Green Blog: Susan Rice Has Stake in Keystone Pipeline

Should Susan E. Rice, the United Nations ambassador, be nominated for Secretary of State, one issue likely to arise during confirmation hearings, aside from the lethal attack on the American Mission in Benghazi, Libya, is her large stock holdings in TransCanada, the company seeking an American permit to build the proposed the Keystone XL pipeline.

According to financial disclosure documents filed in May, Ms. Rice owns from $300,000 to $600,000 worth of stock in the Canadian pipeline company (See pg. 5).

Because the State Department oversees transboundary pipelines, the Secretary of State is ultimately responsible for determining whether Keystone XL should go forward.

But her stock holdings in TransCanada,? first reported by the Sunlight Foundation and Onearth.org, an environmental publication affiliated with the Natural Resources Defense Council, would surely complicate the issue.

According to the United States Office of Government Ethics, federal law requires executive branch employees to be recused from matters ?if it would have a direct and predictable effect on the employee?s own financial interests or on certain financial interests that are treated as the employee?s own.?

The ethics agency also advises that employees may be directed to divest financial investments if they pose a substantial conflict.

Last year, Ms. Rice and her husband earned between $7,500 and $25,000 on their investments in TransCanada, according to financial disclosure forms (which require officials to provide only a range of investments and earnings).

?We need a full team at the State Department, including the secretary, to be free of any conflicts of interest when it comes to tar sands and TransCanada,? said Susan Casey-Lefkowitz of the Natural Resources Defense Council, which opposes Keystone XL.

?I think she would need to sell her stock, and we would fully expect her to do that.?

Ms. Rice has not been nominated by President Obama to head the State Department, but she is said to be among his top choices.

Mr. Obama recently leapt to Ms. Rice?s defense as Congressional Republicans ramped up criticism of her handling of the attack on American diplomats in Benghazi, Libya.

Ms. Rice?s office at the United States Mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment on her stock holdings. And TransCanada said it was not in a position to speak about potential nominees.

?That is a matter for the president of the United States,? said Grady Semmens, a spokesman for the company.

Ms. Rice, whose husband is Canadian, also has stock in other Canadian energy companies whose pipeline projects would fall under the jurisdiction of the State Department.

Federal filings show that Ms. Rice and her husband own at least $1.5 million worth of holdings in Enbridge, which transports Canadian oil sands crude through the United States. The company was heavily criticized by environmental groups after a 2010 pipeline spill dumped more than 840,000 gallons of oil near Marshall, Mich., leading to the closure of a 39-mile stretch of the Kalamazoo River.

The fate of the Keystone XL, which would ship oil sands crude from Alberta to the Gulf Coast, is expected to be one of the most controversial decisions for the new Secretary of State.

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Source: http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/29/stake-in-keystone-pipeline-is-potential-conflict-for-susan-rice/?partner=rss&emc=rss

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Judge: UK needs independent press regulator

Britain's Lord Justice Brian Leveson pauses as he delivers a statement following the release of the Leveson Inquiry report at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre, London, Thursday, Nov. 29, 2012. After a yearlong inquiry full of sensational testimony, Lord Justice Leveson released his report Thursday into the culture and practices of the British press and his recommendations for future regulation to prevent phone hacking, data theft, bribery and other abuses. (AP Photo/Dan Kitwood, Pool)

Britain's Lord Justice Brian Leveson pauses as he delivers a statement following the release of the Leveson Inquiry report at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre, London, Thursday, Nov. 29, 2012. After a yearlong inquiry full of sensational testimony, Lord Justice Leveson released his report Thursday into the culture and practices of the British press and his recommendations for future regulation to prevent phone hacking, data theft, bribery and other abuses. (AP Photo/Dan Kitwood, Pool)

A man carries copies of the Leveson Inquiry report as he leaves the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre where Lord Justice Brian Leveson released his report, after a year long inquiry, into the culture and practices of the British press and his recommendations for future regulation to prevent phone hacking, data theft, bribery and other abuses, London, Thursday, Nov. 29, 2012. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

