Across Europe, Left-Leaning Parties See Clout Faltering

Across Europe, Left-Leaning Parties See Clout Faltering

(Source Wall Street Journal)
PARIS -- The economic recession should have meant easy votes for Europe's left-wing movements, longtime critics of unchecked capitalism.

Yet as Europe goes to the polls, left-leaning parties across the continent are looking likely to falter. That's true both for those in government, such as in the U.K. and Spain, and in the opposition -- such as France, Germany and Italy.

France's Socialist Party is trying hard to rally voters ahead of Sunday's European parliamentary elections. "Let's unite with all the French who contest free market, unfair policies that aim at deregulating everything," party leader Martine Aubry urged at a pre-election rally.

Yet less than 20% of voters say they plan to cast their ballot for the Socialist Party, according to recent surveys. That would be a weak performance considering France's main opposition party got 29% of the votes in the last European parliamentary elections.

In Germany, the Social Democrats are expected to get only around 26% on Sunday, consistent with their low opinion-poll ratings ahead of Germany's national elections in September. Italy's center-left Partito Democratico is expected to get a similar percentage.

One reason is that as Europe tipped into recession, the right moved left -- appropriating some of the left's long-standing economic policies, including nationalizations and bailouts.

French conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy, for example, helped recapitalize French banks, earmarked six billion euros for the auto sector and lashed out at "rascal bosses" with huge pay packages.

In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel has planted her conservative camp firmly in the political center. Ms. Merkel has largely given up her former program of market-oriented reforms, and has gradually approved various kinds of state intervention to protect workers during the current recession, from bailing out carmaker Opel to subsidizing payrolls at companies whose export orders have collapsed.

Even before that, right-wing parties across the continent began offering more pragmatic approaches to policy than they had traditionally done. In the past decade, conservative parties introduced competition or privatized some public services in France, Germany and Italy -- but they refrained from dismantling the health-care and public transport services cherished by voters.

In the past, there was a clear fault line between Europe's left-wing and right-wing parties. The left called for more social welfare programs and public spending. The right wanted the state not to interfere in market forces.

Globalization helped change that. With nations and companies vying on a global scale, it has become difficult for a country to separate the effects of public spending and budget deficits from its labor costs and capacity to compete in export markets. The key moment came as far back as 1994, some political analysts say, when the World Trade Organization was created and much of the world began shifting to a more free-market economy.

"The WTO marked the triumph of the market economy," says Dominique Reynié, head of Paris-based Foundation for Political Innovation. "Since then, the left has been unable to propose another route."

The U.K.'s Labour Party stood as an exception when, under Tony Blair, it tried to shape a middle road. But Mr. Blair had inherited a deeply deregulated economy from the hands of previous conservative leaders, state coffers swelled during an economic boom, and he "had room to increase public spending and hire state workers," Mr. Reynié said. His successor, Prime Minister Gordon Brown, has struggled to find a similar compromise way amid Europe's falling financial fortunes. Read Article...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124425154944290829.html

Airlines Are at It Again: Less Legroom

Airlines Are at It Again: Less Legroom

(Source Wall Street Journal)
If you thought legroom on commercial airlines was already cramped, get set to be squeezed some more.

New Boeing 737-800s now being delivered to American Airlines have the same-size cabins as the existing 737-800s in American's fleet. But the new planes have 12 more coach seats, pushing the total number of seats to 160. Delta Air Lines Inc. has also added 10 seats to its 737-800s, raising the total to 160. So has Continental Airlines Inc.
The seat squeeze shows how airlines are aggressively cramming more seats into jets. The trend has been going on for years, but has picked up momentum of late as airlines take food galleys out of airplanes since they've stopped serving free meals. Some carriers also are replacing seats with new ones made with slimmer frames and cushions, creating additional rows.

Slimmer seats free up space. But instead of giving it to customers, airlines are using it to try to make their fleets more profitable, taking all those inches and adding more seats to jets. A few extra passengers on each trip can spell the difference for tight-margin airlines between losing money and making money.

In American's case, some customers will lose some legroom. The airline says it standardized the "seat pitch" -- the distance from a point on one seat to the same point on the seat in the next row -- at 31 inches throughout the coach cabin. Some rows in the old configuration had as much as 33 inches of seat pitch, and American's Web site says the old configuration averaged 32 inches. See Seat Squeeze...
http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/107152/Airlines-Are-at-It-Again-Less-Legroom?mod=family-travel

Global Migration Flows Reverse for the First Time Since the Depression as Work in the Rich World Dries Up

The Great U-Turn
Global Migration Flows Reverse for the First Time Since the Depression as Work in the Rich World Dries Up

(Source Wall Street Journal)
The developed world, which for decades has offered a difficult but promising path to upward mobility, appears to be losing its allure. Unemployment is rising, and backlashes against foreign workers are mounting.

The result is potentially the biggest turnaround in migration flows since the Great Depression, economists say.
Full migration numbers for most countries are only available after a long lag, and so don't yet capture all the effects of today's economic crisis. But anecdotal reports and data from government ministries and outside organizations indicate that the flow of immigrants from poor to wealthier countries is slowing significantly for the first time in decades while more people are returning home. Among the returnees: road builders from Bangladesh, domestic servants from the Philippines, factory workers from Indonesia and Vietnam, construction workers from Mexico, as well as bankers, lawyers and real-estate professionals from around the world who were working in Singapore and Dubai.

