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At least 24 people—including nine children—were killed, hundreds more were injured and numerous homes, schools and businesses were destroyed after a massive tornado barreled through the town of Moore, Okla., on Monday. The National Weather Service has classified it as a top-of-the-scale EF-5 twister. The weather service says the tornado was about 17 miles long and 1.3 miles wide, packing maximum wind speeds of more than 200 miles per hour. It was initially reported that 51 people had died in the storm, but those estimates were revised Tuesday. Rescuers are still combing through the rubble. Click headline to read more and view the three videos--
The idea of vertical farming is all the rage right now. Architects and engineers have come up with spectacular concepts for lofty buildings that could function as urban food centers of the future. In Sweden, for example, they're planning a to farm leafy greens at the edge of each floor. But so far, most that are up and running actually look more like large greenhouses than city towers. And many horticulturists don't think sky-high farms in cities are practical. "The idea of taking a skyscraper and turning it into a vertical farming complex is absolutely ridiculous from an energy perspective," says horticulturist of Purdue University, who's been working on ways to grow plants in space for more than 20 years. The future of vertical farming, Mitchell thinks, lies not in city skyscrapers, but rather in large warehouses located in the suburbs, where real estate and electricity are cheaper. And oh, yeah, instead of being traditional greenhouses lit by fluorescent lamps, he says these plant factories will probably be "pinkhouses," glowing magenta from the mix of blue and red LEDs. Light is a major problem with vertical farming. When you stack plants on top of each other, the ones at the top shade the ones at the bottom. The only way to get around it is to add artificial light — which is expensive both financially and environmentally. Vertical farmers can lower the energy bill, Mitchell says, by giving plants only the wavelengths of light they need the most: the blue and red. "Twenty years ago, research showed that you could grow lettuce in just red light," Mitchell says. "If you add a little bit of blue, it grows better." Click headline to read more--
A proposal that aims to create thousands of jobs in southern Illinois by kick-starting high-volume oil and gas drilling cleared a top committee Tuesday, sending it on to the House floor. The House Executive Committee voted 11-0 to send the full House a bill meant to regulate hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," though it was unclear when the chamber would vote on it. The measure has been touted by proponents as creating the nation's strictest fracking regulations, although opponents worry the practice could lead to water pollution. Rep. John Bradley, the Marion Democrat who negotiated the bill with the industry, environmental groups and regulators, labeled the agreement among stakeholders as historic. He said the safety and environmental protections in the bill are unprecedented. "I live in southern Illinois. I drink the water in southern Illinois. My children drink the water in southern Illinois. My neighbors drink the water in southern Illinois," Bradley told the members of the committee. "Our first and foremost ... effort, intent in everything we did and every negotiation we had, was first and foremost that we are going to protect the ground water in southern Illinois." Fracking uses high-pressure mixtures of water, sand or gravel and chemicals to crack rock formations deep underground and release oil and natural gas. Among the bill's requirements is that companies disclose fracking chemicals and test water before and after drilling. It also holds them liable for contamination. But critics, who have called for a fracking moratorium, say there is no scientific proof the practice can be done safely. They say it could cause air and water pollution and deplete water resources. "It's a model for anti-scientific decision making," said Sandra Steingraber, an Illinois native and founder of New Yorkers Against Fracking. Click headline to read more--
Wang Fuguo, a 63-year-old cotton farmer, does not know when his ancestors began tilling the land in the dusty village of Weijie. But he is fairly sure he will be the last of his family to do so. “They’ve all fled,” he says, looking out from his gate at the abandoned houses that line the village’s only street. The reason is simple. “There’s just no water here,” he says. “If you don’t have water you can’t survive.” His household gets running water for one hour every five days, barely enough to feed a tiny patch of aubergines and supply his family and their dozen sheep. In the face of China’s rapid economic expansion and growing presence on the global stage, it is often forgotten that the country is running out of water. In per capita terms, China’s water resources are just a quarter of the world average. Eight of China’s 28 provinces are as parched as countries in the Middle East such as Jordan and Syria, according to China Water Risk, a consultancy based in Hong Kong. In the area where Mr Wang lives, Minqin county, a former oasis in Gansu sandwiched between the vast deserts of Inner Mongolia, the problem is particularly severe. Mr Wang’s neighbours are not the only ones who have moved away. More than 10,000 people have left the area and have become shengtai yimin, “ecological migrants”. Click headline to read more and watch video news clip--
Portions of the High Plains Aquifer are rapidly being depleted by farmers who are pumping too much water to irrigate their crops, particularly in the southern half in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. Levels have declined up to 242 feet in some areas, from predevelopment — before substantial groundwater irrigation began — to 2011.
