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New Data Shows Android Powered Smartphones Dominating Global Market

A new survey of real-time smartphone usage has confirmed both that Android dominates the global smartphone market and that its usage is heavily influenced by how much money users have.

Android’s close ties to the spending power of a particular market means it dominates in low-income countries, but see less usage in high-income markets.

Apple, by contrast, does the opposite.

For example, Android has 92.25 percent – basically all – of the Egyptian smartphone market, which is ranked 120th in worldwide GDP per capita. In India, with a GDP rank of 142, Android controls 88.71 percent of the market.

Yet in Taiwan, Google takes just 20.14 percent share and under 32 percent in Denmark Sweden, Norway and Australia.

51Degrees, which does device detection for website operators, compiled the figures, which were gathered by monitoring web usage in retail.

Real-time usage is generally considered to be a more accurate reflection of what people are actually using, rather than shipments of new devices in a particular market.

Thanks to global income inequality Android smartphones account for four out of five devices sold in the world.

Apple in turn takes its profits from just the thirty richest economies in the world while dominating in the top ten richest.

$549 for the cheapest Apple phone mean it is beyond the reach of many Chinese, which remains 89th in the global ranking of GDP per capita.

In theory, both Apple and Google shouldn’t care. One takes lower profit and high volume, while the other takes much more profit but sells fewer devices.

Yet both could be easily upended by Chinese rivals, as we’ve covered here, who are coming on fast and don’t play by the standard rules of the market.

Ebay Sells Ownership Stake In Craigslist, Drops Lawsuit

In a complete about-face, online auction giant eBay is selling its 28.4 percent stake in local classified ad market Craigslist and, as an added bonus, is dropping its legal action against its former investment.

eBay bought its Craigslist stake back in 2004 for $32 million. The move was questioned because unlike profit-hungry eBay Craigslist deliberately keeps revenues low due to the personal beliefs of management.

The story got weirder still as a year after the purchase, eBay launched its own classified community website, originally named Kijiji and now called eBay Classifieds.

The decision to launch a rival marketplace was understandably not well received by Craigslist, which saw the move as an effort to cannibalize its business.

eBay’s aggressive marketing tactics didn’t help, either. The auction house bought “Craigslist” as a Google AdWords keyword, which redirected users to Kijiji.

Then, in 2008, eBay sued Craigslist, claiming that the company had diluted its ownership stake in order to keep eBay executives off the board of directors. Craigslist then counter-sued, claiming that eBay had put Kijiji executives in its company to steal trade secrets.

eBay obtained a partial victory two years later, when a court ruled that Craigslist had diluted its shareholding, but the court also ruled that eBay didn’t have a right to put its people on the board.

But the story is still far from over.

In 2011 a federal investigation was launched into eBay’s conduct surounding the deal, specifically investigating allegations that eBay has been stealing Craigslist’s confidential information in order to create the rival Kijiji business. At present no results of the investigation have been announced.

As of Friday of this week, all litigation between the two companies has now ended, with Craigslist back in private ownership.

eBay hasn’t disclosed how much it received for the stake, and Craigslist isn’t commenting either, but confirmed the sale, in typical Craigslist fashion, with a quirky Shakespeare quote from All’s well that ends well.

The federal probe into eBay’s behavior is still ongoing, though no timetable for a conclusion has been given at this point.

Study Finds Watching Cat Videos Actually Has Health Benefits

It’s official – watching cat videos is good for your overall well being, according to an Indiana University study published in the latest edition of Computers and Human Behavior journal.

Professor Jessica Myrick headed the study which set out to quantify the behavioral effect of exposure to cat videos online by surveying consumers of Internet cat content, looking to find motivation and detect emotion. She also tested a new model of how procrastination, guilt, happiness, and enjoyment are interrelated when it comes to our guilty pleasures on the Internet.

The 6795 study participants were self-confessed Internet cat content watchers —the majority women (88.4 percent) and white (90.4 percent).

This group on average watched cat videos or looked at cat pictures almost every day, and owned on average of 2.3 cats each . Questions designed to assess participants personality traits showed the majority were introverts and shy – but also happy, at least, when asked to look back two weeks.

The study found that watching cat videos online may well have contributed to this general happiness. Participants reported that after watching cats on-line they experienced a decrease in negative emotions—annoyance, anxiety, sadness, guilt, as well an increase in positive emotions -hope, happiness, contentment.

As for the procrastinators motivations – Myrick’s found that although procrastinators felt guilt after watching videos of cats knocking over things on desks things etc , when they should have been working, that was offset by the pleasure experienced.

Although the study was aimed at the effects of watching cast on-line, participants were also getting regular—but less frequent exposure to dogs and other animals online.

So those cute cat videos aren’t just a mindless distraction after all – they’re actually helping your health!

Superpowers Still Clinging To Secrecy As Julian Assange Marks Third Year Inside Ecuadorian Embassy

This weekend marked three years since Julian Assange slipped into the Ecuadorian embassy in London, England, claiming political asylum. Already a strong supporter of rights and transparency, the president of the Ecuador has now said Mr Assange is welcome to stay for the rest of his life, should he need to.

Ecuador’s president Rafael Correa said over the weekend that Assange hadn’t overstayed his welcome. Correa also spoke sharply about the police guard that is keeping Assange inside the London embassy’s grounds.

