Standard and Times

Coalition Forces Against Libya

What has been a major topic of discussion among the UN members was finally imposed. The military forces of France, the UK, Denmark and the US have targeted Libya and the regime of Qaddafi as yesterday, even though it was promised that no military operation would be conducted against the people of Libya, government forces continued attacks on Libyan rebels. Thousands have been injured and some hundred more people have been killed. A plane from the opposition was shot today during a live event representation by Al Jazeera.
Libya is an oil-rich country that holds some of the strongest red diesel suppliers. However, the country is terrorized by endless governmental pressure against which the people have finally rose. These were the words of the conclusion in the discussions on the UN Security Council when the attacks against the Arab country were confirmed by the countries participating.
Al Jazeera reports that the US has already launched some 110 rockets against Libyan targets and anti-rocket installments. The purpose is to ensure a safe environment for the operations by French air forces and UK submarines that would stabilize the rebels attempts to take over the country.The Americans were first reluctant to join the operations because of fears that they might be accused of a second Iraq-style expansion. However, the French denied any speculations about not joining the operations and along with the UK forces they are advancing against government facilities in the Arab country. The president of France held a special meeting in France which was attended by members of the military coalition and the strikes against Qaddafi have been decided.

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The Giant Mask

Apple produces the best technologies that one can get on the market and this is a fact. We need no paternity testing to prove that they invented the best touch screen technologies and inputted them into the market as soon as they incorporated them. However, what is the cost of Apple’s production?
Supplies for Apple’s phones and tablets are produced by Asian companies. One of these companies is Wintek, Taiwan-based electronic company that produces touch-panel maker technology for the Californian giant. Last week they paid more than 1.5 million dollars in compensation. The company negligently left toxic materials in closeness with its employees and some 91 employees were injured, 14 of them with more serious injuries.
The question remains as to whether Apple are picking up their partners correctly. Social responsibility is one of the features of Steve Jobs'proclamations – he often declares, indirectly by press releases and through his subordinates, that Apple insists on following the principles for ensuring the common good. But if the public welfare is a main aim for the apple, why is the company contracting companies that cannot comply with the rules of social responsibility?
And what about the financial factor? Apple proclaim financial responsibility which is incorporated in investment and corporate conduct. If a company is to follow the principles of corporate social responsibility they should not invest in unreliable organizations. The Taiwanese company was not only persistently neglecting its employees, but was also violating international law paying them less than necessary in some conditions and making them work extra. So is Apple a socially responsible company?

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Brazilian Growth

In the shade of China and Southern Asia, another force is rising, directly supported by the U.S. government. Brazil is developing more rapidly that even the most optimistic reports from the Economist have suggested. The Brazilian stocks are increasing in value and investment strategies in the region are strongly advertised in the States.
Brazil is a self storage of cheap labor. It offers large production capacity and its natural resources are enough to satisfy the demand of production. Power plants projects and financial reforms are currently taking place in the country in order to prepare the social conditions for future development. Countries in the Western world saw the Chinese threat after the Chinese announced revisions on the foreign investments made in the country and is fighting to regain its independence from the powers in the West.
This is the reason why the U.S. is now targeting Brazil as a potential destination for export of production process. The U.S. government concluded a cooperation treaty with the new Brazilian president Dilma Ruseff that would increase the areas in which the countries would work on closer bonds. American specialists would advise the Southern American federative state on financial matters and economic developments thus aiming to contribute to a more rapid development.
So at the sight of a huge Chinese dragon rising and threatening the economic power of the West, the developed world is about to adopt another child and teach him how to behave better than its Chinese brother. Brazil has the potential to become one of the most developed economies in the world and a little push up from the US and the UK might really contribute to that.

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Tech Evangelists Shouldn’t Write Off Social Media in Egypt

In the Egyptian protests and attempts to overthrow their dictatorial president, social media has played a crucial role. But even some technological evangelists are trying to reign in the rhetoric that says that social media has played a huge role. It’s surprising, and generally the intentions of these people are honorable: they don’t want social media role to trump that of human agency, and the critical mass of people that have gone out on the street and protested. After all, in Egypt the Internet was taken down by the government who was attempted to silence dissent by any means. Many people would point to this act as evidence that social media and the Internet is such a threat to governments now that they are resorting to cutting it off completely. This would again seem like a reason to prove that social media was important. Tech evangelists still write off social media, often seeing it to be only one method of getting people out onto the streets.

It’s surprising that many of these people are trying to stop the media from calling it the Twitter or Facebook revolution. They don’t want the role of social media to be overstated in order to allow it to permeate the public conscious without becoming overhyped. But social media’s role in terms of organizing protests has been just huge. Like how Galvan Research advise people playing the stock market, social media plays a similar advisory role. In some uprisings it will play a more important role than in other. In Egypt, it seems to be key.

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How the Snow is Costing the Country Billions

The snow that seems to be falling in increasingly frequent blizzards is costing the British government millions of dollars every day. You’ll often see statistics that explain exactly how much the country is estimated to have cost for everyday that snow closes road, trains are delayed, and airport are shut. But where do these numbers come from, or more to the point why does snow cost a country so much money?
Heavy snow is incredibly disruptive, especially when it comes to a country like Britain where the government is completely unprepared to deal with snow emergencies, and many days of snow fall. The government’s best solution is usually to simply spread grit all over the roads and explain that this freak weather is not something that can be dealt with through much real investment, but something that we just have to deal with and wait until it melts. After all, it’s not every winter that Britain gets snow. But when it does the cost can be incredible. First of all there’s the obvious stuff. Snow causes many accidents. Cars crash into other cars, cars crash into building, buses lose their grip and crash through fences, and aeroplanes get frozen solid to the ice and require extensive repairs.
Then there’s the lost productivity of the workforce. Even with something like no deposit car insurance or a more expensive policy like import car insurance not everyone wants to risk heading out in the snow in their cars if the chance of breaking or causing damage to their car is very high. By not going to work, the economy loses money because stuff doesn’t get produced and no profits are made on that day. More strange effects of the snow include things like tourists cancelling holidays to the U.K. which would have brought more money to Britain’s shores.

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Improving The Infrastructure

After many discussions and conversations with relevant bodies, plus several research activities conducted by different public commissions, the executives finally reached the conclusions that the English infrastructure needs significant improvement – well, such a conclusion could have been reached by a 10-year-old who would spend much less on commissions and research expenses. But is that improvement in the infrastructure that Britain desperately needs and that the executives have been discussing so much?
Firstly, Britain is a state that is founded upon centuries old cultures. However, not only the state is old itself but, for example, the public facilities open for the wider society. This should be a main priority for ministers while directing the funds for infrastructure projects. The public facilities and buildings are grossly outdated – people need to receive better service and to use more efficiently the facilities. Some of the public buildings were not even intended to be such and were eventually turned into place for the public administration.
This problem persists along with the many other outdated architectural and service providing facilities. This would estop people from using them efficiently and might decrease the quality these people get out of the central executive power as a whole. This is the reason why while focusing on fuel management and white diesel, the government need to thing a bit about for the smaller picture too. An improvement in the public facilities and buildings would improve the quality of services and would also become part of the Britain’s efforts to reduce the impact on environment done by the governmental institutions themselves – this is because once improved under the new EU legislation, the public authorities'facilities would be environmentally friendly and energy efficient.
So after all these considerations and research stages, it is time for the government to act and to bring some change in some quite outdated areas of the infrastructure.

Some thoughts on fascism

To be able to understand fascism and how its beliefs are formed, firstly we need to look at its understanding of the individual. Fascism believes that human beings cannot be understood through reason, but through emotions, instinct, will and passion. Therefore the way to mobilize the masses is by playing on their emotions, instinct, will and passions.[1] Man is not rational. Man is a bundle of emotions, history and culture and these are the things that will drive him forward. The words of Mussolini from the Naples Speech tell us a lot about fascist ideology. “We have created our myth. Our myth is the nation, our myth is the greatness of the nation! And to this myth, this greatness, which we want to translate into a total reality, we subordinate everything else.”[2] We should look into the use of the word “myth”. A myth is something unrealisable and imaginary, it is unachievable. The hope to achieve it, though, is far greater than rationality and this again shows that fascism does not look at human beings as reasonable units, but as units driven and controlled by emotions. Another thing that needs its fair allocation of time in this quote is the expressed will and desire to act, to translate the greatness of the nation into total reality. The position of fascism on “the active man”, and what actions are appropriate, is something I will have looked into in detail by the end of this essay.

You can spend some time looking for a second hand audi as well! Good luck to all!

