Doux Commerce (Gentle Commerce)

The idea of gentle commerce as a platform which puts a premium on empathy is explained in Steven Pinker's "the Better Angels of our Nature". Herein I refer to a paragraph cited in the book explaining the phenomenon and its impacts on social/political construct.   

Commerce attaches [people] to one another through mutual utility...

Through commerce, man learns to deliberate, to be honest, to acquire manners, to be prudent and reserved in both talk and action. Sensing the necessity to be wise and honest in order to succeed, he flees vice, or at least his demeanor exhibits decency and seriousness so as not to arouse any adverse judgement on the part of present and future acquaintances.

Samuel Ricard (1704)

Business and Healthcare;Entrepreneurship Joints?

Part-maverick, part-unconventional, part-smart business owner Sir Richard Branson has business lessons to share in spades. Since I recently read his third autobiographical book Business Stripped Bare: Adventures of a Global Entrepreneur, I wanted to pass on some of what I learned from the book.

Without knowing exactly why, I have long admired his acumen and chutzpah. His story has provided me insights into why I’ve been so drawn to his adventures in business and his larger-than-life personality.
For those of you who don’t know much about him, Branson is the product of a somewhat privileged middle-class upbringing (he descends from a line of barristers and judges) and an English public school (what we in the US call a private school). A self-proclaimed poor student with dyslexia, he failed to complete any college degree, but opted instead to start a business, first as a magazine publisher and then as a mail-order record company owner. He went on to found Virgin Records, and this single venture expanded over the decades to become the Virgin Group, a conglomerate of businesses focused on travel (planes, trains, space travel), entertainment and lifestyle (including humanitarian ventures like fighting HIV, AIDS and climate change).
I came away with many business lessons. Here are a few.
Branson’s business philosophy is crystallized in these words, when asked why he went into business:
I’ve never been interested in being ‘in business’. I’ve been interested in creating things … Business is creative. It’s like painting. You start with a blank canvas. You can paint anything – anything – right there, is your first problem. For every good painting you might turn out, there are a zillion bad paintings just aching to drip off your brush. Scared? You should be. You start. You pick a color. The next color you pick has to work with the first color … People who succeed in business have swallowed their fear and have set out to create something special, something to make a difference to people’s lives …
Lesson: To thrive in business, it really helps to be passionate about creating something worthwhile. As a relative newcomer to entrepreneurship, I have maintained for years now that being an entrepreneur is a radical act of creativity, and it makes an every day “practice” so much more fun once you think of it as an entrepreneurial venture.
His fiercely independent path to success, in the face of rampant naysayers and critics, is both inspirational and hard to imagine duplicating. His gut instincts have won out many times over the analytics and pompous prognostications of others. He’s a master as staying on course with his vision and sense of purpose and ignoring the conventional wisdom.
I’m not good at theory. Almost everything I’ve learned, I’ve learned by doing.
Lesson: While you may draw insight and inspiration from someone else’s success story, you must rely on knowledge about your own marketplace, along with your inner talents and skills, to forge your own path.
Branson has been driven by the desire to innovate, partly I suspect because it’s in his genetic make-up and partly because he has been an astute observer of his own ecosystem’s evolution.
The best, most solid way out of a crisis in a changing market is through experimentation and adaptation.
Lesson: Healthcare is in crisis and the market is changing. It’s vital that we, as providers in an unstable setting, experiment and adapt. New business models? New levels of customer service? New joint ventures, relationships, partnerships?
His two greatest secrets of business success, in my opinion?
1. His relentless focus on the Virgin brand, along with his absolute clarity about what the brand stands for.
2. His dogged insistence on placing the people who work for him first. Wouldn’t that be nice, in healthcare?
by Philippa Kennealy, MD, MPH