“If we had a European refugee in a European embassy in Quito, if we were to keep him three years without letting him stay, we would be called dictators, fascists,” Correa said to Euronews. “We would be brought in front of the International Criminal Court.”

Assange, founder of leading transparency website Wikileaks, is likely grateful for the support yet still hopes to obtain his freedom given the long and uncomfortable confinement that has been just slightly better than being in prison. Assange is currently hiding out to avoid an investigation into suspicious sexual misconduct charges in Sweden, which are likely a ploy to get him in jail for hosting a slew of documents concerning the secret affairs of the world’s superpowers.

Despite Swedish authorities being welcome to question Assange and complete their investigation inside the embassy itself, they have bowed to international pressure from the United States and United Kingdom and failed to do, trapping Assange. Earlier this week the Swedes were supposed to visit him for an interview but they backed out at the last minute due to political interference.

Police officers continue to watch the embassy 24 hours a day, seven days a week. London’s Metropolitan Police told a local broadcaster that the cost of keeping him confined over the last three years was a stunning $17.6 million.

Clearly, world superpowers do not like the idea of regular citizens knowing what they do. A recent example is the super-secret gift to corporations known as the Trans Pacific Partnership, a ‘trade agreement’ that President Obama is trying to entirely negotiate in secret.

Wikileaks has been the only organization to find and publish advanced copies of the shady deal, which we’ve covered here and here.

Researchers Find Sixth Mass Extinction Likely Underway

When the dinosaurs disappeared 65 million years ago, the event is referred to by scientists as Earth’s fifth mass extinction, the fifth such event in our planet’s history. According to new research published in Science Advances a sixth mass extinction may well be underway and this time it is likely being caused by humans.

Previous mass die-offs of animals and plants were caused by large-scale natural disasters like meteors or multiple large volcanic eruptions. Such events killed between half and 96 percent of all living species within a relatively short amount of time.

This time, the researchers say, its being caused by man made changes to the environment including global-warming, poaching, deforestation and over-fishing.

Recent studies from around the world confirm hundreds of species are believed to have become extinct, such as the Desert Rat Kangaroo, the Emperor Rat, the Chinese Paddlefish, the Yangtze River Dolphin and the Skunk Frog, among countless others.

Gerardo Ceballos, senior ecological researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and Anthony Barnosky, a biology professor at Berkeley conducted research that found 477 vertebrate species have gone extinct since 1900, an extremely short period of time given our planet’s long history.

Their model, based on fossil evidence, found that there should have only been nine species going extinct during the same time period if humans were not the primary cause of those extinctions.

The researchers fear that within just two generations’ time 75 percent of the species we know today could disappear forever.

While “we have the potential for making massive change, the bottom line is that we can’t be the generation responsible for wiping out three-fourths of life forms on the Earth,” said Barnosky.

The diversity of wildlife on our planet provides critical functions, such as keeping air in the atmosphere and purifying drinking water, with life as we know it depending on having this diversity, the authors said.

“People think nothing bad will come from species loss, because scientists can’t predict exactly how many need to go extinct before the world collapses,” says Ceballos. “The problem is that our environment is like a brick wall. It will hold if you pull individual bricks, but eventually it takes just one to make it suddenly fall apart.”

While the process of extinction is a natural part of the Earth’s life giving process, the research marks the first time there is evidence humans of species loss at rates that are 1,000 to 10,000 times faster than the natural, historic rate of species decline.

The researchers say that its well within our power to change things, but action needs to happen quickly. They point to problems like pollution, deforestation, poaching and garbage in the oceans as simple things we can stop doing that will ensure the world’s species stop dying off and our planet remains healthy for future generations.

Clinton Exploits Charleston Shooting To Push Curb On Second Amendment Rights

Hillary Clinton spoke Saturday, using an emotional speech laced with racial sympathies to push for gun control laws in the wake of the Charleston, South Carolina church massacre earlier this week.

Invoking civil rights leaders and the Bible, Clinton told the U.S. Conference of Mayors in San Francisco that as “tempting” as it is to isolate the Charleston shooting as random, “America’s long struggle with race is far from finished.”

“I know this is a difficult topic to talk about,” she stated. “I know that so many of us hoped by electing our first black President we had turned the page on this chapter in our history. I know there are truths we don’t like to say out loud in discussions with our children, but we have to. That is the only way we can possibly move forward together.”

Referencing a host of statistics such as mortgage rates and the incidence of asthma in black children, Clinton stated that “race remains a deep fault line in America and millions of people of color still experience racism in their everyday lives.”

The massacre in Charleston, with its overtly racist motive, has led to a national media debate about race and guns, and the former secretary of state politically danced, saying that the debate one was both poisoned by politics but too important to avoid.

“We must tackle this challenge with urgency and conviction,” she said.

“I lived in Arkansas and I represented upstate New York. I know that gun ownership is part of the fabric of a lot of law abiding communities,” Clinton said. “I also know that we can have common sense gun reforms that keep weapons out of the hands of criminals and the violently unstable while respecting responsible gun owners.”

While typically vague and open ended, Clinton’s statement shows she would likely use tragedies like Charleston as to push for national firearms restrictions if the opportunity presented itself.

