".
Gen Mladic, arrested on Thursday after 16 years on the run, faces genocide charges over the 1992-95 Bosnian war.
His extradition to the UN war crimes court at The Hague could take a week.
Gen Mladic was indicted in 1995 for genocide over the killings about 7,500 Bosnian Muslim men and boys that July at Srebrenica - the worst single atrocity in Europe since World War II - and other crimes.
'Delaying tactics' Gen Mladic's wife, Bosiljka, who recently said she thought her husband was dead, and their son Darko turned up at the court to visit him.

The wide, tree-lined village streets were quiet in the early morning sun, as farm workers on old bikes stopped to look at the police guard outside 2 Vuk Karadzic Street, the house where Ratko Mladic was found. One policemen, who told us he lived four doors down, said he'd never seen Gen Mladic.
Other locals say the same. The home itself is like any other on the street - a small cottage with a broken-down car in the yard and an ancient tractor, its damaged doors swinging in the wind.
Trying to film the house provoked an angry response. A man flew out swearing with fists raised - we later learned he was Gen Mladic's nephew. Some in the close-knit village were vocal in their support of their hidden neighbour, reflecting a deep sense that the world's view of the Balkans war was unfair.

The BBC's Mark Lowen, outside the court in Belgrade, asked her how her husband was, but she did not reply.

Having lived freely in the Serbian capital, Belgrade, Gen Mladic is believed to have disappeared after the arrest of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic in 2001.
Following the arrest of former Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic in 2008, Gen Mladic became the most prominent Bosnian war crimes suspect at large.
The arrest was hailed internationally.
On Thursday, Serbian TV showed footage of the former general wearing a baseball cap and walking slowly as he appeared in court in Belgrade.
The extradition hearing was stopped when Gen Mladic's lawyer, Milos Saljic, said his client was unable to communicate.
Mr Saljic argued that Mr Mladic - who looked frail and walked slowly during the initial hearing - was unfit to stand trial.
But a senior Serbian war crimes prosecutor said he believed the defence was exaggerating the general's health problems in an attempt to delay extradition.
Protests Reports in Serbian media suggested that one of Gen Mladic's arms was paralysed, which was probably the result of a stroke.

How war consumed Bosnia

WWII guerrilla leader Marshal Tito led Yugoslavia, an ethnically mixed Balkan federation
Tito dies in 1980; Slobodan Milosevic comes to power in 1986 and begins whipping up nationalists in Serbia, the dominant Yugoslav republic
Yugoslavia starts breaking up in 1991, wars erupt in Slovenia, then Croatia, followed by Bosnia-Hercegovina in 1992
Bosnian war in 1992-95 is bloodiest, with about 100,000 killed - Bosnian Serbs backed Milosevic plan for Greater Serbia
Ratko Mladic leads Bosnian Serb ethnic cleansing, driving Bosniaks (Muslim) and Croats from self-declared Serb areas
Bosnian Serb troops besiege Sarajevo for four years, killing at least 7,500 unarmed Bosniaks in Srebrenica in 1995
Atrocities also committed by some Bosnian Croats and Bosniaks

Mr Saljic said: "He is aware that he is under arrest, he knows where he is, and he said he does not recognise The Hague tribunal."

Court officials believe he will fight the extradition.
Serbia had been under intense international pressure to arrest Gen Mladic and send him to the UN International Criminal Tribunal to the former Yugoslavia in The Hague.
After the arrest, the government banned public gatherings in an effort to prevent any pro-Mladic demonstrations.
But hundreds of ultra-nationalists clashed with police in the northern city of Novi Sad, and there was a smaller demonstration involving several dozen protesters in the centre of Belgrade.
The government is now keen for a speedy extradition of Gen Mladic, whom Serb nationalists still regard as a hero, the BBC's Mark Lowen in Belgrade reports.
President Boris Tadic said Gen Mladic's arrest had brought Serbia and the region closer to reconciliation, and opened the doors to European Union membership.
'Stake-out' Mr Tadic rejected criticism that Serbia had been reluctant to seize Gen Mladic.

A spokeswoman for families of Srebrenica victims, Hajra Catic, told AFP news agency: "After 16 years of waiting, for us, the victims' families, this is a relief."
Gen Mladic was seized in the province of Vojvodina in the early hours of Thursday.
He had two guns with him, but put up no resistance, officials said.
Serbian security sources told AFP news agency that three special units had descended on a house in the village of Lazarevo, about 80km (50 miles) north of Belgrade.
The single-storey house was owned by a relative of Gen Mladic and had been under surveillance for the past two weeks, one of the sources added.
One local resident told the BBC: "I'm really surprised. "My mother lives four doors down from here and I've never seen him."
Reports that Gen Mladic had been living under the assumed name Milorad Komodic have been denied by Serbian Interior Minister Ivica Dacic.
Serbian media say he was not in disguise - unlike Mr Karadzic, who had a long beard and a ponytail when he was captured in Belgrade three years ago.

miércoles, 25 de mayo de 2011

Christine Lagarde announces IMF candidacy

Christine Lagarde has announced her candidacy to be the next head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The French finance minister had been an early favourite to replace Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who resigned last week to fight sex assault charges in New York.
Ms Lagarde has the support of much of Europe but emerging countries have called the tradition of a European always leading the IMF "obsolete".
All 10 of the IMF's managing directors since its inception have been European.
"If elected, I will give the IMF all my experience as a lawyer, a director of enterprise, a minister and a woman," Ms Lagarde told a news conference in Paris.
If elected, she would be the first woman to head the IMF in its 65-year history.
The 24 members of the IMF's executive board will choose the next chief.
'Good debate' Ms Lagarde said she had the full support of both French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Prime Minister Francois Fillon.
She stressed she was not leaving her post in the French government, merely announcing that she was running for the IMF job.
"There are other candidates and I am looking forward to a very good debate between us," she said.
So far, the only other official candidate is Agustin Carstens, the head of Mexico's central bank, after the Mexican finance ministry said on Monday that it would nominate him.
On Wednesday, US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said both Ms Largarde and Mr Carstens were "credible" candidates.
"They're very talented people. Christine Lagarde is an exceptionally capable person, and excellent mix of financial and economic knowledge, talent, and the kind of political skills you need. Agustin has that as well."
"We want to see a process where we look to the candidate who can command the broadest support."
Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty also praised the two "highly qualified" candidates.
Other names in the frame include Germany's former banking chief, Axel Weber, and former South African finance minister Trevor Manuel.
European v non-European? Ms Lagarde is widely backed in Europe and is expected to receive the support of the US.
On Tuesday, the French government also said that China would support Ms Lagarde's candidacy, although Beijing declined to comment.
And later on Tuesday, the so-called Brics countries - which includes China, as well as Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa - released a statement expressing concern at comments from senior Europeans that the IMF should continue to be led by a European.
But Ms Lagarde said: "Being a European should not be a plus; it should not be a minus either."
In France, Ms Lagarde is involved in a legal row about her decision to settle a dispute between the state and tycoon Bernard Tapie, a personal friend of President Sarkozy.
Commenting on the judicial investigation currently taking place, Ms Lagarde said: "I have every confidence in the procedure because my conscience is at ease."
Ms Lagarde also paid tribute to the work done by Mr Strauss-Kahn.
"The IMF has taken up the challenges of the [financial] crisis thanks to the actions of the director general Dominique Strauss-Kahn and to his team as well."

lunes, 23 de mayo de 2011

McDonald's chief: Ronald McDonald 'going nowhere'

