Politics this week: 20th - 26th January 2007

George Bush delivered his annual state-of-the-union message to Congress. The president laid out policies on health insurance, immigration, education and energy, where he presented a plan to reduce petrol consumption in America by 20% over the next ten years. See article

Mr Bush also sought support for his plan to send more troops to Iraq, arguing that, should America retreat, the result would be a “nightmare scenario” in Iraq and surrounding countries. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee promptly responded by voting against the plan, arguing it was “not in the national interest” of the United States.

The House of Representatives finished passing all the bills that comprised the Democrats' “100 hour” agenda, with plenty of time to spare. However, the proposal to increase the federal minimum wage was stalled in the Senate when Republicans insisted on adding tax breaks for small businesses to help cover the cost of the wage increase. See article

Thousands of Turks, some with banners declaring “We are all Armenians”, marched to the funeral in Istanbul of Hrant Dink, a Turkish-Armenian journalist murdered last week, apparently for “insulting Turkishness”. Attending the funeral were ministers from both Turkey and Armenia. Turkey denies committing genocide against the Armenians in 1915. See article

The ultra-nationalist Serbian Radical Party, whose leader is on trial at The Hague accused of war crimes, won most votes in Serbia's general election. But its vote was outweighed by the tally of the two main moderate parties, who are likely to form a pro-Europe coalition government. See article

A European Parliament committee concluded that EU countries, including Britain and Germany, were aware of the abduction of terror suspects by the CIA. The committee criticized EU officials, among them foreign-policy chief Javier Solana, for not co-operating in its investigation.

The European Union, in bilateral talks with China, said it would continue its arms embargo, imposed after the Tiananmen Square killings of 1989, until China ratified a UN convention on human rights, freed those jailed in connection with Tiananmen Square and ended the “re-education through labor” system of imprisonment without trial.

More stick, less carrot

The Iraqi prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, has apparently decided, at last, to try to rein in the Shia militias responsible in large part for the continuing rash of sectarian murders in Baghdad. At least 600 members of the Mahdi Army, the biggest militia, have been arrested in the past few weeks. Meanwhile, Sunni insurgents continued to kill hundreds of Shias with bomb attacks in crowded places in Baghdad and towns nearby. See article

Israel's attorney-general said he intends to charge the president, Moshe Katsav, with rape. Mr Katsav accused the media of hounding him; his lawyers will try to stop the charges being brought. Meanwhile, a parliamentary panel approved a request by the president for a three-month leave of absence.

The prospect of civil strife in Lebanon loomed as demonstrations in Beirut, led by the Shias' Hizbullah movement against the pro-Western coalition government of Fouad Siniora, turned nasty, leaving at least three dead. But the government refused to step down or accept the opposition's demands for a veto-wielding minority of ministers in the government. See article

Ethiopia's government said its troops had started to leave Somalia a month after helping to defeat Islamist militias that had taken over the south of the country. Meanwhile, America made another air strike in southern Somalia, reportedly targeting al-Qaeda operatives.

Security forces in Guinea killed some 30 people in clashes with protesters calling for the ailing president, Lansana Conté, to resign. See article

How to break a cartel

Mexico's new government extradited 15 alleged drug traffickers to face charges in the United States. They included Osiel Cárdenas, the leader of the “Gulf Cartel”. The extraditions are part of a wider crackdown against organized crime. See article

Brazil's government announced a long-awaited package of tax breaks and public- spending measures aimed at boosting the country's lackluster rate of economic growth. Private business said the measures were in the right direction, but too timid. See article

Bolivia's socialist president, Evo Morales, marked his first year in office by promising to raise taxes on foreign mining-firms and to speed up land reform. He also reshuffled his cabinet, replacing several indigenous leaders with left-wing activists.

Click here to the original news capsules and other features from The Economist

Business this week: 20th - 26th January 2007

Pfizer, the world's biggest drugs firm, said it would cut almost 8,000 jobs (on top of 2,000 announced last month) and close several manufacturing and research facilities as part of a restructuring effort. The closures include the production site in Brooklyn where Pfizer was founded in 1849. The patent on Pfizer's biggest-earning drug is due to expire in 2010; a potential blockbuster was canceled last year; and Pfizer, like its rivals, faces a struggle to come up with new money-spinners and growing competition from makers of generic drugs. See article

MAN, a German truckmaker, dropped its euro10.5 billion ($13.7 billion) hostile bid for Scania, a Swedish rival. The offer had been opposed by Scania's two largest shareholders, Volkswagen and the investment arm of Sweden's Wallenberg family, since it was launched last autumn. Ferdinand Piëch, the chairman of VW (which is also MAN's biggest investor), pressed for friendly merger talks instead. See article

It's up to you, New York

A report commissioned by New York's leading politicians, including its mayor, Michael Bloomberg, gave warning that the city's status as the world's foremost financial center was under threat. It said that up to 7% of the American market in global financial services could be lost to foreign competitors over the next five years. The report proffered various recommendations to help the city avoid this fate, chief of which was clearer guidance on the regulatory structure that has been in place since the Sarbanes-Oxley act.