Desperate Russia Kicks Around Moon Landing Conspiracies To Deflect FIFA Scandal Questions

Grasping at conspiracy theory straws, Russia’s Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin has called for an international investigation into what he claims are murky details surrounding the U.S. moon landings between 1969 and 1972.

The call appears to be a desperate attempt by Markin to deflect attention from questions stemming from a large-scale corruption probe targeting nine FIFA officials which includes whether they and other officials received bribes for helping Russia win its bid for the 2018 World Cup.

In a column he wrote for the Izvestia newspaper, Markin said U.S. authorities had overstepped boundaries by launching the FIFA corruption probe which lead to the recent resignation of longtime FIFA president Sepp Blatter.

Accusing U.S. prosecutors of “having declared themselves the supreme arbiters of international football affairs,” Markin suggested international investigators could similarly examine some of the murkier elements of America’s past.

He wrote that such an investigation could help solve the mystery of the disappearance of film footage from the original moon landing in 1969, and find out where the nearly 400 kilograms of lunar rock reportedly obtained during several space missions between 1969 and 1972 is.
“We are not contending that they did not fly [to the moon], and simply made a film about it. But all of these scientific — or perhaps cultural — artifacts are part of the legacy of humanity, and their disappearance without a trace is our common loss. An investigation will reveal what happened,” Markin wrote.

NASA admitted in 2009 that original film of the first moon landing had been erased, but said it had managed to re-master the original television broadcast of the landing.

The bulk of moon rock reportedly brought back to earth during manned U.S. moon landings is stored in the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Texas, though there are samples in various museums around the world.

Canadian Government Joins U.S., Germany In Being Hacked This Year

The Canadian Government has fallen victim to an activist-related hacking attack, joining a growing list of world governments that have fallen victim to hack attacks this year alone. The ruling Conservative government has been accused of being lazy with fighting cybercrime following its admission that its servers had been hacked.

The admission from Treasury Board President Tony Clement came after hacking collective Anonymous claimed on its Twitter account, it had shut down government websites in a protest against a controversial bill passed recently by both the Canadian House of Commons and the Senate.

Anonymous also posted a YouTube video in which it said it had targeted the Canadian Government for passing Bill C-51 which it described as a “clear violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights” .

The Bill lowers the burden of proof needed to brand someone a national security threat, meaning easier “lawful” arrest and surveillance of people suspected of being threats to Canada’s national security.

While Canada’s Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney played the heavy saying those responsible for the hacks will have to face the full force of the law”, the opposition National Democrats Party’s (NPC) said playing tough now was too late.

Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NPC’s deputy critic for public safety, accused the Government of being lazy with fighting cyber crime.

“Our allies are much further ahead of us in terms of cyber security,’ she said citing criticism of the Government in 2012 by the Auditor General for not having 24/7 cyber security surveillance.

10 Celebrity Diets That Are Actually Shown To Get Results

Adriana Lima

The way our bodies look are a big deal and its an even bigger deal for celebrities, who are under the spotlight 24/7. While you shouldn’t trust everything you hear from celebrities, they definitely take their eating seriously. We looked at some of the best celebrity eaters and came up with a list of 10 different celebrity diets that actually get results, if you follow them closely.

There’s no magic secrets here but there are great tips and tricks to eat better and eat the foods that are right for your individual body and your life.

10 Strange Unsolved American Hospital Mysteries

Hospitals are supposed to be a safe place, where you can recover from an injury or otherwise get help. But they can also make you feel alone and helpless, sometimes with good reason.

Over the years many different mysteries have happened in hospitals. Some are creepy and tragic, while others are just miracles of life or completely unexplained. At first couldn’t believe a few of these could happen and as we dug deeper things got stranger still. So strange, in fact, we just had to share ten of strangest of them with our readers!

 

Australian Police Latest To Want Warrantless Access To Personal Financial Data

In the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW), police are pushing for new powers that circumvent the checks and balances of the legal system, highlighting a worldwide trend in lazy policing that seeks to make police work easier while fundamentally removing essential oversight that keeps the justice system fair.

Under a police proposal currently before the government, the NSW Police Force would no longer require a judge’s sign-off to gain access to the bank statements of people they merely suspect of engaging in criminal conduct.

The proposal would eliminate the requirement for a magistrate or registrar of a court to sign off on a “notice to produce” before police can compel banking institutions to hand over documentation, such as a suspected criminal’s bank statements.

More worryingly, the latest attempt at making police jobs easier is being disingenuously claimed as a requirement of Australia’s new data retention laws.

The head of NSW Police’s Fraud and Cyber Crime Squad likened the proposal to the way telecommunications metadata is sought from telecom companies, which requires only the sign-off a senior officer before companies.

The statement is worrying, as if police begin to use bank data they way they abuse metadata, every citizen’s bank account information will end up in an easily searchable police database, which can be used any way police like.

In addition to be a shining example of lazy policing, where police simply want to remove legal safeguards to their activities the Australian case also demonstrates the slippery slope of warrantless access

Once warrantless access to personal data is used in one sphere, people in other areas begin pushing for warrantless access as well.

UK Government Caught Deleting Records Just Days Before New Freedom Of Information Act Took Effect

Just weeks before the United Kingdom, under Prime Minister Tony Blair, adopted a Freedom of Information (FOI) act, the Prime Minister’s office conveniently adopted a policy of its own: Automatically deleting emails more than three months old.