Click headline to view the map and access hot link to related article--
.. As the federal government continues to push fossil fuel energy sources, including approval for TransCanada’s Keystone XL Pipeline south of the border, leading scientists and environmental activists are sounding the alarm over the recent discovery that the presence of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere had surpassed 400 parts-per-million for the first time in at least three million years. The climate entered uncharted territory on May 9 when Hawaii’s Mauna Loa Observatory recorded a daily average of 400 ppm of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere for the first time since the laboratory began recording atmospheric carbon presence in 1956. Since May 9, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which operates the facility, has consistently recorded daily CO2 averages in the range of 399.5 to 399.98 ppm. Crossing the 400 ppm is the latest benchmark in climate change. Over the 56 years that the Mauna Loa Observatory has tracked atmospheric carbon levels, the presence of CO2 in the atmosphere has risen steadily. Average readings before 1960 were less than 320 ppm. For 2002, the average presence of CO2 was 377 ppm. For the week of May 5, 2013, the average reading was 399.50 ppm. Under the International Energy Agency’s “450 Scenario,” the carbon presence in the earth’s atmosphere must be held to 450 parts per million if the international community is to meet its commitment to limit the global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius, as was pledged under the 2009 Copenhagen Accord. “If feels like the inevitable march toward disaster,” Maureen E. Raymo, a scientist at Columbia University, told The New York Times on May 10. Gordon McBean, a renowned climatologist who served as assistant deputy minister at Environment Canada from 1994 until 2000, warned that the upward trend in carbon presence will result in irreversible environmental damage in the long run. Among the potential dangers, Dr. McBean noted that the melting of the Greenland ice sheet could be “amplified” as its surface melts down to increasingly warmer lower altitudes, while the methane released from permafrost thaw throughout the sub-Arctic could further accelerate the release of carbon dioxide into the Earth’s atmosphere, intensifying the effects of climate change — namely extreme weather, droughts, wildfires, and rising sea levels. “Some of these processes in our climate system are irreversible when you reach certain points,” Dr. McBean told The Hill Times. “Indications are, if you’re talking 450 [parts per million], you’re certainly going to be tipping some of these things.” Click headline to read more--
Beneath the Tobin Bridge, at the end of a vast parking lot in Charlestown is a giant metal building. Inside is a business that state energy officials hope will spur economic development and investment in wind energy. “This is the lab with three test stands so we’re able to simultaneously test three blades at a time,” said Rahul Yarala, director of the Wind Technology Testing Center. Wind energy companies pay to have their turbine blades tested for safety inside this massive warehouse. The center also evaluates new technologies and has an international certification for their blade design. The center was a big investment for the state and federal government. The quasi-public Massachusetts Clean Energy Center chipped in $13 million, and $27 million more came from the federal government. Standing near a turbine, you realize how tiny you are beneath a span of metal that’s 85 feet tall and slightly longer than a football field. “We want Tom Brady to come here and throw to the other end, so we’re still waiting,” Yarala said. Two huge wind turbine blades that look like giant curved elephant tusks are bolted into the wall. One is 144 feet long and the second runs 164 feet. To test them, engineers attach a series of pulleys to move the blade up and down and side to side, imitating the stresses that wind would put on the blade. Click headline to read more, watch the slideshow and the video and listen to the WBUR radio segment--
Because moths need to use every little bit of light available in order to see in the dark, their eyes are highly non-reflective. This quality has been copied in a film that can be applied to solar cells, which helps keep sunlight from being reflecting off of them before it can be utilized. Now, a new moth eye-inspired film may further help solar cells become more efficient. The film, developed at North Carolina State University by a team led by Dr. Chih-Hao Chang, is designed to minimize “thin-film interference” in thin film solar cells. Thin-film interference is what causes gasoline slicks on water to take on a rainbow-colored appearance. Some sunlight is reflected off the surface of the clear gasoline, while some more penetrates its surface, but then is reflected back up through it by the surface of the underlying water. Because the two sources of reflected light have different optical qualities, they interfere with one another when combined – thus the rainbow effect. The same sort of phenomenon can occur when any thin, transparent films are placed together. In the case of thin-film solar cells, which are made up of layered films, some of the sunlight is effectively lost at every film-to-film interface where the interference occurs. Click headline to read more--
