U.S. once again cast as world’s consumer of last resort
As Europe cuts spending and China ramps up exports, the U.S. is being looked to by trade partners to once again consume. But with U.S. unemployment high and incomes flat, that may spell fresh trouble.
By Don Lee, Los Angeles Times
June 19, 2010 | 8:04 p.m.
Reporting from Washington – As Europe cuts spending and China again floods the globe with low-cost goods, Americans are once more being cast as the world’s consumers of last resort.With U.S. unemployment still near 10% and workers’ incomes largely flat, that may be a prescription for fresh trouble.
Although Europe’s debt crisis has quieted a bit and the economic rebound in the U.S. and other countries is projected to continue, sustained growth may depend on whether the global economy becomes more balanced, with trade deficits and debt loads shrinking.
The internet: Everything you ever need to know
In spite of all the answers the internet has given us, its full potential to transform our lives remains the great unknown. Here are the nine key steps to understanding the most powerful tool of our age – and where it’s taking us
John Naughton
The Observer, Sunday 20 June 2010
A funny thing happened to us on the way to the future. The internet went from being something exotic to being boring utility, like mains electricity or running water – and we never really noticed. So we wound up being totally dependent on a system about which we are terminally incurious. You think I exaggerate about the dependence? Well, just ask Estonia, one of the most internet-dependent countries on the planet, which in 2007 was more or less shut down for two weeks by a sustained attack on its network infrastructure.
USA
Cost of Seizing Fannie and Freddie Surges for Taxpayers
By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM
Published: June 19, 2010
CASA GRANDE, Ariz. – Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac took over a foreclosed home roughly every 90 seconds during the first three months of the year. They owned 163,828 houses at the end of March, a virtual city with more houses than Seattle. The mortgage finance companies, created by Congress to help Americans buy homes, have become two of the nation’s largest landlords.
Bill Bridwell, a real estate agent in the desert south of Phoenix, is among the thousands of agents hired nationwide by the companies to sell those foreclosures, recouping some of the money that borrowers failed to repay. In a good week, he sells 20 homes and Fannie sends another 20 listings his way.
Louisiana oystermen worry that BP payout won’t be enough
By Dana Hedgpeth
Sunday, June 20, 2010
PORT SULPHUR, LA. — It sounds like a bottomless gusher of money: a $20 billion fund to help make Gulf Coast residents and businesses whole. But here in the bayou, where rich oyster beds have provided livelihoods to many and brought wealth to a few, people worry just how far BP’s handouts will go.
“They may satisfy the shrimpers and crabbers, but for the oystermen, they don’t realize how much money it is going to take if this becomes a long-term effect,” said Mitchell Jurisich, 47, a third-generation Croatian American oysterman who’s done well for himself helping oversee a business that rakes the mollusks out of these brackish waters.
Europe
Teenager-repellent ‘mosquito’ must be banned, says Europe
Degrading and discriminatory’ device violates legislation prohibiting torture, according to investigation
Mark Townsend, home affairs editor
The Observer, Sunday 20 June 2010
A device that uses high-frequency sound to disperse teenage gangs is illegal under human rights law and is “degrading and discriminatory” to youngsters, a report this week claims.An investigation by the Council of Europe found that the controversial “mosquito” device should be banned from Britain immediately because it violates legislation prohibiting torture. It found that “inflicting acoustic pain on young people and treating them as if they were unwanted birds or pests, is harmful [and] highly offensive.”
The report also expressed concern that its use could constitute a “health hazard” and lacked adequate medical research.
Poles pick successor to President killed in crash
AP Sunday, 20 June 2010
More than two months after Poland’s president was killed in a plane crash, Poles are voting today to choose his successor – and polls show that his surviving twin brother faces an uphill battle in defeating the favourite despite a recent surge in sympathy for him.The outcome is expected to shape the European Union member’s stance on issues such as the adoption of the euro, welfare reform and Poland’s mission in Afghanistan.
