Stephen Roach, the longtime chief economist and now Asia head of the investment bank Morgan Stanley has grave concerns about Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s just-announced term extension

In a commentary for Britain’s Financial Times, Roach, who for years was the only Wall Street economist to warn sharply of an approaching crisis (A Bad Omen), called Barak Obama’s nomination of Bernanke for another term "a very short-sighted decision". Although Bernanke had been quite preserved during the crisis, one should not forget the contribution Bernanke had made to the emergence of the crisis: "It is like praising a proven quack for the invention of a miracle cure."

Bernanke is responsible for three critical errors, the most serious of which is that he, like his predecessor Alan Greenspan, held the "philosophical conviction" that central banks should ignore speculative bubbles. According to this doctrine, the task of the central bank in this respect is exclusively to break up the bubble after it has burst. After the bursting of the New Economy bubble in 2000, the cleanup consisted of flooding the financial markets with liquidity from 2001 to 2003, which contributed significantly to the "deadly mix of credit and real estate bubbles.

Special session of the General Assembly to vote on the Jerusalem resolution. Image: UN Photo/Manuel Elias

With an overwhelming majority, the UN General Assembly approved a resolution condemning the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital by the USA

U.S. President Donald Trump failed grandly at the United Nations when the White House threatened to cut off funding to all states that agreed to a resolution on Jerusalem at the General Assembly. Trump naively amed that his move to declare Jerusalem as Israel’s capital was confirmed with American power. Now the U.S. government can see the threat as a test of how much power the U.S. can still wield, or rather, how much power it has. how isolated it has become under Trump.

The – fictional – working day of a young politician outlines numerous elements that have ensured the digitalization of political communication and the emergence of the new field of politics in the past two years "Net policy" have ensured

The day for Stefanie K. begins early, already around 6.30 o’clock, the offspring makes itself felt: Diapering, dressing and preparing porridge are the most important tasks at dawn. Well, if you’re already awake, you can also check the first mails and tweets on your smartphone. The colleague M. is attending the convention of a friendly party in the U.S. to learn about the latest achievements in political campaigning, his impressions and real-time news have been in his inbox for a couple of hours.

"These devices are actually getting smarter and smarter, the web is everywhere and not just at the desk as it used to be", thinks K. And of course, so is the daily work routine. The flow of news has become permanent. It’s no longer just the electronic mail scattered throughout the day that perforates the diary, but also the real-time communication via short message services such as Twitter or in social networks such as Facebook, MySpace or Who-knows-who that pummels users as digital constant fire.

Multi-event with exhibition, conference, website poses important questions of digital culture and is entertaining at the same time

A concerted offer on several levels offers the multi-event organized by Public Netbase in Vienna "Synworld". Applications of Artificial Intelligence technologies in games will be shown as well as high-tech art by Ulrike Gabriel, Knowbotic Research and Keisuke Oki. A whole series of artists from the Net.Art Lager has created works based on the Unreal Game Engine, with programming support from t0/Public Netspace, but universities and architects are also in the program. Game and military technologies, 3D simulations and information design ies related to architecture and urbanity are addressed. The website is more than just an exhibition catalog and offers its own sphere of experience. However, the typical Austrian design in techno-constructivism look devours quite a bit of bandwidth and has sold out to the plug-in devil. Whoever overcomes this hurdle will be rewarded with ample "Content" rewarded.

Tehran plays with prisoners, the USA sends third aircraft carrier group

The head of Israeli military intelligence Amos Yadlin reported to the Israeli cabinet yesterday that Iran, Syria and Hezbollah were preparing for war in Lebanon. They would expect an attack in the summer and prepare measures to defend themselves. At the same time that the German Chancellor spread optimism during her visit to the Middle East, Yadlin sees signs of growing instability in the region, the U.S. is deploying another aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf and Russia is expecting an attack in April.

Israel must prepare for the possibility that the U.S. may soon withdraw troops from Iraq. Although the U.S. President intends to veto Congressional withdrawal plans, for Israel a foreseeable withdrawal next year that strengthens insurgents and extremists (not only in Iraq) could pose increased danger. In any case, Yadlin sees the quite realistic possibility that anarchy will finally break out in Iraq and the conflict between Shiites and Sunnis will continue to spread, which will also affect Lebanon and the relationship between Hamas and Hezbollah. According to Yadlin, Iran and Syria amed that the USA was planning an attack and that Israel would be involved. The developments would be closely monitored, because a war could break out due to the many parties involved, without this really being desired.