In what government accountability campaigners have described as “not a coincidence,” the resulting system descended into a “dysfunctional” mess, according to those who worked uder it.

The system to bypass public accountability is still in place. Under the likely-illegal policy, workers can only retain email beyond three months if they specifically move it out of their inbox and into an official archive, usually accomplished by dragging it, or a copy, into local storage on the user’s computer.

Former special adviser to Nick Clegg Sean Kemp described how staffers now “delete their emails on an almost daily basis, others just try to avoid putting anything potentially interesting in an email in the first place.”

A special adviser told the Financial Times that the policy caused confusion, with senior officials reporting to IT staffers that their emails kept ‘disappearing,’ yet this was precisely the intent.

Staff were also unable to agree on the details of meetings which vanished due to automatic deletion. One former Downing Street official described the problem as “hugely frustrating.”

The director of the UK Campaign for Freedom of Information Maurice Frankel said that the fact the policy was instituted only a few days before the FOI Act came into law in January 2005 indicates that the timing “very strongly indicates that it was not a coincidence.”

Politicians hiding their dirty dealings from the public is nothing new, with President Obama’s administration doing the very same thing in March of this year, when it excluded the White House from FOIA regulations, outraging transparency campaigners.

Mr. Obama, who promised greater transparency for the President’s office yet ran the most secretive administration in the history of the United States, and his UK counterpart Tony Blair, view Freedom of Information requests as a “weapon” for journalists, according to sources.

It remains unclear as to just how, exactly, they would like to be accountable to their citizens, if at all.

Boeing Feels Tensions With Russia As State Carrier Cuts Plane Order

Russian national airline Aeroflot, in a politically charged move, announced on Thursday that it has cancelled its order for 22 Boeing 787 airliners. The message was delivered by the carrier’s deputy general director for strategy and alliances Giorgio Callegari.

“We have exercised our option to terminate the contract on the 787,” he said at the Paris International Air Show on Thursday.

The airline executive said the decision was based on analysis of “capacity at the Sheremetyevo airport” and the “sustainability of the fleet development – sustainability in terms of the right mix of widebodies and narrowbodies and network development.”

According to Callegari, Aeroflot is “confident that we can meet the original targets” set by the airline’s board “in terms of volumes of passengers, the size of the company and the performance of the company, by shaping our fleet and network in a more attractive way”.

Aeroflot is the largest airline in Russia and had 22 787s on order from the manufacturer. Callegari says Aeroflot did not incur a financial penalty from Boeing for the cancellation and the decision, he added, “was not a one-day process, but taken in due course and discussed with the relevant stakeholders and counterparts.”

Yet the move is the latest in a global tit-for-tat between an increasingly erratic Russia and western countries, who are growing impatient with dictator Vladimir Putin’s communist ambitions.

The country invaded Ukraine in early 2015, earning widespread condemnation from the international community and biting sanction that, along with low oil prices, have wreaked havoc on the Russian economy.

Russia has tried to further distance itself economically, in an ego-driven quest to one-up America. The cancellation of the aircraft order is clearly being used to achieve this goal, although the final outcome remains questionable given the 787 is the most efficient jet is in its class and using planes from rival Airbus will put the Russian flag carrier at a competitive disadvantage.

While there was no official confirmation that the order cancellation was politically motivated, it could also indicate financial pressure on the airline. Aeroflot has one of the worst safety records in the world, accounting for seven of the top 100 deadliest crashes in recent history. Its poor safety record combined with a struggling Russian economy could be another reason for pulling the order.

Deadly MERS Virus Reaches Thailand

Thailand’s Public Health Minister Rajata Rajatanavin officially confirmed its first case of MERS on Friday, as the highly contagious virus continued to spread further from the Middle East into eastern Asia.

The Health Minister said a man was diagnosed with MERS after he traveled to Thailand from a Middle Eastern country on June 15th.

He was in stable condition as of FRiday and was being treated in a private hospital in Bangkok.

The Thai case marks the 26th country with confirmed Middle East respiratory syndrome cases since the disease was first detected in Saudi Arabia in 2012.

The patient was a medical tourist who had traveled to Thailand to receive treatment for heart disease. It was not disclosed what country the man comes from or had recently visited.

The 10 Rich Teens and Where They are Now

 

richkids

 

There are people under the age of 18 that probably have more money than you’re going to see for quite some time, but that’s fine; it’s usually how it works for a lot of us. This list is going to look at 10 of the richest teens (as in under the age of 18) within America, as well as a few other places.

The World Just Isn’t Giving Peace a Chance

The world is less peaceful today than it was in 2008 according to the annual Global Peace Index report produced by the Institute for Economics and Peace.

The report, which measures the state of peace in 162 countries by using 23 indicators that measure the absence of violence or the fear of violence, shows that although worldwide peace levels were stable this year, the division between countries enjoying peace and those afflicted by conflict has increased.

Steve Killelea, founder and executive chairman of the Institute for Economics and Peace said “2014 was marked by contradictory trends: on the one hand many countries in the OECD achieved historically high levels of peace, while on the other, strife-torn nations, especially in the Middle East, became more violent. This is a real concern as these conflicts become even more intractable they spread terrorism to other states”.

