Month: January 2012

Why the Global Economy Needs Businesses to Invest in Women

NEWSWEEK MAGAZINE:  Businesses are starting to understand what development experts have long known: investing in women pays dividends. Women are more likely than men to put their income back into their communities, driving illiteracy and mortality rates down and GDP up… Bringing women into businesses creates what Michael Porter and Mark Kramer of Harvard Business […]

Eurozone unemployment hits record high

From ALJAZEERA: …Joblessness among the bloc’s 17 countries rose to 10.4 per cent in December 2011, the EU’s statistics office Eurostat said in a statement… After two years of debt crisis and budget austerity cuts across in the region, the number of Europeans out of work has risen to 16.5 million people, with another 20,000 people without a job in December…

Goodwin stripped of knighthood

From the FINANCIAL TIMES: Sir Fred Goodwin, the former boss of Royal Bank of Scotland, is being stripped of his knighthood, in the latest political concession to public anger in Britain over the perceived arrogance of some senior bankers… Sir Frederick Anderson Goodwin – or plain Mr Goodwin as he becomes – joins Cambridge spy […]

Landowners fight eminent domain in Pa. gas field

From the NATION / AP: A pipeline operator assured federal regulators it would minimize using eminent domain against private landowners if given approval to lay a 39-mile natural gas pipeline in northern Pennsylvania’s pristine Endless Mountains. Yet the company was readying condemnation papers against dozens of landowners even as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission was […]

The American Gulag

DRUG WAR FACTS: Good news was reported with the December 2011 release of the “Prisoners in 2010” report from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. “The combined U.S. prison population decreased 0.6% in 2010, the first decline since 1972.” [1] While we can somewhat celebrate this downward blip, these numbers need to be put in context.

Rick Perry’s campaign burned through millions

From POLITICO: Texas Gov. Rick Perry burned through the bulk of a once-sizable campaign war chest late last year in what became an increasingly desperate attempt to right his listing — and ultimately doomed — presidential campaign, federal financial disclosures released late Monday show. Though he raised more than $20 million overall during 2011, Perry […]

European Banks set to double crisis loans from ECB

From the FINANCIAL TIMES: …The ECB, under new president Mario Draghi, launched its funding facility in December to avert a looming credit crunch, with €230bn of bank bonds coming due for repayment in the first quarter of 2012 while bond markets remained largely closed to new issuance. … Goldman Sachs has told clients that banks […]

The War Over Prescription Painkillers

From the HUFF POST: … Despite the recent headlines about the rise in sales of prescription painkillers, chronic pain is still significantly under-treated in America. There are a number of reasons why. For one, there’s no diagnostic test to diagnose pain, so doctors must rely on patient descriptions of what they’re feeling.

Victory for Merkel over fiscal treaty

From the FINANCIAL TIMES: European leaders have agreed to back a fiscal discipline treaty, handing Angela Merkel, German chancellor, a symbolic victory in her months’ long drive to enforce tough budget limits for the single currency. Under the pact, eurozone countries would be legally bound to balance national budgets over time – a price that […]

Cop’s Marijuana Legalization Question Gets First Place in White House Video Contest

PRESS RELEASE FROM LAW ENFORCEMENT AGAINST PROHIBITION (LEAP) President Obama to Answer Top-Voted YouTube Questions on Monday WASHINGTON, DC — A question advocating marijuana legalization from a retired LAPD deputy chief of police won twice as many votes as any other video question in the White House’s “Your Interview with the President” competition on YouTube […]

Soros: Obama, Romney ‘Not Much Difference’

From NEWSMAX: …[George] Soros offered the reassuring news to liberals across Europe during an interview this week in Davos, Switzerland… “Well, look, either you’ll have an extremist conservative, be it Gingrich or Santorum, in which case I think it will make a big difference which of the two comes in,” Soros told Reuters in a […]