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Al Jazeera America Accused Of Running Anti-Semitic and Anti-American Newsroom

With online media increasingly becoming the propaganda arm of nation-states, revelations about middle east media giant Al Jazeera which surfaced on Wednesday cast a shadow over the aspiring network.

A fired Al Jazeera America employee is suing the network alleging a hostile work environment that included “discriminatory, anti-Semitic and anti-American remarks” according to court filings. The allegations paint the picture of a supposedly American network that has interests counter to those of the country.

The complaint, filed in New York State Supreme Court, alleges Matthew Luke was fired in February 10 days after he objected to the behavior of his supervisor, Osman Mahmud, and outlined his concerns to human resources. Luke worked as Al Jazeera America’s supervisor of media and archive management beginning in May 2013, before the news channel had formally launched.

Luke is seeking $5 million in compensatory damages and $10 million in punitive damages for the company’s alleged retaliation against Luke for complaining about Mahmud.

The suit accuses Mahmud, who oversaw Broadcast Operations and Technology at the network, of making anti-Semitic remarks such as “whoever supports Israel should die a fiery death in hell,” and expressing a desire to replace an Israeli cameraman with a Palestinian one, as well as excluding women from emails and meetings,an industry website reported. Mahmud, the suit says, also replaced female employees with male ones and filled positions with men of Middle Eastern descent.

Mahmud began as a news editor at the network and rose to his supervisory position because he was well connected with Al Jazeera America’s backers, the suit claims.

The allegations should lead Americans to question where they get their media from. While Al Jazeera has invested heavily and produces a slick, professional product, the agenda has always been questionable. The network, prior to coming to America, was known to air pro-Al Qaeda and pro-9-11 pieces.

The allegations against Al Jazeera also highlight Russia’s push to monopolize online media. The communist state is investing heavily in Kremlin mouthpiece RT, which publishes hundreds of stories that massively distort the news yet come across as legitimate thanks to professional design and effective use of language.

The Pentagon has taken note of the trend and is investing to counter the spread of such false information.

Software Giant Salesforce Defending Itself From Hostile Takeover

In a sign of just how hot things are in the cloud software space Salesforce, a company worth $44 billion, has hired financial advisers to field takeover offers Bloomberg has reported.

It’s unknown who the takeover offers are coming from, but the deal would be the largest software company to get acquired in history.

Salesforce shares soared after the news hit the wires and were up almost 13%.

The company who acquires Salesforce would immediately become a market leader in the cloud CRM space.

The most logical buyers for Salesforce would be Oracle, SAP, and Microsoft. These big enterprise software companies have the cash and are in direct competition with Salesforce in the CRM space.

Founded in 1999, Salesforce has been the leader in the enterprise cloud software market. Its main product is Customer Relationship Management software, which helps salespeople track leads and optimize sales strategies.

In its latest quarter, Salesforce had $1.44 billion in revenue, up 26% from last year. For the whole year, it earned $5.37 billion, up 32% from the year before.

HBO And Showtime Sue Over Crimes Yet To Be Committed

HBO and Showtime are no stranger to online piracy. Their TV-shows are pirated millions of times each month. Yet they haven’t been known to go after sites that host their content illegally yet the upcoming Mayweather v Pacquiao fight has proven to be an exception.

Along with Mayweather Promotions and Top Rank Boxing the companies have sued two websites that announced intentions to stream the fight this weekend.

Yesterday the two companies filed a lawsuit at a federal court in Florida targeting the websites boxinghd.net and sportship.org. The sites are accused of planning to stream the upcoming Mayweather v Pacquiao fight.

It is a unique pre-piracy case, as the companies accuse the sites’ owners of various copyright related offenses that have yet to take place.

“There are no authorized online streams of the Coverage for delivery to United States audiences,” the complaint states, adding that the defendants “are seeking to benefit from this high profile, live Fight by infringing the rights of Plaintiffs.”

HBO and Showtime argue that the anticipated stream of the fight will infringe on their rights and cause damages.

The companies have asked the court for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to stop the sites’ operators from linking to streams of the event. HBO and Showtime have also demanded damages to compensate for the expected losses.

The lawsuit brings up a scary question: can you be charged or sued for something you have yet to do? Time will tell as the case works its way through court. In the meantime it seems to have had the intended effect as one of the two sites have closed up shop.

Russia Seizes Ukrainian President’s Candy Factory

In the latest belligerent move by Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, Russian authorities have seized the assets of a candy factory owned by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in the Russian city of Lipetsk. The move is intended to block the sale of asset, according to parent company Roshen.

Since the March 2014 Russia annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, the Lipetsk plant has been raided by armed police, boycotted and accused by Russian politicians of supporting extremism. The moves are obvious scare tactics by Putin to put pressure on the Ukrainian leader.

“It is safe to say the Russian side is deliberately taking all possible steps to prevent the company selling its assets in Russia,” Roshen said in a statement. It said it would appeal the decision by a Russian court to seize the assets, which it valued at 2 billion rubles ($39 million).

Poroshenko, who is nicknamed the Chocolate King, promised when he was elected last May to sell Roshen, which takes its name from the middle two syllables of his surname and has annual sales of $1.2 billion.

The Russian invasion and resulting economic crisis have complicated the sales process and no deals have yet been announced.

Uber Launching Massive Same Day Delivery Network

Taxi smartphone app Uber is planning a major push into the same day delivery business, according to leaked training documents.

The merchant delivery program that would enable online shoppers to get same-day delivery of goods through both UberRush couriers and regular Uber drivers.

The program is launching in a pilot phase sometime in the next 4-5 weeks.

Reports are that Neiman Marcus, Louis Vuitton, Tiffany’s, Cohen’s Fashion Optical and Hugo Boss may all partake in the Uber Merchant Delivery program.

The scope of the program is evident in a report that there are over 400 different merchants currently in talks (or already testing) with Uber for same-day delivery.

It also appears that mobile shopping app Spring, developed by David Tisch, is part of the initial test of the platform.

Uber sent out a promotional email yesterday offering Spring + UberRush for a limited time for brands such as illesteva, Bing Bang Jewelry, Phyllis + Rosie, Mack Weldon, Jinsoon, Industry Standard, Outdoor Voices and Negative Underwear.

Spring is a good test partner for this type of service, as it already uses its own back-end for merchants to list the precise amount and type of inventory available on the Spring platform at any given time. partnered with Uber’s merchant program, those same vendors just have to list the daily available inventory as opposed to weekly or monthly.

Traditional retailers, such as Neiman Marcus or Tiffany’s, will have a much harder time transitioning to a system that requires data around exact inventory that is available locally throughout the day. Such systems have traditionally been batch processed at the end of the day, once all sales are complete. To run a proper local delivery service the inventory would need to be updated in real-time.

Uber issued the following statement: “Experimenting and finding new, creative ways for the Uber app to provide even greater value to our riders and driver partners is a way of life at Uber. We have been piloting UberRUSH with multiple retailers for the last year.”

While technically true the leaked manual indicates broader ambitions by the company, since there is now a separate app just for merchant deliveries.

It appears that Uber drivers and couriers are currently taking orders through a different app (and a separate phone) than the one they use to receive regular UberRUSH orders. Eventually Uber will likely just have one app running on one phone to streamline the process.

Uber has already been going deeper into the delivery space, with investments in delivering fresh produce via UberFresh, as well as UberEats in Chicago and New York (already available in Los Angeles and Barcelona), letting users order curated meals for lunch and dinner that are delivered by UberEats drivers.

The merchant program is targeting higher-end brands with a current online retail presence, offering the ability to deliver inventory that is locally available on the same day that a customer places the order. All for a fee, naturally.

It was reported that Uber’s original plan for merchant delivery focused on large e-commerce retailers like Amazon and eBay, but the company found that sourcing inventory from warehouses wasn’t worth it. Picking up inventory from local stores, on the other hand, was more feasible as long as the vendor has control over the amount and type of inventory available in a single day.

While the logistics of same day delivery are difficult, Uber already has the necessary infrastructure with its vast network of drivers and couriers.

The scale at which Uber will launch this service will be unlike anything ever seen before in the tech or logistics space. It will mark a truly new era of delivery, where the many fragmented delivery networks offering various service levels will be challenged by a vast, single network with universal service level expectations.

Russian Nuclear Agency Wants To Triple Iranian Nuclear Capacity

Russia continues to interfere with world peace as revelations emerged that the deputy head of Russian nuclear energy company Rosatom met with the deputy head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization for talks about a power plant expansion and eventual transfer of the plants to Iran.

Russia and Iran spoke about the construction of a second and third unit at the Bushehr nuclear power plant, as well as the transfer of control of the plant to Iran when limits on the country’s uranium enrichment activity expire.

The proposal would mean that full control of the plant will be handed over to Iran after Russia conducts inspections of Iranian-made nuclear fuel. The two new power plants are to be built within the next 10 years.

According to the comprehensive agreement on Iran’s nuclear program, tentatively reached on April 2, Iran’s fuel production will be limited for 10 years and its enriched uranium stocks will be limited for 15 years.

“Questions regarding the construction of new Russian-designed nuclear power plant units, as well as cooperation in related fields were discussed in detail,” Rosatom said in a statement.

The two new units will have reactors of the improved water-water design and will produce 1,000 megawatts each, tripling Iran’s nuclear power production capacity once in operation.

The does not appear to be aimed at creating nuclear weapons but the timing is troublesome as the current agreement with Iran is tenuous and could yet be undone. Russia’s interference will not help the international agenda which would prefer Iran refrain from all nuclear activities on account of its hostile foreign policies and weak governance structure.

Former Fed Chairman Joins Another Hedge Fund

In what is surely a conflict of interest, as shown by the fact his lawyers vetted and structured the arrangement, former Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke is joining bond giant Pimco as a senior advisor.

The firm is seeking to generate a trading ‘edge’ to bolster its returns following the departure of cofounder Bill Gross.

The move is being questioned by competitors who had previously criticized the Fed during Bernanke’s reign for being too close to Pimco. The critics suggested the Newport Beach, California-based firm had an advantage in interpreting monetary policy.

The latest move is no doubt going to stoke those concerns.

The very same allegations have been leveled against high frequency trading firm Citadel, where Mr. Bernanke is also working as an adviser.

The fact Mr Bernanke joins two of the largest, most powerful firms on Wall St. show how problematic the revolving door is between government and industry. Both firms, more than others, rely on information from the Fed to make investment decisions.

The timing and back-story to what should be public information is critical to their success. The fact Mr Bernanke chose these two exposes both the Fed and each firm to allegations of favoritism, insider trading and otherwise rigging the deck.

Both Pimco, which oversees $1.59 trillion in assets as of March 31, and Bernanke declined to say how much he would be paid but did say he will be attending every Pimco quarterly meeting of top executives.

He is unlikely to come cheap, though, given he received as much as $250,000 for a single speaking engagement last year.

In late 2008, the Fed hired Pimco, along with three other big Wall Street firms, to implement enormous purchases of agency mortgage-backed securities to keep interest rates low and spur the US economy. Pimco also managed the commercial-paper assets for the Fed during that period.

Bernanke’s lawyers, Robert Barnett and Michael O’Connor of Williams & Connolly LLP, were the architects of the Pimco arrangement. Barnett and O’Connor are said to also have brokered Greenspan’s advisory deal with Pimco, the source added.

Massive Forest Fire Could Turn Radioactive

Around 400 hectares of woodland is on fire in the exclusion zone around Chernobyl, according to reports from Russian media. While the Ukrainian government claims the fire is “contained,” experts fear the mass burning of radioactive plants has the potential to “resuspend” radioactive particles in the surrounding air.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk played down fears on Wednesday, saying that firefighters had contained the large forest fire and radiation levels in the area were normal. While the words are comforting they are not the most trustworthy, as in virtually all nuclear disasters officials have said the same thing only to later be disproven time and again. Radiation showing up in a children’s park near Fukushima, Japan, is the latest example.

