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2010-03-12Recession Is Fueling A Boom In Insurance FraudKiller App - Drones Are Lynchpin In Obama's War On TerrorInterview With A U.S. Drone Pilot - 'It's by far nowhere near a video game'Interview With Defense Expert P.W. Singer - 'The Soldiers Call It War Porn' Sarkozy's Crisis - A Weary French President Battens Down The Hatches For Tough Regional ElectionsU.S. Firms Working To Lower Cost Of Solar EnergyGermany's Catholic Private School Abuse Scandal - 'The Church Is Not A Criminal Organization' German Church Leader Meets Pope To Address ScandalTwo Suicide Attacks Hit Pakistan Military SitesWall Street Again Struggles To Find A FootingChina Warns Google Again After C.E.O.'s Remarks2010-03-11Taking On The Internet Giants - Germany Applies The Brakes To Google And Co.Radiation Exposure As Australian Warship Is Zapped By Friendly 'Fire' Countdown On The Baltic Sea - Will Baby Herring And Conservationists Delay Russia-Germany PipelineThe Eichman Files - Classified Documents Could Be Released After 50 YearsUnease In Mideast As Biden Ends Israel TripCommentary: Middle East Peace Is A Story Of Missed OpportunitiesCanada's Alberta Province Rolls Back Oil, Gas Royalties To Lure Back InvestmentBP, Devon To Spend U.S. $7 Billion To Develop Canadian Oil Sands ProjectAftershocks Rattle Chile InaugurationMaliki Holds Edge In Iraq Election, But Results Are ChallengedWaiting For The Rain - Haiti's Next Disaster LoomsBritish High Court Victory Gives Pink Floyd The Right To Stop EMI Singles SalesDisease Cause Is Pinpointed With Genome2010-03-10Finally, A Bipartisan Vote As U.S. Senate Passes Jobs MeasureNuclear Disarmament - The Missile Shield Deadlock Between The U.S. And RussiaU.S. House Leaders Bar 'Earmarks' To For-Profit CompaniesThough Jobless Rates Rose, 31 U.S. States Added Jobs In JanuaryCanada's Budget Deep Freeze Will Lead To End Of Climate Research LabCommentary: 'Europeans Shouldn't Be Pointing Their Fingers At Washington'Feedjit Live Website Statistics Recession Is Fueling A Boom In Insurance Fraud Posted By: Intellpuke 2010-03-12 15:14:43(2 hours ago) [Read 75 times || 0 comments]
The sour economy is producing a bumper crop of cash-strapped
consumers, business owners and shady agents who're fueling a wave of
insurance fraud that's keeping regulators and law enforcement officials
busy from coast to coast.
Whether it's worthless health plans peddled by fax, staged auto
accidents, arson or slip-and-fall accidents at the local mall,
insurance fraud of all kinds is booming in the recession and consumers
are paying the price in higher premiums.
To keep it in perspective, roughly 48 million insurance claims
are made each year in the U.S. and less than one-quarter of 1 percent
are referred to the non-profit National Insurance Crime Bureau for
investigation of possible fraud.
Last year, that amounted to just more than 85,000 questionable
claims. That was up 14 percent from nearly 75,000 in 2008, however.
A recent survey of 37 state insurance-fraud bureaus by the
Coalition Against Insurance Fraud found that the recession "appears to
have had a significant impact on the incidence of fraud" last year. On
average, the bureaus reported increases in case referrals and new
investigations in all 15 categories of fraud the survey covers.
Continue Reading Story Interview With A U.S. Drone Pilot - 'It's by far nowhere near a video game' Posted By: Intellpuke 2010-03-12 15:14:25(2 hours ago) [Read 64 times || 0 comments]
U.S. Major Bryan Callahan is a pilot. But while he
sits in front of a monitor in America, his plane is flying over
Afghanistan. In an interview with Spiegel Online, he speaks about what
flying drones is like, the difficulties of waging war in shifts and the
daily stresses of his job.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Major Callahan, you started out flying F-16 jets.
Now you are flying remote controlled drones - also known as RPAs. What
are the differences?
Major Bryan Callahan: The first big difference is to get your
brain around the fact that you drop yourself into an airplane that's
already airborne and on target on the other side of the world. Then you
fly that for a period of time, and then you just hand it over to someone
else. Before, when you're flying a regular plane, you go in, you do
your briefing, you walk out the door, you go up, you exercise your
mission, you land and you debrief. Now you walk into work, and you
essentially tap a guy on the shoulder, get a quick lowdown about what's
going on and then continue the flight, and then a few hours later
someone else will tap you on the shoulder and relieve you. It's very
different. It takes a little while to get used to.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Is it harder or easier?
Callahan: In some ways it's harder, in some ways it's easier. If
you fly an F-16, it's a high-performance airplane, and you're
responsible for a lot of different weapons and sensors. You fly, and an
hour later you come back. It is a very finite execution. With an RPA,
you may very well be working that operation for weeks. It takes a lot of
coordination, there are a lot of other agencies involved that I had
never dealt with before. It's very much more networked. An RPA is not
nearly as high-performance, as robust, and when you're trying to fly
that from the other side of the world with a little bit of delay, you
can't just look out the window. That can get challenging, mentally.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: And afterwards you just drive home.
Callahan: In the morning you carpool or you take a bus and drive
into work, you operate for an eight-hour shift, and then you drive back
home.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Is it not difficult to switch back and forth from
war to civilian life every day?
Continue Reading Story Sarkozy's Crisis - A Weary French President Battens Down The Hatches For Tough Regional Elections Posted By: Intellpuke 2010-03-12 15:13:56(2 hours ago) [Read 101 times || 0 comments]
He's unpopular, he's isolated and he has made
enemies within his own party. President Nicolas Sarkozy is having
trouble finding any success. Regional elections across the country
threaten to turn into a debacle for the French leader's conservative UMP
party.
The presidential trips to the far flung corners of his nation are
part of the Nicolas Sarkozy's plan: Whether it be industry, arts,
culture or science, the French leader likes to find the appropriate
backdrop to announce reforms, new programs and plans of action. Last
Sunday, he announced new subsidies for farmers inside a stable at an
agricultural fair. Employment and job training were themes introduced in
the district of Doubs in eastern France.
The presidential appearance at the round table is supposed to symbolize
Sarkozy's close connection with the French people. "I am happy to be
here," said Sarkozy, praising the region of Franche-Comte (which
includes the district of Doubs) as "the most important industrial region
of France." But even though the president's visit was carefully staged
and took place in front of a well-mannered, welcoming crowd, the
lightning visit to the city of Pontarlier, in Doubs, didn't exactly come
across as an exercise in statesmanship. Instead of being perceived as
victorious, Sarkozy appeared to be both overly sensitive and aggressive.
Continue Reading Story Germany's Catholic Private School Abuse Scandal - 'The Church Is Not A Criminal Organization' Posted By: Intellpuke 2010-03-12 15:13:26(2 hours ago) [Read 38 times || 0 comments]
Accusations of abuse have been reported in 20 of
27 German Catholic dioceses. Has abuse of children become systematic? In
a Spiegel Online interview, Johannes Siebner, director of the College
St. Blasien, discusses failures of the Church in dealing with the
victims.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Father Siebner, after years of silence, numerous
victims of abuse at Catholic schools and institutions are now taking the
risk of speaking publicly about their experiences. Accusations have now
been registered in 20 of the 27 German dioceses. Can one still speak of
regrettable, isolated incidents, as some Church representatives
continue to do?
Johannes Siebner: Behind each individual case there's an
individual fate. That's why we must speak of individual cases, in order
to be fair to the individual victims. At the same time, we must examine
whether there is a system behind these individual fates, or a systematic
or systemic culture of looking the other way and willful ignorance in
our institutions.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: So is the abuse systematic?
Siebner: The Catholic Church is not a criminal organization.
Anyone who claims that is going too far. The fact that the victims were
children is attributable to the location and time of the crime as well
as to specific priests or their bosses - as is the fact that their pain
and injuries weren't seen and people looked away. But there doesn't
appear to be any connection or agreements between the perpetrators - at
least not in the cases at the Canisius school in Berlin or ours in St.
Blasien. But to only speak of individual cases would trivialize the
issue. The victims don't see themselves merely as victims of individual
perpetrators.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: So we are discussing an atmosphere that fostered
abuse. Psychologists say that the intimate environment of a boarding
school, combined with the closed-off world of the Church, can cause
these things to happen more easily. Do you think that's correct?
Siebner: Is it really that simple? Your question is suggestive.
The incidents at St. Blasien happened during normal school operations
and weren't necessarily connected to our boarding school. I don't have
any statistics and I am no expert, but my impression is that there is a
danger in boarding schools because relationships can have a hermetic
element to them, because team spirit can be a temptation and because the
role of the educators is constructed as - and must be - one where
absolute trust is placed in staff. But none of that is an argument
against boarding schools, in the same way that it is not an argument
against the institution of parenting.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: The abuse is often played down - most recently
by Austrian auxiliary bishop Andreas Laun of Salzburg, who told a German
talk show host that similar cases happen in Protestant schools. Others
have made the argument that abuse has also been perpetrated in groups
like the Boy Scouts and athletics clubs as well as within the family …
Siebner: I don't pay attention to everything that is said,
broadcast or published. But I am sad and skeptical when someone is
successful in playing this down or distancing themselves from it. This
negatively influences attitudes towards the victims. It also makes it
more difficult to see things from the victims' perspective.
Continue Reading Story Two Suicide Attacks Hit Pakistan Military Sites Posted By: Intellpuke 2010-03-12 15:12:56(2 hours ago) [Read 66 times || 0 comments]
Two suicide bomb attacks struck in quick succession at an army convoy
patrolling a busy market in a heavily guarded, army-controlled area
on Friday, the second deadly assault on Lahore in less than a week.
The Pakistani Army sent reinforcements to the area, which connects the
city with the airport and a military residential area. Soldiers cordoned
it off, barring reporters from entering. Army helicopters hovered
overhead and the wounded were transported to an army hospital.
Several smaller, non-fatal blasts occurred in other parts of the city,
sowing panic and prompting markets to close down. A police officer,
Sohail Sukhera, said the city, in the Pakistani heartland, was “in a
state of war.” At least 43 people were killed and more than 100
wounded. Officials said that 10 to 12 of the dead were Pakistani
soldiers.
Days earlier, a suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden truck into
the main gate of a safe house in Lahore used for interrogation by the
Pakistani military. The explosion killed at least 15 people, including
guards, and flattened the building.
Lahore is the biggest city in of Punjab, Pakistan’s
most populous province. The attacks here this week seemed a direct
challenge to the authority and effectiveness of the military, which
recruits heavily in Punjab and has sought to move against militants in
recent months in Pakistan’s mountainous and often lawless areas near the
border with Afghanistan.
Continue Reading Story China Warns Google Again After C.E.O.'s Remarks Posted By: Intellpuke 2010-03-12 15:12:36(2 hours ago) [Read 44 times || 0 comments]
One of China’s
top Internet regulators warned bluntly on Friday that any move by Google to stop censoring its Chinese search engine would be “irresponsible” and
would draw a response from the Beijing government.
The statement by Li Yizhong, China’s minister of industry and
information technology, followed a statement on Wednesday by Google’s
chief executive officer, Eric Schmidt, that “something will happen soon”
in the two-month standoff over Internet censorship between his firm and
the Chinese government.
But it was no more clear on Friday what that something might be than it
was two months ago, when Google executives first threatened to pull out
of China unless the government stopped forcing it to censor the results
of users’ Internet searches.
