Airlines, tourist reservations in Europe also seeing strong growth
Swiss chalet spying: Brazilians, Indians, Chinese and Americans came in larger numbers in March
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Overnight stays in Swiss hotels, the standard measure of the tourism industry’s health, rose to 3.3 million, a 2.3 percent increase in March 2011 compared to March 2010. The latest figures were released by the Swiss statistical office Monday 9 May.
Foreign tourist stays increased slightly, by 1.1 percent, while Swiss tourist traffic was up 3.9 percent.
The strongest growth came from Asia, with Europe the only region not registering growth. India led the way for Asia, with 5,000 more overnight stays, followed by China with an increase of 4,900.
Brazil had the strongest overall increase, up 5,900 overnight stays, with the US having 4,300 more.
The largest drop was the UK: British tourists spent 30,000 fewer nights in Swiss hotels in March than they did a year earlier: the 16 percent fall was the largest of any one country.
Tourism in general is picking up
A 48-year-old former nurse accused of seeking out and encouraging via the Internet people who were considering suicide, was sentenced in Minnesota Wednesday 4 May. William Melchert-Dinkel was convicted in March over the deaths of a 32-year-old man from England and an 18-year-old Canadian woman.
The judge yesterday ordered him to serve 320 days in prison, then in an unusual twist, to return to prison for two days every year for 10 years, on the anniversaries of the deaths of his victims. He was ordered not to have access to the Internet except for his new job as a trucker. He had been working in a nursing home.
The families of the victims expressed disappointment with the sentences: Melchert-Dinkel had faced up to 15 years in prison for assisting suicides.
The judge said that Melchert-Dinkel’s actions were not alone responsible for the deaths, but they played a role. He posed as a female nurse online and he has admitted to taking part in online suicide chats and he signed fake suicide pacts. He told the court he believed at least five of those people killed themselves.
Links to other sites: Newsninemsn, Pioneer Press
It’s the 14th year running that Russia has made the US list for countries that don’t do enough to fight pirated goods, and the 7th year for China. The 2011 list was released by US Trade Representative Ron Kirk in Washington, who called on the many countries on the “Special 301 Report” list to do more to crack down on copyright fraud. He said in a statement that US companies lost $18 billion in 2010 to fake copies, affecting 18 million Americans who work in industries affected by the frauds.
Canada and India are among the countries listed.
Kirk’s office in a statement noted that “America’s two largest trading partners, Canada and China, remain on the Priority Watch List. The report notes the failure of Canadian efforts in 2010 to enact long-awaited copyright legislation and to strengthen border enforcement. It highlights ongoing concerns about the prevalence of piracy and counterfeiting in China, and China’s implementation of ‘indigenous innovation’ and other industrial policies that discriminate against or otherwise disadvantage US exports and US investors.”
Links to other sites: Moscow Times, Scribd, US report, US Trade Representative’s Office
Correction Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The US has granted Wipo, the World Intellectual Property Organization in Geneva, $50,000 for a six-month programme in Kenya, Morocco and the Philippines to help local authorities raise awareness about the risk of counterfeit products. The programme, to be administered by Wipo, which is matching the grant, will involve a series of seminars.
US Ambassador Betty E King, speaking at an event in Geneva with John Tarpey, head of communications for Wipo, said that “trademark infringement and counterfeiting raise very serious health and safety concerns, such as those attributed to counterfeit medicines, food, automotive parts and electrical products.”
Tarpey notes that half of all drugs sold on the Internet, for example, are counterfeit. The funding will allow Wipo to run workshops to develop a toolkit that will help intellectual property authorities in the three countries conduct more effective outreach campaigns, he says.
Don’t eat armadillo meat and don’t handle them! researchers caution
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Direct contact with armadillos can lead to leprosy infection, a team of researchers in Switzerland and in the USA has confirmed, using what they call advanced DNA analysis and extensive field work.
The Global Health Institute at EPFL in Lausanne and NPHA (National Hansen’s Disease Program) report 28 April in the New England Journal of Medicine that a never-before-seen strain of Mycobacterium leprae has emerged in the Southern United States and that it is transmitted through contact with armadillos carrying the disease.