The fires in Ukraine have threatened to spread toward the abandoned Chernobyl nuclear power plant as high winds pushed it toward the plant about 20 km (12 miles) away.

Authorities suspected the fire was started deliberately and had tightened security around the exclusion zone. The Russian military, operating under disguise as ‘rebels’, likely started the fire as their war with Ukraine escalates.

A fire raged at the plant for 10 days after the reactor meltdown 1986, sending huge amounts of radioactive material into the surrounding environment and over large parts of Europe, particularly Ukraine, Belarus and Russia.

The area around the plant was evacuated and a 30km (19 mile) exclusion zone remains in place to this day. Work on laying a new seal over the damaged reactor began in 2007 and is due to be completed this year.

Google To Fund Movies, Youtube Channels To Stay Relevant

Netflix, Hulu, Roku, HBO Go and specialist sites like Vevo are all taking a chunk out of Youtube, the once massive online video website. Even Facebook and industry laggard Yahoo are getting a piece of the action.

In a move to stem the flow of content producers switching channels, Google Inc.’s YouTube will directly invest in new shows to be launched in partnerships with its four top content creators, it said in a blog on Tuesday.

The move would see it copy a strategy employed by industry heavyweight Netflix and others such as Amazon and Yahoo.

The world’s No. 1 online video website also said it reached an agreement with DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc. unit AwesomenessTV to release feature films, sometime within the next two years.

The partnerships help YouTube, which turned 10 years old last week, secure higher quality advertising as it transitions from a repository home videos to a site with more polished content.

YouTube has been competing to lure more premium video advertising in order to boost margins as overall prices for Google’s ads have been declining.

While the website attracts more than 1 billion unique visitors a month, far surpassing those of Netflix Inc. and Amazon Inc., it makes considerably less of these users than its rivals with higher quality content.

Google did not disclose how much it was investing or how the partnerships would be structured. Knowing Google the structures are likely complicated and are more of a test than a completely new initiative.

The investment marks a significant change in strategy for YouTube and reflects the economics that advertisers want brands associated with high quality, desirable, content rather than homemade movies.

YouTube and AwesomenessTV, a channel aimed at teens and younger adults known as millennials, expect to roll out their first film this fall.

Justice Department Investigating Town That Preys On Its Poor

Last week, the Department of Justice (DOJ) said that it was investigating the rural Louisiana town of Ville Platte, specifically the police department and the Evangeline Parish Sheriff’s Office. It is looking into allegations that the officers detain residents in their jails without proper cause.

This is the first time the DOJ has opened a “pattern or practice investigation” exclusively into the practice of improper detentions. Under this type of probe, the Justice Department looks for constitutional violations. Should it find any, the department has the power to sue law enforcement agencies to correct them.

It’s not yet clear whether a specific incident prompted the investigation. The DOJ refuses to comment on the origins of investigations targeting law enforcement due to possibility of retribution against those who complained.

In its announcement, the DOJ said it was looking into allegations that law enforcement in Ville Platte improperly keep people in jail under “investigative holds”, effectively detaining them without charges while officials investigate a crime.

A Monetary Gold Mine for the City

Civil-rights activists in Louisiana say the improper detentions are only a piece of a broader problem in Ville Platte, a city in which residents are cited for frivolous violations, excessively fined and put in jail if they cannot pay.

It’s a system that is similar to what Justice Department officials found in Ferguson, Mo., where the police department, at the urging of the city, regularly ticketed mostly African-American residents for violations like “manner of walking in roadway,” and then channeled that money into the city coffers. Those who we unable to pay were sent to jail.

The major difference is that in Ferguson, DOJ officials didn’t start out looking for what they ultimately found to be an entrenched, discriminatory system of fees and fines.

Ville Platte, a town of roughly 7,400, has a well-documented history of ticketing and jailing residents for improper reasons.

Arthur Sampson, a war veteran and a retired local NAACP leader, said that he had filed complaints with the Justice Department for years about the practice.

In 2011, he filed a lawsuit with the American Civil Liberties Union over a curfew the city had imposed. The law required pedestrians — but not drivers — to be indoors after 10 p.m. or face jail time or a $200 fine, a measure that disproportionately impacted low-income residents.

Under the curfew, people we not permitted to walk their dogs, go to the corner store or visit their friends at night, unless they had a car.

Police soon started making arrests, sweeping up “hundreds” of residents every night just for being outside. The mayor, Jennifer Vidrine, said she had imposed the curfew in response to a series of car break-ins, and that it would last for 60 days. The city council extended it three times.

The new fines from curfew violators created a “monetary windfall for the city,” the complaint said, “and thus, a tremendous incentive to continue the curfew.”

It’s readily apparent that justice is not being served in Ville Platte, the question is how deep the rot is and how severe the abuses of justice have been. Expect to hear more developments in this story over the coming months.

Anger Grows Over Disney Use Of Foreign Workers

Near the end of last October, IT employees at Walt Disney Parks and Resorts were called, one-by-one, into conference rooms to be told of their layoffs. At each meeting an executive read from a script informing the worker that their last day would be Jan. 30, 2015.

Workers left the rooms crying or in shock. This went on all day. As each employee received a call to go to a conference room, others in the office looked up with pained expressions.

What followed is a story of competing narratives about the role of H-1B workers versus Americans in our economy.

Disney CEO Bob Iger is one of eight co-chairs of a leading group advocating for an increase in the H-1B visa cap. This is a powerful lobby group which last Friday was a sponsor of an H-1B briefing at the U.S. Capitol for congressional staffers. The briefing was closed to the press but pushed for more immigrant workers on special visas.

One of the briefing documents handed out at the congressional forum made the startling claim: “H-1B workers complement – instead of displace – U.S. Workers.” It claimed that as employers use foreign workers to fill “more technical and low-level jobs, firms are able to expand” and allow U.S. workers “to assume managerial and leadership positions.”

This is patently not the case.

Disney says its restructuring wasn’t about displacing American workers. Yet it proceeded to contract out the fired workers’ roles to HCL and Cognizant, firms which employ an army of H1-B and H1-L visa holders.

