Andy Roberts

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  How gold farmers reap huge harvest from online gaming

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/05/29/how-gold-farmers-reap-huge-harvest-from-online-gaming

  Estimates suggest 400,000 people are employed to build up credits in online games such as World of Warcraft and EverQuest by virtual gold mining or r such ways of building up in-game credits that can be translated into real value.This article titled “How gold farmers reap huge harvest from online gaming” was written by Josh Halliday, for The Guardian on Wednesday 25th May 2011 19.15 UTCTens of millions of people spend hours and pay big money for virtual gains on the most popular multiplayer online games, including World of Warcraft, Eve Online and EverQuest.Behind these games are “gold farmers”, who spend hours within the games each day, gathering virtual credits and selling them to gamers for real world cash.The most recent estimates, from 2009, suggest that 400,000 people are employed as gold farmers across the world, with 85% of those in China and Vietnam, according to Professor Richard Heeks of the University of Manchester.These gold farmers are almost entirely males between 18 and 25, and most are either cash-strapped college students or unemployed rural migrants. They sell in-game advantages – an increased skill level, or a virtual ore – to players eager to boost their online reputation.The multiplayer online games industry has boomed in recent years thanks to increased internet access and the rise of social networks. World of Warcraft, easily the most popular of its kind, had 12 million subscribers last year.According to a report published by the World Bank last month, gold farming was worth about $3bn (£1.85bn) in 2009 – most of which was kept by developing countries. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogHow gold farmers reap huge harvest from online gamingRelated posts:Farmers collaborate online to face rural uncertaintyOnline advertising in the UKRolling Your Own Online Office

  

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  May 29 2011, 9:16am | Comments »

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  Spain staves off bailout – for now

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/04/08/spain-staves-off-bailout-for-now

  As its neighbour Portugal succumbs to a bailout, Spain insists that it won’t follow despite holding €75bn of Portuguese debt

  This article titled “Spain staves off bailout – for now” was written by Giles Tremlett, for The Guardian on Thursday 7th April 2011 19.43 UTC Spanish store fronts, jostling for space along a single block in Lisbon’s João II street, are a sign of just how deeply Spain – which accounts for a third of all Portuguese debt held in foreign banks – is linked to its neighbour. Spain’s two global banks, Santander and BBVA, both have branches on this block, along with another bank, a hotel, a travel agency, a dentistry chain, a pizza restaurant and a supermarket – all of them Spanish businesses. Some 8.5% of Spain’s exports are sent across its western border, meaning that Portuguese austerity measures and an expected return to recession will be also be felt there. But Spanish officials who have watched their bond yields improve even as Portugal headed towards a bailout insist there is no danger of it becoming the next eurozone domino to fall. “(The risk of contagion) is absolutely ruled out … it has been some time since the markets have known that our economy is much more competitive,” Elena Salgado, the finance minister, told the SER radio station. Spanish banks hold around €75bn (£65bn) of Portuguese debt, though only about 30% of this is public debt. Spain had about €25bn in foreign direct investment in Portugal in 2009. The prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who has said he will not stand for a third term next year, told the Guardian last week that his socialist government would continue to meet its deficit targets. He said it would also keep introducing reforms to boost the current timid rate of growth and start bringing down a startling 20% unemployment rate. Salgado said on Wednesday that 2011 growth would be 1.3%.   Spain’s economy is bigger than those of Portugal, Ireland and Greece put together. A bailout there could have disastrous consequences for the eurozone. “Portugal’s bailout request puts the likes of Spain under the spotlight, but we are of the opinion that Spain will not follow due to its improving fiscal situation and recovering economy,” Credit Agricole analysts said in a note to clients .

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  Related posts:Zapatero says Spain safe from bailout Portugal’s PM calls on EU for bailout Portugal admits it needs EU bailout

  

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  April 8 2011, 5:33am | Comments »

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  Marks & Spencer makes Paris comeback with Champs Elysées store

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/04/01/marks-spencer-makes-paris-comeback-with-champs-elysees-store

  New Marks and Spencers shop to open in Paris France 10 years after controversial retreat. Items on offer will include food – by popular demand.

  This article titled “Marks & Spencer makes Paris comeback with Champs Elysées store” was written by Kim Willsher in Paris, Dan Milmo and Marie Winckler, for The Guardian on Friday 1st April 2011 17.54 UTC Shortbread and Earl Grey tea are heading back to the Champs Elysées later this year as Marks & Spencer returns to France, a decade after its retreat across the Channel prompted street protests in Paris. The retailer replanted a British flag in the heart of the Gallic retail industry by announcing, 10 years after it quit the capital amid stern criticism from trade unions, politicians and ardent muffin fans, that it would open a shop on Paris’s most famous boulevard before Christmas. The retailer is opening a three-storey outlet on the Champs Elysées, towards the end of this year. What is more, following a clamour by British organisations in France and threats of a boycott, it will be selling not only women’s clothing and lingerie – as first thought – but also food. Thoughts of ready meals and cheddar cheese may still appal a nation that gave the world haute cuisine. But French foodies have a grudging respect for the venerable British retailer, and Parisians were excited about the “grand retour”. Comments on French newspaper websites were overwhelmingly positive. Audrey Guttman, 23-year-old Parisienne arts consultant, said: “Special occasions in my childhood were peppered with Marks and Spencer delights such as Bugs Bunny-shaped fried chicken and Percy Pigs soft candy. I was devastated when they left, and the same items coming in from London just didn’t quite taste the same afterwards.” However, like many she was doubtful about the uncool choice of location: “Really, Marks and Spencer, the Champs-Elysées?! It’s not 1999 anymore!” French blogger Wendy Nourry Breguet, 25, added: “As a Frenchie, Marks & Spencer has always been an Ali Baba’s cave of food, fresh products, spices, foreign foods, which are absent from most French shops.” Pierre Cornette, a 28-year-old gallery owner was less convinced: “M&S plays on its super image in France for quality and tradition, but I can’t really see how it’s going to sell its English products to a Paris clientele, above all in this age of organic produce.” As well as the 1,000 sq metre Champs Elysées shop, there will also be five Simply Food stores at “transport hubs” such as railway stations in Paris and a “handful” of larger shops in and around the French capital. A website, trading in euros, will be launched and will be the group’s first to permit international purchases and deliveries across France. The original idea was for the new store to sell only clothing and home goods, in accordance with the lease on the prestigious Parisian floorspace. But a campaign persuaded executives to change their minds. British-born Pamela Lake, a Parisienne since 1963, who spearheaded the “no food, no go” campaign, said she and her British and French friends were delighted by the company’s apparent change of heart. “It would have been commercial suicide to do otherwise,” she said. “I shall be there for my double cream, bacon, sausages and Indian food.” She added: “I phoned my friends this morning and said ‘we’ve won’. Everyone was so pleased. When M&S closed here it was practically a day of national mourning for us in Paris. Now the company has admitted it was the biggest blunder they ever made.” She said French friends who joined the campaign would be looking forward to getting their Christmas crackers, mince pies and Christmas puddings. “They’ve also missed the Stilton cheese,” she said.   All M&S stores in continental Europe were closed as the company battled to turn around its British business. Last year the former boss Sir Stuart Rose said the decision to pull out of Europe was a mistake, calling it “tragic”. The company’s chief executive, Marc Bolland, said the company was “very excited” about its return: “Over the past 10 years the number of demands … from people for us to come back has been enormous.” He added: “Our company has changed in a positive way and France has moved on as well. We want to come back in an extremely positive way.” Bolland has declared he wants to speed up the group’s international expansion and said there was scope for faster growth, particularly in Asian markets. M&S has 358 stores in 42 overseas territories.

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  Related posts:Parisian store to close for safety refit Gare du Nord in Paris South of Pigalle Paris Breaks Competition

  

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  April 1 2011, 4:36pm | Comments »

• I posted to distributedresearch.net

  Ireland forced into new £21bn bailout by debt crisis

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/04/01/ireland-forced-into-new-21bn-bailout-by-debt-crisis

  Irish finance minister Michael Noonan said that Ireland had been left with an ‘appalling legacy’ as a result of the banking crisis.

