A placard advertises an Apple iPhone 4S for sale at
an electronics market in Hong Kong last year. A Chinese technology firm
has filed a legal challenge accusing US giant Apple of infringing its
patented voice recognition software with its Siri function on the
iPhone, the company said Saturday
A Chinese technology firm has filed a legal challenge
accusing US giant Apple of infringing its patented voice recognition
software with its Siri function on the iPhone, the company said
Saturday.
The move comes just days after Apple paid $60 million to end a dispute over who could use the iPad name in China.
Shanghai Zhizhen Network Technology Co Ltd patented its Xiao i Robot software in 2004, while Apple'sSiri, which made its debut with the release of the iPhone 4S last year, was first developed in 2007.
The Chinese company's version operates in a similar way to Apple's
personal assistant and works on the iOS and Android operating systems.
Si Weijiang, a lawyer acting for the Shanghai-based firm, said it had
tried to contact Apple two months ago over the alleged infringement but
received no response.
"We sent legal notices to Apple in May, but no one contacted us. We
filed the lawsuit in late June to the Shanghai number one intermediate
people's court," Si told AFP. "Currently the case is now at the
court-mediated stage."
"We mainly ask Apple to stop infringing on our patent and cover the
court costs, but once the court confirms Apple has infringed on our
patent, we will propose compensation," he added.
The company's chairman, Yuan Hui, told the Apple Daily newspaper that the firm had 100 million users in China.
"People feel that China has no innovation, that companies here just
copy. But in fact, we are leaders in our field, and we have created our
own innovation," Yuan told the paper.
It added that Apple was also facing legal action from another Chinese company for allegedly infringing its "Snow Leopard" trademark.
The High Court of the southern province of Guangdong said on Monday
that Apple had paid $60 million to settle a long-running legal battle
with Chinese computer maker Shenzhen Proview Technology over the iPad name.
Both Proview, based in the southern city of Shenzhen, and Apple had
claimed ownership of the Chinese rights to the "iPad" trademark.
Proview's Taiwanese affiliate registered "iPad" as a trademark in
several countries including China as early as 2000 -- years before Apple
began selling its hugely successful tablet computer.
Analysts said the Chinese government wanted the matter resolved, wary
of the damage a ruling against Apple could do for the foreign business
climate in China.
Greater China -- which includes Hong Kong and Taiwan -- has become
Apple's fastest-growing region, with revenues second only to the United
States.
The website, www.bealertstaysafe.tumblr.com, features stories from victims as well as those who witness similar incidents.
Ling
(who only wants to be known by her first name) said: “I'm so tired of
people just talking about it. I'm very angry at what's happening and
Malaysians need to stop talking and take action.”
She had lost
her laptop and six months' worth of dissertation research in an instant
when the assailants smashed her car during a traffic jam.
In an
interview recently, Ling said her traumatic experience was worsened by
the “nonchalant attitude” of the motorists around her, who did not
bother to get out of their car despite witnessing the incident.
Another woman who has taken to the Internet to spread awareness is Anna Chew, whose women's e-magazine (www.venusbuzz.com) runs an awareness campaign called the CARing project.
Besides
featuring articles on self-protection tips, the website also has a “car
park rating system” where people can rate the safety of shopping mall
car parks in the Klang Valley.
The ratings are based on 10
questions, including whether there were CCTVs, active security guard
patrolling, buggy services and panic buttons installed.
Chew said reports would be compiled based on the ratings received and handed over to each shopping mall's management.
“We
hope the respective managements will take this seriously and not
implement superficial services just to make themselves look good,” she
stressed, adding that women must be proactive.
When contacted, Malaysian Association for Shopping and High-Rise Complex Management general manager Evelyn Lo said they would be having an open dialogue with Bukit Aman next Friday.
“We
will be discussing a variety of security issues and we have invited all
the shopping malls,” she said, urging all mall visitors to remain alert
of their surroundings despite existing security systems.
Mid Valley Megamall public relations assistant manager Stephanie Tan said security had been beefed up in the mall's car park after a recent assault on a female shopper there.
