Auto Industry - Alternative Energy: Electric-Vehicle's slowly gaining ground

Renault-Nisan Leaf Electric Car

 "The electric car is not dead," general motors North America president Mark Reuss insisted at the recent Automotive News World Congress in Detroit. He's right: automakers are introducing more battery-powered vehicles than ever before, a hopeful sign for this promising green technology. Fiat, Cadillac, Ford and Honda are all launching new electric models this year. Sales of the two mainstream plug-ins already on the market are up: GM's Chevy Volt sales tripled in 2012 over the year before, while the Nissan Leaf's rose modestly, by 1.5%.

The major shortcoming with EVs at present is the energy required to manufacture their enormous batteries. Some skeptics have contended that if you factor battery production into an electric car's environmental footprint, the vehicles really aren't that much greener than today's Corollas. But the Lantern finds studies such as this one too academic, since they assume that all of an electric car's "fuel" comes from coal; even in the heart of West Virginia, only about 73 percent of electricity is coal-generated. Also worth noting: a recent Department of Energy study pointing out that there's plenty of surplus electricity that goes unused at night, when people would presumably be recharging their cars.

Nissan's Leaf electric car has become the highest-selling electric car of all time.

The company has now sold more than 50,000 examples of the Leaf, sold across Japan, Europe and the U.S.
Since the car went on sale in 2010, those 50,000 Leaf owners have racked up over 161 million miles. In reality, that figure is probably even higher--Nissan can only monitor those Leafs equipped with the Carwings telemetry system, and not every owner has registered.

Despite some issues with battery degredation in hotter areas of Arizona and elsewhere, Nissan says the Leaf has the company's highest customer satisfation rating, beating all its other models. Over 95 percent of Leaf drivers are satisfied with their cars.

That also echoes findings with the Chevy Volt, which has topped several customer satisfacation surveys in its limited time on sale. It seems that electric vehicles are comfortably matching the expectations of owners.

EU-Digest

France: Economic crisis: can the Socialists stop the fire?

 It was a sacred cow, the holy grail. France's budget deficit would not, repeat not, exceed 3% of its GDP. It was etched in stone; the Socialist government had taken drastic measures to cut the deficit down to that magic number.

But the financial markets, the IMF, the EU, neighbouring countries and probably the average French person knew that this was mission impossible due to sluggish growth. This week, the government finally admitted the sad truth.

Read more: Economic crisis: can the Socialists stop the fire? - FRANCE 24

As Europe Moves to Cap Bonuses, Britain Hesitates - by Harvey Morris

It is hard to imagine any European politician losing votes these days by promising to curb bankers’ pay, which may explain why members of the European Parliament are enthusiastically pushing for the toughest restrictions on bank bonuses since the 2008 financial crisis.

Representatives of the Parliament and of the 27 European Union governments were meeting on Tuesday to finalize a deal on banking law that would include pegging bankers’ bonuses at no more than their annual salaries.

The Parliament’s demands for a bonus cap reflect public outrage at continued revelations of huge payouts to bankers. But a side effect has been to hold up enactment of global banking regulations designed to strengthen the capacity of banks to withstand a future crisis.

A majority of member states have come around to supporting the bonus cap. Germany, a late convert to the idea, is prepared to compromise on the issue in order to ensure the wider banking changes are adopted by the elected European Parliament.

The debate has left the British government out on a limb, as it fights a possibly doomed rearguard action to protect the interests of the City of London, Europe’s biggest financial center.

Read more: As Europe Moves to Cap Bonuses, Britain Hesitates - NYTimes.com

War in Mali: France in Africa – Fifth Republic or Third Empire? - by Dmitry Minin

Paris has its own history of meddling into affairs of former French West African colonies, Cote D’Ivoire, for instance. The black continent (Libya, Mali) interventions have increased in scale and have become more frequent. It has given a rise to talks about the revival of French colonial policy.

Being a leading force at the time of Libyan intervention, Paris moved East with a goal to expand its traditional clout in North Africa. It has not even taken into account the interests of its close NATO ally – Italy. Berlusconi put it straight saying the goal of France was the control over Libyan hydrocarbons and squeezing away all other competitors.