  This article titled “Ireland forced into new £21bn bailout by debt crisis” was written by Larry Elliott and Jill Treanor, for The Guardian on Thursday 31st March 2011 20.17 UTC Europe’s debt crisis deepened on Thursday night as Ireland was forced into another €24bn (£21bn) rescue of its banking system and jittery financial markets pushed Portugal closer to a bailout. In a furious attack on the previous government, the Irish finance minister Michael Noonan said the country had been left with “an appalling legacy: a legacy of debt, of unemployment, of emigration, of falling living standards and of low morale” as a result of the banking crisis. After stress tests to assess the vulnerability of the banks to a drastic worsening of the economy, Noonan announced that the government would take a majority stake in all the major lenders. These are to be radically reduced in size and focused on just two players. Ireland’s banks have been crippled by the bursting of a house price and commercial property bubble, created when they took advantage of the country’s membership of the single currency to lend recklessly on low interest rates. The collapse caused an economic crisis that has seen output shrink for three years in a row. “We are now in the third year of the banking crisis. The previous government failed to act. They ducked and dived and procrastinated as they lurched from one crisis to the next. They went through periods of denial and periods of self justification. They paved the road to disaster with good intentions,” Noonan said. “They never fixed the broken banks, however.” Ireland’s central bank governor, Patrick Honohan, said the country was saddled with “one of the costliest banking crises in history”. The total bill has now reached €70bn – equal to €17,000 for each citizen. Analysts said that while Ireland’s latest bank bailout had provided the country with breathing space, time was running out for Portugal, where the government admitted that it would miss its target for deficit reduction in 2010 and revised up its budget deficit figure from 7% of GDP to 8.6%. The poor figures triggered a fresh sell-off of Portuguese bonds and analysts said it would now be cheaper for the country to borrow from the International Monetary Fund and EU, as Ireland is doing, rather than access the international markets. Ireland pays 6% interest on its seven-year loans while bond investors want to charge Portugal 9% to borrow for just five years. As a result of the Irish and Greek bailouts, EU partners have now set up the European financial stability facility (EFSF) as a long-term provider of funds for troubled members of the eurozone. “The key question is when will Portugal need to access the EFSF because it has run out of money. Portugal faces two bond redemptions, one on 15 April (€4.3bn) and one on 15 June (€4.9bn). This week, a government official said that Portugal had sufficient reserves to cover both of these. It is hard to see how this can be the case,” said Emilie Gay from the research consultants Capital Economics. However, Portugal’s finance minister, Teixeira dos Santos, said: “The government is not irresponsible and will guarantee that there is the necessary financing so the country can live up to its responsibilities and honour commitments to its creditors.” Lisbon said the change in its deficit figures was the result of an accounting change demanded by Europe’s statistics agency but bond markets feared it was an effort to deceive investors about the true picture in the past. An auction of €1.5bn of bonds has been scheduled for Friday and will be a test for the market. As a result of the announcement in Dublin, all the Irish banks are now likely to be state-owned. Two new universal banks are expected to be created from existing institutions – Bank of Ireland will remain while Allied Irish Banks and building society EBS are to be merged. “We will also ensure that they are fully recapitalised so that the world looks at these core banks with confidence and they in turn help instil confidence in our economy,” said Noonan. The extra bailout cash is within the funding from the EU/IMF support announced last year. Noonan blamed the crisis on the decision made in September 2008 by the former Fianna Fáil government to guarantee the banking sector, and particularly Anglo Irish Bank, during the international banking crisis.

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  Related posts:Portugal teeters on brink of bailout Portugal bailout fears rise as credit rating cut Ireland, Portugal … Britain? George Osborne only has Plan A

  

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  April 1 2011, 9:41am | Comments »

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  Gaddafi issues defiant challenge to Libya conference in London

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/03/29/gaddafi-issues-defiant-challenge-to-libya-conference-in-london

  Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi condemns ‘crusader strategy’ at the London Conference amid speculation that his foreign minister has defected. Full text of Gaddafi’s letter to the European Parliament: Stop your barbaric and unjust offensive against Libya, leave Libya for the Libyans. You are carrying out an operation to exterminate a peaceful people and destroy a developing country. We are united behind the leadership of the revolution, facing the terrorism of al-Qaida on the one hand and on the other hand terrorism by Nato, which now directly supports al-Qaida.

  This article titled “Gaddafi issues defiant challenge to Libya conference in London” was written by Ian Black in Tripoli, for The Guardian on Tuesday 29th March 2011 20.18 UTC Muammar Gaddafi told the London conference discussing Libya’s future without him that there was no room for compromise with the Benghazi-based rebels, whom he described bluntly as al-Qaida terrorists supported by Nato and representing no one. Far from showing any sign of bending to demands from Barack Obama, David Cameron and other world leaders that he step down, Gaddafi issued a characteristically defiant challenge to what he called a “new crusader strategy or imperialist plan”. But three powerful explosions that shook Tripoli in mid-afternoon – apparently the first daylight attack in 10 days of UN-mandated air strikes – seemed to presage a possible escalation of the conflict. Libyan officials made no comment. In another dramatic development, there was speculation that Gaddafi’s foreign minister, Mousa Kousa, might have defected during a visit to Tunisia. The Libyan leader warned that the UN-imposed no-fly zone would turn north Africa into “a second Afghanistan” in an extraordinary letter sent to the European Parliament, the US Congress and “the Europeans” meeting in London. “Stop your barbaric and unjust offensive against Libya,” he wrote. “Leave Libya for the Libyans. You are carrying out an operation to exterminate a peaceful people and destroy a developing country. We are united behind the leadership of the revolution, facing the terrorism of al-Qaida on the one hand and on the other hand terrorism by Nato, which now directly supports al-Qaida.” The full text shows the Libyan leader to be baffled by the ingratitude of the world towards him after years of rapprochement and utterly dismissive of concerns about the use of violence against his own people. Gaddafi argued that there was no need for foreign intervention, that Libya’s “direct democracy” had no parallel and that its oil resources were the property of its people – a reference to the widespread perception among his supporters that the war is a conspiracy to divide the country and steal its natural resources. Libya has made every effort to help solve global problems, abandoned its weapons of mass destruction, helped the international effort to fight “extremist terrorism”, controlled illegal immigration to Europe and played a positive role in Africa. “There were no demonstrations in Libya or protests like in Tunisia and Egypt,” he claimed. “No one opened fire on demonstrators. No more than 150 people were killed and most of those were soldiers and policemen who were defending themselves.” He attacked a “deliberately fabricated image” of Libya to justify the “second crusader war”, accusing the coalition of committing “merciless massacres”. Kousa, intriguingly, chose the eve of the London conference to pay what was described as a private visit to neighbouring Tunisia, the country’s nearest outlet to the outside world as the no-fly zone has closed all Libyan airports. Tunisian sources said Kousa had left later for an unknown destination. Kousa’s status as veteran Gaddafi stalwart and former intelligence and security chief provoked immediate speculation that he may have followed diplomats who quit en masse in the first days of the uprising. If he has, it would be a grave blow to the regime – and vindication of claims in Washington and elsewhere that cracks are appearing in Gaddafi’s inner circle. Kousa’s deputy, Khaled Kaim, accused the allies of seeking to partition Libya. “The tactic of the coalition is to lead to a stalemate to cut the country in two, which means the civil war is a continuous war, the start of a new Somalia, a very dangerous situation,” he told Italy’s Rai Uno TV channel. “If we are led to a civil war, resolution 1973, which was meant to protect civilians, will on the contrary lead to the murder of civilians.” UN resolution 1973, passed earlier this month, authorised “all necessary measures” to protect civilians. State-run media are continuing to highlight the human toll of the allied attacks, including 12 the regime claims were killed in Sebha, on the edge of the Sahara, when Nato planes hit an ammunition dump. Airstrikes also hit what were described as “military and civilian targets” in the cities of Garyan and Mizda, 40 miles and 90 miles respectively from Tripoli. Foreign journalists who were taken to Mizda were forced to flee when residents fired over their heads. It was unclear whether the violent protest was against the international media or their official government minders.

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  Related posts:Libya rebels on the defensive as Gaddafi forces enter Benghazi Benghazi rebels plead for Libya air strikes as Gaddafi forces advance Libya conflict: war on Gaddafi is personal – and he is unlikely to retreat

  

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  March 29 2011, 3:42pm | Comments »

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  Libyan rebels advance on Muammar Gaddafi’s home town

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/03/28/libyan-rebels-advance-on-muammar-gaddafis-home-town

  Revolutionaries move further west along Libya‘s coastal road, seizing several towns without resistance, and reach Sirte.

  This article titled “Libyan rebels advance on Muammar Gaddafi’s home town” was written by Chris McGreal in Bin Jawad and Ian Black in Sirte, for The Guardian on Monday 28th March 2011 06.52 UTC Libyan rebels are advancing on Muammar Gaddafi’s home city, Sirte, after retaking all the ground lost in earlier fighting as government forces broke up and fled under western air strikes. Revolutionary forces rapidly moved more than 150 miles west along Libya’s coastal road, seizing several towns without resistance, as the first witness accounts emerged of the devastating effect on Gaddafi’s army and militia of the aerial bombardment that broke their resistance at Ajdabiya on Saturday. A Libyan rebel spokesman said Sirte had been captured by the rebels on Monday morning, but there is no sign the city has fallen. Sirte marks the boundary between the east and west of Libya and has great symbolic importance as Muammar Gaddafi’s hometown. The area was quiet after heavy bombardment from the pre-dawn hours and there was no sign it had been taken by the Benghazi-based rebels advancing from the east. It is rumoured that the outskirts have been planted with landmines. Rebels retook the important oil towns of Brega, Ras Lanuf and Ben Jawad, and continued on the open desert road towards Sirte, about 95 miles away. A doctor treating wounded government soldiers described hundreds of deaths, terrible injuries and collapsing morale. Two loud explosions were heard on Sunday night near Sirte. It was not immediately clear what had been hit but local people said a military installation in the city was bombed on Saturday night – one of many targeted across the country in a week of coalition strikes. Soldiers manning a mobile radar station on the outskirts of the city looked nervous as night fell and aircraft were heard overhead. Large numbers of armed men, militiamen as well as regular soldiers, were on the streets and there was less of the exuberant defiance and loyal pro-Gaddafi slogans of the sort heard constantly in Tripoli. Travelling eastwards from the capital, the war feels closer. In Bani Walid, south of Tripoli, tank transporters carrying dirty armoured fighting vehicles drew a small crowd, and an appreciative volley of machine gun fire. Other Libyan army vehicles moved west along the main road, including some heavy tanks – Soviet-made T-72s – but there were no signs of large-scale movement. Everywhere, there are long queues at petrol stations, sometimes with hundreds of vehicles stretching down the road as they wait. At one queue, drivers were relieved when a tanker finally delivered a load of fuel, but then reacted with frustration when there was no electricity to operate the pumps. As well as its political significance as Gaddafi’s birthplace, Sirte is seen as important to his defence of Tripoli, the capital, which is now less than 300 miles from the rebels’ frontline. Control of the oil terminals at Brega and Ras Lanuf is in itself a major gain because it could bring the rebel administration significant revenue from exports if production resumes. Rebels moved unchallenged along a road littered with evidence of the air campaign and the speed of their enemies’ retreat. The blackened carcasses of tanks, armoured vehicles and military trucks were pushed to the side of the road. In their hurried retreat from Ras Lanuf, government forces abandoned piles of ammunition. They included grey wooden boxes containing rockets but stamped as holding “parts of bulldozer”, manufactured in North Korea. In Bin Jawad, residents said a destroyed municipal building had been hit by an air strike. The rebels forced captured Gaddafi fighters on to buses and drove them to Benghazi. Witnesses described the bombing’s devastating effects on his forces. A doctor at the hospital in Ras Lanuf, which treated most of the government soldiers wounded in the coalition air raids on Ajdabiya and the road from Benghazi, described hundreds of casualties, breaking morale and many soldiers faking injuries to escape the assault. The doctor – who wished to be identified only by his first name, Abdullah – had responded to a call from Gaddafi’s government for medical personnel to go to the front two weeks ago. Today, he accidentally found himself on the rebel side of the line. “The first days, Gaddafi’s forces had very high morale and they came in large numbers, thousands. There were the army soldiers and then the volunteers in the militia,” he said. “They were fighting the rebels, no problem, and winning. But then came the bombing [by coalition air strikes]. The first day we had 56 seriously wounded. To the head, the brain, lost arms and legs. Soldiers with a lot of shrapnel in them. It was like that every day after.” Abdullah said all the wounded were on the Gaddafi side, with about two-thirds being those injured in the bombing of Ajdabiya where there were days of fighting as government forces blocked the rebel advance. The doctor said he did not know how many soldiers were killed in the air strikes, because the bodies were taken from the battlefield for burial. “The soldiers who came to the hospital told me there were 150 dead just on the first day of the bombing. After that, there were fewer because they hid,” he said. “It started to have a big effect on their morale. They said they could fight the rebels but not the planes. In recent days, many of the soldiers were trying to find excuses to leave the front. Ten to 20 a day came to the hospital pretending they were injured, asking for a medical certificate. They didn’t have any physical injuries, but I gave it [a certificate] to them.” Abdullah was sceptical about rebel accusations that many were foreign mercenaries. He said he had not see anyadded it was possible that some of the soldiers were not Libyan. But he did say that Gaddafi’s forces had systematically maltreated the civilian population, particularly those suspected of coming from the de facto rebel capital of Benghazi and other towns in the east under the revolutionaries’ control. “There was bad treatment of the civilians. One patient came here who had been trying to escape Ajdabiya with his family. The government army shot him in the leg,” he added. “The idea I got from civilians who came to the hospital is that things were very bad for them. They were beaten. Some said their family members had disappeared. They didn’t know if they were killed.” Some of Gaddafi’s forces were billeted in the el-Adeel hotel, in Ras Lanuf, which they looted as they fled, taking mattresses and televisions and levering open cash machines in the lobby. On walls across the town they sprayed in green paint three words: “God, Gaddafi, Libya.” Beyond Sirte lies the large town of Misrata, most of which is in rebel hands after an attempt by Gaddafi to retake it was driven off by air strikes. Government forces kept up their shelling at the weekend, although residents said it was considerably less intense than a week ago, after 12 hours of aerial bombardment by western planes destroyed more than 20 tanks and drove Gaddafi’s forces to the edge of the town.One rebel, Sami, told Reuters by telephone that pro-Gaddafi forces had fought with rebels in Misrata. “All day long we heard clashes between rebels and Gaddafi forces in the area of Tripoli Street, in the city centre,” he said. “We heard tanks, mortars and light weapons being used.” Misrata is the only big rebel stronghold left in the west of Libya and is cut off from the main rebel force fighting Gaddafi’s troops in the east.

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  Related posts:Turkey offers to broker Libya ceasefire as rebels advance on Sirte Libya rebels on the defensive as Gaddafi forces enter Benghazi Benghazi rebels plead for Libya air strikes as Gaddafi forces advance

  

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  March 28 2011, 5:09pm | Comments »

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  Inflation will drop to 1.5% as cuts hit spending, MPC member predicts

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/03/27/inflation-will-drop-to-1-5-as-cuts-hit-spending-mpc-member-predicts

  American academic Adam Posen calls on UK Chancellor George Osborne to embark on another round of quantitative easing (printing money) and insists the Bank of England should not raise interest rates

  This article titled “Inflation will drop to 1.5% as cuts hit spending, MPC member predicts” was written by Larry Elliott, economics editor, for The Guardian on Sunday 27th March 2011 20.00 UTC The Bank of England’s leading dove has predicted that inflation will tumble to 1.5% by the middle of next year as George Osborne’s austerity drive and the underlying weakness of the economy stifle consumer spending. In an interview with the Guardian, Adam Posen admitted he had sleepless nights over his call for more money to be pumped into the economy and said he would not seek re-election to Threadneedle Street’s monetary policy committee if his view turned out to be wrong. Posen said: “If I have made the wrong call, not only will I switch my vote, I would not pursue a second term. They should have somebody who gets it right and not me. I am accountable for my performance. I’m holding my nerve because it is the right thing to do.” The American academic said he would be profoundly affected if it was proved that he had erred in voting repeatedly for bank rate to be pegged at 0.5% and for more money to be pumped into the economy through quantitative easing. “It would not just be terrible that I had messed up for other people but it is also my fundamental world view that I have been testing. “I would take it deeply and personally, which is why I have laid awake at night thinking about it.” But Posen said recent trends in the economy had left him convinced that inflation would fall back below the government’s 2% target in the second half of next year, as the temporary factors pushing up prices washed out of the system and the economy slowed down. This analysis, he said, chimed with the views expressed in recent speeches by the Bank’s governor, Mervyn King, and Charlie Bean, one of the two deputy governors. Three members of the MPC – Andrew Sentance, Martin Weale and Spencer Dale – voted for higher interest rates this month, but Posen challenged their view on four separate counts. He said so-called “core inflation”, which strips out the effects of fuel, food costs and taxes such as VAT, did not suggest that the economy was overheating; the recent strength in manufacturing only affected 13% of the UK’s total output and was not replicated in other parts of the economy; it was too simplistic to say that the economy was overheating if inflation was high; and it would only be costly to take a wait-and-see approach to raising interest rates if there was a risk of an inflationary spiral. “We could get inflation back to target really fast if we put the economy through the wringer,” he said. Posen added that the real debate inside the MPC was whether the increase in inflation to 4.4% would lead to consumers and businesses believing that there had been a permanent upward shift, and thus have knock-on effects on wages and prices. “I don’t see that as a material risk given all else that is going on, which is why I have been leaning the way I have.” He echoed King in calling a small increase in bank rate futile, as any rise would have to be reversed, damaging the Bank’s credibility. Posen said that whatever the merits of the government’s austerity plans, higher taxes and reductions in public spending would have a “meaningful” dampening effect on consumer spending and overall demand in the economy. “Household consumption is going to be pretty darn weak. It may even contract a little”.   Consumers, he said, were unlikely to run down their savings in an attempt to maintain spending patterns, while the weakness of trade unions meant it would be hard for wage bargainers to push up pay settlements in response to higher inflation. “Wages will be the dog that doesn’t bark,” he said. Posen said he disliked the idea that interest rates had to be brought back to a more normal level after being cut to 0.5% in early 2009, the lowest level since the Bank was founded in 1694. “If I am a firefighter fighting a fire I don’t say I have pumped more water than I have ever pumped in my life so I must have pumped too much. You stop pumping when the fire is out.” Posen was also sceptical about some economists’ suggestion that the government’s deficit reduction plan could help growth by boosting confidence in financial markets, leading to a fall in long-term interest rates and higher investment.

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  March 27 2011, 3:33pm | Comments »

• I posted to distributedresearch.net

  Protest march against coalition cuts expected to attract 300,000

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/03/26/protest-march-against-coalition-cuts-expected-to-attract-300000

  Police braced for high numbers of political demonstrators and protestors in London with 800 coaches and at least 10 trains chartered from around the UK

  This article titled “Protest march against coalition cuts expected to attract 300,000″ was written by Polly Curtis, Matthew Taylor and Vikram Dodd, for The Guardian on Saturday 26th March 2011 00.52 UTC More than a quarter of a million protesters against public sector cuts are expected to flood central London today in the biggest political demonstration for nearly a decade. Police sources, normally cautious about estimating numbers, said last night they were braced for up to 300,000 people to join the march – far higher than previous forecasts from TUC organisers. More than 800 coaches and at least 10 trains have been chartered to bring people to the capital from as far afield as Cornwall and Inverness. The Metropolitan police, under fire for their use of kettling in previous protests, said “a small but significant minority” plan to hijack the march to stage violent attacks. Organisers, however, insist it will be a peaceful family event. Union members are expected be joined by a broad coalition, from pensioners to doctors, families and first-time protesters to football supporters and anarchists. Ed Miliband said the government was dragging the country back to the “rotten” 1980s. Labour is calling today’s event the “march of the mainstream”. The opposition leader will address the rally – his biggest audience ever – in Hyde Park to set out Labour’s alternative to the cuts, accusing the government of fomenting the “politics of division” not seen since Margaret Thatcher’s 1980s. His remarks are reinforced by a Guardian/ICM poll that shows the public divided over the cuts. Of 1,014 people questioned this week, 35% believe the cuts go too far, 28% say they strike the right balance and 29% say they don’t go far enough; 8% don’t know. Two other polls put the balance more strongly against cuts. A YouGov survey for Unison found that 56% believe the cuts are too harsh and a ComRes poll for ITV showed that two-thirds think the government should reconsider its planned spending cuts programme. Just one in five disagree with that view. The TUC organisers of the event said they had organised a family-friendly demonstration with brass, jazz and Bollywood bands. But with unofficial feeder marches, sit-down protests and a takeover of Trafalgar Square planned, there was increasing nervousness that acts of peaceful civil disobedience could lead to stand-offs with police and outbursts of violence. Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, which is providing 100 legal observers along the route to monitor the scenes, said she had been heartened by advance co-operation between the TUC and police, but added: “Events around in the world show the precious nature of peaceful dissent guaranteed by our Human Rights Act. This fundamental freedom was hard won and is still much envied elsewhere. It must not be jeopardised either by over-zealous policing or anyone looking for trouble.” Miliband said in a speech in Nottingham: “I thought the politics of the 1980s were rotten because they divided our country. I fear that this government is practising the politics of division.” He argued that the government’s policies divided rich against poor, public sector workers against private sector workers and north against south. “These aren’t the voices of people marginal to our country but the voices of the mainstream majority in our country and that’s why I’ll be addressing the rally tomorrow,” he said. He had been told not to join the march because of safety concerns. The Tories called on Miliband and the TUC leader, Brendan Barber, to take responsibility for any disruption on the march. Michael Fallon, deputy chairman of the Conservative party, said: “Under Ed Miliband, Labour are abandoning the centre ground, retreating into their comfort zone of left-wing protest and cosying up to the unions.” Barber will tell the rally that no part of the public realm is protected from the cuts, highlighting the proposals to radically change the NHS. “Today let us say [to David Cameron]: we will not let you destroy what has taken generations to build,” he will say. The bulk of the march will be made up of trade unionists, with virtually all of the TUC’s 55 affiliated unions represented. Also among the marchers will be a coachload of mothers and toddlers from Hampshire demonstrating against the closure of Sure Start centres in the county. Catherine Ovenden, 31, said the decision to cut the service would have a devastating impact on families. “So many people rely on these centres and we are going to lose a third of them,” she said . The demonstration is timed to mark the new financial year next week, when many of the cuts kick in. Research by the Fabian Society suggests that taken with the wider tax and benefit reforms announced since the election, this week’s budget would in fact force large number of working families into tax, instead of lifting them out as the coalition has claimed. Tens of thousands of the lowest-income families will lose around 6% of their net income in the next year because of the government’s tax and benefit changes with the bulk of the cuts kicking in next week, the analysis by the Fabian Society shows. From next week the childcare element of the tax credit system will be reduced from 80% to 70% of qualifying families’ nursery bills. A family with one child and one earner earning up to £23,000 will lose between 5.7% and 6.4% of their net income, compared with last year. This would cost such a family with an income of £6,000 £1,362 a year and a family on £23,000 £1,710 a year.

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  March 26 2011, 9:01am | Comments »

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  Russia, China and Arab League condemn Libya attacks

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/03/20/russia-china-and-arab-league-condemn-libya-attacks

  US Coalition forces accused of mission creep and disproportionate action in Operation Odyssey Dawn against Libya

  This article titled “Russia, China and Arab League condemn Libya attacks” was written by Patrick Wintour and Ewen MacAskill, for The Guardian on Sunday 20th March 2011 21.37 UTC America, France and Britain – the leaders of the coalition’s air attacks on Libya – were struggling to maintain international support for their actions, as they faced stinging criticism about mission creep from the leader of the Arab League, as well as from China and Russia. Critics claimed that the coalition of the willing may have been acting disproportionately and had come perilously close to making Gaddafi’s departure an explicit goal of UN policy. Russia, which abstained on the UN vote last week, called for “an end to indiscriminate force”. Despite denials from coalition forces, Alexander Lukashevich, Russia’s foreign ministry spokesman, said that the coalition had hit non-military targets. He suggested that 48 civilians had been killed. “We believe a mandate given by the UN security council resolution – a controversial move in itself – should not be used to achieve goals outside its provisions, which only see measures necessary to protect civilian population,” he said. The Arab League secretary general, Amr Moussa, also startled western governments when he denounced the air attacks only a week after the league had called for creation of a no-fly zone. Moussa, who is a candidate for the Egyptian presidency, said: “What has happened in Libya differs from the goal of imposing a no-fly zone and what we want is the protection of civilians and not bombing other civilians.” The Foreign Office later said Moussa claimed he had been misquoted, or had put his criticism more strongly in Arabic than in English. “We will continue to work with our Arab partners to enforce the resolution for the good of the Libyan people,” the FO said. The Arab League had, though, been called to an emergency session to discuss the scale of the attacks. The British defence secretary, Liam Fox, said the scale was in line with UN resolutions that had been “essential in terms of the Gaddafi regime’s ability to prosecute attacks on their own people”. He also said it was possible that Gaddafi himself could become a target of air attacks if the safety of civilians could be guaranteed. Ahead of a Commons debate and vote tomorrow, leading figures in David Cameron’s cabinet were under pressure to clarify whether the explicit purpose of the attacks was to render Gaddafi’s regime so powerless that it collapses. Speaking on the Politics Show, Fox said: “Mission accomplished would mean the Libyan people free to control their own destiny. This is very clear – the international community wants his regime to end and wants the Libyan people to control for themselves their own country.” He then added: “Regime change is not an objective, but it may come about as a result of what is happening amongst the people of Libya.” He said: “When the dynamic shifts and the equilibrium shifts, we will get a better idea just how much support the Gaddafi regime has and how much the people of Libya genuinely long to be able to control their own country. “If Colonel Gaddafi went, not every eye would be wet.” Fox said it was possible that allied forces might treat Gaddafi himself as a legitimate target for air strikes. “There is a difference between someone being a legitimate target and whether we go ahead and target him,” he said. “You would have to take into account what would happen to civilians in the area, what might happen in terms of collateral damage. We don’t simply with a gung-ho attitude start firing off missiles.” One UK defence source said: “If we are seeking to destroy a military resource and he [Gaddafi] is caught in the process, that will not be our doing.” Fox also made it clear that the allied attacks would extend in the coming days from Gaddafi’s air defence systems to his artillery. Britain has ruled out the use of ground forces, but some of the more hawkish cabinet members such as the chancellor, George Osborne, only said ground forces were “ruled out for the moment”. In the Commons debate Labour will call for an explicit guarantee that British ground troops will not be involved. But in a boost to the coalition, there were signs that some of the much-trailed practical Arab involvement in the air strikes had finally materialised – after Qatar last night sent four planes to work alongside the French in the second round of attacks designed to set up a no fly zone across Libya. Britain is hopeful of further input from the United Arab Emirates, following calls by Fox. Arab political support, and military participation is vital to reduce the credibility of Gaddafi’s claims that this is a western act of aggression against a Muslim country. In an effort to reassure Arab opinion, Fox stressed plans to hand some of the co-ordination of the operation to Nato would allow a wider group of participants. But the attacks were under UN auspices. In the US, the Obama administration was more restrained in its language. Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press, insisted the campaign was only a limited, humanitarian operation, not a war, and was not aimed at regime change, as both Cameron and Sarkozy have suggested. “The goals of this campaign are limited. It is not about seeing him [Gaddafi] go. It is about supporting the UN resolution.” Asked if the mission could be accomplished with Gaddafi still in power, Mullen replied: “This is one outcome.” The Pentagon has been reluctant to become engaged in a third war against a Muslim country in the space of a decade and pressed Barack Obama on the dangers of mission creep. Carl Levin, the Democratic chairman of the Senate armed services committee, said that Obama had given them assurances on that and the Pentagon was satisfied. Mullen and other US commanders said that although the US had taken the lead in the first phase, there would be hand-over to the French and British, and the US would take a back seat role, restricted to tasks to which it was uniquely qualified, such as jamming Gaddafi’s communications and providing refuelling of planes in the air. John Kerry, the Democratic chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, echoed Mullen over the mission goals, saying it was not a war. “This operation is not specifically geared to get rid of Gaddafi,” he said. The Republican senator Lindsey Graham, speaking on Fox News Sunday, said he was troubled by Obama’s lack of enthusiasm, after the president went ahead with a trip to Latin America. “I’m very worried that we’re taking a back seat rather than a leadership role,” Graham said.

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  March 20 2011, 4:54pm | Comments »

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  Jets prepare to deploy despite Libya ceasefire

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/03/18/jets-prepare-to-deploy-despite-libya-ceasefire

  Warplanes head for Mediterranean in attempt to increase prussere on Gaddafi as Nato envoys meet to back no-fly zone

  This article titled “Jets prepare to deploy despite Libya ceasefire” was written by Richard Norton-Taylor, Nick Hopkins and Robert Booth, for The Guardian on Friday 18th March 2011 20.20 UTC British Tornado and Typhoon ground attack aircraft are expected to fly to bases in the Mediterranean as Britain, France and the US step up military pressure on Colonel Gaddafi despite his announcement of a ceasefire. The UK is also expected to set up a joint command centre with the US and France to co-ordinate operations that will be supported by a number of other countries, including Canada and Denmark. In further evidence of mounting determination to confront Gaddafi, ambassadors from Nato’s 28 member countries are due to meet to lend added support to the UN-backed plans for a no-fly zone. Nato also emphasised humanitarian operations, but suggestions that ground troops from Britain and other countries could be deployed in Libya were dismissed last night. “The absolute priority is to enforce the no-fly zone, and to secure maritime supply routes,” said a defence source. “Nothing else is in the mix at this stage.” Nato secretary general Anders Rasmussen said the UN resolution sent “a strong and clear message from the entire international community” to the Gaddafi regime to stop his “systematic violence against the people of Libya immediately”. To this end, an array of other British military assets, including reconnaissance aircraft and air-refuelling tankers, will be deployed to bases in the Mediterranean. Military commanders in the UK have called the entire effort Operation Ellamy. Though the MoD never talks about special forces operations, it is understood that SAS and SBS soldiers are already on the ground in Libya, providing information on likely first targets for any bombing raids. They could include airfields, supply routes and Libya’s anti-aircraft defence batteries. “Any operations will be highly targeted to ensure that civilian casualties are avoided,” said the source. It became clear that the complexity of co-ordinating joint operations with so many countries would stymie any immediate plans for air strikes to help the rebels. One strategic priority was to find a way of binding in Arab help for any attacks, even though this is likely only to be at a logistical and support level. The prime minister told the Commons that British Tornado and Typhoon aircraft were within hours of being deployed. However, Whitehall sources later admitted that no planes had left the UK, and nor were they likely to until the weekend. The day began with no clarity over the command structure for any operations – and whether they would be led or supported by Nato. These details were being frantically developed in the hours after the UN resolution was passed. General Sir David Richards, chief of the defence staff, worked through Thursday night trying to secure agreement over who would do what and when, before attending the Cabinet meeting in Downing Street. He has been liaising closely with Air Marshall Sir Stuart Peach, chief of joint operations, who is based at the permanent joint headquarters of the three services in Northwood, to the north-west of London.The most likely scenario is that British fighters will be stationed at the British sovereign base at Akrotiri in Cyprus, where the RAF already has E3-D long-range air surveillance aircraft that are monitoring Libyan airspace. Nato is also operating 24-hour surveillance of Libya with Awacs reconnaissance aircraft based in Germany. British fighters may also be stationed at the Nato airbase at Sigonella in Sicily – Canada is sending six fighters there. “Once the decision has been taken about where they go, it won’t take the aircraft long to get there,” said the source. The Royal Navy still has two ships in international waters off Libya – the frigates HMS Cumberland and HMS Westminster. There are no plans to increase the number at this stage. However, the navy is working up a response force task group, which will include up to six different support and warships. That may be deployed in the weeks to come, sources said. The US already has a strong naval presence in the Mediterranean: a battle group of five vessels led by the ageing aircraft carrier USS Enterprise includes the nuclear-powered submarine USS Providence and the destroyer USS Mason, which both entered via the Suez canal last Saturday from the Red Sea. The USS Kearsarge is also in the area with a contingent of US marines on board while the USS Mason, a guided missile destroyer, was in port in Haifa, northern Israel on Wednesday. “Surveillance will be 60% of the strategy if the plan is to dissuade Libyan aircraft from taking off,” said Professor Trevor Taylor, head of the centre for defence management and leadership at Cranfield University. “And ground surveillance will be much more important still if the Libyans start using armoured vehicles because that will multiply the number of targets.” Barak Seener, a Middle East expert at the Royal United Services Institute, added: “Symbolically it’s very important to include an Arab element in any attacks. “Logistically they cannot provide very much, but it is important as a way of countering the accusation that this is an intervention which is colonialist and imperialist in nature.” Diplomats have said Arab countries that could participate in possible strikes might include Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The Arab League Agency from another era Hillary Clinton claims it was the Arab League’s recent statement on Libya that persuaded her the time was right to back military action in the country – the implication being that, unlike the invasion of Iraq in 2003, western intervention against Gaddafi has been legitimised by regional support. But do the 22 delegates who make up the league – almost exclusively ageing, male and appointed by autocratic governments that enjoy mixed support at best from their people – really represent 360 million Arabs, at a time when power relations in the Middle East are being radically reshaped? When the League of Arab States was founded in 1945, King Abdul-Aziz bin Saud, the then Saudi ruler, grandly declared that it would “enshrine the fondest hopes of the Arab people”. But today the high walls and carefully manicured gardens of the League’s Cairo headquarters feels like an anachronism, especially when contrasted with the grassroots energy that exploded around the corner in Tahrir Square as Egyptians toppled their president. Many are asking whether an institution originally designed to make the lives of British diplomats easier (they preferred dealing with a single Arab agency rather than multiple heads of state), and dominated through the decades by conservative political elites, has any role to play in articulating a unified voice of the Arab people on to to the world stage. At present all 22 Arab countries (alongside the four observer nations of Brazil, India, Venezuela and Eritrea) send one delegate each to the League. In the aftermath of revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, their individual delegates from each nation stayed in place – shifting their allegiances overnight from a government of dictatorship to a government of the people, with no personnel change deemed necessary. The Libyan delegation has entered more murky waters; at the start of the crisis, Tripoli’s permanent ambassador to the League, Abdel Moneim al-Huny, tendered his resignation in protest at his leader’s “massacres”, and then promptly announced he had been reappointed by the people’s government in Benghazi to represent the Libyan population inside the League. Meanwhile, the Gaddafi regime appointed its own new representative, leaving the institution’s secretary general Amr Moussa with an HR headache. For now, neither of the rival delegates can attend Arab League meetings because Libya’s membership has been suspended, the first such action in the League’s history, although behind the scenes unofficial dialogue is being maintained with both men. The rest of the Arab world areis left with delegates appointed by their own undemocratic regimes, – who appear happy to deploy deploying the language of humanitarian concern in the case of Libya, but are noticeably quieter on brutal crackdowns against protesters in the Gulf and elsewhere. The League’s Chief of Staff, Hisham Youssef, believes that the winds of change blowing through this part of the world will strengthen his institution, not undermine it. “We’re moving in a direction that will hopefully lead to a more democratic region, and that in turn means a more democratic and representative Arab League,” he told the Guardian. Whether he’s right remains to be seen.

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  March 18 2011, 5:32pm | Comments »

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  Oil price soars after UN resolution against Muammar Gaddafi

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/03/18/oil-price-soars-after-un-resolution-against-muammar-gaddafi

  Middle East tensions send cost of crude oil to $117 per barrel, but falls to $114.50 after Libyan leader announces ceasefire

  This article titled “Oil price soars after UN resolution against Muammar Gaddafi” was written by Terry Macalister, for The Guardian on Friday 18th March 2011 19.17 UTC The price of oil soared after the United Nations approved military action against the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, heightening geopolitical tensions in the oil-rich Middle East. The price of petrol has already hit record levels and motoring organisations in Britain warned that less well-off consumers in rural areas risked being “marooned” in their villages because they could not afford fuel. The cost of crude broke through $117 per barrel for Brent blend at one stage, spurred by events in Libya, uncertainty after shootings in Yemen and the continuing nuclear crisis in Japan. “The apparent move into a military endgame in Libya, together with the passing of the UN resolution and the escalation created by external involvement, is likely to represent the most immediate source of upside price risk for oil,” said energy analysts at London-based investment Barclays Capital. Robert McNally, an oil consultant and former international energy adviser to the White House, said the loss of oil exports from Libya due to the civil unrest there was soaking up spare oil production capacity throughout the region. “The oil market has moved from complacency around geopolitical risk last year to panic,” he told the Financial Times. The price of oil fell back to $114.50 after Gaddafi announced a ceasefire, but traders remained nervous that trouble in Yemen and Bahrain could spill into Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest crude exporter. Uncertainty in the world’s main oil-producing region has driven up the price of petrol to record levels on British forecourts and spread a cloud over wider industrial activity. Moody’s Investors Service, the credit rating agency, said that oil prices persistently over $100 a barrel would weaken the global economic recovery. “Ultimately, the effects that high oil and fuel prices have on businesses and consumers depend on a number of factors with some far more exposed than others,” said Steven Wood, Moody’s managing director in New York. Petrol prices have hit very high levels in the US and broken records in Britain. The price comparison website petrolprices.com said the average bill for unleaded fuel was now 133.34p per litre, with maximum prices recorded of 145.9p. And new survey from the AA confirmed the UK average petrol price had reached a new high, with diesel at an average 139.98p – nearly 5p more than in February. The motoring organisation again urged the chancellor, George Osborne, to cancel the planned fuel duty hike of 5p a litre in next week’s budget. “Turmoil in the Middle East, with its impact on oil and pump price volatility, is already adding to financial uncertainty for poorer drivers. The AA asks the government to provide some respite by cancelling the fuel duty increase on 1 April,” said Edmund King, the AA’s president. “If not, tales of the rural poor being marooned in their villages and people cutting back on their food to keep the car on the road so that they can go to work will become more common – to the shame of a developed country,” he added. Although the Middle East has been the centre of attention for the oil markets, the tsunami and crisis in Japan’s nuclear reactors have added to tensions in oil markets. Japan’s electricity supply has been partly knocked out by the halting of nuclear reactors, forcing the Japanese to increase imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and some oil to be used for power generation. Countries in the Middle East and North Africa – notably Qatar and Algeria – are also major gas producers. Japan is already the world’s largest LNG importer in the world but experts say The country may need an extra 9m tonnes over the next 12 months, raising the price of LNG globally, hitting other western importing countries including Britain.The Middle East remains the biggest – and cheapest – place for producing oil despite attempts by heavy consuming nations such as the US and Britain to develop their own supplies in the Gulf of Mexico, now set back by BP’s Deepwater Horizon accident, and the North Sea where supplies are fields are running dry.

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  March 18 2011, 4:57pm | Comments »

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  Fukushima fallout: the risks to health

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/03/15/fukushima-fallout-the-risks-to-health

  The radioactive elements Caesium-137 and iodine-131, which increase the risk of cancer, are the main threats to those in the area around the Fukushima nuclear power station

  This article titled “Fukushima fallout: the risks to health” was written by Ian Sample, for The Guardian on Tuesday 15th March 2011 20.30 UTC Radiation is being carried into the area around Fukushima by a mixture of radioactive products. The two main threats to human health come from caesium-137 and iodine-131. Caesium-137 can cause burns, acute radiation sickness and even death at high doses. It can contaminate food and water and, if ingested, gets distributed around the body, where it builds up in soft tissues, such as muscles. It has a half-life of about 30 years, meaning it takes that long for its radioactivity to fall by half. Over time, it is expelled from the body in urine. Iodine-131, if inhaled or swallowed, will concentrate in the thyroid gland where it can accumulate and cause cancer within a few years. Low doses can reduce the activity of the gland, and make it produce lower levels of hormones. The threat is more serious in children, who have more active thyroids. Officials have distributed potassium iodide pills to people in the exclusion zone around the plant as a prophylactic.; the pills saturate the thyroid with normal iodine, so it cannot absorb as much of the radioactive form. Iodine-131 has a half-life of only eight days, and so decays much more quickly than caesium-137.

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  March 15 2011, 3:35pm | Comments »

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  Fukushima factor adds pressure to economic fallout from Japan’s crisis

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/03/15/fukushima-factor-adds-pressure-to-economic-fallout-from-japans-crisis

  Natural disasters are normally followed by v-shaped economic recessions, but the Japanese nuclear power plant explosions have complicated risk assessments.

  This article titled “Fukushima factor adds pressure to economic fallout from Japan’s crisis” was written by Larry Elliott, for The Guardian on Tuesday 15th March 2011 20.16 UTC The three explosions at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan have made the economic impact of last week’s natural disaster far more difficult to assess than the two templates used by analysts – the Kyoto earthquake in 1995 and Hurricane Katrina a decade later – would suggest. Normally, natural disasters are followed by v-shaped recessions. Output is badly affected in the short term, as infrastructure is knocked out and people can’t work or shop. Output falls sharply for three to six months, but then rebounds as the reconstruction starts. Government money is poured into the affected areas, leading to a mini-construction boom as homes, roads and power supplies are rebuilt. Pent-up spending from the period immediately after the crisis is unleashed. Despite Japan’s weak public finances, analysts would expect Tokyo to come up with the money to rebuild the north-eastern parts of the country affected by last week’s earthquake and tsunami.   What makes this crisis different is the nuclear dimension. The three explosions at the Fukushima Daiichi plant puts this incident into a different category from either Kyoto or Katrina. There has been disruption to power supplies and people have been evacuated from a 12-mile exclusion zone around the plant, but it could potentially become far more widespread unless the Japanese can shut the plant down safely and quickly. Some analysts were last night starting to imagine what might happen in the event Tokyo, with 13 million people in its metropolitan district, had to be evacuated because of a radiation cloud heading its way. The economic costs of such an event would be astronomic. In Europe Japan’s crisis is already having an impact. Angela Merkel has ordered a temporary shutdown of Germany’s pre-1980s nuclear stations, which according to estimates account for 7% of the country’s power. That is a significant energy loss for a country that is growing robustly. The second factor is the impact the Sendai earthquake will have on consumer and business confidence. At present the global economy is characterised by a high degree of uncertainty, over the situation in north Africa and the Middle East and now over Japan. Economists think they have a way of quantifying this uncertainty, but they don’t.   So while, in theory, it should be possible to do a full-scale risk assessment of the impact of Japan on, say, the UK, that is not really possible. In theory, the effects should be limited, because Japan is not a major trading partner for the UK and the days of intensive Japanese inward investment are over. The complexity of global supply chains for the goods in which Japan is world leader could mean delays and disruptions in some sectors, – such as consumer electronics and cars – depending on how badly the major Japanese multinationals are affected by shortages of power and materials. One big unknown for the UK is the oil price, which has been adding to inflationary pressure in recent months but has fallen since late last week because traders believe the paralysis in Japan will lead to a drop in global demand. That trend may not last. If it does have a v-shaped recovery Japan will quickly return to more normal levels of oil usage. Meanwhile, the unrest in Bahrain is evidence that the problems for governments in the Middle East are far from over. So estimates that Japan’s crisis will shave perhaps 0.1% or 0.2% off global growth this year, with a similar rebound in 2012, are little more than guesswork. It could be a lot worse than that.

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  March 15 2011, 3:26pm | Comments »

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  Radiation fears prompt Tokyo exodus

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/03/15/radiation-fears-prompt-tokyo-exodus

  International companies are pulling staff out of Japan and airlines are cancelling flights after two more explosions at the stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant

  This article titled “Radiation fears prompt Tokyo exodus” was written by Justin McCurry in Osaka, for The Guardian on Tuesday 15th March 2011 19.39 UTC Airlines from Asia and Europe have halted flights into Tokyo, while multinational firms made plans to relocate employees as anxiety continued to grip Japan over the continuing nuclear crisis. Despite official reassurances that radiation levels in the capital posed no threat to health, a steady stream of tourists, residents and expatriates left the city by plane and bullet train. Austria said it was moving its embassy out of Tokyo to the western city of Osaka. Setbacks in the struggle to avert disaster at an atomic power plant in the north-east of the country also sparked a fresh round of panic buying in the Japanese capital, where tiny amounts of radioactivity registered for the first time since last Friday’s earthquake and subsequent tsunami. People in Tokyo endured another day of anxiety as they heard that the plant had been rocked by two more explosions and evidence emerged that water in a pool storing spent fuel rods may be boiling. Tokyo is already experiencing serious disruption to its transport network after the Tepco, the city’s electricity supplier, decided to implement rolling power cuts triggered by widespread disruption to power generation by the disaster. “I’m not that worried about another earthquake – it’s the radiation that scares me,” said Masashi Yoshida, who was waiting for a flight out of Haneda airport with his five-year-old daughter. Those among Tokyo’s 12 million people who decided to stay snapped up batteries, torches, candles and sleeping bags, and stripped shelves of bread, bottled water, instant noodles and canned food. The hoarding frenzy, partly prompted by the prospect of regular power cuts over the next six weeks, threatens to hamper efforts to divert supplies to the quake zone, where millions are suffering food and water shortages. Scientists said higher radiation levels near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, where more than 200,000 people have been evacuated or told to stay inside, posed no immediate threat to the capital, which is 150 miles to the south. Naoto Kan, the prime minister, urged 140,00 people living within 19 miles of the plant to remain indoors. About 70,000 people living within 12 miles have already been evacuated. “I know that people are very worried, but I would like to ask you to stay calm,” Kan said. “Radioactive material will reach Tokyo but it is not harmful to humans, because it will be dissipated by the time it gets there,” said Koji Yamazaki, a professor of environmental science at Hokkaido University on Japan’s main north island. Prolonged fears of a serious accident could weaken Tokyo’s role as an international financial hub. Several firms said they were pulling staff out, including 350 Indian employees of the software services exporter Infosys Systems. But major financial firms in Japan were going about their “business as usual,” said the International Bankers Association, which represents firms such as Goldman Sachs and Bank of America. The French embassy advised its citizens to leave and the German embassy advised people with families to do the same. China is poised to evacuate its nationals from badly affected areas of north-east Japan. Several international airlines said they would avoid Tokyo until they were certain the danger had passed. Lufthansa became the first European airline to announce its daily flights to Tokyo would switch to Osaka and Nagoya at least until the weekend, and Air China cancelled flights from Beijing and Shanghai. Taiwan’s EVA Airways said it would not fly to Tokyo and Sapporo for the rest of the month. British Airways and Virgin Atlantic said services to Narita and Haneda, Tokyo’s main airports, were not affected.

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  March 15 2011, 3:22pm | Comments »

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  Angela Merkel orders safety checks on Germany’s nuclear power stations

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/03/14/angela-merkel-orders-safety-checks-on-germanys-nuclear-power-stations

  The German chancellor, Angela Merkel is struggling in the polls with the Christian Democrat party facing defeats in regional election this month, and the earthquake in Japan has triggered yet more debate over Germany’s nuclear future.

  This article titled “Angela Merkel orders safety checks on Germany’s nuclear power stations” was written by Helen Pidd in Berlin, for The Guardian on Monday 14th March 2011 07.32 UTC Nuclear power has long been a touchy subject in Germany – protesters regularly lie down in front of trains carrying nuclear waste, and last year a television presenter offered to sleep with the president if he promised not to renew the country’s ageing power stations. It was inevitable, then, that the earthquake in Japan would trigger yet more debate over Germany’s nuclear future. Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Stuttgart this weekend to protest against Angela Merkel’s plans to extend the life of 17 German nuclear plants for an average 12 extra years – an event given extra bite following the crisis in Fukushima. After the demonstration, the chancellor appeared on TV to reassure voters that Germany’s power stations are safe. “The events in Japan are a critical moment for the world,” said Merkel on Saturday evening in Berlin. “Germany can’t just carry on as if nothing has happened,” she conceded, ordering immediate safety checks in all nuclear power stations. Merkel has had a terrible year so far, having lost her most popular minister in a plagiarism scandal and seen support for her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party halve in the Hamburg regional elections last month. Increased public anxiety over nuclear power is bad news for the CDU, which is facing a rough ride in four further regional elections this month. The party is still forecast to win next Sunday in the former east German state of Saxony-Anhalt, but pollsters predict a swing to the left as nuclear-fearing voters switch to the Greens or the Social Democrats (SPD). In that pocket of Germany, the real fight is between the far left and right. To the horror of many observers, the radical rightwing NPD is likely to get enough votes to send representatives to the regional parliament for the first time, while the Left party, popular with sympathisers of the old GDR regime, is looking at increasing its share of the vote to 25%. The NPD is accused of leading an openly racist campaign, handing out scaremongering leaflets warning that the state is at risk of being “flooded” with Eastern European immigrants. Its latest advert features a teary wife waving goodbye to her husband as he is forced to seek work in the West, with the regional NPD leader Matthias Heyder promising to “stop the invasion” and give local jobs to local people. In the south of Germany, politicians from the CDU’s sister party the CSU are also grappling with a question of whether to let a foreigner in – this time a Turkish-born Muslim who wants to join the Christian party. Mesut Karaüzüm, who is chairman of a mosque in Landshut, 47 miles (75km) north-east of Munich, has applied for CSU membership, despite the party’s new defence minister recently declaring that Islam “doesn’t belong” in Germany. The Turk says he shares the party’s views on family, community spirit and tradition. The head of Landhut’s CSU party told the Süddeutsche Zeitung on Saturday that he was “stunned” to receive Karaüzüm’s membership application. On April 2 the board will decide whether to admit him. While Bavaria grapples with religious cross-pollination, German commentators are trying to make sense of a BBC poll last week which voted Germany the world’s most respected nation. The World Service asked almost 29,000 people worldwide to rate the positive and negative influence of 16 leading countries and Germany came out top, with 62% of respondents rating its influence as positive. “It’s an astonishing result that no one would have predicted, least of all Germans themselves”, wrote Henryk M Broder in Die Welt Am Sonntag. “The news that they are liked is perplexing and hard to believe,” he said. What happened to the old image of the “nasty German familiar from books and films?” he asked. Many people will miss being the baddies, suggests Broder. “Was not it an adventure to go to Holland, where your tyres were slashed regularly? Wasn’t it great fun to put towels on sunbeds at 6am?” All this is in the past, he says. Today: “We are the Pope. We have won people’s hearts. We are Heidi Klum.”

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  March 14 2011, 6:38am | Comments »

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  Tsunami alert sparks evacuations from Hawaii to Easter Island

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/03/12/tsunami-alert-sparks-evacuations-from-hawaii-to-easter-island

  Luckily the tsunami didn’t wreak as much destruction over the entire pacific ocean as the earthquake that affected the Indian Ocean on Boxing Day 2004

  This article titled “Tsunami alert sparks evacuations from Hawaii to Easter Island” was written by Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent, for The Guardian on Friday 11th March 2011 19.39 UTC Visions of a seven-metre wall of water travelling at jet speeds generated evacuation orders across the vast expanse of the Pacific. From the low-lying atolls of Kiribati to Hawaii’s Waikiki beach, Chile’s Easter Island and even inland areas such as California’s Napa Valley, authorities on Friday scrambled to get their citizens out of harm’s way. Low-lying islands that were the first in the tsunami’s path – Kiribati, Tonga, Guam – ordered people to move 30 metres inland and look for refuge well above sea level. By the time the great wave roared past those islands, communities on the west coast of America were engaged in their own disaster preparations. Authorities warned that even though the first waves brought less destruction than feared to Guam and other areas, the Pacific rim was not out of danger. “Stay off the beach,” said US National Weather Service forecaster Diana Henderson. “It’s not just one wave, it’s a series that could last up to 12 hours.” The president reinforced the warning. “If people are told to evacuate, do as you are told,” Barack Obama told a press conference. Hawaii sounded warning sirens within an hour of the quake hitting Japan, sending people running from their homes in the dark to stock up with food and petrol. Pumps ran dry within hours. The US navy ordered all warships in Pearl Harbor to remain in port and ready to support rescue missions. People living in beach areas on Oahu and Kauai were ordered to leave their homes. In the Oahu resort area of Waikiki, tourists were moved to hotel rooms above the fourth floor. The authorities in Maui shut down water and sewage plants to prevent their contamination. Schools and government offices were closed. In coastal areas of Oregon, tsunami sirens went off at about 4am local time. Police and firefighters went door to door to warn residents to move to higher ground after an automated warning failed. Northern counties of California also ordered evacuations. Schools were closed, and police patrolled to keep surfers off the beach. In Crescent City, 35 boats were reported to have been crushed and the harbour area significantly damaged. In the San Francisco Bay area, roads were closed and trains and ferries cancelled, as well as flights to Japan. Officials told curiosity seekers to stay home, and went through parks moving homeless people away. The first landfall on the US Pacific coast on Friday morning left relatively limited damage. The tsunami hit at low tide – with waves of about a metre – and the authorities in Oregon initially compared the effect to a winter storm. “We’re looking at 4½ to 5ft [1.5 metres] so far,” said Don Kendall, the emergency co-ordinator for Oregon’s Curry County. “We’re in the middle of a low tide so it’s not hitting us as bad as it would have had we had high.” But there were sporadic reports of damaged piers and boats breaking free from their moorings. Authorities were also on alert for inland flooding as far away as California’s Napa Valley wine country. Canada, though officially outside the main danger zone, evacuated marinas, beaches and parks in British Columbia that lie below the high-tide mark. Mexico shuttered shops and closed roads in tourist resorts on the Baja California peninsula. Off Oaxaca, empty oil tankers were ordered out to sea. Chile, which was forecast to be hit on Friday evening, ordered residents on Easter Island to make for the island’s airport, which is on higher ground. Port officials in Valparaiso ordered ships to move out to sea. “This is a preventative alert,” said Chile’s president, Sebastian Pinera. “If there are any consequences from the earthquake and tsunamis that hit Japan, they would occur in the last hours of the day.”   Ecuador enacted emergency powers, giving the police and military control of the coast. On the Galápagos Islands, tourist ships set off for deeper waters and residents were told to head for higher ground. The Peruvian authorities were waiting until later in the day to issue evacuation orders for low-lying areas of Lima. But the potential dangers left some undaunted. Gabriel Aramburu, a professional surfer in Lima, told Reuters: “For there to be a tsunami the sea water has to suck out and pull back first. If that happens, we’ll paddle into shore and leave. But I’ve never seen the sea recede like that.”

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  March 11 2011, 7:02pm | Comments »

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  Nick Clegg under fire from his own party over NHS plans

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/03/09/nick-clegg-under-fire-from-his-own-party-over-nhs-plans

  Oh dear, is that nice Mr Clegg in a spot of bother again? What’s left of the lib-dems will have their say.

  This article titled “Nick Clegg under fire from his own party over NHS plans” was written by Patrick Wintour and Allegra Stratton, for The Guardian on Wednesday 9th March 2011 21.50 UTC The Liberal Democrat leadership has signalled a willingness to rethink its stance on some NHS changes – such as the extension of competition and the accountability of GP commissioning – if the party’s spring conference this weekend votes to rein in the shakeup. Norman Lamb, parliamentary adviser to Nick Clegg, said: “We listen to the concerns and take them back to government. This is the chance for the party to have its say. We are determined they will have their say.” Strong support has emerged for an amendment to a motion at this weekend’s conference, demanding that the NHS, rather than the private sector, should be the preferred provider in the health service. The amendment also calls for commissioning to remain a public function, “using the skills and expertise of existing NHS staff rather than subcontracting of commissioning to private companies”. It says commissioning should be made democratically accountable, and not conducted in private by GP commissioners, as proposed in the health bill. The amendment was tabled by Charles West, a health expert in the party, and the former MP Evan Harris, a doctor. It has the support of 133 conference representatives, as well as Graham Winyard, former deputy chief medical officer for England and medical director of the NHS. Winyard is the chair of Winchester Lib Dems. Lady Williams, the former leader of the Lib Dems in the Lords, is also supporting the amendment. An additional amendment has been tabled by the party’s policy committee vice-chair, Jeremy Hargreaves, calling for all local health bodies, including foundation trusts and GP commissioners, to be made accountable to local elected authorities. It calls for half of commissioning boards to include local councillors, a change that would deter some private sector firms. Party conference officials will decide tomorrow how to manage what is looking to be a controversial debate on Saturday. The Lib Dem health minister, Paul Burstow, is defending the reforms, saying they are designed to improve standards, increase choice and take clinical decisions closer to patients. He insists he will listen to the party’s concerns and take them back to his department. It is not yet clear whether a defeat for the party leadership at the weekend would result in Clegg asking Cameron to rethink or delay the reforms. Speaking at a pre-conference briefing, Lamb said: “As a party we are totally committed to the NHS. We want to ensure that we protect it. It does need to be reformed, the case for reforms is strong, but we will listen to the concerns and take them back into government. They [activists] now have the chance to influence – not dictate, but influence.” Ministers last week moved to address some concerns by making it clear that the government will not allow competition in the NHS based purely on price. It is understood that Clegg is concerned by the revolt, and even his allies admit there are few people in favour of the reforms as a whole. Burstow has been holding a series of telephone conferences with party members to explain the thinking behind the changes. David Cameron has conceded that the public does not yet understand the motives for the shakeup, which includes the abolition of primary care trusts and the handover of the commissioning of £80bn of services to GP consortiums. There have been hints emerging from the NHS commissioning board that the phasing in of GP commissioning could be delayed. There are concerns across the government that the reforms, due to start in April 2013, are being brought in at the same time as massive efficiency savings – £20bn over four years – are being sought.Some senior Liberal Democrats argue also added that the coalition tensions on the issue are manageable since the policy was not in the coalition agreement, so no coalition code of honour would be being broken by slowing the policies down.

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