She
said the mall had increased the number of panic buttons, adding that
these were prominently displayed on black and red checkered pillars
marked with a “HELP” sign.
“We also have escort services for
which shoppers can request from the information counter, car park lobby
security booths or our hotline,” she said.
There are several mega-churches in Singapore with evangelical
fund-raising zeal, posing potential problems for this multi-religious
country.
THE city is abuzz with anticipation over the coming
trial of leaders of the largest and richest charismatic church on
charges of misuse of charity funds.
It is the result of two years of the biggest investigation of a religious institution.
Five
leaders of the City Harvest Church (CHC) – including co-founder pastor
Kong Hee who preached a form of money-generating prosperity gospel –
were charged with criminal breach of trust.
Generic photograph of the Parliament building in Singapore. A question
touching on the City Harvest Church saga has been tabled for the next
Parliament sitting on Monday, July 9, along with others on voters,
transport, education, health and manpower issues. -- ST PHOTO: ALPHONSUS
CHERN
Singapore is often stereotyped as a society that only worships money.
“Now, some pastors are cashing in on it being true,” said a banker.
Over the past week, the case stirred up a hot public debate on and offline, with most supporting the court action.
Altogether
eight leaders, including the arrested five, were suspended from charity
duties, but the church itself was unaffected and allowed to carry on.
It
could shape up into a judiciary benchmark of sorts because the new
church leadership – with two pastors from abroad – and the majority of
CHC followers have thrown their support behind their leaders.
A statement released by executive pastor Aries Zulkarnain said the church was standing by the five men.
“The people are our pastors and trusted staff and leaders who have always put God and CHC first,” he said.
“As a church we stand with them and I believe fully in their integrity.”
In two weekend services, 14,000 placard-carrying followers gave Kong Hee a standing ovation and a show of support.
Looking
haggard, the pastor told his cheering supporters that there were two
sides of the story and he would give his in court, adding: “I maintain
my integrity.”
The five were charged with misconduct and mismanagement of tax-free charity funds amounting to at least S$23mil (RM57.6mil).
According
to an official report, the money was intended for use to finance the
music career of the pastor’s wife, Sun Ho, with the objective of winning
more converts.
The case shows how vulnerable tiny Singapore is to foreign, especially Western, norms.
Many social trends from abroad end up in Singapore, including this form of money- raising religion.
City
Harvest was co-founded by Kong Hee more than 20 years ago and now has
about 24,000 followers, according to a Wikipedia report.
A father, who attended one of its early services with his daughter, said what he saw shocked him.
“There was a pop-style band playing deafening music – more like a rock concert than a church service.
“The
congregation would dance trance-like and pop their tongues in and out
in quick succession, like monitor lizards, making strange animal-like
noises.
“The band music would be interspersed with instalments of
a sermon, during which the pastor would cajole the congregation to
donate generously, preaching that their donations would be rewarded –
repaid exponentially by God.
“I saw the congregation members, mostly young men and women in their 20s and 30s, depositing cash into the donation box.”
The
ultra modern City Harvest uses bright flashing lights, loud music and
modern stage technology to appeal to young Singaporeans who feel bored
by the quiet sermons of traditional churches.
Most of its followers are in their mid-twenties. Pre-university and undergraduates are targeted for recruitment.
Videos
of past sermons show charismatic preachers such as Kong Hee conduct
services like a master performer at work raising funds.
Once, he
took the microphone to thank recent contributors, who included a couple
selling their five-room public flat to downgrade to a three-roomer and
offered S$20,000 (RM50,091) of the proceeds to the church building fund.
Another
was a young man who sold his motorcycle and donated the entire
proceedings. With each name mentioned, the audience cheered.
It led a cynic to comment: “They have turned religion into show business, like America’s TV evangelism.”
Prosperity
theology began in the USA decades ago. It claims that financial
donations were needed as proof of faith and they would increase the
giver’s material wealth many times over.
In the 60s, some US mega-churches resorted to TV evangelism to reach its mass following, raking in large amounts of money.