Actually France has refused the course that had been promulgated not so long before calling for comprehensive EU policies to facilitate the regional stabilization and development. The concept of Euro – Mediterranean partnership with Italy and Spain has gradually been fading away from foreign policy priorities list. The situation is rapidly changing, and the impression is that the French elite has decided its hour of triumph is here at hand, the time has come to rejoin the big league of world powers. There is a great temptation to get back from the Fifth Republic to the Third Empire. The France-established post-colonial order creates some ground for such vision. In the 1960s metropolitan France concluded agreements with some former colonies making 14 African states stay in the French franc zone established in 1946. It closely tied their economies to France, even after joining the Eurozone later. Besides, according to the agreements in question France has a right to intervene militarily to maintain and restore internal stability and provide for security of Europeans living in Senegal, the Central African Republic, Chad, Cote D’Ivoire, Gabon and Cameroon.

Read more: War in Mali: France in Africa – Fifth Republic or Third Empire? | Global Research

USA: Transparent State Government : Governor of Maine LePage announces launch of ‘Open Checkbook’ Website

Maine's Governor Paul R. LePage

The Gover nor of Maine Paul R. LePage has launched a new concept of financial transparency for state Government with what he calls an Open Checkbook Website providing the citizens of Maine access to basic, easy to understand information regarding state finances and government spending.
 
The governor announced the new website in his "State of the State address"  on Tuesday, February 12th.

“Open Checkbook gives Mainers information about how their taxpayer dollars are used by their local government including budget data out of government file cabinets and making it available to the public for the first time in an easy-to-access way,” Gov. LePage said in a press release Wednesday.

Through the new Maine Open Checkbook website, individuals initially will be able to research the details of state expenditures, including vendor payments and employee compensation. Next year, the state plans to expand the service to include revenue data and other details related to expenses. Future enhancements would include expanded analytics with graphs and comparative reports.

The European Union has a similar Website called "Transparency Portal" , but probably would benefit from adding some of the features of Maine's "Open Checkbook Website"..

EU-Digest

Euro zone Dec trade surplus rises as imports sink

The European Union's statistics office Eurostat said the unadjusted trade surplus of the 17 countries sharing the euro was 11.7 billion euros ($15.6 billion) in December.

This was higher than 8.0 billion euros a year earlier, but was below the 13.1 billion euros economists polled by Reuters Forecast.

The statistics office also revised down November 2012's figure from 13.7 billion euros to 13.0 billion.
For the whole of 2012, the single currency bloc recorded an overall 81.8 billion euro ( US $ 108 Billion) surplus, with exports up 7 percent and imports rising 2 percent from 2011.

Note EU-Digest: In comparison the US had a trade deficit of $38.5b and Japan $ 2.8 billion, while China, a country notorious for data collection difficulties has not released all figures yet, but they are expected to show a growth of about 25%.


Read more: Euro zone Dec trade surplus rises as imports sink | Reuters

Middle East: Is a road map for peace in Syria in sight?

The Assad regime in Syria has been fighting insurgents for the last two years, but neither side seems strong enough to defeat the other. Now, the government and the opposition appear to want to negotiate. 

For a long time, talking to representatives of the Assad government was unthinkable for opponents. Ever since President Bashar Assad began his violent assault on his opponents, who took to the streets during what is now known as the Arab Spring, many have called for an end to his rule.

They hold him responsible for the civil war that has plunged the country into a deep crisis. Fights between government and opposition forces have led to more than 70,000 casualties so far, according to UN estimates. While the government has been obtaining arms from Russia and Iran, the opponents have been getting support from Qatar. This is one reason why neither side can prevail militarily.

Read more: Is a road map for peace in Syria in sight? | World | DW.DE | 18.02.2013

Cameron arrives in India as Anglo-French rivalry peaks

British PM David Cameron arrived in India on Monday for a three-day trip just days after French President François Hollande’s visit ended with boosted Franco-Indian trade ties as the European states compete in a fast-growing economy.

India had barely bid adieu to French President François Hollande - who left town optimistic about a $12-billion contract for French fighter jets - when British Prime Minister David Cameron touched down at Mumbai airport on Monday amid a scandal engulfing an Anglo-Italian helicopter deal.

Kicking off a three-day visit to India with the largest trade delegation taken abroad by a British prime minister, Cameron said the UK could forge one of “the great partnerships of the 21st century” with India.

Read more: Cameron arrives in India as Anglo-French rivalry peaks - INDIA - EUROPE - FRANCE 24

Capitalism - Davos: Why the Elites Are Losing Sleep - by Rana Foroohar

Who says nothing gets done at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland? As the weeklong winter fest, which costs tens of thousands of dollars to attend, has grown over the past decade, it has become as much about dealmaking as about brainstorming solutions to the world’s problems. In fact, gray-suited consultants slipping around the Magic Mountain in their city loafers now seem to outnumber genuine thought leaders by about 2 to 1.

