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ScienceDaily (Dec. 16, 2011) ? While Road Rippers Lightning Rods, Let's Rock Elmo and the I Am T-Pain musical microphone might be sought-after gifts this holiday season, parents should ensure that their children don't risk permanent hearing damage by misusing them.
Researchers from UC Irvine's Department of Otolaryngology measured the noise levels of two dozen popular toys in stores and purchased the 10 loudest for precise gauging in a soundproof booth at UC Irvine Medical Center. They found that all exceeded 90 decibels and several reached 100 or more, equivalent to the noise of a chain saw, subway train or power mower.
"Generally, toys are safe if used properly," said Dr. Hamid Djalilian, associate professor of otolaryngology and director of neurotology and skull base surgery. "We tested the sound levels at the speaker and again at 12 inches, which is about the length of a toddler's arm."
But problems can arise if a noisy toy is held too close to the ears, he said: "Children are very sensitive to loud and high-pitched sounds. Unfortunately, hearing loss from noise damage is permanent and not currently curable."
According to the American Academy of Otolaryngology, unprotected exposure to sounds above 85 decibels for a prolonged period can lead to hearing impairment. Two factors contribute to this, Djalilian noted: loudness and duration. The louder a sound is, the less time it takes to cause hearing loss.
He suggested that someone buying a noisy toy for a child pay attention to the speaker's location -- under the item is often better than on top. Djalilian also recommended that an adult hold the toy as a youngster would and listen to its sound. "If it hurts your ears," he said, "then it's probably too loud for a child."
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According to the Associated Press, a federal analysis by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of bluefin tuna, an already overfished species, in the Gulf of Mexico indicates the BP oil spill in April 2010 would not impact populations as greatly as some scientists had feared.
Computer models and projections show the spill would lead to at most a 4 percent decrease in future bluefin tuna spawning, but likely much less. This species is especially important to the fishing industry in the Gulf and following the 172 million-gallon spill, about one-fifth of the fishes' spawning habitat had been contaminated with oil. Here are some facts about the ecological impacts of the BP oil spill and plans for restoration:
* The National Wildlife Federation reported that the BP oil spill could potentially impact numerous species in many ways, including sea turtles, birds such as brown pelicans, marine mammals, and especially the egg and larvae stages of animal life cycles.
* This past spring, scientists and researchers began looking into the increased number of bottlenose dolphins covered in oil and newborn and stillborn dolphin calves that were washing ashore in the Gulf, reported Reuters.
* Scientists were able to determine that the oil found on some of the dolphins' bodies came from the BP oil spill and speculated that oil inhaled or ingested by pregnant dolphins could induce miscarriages or stillborn calves.
* AOL News noted that a scientific report released in February concluded that oil on the sea floor was not degrading as fast as indicated by an official report made by BP and that oil had suffocated crabs, starfish and other sea-dwelling animals.
* The report also concluded that much of this oil was directly from the BP oil spill since oil is chemically fingerprinted.
* Shortly after the oil spill, blue crab larvae were being found with specks of oil in them, indicating the possibility of the spill impacting the ecological food web if other animals are consuming oil-tainted organisms, reported NOLA.
* Additionally, about 40 percent of blue crab habitat in the Gulf was struck by oil contamination to some degree.
* The Chicago Sun-Times noted BP was nearing the end of oil cleanup in November after 90 percent of the Gulf coast was cleaned and was switching its focus toward restoration of impacted areas.
* BP's is legally responsible for restoration of oil-contaminated areas and the company's restoration plans include planting new plantlife, replacing sand on beaches, and establishing new marshes.
Rachel Bogart provides an in-depth look at current environmental issues and local Chicago news stories. As a college student from the Chicago suburbs pursuing two science degrees, she applies her knowledge and passion to both topics to garner further public awareness.
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BRUSSELS ? European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi hinted the bank was ready to play a bigger role in the resolution of Europe's debt crisis, but only after the 17 countries that use the euro tether their economies more tightly.
Speculation is mounting that EU leaders will align their budgetary policies more closely in order to bring government debt levels under control in the future. This must happen, Draghi told the European Parliament Thursday, before the ECB or other institutions could take more aggressive steps to help prevent the continent's current debt overload from ripping apart the euro and the global financial system.
"Other elements might follow, but the sequencing matters," Draghi said. "And it is first and foremost important to get a commonly shared fiscal compact right.
"Confidence works backwards: if there is an anchor in the long term, it is easier to maintain trust in the short term," he added. "After all, investors are themselves often taking decisions with a long time horizon, especially with regard to government bonds."
The ECB cannot lend directly to governments, including by buying their national bonds. It can, however, buy national bonds on the secondary market, lowering borrowing costs for governments. But it has resisted such action because it believes that would take the pressure off politicians to cut spending.
Draghi said such interventions "can only be limited" and said it was up to governments to first put their finances in order to convince bond markets that they are creditworthy borrowers.
"Governments must ? individually and collectively ? restore their credibility vis-a-vis financial markets," said Draghi, who only replaced Jean-Claude Trichet as ECB head a month ago.
Three relatively-small countries ? Greece, Ireland and Portugal ? had to be bailed out because of unsustainable debt levels, and Italy, the eurozone's third-largest economy, is facing intense strains as its borrowing costs surge.
A summit of EU leaders on Dec. 9 is expected to focus on how to make the eurozone more unified. The markets think that the eurozone has little choice but to back proposals for much closer coordination of their spending and budget policies.
Since the euro was established in 1999, the rules governing the eurozone have been fairly lax. A "commitment" for countries to keep their budget deficits in check was violated on numerous occasions, including by Germany, Europe's biggest economy.
The big worry in the markets now is that Italy, with its debt mountain of euro1.9 trillion ($2.55 trillion)is just too big to bail out under current rules.
Draghi said Wednesday's joint intervention by the world's leading central banks to make dollars more easily available is only a temporary measure. The move was wildly-cheered in the markets on Wednesday, with the Dow Jones industrial average rising nearly 500 points.
On Thursday, the Stoxx 50 index of leading European shares fell 0.4 percent in morning trading though there were encouraging signals in the bond markets, where the borrowing rates of France, Italy and Spain all fell amid hopes of an imminent resolution.
France and Spain survived a test of investor sentiment Thursday, as they managed to sell all the bonds they were planning at rates lower than feared.
Wednesday's coordinated action by central banks will ease borrowing for banks, but it does little to solve the underlying problem of mountains of government debt in Europe, leaving markets still waiting for a permanent fix.
Potentially, the ECB has unlimited financial firepower through its ability to print money. However, Germany finds the idea of monetizing debts unappealing, warning that it lets the more profligate countries off the hook for their bad practices. In addition, it conjures up bad memories of hyperinflation in Germany in the 1920s.
One option that appears to be surfacing is that the ECB could provide the Washington D.C.-based IMF with more resources so it can then lend it out to countries that need financial help. Reports earlier this week suggested that the IMF was gearing up to lend Italy, the eurozone's third-largest economy, with euro600 billion in loans.
"Draghi didn't rule out the ECB providing funds to the IMF to provide to Italy but he's equally making it very clear that the ultimate solution lies with the governments," said Simon Derrick, a senior analyst at the Bank of New York Mellon.
____
Pylas contributed from London.
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Until now, Google+ Hangouts have been limited to people in front of a computer, but a new feature now allows you to bring in anyone with a phone.
To start the Hangout, you need to use the Hangouts with extras link, then invite up to two new participants by typing in their phone number. You won't get all the handy features of the video conferencing like sharing documents, but as a completely free tool for conferencing with people with non-smartphones it works perfectly well.
A new extra for Hangouts with extras: make phone calls from inside a Hangout | Jarkko Oikarinen via ReadWriteWeb
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(Reuters) ? Billionaire investor Warren Buffett buys newspapers every day, the hometown daily included, but on Wednesday he dispensed with the single-issue price and bought the whole company instead.
Buffett's conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway said it would buy the Omaha World-Herald Co, owner of the paper of the same name, six other dailies and a series of weekly papers in Nebraska and Iowa.
The World-Herald, which calls itself the last major employee-owned paper in the country, splashed the news across its website. With average daily circulation of just over 135,000, it is one of the larger papers in the country.
In a statement, the World-Herald Co said Buffett's ownership would make it easier for the paper to raise money while also preserving local control.
