Italian - Polish (Page 5)

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Russian President Vladimir Putin, FIFA president Joseph Blatter and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff during the official ceremony of handing over the 2018 World Cup signed certificate to Russia

Brazil hands over World Cup to Russia at Rio’s Maracana Stadium

 

From right: Russian President Vladimir Putin, FIFA president Joseph Blatter and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseffduring the official ceremony of handing over the 2018 World Cup signed certificate to Russia, July 13, 2014. (RIA Novosti / Aleksey Nikolskyi)

 

Published time: July 13, 2014 23:00

 

News in Rio de Janeiro and Brazil-The Rio Times

 

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff symbolically handed over the World Cup to her Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Sunday, as Russia is set to host the 2018 tournament. The two were joined by FIFA president Sepp Blatter.

The ceremony took place inside Maracana Stadium before the Germany-Argentina final in Rio de Janeiro.

“I want to congratulate President Rousseff on how the World Cup was organized,” Putin said, according to a FIFA statement. “We will do all we can to organize the event on the highest level.”

 

“Football helps to solve social problems. Our task is to create the best possible conditions for the coaches, players, experts and fans. I am grateful to President Blatter and his colleagues from FIFA for the honor to organize the World Cup,” he added.

“I want to congratulate President Rousseff on how the World Cup was organized,” Putin said, according to a FIFA statement. “We will do all we can to organize the event on the highest level.”

 

“Football helps to solve social problems. Our task is to create the best possible conditions for the coaches, players, experts and fans. I am grateful to President Blatter and his colleagues from FIFA for the honor to organize the World Cup,” he added.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Latin American countries such as Brazil, Argentina and Cuba and others are already in the side of Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) and his Cuban counterpart Raul Castro at Revolution Palace in Havana, on July 11, 2014. (AFP Photo / Alejandro Ernesto / Pool)

 

Russia’s Rosneft to help Cuba explore offshore oil reserves

 

Russian oil company Rosneft will help Cuban State oil company Cupet explore the country’s offshore oil reserves, according to one of the cooperation documents signed between Russia and Cuba during President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Havana.

 

Putin concluded his first stop on his six-day tour to Latin America in Havana, Cuba, where he met the nation’s President Raul Castro.

 

Speaking at a press conference, Putin confirmed that many major cooperation deals have been signed between the two nations.

 

One of the most significant agreements allows the Russian oil company Rosneft to help explore and drill on an offshore oil platform on Cuba’s northeast coast. The area potentially has up to 20 billion barrels of oil, according to Cupet.

 

“Developing new blocks on Cuba’s offshore shelf is (expected) in the very near future,” Putin said.

 

During the discussions, Putin was joined by Rosneft head Igor Sechin in order to finalize the deal. Cuba has limited onshore production and relies heavily on imports from Venezuela for its oil consumption needs. Putin also confirmed that Russia is writing off 90 percent of Cuba’s debt, which amounts to $32 billion. The remaining 10 percent will be reinvested into the Cuban economy, the president added.

 

“We will provide support to our Cuban friends to overcome the illegal blockade of Cuba,” Putin said. Read more: Russia writes off 90% of Cuba’s debt ahead of Putin’s ‘big tour’ to L. America

 

Meanwhile, Russian company Inter RAO Export and Cuba’s Union Electrica signed a contract for the construction of four 200 megawatt units for the Maximo Gomez power plant.

 

Other documents signed on Friday include a bilateral statement on the non-placement of weapons in outer space and an intergovernmental agreement on cooperation in the area of international information security.

 

During the visit to Cuba, Putin also met with former President Fidel Castro, who stepped down due to health concerns in 2008, after 49 years in power.

Putin and Fidel Castro discussed international affairs, the global economy, and Russia-Cuba relations, the Kremlin stated.

Later on Friday, Putin made a surprise stop in Nicaragua on his way to Argentina. He will then go to Brazil.

Cuban News Agency

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The diplomatic gaffe in Ukraine

Sorry, Wrong Flag: Swiss President Greeted with Denmark flag in Ukraine.

 

Swiss president Didier Burkhalter got a shock when Ukraine’s interim prime minister Arseny Yatsenyuk greeted him in front of a Danish flag instead of the Swiss logo when they met for the first time in Kiev.

Burkhalter did not look happy with the diplomatic gaffe, as the picture above shows. Burkhalter was visiting Kiev to “underscore the constructive role played by the [Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe] in the Ukrainian crisis and the organisation’s intention to step up its efforts to contribute to de-escalating the tensions in the country,” according to Switzerland’s Federal Department of Foreign Affairs.

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Gov. Bruce Rauner’s proposed 2016 budget increases spending on corrections for the coming fiscal year.

Overcrowded

Bryant Jackson-Green

Feb 19, 2015

Gov. Bruce Rauner’s proposed 2016 budget increases spending on corrections for the coming fiscal year. If passed, the Illinois Department of Corrections, or IDOC, will have over $1.4 billion to work with, up from $1.3 billion in fiscal year 2015.

 

The reason for the spending increase is fairly simple: Illinois operates 25 adult correctional facilities, which were designed to house a total of 32,075 inmates. But Illinois prisons are severely overcrowded, holding 48,902 inmates in October. This means the state’s prisons are operating at over 152% capacity.

 

Much of the budget increase will go toward hiring to help IDOC deal with overcrowding, which is neither safe nor sustainable. The department spent $60 million a year on overtime costs for prison guards in 2013.

 

While increasing staff numbers may be a sensible way to cut back on the cost of overtime, for which employees must be paid 1.5 times their normal salary, it’s not a long-term solution to the systemic problem at hand. IDOC is amidst a budgetary crisis, and will be unable to make payroll by April. To get prison spending under control, the state must incarcerate fewer people. Prison may make sense for violent criminals who pose a threat to public safety. But nearly 70% of Illinois’ prison population is serving time for nonviolent offenses. Many would benefit from diversion into drug- and mental-health treatment programs, parole, or other programs that keep families together and allow offenders to continue working instead of costing taxpayers billions each year.

 

In order to build a fairer and more cost-effective system, the state needs major criminal-justice reforms. The state must strongly consider policies that:

 

Reform mandatory minimum sentencing: Repeal laws that set a minimum number of years to serve for an offense, allowing judges to tailor punishments to each crime and individual circumstances.

Roll back overcriminalization: Reduce laws that criminalize victimless activities and lead to overcrowded prisons, overextended public budgets and police militarization.

Ease offender re-entry into society: Remove state-imposed barriers, such as occupational-licensing rules, that prevent ex-offenders from finding work and integrating back into society.

 

If taxpayers want Illinois’ criminal-justice system to prioritize individual rights and fiscal responsibility, lawmakers must reorganize the state’s corrections system to focus on rehabilitation and recovery, not simply punishment and incarceration. Hopefully, Rauner will act with the General Assembly to pass sensible reforms to the state’s justice system.

 

Bryant Jackson-Green

Criminal Justice Policy Analyst

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to break the dominance of the US dollar in global trade

The big launch of the BRICS bank is seen as a first step to break the dominance of the US dollar in global trade, as well as dollar-backed institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, both US-based institutions BRICS countries have little influence within.

 

“In terms of escalating international competition the task of activating the trade and investment cooperation between BRICS member states becomes important,” Putin said.

 

Russia, Brazil, India, China and South Africa account for 11 percent of global capital investment, and trade turnover almost doubled in the last 5 years, the president reminded.

 

Each BRICS member is expected to put an equal share into establishing the startup capital of $50 billion with a goal to reach $100 billion. The BRICS bank will be headquartered inShanghai, India will preside as president the first year, and Russia will be the chairman of the representatives. Each country will send either their finance minister or Central Bank chair to the bank’s representative board.

 

BRICS represents 42 percent of the world’s population and roughly 20 percent of the world’s economy based on GDP, and 30 percent of the world’s GDP based on PPP, a more accurate reading of the real economy. Total trade between the countries is $6.14 trillion, or nearly 17 percent of the world’s total.

 

The $100 billion crisis lending fund, called the Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA), was also established. China will contribute the lion’s share, about $41 billion, Russia, Brazil and India will chip in $18 billion, and South Africa, the newest member of the economic bloc, will contribute $5 billion.

 

The idea is that the creation of the bank will lessen dependence on the West and create a more multi-polar world, at least financially.

 

“This mechanism creates the foundation for an effective protection of our national economies from a crisis in financial markets,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said.

 

The group has already created the BRICS Stock Alliance an initiative to cross list derivatives to smooth the path for international investors interested in emerging markets.

 

Russia has also proposed the countries come together under an energy alliance that will include a fuel reserve, as well as an institute for energy policy

 

“We propose the establishment of the Energy Association of BRICS. Under this ‘umbrella’, a Fuel Reserve Bank and BRICS Energy Policy Institute could be set up,” Putin said.

 

Documents on cooperation between BRICS export credit agencies and an agreement of cooperation on innovation were also inked.

 

Bringing emerging economies closer has become vital at a time when the world is guttered by the financial crisis and BRICS countries can’t remain above international problems, said Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff.

 

She cautioned the world not to see BRICS deals as a desire to dominate.

 

“We want justice and equal rights,” she said.

 

“The IMF should urgently revise distribution of voting rights to reflect the importance of emerging economies globally,” Rousseff said.

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BRICS establish $100bn bank and currency reserves to cut out Western dominance

(L to R) Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Brazilian President DilmaRousseff, China’s President Xi Jinping and South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma join their hands during the official photograph of the 6th BRICS summit in Fortaleza, Brazil, on July 15, 2014 (AFP Photo)

 

The group of emerging economies signed the long-anticipated document to create the $100 bn BRICS Development Bank and a reserve currency pool worth over another $100 bn. Both will counter the influence of Western-based lending institutions and the dollar.

 

The new bank will provide money for infrastructure and development projects in BRICS countries, and unlike the IMF or World Bank, each nation has equal say, regardless of GDP size.

 

“BRICS Bank will be one of the major multilateral development finance institutions in this world,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday at the 6th BRICS summit in Fortaleza, Brazil.

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In the United States, instability was permitted by regulators because it served powerful political interests

3 ways America should be more like Canada

 

The Daily Ticker

Wed, May 14, 2014, by Rick Newman

 

Its middle class is thriving, its people are universally liked and its government actually works.

 

Fifty years ago, this description might have fit the United States. But not now America’s middle class is shrinking and its global reputation is spotty. Congress, meanwhile, creates more problems than it solves.

 

So for guidance on how to fix America, why not look north to Canada, where the mood is upbeat and life appears to be getting demonstrably better? The New York Times recently reported the Canadian middle class is now the world’s richest, surpassing the U.S. for the first time. In the 2014 “better life index” recently published by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Canada outscored the United States in 9 of 11 categories, including education, safety and overall life satisfaction.

 

The poverty rate is lower in Canada, and every Canadian citizen has government-provided health insurance, which might explain why Canadians enjoy longer life expectancy than Americans and are considerably less obese. As for the government, Canada’s national debt amounts to about $18,000 per person, compared with $55,000 in America.

 

So what is Canada doing right?

 

It has a more stable banking system. Canada has virtually never experienced a financial crisis, and there were no bailouts north of the border in 2008 when the U.S. government committed $245 billion to save dozens of U.S. banks. The differences between the two countries are somewhat accidental. In the United States, distrust of a strong central government all the way back in the founders’ days led to a system of state-chartered banks vulnerable to political meddling, and therefore riskier than the big, nationally chartered financial institutions that operate in Canada.

 

“In the United States, instability was permitted by regulators because it served powerful political interests,” Prof. Charles Calomiris of Columbia University wrote in a 2013 paper for the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. “In Canada, the banking system was not used as a means of channeling subsidized credit to a favored political constituency, so there was no need to tolerate instability.” The legacy of that today is a malleable U.S. banking system that, among other things, was deregulated in the late 1990s at the behest of banks themselves — which contributed to the 2008 collapse.

 

The financial crisis and the abuses that led to it are still holding back the U.S. economy. Shoddy lending standards were a major cause of the housing bust, which has whacked $3 trillion off the value of Americans’ real-estate assets — even with the year-long recovery in the housing market. That’s a huge loss of wealth that continues to hold back U.S. spending. And it’s just part of a 25-year debt binge Americans are still working off. With far fewer lending excesses, Canada didn’t really have a housing bust or a credit crisis to recover from.

 

Money doesn’t dominate politics. Canada has much stricter rules governing campaign contributions than those in America, where campaign-finance laws are getting weaker on account of recent Supreme Court rulings striking down limits on spending. Tougher limits in Canada give people and businesses with money to spend less influence over laws and regulations. “Every single one of my voters thinks that is terrific,” says former journalist ChrystiaFreeland, now a Canadian member of parliament, representing a district in Toronto. “There is a lot less influence of the really wealthy and single-issue interest groups. A regular person has a much bigger voice.”

 

Many members of the U.S. Congress report spending half their time, or more, raising money for reelection efforts rather than legislating. Freeland estimates she spends less than 5% of her time doing that. There’s virtually no chance the United States will ever adopt a Canadian-style parliamentary system, but Congress could pass new laws or amend the Constitution in order to limit the corrupting influence of Big Money in politics. Were that to happen, however, it would probably make incumbent politicians more vulnerable to challengers. Maybe next century.

 

There’s less hostility toward immigrants. Canada, like the United States, has limits on the number of foreigners it allows into the country to work. But the whole issue of immigration is far less politicized, and there’s a broad understanding that skilled foreign workers help the economy. Canada actually recruits immigrants, part of a deliberate effort to attract talented foreigners most likely to contribute to economic growth. In the United States, the quota for skilled immigrants is far below the number U.S. firms would hire if they could get them. Despite appeals from many businesses, Congress is paralyzed on reforms that would let more skilled immigrants in, partly because that issue gets conflated with separate reforms aimed at stemming the flow of unskilled illegals.

 

Canada has its own problems, needless to say. Its government-run healthcare system draws complaints of long wait times for care and trailing-edge medical technology. Some economists think a housing bubble may be forming, for instance, and trends such as rising income inequality affect Canada just as they do every other industrialized country. Plus, it’s cold.

 

In the Land of Moderation, however, such challenges seem manageable. “We’re less anxious because we didn’t have the financial crisis,” says Freeland, “but Canadians should guard against smugness.” Now there’s something you’re unlikely to hear an American politician say.

 

— Siemond Chan contributed to this article.

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Illinois netted a loss of more $20 billion to other states through the out-migration of its residents ….

ILLINOIS Budget + Tax Policy

 

August 19, 2013

 

When people don’t like the direction in which their state is headed, they often vote with their feet. That’s precisely what Illinoisans did during the last decade, and they took their income with them.

 

Illinois netted a loss of more $20 billion to other states through the out-migration of its residents from 2000-2010, according to the Tax Foundation’s most recent State Migration Calculator. Only California ($29.4 billion) and New York ($45.6 billion) lost more income.

 

The Tax Foundation reports that “when a person moves to a new state, their income is added to the total of all other incomes in that state. This positively affects the total taxable income in his or her new state, and negatively affects the income in the state he or she left.”

 

The Tax Foundation’s national map shows the winners and losers of interstate migration.

 

The nine states with no personal income tax gained $113.25 billion in adjusted gross income between 2000 and 2010; the nine states with the highest personal income tax rates lost $90.05 billion over the same period.

 

Florida was the biggest winner, adding $67.3 billion in income. Arizona, Texas, North Carolina and Nevada rounded out the top five.

 

New Jersey and Ohio joined New York, California and Illinois as the largest losers of income.

 

The Tax Foundation’s findings come at a time when Illinois can’t afford to lose more people and see its tax revenue base diminished even further. The state has nearly $100 billion in unfunded pension liabilities and more than $6 billion in unpaid bills.

Unfortunately, Illinois’ outmigration and income losses will only get worse once newer migration data is captured. Illinois passed a record tax hike in 2011 that raised the personal income tax by 67% and corporate income taxes by 47%.

 

And now Democrats are proposing a new progressive tax increase that calls for raising billions more in tax revenues. That will only chase away even more of Illinois’ most productive residents.

 

Rather than increase tax rates, Springfield legislators would do better to emulate what the states with the most in-migration are doing – lower taxes, less regulation and less government spending.