[1] Mark Neocleous, Fascism (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1997)

[2] Benito Mussolini, ‘Fascism’s Myth: The Nation’ (1922), in Roger Griffin (ed.), Fascism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995) p. 44

A Pakistani Politician has been murdered in north London

A Pakistani politician who was exiled has been murdered just outside of his residence in north London, it has been announced. It is believe that Mr Imran Farooq, who was a member of the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) political party, was attacked on Green Lane in Edgware, near a used sofa for sale shop. The London Metropolitan Police stated that a 50-year-old Asian man had been killed after having suffered multiple head injuries and stab wounds. A serious assault was reported to have taken place at around 1730BST, after which the main was being treated by paramedics before he was declared dead just over an hour later at 1837BST, where the scene of the incident had taken place.

His next of kin were informed and no arrests have yet been made. It is understood that leaders of the MQM had been living in exile in London for the past 18 years and that security forces had been searching for Dr Farooq for a considerable length of time. In Karachi, the largest city in Pakistan, the MQM is the major party and Dr Farooq was one of its founding m embers.

Shoaib Hasan of the BBC said that he had spoken to other members of the party and that there was a great deal of grief and sorrow amongst them. Meanwhile, it is also alleged that Dr Farooq had been living in England since 1992 and had not returned to Pakistan since. He also admitted that the political party had a violent past; it is also known that Dr Farooq claimed political asylum in the UK, alleging that all charges made against him back in his own country were politically motivated. It is also alleged that he had been campaigning against the former Pakistani government from his exile in London. The parents of Imran Farooq said that they had a great deal of faith in the Metropolitan Police, who will be investigating the event in the coming days and weeks as they begin searching for the killer. Mr Hasan also said that Dr Farooq was the MGM’s deputy leader and that he had been living in exile in London since 1999.

Royal Dutch Shell experiences substantial profits amid higher oil prices

The Royal Dutch Shell oil company has experienced a quarterly profit increase of almost 50 percent, due to the recent boost in oil prices and their current standing as one of the foremost red diesel suppliers. The company’s profits were 4.9 billion US dollars, up 49 percent compared with the same period in 2009. This is in stark contrast to the last quarter of 2009, when Shell only managed a profit of 1.2 billion US dollars, less than one quarter of the profits for the following quarter. The company also planned to axe 2,000 jobs by the end of 2010, which would help reduce overall costs by up to 1 billion US dollars.

Chief executive of Shell, Peter Voser, said that the dramatic turnaround in these results was as a result of the company’s careful response to the poor data from last year, which prompted officials to explore new oil fields and drive new growth in production. However, the rise in the price of oil also played a role, which has almost doubled in the last year. In 2009 a barrel of oil cost 41 US Dollars, in the first quarter of 2010 it would cost 76 US Dollars.

However, Voser expected the rest of the year to be more mixed for Shell, citing heavy pressure on gas prices and demand for oil, despite the fact that there is now a steady recovery taking places from the global recession. This could mean a further increase in oil price and stronger demand for petrochemicals. BP, the company’s main rival, has recently reported first quarter profits of 5.6 billion US dollars, more than double the 2.4 billion a year ago.

A £32.5 million Fine For BP

The severely crippled oil company BP – one of the largest gas companies – has consented to pay an unprecedented fine of £32.5 million for ignoring grave safety concerns at its Texas City refinery where 15 people died as a result of an explosion in 2005. This is the largest fine ever to be levied by the United States Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Part of the US Labor Department, OSHA noted that the sentence “rightly reflects BP’s disregard for workplace safety”.

The Texas refinery is the third-largest refinery in the United States. Apart from the 15 who were killed, more than 170 workers were injured as a result of the fire and explosion. BP was subsequently held accountable for criminal violations relating to federal environmental laws. And the company has also been subjected to lawsuits from the families of the victims. An investigation after the accident revealed numerous faults in equipment, maintenance and inspection, risk management, general health and safety assessments, working culture at the site and so on.

The company had initially paid a $21.3m fine to OSHA in 2005. According to a four-year agreement, BP was responsible for repairing the safety threats identified at the plant. In 2007 the oil giant had further agreed to pay $373m for settling quite a few criminal as well as civil charges. As per this latest agreement between BP and OSHA, the company has to spend a further $500 million over six years for fixing safety problems at the plant.

This is the latest debacle to strike the UK’s largest corporation after the recent oil spill off the Gulf of Mexico which has severely contaminated the marine life, affected the wildlife and fisheries industry in the region. Attempts to cap the slick and contain the leak have been going on since April, making this the largest oil spill offshore in the entire history of the US.