Britain's Lord Justice Brian Leveson delivers a statement following the release of the Leveson Inquiry report at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre, London, Thursday, Nov. 29, 2012. After a yearlong inquiry full of sensational testimony, Lord Justice Leveson released his report Thursday into the culture and practices of the British press and his recommendations for future regulation to prevent phone hacking, data theft, bribery and other abuses. (AP Photo/Dan Kitwood, Pool)

Britain's Lord Justice Brian Leveson, center back, delivers a statement following the release of the Leveson Inquiry report at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre, London, Thursday, Nov. 29, 2012. After a yearlong inquiry full of sensational testimony, Lord Justice Leveson released his report Thursday into the culture and practices of the British press and his recommendations for future regulation to prevent phone hacking, data theft, bribery and other abuses. (AP Photo/Dan Kitwood, Pool)

Britain's Lord Justice Brian Leveson delivers a statement following the release of the Leveson Inquiry report at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre, London, Thursday, Nov. 29, 2012. After a yearlong inquiry full of sensational testimony, Lord Justice Leveson released his report Thursday into the culture and practices of the British press and his recommendations for future regulation to prevent phone hacking, data theft, bribery and other abuses. (AP Photo/Dan Kitwood, Pool)

LONDON (AP) ? Britain's unruly newspapers should be regulated by an independent body dominated by non-journalists with the power to levy steep fines for ethical lapses, a judge recommended Thursday after a yearlong inquiry.

But Prime Minister David Cameron immediately expressed deep misgivings about a key recommendation in the 2,000-page report ? that the new regulator be enshrined in law. Cameron said he was concerned about government interference in free speech.

"I'm proud of the fact that we've managed to survive hundreds of years without state regulation," he said.

The impasse left questions about the eventual impact of Lord Justice Brian Leveson's sweeping probe of media ethics in Britain. The inquiry was triggered by a tabloid phone hacking scandal that expanded to engulf senior figures in politics, the police and Rupert Murdoch's media empire.

The report pleased victims of tabloid intrusion but left editors worrying about creeping state control of the country's fiercely independent press.

Leveson's key recommendation was to create a new regulator for newspapers and their websites, which he said should be established in law to prevent more people from being hurt by the "outrageous" press behavior that had "wreaked havoc with the lives of innocent people."

"The ball moves back into the politicians' court: They must now decide who guards the guardians," he said.

Cameron, under intense pressure over an issue that has divided his own Conservative Party, welcomed Leveson's proposal for a new regulator, saying "the status quo is not an option."

But the prime minister said asking legislators to enshrine it in law meant "crossing the Rubicon of writing elements of press regulation into the law of the land."

"I believe that we should be wary of any legislation that has the potential to infringe free speech and a free press," Cameron told lawmakers in the House of Commons. "We should think very, very carefully before crossing this line."

Cameron instead called on the much-criticized British press to show it could control itself by implementing the judge's proposals quickly without political involvement.

Leveson insisted that politicians and the government should play no role in regulating the press, which should be done by a new body with much stronger powers than the current Press Complaints Commission.

He said the new body should be composed of members of the public including former journalists and academics ? but no more than one serving editor and no politicians. It should have the power to rule on complaints, demand prominent corrections in newspapers and to levy fines of up to 1 million pounds ($1.6 million), though it would have no power to prevent material from being published.

Membership would be voluntary, but newspapers would join in part to stave off expensive lawsuits ? the regulator would handle complaints that now end up in court.

The proposal is similar to the system operating in Ireland, where a press council and ombudsman were set up in 2008 to make the print media more accountable.

Critics of the tabloid press generally backed Leveson's findings.

"I welcome Lord Leveson's report and hope it will mark the start of a new era for our press in which it treats those in the news responsibly, with care and consideration," said Kate McCann, who was the subject of intense press interest after her 3-year-old daughter Madeleine disappeared during a 2007 holiday in Portugal.

Brian Cathcart of the group Hacked Off, which campaigns for victims of press intrusion, said Leveson had produced "a workable, proportionate and reasonable solution to the problems of press abuse."

Cathcart called Cameron's inability to accept its recommendations "unfortunate and regrettable."

Cameron set up the Leveson inquiry after revelations of illegal eavesdropping by Rupert Murdoch's now-defunct News of the World tabloid sparked a criminal investigation and a wave of public revulsion.