Emigration from Mexico to the U.S. dropped 13% in the first quarter of this year compared to the same period last year, with more Mexicans leaving the U.S. than coming in. Indonesian authorities expect 60,000 or more citizens to be sent home from Malaysia, South Korea and other wealthy neighbors this year, as immigrant workers lose their jobs. Tens of thousands of Indians are washing their hands of Dubai as jobs there dry up and work permits expire. And in the U.K., the number of registered workers coming from new European Union member nations like Poland and the Czech Republic dropped 55% in the first quarter of 2009 compared to the same quarter a year earlier.
A growing number of migrants are returning home to places as diverse as Nepal and Tajikistan, while many are deciding not to emigrate to begin with, says Dilip Ratha, an economist and migration expert at the World Bank in Washington, D.C., citing reports from ministries and embassies. Mr. Ratha calls this reverse migration "very new" and "unprecedented."
Read Article...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124424701106590613.html

How Cloud Computing Will Change Business

How Cloud Computing Will Change Business

IBM, Qualcomm, Nokia, and other majors, along with startups, are preparing to cash in on new technology. Not that it will be easy

(Source Business Week)
In 1990, in a keynote speech at the Comdex computer conference, Microsoft's (MSFT) then-chief executive, Bill Gates, bolstered his bona fides as a tech visionary when he declared the PC industry would produce advances within a few years that would put information at people's fingertips. To get there, Gates said, the world needed three things: a more "personal" personal computer, more powerful communications networks, and easy access to a broad range of information. Sometimes visionaries are right on the vision but off on the timing.

Only now is Gates' grand vision finally becoming a reality for businesses. While pieces of what he had in mind have been available for years, they typically were expensive and difficult to set up and use. Now that more personal PC is here in the form of smartphones and mini-laptops, and broadband wireless networks make it possible for people to be connected almost anytime and anywhere. At the same time, we're seeing the rise of cloud computing, the vast array of interconnected machines managing the data and software that used to run on PCs. This combination of mobile and cloud technologies is shaping up to be one of most significant advances in the computing universe in decades. "The big vision: We're finally getting there," says Donagh Herlihy, chief information officer of Avon Products (AVP). "Today, wherever you are, you can connect to all the information you need."

A BIG STEP AT AVON
Avon is embarking on a massive, multiyear overhaul of the way it manages its nearly 6 million sales representatives around the world. In the past, "sales leaders," who help manage reps but are not employees of the company, mainly checked in with the salespeople through face-to-face meetings and phone conversations. But next month, Avon will begin to equip 150,000 sales leaders with a cloud-based computing system accessible via smartphones and PCs. The technology will keep them much more up-to-date on the sales of each rep, and it will alert them when reps haven't placed orders recently or when they have payments overdue to the company. The idea is to increase the sales and efficiency of Avon's distribution system.

Avon's strategy shows how the relationship between individuals and their computers is undergoing a radical change. Up till now, people have used a variety of computing devices in their professional lives, including desktops, laptops, handhelds, and smartphones. Each device was essentially an island of capabilities—applications, communications, and content. Cloud computing means that information is not stranded on individual machines; it is combined into one digital "cloud" available at the touch of a finger from many different devices. "We're shifting to more of a people- and information-centric world," says Paul Maritz, CEO of software maker VMware (VMW).

For the $3.4 trillion global tech industry, this shift offers a path out of the economic doldrums. In fact, it may be the largest growth opportunity since the Internet boom. While market researcher Gartner (IT) expects the global tech market to shrink by 3.8% this year, forecasters have high hopes for portables, wireless networks, and cloud computing over the next few years. Gartner predicts the market for cloud products and services will vault from $46.4 billion last year to $150.1 billion in 2013.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_24/b4135042942270.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index+-+temp_top+story

Debris, Oil Slick from Air France Flight Found off Brazilian Coast

Debris, Oil Slick from Air France Flight Found off Brazilian Coast

(Source The Chosun Ilbo English, Korean Daily News) Brazilian search planes are recovering what officials say is the wreckage of Air France Flight 447 which disappeared Monday off Brazil's northern coast. The debris will be examined for serial numbers and other markings to confirm that it is the missing plane. The Airbus A330 vanished about four hours after leaving Rio de Janeiro, bound for Paris.

Search planes found a 20 kilometer long oil slick, apparently left by the Air France jet.
Flight 447 left Rio de Janeiro bound for Paris on Monday. It carried 228 people. Debris found in the ocean could offer clues on why the four year old airplane went down.
"The nature of the debris, the density, the position, make no doubt that we have the first material evidence that are linked to Air France 447," said Commander Christophe Prazuck, a spokesman for France's military.

A meteorologist with AccuWeather tells VOA that Flight 447 may have encountered 160-kilometer-per-hour winds as it flew into strong storms along the equator.
The area is called the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone. It's where the trade winds between the Northern and Southern hemisphere meet.
U.S. pilots who fly this route say the zone's fierce thunderstorms carry moisture lower and therefore often do not appear on radar. Paul Zurkowski, a commercial pilot who flies to South America, says darkened cockpits help. "We'll turn off the interior lights and turn on the exterior lights to see more of what's outside, more of the clouds," he said.

