Docudharma Times Friday April 9

Big-business Brazil taps into its young entrepreneurs

Brazil, a country familiar with big business is now nurturing a growing network of small business incubators, tapping universities for young entrepreneurs with a start-up spirit.

By Sara Miller Llana, Staff writer

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

The Genesis Institute in Rio de Janeiro looks nothing like the high-tech offices that grew amid the boom in Silicon Valley.

But this incubator, where about two dozen start-ups are divided into tiny offices with shared bathrooms down the hall, has helped young entrepreneurs create operational software for bus companies, new equipment for maintaining oil and gas pipelines, and robotics technology to measure environmental damage associated with petroleum exploration.

In doing so, the Genesis Institute is helping to grow a new class of technological entrepreneurs in Brazil.

World Bank’s $3.75bn coal plant loan defies environment criticism  

US, Britain, the Netherlands, Italy and Norway abstain from vote in protest

Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent

The Guardian, Friday 9 April 2010

The World Bank approved a controversial $3.75bn loan to build one of the world’s largest coal plants in South Africa yesterday, defying international protests and sharp criticism from the Obama administration that the project would fuel climate change.

The proposed Medupi station, operated by South Africa’s state-owned Eskom company, was fiercely opposed by an international coalition of grassroots, church and environmental activists who said it would hurt the environment and do little to help end poverty. As planned, tIt would put out 25m tonnes of carbon dioxide a year and would prevent South Africa making good on a promise to try to curb future emissions.

USA

Toyota response to complaints takes on a confrontational tone

Special teams are sent to investigate, and sometimes discredit, reported problems.

By Ralph Vartabedian and Ken Bensinger

April 8, 2010 | 9:22 p.m.

When its customers claim their Toyota or Lexus vehicles suddenly accelerate, the company is at the ready with teams of technicians that it can deploy rapidly to examine the reports — and in some cases discredit them.

The teams, dubbed SMART for “swift market analysis and research team,” were publicly unveiled by Toyota on Thursday, but have been deployed at least seven times in the last month.

Mine Operator Escaped Extra Oversight After Warning



By MICHAEL COOPER and IAN URBINA

Published: April 9, 2010

The operator of the West Virginia mine that exploded on Monday, killing at least 25 people, was warned by federal officials just over two years ago that it could be cited for having a “pattern of violations,” which would have allowed far stricter federal oversight of the mine. But the mine escaped the stepped-up enforcement even though it continued to amass violations, federal records show.

Search teams re-entered the Upper Big Branch mine early Friday to resume the search for four missing miners, news reports said. The searchers wore oxygen masks to guard against lethal gases that have stymied their efforts in recent days.

Europe

New German motorway threatens prime riesling region

British wine critics have united in opposition to the construction of a four-lane motorway through the heart of Germany’s riesling-growing region.

Published: 7:00AM BST 09 Apr 2010

Hugh Johnson, author of The World Atlas of Wine, and Jancis Robinson, who have helped raise riesling’s international profile, have called on German politicians to stop building at the Mosel river site.

They claim the new autobahn will destroy the area’s unique microclimate and threaten the future of vineyards including Wehlen, Graach, Bernkastel and Zeltingen, the Guardian reports.

However, work on the road, and a bridge over the Mosel that will connect two mountain ranges, has already begun.

Robinson told the Guardian that the project threatened “one of the wine world’s very few unique wines”.

ECB chief reassures markets as Greek debt crisis worsens

The markets delivered a harsh blow to Greece and lending costs reached a record high as lenders fear Athens may default on its loans. But the head of the European Central Bank says that’s not going to happen.

FINANCE | 09.04.2010

Greek bonds and banking stocks took a massive hit on Thursday, driving the debt-stricken eurozone member’s borrowing costs to the highest level since Greece adopted the euro currency.

However, the debt-wracked nation continues to insist it will not avail itself of a safety net held out by the European Union and International Monetary Fund unless it is truly necessary.

“For the time being it is not necessary to activate the aid mechanism,” said Greek government spokesman George Petalotis.

Middle East

New Start to rein in Iran’s ambitions

 The nuclear treaty signed by Obama and Medvedev undercuts Iranian efforts to drive a wedge between Russia and the west

Max Bergmann, Samuel Charap and Peter Juul

guardian.co.uk, Friday 9 April 2010 00.03 BST  

New Start, the landmark arms control treaty that US president Barack Obama and Russian president Dmitry Medvedev signed in Prague, represents the biggest payoff so far of Obama’s reset of US-Russia relations. Lower limits for deployed nuclear warheads and delivery systems and especially the modernisation of the verification and monitoring regime contained in the original strategic arms reduction treaty (Start) are major achievements in their own right and a sign of the improved ties between Moscow and Washington.

But the renewed commitment to arms control by the US and Russia could also bolster the international diplomacy aimed at preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Gaza’s economy kept alive by tunnel vision of the smugglers

From The Times

April 9, 2010

James Hider, Rafah  

Almost 100 feet underground, close to Egypt’s border with the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian smuggler unloads a crude plastic trolley piled with carpets and car engines. He hooks them to a winch and the goods, contraband bound for Rafah and Gaza City, are whisked up through a vertical shaft.

Under pressure from Israel and the United States, Egypt has sunk metal pipes and sheets up to 100ft deep in an effort to block the tunnels – the arteries that keep the blockaded Palestinian enclave supplied with everything from cars to children’s marbles.

Asia

Anyone for headless goat rugby…?

Genghis Khan’s favourite sport is huge in Afghanistan, and if its fans have their way could soon be coming to Britain

By Julius Cavendish in Mazar-e-Sharif  Friday, 9 April 2010

A sport best described as “mounted goat rugby from hell” could soon be transported from northern Afghanistan’s dusty plains to the green turf of Twickenham, or even New York’s Yankee Stadium, if enthusiasts have their way. Buzkashi, a game supposedly devised by Genghis Khan, pits men and horses against each other in a ferocious struggle for possession of a headless goat. Now the director of buzkashi at Afghanistan’s Olympic committee thinks it is time to unleash this spectacle on the world.

Haji Abdul Rashid is looking for a Western partner to promote the sport overseas. “We want the people of Europe and America to see our game and learn to play it,” he said. “So we are looking for a company to help us show our game.”

A looter hit me as anarchy reigned on the streets of Bishkek

From Times Online

April 8, 2010

 Tony Halpin, Bishkek

Two punches to the head landed in swift succession, punctuated by an accusation that The Times correspondent was a Russian spy. The young looter, eyes cold, impervious to reason, aimed another blow before attempting to deprive me of my gold wedding ring.

A crowd broke off from ransacking offices inside Kyrgyzstan’s devastated government building to assess the confrontation in a sixth-floor hallway, its air soured by smoke from a fire. Tense moments passed before opinion tipped against the rioter, who was bundled away ranting expletives.

Africa

African fossils hailed as the ‘Rosetta Stone of humanity’

Skeletons reveal ancestor that walked on two legs but could also live in the trees  

By Steve Connor, Science Editor Friday, 9 April 2010

A remarkably well preserved series of fossilised skeletons have been unearthed from a cave in South Africa and identified as a new ancestral species of ape-like hominid that could have been the direct ancestor of humans.

The species lived about 1.9 million years ago, walked on two legs and shared many other human features, but it also retained clear ape-like traits such as very long arms which showed that it had not yet made the complete transition from a life in the trees.