Still, the elite haven’t abandoned Davos. This year’s shindig drew several heads of state, the world’s top bankers and a good helping of Fortune 500 CEOs, Nobel laureates and rock-star entrepreneurs. Davos remains, as Foreign Policy Group CEO David Rothkopf put it, “the factory in which conventional wisdom is manufactured.” 

Multinational companies are under fire. Five years on from the financial crisis, countries with shrinking public budgets are finally pressuring rich firms to pick up some of the costs of globalization rather than just the benefits. 

We are now in historically uncharted territory in terms of how much central bankers are doing, in lieu of real political action, to try to boost the global economy. They are buying up trillions of dollars’ worth of bonds and buoying world markets in the process. Apart from a few worried Germans, nobody was talking about this last year. Now everyone is fretting about how the Fed, the European Central Bank (until recently), the Bank of Japan and even Chinese authorities have distorted the prices of assets from stocks to bonds to real estate, quite possibly laying the foundation for a market crash or, in the longer term, hyperinflation. “Central bankers can buy time, but they can’t fix the world’s underlying economic problems,” said UBS chairman and former Bundesbank head Axel Weber.

Read more: Davos: Why the Elites Are Losing Sleep | TIME.com

Vatican:: Pope Benedict 'complicit in child sex abuse scandals', say victims' groups

For the legions of people whose childhoods and adult lives were wrecked by sexual and physical abuse at the hands of the Roman Catholic clergy, Pope Benedict XVI is an unloved pontiff who will not be missed.

Victims of the epidemic of sex- and child-abuse scandals that erupted under Benedict's papacy reacted bitterly to his resignation, either charging the outgoing pontiff with being directly complicit in a criminal conspiracy to cover up the thousands of paedophilia cases that have come to light over the past three years, or with failing to stand up to reactionary elements in the church resolved to keep the scandals under wraps.

From Benedict's native Germany to the USA, abuse victims and campaigners criticised an eight-year papacy that struggled to cope with the flood of disclosures of crimes and abuse rampant for decades within the church. Norbert Denef, of the NetworkB group of German abuse victims, said: "The rule of law is more important than a new pope."

Read more: Pope Benedict 'complicit in child sex abuse scandals', say victims' groups | World news | guardian.co.uk

Russia-EU relations can't stagnate because economies are closely related in global world - says Russian envoy to EU

Half of Russia's trade turnover is with the EU, and EU countries are the main sources of foreign investment in the Russian economy despite the crisis, Russia's permanent envoy to the EU Vladimir Chizhov told reporters before Diplomats' Day, which is marked on Feb. 10.

"Russian-EU relations can't stagnate because the Russian economy and the EU economy are closely connected in the modern global world, in the modern global economy," Chizhov said.

"Oil and gas pipelines are not the only things that connect us. There is industrial cooperation and technical cooperation. Our partners have recently made a proposal, which we back to declare year 2014 a year of science and technology in Russian-EU relations," the diplomat said.

Read more: Russia-EU relations can't stagnate because economies are closely related in global world - Russian envoy to EU | Russia Beyond The Headlines

Cyprus elections: pro-bailout candidate takes 45.4% of vote

Their country's future as a eurozone member hanging in the balance, Cypriots voted on Sunday to elect a new president, with the pro-bailout conservative leader, Nicos Anastasiades, securing the biggest backing with 45.4% of the vote.

Anastasiades is set to face a runoff next week after failing to gain enough support for an outright win. However, he is seen as the overwhelming favourite in that contest, against the communist-backed independent, Stavros Malas, who took 26.9% of the vote.

The vote for Anastasiades and his DISY party is an endorsement of the pro-bailout policies advocated by a man who will face the arduous task of finalising a €17bn (£14.6bn) rescue package with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund to keep the country's economy afloat. Last year Cyprus became the fifth eurozone state to ask for a bailout.

Read more: Cyprus elections: pro-bailout candidate takes 45.4% of vote | World news | The Guardian

Why Russia's Patriots Love to Buy U.S. Real Estate

Imagine a newspaper exposé about several members of the U.S. Congress who didn't declare on their tax forms luxury villas on the Iranian Persian Gulf coast. This would be a scandal of Watergate proportions and most likely produce a couple of best-sellers and a made-for-TV movie. Now imagine an analogous situation in Russia. What happens? Almost nothing. There is no scandal, no movie, only a lot of talk on the Internet.

