Chinese dissident to leave New York University shortly

By Jonathan Allen

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng, who left his home country last year and became a visiting scholar at New York University, will leave the school this summer, but will likely remain in the United States, university officials said on Thursday.

Chen made international headlines last year when he escaped house arrest in China's Shandong province, after campaigning for farmers and disabled citizens and exposing forced abortions in China. Chen spent 20 hours on the run before finding refuge at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, prompting urgent negotiations between the two countries and, finally, China's agreement to let him travel to the United States.

Chen, who has been blind from childhood and taught himself law, may head to Fordham University Law School, also in New York City, according to a Fordham spokesman who said negotiations were still underway.

Chen could not immediately be reached for comment, but Danica Mills, an interpreter for Chen, said he may release a statement later.

Since moving with his wife and children to New York, working at NYU's U.S.-Asia Law Institute and working to learn English, Chen has continued to criticize China's human rights record, both through NYU forums and elsewhere.

On Thursday, the New York Post, citing an anonymous professor, reported that NYU had asked Chen to leave the school earlier than agreed at the behest of the Chinese authorities for fear that displeasing them would disrupt the construction of an NYU campus in Shanghai.

NYU confirmed that Chen would leave the school, but a spokesman called the Post's report "fanciful and false."

"If it were true, why would NYU have taken Mr. Chen in at the height of the public fervor, and why would the Chinese authorities have given us permissions to move forward with our Shanghai campus AFTER his arrival here?" spokesman John Beckman said in an email. "The plain fact is that these are unrelated matters. In countless hours of conversations involving the establishment of our Shanghai campus, this matter has never come up."

Jerome Cohen, an NYU law professor and friend of Chen who helped broker his departure from China, stated in May 2012, before Chen left Beijing, that he would be at NYU for a year at most.

Cohen had said, in an interview with PBS, "The idea would be, they could come for up to a year. And, at that point, he will be more comfortable with himself. He will be more adjusted to freedom. And he will have to decide, 'What next?'"

Cohen, who is traveling in China, said in a statement that: "No political refugee, even Albert Einstein, has received better treatment by an American academic institution than that received by Chen from NYU, and I am grateful to the university administration for its extraordinary generosity, which could not reasonably be expected to go on indefinitely."

In an interview with Reuters last month, Chen criticized China in the wake of reports that his relatives there had been harassed and mistreated by local authorities, and urged the United States to intervene, saying China had promised that his family would not be targeted.

(This June 13 story has been corrected to say Chen blind from childhood, not birth, in paragraph three.)

(Editing by Barbara Goldberg and David Gregorio)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/chinese-dissident-leave-york-university-shortly-160838258.html

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Kenyan shilling falls, stock market slide persists

By Kevin Mwanza

NAIROBI (Reuters) - The Kenyan shilling fell to an 11-week low on Friday as expected support from the central bank failed to materialise and a week-long share sell-off persisted.

The shilling has weakened 0.8 percent since June 6 as foreign investors have booed gains from 2013's 20 percent rally in stocks.

It could come under further pressure after the finance minister said on Thursday that Kenya plans to reintroduce a tax on capital gains, which could deter foreign investors.

At 1300 GMT commercial banks quoted the shilling at 85.50/60 per dollar, a level last touched on March 28, against Thursday's close of 85.35/55.

"The shilling is definitely going to weaken. The thing is how far they (central bank) will let it go," Co-operative Bank trader Pally Muchiri said.

The bank intervened for the first time in four months on May 29, selling unspecified amount of dollars after the shilling fell 1.7 percent in five sessions to an eight-week low of 85.30/50.

"Any panicky moves from importers would see the shilling slip further. I see 86 being hit next week, though central bank actions would slow such a move," said a trader at one commercial bank.

In stocks, the main NSE-20 share index fell for the sixth straight session, down 0.7 percent to 4,806.52 points. The index has lost 3.7 percent since June 6.

"The sell-off is part of a global phenomenon. The local concern is the capital gains tax, but the 1.5 percent transport tax could also have a detrimental effect on businesses," Suntra Investment Bank analyst Johnson Nderi said.

Hares in Kenya Airways, one of Africa's leading airlines, tumbled 5.6 percent to close at 10.10 shillings after it posted worse than expected full-year pretax loss because of falling passenger numbers.

Profit-taking investors sent Mobile phone services company Safaricom down 4.1 percent to close at 7 shillings per share. The stock has more than doubled in price over the past 12 months.

In the debt market, bonds worth 3.5 billion shillings were traded, up from 3 billion shillings on Thursday.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/kenyan-shilling-falls-stock-market-slide-persists-151042879.html

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Hong Kong's Old Airport Reborn As Hong Kong's New Cruise Ship Terminal

The Kai Tak Airport, better known as Hong Kong International, dutifully served the island city for nearly three quarters of a century before shutting down in 1998. But rather than let that prime civic real estate fallow, the Hong Kong government has transformed it into a dazzling new cruise ship port.

Read more...

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/kHpCuHNO3bQ/hong-kongs-old-airport-reborn-as-hong-kongs-new-cruis-513464397

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Turkish PM makes concession to end protest

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) -- Turkish activists leading a sit-in were considering a promise Friday by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to let the courts ? and a potential referendum ? decide the fate of an Istanbul park redevelopment project that has sparked Turkey's biggest protests in decades.

In last-ditch negotiations after Erdogan issued a "final warning" to protesters, his ruling party announced early Friday that the government would suspend a controversial construction plan for Istanbul's Gezi Park until courts could rule on its legality. Even if the courts sided with the government, a city referendum would be held to determine the plan's fate, officials said.

The unilateral pledge aimed to cajole protesters into ending a two-week standoff that has damaged Erdogan's international reputation and led to repeated clashes with riot police. After initially inflaming tensions by dubbing the protesters "terrorists" and issuing defiant public remarks, Erdogan has moderated his stance in closed-door talks this week.

It remained far from clear, however, whether the overture would work. The park is one of the few green areas left in the sprawling metropolis of Istanbul and many protesters were still seething over the forceful operations by riot police that at times devolved into violent clashes with stone- and firebomb-throwing youths.

Such scenes prompted the European Parliament on Wednesday to condemn the heavy-handed response by Turkish police and sparked a heated riposte from Erdogan.

A May 31 police raid to clear out the park ignited demonstrations that morphed into broader protests against what many say is the prime minister's increasingly authoritarian style of government. Five people ? four demonstrators and a police officer ?were killed in the protests that spread to dozens of other cities.

The protests have centered lately on three cities: Istanbul, Izmir on the Aegean Sea coast, and Ankara, the capital.

Erdogan's opponents, including many protesters, have grown increasingly suspicious about what they call a gradual erosion of freedoms and secular Turkish values under his Islamic-rooted party's government. It has passed new restrictions on alcohol and attempted but dropped a plan to limit women's access to abortion.

Mobilizing instruments of democracy and the state ? the courts, and a referendum ? could shield the prime minister from accusations of an authoritarian response.

"Until the courts give their final verdicts, no action will be taken regarding Gezi Park," said Huseyin Celik, a spokesman for Erdogan's Justice and Development Party, after the meeting. "Even if the court ... is in favor of our government's decisions, our government will hold a referendum to see what our people think ? what they want and don't want."

The Taksim Solidarity group, two of whose members were in the meeting with Erdogan, has emerged as the most high-profile from the occupation that began last month. But it does not speak for all of the hundreds camping in the park. Many say they have no affiliation to any group or party.

Tayfun Kahraman, one of the Taksim Solidarity members who attended the meeting, said he believed Erdogan had offered "positive words," and that fellow activists would consider them in a "positive manner." But he said those in Gezi Park would "make their own assessments."

Suspicion within the park about Erdogan's tactics and motives remains widespread, and the protesters are firmly entrenched:

In recent days, the festive tent-village atmosphere ? with amenities like a medical station and library with donated books ? has been marked by nightly piano concerts.

"The prime minister calls the people he pleases to the meetings and says some stuff," said demonstrator Murat Tan. "We don't care about them much. Today, we saved the trees here but our main goal is to save the people."

Erdogan has pledged to end the protest, and has called his supporters to rally in Ankara and Istanbul this weekend. But those demonstrations could revive the discord between his conservative, Islamic base, and more liberal- and secular-minded progressives and others who are holed up in the park ? potentially torpedoing his own efforts to end to the showdown.

Analysts say the protests don't present a threat to Erdogan's tenure, but threaten his legacy. Some say he has ambitions to enter the history books as a contemporary answer to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founding father of modern Turkey.

Erdogan has reiterated his support for Turkey's secular democracy in the face of the accusations of authoritarianism ? and sat in front of a portrait of Ataturk during the overnight talks at his residence in Ankara.

___

Eds: Onur Cakir in Istanbul and Jamey Keaten in Ankara contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/turkish-pm-vows-gesture-aimed-122821230.html

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Lawmaker accuses Google of dodging taxes

LONDON (AP) ? An influential committee of British lawmakers accused search giant Google of dodging its taxes on Thursday, issuing a scathing report that said the U.S. Internet company took on highly contrived arrangements serving no purpose other than to avoid paying its fair share.

The report came after testimony by Google Vice President Matt Brittin, who tried to persuade members of parliament's Public Accounts Committee that his company was transparent and fair. Committee chair Margaret Hodge rejected arguments that Google's advertising sales take place in Ireland and not the U.K.

"Google brazenly argued before this committee that its tax arrangements in the U.K. are defensible and lawful," she wrote, adding that the "argument is deeply unconvincing and has been undermined by information from whistleblowers, including ex-employees of Google, who told us that U.K.-based staff are engaged in selling."

Hodge said the government needs to act to shut down loopholes.

"The company's highly contrived tax arrangement has no purpose other than to enable the company to avoid U.K. corporation tax," she said.

Google countered on Thursday that while it welcomed the call to make the system simpler and more transparent, the company was honoring the law.

"As we've always said, Google complies with all the tax rules in the U.K., and it is the politicians who make those rules," the company said in a statement. "It's clear from this report that the Public Accounts Committee wants to see international companies paying more tax where their customers are located, but that's not how the rules operate today."

Britain is in tough economic times, struggling with austerity measures that have led to cuts in welfare programs, public-sector jobs and government spending.

Like several other multinational corporations, including Amazon, Facebook and Starbucks, Google's complex corporate structures and disproportionately low tax bills have drawn the ire of a public facing one of the worst economic crises since the Great Depression.

Google has paid less than 0.1 percent of its billions in U.K. revenue back to the government in tax. In the first quarter of this year, it made $1.3 billion in revenue from the U.K., according to a Google release. The company argues that the overwhelming majority of sales actually occur at the company's European head office in Dublin.

The location is important. In Ireland, the corporate tax rate is a bargain-basement 12.5 percent.

An investigation by the Reuters news agency cast doubt on those claims, and the committee asked to speak to Brittin for a second time.

Brittin acknowledged that Google employed "people with sales skills," but insisted that those doing the sales are in Ireland.

Hodge rejected the characterization.

"Google's reputation has been damaged by these revelations of aggressive tax avoidance," she said. "That damage will not be repaired until the company arranges to pay its fair share of tax in the country where it earns the profits from the business it conducts."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/lawmaker-accuses-google-dodging-taxes-065701089.html

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NY judge: Fed plan for morning-after pill sales OK

FILE - In this May 2, 2013 photo, pharmacist Simon Gorelikov holds a generic emergency contraceptive, also called the morning-after pill, at the Health First Pharmacy in Boston. The plaintiffs in a legal battle over emergency contraceptives say in a letter Wednesday June 12, 2013, the government has failed to comply with a New York judge's order to lift all restrictions on sales of the drug. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola, File)

FILE - In this May 2, 2013 photo, pharmacist Simon Gorelikov holds a generic emergency contraceptive, also called the morning-after pill, at the Health First Pharmacy in Boston. The plaintiffs in a legal battle over emergency contraceptives say in a letter Wednesday June 12, 2013, the government has failed to comply with a New York judge's order to lift all restrictions on sales of the drug. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola, File)

NEW YORK (AP) ? President Barack Obama's administration can go forward with its new plan to make the morning-after pill available to buyers of any age without prescriptions, but it needs to do it promptly or face potential sanctions in the long-running dispute over access to the emergency contraceptives, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

The finding by U.S. District Judge Edward Korman came in response to a Department of Justice decision this week to ditch rules barring over-the-counter sales to girls younger than 15 and comply with his April order to make the pills available to buyers of any age.

The judge gave the go-ahead on a plan to fast-track Food and Drug Administration approval of unrestricted sales of the Plan-B one-pill version of the drug, but not without once again blaming the FDA for bending to "unjustified political interference" and endlessly clinging to "legally and scientifically unjustified restrictions."