Chinese journalists gathered outside Google’s Beijing offices on Friday
said they had heard the company was planning to close its doors here.
But a Google spokeswoman denied that in a Thursday article in the
government-run English-language newspaper, China Daily.
Google’s China businesses “are still at normal,” and rumors that the
company had ordered its Chinese advertising agencies to cease work were
not true, the spokeswoman, Marsha Wang, told the newspaper. At Google’s
headquarters in Mountain View, California, another spokeswoman, Jill
Hazelbaker, declined to comment on the statements from Li or any
other aspect of its dispute with China.
Continue Reading Story Radiation Exposure As Australian Warship Is Zapped By Friendly 'Fire' Posted By: Intellpuke 2010-03-11 18:08:44(23 hours ago) [Read 121 times || 0 comments]
Up to 60 sailors aboard the Royal Australia Navy ship HMAS Sirius
have been exposed to radiation after another warship accidentally
locked its powerful air warning radar onto the Navy tanker off
Australia's New South Wales coast.
Australia's Defense Ministry says the radiation levels were not significant enough to
pose a health risk to the crew, despite the fact the sweep of the radar
on to HMAS Sirius set off a fire alarm and knocked out communications
equipment. The incident occurred off the NSW south coast last Friday,
when the Sirius was transferring fuel and water to the Anzac frigate
HMAS Warramunga.
"During this activity, when the ships were
around 55m apart and traveling parallel to each other, Warramunga's
long-range air warning radar was active, thereby inadvertently causing
about 1-2 minutes of radar sweep across Sirius," said a Defense spokesman.
"This was because the radar was incorrectly 'blanked' to
the wrong side. This is outside normal operating procedure and the
radar was put into standby mode as soon as the error was realized."
Sources say the radar caused a fire siren on Sirius to sound and
communications equipment to fail. It unnerved the 60-strong crew, many
of whom reported to the ship's medical officer to ask whether the
accident posed health risks.
Continue Reading Story The Eichman Files - Classified Documents Could Be Released After 50 Years Posted By: Intellpuke 2010-03-11 18:08:09(23 hours ago) [Read 182 times || 0 comments]
Fifty years after Nazi war criminal Adolf
Eichmann's arrest by the Israeli Mossad in Argentina, basic details
about his 15 years as a fugitive remain a government secret. The files
kept by Germany's foreign intelligence agency, the BND, remain
classified today - allegedly for reasons of national security. A
German journalist is now suing in a federal court for the release of
the files.
Fifty years have passed since Adolf Eichmann's arrest, but the
German foreign intelligence agency, the BND, is still hoping to prevent
the release of files detailing his post-war movements. A Federal
Administrative Court in Leipzig is currently examining almost 4,500
pages of secret documents on Eichmann, a leading architect of Hitler's
plans to murder Europe's Jews. The court is soon expected to rule
whether the BND's justifications for concealing the files are still
applicable and in line with the country's freedom of information laws.
The court is using closed "in camera" proceedings in which the three
judges considering the case are the only people with access to the
files.
"What's especially interesting is the sheer amount of paperwork that
the government is concealing," says lawyer Remo Clinger, whose law firm
Geulen & Klinger is representing German journalist Gabriele Weber
in her case before the Leipzig court.
According to paperwork filed with the court, the BND maintains that
secrecy is necessary because much of the information contained in the
files was provided by an unnamed "foreign intelligence service." If the
information were released, the BND argues, it would deter other nations
from sharing intelligence with Germany in the future. "It would
adversely affect future cooperations between foreign intelligence
services and German security agencies," the agency's lawyers argue. The
fact that the files are classified has prompted considerable
speculation over the origins of the intelligence. The BND has clarified
that the intelligence did not come from an American source, and it is
widely assumed that it came from Israel's Mossad, whose agents captured
Eichmann in Buenos Aires in 1960. He was subsequently brought to trial
in Israel, where he was convicted and hanged.
Continue Reading Story Commentary: Middle East Peace Is A Story Of Missed Opportunities Posted By: Intellpuke 2010-03-11 18:07:42(23 hours ago) [Read 71 times || 0 comments]
Intellpuke: This commentary was written by Spiegel Online
staff writer Michael Scott Moore, writing under Spiegel's "The World
From Berlin" column, which includes editorial comments by various
German news agencies. Mr. Moore's column follows:
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden praised planned
low-level peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians this week as "a
moment of real opportunity" - just as a member of the Israeli
government seemed to ruin the party by announcing a new batch of
settlements on Israeli-occupied land. German commentators express
unanimous disappointment.
It was meant to be the start of "indirect talks," a small step to
revive the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians, which were
stalled even before Israel's fierce incursion into Gaza near the end of
2008 and the start of 2009. "I think we are at a moment of real
opportunity," said U.S. Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday in Jerusalem,
throwing official American goodwill on the latest approach to peace. "I
think that the interests of the Israeli and Palestinian people, if
everybody stops and takes a deep breath, are actually more in line than
they are opposites." He added, for good measure, that U.S. government
policy was firmly in line with Israel's need for self-defense.
While this diplomatic theater played out before the news cameras,
Israel's Interior Ministry, run by the ultra-orthodox party Shas, made
an awkwardly timed announcement that a plan to build 1,600 new
settlement homes in occupied East Jerusalem would go ahead.
Palestinians have demanded a freeze on Israeli settlement building in
the run-up to any peace talks.
Vice President Biden was reportedly so outraged that he kept Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu waiting an hour and a half to start a
formal dinner on Tuesday evening. He used strong language to "condemn"
the move. But so far no one in Jerusalem has moved to reverse the
building order, and Palestinian officials around President Mahmoud
Abbas have said the indirect talks planned for next week will collapse
if nothing changes.
Continue Reading Story BP, Devon To Spend U.S. $7 Billion To Develop Canadian Oil Sands Project Posted By: Intellpuke 2010-03-11 18:07:10(23 hours ago) [Read 94 times || 0 comments]
BP PLC is partnering with Devon Energy Corp. to develop an Alberta oil sands project in Canada as part of a much larger deal
in which BP will pay $7-billion (U.S.) to buy exploration rights in
several countries from the American company.
BP, which has not been a major player in the oil sands, said
Thursday it will sell a 50 per cent stake in its Kirby leases for
$500-million to Oklahoma-based Devon, which already has an oil sands
project in the same area.
Devon, which has committed to fund an additional $150-million of
capital costs for the Kirby project and operate it on BP's behalf, said
it plans a multi-stage development that will use steam to soften and
extract the bitumen.
“While the Kirby development will require additional evaluation to
confirm its size and scope, we believe that it will support several
phases of development and has total recoverable resources that are
greater than our Jackfish complex. We believe Kirby to be similar to
Jackfish in terms of geology, reservoir characteristics and oil
quality,” Devon president John Richels said in a statement.
Elsewhere, Devon is selling to BP the rights for 10 offshore
exploration blocks in Brazil and a portfolio of rights in the United
States, Gulf of Mexico and in the Caspian Sea.
Continue Reading Story Maliki Holds Edge In Iraq Election, But Results Are Challenged Posted By: Intellpuke 2010-03-11 18:06:38(23 hours ago) [Read 127 times || 0 comments]
Early results in Iraq’s parliamentary elections on Thursday indicated that Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s
coalition was likely to win a plurality in an exceedingly close race,
according to Western and Iraqi officials, as a fractured account of the
first results and allegations of fraud threw the political process into
chaos.
Even before any results were announced, more than one of Maliki’s
opponents charged that irregularities threatened to undermine the
election. And in another twist in a chaotic day, Maliki was taken
to the hospital to undergo a surgical procedure. In a brief statement,
his office provided no further details.
An orderly plan to release preliminary results for the entire nation
was scrapped at the last minute, in part because the computer system
being used to input the data from Sunday’s contest was overloaded and
crashed for hours on Wednesday, according to Western and Iraqi
officials.
The commission was only able to release partial results for 5 of Iraq’s
19 provinces on Thursday night. Although the center was outfitted with
15 flat-screen televisions to display the tallies to reporters and
election observers, it ended up projecting the data on a wall screen as
an official in the back of the room tried to shout an explanation of
what was being shown.
Still, the initial results, according to officials who have seen more
complete tallies from across the country, suggested a very tight race
involving Maliki’s coalition; Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite and the leader of the Iraqiya coalition;
and a Shiite coalition known as the Iraqi National Alliance. The Kurds,
though divided, appeared poised to finish strongly as well, leaving the
country’s political landscaped as fractured as ever.
Continue Reading Story British High Court Victory Gives Pink Floyd The Right To Stop EMI Singles Sales Posted By: Intellpuke 2010-03-11 18:06:02(23 hours ago) [Read 82 times || 0 comments]
Rock group Pink Floyd has won a British High Court battle with EMI,
preventing the company from selling album songs as individual tracks.
The band, which signed up with EMI in 1967, also challenged its
record label over the level of royalties paid for songs sold online,
but that matter remains unresolved.
Lawyers in London said that
other bands might be examining their contracts to see if they can use
similar clauses to regain control of the sale of their music.
The
ruling is a further blow for EMI, which lost its chief executive on
Tuesday amid suggestions that bands including Pink Floyd and Queen were
considering leaving the company.
EMI has suffered strained
relations with its artists since it was bought in 2007 by Terra Firma,
the private equity group run by Guy Hands. Sir Paul McCartney, the
Rolling Stones and Radiohead have all quit since the takeover.
Continue Reading Story Finally, A Bipartisan Vote As U.S. Senate Passes Jobs Measure Posted By: Intellpuke 2010-03-10 18:02:53(2 days ago) [Read 170 times || 0 comments]
The U.S. Senate Wednesday passed a $137.9 billion package aimed at
helping jobless people get more benefits and businesses to hire more
workers, but only after controversy about the bill's cost and impact.
The rare bipartisan vote was 62 to 36.
Some experts hailed the measure as an important stimulus.
"We're
starting to talk real money," said Chad Stone, chief economist at the
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal research group.
Conservatives,
however, insisted that the bill's cost was a big, unnecessary price to
pay. It would add an estimated $100 billion or more to the government's
record deficits.
"I can no longer stand by, even on a
bill such as this, and vote for it when it is going to add $100 billion
to the debt," said Sen. George LeMieux, R-Florida.
Continue Reading Story U.S. House Leaders Bar 'Earmarks' To For-Profit Companies Posted By: Intellpuke 2010-03-10 18:02:32(2 days ago) [Read 110 times || 0 comments]
Democratic leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives said Wednesday that they would no longer
dole out budget “earmarks” to profit-making companies, wiping out one
of the most lucrative and controversial means of awarding no-bid
contracts to private firms.
The ban is the most aggressive step yet in a three-year effort in
Congress to curb abuses in the awarding of earmarks, which direct that
federal money be spent in a very specific way. The move follows
criminal investigations, ethics inquiries and political embarrassment
linked to the use of earmarks.
If the ban had been in effect last year, it would have blocked some
1,000 earmarks, many of them for military contractors that received
multi-million-dollar contracts, leaders of the House Appropriations
Committee said in announcing the decision.
The move came less than two weeks after the House ethics committee
cleared seven members of a defense appropriations subcommittee of
allegations growing out of their awarding of earmarks to political
contributors.
The earlier decision to clear the lawmakers drew sharp criticism from
government watchdog groups, who said it would open the door to further
abuse. The ban announced Wednesday appeared to be an effort by House
Democrats to regain the high ground after a series of allegations
against their own members. Republican leaders are considering how and
whether to follow suit.
Continue Reading Story Canada's Budget Deep Freeze Will Lead To End Of Climate Research Lab Posted By: Intellpuke 2010-03-10 18:02:01(2 days ago) [Read 138 times || 0 comments]
Scientists who study climate change
from a remote post on Ellesmere Island are planning to shut down their
cash-strapped project after the federal government refused to refinance
a key climate-change research foundation.
The Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory (PEARL) is
located 1,100 kilometers from the North Pole, and collects data on the
changing climate of the Far North, where global warming is found to be
most intense.
In a conference call this week, PEARL scientists were not
discussing their findings but were making plans to shut down the lab,
including complicated arrangements to air lift out their equipment.
In its budget last week, Canada's Harper government provided no new money
for the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmosphere Sciences. The
foundation is the country's main fund for scientists studying
everything from global climate models, to the melting of polar ice and
frequency of Arctic storms, to prairie droughts and shrinking Rocky
Mountain glaciers.
For many in the research community, the budget decision merely
confirmed the view that Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his
government remain skeptical of climate-change science and hostile to
those who provide evidence that aggressive action must be taken to
avert catastrophic global warming.
Continue Reading Story Killer App - Drones Are Lynchpin In Obama's War On Terror Posted By: Intellpuke 2010-03-12 15:14:34(2 hours ago) [Read 63 times || 0 comments]
CIA drones are killing terrorists - and
civilians - in Pakistan almost every day. The unmanned aircraft are
becoming the weapon of choice in the fight against al-Qaeda and its
allies. But the political, military and moral consequences are
incalculable. Spiegel Online has investigated President Barack Obama's
remote-controlled campaign against terrorism.
What is the cost of rendering a terrorist harmless once and for all
by killing him? During the course of 14 months, the CIA used unmanned
and heavily armed small aircraft known as drones to stage 15 strikes
against the presumed locations of the leader of the Pakistani Taliban.
On Aug. 5, 2009, on the 16th try, the drones finally managed to kill
Baitullah Mehsud.
On that day, a Predator drone was hovering about three kilometers (2
miles) above the house of Mehsud's father-in-law, somewhere in the
Pakistani province of South Waziristan. The drone's infrared camera sent
remarkably sharp images in real time to CIA headquarters in Langley,
Virginia. The images showed the Taliban leader sitting on the roof of
his house, in the company of his wife, his uncle and a doctor.
At that very moment, thousands of miles away in the United States,
someone pressed a button, and two Hellfire missiles shot from the drone.
Mehsud and 11 others were killed.
This incident is so well documented because it was reconstructed for an article in The New Yorker magazine.
But the hunt for Mehsud cost the lives of far more than 11 people.
According to estimates, between 207 and 321 people died in the course
of the 16 attempts to eliminate Mehsud - and it is certain that not all
of them were Taliban fighters.
Continue Reading Story Interview With Defense Expert P.W. Singer - 'The Soldiers Call It War Porn' Posted By: Intellpuke 2010-03-12 15:14:15(2 hours ago) [Read 67 times || 0 comments]
U.S. defense expert P.W. Singer from the Brookings
Institution talks to Spiegel Online about the stresses that drone pilots
are subjected to and the risk of emotional exhaustion and burnout. The
whole experience of war is being changed by the new technology, he
argues.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mr. Singer, are drones becoming the new form of
combat?
P.W. Singer: Until recently, people looked at this as something
abnormal. But drones and robotic warfare in general are actually the new
normal now. We've gone from using a handful of these systems to now
having around 7,000 in the air. And the U.S. is not the only country
flying them. There are drones from 43 other countries, including Great
Britain, Germany and Pakistan.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Are we entering a new era?
Singer: Yes, you can compare the impact of this with the
introduction of gunpowder, the printing press or the airplane.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Some people fear that it turns war into a video
game.
Singer: To say that is far too simplistic. We're seeing a change
in the very experience of war. The act of going to war used to entail
you taking upon great risks. You might not come home one day. You might
not see your family again. Now it's different. I heard a drone pilot
explain it this way: You're going to war for one hour, and then you get
in the car and drive home, and within two minutes you're sitting at the
dinner table talking about your kids' homework. This is a very different
experience of war.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: One drone pilot told Spiegel Online that they suffer from just as much stress and trauma.
Continue Reading Story U.S. Firms Working To Lower Cost Of Solar Energy Posted By: Intellpuke 2010-03-12 15:13:43(2 hours ago) [Read 68 times || 0 comments]
One piece of the American effort to find a way to make solar energy
cheap enough that everyone will want it is unfolding in a modest
redbrick building in the Midwestern city of Toledo, Ohio, once known as one of the
nation's top makers of glass.
Xunming Deng, a physicist, started a solar company in Ohio
eight years ago as a spinoff from his research at the University of
Toledo. He's attracted $40 million in venture capital, and designed and
purchased manufacturing equipment. He now thinks that his Xunlight Corp.
is on the brink of profitability and fast growth. It expects
certification this spring and is getting ready to ramp up production.
Deng's story reflects one of the innovative approaches that
U.S. thin-film photovoltaic solar companies are taking to bring down the
costs of solar installations for homes, businesses and utilities. All
aim for a mass market with economies of scale that make solar energy
comparable in price to energy from fossil fuels.
Several of these companies are in Toledo, part of the legacy of
the late Harold McMaster, a glass innovator who started a solar company
that later became First Solar, which now employs about 1,000 people
just outside Toledo.
"The way I envision it is that someday solar will penetrate the
market and go to everybody's home," much the way cell phones and
personal computers did, said Deng. "I feel that one day our energy
platform will be much more renewable, and we want to be a big part of
it."
Continue Reading Story German Church Leader Meets Pope To Address Scandal Posted By: Intellpuke 2010-03-12 15:13:17(2 hours ago) [Read 35 times || 0 comments]
The head of the German Catholic church met with Pope Benedict XVI at
the Vatican Friday to address a worsening child abuse scandal that
erupted this winter in the pope’s native Germany and
has come close to the pope’s own brother.
After the 45-minute meeting, the German official, Archbishop Robert
Zollitsch, told reporters that Pope Benedict had expressed dismay at the
mounting reports of abuse, but said the pontiff was “very satisfied”
with steps the German church had taken to address the scandal, which
have included promises to investigate all allegations of abuse.
“The holy father was very satisfied with our decisions,” Archbishop
Zollitsch told reporters. “I’m grateful for the encouragement he gave me
to continue carrying out our measures in a decisive and courageous
way.”
The archbishop also asked forgiveness from victims of priestly abuse,
echoing earlier apologies he had made in Germany, where newspapers have
been filled with reports of physical and sexual abuse of former Catholic
school students dating back to the 1950’s and 1960’s.
Pope Benedict has not commented directly on the situation in Germany,
but as abuse scandals widened across Europe, the Vatican on Tuesday
released a note saying that local churches in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands had
responded with “timely and decisive action” to allegations.
Continue Reading Story Wall Street Again Struggles To Find A Footing Posted By: Intellpuke 2010-03-12 15:12:46(2 hours ago) [Read 45 times || 0 comments]
Shares on Wall Street traded in a tight range on Friday as mixed reports
on retail sales and business inventories give investors little new
insight into the economy.
Markets had been higher at the start of trading Friday after a
surprising increase in February retail sales. But shares fell
after a Commerce Department report that inventories were unchanged rather
than rising as economists had forecast. Economists are hoping that
businesses will restock store shelves on a sustained basis and give the
economy a lift.
At mid-day, all three major indexes were essentially flat.
A rally in financial stocks Thursday held the market extend their weekly
gains. The Dow and S.& P. 500 have been hovering near 15-month
highs, but investors have not been in a rush to send them any higher.
Continue Reading Story Taking On The Internet Giants - Germany Applies The Brakes To Google And Co. Posted By: Intellpuke 2010-03-11 18:09:00(23 hours ago) [Read 224 times || 0 comments]
The German government has discovered the Internet
and data privacy as a political issue. The new debate over who should
control the online world reveals a clash of two cultures, with the
American ideal of freedom contrasting with the European desire for
privacy.
Sometimes it's a good thing to have at least one real enemy,
particularly when you already have no friends. No one knows this better
than Ilse Aigner.
For the last year and a half, Aigner, who is from Upper Bavaria and a
member of the conservative Christian Social Union (CSU), the sister
party to Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union, has been Germany's
minister of food, agriculture and consumer protection - in that order.
Aigner spends much of her time inaugurating trade shows and
agricultural fairs, being photographed with cute farm animals and
expressing her outrage over rotten meat, genetically engineered corn
and imitation cheese. She hasn't made much of an impression.
Until now, that is. She recently took on a truly serious issue: the
Internet and data privacy. And suddenly the minister finds herself
facing more powerful foes than dodgy butchers: online giants like
Amazon, Facebook and, above all, Google.
Soon the U.S. search engine company plans to send cars equipped with
cameras out onto Germany's roads once again, to photograph every house
and every block and create three-dimensional maps for the company's
Street View project. Aigner is now insisting that Google should ask permission before violating the privacy of
German citizens. Most of all, the minister's attacks reveal just how
divided the German government is when it comes to the online world.
Continue Reading Story Countdown On The Baltic Sea - Will Baby Herring And Conservationists Delay Russia-Germany Pipeline Posted By: Intellpuke 2010-03-11 18:08:36(23 hours ago) [Read 133 times || 1 comments]
Preparations are fast taking shape for the
construction of the controversial Nord Stream natural gas pipeline
between Russia and Germany this spring. But it still faces a legal
challenge in Germany from environmentalists, and critics say the
project could disrupt the spring spawning of the herring found in the
western Baltic Sea.
Preserved in formaldehyde and lying there in the stereo microscope's
white light, the three fish larvae look like soybean sprouts. They're
just one very small part of the spring-spawning herring found in the
western Baltic Sea. In Germany, they are probably best known in the
form they take much later: the tasty German snack known as Rollmops, a marinated herring fillet usually served rolled up around a pickle.
But these larvae are still far from meeting their maker. Measuring the
larvae, which were caught about a year ago in very fine-meshed net,
they are barely 10 millimeters long.
"Here you can already see the head, the eyes and fins," says
Christian von Dorrien. The biologist works for the Von Thünen Institute
for Baltic Sea Fishery in the old harbor in Rostock, a Baltic Sea port
city in the German state of Mecklenberg-Western Pomerania. And while the water
of the Warnow River estuary flows by the laboratory window, von
Dorrien's colleague Dagmar Stephan is pre-occupied with lists of
numbers, recording the size of fish larvae.
Continue Reading Story Unease In Mideast As Biden Ends Israel Trip Posted By: Intellpuke 2010-03-11 18:07:54(23 hours ago) [Read 88 times || 0 comments]
Vice President Joseph R. Biden, Jr., came to Israel
early this week to promote new Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and
tighten the bonds between Israel and the United States. He leaves on
Thursday amid increased uncertainty over the nature and timing of those
talks and with a sense of unease hanging over the American-Israeli
relationship.
The cause of both was the unexpected announcement in the middle of
his visit that Israel would construct 1,600 new housing units for Jews
in East Jerusalem , where the Palestinians hope to build the capital of their future state. That news produced an
angry condemnation from Biden as well as signals of distress from
the Palestinian leadership, asking for American help to get the project
stopped.
Both the housing construction and the talks will likely go ahead.
The chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, said by telephone on
Thursday that the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, had asked Biden
for help in stopping the housing project but made no threat about
pulling out. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement regretting the timing of the housing announcement, though not its substance.
Still, the talks - indirect, so-called proximity talks - the first in
more than a year between the two sides, look headed for trouble for
another reason: differing expectations. The Palestinians want the talks
to focus on borders and security and believe the Americans have said
they would; the Israelis want them to serve as a procedural corridor
leading to direct negotiations and believe the Americans have said they
would.
Biden, who spent one day with the Israeli leadership and the next
with the Palestinian leadership, gave a public address at Tel Aviv
University on Thursday and spent most it expressing his personal
devotion to Israel as well as the Obama administration’s “iron-clad
commitment to Israeli security.”
Continue Reading Story Canada's Alberta Province Rolls Back Oil, Gas Royalties To Lure Back Investment Posted By: Intellpuke 2010-03-11 18:07:19(23 hours ago) [Read 99 times || 0 comments]
The Alberta government is rolling
back most of its year-old royalty hike and launching a study on how to
trim red tape as it attempts to revive its political fortunes and woo
oil and gas investment back into the province.
Effective next January, the province will drop its top royalty rate on natural gas from 50 to 36 per cent, while the highest rate for non-oil sands crude production will drop from 50 to 40 per cent. The bottom rate for both
will remain at 5 per cent, and the government has indicated a
willingness to make further concessions that would favor deep new
wells designed to use new technology to access oil and gas pools.
Those figures constitute an almost complete return to royalty rates
prior to a new regime that Premier Ed Stelmach set in place to give the
province a greater share of windfall energy revenues. Before that
change, gas royalties ranged from 5 to 35 per cent, while oil royalties
fell between zero and 40 per cent.
“We can't pretend that oil and gas investment levels haven't eroded
or that we don't have a responsibility to current and future
generations of Albertans to address that,” Energy Minister Ron Liepert
said in a statement Thursday.
Alberta will also lock in a 5 per cent royalty on the first 12
months of a well's production, in part of a wholesale change in the
province's energy taxation scheme designed to boost oil and gas cash
flow reinvestment by two percentage points. Provincial reinvestment
levels have fallen by nearly 30 percentage points since 2006. A two
percentage increase will be worth about $700-million a year, the
government estimates.
Continue Reading Story Aftershocks Rattle Chile Inauguration Posted By: Intellpuke 2010-03-11 18:06:56(23 hours ago) [Read 76 times || 0 comments]
The new Chilean president, Sebastian Pinera, had not even taken
office on Thursday when major aftershocks rocked the central coast of
this earthquake-ravaged country. But within hours of his inauguration,
he appeared on television to announce that troops, relief supplies and
even Pinera would be heading immediately to the quake zone.
In rushing to respond aggressively to the tremors, it seemed that
Pinera was trying to avoid the missteps of his predecessor, Michelle
Bachelet,
whose response to a devastating Feb. 27 earthquake was criticized as
halting and ineffective. Pinera said he would fly to the
hardest-hit areas later Thursday, and promised to “deploy all of the
troops that may be necessary starting this evening to guarantee calm
and public order.”
“This government will not hesitate one instant, nor wait one second to
act,” he said. “But at the same time, we call on everyone to remain
calm.”
Chile's navy issued a tsunami alert following the aftershocks, and residents of
coastal areas fled for higher ground, though the United States Pacific
Tsunami Warning Center said a tsunami was not expected, and that there
was no threat to Hawaii.
Reports of damage were limited, but an emergency official in Rancagua,
a city to the east of the center of the quakes, said a highway overpass
had collapsed
In the capital of Santiago, 95 miles north of the epicenters, windows
rattled, buildings trembled and cellphone service failed.
Continue Reading Story Waiting For The Rain - Haiti's Next Disaster Looms Posted By: Intellpuke 2010-03-11 18:06:26(23 hours ago) [Read 97 times || 0 comments]
Only weeks after the country was hit by an
earthquake, Haiti is threatened by the next potential calamity. The
upcoming rainy season could turn overcrowded refugee camps into hotbeds
of disease. And there has been criticism of the local government for
not doing more to provide emergency accommodation.
Lesly Mullin spreads his arms. His white and green t-shirt,
emblazoned the number 19, is just a few numbers too big, he looks tired
and he stands there speechlessly. But his gesture says it all:
Everything is lost.
A couple of blue walls, one other painted pink - there is not a lot
left of his house in St. Martin, a neighborhood in Port-au-Prince,the capital of Haiti. Yet Mullin still comes here a lot. He walks up
the few stairs that remain, which lead up from the small piece of land
on which the house once sat, and makes his way over the concrete lumps
to survey the ruins of his home.
His grandmother built this house and he was born here. Most recently
Mullin, 42, lived here with his wife and four children: Clifford,
Steve, Stephanie and Gary. Then came the earthquake that devastated the city on Jan. 12. Gary, who was only two years old at the time, died in the tremors.
"The whole land bled," says Mullin.
Continue Reading Story Disease Cause Is Pinpointed With Genome Posted By: Intellpuke 2010-03-11 18:05:32(23 hours ago) [Read 110 times || 0 comments]
Two research teams have independently decoded the entire genome of
patients to find the exact genetic cause of their diseases. The
approach may offer a new start in the so far disappointing effort to
identify the genetic roots of major killers like heart disease, diabetes and Alzheimer’s.
In the decade since the first full genetic code of a human was
sequenced for some $500 million, less than a dozen genomes had been
decoded, all of healthy people.
Geneticists said the new research showed it was now possible to
sequence the entire genome of a patient at reasonable cost and with
sufficient accuracy to be of practical use to medical researchers. One
subject’s genome cost just $50,000 to decode.
“We are finally about to turn the corner, and I suspect that in the
next few years human genetics will finally begin to systematically
deliver clinically meaningful findings,” said David B. Goldstein, a
Duke University geneticist who has criticized the current approach to identifying genetic causes of common diseases.
Besides identifying disease genes, one team, in Seattle, Washington, was able to
make the first direct estimate of the number of mutations, or changes
in DNA, that are passed on from parent to child. They calculate that of
the three billion units in the human genome, 60 per generation are
changed by random mutation - considerably less than previously thought.
