Sources: AT&T Will Face ‘Thorough Investigation’ In Proposed T-Mobile Merger
March 21, 2011 No Comment
enlarge This was my first thought when I heard the news : Are the feds really going to let this merger go through? It sounds as though I’m not the only person who had that reaction. But then, I still don’t understand how the Comcast/NBC merger went through, either: The surprising announcement that AT&T Inc. would acquire T-Mobile USA from Deutsche Telekom AG in a $39 billion merger leaves one giant question mark: Will the U.S. government approve an acquisition that most experts thought was unthinkable until recently? At the very least, most technology, finance and policy experts say the combination of the second and fourth largest providers of U.S wireless service by revenue will face a rocky road as the two companies seek approval from government regulators. First, AT&T will need the FCC’s approval to acquire T-Mobile’s spectrum licenses. But the deal is also certain to face a thorough investigation by the Justice Department, according to people familiar with the matter. The merger is likely to be of particular concern to antitrust enforcers because the industry’s two dominant companies—Verizon Wireless, a joint venture of Vodafone Group PLC and Verizon Communications Inc., and AT&T—are already so far ahead of anyone else, raising the specter of an effective duopoly in mobile telephony. Antitrust enforcers would likely have taken a more benign view of a potential merger of Sprint Nextel Corp. and T-Mobile USA which would have created a larger third player to compete with the top two providers, those people said. Herbert Hovenkamp, a law professor at the University of Iowa who specializes in antitrust matters, said the deal would also have a hard time meeting the new merger guidelines recently issued by the Department of Justice. “It’s a pretty highly concentrated market,” he said. “The guidelines would say this is a highly questionable merger unless there is a significant provable efficiency. This will get fairly close scrutiny.”
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Former governor of Alaska goes to Greek Orthodox monastery and Jerusalem during tour of Israel Sarah Palin apparently had second thoughts about crossing an Israeli checkpoint on Monday to visit Bethlehem during a three-day visit to Jerusalem. The former governor of Alaska pulled up to the checkpoint run by the Israeli border police to the south of Jerusalem in a white people carrier, with her husband, Todd, her assistant and Israeli guides. None of the occupants left the car nor did they speak to the police officers at the checkpoint, according to photographers at the scene. A spokesman for the Israeli police said there was no incident at the checkpoint and a spokesman for the Israeli army said that Palin’s group had not co-ordinated a visit to the occupied Palestinian territory. Palin’s group then stopped at a nearby Greek Orthodox monastery before returning to her hotel in the centre of west Jerusalem from where they later continued their tour of the city. Tourists need to carry passports to cross checkpoints into the occupied Palestinian territory and Israelis are not normally permitted to enter areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority, such as Bethlehem. From the checkpoint Palin would have been able to see the high concrete walls that separate Bethlehem from Jerusalem. Palin arrived in Israel on Sunday night after a delivering a speech in India on a rare foreign trip. She is due to meet Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, on Monday evening. On arriving in Jerusalem Palin visited the tunnels next to the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest site, which is believed to have been part of the walls of the Jewish temple destroyed by the Romans in 70AD. Palin wore a Star of David, the symbol of Judaism, around her neck, prayed close to the wall and lodged a written prayer in a crevice, according to tradition. Palin told reporters: ” It’s overwhelming to be able to see and touch the cornerstone of our faith. I’m so thankful to be able to be here and I’m thankful to know the Israel-American connection will grow and strengthen as the peace negotiations continue.” Danny Danon, the Likud party member of the Knesset who invited Palin to Israel and accompanied her to the Western Wall, said Palin was moved by being close to the wall. “The visit was educational and spiritual. She was a strong friend of Israel and she will become a stronger advocate of Israel in the future,” he said. “The main purpose of the visit was to get acquainted with Israel and the holy sites. It was her first visit but I am sure she will come again.” Sarah Palin US politics United States Israel Middle East Conal Urquhart guardian.co.uk
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Click here to view this media We know Rep. Don Young of Alaska was not one of the two Republicans who forgot to take the oath of office on Jan. 6 . But the question bears asking anyway: Does Young need to reaffirm his oath to the Constitution? We’ve been wondering because Young actually signed a revolutionary oath concocted by militia organizer Schaeffer Cox — the Alaska militiaman arrested last week for plotting to kill cops and a couple of judges — declaring that the signers would refuse to recognize any new federal taxes or gun laws: “[T]he duty of us good and faithful people will not be to obey them but to alter or abolish them and institute new government laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to us shall seem most likely to effect our safety and happiness.” David Holthouse at Media Matters’ Political Correction has the rundown: A video posted online in June 2009 shows Alaska Congressman Don Young signing a revolutionary “Letter of Declaration” written by Alaska militia leader Schaeffer Cox, who was arrested yesterday along with four compatriots for allegedly plotting to kidnap and murder Alaska State Troopers and a Fairbanks judge. “Let it be known that should our government seek to further tax, restrict or register firearms … thus impairing our ability to exercise the God-given right to self-defense that precedes all human legislation and is superior to it, that the duty of us good and faithful people will not be to obey them but to alter or abolish them,” reads the declaration that Rep. Young signed. So the folks at the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence is putting together a petition demanding that Young clarify his position vis a vis his oath to uphold the Constitution and the federal office he holds. As CSGV’s Josh Horowitz puts it: “It is simply unacceptable for a sitting member of Congress to sign a document calling for violence against the government of the United States. We call on Rep. Don Young to do the right thing and repudiate this repugnant document. ” You can sign here. As Holthouse explained : Cox describes how he wrote his “Letter of Declaration” the night before the initial meeting of the Second Amendment Task Force at a Denny’s restaurant in Fairbanks. In the video, Cox claims that 150 people attended the meeting, saying, “It was standing room only.” “Everybody there signed this letter,” he adds. As Cox begins to recite his declaration, the video cuts to footage of Rep. Young signing the very same letter (it is unclear whether this occurs at the same meeting). The video shows Cox standing next to Rep. Young, addressing a crowd. “We have no obligation to submit to a government that refuses to submit to their governing document,” Cox says. A man in the crowd asks Rep. Young, “If any government should decide that we have to register certain of our arms or turn them in, what would your recommendation be?” Rep. Young responds, “Don’t do it…I sincerely mean that. Don’t turn them in.” Young’s office eventually did provide an explanation of sorts as to what we see on the, which essentially came down to: Yeah, he was there, he signed the letter, he palled around with Cox. So what? Rep. Young’s communications director, Meredith Kenny, said the video shows Rep. Young signing the letter at an “open-carry day” in Fairbanks in the spring of 2009. At the open carry day, gun rights activists appeared in public openly wearing handgun in holsters. “Rep. Young attended not because of anything having to do with Cox — nor is he in any way affiliated with Cox — but because he has always been a vocal and staunch defender of the Second Amendment,” Kenny said. “Congressman Young stands strong with gun owners of America, and will always defend the 2nd Amendment rights of Americans.” Of course, we got a taste of http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/schaeffer-cox-and-his-alaska-militia Click here to view this media COX: If there came a time where they were endangering my family, you bet I would kill those federal agents. And what kind of a father and husband would I be if I wouldn’t? Would I sacrifice my family on the altar of submission to the wicked state? No, that would be despicable, we would highly criticize anybody who did that, stood by and watched in history. And we’ve got to reckon with the fact that that’s our time right now. Now, we have those agents — with 3500 guys we have tremendous resources at our disposal. And we had those guys under 24-hour surveillance — the six trouble-causers that came up from the federal government. And we could have had them killed within 20 minutes of giving the order. But we didn’t because they had not yet done it.
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Victorian writer Ada J Graves’s granddaughter believes pivotal scene was ‘lifted’ from The House by the Railway It is arguably the single most memorable episode of E Nesbit ‘s much-loved children’s book The Railway Children. The three children, Bobbie, Peter and Phyllis, playing close to the railway line, witness a landslide on to the tracks, and bravely save a train from crashing into it by waving warning flags made from the girls’ red flannel petticoats. And when they succeed in stopping the train – in the nick of time – Bobbie falls down in a dead faint. But it has now emerged that the dramatic episode may not have been purely the result of Nesbit’s imagination. Another children’s book – published in 1896, nine years before The Railway Children appeared – includes an episode seemingly too similar for coincidence alone. In The House by the Railway by little-known writer Ada J Graves, middle-class children from the suburbs move to the countryside with their mother, just as Bobbie and her siblings do, and save a train from crashing into an obstacle on the line by waving a red jacket to halt it in its tracks. And, just as in The Railway Children (as seen on our TV screens each Christmas in the classic 1970 film ), they are presented with engraved watches as a reward for their courage. Other similarities connect the two novels. Both books include an episode in which someone the children befriend on a passing train turns out to have a connection to somebody else in their story, and both end with an emotional family reunion. However, the particularly heart-wringing theme of The Railway Children, in which the children’s father is absent because he has been wrongly imprisoned for spying, only to be dramatically freed at the end of the novel, is Nesbit’s alone. Ada Graves’s 64-year-old granddaughter Anne Hall-Williams, who found a copy of The House by the Railway in her late father’s house, is convinced that the pivotal near-crash scene was “lifted” by Nesbit from her grandmother’s book. “It is quite blatant really, the plagiarism,” she says. “It is pretty obvious that Nesbit had read the earlier book. I realise that lots of authors operate in this way, but it seems a bit naughty of her. Poor Ada deserves a bit of credit.” However, Kate Agnew of the Children’s Bookshop, Muswell Hill, north London, was sceptical about the connection. “There was a huge sweep of railways spreading across Britain from the 1830s and it had a profound effect on the whole country, so it was inevitable that there would be children’s fiction about railways,” she says. “And it’s a classic trope of children’s adventure that the children do something crucial that saves the day. In a book about railways, that’s likely to be something to do with saving a train, and red has always been the colour of danger. I don’t think it’s enough of a coincidence to be certain.” Nesbit, born in 1858, wrote about 40 children’s books in all, and had already published many of the books that would become classics – including The Wouldbegoods, Five Children and It and the Phoenix and the Carpet – by the time The Railway Children appeared in 1906. She was also a writer and lecturer on socialism, co-founding the Fabian Society alongside her husband Hubert Bland – although thanks to Bland’s philandering and her own penchant for relationships with younger men, her own family life was far from the cosy ideal often presented in her novels. Agnew says Nesbit’s books remain very popular with today’s young readers. “She has very contemporary heroes and heroines, though they have a strong Victorian sense of duty,” she says. “They have very realistic adventures, even when they are magical ones – you enter the world of magic from a shop in Kensington, for example – and children love that.” Children and teenagers Benedicte Page guardian.co.uk
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24,000 adders, common lizards and other species moved from oil refinery site to reserves to make way for London Gateway They had lived peacefully in their tens of thousands on an old refinery site in Essex. Now after what is thought to be the UK’s biggest artificial movement of animals, 24,000 adders, grass snakes, common lizards and slow worms are settling well into new homes 140 miles away. The reptiles were transported from the east of England to reserves in Wiltshire to make way for the £1.5bn London Gateway container port and logistics park. Since 1998 the creatures have been captured by hand and moved in vans – early in the morning so they did not dry out – around the M25 and down the M4 before being released into their new homes. The reserves in Wiltshire have now been declared full and this year the relatively few remaining reptiles at the Essex site will be rehoused closer to another reserve closer to home. Marcus Pearson, environmental manager for DP World, said the move seemed to have been successful. Reptiles that had been moved and then recaptured to check their wellbeing seemed healthy and doing well in their new home. Construction is under way at London Gateway, 25 miles to the east of central London. Once complete the development will allow the world’s biggest container ships to berth close to the capital. But one of the challenges the developers faced was rehousing the animals that had moved on to the site after an oil refinery ceased operating in 1999. Homes were found nearby for the carefully protected great crested newts. But no new local habitat could be found for the reptiles so the decision was taken to move them to reserves managed by the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust . DP World also bought a chunk of land to link areas owned by the trust. It has moved 290 adders, 400 grass snakes, 17,000 common lizards and 6,000 slow worms. Pearson said finding a new home was tricky because they could not be moved to places where they were already large populations of a particular creature. The Wiltshire reserves are now judged to be full and the remaining reptiles found on the Gateway site this year will be moved to the RSPB reserve, West Canvey Marsh . Wildlife Animals Steven Morris guardian.co.uk
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Supporters of rival Alassane Ouattara and human rights campaigners claim Gbagbo should be charged with war crimes Thousands of young men could be seen enlisting on Monday to fight for the incumbent president of Ivory Coast, stoking fears of an imminent civil war. Chanting slogans such as “We will kill them now” and “The rebels will die”, prospective recruits gathered at a stadium at the army headquarters in the commercial capital, Abidjan. The show of strength underlines the growing influence of Young Patriot leader Charles Blé Goudé, who called on about 10,000 supporters at a rally on Saturday to sign up and “liberate” the country. It could also be aimed at deterring supporters of Alassane Ouattara, the rival to president Laurent Gbagbo , who have argued that Gbagbo’s support base is shrinking and cannot prop him up much longer. Ouattara is the internationally recognised winner of last November’s presidential election. Gbagbo’s refusal to step down has sparked a humanitarian emergency and possible renewal of the 2002-03 civil war . His security forces fired six mortars on a crowded marketplace in the volatile Abobo surburb of Abidjan last week, killing at least 25 people and injuring dozens more. The attack, for which the military denied responsibility, has fuelled calls for Gbagbo to be charged with war crimes. The United Nations mission in Ivory Coast said: “Such an act, perpetrated against civilians, could constitute a crime against humanity.” Supporters of Ouattara demanded on Monday that Gbagbo should stand trial at the Hague-based international criminal court (ICC), following the example of neighbouring Liberia’s former president Charles Taylor. Sindou Cisse of the rebel New Forces , which control the country’s north and backs Ouattara, said the Abobo mortar attack was “a war crime”. He said: “What happened is beyond anything imaginable. It is out of order. As soon as possible, Mr Gbagbo should be trapped by the ICC. They should come and get him right now, not only for justice but to put an end to the suffering of the population.” He urged the international community to take action. “They have gone after Gaddafi but we are still waiting,” he said. Human Rights Watch said last week it believed Gbagbo and several of his close allies were now implicated in crimes against humanity as defined by the Rome statute, which created the ICC. “The targeted killings, enforced disappearances, politically motivated rapes and persecution of west African nationals over a three-month period demonstrate a policy of systematic violence by security forces under the control of Gbagbo and militias long loyal to him,” it said. The watchdog claimed the killing of civilians by pro-Ouattara forces, at times with apparent ethnic or political motivation, could also be a crime against humanity if the slaughter became widespread or systematic. Gbagbo’s government has accused Nigeria of transporting 500 mercenaries to join the New Forces, based in the northern town of Bouaké. The social and economic meltdown in the former west African powerhouse continued over the weekend as thousands gathered in Abidjan’s main bus station, carrying suitcases full of belongings they had salvaged to head to the countryside. Men pushed, shoved and sometimes fought to get on to packed buses, while exhausted children sat or tried to sleep on piles of luggage at the station in Adjame, the scene of fierce fighting in the past week. Adama Diawara, a civil servant, told Reuters: “We’re getting out of Abidjan. Bullets were falling on us day and night. We don’t know what to do. We are so tired of this. We want the international community to come and help us.” Aicha Diabate, sitting in the station with her children, said: “Since the day before yesterday, we’ve been here but we only managed to get a ticket at 2am this morning.” Touts were buying all the tickets and charging double, she added, as a young man arrived at the station with his sick father in a wheelbarrow. The UN says 435 people have been killed and another 450,000 forced from their homes since the crisis began. The Ouattara camp puts the death toll at 720. An African Union mediation panel has given Gbagbo until Thursday to sit down with Ouattara to negotiate a transfer of power. Ivory Coast David Smith guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Survey: Nine Million More Americans Added to Ranks of Uninsured in Recession
March 21, 2011 No CommentI wonder how many people drained their savings to cover COBRA payments because they thought they’d soon find a new job. That’s why the new healthcare law, as flawed as it is, is a big step toward building a safety net: The millions of Americans who lost their jobs and their health benefits during the recession often had no way to regain affordable health coverage, leaving them and their families at risk of financial ruin, according to a new report from The Commonwealth Fund. The spate of layoffs during the recession catapulted 9 million more Americans — or 57% of those who had had health insurance in a job that evaporated over the last two years — into the ranks of the millions already uninsured. In addition, 19 million people anxiously seeking private coverage over the last three years were either turned down or could not find a plan that was affordable and met their needs, the report found. The Biennial Health Insurance Survey also found a whopping 60% increase in skipped care due to cost in the past decade. The survey reported that medical debt problems and out-of-pocket spending costs were on the rise as well, with 29 million Americans using up their entire life savings to pay for medical bills and millions more unable to afford food, heat and rent due to medical payments. “The report tells the story of the continuing deterioration of health care accessibility, efficiency, safety and affordability over the past decade,” Commonwealth Fund president Karen Davis said during a noon press conference Tuesday. All this despite the fact that the United States spends more than any other country on health care, she added. “Most recently it has failed the millions of Americans who lost their jobs during the recession and lost health benefits as well, leaving them with no place to turn for affordable health care coverage,” Davis said. The Commonwealth Fund report focused on the struggles of the 43 million adults under 65 who have lost their health insurance along with their job over the past two years. “The silver lining is that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has already begun to bring relief to families,” Davis added. “Once the new law is fully implemented, we can be confident that no future recession will have the power to strip so many Americans of their health security.”
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German experience can help reverse the UK’s poor record on renewables and underpin our green energy policies • UK government unveils plans to slash solar feed-in tariffs There’s no denying that Germany has been a real pioneer in building a competitive low-carbon economy . Its renewables industry supports 340,000 jobs and replaces €5bn (£4.3bn) worth of energy imports per annum. The UK’s record on the deployment of renewables is pretty dismal by comparison. However, the coalition is determined to turn that record on its head. To underpin our ambitious roll-out of green energy we will be looking closely at Germany to see how we can do better in the UK. We said we’d be the greenest government ever , and we mean it. So I am heading to Germany today for two reasons. The first is to hear from this renewables powerhouse the lessons it has learned from its well-established feed-in tariffs (Fit) scheme in order for the system we inherited to work better for industry, households, small businesses and communities. The second is to share the blueprint for our “green deal” – the biggest ever shake-up in home energy efficiency the UK will have ever seen. The Fit scheme rewards people financially to generate and export electricity they produce from renewable sources like solar panels and wind turbines and is here to stay in the UK, but we can certainly improve the scheme the coalition inherited from the last government. Because the scheme has been running longer in Germany, they’ve already learned some important lessons which we want to hear about. Just as the solar industry has seen a massive boom from Fits here, it’s seen a spectacular increase in Germany too. How we manage this will be crucial to the sustained growth of the industry and to the level of financial support we give to householders, communities and small businesses. I am particularly interested in how hearing from the Environment Ministry how the Germans are adjusting Fits to cope with the rapidly falling costs of solar technology. Taking a pro-active approach to changing tariffs will allow us to avoid the boom-and-bust approach we have seen in other countries and will allow us to capture the benefits of cheaper solar to support more household and community schemes, and a wide range of technologies including community-based wind and hydro and anaerobic digestion on farms. Improving the way the scheme operates will form a key part of our comprehensive review of the Fits that is now underway. The rising oil price has brought in to sharp focus the vital need for the UK to have reliable energy supplies . We need a mix of low-carbon energy to protect ourselves from volatile fossil fuel markets and disruption to supplies from unrest abroad. There is no choice but to have a sustainable energy source that we can guarantee will be there for us when we switch on the lights. One of the most overlooked and underrated weapons in our energy security armour is energy efficiency. Reducing energy demand will be crucial to cutting bills and managing supplies. In short, it’s the energy we don’t use which will be the most reliable. This is why the coalition is introducing the green deal . Germany is keen to hear more about our plans. I will be speaking at an event in Berlin today outlining our approach and the business opportunities it could bring for the UK and Germany alike. Germany has a similar challenge in reducing emissions. Their public and private buildings account for almost 20% of their carbon emissions compared to around one-quarter here. We’re already progressing the energy bill through parliament which will lay the foundations for the green deal; it entered the House of Commons last week. Come 2012, householders will be able to access finance to pay for the upfront cost of having cavity walls filled or expensive measures like solid walls treated . Our aim is to make homes across the country warmer to live in and cheaper to run. Both our countries are determined to make strides in cutting emissions and while the oil price continues to be high, it is only right we learn from each other on the best way to meet our climate goals while at the same time stimulate our economies. • Greg Barker is the UK climate change minister Feed-in tariffs Solar power Wind power Energy Renewable energy Energy bills Germany Europe Green politics guardian.co.uk
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The British have long been sniffy about French theatre, but classic playwrights from Molière to Marivaux deserve another look We seem to have a love-hate relationship with French drama. We occasionally revive Racine and Corneille while sniffing airily at the way such neo-classic drama rigidly observes the unities. We also periodically dip into French farce while tut-tutting at its dubious taste, especially all those Feydeau jokes about stuttering and cleft palates. Temperamentally, I suspect we feel much closer to Russian and German drama than we do to its French counterpart. The vogue for everything French (plays, movies, fashion) seems to have faded. But it shouldn’t be that way. Here are five dramatists at whom we should take another look. Molière (1622-1673) The problem used to be one of translation; that has improved in recent years thanks to people like Tony Harrison, Christopher Hampton, Jeremy Sams and Ranjit Bolt. But there is something about Molière’s blend of comedy and tragedy that we still find elusive. And certain plays remain neglected; we do Tartuffe and The Misanthrope, but why not take a look at The School for Husbands or The School for Wives , which deal with the archetypal Molière theme of whether to compromise with or confront society’s rules? And I’ve never seen a British production of Georges Dandin – a play about bourgeois marriage famously revived in France by Roger Planchon , who paid serious attention to the seething life below stairs. We still look to Molière for a jolly romp. In fact, most of his plays are socially subversive as well as funny. Pierre Marivaux (1688-1763) Again, the problem is one of tone. The French even coined a term, “marivaudage”, to describe Marivaux’s precious, mannered dialogue: Voltaire described it as “the art of weighing flies’ eggs on scales made from a spider’s web”. But Timberlake Wertenbaker, Neil Bartlett and Nicholas Wright have successfully translated his plays. And they are eminently worth revival for their exploration of the metaphysics of the heart and the connection between class and passion. In plays such as The Double Inconstancy or The Game of Love and Chance , which Salisbury Playhouse is about to revive, the mask of pretence is stripped away and masters and servants swap roles with astonishing results. He’s is a neglected comic master. Eugene Labiche (1815-1888) Labiche’s reputation as a farce-writer has been overshadowed by that of Feydeau. But at least some his staggering 175 plays are worth examination. An Italian Straw Hat , famously filmed by René Clair, is one of the great comedies of chase and pursuit. And when Peter Stein ran Berlin’s Schaubühne, he had great success with Labiche. One particular play, The Piggy Bank, sounds wonderful: about seven members of the provincial bourgeoisie who break into their secret funds for what turns out to be a disastrous trip to Paris . I know Cheek by Jowl’s Declan Donnellan was at one stage toying with reviving Labiche. Why not now? Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) Obviously best-known as a philosopher and essayist, but also a dramatist of considerable skill. Vicious Circle, which used to be a small-theatre favourite, memorably shows three people locked together in a permanent hell. But Sartre also wrote a number of political plays about resistance to authority. I’ve always had a soft spot for Dirty Hands , which concerns the existentialist choice facing a young hero required to kill a communist party leader. And his response to Greek tragedy’s Orestes story, The Flies , uses the hero’s return to a plague-ridden Argos as a potent metaphor for France under German occupation. Doubtless some would say Sartre is dated. But why shouldn’t plays be of historical interest? Jean Anouilh (1910-1987) It seemed like everyone did Anouilh after the second world war: now his star has sadly waned. But The Rehearsal, with its echoes of Marivaux , remains a minor masterpiece. And I’d love to see a revival of one particular play, Poor Bitos . It’s all about a rich landowner who stages a party in which the guests are invited to come dressed as a figure from the revolution: the intention is to humiliate a communist deputy and despised scholarship-boy who arrives clad as Robespierre. What follows is a terrifying human fox-hunt that reveals a lot about class-antagonisms in post-war France. Anouilh’s “pièces charmantes” may have faded, but his darker work merits revival. Theatre Michael Billington guardian.co.uk
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