The legal effort to convert the drugs "from prescription to over-the-counter status has gone on over 12 years, even though they would be among the safest drugs available to children and adults on any drugstore shelf," the judge wrote.

An advocate for girls' and women's reproductive rights, Annie Tummino, the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit demanding broader access to the pill, reacted to the judge's memo with cautious optimism.

"The government needs to act now to put it on the shelf where women need it ? at any convenience store, just like aspirin or condoms and at a price we can afford," Tummino said in a statement.

Department of Justice spokeswoman Allison Price declined to comment on the judge's decision.

The morning-after pill contains a higher dose of the female hormone progestin than is in regular birth control pills. Taking it within 72 hours of rape, condom failure or just forgetting regular contraception can cut the chances of pregnancy by up to 89 percent, but it works best within the first 24 hours. If a girl or woman already is pregnant, the pill, which prevents ovulation or fertilization of an egg, has no effect.

For the morning-after pill to be sold without age and other restrictions, manufacturer Teva Women's Health must submit an application to the FDA, which has said it "intends to approve it promptly." Teva hasn't said how quickly that might happen.

The FDA was preparing in 2011 to allow over-the-counter sales of the morning-after pill with no limits when Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius overruled her own scientists in an unprecedented move. White House officials have claimed that the FDA and the Department of Justice were acting independently of the White House in deciding how to proceed.

Despite the government's shift this week, the plaintiffs had complained to the judge that the new proposal still harmed girls and women by failing to lift restrictions on a cheaper, two-pill version of the drug. Their lawyers argued that the government couldn't prove that there was a difference between the one-pill and two-pill versions that would justify excluding one from their plan.

"My order, however, is clear that the defendants may limit over-the-counter approval to the one-pill product if they actually believe such a difference exits," the judge wrote. "On the assumption that the Commissioner of Food and Drugs entertains a good-faith belief that the products should be treated differently, the defendants' proposal is sufficient to comply with my order."

He noted that the government had committed to approving a revised application from Plan B's manufacturer without delay.

"If they fail to do so, the plaintiffs with have a remedy available," he wrote.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/bbd825583c8542898e6fa7d440b9febc/Article_2013-06-12-Morning-After%20Pill/id-fe164e03970540ac868528378f018849

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Humans are happier when they do the right thing; It also helps them overcome difficulties

June 12, 2013 ? Communities that stick together and do good for others cope better with crises and are happier for it, according to a new study by John Helliwell, from the University of British Columbia in Canada, and colleagues. Their work suggests that part of the reason for this greater resilience is the fact that humans are more than simply social beings, they are so-called 'pro-social' beings. In other words, they get happiness not just from doing things with others, but from doing things both with and for others. The paper is published online in Springer's Journal of Happiness Studies.

How does the social fabric of a community or nation affect its capacity to deal with crises and to develop resources that maintain and improve people's happiness during those difficult times? "Communities and nations with better social capital, in other words, quality social networks and social norms as well as high levels of trust, respond to crises and economic transitions more happily and effectively," Helliwell and his team conclude.

Their paper begins with an assessment of social capital and happiness during the recent years of economic crisis in 255 US metropolitan areas. Overall, social capital has improved the nation's happiness during the period of economic crisis, both directly and indirectly by mitigating the impact of rising unemployment.

Helliwell and colleagues then take a broader perspective by examining national average happiness in OECD countries after the 2008 financial crisis. They group countries according to their levels of happiness:

? The group with rising happiness includes countries less directly affected by the crisis, with policies well chosen to enhance the well-being of their residents -- as in South Korea, for example.

? The group with falling happiness includes those countries worst hit by the original crisis, and by its subsequent spillovers in the Euro zone. In this group, social capital and other key supports for happiness were damaged during the crisis and its aftermath.

The study also digs deeper into the relative roles of social capital and income as determinants of happiness. Evidence from countries in economic transition demonstrates the power of social trust, i.e., the belief that generally speaking, most people can be trusted. Social trust is an indicator of the quality of a country's social capital, which increases happiness directly but also permits a softer landing in the face of external economic shocks..

The authors wrap up with a look at the power of human nature and the suggestion that the core goal of public policy should be to facilitate the development of institutions that bring out the best in humans -- a view articulated by Elinor Ostrom, an American political economist and the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Economics.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/living_well/~3/2pznD9KAS5E/130612133012.htm

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