Berkshire is no stranger to the newspaper business. The company bought the Buffalo News in New York in 1977 and has operated it since, though Buffett said in 2009 his owning the paper was not entirely rational.
Buffett was also a long-time board member of the Washington Post Co and a confidant of legendary publisher Katharine Graham.
Buffett has said that U.S. newspapers face years of "nearly unending losses" because they lack a sustainable business model.
Advertising revenue and circulation at many U.S. papers have fallen in the past several years as people turn to the Internet for free news and their advertising needs, forcing some newspapers out of business and some publishers into filing for bankruptcy or laying off thousands of employees.
(Reporting by Ben Berkowitz. Editing by Robert MacMillan)
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![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 1-Dec-2011
Share ] Contact: Melissa Bright
mbright@uga.edu
706-542-2174
University of Georgia
Athens, Ga. Cortisol may be the Swiss Army knife of hormones in the human body -- just when scientists think they understand what it does, another function pops up. While many of these functions are understood for adults, much less is known about how cortisol operates in babies and toddlers, especially when it comes to an important phenomenon called the cortisol awakening response, or CAR.
For the first time, psychology researchers from the University of Georgia Franklin College of Arts and Sciences have shown that this response for infants is opposite of what it is for adults. The new information could have implications for how infants handle stress and why proper care from their mothers could affect how growing children react to cortisol in later life.
"Surprisingly, the CAR hasn't been widely studied in infants or young children," said psychology doctoral student Melissa Bright, who led the study. "There is consensus that the adult pattern of cortisol response isn't present at birth, but much less is known about when in the first year of life it is established."
Other authors of the research, just published online in the journal Developmental Psychobiology, are Janet Frick, a faculty member in UGA's department of psychology and director of the UGA Infant Research Lab, and Douglas Granger of Johns Hopkins School of Nursing.
Cortisol is produced in the adrenal gland and has dozens of jobs in the body. It is released in response to stress and can increase blood sugar, suppress the immune system and aid in metabolism. And yet it works in vastly more arenas than those. One such area is the CAR, and when adults awake, an organ "team" called the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis works together to release cortisol -- somewhat as a sentinel -- alerting the body to stress or threats.
The new study discovered that in infants, cortisol levels actually didn't increase but stayed stable from the time they awoke in the morning and for half an hour afterward. Cortisol levels didn't change following naps, either. Interestingly, the research team also found a mother-infant cortisol association called "psychological attunement," confirming recent research that cortisol levels between mothers and infants are correlated.
"Taken together, these findings raise an interesting possibility," said Frick. "In infancy, cortisol responses may be less dependent on hard-wired biological rhythms and more influenced by the HPA axis activity of the baby's immediate caregivers."
The team conducted the research using 32 baby-mother pairs. Nineteen of the babies were female and 13 were males, and they ranged in age from 7.8 to 17.4 months. After agreeing to participate, mothers were instructed to collect saliva samples using cotton swabs from inside the mouths of their infants and then themselves four times on a single day: when the infants awoke in the morning, 30-45 minutes after the baby awoke, when the baby awoke from its first nap of the day and 30-45 minutes after that. Other requirements applied, but they weren't difficult for the mothers to follow, said Bright.
No one knows at precisely what age the CAR begins in humans, though it had previously been predicted to be present sometime in the first year. The current data indicates that it emerges at a much older age, however. Why babies don't emit rising amounts of cortisol in response to awakening isn't clear, either.
"It is possible that the CAR is absent or more difficult to detect in early childhood because of the developmental stage of the hippocampus and related structures," said Bright.
Understanding how the CAR develops in infants could offer clues as to how adults respond to such things as stress in later life. Other scientists have found, for instance, that women who as infants or children were subjected to maltreatment and inconsistency of care showed higher than normal levels of cortisol on awakening as adults.
The issue of psychological attunement also has possibly important implications for a close, caring relationship between mother and child. Other researchers have studied so-called "behavioral synchrony," a parent's ability to identify and appropriately respond to her or his child's emotions and behaviors. The psychological attunement suggested in the present study may be part of the same paradigm, said Frick.
