The number of unemployment claims jumped to 429,000 last week, an unexpected rise that led the Dow Jones industrial average to fall below 12,000. Falling oil prices—they decreased 5% today—also drove US stocks lower, the AP reports. The Dow was down recently more than 215 points,…
Continue reading …Eric Cantor has told reporters that he’s not attending today’s Joe Biden-led budget meeting, or any future budget meetings, because the group has reached an impasse over taxes that he thinks can only be bridged by John Boehner and President Obama. “We’ve reached the point where the dynamic needs to…
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Ringtones are evil. Islamic countries are fun. The record industry is still a den of thieves – and so is
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Labour leader wants to be free to appoint members, while quota of posts for women will also be abolished In a surprise assertion of his authority over his party, Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, has said he would abolish elections to his shadow cabinet, leaving him free to appoint his own top team. The move will end a decades-long Labour tradition that shadow cabinet members are elected by their fellow Labour MPs. Shadow cabinet and senior party figures were informed of Miliband’s plan to end a key plank of internal democracy today. He will address Labour MPs about his plans on Monday evening and expects a secret ballot to be conducted among them. The proposal also has to be formally endorsed by party conference in September. No quota of posts for women in the shadow cabinet will be retained. At present a ballot paper is only valid if at least six votes for women are cast. Miliband’s aides said he would appoint a large number of women as a matter of course. During his leadership campaign, Miliband said he wanted half of the shadow cabinet to be women. Aides said he had taken the step to end the distraction of elections and to make his top team focus on the task of holding the government to account. They believe repeated internal elections make some shadow cabinet members as concerned by their popularity among their colleagues as with their impact on the general public. One spokesman said: “Elections were a legacy from our previous time in opposition and it is a sign that Ed does not want the party to be dragged back to the 80s.” Miliband has also decided not to go ahead with plan for an elected party chair. The announcement comes two days before a Labour national policy forum at which shadow cabinet members are due to report on the progress they have made in renewing party thinking. Some Labour activists say Miliband has not been receiving enough support from his most senior political colleagues, and this puts them on notice they will have to raise their game. Labour MPs voted only in the autumn, following an internal review, not to abolish shadow cabinet elections, but instead to shift from annual to two-yearly elections in an attempt to impose greater stability. Party officials insisted that Miliband’s move did not presage an imminent shadow cabinet reshuffle, or the return of his brother David to frontline politics. The officials also denied that it reflected frustration at the performance of any of his team, or a need to end recent political infighting over issues such as tax and spending. But the move will give Miliband freedom from September to recast the shadow cabinet in his own political image, and promote fresh younger talent currently stuck in the relative obscurity of junior shadow ministerial jobs. He will also be in a position to sack anyone for disloyalty or refusal to co-operate on policy. Although the leader is free to appoint any elected member to any portfolio he chooses, those who do well in the elections believe they have earned the right to be handed the more senior jobs. Despite denials tonight , it is likely that some older figures will agree to stand aside at some point. Ed Miliband Labour Women in politics Patrick Wintour guardian.co.uk
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US Federal Trade Commission antitrust inquiry will examine heart of Google’s search-advertising business, reports say US regulators are poised to launch a formal investigation into whether Google has abused its dominance on the web, according to reports. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is days away from serving subpoenas on the internet giant in what could be the biggest investigation yet of the search company’s business, according to The Wall Street Journal . Both Google and the FTC declined to comment. A wide-ranging investigation into Google has been discussed for months. Google has faced several antitrust probes in recent years, and is already the subject of a similar investigation in Europe. In the US inquiries have so far largely been limited to reviews of the company’s mergers and acquisitions. The inquiry will examine the heart of Google’s search-advertising business, and the source of most of Google’s revenue. Google accounts for around two-thirds of internet searches in the US (and close to 90% in the UK) and according to critics unfairly uses that dominance to favour its own growing network of services. Last November, the European commission opened its own formal investigation into allegations that Google discriminated against competing services in its search results and prevented some websites from using ads by Google competitors. “This is a major headache for Google even if they ultimately prevail in court,” said Professor Christopher Yoo of the University of Pennsylvania Law School. “The US and EU often share information and these dual investigations can be very effective.” Legal experts said the investigation could be similar in scale to the massive antitrust probe of Microsoft, which started in 1991 and ended in a settlement a decade later. Professor Joshua Wright of George Mason Law School said: “The investigation will be of a comparable scale to that of Microsoft.” But he said the chances of Google being found guilty of antitrust behaviour, as Microsoft was, were far smaller. Wright said for the US to bring a successful case against Google, it would have to prove the company was harming consumers. “As an outsider I would say that obstacle is far higher for them today with Google than it was back then with Microsoft,” he said. Yoo said: “The reality is that changes in antitrust laws in the US have made it much harder for the government to prevail.” He said Google faced a higher risk in the EU case but that in either case the investigations were likely to have a profound impact on the firm. “Even if the charges are ultimately bogus, they will occupy many, many hours of managements time and attention,” he said. The FTC’s investigations are likely to widen to other companies as official requests for information about their dealings with Google. The company has long denied any anticompetitive behaviour, arguing that users can easily click on other choices on the web. “Given our success and the disruptive nature of our business, it’s entirely understandable that we’ve caused unease among other companies and caught the attention of regulators,” Google executives wrote in a company blog post after the official European probe was launched last year. Google Internet Search engines United States Dominic Rushe guardian.co.uk
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Lady Warsi says women are being denied rights granted 1,400 years ago in Qur’an Pakistan is failing to live up to one of the main tenets of Islam which guarantees rights to all women, according to Sayeeda Warsi, the Conservative Party co-chairman and minister without portfoliio who is the first Muslim to sit as a full member of the cabinet. In a sign of Britain’s impatience with Pakistan, where minority communities and women face persecution, Lady Warsi expressed disappointment that the world’s first Islamic republic is denying rights granted 1,400 years ago in the Qur’an. As she prepares to become the first British minister to address the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) next week, Warsi said in a Guardian interview that in a “nutshell” Pakistan is not living up to the ideals of its founding father, Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Warsi, who says she is able to deliver a tough message to Pakistan because she is unencumbered by “colonial baggage”, said she raised the issue of women’s rights in a speech in Urdu at the Fatima Jinnah University in Rawalpindi. The university is named after the younger sister of the founder of Pakistan. “Why is it that today you’re being denied the rights that your faith gave to you 1,400 years ago?” Warsi asked, recalling her central message to her female audience. Warsi, 40, whose father arrived in Britain from Pakistan in 1960, will address a meeting of OIC foreign ministers next week in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan. Warsi said she had also raised concerns about the treatment of minorities in Pakistan. Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan’s only Christian minister, was shot dead in March after he called the reform of blasphemy laws that impose the death sentence for insulting Islam. Warsi said: “I said to them … let me talk to you about the rights of minorities, the protection of women and the concept of meritocracy. I gave real examples of how Islam embodies all of those values and the question I put was my country wasn’t formed in the name of Islam but yours was, so why does my country embody the values of the faith that your country was formed on the basis of?” Warsi said her family heritage gave her a chance to speak out. “This was not the west arriving with an ideological perspective of women’s rights about to impose them on a nation. “I understand this culture, I deeply understand the faith and the culture that is part of this nation … But what I don’t see is you in many ways having the very values upon which the nation was formed, the vision of the founder of Pakistan.” Since her appointment to the cabinet Warsi has visited a series of Muslim countries, including Kuwait and Pakistan on four occasions. She played an important role in smoothing relations with Pakistan after David Cameron caused great offence last July when he said in India that elements of the Pakistan state were guilty of exporting terrorism. Warsi, who recalls how she wore a pink shalwar kameez on the day she was appointed believes her presence in cabinet challenges “the kind of lazy prejudice” that says in the Muslim world and in Britain that somebody from her background cannot be a government minister. “I don’t believe in this clash of civilisations where there is the west and the Muslim world,” she said. “I mean if I did I, you know I mean where would I fit in?” Warsi travels to Astana after she met Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the secretary general of the OIC, during a visit to its secretariat in Jeddah last year while she was in Saudi Arabia for the hajj. This led to the appointment of Britain’s first special representative to the 57-strong group. “This is an organisation which is good to engage with and have much deeper engagement with but clearly that relationship didn’t appear to be there twelve months ago,” Warsi said. Ihsanoglu recently raised concerns about Islamophobia with Warsi, who caused some controversy in January by saying this had “crossed the threshold of middle-class respectability”. They had both agreed that Britain has a better track record than other European countries. Sayeeda Warsi Conservatives Pakistan Foreign policy Islam Women in politics Gender Religion Women Nicholas Watt guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …The International Energy Agency will release 60 million barrels of oil over the next month, in a bid to “offset the Libyan disruption,” the group announced today. The oil will come from the strategic reserves of the IEA’s 28 member nations, and will be portioned out at a rate of…
Continue reading …JK Rowling has revealed details about her mysterious “Pottermore” website , and sorry, but it’s not an eighth Harry Potter book. Rather, it’s an “online reading experience” where fans can experience the existing story in a new way, and where, Rowling says, she will share “additional information I’ve been hoarding for…
Continue reading …A right-wing politician in the Netherlands who called Islam “fascist” and compared the Koran to Mein Kampf has been acquitted of inciting hatred against Muslims, reports the BBC . “It’s not only an acquittal for me, but a victory for freedom of expression in the Netherlands,” said Geert Wilders, whose supporters…
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