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World
What India's 'Anti-Rape' Bill Actually Says
A breakdown of new charges, punishments and rules for handling sexual assault cases.
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World
Canada: Possible Drug Use by Pilot Helped Cause Crash, Report Suggests
The impairment of a pilot and marginal weather led to the crash of a commercial flight of a small turboprop plane in Canada’s far north that killed two people and injured two others, a report released on Wednesday said.
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Business Day
With Freddie Mac Suit, Banks Face Billions More in Libor Claims
Unlike other plaintiffs, Freddie Mac looks to have a strong case because it dealt directly with many of the banks accused of manipulating Libor.
4
Opinion
Banning the Big Gulp Ban
What’s “capricious” about the Board of Health doing its job where it could?
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Magazine
A San Francisco Classic: Vesuvio’s Bohemian Coffee
I visited 20 bars in four days in San Francisco. Here, a recipe for Vesuvio Cafe’s signature drink, the Bohemian Coffee.
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Opinion
Companies: Show Us the Money
The financial regulator can — and should — force corporations to disclose their political donations.
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N.Y. / Region
A Focus on 3 Encounters in a Stop-and-Frisk Trial
The judge deciding the case will consider the significance of the soaring number of street stops by the police over the last decade.
8
Technology
Quickly Zeroing In on New Places to Call Home
Apps allow prospective home buyers to find available properties, and compare features and prices quickly, most without leaving home.
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Business Day
The Face of Future Health Care
Although Kaiser Permanente is considered an example of the future of health care, its chief acknowledges that it has not been able to deliver that care at a low enough cost.
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Business Day
A Simpler Way to Complain About Student Loan Collections
The Department of Education has improved its online system for complaints about federal student loan collections.
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N.Y. / Region
2nd Vote for Closing Long Island College Hospital
The State University of New York board will now resubmit its plan to shut down Long Island College Hospital to the State Health Department.
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U.S.
A Pattern of Problems at a Hospital for Veterans
A special counsel’s letter to the White House detailed complaints on missed diagnoses, poor sterilization and understaffing at a Department of Veterans Affairs medical center in Jackson, Miss.
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U.S.
Current Laws May Offer Little Shield Against Drones, Senators Are Told
There is little in privacy law that would limit the use of drones for surveillance in the United States because the laws were not written with the aircraft in mind, witnesses said at a hearing.
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N.Y. / Region
Jailed Unjustly in the Death of a Rabbi, Man Nears Freedom
In the two decades since David Ranta was convicted in the murder of Chaskel Werzberger, nearly every piece of evidence in the case has fallen away.
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World
As Hacking Continues, Concerns Chinese-Americans May Suffer
As tension grows between China and the United States over cyberhacking, I talked to a prominent Chinese-American about whether he worries it will lead to problems for the Chinese-American community.
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Business Day
Questioning the TOMS Shoes Model for Social Enterprise
Is the buy-one, give-one model philanthropy or is it social enterprise?
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World
Berlin Won’t Join Effort to Ban Far-Right Party
Berlin won’t attempt to ban the National Democratic Party, saying that a separate filing by the upper house of Parliament would be enough to bring the case to the Constitutional Court.
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World
Farming a Beach
Nothing but sand and pebbles where there once were fertile fields on a Brahmaputra River tributary.
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Business Day
Seeking Profit for Taxpayers in Potential of New Drug
Congress wants a second look at how private firms profit from public research after Pfizer and the National Institutes of Health developed a potentially lucrative new drug.
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N.Y. / Region
Mexican New Yorkers Are More Likely to Live in Poor Households
Nearly two-thirds of the city’s Mexican residents, including immigrants and the native-born, are living in low-income households, said a report by the Community Service Society.
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5
Business Day
Workers Still Uneasy About Retirement Finances
6
Opinion
Banning the Big Gulp Ban
8
Opinion
Companies: Show Us the Money
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10
Opinion
Scientists Propose a New Architecture for Sustainable Development
Analysts of global environmental trends seek to topple the three pillars of sustainable development.