At the transition to Mexico, 6000 soldiers should be stationed according to planning the US government. Washington also reacts to the consequences of free trade

Unnamed Blaring Throws, High Security Fences, Infrared Cameras and Motion Detectors: The US government wants to massively rupture on the border with Mexico (billions for the virtual wall). With a corresponding envisment, Prasident George W dared. Bush in his last speech to the nation a burr hike: Half a year before the congress elections, he has to keep the important electoral layer of the Hispanics on the one hand on the one hand. On the other hand, the mostly feminine topshade in the Sudstatas demands a rigid approach to the illegal immigrants. Inner politics, Bush wants with its border plan the waves smooth. But at the international level, he threatens him.

US Prasident Bush visited the border with Mexico on Thursday to send the posting of 6,000 soldiers of the National Guard and the expansion of border worms. Image: Weibe’s house

In any case, preliminary and complementary

As has become the custom with genome discoveries, the rough press releases (and the articles in Science) are given before the real work (clumping the genes together) is done. What is available at the moment are very preliminary results that need to be verified and completed.

Two different research companies have taken care of rice genome decoding and published their results in Science. The first group took on the Indica subspecies; this project was sponsored by the Beijing Genome Institute, the Washington University Genome Center, and 11 other Chinese institutions. Indica is also in China the most widespread type of rice. Behind the second team was the Swiss organic company Syngenta. This team took care of the Japonica variety, which is particularly widespread in Japan.

Fears of terrorist attacks and a radicalized opposition are not only rife in Germany, but also in Turkey, Poland and Russia

Whether it is only due to the European Championship that several anti-terror laws have now been pushed through the parliaments is a matter of opinion. This may have been the case in Germany, where the governing coalition rushed a new anti-terrorism package through the Bundestag amid protests from the fainting opposition. As a rule, the threat of terrorism is only used as a reason for the expansion of surveillance and intelligence desired by security politicians and authorities. to be able to enforce the restriction of citizens’ rights.

German intelligence services are now allowed to work even more closely with foreign intelligence services – "with important foreign partner services, especially those of neighboring countries and other EU or NATO member states" – and not only exchange data, but also create joint files to which all authorized authorities have unlimited access. The reason given is that the "Terrorism does not adhere to national borders, but works together in international structures", This must also be the case in the fight against terrorism. In addition, an identification requirement will soon be introduced for purchasers of prepaid mobile phone cards. The federal police are now allowed to use undercover investigators to avert danger rather than to prosecute offenders. And the Verfangsschutz may store data of minors in the age of 14 to 16 years, because to Syria also minors under 16 years had traveled.

Latin America is changing, Venezuelan Prasident Chavez is one of the main engines

The meeting last Thursday between the left Prasident Lula da Silva (Brazil), Nestor Kirchner (Argentina) and Hugo Chavez (Venezuela) in Brazil marks another step towards narrower integration on the Latin American continent. The construction of a gas pipeline was decided in a long of up to 10.000 kilometers from Venezuela to Brazil and Argentina.

In half a year, one wants to have the details of the construction of the gas pipeline, whose costs are scated to $ 20 billion. Bolivia should also be involved with the official improvement of the three prasides, where with Evo Morales has just also been elected a left prasident (way out of US dominance). Morales intends to nationalize the gas. Bolivia has the second graved gas deposit in Sudamerfika to Venezuela. Oberdies was decided to support the country through development projects. Also planned is the inclusion of Chile. With the pipeline, with which ol- and gas deposits are to be developed throughout the entire, the free trade zone Mercosur (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay), in which Venezuela wants to enter, is still closer together.

IP address lock required, parallel to the SOMM process

Also in Switzerland, an action of the law enforcement habits for headshudges in the Internet community. The Swiss Federal Police has asked about one hundred Swiss Internet service providers last week to lock ten racist websites abroad. In case of non-compliance, the providers have to use a process "due to hilface for the distribution of punishable content" calculate.

Official motif of action: