MRZINE: "Media Crisis and Grassroots Response" - by Jordan Flaharty

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"Media Crisis and Grassroots Response" - by Jordan Flaharty

The media landscape is changing rapidly. As all forms of journalists face massive layoffs, analysts fear that journalism's role as a counterforce against the powerful is in jeopardy. For progressives and radicals working in media, it's important to not only question what format news will come in, but also how to approach our work so it is both accountable and sustainable. While corporations have shown an ever-decreasing interest in funding investigative journalism, independent media is undergoing its own transformation. Part of it is in economic challenges to old methods of distribution, such as rising print costs and postage rates for print publications. But the larger transformation has been in where people turn for news and information.

At least 525 magazines went out of business in 2008, according to mediafinder.com, and even more went under in 2007. The Los Angeles Times has cut nearly half its staff in the last eight years, while the Tribune Company announced that they would trim 500 pages of news each week from their twelve papers. The Miami Herald slashed 370 jobs last year, nearly a third of their workforce, with more cuts announced for this year. Book publishers -- corporate and independent -- have also been announcing staff layoffs and bankruptcies. Many of these reductions happened before the current economic free fall, and there are dire predictions of steeper drops on the horizon. This is not only happening in the US and Europe, but all over the world.

Note EU-Digest: Fortunately we still have the thousands of Mom and Pop run local and regional newspapers and the independent bloggers which are presently the main pillar of a grassroots movement against the complete takeover of the Free Press by large media corporations.

FT.com - GM prepares to dispose of stake in European unit for nothing - by John Reed and Daniel Schafer

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GM prepares to dispose of stake in European unit for nothing - by John Reed and Daniel Schafer

General Motors is prepared to part with a controlling stake in Opel/Vauxhall for nothing but a pledge to invest directly in a new company formed from its European operations, according to two people familiar with its plans. GM, which might file for bankruptcy in the US and is running short of cash in Europe, was talking to more than six financial and industrial groups about acquiring a stake in its regional arm, Fritz Henderson, the carmaker's chief executive, said last week. It wants potential buyers to give a firm indication of their interest over the next two to three weeks. According to a person familiar with GM's thinking, an investor will be asked to pay at least €500m ($652m) in equity but the carmaker will realise no financial gain as the money will be injected directly into Opel/ Vauxhall.

BusinessGreen.com: Renault-Nissan Alliance inks Chinese electric car deal

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Renault-Nissan Alliance inks Chinese electric car deal

The global march of the Renault-Nissan Alliance secured another victory this week, inking its first Chinese deal in a move that should see the electric vehicle partnership deliver charging infrastructure and vehicles to the country from early 2011. The Alliance, which has signed partnership agreements with 19 governments and cities globally in the past few years, said it has signed a deal with the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) that will result in it providing electric cars to a government-backed pilot programme designed to roll out the technology in 13 cities. In addition to the partnership with the central government, Nissan and Renault also signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the municipal government of Wuhan that should see the two auto giants co-operate on a project to make the city China's first zero-emission mobility city.

Earth Times: Electric car industry agrees on one plug for Europe to rule them all

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Electric car industry agrees on one plug for Europe to rule them all

Electric car
makers and power companies are to unveil this week a standard Europe-wide power plug to recharge the batteries of electric vehicles, the German newspaper Die Welt reported today. The agreement avoids the plug-and-socket problems familiar to travelers who take small appliances such as hair-dryers abroad. The standard had been agreed by 20 big companies and will be announced at the five-day Hanover Fair, a big annual expo of industrial products which opens for business on Monday April 20 in Germany.

The future of electric cars as a replacement for petroleum-powered vehicles depends on motorists being able to recharge batteries anywhere with a minimum of fuss.

Guardian: EU aerospace and defence firms plead for government funding - by David Gow

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EU aerospace and defence firms plead for government funding - by David Gow

Europe's aerospace and defence industries today urged the EU and national governments to boost spending on research and development and provide loans for distressed suppliers. The call, from the Aerospace and Defence Industries Association (ASD), the pan-European trade lobby, comes as airlines are cancelling or postponing orders for new planes, cutting thousands of staff and preparing for a 12% fall in revenues.Contractors point to US federal support for military development and Airbus chief warns credit squeeze is choking aircraft sales

LA Times: Soccer - European Champions League: Barcelona can strike seemingly at will - Grahame L.Jones

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Soccer - European Champions League: Barcelona can strike seemingly at will - Grahame L.Jones

Lionel Messi, Thierry Henry and Samuel Eto'o give the club a formidable attack and make it the favorite to win the European Champions League title. Messi, Henry and Eto'o have combined to make Barcelona the most dynamic and the most feared soccer team on the planet, never mind what Manchester United or Inter Milan or anyone else might say. Together, they have helped Barcelona score more goals than any other team in Europe this season. The three have scored more goals than any other top-flight team. Barcelona, however, is more than simply a trio of high-scoring strikers. Its midfield boasts the Spanish creative attacking duo of Xavi, the most valuable player at Euro 2008, and Andres Iniesta. Its defense features the world's top right back, attack-minded Daniel Alves of Brazil.

All of this suggests that Barcelona will hold aloft the Champions League trophy May 27 in Rome and bask in the club's third European Cup title after similar victories in 1992 and 2006. But, discounting Bayern Munich, there are six other teams still more or less alive in what is unquestionably soccer's most fixating club tournament. But as Henry said, that is looking too far ahead. "In the Champions League, one bad performance -- or even a bad 10 minutes -- can put you out," he said. "We've won nothing yet."

The US Economy still under stress despite rosy picture being painted

EU-Digest

Financial experts from a variety of disciplines are not finding much to cheer about following the more rosy reports coming out of Wall Street, the Banking Sector and the Government. They are saying that the value of key collateral on loans is still falling. That close to half of bank lending continues to be tied to real estate, which has shifted from boom to bust in many parts of the United States. Presently the typical home price is down more than 20 percent nationwide, and it has continued to fall by about 2 percent a month. The experts are saying that if that continues, it boosts both the likelihood of defaults by borrowers and the losses for banks when they resell those homes after foreclosure. In the meantime the FDIC reported that loans are going delinquent faster than banks are adding to reserves to cover those losses. This certainly will hit bank profits down the road.

Uncontrolled accounting methods may also be hiding key problems even though banks are saying that a shift away from so-called mark-to-market accounting is a more accurate reflection of the assets’ worth. Banks may be right. But the resulting values could also prove to be too rosy. Just take that pool of risky assets at Citigroup, which the bank is valuing at $101 billion. The more accurate mark-to-market accounting would put the actual value of risky assets at only $29 billion. Losses could therefore outweigh capital on hand.

Collectively, US banks have equity capital of $1.2 trillion, or about 10 percent of their loans, the FDIC says, but many economists including those at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warn that "hidden" bank losses of those not yet recognized in charge-offs – are larger, possibly exceeding $2 trillion. This could wipe out their equity capital, says Peter Nigro, a former economist at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, now at Bryant University in Smithfield, R.I. If you put all that together, the negative forces make it very hard for banks to earn their way out of losses by relying on their interest-rate spreads. "So what the yield curve is doing now is mitigating those losses a little bit", says Mr. Lachman, who used to work for the IMF. Moreover, Lachman expects that European banks will see rising loan problems this year, with ripple effects that will hurt US banks as well.

For the US and European economies to stage a strong recovery, banks need enough capital to lend strongly, economists say. That’s especially true today, because other channels of credit that were strong before the recession, like debt securities funded by non-bank investors, have basically disappeared. The risk, they say, is that political pressures will prevent or delay an accurate assessment of bank losses and how big their write-downs should be and how much capital they need. Another issue that still has not been answered, what are these assets on the bank balance sheets actually worth? Overall it seems to indicate that the financial sector has not yet turned the corner, but instead still remains in a precarious situation.

Bloomberg.com: China’s Wealth Fund to Consider Investing in Europe - by Eugene Tang

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China’s Wealth Fund to Consider Investing in Europe - by Eugene Tang

China’s $200 billion sovereign fund will consider investing in Europe in 2009, after avoiding the continent last year because of trade barriers, said China Investment Corp.’s Chairman Lou Jiwei. “Europe has started to welcome investments” without attaching conditions, Lou said today at the Boao Forum in southern China’s Hainan province. “During the world financial crisis, sovereign wealth funds have become more appealing” and less frightening, he said. Beijing-based CIC, whose investments have included stakes in Blackstone Group LP and Morgan Stanley, didn’t invest “a single cent” in European companies or assets last year, because the continent had put up barriers to limit the activities of sovereign wealth funds, he said. He declined to specify the European industries or companies he’s looking at investing in.

The Copehagen Post: Danes unaware of EU election

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Danes unaware of EU election

Only one in six Danes is aware that the European Parliament elections are coming up in June, reports 24timer newspaper. According to the survey - which the EP itself conducted - over half of the 1,000 Danes polled said they had no interest in the election, scheduled for 7 June. Dan Jørgensen, the Social Democrats’ MEP candidate, blamed the lack of interest on poor media coverage and European Union politicians’ inability to properly communicate how EU decisions affect Danes’ everyday lives.

Reuters: EADS sees Eurofighter deal

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EADS sees Eurofighter deal

European nations are set to place an order for more than 100 advanced fighter planes in a compromise over funding the next phase of the multinational Eurofighter, a top defense executive said on Wednesday. Germany, Britain, Italy and Spain have been negotiating for months over the third and final tranche of the costly programme in the face of pressure on budgets and are expected to commit for now to about half the originally targeted 236 combat jets.

defpro.com: Russia's 5th generation fighter aircraft RAFKA

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Russia's 5th generation fighter aircraft RAFKA

"Russia's fifth-generation fighter, known as the PAKFA (Advanced Tactical Aviation Aircraft), has emerged as a key tool of the Russian aerospace and defense industry even before the aircraft has completed its first flight. Rosoboronexport has aggressively pitched component production partnerships to a number of Russia's largest arms markets in order to garner risk/cost-sharing agreements and insure continued Russian market access. However, with the PAKFA program under increasing tension and the West's major aerospace firms seeking to shore up additional orders for soon to be closed fourth-generation aircraft production lines, Russia faces the prospect of declining presence in the world's most high sought after arms markets."

Forbes: The World's Cleanest Countries - Europe leads the way - by Andy Stone

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The World's Cleanest Countries - Europe leads the way - by Andy Stone

Switzerland tops the list with an overall EPI score of 95.5 out of 100, while European countries account for 14 of the top 20 environmental performers. Europe has the infrastructure to provide clean drinking water and treat waste water, lowering the likelihood that Europeans will suffer from waterborne disease. Europe scores consistently well in EPI's environmental health ranking, which measures the effects of pollution on human health. Scandinavia, with its low population and vast open spaces, enjoys pristine forests and relatively little air pollution. The U.S., once a leader in environmental protection, has failed to keep pace. "Starting 25 years ago, the United States started to fall behind in relative terms. Before that time, Europe always had dirtier air and drinking water," says Mark Levy, associate director of Columbia University's earth science center.

The U.S.' overall EPI score is 81, putting it in 39th place on the list.

WSJ: Trichet Defends Euro's Strength - by Andrew Monahan and Takashi Nakamichi

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Trichet Defends Euro's Strength - by Andrew Monahan and Takashi Nakamichi

The European Central Bank's chief Friday brushed aside the view that the euro is weak, while saying that he is "very appreciative" of U.S. policy makers sticking to their strong dollar policy. Jean-Claude Trichet also signaled that the central bank may announce extraordinary measures for financial institutions at its next monetary policy meeting on May 7. At a seminar in Tokyo, Mr. Trichet said the view that the euro is weak "doesn't really seem to reflect the present situation." "When we started the euro," he said, "the euro-dollar (exchange rate) was at $1.17; at the moment I'm speaking, we are at around something like $1.31.

NYT: Officials Say U.S. Wiretaps Exceeded Law - by ERIC LICHTBLAU and JAMES RISEN

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Officials Say U.S. Wiretaps Exceeded Law - by ERIC LICHTBLAU and JAMES RISEN

The National Security Agency intercepted private e-mail messages and phone calls of Americans in recent months on a scale that went beyond the broad legal limits established by Congress last year, government officials said in recent interviews.Several intelligence officials, as well as lawyers briefed about the matter, said the N.S.A. had been engaged in “overcollection” of domestic communications of Americans. They described the practice as significant and systemic, although one official said it was believed to have been unintentional.

The legal and operational problems surrounding the N.S.A.’s surveillance activities have come under scrutiny from the Obama administration, Congressional intelligence committees and a secret national security court, said the intelligence officials, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because N.S.A. activities are classified. Classified government briefings have been held in recent weeks in response to a brewing controversy that some officials worry could damage the credibility of legitimate intelligence-gathering efforts.

As part of that investigation, a senior F.B.I. agent recently came forward with what the inspector general’s office described as accusations of “significant misconduct” in the surveillance program, people with knowledge of the investigation said. Those accusations are said to involve whether the N.S.A. made Americans targets in eavesdropping operations based on insufficient evidence tying them to terrorism.

Epoch Times - Turkey and the Netherlands united by the Tulip - A Spring Blossom’s Curious History - - by Rosemarie Fruehauf

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"Turkey and the Netherlands united by the Tulip" - A Spring Blossom’s Curious History - by Rosemarie Fruehauf

You can be glad to get them for a couple of bucks on almost every corner, but tulips were not always that cheap and easy to get. This innocent spring flower looks back on a long and exciting career.Historians of today hold that the tulip emerged as a wild growing plant thousands of years ago spread in a “corridor” which stretches along the 40º latitude between Northern China and Southern Europe. The first peak of the tulip fascination took place on the court of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent (1520-1566), the Ottoman Emperor residing in Constantinople, today’s Istanbul. His palace, the Seraglio, was called “Palace of Tulips and Tears” and was decorated with countless tulips. Tiles on the walls, vases, and the textile design of his robe were showing tulips, even his emblem and weapons.

Ogier Ghislain de Busbecq, the ambassador of the Austrian Emperor Ferdinand I at the court of Suleiman, mentioned the Turkish tulip cultivation in a 1555 letter to Vienna. He also supplied Viennese botanist Carolus Clusius (1526-1609) with seeds. Both became the key figures in bringing the tulip to Europe. Clusius brought his collection to Leyden in the Netherlands, to which he fled due to religious persecution. As an expert for medical herbs and hired for research about them, Clusius grew tulips as his personal hobby.

And the rest is history - today the Netherlands are associated with the tulip like no other country and—four centuries after the tulip-induced economical crisis—hold about 80 percent of the world’s tulip production.

MLive.com: Alternative energy - Michigans "Right Place" CEO pitches Michigan in Germany - by Mark Sanchez

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Alternative energy - Michigan's "Right Place" CEO pitches Michigan in Germany - by Mark Sanchez

Birgit Klohs, the CEO of The Right Place Inc. in Grand Rapids, Michigan returned home from a three week business trip to Germany this month where she made 23 visits to potential business prospects for West Michigan, and participated in a four-day alternative energy conference in Berlin, where she gave an address on what Michigan has to offer the alternative industry in Germany. The Right Place, the Michigan Economic Development Corp. and Consumers Energy Co. had also staffed a booth at the Berlin alternative energy conference. As the world renowned German wind-energy companies seek to expand beyond Europe and set up shop in America, she used the first-ever German-American Energy Conference to pitch Michigan and the state's manufacturing acumen. The trip, she said, confirms what Klohs has been preaching for some time and a December 2007 economic-development analysis supported: Michigan can carve out a niche role in the U.S. alternative energy industry.

NYT - British Soccer Sweeps Across Europe Once Again - by Rob Hughes

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British Soccer Sweeps Across Europe Once Again - by Rob Hughes

"The spring brings absolute confirmation that the only soccer team in the rest of Europe left to compete with the power of England’s Premier League is Barcelona.This is the third season running that England has supplied three of the last four clubs in the competition. The final in Rome on May 27 is bound to have at least one English club for the fifth consecutive year. British soccer supremacy is, anyway, English in name only. The clubs are no longer owned by the British, the players most certainly belong to every continent and, just as Barcelona has the means to buy the best players on earth, so does Manchester and its London rivals.

Like it or loathe it, the Champions League is the global marketplace."

Time Magazine: How One Man Plans to Sink the European Union - by Leo Cendrowicz

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How One Man Plans to Sink the European Union - by Leo Cendrowicz

A self-made millionaire, Ganley plans to field Libertas candidates from all 27 E.U. member states in this June's European parliamentary elections. His party, he says, will bring change to Brussels. "We can really shake things up," he says. "We can send a message to Brussels for democracy, accountability and transparency in European governance."

That kind of attitude has long characterized so-called Euro-skepticism. But Ganley's money and political ambition has some rattled. Like other Euro MPs, British Liberal Democrat member of the European Parliament Andrew Duff dismisses Ganley as a rabble-rouser out for publicity. "It's utter balls to say he represents democracy," Duff says. "Scratch the surface and you'll discover he's a demagogue and a Europhobe." But Duff is also worried that Ganley could appeal to disgruntled European voters. "There is a real danger that this simplistic populism will strike a chord with voters that are profoundly uninformed about the E.U.," Duff says.

With a personal fortune estimated at $300 million, Ganley has plenty of money to bankroll his new party. To hone his message, he has hired American Democratic campaign consultant Joe Trippi. Ganley talks of Libertas winning 70 seats in the 736-member European Parliament, more than enough to become a powerbroker between the other political groups. The only E.U.-wide poll, predict09.eu, suggests that Libertas could win a few seats but will fall well short of its stated goal.

Note EU-Digest: Even though it seems Libertas will not have much of an impact on the EU elections it shows the weakness of the European Union democratic structure and lack of public participation in its development process. Consequently "radical populists" like Declan Ganley, Geert Wilders and others are popping up all over the European political spectrum. Therefore the European political establishment, mainly dominated by fake socialists, fake conservatives and fake greens better watch out. Populist politicians could very well become the newest and best-selling European "fakes".

Black Duck estimates the cost to develop presently available Open Source Software at 387 billion

EU-Digest

Black Duck estimates the cost to develop presently available Open Source Software at 387 billion

Open source software (OSS) and collaborative development have grown from being academic pursuits in the early 1980s into a major economic and development force transforming the way software is created today. According to Black Duck research there are over 200,000 OSS projects on the Internet representing more than 4.9 billion lines of available code. They estimate that reproducing this OSS would cost $387 billion and would take 2.1 million people-years of development. In addition, they estimate that 10% of US-based development, representing $22 billion, is redundant and could be offset using OSS, much of which can be reinvested for true innovation. This is in effect would be a potential fiscal stimulus for innovation, larger than many of the programs in the Obama Administration’s $787 billion fiscal stimulus plan. Estimating what OSS code is worth is difficult to answer precisely, but Black Duck have made an estimate using widely accepted methods to get a first-order approximation. In October 2008, the Linux Foundation published their estimate of the value just for for both Fedora 9 ($10.8 B) and the Linux Kernel ($1.4 B) alone.

For additional information on this study by Black Duck click on this link

CNET News: Mozilla charts why Microsoft's PC lock is 'potent' - by Matt Assay

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Mozilla charts why Microsoft's PC lock is 'potent' - by Matt Assay

Mozilla's Asa Dotzler, in attempting to visualize the Web's user growth since 1996, gives two startling suggestions, neither of which will endear him to the Microsoft Internet Explorer crowd.

The browser war is heating up, with Microsoft IE steadily losing market share to Firefox, Safari, and Google Chrome, and the stakes are huge. If Dotzler is right, and that first Web experience sticks with 100 million new users each year, ensuring that those new users have a real, open choice is critical. They say this is why Mozilla is fighting hard in the European Union to ensure that Microsoft doesn't get to use its desktop hegemony to cement a browser monopoly that could threaten to paralyze the Web for decades. It's why we should want the world's first experience with a Web browser to be an open one: open source, open standards, open Web.