The story began when a group of Russian senators went to the U.S. last summer to persuade their U.S. counterparts to vote against the Magnitsky Act. One of the most vocal opponents of the act was Senator Vitaly Malkin, who said Magnitsky had died in prison from consequences of alcoholism. The senators' "anti-Magnitsky road show" in Washington raised suspicions that their actions not only were not just political but also that their personal interests might have been threatened by the act's ban on visas and asset holdings for some Russian officials.

Journalist Andrei Malgin decided to get to the bottom of the mystery. Using just his computer and the Internet, he dug up some very interesting facts. It turned out that Malkin has real estate in North America. Furthermore, since 1994 he has been trying to get a residence permit in Canada, justifying his request by his business interests. In his application, he openly declared that he owns 111 — yes, 111 — apartments in Toronto. The Canadian authorities turned down his request, and Malkin even tried to take them to court. Unfortunately for him, the court refused to hear his suit.

All this raises a question that opposition leader Boris Nemtsov tried to answer on his Facebook page. "There's one thing I just don't get about these people. Many of them have real estate in the U.S. Many send their children there to go to school. So why are they always ranting hateful stuff about the U.S.? So no one guesses that their real dream is to stroll along Fifth Avenue?"

Read more: Why Russia's Patriots Love to Buy U.S. Real Estate | Opinion | The Moscow Times

Syrian opposition accuses Hezbollah of fighting for Assad

Syria's main opposition bloc on Sunday accused the Lebanon-based Shiite Hezbollah militia of sending fighters into Syria on Saturday to attack three Sunni villages inside Syria's Qusayr border region which lie in the central province of Homs.

Opposition activists quoted by the news agency Associated Press provided no evidence but said that 12 Shiites, five Syrian rebels and 7 Sunni civilians had been killed in the incident.

In Lebanon, a Hezbollah spokesman said three Lebanese Shiites were killed in clashes in Syria while acting in "self defense", without specifying whether they were Hezbollah members.

Read more: Syrian opposition accuses Hezbollah of fighting for Assad | News | DW.DE | 17.02.2013

'Ecuador’s Chavez' headed for re-election landslide

Boosted by his country's low unemployment rate and strong oil exports, left-wing Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa appears poised for re-election, with a majority of polls showing he could pull off a first-round victory on Sunday.

Read more: 'Ecuador’s Chavez' headed for re-election landslide - ECUADOR - FRANCE 24

G-20 seeks to allay fear of currency war - by Don Lee,

Top finance officials of the world's 20 largest economies sought Saturday to allay fear of a currency war, pledging not to target exchange rates to gain a competitive advantage in trade.

But the joint statement, issued at the end of a meeting in Moscow of the so-called Group of 20, or G-20, did not single out any country, essentially giving a pass to Japan to keep pursuing its economic policies despite a significant slide in the value of the yen since November.

Japan's new government under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who will meet with President Obama this week in Washington, had been talking down the yen and has pressed its central bank for more expansive monetary stimulus to break out of its deflationary trap and boost the nation's stagnant economy. A cheaper currency helps a country's exporters sell their goods to foreign markets.

Read more: G-20 seeks to allay fear of currency war - latimes.com

Meteor Fragments Rain Down on Siberia - Hundreds of Injuries Reported

Gym class came to a halt inside the Chelyabinsk Railway Institute, and students gathered around the window, gazing at the fat white contrail that arced its way across the morning sky. A missile? A comet? A few quiet moments passed. And then, with incredible force, the windows blew in.

The scenes from Chelyabinsk, rocked by an intense shock wave when a meteor hit the Earth’s atmosphere Friday morning, offer a glimpse of an apocalyptic scenario that many have walked through mentally, and Hollywood has popularized, but scientists say has never before injured so many people.

Students at the institute crammed through a staircase thickly blanketed with glass and from there out to the street, where hundreds of people were standing in awe, looking at the sky. The flash had come in blinding white, so bright that the vivid shadows of buildings slid swiftly and sickeningly across the ground. The light burst yellow, then orange. And then there was the sound of frightened, confused people. 

Around 1,200 people, 200 of them children, were injured, mostly by glass that exploded into schools and workplaces, according to Russia’s Interior Ministry. Others suffered skull trauma and broken bones. No deaths were reported. A city administrator in Chelyabinsk said that more than a million square feet of glass had been shattered by the shock wave, leaving many buildings exposed to icy cold.

Meteor Fragments Rain Down on Siberia - Hundreds of Injuries Reported - NYTimes.com

Iceland shows no bank is too big to fail and rises further into investment grade status - by Philip Inman

Iceland's rehabilitation after several years as a pariah in the global financial markets gathered pace last night after ratings agency Fitch said the island nation's debts had moved further into investment grade status.

Fitch said Iceland's debts had been upgraded to BBB – from the lowest rung of the investment grade category, BBB- – after a strong recovery from the financial crisis.

Reykjavik's meteoric recovery comes after its 300,000 residents were told they would be locked out of the world's financial markets for decades after they refused to rescue a group of bankrupt banks in 2008.

Unlike Ireland, Portugal and Spain, the Icelandic government let the country's banks become insolvent rather than spend tens of billions of pounds on bailout funds.

Read More: Iceland rises further into investment grade status

US Politics: Power, Privilege, and Climate Change: A Tale of Two Presidents

 As I watched a video of Barack Obama delivering his second inaugural address last month, and listened to his call to “respond to the threat of climate change” lest we “betray our children and future generations,” I could not help but think of another president.

Indeed, the very holding of the event at which Obama spoke is one indication why it is not to the occupant of the White House that those concerned with global warming should look for inspiration, but to someone else. After all, there is something disconcerting about hearing about the need to fight climate change—to reduce the gargantuan greenhouse gas-related footprint of the United States in other words—at a huge event that was both unnecessary and expensive. Obama was already president of the United States, so why another inauguration?

No doubt, the answer illustrates how the nation-state relies to a significant degree on performances to reproduce itself. This is especially the case in countries such as the United States where the benefits that the state actually delivers to its citizenry are increasingly meaningless in terms of everyday wellbeing. In a country in which more than 20 percent of its children live below the official poverty line, for example, approximately half of discretionary U.S. government spending is dedicated to its enormous, global military apparatus and what is called “homeland security.” (Under a Nobel Peace Prize-winning president, U.S. military spending rivals that of all the rest of the world’s countries combined.)

But the event is also a manifestation of U.S. wealth and power. As one historian stated in endorsing Obama’s decision to hold the inauguration, to “let it roll,” a U.S. president “is part of the most elite club in the world,” and a second-term president “the most elite within the most-elite club.”

Compare such consumption and priorities to another head of state, one profiled late last year in The New York Times: President José Mujica of Uruguay. Mujica, reports the Times, “lives in a run-down house on Montevideo’s outskirts with no servants at all. His security detail: two plainclothes officers parked on a dirt road.” He hangs his laundry on a clothesline outside his home.

As part of Mr. Mujica’s effort, he says, to make his country’s presidency “less venerated,” he sold off a presidential residence in a resort city on Uruguay’s Atlantic coast. He also refuses to live in Uruguay’s presidential mansion, one with a staff of 42. Instead, he has offered the opulent abode as a shelter for homeless families during the coldest months.

The leftist president sees such practices as necessary for the proper functioning of a democracy, a goal which requires, reports the Times in paraphrasing him, that “elected leaders . . . be taken down a notch.” He also explains his austere life style by drawing on the words of Seneca, the Roman court-philosopher: “It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, who is poor.”


Read more: Power, Privilege, and Climate Change: A Tale of Two Presidents | Alternet

Russia: Russian Arms Sales Double as Sales to Syria Continue

Russia sold twice as many weapons abroad in 2012 as in the previous year. It now has a portfolio of $37 billion in foreign orders and continues to sell anti-aircraft systems to Syria, a senior arms trade executive told reporters Wednesday.

Although India is still the country's No. 1 weaponry client, sales continue to Syria, Anatoly Isaikin, the head of Rosoboronexport, said at a news conference Wednesday at the Foreign Affairs Ministry.
Isaikin spoke ahead of the IDEX defense industry expo in Abu-Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, which starts next week. Dozens of Russian companies are expected to show their products there to buyers from Gulf countries and the rest of Middle East.

Arms sales to Syria include anti-aircraft missiles and spare parts,not aviation equipment, he added.
The sale of spare parts to Syria came into the spotlight in October, when a civilian airliner carrying spare military parts was stopped at the Istanbul airport.

Russia, which denied the fact that the plane had any munitions on board, said later that the plane was delivering parts for an anti-aircraft radar.

Note EU-Digest: The top 5 arms exporters in the World are 1) USA, 2) Russia, 3) Germany, 4) France and 5) Britain


Read more: Russian Arms Sales Double as Sales to Syria Continue | Business | The Moscow Times