Bright said that while there are some experimental-design limitations in the study, this first study of the cortisol awakening response in infants could lead to other research that clarifies why the response in babies is so different from that in adults.
###
The research was supported by a Graduate Research Fellowship that Bright received from the National Science Foundation.
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Public release date: 1-Dec-2011 Share ] Contact: Melissa Bright
mbright@uga.edu
706-542-2174
University of Georgia
Athens, Ga. Cortisol may be the Swiss Army knife of hormones in the human body -- just when scientists think they understand what it does, another function pops up. While many of these functions are understood for adults, much less is known about how cortisol operates in babies and toddlers, especially when it comes to an important phenomenon called the cortisol awakening response, or CAR.
For the first time, psychology researchers from the University of Georgia Franklin College of Arts and Sciences have shown that this response for infants is opposite of what it is for adults. The new information could have implications for how infants handle stress and why proper care from their mothers could affect how growing children react to cortisol in later life.
"Surprisingly, the CAR hasn't been widely studied in infants or young children," said psychology doctoral student Melissa Bright, who led the study. "There is consensus that the adult pattern of cortisol response isn't present at birth, but much less is known about when in the first year of life it is established."
Other authors of the research, just published online in the journal Developmental Psychobiology, are Janet Frick, a faculty member in UGA's department of psychology and director of the UGA Infant Research Lab, and Douglas Granger of Johns Hopkins School of Nursing.
Cortisol is produced in the adrenal gland and has dozens of jobs in the body. It is released in response to stress and can increase blood sugar, suppress the immune system and aid in metabolism. And yet it works in vastly more arenas than those. One such area is the CAR, and when adults awake, an organ "team" called the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis works together to release cortisol -- somewhat as a sentinel -- alerting the body to stress or threats.
The new study discovered that in infants, cortisol levels actually didn't increase but stayed stable from the time they awoke in the morning and for half an hour afterward. Cortisol levels didn't change following naps, either. Interestingly, the research team also found a mother-infant cortisol association called "psychological attunement," confirming recent research that cortisol levels between mothers and infants are correlated.
"Taken together, these findings raise an interesting possibility," said Frick. "In infancy, cortisol responses may be less dependent on hard-wired biological rhythms and more influenced by the HPA axis activity of the baby's immediate caregivers."
The team conducted the research using 32 baby-mother pairs. Nineteen of the babies were female and 13 were males, and they ranged in age from 7.8 to 17.4 months. After agreeing to participate, mothers were instructed to collect saliva samples using cotton swabs from inside the mouths of their infants and then themselves four times on a single day: when the infants awoke in the morning, 30-45 minutes after the baby awoke, when the baby awoke from its first nap of the day and 30-45 minutes after that. Other requirements applied, but they weren't difficult for the mothers to follow, said Bright.
No one knows at precisely what age the CAR begins in humans, though it had previously been predicted to be present sometime in the first year. The current data indicates that it emerges at a much older age, however. Why babies don't emit rising amounts of cortisol in response to awakening isn't clear, either.
"It is possible that the CAR is absent or more difficult to detect in early childhood because of the developmental stage of the hippocampus and related structures," said Bright.
Understanding how the CAR develops in infants could offer clues as to how adults respond to such things as stress in later life. Other scientists have found, for instance, that women who as infants or children were subjected to maltreatment and inconsistency of care showed higher than normal levels of cortisol on awakening as adults.
The issue of psychological attunement also has possibly important implications for a close, caring relationship between mother and child. Other researchers have studied so-called "behavioral synchrony," a parent's ability to identify and appropriately respond to her or his child's emotions and behaviors. The psychological attunement suggested in the present study may be part of the same paradigm, said Frick.
Bright said that while there are some experimental-design limitations in the study, this first study of the cortisol awakening response in infants could lead to other research that clarifies why the response in babies is so different from that in adults.
###
The research was supported by a Graduate Research Fellowship that Bright received from the National Science Foundation.
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-12/uog-wba120111.php
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The deal at the heart of the American economy is that employers pay their workers enough to buy what employers are selling. When we forget that?as we have over the last decade?the trouble starts.
For most of the last century, the basic bargain at the heart of the American economy was that employers paid their workers enough to buy what American employers were selling.