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Rent something now.
We can debate what we want to own when we can debate.
Sooner is better. As soon as you can is best.
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N.Y. / Region
2nd Vote for Closing Long Island College Hospital
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Business Day
Speedy Check-In Lets Hotel Guests Bypass Front Desk
With self-service kiosks and e-mailed key codes, hotels are eliminating the traditional stop at the front desk.
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Business Day
Workers Still Uneasy About Retirement Finances
3
Health
Caffeine May Boost Driver Safety
Long-haul truck drivers who drink coffee or other caffeinated drinks are significantly less likely to have an accident than their uncaffeinated peers, a new study found."According to the lead author, Lisa N. Sharwood, a research fellow at the George Institute for Global Health in Sydney, Australia, this does not mean that caffeinated drinks are the answer for road safety.
“Clearly drivers are using caffeinated substances to help them stay awake,” she said. “While this may be useful for a period of time, it should really be seen as part of drivers’ overall fatigue and health management in a quite dangerous industry. It isn’t sustainable to go without sleep. But caffeine is useful as part of a wider strategy.”"
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6
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N.Y. / Region
2nd Vote for Closing Long Island College Hospital
8
Health
A Friendship, Interrupted
We were different in almost every way, but forged a friendship around the fact that we shared the same type of cancer. Then one day, life changed dramatically for both of us.
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World
Appreciation of the Horse, Well-Cooked
As some in Europe show outrage at eating horse meat, menus across Moscow freely use it in sausage, stew and even tartare.
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Business Day
Study of Men’s Falling Income Cites Single Parents
Boys raised in single-parent households, particularly those headed by women, appeared to fare poorly.
19
U.S.
House Ethics Panel Finds Cause to Investigate 2 Lawmakers
The committee found credible evidence that a Republican from Alaska and a Democrat from New Jersey improperly used campaign money for personal expenses, among other abuses.
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Opinion
The King of Cliftonia
News of General Musharraf’s return to Pakistan is sparking little fear of a military takeover: The country has come a long way in his absence.
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Business Day
Workers Still Uneasy About Retirement Finances
Savings;
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N.Y. / Region
2nd Vote for Closing Long Island College Hospital
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Health
A Friendship, Interrupted
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I am told that black mothers give up on their boys at about 14.
That may be slander.
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Business Day
Under Pressure, Burkle Is Said to Forgo Investment Firm's Fees
Faced with weaker returns, some big investors have been pushing private equity firms to lower fees or make other concessions.Cyprus: The Sum of All FUBAR
At this point the Cyprus situation is
pretty clear — and clarity does not bring reassurance. In fact, it looks
as if Cyprus has managed to combine in one place everything that has
gone wrong elsewhere.
1. Runaway banking. Cyprus has a huge banking system — assets around 8 times GDP — based on a business model of attracting offshore money with high rates and good opportunities for tax avoidance/evasion.
I’ve done some asking around, and cleared up something that was puzzling me. Officially, only about 40 percent of the deposits in Cypriot banks are from nonresidents, which would imply resident deposits of almost 500 percent of GDP, which is crazy. But the answer is that I do not think that word “resident” means what you think it means. Some of the money is from wealthy expats living in Cyprus; much of it is from rich people who have resident status without, you know, actually living there. So we should think of Cypriot deposits as mainly coming from non-Cypriots, attracted by that business model.
And the business model only works until there’s a big loss somewhere; since Cypriot banks were investing in Greece and in their own domestic real estate bubble, doom was inevitable. Which brings me to:
2. Big domestic real estate bubble, Spain or Ireland-sized. Not yet fully deflated, which means lots more losses to come. And the combination of the real estate bubble and the income from dodgy banking also led to:
3. Massive overvaluation, with Cypriot prices and costs having risen much more than in the rest of the euro area. In 2008 the current account deficit was more than 15 percent of GDP!
What can be done? First off, Cypriot banks cannot honor their debts, which unfortunately overwhelmingly take the form of deposits. So a default on deposits is inevitable.
As I now understand it, the initial screwup was a joint error of the Europeans and the Cypriots. Europe didn’t want an explicit bank resolution, which would among other things have given clear seniority to small insured deposits; instead, it wanted this essentially fictitious tax scheme. Meanwhile, the Cypriot government still has the illusion that its banking model can survive, and wanted to limit the hit to the big overseas depositors. Hence the debacle of the small-deposit tax.
In the end this probably comes, in some version, to what it should have been from the start — a big haircut on deposits over 100,000.
But even then the situation is by no means under control. There’s still a real estate bubble to implode, there’s still a huge problem of competitiveness (made worse because one major export industry, banking, has just gone to meet its maker), and the bailout will leave Cyprus with Greek-level sovereign debt.
So then what? As a number of people have pointed out, Cyprus is arguably better positioned than Iceland to do an Iceland, because devaluing a reintroduced Cypriot currency could bring in a lot of tourism. But will the Cypriots — who haven’t even reconciled themselves to the end of their round-tripping business — be willing to go there?
Truly awesome stuff."
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/22/opinion/krugman-treasure-island-trauma.html?hp
1. Runaway banking. Cyprus has a huge banking system — assets around 8 times GDP — based on a business model of attracting offshore money with high rates and good opportunities for tax avoidance/evasion.
I’ve done some asking around, and cleared up something that was puzzling me. Officially, only about 40 percent of the deposits in Cypriot banks are from nonresidents, which would imply resident deposits of almost 500 percent of GDP, which is crazy. But the answer is that I do not think that word “resident” means what you think it means. Some of the money is from wealthy expats living in Cyprus; much of it is from rich people who have resident status without, you know, actually living there. So we should think of Cypriot deposits as mainly coming from non-Cypriots, attracted by that business model.
And the business model only works until there’s a big loss somewhere; since Cypriot banks were investing in Greece and in their own domestic real estate bubble, doom was inevitable. Which brings me to:
2. Big domestic real estate bubble, Spain or Ireland-sized. Not yet fully deflated, which means lots more losses to come. And the combination of the real estate bubble and the income from dodgy banking also led to:
3. Massive overvaluation, with Cypriot prices and costs having risen much more than in the rest of the euro area. In 2008 the current account deficit was more than 15 percent of GDP!
What can be done? First off, Cypriot banks cannot honor their debts, which unfortunately overwhelmingly take the form of deposits. So a default on deposits is inevitable.
As I now understand it, the initial screwup was a joint error of the Europeans and the Cypriots. Europe didn’t want an explicit bank resolution, which would among other things have given clear seniority to small insured deposits; instead, it wanted this essentially fictitious tax scheme. Meanwhile, the Cypriot government still has the illusion that its banking model can survive, and wanted to limit the hit to the big overseas depositors. Hence the debacle of the small-deposit tax.
In the end this probably comes, in some version, to what it should have been from the start — a big haircut on deposits over 100,000.
But even then the situation is by no means under control. There’s still a real estate bubble to implode, there’s still a huge problem of competitiveness (made worse because one major export industry, banking, has just gone to meet its maker), and the bailout will leave Cyprus with Greek-level sovereign debt.
So then what? As a number of people have pointed out, Cyprus is arguably better positioned than Iceland to do an Iceland, because devaluing a reintroduced Cypriot currency could bring in a lot of tourism. But will the Cypriots — who haven’t even reconciled themselves to the end of their round-tripping business — be willing to go there?
Truly awesome stuff."
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/22/opinion/krugman-treasure-island-trauma.html?hp
"A couple of years ago, the journalist Nicholas Shaxson published a fascinating, chilling book titled “Treasure Islands,”
which explained how international tax havens — which are also, as the
author pointed out, “secrecy jurisdictions” where many rules don’t apply
— undermine economies around the world. Not only do they bleed revenues
from cash-strapped governments and enable corruption; they distort the
flow of capital, helping to feed ever-bigger financial crises. One question Mr. Shaxson didn’t get into much, however, is what happens
when a secrecy jurisdiction itself goes bust. That’s the story of Cyprus
right now. And whatever the outcome for Cyprus itself (hint: it’s not
likely to be happy), the Cyprus mess shows just how unreformed the world
banking system remains, almost five years after the global financial
crisis began.
So, about Cyprus: You might wonder why anyone cares about a tiny nation with an economy not much bigger than that of metropolitan Scranton, Pa.
Cyprus is, however, a member of the euro zone, so events there could
trigger contagion (for example, bank runs) in larger nations. And
there’s something else: While the Cypriot economy may be tiny, it’s a
surprisingly large financial player, with a banking sector four or five
times as big as you might expect given the size of its economy.
Why are Cypriot banks so big? Because the country is a tax haven where
corporations and wealthy foreigners stash their money. Officially, 37
percent of the deposits in Cypriot banks come from nonresidents;
the true number, once you take into account wealthy expatriates and
people who are only nominally resident in Cyprus, is surely much higher.
Basically, Cyprus is a place where people, especially but not only
Russians, hide their wealth from both the taxmen and the regulators.
Whatever gloss you put on it, it’s basically about money-laundering.
And the truth is that much of the wealth never moved at all; it just
became invisible. On paper, for example, Cyprus became a huge investor
in Russia — much bigger than Germany, whose economy is hundreds of times
larger. In reality, of course, this was just “roundtripping” by
Russians using the island as a tax shelter.
Unfortunately for the Cypriots, enough real money came in to finance
some seriously bad investments, as their banks bought Greek debt and
lent into a vast real estate bubble. Sooner or later, things were bound
to go wrong. And now they have.
Now what? There are some strong similarities between Cyprus now and Iceland
(a similar-size economy) a few years back. Like Cyprus now, Iceland had
a huge banking sector, swollen by foreign deposits, that was simply too
big to bail out. Iceland’s response was essentially to let its banks go
bust, wiping out those foreign investors, while protecting domestic
depositors — and the results weren’t too bad. Indeed, Iceland, with a
far lower unemployment rate than most of Europe, has weathered the
crisis surprisingly well.
Unfortunately, Cyprus’s response to its crisis has been a hopeless muddle.
In part, this reflects the fact that it no longer has its own currency,
which makes it dependent on decision makers in Brussels and Berlin —
decision makers who haven’t been willing to let banks openly fail.
But it also reflects Cyprus’s own reluctance to accept the end of its
money-laundering business; its leaders are still trying to limit losses
to foreign depositors in the vain hope that business as usual can
resume, and they were so anxious to protect the big money that they
tried to limit foreigners’ losses by expropriating small domestic
depositors. As it turned out, however, ordinary Cypriots were outraged,
the plan was rejected, and, at this point, nobody knows what will
happen.
My guess is that, in the end, Cyprus will adopt something like the
Icelandic solution, but unless it ends up being forced off the euro in
the next few days — a real possibility — it may first waste a lot of
time and money on half-measures, trying to avoid facing up to reality
while running up huge debts to wealthier nations. We’ll see.
But step back for a minute and consider the incredible fact that tax
havens like Cyprus, the Cayman Islands, and many more are still
operating pretty much the same way that they did before the global
financial crisis. Everyone has seen the damage that runaway bankers can
inflict, yet much of the world’s financial business is still routed
through jurisdictions that let bankers sidestep even the mild
regulations we’ve put in place. Everyone is crying about budget
deficits, yet corporations and the wealthy are still freely using tax
havens to avoid paying taxes like the little people.
So don’t cry for Cyprus; cry for all of us, living in a world whose leaders seem determined not to learn from disaster."
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U.S.
House Ethics Panel Finds Cause to Investigate 2 Lawmakers
The committee found credible evidence that a Republican from Alaska and a Democrat from New Jersey improperly used campaign money for personal expenses, among other abuses.
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