There
are several similar mega-churches here with evangelical fund-raising
zeal, posing potential problems for this multi-religious country.
One
is The New Creation Church, which plans to invest S$280mil (RM701mil)
to build a mega-complex with a lifestyle-entertainment-cultural theme.
With
some 22,000 members, the church raised eyebrows when it was reported
that its charismatic preacher was paid a salary of S$500,000
(RM1.2mil).
The investigation into CHC came seven months after a
top Buddhist monk, Venerable Shi Ming Yi, was convicted of misusing
donated money and sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment (reduced to six
on appeal).
The 2009 trial of the English-educated, high-living
Buddhist monk who owned three properties and loved luxury cars showed
how far the money culture had spread in Singapore.
In his trial, the 48-year-old monk told the Court that “we live in a modern world ... no longer like what it was in the past”.
When
asked to elaborate, the monk said: “If people earn more, they will
spend more. Many religious people, not just myself, are very different
now.”
NSIGHT: DOWN SOUTH By SEAH CHIANG NEE cnseah05@hotmail.com
"For
last 50 years, consumed by race and religion. For the next 50 years,
let us be consumed with the tasks of economic wellbeing.
"BN has never spoken truthfully to the people. Let Pakatan Rakyat speak truthfully to you.
"DAP believes a clean govt can always perform better than a corrupt govt.
"If
Penang dares to review the assets of the CM, why is the PM afraid of
reviewing his assets and those of his ministers?" he said.
Dr Chua:
"Just now YAB asked why the PM didn't want to debate with Anwar. I want
to say here, it hasn't happened because he is the prime minister.
"From 2008 to 2011, the ease of doing business compared from 2003 to 2008. The fifth most favored FDI nation in Asia.
"They
haven't been empty promises like those from Pakatan Rakyat. The
promises were fulfilled. These three years, the rakyat has gotten what
was promsied under the leadership of DS Najib."
"Anwar is full of
rhetoric, no specific, short on delivery. He has to convince us to
translate this rhetoric into what we call delivery.
"MCA has been
involved in nation building from day one. We were the one involved in
the fight against the communist insurgency, the resettlement of the
Chinese in new villages, the fight for independence, the right of
citizenship after independence. That's why citizens like LGE are
citizens of the country.
"We laid down the foundations. We have
progressed, advocated integration not assimiliation. That's why LGE is
not called Sukarno Lim.
"These are history. All part of nation building. DAP has no role to play."
"What has PR done for us? No clear direction.
"Look at the four PR states, 95pc of the promise is janji janji kosong.
"Everyday tell the whole world you give hundred dollars to the old people.
"Two hundred to the newborn and they must be voters. We give 200 to our newborn babies.
"State govt giving 100, 200 are all populist policy. Does not address fundamental problem of country."
"DAP
has only one thing to show. They collect a lot of money from the
rakyat. Despite calls of accountability, transparency - nothing to show.
Transparency, Accountability, where are they? Where has the money
collected gone to?
"DAP is a camoflauge for Chinese chauvinist party."
Question:
Mr President, stated number of major achievements of MCA, contributions
to nation building. Yes today, many urban voters perceive MCA has not
done enough. Perception that many urban voters are not supporting MCA.
What would you do to try regain more support for MCA.
Dr Chua:
We accept the fact this is a multiracial country and the policy of BN
is the policy for balancing. DAP likes to tell the Chinese they are
marginalised. The povery rate of Chinese is still lowest among three
major races. Employment highest. Property ownership largest. Cannot deny
in implementaion process there are people who benefit more than others,
this is the bone of contention, cause a lot of Chinese to be angry with
the govt and MCA bears the burden of this.
"DAP tries to portray itself as a multiracial party, but only dares to contest in chinese constituenciaes.
"Why don't you contest in multiracial constituencies? We are a mono-ethnic party, but our aims are clear.
"In this country we have to balance the needs and sensitivities of all countries. No particular race will feel happy.
"In the same way we sometimes feel govt giving too much to bumiputra. but some bumiputras not happy with govt."
