"As far as we are concerned, we Syria have not changed"

"The opposition Syrian National Coalition (SNC) has pulled out of a series of international meetings in protest at what it said was the "shameful" failure to stop violence."

Read more on the BBC.

Capitalism 2.0

"When big companies fail, it’s often not because they do something wrong but because they do everything right. Successful businesses, Christensen explained, are trained to focus on what he calls sustaining innovations—innovations at the profitable, high end of the market, making things incrementally bigger, more powerful, and more efficient."

Read more on WIRED.

The genius within...

"Derek Amato stood above the shallow end of the swimming pool and called for his buddy in the Jacuzzi to toss him the football. Then he launched himself through the air, head first, arms outstretched. He figured he could roll onto one shoulder as he snagged the ball, then slide across the water. It was a grave miscalculation."

Read more on POPSCI.

A good excuse to work together..

"Moscow believes an operable national defense against threats from outer space can be built within 10 years’ time. The 500-kiloton explosion of a space bolide above the Urals region has sped-up allocation of some $2 billion to prevent future threats."

Read more on Russia Today.

Good idea..

"In Brazil, a former presidential candidate and environment minister has launched a new political party, Sustainability Network, ahead of next year's presidential elections.

In a speech to hundreds of supporters in the capital, Brasilia, Marina Silva stressed the party's green credentials."

Read more on the BBC.

One man's trash is another man's treasure..

"A conservative icon in a hall crammed with college kids is a powder keg awaiting a spark, and cops had been summoned to defuse any eruptions. But the commonwealth’s attorney general disarmed his audience by citing the “fascinating experiment” underway in Colorado and Washington, states where voters legalized marijuana in landmark referendums last fall."

Read more on TIME.

Now we're talking..

"The top religious authority in Sunni Islam says it hopes Pope Benedict XVI's successor will work for better ties between Muslims and Christians."

Read more on the BBC.

Of equal measure...?

"President Barack Obama has committed to preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon by military force if necessary. Last year, he told Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic, “As president of the United States, I don’t bluff.” But why should anyone believe him when North Korea has gone nuclear with impunity? It’s an uncomfortable question for the administration, at a particularly bad moment."

Read more on TIME.

Again...

"The chief executive of Italian aerospace and defence firm Finmeccanica has been arrested on corruption charges.

Giuseppe Orsi has been under investigation for bribery and embezzlement for several months. He has always denied any wrongdoing."

Read more on the BBC.

Russian envoy talks Syria

Via Russia Today.

Also

"Let’s be clear: Syrian lives are no more or less precious than Congolese lives, but current developments in Syria have far greater implications for U.S. policies around the world than current developments in Congo."

Read more on SyrianRevolutionDigest.

"Politics is a rotton egg, if it breaks...it.."

"Euro MPs prompted uproar last night by plotting to try to block the budget deal using a secret ballot so voters cannot hold them to account.

It emerged that they are planning to use a little-understood procedure to allow them to vote in private and defy  the 27 EU leaders. "

Read more on the Daily Mail.

"Ye know too mouch!"

"In 1999, while sitting at a bus stop in Cuernavaca, Mexico, a Czech physicist named Petr Šeba noticed young men handing slips of paper to the bus drivers in exchange for cash. It wasn’t organized crime, he learned, but another shadow trade: Each driver paid a “spy” to record when the bus ahead of his had departed the stop. If it had left recently, he would slow down, letting passengers accumulate at the next stop. If it had departed long ago, he sped up to keep other buses from passing him. This system maximized profits for the drivers. And it gave Šeba an idea."

Read more on WIRED.

Stardust...

 Via GIZMODO

Too true...

The priorities of my generation, are not the same priorities of every generation before them.

"Children in Britain only want to be pop stars and footballs, David Cameron claimed today as he contrasted the ambitions of youngsters in the UK with those struggling to overcome poverty in Africa."


Read more on the Daily Mail.

Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without..

"Zimbabwe's finance minister has taken a hard look at the cash strapped country's bank accounts - and discovered it only has £138 and 34 pence left."


Read more on the Daily Mail.

The economy of the future?

What is "Resilient dynamism", the buzz word being conjured up on the magic mountains of Switzerland by business and political leaders at this year's Davos summit?  

Resilience/Resilient - To bounce back, implying the willingness to return to a former state as a result of misfortune or setback.