Skip to next paragraph Robert ReichRobert is chancellor's professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Clinton. He has written 13 books, including 'The Work of Nations,' 'Locked in the Cabinet,' and his most recent book, 'Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future.' His 'Marketplace' commentaries can be found on publicradio.com and iTunes.
That basic bargain created a virtuous cycle of higher living standards, more jobs, and better wages.
Back in 1914, Henry Ford announced he was paying workers on his Model T assembly line $5 a day ? three times what the typical factory employee earned at the time. The Wall Street Journal termed his action ?an economic crime.?
But Ford knew it was a cunning business move. The higher wage turned Ford?s auto workers into customers who could afford to buy Model T?s. In two years Ford?s profits more than doubled.
That was then. Now, Ford Motor Company is paying its new hires half what it paid new employees a few years ago.
The basic bargain is over ? not only at Ford but all over the American economy.
New data from the Commerce Department shows employee pay is now down to the smallest share of the economy since the government began collecting wage and salary data in 1929.
Meanwhile, corporate profits now constitute the largest share of the economy since 1929.
1929, by the way, was the year of the Great Crash that ushered in the Great Depression.
In the years leading up to the Great Crash, most employers forgot Henry Ford?s example. The wages of most American workers remained stagnant. The gains of economic growth went mainly into corporate profits and into the pockets of the very rich. American families maintained their standard of living by going deeper into debt. In 1929 the debt bubble popped.
Sound familiar? It should. The same thing happened in the years leading up to the crash of 2008.
The latest data on corporate profits and wages show we haven?t learned?the essential lesson of the two big economic crashes of the last seventy-five years: When the economy becomes too lopsided ? disproportionately benefitting corporate owners and top executives rather than average workers ? it tips over.
In other words, we?re in trouble because the basic bargain has been broken.
Yet incredibly, some politicians think the best way to restart the nation?s job engine is to make corporations even more profitable and the rich even richer ? reducing corporate taxes; cutting back on regulations protecting public health, worker safety, the environment, and small investors; and slashing taxes on the very rich.
These same politicians think average workers should have even less money in their pockets. They don?t want to extend the payroll tax cut or unemployment benefits. And they want to make it harder for workers to form unions.
These politicians have reality upside down.
Corporations don?t need more money. They have so much money right now they don?t even know what to do with all of it. They?re even buying back their own shares of stock. This is a bonanza for CEOs whose pay is tied to stock prices and it increases the wealth of other shareholders. But it doesn?t create a single new job and it doesn?t raise the wages of a single employee.
Nor do the wealthiest Americans need more money. The top 1 percent is already taking in more than 20 percent of total income ? the highest since the 1920s.
American businesses, including small-business owners, have no incentive to create new jobs because consumers (whose spending accounts for about 70 percent of the American economy) aren?t spending enough. Consumers? after-tax incomes dropped in the second and third quarters of the year, the first back-to-back drops since 2009.
The recent small pickup in consumer spending has come out of their savings. Obviously this can?t continue, and corporations know it. Consumer savings are already at their lowest level in four years.
Get it? Corporate profits are up right now largely because pay is down and companies aren?t hiring. But this is a losing game even for corporations over the long term. Without enough American consumers, their profitable days are numbered.
After all, there?s a limit to how much profit they can get out of cutting American payrolls or even selling abroad. European consumers are in no mood to buy. And most Asian economies, including China, are slowing.
We?re in a vicious cycle. The only way out of it is to put more money into the pockets of average Americans. That means extending the payroll tax cut. And extending unemployment benefits.
Don?t stop there. Create a WPA to get the long-term unemployed back to work. And a Civilian Conservation Corp to create jobs for young people.
Hire teachers for classrooms now overcrowded, and pay them enough to attract people who are talented as well as dedicated. Rebuild our pot-holed highways. Create a world-class infrastructure.
Pay for this by hiking taxes on millionaires.
A basic bargain was once at the heart of the American economy. It recognized that average workers are also consumers and that their paychecks keep the economy going.
We can?t have a healthy economy until that bargain is restored.
The Christian Science Monitor has assembled a diverse group of the best economy-related bloggers out there. Our guest bloggers are not employed or directed by the Monitor and the views expressed are the bloggers' own, as is responsibility for the content of their blogs. To contact us about a blogger, click here. This post originally ran on www.robertreich.org.