Citigroup reported that net income had fallen by 12% in 2006, to $21.5 billion. The financial giant also parted company with Todd Thomson, its head of global wealth management, and is replacing him with Sallie Krawcheck, currently chief financial officer. See article

Other big American banks also reported yearly results. Bank of America's net profit rose by 28% in 2006, to $21.1 billion, boosted in part by its acquisition of MBNA, a credit-card issuer, at the beginning of the year. And net income at Wachovia increased by 17%, to $7.8 billion, as it booked the benefits of integrating two banks, Golden West and Westcorp, it bought recently.

A change of style?

Paul Pressler resigned as chief executive of Gap. The clothing retailer has seen its sales droop over the past two years and is reviewing a number of options for its brands. Speculation has centered on a buy-out of the company. Robert Fisher, whose parents founded Gap in 1969, replaces Mr Pressler in the interim.

Sun Microsystems made a surprise quarterly profit (its first for a year and a half) as sales of its Solaris 10 operating system took off. Sun also laid its differences with Intel to rest by proclaiming a strategic alliance, which includes the use of Intel's Xeon chips in some of Sun's servers. The news came at a bad time for Intel's arch-rival Advanced Micro Devices. The chipmaker confirmed that a price war was damaging its business when it reported a quarterly net loss of $574m.

The share price of Alcatel-Lucent plunged by more than 8% after the Franco-American company forecast that fourth-quarter profit would be flat. Alcatel's merger with Lucent, completed two months ago, created the second-biggest provider of networking equipment, but there has been a delay in combining product lines, causing some customers to turn elsewhere.

EBay reported solid revenue growth in the fourth quarter in its core auction and sales businesses, partly due to people trading game consoles in the run up to Christmas. Its share price, which has been languishing of late, soared. Revenue at Skype jumped by 164%, but eBay admitted that the benefits of acquiring the internet-calling business in 2005 had yet to be seen.

The price of oil jumped by some 5% after George Bush outlined a plan in his speech to Congress to double the size of America's strategic reserves by 2027. A few days earlier the price had fallen, briefly, to below $50 a barrel for the first time since May 2005.

Amid all the glad-handing and schnapps at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the prospect was raised of an effort to revive the stalled Doha round of trade talks. A meeting was called between trade officials from rich and poor countries to boost confidence in the process, which led to hopes of a new timetable. See article

Lagging behind

America's labor productivity growth rate in 2006 was the lowest for more than a decade, according to a study by the Conference Board. Although productivity growth rates were higher in most of Europe and Japan, the report suggested there would be future diminishing returns worldwide from investments in information and communication technology.

Click here to read the original business news summaries from Economist.com

Rated R for Ridiculous

Tremendous editorial about the corrupt and veiled practices by the MPAA ratings board from the director of a documentary about the ratings system everyone should see.

Kirby Dick is an Academy Award-nominated filmmaker whose documentary, “This Film Is Not Yet Rated,” was released Tuesday on DVD.

The Motion Picture Assn. of America and the National Assn. of Theater Owners last week heralded a “reform” of their film ratings system, which assigns the ratings G, PG, PG-13, R and NC-17 to most films released in this country. Unfortunately, the MPAA’s changes are almost entirely cosmetic and only go a small way toward fixing a broken system — a system so closed to public scrutiny that no news organization had been able to disclose its workings until they were revealed in the documentary “This Film Is Not Yet Rated,” which I directed.

Despite protestations to the contrary, it appears that the film shamed the MPAA into paying lip service to its critique. As the film revealed, the association has been violating its own rule that raters must have school-age children, and it has refused to allow filmmakers to refer to other films when they appealed a rating. Both absurdities will be fixed.

But these are minimal changes. All of the fundamental problems of the ratings system remain: its secrecy and lack of accountability, its bias against independent and gay filmmakers and its excessive concern with sexuality while rating violence much less restrictively.

For nearly 40 years, film ratings in the United States have been decided by a secret board. Although the MPAA now plans to announce the names of three of the 11 film raters, the majority will still be anonymous. The MPAA claims their names are withheld to protect the raters from influence. But there are many people in society who make important decisions — judges, school board officials — whose identities are not shielded. In fact, by knowing who is making these decisions, the public is better able to discover improper influence.

The MPAA also refuses to release the names of the members of its appeals board, which is the final arbiter in the ratings process. This is particularly troubling because the appeals board is almost exclusively made up of executives from corporations that belong to the MPAA or the theater owners association, the very corporations that stand to gain the most from influencing a rating.

The MPAA claims the ratings system is for the public. If it’s truly for the public, it should be public.

Not surprisingly, conflict of interest is at the root of the problem. In addition to overseeing the ratings system, the MPAA is also the trade organization and lobbying arm of Hollywood’s six major film studios, which collectively own more than 95% of the U.S. film business. This explains why studio films with excessive violence time and again receive unreasonably light ratings, granting them greater access to the highly coveted teenage audience. On the other hand, films made or distributed by the studios’ competitors — independent and foreign film companies — which more often contain adult sexuality, are rated much more harshly, often receiving an NC-17 rating.

