n2doc
n2doc's Journal
They are not going to stop until the last fish is dead
By Robyn Dixon
November 26, 2013, 11:32 a.m.
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- Nations whose fleets fish for bluefin tuna and sharks ended a meeting in South Africa without reaching agreement on action to protect critically endangered species, environmentalist groups said.
A proposal to ban fishing of the critically endangered porbeagle shark was blocked at the eight-day meeting in Cape Town of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), a body consisting of major Atlantic tuna and shark fishing nations, as well as other Atlantic coast nations, according to environmentalists who observed the meeting.
The porbeagle shark (scientific name: Lamna nasus), known for its low reproductive capacity, was listed in March by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, which requires countries trading in the species to prove they are doing it sustainably after next September.
For the third time, the ICCAT nations also delayed the compulsory implementation of measures to track tuna catches electronically from ocean to port to market, a crucial measure designed to reduce rampant fraud in an industry where the amount of Atlantic bluefin tuna caught in the eastern Atlantic is 57% higher than the catch limit between 2001 and 2008, according to a 2013 study.
more
http://www.latimes.com/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-africa-sharks-tuna-20131125,0,393301.story
China's rich fleeing the country—with their fortunes
By: Robert Frank
It's one of the largest and most rapid wealth migrations of our time: hundreds of billions of dollars, and waves of millionaires flowing out of China to overseas destinations.
According to WealthInsight, the Chinese wealthy now have about $658 billion stashed in offshore assets. Boston Consulting Group puts the number lower, at around $450 billion, but says offshore investments are expected to double in the next three years.
A study from Bain Consulting found that half of China's ultrawealthy—those with $16 million or more in wealth—now have investments overseas.
And it's not just the money that's exiting the country. The wealthy are increasingly following their money overseas.
A study by Hurun and Bank of China found that more than half of China's millionaires are considering emigrating or have already taken steps to move overseas.
more
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101225781
Is Obamacare turning the corner?
By Ezra Klein and Evan Soltas,
A spin through HealthCare.Gov this morning went smoothly. The site loaded quickly. The process progressed easily. There were no error messages or endless hangs. I didn't complete the final step of purchasing insurance but, until then, the site worked -- or at least appeared to work -- exactly as intended.
My experience isn't rare. There are increasing reports that HealthCare.Gov is working better -- perhaps much better -- for consumers than it was a few short weeks ago. "Consumer advocates say it is becoming easier for people to sign up for coverage," report Sandhya Somashekhar and Amy Goldstein in the Washington Post. "The truth is, the system is getting stronger as it recovers from its disastrous launch," writes Sam Baker in the National Journal. Applying "was no problem at all, with no delays," says Paul Krugman.
Reports from inside the health care bureaucracy are also turning towards optimism. People who knew the Web site was going to be a mess on Oct. 1st are, for the first time, beginning to think HealthCare.Gov might work. Data backs them up: By mid-November, the pace of enrollment in the federal exchanges had doubled from what it was in October.
The Obama administration is certainly acting like they believe the site has turned the corner. Somashekhar and Goldstein report that they're "moving on to the outreach phase, which had taken a back seat as they grappled with the faulty Web site. Next week, the White House will host an insurance-oriented 'youth summit' aimed at people ages 18 to 35, an age group whose participation in the health-care law will be critical to its success."
The White House had held off on this kind of outreach because they believed it would simply drive people to a useless Web site. If they're restarting the outreach, it's because they believe, rightly or wrongly, that HealthCare.Gov will be able to convert the interest into enrollments.
more
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/11/26/wonkbook-is-obamacare-turning-the-corner/
Boulder police fatally shoot man playing with blades
BOULDER, Colo. – The Boulder County Investigative Team is looking into a police shooting that happened at the Wimbledon Apartments on Madison and 30th.
Blood stained the concrete near where police say they were forced to shoot and kill a 42-year-old man who lived in this unit.
“There was a male suspect outside the apartment armed with a machete and a knife and he was making stabbing motions to one of the posts outside his front door,” said Sarah Hurtley, a spokesperson for the city of Boulder.
Concerned neighbors called police and when officers arrived the man was already back inside.
Police then forced their way into the man’s home.
“When they opened the door a male suspect came out at them out of the threshold and he had a knife in each hand,” said Hurtley.
Boulder police say they told the man to get down and when the man refused an officer shot him twice with his rifle.
more
http://kdvr.com/2013/11/24/boulder-police-fatally-shoot-man-armed-with-blades/
Which Side of the Barricade Are You On?
Democratic strategist Doug Sosnik was a close adviser to President Bill Clinton, and he’s famed in Washington circles for his closely held, big-think memos on the state of American politics. We got our hands on his latest—in which he warns of a rising populist tide that threatens to swamp Republicans and Democrats alike—and are reprinting it in full here with his permission.
***
For some time now, the daily commentary has focused on the public’s increasing anger and frustration about the sluggish economic recovery, dysfunctional government and a failure of leadership. But all this analysis misses the more fundamental point, which is that Americans’ alienation from our political system and its leaders has been building for more than a decade. This extended period of dissatisfaction has had an extremely corrosive effect on the nation’s social fabric.
The current discontent with the leadership in our country, coupled with long-term domestic economic trends dating back to the early 1980s, is beginning to force a redrawing of the political lines that have separated Americans since the culture wars of the 1960s. An emerging movement in our country is calling for change to the status quo and to the leadership class. Across the political spectrum, there is an growing populist push for a retrenchment from global affairs, with a renewed focus on the problems here at home. Americans are worried about the struggles of the battered middle class, whose real incomes have not improved in more than two decades, the elimination of special deals for the wealthy and big business and the protection of the public’s privacy from what they see as predatory companies and an intrusive federal government. These are the issues that will dominate our politics going forward, and we will see populists from the left and the right increasingly come together to force change.
A decade of anger and disaffection
There is a pent up desire for dramatic change that has been shaped by a confluence of major events in the United States and around the world. In the last 10 years the country has fought two wars, faced the greatest worldwide economic meltdown since the 1930s and experienced the most significant technological transformation since the Industrial Revolution. The nation has also undergone a major demographic makeover, shifting from a majority white country to an increasingly multicultural society. Throughout this period our leaders have failed to manage the pace of all this change and to face up to the severity of our challenges, resulting in disillusionment and deep divisions among the public by race, age and income.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2013/11/which-side-of-the-barricade-are-you-on-100302.html
The Empire Strikes Back
How Wall Street Has Turned Housing Into a Dangerous Get-Rich-Quick Scheme -- Again
By Laura Gottesdiener
You can hardly turn on the television or open a newspaper without hearing about the nation’s impressive, much celebrated housing recovery. Home prices are rising! New construction has started! The crisis is over! Yet beneath the fanfare, a whole new get-rich-quick scheme is brewing.
Over the last year and a half, Wall Street hedge funds and private equity firms have quietly amassed an unprecedented rental empire, snapping up Queen Anne Victorians in Atlanta, brick-faced bungalows in Chicago, Spanish revivals in Phoenix. In total, these deep-pocketed investors have bought more than 200,000 cheap, mostly foreclosed houses in cities hardest hit by the economic meltdown.
Wall Street’s foreclosure crisis, which began in late 2007 and forced more than 10 million people from their homes, has created a paradoxical problem. Millions of evicted Americans need a safe place to live, even as millions of vacant, bank-owned houses are blighting neighborhoods and spurring a rise in crime. Lucky for us, Wall Street has devised a solution: It’s going to rent these foreclosed houses back to us. In the process, it’s devised a new form of securitization that could cause this whole plan to blow up -- again.
Since the buying frenzy began, no company has picked up more houses than the Blackstone Group, the largest private equity firm in the world. Using a subsidiary company, Invitation Homes, Blackstone has grabbed houses at foreclosure auctions, through local brokers, and in bulk purchases directly from banks the same way a regular person might stock up on toilet paper from Costco.
more
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175777/tomdispatch%3A_laura_gottesdiener%2C_wall_street%27s_rental_empire/
Moronic Ghost Hunters Burn Historic Louisiana Plantation to the Ground
if paranormal investigators didn’t have a hard enough time already, what with never being able to prove the existence of ghosts on any of their tv shows, now a group of them have destroyed a rich piece of Louisiana history by setting fire to a 160 year old plantation.
The suspects told authorities that they snuck into the Lebeau Plantation in order to investigate claims that the building was haunted. Unfortunately for everyone, many news outlets reportedthat these ghost hunters had more in common with Shaggy and Scooby than with Fred and Velma, because instead of actually solving any mysteries they just got high and accidentally set fire to the building.
By the time police showed up to the plantation at around 2am, the building was fully engulfed in flames. All 7 men were arrested and charged with arson, burglary and criminal damage over $50,000.
“This is a devastating loss to the community,” Fire Chief Thomas Stone said. “It’s a fire chief’s worst nightmare.”
Fortunately, there were no casualties in the blaze, aside from the enjoyment of a historical location by future generations.
Built in the 1850?s, the Lebeau Plantation was once the largest plantation south of New Orleans. Throughout the years, the property had previously served as a casino, a hotel, and more recently as local Sugar Festival grounds.
http://blog.roadtrippers.com/moronic-ghost-hunters-burn-historic-louisiana-plantation-ground/
Pope attacks "tyranny" of markets, urges renewal in key document
BY NAOMI O'LEARY
(Reuters) - Pope Francis called for renewal of the Roman Catholic Church and attacked unfettered capitalism as "a new tyranny", urging global leaders to fight poverty and growing inequality in the first major work he has authored alone as pontiff.
The 84-page document, known as an apostolic exhortation, amounted to an official platform for his papacy, building on views he has aired in sermons and remarks since he became the first non-European pontiff in 1,300 years in March.
In it, Francis went further than previous comments criticising the global economic system, attacking the "idolatry of money" and beseeching politicians to guarantee all citizens "dignified work, education and healthcare".
He also called on rich people to share their wealth. "Just as the commandment 'Thou shalt not kill' sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say 'thou shalt not' to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills," Francis wrote in the document issued on Tuesday.
"How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses 2 points?"
more
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/26/uk-pope-document-idUKBRE9AP0EO20131126
Also
Pope Francis calls for power to move away from Vatican
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25102720
Julian Assange unlikely to be charged in US
The Justice Department has all but concluded it will not bring charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for publishing classified documents because government lawyers said they could not do so without also prosecuting US news organisations and journalists, United States officials say.
The officials stressed that a formal decision has not been taken and a grand jury investigating WikiLeaks remains impanelled, but they said there is little possibility of bringing a case against the Australian, who has sought asylum in the Ecuadoran embassy in London, unless he is implicated in criminal activity other than releasing online top secret military and diplomatic documents.
The Obama administration has charged government employees and contractors who leak classified information - such as former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden and former Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning - with violations of the Espionage Act.
But officials said that although Assange published classified documents, he did not leak them, something they said significantly affects their legal analysis.
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"The problem the department has always had in investigating Julian Assange is there is no way to prosecute him for publishing information without the same theory being applied to journalists," former Justice Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/julian-assange-unlikely-to-be-charged-in-us-20131126-2y7uk.html
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