According to the report there have only been two improved indicators over the last eight years – United Nations peacekeeping funding has increased and the number of deaths from external conflicts had fallen to 410 from 1,982 to 410.

“The indicators that have deteriorated the most are the number of refugees and [internally displaced persons], and the number of deaths from internal conflict and the impact of terrorism,” reads the report showing “last year alone it is estimated that 20,000 people were killed in terrorist attacks up from an average of 2,000 a year only 10 years ago,”.

Other notable findings of the report were:

Since 2014, 81 countries have become more peaceful while 78 have become less peaceful.

The total economic impact of violence in 2014 reached $14 trillion – approximately 13 percent of the global gross domestic product.

Europe is the world’s most peaceful region, with 15 of the 20 most peaceful countries residing there.

Egypt, Cote D’Ivoire and Guinea-Bissau were the countries with the best improvement in peace.

Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan are the world’s least peaceful countries.
The countries where peace deteriorated the most were Libya, which now ranks 149th out of 162 countries, and Ukraine, 150th.

Due to an increase in civil unrest and terrorist activity, the Middle East and North Africa is now the world’s least peaceful region for the first time since 2007.

Globally the intensity of internal armed conflict has increased dramatically, with the number of people killed in conflicts rising over 3.5 times from 49,000 in 2010 to 180,000 in 2014.

Airlines Back Down From New Smaller Carry On Baggage Rules

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has admitted its latest attempt to squeeze more money out of passengers is too much and is backtracking from its plans to force passengers to bring significantly smaller carry on luggage inside the cabin.

IATA , which represents 250 of the world’s airlines, last week rolled out a new initiative labeled Cabin OK which limited cabin luggage to 21.5 inches by 13.5 inches by 7.5 inches, or 55 cm by 35 cm by 20 cm.

The reasoning behind the smaller allowance was that it would ensure all passengers on a plane with more than 120 seats could bring along their carry-on – given that overhead bins are jammed today and often those boarding last have nowhere to put their carry on luggage.

However, and even though some airlines including Lufthansa, Cathay Pacific and Emirates were on board with the proposals, IATA this week said the new policy would not be implemented.

“Our focus is on providing travellers with an option that would lead to a simplified and better experience,” said IATA’s senior vice-president Tom Windmuller, in a media release. “This is clearly an issue that is close to the heart of travellers. We need to get it right.”

IATA will now launch a “comprehensive reassessment” consulting with members program, other airlines and key stakeholders.

There was no mention by the IATA about the cause of jammed overhead luggage rack: Opportunistic fees for checking bags. Most carrier now charge $25 or more to check luggage, leading passengers to forego checking bags to save the significant extra cost.

The measures were intended to offset higher fuel prices, just like so-called ‘fuel surcharges’, but now that fuel prices have normalized the air carriers refuse to remove the fees. They also continue to charge ‘fuel surcharges’ in an effort to squeeze more profit from travelers.

Is Canadian Ban On Political Donations From Business and Unions A Way To Restore American Democracy?

While debate endlessly continues in the USA over political donations from powerful corporations, across the border in Canada, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley has vowed to wipe out political donations from businesses and unions entirely, in an effort to restore political accountability.

In interviews and speeches this week, Notley stuck very close to the script of policies that gave her and her New Democrats (NDP) party an unprecedented NDP victory in May’s Alberta elections, ending more than 43 years of Conservative rule in the province.

The NDP government’s flagship bill, entitled An Act to Renew Democracy in Alberta, will seek to end all corporate and union donations to political parties. Ms. Notley also announced plans to form a special committee to carry out a larger review of the province’s elections laws.

“Our political system has been far, far too dependent on funds from a narrow range of donors with deep pockets. We will tilt the playing field back in Albertans’ favor.” said Ms. Notley.

The donation’s ban bill is expected to receive wide support in the legislature, except from the ousted PC party, who has been notoriously close to large donors. The heads of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees and the Alberta Federation of Labor support the bill.

The NDP will also introduce a bill which will seek to increase the province’s corporate tax rate from 10 to 12 per cent and end the province’s flat income tax – also now set at 10 per cent. Ms. Notley said the 14-year-old flat tax was a “brief and unfortunate experiment”.

“We are returning to a more typical Canadian tax system,” she said, adding that Albertans would still pay the lowest overall taxes in Canada.

The new Canadian model addresses the increasing issue of politicians representing exclusively big corporation and rich donors, while ignoring the vast majority of their constituents, which we’ve covered here, and raises the idea it could be used a template for substantive electoral reform.

New Study Finds Appendicitis May Not Require Surgery After All

There’s encouraging news for those with a sore appendix and dreading the inevitable surgery that comes from the condition. A new study by Finnish researchers shows that antibiotics may remove the need of surgery for patients who have mild cases of of the condition.

Surgery (an appendectomy) to remove the appendix is the most common treatment for appendicitis in the USA. There are about 300,000 appendectomies performed annually in the U.S. About 200,000 of them are for uncomplicated cases.

According to a report published in the latest issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association, the Finnish researchers studied more than 500 adults who had uncomplicated appendicitis – their appendixes had not ruptured and there were no signs of infection or other problems. Half had undergone an appendectomy, while the other 50 % received an IV of antibiotics followed by a course of antibiotic pills for a week.

