Saturday, April 17, 2010
Volcanic ash spreads more travel misery across Europe
Volcanic ash spreads more travel misery across Europe
Millions of stranded travellers face further air chaos as the volcanic ash from Iceland that has closed most of Europe's airspace continues to spread.
An estimated three-quarters of flights were cancelled on Saturday. About 20 countries closed their airspace - some have extended flight bans into Monday.
Scientists say the Icelandic volcano activity shows no sign of abating.
Dutch airline KLM and German airline Lufthansa have carried out test flights to see if it is safe for planes to fly.
 | AT THE SCENE  Lorna Gordon, BBC News, Iceland In some small areas the volcanic fallout has been significant. It is clogging car engines, turning grass grey and reducing visibility to just a few metres. The police say driving conditions can be very difficult in these places. I heard one tale recounting that the moment you drive into the ash cloud it can feel as if you are driving into a wall. The affected area is remote with only a few hundred people, most of them living in isolated homes and many of them farmers. They have been advised to stay inside with the windows and doors shut and if they do venture out to wear goggles and a mask. Despite the hazards the volcano and its column of smoke are drawing visitors. They are also triggering lightning. The authorities are having to remind people they should not consider the volcano a tourist attraction. In fact, they have closed the country's ring road in the area affected to all but locals and the emergency services. |
Britain has extended a ban on most flights in its airspace until at least 1800 GMT Sunday, air authorities have said.
KLM said its plane, a Boeing 737, had reached its maximum operating altitude of about 13km in the skies over the Netherlands, and there had been no problems during the flight.
The aircraft and its engines were being inspected for possible damage. After the results of that technical inspection the airline hopes to get permission from the aviation authorities to start up operations again.
Germany's Lufthansa said it flew several planes to Frankfurt from Munich.
A spokesman said: "All airplanes have been inspected on arrival in Frankfurt but there was no damage to the cockpit windows or fuselage and no impact on the engines."
Earlier, a spokesman for the international airline industry said: "We don't see the light at the end of the tunnel yet."
Icelandic geologist Magnus Tumi Gudmundsson told the Associated Press news agency: "It's the magma mixing with the water that creates the explosivity. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be an end in sight."
Graeme Leitch, a meteorologist at Britain's National Weather Service, said light winds and high pressure over Europe meant the cloud was unlikely to be dispersed soon.
"We don't expect a great deal of change over the next few days," he told AP.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) predicted little or no improvement on Sunday.
"Right now through most of Europe we do not see many flights moving at all," spokesman Steve Lott told AFP news agency.
Airlines are losing some £130m ($200m) a day in an unprecedented shutdown of commercial air travel, the IATA says.
Eurocontrol, which co-ordinates air traffic control in 38 nations, said it expected 17,000 flights to be cancelled across Europe on Saturday, from a total of 22,000 on a normal day.
Long way home
Since Thursday, countries across northern and central Europe have either closed airspace or shut key airports as the ash - a mixture of glass, sand and rock particles - can seriously damage aircraft engines.
Tales from stranded passengers around the globe
In the UK commercial flights have now been banned until at least 0700 local time (0600 GMT) on Sunday.
In northern France and northern Italy, airports are to remain shut until at least Monday.
Unable to catch flights, commuters across northern Europe have sought other means of transport, packing out trains, buses and ferries.
The Eurostar cross-channel rail service said it had never seen so many passengers on one day and the trains were fully booked until Monday.
|  I've only got enough medication for my epilepsy to last me until tomorrow, so my seizures are likely to start again unless I get access to that  George Craib, Amsterdam |
The large no-fly zone also means that some world leaders will not be attending the funeral of the Polish president on Sunday.
US President Barack Obama has cancelled his visit to Poland.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who was due to return from a visit to the US on Friday, had to fly to Lisbon where she spent the night.
With all German airports still closed, she flew on to Italy on Saturday and is set to continue her journey home by bus.
The disruption also forced the cancellation of the inaugural Iraqi Airways flight from Baghdad to London.
|   |
US pop star Whitney Houston was forced to take a car ferry from Britain to Ireland for a concert after her flight was cancelled.
The travel chaos has been felt as far away as North America and Asia, with dozens of Europe-bound flights being cancelled.
British health officials said any effects of the ash on people with existing respiratory conditions were "likely to be short term".
Southern Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano began erupting for the second time in a month on Wednesday, sending a plume of ash 8.5km (5.3 miles) high into the air.
Iceland lies on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the highly volatile boundary between the Eurasian and North American continental plates.
Kumari Mayawati: 'Untouchable' champion of India's poor
Kumari Mayawati: 'Untouchable' champion of India's poor
| By Chris Morris BBC News |
The first woman Dalit (formerly "untouchable") chief minister of an Indian state, Kumari Mayawati, is celebrated by those at the bottom of the Hindu caste system as their champion, but also criticised for amassing vast personal wealth.
Standing in the afternoon heat close to the banks of the Gomti River, looking down from a flyover on a vast monumental park, you would be forgiven for wondering whether the sun is playing tricks on you.
Is it a mirage?
A row of 60 giant elephants, carved from sandstone, stand guard along a broad processional walkway.
|  Mayawati is creating a special police force to protect her monuments and her army of statues from harm |
There are domes and colonnades, granite pillars with brass elephant heads, a vast lotus-shaped memorial surrounded by shimmering marble and there are statues. Everywhere there are statues.
My first thought is to misquote the poet Shelley.
My name is Mayawati, Queen of Queens: Look on my work, ye mighty, and despair!
Because this is the piece de resistance of Ms Mayawati, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh state.
On a scale that puts the Taj Mahal to shame, the Bhim Rao Ambedkar Monument celebrates the life of the man who wrote the Indian constitution and championed the cause of the downtrodden.
He is a hero in particular to India's Dalits, or "the oppressed", the community from which Ms Mayawati has risen.
Dalits used to be known as "untouchables".
Below the bottom rung of the Hindu caste system, they were considered to be ritually polluted from birth.
Officially, untouchability was outlawed by Ambedkar's constitution 60 years ago.
And in urban areas, and among those who have managed to grab the lifeline of education, its shadow has been diminished.
Segregation
But out in India's teeming villages, caste remains a dominant fact of life.
In many rural regions, Dalits are still forced to live in separate segregated areas.
They are often prevented from collecting water from the same well as higher caste people, and they do the jobs that no-one else wants to do.
I have to confess that since I have been living and working in this country I have tiptoed around covering the caste system.
| The elephant, the ubiquitous symbol of Ms Mayawati's political party, is now riding high |
It is a failure on my part I will admit, as hierarchy reveals so much about India and the Indian mindset.
But for outsiders, caste is fiendishly complicated, hard to understand and even harder to explain.
In Uttar Pradesh, though, it is hard to avoid. The elephant, the ubiquitous symbol of Ms Mayawati's political party, is now riding high.
And so is the Dalit pantheon. There are an estimated 20,000 statues of Ambedkar across this state, most of them commissioned by Ms Mayawati.
Vanity projects
She has also built countless statues of other Dalit leaders, including of course, of her own good self, staring defiantly into the distance and clutching a trademark square handbag.
So it is easy to mock Ms Mayawati and her addiction to statues. Many middle class Indians frequently do.
Her political opponents accuse her of corruption and say she is wasting vast quantities of public money on vanity projects in one of the poorest parts of the country.
There has been a legal challenge, and the Supreme Court has ordered a stay on statue building while it considers the case.
 Dalits used to be known as "untouchables" |
In response Ms Mayawati is creating a special police force to protect her monuments and her army of statues from harm.
What for, asked one incredulous opponent? Will they lose height or weight? Is someone planning to disfigure them?
But there is some method in this apparent madness.
The Dalits of Uttar Pradesh still vote en masse for Ms Mayawati.
And the more she spends to excess, the more some of them seem to revel in it.
At one huge rally, she was greeted with an enormous garland made entirely of 1,000 rupee notes.
The tax department is investigating, and some say the garland may have been worth between $400,000 and $2m (up to £750,000). But the crowds loved it.
| Dalits have been denied public space for so long, consciously shut out of it, that her supporters see the statues as the ultimate riposte |
And then she was given a second garland made entirely of money, this time worth 1.8m rupees ($39,000).
And what of the statues?
Well, Dalits have been denied public space for so long, consciously shut out of it, that her supporters see the statues as the ultimate riposte.
She is reasserting our identity, they say, and reviving our lost history. Making Dalits realise that we too have a stake in this country.
And that means she is creating aspirations and she retains huge loyalty.
But what about distributing power among the grass roots? That is where her opponents say she has failed.
Caste enigma
So where do Dalit politics go from here? Can Ms Mayawati move from strength to strength?
I have my doubts, but for me caste remains one of India's enduring mysteries.
I remember many years ago meeting a professor in Chennai and asking him to explain the caste system to me.
He turned to his collection of books, and honed in on 24 thick, bound volumes of The Castes and Tribes of South India, stretching right along the top shelf like the Encyclopaedia Britannia.
Without a word he pulled out volume 24, opened it at the last page and handed it to me.
To be continued, it said.
George Washington's $300,000 library book fine
George Washington's $300,000 library book fine
 The borrowed books have vanished |
Librarians in New York's oldest library have uncovered a surprising book thief: George Washington.
The first president of the United States of America borrowed two books from the New York Society Library in 1789 but failed to return them.
Adjusted for inflation, he has since racked up $300,000 (£195,000) in fines for being some 220 years late.
The New York Society Library says it will not pursue the fine. It would simply like the books back.
He famously never told a lie, but it seems George Washington was not without his faults, the BBC's Madeleine Morris notes, reporting from Washington.
Two small losses
On 5 October 1789, the first president borrowed two books from what was then the only library in Manhattan - "Law of Nations," a dissertation on international relations, and a volume of debate transcripts from Britain's House of Commons.
George Washington did not even bother to sign his name in the borrower's ledger. An aide simply scrawled "president" next to the title to show who had taken them out.
The two tomes were due back a month later but were never returned and have been accruing late fees ever since. Librarians uncovered the misdemeanour as they were digitising the library's ledger from that time.
The New York Society Library says it will not pursue the fine but it would like the books back.
Sadly for fans of 18th-Century political literature, they appear to have vanished. On the balance sheet of George Washington's achievements for America, mark down two small losses, our correspondent says.
English lighthouse beams out shipping forecast
English lighthouse beams out shipping forecast
| By Zeb Soanes BBC Radio 4 announcer |
The BBC shipping forecast is usually read from a windowless studio in London but one day this spring I had a chance to read it looking out from the Orford Ness lighthouse across the North Sea.
The forecast boasts a list of 31 maritime locations, names that evoke a wild seascape of the imagination: Dogger, Fitzroy, Hebrides, Rockall, German Bight… and it's a daily rhythmic recitation much of the country finds quaintly comforting.
Tucked up in bed, the landlubber experiences all the vicarious danger of gales that are "imminent", and is reassured when conditions are "moderate or good".
|  It was a real treat to be able to gaze out and read to the distant crews in boats on the horizons |
This nightly litany of the sea reminds the British that theirs is an island nation with a proud seafaring past.
For me, it evokes thoughts of home and family. I grew up by the sea in Suffolk on England's east coast.
The stretch of coastline running down from my hometown of Lowestoft is heavy with history and with myth.
It is also being steadily eaten away by the encroaching waves. Over the years, whole villages have been lost to the sea.
Legend has it that on stormy nights, you can still hear the church bells of Dunwich tolling far beneath the waves.
Now it is the famous lighthouse at Orford Ness in Suffolk which is under threat.
Secret tests
The British Ministry of Defence commandeered this area and used it for more than 70 years to carry out secret military tests.
Work was done here to develop the atomic bomb and perfect the system which later became known as radar.
One of the buildings is now used to beam the BBC World Service across the North Sea to Western Europe and beyond.
There are numerous, possibly apocryphal stories about this remote spit of land which, for many decades, was strictly closed to the general public.
Some believe the tall networks of aerials were first erected to monitor the movement of UFOs.
|  It is perhaps fitting that a landmark that has stood for 200 years and survived storms, flying-bombs and machine-gun fire, may ultimately be swallowed by the sea |
Certainly it's true that one of the benefits of having been a closed military site is that wildlife was left to flourish including several rare species which, seemingly, weren't disturbed by the frequent explosions and other mysterious military activity.
The BBC agreed that on this one occasion the shipping forecast could be read from the top of the Orford Ness lighthouse, and I met Keith Seaman, the lighthouse-keeper with an appropriately nautical name, over tea in a former Ministry of Defence hut.
He comes from a long line of keepers. He drove us out across the shingle, past ominous warnings of unexploded bombs (they still find up to 15 a year), to reach the lighthouse.
It is mainly white but with two red candy stripes. Keith told me the stripes are as much a signal to sailors as the light itself, identifying the lighthouse by day as Orford.
"There's another red and white lighthouse up the coast at Happisburgh, but that has three stripes," he informed me.
Notorious dangers
The dangers to shipping here have long been notorious. In 1627, 32 ships were lost in a single night here. There was scarcely a survivor.
This lighthouse stands only metres from the shoreline. It seems poignant and perhaps fitting that a landmark that has stood for 200 years and survived storms, flying-bombs and machine-gun fire, may ultimately be swallowed by the sea.
Like all modern lighthouses it is battery-powered, charged by the mains to ensure continuity of service in the event of a power-cut.
Half-way up, I was surprised to see a computer-station linked to a transmitter on the roof. Therein may lie the fate of all British lighthouses - high-tech navigation systems may soon render them all useless.
But, as Keith noted dryly: "That's all right so long as the computers work."
| German Bight, Humber, Thames. Northwest backing southwest four or five decreasing three at times. Slight or moderate. Occasional rain. Fog patches. Good, occasionally very poor The shipping forecast |
On this beautiful spring day, we had a wonderful view from the top and on a clear night, I was told, the light itself can be seen for 25 nautical miles (46km).
It has a four-tonne lens which floats on a bath of mercury. Keith switched off the motor and showed me how, with a mere touch of my finger, I could start it revolving again.
And so, finally, I unfolded a copy of that morning's shipping forecast, faced out to sea, and started to read.
At the BBC headquarters back in London, we broadcast from a windowless studio, so it was a real treat to be able to gaze out and read to the distant crews in boats on the horizons who, as opposed to the landlubbers who simply enjoy its poetry, depend on the forecast's maritime data to keep them safe.
"The area forecasts for the next 24 hours," I intoned.
"German Bight, Humber, Thames. North-west backing south-west four or five decreasing three at times. Slight or moderate. Occasional rain. Fog patches. Good, occasionally very poor."
Of course it all made perfect sense to Keith, the lighthouse keeper, who remembered one final piece of advice, to protect those out at sea: "My grandfather always said, 'Before you leave, sweep your eyes over the horizon.'''
And so before we left, we did.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Goldman Sachs accused of fraud by US regulator SEC
Goldman Sachs accused of fraud by US regulator SEC
| GOLDMAN SACHS GROUP INC. Last updated: 16 Apr 2010, 21:01 UK *Chart shows local time
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Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street powerhouse, has been accused of defrauding investors by America's financial regulator.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) alleges that Goldman failed to disclose conflicts of interest.
The claims concern Goldman's marketing of sub-prime mortgage investments just as the US housing market faltered.
Goldman rejected the SEC's allegations, saying that it would "vigorously" defend its reputation.
News that the SEC was pressing civil fraud charges against Goldman and one of its London-based vice presidents, Fabrice Tourre, sent shares in the investment bank tumbling 12%.
| The narrative of what transpired, as set out by the SEC, is quite the financial thriller Robert Peston, BBC Business Editor |
The SEC says Goldman failed to disclose "vital information" that one of its clients, Paulson & Co, helped choose which securities were packaged into the mortgage portfolio.
These securities were sold to investors in 2007.
But Goldman did not disclose that Paulson, one of the world's largest hedge funds, had bet that the value of the securities would fall.
The SEC said: "Unbeknownst to investors, Paulson... which was posed to benefit if the [securities] defaulted, played a significant role in selecting which [securities] should make up the portfolio."
"In sum, Goldman Sachs arranged a transaction at Paulson's request in which Paulson heavily influenced the selection of the portfolio to suit its economic interests," said the Commission.
Housing collapse
The SEC alleges that investors in the mortgage securities, packaged into a vehicle called Abacus, lost more than $1bn (£650m) in the US housing collapse.
| The whole building is about to collapse anytime now... Only potential survivor, the fabulous Fabrice... Email by Fabrice Tourre |
Mr Tourre was principally behind the creation of Abacus, which agreed its deal with Paulson in April 2007, the SEC said.
The Commission alleges that Mr Tourre knew the market in mortgage-backed securities was about to be hit well before this date.
The SEC's court document quotes an email from Mr Tourre to a friend in January 2007. "More and more leverage in the system. Only potential survivor, the fabulous Fab[rice Tourre]... standing in the middle of all these complex, highly leveraged, exotic trades he created without necessarily understanding all of the implications of those monstrosities!!!"
Goldman denied any wrongdoing, saying in a brief statement: "The SEC's charges are completely unfounded in law and fact and we will vigorously contest them and defend the firm and its reputation."
The firm said that, rather than make money from the deal, it lost $90m.
The two investors that lost the most money, German bank IKB and ACA Capital Management, were two "sophisticated mortgage investors" who knew the risk, Goldman said.
And nor was there any failure of disclosure, because "market makers do not disclose the identities of a buyer to a seller and vice versa."
 John Paulson made billions of dollars in the financial markets |
Calls to Mr Tourre's office were referred to the Goldman press office. Paulson has not been charged.
Asked why the SEC did not also pursue a case against Paulson, Enforcement Director Robert Khuzami told reporters: "It was Goldman that made the representations to investors. Paulson did not."
The firm's owner, John Paulson - no relation to former US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson - made billions of dollars betting against sub-prime mortgage securities.
In a statement, Paulson & Co. said: "As the SEC said at its press conference, Paulson is not the subject of this complaint, made no misrepresentations and is not the subject of any charges."
'Regulation risk'
Goldman, arguably the world's most prestigious investment bank, had escaped relatively unscathed from the global financial meltdown.
This is the first time regulators have acted against a Wall Street deal that allegedly helped investors take advantage of the US housing market collapse.
The charges come as US lawmakers get tough on Wall Street practices that helped cause the financial crisis. Among proposals being considered by Congress is tougher rules for complex investments like those involved in the alleged Goldman fraud.
Observers said the SEC's move dealt a blow to Goldman's standing. "It undermines their brand," said Simon Johnson, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Goldman critic. "It undermines their political clout."
Analyst Matt McCormick of Bahl & Gaynor said that the allegation could "be a fulcrum to push for even tighter regulation".
"Goldman has a fight in front of it," he said.