Poland is the only European Union country to have avoided recession during the global economic downturn. The election will also determine how it fares amid the new debt crisis.
Middle East
For the love of Neda: Iran angered by new film
A year after footage of Neda Agha-Soltan’s death in Tehran shocked the world, her mother tells Emily Dugan why she won’t be cowed by threats
Sunday, 20 June 2010
In death, Neda Agha-Soltan is the tragic symbol of Iran’s struggle for democracy. Her dying moments, after being shot in the chest a year ago in the protests that followed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s disputed election victory, were captured by onlookers on their mobile phones. That scene in a Tehran street, as fellow protesters struggled to help her, quickly went viral, spreading via computer screens across the world.
Scores of people were killed during the post-election protests but the raw, undimmed power of the 26-year-old music student’s death at the hands of the Basij, Iranian government paramilitaries, gave opposition groups in Iran their most potent martyr.
Turkey’s PM Erdogan vows to ‘annihilate’ PKK rebels
Turkey has vowed to fight Kurdish rebels until they are “annihilated”, after attacks killed 11 soldiers.
The BBC Sunday, 20 June 2010
PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Saturday’s “cowardly” assaults would not end Turkey’s determination to fight the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) “to the end”.The army said it had retaliated with a helicopter attack that killed at least 12 rebels.
There has been a sharp increase in the number of recent clashes with the PKK.
On Friday the Turkish military said it had killed about 120 Kurdish rebels since March, while 43 members of the Turkish security forces had also died.
Asia
In Pakistan’s tribal zone, a ruthless war against the Taliban has driven more than a million from their homes
The Pakistani army boasts it is winning the fight against Islamic militants, but campaigners say progress is coming at a terrible cost
Declan Walsh in Bajaur
The Observer, Sunday 20 June 2010
Pakistani soldiers led the way into the long, cool cave that curled through the hillside, its clammy walls bearing the scrape marks of crude digging tools.Torchlight illuminated a pile of abandoned clothes. Until six months ago these caves in Bajaur, at the northern end of the tribal belt, were home to Taliban and al-Qaida fighters hiding from CIA drones circling overhead, said Lieutenant-Colonel Asif Jamil. “Uzbeks, Chechens, local Talibs,” he said, squinting in the faint light. “They dug 35 caves in this area. We’ve destroyed most of them.”
Kyrgyzstan bloodshed: Princeling Maxim Bakiyev and the alleged phone conversation
Kyrgyz officials single out the son of the deposed president to blame for this week’s bloodletting in the central Asian nation.
By Nick Meo and Richard Orange in Bishkek
Published: 7:00AM BST 20 Jun 2010
It was a chilling insight into the planning of a massacre which came, allegedly, from the lips of the man accused of this week’s bloodshed in Kyrgyzstan.
Thousands of ordinary Kyrgyz believe they know the identity of the voice they have heard in a recorded telephone conversation talking about recruiting “500 bastards”: Maxim Bakiyev, 33, the “princeling” son and heir apparent of deposed former president Kurmanbek Bakiyev, 60.
Many of his father’s former subjects are convinced that the younger Bakiyev was recruiting in preparation for an outbreak of ethnic bloodshed that has brought the Central Asian nation to the brink of civil war.
Africa
What a difference FIFA makes
By Francis Daniels
June 20, 2010 01:33AMT
Siphiwe Tshabalala’s opening goal in the 54th minute of the South Africa-Mexico game on June 11th confirmed Bafana Bafana’s right to participate in the 2010 World Cup final. That Mexico forced a 1-1 draw did not dissolve the delight of South Africa’s team from showing that it could play confidently in this tournament, against the odds! Just like South Africa itself.From 2004, it has battled a rising tide of criticism, scorn, and doubt about its ability to host this Cup. Critics and skeptics expressed four concerns: South Africa would not complete its stadia on schedule; it would not be able to arrange transport to the stadia for the numerous fans; fans would sink into a swamp of crime; and it had no business hosting the World Cup while a majority of South Africans continued to wallow in poverty.