Employers prefer visa workers than regular Americans because they pay them less and employees are easier to control. There is no pushing for raises and its difficult for employees to leave one company for another. This means they’re cheaper to hire.

When Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Amazon and Disney all agree on something you know its bad for American workers and everyday Americans. These companies are locked in vicious battles to the death and any time they agree on something it means main street Americans are losing something.

In this case its jobs. Lots of them. By allowing companies to hire foreign workers we reduce the incentive to train domestic ones. Nobody will invest in skill development if they can import already trained workers.

The increased use of visas also means less rights for employees, both through visa-hostage situations and the use of contractors rather than employees.

People are right to criticize Disney, as they are Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and others. The push for more visas isn’t about lack of skills. Its about greedy billionaires wanting to make more money, Americans be damned.

Saudis Bomb Yemeni Airport To Prevent Iran Arms Shipment

A Saudi-led coalition carried out at least seven separate airstrikes on the Yemen international airport on Tuesday, crippling the airport in order to prevent an Iranian airplane from landing, according to both Saudi and Yemeni officials.

The airstrikes targeted the main runway, destroying one of Yemen’s last usable airports and a major transit point for global aid shipments. An airport official confirmed the damage had made it impossible to use the runway.

The bombings show the extent to which Yemen has become trapped in the escalating proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Saudi Arabia began its bombing campaign against the Houthi rebel movement last month in large part to combat what Saudi officials saw as the influence of Iran, which has supported the Houthis.

Yemen’s airspace and seas have been completely controlled by the Saudi-led coalition since the beginning of the offensive. The UN Security Council has also imposed an arms embargo on the Houthis.

A Saudi military spokesman said that the Iranian airplane had not coordinated its landing in Sana with the coalition authorities and had ignored warnings to turn back.

Suspicion is that the plane was carrying arms or other illicit supplies for the rebels, despite Iran claiming it contained medical supplies.

The drastic measures highlight the Saudi resolve to deny advantage to rebel groups.

The bombing of the airport threatens what had been one of Yemen’s precious few lifelines for international aid shipments. Shortages of medicine, food, fuel and other supplies are chronic in the small country.

Relief officials warn that the shortages are causing a humanitarian disaster. The UN said on Monday that hospitals in Yemen will shut down within seven days unless they receive more fuel.

On Tuesday, the UN released new data showing that the number of people displaced because of the war had more than doubled in less than two weeks, to 300,000 people from an estimated 150,000 people 11 days ago.

One Arrested As 60 Black Teens Rampage Through Charleston Streets

As many as 60 teens were prowling Charleston streets, randomly attacking pedestrians and drivers early Sunday, witnesses told dispatchers in 911 calls released Tuesday.

All the teens were black, according to witnesses, and all of the people attacked were white.

It’s still unclear if the attacks were racially motivated or sparked by the unrest in Baltimore, which followed the recent shooting death of Walter Scott, a black man, by a white North Charleston police officer.

Investigators have so far been unable to determine a motive, according to Charleston Police Department spokesman Charles Francis.

James Johnson, who has led local protests after Scott’s shooting death, said he had not heard any explanation for the teens’ behavior.

“The Walter Scott incident is fresh in their minds, and then there’s Baltimore,” he said. “But there’s no telling. It could be just spur of the moment. I’m hoping we can find out. Whatever it is, we’ve got to go to the root of the problem so it doesn’t happen again.”

The teens were spotted leaving a party at the YWCA on Coming Street about 12:30 a.m. and hit the streets.

The motto of the YWCA is “Empowering Women and Eliminating Racism.” The group sponsors the annual local celebration of Martin Luther King Jr., who preached nonviolence.

Dot Scott, the leader of the Charleston chapter of the NAACP, said she had not heard anything to explain why the teens went on a rampage but was disturbed by it.

“I have no idea whatsoever,” she said. “It just seems unusual that folks would attack people that way. It’s atypical.”

The number of teens on the prowl is bigger than initially estimated, and the 911 calls released Tuesday show some of the terror the mob caused.

One suspect, Jordan Hall, has been arrested in the disturbing incident which resulted in dozens of 911 calls, including a man who called from his car and said he was being blocked by about 50 teens.

“They just smacked my car,” he told the operator. “I’m flooring it in reverse. This is just ridiculous. … I’m getting the hell out of here, man. They just smacked another car.”

He then went on to detail the group beating a man.

“They’ve got a dude down on the ground,” he said. “There’s like five of them punching the dude. … There’s a guy taunting me. I couldn’t make the green light because he was standing in the intersection taunting me. It’s pretty terrifying, man.”

The incident marks an ugly spate of racially charged violence that divides and polarizes underlying issues rather than addressing them.

What White House Spending $367,258 On Fine Dinnerware Says About Our Country

At Tuesday’s state dinner with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the Obama family finally got to use dinnerware of their own design.

The cost? $367,258, about double the cost of the average American house.

The Obama state china service, a 320 11-piece place settings made by Pickard China of Antioch, Illinois, was introduced Monday.

It even got its own media preview in the State Dining Room. The event was so packed, in fact, there was concern that the mass of TV cameras and pushy reporters might knock over and break the dishes, which are delicate gold-rimmed stemware and massive centerpieces of cherry blossoms and orchids.

The Obama china has been in the works for about a year. The $367,258 cost of the china, all 3,520 pieces, was supposedly paid for by private funds, but is nonetheless extraordinarily excessive.

The tableware, of which the White House has many lovely sets commissioned by previous Presidents, is the ultimate self glorification by President’s and their wives. It shows the colossal ego and lack of humility by our elected leader.

It also shows how out of touch politicians are with regular, working class Americans. To spend such a lavish sum on such a ridiculously priced item highlights that America’s politicians have well and truly lost touch with voters.

It also shows how the institution of President has become a monarchy, where those who hold the office are treated like royalty rather than the elective representative of the people that they are.

Regardless of who paid for this indulgence it is money that could have been spent elsewhere and instead has been used to send a message to the people of America: your leaders are better than you and they want the world to know it.

