TOP 100 NEWSPAPER SITES
| |||
|
| |||
| |||
|
| |||
| Small US Retailers Fight for Survival Amid Gloomy Signs Some smaller retailers have been forced to close their doors because consumers are spending more carefully and also are favoring warehouse chain stores like Walmart and Costco. www1.voanews.com |
Iraq oil contract goes to Angola Angola's state-owned oil company, Sonangol, has signed a deal to produce oil in one of the most dangerous parts of Iraq. news.bbc.co.uk |
Grist: The Mona Lisa Diet: High Cholesterol = Bucolic Smile What’s behind the Mona Lisa’s calm, enigmatic expression? An Italian medical expert thinks he has the answer: high cholesterol. feeds.nytimes.com |
Fair weather friends | Michael Fish Long term forecasting is a science in its infancy. The BBC should stick with Met Office expertiseIt's open season, it seems, on the Met Office. The BBC is reported to be weighing up its contract with the state-owned forecaster, and considering a new deal with an alternative company, which would sever a 90-year link with the broadcaster. In my many years working for the Met Office and Âappearing on BBC programmes, I and my colleagues saw little of the wrangling behind the scenes, but renegotiation of contracts happened on at least two occasions. The BBC would be foolish not to assess the way its money is being spent. They are not alone in needing to find ways to save pennies. But the weather is slightly different to any old contract – this is a vital service, upon which millions of pounds, and human lives, depend.To my mind the Met Office is the most experienced and thorough forecaster in the world, home to the best and Âbrightest brains in the business. Twenty four hours a day, 365 days a year, the Met Office delivers its information to Britain through the national broadcaster.Forecasters for the BBC need to have two distinct but crucial parts. First, they must be fully qualified meteorologists. They need to be Âproficient in Âunderstanding and interpreting the data provided, to be able to adjust Âinterpretations at a moment's notice. Second, and just as essential, they need to be able to communicate that Âinformation to the audience. This is tougher than it might seem: it means translating specialist data and language into accessible terms; it often means thinking on one's feet; and it demands a personality that people trust. It is no easy marriage of skills and the BBC is well served by a uniquely Âtalented team.The fog hovering over the Met Office has been deepened by press speculation that it has flunked its latest long-term forecasts. The talk of a "barbecue summer" and a "mild winter", it is insinuated, lay bare the Met Office's shortcomings. It is wrong to use long-term forecasts as a stick with which to beat the organisation. Predicting the weather for days ahead is a very different task to predicting an entire season. One is meteorology; the other is climatology. Producing forecasts for even one or two months ahead is a discipline in its infancy – and in my experience the Met Office has been reluctant to make public its long-term forecasts. The pressure to do so comes in large part from the very same parts of the media that now seek to discredit it, and the same parts of the media that so often exaggerate – or misrepresent – the information the Met Office provides.Several years ago when I was still at the Met Office, I remember we produced a forecast for that December, pointing to a mild month of wet patches, with colder spells. Parts of the press managed to extrapolate that information into headlines that predicted a white Christmas. It bore almost no relation to the facts.The Met Office, of course, should not be immune to criticism. But those who condemn it for wrongly predicting a "barbecue summer" would do well to revisit the data – measured over the three-month period, it was not the miserable summer that some imagine. And the mild winter? Well, it's not over yet. Let's wait until March, and measure the averages then, before we take the Met Office to task. My forecast? We're about to enter a period of mild weather.WeatherTelevision industryBBCMeteorologyClimate changeClimate change scepticismMichael Fishguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
A principled Europe would not leave Greece to bleed | Joseph Stiglitz Unless it is one rule for the big and powerful and another for the small, the EU must stand behind Athens' new leadershipGreece has been condemned by European officialdom for its huge deficits. "No government or state can expect from us any special treatment," comes the warning from Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank. But Trichet failed to note that there had long been a double standard – in effect two Maastricht treaties, one for the large and powerful countries, another for the smaller and less powerful. When France broke the EU edict not to let debt exceed 3% of GDP, there were strong words, but little else.Of course, Trichet may claim there is a difference between what Greece and the many other countries that have broken the limits have done. There is a difference of size. But there is also a difference in culpability and consequences. Greece's large deficit has implications for the future of the citizens of Greece, but not for the stability of the euro – unlike a similarly large deficit on the part of one of the larger countries.A large part of Greece's deficit is the result of the global recession, whose impact was felt acutely by many countries who were not responsible for causing it. However, the global crisis did reveal the deep-rooted structural problems of the Greek economy, which had deteriorated further during the last six years under the previous government. Unfortunately, European leaders have compounded Greece's problems. Their statements have sent the interest rates it has to pay soaring, making it all the more difficult for Greece to tame its deficits.Instead, they should have welcomed the efforts of Greece's new government. At least it has come clean about the dishonest accounting of its predecessors. Like America's banks, it could have tried to keep up with a system of dishonest accounting, hoping that it would not be caught out. But Greece's new prime minister, George Papandreou, has always stood for honest and transparent government. Europe should be coming to the assistance of this kind of leader, not making his life more difficult.Greece is among the poorest of the European family. Part of the basis of the success of the European project is a sense of social solidarity, which entails coming to the assistance of those who are less fortunate. When the euro was created, many economists worried about the lack of stability-solidarity funds. If Europe had developed a better solidarity and stabilisation framework, then the deficits in the periphery of Europe might have been smaller and they would have been more able to manage them.Economic downturns often affect those in the periphery much worse – they are the victims of their neighbours' failures. It is common wisdom that when the US sneezes, Mexico catches a cold. But more recently, this aphorism has mutated: Mexico now catches pneumonia, as its fall in GDP last year showed.Part of the reason for the success of America's "single market" is that there is this sense of social cohesiveness, and a large federal budget to support it: when one part of the country has difficulties, federal spending can be diverted to help those parts that are in need.While Europe may not yet have an overall budgetary framework that can fully address weaknesses in one part or the other of the EU, it should at least adopt the principle of "do no harm". For the ECB to announce that it will not accept Greek bonds as collateral would be counterproductive. For the ECB to delegate judgments about the credit-worthiness of Greek bonds to the rating agencies would be more than just irresponsible; it would be reprehensible. Delegation of effective regulatory responsibility to the rating agencies is partly what got the world into the present mess; and the rating agencies' judgments have proven to be deeply flawed – underrating the risk of mortgage backed securities, but consistently overrating the risk of certain sovereign debts.With Europe's economy still weak, an excessively rapid tightening of its budget deficit would risk throwing Greece into a deep recession. Adjustments always take time, and are always painful. Europe should reframe the short-run budgetary targets it sets for Greece in terms of the structural deficit – what the deficit would have been had the country been able to achieve full employment. In recent years, even the IMF has reframed most countries' budgetary targets in terms of the primary deficit – net of interest payments, recognizing that volatile financial markets mean that interest payments are not really within a country's control.The EU could and should show support for the honesty and integrity of Greece's government and its efforts not only to bring the budget under control, but to increase transparency of the entire budgetary framework and to reduce corruption. The EU can go further: institutions like the European Investment Bank should undertake countercyclical investments in the country, to offset the deflationary impacts of the budget cuts. Europe should show that it will stand behind Greece, much as the IMF provides support funds for developing countries. The provision of such support might lower interest rates, and make it easier for the country to reach budgetary balance. The EU, the euro, and the premise of European solidarity is being tested again. The measure of Europe will not be in the harshness of its actions, but in the spirit of solidarity that it shows in assisting its neighbour.America too has unprecedented deficits, as do many countries around the world. Like Obama, Papandreou inherited an economic situation that was not of his making. Both of their predecessors had made mistakes of colossal proportions. Both of their predecessors had engaged in dishonest bookkeeping – but Bush's pale in comparison to that of Papandreou's predecessor. Both were elected on a platform that promised change, and both brought new standards of honesty and transparency to government. Both had their original vision compromised by the exigencies of the economic situation they confronted.For the sake of European solidarity and democracy, Europe should support Papandreou's efforts in every way they can, not turn their back on the people of Greece who must be convinced that supporting the government's austerity measures is in everyone's best interest.GreeceEuropean UnionEconomicsEuropean monetary unionEuropean Central BankGlobal recessionGlobal economyBarack ObamaJoseph Stiglitzguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |