US moves warships to track North Korea rocket launch

North Korea launched a rocket in April but it failed after only a few minutes

The US is moving navy ships into position to track a North Korean rocket due to launch later this month.

The warships were moved to achieve "the best situational awareness", the US military chief in the region said.

Japan's government, meanwhile, has formally issued an order to its military to shoot down any rocket debris that infringes on its territory. 

Fiscal Cliff Talks Turn Into a Game of Chicken

By ERIC PIANIN, The Fiscal Times

November 30, 2012

 

 

The critical negotiations over a way to avoid the fiscal cliff are fast turning into a game of chicken.

Shedding his optimistic disposition, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, summoned reporters Thursday afternoon to declare it was time that President Obama and the Democrats revealed how they intended to cut spending and slow the rate of growth of Medicare and other costly entitlements as part of a Grand Bargain of deficit reduction.

“I’ve got to tell you, I’m disappointed in where we are and what has happened in the last couple of weeks,” Boehner said.

Inequality Breeds Resistance to Globalization

Don’t blame globalization for inequality – but rather policies hijacked by a few

Pranab Bardhan

YaleGlobal, 27 November 2012

Rich economy, poor management: China’s rich flaunt their wealth (top); India’s poor children wait for a mid-day meal

BERKELEY: Economic globalization in the sense of expansion of foreign trade and investment is, of course, somewhat anemic, reflecting the impact of global recession, although still vigorous in the sense of continuous international transmission of technology, information, ideas and social media.

But in the world of politics and policymaking a cold wind is blowing, dimming earlier enthusiasm for global integration and market liberalization. The Doha round of trade negotiations is moribund. Economic integration in Europe is in disarray. Not merely is the fuming against imports from China and immigrants from Mexico now a staple of American electoral politics, the populist anger in all countries, rich or poor, against the galloping rise in inequality is often directed at the dark forces of global intrusion and competition.

Tobacco companies ordered to admit they lied over smoking danger

Reuters in Washington guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 28 November 2012 04.59 GMT

US judge says tobacco firms must spend their own money on a public campaign admitting deception about the risks of smoking

The public advertisements are to be published in various media for as long as two years. Photograph: Alex Segre/Alamy

 

Major tobacco companies who spent decades denying they lied to the US public about the dangers of cigarettes must spend their own money on a public advertising campaign saying they did lie, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday. 

The ruling sets out what might be the harshest sanction to come out of a historic case that the justice department brought in 1999 accusing the tobacco companies of racketeering.

Xi feels threat of a China Spring

By Brendan O'Reilly

Recent statements from China's new leadership suggest a growing awareness of serious economic and political problems. The era of relative political stability garnered through rapid economic growth may be coming to an end. A rising tide lifts all boats, but structural problems in the world's second largest economy have the potential to dam the flow of increasing prosperity. Concrete reforms must accompany the promising slogans if the Communist Party is to maintain its monopoly on political power.

Fiscal Cliff Talks Sure to Rattle Wall Street Nerves

By RODRIGO CAMPOS, Reuters

November 24, 2012

 

Volatility is the name of this game.
With the S&P 500 above 1,400 following five days of gains, traders will be hard pressed not to cash in on the advance at the first sign of trouble during negotiations over tax hikes and spending cuts that resume next week in Washington. President Barack Obama and U.S. congressional leaders are expected to discuss ways to reduce the budget deficit and avoid the "fiscal cliff" of automatic tax increases and spending cuts in 2013 that could tip the economy into recession.

How Big Banks Can Spread Bigger Financial Ills

By The Staff of FUTURITY.ORG, Futurity.org

November 25, 2012

 

Looking at large national and international banks in terms of ecosystem stability and contagion models reveals that their influence and potential power for destruction far exceeds their actual size.

Pilotless aircraft

This is your ground pilot speaking

Autonomous civil aircraft could be flying before cars go driverless

Nov 24th 2012 | from the print edition 

WITHIN the next few weeks a twin-engined Jetstream will take off from Warton Aerodrome in Lancashire, England, and head north towards Scotland. Like any other flight, the small commuter airliner will respond to instructions from air-traffic controllers, navigate a path and take care to avoid other aircraft. But the pilot flying the aircraft will not be in the cockpit: he will have his feet firmly on the ground in a control room back at Warton.

The urge to smurf

When government gets greedy, some people turn to crime

Nov 24th 2012 | RICHMOND | from the print edition

THE busy interstate highway that zips through Richmond, Virginia, and up to the crowded cities of the north-east has long been a conduit for handguns bought wholesale in Virginia and sold to drug-dealers in New York. Now I-95 is siphoning northwards another form of contraband: black-market cigarettes.

Why President Barack Obama should not visit Russia.

BY LEON ARON | NOVEMBER 20, 2012

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced last week that President Vladimir Putin had called to congratulate Barack Obama on his reelection and claimed that the American president accepted an invitation from Putin to come to Russia. Obama's plans, which have not yet been publicly announced, seem truly puzzling.

Five economic trends to be thankful for

Posted by Neil Irwin on November 21, 2012 at 10:24 am

There is a dirty little secret about economics writing. The thing that offers the surest path to glory — to front page play for a story, to lots of Web traffic, to a pat on the back from editors — is doom and gloom. When we can point out something that is awful, whether it is a collapsing job market or rising poverty or skyrocketing gasoline prices, the world seems a whole lot more interested in what we have to say. It’s not for nothing they call economics the dismal science.

Would a carbon tax cut emissions drastically? Not on its own

Posted by Brad Plumer on November 20, 2012 at 3:16 pm

Nothing to see here, just a good old-fashioned all-American carbon tax. (Ben Margot/Associated Press)

Lately, the White House and Congress have been talking up tax reform. And that’s given policy wonks an excuse to revisit one of their favorite environmental proposals — the carbon tax. The government would slap a fee on greenhouse-gas emissions to offset tax cuts elsewhere. It would boost the economy and address global warming. What’s not to love?

Market access in global and regional trade

José de Sousa, Thierry Mayer, Soledad Zignago , 20 November 2012

Do trade costs still matter in a modern era characterised by a fall in transaction costs? This column argues that there is a dearth of good analysis in the debate around market access difficulties. Complaining about restrictions in accessing foreign markets is political leaders’ current favourite hobby yet. In light of stalled WTO negotiations, shouldn’t rigour, not rhetoric, lead this debate?

Deadly oil rig explosion puts spotlight back on embattled Gulf drillers

An oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico Friday, reportedly killing at least two. The accident hits an industry trying to improve on safety in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

By Patrik Jonsson, Staff writer / November 16, 2012 

An offshore oil platform burns in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana Friday.

KLFY TV10/REUTERS 

In Pictures: Big Environmental Disasters

Atlanta

A day after BP agreed to pay a record $4.5 billion criminal fine for its role in the deadly Deepwater Horizon environmental disaster in 2010, another Gulf of Mexico oil rig exploded, killing at least two workers and injuring as many as 11 on Friday.

While early reports are downplaying the potential for another major environmental disaster, the deadly accident came as the Gulf oil industry tries to shore up a safety record that came under deep scrutiny in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon explosion, which killed 11 workers and resulted in some five million barrels of oil escaping into the Gulf from a broken wellhead.

The explosion and ensuing fire on Friday happened on a permanent oil pumping rig owned by independent driller Black Elk Energy around 10 a.m. Eastern time as workers were using cutting torches to split some pipe on the oil rig.

IN PICTURES: Big environmental disasters

Early indications showed some oil had escaped from the platform, but Coast Guard officials said it was not “a major oil spill response” and that no oil was leaking from the rig. “It’s not going to be an uncontrolled discharge from everything we’re getting right now,” said Coast Guard Capt. Ed Cubanski.

The rig is located about 36 miles south of Port Fourchon, La. By afternoon, the main fire on the rig had been extinguished and the Coast Guard had begun its oil-spill response as reports indicated that a half-mile long, 200-yard wide sheen had developed on the water near the stricken platform.

In April 2010, the Deepwater Horizon capsized and sank after firefighting boats failed to get control of the blaze. On Thursday, BP, the company that had leased the rig, pleaded guilty to charges related to the workers’ deaths and accepted a deal that would put two monitors in charge of assessing the company’s safety processes for the next five years.

Unlike the Deepwater Horizon, which was a deep water exploratory rig, the Black Elk rig is a shallow water platform pumping from a permanent wellhead. The rig was not producing oil on Friday, but workers were performing maintenance. After the explosion, two people were confirmed dead, two were still missing, and 11 were injured, four seriously.

“West Delta Block 32 – our thoughts and prayers are with those who are impacted,” the Black Elk Energy website said in large letters Friday afternoon. “We have Black Elk personnel on the scene and en route.”

While the Deepwater Horizon leak brought unprecedented scrutiny to the oil industry’s safety procedures in the Gulf, Friday’s accident is part of a legacy of danger endured by the nation’s oil workers.

Between 2001 and 2010, the US government documented 69 offshore deaths, 1,349 injuries and 858 fires and explosions on offshore rigs situated in the Gulf of Mexico.

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