North Korea Wages Bloody Crackdown To Consolidate Power

South Korea’s top spy agency told the country’s lawmakers on Wednesday that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has ordered the execution of at least 15 senior officials this year.

The officials were accused of challenging his authority.

National Intelligence Service chief Lee Byoung also told legislators in a closed-door briefing that Kim appeared likely to visit Russia in May to attend the 70th anniversary of its victory over Nazi Germany in World War II.

How the intelligence agency obtained the information is classified but South Korea is known to have the most extensive intelligence operations inside the hermit kingdom.

Since taking over the throne after the death of his father Kim Jong Il in 2011, Kim has systematically executed key members of the old guard through a series of bloody purges.

The process was highlighted by the 2013 execution of his uncle, Jang Song Thaek, for crimes against the state. Jang was married to Kim Jong Il’s sister and was at one point considered the second most powerful official in North Korea.

Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the Seoul-based University of North Korean Studies, said the purges underline Kim Jong Un’s inexperience and his struggle to find effective ways to control his regime.

At the briefing lawmakers were told that a North Korean official with a rank comparable to a vice Cabinet minister was executed in January for questioning Kim’s forestry policies. Dictators of North Korea have a history of ruling by edict and do not tolerate debate or discussion.

Another official of similar rank was executed in February for resisting Kim’s plans to construct a new building in the shape of a flower named after his grandfather, North Korean founder Kim Il Sung.

South Korea believes that North Korea used a firing squad in March to execute four senior members of Pyongyang’s famous Unhasu Orchestra on charges of espionage which Lee did not detail.

Kim’s planed trip to Moscow would be his first overseas trip since taking power. South Korean President Park Geun-hye, who is increasingly weary of North Korea’s erratic positioning, has decided not to attend the May 9 event in Moscow and plans to send an envoy instead.

North Korea’s dictatorship means it is engaged in a constant internal power struggle, leading to external actions designed more to address internal struggles than advance the kingdom’s international agenda. This makes North Korea related foreign policy difficult if not impossible, with most world power preferring a policy of heavy sanctions and isolationism until more rational leadership is in place.

Greece Edges Closer To Chaos As Finance Minister Attacked

Greece is teetering on the edge and things have begun to turn violent according to a new report this morning. A group of anarchists attacked Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis and his wife Danae at an Athens restaurant late on Tuesday. His wife hugged him to shield him from the attack, the finance ministry said.

The couple had finished having dinner with friends in the bohemian Exarchia district, perhaps a mistake given its the site of frequent protests by left-wing protesters. A mob entered the restaurant’s courtyard, telling them to leave “their area.”

The mob tried “for a few seconds to reach me without hitting her,” he said in the ministry statement.

Then “they retreated fast continuing their curses and threats, got out of the courtyard and waited for us outside the restaurant,” Varoufakis added.

While the outspoken economist has won fans in Greece for opposing austerity policies he has also garnered criticism at home for his brash style and a celebrity photo shoot in a French magazine. He has also failed to effectively manage the country’s finances and was recently sidelined from negotiations with the EU.

The violent incident highlights just how dissatisfied Greeks are at their government and their economic position. With solution to either of these issues in the immediate future the sparks of violence set a dangerous precedent for the coming weeks.

Drug Market Kingpin Denied Retrial, Will Spend Life In Jail

A U.S. federal judge has rejected convicted Silk Road operator Ross Ulbricht’s request for a new trial, despite his attorneys’ claims of inappropriate conduct on the part of government agents and prosecutors.

“The evidence of Ulbricht’s guilt was, in all respects, overwhelming,” an unsympathetic District Judge Katherine Forrest wrote in a Monday ruling. “It went unrebutted” she said.

Joshua Dratel, Ulbricht’s lead attorney, argued that the reason his defense was so lacking was because the government had left him with no time to adequately prepare. While this was somewhat true, given the massive resources the federal government threw at the case, it is only part of the issue.

Dratel was left scrambling to come up with a new strategy after the court rejected his original line of argument, which contributed hugely to the poor defense.

Dratel spent the initial phase of Ulbricht’s trial trying to construct a tenuous defense in which he claimed Ulbricht, 30, was just a fall guy for shadowy third parties. The true mastermind behind Silk Road, he alleged, was defunct bitcoin exchange Mt Gox founder Mark Karpeles. Karpeles could well be behind Silk Road, given he profited hugely from it and appears to be one of the largest fraudsters in modern times. His exchange has filed for bankruptcy with hundreds of millions of dollars ‘missing’.

Prosecutors objected to the fall guy tactic midway into Dratel’s presentation, arguing that it relied on testimony that amounted to “hearsay” and “hunches,” rather than witnesses’ testimony. Judge Forrest agreed and ruled all such testimony inadmissible.

Ulbricht will now spend the rest of his life in prison, in a sentence that has been widely criticized and highly politicized. The message is clear: the feds hate drugs and anyone who dares market them online will face penalties well in excess of normal, and already overly harsh, drug laws.

New EU Regulations Mean Cars Will Spy On You

In another blow to individual privacy the European Union has enacted strict laws that now force car manufacturers to track and submit loads of data about their driver to authorities. While supposedly for safety purposes there is no regulation on what that data can and cannot be used for, nor is there a limit to what can be collected.

Your car, already spying on you by keeping lots of data about your movements, will now upload it back to central government servers.

The official statement is that new cars sold in the EU from March 2018 will have to phone the government if they think they’ve been in a crash. But this is likely only part of what will happen.

The so-called eCall proposal has found favor with the EU Commission who will automatically dispatch emergency services if your car starts to upload data.

The calls will take place over cellular networks, meaning your car will permanently be connected to these networks 24/7. This would allow government spy agencies to record every movement of your vehicle as well as record conversations happening inside the passenger cabin. Such ‘features’ will be built into the vehicle systems starting in 2018.

In an accident, as opposed to general spying, the system is triggered by the same sensor as an airbag.