Dynamism - This could refer to the continuous change and progression of an energy, it may well be the mechanism or spring that is responsible for this energy or life force. Dynamism is also a scientific explanation used in metaphysical cosmology. 


Both words are similar in the sense that you need one to achieve the other. 

When discussed in relation to evolution this would describe the precise moment of evolution, the moment a species evolves or risks being consigned to extinction.

Evolution revolves around environmental circumstance and the pressures a species may find itself under. The environment dictates this change.

The world economy like a tree allows growth, pollination and after a long winter, rejuvenation.  

Using this tree as a metaphor, I could compare the current economic crisis to a long winter. There have been worse winters.  Not all economies have the same seasons if that makes sense. Trade is seasonal, Australia for example is enjoying an era of stability and growth, a summer season. 

The question is not how to recover from a long winter but how to become Evergreen, the tree capable of growth that survives all seasons and in various climates. 

The Evergreen tree can be used as a metaphor for continual renewal. This is nature's proof of adaptation, it is both versatile and calculating. In evolution, this is nature displaying her "resilience" to the Sun that dictates the "dynamism" of the seasons, a god-like balance.  

How about looking at trade from the universe's perspective, if it has one? In metaphysical cosmology "dynamism" is the interaction that takes place between elements without making contact through modes or harmonic motion, thus yielding all phenomena in the universe including expansion. 

This in short is dark energy. 

Stock trading or prediction markets could be compared to the dark energy found in the universe. They are within their own universe. The harmonic motion of the world's capital is the interaction that takes place between cities/elements or matter.

The universe hypothetically depends on dark energy as the accelerating force of its expansion and growth, beating the attractive force of gravity. This was not always the case. When the universe was young, astronomers believe dark energy's impact was small and gravity dominated.

Scientists ultimately would want to harness dark matter or energy to solve the world's future energy crisis. A deeper understanding of dark energy would lead to more effective processes and equations. If this understanding would improve scientific predictability of the universe the world sits in, perhaps this discovery would lead to more accurate predictability of the financial universe's elemental interactions. 

If dark energy has it's place in the universe it likely does on Earth too. 

BS computer trading/virtual markets have their place within the current financial system. This trend will likely increase and continue to do so despite financial computer algorithms causing major disruptions and concerns and despite their susceptibility to manipulation and fraud. 

Algorithmic-trade is responsible for more than 1/4 of all the market's trades. This trend will only increase as Quantum finance, computing and science becomes more prevalent in trading. A single quantum computer could examine trillions of ways to trade a stock or asset. 

This technology would allow much faster and more accurate predictions than any system used today. This, coupled with advanced encryption, could be the mechanism that allows markets to work in a futuristic synchronised harmonious motion. Like the tree it must be calculating, versatile and compensational. The world's wealth and resources being the Sun that dictates the "dynamism" of environment and seasons. 

Could this be the future of the financial universe, allowing computerised dark energy to reign supreme over the traditional gravity of human/government controlled trade? 

The markets running free is a daunting prospect. 

This is not the first time it has been suggested either. The Austrian WW2 soldier turned economist and forward thinker Friedrich Hayek suggested detaching financial control from the hands of the state. That "the past instability of the market economy is the consequence of the exclusion of the most important regulator of the market mechanism, money, from itself being regulated by the market process." 

He didn't completely fire government from the economic equation. Government should perform tasks the free market is incapable of. He concluded government has a role to play, more specifically as a safety net. "There is no reason why, in a society which has reached the general level of wealth ours has, the first kind of security should not be guaranteed to all without endangering general freedom." Hayek said that government has a role in preventing fraud and deception and this includes the exploitation of ignorance. 

An algorithmic-trade market economy and the government "safety net" that protects society's well being. Hayek believed this 'energy reserve' was government's place in the economy and society. 

If 3/4 of the the world's market economy were run by quantum algorithmic-trade it would require every nation to work together. It would require a new breed of banker. A hybrid equipped with a deeper blend of scientific and moral understanding and mathematical predictions, bringing the ethics of science to finance.

The traditional banker becomes the financial astronomer, there would certainly be fewer of them. I see this role as someone who cares for the world/nation's stability and secures direction before wealth and opportunity.

For capitalism to be truly like the Evergreen it must sacrifice greed for security, and luck for certainty and efficiency.  To evolve it must be bold, it must prove resilient. 

Following the current pattern of civilisation's evolution, it is evident that with population growth, the trend is democratisation. Handing power to the ordinary, socialism without the socialist. This is Democratisation. This is a natural progression, there is no reason to believe that the world's economy, stock market and companies will not follow a similar pattern. 

He has a point..economically..

"Mr Deripaska, chief executive of the world’s biggest aluminium producer Rusal, said the UK was a “country which could progress much faster...but suddenly decided to choose a different agenda”, while the US is currently “more attractive”."

Read more on the Telegraph.

Pax Yazhou?

"Top leader Xi Jinping called for the resolution of sensitive issues haunting China-Japan ties as a Japanese envoy handed him a letter from the prime minister on Friday.

The meeting between Xi and Natsuo Yamaguchi, party leader of Japan's pacifist New Komeito, has been the highest-level contact between the two countries since tensions over the Diaoyu Islands spiked in September."

Read more on CHINA DAILY.



FIND OUT MORE HERE

The Liquidizer...its a dance move..

"Colombia's peace talks are advancing at an accelerated pace – "in the rhythm of mambo", as a Farc spokesman put it."

Read more on the BBC.

"Out of discord comes..."

Doorway to mutual respect?

"For women who have already seen combat, it is a decision that is well overdue. But for the skeptics, it is a setback that will damage the military.

The Pentagon's reported decision to lift the ban on women in combat units will take time to put into effect, but many former service members are lauding reports that the Defense Department will make the change soon."

Read more on CNN.

Ireland in oil find..

"The company said it has found signs of a huge oilfield in the Rathlin Basin, just a few miles off the north coast of Northern Ireland, which initial tests have indicated could yield more than 500m barrels of oil.

Providence said it plans to start drilling in 2014, and hopes the near-shore location will allow a land-based operation in Northern Ireland."

Read more on the Telegraph.

Australia in oil find..

"An Australian company claims it has found an untapped shale oil field with estimated reserves that could potentially put the country next to remarkably oil-rich Saudi Arabia. Still, extracting the discovered treasure poses a huge technical challenge.

Brisbane-based company Linc Energy has presented two estimates by respected independent consultants claiming that drilling and seismic exploration they do in South Australia has brought the prize they have been dreaming of for years – a potentially huge untapped shale oil deposit."

Read more on Russia Today.

"Opposition brings concord...."

Mimicking device...

The mimic octopus

"Chinese researchers have revealed a 'ghost cape' that can make one object appear to look like another.

The team from Southeast University in Nanjing, China say their technique is far simpler that other invisibility devices, because instead of making an object disappear entirely, it makes it look like something else."

Read more on the Daily Mail.

This takes it to a new level of...

"They have been billed as villas, but that would be using the loosest sense of the word.

Stretching as far as the eye can see in rows upon rows of arrow-straight uniformity, this development conjures images of a concrete slum or a prison bock rather than a plush new housing estate."

Read more on the Daily Mail.

The icebreaker?

"TROMSO -- Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barthe Eide said on Monday that Norway will support China's application for the status of a permanent observer to the Arctic Council.

Eide gave a definite "yes" answer to the question put to him by a Xinhua reporter if Norway would back China's bid for the permanent observer status in the eight-member regional council comprising mostly of countries on the rim of the Arctic Ocean."

Read more on CHINA DAILY.

READ MORE ON POPSCI

Talk to me..

"One of the more intriguing moves in the Afghanistan endgame was the joint announcement by the U.S. and Afghan Presidents that office space had been made available for the Taliban in Doha, Qatar. The office, formally announced during Hamid Karzai’s recent trip to Washington, will provide a physical space for face-to-face talks with the Taliban."

Read more on TIME.

Vatican's property empire..

"Few passing London tourists would ever guess that the premises of Bulgari, the upmarket jewellers in New Bond Street, had anything to do with the pope. Nor indeed the nearby headquarters of the wealthy investment bank Altium Capital, on the corner of St James's Square and Pall Mall.

But these office blocks in one of London's most expensive districts are part of a surprising secret commercial property empire owned by theVatican."

Read more on The Guardian.

Trade between the UK and Germany is on the rise..

"Fresh data from the Bundesbank show that Anglo-German trade in goods and services soared to €153bn in the first nine months of 2012, with both exports and imports booming at double-digit rates.