Question:
Many people still see DAP as Chinese-based party. Are you a Chinese
party or multi-racial party, how would you try to win more support among
other races if the latter is true.
Lim: From the very
start we are a multiracial party. Our chairman is Indian, we have Indian
MPs, have Malay MPs and state assemblymen in the past. We are fair to
all regardless of race and religion. Would like MCA president know that
not every Chinese rich as the MCA leaders.
Not every Chinese can apply for PR in Australia.
Don't forget that the Chinese community pays the most taxes in Malaysia.
At the same time we want to see justice and see our Malay brothers and sisters are assisted.
Why is it poor Chinese can't get scholarship but rich bumiputras can?
Dont go and talk about DAP forming a kindergarten. We are a political party to determine the future of Malaysia.
TAR
College is clearest example of failure of MCA. Why was it established?
Because of unfair quota policies where qualified students cannot enter
public universities. so you formed TAR College. Shame on you MCA.
Dont say we haven't built low ccost housing. We have build. Don't lie.
Question:Is MCA scared of Umno
Dr Chua:
I take objection to that question to say MCA is sacared of Umno. Not a
fair question. If I say - and I've always said - if the state Cabinet,
state exco and federal Cabinet, all the discussion are all taped. The
govt should declassify the tape and then they und better the role of mca
in a multiracial country.
Why is DAP so quiet about Anwar's alleged account of RM3bil, this from a statutory declaration.
This
is equal partnership, let me tell you PR seize equal partnership but
until today PAS have never openly endorsed Anwar as prime minister.
You can't event agree on a party common symbol and logo and register to party.
Question:
I've read your Buku Jingga, stated among other things that if party win
GE, forms central govt, going to abolish all road tolls, PTPTN and give
income to houses that make less than 4K to make up that amount. Lots of
other goodies. How are you going to implement these policies bearing in
mind annual revenue does not exceed RM200bil.
Lim: This
the first time I'm hearing from a minister admitting corruption cost us
RM26bil. Question is, what you doing about it? Are you accepting the
fact that BN permits corruption? That's why I say shame on you again.
Talk
about collections from public. When DAP organises dinner, we don't give
free dinners like MCA or Umno. We charge because we rely on public
funds to survive. We don't steal the govt's money. That is the
difference between BN and PR, the difference between MCA and DAP.
I
think you need to read the right Buku Jingga, I think you read the
wrong one. Abolish tolls, estimate of RM35mil. If you don't believe can
be done, vote us into power and we show you can be done.
Question: On Chinese independent schools
Dr Chua:
I only wish DAP is more specific as when they see a Chinese... why is
it not written more clearly they will build more Chinese schools?
indeopendent schools? recognise UEC?
I openly asked Anwar, are you going to build more Chinese schools? More independent scghool? pls tell me.
Because if it is from DAP, I dont trust. Why? Cos DAP will say this is not common policy framework.
Lim:We are not like MCA leaders who go to jail for cheating rakyat of its money.
When
you talk about building of schools, judge by the deeds of the PR govt
in Selangor and Penang. We have given land, we have given funding, we
have given funding every year. If PR can give to all these schools,
independent, Indian, Chinese, every year funding, why BN cannot do so?
Don't question our oppeness to allow indepndent Chinese schools.
Anwar,
I cannot blame CSL because he gets his buku jingga from Chor Chee
Heung, don't know what document they are reading. Maybe I should send
videotape to you.
When you talk about Anwar if PR wins power he will be PM.
SwitchUp.TV, The Star's web TV site, will stream the debate live at 2.30pm. Those who wish to view it can watch live from the switchup.tv here below:
Catch the streaming video of the Chua-Lim
debate on the topic, "DAP & MCA: Whose Policies Benefit the Country
More?" live from Sunway Pyramid Convention Centre on Sunday, July 8,
2012 at 1430-1630hrs :
The debate will also be broadcast live over the radio by The Star's radio stations 988, Capital FM and Red FM.
Unlike the previous debate which was televised live, a delayed recording of tomorrow's event would be shown on Astro Awani and Astro AEC at 11pm on the same day.
