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Though it has recently entered stormy waters, the US-India economic relationship has the potential to be one of the globe's most dynamic and broad-based.
Overall, trade and economic ties have steadily grown: over the past 20 years, the two countries have moved from mistrust and mere millions in trade to a strategic partnership approaching $100 billion in two-way trade.
Closer business ties have generated a fivefold increase in bilateral trade since 2000, and as US Vice-President Joe Biden remarked, there is no reason that trade cannot increase another five times.
But in order for economics to move from potential to reality, as Biden noted, it "requires us to be candid with each other about the obstacles that exist when it comes to a business environment: protection of intellectual property; requirements that companies buy local content; limits on foreign direct investment (FDI); inconsistent tax treatment; barriers to market access".
There is no doubt that these barriers have caused tough problems. But in working through these disputes, neither country's leadership should lose perspective of the rapid expansion and future trajectory of the full bilateral trade and investment relationship. The goal should be to facilitate this key pillar of the deepening US-India partnership.
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India is the first country to pass a corporate responsibility law requiring larger companies to spend 2 percent of each year's profit on those kinds of initiatives.
The law kicks in for companies with a profit of at least $80 million over the past three years.
It outlines nine "pillars" that can fulfill the requirement, one of which is "ensuring environmental sustainability," under which installing solar systems falls. This likely will incentivize more solar development because it's an area that provides businesses with a return in investment.
Demand for solar is light at the moment because the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has delayed introducing subsidies for rooftop solar, reports CleanBiz Asia.
The concept beyond the legislation is to ensure equitable, sustainable growth in India. It updates the Companies Act of 1956, the country's version of corporate law.
Some elements are quite progressive, according to First Post Business:
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Today, Facebook and a private surveillance gang of seven announced the latest innovation in advertising, internet.org
The group includes the closed-source web browser developer, Opera, and the Microsoft puppet cell phone manufacturer, Nokia. Opera and Nokia are notorious for secretly developing and deploying man-in-the-middle systems that intercept all of a user's Web browsing activity. They speed up the Web for their users, and in return users tell them everything they do online.
The companies released a press statement that uses tired business-speak to entice buy-in from the business community. It's fun to examine the meaning behind three key phrases.
The phrase "lower cost, higher quality smartphones" refers to ad-subsidized devices without the display quality or processing power to run anything other than a Facebook operating system that also happens to display reformatted content from websites.
The phrase "Using data more efficiently" means tweaking Opera's and Nokia's man-in-the-middle systems to reformat and compress web content to optimize it for cheap, low-bandwidth wireless data networks and the smart dumb phones. In the process, Facebook and possibly Opera and Nokia will get direct and permanent access to every user's complete web activity. As a bonus, some content will be mangled or incomplete after reformatting.
The phrase "sustainable new business models and services" means finding new ways of delivering ads on cramped displays using access to unprecedented amounts of information about users. This will include banking and health care information, all in one convenient Facebook-Opera-Nokia-owned server. The new business models will put NSA surveillance equipment vendors out of business.
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Two of British Prime Minister David Cameron's most senior aides pressed the Guardian newspaper to hand over or destroy intelligence secrets leaked by Edward Snowden, political sources said on Wednesday.
News that Cabinet Secretary Jeremy Heywood and National Security Adviser Kim Darroch were involved drags Cameron into a storm over Britain's response to coverage of leaks from the fugitive U.S. intelligence contractor - a response that left even its U.S. ally talking of the importance of media freedom.
Cameron, on holiday in Cornwall, made no immediate comment. The Guardian, media freedom activists and human rights lawyers say pressure on the paper over the Snowden material and the separate detention of the partner of a Guardian journalist on Sunday represented an assault on independent journalism.
The government says its intelligence agencies act within the law and that the Snowden leaks, which revealed U.S. and British surveillance of global communication networks, threaten national security. The United States has brought espionage charges against Snowden, who has found temporary asylum in Russia.
Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger said on Tuesday that he had been approached weeks ago by "a very senior official claiming to represent the views of the prime minister" and by "shadowy Whitehall figures", a reference to London's government district.
Rusbridger said he had been told the paper would face legal action if it refused to destroy or hand over data from Snowden.
Later, two intelligence agents oversaw the destruction of hard drives at Guardian offices, but Rusbridger said this would not stop reporting as there were copies elsewhere in the world.