Surging interest in Bitcoin, the crypto-currency that is mined and distributed without a central bank, has brought a fresh wave of speculation about its pseudonymous founder, Satoshi Nakamoto. The latest theory comes from IT pioneer Ted Nelson, who offers a three-part hypothesis – based on the Bitcoin inventor’s intelligence, publishing methods and interests — to show that Satoshi can be none other than Japanese math professor Shinichi Mochizuki. Nelson’s “deduction” (which Forbes and others have portrayed as more crackpot than convincing) comes weeks after programmer Sergio Lerner published a blog post that claims to show Satoshi has mined a fortune worth of Bitcoins, and that he has spent only a small fraction of it. A related report by The Verge endorses Lerner’s account and says the financial trail provides new clues to help establish Satoshi’s identity. This “who made Bitcoin?” buzz is a fun parlor game, especially at a time when everyone from serious investors to Homeland Security are clamoring to get a piece of the new currency. But, while many of the guesses are as silly as saying Lewis Carroll is Jack the Ripper, the process also raises the question of whether Satoshi is entitled to be left in peace. Last week, someone who has corresponded with Satoshi told me he believes the Bitcoin inventor is one person, not three as some suggest, and that he is not Japanese (this is consistent with the Forbes writer’s theory that the pseudonym is a tribute to 1980′s Tokyo cyber-punk culture). I asked him why Satoshi has decided to remain anonymous in the first source. According to the source, who is a Bitcoin developer and did not want to be named for this story, Satoshi’s motives are not rooted in myth-making or anything sinister. Instead, they reflect a simple desire for privacy and are consistent with the ethos of open-source coders who work on a project out of altruism or interest and then pass it on to others when they want to move on. Click headline to read more--
The world is becoming increasingly connected, and this now extends beyond traditional IT, such as laptops and mobiles, to previously offline devices, such as printers, ATMs and shop tills. Networking specialist Cisco claims this is a growing trend, and has predicted that the number of network-connected devices will be more than 15bn – twice the world's population – by 2015. With greater connectivity comes the even bigger need for better energy efficiency, from which the concept of the smart grid was born. The idea of the smart grid is to use IT to gather and act on behavioural information from both consumers and suppliers in an automated fashion to improve the efficiency, reliability, economics, and sustainability of the production and distribution of electricity. However, along with higher energy consumption, greater connectivity also entices a far greater number of security risks. Despite the smart grid concept already demonstrating its benefits – for example using micro grids to maintain power to areas of the US during the blackouts of hurricane Sandy in 2012 – there are still growing fears that this could be exploited by cybercriminals or terrorists. Additionally concerning is the UK's apparent intention to rely on one single, centralised smart grid, meaning that one attack can affect the entire country and, in a worst case scenario, leave the UK without power. Security and privacy have proved to be the biggest barriers to the widespread adoption of smart grids but, frankly, this needs to happen in order to make sure we support the power requirements of the increasingly interconnected world we live in. Our priority should now be ensuring that both the smart grid and the devices that connect to it are totally secure, which not only requires physical and virtual security but also a complete shift in the mindset of UK organisations. Click headline to read more--
BTOpenreach has this week dispatched one of its survey teams to begin preliminary work on their previously announced £3.7m project to divert two unused submarine fibre optic cables to the Isles of Scilly (here), which will support the rollout of superfast broadband (FTTC and FTTP) ISP products on the islands. At present the islands 2,200 residents have to suffer a slow and inadequate Microwave radio line that connects to south west England via Lands End. By comparison the new network would cut two undersea fibre optic cables (previously used to connect the UK with Ireland and Spain) and move them to link the islands via different points on St Mary’s. Both cables link back to separate parts of Cornwall, which is good for redundancy. The effort is part of the wider £132m Superfast Cornwall scheme, which is supported by £78.5 million from BT and up to £53.5 million from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). It primarily aims to make superfast internet connectivity available to 95% of Cornwall’s local homes and businesses by the end of 2014. Click headline to read more--
Bernanke told a college graduating class Saturday that the long-range practical consequences of innovations such as faster computers and the Internet are hard to predict. But he said inventors have only scratched the surface of the commercial applications that can be obtained in such fields as medicine (personal genomics, life extension) and clean energy. He also indicated that having two to four times as many engineers and scientists with China and India and other countries contributing to technological innovation will drive development forward at a faster pace. He was specifically addressing the debate around technological stagnation put forward by Tyler Cowan and Peter Thiel.
The entire text of the speech is at the Federal reserve website.
Click headline to read more--
Never-fail military microgrids are breaking new ground in distributed energy management. Now one of them is getting connected to the grid at large. That’s the news from Fort Bliss, Texas, where the U.S. Army and Lockheed Martin cut the symbolic ribbon Thursday on the first Department of Defense grid-tied microgrid. The project, started in 2010, uses renewable energy (a 120-kilowatt solar array) and energy storage (a 300-kilowatt battery system), as well as the base’s existing backup generators, and ties it into a miniature grid via Lockheed’s Intelligent Microgrid Control System. It’s not the first DOD project to combine on-site power resources like solar, batteries and backup generators into a self-sustaining, islanded grid unit -- in other words, a microgrid. In fact, the military is leading the charge in microgrids, given its need for fail-safe, always-on electricity supply, particularly when the bigger grid blacks out, no matter what the cost. But Fort Bliss is the first Army microgrid project to hook itself up to the utility grid, which opens a new realm of possibilities, as well as challenges, for the system. That’s because, while the Fort Bliss microgrid is helping the Army meet its carbon footprint reduction and efficiency goals, its core purpose -- or “tactical utility,” as Fort Bliss spokesman Major Joe Buccino said in Thursday’s release, “is its ability to allow us to operate off the grid.” Click headline to read more--
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Buried within the fine print of the 2014 Obama budget is a startling bit of history-changing policy. The government, the administration says, should consider selling off the Tennessee Valley Authority, one of the nation’s largest publicly operated—that is, “socialist”—institutions, and the largest public power provider in the country. The TVA is a non-profi, free-standing public authority established by the Roosevelt administration during the Depression—a very large utility, if you like. It provides 165 billion kilowatt hours of power to 9 million Americans, has $11.2 billion in sales revenue, employs more than 12,500 people, and provides other educational, training and related services (such as navigation and land management, flood control, and economic development) to the people in the states and region around the Tennessee river basin. Strikingly, it’s the free-market Republicans who object to this proposed privatization. Senator Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican who has vehemently opposed government tax credits and subsidies for renewable energy, calls the proposal “one more bad idea in a budget full of bad ideas,” and fears that privatization would lead to higher energy costs for his constituents. Click headline to read more--
The Game Changing Development Program seeks to identify and rapidly mature innovative/high impact capabilities and technologies for infusion in a broad array of future NASA missions.
NASA X explores a new composite cryotank and a revolutionary Exoskeleton, called X1. Both of these game changing technologies will help not only NASA, but people here on Earth.