Asian Strategy and Leadership Institute will provide video recordings on YouTube with a delay of between eight and 10 minutes.
Its senior vice-president Ng Yeen Seen said plainclothes security officers would be among the audience during the debate to ensure that order was maintained.
This is one of the security measures to be taken by Asli, which is the organiser of the debate.
“While we are not expecting things to get violent, it is important to have moves in place in the interest of safety,” Ng said.
She
said there were no untoward incidents in the first debate between the
two politicians on Feb 18 and the same was expected for the one
tomorrow.
During the first debate on Feb 18, some of the audience
turned rowdy when posing questions to Dr Chua, who is MCA president,
and Lim, who is the DAP secretary-general and Penang Chief Minister.
Some
were seen snatching the microphone and shouting during the debate
titled “Chinese at the crossroads: Is the two-party system becoming a
two-race system?”.
For tomorrow's debate at the Sunway Pyramid
Convention Cen-tre, Ng said MCA and DAP would each be allocated 400
seats for their supporters at the right and left sides of the hall,
respectively.
“In the centre rows, 500 seats have been sold to
the public while another 100 are reserved for Asli's guests,” she said,
adding that reporters would be seated at tables in front of the hall to
allow them to monitor the debate.
The debate, titled “DAP &
MCA: Whose Policies Benefit the Coun-try More?”, will be conducted in
English in front of a 1,500-strong audience.
A true-blue KL-ite who has become an international personality is now seeking to mentor the younger generation.
SHE
has been a child TV star, a model, an almost singing artiste and had a
couple of multi-millionaire boyfriends to boot but yet Poesy Liang has
pushed everything aside to become a mentor and a game changer.
This
Imbi girl, who was raised in the heart of Kuala Lumpur, is quite a
socialite who counts many rich and famous as her close personal friends.
In fact, on the eve of my interview with her, Poesy had Isabella
Soliano over to help her clean her house after a leaking roof episode.
(Isabella, a popular jazz singer, is the daughter of the late Alfonso
Soliano who was a well-known musician and composer in the 1950s and
60s.)
But yet, I had never heard of Poesy until about a week ago
although she looked familiar. She was the face of the Levis jeans
adverts over 20 years ago when she was just 14 years old. She also
hosted RIM Chart Show in 1998 on ntv7.
But for the life of me, I
did not know who she was and what she had done. A quick research on the
Internet showed that there has been quite a bit written about her and
she does have thousands of friends on Facebook.
She has lived a
life that would fill several lifetimes but Poesy has had several
life-changing moments that act as milestones which have kept her
reinventing herself.
Her health issues, immature decisions, rich
boyfriends and artistic capabilities have turned this 37-year-old woman
from a spoilt brat into a person who is aware of her surroundings and
the need to play an active role to help shape the world.
One
cannot help but admire Poesy’s gumption after hearing of her health
problems – tumours grew in her spinal cord and she was left paralysed
after two surgeries. She has been having tumour growth since 1992 when
she was at the height of her popularity at age 17.
Then within a year she learnt to walk again but “I walk visually because I have no more feelings in my legs.”
But it all came crashing down when in 2003 she needed another surgery for the same problem.
“I had to learn to walk all over again. The second time wasn’t any easier but I was determined to do it,” said Poesy.
Three
years later she had to go to Stanford University for a “clean-up
surgery” to tackle the rest of her spinal tumours. She was treated by
the inventor of Cyberknife surgery, neurosurgeon Dr John R. Adler using
that very technology. It cost US$80,000 (RM253,000) and before she could
raise enough money for the treatment, Poesy broke up with her rich
boyfriend “because I did not want him to think that I was sticking to
him just for the money”.
“I am grateful for the assistance he and his family gave me but I needed to do this on my own.”
Poesy
did not come from a rich family but it was one of the pioneers of Jalan
Imbi back in the 1960s. She still lives in her family home which she
has also turned into her art studio.
On Aug 30, 2007, Poesy set up theHelping Angelsmovement
— an NGO with a loose connection of volunteers held together through a
Facebook page — to recruit volunteers to do welfare work.
“There
are four exclusive rules in Helping Angels — no involvement in
fund-raising or collection of donations, no commercial marketing
activities, no political rallying activities and no religious
evangelism.
“All activities are funded privately, to offer
opportunities for volunteers to use their ability and time to help
others,” she said.
The phrase “random act of kindness” is
repeatedly used by Poesy during our interview and she defined it as “the
donation of time and effort, with less emphasis on material and money
charity.”
In five years, Poesy’s movement, which now has over
2,200 members, has spread from Malaysia to Indonesia, Thailand, Taiwan,
the US, Europe, Africa and Hong Kong.
At home, Poesy and her
fellow volunteers have started Thursday Tutoring — a programme to tutor
children at various shelter homes around the Klang Valley.
“Helping
Angels travel with me. Everywhere I go I try to do a random act of
kindness. Like when I was in Senegal, I bought small boxes of colour
pencils and pieces of paper and gave it to the kids I met in a poor
area.
“One of the mothers asked me why was I doing this crazy
thing and I told her that who knows maybe from all the kids who got the
colour pencils, one of them may turn out to be a great artist,” Poesy
said as a way to explain the Helping Angels movement.
Her next project is called the Green Humanity for the Environment.
“We
want to show that there cannot be compassion, kindness and empathy
towards humanity without showing compassion, kindness and empathy
towards Mother Earth.
“We will be coming up with Random Acts of
Kindness towards Mother Earth,” said Poesy, who points out that all
these projects come from other members of Helping Angels.
Asked
about today’s youth, Poesy said she enjoyed mentoring them because “the
youth of today are leaders of tomorrow and I definitely want to change
the world.”
There is a real Asian drama series to rival the best
Korean soap opera to be gotten from Poesy’s life and knowing her, she
will probably want a famous actress to play the lead role.
Most entrepreneurs don’t spend enough time trying to come up with radically new products.
Why? Because they don’t think they can.
They believe that because they’re in an old, conservative industry,
they have no chance of coming up with anything new and different.
They feel that everything has been invented. That there’s no new way to do business or design a product or service.
There’s a good reason they think this: in many industries there has
indeed been very little change. But just because the industry hasn’t
changed, it doesn’t mean it can’t.
And those that have the courage to come up with revolutionary new
products are often rewarded with millions in additional profits for
their efforts.
Here is a new example of just such a breakthrough.
You couldn’t get a more boring, staid industry than the envelope
business. There’s basically been no change in the design of an envelope
for 80 years!
But suddenly along comes Flavorlopes: fruit flavored envelopes!
They solve a real problem – people hate licking envelopes. Now with
Flavorlopes you can enjoy licking envelopes with the following flavors:
Apple. Cherry, Grape, Orange and Strawberry.
Bang. Just like that, an industry is changed.
Now I’m the first to admit this is not a product breakthrough of the
magnitude of the personal computer or the disposable pen. But hey, it’s
not a bad effort for the envelope business.
Will people buy them? Of course they will. Is the company that makes
them likely to grow a lot in the next 3 years as a result of their
originality? You bet. And they deserve to, because unlike the other
thousand envelope companies in the world they showed real guts and
creativity.
Who dares wins.
How about you? How is your new product creation going? Has it been
years since you came up with anything novel for your industry?
Well maybe today is a good time to start. Why not allocate just 15 minutes a day for concocting new product ideas.
Heck, it’s only 15 minutes out of the 600 or so you work every day. Not much at all, but it may just change your industry.
You may not be in the envelope business. But you may end up licking your competition.
Private banks have failed – we need a public solution
The Barclays scandal has underlined the City's unmuzzled power. But it also offers a chance to take democratic control
Bob Diamond, who resigned as chief
executive of Barclys on Tuesday, is fighting for a payoff of over £20m.
Photograph: Dylan Martinez/REUTERS
The greatest danger of the rate-fixing scandal now engulfing the
City of London is that it will be managed and defused in the usual way,
and nothing will really change. Tuesday's forced resignation of Bob Diamond,
the Barclays chief executive, follows well-worn procedures for dealing
with crises that potentially threaten those in power: denounce the worst
offenders, let a few symbolic heads roll, set up an inquiry under a
safe pair of hands, and tweak the regulations to prevent a repetition of
the most egregious misdemeanours.
That's been the pattern of the
past few years as Britain's establishment has lurched from the disaster
of the Iraq war to the disgrace of parliamentary expense fiddling and
media phone-hacking (though in the case of Iraq, the only heads to roll
were BBC executives and an army corporal).
As for the banks that triggered the greatest economic crisis for 80
years, they have been bailed out and featherbedded, with only the loss
of the odd sacrificial City baron to show for their reckless mayhem.
But we can't afford to allow such political dereliction again. The racket revealed around the rigging of the crucial Libor inter-bank interest rate
– affecting $500tn worth of contracts, financial instruments, mortgages
and loans – has underlined the scale of corruption at the heart of the
financial system. It follows the exposure of the mis-selling of dodgy
derivatives and payment protection insurance, voracious tax avoidance
and last month's breakdown of the RBS-NatWest basic payments system.
It's
already clear that the rate rigging, which depends on collusion, goes
far beyond Barclays, and indeed the City of London. This is one of
multiple scams that have become endemic in a disastrously deregulated
system with inbuilt incentives for cartels to manipulate the core price
of finance. Not only that, but the rigging has been public for years –
it was first reported in 2008 – and no action has been taken until now.
That echoes the phone-hacking scandal, which erupted eight years after Rebekah Brooks told parliament News International was bribing the police
and her admission was entirely ignored. On Tuesday Barclays sought to
implicate Whitehall officials in its rate-rigging in 2008, and an angry
Diamond, fighting for a payoff of over £20m, can be expected to go
further when he appears before the Commons on Wednesday.
As they
did with the Murdoch press, politicians who have abased themselves
before the financial elite are now denouncing corrupt bankers and each
other for failing to bring them to heel. David Cameron, whose party
relies on City donors for more than half its income, wants a narrowly
Libor-focused parliamentary inquiry to avoid the bigger picture and
focus blame on New Labour's enthusiasm for "light touch regulation" in
the runup to the crash.
Ed Miliband is rightly pressing for a much
broader, Leveson-style public inquiry into the entire banking system.
But the reality is that the whole political class embraced deregulated
finance in the boom years. While Tony Blair and Gordon Brown pampered
the banks, George Osborne and the Conservatives were demanding still less regulation, and even the Liberal Democrat Vince Cable, now the bankers' scourge, endorsed a financial "light touch".
This
is yet another disgrace for the country's governing elites. The new
revelation of corruption comes after the exposure of the deception of
the Iraq war, fraud in parliament and the police, the criminality of a
media mafia and the devastating failure of the banks four years ago. It
could of course have happened only in a private-dominated financial
sector, and makes a nonsense of the bankrupt free-market ideology that
still holds sway in public life.
Political and business
powerbrokers insist it's all a problem of leadership, bad apples and a
culture that has gone awry. But such cultures are generated by
structures and systems – and in the case of the City, deregulated
short-term profit maximisation has as good as required them. It's
certainly necessary to have a clearout of City bosses, prosecutions and
wide-ranging inquiries, but only far-reaching change will clear this
cesspit.
The financial system has already failed at huge economic
and social cost. It has been shown to be corrupt, incompetent, rapacious
and economically destructive. The City's claims to be an indispensable
jobs and tax engine for the British economy are nonsense: the bailout
costs of 2008-9 dwarfed the financial tax revenues of the boom years,
which were below those of manufacturing even at their peak.
In
fact, the banks are pumped up with state subsidies and liquidity that
they are still failing to pass on in productive lending five years into
the crisis. A crucial part of the explanation is the unmuzzled political
and economic power of the City: its colonisation of Whitehall and
public life, effective grip on its own regulation, revolving-door pull
on politicians and civil servants, and purchase of political parties.
Finance has usurped democracy.
The crash of 2008 offered a huge
opportunity to break that grip and reform the financial system. It was
lost. The system was left as good as intact, and even the
part-nationalised banks, RBS and Lloyds, have since been run at arm's
length to fatten them up as quickly as possible for re-privatisation
(savage RBS cost-cutting lies behind its humiliating performance last
month), instead of as motors of investment and recovery.
The
rate-rigging scandal now offers a second opportunity to build the
pressure for fundamental change. That's hard to imagine being carried
out by a coalition dominated by the City-funded Tories, but Labour has
also yet to break fully with its pre-crisis economic model.
Tougher
regulation or even a full separation of retail from investment banking
will not be enough to shift the City into productive investment, or even
prevent the kind of corrupt collusion that has now been exposed between
Barclays and other banks. As a report by Manchester University's Cresc research team argues this week, the size and complexity of the modern banking system makes it "near ungovernable".
Only
if the largest banks are broken up, the part-nationalised outfits
turned into genuine public investment banks, and new socially owned and
regional banks encouraged can finance be made to work for society,
rather than the other way round. Private sector banking has
spectacularly failed – and we need a democratic public solution.
• This article was amended on 4 July 2012. The original misspelled Rebekah Brooks's name as Rebecca. This has been corrected.
It
was a breakthrough that took almost half a century of deep thought,
more than 30 years of painstaking experimentation and a massive £2.6bn
machine. Yesterday, scientists said they believed they had...
Physicists celebrate evidence of particle
To cheers and standing ovations, scientists at the world's biggest
atom smasher have claimed the discovery of a new subatomic particle.
They say it's "consistent" with the long-sought Higgs
boson that helps explain what gives all matter in the universe size and
shape.
He said the newly discovered subatomic
particle is a boson, but he stopped just shy of claiming outright that
it is the Higgs boson itself - an extremely fine distinction.
"As a layman, I think we did it," he told the elated crowd.
"We have a discovery. We have observed a new particle that is consistent with a Higgs boson."
The Higgs boson, which until now has been a theoretical
particle, is seen as the key to understanding why matter has mass, which
combines with gravity to give an object weight.
The idea is much like gravity and Isaac Newton's discovery of it - gravity was there all the time before Newton explained it.
But now scientists have seen something very much like the Higgs boson and can put that knowledge to further use.
CERN's atom smasher, the $A10 billion Large Hadron
Collider on the Swiss-French border, has been creating high-energy
collisions of protons to investigate dark matter, antimatter and the
creation of the universe, which many theorise occurred in a massive
explosion known as the Big Bang.
Two independent teams at CERN said on Wednesday they had both "observed" a new subatomic particle - a boson.
Heuer called it "most probably a Higgs boson but we have to find out what kind of Higgs boson it is".
Asked whether the find is a discovery, Heuer answered,
"As a layman, I think we have it. But as a scientist, I have to say,
'"What do we have?'"
The leaders of the two CERN teams - Joe Incandela, head
of CMS with 2100 scientists, and Fabiola Gianotti, head of ATLAS with
3000 scientists - each presented in complicated scientific terms what
was essentially extremely strong evidence of a new particle.
Incandela said it was too soon to say definitively
whether it is the "standard model" Higgs that Scottish physicist Peter
Higgs and others predicted in the 1960s - part of a standard model
theory of physics involving an energy field where particles interact
with a key particle, the Higgs boson.
"The" Higgs or "a" Higgs - that was the question on Wednesday.
"It is consistent with a Higgs boson as is needed for the standard model," Heuer said.
"We can only call it a Higgs boson - not the Higgs boson."
Higgs, who was invited to be in the audience, said he also could not yet say if it was part of the standard model.
But he told the audience the discovery appears to be very close to what he predicted.
"It is an incredible thing that it has happened in my
lifetime," he said, calling it a huge achievement for the
proton-smashing collider built in a 27-kilometre underground tunnel.
The stunning work elicited standing ovations and frequent
applause at a packed auditorium in CERN as Gianotti and Incandela each
took their turn.
Incandela called it "a Higgs-like particle" and said "we know it must be a boson and it's the heaviest boson ever found".
Apple faces new legal challenge in China