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When California’s S.B. 375 was passed in 2008, there were many skeptics. The law aimed to get metropolitan regions around the state to cut greenhouse gas emissions through changes to development form and transportation. (If it were a country, California would rank somewhere between the world's tenth and twelfth largest economy, so its effect could be significant.)
In 2011, the California Air Resources Board set GHG emissions reduction targets by metro region for passenger vehicles (passenger vehicles account for almost a third of GHGs in the state). Eighteen Metropolitan Planning Organizations were then to develop "sustainable community strategies," wherein integrated transportation, housing, and community development, working together, could help achieve those specific objectives.
The idea was that smart, sustainable community design, coordinated with transportation systems that integrated walkability, bicycles, and next generation public transit, could really make a difference. It's honestly much too soon to tell whether this will work. But here's a quick look at three prominent metropolitan regions and their responses to this mandate.
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Scientific research is a large and sprawling endeavor, with thousands of laboratories around the world studying their own ultra-specialized piece of a much more significant whole. It’s the logical intersection of reductionist scientific heritage and centuries of technological advances: in order to advance our understanding of the world around us, we must pursue increasingly specific sub-disciplines, from retina neural computation to space plasma physics.
Which is why Thomson Reuters’ scene-scoping study on “100 Key Scientific Research Fronts” is a welcome report for science enthusiasts eager to stay updated on cutting-edge research but lacking the time to read every issue of Science or Nature cover-to-cover.
The report ranks research areas with a special sauce formula that first divides the entirety of scientific research into 8,000 categories that form the “Thomson Reuters Essential Science Indicators” database. Within each subdivision, a set of core papers is designated by frequent and clustered citations, identifying foundational scientific literature that earned a lot of shout outs in reports of subsequent discoveries. To find today’s hottest research fields, only core papers published between 2007-2012 were considered; the number of citations of those papers and their average publication date were compiled. As the report notes, “a research front with many core papers of recent vintage often indicates a fast-moving or hot specialty.”
This doesn’t necessarily mean these fields are the most important or the most beneficial to society – it just means scientists (and, by extension, groups funding the research) are getting pretty excited about what they’re learning. Here, we take a quick look at the hottest research front in each of ten thematic categories – the sharpest of the cutting edge.
Click headline to access the links to the Hottest 10 Fields--
In 2011, a United Nations commission came to a powerful conclusion: access to broadband internet is a basic human right, matched by the likes of housing, sustenance and healthcare. Arguments can be made that widespread access has transformed entire economies while kick-starting others, with Finland even going so far as to command its ISPs to provide 1 Mbps connections to all homes regardless of location. Both the United States and the United Kingdom have similarly ambitious plans, and all three of these countries have one particular catalyst in common: funds.
The harsh reality, however, is the economies that stand to gain the most from sweeping internet adoption are also the least equipped to enable it. In early 2010, the European Bank estimated that a project to roll out passive optical fiber to 33 cities in the Netherlands would cost nearly €290 million. The mission driving such funding? "To stimulate innovation and keep Europe at the forefront of internet usage." It's the answer to a problem that could undoubtedly be categorized as "first world," but consider this: Internet World Stats found that 92.9 percent of The Netherlands' population routinely used the world wide web in 2012. Let's just say it's easier to invest in an initiative that you're certain nearly 9 in 10 citizens will use.
In the whole of Africa, just 15.6 percent of residents are connected to the internet, which is under half of the world average. It's also home to vast, inhospitable landscapes that are economically inviable to crisscross with fiber. All of that being said, nearly a sixth of the globe's population resides on the continent, representing a monumental opportunity for something -- anything -- to connect the next billion people.
As it turns out, there are actions presently ongoing to make a significant mark in the course of history. Google, Microsoft, Carlson Wireless, Tertiary Education and Research Network of South Africa (TENET) and a host of other powerful entities are collaborating to bring high-speed internet to an underserved continent via TV white spaces -- a low-cost, highly adaptable technology that's poised to explode. For now, Cape Town, South Africa, is acting as a proving ground for what will eventually be a far larger experiment. The core goal is actually quite simple: to beam hope to a disconnected society, with unused bands between TV channels acting as the medium.