Some experts point to severe turbulence or lightning strikes as to the cause. But planes are built to withstand strikes, so pilots say it's doubtful that lightning would be catastrophic.
Zurkowski says a few years back his plane started shaking and he realized it had been struck, just below his seat. "We didn't see any damage to the airplane airborne, it didn't affect our radios or navigation equipment," he said. "But it did put small holes in the airplane which were found by maintenance when we landed."
Shortly before it vanished, Flight 447 transmitted automatic messages reporting failures in its pressurization and electrical systems. Read Article...
http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2009/06/05/2009060500776.html


Air France crash mystery deepens

(Source France 24) The mystery surrounding the crash of an Air France plane off the coast of Brazil deepened after Brazilian officials said items they had pulled from the sea were not in fact debris from the downed Airbus.

The search by ships for wreckage from Air France flight AF 477, which came down early Monday as it was flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris with 228 people on board, continued in a zone where confirmed items from the plane had been spotted earlier in the week.
"Up to now, no material from the plane has been recovered," Brigadier Ramon Cardoso, director of Brazilian air traffic control, told reporters in the northeastern city of Recife late Thursday.

That contradicted a statement Cardoso made earlier Thursday when he said a pallet and two buoys plucked from the Atlantic by navy crews were the first pieces of the Air France crash.
In fact, Cardoso admitted later, they were nothing more than sea "trash," probably from a ship, as was a big oil patch originally described as a fuel slick from the French jet.

Several Brazilian navy vessels are looking for debris from the plane, including a seat and a big chunk of what appeared to be fuselage, sighted by air force aircraft on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Defense Minister Nelson Jobim has said there was "no doubt" that the debris spotted from the air came from flight AF 477, and that they marked the area close to where the plane hit the ocean.
The French government, which is in charge of the probe into the crash, has sent investigators to Brazil to inspect any debris that could be recovered from the zone, around 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) off-shore, and take them back to France.
Speculation over what caused the accident has ranged from a massive, lightning-packed storm in the area at the time, to turbulence, to pilot error or a combination of factors.
No mayday call was received from the plane, just a series of data transmissions signaling it had lost power and then had either broken up or gone into a fatal dive. Read Article...
http://www.france24.com/en/20090605-air-france-crash-mystery-deepens

Microsoft's Bing Draws Pre-Launch Kudos

Microsoft's Bing Draws Pre-Launch Kudos
6/2/2009

Can Bing boost Microsoft's market share against Google and Yahoo? After seeing the updated search engine in action, Barron's thinks it very well may.

Microsoft's new Search Engine: Bing

Bing
Fact Sheet
May 2009

Microsoft Corp. designed Bing.com to help you overcome search overload and make faster, more informed decisions when searching online.

Research indicates that 66 percent of people are increasingly turning to search engines to assist in making decisions — above and beyond simple navigation or information retrieval, for which today’s search engines were originally built.1 No longer satisfied with the status quo of search, Microsoft designed Bing as a Decision Engine to provide you with intelligent search tools to help you simplify tasks and make more informed choices, from mapping out the fastest route to get home to researching a product purchase or planning a trip.

Bing provides great general search results, relevance, a big index and speed — all of the hallmarks of a good search engine. However, because sorting through search results can often be time consuming, Bing organizes popular results in a different way, designed to help you get the answers you’re looking for without having to guess the right way to phrase a search term.

Making Search Easier
Almost any search engine can provide basic results, but with Bing, we’ve improved many aspects of the search experience.
Home page. Because you may not always know about the range of content a search engine can find for you, the Bing home page includes a beautiful new image daily, information hotspots embedded in that image, and clear links for starting your searches for video, news, shopping, travel, images or maps.
Autosuggest. Bing examines what you are typing in the search box and will automatically suggest similar terms or common refinements related to the term you are typing. For example, when searching for “California,” you will see common related searches, including “California DMV,” “California lottery” and “California ski report.”
Best Match. The Bing Best Match feature is designed to make finding relevant information easier by cutting down the number of clicks and getting you to your final destination faster. Best Match results include customer service numbers for retail sites, the ability to track a package right from the search page, deep links to common pages within the site and much more.
Preview. Nearly one-quarter of searches result in rapid click back, when you realize that the search result was not what you were looking for.2 Preview lets you hover over a search result to see a preview of the site’s content, which helps you determine whether the site is likely to contain the information you’re looking for — before you click.
Instant Answers. Bing provides Instant Answers that immediately return highly relevant direct answers in response to a specific search. For example, entering a flight number will return the most recent flight information and display it prominently in the results, saving the hassle of going to a separate page. Other Instant Answers on Bing include stock prices, local weather, sports scores and more.