Only about 150 cases of the disease appear each year in the US, traditionally imported by people who have worked abroad in areas with leprosy. Researchers are quick to point out that the disease is treatable with antibiotics and that 90 percent of people who come into contact with leprosy, officially known as Hansen’s Disease, fight off the infection spontaneously.
Source: EPFL (click on image to view larger)
Public health authorities in the US became alarmed when they realized that one-third of the cases they were seeing were infected people who had never been outside the US.
Armadillos have been known since about 1970 to also carry the disease.
The new study shows inter-species contamination and the presence of a unique strain.
“There is a very strong association between the geographic location of the presence of this particular strain of M. leprae and the presence of armadillos in the Southern US,” says Stewart Cole, head of the Global Health Institute in Lausanne who is known as a leader in the field of leprosy bacilli genome. “Our research provides clear DNA evidence that the unique strain found in armadillos is the same as the one in certain humans.”
The new strain of the bacteria, named 3I-2V1, was found in 28 armadillos out of 33 wild ones included in the study, and in 22 patients, all of whom reported no foreign residence, out of the 50 who took part in the study. The researchers used genome sequencing to identify the new strain and cross check it with other known strains from Europe and Asia. They used genotyping to identify and classify the population infected. It became clear that leprosy patients who never travelled outside the US but lived in areas where infected armadillos are prevalent (see map) were infected with the same strain as the armadillos, EPFL reports.
The researchers make three recommendations: avoid frequent direct contact with the animals, don’t cook or consume their meat and monitor the expansion of their range, as they move north in the US.
José Ramirez is a former migrant worker from Houston who contracted the disease after hunting and eating armadillo meat. Ramirez offers a fourth recommendation: get rid of the stigma attached to the disease, which is a bacterial infection that can be cured. “We need to take this opportunity to give leprosy patients a voice and to learn to not use the word ‘leper’ that has negative connotations around the world, a stigma that should be replaced with an understanding of the disease and its causes.”
Ramirez struggled for more than five years with the disease before it was properly diagnosed. He is now disease-free after receiving antibiotic treatment.
A panel of experts and government officials in Russia came together 27 April to “dispel the idea that road building is so corrupt that Russia’s notoriously bad roads are much more expensive than in Europe and the United States,” reports the Moscow Times. The question of cost, not to mention quality, has been in the news regularly since Ria Novosti, the government news agency, published figures in August 2010 that appeared to show Russia spending three times as much as the US to build one kilometre of road, with the cost rising to more than eight times as much if the road is in Moscow, compared to the US average.
Building 1km of a US road costs $5.9 million, according to Ria Novosti’s figures, while a European road is $6.9m and a Russian road $17.6m, unless it is in Moscow, in which case the cost is $51.7m. The article from August points out that the cost varies depending on several factors such as the number of lanes and the type of ground.
The Moscow Times quotes a Russian official who says that the higher cost isn’t just graft. “‘When roads are badly built, people blame corruption. You have to separate the flies from the meat patties; it’s not so simple,’ said government road technology expert Mikhail Pozdnyakov.” But the newspaper then adds that “The perception of road building as synonymous with graft is not completely unfounded. Road building is one of the most corrupt sectors, according to a recent analysis by the National Anti-Corruption Committee.”
The chairman of the committee meeting this week points out that one reason for cost differences is that in Europe the cost of buying the land is not included in the price of roads, whereas it is, in Russia.
Escalating violence by Syrian government against its citizens drawing sharp rebukes
(video) Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The United States Wednesday 27 April in Geneva initiated a special session of the Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on Syria. France announced that it has called in the Syrian ambassador for an explanation of his government’s attacks on its own citizens, along with four other European governments: Britain, Germany, Italy and Spain.
Late Wednesday news agencies received a statement that 30 members of the ruling Baath party in the city of Banias, scene of protests, have resigned over deaths this week and the violence used on protesters.
Syria was accused by US ambassador Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe, representative to the UNHRC in Geneva, of “the killing of hundreds of civilians in connection with peaceful political protests last week.” Donahoe stated, in initiating the special session, that “we strongly condemn the killing, arrest and torture of hundreds of Syrians by the Syrian authorities. It is entirely appropriate that the Human Rights Council condemn willful government violence against peaceful political protestors. At the Special Session we expect Human Rights Council members to call on the government of Syria to meet its responsibility to protect its population and stop these attacks.”
photo: Xavier Haepe / wikipedia (flickr.com/people/vier)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The European Union’s frayed edges were showing Tuesday 26 April as governments and their citizens absorbed the newly published figures for sovereign debt and deficits, some worse than expected, while Italy and France called for reforms of Schengen rules in the face of massive immigration from North Africa.