Ronald McDonald is an "ambassador for good", the company says McDonald's chief executive Jim Skinner has stood by the fast-food chain's trademark clown Ronald McDonald. On Wednesday, a group of 550 healthcare workers asking it to stop marketing to children using methods such as toys and the clown.
"Ronald McDonald is going nowhere," Mr Skinner told Thursday's shareholders' meeting.
Shareholders rejected a proposal for the company to issue a report outlining its role in childhood obesity.
The proposal, put forward by a group of nuns, asked for a report within six months, "assessing the company's policy responses to public concerns regarding linkages of fast food to childhood obesity, diet-related diseases and other impacts on children's health".
The board of directors opposed the motion, saying it offered a variety of food to its customers, provided nutrition information about the food, and communicated with children "in a responsible manner through age appropriate marketing and promotional activities".
Mr Skinner said: "This is about choice and we believe in the democratic process."
Separate to the nuns' motion was the latest step in a two-year campaign by Corporate Accountability International, the organisation best known for its campaign to get rid of Joe the Camel from cigarette advertising.
Its open letter to McDonald's said: "While acknowledging that fast food is unhealthy, you pin responsibility for the epidemic of diet related disease on a breakdown in parental responsibility."
"We ask that you heed our concern and retire your marketing promotions for food high in salt, fat, sugar, and calories to children, whatever form they take - from Ronald McDonald to toy giveaways."
At the shareholders' meeting, Mr Skinner said: "As the face of Ronald McDonald House Charities, Ronald is an ambassador for good and delivers important messages to kids on safety, literacy and balanced, active lifestyles."

Laser puts record data rate through fibre

Fibres operating in the infrared can shuttle many different colours of light down their lengths Researchers have set a new record for the rate of data transfer using a single laser: 26 terabits per second. At those speeds, the entire Library of Congress collections could be sent down an optical fibre in 10 seconds.
The trick is to use what is known as a "fast Fourier transform" to unpick more than 300 separate colours of light in a laser beam, each encoded with its own string of information.
The technique is described in the journal
The push for higher data rates in light-based telecommunications technologies has seen a number of significant leaps in recent years.
While the earliest optical fibre technologies encoded a string of data as "wiggles" within a single colour of light sent down a fibre, newer approaches have used a number of tricks to increase data rates.
Among them is what is known as "orthogonal frequency division multiplexing", which uses a number of lasers to encode different strings of data on different colours of light, all sent through the fibre together.
At the receiving end, another set of laser oscillators can be used to pick up these light signals, reversing the process.
Check the pulse While the total data rate possible using such schemes is limited only by the number of lasers available, there are costs, says Wolfgang Freude, a co-author of the current paper from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany.
"Already a 100 terabits per second experiment has been demonstrated," he told BBC News.
"The problem was they didn't have just one laser, they had something like 370 lasers, which is an incredibly expensive thing. If you can imagine 370 lasers, they fill racks and consume several kilowatts of power."
Professor Freude and his colleagues have instead worked out how to create comparable data rates using just one laser with exceedingly short pulses.
Within these pulses are a number of discrete colours of light in what is known as a "frequency comb".
When these pulses are sent into an optical fibre, the different colours can add or subtract, mixing together and creating about 325 different colours in total, each of which can be encoded with its own data stream.
Last year, Professor Freude and his collaborators how to use a smaller number of these colours to transmit over 10 terabits per second.
At the receiving end, traditional methods to separate the different colours will not work. In the current experiment, the team sent their signals down 50km of optical fibre and then implemented what is known as an optical fast Fourier transform to unpick the data streams.
Colours everywhere The Fourier transform is a well-known mathematical trick that can in essence extract the different colours from an input beam, based solely on the times that the different parts of the beam arrive.
The team does this optically - rather than mathematically, which at these data rates would be impossible - by splitting the incoming beam into different paths that arrive at different times, recombining them on a detector.
In this way, stringing together all the data in the different colours turns into the simpler problem of organising data that essentially arrive at different times.
Professor Freude said that the current design outperforms earlier approaches simply by moving all the time delays further apart, and that it is a technology that could be integrated onto a silicon chip - making it a better candidate for scaling up to commercial use.
He concedes that the idea is a complex one, but is convinced that it will come into its own as the demand for ever-higher data rates drives innovation.
"Think of all the tremendous progress in silicon photonics," he said. "Nobody could have imagined 10 years ago that nowadays it would be so common to integrate relatively complicated optical circuits on to a silicon chip."