Sõnumeid vennasvabariikidest: USA survestas panka, Iiri loobub e-valimistest, europarlament pikendas autoriõigust, Hispaania tööpuudus kuni 23%

Mõned sõnumid vennasvabariikidest (vaata veel lisaks põnevat infot minut.ee portaalist):

** "Bank of America juht Ken Lewis väidab, et USA valitsus käskis tal viia lõpule tehing Merill Lynch panga ostuks 50 miljardi dollari eest ja seejuures hoida oma suu lukus Merill Lynchi tohutute kahjumite suhtes. Vastasel korral lubati kogu Bank of America juhtkond välja vahetada. Sellised dokumendid tulid välja New Yorki peaprokuröri Andrew Cuomo uurimisega seoses ning Merill Lynchi üles ostmine on praegu Bank of America jaoks suureks koormaks. Probleemiks on ka see, et Bank of America aktsinärid ei olnud informeeritud sellistest võtetest. Bank of America chief told to buy Merrill or face sack."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/apr/23/us-government-threatened-bank-board-on-merrill

The US government threatened to eject the entire board of Bank of America if the firm pulled out of a $50bn (£34bn) take–over of troubled Merrill Lynch in December, according to new documents set to inflame a bitter shareholder dispute at America's wealthiest bank.

In potentially explosive testimony to regulators, Bank of America's chief executive, Ken Lewis, has claimed the US treasury ordered him to press ahead with a buyout of Merrill and to keep quiet about the Wall Street brokerage's mounting losses.

Lewis's account was revealed today in a letter to Congressional law–makers from New York's attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, who has raised concern that Bank of America's shareholders were kept in the dark about liabilities inherited from Merrill.

The purchase has been enormously expensive for Bank of America, which is the largest US bank in terms of deposits. The issue has sparked an investor rebellion forcing Lewis into a fight for his job at a potentially acrimonious annual meeting next week.

The takeover was struck in a lightening deal agreed over a weekend at the height of Wall Street's financial meltdown in September. The bank's shareholders approved the transaction on 5 December but Lewis testified that a week later, he learned of a "staggering amount of deterioration" in Merrill's finances with quarterly losses jumping from $9bn to $12bn in six days.

After consulting lawyers, Lewis said he wanted to invoke a "material adverse event" clause to terminate the buyout. But the former treasury secretary Henry Paulson stepped in, saying he would use the government's bail-out powers to sack Bank of America's board unless it completed the deal.

Lewis testified: "I can't recall if he [Paulson] said 'we would remove the board and management if you called it [a material adverse event]' or if he said 'we would do if you intended to'."

In an allegation which has sparked questions about an over-reach of government power, Lewis maintains that Paulson and the Federal Reserve's chairman, Ben Bernanke, told him to keep Merrill's losses to himself: "I was instructed that 'we do not want a public disclosure'."

The saga sheds new light on feverish behind-the-scenes negotiations as government officials scrambled to stabilise the financial system in the wake of the collapse of Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns. Merrill has been attacked for distributing $3.6bn in bonuses to its staff in spite of its losses.

Paulson confirmed to Cuomo's office that he threatened to oust Bank of America's board. However, the former treasury secretary denies telling Lewis to keep silent about Merrill's losses, insisting that he was simply referring to the treasury's own disclosure obligations.

A union-backed investor group, Change to Win, condemned Lewis's conduct: "Assuming Mr Lewis's version of the Paulson and Bernanke discussions is accurate, he and his board violated their legal duties to shareholders in order to protect their own employment interests. Their failure to provide timely disclosure of Merrill's troubled condition ultimately has had devastating consequences for shareholders."

** Iirimaa valitsus on teatanud e-valimistest loobumisest ning tagasipöördumisest paberi ja pliiatsi juurde. Hoolimata sellest, et 67 miljonit dollarit on selle infrastruktuuri väljaehitamiseks raisatud, otsustati loobuda selle kasutamisest, kuna see osutuks veelgi kulukamaks, kui pöördumine pabervalimiste juurde tagasi. Sellega loodetakse ka taastada avalikkuse usaldus demokraatlikesse valimistesse.

http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/26/1418219&from=rss

News that the Irish government has announced their decision to abandon e-voting and return to a paper-based system. "Ireland has already put about $67 million into building out its e-voting infrastructure, but the country has apparently decided that it would be even more expensive to keep going with the system than it would be to just scrap it altogether." John Gormley, Ireland's Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, said, "It is clear from consideration of the Report of the Commission on Electronic Voting that significant additional costs would arise to advance electronic voting in Ireland. ... the assurance of public confidence in the democratic system is of paramount importance and it is vital to bring clarity to the present situation." He added that he still thinks there is a need for electoral reform.