Eurostat, the statistical office for the European Union, published 2010 figures for the euro area and the 27-member area, showing the five countries with the largest deficits (budget spending outstripping revenues) in terms of percentages of GDP (gross domestic product) to be: Ireland (32.4%), Greece (10.5%), the United Kingdom (10.4%), Spain (9.2%) and Portugal (9.1%). Greece had agreed not to let its deficit go deeper than 9 percent, the BBC points out.
Deficits on the whole decreased in 2010 compared to 2009 while debt and GDP increased, says Eurostat.
Five countries above 90%, debt ratio to GDP
Government debt (amount owed long-term by the government) declined as a whole but the debt ratio to GDP remained at significantly high levels for several countries.
“Fourteen Member States had government debt ratios higher than 60% of GDP in 2010: Greece (142.8%), Italy (119.0%), Belgium (96.8%), Ireland (96.2%), Portugal (93.0%), Germany (83.2%), France (81.7%), Hungary (80.2%), the United Kingdom (80.0%), Austria (72.3%), Malta (68.0%), the Netherlands (62.7%), Cyprus (60.8%) and Spain (60.1%).”
US, Swiss debt ratio compared to European ratios
The US debt, by comparison, is about 97 percent of GDP, a fact emphasized by the warning issued by S&P’s 18 April on the federal debt.
Switzerland’s federal debt was about 20 percent of GDP in early 2010, and with communal and cantonal debt added in, it stood at about 40 percent, well below the G20 average (closer to 100) and the average of most of Europe. Reuters, in December 2010, reported that Bern “expects Switzerland’s overall public debt to fall to around 37 percent of gross domestic product according to international standards next year [2011], less then half of the rate predicted by the OECD for the euro zone.”
Government spending decreased in 2010 in the two zones as a whole, while revenues were essentially static: “Government expenditure in the euro area was equivalent to 50.4% of GDP and government revenue to 44.4%. The figures for the EU27 were 50.3% and 44.0% respectively. In both zones, the government expenditure ratio decreased between 2009 and 2010, while the government revenue ratio remained almost unchanged.”
British military spending data questioned
Two countries prompted “reservations”, Romania and Great Britain, the latter for concerns over its reporting of military spending: “Eurostat is expressing a reservation on the quality of the data reported by the United Kingdom, due to uncertainties on the time of recording of military expenditure. The United Kingdom does not record military expenditure on a delivery basis, as required by the relevant Eurostat Decision of 9 March 2006.”
EU figures compared to Switzerland, USA
The warning by S&P’s 18 April on the US federal debt underscored it’s
Schengen rules don’t fit current situation, France and Italy argue
France and Italy, which have been at odds over how to handle large numbers of North Africans flowing across Europe’s southern borders, joined forces Tuesday on the occasion of a French-Italian summit. Leaders Nicolas Sarkozy and Silvio Berlusconi have jointly sent off a letter to Brussels, they said, underscoring their commitment to the Schengen agreement on the free movement of people but insisting that the agreement needs to be reformed.
They did not specify what this would involve, but they cited the exceptional circumstances caused by events in North Africa, according to Le Monde (Fr).
Complete table, by country, from Eurostat
The Greek dilemma, Economist, 26 April 2011
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Russia has decided not to use its quota to hunt 29 polar bears but the decision is probably due to a lack of means to survey the situation, a WWF official in Russia says, according to the Moscow Times. Russia and the United States agreed in 2010 to a culling quota of 58 polar bears that could be hunted by natives for traditional and cultural purposes.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said 8 April on his website that the culling will no go ahead.
Russia had previously banned polar bear hunting but it agreed to the quota system as a means of stopping poaching. The WWF’s Russia office told the Moscow Times that it believes about 30 animals, out of a Bering Straits population of some 2,000 bear, are killed illegally every year. The US estimates that 100 are killed illegally in Alaska.