The ratings board does all of this in the name of “protecting children,” even though most media experts believe that exposure to violent media is far more damaging to children than exposure to sexual media. In most of Western Europe, ratings systems are much more restrictive of violence than sex.

Even more disturbing, the ratings board, as my documentary clearly demonstrates, rates films with homosexual scenes much more restrictively than films with similarly shot scenes of heterosexuality. But the MPAA has refused to disavow its discrimination against films with gay content.

When asked in “This Film Is Not Yet Rated” why gay films were rated more restrictively, Kori Bernards, the MPAA’s vice president of publicity, said that “we don’t try to set the standards, we just try to reflect them.”

This is appalling. If the MPAA thought that the country’s standards were racist, would their ratings reflect that racism? If the standards were anti-Semitic, would the ratings reflect anti-Semitism?

The MPAA should be called on to publicly state that no film shall be rated more restrictively on the basis of the race, religion, ethnicity or sexual orientation of its characters.

Censorship of films with sexual content actually serves the MPAA’s political interests in Washington. One of the MPAA’s primary objectives is lobbying Congress to pass laws favorable to the film studios. By harshly rating films with sexual content, the MPAA has curried favor with conservatives in Congress who have rewarded them by passing a number of very onerous intellectual property laws that have added billions of dollars to film studios’ coffers while greatly restricting the development of new art forms and new technologies.

An effective and unbiased film ratings system is of great importance to parents, educators, film audiences and filmmakers. If the MPAA is going to continue to oversee the ratings system, it must make some real changes: reveal the names of all members of the ratings and appeals board, disavow homophobic discrimination and place more restrictive guidelines on violence rather than sex. The sooner it makes these changes, the better.

Click here to read the original commentary from Kirby Dick in the Los Angeles Times

Rumored FCC Payola Settlement Angers Critics

Last year, the Federal Communications Commission promised to pick up Elliot Spitzer’s investigation into payola. But rumors around Washington and the music industry suggest that the FCC is dropping the investigation and settling with broadcasting companies.

The music industry received a big jolt a few years ago after a payola investigation conducted by Spitzer, then New York State’s attorney general, resulted in multi-million dollar settlements with two record companies.

Musician advocates and media critics hoped it might pave the way for further reforms in the industry — including the other half of the issue: the media companies that work with record labels.

But sources have told NPR that the Federal Communications Commission is planning to announce a settlement with broadcasters over the payola issue.

A standard payola scenario occurs when someone from a record company “encourages” someone from a radio station to play its songs. In one recent instance, a song by Jennifer Lopez received increased airplay after Sony BMG employees spent thousands of dollars on gifts for people working at radio stations.

The American Association of Independent Music and small-market music labels welcomed Spitzer’s investigation, and the push for enforcement that followed. Many say they hoped that would be just the beginning.

After Spitzer turned over his findings to the FCC, there was talk among some industry watchers that the Justice Department might get involved and that payola would be taken seriously at the federal level.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin spoke last month at a [public hearing on media ownership] in Nashville, Tenn. He assured the hundreds of attendees, many of whom work in the country music industry, that he took payola seriously, and that his agency would enforce the law.

Some artist advocacy groups, such as the Future of Music Coalition, are fearful that in its settlement, the FCC will not adequately address enforcement and oversight. Until payola is removed from both the broadcasting and recording arms of the music industry, they say, future abuses are likely.

Click here to read the original article from Neda Ulaby at National Public Radio

Important: Phishing Scam being sent to customers via BellSouth.net Email

Just when you thought it was safe to open an email from the last Baby Bell left standing (not for long!) Here's a public advisory from BellSouth that needs to be heeded...

BellSouth Customers are receiving an email that appears to be from support@bellsouth.net that requests they verify their account by clicking on a link to send a copy of their credit card, and ID or passport information to a link contained in the email.

This is a fraudulent email. BellSouth will never request that you send this information to us to continue using your BellSouth account. If you receive an email with the following text ignore it.

Do not click on the link and do not send in any of the information requested!

Text of Phising Email

Subject: Important Notice

Please Update Your Account

Dear valued BellSouth member. It has come to out attention that your Bellsouth account need to be verified as part if our continuing commitment to protect your account and to reduce the instance of hacking and identity theft. If you could please take 5-10 minutes out of your online experience and confirm you identify you will not run into any future problems with the online services.

However, failure to update your records will result in Account termination. Please update your records on or before January 1st, 2007.

Once you have updated your account record, your BellSouth account will not be on hold and will continue as normal. We also request from you to submit a copy of your credit card (front and back side) and a copy of your identity card or your passport to the following Number: 1-860-631-1003.

To update your records click on the following link:

Click here

bellsouth, Inc.

Sincerely,

Bellsouth

RealFootball365 YouTube video

While we congratulate Sunday's winners (Da Bears, Go Colts!), I had to find out your thoughts on this new video production:



Leave a comment with your opinion on this clip!

Click here to see the RF365 video on YouTube.com