Australia
- Philip Morris is has threatened to sue the government of Australia over a plan to ban company logos and branding on tobacco packaging. The company states that the law violates an investment treaty between Australia and Hong Kong.
Bolivia
- In the wake of violent protests sparked by food shortages, President Evo Morales has signed a new law to create state-owned companies to produce seeds and fertilisers. The stated goal is to safeguard biodiversity in the country, protect native food crops, and end dependence on imported seed.
Earth
- In "look! Up in the sky!" news, asteroid 2011 MD passed within 7,500 miles of the surface of the Earth around 1 PM Eastern yesterday. This put it well inside the orbit of geosynchronous satellites (which orbit at 22,236 miles) but above the International Space Station (which orbits at 220 miles). The asteroid, which is between 29 and 98 feet wide, would have burned up in our atmosphere had it actually hit the Earth.
Germany
- Joseph Ackerman, the CEO of Deutsche Bank, has warned that if the current economic crisis in Greece spreads to other nations in Europe, it "could be bigger than Lehman". He also believes that a lack of transparency on who owns Greek credit default swaps has made it more difficult to take dramatic action to solve the problem. "We don't know whether these are in the hands of only a few players, which could then end up in trouble."
Greece
- Olli Rehn, the European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, has warned Greece that "the only way to avoid immediate default is for parliament to endorse the revised economic program.... They must be approved if the next tranche of financial assistance is to be released." Commenting on rumors that Brussels is working on alternate options if the austerity measures are rejected, he also said "to those who speculate about other options, let me say this clearly: there is no Plan B to avoid default."
- Despite this, Greek public and private sector unions have joined together to launch a planned two-day strike in protest of the proposed austerity measures.
Ireland
- Speaking at a conference, Google's chairman Eric Schmidt expressed his concerns that, in the wake of the "Arab Spring" and the role of the internet in those protests and uprisings, more governments will attempt to limit internet usage.
Israel
- In "better late than never" news, Israeli troops have begun to dismantle part of the West Bank barrier. Four years after Israel's High Court ordered the government to reroute the barrier where it cut through the Palestinian town of Bilin.
Japan
- 15 metric tons (about 16.5 US tons) of water contaminated with low levels of radiation have leaked from a Fukushima storage tank. TEPCO has said it is investigating the cause of the leak.
Libya
- The rebel health minister has said that hospitals in Benghazi are running short of medical supplies, particularly drugs and surgical gloves.
- In a move that should surprise nobody, Libya has rejected the ICC warrant for the arrest of Muammar Gaddafi, Saif al-Islam, and Abdullah al-Sanussi. "the leader of the revolution and his son do not hold any official position in the Libyan government and therefore they have no connection to the claims of the ICC against them," stated Libya's justice minister.
Syria
- Over 150 dissidents have met publically in a hotel in Damascus to discuss the current crisis in the country, with the meeting's organizer calling for an end to the government's crackdown on protesters and for a peaceful transition to democracy. Surprisingly, the Syrian government's response has not been to announce that the hotel is harboring "armed terror gangs" and then machine-gun everyone in the hotel.
United States
- Despite the collapse of talks on the subject Thursday, President Obama remains confident that Democrats and Republicans will be able to reach a compromise deal to cut the US deficit and increase its borrowing limit. In related comments, Senator Jon Kyl told reporters that "revenues per se are not off the table. What we have said is we will not raise taxes, we will not alter the tax code by raising rates, that kind of thing."[1] Both sides of the debate are facing a hard deadline of August 2, when the US Treasury has said it will have run out of money to pay bills.
- The Supreme Court is set to decide whether police need a warrant to use a GPS device to track a suspect's movements. An appeals court has overturned the conviction and life-in-prison sentence of Antoine Jones (for conspiracy to distribute cocaine), ruling that the month long tracking of Jones' movements by GPS amounted to an unreasonable search and an invasion of privacy. The administration has appealed, and the Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling sometime in October.
- Gary Foster, a former Citigroup banker, has pled not guilty to charges that he stole $19.2 million between May 2009 and December 2010.
- The LA Dodgers have filed for bankruptcy.
[1] No, I don't know how a US Senator is proposing to increase government revenue without raising taxes.
No comments:
Post a Comment