Sunday, April 16, 2017

Nigeria's anti-corruption unit finds $43 million cash in Lagos apartment

Watch: Millions seized from Nigerian apartment

By Yemisi Adegoke, CNN-April 14, 2017

Lagos (CNN)The Nigerian anti-corruption unit discovered more than $43 million in US dollars at an upscale apartment in Lagos.

The anti-graft agency said in a statement it raided the apartment Tuesday after a tipoff about a "haggard" woman in "dirty clothes" taking bags in and out of the apartment.

The agency said it also found 23.2 million naira (Nigerian currency worth $75,000) and £27,800 (UK currency, worth $35,000 US) "neatly arranged" inside cabinets hidden behind wooden panels of a bedroom wardrobe.

The money was found in an apartment in an upscale part of Lagos

The commission said the funds are "suspected to be proceeds of unlawful activity" but no arrests have been made yet.

Nigeria has struggled with corruption and looted funds for decades, but the watchdog unit has been on a lucky streak.

Earlier in the week, the agency discovered around 250 million naira in cash ($817,000) in a Lagos market and a further 448 million naira cash ($1.5 million) at a shopping plaza.

The huge find is the latest in a string of busts by the anti-corruption watchdog

These gains have been credited to a whistleblowing policies launched in December by Nigeria's finance minister.

Whistleblowers can now anonymously provide information through a secure portal, if the information leads to the recovery of stolen public funds, the whistleblower is entitled to between 2.5%-5% of the total money recovered.

In February, the minister of information, Lai Muhammad, said the policy has led to the recovery of over $180 billion.

Europe and U.S. Move to Fight Russian Hybrid Warfare

BY REID STANDISH, EMILY TAMKIN-APRIL 11, 2017

On Tuesday, Finland, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States, Poland, Latvia, and Lithuania signed a memorandum of understanding to establish the European Center of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats, a sign of just how seriously world leaders are taking Moscow’s attempts at destabilizing Europe.

Since the annexation of Crimea and the outbreak of war in eastern Ukraine in 2014, things have gotten tense between Moscow and the West: Russian jets have probed Finnish and Swedish airspace; a barrage of Russian disinformation has targeted Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania; and France, Germany, and the United States have all accused the Kremlin of interfering in their domestic politics. It’s part of Russia’s embrace of so-called “hybrid war,” or the use of politics, diplomacy, the media, and cyberspace to destabilize opponents without necessarily having to resort to tanks and artillery.

The combination of military posturing and disinformation has become the backbone of Moscow’s modern day military doctrine as it tries to reassert itself along its borders and beyond. Violations and provocations near borders are meant to test a neighbor’s resolve, while information attacks are meant to inflame internal problems and sow discord. Other operations, such as Russia’s cybermeddling in the U.S. election, were meant to boost Donald Trump, who as a candidate denigrated NATO, the European Union, and the liberal international order.

The pact signed Tuesday is meant to establish a center to deal with those hybrid threats, which are hardly limited to the signatories. France and Germany in particular are concerned about Russian disinformation influencing upcoming elections.

But for Sweden and Finland, Russia’s attempts at destabilization are souring relations. Neither is currently a member of NATO — a throwback to both countries’ histories of military neutrality and complex relations with Moscow. But since the end of the Cold War, Helsinki and Stockholm cooperated more closely with the military alliance and debated joining at times.

And that seems to be accelerating the more Moscow tweaks them. In May 2015, Stockholm signed a host nation support agreement with NATO, a deal that would allow the military alliance more room to operate on Swedish territory for training exercises or in the event of a conflict in the region. Helsinki signed a similar agreement in 2014.

Moreover, Moscow and NATO’s dueling rhetoric and actions have only further inflamed tensions in the Baltic. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania — all members of NATO — have sounded the alarm that their region could be the next flashpoint with Russia. After the growing number of airspace violations, Sweden remilitarized the island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea in February 2016 for the first time since the end of the Cold War.

Finnish Foreign Minister Timo Soini said Tuesday that the fight against hybrid threats is a “European priority.” He said the creation of the new center will help build resilience to hybrid threats in EU and NATO member states, and could get those two unwieldy bodies to work more closely to fight the growing problem.

Like other, pre-existing centers dedicated to combatting hybrid threats, such as those in Latvia and Estonia, the European Center of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats is a complement to, not a substitute for, NATO. With the exception of Finland and Sweden, all of the original signatories are alliance members, and a NATO representative was at the signing ceremony. NATO issued a statement saying, “While not signatories themselves, NATO and the EU will participate actively in the Centre’s activities.”

In other words, though neither country will seek formal membership in the decades-old military alliance, Helsinki and Stockholm are, thanks to the looming threat from the east, moving ever closer to the very NATO that Russia has for so long sought to keep them from joining.

Photo credit: Government of Finland/Flickr

Trump asks why people are still talking about his taxes a day after protesters asked for his returns

Protesters in more than a dozen cities nationwide participated in so-called Tax March demonstrations to demand that President Trump release his personal tax returns. (The Washington Post)

By John Wagner April 16 at 11:42 AM
President Trump lashed out Sunday at the protesters who took part in marches across the country Saturday to demand that he release his tax returns, declaring on Twitter that “The election is over!”

Trump’s comments followed a nationwide Tax March that drew thousands of people in dozens of cities on the country’s traditionally recognized deadline to file taxes, April 15.

As a candidate, Trump declined to voluntarily release his tax returns — a practice followed by other presidential hopefuls since the 1970s — claiming he couldn’t do so because he was under audit. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton hammered him on the subject.

“I did what was an almost an impossible thing to do for a Republican — easily won the Electoral College! Now Tax Returns are brought up again?” Trump said in one tweet Sunday morning.

In another, he suggested that someone “should look into who paid for the small organized rallies yesterday,” adding: “The election is over!”

[Trump breaks silence on North Korea, defends reversal on China]

The marches were sponsored by a coalition of 69 organizations. The main march Saturday unfolded in the nation’s capital, where protesters gathered in front of the Capitol and then marched west along Pennsylvania Avenue.

In South Florida, activists marched to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, where the president is staying this weekend. Thousands more gathered at a large march in New York, where activists, comedians and a state senator spoke. Many of the protests featured an inflatable chicken, a mascot of sorts for the march, in a bid to mock Trump’s unwillingness to share his returns.

Sunday morning was a busy one for Trump on Twitter.

Besides responding to the Tax March, he fired off a tweet about China and North Korea, wished his supporters a happy Easter and said the United States had no choice but to build a stronger military “than ever before.”

Perry Stein contributed to this report.

Trump administration says no US trading partners manipulate currency

15th April 2017

US PRESIDENT Donald Trump’s administration declined to name any major trading partner as a currency manipulator in a highly anticipated report on Friday, backing away from a key Trump campaign promise to slap such a label on China.

The semi-annual US Treasury currency report did, however, keep China on a currency “monitoring list” despite a lower global current account surplus, citing China’s unusually large, bilateral trade surplus with the United States.

‏Verified account @IanTalley

Trump's Treasury ramps up China criticism in its first FX report, but declines to label any country a manipulator: http://on.wsj.com/2ozW8JJ 

Five other trading partners who were on last October’s monitoring list – Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Germany and Switzerland – also remain on the list, ensuring that the Treasury would apply extra scrutiny to their foreign exchange and economic policies.

The Treasury report recognized what many analysts have said over the past year, namely that China has recently intervened in foreign exchange markets to prop up the value of its yuan currency, not push it lower to make Chinese exports cheaper.

Foreign exchange experts told Reuters last week that a manipulator label was unlikely for Beijing.

Trump, who on the campaign trail blamed China for “stealing” US jobs and prosperity by cheapening its currency, repeatedly promised to label the country as a currency manipulator on “day one” of a Trump administration – a move that would require special negotiations and could lead to punitive duties and other action.

SEE ALSO: In sudden volte-face, Trump says China not a currency manipulator

The report did call out China’s past efforts to hold down the yuan’s value, saying this created a long-term “distortion” in the global trading system that “imposed significant and long-lasting hardship on American workers and companies.”

The Treasury also warned that it will scrutinize China’s trade and currency practices very closely and called for faster opening of China’s economy to US goods and services and a shift away from exports to more domestic consumption.

“China will need to demonstrate that its lack of intervention to resist appreciation over the last three years represents a durable policy shift by letting the RMB (yuan) rise with market forces once appreciation pressures resume,” the report said.

The report shows the Trump administration is taking an approach to foreign exchange based on data rather than politics, said Nathan Sheets, a former US Treasury under secretary for international affairs during the Obama administration.

‏ @vpatel212

China could drop off the monitoring list in the US Treasury's April FX report (meets only 1 criteria for 2 reports). Wouldn't bet on this...

“This isn’t the report that Donald Trump had in mind on Nov. 8,” said Sheets, who is now with the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. “But it lays out legitimate complaints. It’s a clear statement to the Chinese that they need progress.”

The Treasury did not alter its three major thresholds for identifying currency manipulation put in place last year by the Obama administration: a bilateral trade surplus with the United States of US$20 billion or more; a global current account surplus of more than 3 percent of gross domestic product, and persistent foreign exchange purchases equal to 2 percent of GDP over 12 months.

No countries were determined to have met all three of these criteria, but Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Germany and Switzerland all met two of them.

The Treasury warned Japan against resuming currency interventions, saying that these “should be reserved only to very exceptional circumstances with appropriate prior consultations, consistent with Japan’s G-7 and G-20 commitments.” – Reuters

22,000 years of history evaporates after freezer failure melts Arctic ice cores

Around 13% of cache of ice cylinders extracted from glaciers in Canadian Arctic exposed to high heat in new storage facility at University of Alberta

The ice cores – long cylinders extracted from glaciers – contain trapped gasses and particles that offer a glimpse into atmospheric history. Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty Images

Ashifa Kassam in Toronto-Sunday 16 April 2017

Within them sits some 80,000 years of history, offering researchers tantalising clues about climate change and the Earth’s past. At least that was the case – until the precious cache of Arctic ice cores was hit by warming temperatures.

A freezer malfunction at the University of Alberta in Edmonton has melted part of the world’s largest collection of ice cores from the Canadian Arctic, reducing some of the ancient ice into puddles.

“For every ice-core facility on the planet, this is their No1 nightmare,” said glaciologist Martin Sharp.

The ice cores – long cylinders extracted from glaciers – contain trapped gasses and particles that offer a glimpse into atmospheric history.

“When you lose part of an ice core,” Sharp said, “you lose part of the record of past climates, past environments – an archive of the history of our atmosphere. You just don’t have easy access to information about those past time periods.”

The university had recently acquired the dozen cores, or 1.4km (0.9 miles) of ice, drilled from five locations in the Canadian Arctic, and carefully transported them from Ottawa to Edmonton.

The samples were moved into the university’s brand-new, custom-built C$4m (US$3m) facility earlier this month. Days later, one of the freezers tripped a high-heat alarm.

“The way in which the freezer failed meant that it started to pump heat into the freezer,” said Sharp. “So it wasn’t just a question of it gradually warming up … It was actually quite rapidly raised to a temperature of 40C (104F).”

Sharp rushed to the walk-in storage freezer to survey the damage and found steaming puddles gathered around the millennia-old ice. “It was more like a changing room in a swimming pool than a freezer,” he said.

“I’ve had better days, let’s say that.”

Around 13% of the archive had been exposed to high heat, representing more than 180m of ice. None of the cores were completely destroyed.

“There are some which are clearly toast and there are others which are not obviously very much affected,” Sharp said.

An ice core from the Penny Ice Cap on Baffin Island lost about a third of its mass, amounting to about 22,000 years of history, while a core from Mount Logan, Canada’s tallest mountain, saw 16,000 years melted away.

But much of the collection was unaffected by the malfunction, thanks to a stroke of luck. A television crew had been documenting the ice core move and had asked that the samples be put in a second freezer because the lighting was better. The university complied, storing nearly 90% of the collection in an unaffected freezer.

“That’s basically what saved us,” said Sharp.

The question is now whether any research can be carried out on the affected cores.

“This incident will affect research, no question,” said Sharp. “It rules out certain studies that we might have wanted to conduct on the cores, such as reconstructing continuous long-term histories where parts of the cores have been lost or contaminated.”

As returning to the Arctic to replace the damaged ice cores would be a costly endeavour, the focus is now on regularly monitoring and safeguarding the ice cores that are left.

“It’s by no means a write-off from a scientific point of view,” said Sharp. “It’s just disappointing to have this happen at all and to have lost some ice that would be of potentially quite a bit of interest.”

'Touchscreen-toddlers' sleep less, researchers say

By James Gallagher-13 April 2017

Toddlers who spend time playing on smartphones and tablets seem to get slightly less sleep than those who do not, say researchers.

The study in Scientific Reports suggests every hour spent using a touchscreen each day was linked to 15 minutes less sleep.

However, those playing with touchscreens do develop their fine motor skills more quickly.

Experts said the study was "timely" but parents should not lose sleep over it.

There has been an explosion in touchscreens in the home, but understanding their impact on early childhood development has been lacking.

The study by Birkbeck, University of London, questioned 715 parents of children under three years old.

It asked how often their child played with a smartphone or tablet and about the child's sleep patterns.

It showed that 75% of the toddlers used a touchscreen on a daily basis, with 51% of those between six and 11 months using one, and 92% of those between 25 and 36 months doing so as well.

But children who did play with touchscreens slept less at night and more in the day.

Overall they had around 15 minutes less sleep for every hour of touchscreen use.

Not before bedtime?

Dr Tim Smith, one of the researchers, told the BBC News website: "It isn't a massive amount when you're sleeping 10-12 hours a day in total, but every minute matters in young development because of the benefits of sleep."

The study is not definitive, but Dr Smith says it "seems to indicate touchscreens have some association with possible sleep problems".

However, his research has also shown toddlers who actively use touchscreens (swiping rather than watching) accelerate their development of motor skills.

So should children be given touchscreens to play with?

Dr Smith says: "It's very tricky right now, the science is very immature, we are really lagging behind the technology and it's too early to make clear proclamations."

He says the best bet is to follow similar rules for the amount of time spent in front of the TV.

That means putting a limit on the total time spent on devices, ensuring children still do physical things, ensuring that content is age-appropriate, and avoiding the screens in the hour before bedtime.

Dr Anna Joyce, a cognitive developmental researcher at Coventry University, said: "As the first study to investigate associations between sleep and touchscreen use in infancy, this is a timely piece of research.

"In light of these findings and what we know from previous research it may be worth parents limiting touchscreen, other media use and blue light in the hours before bedtime.

"Until we know more about how touchscreens affect sleep, they shouldn't be banned completely," she added.

Prof Kevin McConway, from The Open University, said: "I certainly wouldn't lose any sleep over these results, if I still had young children.

"The children in this study used a touchscreen for about 25 minutes a day, a child who used a touchscreen for this average length of time would sleep for about 6 minutes less."

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