BBC ON THIS DAY | 3 | 1984: Hundreds die in Bhopal chemical accident 1984: Hundreds die in Bhopal chemical accident Hundreds of people have died from the effects of toxic gases which leaked from a chemical factory near the central Indian city of Bhopal. The accident happened in the early hours of this morning at the American-owned Union Carbide Pesticide Plant three miles (4.8 km) from Bhopal. Mr Y P Gokhale, managing director of Union Carbide in India, said that methyl isocyanate gas (MIC) had escaped when a valve in the plant's underground storage tank broke under pressure. This caused a deadly cloud of lethal gas to float from the factory over Bhopal, which is home to more than 900,000 people - many of whom live in slums. Chaos and panic broke out in the city and surrounding areas as tens of thousands of people attempted to escape. More than 20,000 people have required hospital treatment for symptoms including swollen eyes, frothing at the mouth and breathing difficulties. Bhopal resident, Ahmed Khan, said: "We were choking and our eyes were burning.
ppola Comment: The shoebox swindle It's morning in the charming little village of Britham. A man - let's call him John - goes into his local bank. "I want to borrow £1000", he says. "Let's see what we can do", says the bank manager. After close inspection of John's payslips and a few phone calls to local shops and tradesmen to check that John has always paid his bills and paid for his goods, the bank manager agrees to give him the loan. "l'll just sort that out for you now", he says. He disappears through the door into the back office. "Here you are", he says. John takes his shoebox to the bike shop to buy his son a bike for his birthday. Fred doesn't have £500 cash in the till, but he has another shoebox with an official bank stamp saying "£500" that someone gave him earlier. John takes the new shoebox to the grocer, where he buys his week's shopping and hands the shoebox over in payment. Armed with the shoebox that John gave him, Fred goes to the wholesaler to replenish his bike stocks. "I'VE BEEN SWINDLED!" "How much?"
Free access to British scientific research within two years | Science The government is to unveil controversial plans to make publicly funded scientific research immediately available for anyone to read for free by 2014, in the most radical shakeup of academic publishing since the invention of the internet. Under the scheme, research papers that describe work paid for by the British taxpayer will be free online for universities, companies and individuals to use for any purpose, wherever they are in the world. In an interview with the Guardian before Monday's announcement David Willetts, the universities and science minister, said he expected a full transformation to the open approach over the next two years. The move reflects a groundswell of support for "open access" publishing among academics who have long protested that journal publishers make large profits by locking research behind online paywalls. "This will take time to build up, but within a couple of years we should see this fully feeding through."
How a big US bank laundered billions from Mexico's murderous drug gangs | World news | The Observer On 10 April 2006, a DC-9 jet landed in the port city of Ciudad del Carmen, on the Gulf of Mexico, as the sun was setting. Mexican soldiers, waiting to intercept it, found 128 cases packed with 5.7 tons of cocaine, valued at $100m. But something else – more important and far-reaching – was discovered in the paper trail behind the purchase of the plane by the Sinaloa narco-trafficking cartel. During a 22-month investigation by agents from the US Drug Enforcement Administration, the Internal Revenue Service and others, it emerged that the cocaine smugglers had bought the plane with money they had laundered through one of the biggest banks in the United States: Wachovia, now part of the giant Wells Fargo. The authorities uncovered billions of dollars in wire transfers, traveller's cheques and cash shipments through Mexican exchanges into Wachovia accounts. Wachovia was put under immediate investigation for failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering programme.
Do Business Schools Incubate Criminals? The recent scandals at Barclays Plc, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and other banks might give the impression that the financial sector has some serious morality problems. Unfortunately, it’s worse than that: We are dealing with a drop in ethical standards throughout the business world, and our graduate schools are partly to blame. Consider, for example, the revelations about two top executives at the elite consulting firm McKinsey & Co., which has avoided public vilification despite the transgressions of its former employees. McKinsey director Anil Kumar, -- a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School -- pleaded guilty to providing insider information to hedge-fund manager and fellow Wharton alumnus Raj Rajaratnam. Rajat Gupta, a graduate of Harvard Business School who served for nine years as McKinsey’s worldwide managing director, was convicted of insider trading in the same case. Economics and Greed Free Competition
Robin Hood Airport tweet bomb joke man wins case 27 July 2012Last updated at 08:07 ET Paul Chambers: "I want to move on, get a job and have a holiday" A man found guilty of sending a menacing tweet threatening to blow up an airport has won a challenge against his conviction. Paul Chambers, 28, of Northern Ireland, was found guilty in May 2010 of sending a "menacing electronic communication". He was living in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, when he tweeted that he would blow up nearby Robin Hood Airport when it closed after heavy snow. After a hearing at the High Court in London his conviction was quashed. 'Obvious joke' Mr Chambers said later: "I am relieved, vindicated - it is ridiculous it ever got this far. Continue reading the main story Analysis Clive ColemanBBC News legal correspondent This appeal was all about whether Paul Chambers' tweet, made in frustration that Robin Hood airport was closed, and threatening to blow it sky high if the problem wasn't sorted out, was a 'menacing' message and therefore criminal. 'Vindication and victory'
U.S. Multinationals Hiring At Much Faster Rate Overseas: Report U.S. multinationals are hiring. They're just doing a lot of it overseas these days. Multinational firms based in the United States expanded their workforces 15 times faster outside the U.S. than they did at home in 2010, according to Commerce Department data released Wednesday. Yet in overall numbers, rather than percentage growth, these multinationals remain heavily invested in U.S. labor. As The Wall Street Journal notes, initial Commerce Department figures are rarely set in stone -- they tend to tick up and down as the data gets revised and refined. Last year, the Commerce Department reported that American multinational corporations let 2.9 million workers go in the U.S. over the past decade while adding 2.4 million employees overseas. At the time, spokespeople for some of those companies said the overseas expansions was simply the result of more business being done elsewhere. Yet in an ironic twist, wage stagnation in the U.S. means that sometimes the work flows the other way.
Iran and the Petrodollar Threat to U.S. Empire Iran poses a far more serious threat to the U.S. than its disputed nuclear aspirations. Over the last few years, Iran has unleashed a weapon of mass destruction of a very different kind, one that directly challenges a key underpinning of American hegemony: the U.S. dollar as the exclusive global currency for all oil transactions. It began in 2005, when Iran announced it would form its own International Oil Bourse (IOB), the first phase of which opened in 2008. The IOB is an international exchange that allows international oil, gas, and petroleum products to be traded using a basket of currencies other than the U.S. dollar. The latest round of U.S. sanctions targets countries that do business with Iran's Central Bank, which, combined with the U.S. and EU oil embargoes, should in theory shut down Iran's ability to export oil and thus force it to abandon its nuclear program by crippling its economy. There is only so much the U.S. can do if China continues to do business with Iran. U.S.
Wealthy hiding $21 trillion in tax havens, report says - World The "super-rich elite" are hiding more than $21 trillion US in tax havens around the world, an amount roughly equal to the combined GDP of the United States and Japan, according to a new report. Commissioned by the Tax Justice Network, an independent British organization, the report is said to be the most comprehensive ever done concerning what it calls the "offshore economy." Researched and written by James Henry, an expert on tax havens, the report states the hidden money could be as large as $32 trillion, and represents a massive black hole in the world's economy. The amount of tax income lost "is large enough to make a significant difference to the finances of many countries," Henry noted. Hidden money from elites living in developing countries is "enough to make a significant difference to the finances of many countries... that are now struggling to replace lost aid dollars and pay for climate change. The report says:
Special Report: Crisis forces dismal science to get real Owner of Multi-Million Dollar Company Hands Over Business to Employees Before the words "whole grain" and "organic" became part of Americans' everyday vocabulary, Bob Moore knew the importance of healthful eating. In 1978, he started Bob's Red Mill Natural Foods, as a small family-run business in Oregon selling stone mill-ground whole grains. The company has since grown into a multi-million dollar business that sells more than 400 whole grain products including flours, hot cereals, and organic and gluten-free products. Moore is dedicated to making America healthier and he believes Bob's Red Mill is a small part of the solution. "Our company needs to exist so that some of the people that eat our product will be healthier -- and I think they will be," he said. Employee-Run Business Moore's work is a way of life and his employees are a second family, which is why he announced this week that he's handing over the keys to his 209 employees. Moore said he's gotten countless buy-out offers over the years, but he couldn't envision selling the business to a stranger.