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The California Coastal Commission, under intense pressure from legislators and environmental activists, pledged Thursday, August 15 at its meeting in Santa Cruz to investigate reports of fracking (hydraulic fracturing) for oil in ocean waters in the Santa Barbara Channel. “Blindsided by revelations of fracking in waters off the coast of California, the state’s Coastal Commission on Thursday vowed an investigation into the controversial practice, including what powers the agency has to regulate it, “ according to Jason Hoppin, Santa Cruz Sentinel reporter. “We do not yet understand the extent of fracking in federal or state waters, nor fully understand its risks,” said Coastal Commission Deputy Director Allison Dettmer, who will lead the investigation. “Blindsided” by “relevations” of fracking? How can that be possible when the Coastal Commission, Fish and Game Commission and other state regulators failed to question the leadership role of a big oil lobbyist, nicknamed the “Petro Princess” by anti-fracking activists, in the corrupt Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative to create alleged “marine protected areas?” State officials and representatives of corporate “environmental” NGOs shamelessly embraced Catherine Reheis-Boyd, President of the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA), as a “marine guardian.” Reheis-Boyd, who lobbies relentlessly for increased fracking in California, the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline and the evisceration of environmental laws, served as the CHAIR of the MLPA Initiative Blue Ribbon Task Force to create so-called “marine protected areas” in Southern California. She also served on the MLPA task forces for the Central Coast, North Central Coast and North Coast. She oversaw the creation of questionable “marine protected areas” that fail to protect the ocean from fracking and oil drilling, pollution, military testing, wind and wave energy projects and all human impacts on the ocean other than fishing and gathering. I’m glad that the Commission is calling for an investigation of offshore fracking now – and I support that investigation. Click headline to read more--
This beautiful house located on Danish island Læsø is 100 square meters and is suitable for two families. Architecture studio Vandkunsten and non-profit organisation Realdania Byg decided to bring back to life old method of using seaweed in housing, characteristic for the local architecture of island. The effective insulation – seaweed! – makes it possible to live in the house year-round.
In contrast to the historic houses, on which the seaweed is stacked high on the roof in a tall, swelling, mushroom-like fashion, the Modern Seaweed House is more contemporary and tight in its expression. The visible seaweed has been stuffed into bolsters made of net knitted in strong wool. The bolsters are attached to the roof in overlapping runs and, in smaller scale, mounted on the façades using the same method.
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Mexico's largest left-of-center political party proposed a plan on Monday that would revamp state-oil monopoly Pemex, but without amending the constitution to permit more private investment in the oil, gas and electricity sectors, as the government has proposed.
The proposal of the opposition Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD, would provide Pemex with budget and management autonomy, and create a new fund to administer the nation's energy riches.
The proposal would also gradually lower the company's tax burden by 9 percent to 62.5 percent by 2018, freeing up more resources to invest in exploration and production activities.
Unlike the more aggressive reform bills by President Enrique Pena Nieto of the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), as well as the conservative National Action Party (PAN), the PRD's bill does not include amending the constitution to permit more private investment.
The cornerstone of Pena Nieto's reform is a new profit-sharing contracting scheme aimed at luring private capital and boosting output, while the PAN calls for the establishment of concessions for oil and gas developments.
The energy reform is the central plank of a wide-reaching reform package Pena Nieto hopes will boost growth in Mexico, Latin America's second largest economy, and drag its energy industry into the modern era.
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Fiber-based broadband, whether delivered over an all Fiber to the Premises (FTTP) or hybrid copper/fiber Fiber to the Node (FTTN) network, is set to rise to 19 percent of global wireline broadband by the end of this year, says a new ABI Research report.
Jake Saunders, VP and practice director for ABI Research, said "there is a marked shift in consumer adoption from DSL to fiber-optic as operators continue to extend the reach of their fiber-optic infrastructure."
Growth of fiber-based broadband, notes the research firm, is happening in both developed and emerging markets. China, for example, has forecast that DSL broadband adoption will decline as the country's two main telcos, China Telecom and China Unicom, deploy FTTP networks.
During the first quarter, total DSL subscriptions declined by 3 million, while fiber-based subscriptions rose from 32.9 million to 37.6 million. Khin Sandi Lynn, industry analyst for ABI, expects "globally 25.6 million fiber-optic broadband subscribers will be added to eclipse 124 million subscribers in YE-2013."
In areas where service providers can't make a business case to deploy FTTP, a growing number of service providers including AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, Telecom Italia and BT are testing vectoring VDSL2, which can theoretically deliver up to 100 Mbps over the existing copper network.
One of the most highly anticipated deployments of VDSL2 and vectoring will take place at Deutsche Telekom, which announced earlier this month that it would spend €6 billion ($7.9 billion) to build out a FTTC network to expand download speeds on its copper lines from 50 to 100 Mbps.
Meanwhile, the advent of G.fast promises to deliver up to 1 Gbps over existing copper over very short distances. Earlier this year, Telekom Austria's A1 subsidiary conducted a field trial of G.fast technology with their DSLAM vendor Alcatel-Lucent.
Click headline to access hot link to press release--
Slowly but gradually, Europe is awakening to a green energy crisis, an economic and political debacle that is entirely self-inflicted.
The mainstream media, which used to encourage the renewables push enthusiastically, is beginning to sober up too. With more and more cracks beginning to appear, many newspapers are returning to their proper role as the fourth estate, exposing the pitfalls of Europe’s green-energy gamble and opening their pages for thorough analysis and debate.
Today, European media is full of news and commentary about the problems of an ill-conceived strategy that is becoming increasingly shaky and divisive.
A study by British public relations consultancy CCGroup analysed 138 articles about renewables published during July last year in the five most widely circulated British national newspapers: The Sun, The Times, The Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail and Daily Mirror, which enjoy a combined daily circulation of about 6.5 million.
“The analysis revealed a number of trends in the reporting of renewable energy news,” the study found. “First and foremost, the temperature of the media’s sentiment toward the renewables industry is cold. More than 51 per cent of the 138 articles analysed were either negative or very negative toward the industry.”
More than 80 per cent of the articles appeared in broadsheet titles The Times, The Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail, the report says, “but 55 per cent of these articles were either negative or very negative about the industry”.
EU members states have spent about €600 billion ($882bn) on renewable energy projects since 2005, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Germany’s green energy transition alone may cost consumers up to €1 trillion by 2030, the German government recently warned.
These hundreds of billions are being paid by ordinary families and small and medium-sized businesses in what is undoubtedly one of the biggest wealth transfers from poor to rich in modern European history. Rising energy bills are dampening consumers’ spending, a poisonous development for a Continent struggling with a severe economic and financial crisis.
The German Association of Energy Consumers estimates that up to 800,000 Germans have had their power cut off because they couldn’t pay the country’s rising electricity bills; among them, German newspaper Der Spiegel reported last October, are 200,000 long-term unemployed.
As The Washington Post writer Charles Lane observed at the time: “It’s one thing to lose your job because a competing firm built a superior mouse trap; it’s quite another, justice-wise, to lose it because a competitor talked the government into taking its side.”
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The US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is to hold an auction for approximately 3,705 acres of public land in Colorado for use in solar development.
It will be held in BLM’s Colorado office on 24 October, before which time sealed bids will be accepted and carried to the auction. Prior bids are to be received by 15 October.
The areas, in the solar energy zones in Saguache and Conejos counties are among 19 zones identified by the government to host utility-scale solar development.
Minimum bids during the auction, say BLM, will be $3,352 for the De Tilla Gulch parcel, $4,035 for the Los Mogotes East northern parcel, and $4,284 for the Los Mogotes East southen parcel.
Last week, US geothermal developer Ormat Nevada received approval from the BLM to start development on a 64,000-acre strip of public and private land in Southern California.
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It's already pretty damn clear that the UK government had no legitimate "terrorist threat" when it detained Glenn Greenwald's partner, David Miranda, for almost nine hours (the legal limit without an arrest) under an anti-terrorism law. Now, Miranda has also revealed that his interrogators told him they would lock him up in jail if he didn't reveal the passwords to his email and social media accounts.
Mr Miranda told the BBC he was forced to disclose his social media passwords.
"I am very angry. This feeling of invasion. It's like I'm naked in front of a crowd," he said. "They said I had to co-operate or else I was going to jail."
It's difficult to see how this was meant as anything other than an intimidation tactic against Greenwald, and as a weak attempt to try to uncover what Greenwald is working on by getting his partner's passwords. It seems unlikely, given Greenwald's crash course in encryption and government spying, that Miranda's passwords would be helpful in any way. So, instead, it's just more bullying. There was simply no basis to throw Miranda in jail, and yet UK law enforcement intimidated him with such threats to get him to cough up his passwords. Just incredibly shameful.
Admit it, we’ve all dreamed of doing it. Getting on a plane, and when it’s high above the clouds, taking out your favourite touchable strokeable friend, and well, spending some quality time.
Yes, of course, I’m talking about using our phones and tablets to get online, while sitting at 30,000 feet.
Joining the Wi-Fi high club, you might say.
This could be a reality sooner than you might think, according to a story by the BBC this week. According to the article, fast Wi-Fi, speedy enough to stream video content from the likes of Netflix and the BBC iPlayer, could be in place on flights as soon as 2014.
The crucial step, is that the British regulator Ofcom, has begun a consultation process to authorise the use of Earth Stations on Mobile Platforms (ESOMPs), enabling their use in British air space. ESOMPs are devices mounted on moving vehicles such as planes, trains or indeed, automobiles, that communicate with satellites, bringing internet connectivity to where there previously was none.
Of course it’s not just the UK’s Ofcom that is doing this. All countries need to allow use of ESOMPs in their air space, or you’d have the absurd situation that you could use the internet when flying over one country, but have to turn it off while you fly over another. The BBC reports states that France, Germany and Luxembourg, are working on their regulations permitting this, while the US regulator, the FCC, has already approved their use.
Good news then for travellers in the not too distance future, though it does through up a number of issues.
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US architectural firm Studio RMA recently completed the Hi’ilani EcoHouse: a two-family, low-energy property located on an attractive plot on Hawaii's Big Island. The building draws much of its required energy from renewable sources, and Studio RMA strove to offset the CO2 produced during construction by planting extensive forestry.
Hi’ilani EcoHouse was constructed using non-toxic termite-proof Structural Concrete Insulated Panels (SCIPs), which are derived from mostly recycled materials. The property measures 7,000 sq ft (650 sq m), and sports a climate-controlled area of 4,000 sq ft (371 sq m).
Though the design of Hi’ilani EcoHouse kept the environment firmly in mind, the comfort of its occupants hasn't been overlooked either. It includes four bedrooms, five bathrooms, a spa facility, two kitchens, wine cellar, 150-seat amphitheater, a 240 sq ft (22 sq m) indoor music stage, and even a recording studio.
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Flooding caused by some of the Philippines' heaviest rains on record submerged more than half the capital Tuesday, turning roads into rivers and trapping tens of thousands of people in homes and shelters. The government suspended all work except rescues and disaster response for a second day.
At least seven people have died, including four who drowned north of Manila on Monday. There were no reports of fresh fatalities Tuesday.
The dead included a 5-year-old boy whose house was hit by a concrete wall that collapsed, and a 3-year-old boy who fell into a swollen river in Mariveles town in Bataan province. Four people are missing.
Throughout the sprawling, low-lying capital region of 12 million people, offices, banks and schools were closed and most roads were impassable. People stumbled through waist- or neck-deep waters, holding on to ropes strung from flooded houses.
More than 200 evacuation centers were opened in Manila and surrounding provinces, filled with tens of thousands of people, Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman said. Overall, more than 600,000 people have been affected by the floods.
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Even as scientists asserted an incontrovertible consensus on climate change, a funny thing has happened over the last 15 years: Global warming has slowed down. Since 1998, the warmest year of the twentieth century, temperatures have not kept up with computer models that seemed to project steady warming; they’re perilously close to falling beneath even the lowest projections.
Some people are playing the hiatus as good news: “Apocalypse perhaps a little later,” the Economist put it. But in a political environment where vast swathes of the American right reject even the premise of global warming—and where prominent right-wing pols suggest it’s an enormous fraud—this inconvenient news could easily lead to still more acrimony over the subject. Especially since scientists themselves aren’t entirely sure what the evidence means. If scientific models can’t project the last 15 years, what does that mean for their projections of the next 100?
It might seem like a decade-long warming plateau would cause a crisis for climate science. It hasn’t. Gerald Meehl, a Senior Scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, has seen hiatus periods before. They “occur pretty commonly in the observed records,” and there are climate models showing “a hiatus as long as 15 years.” As a result, Isaac Held, a Senior Research Scientist at NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, says “no one has ever expected warming to be continuous, increasing like a straight line.” Those much-cited computer models are composed of numerous simulations that individually account for naturally occurring variability. But, Meehl says, “the averages cancel it out.”