The Russian programme to end poaching has strong support from Putin, reportedly a wildlife fan.
Links to other sites: Moscow Times, Seattle PI, WWF polar bear page
WWF Umky Patrol, polar bears, in Russia
Budget deal not worked out by Thursday evening, shutdown looms for midnight Friday
“I’m not yet prepared to express wild optimism,” a cautious President Barack Obama told reporters late Thursday 7 April, after talks with House and Senate leaders at the White House, in an attempt to avoid the US government shutting down at midnight Friday. The key issue is a spending bill that Congrress has not managed to pass because of differences over what the NY Times calls “only a few billion dollars . . . a relatively small gap in a $3.5 trillion budget.
Abortion funding and environmental protection projects are two of the key issues, with Republicans insisting on spending cuts for projects Democrats are determined to fund.
Republicans were behind a stopgap bill that would provide one week of funding for most government agencies and one year of military funding, but Obama has said it is a “distraction” and he will veto it.
Federal departments are reportedly preparing to lay off workers and shut down services if a bill is not passed Friday.
Links to other sites: Fox, New York Times, NPR
Swiss banking secrecy intact with insistance on “no fishing expeditions”
Swiss parliament in session Photo ©Swiss parliament
Swiss parliament in session Photo ©Swiss parliament
Treaty agreements interpretations clearer, says Bern
Bern, Switzerland (GeenvaLunch) – The Swiss Federal Council is asking parliament’s authorization to amend double taxation treaties (DTT) with a number of countries, to more precisely define what is meant by “administrative assistance”. The term covers requests for help, from one government to another, in cases of suspected tax fraud or tax evasion.
The announcement 6 April comes two months after the council agreed that the amendments are necessary because the more precise interpretations were not available when the treaties were signed in June 2010. They will affect treaties with: Denmark, Finland, France, the UK, Qatar, Luxembourg, Mexico, Norway and Austria. A DTT signed with the US will also require an amendment, to be handled separately.
Parliament must be consulted for any changes to the treaties, under Swiss law.
Switzerland has in the past insisted that help could be provided only if a bank account owner was identified, but in February 2011 the ruling Federal Council agreed that an interpretation clause should stipulate that “in future indicating the name and address of the taxpayer and the information holder is no longer absolutely necessary for processing administrative assistance requests, provided that the identification occurs by other means and fishing expeditions are not involved.”
The interpretation clause is necessary, the council argues, to ensure that all states in the treaties have a level playing field and to avoid a “foreseeable obstacle” if Switzerland’s assistance is not deemed to be in line with the treaty because of varying intepretations. The clause will reduce “the risk of failure in the peer review process of the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes”. the council says in a press release.
Tax assistance only for individual cases: amendments will not change this
Protesting to support Wisconsin workers, in Geneva, Switzerland, 4 April 2011 (photo, Maya Samura)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A small group of about 50 people, mainly Americans, responded Monday 4 April to a call from Democrats Abroad to march in solidarity with workers in Wisconsin, USA.
The group gathered at the United Nations plaza, and included people from the International Labour Organization and Swiss unions.
Government workers in Wisconsin have been at the centre of a tug of war between the state’s Republicans and Democrats over a new law that, according to Associated Press on NPR, would “force public employees to pay more for their health care and pension benefits, which amounts to an 8 percent pay cut. It also would eliminate their ability to collectively bargain anything except wage increases no higher than inflation.”
Democrats Abroad and others protest in Geneva in support of Wisconsin's state workers
A judge rule Friday 1 April that the law must be put on hold for two months while she studies whether it was passed legally and published correctly.
The proposed law prompted sit-ins and protests in the state capital of Madison for weeks, with thousands of workers from other states providing support. It was finally passed when Democrats left the state to avoid a vote and Republicans found a work-around that they believe allowed them to legally vote for and pass the law.
Continuing protests included about 1,000 groups internationally who marched in their support 4 April, according to Maya Samara of Democrats Abroad in Geneva.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The head of a Geneva-based hedge fund company, Edward Gurary, CEO of Dighton Capital Management, has pleaded guilty in the US to not declaring to the IRS (US tax arm) funds held at Swiss banks, including Credit Suisse. The US Department of Justice announced the news in a press release issued late Tuesday 8 March.