Continue Reading Story Nuclear Disarmament - The Missile Shield Deadlock Between The U.S. And Russia Posted By: Intellpuke 2010-03-10 18:02:43(2 days ago) [Read 217 times || 0 comments]
The U.S. and Russia are currently negotiating a
successor to the START nuclear disarmament treaty. But continued
American plans for a missile shield in Europe have proven to be a major
stumbling block. President Obama's vision of a nuclear-free world is in
danger.
There is good news on the disarmament front: U.S. President Barack
Obama is fine-tuning a new nuclear strategy. As White House officials
said last week during a meeting between Obama and Defense Secretary
Robert Gates, he plans to reach a decision by April. The new strategy
could include the scrapping of "thousands of nuclear weapons," and even
a commitment by the United States not to develop any new nuclear
weapons.
In addition, what may be the final round of Russian-American talks on
the further reduction of strategic offensive weapons started on Tuesday
in Geneva, Switzerland. The successor for the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty
(START) is "almost 100 percent complete," says a Moscow negotiator. "We
have agreed on the number of launch systems and the warheads, as well
as the inspection and destruction of the nuclear payloads. All problems
have been solved."
So much optimism has rarely been seen in Moscow and Washington,
particularly when it comes to the two countries' arsenals of nuclear
weapons.
Unfortunately, though, the elation is not genuine. The idea that the
world can become a planet free of nuclear weapons one day - as promised by President Obama in his visionary speech last year in Prague, Czech Republic - remains a fallacy for the time being.
And the new treaty won't change that. Even if Russia and the U.S.
finally put aside their decades of hostility during the Cold War and
sign a treaty outlining the further reduction of their nuclear
arsenals, their behind-the-scenes relationship is, once again,
characterized by deep mistrust - perhaps even more so than during the
administration of the abrasive former U.S. president, George W. Bush.
Continue Reading Story Though Jobless Rates Rose, 31 U.S. States Added Jobs In January Posted By: Intellpuke 2010-03-10 18:02:20(2 days ago) [Read 126 times || 0 comments]
Thirty-one states and the District of Columbia posted net gains in
employment in January, the Labor Department reported Wednesday,
providing further evidence that the economy is slowly gaining momentum.
The
state-by-state January employment report from the Bureau of Labor
Statistics (BLS) clarifies and deepens the national employment data released
last week, which suggested that employers have stopped firing workers
and are starting to hire.
In January, said the BLS,
California led all states in employment growth with 32,000 net new
jobs. Illinois and New York state followed with respective net gains of
26,000 and 25,500, and the state of Washington followed with 18,900.
Eighteen states saw employment decrease, and one state saw no change.
"The
fact that you have three important and largely service-based economies
showing gains may tell us that we have a broader recovery emerging, and
this may be a bit of a bright light here," said Steve Cochrane, a
managing director at forecaster Moody's Economy.com in West Chester, Pennsylvania.
States
with big manufacturing operations showed positive signs last year, he
said, thanks to demand created by the government's "cash for clunkers"
program and growing exports. So improvement in states with large
service sectors is another positive indicator.
Continue Reading Story Commentary: 'Europeans Shouldn't Be Pointing Their Fingers At Washington' Posted By: Intellpuke 2010-03-10 18:01:42(2 days ago) [Read 131 times || 0 comments]
Intellpuke: This commentary was written by Spiegel journalist
Daryl Lindsey, writing under Spiegel's "The World From Berlin" column,
which includes editorial comments from various German news
organizations. Mr. Lindsey's commentary follows:
EADS and its American partner Northrop Grumman
have abandoned their joint bid for a $35 billion contract to build
tanker jets for the U.S. military, citing unfair competition as their
reason for withdrawing. German commentators on Wednesday sense more
than a whiff of hypocrisy from European governments.
Politicians in Berlin and elsewhere in Europe are accusing
Washington of protectionism over the collapse of a deal for the
construction of 179 refueling tanker planes that pitted European
aerospace giant EADS and its Airbus subsidiary against Boeing. Berlin
is claiming the bidding process conducted by the U.S. Department of
Defense was so custom-tailored to Boeing that EADS' American partner
company, Northrop Grumman, had virtually no chance of scoring the
lucrative $35 billion contract.
On Tuesday, German Economics Minister Rainer Bruderle expressed his
disappointment over the Defense Department's behavior in the deal,
which led to a decision by Northrop Grumman on Monday to withdraw
completely from the bidding process. "Free competition cannot be
unilaterally limited in the procurement of defense goods," the
politician, a member of the business-friendly Free Democratic Party,
told reporters. "Right now, in the midst of the current crisis, even
hints of protectionism can be damaging."
The heads of economics issues in the parliamentary groups of
Germany's three largest political parties in the Bundestag were even
sharper in their criticism. Joachim Pfeiffer of the Christian Social
Union, the Bavarian sister party to Chancellor Angela Merkel's
conservative Christian Democrats, told reporters: "This is a
scandalous, unacceptable act. This needs to become a political issue
with the USA."
'You Can't Change the Rules Just Because You Don't Like the Winner'
"The government has to push the United States to cease its protectionist tendencies," the FDP's Paul Friedhoff told the Ruhr Nachrichten newspaper. Meanwhile, Garrelt Duin of the center-left Social Democratic Party, told the tabloid Bild:
"This is a sleight of hand on the part of the Yanks. … The Americans
only talk about free competition when it is to their advantage. You
can't simply change the rules of the game just because you don't like
the winner."
On Tuesday, an Airbus spokesman told Spiegel Online: "During the
first bidding process two years ago, the best aircraft was sought." But
this time around, the criteria had allegedly been specifically tailored
to the Boeing 767. The Americans sought a "small aircraft whose only
purpose was refueling," the spokesman said. But the only aim was to
"shut us out." By doing so, he argued, the Americans "would for the
first time in their history have worse equipment than the Brits or the
Australians."
Continue Reading Story 
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