The furor erupted in 2011 when it was revealed that the News of the World had eavesdropped on the mobile phone voicemails of slain schoolgirl Milly Dowler while police were searching for the 13-year-old.

Murdoch shut down the 168-year-old newspaper in July 2011. His U.K. newspaper company, News International, has paid millions in damages to dozens of hacking victims, and faces dozens more lawsuits from celebrities, politicians, athletes and crime victims whose voicemails were hacked in the paper's quest for scoops.

News International chief executive Tom Mockridge said the company was "keen to play our full part, with others in our industry, in creating a new body that commands the confidence of the public."

"We believe that this can be achieved without statutory regulation ? and welcome the prime minister's rejection of that proposal," he added.

Leveson's 4-million-pound ($6.4- million) inquiry heard evidence from more than 300 witnesses over months of dramatic, sometimes comic and often poignant testimony. Witnesses ranged from celebrities such as Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling and actor Hugh Grant ? who both complained of intrusive treatment ? to the parents of Dowler, who described how learning that their daughter's voicemail had been accessed had given them false hope that she was alive.

Leveson said the ongoing criminal investigation constrained him from accusing other newspapers of illegal behavior, but concluded there was a subculture of unethical behavior.

While many editors have denied knowing about phone hacking, Leveson said it "was far more than a covert, secret activity, known to nobody save one or two practitioners of the 'dark arts.'"

He said newspapers had been guilty of "recklessness in prioritizing sensational stories almost irrespective of the harm the stories may cause."

The hacking scandal has rocked Britain's press, political and police establishments, who were seen to enjoy an often-cozy relationship in which drinks, dinners and sometimes money were traded for influence and information.

Several senior police officers resigned over the failure aggressively to pursue a 2007 investigation into phone hacking at the News of the World. But Leveson said "the inquiry has not unearthed extensive evidence of police corruption."

Leveson said over the past three decades, political parties "have had or developed too close a relationship with the press in a way which has not been in the public interest."

Those relationships reached right up to the prime minister's door. Former Murdoch editors and journalists charged with phone hacking, police bribery or other wrongdoing include Cameron's former spokesman, Andy Coulson, and ex-News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks, a friend of the prime minister.

Still, Leveson acquitted senior politicians of wrongdoing.

Cameron was holding talks Thursday with leaders of the other main parties in an attempt to thrash out some agreement on press regulation.

He faced a battle. His own deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, the leader of his coalition partner the Liberal Democrats, differed from Cameron in backing the call for a new regulator established in law.

"We owe it to the victims of these scandals, who have already waited too long for us to do the right thing," Clegg said.

___

Online: http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/

Jill Lawless can be reached at http://Twitter.com/JillLawless

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2012-11-29-Britain-Phone-Hacking/id-9102b9a052d7484383770403e8ec90a7

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Charities might have to register with US tax authorities, Charity ...

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

Source: http://aidresources.org/charities-might-have-to-register-with-us-tax-authorities-charity-finance-group-warns/

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Health Fitness House: Pain Management New Risks in Common ...

People always take pain and pain medication for granted. Usually, they seek pain management treatment only when the pain grows worse or becomes intolerable and only when pain killers cant seem to give them relief anymore. But before that much-avoided visit to the doctor, how do people handle or manage pain on their own?
Most of them take over-the-counter pain medication which is, of course, fine when it comes to treating occasional bouts of pain from ordinary and common known causes. When it comes to chronic pain or pain that keeps on recurring for weeks, months or years, some people attempt to play doctor by giving themselves pain medication in doses according to their own liking. This is extremely dangerous and harmful to the body due to the many side effects that are associated with prolonged use and large doses of over-the-counter pain killers.
http://www.healthfitnesshouse.com/pain-management-new-risks-in-common-pain-killers/

Source: http://healthfitnesshouse.blogspot.com/2012/11/pain-management-new-risks-in-common.html

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Human disturbances keep elk on high alert

ScienceDaily (Nov. 28, 2012) ? University of Alberta researchers discovered that elk are more frequently and more easily disturbed by humans such as ATV drivers than by their natural predators like bears and wolves.