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Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and pro-democracy opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi talk talk prior to dinner at the US Chief of Mission Residence in Rangoon, Myanmar, Thursday, Dec. 1, 2011. (AP Photo/Saul Loeb, Pool)
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and pro-democracy opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi talk talk prior to dinner at the US Chief of Mission Residence in Rangoon, Myanmar, Thursday, Dec. 1, 2011. (AP Photo/Saul Loeb, Pool)
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and pro-democracy opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi have dinner at the US Chief of Mission Residence in Rangoon, Myanmar, Thursday, Dec. 1, 2011. (AP Photo/Saul Loeb, Pool)
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and pro-democracy opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi have dinner at the US Chief of Mission Residence in Rangoon, Myanmar, Thursday, Dec. 1, 2011. (AP Photo/Saul Loeb, Pool)
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton pours water over a Buddhist statue, as she tours the Shwedegon Pagoda, a Buddhist temple founded between the 6th and 10th centuries AD, in Yangon, Myanmar, Thursday, Dec. 1, 2011. (AP Photo/Saul Loeb, Pool)
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) ? U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday shared dinner with Myanmar's most famous former political prisoner and challenged the nation's leaders to expand upon recent reforms, end violent campaigns against ethnic minorities and break military ties with North Korea.
"We believe that any political prisoner anywhere should be released," Clinton told reporters during the first visit to this long-isolated nation by the top U.S. diplomat in more than 50 years. "One political prisoner is one too many in our view."
Clinton made her comments before her private dinner with opposition leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who was released last year after two decades of on-and-off imprisonment and has said she will run in upcoming elections. Clinton and Suu Kyi were to meet more formally on Friday.
Meeting earlier Thursday with President Thein Sein and other senior government officials in the capital of Naypyidaw, Clinton offered a small package of rewards for steps the country has already taken but made clear that more must be done. She said the U.S. was not ready to lift sanctions on the country.
Clinton hand-delivered letters from President Barack Obama to Thein Sein and Suu Kyi in which Obama expressed hope that relations could further improve.
"I came to assess whether the time is right for a new chapter in our shared history," Clinton said, adding that the U.S. was ready to further improve relations with the civilian government in the Southeast Asian nation ? also known as Burma ? but only if it stays on the path of democratization.
In a series of modest first steps, she announced that Washington would allow Myanmar's participation in a U.S.-backed grouping of Mekong River countries; no longer block enhanced cooperation between the country and the International Monetary Fund; and support intensified U.N. health, microfinance and counternarcotics programs.
A senior U.S. official said Thein Sein had outlined his government's plans for reform in a 45-minute presentation in which he acknowledged that Myanmar lacked a recent tradition of democracy and openness. He asked for U.S. help in making the transition from military to full civilian rule, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the private diplomatic exchange.
Clinton replied that she was visiting because the U.S. was "encouraged by the steps that you and your government have taken to provide for your people."
Yet, she also made clear that those steps must be consolidated and enlarged if the U.S. is to consider easing near-blanket economic sanctions that block almost all American commercial transactions with Myanmar. "While measures already taken may be unprecedented and certainly welcome, they are just a beginning," she told reporters.
"We're not at the point yet where we can consider lifting sanctions that we have in place because of our ongoing concerns about policies that have to be reversed," Clinton said. "But any steps that the government takes will be carefully considered and will be matched."
She called for the release of political prisoners and an end to brutal ethnic violence that has ravaged the nation for decades. She also warned the country's leadership to break suspected illicit military, nuclear and ballistic missile cooperation with North Korea that may violate U.N. sanctions. "Better relations with the United States will only be possible if the entire government respects the international consensus against the spread of nuclear weapons ... and we support the government's stated intention to sever military ties with North Korea," she said.
In his presentation, Thein Sein vowed that Myanmar would uphold its U.N. obligations with respect to North Korea, according to the senior U.S. official. He also told Clinton that Myanmar was actively considering signing a new agreement with the U.N. nuclear watchdog that would allow unfettered inspections of atomic sites in the country, the official said.
Nyan Win, a spokesman for Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party, welcomed the U.S. package of rewards and said, "The incentives will help promote better relations and a better future for the country and I hope the government will expand its reform process."
