News Round Up - March 5th, 2019
Today's most interesting news articles with links and brief summaries...
It costs less than $60 to have a baby in Finland. Its healthcare system has helped give it the lowest maternal death rate in the world - and it's available to everyone for next to nothing.
The maternal death rate in the U.S. has nearly doubled over the last three decades; in Finland they've cut it in half.
Maternal death rates are even higher for African American women, one of the reasons Laura chose to have Ella in Finland instead of back home.
The wealthy hand over much more in Finland than the U.S. Annika Saarikko, the minister for family affairs in Finland, said the Finn's don't mind the high taxes, they're used to the system.
Finland's minister for family affairs is also trying to figure out how to encourage more Finns to have babies because despite all the benefits, the birth rate in Finland is declining.
An explosive exposé on a $9 billion Russian money laundering operation entangles Citigroup, Raiffeisen, and Deutsche Bank
LINK: https://www.businessinsider.com/expos-on-russian-money-laundering-operation-entangles-banks-2019-3
A group of investigative journalists have uncovered what they describe as a $9 billion money-laundering operation enabled by Russia's largest private investment bank, Troika Dialog.
Raiffeisen stock tanks The OCCRP said that funds were eventually distributed through a series of major Western banks, including the US-based Citigroup, the Austria-based Raiffeisen, and the Germany-based Deutsche Bank.
"Raiffeisen Bank International is not familiar with the concrete allegations and does not have any further information on the content of the complaint. RBI complies with all anti-money laundering requirements. Its compliance systems and processes have been, and continue to be, regularly reviewed by external parties and are confirmed to be in compliance with the legal requirements."
"Deutsche Bank's clients are so-called respondent banks. It is first and foremost the task of the respondent bank to check its customers in accordance with the applicable know-your-customer regulations."
Trump plans to initiate a tarrif war with India because India wants to keep medical devices affordable for Indian patients by placing price caps on knee implants and stents.
WASHINGTON/ NEW DELHI: American President Donald Trump on Monday notified the US Congress that he intends to terminate preferential trade terms to India within 60 days, apparently dissatisfied with concessions New Delhi made in response to his efforts to force open the Indian market.
The offer did not cut any ice with Trump, who told US lawmakers in a letter that India "Has not assured the United States that it will provide equitable and reasonable access" to its markets and he therefore intends to terminate the preferential treatment that India has enjoyed since 1976.
At the heart of the dispute was the US insistence that India should remove the price cap on knee implants and stents - which New Delhi now regulates as "Essential medicine" but which is a money-spinner for western companies.
Trump despatched a separate letter to lawmakers at the same time as the India letter withdrawing GSP facility to Turkey, with the reasoning that it had reached an economic status that no longer merited preferential concessions.
Tiny Pacific nation of Cook Islands is considering changing its name to something that reflects its Polynesian culture, rather than honouring the British explorer James Cook
The tiny Pacific nation of Cook Islands is considering changing its name to something that reflects its Polynesian culture, rather than honouring the British explorer James Cook.The government set up a committee in January to find a new indigenous name for the grouping of 15 islands, about 3,000 kilometres northeast of New Zealand.
Committee chairman Danny Mataroa said Monday that once discussions began it became apparent there was support for dropping the Cook Islands name altogether in favour of one in the local language, known as Cook Islands Maori.
"When the committee members, which include Cook Islands historians and people with deep traditional knowledge, met we decided it was time we change the name of the country," he told AFP.Mataroa said the new name should reflect the country's heritage, its people and its strong Christian belief.
The Cook Islands were a British protectorate from 1888 until 1900, when they came under New Zealand's jurisdiction.
Italy sees 57% drop in olive harvest as result of climate change, scientist says | World news
Extreme weather events have been the "Main driver" of an olive harvest collapse that will leave Italy dependent on imports from April, a leading climate scientist has warned.
Olive trees are weakened by these kinds of weather shocks and, even if they recover, are left more vulnerable to outbreaks of the xylella fastidiosa bacterium and olive fly infestations, which have hit farmers in Italy and Greece, Valentini said.
Italy's Coldiretti farmers' union estimates that the cost of the olive oil collapse this year has already reached €1bn. "The government promised a solution but it has not given any more resources for the olive farmers," a Coldiretti spokesman said, adding there was "No plan for [addressing] climate change and olive oil production either."