The U of A researchers, led by biologist Simone Ciuti, spent 12 months in southwestern Alberta. The study involved elk herds made up of females and their offspring. The researchers observed the animals' reactions to different rates of human disturbances in the form of traffic on nearby roads and off-road, all-terrain vehicles.

The elk in the study were found on a variety of land types -- public, private and inside Waterton National Park.

The research data showed that starting with a rate of just one vehicle passing by an elk herd every two hours, the animals became disturbed and more vigilant. In this state the elk consume less food, which can affect their health and possibly their calving success.

The researchers found that the highest level of disturbance happened on public lands where the effect of hunting and ATV use was cumulative.

Contrary to what some people might expect, elk inside Waterton National Park during the busy summer tourist season displayed less disturbance reaction than elk in more remote, unpopulated public land settings where motorized recreational activities were permitted.

Ciuti says this shows that the animals' reactions are not shaped by numbers of people but by the type of human activity they're exposed to.

Observing the elk from long distances so as not to alter their behaviour, the researchers took detailed notes documenting the frequency and amount of time the elk spent scanning the horizon for danger rather than foraging for food.

Ciuti says the U of A gave him an invaluable experience as a field biologist.

"Observing elk, especially in December, can be physically demanding, but you see things you can't even imagine, like a grizzly bear chasing an elk herd, trying to single out a calf," he said. "The U of A is the right place to be if you want to study animal ecology."

This research was supervised by U of A biology professor Mark Boyce. Followup research comparing birth rates in North American ungulates with levels of human disturbance will be conducted by researchers from the Boyce lab at the U of A.

The research was published Nov. 28 in the journal PLOS ONE.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Alberta. The original article was written by Brian Murphy.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

---

Journal Reference:

1. Simone Ciuti, Joseph M. Northrup, Tyler B. Muhly, Silvia Simi, Marco Musiani, Justin A. Pitt, Mark S. Boyce. Effects of Humans on Behaviour of Wildlife Exceed Those of Natural Predators in a Landscape of Fear. PLoS ONE, 2012; 7 (11): e50611 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0050611

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/PnJ5b4UJo_M/121128183051.htm

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Former baseball star indicted for insider trading

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Former Baltimore Orioles all-star Doug DeCinces and three others were indicted Wednesday on insider trading charges involving the use of information prior to the takeover of a medical device company in California, authorities said.

In 2008, DeCinces was told by a close friend and official at Advanced Medical Optics Inc. that Abbott Laboratories planned to pay $21 to $23 a share for the company's stock, prosecutors said. At the time, Advanced Medical Optics was trading for about $8 a share.

DeCinces began buying Advance Medical stock based on that information and passed along the takeover details to three friends because he wanted to make up for previous investment recommendations that had gone bad, prosecutors said.

When Abbott's offer was made public, DeCinces sold his newly purchased shares and profited about $1.3 million, court documents show. Abbott acquired Advanced Medical Optics in January 2009.

DeCinces' three friends each bought and sold Advanced Medical stock and made anywhere from $140,000 to nearly $350,000, authorities said.

Also indicted on insider trading charges were David Parker, 60, of Provo, Utah; Fred Scott Jackson, 65, of Newport Beach, and Roger Wittenbach, 69, of Lutherville-Timonium in Maryland.

DeCinces, 62, was charged with 42 counts of securities fraud and one count of money laundering. Each of the fraud counts carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. DeCinces is scheduled to appear in court on Dec. 17.

"To put it mildly, we do not agree with the decision to bring a criminal case against Doug DeCinces," said Gordon Greenberg, DeCinces' attorney. "But the proper place to have this resolved is in the courtroom and not on the courthouse steps."

Messages left for the other defendants' lawyers were not immediately returned.

The Securities and Exchange Commission previously filed a civil lawsuit against DeCinces that was settled last year when the former major leaguer agreed to pay $2.5 million. In the lawsuit, federal authorities named James Mazzo, Advanced Medical's former CEO, as the person who told DeCinces about the pending deal.

Mazzo is a senior vice president at Abbott and is not facing criminal charges. In August, in response to the SEC lawsuit, Mazzo's attorney said his client would be fully exonerated after a review of the evidence.

Also caught up in the insider trading case was Hall of Famer and DeCinces' former teammate Eddie Murray, who agreed in August to pay nearly $360,000 to settle federal civil charges. Federal investigators said DeCinces told Murray about the impending takeover. Murray neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing.

DeCinces was a third baseman during 15 seasons with the Orioles, California Angels and St. Louis Cardinals. He currently is president and CEO of a real estate development firm in Orange County.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/apnewsbreak-decinces-indicted-insider-trading-011343557--finance.html

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Shane Robison's Role In Autonomy Deal - Business Insider

Hewlett-Packard

Former HP executive Shane Robison is also getting blamed for the Autonomy deal.

When HP blamed its $8.8 billion writeoff of Autonomy on fraudulent bookkeeping at the software company it bought last year, Meg Whitman told Wall Street analysts that two HP executives "led" the deal:

Ex-CEO L?o Apotheker and former CTO Shane Robison.

And both of them, she pointed out, were gone.

That is rubbing some HP managers and executives the wrong way, a source familiar with the situation tells us.

That source, who is close to Robison, told us that no one at HP ever warned the longtime HP executive, who retired last fall, that he would be publicly blamed for the Autonomy deal.

Whitman's fingering Robison has upset some who worked closely with Robison during his 11 years at the company, our source says. ?That's potentially a problem for Whitman, who needs to win over HP's rank and file to execute a turnaround.

Of course, there's no way Whitman is going to come out and blame the board. For one thing, she was a board member before she became CEO and she reports to the board. And saying that the board didn't do its job in the Autonomy deal could expose HP to shareholder lawsuits.

But other HP insiders we've talked to say that if it's fair to blame Robison, it's fair to blame the whole board. That's because Robison had no authority to enter into a large acquisition negotiation before the board's technical committee delved into it, approved it, and sent it to the full board for approval.

That's not how most companies work. But HP is not like most companies. In 2002, its board created a technology committee charged with overseeing the company's strategy and mergers. That move was viewed as unusual at its time.

Marc Andreessen, the legendary cofounder of Netscape and technology investor at Andreessen Horowitz, chairs that committee. (Disclosure: Andreessen is an investor in Business Insider.)

Here's how HP describes the committee's role:

The Technology Committee ...?reviews and makes recommendations on proposed investment, acquisition, joint venture and divestiture transactions with a value of at least $200 million that involve technology prior to any review by other Board Committees or the Board pursuant to HP?s M&A approval policies.

So of course Andreessen and his committee members signed off on the Autonomy deal.

"Shane and his organization could not even begin conversation with a company without board approval," one of our sources told us. "It wasn't like Shane and L?o said, 'Let's go talk to Autonomy,' and then presented it to the board when the deal was done."

That's not to say the board committee deserves the blame for the deal going south. Our sources, who are familiar with HP's culture and practices, just don't understand why Robison, a well-respected executive, should carry the blame any more than the board members who approved the deal.

"Meg was part of the puzzle and just as responsible for the lack of due diligence," another longtime HP employee told us. "How much culpability does she and the board have versus the people who put the deal together? To come back and point fingers because they paid too much, that's on the board."

It's one thing for Whitman to demonize former Autonomy CEO Mike Lynch and Apotheker, her short-tenured predecessor, neither of whom meshed well with HP's culture.

But by making a scapegoat out of a well-respected technology executive like Robison, Whitman risks crossing a line with HP's rank and file, who are?still feeling the sting of her massive, multiyear layoff plan.?

The scapegoating seems especially unfair because Robison's responsibility was technology, not accounting and finance, and the problem with the Autonomy deal is the accounting and the price HP paid, not its technology.

"Shane is hardcore dedicated to HP," one of our sources said. "To take a former executive and treat him this way without even a heads-up?HP employees are pretty wound up around it."

Our source also points out that HP has a long history of botched acquisitions. Autonomy's former CEO, Mike Lynch, told Business Insider that the acquisition failed because of HP's poor management, particularly with respect to its sales management.

"That's 100% true," our source said. "It's the No. 1 problem with all of HP's acquisitions. It's not unique to Autonomy."

We asked Robison, who now serves on the board of storage startup Fusion-io, for an interview. He politely declined. We also asked HP for comment and haven't heard back yet.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/shane-robison-hp-autonomy-2012-11

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