Making Search More Organized
Our research indicates that 72 percent of people surveyed said current search results are too disorganized.3 To provide order to the chaos of search, Bing analyzes search results for certain types of search terms and organizes them so they’re easy for you to navigate. These categories include travel, shopping, health, technology, autos, entertainment, sports, animals and more.
Explore Pane. Located on the left side of the screen, the Explore Pane lets you easily filter search results. Features in the Explore Pane include categorized search results called Quick Tabs, links to related searches and past searches in Session History. The Explore Pane also can be used in the local, travel and shopping experience for powerful refinement of your search results.
Quick Tabs. Half of all searches are eventually refined to find more specific results.4 Quick Tabs anticipate your intent when searching and offers easy access to some of the most common refinements for a given search. For example, when searching for a favorite musician, Quick Tabs let you filter results by albums, biography, videos and images. These tabs change dynamically based on the search term. Searches for a certain city name yield Quick Tabs for tours, travel and images; searches for a car model generate categories on reviews, accessories and videos.
Related Searches. When searching for a specific result, our research has shown that people also like to expand their search to explore related topics. After making an initial search, Related Searches provides a list of related search terms, helping you easily expand a search to find more great results.
Session History. Nearly half of all searches are a repeat of a previous search.5 Session History provides easy access to searches from your current search session so that you don’t need to initiate a new query to get back to an earlier result.
Video search. Bing video search helps make finding, previewing and watching videos easier. Bing indexes content from video sites across the Web and our own index of full-length television shows. It also includes filtering tools to narrow a search to make it easier for you to find the exact video you’re looking for.
Image search. Bing image search includes infinite scroll, which lets you easily browse image results without clicking to a new page. Bing also has powerful filtering tools for images to make it easier to find just the right image.
News search. Bing news search lets you search the latest news from across the Web and receive news alerts.
Bing Maps. Bing Maps lets you easily find, discover, plan and share location information, including maps and directions and engaging bird’s-eye,6 3-D and aerial imagery.

Providing Tools to Help You Complete Tasks
Bing was designed to help you make smarter, more informed decisions faster. Bing focuses on four main areas:
Shopping. Bing combines many of the shopping features available across the Web into one intuitive and easy-to-use experience. In addition to providing many product search refinement tools, Bing also scans the Web for user and expert reviews, organizes them by product attribute, and then ranks the sentiment in the reviews as either positive or negative. This enables you to filter quickly through lots of information to inform a purchase decision.
Travel. BingTravel analyzes billions of pieces of airfare and hotel data to offer you flight Price Predictors and hotel Rate Indicators. Based on science, not marketing, Bing Travel enables you to make smart, well-informed decisions when planning a trip, every time.
Local. Today’s search engines don’t always help people make informed decisions about the quality of a restaurant or the best way to contact a local mechanic. Bing presents relevant content including user reviews aggregated from local content sites, hours of operation for local businesses, one-click directions, maps and traffic reports.
Health. Bing helps people find health information online. While there is no substitute for the expertise of a trained physician, Bing provides you with easy access to medical information from nine trusted resources to help you make more informed decisions about personal care.

Availability
Bing is available worldwide. However, specific feature availability differs according to market.

Bing is available at http://www.bing.com.
Follow Bing on Twitter: http://twitter.com/bing.
Chat with the Bing team at http://www.bing.com/community.

Exhibition: Variations on Earth, Oosterkerk, Amsterdam. 5 July - 25 August 2009

Exhibition: Variations on Earth, Oosterkerk, Amsterdam. 5 July - 25 August 2009

Fringe Gains Four EU Seats In Dutch Vote

Fringe Gains Four EU Seats In Dutch Vote

(Source Wall Street Journal) Dutch voters gave a populist, anti-immigrant party its first four seats ever in the European Parliament, sending a warning to incumbent European governments, according to exit polls.

The triumph for the Party for Freedom and its leader Geert Wilders kicked off four days of European Union-wide elections involving more than 12,000 candidates competing for more than 730 seats.
Mr. Wilders's party was expected to win four of the 25 seats allocated to the Netherlands, according to exit polls by Dutch news agency ANP.
EU leaders fear nationalist parties are gaining ground by exploiting anxieties over job losses brought on by the financial crisis. Nationalist fringe parties are expected to pick up seats in the U.K., France, Italy, Hungary, Romania, Austria and Belgium. Other groups fear they could form a disruptive alliance. Still, such parties are unlikely to tip the balance of power in Brussels.

U.K. voters also went to the polls Thursday to elect European and local representatives, but full results weren't immediately available. The Czech Republic and Ireland vote Friday, and the rest of the 27-nation bloc goes to the polls this weekend.

The European Parliament has little power, and turnout is expected to be low. But mainstream politicians and analysts have cast these elections -- the first since the onset of the recession -- as a political bellwether.
No politician exemplifies establishment fears more than Mr. Wilders, a charismatic orator whose platinum-blond hair has been compared to Mozart's wig. He is a polarizing figure in European politics who has been banned from entering the U.K. under hate-speech laws. He travels with bodyguards and keeps where he sleeps a secret.
Mr. Wilders, 45 years old, has sat in the Dutch Parliament since 1998. In 2004, he left the conservative People's Party over a dispute about whether Turkey should be allowed to join the EU. (It isn't a member but has applied to join.) He founded the Party for Freedom and discovered a knack for tapping into Dutch xenophobia.

The Netherlands has 800,000 Muslims, mostly Turks and Moroccans, in a population of 17 million. Mr. Wilders has progressively ramped up his anti-Islamic rhetoric, calling the Koran a "fascist book" and making a movie depicting Islam as inherently violent. The British government cited the movie, "Fitna," as grounds to ban Mr. Wilders from visiting the U.K. earlier this year. Read Article...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124415574886086871.html

Obama's Message to the Muslim World

Obama's Message to the Muslim World
6/4/2009

President Obama delivers a speech the White House hopes will change the relationship between the U.S. and the Muslim world. He speaks to a large audience gathered at Cairo University in Egypt. Video courtesy of Fox News.

Presentatie advies Veerman

Presentatie advies Veerman
4 juni 2009

Op donderdag 4 juni presenteert de Commissie Veerman haar advies over de toekomst van de Noord/Zuidlijn. Het rapport en persbericht van de commissie en de reactie van het college van B&W kunt u vanaf 12:00 uur op de website lezen.