Of the patients who took antibiotics, 73 % recovered from appendicitis and did not need surgery for at least a year afterward. The rest of the patients who had another case of appendicitis needing an appendectomy, showed no higher rate of complications than the patients who initially received surgery.

An editorial accompanying the study said “the time has come to consider abandoning routine appendectomy for patients with uncomplicated appendicitis.”

Dr. Paulina Salminen, a surgeon at the Turku University Hospital in Finland and lead author of the stud,y said the treatment of appendicitis with antibiotics “is quite a radical change in the line of thinking, because appendectomy has served patients well for over 100 years”.

The findings show that for patients with uncomplicated cases – about 80% of patients diagnosed with appendicitis – surgery may not be necessary. However, Salminen warned that if the appendix has ruptured, emergency surgery must be done because patients can develop deadly infections in the abdomen and antibiotics alone are not strong enough to treat them.

Because the study only looked at people between 18 and 60, it is not clear how effective antibiotic therapy would be in children, the group that accounts for most cases of appendicitis. Other researchers are planning to do a similar study in children, Salminen said.

Dr. Curtis Wray, associate professor of surgery at the University of Texas Health Science Center, said it was important to determine who the candidates for nonoperative therapy were. If antibiotic therapy does become a viable alternative to appendectomy, it would also probably lead to a big cost savings according to Wray.

Six Global Mega-Banks Under Investigation. Yet Again.

It wouldn’t be a week without the world’s criminal banks coming under investigation illegal activity and this week didn’t disappoint as six of the world’s largest banks are under investigation for possible foreign-exchange market rigging, this time in South Korea.

The investigation has been launched by South Korea’s antitrust watchdog and involves Barclays, Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Royal Bank of Scotland and UBS.

According to The Seoul Economic Daily, the Korean investigation is looking into how alleged foreign currency price fixing of U.S. dollars and euros and derivatives markets, by the six lenders adversely affected South Korean businesses.

This investigation comes hot on the heels of the same six lenders being fined nearly $6 billion in total by US and British regulators for fixing foreign exchange markets and Libor interest rates, and the launch last May of an investigation by South Africa’s competition watchdog into foreign currency price fixing by Citigroup, Barclays, and other banks.

The latest investigation, again, raises the question: At what point are ‘global banks’ considered criminal organizations?

UPDATE: Charleston Shooter Identified & Arrested In North Carolina

South Carolina police have identified the suspect in a church shooting that took place Wednesday night in Charleston as Dylann Storm Roof, 21. He is now charged with the killing of nine people in the attack.

A law enforcement source reported that Roof has been arrested in Shelby, North Carolina, nearly 250 miles, or about three and a half hours’ drive, away from Charleston, where the shooting took place. The arrest was reported shortly after 11am eastern time, and confirmed by U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch at a later press conference.

Charleston police chief Greg Mullen reported that local police stopped Roof’s car after a citizen reported “suspicious activity.” Mullen reported that the suspect was “cooperative” with the arresting officer.

At around the time of the arrest a prayer vigil for the victims at a nearby church was disrupted by an anonymous bomb threat. The police cleared the area and searched for explosives, but failed to find any. They continue to investigate the incident.

Hong Kong Rejects Chinese Sponsored Electoral Reforms In Historic Vote Against Beijing Interference

In a historic independent vote, Hong Kong’s legislature on Thursday rejected a China-vetted electoral reform package that had been roundly criticized by pro-democracy lawmakers and activists as flawed and undemocratic.

The move came as a firm rejection of China’s interference with the prosperous, free and distinctly un-Chinese principality of Hong Kong.

The vote came even as China sent hundreds of Beijing supporters to protest outside government buildings as city legislators voted.

Hong Kong was once a British territory but was handed over to the Chinese in 1997. Residents are notoriously proud of their Western culture and freedoms, which run sharply counter to China’s communist society.

Yesterday’s vote happened earlier than expected, with only 37 of the legislature’s 70 legislators present. 28 lawmakers voted against the plan and 8 voted in favor, while one did not cast their vote.

Moments before the ballot, a large number of lawmakers on both sides of the issue suddenly walked out of the chamber, highlighting how contentious China’s involvement with the smooth-running country is.

The no vote will at least temporarily appease some pro-democracy activists who had demanded a veto of what they call a “fake” democratic model for how Hong Kong chooses its next CEO in 2017.

“This veto has helped Hong Kong people send a clear message to Beijing…that we want a genuine choice, a real election,” said pan-democratic lawmaker Alan Leong.

“This is not the end of the democratic movement,” he said. “This is a new beginning.”

Yet there are still fears of fresh unrest on Hong Kong streets between pro-democracy activists and Beijing supporters. Weeks of pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong in 2014 posed one of the most significant challenges for China’s ruling Communist Party in years.

The Hong Kong reform proposal was laid out by the central government in Beijing last August and supported by Hong Kong’s ruling pro-Beijing leadership. In a move to retain that influence in Asia’s financial hub, the plan would have allowed a democratic vote for the city’s next leader but only from a list of pre-screened, pro-Beijing candidates.

Opponents want a genuinely democratic election, which is what China promised in 1997 when it declared that universal suffrage would continue to be law when it took over the territory.

UPDATE: Police Release Photo Of Charleston Shooting Suspect

Police have released the following photo of the suspected gunman in the Charleston shooting.