Vasilis Pyrgiotis, the chair of the Copa Cogeca farming union's olives working group, said: "The big issue is not necessarily the quantity but the quality. Most Greek olive oil is considered 'extra virgin' but it is not certain, as time goes by, that this will continue."
South Korea sees signs North Korea restoring part of launch site it promised to dismantle
WASHINGTON - South Korean intelligence agencies have detected signs that North Korea is restoring part of a missile launch site it began to dismantle after pledging to do so in a first summit with U.S. President Donald Trump last year, South Korea's Yonhap News Agency reported on Tuesday.
The Yonhap report did not say when the work was detected, but news of it comes days after a second summit on denuclearization between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un broke down last week over differences on how far North Korea was willing to limit its nuclear program and the degree of U.S. willingness to ease sanctions on the country.
Kim Jong Un also pledged at a summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in in September to close Sohae and allow international experts to observe the dismantling of the missile engine-testing site and a launch pad. Signs that North Korea had begun acting on its pledge to Trump were detected in July, when a Washington think tank said satellite images indicated work had begun at Sohae to dismantle a building used to assemble space-launch vehicles and a nearby rocket engine test stand used to develop liquid-fuel engines for ballistic missiles and space-launch vehicles.
Subsequent images indicated North Korea had halted work to dismantle the missile engine test site in the first part of August.
Forty percent of ‘AI startups’ in Europe don’t really use AI, says report
LINK: https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/5/18251326/ai-startups-europe-fake-40-percent-mmc-report
According to the survey from London venture capital firm MMC, only 40 percent of European startups that are classified as AI companies actually use artificial intelligence in a way that is "Material" to their businesses.
MMC studied some 2,830 AI startups in 13 EU countries to come to its conclusion, reviewing the "Activities, focus, and funding" of each firm.
Third-party analytic sites are often responsible for the classification, and it's not clear from MMC's report what percent of fake AI startups it identified were actively misleading their customers.
The term "Artificial intelligence" is evidently catnip to investors, and MMC found that startups that claim to work in AI attract between 15 and 50 percent more funding compared to other companies.
White House refuses to hand over Kushner security clearance docs
The White House is refusing to hand the House Oversight Committee documents that the panel has requested in its probe into the administration's security clearance process, including for President Donald Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
"The White House security clearance system is broken, and it needs both congressional oversight and legislative reform. I will be consulting with Members of the Committee to determine our next steps."
"Although we are prepared to continue negotiations in good faith, the Committee seeks unilateral concessions without any offer of accommodation on its part, and then complains that the White House has refused to simply tum over everything the Committee inappropriately seeks," Cipollone wrote.
Cummings announced in late January that his committee would probe the security clearance process after reports that more than 130 political appointees working in the Executive Office of the President did not have permanent security clearances as of November 2017, including Kushner and his wife, the president's daughter and senior adviser Ivanka Trump, among other top White House aides.
Three explosive packages found in London
LINK: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-47457477
Counter-terror police are investigating three packages containing explosives found at Heathrow Airport, London City Airport and Waterloo station.
A Heathrow spokeswoman said the airport would assist the police investigation into the "Criminal act".
Two more packages were found in the capital during the next three hours.
Staff members were then evacuated from City Aviation House at City Airport in Newham after a third package was reported at about 12:10.
Donald Tusk claims anti-European forces meddled in Brexit vote
Donald Tusk has claimed external powers meddled in the Brexit vote as he called for EU member states to do more to protect the upcoming European elections.
Speaking at a press conference in Brussels with the Armenian prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, the European council president said he agreed with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, who used an editorial in the Guardian and other newspapers to call on European countries to be alert to malign influences.
"There are external anti-European forces, which are seeking - openly or secretly - to influence the democratic choices of Europeans, as was the case with Brexit and a number of election campaigns across Europe. And it may again be the case with the European elections in May," said Tusk, a former prime minister of Poland and vociferous critic of Vladimir Putin.
The Brexit secretary, Stephen Barclay, and the attorney general, Geoffrey Cox, are dining with the EU's chief Brexit negotiator on Tuesday evening, after their latest talks.
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