Commentaar Trendsbridge: Onze eerste indruk is dat het een nogal propagandistische presentatie was. De gemaakte fouten zijn nog in hoge mate onduidelijk. Er is lichte kritiek op de arrogante houding van de Gemeente Amsterdam. De burgemeester (Job Cohen) was opvallend afwezig. Het komt er op neer dat de Overheid er nog meer geld in zal moeten pompen om de Noord/Zuidlijn af te laten bouwen, en dat het resultaat vooralsnog onduidelijk blijft.
Met terugwerkende kracht dank aan de in de Ferdinand Bol buurt als 'de Alien' bekend staande voormalige VVD Wethouder Geert Dales. Ergo: Het begin van "Het Geklooi".




1.Persbericht Commissie Veerman

‘Bouwen aan verbinding’
Doorgaan met Noord/Zuidlijn, nieuwe maatregelen nodig

Ga door met de aanleg van de Noord/Zuidlijn in Amsterdam, maar tref eerst een flink aantal nieuwe maatregelen, zo luidt het advies van de Commissie Veerman vandaag aan het gemeentebestuur van Amsterdam.
Onderzoek de mogelijkheid om vanuit twee richtingen de tunnel te boren, dit kan een tijdswinst van één jaar opleveren. En station Vijzelgracht krijgt dan meer tijd om in rust te worden afgebouwd. Begeleid het boorproces nauwlettend om in geval van verzakkingen direct met een vliegende brigade te kunnen ingrijpen om schade te voorkomen. Maak de projectdirecteur verantwoordelijk voor het totaal en stel een projectcommissariaat in met een onafhankelijk voorzitter dat de uitvoering controleert. Communiceer open met de Amsterdamse bevolking, versnel de afhandeling van schades en wees ruimhartig.
Dit is een aantal belangrijke aanbevelingen uit het rapport ‘Bouwen aan verbinding’ van de Commissie Veerman dat tot stand is gekomen na een gedegen studie van drie maanden en intensief beraad. De Commissie verwacht dat de voltooiing van de Noord/Zuidlijn nog acht jaar in beslag gaat nemen en dat de aanleg in totaal 3,1 miljard euro gaat kosten.
De Noord/Zuidlijn, een metroverbinding die in 16 minuten de afstand tussen Amsterdam Noord en Amsterdam Zuid gaat overbruggen, komt in februari 2009 in een impasse door weer een budgetoverschrijding. Wethouder Tjeerd Herrema stapt op. Het College van Burgemeester en Wethouders van Amsterdam vraagt dan oud-minister Cees Veerman een Commissie samen te stellen en te onderzoeken hoe het verder moet met de Noord/Zuidlijn.
De Commissie Veerman heeft drie scenario’s onderzocht: stoppen, alleen de Noordlijn en voltooien van de aanleg van de Noord/Zuidlijn. Doorgaan is volgens de Commissie als saldo van baten en kosten beter dan stopzetting of halve aanleg. Stoppen kost de stad circa 1,7 miljard Euro zonder dat het iets oplevert. Dit is exclusief het terugbetalen van de subsidie aan het Rijk (circa 600 miljoen Euro). Half aanleggen kost ongeveer 2,0 miljard Euro en levert weinig aan baten op. De totale aanleg kost 3,1 miljard Euro. Daar staan gemiddeld 1,5 miljard Euro baten, zoals reistijdwinst tegenover. Indirecte baten zoals minder auto’s in de stad en dergelijke zijn hierin niet meegenomen.
Het belang van de Noord/Zuidlijn overschrijdt de gemeentegrenzen van Amsterdam, zo meent de Commissie. De metrolijn draagt bij aan het prestige en de internationale allure van de stad Amsterdam als hoofdstad, toeristische trekpleister en handelscentrum.

De leefbaarheid en aantrekkelijkheid als woon- en werkstad neemt toe met uitbreidingsmogelijkheden naar Schiphol en Amstelveen. Met de Noord/Zuidlijn wordt aan een van de voorwaarden voldaan om de interne bereikbaarheid van de Randstad te verbeteren.

Zomaar doorgaan vindt de Commissie niet verantwoord. De Commissie constateert wezenlijke tekortkomingen op het gebied van de projectorganisatie, risicoanalyse en risicobeheersing, geschaad vertrouwen bij de bevolking en een trage afhandeling van vergunningsprocedures door de stad zelf. Niets is zonder risico, zo stelt de Commissie. Maar met nieuwe maatregelen en innovaties kunnen de risico’s tot een minimum worden beperkt.
Daarom beveelt de Commissie in haar rapport aan om de organisatie te verbeteren door onder meer de projectdirecteur verantwoordelijk te maken tot en met het rijden van de metrotreinen. Deze directeur rapporteert direct aan de verantwoordelijk wethouder. De Commissie is van mening dat een projectcommissariaat - met een onafhankelijk voorzitter en twee externe experts - dat de uitvoering controleert, moet worden ingesteld. Het projectbureau moet worden versterkt met kennis, kunde en menskracht om een volwassen opdrachtgever ten opzichte van de aannemers te kunnen zijn.
Ook de uitvoering van het project zelf moet worden verbeterd waarbij risicoanalyse, risicobeheersing en afstemming de hoogste prioriteit behoren te zijn. Tevens wordt nader onderzoek naar een andere uitvoeringsvolgorde van het werk voorgesteld om tijdswinst te behalen. Concrete voorstellen worden door de Commissie aangereikt.
Het is de plicht van de gemeente Amsterdam – zo vindt de Commissie – om voltooiing van de lijn gepaard te laten gaan met optimale zorg voor veiligheid, leefbaarheid en informatie voor de lokale bevolking en dan vooral de omwonenden van de verschillende bouwlocaties. Geef bouwlocaties tijdelijk terug aan de bevolking, wanneer het werk op die bouwlocaties langere tijd wacht op voltooiing van werkzaamheden elders, zo luidt een van de aanbevelingen.
Commissie Veerman is ervan overtuigd dat wanneer het advies integraal wordt overgenomen een goede voltooiing van de Noord/Zuidlijn kan worden bereikt. De Commissie verwacht dat per saldo de stad Amsterdam, de Randstad en Nederland voor een zeer lange periode van het dan werkende ondergrondse vervoerssysteem gaan profiteren. Het wordt een belangrijke verkeersslagader, die dagelijks 200.000 passagiers zal gaan vervoeren. De Noord/Zuidlijn wordt daarmee één van de meest intensief gebruikte metroverbindingen van Europa.