It is one of the fastest growing trade relationships in the developed world. France lagged behind at €150bn as trade stagnated, with the US at €149bn and China at €115bn."

Read more on The Telegraph.

How did she get up there?

A bigger garden.......

"A new space company will announce plans to mine the minor planets at a press conference in Santa Monica, California, tomorrow, 22 January.

Deep Space Industries intends to build a fleet of commercial asteroid-prospecting spacecraft that can harvest and process these chunks of space rock."

Read more on WIRED.

Polaris: Not so close after all?

"Last November, astronomer David Turner made headlines by claiming that one of the sky's best known objects—the North Star, Polaris—was actually 111 light-years closer than thought. If true, the finding might have forced researchers to rethink how they calculate distances in the cosmos as well as what they know about some aspects of stellar physics. But a new study argues that distance measurements of the familiar star made some 2 decades ago by the European Space Agency's venerable Hipparcos satellite are still spot on. Experts appear to agree."

Read more on SCIENCE MAG.

The world is old, but the future springs from the past..

"The French President Francois Hollande has this week sent more soldiers into Mali, despite his previous promise to downsize their military presence there. The situation reflects France's complex with the West African country.

For as long as I have been covering French news, which is more than 20 years now, there has been a constant refrain that it is time to move away from the old idea of what they call here La Francafrique."

Read more on the BBC.

Where no counsel is...

"David Cameron’s big speech on Europe may have been postponed, but the dilemma facing all the main political parties — not just the Tories — will continue to intensify.

Much of what the PM would have said yesterday had already leaked out and his prepared comments were clearly intended to address widespread public disgust over the EU."

Read more on The Daily Mail.

Do you conform?

"Three stories have particularly caught my eye over the past week. On Tuesday, Nadia Eweida, a 60 year-old Christian, won her case in the European Court of Human Rights after being prevented by British Airways from wearing a crucifix around her neck. The company said she contravened their uniform codes, but the judges who found in her favour said that her human right to “freedom of thought, conscience and religion” had been violated."

Read more on The Independent.

Japan does the right thing..

"Hatoyama makes symbolic gesture, but Tokyo keeps 'hard-line stance'

A former Japanese leader visited a memorial site to victims of Japanese wartime aggression, but analysts were quick to reject any suggestion that Tokyo will change its policies toward China."

Read more on CHINA DAILY.

YAR!

"The British overseas territory, which has been criticised as being one of the most secretive finance jurisdictions in the world, is introducing reforms that will make public the names of thousands of previously hidden companies and their directors."

Read more on The Telegraph.

New orders...

"The U.S. military is getting ready to send its elite troops to help in the fight against Mexico’s drug lords. American special operations forces will expand their training of Mexican commando teams, teaching them to hunt cartel chieftains like they were al-Qaida extremists. It’s a sign the U.S. is preparing for a long shadow war against the cartels."

Read more on WIRED.

Movin....

"The dawn of agriculture is often cited as the beginning of modern civilization, since it allowed people to live for a long time in one place and build large societies, but one thing it didn't change was our species' propensity for migration: as of 2010, more than 215 million people--about 3 percent of the world's population--were living in countries outside of their own."

Check out the infographic via POPSCI

Gold standard?

"The world is moving step by step towards a de facto Gold Standard, without any meetings of G20 leaders to announce the idea or bless the project."

Read more on The Telegraph.

'The greatest show on Earth..'

In Allahabad, northern India, a megacity of millions is sprouting up at the confluence of the Yamuna and Ganges rivers. For millennia, Hindu devotees have flocked to these holy banks to participate in a ritual cleansing known as the Kumbh Mela.

Read more on TIME.

OB does the right thing..

"Vowing to “put everything into this”, President Barack Obama today unveiled the most sweeping proposals in two decades to tighten gun control in the US, including universal background checks on anyone trying to buy a gun, and a renewed ban on assault weapons, coupled with a 10-round limit for magazines."

Read more on The Independent.

Timbuk tu!

"Residents of Timbuktu in northern Mali have been living under Islamist rule for the last nine months.

The historic city is a World Heritage site, renowned for its architecture, manuscript libraries and centuries-old shrines to Islamic saints - revered by Sufi Muslims but which the Salafi militants consider idolatrous."

Read more on the BBC.