Gurary was named 23 February in a DOJ investigation. His office told GenevaLunch at the time that he was on vacation and unavailable for comment.
The latest statement, with Gurary’s admission of guilt, lays out how the financier hid the funds he failed to report; at the time he was living in Ohio, in the US. He moved to the Geneva region in 2010.
“Gurary admitted that from approximately 2002 through 2008, he owned and controlled a financial account at UBS AG which was in the name of a Bahamian entity called Demko Ltd. and which contained balances ranging from $490,000 to $947,000. Gurary controlled transactions in the Demko account by sending faxes using a code name “Vanda” to UBS from an OfficeMax store in the Cleveland area rather than his home or business. UBS would in turn send his requests for authorizations to officers of Demko in the Bahamas in order to make it appear that Demko owned and controlled the account. During the prosecution years, interest was paid by UBS into the Demko account, in amounts ranging from $3,400 to more than $21,000, all of which Gurary admitted he failed to report on his tax returns.”
US President Barack Obama has approved the first permit for deepwater oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico after a nine-month shutdown following the April 2010 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig and the major spill that followed. The moratorium was lifted in October, but the US administration has played it safe and taken time before issuing permits. The permit issued MOnday 28 February went to Noble Energy of Houston, for an existing well.
The news comes as the price of oil reached $100 per barrel Tuesday 1 March, with tensions in oil-producing Middle East states, notably Libya, continuing. The CS Monitor reports that in the US, truckers are unhappy but some oil producing areas such as North Dakota, see the higher prices as a bonanza because it allows them to extract oil from sites where the recovery cost is relatively high.
Trading on call options of oil drilling equipment and services company Weatherford International, based in Geneva, were the highest on the US market Tuesday, reports Bloomberg, following news of the permit.
Links to other sites: Bloomberg, CS Monitor, Houston Chronicle
Credit Suisse, Zurich
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Four bankers who work for Credit Suisse have been indicted in eastern Virginia in the US on charges of conspiring with other bankers to defraud the US government, its justice department and the IRS tax arm of the government. The Department of Justice (DOJ) press release does not name the bank, but Credit Suisse has confirmed the information to TSR, Swiss public television, and other Swiss media.
The four include a Geneva banker, Marco Parenti Adami, and three others, Emanuel Agustino, Michele Bergantino and Roger Schaerer.
Parenti Adami is a senior manager whose several duties include responsibility for North American clientele for French-speaking Switzerland at Credit Suisse, where he has worked for 17 years.
The DOJ statement says:
“According to the indictment, the defendants and their co-conspirators solicited U.S. customers to open secret accounts because Swiss bank secrecy would permit them to conceal from the IRS their ownership of accounts at the bank and other Swiss banks. It is further alleged that they provided unlicensed and unregistered banking services and investment advice to customers in the United States in person while on travel to here, including at the international bank’s representative office in New York City and by mailings, e-mail and telephone calls to and from the United States.
“The indictment further alleges that the defendants and their co-conspirators caused U.S. customers to travel outside the United States, to destinations including Switzerland and the Bahamas, to conduct banking related to their secret accounts; opened secret accounts in the names of nominee tax haven entities for U.S. customers; accepted IRS forms that falsely stated under penalties of perjury that the owners of the secret accounts were not subject to U.S. taxation; advised U.S. customers to structure withdrawals from their secret accounts in amounts less than $10,000 in an attempt to conceal the secret account and the transactions from American authorities; and advised U.S. customers to utilize offshore credit, and debit cards linked to their secret accounts and provided the customers with such cards, including cards issued by American Express, Visa and Maestro.”
Credit Suisse, which says it is cooperating with the DOJ in the investigation, insists that it is not the target of the IRS. But the DOJ statement notes that “As of the fall of 2008, the international bank maintained thousands of secret accounts for customers in the United States with as much as $3 billion in total assets under management in those accounts. The conspiracy dates back to 1953 and involved two generations of U.S. tax evaders including US customers who inherited secret accounts at the international bank.”
TSR points out that the case against Switzerland’s other major bank, UBS, began in a similar way, with charges against a small number of bank managers before it escalated into a demand by the DOJ for data on thousands of Swiss bank accounts.
The bankers, if found guilty, could face up to five years in prison and fines of $250,000 each.
Link to other sites: Bloomberg, US Department of Justice, TSR (Fre)
For two bucks and a prayer, you can get a little closer to heaven. It’s a matter, if you’re Roman Catholic, of getting a touch of help from your iPhone (or iPad or iPod touch) and going to confession again. A company in Indiana, in the US, has come out with Confession: A Roman Catholic App.
“Designed to be used in the confessional, this app is the perfect aid for every penitent. With a personalized examination of conscience for each user, password protected profiles, and a step-by-step guide to the sacrament, this app invites Catholics to prayerfully prepare for and participate in the Rite of Penance.”
Haven’t been to confession for years? The last time you admitted to punching your sister 12 times and fibbing 25 times, but you’ve moved on to other sins?
Not to worry, says Little iApps, the company that designed it, a self-described a mobile applications development startup with a Roman Catholic twist. At least one Catholic took it to the confessional with him, after some 20 years without a priestly absolution, and found it helpful, according to the company.
“Little iApps developer and co-founder, Patrick Leinen says, “Our desire is to invite Catholics to engage in their faith through digital technology. Taking to heart Pope Benedict XVI’s message from last years’ World Communications Address, our goal with this project is to offer a digital application that is truly ‘new media at the service of the Word.”
Note to doubting Thomases: this is designed for use in the confessional: it does not replace it. If you’re worried that the Church will find it a little too, well, outside the box, the company states that “the app received an imprimatur [seal of approval] from Bishop Kevin C Rhodes of the Diocese of Fort Wayne–South Bend. It was the first known imprimatur to be given for an iPhone™, iPad, or iPod touch® application.”
Michael Adelman, 17, died while on a 20-mile Boy Scout hike in the Florida Everglades. His family, who supported his efforts to become an Eagle Scout during his eight years as a Scout, are now suing the organization, saying its experienced leaders were not diligent enough and are at fault in his death. Some 3 million young people in the US are members of the Boy Scouts.
ABC Nightline video (9 minutes)
Devastating floods in the Rio de Janeiro region in Brazil continue to take a high toll, with the number of deaths now well above 400 and expected to rise as rescuers find more bodies. Some 14,000 people are homeless and the country’s new president, Dilma Rousseff has promised US$400 million in aid to clean up and rebuild.
In other extreme weather news, Brisbane and the Queenlands area in Australia fear more rain is on the way, with a cyclone building up offshore while the massive damage from high waters of the past two weeks is assessed. Reuters reports that 12,000 homes have been destroyed and 118,000 buildings are without electricity. The World Meteorological Organization in Geneva, Switzerland 10 January confirmed that the heavy rains are part of the La Nina weather pattern.
In the Boston area and much of the rest of the northeastern US, heavy snows are threatening again, but schools and airports have re-opened after being closed for two days while the area dug itself out.
Links to other sites: Boston.com, Los Angeles Times, Reuters
Video, Boston.com
Bernese Alps, Switzerland
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Guardian‘s latest batch of leaked cables from the US diplomatic bag include one sent by then-Ambassador Pamela Pitzer Willeford in January 2006, an assessment of how good a friend Switzerland was to the US government. Switzerland was deemed to be a cooler friend than Liechtenstein, which comes across as a friendly lap dog in its haste to change its image in the US, at the time, as a money laundering centre.
The Swiss, according to Willeford, who shared her opinions but no real information, were not cooperating enough with the US government in the fight against terrorism, and Swiss media had it in for the US. “Since the Washington Post claimed in early November 2005 that the United States was operating hidden prisons in Europe, the Swiss media has gone full bore in identifying USG sins, real and imagined. Any news on Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib is guaranteed front-page treatment, whereas Al-Qaeda attacks are relegated to the back pages.”
Links: Guardian, US cable from Switzerland, GenevaLunch editorial
Nut and fruit grove farmers in California, USA, are the latest group to protest a planned high-speed train that will cut through the centre of the state, 200km from Madera to Bakersfield. Farm groups say they are in the dark about the details of planned lines, but they are worried about new proposals that would splice century-old family farms with complex irrigation systems. Earlier proposals would have used existing lines but the town of Hanford in particular, famous for its 123-year-old rail history, which it has turned into a tourist commodity, resisted. The rail authority says environmental studies will look closely at the impact on farms.
The rail authority is rushing to push through its plans in order to obtain federal credit to start construction. New federal funding is available because other states returned funds for high speed rail lines.
Public transport and California residents have not been close friends over the years, with the car as king in the western USA, but the state has been trying to shift this with its plans for a network of bullet train lines. The flat Central Valley is the starting point, in part because it would cost less to build there. Joblessness in the Central Valley region is well above that in the rest of the state and the new line would create jobs, especially in construction, plus link the agricultural area south of Fresno to other regions, with an expected positive impact on the depressed regional economy.
Links to other sites: CNBC, Los Angeles Times
©2010 Chappatte, distributed by Globe Cartoon. More cartoons on Chappatte’s web site. Geneva-based Patrick Chappatte works for the International Herald Tribune, for Geneva newspaper Le Temps, and for NZZ am Sonntag. All cartoons reproduced with permission.
FCC vote today could have major impact on the Internet as we know it
One of the most sacred principles of the Internet, that all content is treated equally by service providers, is about to be sent down the drain by the US Federal Communications Commission, it appears. The commission is expected to vote 21 December in favour of new rules that will allow mobile service and wireless providers to charge some companies more for faster delivery, creating what many in the industry fear will be a two-speed Internet, with the big content players consolidating their positions by paying more. The FCC is the regulatory power for media and telecoms in the US. The only groups that are happy with the expected changes to FCC rules are US cable companies and telecoms, reports Wired in a scathing article about the likely outcome to the five-year net neutrality battle.
Links to other sites: Economist blog, Guardian, Huffington Post
Background, Wired, September 2009
©2010 Chappatte, distributed by Globe Cartoon. More cartoons on Chappatte’s web site. Geneva-based Patrick Chappatte works for the International Herald Tribune, for Geneva newspaper Le Temps, and for NZZ am Sonntag. All cartoons reproduced with permission.
Spice is illegal in Switzerland (photo: wikipedia)
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The real thing, marijuana, does not have a good relationship with the law, and now fake versions of the illegal substance have also run afoul of US authorities. The federal DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) 24 November posted a notice in the Federal Register that chemical copycat products will be temporarily banned starting in 30 days. Five “synthetic cannabinoids” will be banned, including brand names Spice, Red X Dawn and K2, products with plants that are laced with chemicals similar to THC, which gives marijuana its buzz.
Fifteen US states and several European governments have also banned some of the products on the market. Spice, used as both a brand name and a generic term, is on Swissmedic’s list of abused substances, banned in Switzerland, as are lesser known variants.
Ireland is one of the most recent countries to outlaw the products. Read more…
Americans, unlike other nationalities, file and often pay taxes in the country where they reside as well as to the US
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The US Congress next Sunday, 21 November, has a tax debate scheduled, and worried Americans who live overseas are struggling to get the attention of lawmakers on several key points. Top of the list is serious miscalculations that could encourage Congress to eliminate a crucial deduction for overseas Americans, the foreign earned income exclusion (FEIE), say some Americans. Their hardest job may be getting the attention of Congress as the fight heats up over whether or not to extend several Bush-era tax cuts, indefinitely, temporarily or not at all.
Geneva-based American Citizens Abroad (ACA), a non-profit non-partisan group, wrote a sharply worded letter to the US Commission for Responsible Federal Budgets 10 November, “protesting the use of impossible statistics in the document ‘Let’s Get Specific: Tax Expenditures’ published in October 2010,” says the ACA in a statement.
The commission estimates that eliminating the FEIE “would bring in $6 billion in additional tax revenues, while ACA calculates that this would not only bring in far less, well under $1b, but it would also be a disaster from the point of view of jobs for Americans.”
The foreign earned income exclusion allows Americans to deduct $91,400 of income earned abroad before double taxation kicks in. If they deduct the taxes they pay in their country of residence they may not take the FEIE.
Osama bin Laden is living in relative comfort in a house not far from his deputy in northwest Pakistan, says a senior Nato official familiar with sensitive intelligence in the war in Afghanistan, as reported by CNN 18 October. Interceptions of Taliban and al Qaeda communications indicate that the US cross-border drone attacks on militants have pushed their leaders from vulnerable border areas into more populated towns and even cities, where the risk of collateral damage limits potential attacks.