Noot van de redactie:
Rapport, bijlagen en film zijn na lezen c.q. te bekijken op www.noordzuidlijn.amsterdam.nl.

Download

[~]rapport Cie Veerman: Bouwen aan verbinding (pdf 6072 Kb)

[~]persbericht Cie Veerman (pdf 145 Kb)

[~]reactie B&W advies cie Veerman (pdf 23 Kb)

Common GPS could help better track airline flights

Common GPS could help better track airline flights
GPS tracks phones, cars, but not planes; Air France crash renews call for end to radar systems

CHICAGO (AP) -- Get lost in the woods and a cell phone in your pocket can help camping buddies find you. Drive into a ditch and GPS in your car lets emergency crews pinpoint the crash site. But when a transcontinental flight is above the middle of the ocean, no one on the ground can see exactly where it is -- in the air, or worse, in the water.

The disappearance of Air France Flight 477 and its 228 passengers over the Atlantic Ocean this week has critics of radar-based air traffic control calling on the U.S. and other countries to hasten the move to GPS-based networks that promise to precisely track all planes. Current radars are obsolete more than 200 miles from land.

"The technology's there -- we've had this stuff for 15 years and little's happened," said Michael Boyd, a Colorado-based airline analyst. "My BlackBerry can be used to track me, so why can't we do it with planes?"

U.S. officials have discussed setting up such a network since the 1990s and the technology is being tested in parts of the country, including Alaska and off the Gulf Coast. A few carriers, like Southwest, already use GPS to help planes make quicker landings that burn less fuel.

But full implementation, estimated at a cost of $35 billion, has languished amid funding delays and disputes over technical complexities. Although Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has said the project will be among the Federal Aviation Administration's top priorities in the Obama administration, the existing radar system is likely to remain for at least another decade.

"It's a crude system they're using now," said Robert Poole, an aviation expert with the free market-oriented Reason Foundation. "For 100 dollars, you can run down and buy a GPS system, put it in your car and know exactly where you are. But planes don't have it."
Read Article...
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Common-GPS-could-help-better-apf-15434824.html?sec=topStories&pos=3&asset=&ccode=

Nederlandse managers reageren betrekkelijk laks en naïef op de economische crisis

Nederlandse managers reageren betrekkelijk sloom, laks en naïef op de economische crisis
Crisis blijft hier onbenut

(Bron: De Telegraaf, DFT) Nederlandse managers reageren relatief laks en naïef op de economische crisis, zo blijkt uit internationaal onderzoek van KPMG onder 850 senior managers in 29 landen.
Anders dan met name Aziatische ondernemingen lijken de meeste Nederlandse bedrijven te verwachten dat de crisis wel overwaait en grijpen ze de situatie nauwelijks aan voor strategische veranderingen, zo concludeert KPMG.
Van de onderzochte Nederlandse ondernemingen denkt slechts 24% de komende twaalf maanden veranderingen in de strategie door te voeren. Wereldwijd voorziet 50% van de ondernemingen het komend jaar wijzigingen in de bedrijfsstrategie als gevolg van de crisis. Ook op de langere termijn blijken Nederlandse bedrijven geen ingrijpende wijzigingen in de strategie te voorzien. Slechts één op de vijf ondernemingen verwacht de komende tien jaar strategische veranderingen. Internationaal ziet ruim de helft van de onderzochte bedrijven op de lange termijn strategische veranderingen als gevolg van de kredietcrisis.

KPMG Advisory partner William Koot zegt nogal geschrokken te zijn van de cijfers. ,,Nederlandse bedrijven grijpen de crisis blijkbaar niet aan voor strategische verandering. Wereldwijd wordt de crisis opgepakt om na te denken welke richting het op moet met het bedrijf. Wij denken dat, nu we een paar zwaluwen zien, we de crisis wel zullen uitzitten met alleen kostenreductie. Het lijkt er haast op dat Nederlandse bedrijven denken dat ze straks gewoon verder kunnen met hun plannen van vóór oktober.”
Lees artikel...
http://www.telegraaf.nl/dft/nieuws_dft/4076327/__Crisis_blijft_hier_onbenut__.html?p=5,1

De KPMG Advisory-organisatie bestaat uit ruim 1.000 adviseurs. Deze zijn gespecialiseerd in het identificeren en beheersen van risico's in de bedrijfsvoering.