** "Los Angeles Times teatab, et USA julgeolekuagentuur NSA on kuulanud pealt rahvasaadik Jane Harmanit ning salvestanud kõne, kus Harman lubas teha poliitilist lobitööd, et USA-s tabatud Iisraeli spioonid saaksid kergema karistuse. 2005. aastal arreteeriti USA-s kaks Iisraeli lobi organisatsiooni AIPAC liiget seoses USA salastatud teabematerjalide hankimisega ja nende Iisraeli saatkonnale edastamisega. Kohtuistung on planeeritud selle aasta juunikuusse. Harmanile omakorda lubati AIPAC-i esindajate poolt vastutasuks, et Harmanit aidatakse tema püüdlustes saada rahvasaadikuna ühe USA julgeoleku komisjoni esimeheks. The Jane Harman file"

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-harman23-2009apr23,0,372649.story

The recent allegations against Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice) are tangled and murky and, for the moment at least, raise more questions than they answer -- but they're also troubling. If everything that's alleged turns out to be true, it's not a nice story.

Let us recap. In 2005, two employees of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the leading pro-Israel lobby in the U.S., were charged with conspiring to obtain classified information from a Defense Department official and passing it on to an Israeli Embassy official. Their espionage trial is scheduled for June....

** Euroopa Parlament pikendas Euroopa Liidus kehtivat autoriõigust muusikalistele teostele 50nelt aastalt 70nele aastale. Nüüd oodatakse usinat vaidlust EL ministrite nõukogus, peale mida siis seadus ka võidakse vastu võtta. Seega Euroopa Liidu riikides esinejad võivad korjata 20 lisaaastat poplaulukeste eest raha, heliloojate autoriõigused lubavad raha korjata 70 aastat peale nende surma. Kasulik otsus plaadifirmadele ei tähenda aga midagi head autoriõigustele üldiselt ning satub vastuollu ka varasemalt kokkulepituga.

http://techdirt.com/articles/20090424/1134104637.shtml

It's a huge shame, but the EU Parliament has voted to extend copyright on performances from 50 to 70 years despite the fact that this breaks the deal made with the public, goes against the entire purpose of copyright law and has been shown to cause significant harm to the music business. The various member states still need to agree to this individually, but it's ridiculous that it could even get this far. This is a huge boost for some record labels and some big name musicians, who will simply pad their earnings at the expense of new and struggling musicians. If you want a sense of how ridiculous the whole thing is, just read this section of the linked article:
The measure must still be passed by individual countries, and even if this is done by this summer, only recordings made in the 50 years before that point will qualify for the extended copyright.

This means that Sir Cliff [Richard] will lose control of income from his first hit, Move It, as well as from Living Doll, his fourth single, written by Lionel Bart and recorded in late April 1959, which sealed Cliff's place as Britain's answer to Elvis Presley.

This will not necessarily dismay him. Sir Cliff was unavailable for comment yesterday at his holiday retreat in Barbados, but when he travelled to Brussels last year for talks on the proposals he said: "I'm absolutely fed up with singing Living Doll but I have sung it constantly since 1959 because every time I sing it live, it generates sales of the original record and royalties to me."
Poor Cliff Richard. He's at his holiday retreat in the Bahamas, consoling himself over the fact he no longer has to sing a song he hates just to generate royalty checks... but his other songs from 50 years ago will just keep paying off.

** "Times teatab, et Euroopa Liidi liikmesriigis Hispaanias on tööpuudus tõusnud 17,4%-ni 2009 aasta esimeses kvartalis. 2008 aasta viimases kvartalis oli tööpuudus 13,9%, seega on tegemist suurima tööpuuduse tõusuga alates 1976. aastast. Tõusnud on protestid võõrtööjõu kasutamise vastu riigis. Dominic Bryant, BNP Paribas panga analüütik prognoosib, et tööpuudus tõuseb 23%-ni sel aastal. Hispaania keskpanga algne prognoos oli olnud aga selline , et tööpuudus ei tõuse üle 17,1 protsendi selle aasta jooksul. Spain`s unemployment rate leaps to record high"
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article6164629.ece
More than four million Spanish people are out of work. According to the country's National Statistics Institute a record high figure of 17.4 per cent were unemployed in the first quarter of the year.

Unemployment leapt from 13.9 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2008, the biggest quarterly jump since 1976. Joblessness in Spain has almost doubled in a year.

The Bank of Spain had previously forecast that unemployment would not surpass 17.1 per cent for the year. Alarmingly, 1,068,400 families have every member out of work.

And as the dole queues lengthen, labour unrest is growing. Two hundred pickets yesterday picketed a shipyard in the Basque country to protest at the employment of cheap Romanian and Portuguese workers that is threatening the jobs of 1,100 local workers.