The Gene is out of the Lab! Wh(e)at me worry?

Genetically Modified Wheat Isn't Supposed to Exist. So What Is It Doing in Oregon? - Businessweek: "Wheat farmers, advocates of food safety, and pretty much anyone who eats bread or noodles have turned their attention to Oregon, where a wheat farmer found a genetically engineered strain of wheat in his otherwise unmodified crop. He couldn’t kill it in any of the normal ways, so he sent it to the lab for testing, which sounds like the set-up for a farm-belt horror movie. The reality has caused alarm of a different sort: Genetically modified wheat hasn’t been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, and unlike corn and soy and other so-called GMO foods, there isn’t supposed to be any genetically modified wheat in the U.S. food supply at all."

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Putting out the smoke- the test of toughness

Ireland to introduce plain cigarette packets | World news | guardian.co.uk: "An Irish government minister has revealed his father and brother died from smoking-related illness as the country becomes only the second to clamp down on tobacco marketing.

Ireland will force tobacco manufacturers to use plain boxes emblazoned with graphic images under tough new laws first enforced in Australia.

Dr James Reilly, the health minister and a GP, said the initiative will stop big cigarette companies from using marketing tactics like packet size, colour and style to attract young smokers, particularly girls.

Reilly said he had been touched personally by suffering caused by smoking after his brother died of lung cancer and his father went blind following a stroke.

Both were smokers and both were doctors.

"I lost a brother who was a doctor, who understood fully what the cigarettes did, who was so addicted he couldn't give them up," Reilly said.

"And my father was prematurely blind because of a stroke and spent the last 14 years of his life without being able to see.""

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SamSonIndia: Elctronics and electronic trash

Samsung, Sony Court Indians as Subsidies Fund Factories - Bloomberg: "Global technology companies such as Samsung Electronics Co. (005930), Apple Inc. (AAPL) and Sony Corp. (6758) are poised to see surging sales in India as the country’s anemic tech manufacturing sector can’t fulfill booming demand for TVs and smartphones.
The world’s fastest-growing market for consumer electronics has few homegrown makers of flat-panel TVs and no producers of mobile phones or the semiconductors and displays used in the devices. Last year, the nation of 1.2 billion people spent $14.2 billion importing screens and smartphones, accounting for 90 percent of demand, government data show."

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Google's Eric Schmidt on taxes: what Google search for Bullshit should show~

Google's Eric Schmidt: change British law and we'd pay more tax | Technology | The Guardian: "Eric Schmidt, Google's executive chairman, has continued to defend the company's tax affairs, insisting it would comply with British law if it was changed and claiming to be perplexed by the debate.

In a phrase less snappy than the more celebrated "don't be evil", Schmidt said Google had "a fiduciary responsibility to our shareholders" that prevented the internet company from paying more tax abroad. However, he said: "It's not a debate. You pay the taxes."

Google has come in for escalating public criticism, including unusually frank words from senior politicians, since the House of Commons public accounts committee took it to task this month over figures that revealed payments of £3.4m in tax on £3.2bn of sales to customers in Britain last year, with sales technically accounted for under the low-tax regime of Ireland.

"

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Outrageous Severance, American Bankruptcy Style

Justice Department opposes AMR's $20 million severance for CEO Horton | Reuters: "(Reuters) - A plan by American Airlines' parent to exit bankruptcy and merge with US Airways Group (LCC.N) is coming under fire from the U.S. Department of Justice over nearly $20 million in severance pay earmarked for outgoing boss Tom Horton.

In court papers filed on Friday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, U.S. Trustee Tracy Hope Davis, the department's official charged with regulating bankruptcy cases in the New York region, said the severance deal for AMR Corp's (AAMRQ.PK) chief executive violates bankruptcy law.

She asked the court not to approve the outline of the plan that must also be approved by AMR creditors."

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Use, Abuse, and Misuse, but not pay for it- American infrastructure and Corporate America

Bridge collapse in Washington state sends cars and people into water | World news | guardian.co.uk: "The major highway bridge linking Seattle with Canada and the rest of the Pacific north-west region collapsed late on Thursday, dumping several vehicles and the people inside into a river, the Washington state patrol said.

The four-lane Interstate 5 bridge collapsed about halfway between Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia, Trooper Mark Francis said.

Francis said he did not know how many people were in the water or whether there were injuries or deaths. He did not know what caused the collapse, which came at the start of one of the country's busiest holiday weekends of the year."

What is the economic responsibility of corporate America? | Heidi Moore | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk: "Many of these corporations, in protest of "high corporate taxes" that they rarely actually pay, hire expensive lawyers to avoid the entirety of their tax bills. Yet they use the nation's roads for trucking, our waterways for shipping, our bridges and city streets and airports. In small towns, one big corporation can make the entire economy, as FedEx is in its Tennessee headquarters. But how about the towns and the states that these companies just pass through on their way to making money? They don't get the same economic benefit to help with their maintenance.

While major corporations are happy to use infrastructure, they contribute very little to its maintenance as long as they don't pay their full compliment of taxes. Yet convincing these corporations to pay their full tax burden is a lost cause, as was evident yesterday when Apple CEO Tim Cook smilingly explained openly to Congress how Apple uses Irish subsidiaries to lessen its US tax bill. The lawmakers mostly met Cook's testimony with adoration. The message of his appearance on behalf of corporations everywhere was: allow us to pay lower taxes, and we will stop avoiding them."

Prickish Perks- lavish living

On top of big salaries, companies pile on perks - Yahoo! Finance: "NEW YORK (AP) -- Wynn Resorts pays for founder and CEO Steve Wynn's residence at its tony Las Vegas hotel and casino at a cost of nearly $452,000.
Former IBM CEO Samuel Palmisano was guaranteed an administrative assistant and furnished office for life as a retirement gift — plus a $1 million office renovation.
Chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices bought the house CEO Rory Read struggled to sell for $790,000 — and gave him another $180,000 to cover his underwater mortgage.
These are not uncommon extravagances in the exclusive world of CEO perks, replete with bodyguards, chauffeurs and private jets. Last year, the median value of perks received by CEOs of big public companies was nearly $162,000, an increase of more than 9 percent, according to executive pay research firm Equilar. Perks declined in 2009, but have risen for three straight years."

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SAP- Doing the right thing

SAP to Hire Autistic Staff in Foundation’s First Global Alliance - Bloomberg: "SAP AG (SAP), the biggest business-management software maker, will start employing more people with autism as software testers, programmers and in data management.

SAP is forming an alliance with Specialisterne, a foundation to promote employment for autistic people in technology industries, and will find jobs for those with the disorder as it adds programs around the world, the Walldorf, Germany-based company said in a statement yesterday.

``SAP sees a potential competitive advantage to leveraging the unique talents of people with autism, while also helping them to secure meaningful employment,’’ the company said."

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No watering down this tragedy

Death in Parched Farm Field Reveals Growing India Water Tragedy - Bloomberg: "In 2003, Maharashtra -- which is bigger than Italy and has a population of 112 million or about the same as Mexico -- gave industries and municipalities access to 25 percent of the water in its irrigation reservoirs. Power plants were the biggest beneficiaries, prompting a spurt of investment, according to a March report by Pune-based non-profit advocacy group Prayas.
“Water for food and water for industry is a debate on in much of the world, and we’re no exception,” Sachin Kalantre, a deputy administrator in Maharashtra’s Amravati town, said in an interview. “The way out is for both to work together. There has to be a consensus,” he said, with a picture of a waterfall filling the wall of his office behind him."

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iTaxinnovation = i no pay no taxes: Alchemy, Apple Style

Apple’s Taxes Expose the Rotten U.S. Code - Bloomberg: "The company not only has used loopholes to sidestep U.S. taxes on $44 billion in offshore income from 2009 through 2012, according to the subcommittee, but also has three Irish subsidiaries that claim to have no residence -- anywhere -- for tax purposes. Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which looked into Apple’s tax-avoidance strategies, calls this alchemy. We’re inclined to agree.
The case of Apple is part of a broader trend in which companies use increasingly complicated tax maneuvers to claim more of their income is derived from overseas, or otherwise reduce their U.S. taxes. Companies can legitimately avoid paying taxes on that income, now an accumulated $1.9 trillion, until they bring it home."

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Apple: Pickin' pockets everywhere and anywhere

Apple accused of 'highly questionable' billion-dollar tax avoidance scheme | Technology | The Guardian: "Apple uses a "highly questionable" web of offshore entities to avoid paying billions in US income taxes, a Senate committee alleged on Monday.

The complex arrangement includes three subsidiaries, based ostensibly in Ireland, which appear not to be designated as tax resident anywhere, the committee said. A source on the committee called them "iCompanies – I for imaginary, invisible".

The commitee said that the arrangement, described by one senator as "the epitome" of tax-avoidance schemes, allowed Apple to pay only very small amounts of tax on much of its overseas profits, thanks to the Irish companies that exist "nowhere" for tax purposes."

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Lauren Laverne on fashion: shopping with a conscience | Fashion | The Observer

Lauren Laverne on fashion: shopping with a conscience | Fashion | The Observer: "This week's column, therefore, is a plea to fashion producers for traceability of their supply chain, and a mention for brands and services which supply those things to consumers. Frustratingly, at the top end of the market that kind of accountability is easier to come by, but there's no reason the high street should be exempt from offering similar guarantees. As Lucy Siegle noted in this newspaper, big brands distancing themselves from the factories in which their goods are produced is part of their business model. It helps safeguard their profit margin. If consumers demand they become accountable in great enough numbers, they will.

The other half of the Wildean price-value aphorism is less frequently quoted, but worth bearing in mind: "and a sentimentalist… is a man who sees an absurd value in everything, and doesn't know the market price of any single thing"."

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WSJ, Fox, and the Zombies on climate change

Zombie climate sceptic theories survive only in newspapers and on TV | Graham Readfearn | Environment | guardian.co.uk: "Despite what you might have seen on TV hospitable dramas, when the heart goes all asystolic no amount of defibrillator action is going to chase away the reaper.

So after giving up on the peer-reviewed literature, the climate science contrarians – often bolstered by support from the fossil fuel industry and free-market idealogues - took their talking points somewhere else.

That is, out into the public domain, the mainstream media and the blogosphere and far away from the less forgiving operating theatre of peer-reviewed science journals."

That is, out into the public domain, the mainstream media and the blogosphere and far away from the less forgiving operating theatre of peer-reviewed science journals.

To this day, these dead theories hang around like slack-jawed zombies in the graveyards of global media outlets.

Take a recent column published in the Wall Street Journal, for example, which tried to claim that global warming was down to natural cycles and changes in the sun's output. Carbon dioxide was just food for plants, wrote the authors.

Or how about London Mayor Boris Johnson's column earlier this year inThe Daily Telegraph, where he also claimed climate change was driven by the sun. Johnson often quotes his "old chum" Piers Corbyn, a long-range weather "forecaster" who claims CO2 has no effect on global temperature.

Then there's The Australian newspaper which earlier this monthconcocted a story of a fake debate between scientists about a coming ice age.

The newspaper quoted a Russian physicist who is a member of Principia Scientific International – a group of contrarian scientists led by a man who claims CO2 isn't a greenhouse gas.

A 2011 study of opinion columns appearing in The Australian found that climate change contrarians outnumbered four-to-one those authors calling for firm action to reduce fossil fuel emissions.

In the US, the Union of Concerned Scientists has looked at climate change coverage in the Wall Street Journal and on Fox News over a six-month period.  In the case of Fox, UCS classified 37 out of 40 segments as "misleading" on climate change science. In almost a year of Wall Street Journal articles, just nine out of 48 articles were deemed to accurately reflect the state of the science.

Then there is the near omnipresence of free market conservative think-tanks – funded variously through secretive channels or the largesse of fossil fuel interests – who write books, columns and are asked to be "expert" commentators on climate change.

In Australia, one study has found how the free-market think tank the Institute of Public Affairs had been the source of a range of climate sceptic talking points echoed in mainstream media.

The current issue of the journal American Behavioral Scientist (ABS) is devoted to the phenomenon of climate change scepticism and denial and brings together studies and essays looking at the role of the media in trying to keep alive those climate change theories which have been under permanent cardiac arrest for the last two decades or more.

One self-explanatory study is titled "Leading Voices in the Denier Choir : Conservative Columnists' Dismissal of Global Warming and Denigration of Climate Science".

The authors, Professor Riley Dunlap and Shaun Elsasser, both of Oklahoma State University, looked at 203 columns written by more than 80 conservative writers published between 2007 and 2010. The authors conclude:

The overall results reveal a highly dismissive view of climate change and critical stance toward climate science among these influential conservative pundits. They play a crucial role in amplifying the denial machine's messages to a broad segment of the American public.

Similarly self-explanatory were some of the titles of the columns they investigated. There was "The Global Warmists' Deceit", "It's Got to Suck to Be a Climavangelist", "Hoax of the Century" and "Four Colossal Holes in the Theory of Man-Made Global Warming."

Dunlap and Elsassser also tally-up and categorise the arguments used to dismiss the science or dismiss the need to act. And the most common climate science denial argument used? "There is no consensus".

In an essay in the same issue of ABS, Maxwell Boykoff, an assistant professor at the University of Colorado, notes how accurate media coverage alone won't be the panacea for genuine policy action to cut emissions.  He adds:

But improvements in reporting on claims and claims makers will help. The fossils of climate science and policy decision-making as well as communications may choose to continue along with the status quo. But to more effectively inform and engage - rather than confuse and bewilder - the public, 21st-century journalists and editors, as well as researchers, scientists, policy actors, and other non-nation-state actors, need to acknowledge the disproportionate influence of these outlier voices in mass media and communicate climate change with greater specificity and context.

While some media outlets have given their consumers the impression that climate scientists are split on the causes of climate change, the pulse of actual scientific debate on this issue faded long ago.

At least now, readers can be more certain that when they hear that climate change might not be caused by humans, it's probably just a zombie theory.

And kids, zombies aren't real.

Eating away at the Expanding Menu-line

McDonald’s Seen Overhauling U.S. Menu From 145 Choices - Bloomberg: "The world’s largest restaurant chain has also considered axing Caesar salads, the McSkillet Burrito, the Southern Style Biscuit and steak bagels, according to a franchisee e-mail obtained by Bloomberg News. While the Angus burger contains as many as 820 calories and costs $4, the culling isn’t simply about offering healthier fare and cheaper items. It’s an effort by McDonald’s Corp. (MCD) to streamline a menu that has expanded by 70 percent to about 145 items since 2007 -- straining kitchen staff, gumming up service and spoiling customers for choice.
“It’s gotten to the point where the operation has kind of broken down and that’s all a symptom of the complication of the menu,” said Richard Adams, a San Diego-based restaurant franchisee consultant and former McDonald’s store owner. “They can’t make the food fast enough.”"

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Arctic- too hot for countries to take care of it

Melting Ice Opens Fight Over Sea Routes for Arctic Debate - Bloomberg: "When 16th and 17th century European explorers sailed west in pursuit of a trade route to Asia, their search for a Northwest Passage was foiled by Arctic ice.

Five hundred years later, melting icecaps have set off a global race to control new shipping lanes over the North Pole. Just as the discoveries of Ferdinand Magellan and Vasco de Gama gave seafaring Portugal routes around Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope, the opening of the Arctic, with its shortcut from the Atlantic to northeast Asia and its untapped oil reserves, can redraw the geopolitical map and create new power brokers.

When the U.S., Russia and six other major stakeholders of the Arctic Council meet May 15 in the northernmost Swedish city of Kiruna, they’ll be joined by nations with observer status, including China and the European Union, that are angling for an elevated status in the diplomatic club and a greater say in the region’s future."

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Climate change and human activity- gap between science and the common joe

Climate research nearly unanimous on human causes, survey finds | Environment | guardian.co.uk: "A survey of thousands of peer-reviewed papers in scientific journals has found 97.1% agreed that climate change is caused by human activity.

Authors of the survey, published on Thursday in the journal Environmental Research Letters, said the finding of near unanimity provided a powerful rebuttal to climate contrarians who insist the science of climate change remains unsettled.

The survey considered the work of some 29,000 scientists published in 11,994 academic papers. Of the 4,000-plus papers that took a position on the causes of climate change only 0.7% or 83 of those thousands of academic articles, disputed the scientific consensus that climate change is the result of human activity, with the view of the remaining 2.2% unclear.

The study described the dissent as a "vanishingly small proportion" of published research.

"Our findings prove that there is a strong scientific agreement about the cause of climate change, despite public perceptions to the contrary," said John Cook of the University of Queensland, who led the survey."

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Seal-ed but not delivered: EU- denied Arctic Observer status because of environmental protection

Arctic Council Grants Observer Status to Six Countries - WSJ.com: "Canada rejected the European Union's application for observer status due to a long-running dispute over seal hunting and a ban by Brussels's of seal products, such as hide.

"This issue is very near and dear to a lot of Inuit," said Leona Aglukkaq, minister of the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency. Ms. Aglukkaq, who was raised in the Arctic, said Canada will resist the EU's bid until "a satisfactory agreement" has been reached.

Catherine Ashton, EU foreign-policy chief, and Maria Damanaki, its fisheries commissioner, said in a joint statement that the EU will work "expeditiously" with Canadian authorities "to address the outstanding issue of their concern."

China, which has taken its thirst for resources to feed its economic expansion to the far corners of the globe, in April signed a free-trade deal with Iceland and has also invested in Greenland."

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Amazon- squeezing the Europeans

Amazon staff go on strike in Germany | World news | The Guardian: "Amazon employees in Germany have staged their first ever strikes, in a dispute over pay and benefits with the vast US online retailer.

Employees at two huge distribution warehouses, in Bad Hersfeld and Leipzig, launched the one-day strike, the giant services sector union Ver.di said.

Ver.di is demanding that Amazon's 9,000 workers in Germany be paid according to a wage deal in place for the retail and mail-order industries. The head of Amazon Germany, Ralf Kleber, rejected these demands, arguing that the retailer's staff were working in the logistics business, packing and dispatching parcels, rather than in the retail and mail-order sector.

Bad Hersfeld has a workforce of more than 3,000, while the Leipzig site employs around 2,000 people.

Amazon says it pays an hourly wage of €9.30 (£8) to employees in their first year, rising to €10 after that. Ver.di is demanding the minimum hourly retail wage of €10.66 for Leipzig; in Bad Hersfeld, the union wants staff to be paid the agreed sector rate, of just over €12 per hour, compared with the €9.83 Amazon currently offers.

Germany is a vital territory for Amazon. It is the retailer's biggest market in Europe, with sales last year reaching more than €6.5bn.

Workplace conditions for Amazon workers in Germany were recently highlighted by a TV documentary that accused the US group of hiring warehouse workers from crisis-hit countries such as Spain, and housing them in crowded hostels.

The TV programme alleged that employees were subjected to bullying from security personnel with neo-Nazi connections. Amazon said it did not tolerate discrimination or intimidation, and stopped using the security firm.

Arctic foxes' mystery decline linked to mercury exposure | Environment | guardian.co.uk

Arctic foxes' mystery decline linked to mercury exposure | Environment | guardian.co.uk: "In the 1970s, a population of Arctic foxes on an island in the Bering Sea began to mysteriously decline. The animals were thin and mangy, and nearly all the cubs died. Today, only about 100 foxes remain.

The animals were not felled by an infectious disease, a PLOS ONE study suggests. Instead, the foxes probably suffered from high mercury exposure as a result of eating seabirds and other marine animals.

The researchers studied Arctic fox fur samples from four sources: Mednyi Island, where the population crashed; museum specimens of foxes from the Commander Islands; and two populations in Iceland. Three of the groups, including the Mednyi Island population, ate marine animals, while the fourth group mostly preyed on land animals such as mice.

Mercury levels in foxes with marine diets were almost three times higher than in foxes with an inland diet, the team found. The Mednyi Island foxes rely exclusively on marine animals for food, whereas the other two coastal groups eat land animals as well."

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Corporate Tax Dodgers get the tax breaks, the public get their backs broken with austerity

Europe Eases Corporate Tax Dodge as Worker Burdens Rise - Bloomberg: "In early November, members of the U.K. Parliament assailed executives from Google Inc. (GOOG), Starbucks Corp. (SBUX) and Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) for moving billions of dollars in profits into tax havens.

Less than a month later, Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said he would lower the U.K.’s corporate tax rate to 21 percent, below Germany and France, from 28 percent in 2010. A month after that, the U.K. cut the rate further, to less than 6 percent, on profit attributed to offshore arms that make loans to other units. These subsidiaries can help U.K.-based multinationals shift income to mailboxes in tax havens."

“Here is a blatant incentive inside the U.K. tax system to move profits previously in London into a tax haven,” said Richard Murphy, director of Tax Research LLP in Norfolk, England. “It is just absurd. At the same time, we have people like Osborne saying ’I’m going to crack down ontax avoidance.”’

As politicians in Europe and the U.S. talk tough on corporate tax dodging, several of their governments are helping multinationals lower tax bills. They have been cutting corporate rates, introducing laws that encourage tax avoidance, and rejecting proposals to close loopholes. Even amid growing public outrage in Europe against austerity policies, the gulf between rhetoric and reality on taxation means individuals rather than businesses are often bearing the brunt of higher taxes.

‘Avoidance Game’

At a time when unemployment in the European Union is at record levels, nations eager for jobs remain hesitant to alienate multinational companies by raising their taxes. Instead, countries such as Spain, Greece, and Hungary have imposed hefty sales tax increases, a hit borne most severely by poor people.

“I am skeptical whether the different countries have the political courage to take on the corporate tax avoidance game,” said Sven Giegold, a member of the EU parliament from Germany’s Green Party. “You need consensus of the participating partners, and I do not see the leadership to force through a global model.”

In December, the European Commission, the governing body of the EU, declared war on tax evasion and avoidance, which it said costs the EU 1 trillion euros a year. It encouraged its members to create “blacklists” of tax havens.

Still, the commission instructed them to single out only non-EU countries as havens -- even though member-nations such as Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Ireland encourage multinational companies to legally dodge billions of dollars in taxes around the world.

Helpless EU

Similarly, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, an influential publicly funded think tank on international tax policy, used to cite potentially harmful tax behavior by member states, including Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Ireland, Belgium and others. It stopped issuing those reports in 2006 because of “a lack of political interest” from member nations, said Pascal Saint Amans, director of the OECD’s Center for Tax Policy and Administration.

“The Europeans say one thing and do another,” said H. David Rosenbloom, the head of the international tax program at New York University’s law school and an attorney at Caplin & Drysdale in Washington. “The EU can’t do anything as long as it’s got Luxembourg and the Netherlands and Ireland” within the union.

EU spokeswoman Natasja Bohez-Rubiano said its member states have agreed to not introduce any new tax loopholes, thus making internal blacklists unnecessary.

Regimes Undermine

“What is clearly needed, however, is greater coordination in taxation, to prevent one national regime from undermining another, and to address loopholes and mismatches. That is precisely what the Commission is proposing,” she said.

Some action may yet emerge from all the talk. The OECD says it will release an “action plan” on profit shifting by July. The agency expects to address policies by member states that help corporations avoid taxes, Saint Amans said.

The European Commission is now re-examining a set of key EU rules that makes it easier for companies to dodge taxes. The most important are a pair of directives allowing units of multinationals to shift profits into subsidiaries free of withholding taxes -- regardless of whether the units receiving the cash ever pay any taxes on it.

“These two directives are sort of the infrastructure for the tax dodging,” said Giegold, the parliament member from Germany.

French President Francois Hollande recently said he wants companies there to disclose more details on foreign units, including profits and taxes in haven subsidiaries. Hollande’s former budget minister last month acknowledged hiding much of his wealth offshore.

Efforts Stalled

Countries are increasingly announcing agreements to share information about individual tax dodgers, prodded in part by a new U.S. law that requires foreign banks to report information on accounts to the Internal Revenue Service.

Yet efforts to make corporations pay more taxes are largely stalled.

Since 2007, countries including Italy, Spain, the U.K., Germany, Greece and Sweden have cut their corporate tax rates, seeking to compete with neighbors for profits and jobs. In some cases, countries are keeping tax incentives in place for native corporations, even as they eliminate loopholes for foreign multinationals.

In that vein, France last year tightened a law that permitted foreign multinationals to use French subsidiaries there to rack up big deductions on interest expense. While the country has changed some laws for domestic companies as well, the rules for such deductions for native French businesses remain generous, practitioners said.

Profit Shifting

“Governments don’t like it when profit shifting is happening to them. But since they want their own multinationals to be successful, they’re effectively helping them engage in profit shifting-type transactions in other countries,” said Les Samuels, a former assistant U.S. Treasury secretary for tax policy under President Bill Clinton. “It could be considered a beggar thy neighbor tax policy.”

In January, the Netherlands held a parliamentary debate to examine its own role as an enabler of tax avoidance. The country’s extensive tax treaty network and permissive policies have encouraged companies to shift as much as $13 trillion a year through paper units there, much of it en route to island havens. As previously reported by Bloomberg, companies including Google, Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO), Dell Inc. (DELL), Merck & Co., Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO), Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) and Forest Laboratories Inc. (FRX) have made use of such shelters, with nicknames like the “Dutch Sandwich.”

Cosmetic Change

At that debate, the parliament rejected a pair of motions to tighten loopholes for companies in the Netherlands, including requiring them to have employees in the country to be eligible for favorable tax treatment.

Instead, parliament made a cosmetic change by rejecting the term “tax haven” to describe the Netherlands. In April, the parliament asked thefinance ministry to develop an “action plan” to address Dutch tax dodging, but hasn’t taken up any anti-tax haven legislation since.

Meanwhile, Ireland, already an attractive destination for multinational companies, is making it even easier for them to avoid taxes.

Last year, for example, Irish revenue authorities agreed to let Google make billions of dollars in royalty payments directly to a Bermuda subsidiary, helping to cut the company’s tax bill by at least $2 billion a year, according to U.S. and overseas securities filings. Previously, Google had routed those payments through a shell company in the Netherlands to avoid a 20 percent Irish withholding tax on payments destined for island havens. According to a person with knowledge of the arrangement, Ireland agreed to accept an additional tax well below 20 percent in exchange for the favorable treatment.

Even Germany

Even Germany, considered relatively vigilant in policing tax avoidance, permits multinationals to bring profits home from havens -- especially other EU countries -- without any additional levy.

“It would be very important for Germany to do something about this,” said Markus Meinzer, a senior analyst for Tax Justice Network, based in Marburg, Germany.

While lacking Europe’s public uproar over corporate tax avoidance, the U.S. has seen the same gap between policy makers’ talk and action.

“Every multinational company should have to pay a basic minimum tax,” President Barack Obama said last year in his State of the Unionspeech. “No American company should be able to avoid paying its fair share of taxes.”

Loopholes Open

Along those lines, the Treasury Department in April unveiled a list of global tax loopholes that it wants to close, many of which it is targeting for the fifth year in a row. With the exception of one provision changing the way U.S. multinational companies take credits they get for paying income taxes abroad, none of the major initiatives have become law.

In late 2011, Representative Dave Camp, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, surprised industry groups by announcing a set of international tax proposals, many of which could have hampered corporate shelter strategies. Almost nineteen months later, the Michigan Republican still hasn’t introduced a bill to turn those ideas into law. A spokesman for Camp said the committee will bring forward a tax reform bill this year, including the international proposals.

‘Bedroom Tax’

Nowhere is the public anger over corporate tax dodging more visible than in the U.K. Protesters have organized repeated marches and public demonstrations, including occupations in December of Starbucks coffee shops. In April, demonstrators rallied outside the homes of U.K. government officials over the so-called “bedroom tax” -- serving one of the officials with a mock eviction notice. The bedroom tax is not actually a tax, but a reduction in government housing benefits for people deemed to have too much living space.

In their public comments, British leaders are responding. The House of Commons has said it will ask Google to return for a second hearing this coming Thursday to explain its low U.K. tax bill. Prime Minister David Cameron wrote to the president of the European Council in late April that he wants Europe to lead a fight on tax dodging.

“As you know, the loss of tax revenue resulting from tax evasion and aggressive avoidance is staggering,” he wrote. “In a period of fiscal consolidation where hard-working citizens and businesses are being asked to bear extra burdens, we need coordinated, truly global action to address these issues.”

At a meeting of the Group of Seven nations on Saturday in Aylesbury, outside London, Chancellor of the Exchequer Osborne said it is “incredibly important that companies and individuals pay the tax that is due.” The G-7, which includes the U.S., agreed to act together to stop tax avoidance, he said.

Double Speak

Yet the U.K. is aggressively moving to make it easier for multinationals to avoid taxes. Beginning in 2009, the country began switching from taxing worldwide income to solely taxing profit that companies claim are earned within the country, a so-called “territorial” system. It eliminated taxes on dividends paid to a U.K. company, even if coming from a subsidiary in a tax haven.

Beginning last month, the U.K. slashed the tax rate to 10 percent from the regular 23 percent rate on profit attributed to patents and intellectual property to lure research and technology jobs.

Yvette Hodgson, a spokeswoman for the U.K. Treasury, said the government is “committed to creating the most competitive corporate tax system in the G20.”

“Global tax rules have stood still for almost a century,” Hodgson said. “Britain is leading the international effort to bring them into the twenty first century.”

Fat Cats skinning the indebted students and the taxpayers

University Presidents Are Prospering, Study Finds - NYTimes.com: "But the biggest growth last year, Mr. Stripling said, was in the $600,000 to $700,000 range, a category that included 28 chief executives, up from only 13 the previous year.

According to the Chronicle report, the median total compensation for the presidents of public research universities was $441,392, up 4.7 percent from the previous year’s $421,395. The median base salary, $373,800, was up 2 percent from $366,519 the previous year.

Rounding out the top 10 earners were Jo Ann M. Gora of Ball State University ($984,647); Mary Sue Coleman of the University of Michigan system ($918,783); Charles W. Steger of Virginia Tech ($857,749); Mark G. Yudof of the University of California system ($847,149); Bernard J. Machen of the University of Florida ($834,562); and Francisco G. Cigarroa of the University of Texas system ($815,833)."

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College Presidents- Princely Wages, irrespective of performance.

How to Tell if College Presidents Are Overpaid - Bloomberg: "The Chronicle of Higher Education tells us the median salary of public university presidents rose 4.7 percent in 2011-12 to more than $440,000 a year. This increase vastly outpaced the rate of inflation, as well as the earnings of the typical worker in the U.S. economy. Perhaps, most relevant for this community, it also surpassed the compensation growth for university professors.
Moreover, the median statistic masks that several presidents earned more than double that amount. Pennsylvania State University’s Graham Spanier, best known for presiding over the worst athletic scandal in collegiate history, topped the list, earning $2,906,721 in total compensation. (He was forced to resign in November 2011 and was indicted in November 2012 on charges related to the Jerry Sandusky sex-abuse scandal.)"

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The spiraling destruction

BBC News - 'Dramatic decline' warning for plants and animals: "More than half of common plant species and a third of animals could see a serious decline in their habitat range because of climate change.

New research suggests that biodiversity around the globe will be significantly impacted if temperatures rise more than 2C.

But the scientists say that the losses can be reduced if rapid action is taken to curb greenhouse gases.

The paper is published in the journal, Nature Climate Change.

An international team of researchers looked at the impacts of rising temperatures on nearly 50,000 common species of plants and animals.

They looked at both temperature and rainfall records for the habitats that these species now live in and mapped the areas that would remain suitable for them under a number of different climate change scenarios.

The scientists projected that if no significant efforts were made to limit greenhouse gas emissions, 2100 global temperatures would be 4C above pre-industrial levels.

In this model, some 34% of animal species and 57% of plants would lose more than half of their current habitat ranges."

India’s forest cover declines | Down To Earth: "North-eastern states and tribal districts witness unprecedented forest loss

India has lost 367 square kilometres of forest cover in the past two years. According to the India State of Forest Report, 2011, released by the Forest Survey of India (FSI) on February 7, the total forest cover in the country is now at 6,92,027 sq km. This accounts for 21.05 per cent of the total geographical area of India."

Passing a grim milestone - Carbon dioxide level

Global carbon dioxide in atmosphere passes milestone level | Environment | guardian.co.uk: "For the first time in human history, the concentration of climate-warming carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has passed the milestone level of 400 parts per million (ppm). The last time so much greenhouse gas was in the air was several million years ago, when the Arctic was ice-free, savannah spread across the Sahara desert and sea level was up to 40 metres higher than today.

These conditions are expected to return in time, with devastating consequences for civilisation, unless emissions of CO2 from the burning of coal, gas and oil are rapidly curtailed. But despite increasingly severe warnings from scientists and a major economic recession, global emissions have continued to soar unchecked.

"It is symbolic, a point to pause and think about where we have been and where we are going," said Professor Ralph Keeling, who oversees the measurements on a Hawaian volcano, which were begun by his father in 1958. "It's like turning 50: it's a wake up to what has been building up in front of us all along.""

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Sick and Sickening

American kids have far too easy access to guns | Sadhbh Walshe | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk: "Last week, a five-year-old boy in Kentucky shot his two-year-old sister to death with a loaded rifle that had been left in the family living room. Although accidental shootings of a child by a child using loaded guns found in their family homes are far from uncommon, this particular incident seemed to capture the public's imagination, probably because the rifle the boy used to accidentally kill his sister was his very own "first rifle" designed specifically for use by small children and bought for him by his parents.

It came as a bit of a surprise to me to learn that parents are knowingly and willingly buying firearms for their own children and even more of a surprise that it's apparently legally OK for gun manufacturers to design and market weapons to children. We have strict laws in place that prevent us from giving our five-year-old the car keys so he can drive himself to school, but not to stop us giving the same child a loaded gun to play with?"

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Fishy preparation for Exams

BBC News - One in three students wears 'lucky exam underwear': "One in three students admits to wearing "good luck underwear" to try to boost exam chances, a poll suggests.

As well as lucky pants, some also use lucky pens, wear lucky jewellery or take charms into exams, the survey for a stationery company reports.

Almost a quarter (23%) of the 15 to 23-year-olds polled say they only start revision the day before the exam.

Revision expert Patrick Wilson warned that charms and rituals were no substitute for proper revision.

Some 60% of 2,000 students questioned by OnePoll for penmakers Bic said they changed their diet before exams because they believe some foods can boost their brain power and memory.

More than half take up eating oily fish (53%) and 46% eat more fruit and vegetables."

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Coke- the fat chance

Coca-Cola Expands Calorie Labels and Emphasizes No-Cals - Bloomberg: "Chief Executive Officer Muhtar Kent has been working to counter the perception that the soft-drink maker contributes to America’s obesity epidemic. Coca-Cola earlier this year introduced advertisements highlighting the company’s low- and zero-calorie products and suggesting people pay attention to how many calories they consume in order to manage their weight.
“People in these countries are going to be aware of these health issues so Coke wants to be prepared,” Jack Russo, an analyst with Edward Jones & Co. in St. Louis, said yesterday in a telephone interview. “The regulators and governments are going to get more involved with this entire issue.”"

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Gates- smart, social and responsible

Gates Says Wealthy Should Pay More to Help Reduce Deficit - Bloomberg: "“There’s no doubt that as you look at balancing budgets to the degree you need more revenue” that lawmakers will need to look to the wealthy “to get a little bit more from them proportionately than you get from people as a whole,” Gates said in an interview with Bloomberg Television before speaking at the Peterson Foundation fiscal summit in Washington today. “I think that’s pretty likely.”
Later, Gates, the world’s second richest man and co- chairman of The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, said the U.S. is compromising its “values” in its approach to reducing federal spending.
The automatic spending cuts, known as sequestration, that took effect earlier this year target discretionary spending programs including education, infrastructure and research, which Gates said he finds worrisome. “The sequester, I don’t think reflects our values,” he said. “There will have to be a discussion about funding the future.”"

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Monster- sized suit: Children, Caffeine, and California

San Francisco city attorney sues Monster Beverage - Business - The Boston Globe: " San Francisco’s city attorney is suing Monster Beverage for marketing its energy drinks to children, saying the products pose severe health risks.

City Attorney Dennis Herrera said Monday that Monster is the ‘‘industry’s worst ­offender’’ in the extent to which it targets youth and children.

Last week, Monster sued Herrera over his demands that the company reduce caffeine levels in its drinks and stop marketing to minors.

‘‘Our lawsuit is not a reaction to their lawsuit,’’ Herrera said. ‘‘We were proceeding on this path in the event that we would be unable to come to a resolution.’’

The suits reflect a breakdown in talks that started in October, when Herrera’s office began investigating energy drinks. The industry had been enjoying enormous growth before coming under growing scrutiny in the past year or so."

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Cleaning up Outsourcing

P&G takes away some work from India, to cut down on outsourced IT work - The Economic Times: "P&G, whose products include Tide detergent and Duracell batteries, is contemplating the shape and size of the $3-billion (Rs 16,000-crore) contracts that it awarded in 2003 to EDS, which is now owned by HP. People familiar with the US-based company's plans said the reason for P&G's rethink is that it wants to have direct control over crucial portions of the technology piece with implications for its competitive positioning.

While P&G's move does not indicate a trend against outsourcing, the fact that a major technology spender is considering such a move is not good news for India's IT industry, which is forecast to grow just 12-14% in 2013-14.

So far, the part US government-owned General Motors and credit card company American Express are the only other big MNCs that have taken outsourced work back inhouse. "

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Fashionable and sustainable?

H&M: can fast fashion and sustainability ever really mix? | Guardian Sustainable Business | Guardian Professional: "Few sectors are more emblematic of today's consumer-driven growth model than the fashion industry. With each new season comes a brand new range of must haves. This "out-with-the-old-and-in-with-the-new" seesaw leaves us more hip and retailers more profitable, but it's costing the planet dear. Take jeans. The cotton that goes into a single pair of Levi's® 501®s, for example, requires almost 1,500 litres of water to grow. Add in millions of T-shirts, jumpers, socks, pairs of underwear … you do the maths.

But before you scowl at the next bag-laden shopper, just check where they're heading. It might just be that they are heading to H&M. Two months ago, the world's second largest clothing retailer introduced a garment collecting initiative in 1,500 stores. Its remaining 1,300 shops will follow by the autumn.

Cecilia Brannsten, project manager in H&M's sustainability team, is responsible for the initiative. The goal is simple, she says: "Basically, we want to change the mindset of the customer [so they] see their old clothes as a resource rather than throwing them into the garbage or letting them pile up at the back of their closet."

If you know M&S's shwopping deal, then you'll know the drill. Customers can go to any participating store with their old clothes and hand them over at the cash desk. In exchange, H&M offers a voucher. In the UK, customers will be able to use the voucher to get £5 off any purchase of more than £30. In other European markets, the deal is 15% off any purchase of your choice.

The Swedish retailer will take any clothes from any brand in any condition, Brannsten insists: "So we will accept everything from old washed-out T-shirts, to underwear to the one sock that you can never find the other pair to."

Pesticides, parasites and poor forage hurting bee pollinators - latimes.com

Pesticides, parasites and poor forage hurting bee pollinators - latimes.com: "Although honeybee loss slowed last year, it remains at dangerously high levels, according to a new federal report that concluded there was no single remedy for the colony collapse that has hit America’s hard-working crop pollinators.

The report, released Thursday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency, attributed the colony decline to a number of factors, including pesticide exposure, parasites and poor nutrition.

Since 2006, when colony collapse disorder emerged, an estimated 10 million bee hives, worth about $2 billion, have been lost. During that period, about 30% of colonies have died every year, although in 2012 the figure dropped to 22%.

The figures are grim news for the food industry. Pollination, principally by honeybees, is necessary for the production of about one-third of all food and beverages. California almond growers alone use more than 60% of all managed colonies. "

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Creationists- who created nothing but destroyed students' careers

Louisiana counts the cost of teaching creationism – in reputation and dollars | Zack Kopplin | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk: "Claude Bouchard, a former executive director of the Pennington Research Center, told me that because of the Louisiana Science Education Act:

"[Students] will continue to believe that the laws of chemistry, physics and biology are optional when addressing the big issues of our time. Unfortunately, this is also not without economic consequences.

"If you are an employer in a high-tech industry, in the biotechnology sector or in a business that depends heavily on science, would you prefer to hire a graduate from a state where the legislature has in a sense declared that the laws of chemistry, physics or biology can be suspended at times or someone from a state with a rigorous science curriculum for its sons and daughters?"

Peter Kulakowsky, a biotech entrepreneur in Louisiana, recently published a letter in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, saying that:

"As the director of a biological laboratory in Louisiana, I need enlightened staff. Distracting the state's students in their formative training [through the Louisiana Science Education Act] only cripples them.""

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