Megan Fox Speaks Her Mind in British GQ to Spark Media Attention

Comparing Actors to Prostitutes Megan Fox Speaks Her Mind in British GQ to Spark Media Attention
Transformers 2’ starlet Megan Fox is hotter than ever on the cover of British GQ’s July 2009 issue. Mega Fox looks like a stunning, sex goddess with her long, wavy locks, black stilettos and a sexy black monokini, set against a plush green tropical background.
However, what might garner even more attention than Megan Fox’s sultry GQ photos are her words comparing actors to prostitutes.

“When you think about it, we actors are kind of prostitutes,” Fox tells the July issue of British GQ. “We get paid to feign attraction and love. Other people are paying to watch us kissing someone, touching someone, doing things people in a normal monogamous relationship would never do with anyone who’s not their partner. It’s really kind of gross.”
Read more...
http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/megan-fox-british-gq-july-2009

Windows 7 Release Candidate: Download instructions

Windows 7 Release Candidate: Download instructions
Here's what you need to know:

This is pre-release software, so please read the following to get an idea of the risks and key things you need to know before you try the RC.

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You don't need to rush to get the RC. The RC will be available at least through July 2009 and we're not limiting the number of product keys, so you have plenty of time.
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Watch the calendar. The RC will expire on June 1, 2010. Starting on March 1, 2010, your PC will begin shutting down every two hours. Windows will notify you two weeks before the bi-hourly shutdowns start. To avoid interruption, you’ll need to install a non-expired version of Windows before March 1, 2010. You’ll also need to install the programs and data that you want to use. (Learn more about installing Windows.)
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Protect your PC and data. Be sure to back up your data and please don't test the RC on your primary home or business PC.
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http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/download.aspx

Nieuwe Windows 22 oktober op de markt

REDMOND (AFN) - Het Amerikaanse softwarebedrijf Microsoft brengt zijn nieuwe besturingssysteem Windows 7 op 22 oktober op de markt. Dit liet het concern dinsdag weten.
Microsoft had eerder al gezegd dat de opvolger van het impopulaire Windows Vista voor de kerst zou verschijnen. Een concrete datum was echter nog niet genoemd. Introducties van nieuwe Windows-versies gaan altijd gepaard met veel reclamegeweld.
http://www.telegraaf.nl/dft/nieuws_dft/4063122/__Nieuwe_Windows_22_oktober_op_de_markt__.html?p=31,1

Concept Cars That Will Shape the Industry

39 Futuristic Autovations Concept Cars That Will Shape the Industry

With so many car companies in trouble, many people are wondering what the future of the auto industry will look like.
The following cluster explores some futuristic automobile ideas that will no doubt help to shape the future of what we drive.
From magnet power cars to iceberg cars, this cluster will get your motor running.

http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/40-futuristic-auto-ideas-concept-cars-that-will-shape-the-industry

WHO official says world edging towards pandemic

WHO official says world edging towards pandemic

GENEVA (Reuters) - The spread of H1N1 flu in Australia, Britain, Chile, Japan and Spain has nudged the world closer to a pandemic, the World Health Organisation said on Tuesday.
The newly-discovered strain had caused more infections than seasonal influenza at the start of Chile's flu season, raising concern about how it would spread in the southern hemisphere, according to Keiji Fukuda, the WHO's acting assistant director-general.
The virus has mainly affected people aged below 60 and caused 117 deaths worldwide, including some otherwise healthy people, he said. For now, the WHO's pandemic scale remained at the second-highest level but the threshold may soon be crossed.

"Globally we believe that we are at Phase 5 but we are getting closer to Phase 6," Fukuda told journalists. "The future impact of this infection has yet to unfold."
He added: "It is probably fair to call the situation something like moderate right now. We do have some hesitation to call the situation mild."

The new flu, a mixture of swine, bird, and human viruses, remains most prevalent in North America but has infected nearly 19,000 people in 64 countries, according to the U.N. agency's latest toll, which tends to lag behind national figures but is considered more secure.
Read Article...
http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-SwineFlu/idUSTRE5514R920090602

Remembering Tiananmen

Remembering Tiananmen
(02:01) Report Reuters Video

Jun. 2 - Wang Dan, a former student activist in China, recalls the crackdown on Tiananmen Square some 20 years ago.

SOUNDBITE: Wang DanDeborah Lutterbeck reports.




Twenty years after Tiananmen
Silence on the square

Outside the Communist Party, memories of the 1989 massacre get hazy

(Source Economist.com) AMONG journalists at a Chinese newspaper, there has been some surprising talk of publishing a story to mark the 20th anniversary on June 3rd and 4th of the massacre of hundreds of Beijing citizens by Chinese soldiers. One journalist even told his colleagues he would be ready to go to jail for doing so. But such bravado, especially if it proves more than rhetoric, is likely to be rare. For many in China the nationwide pro-democracy protests of 1989 and their bloody end have become a muddled and half-forgotten tale.
This does not stop the Communist Party worrying about the issue. It fears that the efforts of even a small number of people to keep memories alive could be destabilising. The most senior official to serve jail time for his role in the Tiananmen Square unrest, Bao Tong, has been escorted by security officials from his Beijing home to a scenic spot in central China (far from muttering journalists) where he will spend the anniversary period. Mr Bao agreed to go, says a family member. But in China an invitation from the police can be awkward to refuse. Several other dissidents report heightened police surveillance.