Clinton rejected the idea that the U.S. outreach to Myanmar was partially motivated by the growing influence of China. "We are not viewing this in light of any competition with China," she said. "We are viewing it as an opportunity for us to re-engage here."
"We welcome positive constructive relations between China and her neighbors. We think that is in China's interest as well as in the neighborhood's interest," she said.
Recalling Obama's mention of "flickers of progress" in Myanmar when he announced that Clinton would visit the country, Clinton urged the leadership not to allow them to "be stamped out."
"It will be up to the leaders and the people to fan flickers of progress into flames of freedom that light the path toward a better future," she said. "That ? and nothing less ? is what it will take for us to turn a solitary visit into a lasting partnership."
Before dinner with Suu Kyi, Clinton toured the Shwedagon Pagoda, a 2,500-year-old Buddhist temple with a massive golden stupa.
Despite the historic nature of Clinton's visit, enthusiasm has been muted within Myanmar.
Chan Tun, a 91-year-old veteran politician and a retired ambassador to China, said: "This is a very critical visit because U.S. will understand Myanmar better through engagement. U.S. engagement will also help Myanmar's dependence on China."
But Clinton's presence has been overshadowed by the arrival Thursday of the prime minister of Belarus and his wife, to whom two large welcoming signs were erected at the airport and the road into the city. No such displays welcomed Clinton.
The Belarus Prime Minister made the front page of Thursday's edition of the government-run New Light of Myanmar newspaper. Clinton's visit was mentioned in a two-paragraph story on page 2.
Still, some in Myanmar welcomed the attention from the U.S. "I watched the arrival of Ms. Clinton on Myanmar TV last night," 35-year-old taxi driver Thein Zaw said. "I am very happy that Ms. Clinton is visiting our country because America knows our small country, whether it is good or bad."
___
Associated Press writer Aye Aye Win in Yangon contributed to this report.
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TWEET SUCCESS: Twitter Inc. and Japan's biggest homegrown social networking site mixi Inc. joined forces Wednesday to strengthen their ground against a rapidly expanding Facebook.
FACEBOOK FOCUS: Despite huge popularity elsewhere, Facebook failed to make much impact in Japan until this year. Data released this week from Nielsen NetRatings Japan showed mixi in third place behind Twitter and Facebook for unique visitors in October.
QUAKE CRITICAL: Twitter and mixi were used extensively as critical information lifelines after the March earthquake and tsunami. Twitter gained credibility as new users flocked to the site for real-time information about the nuclear crisis, blackouts and aftershocks. In the future the companies hope to cooperate on emergency communications during disasters, location-based applications, advertising and business services.
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Image: acknowledgements to the BBC.
The?Autumn Statement reveals but one thing: the Chancellor and his advisers are both ill-advised and dangerously ill-prepared for the forthcoming prolonged Depression. (And if you think I exaggerate, let me remind you that 20 years after the Japanese debt bubble burst, Tokyo house prices are still falling, and the stock market is worth 60% less than 20 years ago. And the Japanese economy was in a healthier state then, than the UK is today, thanks to an export surplus.)
Today?s penalising of the innocent ? public sector workers, pensioners and those hundreds of thousands of young people entering the labour market ?- is a result of a deeply flawed economic analysis by the Chancellor of the causes of the global financial crisis.
No depression will be averted; ?no government borrowing will be reduced; no economic recovery can be hoped for, until the cause of the crisis is correctly analysed and then addressed with appropriate policies.
For me an interesting angle on the day was the difference in emphasis between the official Treasury Autumn Statement, and the Chancellor?s speech. The latter was far more ideological of course; but the Treasury Statement does indicate some grasp of the scale of the crisis. The very first paragraph of the full Statement (on page 11) reads:
?The UK economy is recovering from the biggest financial crisis in generations. Prior to the?crisis, underlying competitiveness fell and economic growth was driven by unsustainable levels of?debt, with the UK seeing the greatest expansion in debt of all the world?s major economies over?the last decade. As a result, the UK experienced the deepest recession of any major economy?except Japan and the Government inherited a budget deficit forecast to be the largest in the?G20.? (My emphasis.)