The Pakistani ambassador to the USA says that the accusation is ludicrous. “Anybody who thinks that … is smoking something they shouldn’t be”, Husain Haqqani was quoted as saying.
Some elements of the Pakistani government and intelligence services are suspected of being sympathetic to the Taliban and al Qaeda, which they see as useful allies against India.
The price of a barrel of oil for delivery in November went above $80 on better news from China and the USA, the world’s largest consumer nations. The price of crude oil rose more than 11 percent in September, its largest rise since May 2009. Second quarter GDP growth exceeded expectations in the USA, and better than expected jobless claims, consumer spending and manufacturing figures boosted confidence the economy was pulling ahead. In China, the purchasing managers index in September jumped at its fastest pace in four months.
Links to other sites: Bloomberg, Reuters, Romandie News
FinCen (Financial Crimes Enforcement Network), an arm of the US Department of the Treasury, Tuesday 28 September published a proposed rule that would oblige financial market and monetary transaction businesses to report to it all transactions of $1,000 or more, into and out of the US. These businesses are already required to keep records of such transactions, says FinCen, but the new rules would require them to “affirmatively report” such information as part of the US fight against terrorism and money laundering, says FinCen.
“‘By establishing a centralized database, this regulatory plan will greatly assist law enforcement in detecting and ferreting out transnational organized crime, multinational drug cartels, terrorist financing, and international tax evasion,” says FinCen Director James Freis. “FinCen has examined the cross-border reporting issue, taking into account the exceptional benefit to law enforcement and the modest cost to industry, and we look forward to working closely with both as this rule moves forward through the public comment process.”
The new requirement would take aim at tax evaders by creating a database of anyone moving $1,000 or more into or out of the United States for any reason. “FinCen is also proposing to require an annual filing by all depository institutions of a list of taxpayer identification numbers of account-holders who transmitted or received a CBETF (cross-border electronic transmittals of funds). This additional information will facilitate the utilization of the CBETF data, in particular as part of efforts to combat tax evasion by those who would seek to hide assets in offshore accounts.”
The public has 90 days in which to comment on the proposed new rules.
The White House has hailed the announcement by Russia that it would halt the sale of the S-300 air defense missile system to Iran, in compliance with the fourth round of sanctions on Iran by the UN Security Council. Russian President Dmitri Medvedev announced the measure 22 September on his website saying it was “dictated by a complicated military and political situation in the region and support of the United Nations sanctions against Iran.”
Russia has always claimed that the missile sale, which was years in the making, was not covered by UN sanctions.
Links to other sites: Bloomberg, New York Times, RIA Novosti
Overseas US citizens often surprised to find children have obligations but not the right to vote
By Clair Whitmer
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Most Americans assume that US citizenship automatically grants individuals the right to vote. However many expatriate American parents are shocked to learn that their children raised overseas, even if full US citizens in all other respects, do not necessarily have the right to vote in US elections. The states require that citizens establish residency prior to registering to vote. These residency requirements exist to facilitate election administration, not to exclude voters, and they are easily met in most states. That is, they are easily met unless you are an American born and raised overseas.
These Americans are called “non-domiciled citizens” and are full US citizens: they have American birth certificates and passports, must file US federal taxes, and males must register with the Selective Service. However, only 18 states allow them to register to vote using a parent’s [former US] voting address. The other 32 states will not accept their registration forms unless and until they move back stateside and meet residency requirements.
The fact that citizenship can still be granted without a guarantee of voting rights flies in the face of most Americans’ understanding of what it means to be a citizen. The constitution prohibits states from denying the right to vote from certain categories of citizens: women, blacks, adults aged 18 to 21. But, there is no constitutional guarantee of general voting rights.
Number of children born abroad
Claire Smith in an article, “These are our numbers: civilian americans overseas and voter turnout”, writes that the US Census Bureau does not count overseas citizens, thus there is no accurate way to know how many potential voters are left out of the democratic process in this way. It is almost certainly a fairly small number compared to the estimated 6 million Americans who live overseas and who exercise federal voting rights under the 1986 Uniformed and Overseas Citizen Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA).
Fortunately, new data provides insight into the number of children abroad.