This year’s anniversary has spurred a hardy few to pronounce on the massacre. A Beijing academic, Cui Weiping, told a gathering of intellectuals called to commemorate it that the party’s campaign to deter public discussion of Tiananmen, and public acquiescence to it, had damaged China’s “spirit and morality”. She posted her remarks on her blog.
Read Article...
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displayStory.cfm?story_id=13754101&source=hptextfeature

Recession/Crisis Meals. Can They Really Make Money Off the Dollar Menu?

Recession/Crisis Meals. Can They Really Make Money Off the Dollar Menu?

(Source Yahoo Finance) McDonald's "Dollar Menu." Subway's "$5 Footlong." Quiznos's "Million Sub Giveaway." As the U.S. tries to climb out of the recession, these bargain fast-food meals have become familiar subjects of TV ads and radio jingles -- and for many consumers, they are some of the best food values around.
But few of the hungry diners who bite into those discounted subs and burgers realize that their cut-rate meals can be a flashpoint between big fast-food companies and the franchise owners who operate local stores.
How much money are local stores making -- or losing? To find out, we surveyed franchisees about some popular current and recent promotions. On top of paying royalties (of about 11% to 12% of sales) to the franchisor, franchisees often bear the brunt of a promotion's cost. We also asked franchisees about their wholesale costs for food, as well as labor, rent and utilities, among other things. Prices and menu for a particular promotion also vary depending on location.
http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/107106/Can-They-Really-Make-Money-Off-the-Dollar-Menu?mod=career-selfemployment

Tiffany Losing It's Bling?

Tiffany Losing It's Bling?

The luxury retailer's big drop in Q1 profit prompts its shares to trade lower, with Stacey Widlitz, Pali Research retail analyst.

Let’s Focus on Saving Journalism, Not Newspapers, Huffington Says

Let’s Focus on Saving Journalism, Not Newspapers, Huffington Says

CARLSBAD, CALIF. – With demographic changes crippling the old-guard newspaper world, all eyes are on the future of media.
While newspapers won’t go away entirely, Huffington Post Editor-in-Chief Arianna Huffington says the focus should be on saving and strengthening quality journalism, not being fixated on the traditional newspaper model.

Huffington says multiple working models will emerge from the current media shakeup – but a subscription-based model probably will not be among the long-term survivors, she says in the accompanying video, taped at the All Things Digital conference here. (Click here for Huffington’s presentation with Katharine Weymouth of the Washington Post.)

In the “new models” department, the Huffington Post recently launched an investigative fund, a combination of for-profit and nonprofit models and will be available on open source.
To help fund these and other new ventures, the Huffington Post closed $25 million in a third round of funding from Oak Investment Partners back in December. Huffington says her business is now breaking even, with a new push in technology coverage coming, and reach into Chicago and New York.

Job Booms Typically Follow Recessions

Job Booms Typically Follow Recessions 5/7/2009

History shows that job booms typically follow recessions. What will be the next boom industry? Stacey Delo reports. (Barrons Video)

Is the beer industry losing its fizz?

Is the beer industry losing its fizz?
Carlsberg's first quarter earnings are expected to show that drinkers are quaffing less beer as customers feel the pinch of the recession.


Economy Beers Give Brewers Lift in Downturn

(Source: Wall Street Journal)
Mark Lehr's favorite beer is Heineken, but one recent afternoon, the Chicagoan emerged from a 7-Eleven with a 12-pack of Busch that cost him $8 -- about $7 less than a dozen Heinekens.
"My funds are limited right now," said the 39-year-old house painter, noting that he has had far fewer customers during the recession.
Sales of so-called economy brews, including Busch, Miller High Life and Pabst Brewing Co.'s Pabst Blue Ribbon, are rising faster than the nation's beer sales overall, and are helping industry giants Anheuser-Busch InBev NV and MillerCoors LLC weather the economic downturn.
Anheuser, based in Leuven, Belgium, is expected to report healthy sales at its U.S. unit when it posts first-quarter results Thursday, thanks in part to its stable of low-priced brews such as Natural Light and Busch Light.
Though less profitable, these brews are helping Anheuser offset slower sales growth for its larger brands. "We feel we have brands that can meet any consumer need," said Dave Peacock, president of the company's U.S. unit.
Read Article...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124165010171893491.html

Is Google Any Help in Tracking an Epidemic?

Is Google Any Help in Tracking an Epidemic?
(Source: Time Magazine Permalink)

When the first U.S. patients fell victim to the new H1N1 flu, they may not have thought immediately to call their doctor or run to the nearest emergency room. Instead, they probably sat down in front of their computers and Googled "flu symptoms" or "fever" or "chills" or perhaps even "treatment for flu."
That behavior is exactly what the folks at Google are counting on. Since last fall, the search-engine giant has been nurturing a spin-off service called Google Flu Trends, which aims to identify outbreaks by tracking searches for flu-related terms, and provide health officials with early warnings of potential epidemics. The reasoning is that if people are searching for flu, they're probably sick themselves or know someone who is — and a geographic cluster of like-minded Googlers could represent a burgeoning outbreak or, worse, the roots of a new pandemic. (In the case of H1N1, however, the distant and initially small number of cases in the U.S. meant the search service wasn't very helpful for predicting the current epidemic, but the strategy may prove useful in keeping track of disease progression.) Read Article...
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1895811,00.html?iid=perma_share