The law has been roundly criticized for being a flow to privacy and was successfully held up for years. Like most privacy issues, however, this too was slowly and methodically worked through government so that the spy agencies finally got their way. The passage raises serious questions, in light of the NSA spying on our elected officials, about whether spy agencies are now able to circumvent democracy and force through legislation that is not backed by the popular vote.

Apple Watch Doesn’t Work With Tattooed Wrists

Numerous hipsters, known for their comprehensive use of tattoo body art, have reported serious issues using their Apple Watches, according to forum posts since the launch.

It seems the watch’s wrist sensor, which changes what is display on the screen based on its contact with your skin, does not work if placed over top of tattoos. It’s a vital component to using the watch.

In a typically vague response, Apple explained that the Watch uses LEDs to detect how much blood is flowing through your veins, but that a number factors can mean the device won’t get a reading.

Based on the online reports it appears the artificial pigments in tattoos are preventing the Watch from being able to see inside their veins, causing the device to assume it’s not being worn and therefore not issuing notifications and locking the screen.

Forum poster guinne55fan reports that the Watch is buggy in other ways, too.

“Overall I’m having other issues with it that are not tattoo related that I’m more upset about, spotty notifications with messages, no email notifications, I can receive calls on the watch but I can’t make them, those issues are bothering me more,” he wrote in the comments following his original post.

The posts are the latest revelation that users aren’t totally in love with the watches. Hype has been notably dimmer than usual for an Apple product launch, though journalists refuse to criticize the product too heavily because if they do, Apple will swiftly cut them off from any information flow or product demos in the future. The company treats journalists who critique its products very harshly, leading to a usually positive flow of information when it comes to product launches.

Samsung Overtakes Apple As World’s Largest Smartphone Maker

New data from research firm research firm Strategy Analytics shows that Samsung Electronics Co Ltd overtook Apple Inc to recapture the title of world’s top smartphone maker by volume in the first quarter of 2015.

The news comes despite a strong sales of Apple’s iPhone 6 and a record quarter for the California based company. Samsung sold more phones but lost market share, highlighting just how fast the market is growing.

Strategy Analytics said Samsung shipped 83.2 million smartphones worldwide and captured 24 percent market share in the quarter, down from 31 percent a year earlier but better than Apple’s 18 percent.

“Samsung continued to face challenges in Asia and elsewhere, but its global performance has stabilized sufficiently well this quarter to overtake Apple and recapture first position as the world’s largest smartphone vendor by volume,” Strategy Analytics Executive Director Neil Mawston said in the release.

Both companies face stiff challenges by Chinese phone-makers who increasingly have global ambitions. Chinese firm Xiaomi recently launched a massive expansion into India, the second most populous country in the world.

Alibaba Re-Organization Reveals Dramatically Slowing Chinese Economy

In a very surprising move Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd is freezing hiring for the rest of the year because it has grown “too quickly”, according to Executive Chairman Jack Ma.

“Alibaba has really developed too quickly … this year our entire group headcount will not go up by one person,” Ma said, via Alibaba’s official messaging app Laiwang.

The company will replace employees who leave. “When one leaves, we’ll bring one in,” Ma stated.

The hiring freeze comes just a week ahead of Alibaba reporting March quarter earnings. In January, Alibaba, which handles more online business than American giants Amazon and eBay combined, reported slowing revenue growth.

Headcount had been growing fast at Alibaba. As of Dec. 31, 2014, the company reported a 63 percent increase from a year earlier.

Ma also announced a re-organization that would see the company consolidate its businesses into seven segments – e-commerce, Ant Financial, Cainiao logistics, big data and cloud computing, advertising, cross-border trade and other internet services.

The sudden turn of events shows just how much the Chinese economy is slowing. Some estimates peg GDP growth at under three percent, well shy of the six percent plus goal of the communist party. The current growth comes amid stimulus measures and questionable financing deals of state backed companies in order to spur growth.

The fact Alibaba is making such radical moves should give investors in China cause for concern. The company is a bellwether for the Chinese economy and if Alibaba is slowing down, in a sector that should be growing faster than the overall economy, the full economy could be deeply depressed.

Upset Residents Find Nepal Quake Response Lacking

As the death toll from the devastating earthquake in Nepal four days ago passed 5,000 on Wednesday, officials conceded they had made mistakes in their response. The mistakes left survivors stranded in remote villages waiting for aid and relief.

Over 200 Nepalis protested outside parliament in the capital of Kathmandu on Wednesday. They demanded the government increase the number of buses going to the interior hills of the country and improve distribution of aid.

“I haven’t been able to contact my family members in the village,” said Kayant Panday, who said he woke up at 4am to get a bus to a badly damaged area but was not able to get one. “There is no way I can get information whether they are dead or alive.”

The government has not fully assessed the devastation caused by Saturday’s 7.8 magnitude quake as it has been unable to reach many of the mountainous areas despite aid supplies and personnel pouring in from around the world.

Anger and frustrations are mounting, with many Nepalis sleeping under the starts using makeshift tents for a fourth night since the country’s worst earthquake in more than 80 years.

“This is a disaster on an unprecedented scale. There have been some weaknesses in managing the relief operation,” Nepal’s Communication Minister Minendra Rijal told media late on Tuesday.

“We will improve this from Wednesday.”

Higher Cable Prices Likely As FCC Set To Approve AT&T DirectTV Merger

Despite rejecting the proposed Comcast and Time Warner Cable merger on the grounds of reduced competition the FCC appears set to allow mergers of Internet and TV providers.

AT&T’s proposed $48.5 billion acquisition of DirecTV will likely win approval from the Federal Communications Commission, The Wall Street Journal reports.

It also appears likely to let Time Warner be acquired, but by Charter Communications instead of Comcast.

The FCC hasn’t publicly revealed any of its positions but according to sources the commission “sees the AT&T deal as helping competition and aiding the spread of broadband into rural areas that lack service”. The two goals seem at odds and likely mean urban customers will see increased prices while rural customers will see expanded service.

FCC officials haven’t yet finalized concessions that AT&T would have to make in exchange for approval, “but the commission’s staff is inclined to recommend the approval of the deal.”

These conditions could include expanding high-speed broadband access in rural areas, price guarantees for broadband-only customers, and commitments to net neutrality.

The Department of Justice is reviewing the merger as well and “has yet to raise any significant issues, people familiar with the matter said.”

AT&T said it expects to get final approval of the DirecTV merger by the end of June, according to its earnings announcement last week.

iPad Software Glitch Grounds American Airlines Flights

American airlines confirmed late Tuesday night that it had cancelled a number of flights due to an error with the digital map used by pilots in the cockpit.

“Some flights are experiencing an issue with a software application on pilot iPads,” American Airlines said in a press release. “In some cases, the flight has had to return to the gate to access a WiFi connection to fix the issue.”

Spokeswoman Andrea Huguely said that “more than a couple dozen flights” were cancelled.

“We apologize for the inconvenience to our customers,” American Airlines said. “We are working to have them on the way to their destination as soon as possible.”

The company blamed a faulty third-party app, not Apple itself.

American Airlines became the first airline, In 2013, to have its pilots rely entirely on iPads for flight planning and navigation. As plans get updated all the time the company cut down on lots of excess paper.

The airline has estimated the program saves the company at least 400,000 gallons of fuel every year. In total, 8,000 iPads replaced 24 million pages of documents.

The issue highlight that while neat technology can have large benefits software isn’t always reliable. Sometimes traditional methods, like ink and paper, are more reliable. Many airlines who have gone digital have extensive paper backup systems in case of such glitches.

Baltimore Now Stable As Only A Few Defy Curfew

Baltimore was calm last night thanks to thousands of police in riot gear and National Guard troops patrolling the city to enforce a curfew on Tuesday night. The troops dispersed protesters with pepper spray a day after the city was gripped by the worst rioting in the United States in years.

A heavy presences consisting of helicopters overhead and armored vehicles on the ground led most people to respect a curfew that starts at 10pm and goes until 5am all week.

A few hundred people defied authorities, gathering at an intersection that was the scene of heavy looting in the largely black city the night before.

Police broke up the protest using rubber bullets and projectiles with pepper spray. Seven people were arrested while three more were arrested elsewhere in the city.

Baltimore exploded in violence on Monday hours after the funeral for a black man who died April 19 after he was severely beaten while in police custody a week earlier.

China Passes U.S. To Become Apple’s Fastest Growing Market

Apple used to dislike questions about China, a politically sensitive example of a rare instance in which the company under-performed. Now that’s all changed as Apple announced Tuesday that China has officially passed the U.S. as Apple’s fastest growing iPhone market. It’s revenues were still slightly behind the U.S. market however.

Fiscal second quarter revenue in the country, which got a boost from the Chinese New Year in February, soared 70 percent to a record $16.8 billion from $9.84 billion a year ago.

China was the sole region detailed in Apple’s earnings report in which March sales topped those of the first quarter, though by a meager 4 percent. The country also surpassed Europe to become the second-biggest revenue generator overall after the Americas, which recorded $21.3 billion in sales.

Apple doesn’t actually break out iPhone sales in individual regions but Apple CEO Cook noted Monday during a conference call that iPhone sales jumped more than 70 percent in Greater China during the period.

While markets such as the U.S. tend to buy more devices for the holidays at the end of the calendar year, China tends to spend more around its New Year in February.

“It was an incredible quarter,” Cook said during the call with analysts. “I’ve never seen as many people coming into the middle class as they are in China, and that’s the bulk of our sales, and we’re really proud and continue to invest in the country.”

But smartphones sales in developed markets slow and so regions such as China become more important to the company. China became the world’s largest smartphone market in 2011 and now has almost 520 million smartphone users.

Apple has been working hard to gain market share in the country by reaching deals with major carriers in the region. It’s been willing, unlike Google, to make rights and values concessions to the Chinese communist party. Google does little business in China due to human rights and freedom on expression abuses.

An agreement with the world’s largest carrier, China Mobile, in January 2014 gave Apple access to more than 800 million subscribers though the cost to individual freedom remains to be seen.

China came close to passing the U.S. as Apple’s biggest iPhone market in the first quarter. The company generated $16.1 billion in revenue in China in the period, up 70 percent from the same time a year ago. Mainland China sales more than doubled from the previous year.

Analysts at Trefis wrote last week that Apple’s fiscal second quarter would “be all about China.”

“We believe that iPhone sales in Greater China will be the biggest driver of quarterly earnings given the Chinese New Year shopping season that occurred in February, China Mobile’s rapid 4G user additions and an improved supply-demand balance for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, both of which remained undersupplied over the previous quarter,” they said last week.

In 2011 Apple made $12.5 billion from China the entire year. The year prior, it made only $2.8 billion. China’s sales in the 2014 fiscal year totaled $29.8 billion.

Along with the iPhone, second-quarter Mac, iPad and Apple Store sales also were very strong in China. Mac sales jumped about 31 percent, the CEO said during the earnings call, while the App Store more than doubled to a record quarter.

Nepal Death Toll Expected To Pass 10,000

As the smoke clears and rescuers reach out to distant villages the death toll is expected to rise considerably in Nepal, Americans.org has learned.

Nepal’s prime minister said Tuesday the death toll from the catastrophic earthquake that rocked the country Saturday will likely reach 10,000. The United Nations estimated 8 million people have been affected.

Prime Minister Sushil Koirala made the statement to Reuters as he appealed for tents and medicine. He also ordered rescue efforts to be stepped up in case survivors were still trapped. International aid has already begun flowing into the country.

The death toll from the 7.8 magnitude quake has soared past 4,600. Hundreds of thousands of people are sleeping outdoors and living in the open out of fear of being inside unstable buildings amid aftershocks. Compounding problems were heavy rains on Tuesday in the capital of Kathmandu. The downpour forced people to find shelter wherever they could.

Gautam Rimal, an official in rural Nepal, said 250 additional people are believed missing following a mudslide and avalanche in the isolated village of Ghodatabela, not far from the center of the quake.

The quake killed at least 61 people in India, and 25 were reported dead in Tibet as tremors from the quake rippled across the region.

Is Social Media A Viable Business Model?

Twitter announced earnings today and they were terrible. The company missed on revenue and user metrics were weak (we’ll look at that closer below).

First the highlights:

Twitter’s first quarter revenue hit $436 million, missing expectations of $456 million. The company cited foreign exchange impacts took 6% out of annual revenue growth.

Twitter’s first quarter adjusted earnings came in at $0.07, better than the $0.04 that was expected. But these still aren’t GAAP numbers and so they’re rather meaningless.

Average monthly active users totaled 302 million in the first quarter, in-line with expectation, up 18% from the prior year and up from 288 million in the previous quarter.

Average mobile monthly active users were 80% of the monthly active user total.

On the surface, the number don’t seem terrible. But the chart everyone seems to be looking at (below) shows the real negative trend here.

The growth in ad engagement has fallen off considerably. While still growing, the steepness of the curve (which can be seen in lower revenue numbers) is troubling. Users are essentially rejecting ads on the platform. It seems as though Twitter hasn’t created an ad product that is accepted by users. The more prevalent ads get, the more users dislike them, according to the data.

And this makes it expensive for advertisers to reach audiences. The cost per engagement is up on Twitter – never what an advertiser wants to see. This means its more expensive to reach a user and thus the ad campaign is more inefficient.

In a perfect world, this would mean ad prices are going up and Twitter is making more money. But that’s not happening – revenues are down. This means that users are just more blind to ads and thus forcing advertisers to pay more.

twtr ad engage

The Twitter numbers bring back an interesting point made by Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel, who incedentally, may have missed out on his chance to IPO

When the market for tech stocks cools, Facebook market cap will plummet, access to capital for unproven businesses will become inaccessible, and ad spend on user acquisition will rapidly decrease – compounding problems for Facebook and driving stock even lower. Instagram may be only saving grace if they are able to ramp advertising product fast enough. Total internet advertising spend cannot justify outsized valuations of social media products that derive revenue from advertising. Feed-based advertising units will plummet in value (in the case of Twitter, advertising spend may not move beyond experimental dollars) similar to earlier devaluing of Internet display advertising.

While the comment could apply to Facebook, perhaps it extends to all social networks. When innovation curves are so rapid and markets are expanding so fast, is it possible for anyone to win economically or will users just go to the next big thing at the slightest excuse?

U.S. Dispatches Destroyer After Iran Seizes Cargo Ship

A U.S. Navy destroyer has rushed to the area of a confrontation Tuesday between Iranian warships and a Marshall Islands-flagged cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz. The move comes amid increased tensions in the area over the conflict in Yemen, the Pentagon is reported to have said.

The USS Farragut rushed to the scene after an Iranian vessel fired warning shots across the bow of the M/V Maersk Tigris while it was in Iranian waters, according to Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman.

The shots were fired after the cargo ship refused orders to head further into Iranian waters, Col. Warren said.

After the shots were fired, the cargo ship changed course and complied with the order. The ship was directed to Larak Island by Iranian vessels, he said. Iranian sailors from the Iranian vessel then boarded the ship. Presently the ship is under the control of Iranian forces, officials said.

The U.S. Navy sent the Farragut and U.S. planes to keep watch on the confrontation in response. The ship is currently under U.S. surveillance.

After being accosted by the Iranians, the cargo ship issued a distress call on an open radio channel. Officials at the U.S. 5th Fleet Headquarters directed the Farragut and the Navy planes in response.

Col. Warren said the action by Iranian forces to fire shots at the cargo ship was inappropriate.

”At first appearance this does seem to be provocative behavior but we don’t have all the facts yet,” he said.

The Iranian vessels who fired the shots weren’t part of the regular Iranian Navy but were part of the more hardline Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps naval force. Ships under the command of the IRGC have been involved in a number of provocative incidents in the Persian Gulf during recent years, according to U.S. officials.

There are believed to be about three dozen crew members on the cargo ship, none of them American, according to officials.

Col. Warren stated that the Tigris was in a shipping lane, but also inside Iranian waters when it was confronted by the Iranian vessels. Col. Warren said the maritime navigation principle known as “innocent passage” should have been applied which would have allowed the cargo vessel to pass through the strait.

The confrontation comes amid increased tensions in the region due to Saudi Arabia’s ongoing military operations against Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen.

The U.S. Navy sent an aircraft carrier into the region to keep watch on an Iranian flotilla that American officials suspected of carrying weapons bound for Houthi forces in Yemen, late last week. President Obama warned Iran not to try to arm the militants in Yemen, and the cargo vessels turned back toward Iran, averting a potential confrontation in Gulf of Aden.

The Iranian flotilla is still loitering in the Arabian Sea and Pentagon officials are still keeping watch to make sure it does not turn back and try to head toward Yemen.

The flotilla has now turned east and is heading toward the Strait of Hormuz, Col. Warren said Tuesday.

Indonesia Defies World Anger And Executes 8 Drug Smugglers

Eight convicted drug smugglers were executed by firing squad in Indonesia Wednesday morning. The executions took place in Besi prison on the island of Nusakambangan.

A ninth execution, a woman from the Philippines, was postponed at the last minute.

Among those killed this morning were Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran. The men’s families were allowed to see them for the last time before they died.

Australia had vocally appealed to Indonesia to delay the executions citing alleged flaws in the Indonesian legal process.

The executed also include Nigerian nationals, a Brazilian and an Indonesian.

Relatives were visibly distressed and one’s sister collapsed and had to be carried to the prison.

Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop had strongly urged Indonesia to delay the execution of its two nationals until a corruption investigation into their case was complete.

Indonesia has some of the toughest drug laws in the world and ended a four-year moratorium on executions in 2013 despite international condemnation.

It claims it takes a hard line because of the country’s own drugs problem – 33 Indonesians die every day as a result of drugs, according to Indonesia’s National Narcotics Agency.

The policy reversal goes against the international trend of abolishing the death penalty, which is viewed as inhuman and vindictive. It’s also shown to be an ineffective tool in crime prevention.