Click headline to watch full screen--
The quantum computers that Lockheed Martin and Google are buying — and that startup D-Wave is building — have some pretty extreme operating conditions: they need to run at near zero temperatures for the quantum effects to work. As you can see in this photo from venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson, D-Wave uses a pulse fridge to cool the quantum computer to .02 degrees above absolute zero, and they use Helium-3 in the cooling process. Quantum computers use a different type of processing compared to traditional computing. As GigaOM’s Jordan Novet explained it earlier this year, “rather than working with binary yes-or-no questions — ones and zeros — quantum computing is more probabilistic, also allowing a combination of zero and one to simultaneously answer many questions with quantum bits of information, or qubits, and tell users more about the likelihood of a situation. It’s not necessarily useful for all kinds of computing, but it could solve problems that current computers can’t.” Keeping quantum computers that can perform such functions cool can be a tricky process. It’s highly energy intensive and can get expensive. But if the quantum computers are not cooled down, the molecules — which are being manipulated to store data — move around chaotically and can’t be manipulated and read. Click headline to read more--
"Imagine opening a hatch in a submarine under water. The water will flow into the submarine with enormous force. It is precisely this energy potential we want to utilize." This is how German engineer Rainer Schramm describes his idea for storing energy under the sea. By using surplus energy to pump water out of a tank at the seabed, the water is simply let back in again when there's an energy shortfall, driving turbines as it rushes in. The deeper the tank, the more power is generated. The technology is being developed by Schramm's company, Subhydro AS. Based in Olso, Norway for access to deeper water, the company claims to be the "first in the world to apply a specific patent-pending technology to make this possible." In fact the energy storage principle is identical to MIT's underwater hollow concrete spheres which could store surplus energy from offshore wind turbines. Subhydro also positions its tanks as a logical counterpart to offshore wind, but like MIT's technology, it could also be used to store energy from the grid. Really, the idea is very similar to that behind above-ground pumped-storage hydroelectric power stations which pump water from a low reservoir to a high one when energy is cheap or plentiful, and allow it to flow back down through turbines when more energy is required. As with this new underwater technology, less energy is gained from the drop than is used to create the store of potential. The idea is simply to have potential energy reserved for when it's needed – half-time of major televised sporting events being a classic example. Schramm calculates the "round-trip" efficiency of the system to be 80 percent, which is in the same ballpark as conventional pumped-storage hydro. Click headline to read more--
Waiting hours for a cellphone to charge may become a thing of the past, thanks to an 18-year-old high-school student's invention. She won a $50,000 prize Friday at an international science fair for creating an energy storage device that can be fully juiced in 20 to 30 seconds. The fast-charging device is a so-called supercapacitor, a gizmo that can pack a lot of energy into a tiny space, charges quickly and holds its charge for a long time. What's more, it can last for 10,000 charge-recharge cycles, compared with 1,000 cycles for conventional rechargeable batteries, according to Eesha Khare of Saratoga, Calif. "My cellphone battery always dies," she told NBC News when asked what inspired her to work on the energy-storage technology. Supercapacitors also allowed her to focus on her interest in nanochemistry — "really working at the nanoscale to make significant advances in many different fields." To date, she has used the supercapacitor to power a light-emitting diode, or LED. The invention's future is even brighter. She sees it fitting inside cellphones and the other portable electronic devices that are proliferating in today's world, freeing people and their gadgets for a longer time from reliance on electrical outlets. Click headline to read more--
The famous Danish physicist Niels Bohr once humorously observed, "Predictions are very difficult, especially about the future." And so, as the world considers yet another rosy oil supply forecast, this time from the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA), it is worth reviewing the agency's record. Back in the year 2000, the IEA divined that by 2010, liquid fuel production worldwide would reach 95.8 million barrels per day (mbpd). The actual 2010 number was 87.1 mbpd. The agency further forecast an average daily oil price of $28.25 per barrel (adjusted for inflation). The actual average daily price of oil traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange in 2010 was $79.61. (The IEA included in its 2000 supply projections not only crude oil plus lease condensate, which