For more detailed coverage see our story here.

FBI Launches Campaign To Thwart ISIS Recruitment Inside America

FBI officials disclosed on Thursday that the agency is in the midst of a broad campaign to disrupt terrorists inspired by ISIS, with multiple arrests expected before the July 4th holidays.

The campaign led to Saturday’s arrest in New York, where a college student thought al Qaeda was getting soft and was “making efforts to prepare an explosive device for detonation,” according to an FBI statement.

The FBI source reported that there are hundreds of investigations underway in all 50 states, with many involving suspected ISIS supporters.

The New York case saw Munther Omar Saleh being accused of being a “fervent supporter” of ISIS, offering to assist the group in translating its propaganda into English. Court records show he composed a tweet that said “I fear AQ could be getting too moderate.”

Saleh had been under FBI investigation since March, when a Port Authority police officer saw him walking suspiciously with a lantern on the George Washington Bridge..

The FBI said Saleh told an informant he was “in N.Y. and trying to do an Op.”

When he was arrested the FBI found instructions for a pressure cooker bomb on his computer, alongside images of New York City landmarks and tourist attractions, which the FBI called “potential targets for a terrorist attack.”

Colombian Rebels Blow Up Pipeline As Peace Talks Continue In Havana

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas blew up an oil pipeline on Thursday, leaving an estimated 16,000 people without water, according to officials.

The attack occurred near the municipality of Catatumbo, in northern Colombia.

The resulting spill has contaminated a river forcing the water supply to be cut, the local authorities said.

The FARC separatists have stepped up their attacks on infrastructure since they unilaterally suspended their ceasefire on May 22nd.

In another incident not directly related to the latest attack, four government military personnel were killed when they stepped on landmines in the southern region of Caqueta, which also injured four others.

The mines had been laid by FARC, the government said.

The left-wing group had been engaged in peace talks with government negotiators since November 2012, which looked to end more than 50 years of violence. While there has been agreement on several points and the negotiations continue to take place in the Cuban capital of Havana, attacks by the guerrillas have continued to occur since the lapse in the ceasefire.

A similar attack on an oil pipeline contaminated the Canaupi river in south-west Colombia on June 12th and the group ambushed and killed 11 soldiers in May.

President Juan Manuel Santos responded to the violence by ordering the resumption of bombing raids on rebel positions, though it remains unclear how effective such strikes have been given the dense jungle in which FARC operates.

Last week the rebels cut off power to almost half a million people in Caqueta, according to the military, by bringing down an electricity pylon.

Australian Human Trafficking Scandal Worsens As Spies Reported To Have Paid Smugglers Multiple Times

Australian spies have reportedly been systematically paying people smugglers if they agree to turn back asylum seeker boats, according to new reports.

Both Labor and the Coalition governments are said to have approved the covert payments while in government but the Labor party made them on land in Indonesia to prevent boats leaving for Australia, according to new Australian press reports on Thursday.

Unlike the recent scandal involving 65 asylum seekers last month, the prior payments were made discreetly and only once the boats had returned to Indonesia. Spies then met the traffickers there and paid them for returning home.

Former prime minister Julia Gillard, playing word games, insists her government did not make payments to people smugglers at sea. Just what the difference is remains to be seen.

‘We didn’t have the same policy about turning boats around,’ Ms Gillard told the BBC, in a statement that could only be described as political hair splitting.

‘We didn’t operate the same policy that is under discussion.’

Ms Gillard told a BBC TV show that her government ‘absolutely’ engaged activities to disrupt people smuggling, but that she never authorized payments to people smugglers to sail back home, going back to a small difference in an otherwise objectionable policy that was, like that current Prime Minister Tony Abbott, not disclosed to the public or courts.

Shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus said of the latest revelations:

‘If there’s payments to be made to disrupt people smuggling syndicates that might also be something that you might imagine … also takes place,’ he told ABC radio on Thursday.

Mr Dreyfus said that the allegations of payments on open water “crosses the line” and may well be a crime under Australian law, if not Indonesian law.

Greens immigration spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young said that the latest allegations of bribery on open water don’t “stack up” with either domestic or international law.

‘Lets be honest, they’ve paid people to turn around, that’s bribery, that’s trafficking,’ she said.

Prime Minister Abbott plays fast and loose with the law, a stance that led to the downfall of his previous government. He was re-elected to power after a hard-fought campaign, yet the new bribery scandal could lead to yet another election if the activities, which he was clearly party to, are found to be illegal.

Privacy Focused Search Engine DuckDuckGo Sees 600% Surge In Use Since Snowden Revelations

Privacy oriented search engine DuckDuckGo has seen usage spike a whopping 600 percent since Edward Snowden alerted the world to the U.S. government’s illegal spying programs on its citizens, according to a statement by the company’s CEO.

The search engine offers users bare-bones, yet effective, search results without the personalization and tracking tools that rivals Google and Bing use. The company gets its results not from a massive army of bots scraping the web for new pages but from a clever sorting and filtering of results from Wikipedia, Yandex, Yahoo!, Bing and Yummly.

Chief executive officer Gabriel Weinberg said in an interview that it executes some three billion searches a year.

“We’ve grown 600 percent since the surveillance revelations two years ago,” Weinberg said.

