Associated News (AN) The Channel Islands Securities Exchange (CISE) announced yesterday July 31, 2015, that they would not be acquiring the GXG Markets after all. (http://www.cisx.com/content.php?pageid=736). This comes only days after my latest article in…
The first foundation jacket installed by Deepwater Wind in the nation’s first offshore wind farm construction project is seen next to a construction crane on Monday, on the waters of the Atlantic Ocean off Block Island, R.I. Stephan Savoia/AP hide caption
itoggle caption Stephan Savoia/AP
Aboard a ferry off the coast of Rhode Island, state and federal officials take a close look at a steel structure poking out of the ocean. It’s the first foundation affixed to the seafloor for a five-turbine wind farm off the state’s coast.
It’s a contrast to what’s happening off the coast of Massachusetts. Developer Cape Wind has spent more than 10 years and millions of dollars there on a massive wind farm that it may never build.
Rhode Island’s project, Deepwater Wind, has sailed through by comparison, in part because of its great location, explains Chief Executive Officer Jeff Grybowski. The wind farm will sit three miles off the coast of Block Island, about 12 miles away from the mainland.
“The location off the southeast corner of Block Island has incredibly strong wind and it is quite far from the mainland,” Grybowski says.
The nearly 600-foot-tall turbines are far enough from the mainland that most people won’t be able to see them from shore. As Grybowski points out, the state of Rhode Island wanted to pioneer this project and chose where to build it.
“That was based on many years of research and public discussion,” Grybowski says.
Deepwater Wind underwent far more extensive impact studies than Cape Wind, and the company spent more time engaging important stakeholders. Not everyone in Rhode Island loved the project from the start, but unlike Cape Cod, Block Island wants to replace its expensive source of energy.
“We are one of the highest rates in the country,” says David Milner, general manager for the Block Island Power Company, which supplies all of the island’s electricity by importing a million gallons of diesel oil every year.
“We got up over 50 cents per kilowatt-hour, which is a huge burden on the businesses out here and the individuals,” Milner says.
In New England, the average rate is 16 cents per kilowatt-hour for all sectors.
Year-round Block Island resident Peter Baute stands on the iconic Mohegan Bluffs, which boasts panoramic views of the Atlantic Ocean.
“That’s interesting there’s two platforms out there. Let’s just take a look,” Baute says.
Baute narrows his eyes as he lifts up binoculars to check out the construction of the offshore wind farm. It promises to reduce electricity costs by 40 percent. He says that will go a long way for an island whose economy relies on summer tourists, because it’s home to only about a thousand people for the rest of the year.
“You’ve got to work hard to make a living in June, July, August and maybe part of September. You’ve got four months max to break even,” Baute says.
When the turbines aren’t spinning, the island will draw energy from the mainland through an underwater transmission cable that’s part of the wind project. That cable could also bring high-speed internet to the island — another selling point.
Still, a vocal minority of island residents are skeptical about the anticipated benefits of the offshore wind farm. Edith Blane doesn’t think it’s worth trading in ocean views.
“So that the beauty, and the calm, and the stillness and the loveliness of a summer night — it’s never going to be the same again,” she says.
With construction underway, Deepwater Wind is on track to build the nation’s first offshore wind farm. It has everything Cape Wind doesn’t — a utility company buying all of its power and bank loans.
The federal government has auctioned off nine leases for more offshore wind farms. That means all eyes are on Rhode Island to see how it works.
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In a setback for the Obama administration, talks aimed at setting up a major free-trade zone among 12 Pacific Rim countries — the so-called Trans-Pacific Partnership — have ended without success.
Although U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman said “significant progress” had been made at this week’s talks in Maui, Hawaii, and officials promised to reconvene at some future date, big differences remain among the participating countries.
They involve such issues as how long the copyright for biologic drugs should last (a big concern for the U.S. pharmaceutical industry), New Zealand’s access to foreign dairy markets, and how to define the country of origin for auto manufacturers.
Because no agreement has been reached, it’s unlikely that Congress will be able to vote on the trade pact this year. That will push a vote into 2016 — when the presidential election is in full swing, and when President Obama will be less than a year from leaving office.
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The International Olympic Committee will decide Friday whether to accept the bid by Kazakhstan’s largest city, Almaty, to stage the 2022 Winter Games, or instead offer it to rival contender Beijing.
CORY FLINTOFF, BYLINE: This is Cory Flintoff in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Supporters of Almaty’s Olympic bid are touting the legacy for the future too, promising that the games will put this nation on the world tourist map and jumpstart an industry based on the country’s natural attractions. Some Americans may think of Kazakhstan only as the made up homeland of “Borat” in the 2006 movie comedy by Sacha Baron Cohen. In fact, Kazakhstan is a very real place – an oil-rich stretch of mountains and steppes in the heart of Central Asia. Its 17 million people are famous for their hospitality, one of the qualities that’s featured in this slickly produced promotional video.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Surrounded by snowy peaks that almost reach down to the city streets, Almaty provides a metropolitan haven amidst a real winter wonderland.
FLINTOFF: The slogan for the country’s Olympic bid is, keeping it real, a reference to the fact that Almaty gets plenty of real snow in contrast to China’s proposed winter venues which might have to rely on man-made white stuff for the Alpine events. Almaty’s supporters say that all the Olympic events could be held at a compact area with no venue more than about 12 miles from the city center. And when the games are over, they say, the city will benefit from new housing, new recreational opportunities and new infrastructure.
Not so fast, say the proposal’s detractors, such as Dosym Satpayev, head of the Kazakhstan Risk Assessment Group. Satpayev says the Olympic bid has support from the country’s political elite, but a lot of ordinary people are worried about the cost of such an expensive project.
DOSYM SATPAYEV: Because a lot of ordinary people in Kazakhstan – they asked why we should organize for expensive Olympic Games because in Kazakhstan now we have a lot of local problems.
FLINTOFF: Those problems, he says, include Kazakhstan’s deteriorating education and healthcare systems. Satpayev says many people see the Olympic Games as an opportunity for greedy public officials to skim more of the country’s oil wealth. It’s not just the costs, says Sergei Kuratov, a founder of the local environmental group Green Salvation.
SERGEI KURATOV: Another problem is that this is area where some very rare so-called endangered species, and the most famous animal is Snow Leopard.
FLINTOFF: Kuratov says Olympic development would encroach on a wildlife refuge and threaten the leopard’s habitat. The winner of the bid – Almaty or Beijing – will be announced tomorrow. Corey Flintoff, NPR News, Almaty, Kazakhstan.
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A piece of a wing, apparently from a Boeing 777, has been found on Reunion, an island the Indian Ocean. It’s not clear yet whether the debris from the Malaysia Airlines jet that disappeared from radar during a flight last year. YANNICK PITOU/AFP/Getty Images hide caption
itoggle caption YANNICK PITOU/AFP/Getty Images
Authorities on the French island of Réunion in the Indian Ocean have found debris that may be from a missing Malaysia Airlines jet.
A source familiar with the investigation tells NPR’s Geoff Brumfiel that the debris appears to have come from a large passenger aircraft, but it remains unclear whether it’s from Malaysia Airlines flight 370, which vanished from radar on March 8, 2014.
The Boeing 777 took off from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and was flying to Beijing, China, with 239 people on board. About an hour after departure, the flight crew made a final radio transmission and was never heard from again.
As Geoff reported for our Newscast unit:
“Up until now, the only lead in the search for the plane were brief transmissions it sent to an orbiting satellite in the hours after it disappeared. Based on that signal, investigators believed the aircraft flew to the Southern Indian Ocean near Australia, before it ran out of fuel and crashed.”
Investigators have found a 9-foot by 3-foot section of a white wing. It appears to be a part called a “flaperon” which combines flaps (the trailing edge of the wing that help planes during takeoff and landings) and ailerons (which turn the aircraft). Several media outlets are quoting senior Boeing officials who say the debris is consistent with a 777.
Similitudes incroyables entre le flaperon d’un #B777 et le débris retrouvé ce matin à #LaReunion… #MH370 ? pic.twitter.com/GDkzRLwi2h
— Xavier Tytelman (@PeurAvion) July 29, 2015
Pictures show the wing part has likely been in the water for a while. There will be serial numbers on the flaperon that investigators will use to definitively say whether this debris came from the missing plane.
Models by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau suggest the debris could have reached Réunion within this timeframe, and that is “consistent with the drift modeling.” In addition to the French investigators, officials from Malaysia are also heading to the island.
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There are about 140 million square miles of open ocean, and according to New York Times reporter Ian Urbina, much of it is essentially lawless. As Mark Young, a retired U.S. Coast Guard commander and former chief of enforcement for the Pacific Ocean, told Urbina, the maritime realm is “like the Wild West. Weak rules, few sheriffs, lots of outlaws.”
All Things Considered‘s Audie Cornish spoke to reporter Urbina about his four-part investigation, which wrapped up Tuesday. Urbina described his time on a Thai fishing ship — a purse seiner targeting mostly jack mackerel and herring — featured in Part 3 of the series.
“The ship we spent time on had about 40 Cambodian boys, mostly, and some young men, all migrants, most of them indentured,” Urbina says. “The conditions on board are extremely dangerous. This was a rat-infested, roach-infested boat. And most of these boys had been on it for more than a year.”
They get little sleep, Urbina adds — just two hours at a time. The rest of the time they are fishing. There’s no sanitation on board, and discipline is severe and often violent, Urbina says.
“There is a sort of cultural line that runs through the sea as a place where people have always gone to escape the law, to escape governments. It is truly the last frontier,” Urbina tells Cornish. “And in some way we all benefit from the lack of rules on the high seas in that 90 percent of products we consume come to us by way of ships. And one of the reasons maritime commerce is so efficient is that there are very few rules out there. At the same time, the lack of rules I think is partly what contributes to the dire state that the seas are in: the obliteration of the fishing population, levels of pollution and now the growing levels of violence on the high seas are somewhat a result of that same concept.”
For more from Urbina’s harrowing reporting, listen to the interview, and read The Outlaw Ocean series here.
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Greg Gianforte is distributing a brochure urging workers to “come home to Montana” and telework from there. Marianne Wiest/BetterMontanaJobs.com hide caption
itoggle caption Marianne Wiest/BetterMontanaJobs.com
Most local economic development schemes focus on creating jobs. Many offer incentives to startup companies, or try to lure existing companies to re-locate.
But a campaign in Montana is turning that on its head. It’s not trying to recruit companies, but rather employees to come to the sparsely populated state, and telecommute.
David Blackburn works for a financial services firm in Jersey City, N.J. He and his wife both have six-figure incomes, but real estate in the New York City area is so expensive, that they have to live kind of far from their jobs.
“Every day I get up and put on a suit and get on a train, and it takes about an hour door to door, in the crush of people, in the hot, in the cold,” he says. “It wears on you a little bit.”
And, once he gets to the office, it’s not like he really even has to be there at all.
“Every day I’m working with people in multiple time zones, in multiple countries,” Blackburn says. “So, even though I’m physically in the office, I’m essentially telecommuting to where they are.”
Blackburn has considered asking if he could do his job from someplace less urban — someplace like Montana.
Greg Gianforte started a software company in Montana that created hundreds of high-paying jobs. But now he’s trying to entice thousands of people who already have good jobs to bring them to the state, and telecommute.
“Montana is perfect for telecommuting because of the quality of life, because our housing prices in most communities are below the national average,” he says.
Gianforte adds, “If a small, rural town in Montana had just five or 10 people move back home, that would be five or 10 homes that either had to be purchased or built, that creates construction jobs.”
He’s just sent 18,000 glossy brochures to the alums of two universities here, inviting them to “come home to Montana.”
“It’s five or 10 additional families that would enroll in the local schools, making the schools more vibrant. [It would be] five or 10 more families that are buying downtown.”
Gianforte’s brochures are a naked come-on to overstressed urbanites. There are pictures of mountain lakes and wildlife, and Gianforte holding a fat trout he just caught. It includes a guide to getting your boss to say yes to letting you work remotely. There’s even a list of telecommuting-friendly employers. Yahoo may have famously cracked down on working from home, but health insurance giant Anthem has fully a third of its employees working remotely. The company says that helps it attract top talent, and productivity hasn’t suffered.
That kind of corporate attitude is getting people excited in towns like Conrad, Mont., population 2,600.
Gianforte went there as part of a tour to pitch his campaign to local chambers of commerce. Vanessa Bucklin, an insurance broker, left with a big stack of Gianforte’s brochures.
“I just had a 20-year class reunion, and I’m going to mail them out with a handwritten note saying, we’d love to have you back in Conrad,” she says.
The “come home to Montana” tour isn’t being warmly received by everyone. Montana’s Democratic Party says it’s just a thinly veiled publicity stunt before Republican Gianforte announces his candidacy in the 2016 race for governor.
Gianforte says it’s not, but says he is considering a run for governor.
Regardless of the politics, stressed out New Jersey commuter David Blackburn says there’s more to pulling up stakes than just convincing his boss to let him do it.
“The other part of it is that my wife also works full time, and I think we have a hard time imagining running a two-career family fully telecommuting or fully remote,” he says.
And Blackburn says, there are things he’d miss about urban life, like arts and culture opportunities for himself and his kids.
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Senior Senate Republicans lined up Sunday to rebuke Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz for harshly criticizing Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, an extraordinary display of intraparty division played out live on the Senate floor.
As the Senate met for a rare Sunday session, Sens. Orrin Hatch of Utah, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and John Cornyn of Texas each rose to counter a stunning floor speech Cruz gave on Friday accusing McConnell, R-Ky., of lying.
None of them mentioned Cruz by name but the target of their remarks could not have been clearer. The drama came as the Senate defeated a procedural vote to repeal President Barack Obama’s health care law and took a step toward reviving the federal Export-Import Bank, both amendments on a must-pass highway bill.
“Squabbling and sanctimony may be tolerated in other venues and perhaps on the campaign trail, but they have no place among colleagues in the United States Senate,” said Hatch, the Senate’s president pro tempore. Cruz is running for president.
“The Senate floor has even become a place where senators have singled out colleagues by name to attack them in personal terms, to impugn their character, in blatant disregard for Senate rules,” Hatch said. “Such misuses of the Senate floor must not be tolerated.”
After Hatch spoke, Cruz rose to defend himself for making the accusation that McConnell had lied when he denied striking a deal to allow the vote to revive the Export-Import Bank.
He said he agreed with Hatch’s calls for civility but declared, “Speaking the truth about actions is entirely consistent with civility.”
And far from backing down, Cruz reiterated his complaint about McConnell. “My saying so may be uncomfortable but it is a simple fact, entirely consistent with decorum, and no member of this body has disputed that promise was made and that promise was broken.”
Around 20 senators of both parties were on the floor watching some of the speeches. Cruz’s floor speech Friday had brought nearly unheard-of drama and discord to the Senate floor. But the responses to it were just as remarkable, as senior Republicans united to take down a junior colleague of their own party who poses a growing threat to their attempts to show voters that Republicans can govern.
No senator rose to Cruz’s defense. And by voice vote, the Senate defeated an attempt by Cruz to overturn a ruling made Friday that blocked him from offering an amendment related to Iran, with senators refusing even to agree to his routine request for a roll-call vote.
Cruz’s behavior was the latest example of a Republican presidential candidate causing problems for McConnell. In May, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., infuriated fellow Republicans when he forced the temporary expiration of the Patriot Act when it was up for renewal. Some of Hatch’s remarks seemed to apply to him as well.
For his part, McConnell said that given support for the Export-Import Bank, despite his own opposition no “special deal” was needed to bring it to a vote.
The little-known bank is a federal agency that helps foreign customers to buy U.S. goods. Conservatives oppose it as corporate welfare and are trying to end it. They won an early round, when congressional inaction allowed the bank to expire June 30 for the first time in 81 years.
But on Sunday, senators voted, 67-26, to advance legislation to revive the bank across a procedural hurdle, making it likely that it will be added to the highway bill.
On a separate vote, legislation to repeal Obama’s health care law failed to advance over a procedural hurdle. Sixty votes were needed but the total was 49-43.
The action came as the Senate tries to complete work on the highway bill ahead of a July 31 deadline. If Congress doesn’t act by then, states will lose money for highway and transit projects in the middle of the summer construction season.
With the Export-Import Bank likely added, the highway legislation faces an uncertain future in the House, where there’s strong opposition to the bank as well as to the underlying highway measure.
The Senate’s version of the highway bill, which is on track to pass later in the week, sets policy and authorizes transportation programs for six years, though with funding for only three of those years.
The House has passed a five-month extension of transportation programs without the Export-Import Bank included, and House leaders of both parties are reluctant to take up the Senate’s version.
Complicating matters, Congress is entering its final days of legislative work before its annual August vacation, raising the prospect of unpredictable last-minute maneuvers to resolve the disputes on the highway bill and the Export-Import Bank.
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Associated News (AN) GXG Markets In an announcement on July 22, 2015, Corporate Bully, GXG Markets UK, announced that they were selling the exchange to The Channel Islands Securities Exchange Limited (CISE). According to their…
Georg Kapsch, President of the Federation of Austrian Industry, holds an issue of The Economist during a news conference in Vienna last year. Britain’s Pearson PLC says it’s in talks to sell its 50 percent share in The Economist Group. Heinz-Peter Bader/Reuters/Landov hide caption
itoggle caption Heinz-Peter Bader/Reuters/Landov
Updated at 1:15 p.m. ET
Britain’s Pearson PLC — just days after announcing it would sell The Financial Times — has made public that it is engaged in talks to dump its 50 percent stake in The Economist Group.
“Pearson confirms it is in discussions with The Economist Group Board and trustees regarding the potential sale of our 50 percent share in the group,” the company said in a statement on Saturday. “There is no certainty that this process will lead to a transaction.”
Reuters reports that Italian holding company Exor, which now has a 4.72 percent stake in The Economist Group, is in talks with Pearson to increase its share.
The venerable Economist, a weekly news magazine that calls itself a newspaper, is known for its cogent analysis of international affairs and a wry wit.
Politico reports:
“Existing Economist shareholders led by John Elkann, heir to the Italian Agnelli industrial fortune and a member of the magazine’s board, are working on a potential buyout of Pearson’s stake, according to people familiar with the talks.
“Mr. Elkann was not immediately available for comment, an aide said.
“Sources said that Pearson could get as much as £500 million for its stake, although the price is subject to ongoing negotiations.”
The Wall Street Journal adds:
“The publisher makes most of its revenue from educational services underpinned by its operations in North America. It has a 50% non-controlling stake in The Economist Group which publishes The Economist, a weekly business and international news publication with a paid circulation of 1.6 million.
“The group’s businesses include data research firm Economist Intelligence Unit as well as other related assets such as The Economist Events and The Economist Corporate Network.”
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