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Not content with plunking its headquarters campus in the middle of downtown Seattle, Amazon decided to throw in a couple biodomes for good measure. But the company didn't think its steel and glass domes were eye-catching enough, and the Seattle Department of Planning and Development (SDPD) had a few issues of its own, so the plans went back to the architects for bit of tweaking. The result is something that looks less futuristic and more like a mating of a football and a robot plankton from outer space.
The domes are intended to give Amazon employees a space for work and relaxing that has lots of room, and is a bit like being in a mountain forest. Originally, the domes were made of great spiraling girders that coiled around the huge spheres. The problem was that the city planners thought the domes were too high, cut off light from the park next to them, and didn't have enough retail space. Also, Amazon wanted a more “active” facade with a higher degree of transparency and more visual interest.
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As early as 2015, people may have the opportunity to ride a solar energy–powered elevator in a U.S. commercial building. Washington, D.C.–area real estate firm Akridge is teaming up with the Switzerland-based Schindler Elevator Company to bring the solar elevator, already used in Europe, to the United States.
Schindler, which says it moves a billion people a day on its elevators and escalators, recently introduced the solar elevator, powered by rooftop solar panels and able to function separately from a city’s power grid. The solar panels capture energy and store it in batteries, allowing the elevator to operate at night or during a power outage. A prototype is currently running in a low-rise residential building in Barcelona, Spain.
By the end of this year, the elevator will be available in India and other locations in Europe, and Schindler hopes to put the elevators on the U.S. market by 2015. The elevator is part of Schindler’s effort to create more efficient and environmentally friendly ways to move people, said Frank Resch, research and development chief at Schindler.
Akridge has said that as soon as the solar elevator is available in the United States, it will be one of the first developers to install one in its buildings. Though the companies have no official deal, they have been working together for years to put advanced elevator technology in Akridge’s buildings in Washington, said Tommy Russo, chief technology officer of Akridge.
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Bitcoin, a virtual, decentralized currency, has recently been receiving a considerable amount of press coverage in international mass media. The digital coinage, which is based on an open-source, peer-to-peer online global network, was launched in 2009 by a mysterious developer who refers to himself as Satoshi Nakamoto. Bitcoin is currently the most widely used alternative currency in the world, with its total value in circulation recently estimated to be worth over a billion dollars. Though it is a highly sophisticated and well developed concept in both theory and practice, Bitcoin would have an extremely deleterious effect on our society if its broader economic role were to increase to substantial levels. Although many view it as an extremely attractive alternative currency alternative, Bitcoin could potentially harm our society in three particular ways: by significantly increasing crime, by causing a drastic decrease in social development investment, and by destabilizing economies due to lack of government control and regulation.
In recent months, Bitcoin has witnessed dramatic fluctuation in both cost and overall total value. With the price of a single Bitcoin recently reaching a high of $266 from $50 in mid-march and now hovering at around $103 , Bitcoin is currently the focus of a great deal of attention. Like any other commodity or currency, Bitcoin's value is derived from its demand and usage. In essence, its value stems from the people who value it. But the question remains: why are people so interested it? What is it about Bitcoin that makes it so controversial?
Bitcoin is a completely anonymous, decentralized currency. It runs on and is monitored by its massive online public network. In the world of digital currencies, there is no centralized bank controlling its rates; no Federal Reserve decides to limit or increase the production of Bitcoins. Based on a highly sophisticated and well-strategized long-term economic plan, the total amount of possible Bitcoins is fixed. This means that the currency is immune to inflation caused by over-circulation. As a result of its structural design and policies, Bitcoin has a myriad of advantages over other more traditional currencies. Some of Bitcoin's main draws include: the absence of transaction fees to credit card companies, its anonymity guarantees that no one knows what users are buying, users don't need to rely on or trust anyone to store or transfer their assets, and Bitcoins are not subject to governmental manipulation.
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Kenya is headed to become the first oil exporter in East Africa, moving in less than five years from being a have-not nation to the regional leader in cutting reliance on energy suppliers such as Royal Dutch Shell Plc.
After Tullow Oil Plc (TLW) discovered oil last year, Kenya is set to start shipments in 2016, overtaking neighboring Uganda, where Tullow found crude more than seven years ago. The U.K. explorer plans to start pumping in Kenya as soon as next year, Chief Operating Officer Paul McDade said in an interview. Kenya’s deposits may top 10 billion barrels, according to the company, more than three times the U.K.’s remaining reserves.
Exports will underpin Kenya’s shilling currency and are being pushed by a government that wants a lead on Uganda and Democratic Republic of Congo, whose East African resources in recent years attracted explorers such as China’s Cnooc Ltd. (883) and France’s Total SA. (FP) Most oil companies traditionally had focused on the African powerhouses of Nigeria and Angola to the west, and Libya and Egypt on the Mediterranean.
Oil will allow Kenya to “diversify export earnings and act as a catalyst for infrastructural spending, especially on the transport network,” Phumulele Mbiyo, regional head of macroeconomic research at Nairobi-based CfC Stanbic Bank Ltd., a unit of Standard Bank Group Ltd., said in an interview. “The shilling is expected to benefit from inflows of foreign exchange and reduced spending on fuel imports.”
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This morning in Chicago hundreds of primarily Republican state legislators are getting more indoctrination against doing anything about climate change from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
This year, ALEC has chosen its long-time partner, the Heartland Institute, to help host the session. Heartland is so extreme on the issue of climate change that it sought to equate people who believe the climate is changing with the Unabomber, through a billboard campaign that featured a mugshot of Ted Kaczynski with the line: "I still believe in Global Warming. Do you?" Heartland lost numerous funders in response to a citizens campaign about the ad last year.
The ad was so controversial that even State Farm Insurance -- which has stood by ALEC through the controversy over its role in pushing Stand Your Ground gun bills into law -- announced last year that it was "ending its association with the Heartland Institute."
State Farm gave Heartland $230,000 in 2011, according to documents posted by DeSmog Blog. It was not Heartland's biggest donor; an unnamed person or corporation anonymously gives it well over $1 million per year for its operations, which include a heavy dose of climate change denial.
State Farm, however, remains on ALEC's board and funds its operations for an undisclosed amount.
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About $4 billion in private funding would be sucked from Australia's solar power and renewable energy industries over the next three years if the Coalition wins government, confidential data obtained from banks and financial analysts shows.
The Coalition's climate change plan is also about $4 billion short of the funding required to meet its pledge for a 5 per cent cut in greenhouse emissions by 2020, and is instead on track for a 9 per cent increase by then, according to analysis commissioned by the independent think tank The Climate Institute.
Although the Coalition rejects that analysis, major investors are planning for the impact if Opposition Leader Tony Abbott wins power and axes the carbon price and dismantles the clean energy finance system. They expect about $4.1 billion in private funding would be directed away from large-scale renewable power - starving the sector of capital - due to regulatory uncertainty and a lack of solid returns.
''Under this scenario, the winners are probably going to be the gas guys and the wind guys - you will see a charge towards getting lots and lots of wind farms up at lowest cost because you have still got to meet the [renewable energy target],'' a source within the sector said. ''It's going to change the shape of the industry.''
Mr Abbott said at the weekend that spending under his ''direct action'' climate change plan would remained capped at $3.2 billion, even if it meant missing the Coalition's pledge to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 5 per cent by 2020.
Climate change spokesman Greg Hunt reaffirmed the Coalition's support for the mandatory renewable energy target, which commits Australia to 20 per cent clean power by 2020.
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The Moapa Band of Paiute Indians have formed a joint venture with Terrible Herbst Inc. and Stronghold Engineering Inc. to build as much as 1.5 gigawatts of renewable energy projects on its land in Nevada.
The first project will be a 250-megawatt solar farm in which the tribe will maintain majority ownership, said Sandy King, director of renewable-energy project development at closely held Stronghold. Excess electricity from the solar farm and future projects will be sold to utilities throughout the U.S. Southwest. The supplier of the solar modules is still being determined and costs aren’t being disclosed, she said.
“This is going to provide a strong economic base for the tribe,” King said in an interview today. The Moapa reservation, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) northeast of Las Vegas, spans 70,000 acres and “is more than sufficient to support the 1.5 gigawatts of generation,” she said. The tribe also may replace a coal-fired plant with one that’s fueled by natural gas. Click headline to read more--
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