“It’s really a myth that you need to track people to make money in search. People want transparency and they want control, and unfortunately they are usually getting neither today.”

Weinberg credits the uptick in usage both from overall awareness of privacy and Apple’s decision to add DuckDuckGo as an option for its Safari search users. Popular open source browser Firefox’s move in 2013 to add DuckDuckGo to its search options also helped the company gain market share.

DuckDuckGo started in 2008 and makes money from advertisers bidding placing ads against popular search terms. Its available at DuckDuckGo.com

Nine Dead In Charleston Massacre Police Are Calling A ‘Hate Crime’

A white man walked into a historic African-American church in Charleston, South Carolina, opening fire during a Wednesday evening Bible study class, killing nine people, according to local authorities.

The shooting took place at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, the oldest AME church in the South. Police are investigating the massacre as a hate crime.

The suspect is described as being in his early 20s and 5 foot 9 in height. “He has on a very distinctive sweatshirt as well as the vehicle, with a very distinctive license plate,” Charleston Police Chief Greg Mullen said.

“This is an all hands on deck effort with the community as well as law enforcement,” Mullen went on to say. “When people go out they should be vigilant, they should be aware of their surroundings. And if they see anything suspicious, they should call law enforcement.”

Authorities believe the suspect is still in the Charleston area.

“The only reason someone would walk into a church and shoot people that were praying is hate,” said Charleston Mayor Joe Riley.

Eight members of the congregation died at the scene while a ninth perished at a local hospital, according to police. The church’s pastor, Rev. Clementa Pinckney, was one of those who perished.

While officials did not say how many people were at the Bible study during the incident they did say there had been survivors.

Authorities described the man as armed and dangerous and encouraged residents to report any sightings to police.

Despite Promises To Cut Back, World Upgrades Their Nuclear Weapons Supplies

While the absolute number of nuclear warheads fell from 22,600 to 15,850 between 2010 and 2015, according to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s annual disarmament report, countries continue to upgrade and improve their nuclear weapons arsenals.

The institute pointed to “extensive and expensive long-term modernization programmes” in the world’s two largest nuclear powers, The United States and Russia, which account for 90 percent of the weapons.

“Despite renewed international interest in prioritizing nuclear disarmament, the modernization programs under way in the nuclear weapon-possessing states suggests that none of them will give up their nuclear arsenals in the foreseeable future,” SIPRI researcher Shannon Kile said.

The other three nuclear armed states legally recognized by the 1968 Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty – China (260 warheads), France (300 warheads) and Britain (215 warheads) – are “either developing or deploying new nuclear weapon systems or have announced their intention to do so” according to the researchers.

China was the lone state among the five global nuclear powers to have just a “modest” increase in the size of its arsenal.

India (90 to 100 warheads), Pakistan (100 to 120 warheads) and Israel (80 warheads), which do not have legally recognized nuclear programs, continue to increase their arsenals while Israel has tested long-range ballistic missiles.

North Korea is believed to be working on an arsenal of six to eight warheads but SIPRI said “technical progress” was difficult for the team to assess. Questions remain about the size of their nuclear devices, as weapons that are suitable for a missile must be small in size and weight, an added technical challenge.

Trustworthy information on each country’s nuclear program varied greatly between states, with the United States getting top marks for transparency in the report, and Russia and Israel divulging nothing officially.

worldnukes

New Study Shows Bees Are Worth Hundreds Of Billions Of Dollars To Global Economy

The humble honeybee is one of the hardest working, least appreciated and most valued insects in nature, according to a new study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications.

The study found that wild bee populations provide crop pollination services worth more than $3,250 per hectare per year, making their value to the global food system worth “in the billions, globally,” its authors wrote.

The researchers followed the activities of nearly 74,000 bees, representing more than 780 species, for over three years. That meant looking at 90 projects monitoring bee pollination at 1,394 sites round the world.

In interesting finding was that wild bees, as opposed to farmed honeybees, contribute $3,251 a hectare to crop production versus $2,913 a hectare for their farmed counterparts, a nearly 15% greater level of productivity.

Yet almost one in 10 of Europe’s wild bee species are threatened by extinction. The rise of pesticide chemicals is largely to blame, as we covered here earlier.

The study adds is one of a few new attempts to quantify the economic impact of “ecosystem services”, the natural processes we rely on to obtain food. The authors are looking to document the impact of damage to these services in order to discourage environmental plundering.

One of the most stunning conclusions from the study is that just 2% of wild bee species fertilize about 80% of crops. Lose one or two key species and the economic hit is tremendous.

“Rare and threatened species may play a less significant role economically than common species but this does not mean their protection is less important,” said study lead author David Kleijn, of Wageningen University in the Netherlands..

He added that a healthy diversity of bee species was essential to account for major fluctuations in worldwide bee populations.

“This study shows us that wild bees provide enormous economic benefits but reaffirms that the justification for protecting species cannot always be economic,” said University of Vermont co-author Taylor Ricketts.

“We still have to agree that protecting biodiversity is the right thing to do.”

According to the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation, over 80% of flowering plant species are pollinated by insects, though some are pollinated by birds and bats.

Dramatic declines in bee colonies have led the EPA to ban pesticides linked to be colony deaths and cities like Oslo, Norway, to create ‘bee highways’ to help bees survive and thrive in urban areas.