So the Treasury does get it. The country that enthusiastically hosts the biggest global banks in the world; that celebrates ?London ..as the world?s pre-eminent financial centre? (to quote the Chancellor today) witnessed ?the greatest expansion in debt of all the world?s major economies over the last decade? ? and as a consequence, the public finances worsened.
From these simple facts much analysis flows.
The most important is this: Britain (and the Eurozone) are not facing a sovereign debt crisis. We are not facing a crisis of the public finances. Instead: we are facing the biggest ever crisis of the private financial system.
Why? Because the ?greatest expansion in debt of all the world?s economies? is not going to be paid back.
?The greatest expansion of debt in all the world?s economies? must first be written off, ?de-leveraged? or paid down.
As this process grinds relentlessly forward, the banks that lent ?the greatest expansion of debt in all the world?s economies? face bankruptcy ? if not now, in the near future.
That is the crisis we all face. The bankruptcy of the global private banking system - based in our backyard.
The mobilising of finance for the Eurozone is to bail out private banks that engaged ?in the greatest expansion of debt.? ?Although you would not believe this from media reporting, its purpose is not to bail out sovereign governments. The stubborn refusal of German politicians (with whom I have some sympathy) to agree to further taxpayer-backed bailouts of the private finance sector means that private banks face imminent bankruptcy.
Which is the why the Polish Foreign Minister warns of an impending ?crisis of apocalyptic proportions?.
Given this terrifying prospect, what do our Treasury mandarins and British Chancellor recommend?
First, that we make it easier for employers to sack people, and thereby increase unemployment and cut wages ? making it harder for those employees to pay back debts.
Second that we cut public sector wages of those in employment ? with which some of those private debts may have been paid back. Third, that we penalise future pensioners. For why? And fourth, that we try and rescue 200,000, but sacrifice hundreds of thousands more young people on the dustheap of unemployment. That policy alone will cut the nation?s income; income that could help the banks put balance sheets back in the black.
The Chancellor?s speech reminded me of the parent that knows his child is hiding behind the curtain, but instead looks under the sofa, inside the box, behind the dresser ? everywhere except where the solution lies. A silly, but in his case, dangerous game.
The fact is that the solution does not lie with cuts in public spending; with austerity. We have had only eighteen months of synchronised austerity across Europe and already the British and world economy teeters on the brink.
The failure is not that austerity was not implemented; the failure is austerity.
Private money markets are not asking for deeper austerity. They are asking for a revival of economic activity. They are begging for governments to draw back from the policies that have caused output, investment and employment to fall off a cliff.
But that is hard for governments such as ours, gripped as they are by an antiquated and flawed economic orthodoxy. As David Graeber ?explains?so well in his book ?Debt: the first five thousand years.? orthodox economists ? believe it or not ? do not understand the nature of money and credit. An unfortunate weakness for a profession majoring on the economy.
Nor can their jaundiced Scrooge-like minds accept that prosperity is caused by employment. Not by rich, ?light-touch? regulated bankers.
They find it hard to grasp that money/credit ? that is not generated by savings, but begins life at the Bank of England ? can provide a bridge to employment. But only if it is managed carefully, and not outsourced to the reckless greed, and fraudulent behaviour of bankers and their friends in government. (See today?s story about Hank Paulson?s ?inside jobs? with Wall St.)
Orthodox economists like those in the Treasury and the Conservative party cannot grasp one simple but vital truth. Employment can generate the income needed to a) repay debt b) pay tax revenues to lower the budget deficit and c) restore both general prosperity and a sense of national well-being. All of which might be of some help to the private finance sector.
Instead our policy and decision-makers are playing petulant, disgracefully irresponsible games with all our futures. And missing the biggest crisis of all: the imminent bankruptcy of the private finance sector.
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Source: http://www.debtonation.org/2011/11/its-not-the-public-but-the-private-finance-sector-stupid/
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Roll Call:
Now Brownback faces the wrath of the Twitterverse, including this tweet from @MildlyRelevant: ?Gov. Brownback?s office tattled on a high school girl who tweeted ?#heblowsalot.? I?m tattling on them for being a colossal Brownback.? There you have it: a proper noun.
Read the whole story: Roll Call
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