is the definition of oil, but also natural gas plant liquids--only a small fraction of which can be substituted for oil--and refinery processing gain which is the result of applying energy to break oil into its components, causing the final volume to expand. The agency refers to the resulting number as "oil" supply. But, clearly this number is not really just oil supply, and this practice continues to confuse policymakers and the public.) So, what made the IEA so sanguine about oil supply growth in the year 2000? It cited the revolution taking place in deepwater drilling technology which was expected to allow the extraction of oil supplies ample for the world's needs for decades to come. But, deepwater drilling has turned out to be more challenging than anticipated and has not produced the bounty the IEA imagined it would. This is not to say that it hasn't been a critical adjunct to world oil supplies. It's just that deepwater oil production hasn't been able both to make up for declines in production elsewhere AND grow supplies beyond that--something that has resulted in a bumpy plateau for world oil production (crude plus lease condensate) starting in 2005. Now, the IEA tells us that a "revolutionary" new technology called hydraulic fracturing--actually, a newly deployed variant called high-volume slick-water hydraulic fracturing--is going to cause what it calls a "supply shock" that spells ample and rising oil supplies. But, despite years of such drilling in the United States--which the agency says will be the center of this "shock"--world oil prices remain near all-time highs as measured by the average daily price. And, world oil production (crude plus lease condensate) has only occasionally bounced above 75 mbpd in the last seven years before retreating downward. Click headline to read more--
There are already a wide variety of renewable energy systems that harness the power of the wind, along with some that generate power via the flow of ocean currents. According to Japanese engineering firm MODEC (Mitsui Ocean Development & Engineering Co.), however, its soon-to-be-tested SKWID system will be the first one to do both. SKWID stands for Savonius Keel and Wind Turbine Darrieus. This is appropriate, as it’s an anchored floating platform that contains both a Savonius tidal turbine below the waterline, and a Darrieus vertical-axis wind turbine up in the air. The two are connected by a central gearbox/generator, allowing the SKWID to generate power from the currents, the wind, or both. Additionally, the rotation of the tidal turbine can be used to help get the wind turbine spinning, when breezes are light and it needs a bit of extra inertia. The design of the Darrieus turbine is such that it can spin to the left or to the right, so it works regardless of the wind direction. The tidal turbine spins in just one direction, but it does so irrespective of the direction of the current. It is reportedly able to harness even the weakest of currents, and is not affected by marine growth on its half-cyclinder-shaped buckets/blades. Additionally, because it spins no faster than the current, it is claimed to be safe for marine life. Click headline to read more--
While companies like Google, BMW, Audi and Volkswagen pour millions into developing self-driving car technology with expensive components, 19-year-old Romanian high school student Ionut Budisteanu has designed an autonomous vehicle system that would cost just US$4,000. Budisteanu’s design took out the Gordon E. Moore Award in the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair to pocket him a sweet $75,000. The Intel International Science and Engineering Fair is billed as the world’s largest high school science research competition, with this year’s event seeing around 1,600 high school students selected from 433 affiliate fairs held in more than 70 countries, regions and territories. There is a number of awards, with a total of over $4 million in prize money up for grabs, but the Gordon E. Moore Award awarded to the top “Best in Category project is the most prestigious. Budisteanu told NBC News that his goal was to remove the expensive, high-resolution 3D radar that is at the heart of Google’s self-driving car technology to bring costs down. To that end, he used a much cheaper, low-resolution 3D radar to recognize larger objects, such as other cars, buildings and trees, while webcams mounted on the vehicle are used to detect lane markings and curbs and monitor the real-time position of the car. Click headline to read more--
As you may recall, we've recently written about the MPAA's protests against a treaty for the blind, as well as a similar protest from the Intellectual Property Owners Association (on that front, we heard that many members of that group never saw that letter before it was sent out, and were not happy about it). Now there's another group sending a letter, and it's equally as ridiculous. Business Europe, which appears to have a lot of non-European companies as members (interesting, that), has written a ridiculous letter with little basis in fact, arguing that this treaty for the blind would be "casting aside" the "international copyright infrastructure."
Of course, it does no such thing. All it does is provide extremely limited situations in which copyright restrictions would be limited for the sake of making it easier for vision-impaired people to access works. They also claim that it relies on "hasty conclusions" which is flat out laughable, since the treaty has been under discussion for almost three decades, but has been regularly blocked by organizations like those mentioned above. Business Europe's real complaint seems to be that it just doesn't like the people who like this treaty. ... it is strongly supported by the same group of NGOs and advanced emerging economy countries that pursue a general IPR-weakening agenda at WIPO and other international forums. Got that? Those who argue that providing more rights to the public support this very minor place where more rights would be provided to the vision-impaired public, and we can't have that. No, no. Click headline to read more--
A recurrent theme here on Techdirt is the lack of transparency when international agreements and treaties are being drawn up. That's increasingly recognized not just as problematic, but simply unacceptable in an age when the Internet makes it easy to provide both access to draft documents and a way for the public to offer comments on them. Despite this growing pressure, nothing much has happened on either side of the Atlantic as far as providing greater openness for major negotiations is concerned. Perhaps frustrated by this lack of movement, the transparency organization Corporate Europe Observatory decided to take legal action against the European Commission back in February over the secret trade talks between the EU and India. As the detailed history of this case (pdf) explains, the European Commission was apparently quite happy to pass on copies of certain documents to industry associations, but when Corporate Europe Observatory asked for the same, they only received censored versions. The lawsuit accuses the European Commission of discriminating in favor of corporate lobby groups and of violating the EU's transparency rules. As the Corporate Europe Observatory asks: Click headline to read more--
U.S. authorities have seized two accounts linked to a major operator in the booming Bitcoin digital currency market, Tokyo-based exchange Mt. Gox. The move may prevent the firm from facilitating the purchase and sale of Bitcoins in U.S. dollars at a time when use of the currency and its value has mushroomed. Bitcoin, which unlike conventional money is bought and sold on a peer-to-peer network independent of any central authority, has grown popular among users who lack faith in the established banking system. The price of the volatile currency ballooned in March as a result of the Cyprus bank crisis. Authorities worry that a lack of regulation has left the currency vulnerable to money launderers and other criminals. A seizure warrant obtained Tuesday by the Department of Homeland Security froze an account that an Iowa-based online payment processor, Dwolla Inc, held at Veridian Credit Union in the name of Mutum Sigillum LLC. An affidavit filed by an agent with the department's investigations unit states that Mutum Sigillum, a Mt. Gox subsidiary incorporated in Delaware, was operating as an unlicensed money transmitter, in violation of federal law. Treasury's anti-money laundering unit, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), in March issued guidance that dubbed digital currency exchanges money transmitters, a finding that obliged such businesses to register with FinCEN and obtain any mandated state licenses. A search of FinCEN's online registration database Friday morning suggested that neither Mt. Gox nor Mutum Sigillum had registered. The affidavit cited Mutum Sigillum's failure to register with FinCEN as sufficient grounds to seize its accounts. Both Mutum Sigillum and Mt. Gox, which says it handles 80 percent of Bitcoin trading, are owned by Mark Karpeles, the affidavit states. It adds that Karpeles opened an account in Mutum Sigillum's name at Wells Fargo in May 2011, and that when doing so completed a form in which he said it was not a money transmitter. Click headline to read more--
"IT is an idea that creates money, not money that creates an idea,” says Secelela Balisidya when she was recounting on tremendous challenges that she and her friend Christopher Kidanka went through in setting up a media business company. The Company, Regalia Media Limited, now enjoying great respect from government institutions, higher learning institutions, diplomatic missions and international community in Tanzania, takes communication Consultancy, news and books publication works. The two journalists, now directors of the company, came up with an idea to set up the firm in 2003 joining hands with two big dreams - both looking forward to graduate from employees in reputable media houses to owners of media businesses. “By then I was working for national official broadcaster Radio Tanzania Dar es Salaam (RTD) while my friend was writing for Majira - an independent newspaper,” she recounts. The duo was doubling as independent consultants after long working hours in the media houses. Things began to change when a client denied giving Christopher, as an individual, a handsome contract to produce ads for his company’s new products, saying that he would only do that with a corporate entity. Christopher says he took that as a challenge to hasten his long-cherished dream. After sharing the same with Secelela, they decided in unison that it was high time they registered a media company and record the beginning. They mobilised the resources they had to make 6000/- (around US$ 6 by the time) to register the business name ‘Regalia PR Consultancy & Services.’ Secelela says: “The day we decided to register a company, we had no money at all. But we said that this mission must be accomplished today,” she says and adds: “After we consulted an Assistant Registrar of Companies, he told us that it costs at least 20,000/- to register a company as a limited liability entity. All we had was not more than 10,000/-.” “There was an option which he gave us, that we could register as a business name. We decided that we register it as a business name and later we can revert to a limited liability company. We spent 6,000/- remaining with 4,000/-.” Because both of them were salaried scribes, this did not spell doom for their living. They could re-organise themselves and move ahead. “This was,” recalls Christopher, “the beginning of an end as employees to media houses. We knew that we had a daunting task ahead of us.” They began soliciting for jobs as a ‘company’ without even having the tiniest office space in town. Click headline to read more--
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