Homeless Billionaire

As I walk into the lavish dining room of the Carlyle Hotel in New York, I notice a figure who looks vaguely like an elf. He is hunched on a very low red stool, partly behind a door, so close to the floor that his frame seems diminutive, with a slightly pointed face and watchful, intense manner. Is that Nicolas Berggruen, I wonder?
If I am unsure of what to expect, it is no surprise. Berggruen, 47, has spent most of his life in the shadows. The Paris-born investor is reportedly one of the world’s wealthiest, having conjured a $2.2bn-plus fortune buying real estate and stakes in companies such as Karstadt, the German retailing group, and Prisa, the Spanish media conglomerate that publishes El País and owns Le Monde. Normally, this kind of success comes with lavish houses, cars and paintings – maybe even a football club. And, until recently, Berggruen did own such toys, including plenty of art (a passion instilled by his father, Heinz, a renowned German Jewish art dealer who fled the Nazis and later became a friend of Pablo Picasso). But a few years ago, he apparently tired of what billions can buy. So he gave his art to museums, on long-term loans, sold his homes in New York and Florida along with most of his possessions. Except, that is, for a jet that now spirits him around the world, a “homeless billionaire” moving from hotel to hotel – or so the urban legend goes.
Berggruen (for it is he) springs to his feet, up to a normal height, and we are quietly ushered to the only free table in his current temporary “home”, in an annexe full of tapestries, cushions and mosaics. It is quite different from the austere sea of white marble found in the Carlyle’s main restaurant and feels like a slightly whimsical, magical place. Is it really true, I ask, that you don’t live anywhere.

“That’s the truth,” he replies, in an accent that is not entirely French or American or German (German is his family’s first language). “I spend time in London, New York, California and in, let us say, ‘standard’ places and much less standard places.” These, it transpires, include destinations ranging from Japan to the Congo.
So where does he keep his clothes? Today he is decked out in an understated but clearly expensive dark blazer and open-necked shirt. “Luckily, as a man you don’t need much,” he says, pointedly eyeing my dress. “I have very few possessions ... a few papers, a couple of books, and a few shirts, jackets, sweaters. It fits in a little thing, in a paper bag, so it’s very easy.”
My mind boggles; I cannot conceive of a 21st-century billionaire nomad carting his possessions about in a paper bag. Even on a private jet. “You seem very stern ... very disturbed by this,” he observes, searching my face with intense blue-grey eyes. “You are funny.”
I’m the funny one, I wonder indignantly; his Teutonic style of delivery is such that I cannot tell whether he is jesting, needling, or flirting.
“I don’t recommend this lifestyle for others,” he continues, explaining that he first started to turn “nomadic” 10 years ago. “I have always spent a lot of time in hotels, so it started to seem easier to do this, I feel happier. I am not that attached to material things. And the good thing is I can make choices.
“Now, si prego!” He summons a waiter, with the air of a man who always gets what he chooses. “The lady is going to have a lobster salad, right? Can I have a salade niçoise please, no anchovies. And the sauce, not the garlic sauce, you have a horrible garlic sauce. There is one sauce that is excellent but it’s not the garlic one. Thank you! Now, back to you ... ”
I suggest wine but it is summarily rejected: “I don’t drink, I don’t indulge. Quite sad. Boring.” We both order water and double espressos instead. He has just arrived from California and confesses to being “a little jet-lagged”.
Berggruen’s unusual approach to life began early. Born in 1961, with one brother and two half-sisters, he enjoyed a privileged childhood, courtesy of his father’s art business, and went to school in Paris, where he became a wildly leftwing teenager. “I wouldn’t learn a word of English [at school] because that’s the language of imperialism,” he recalls. He later attended a Swiss boarding school, to broaden his experience, but was expelled for sedition.
In 1978, still a teenager, he moved to London and a year later attended New York University to study business. “I decided to reverse. I said, ‘OK, let’s learn about the real world and capitalism.’ The real world for me was a game and I wanted to work out how to function in it, to use it as a platform.”
In 1988, he co-founded Alpha Investment Management, a fund of hedge funds, with Julio Mario Santo Domingo Jr, the eldest son of a Colombian tycoon. They later sold it to Safra Bank for an undisclosed sum. He also created Berggruen Holdings, a private vehicle that buys stakes in companies around the world. Berggruen has never explained in detail the secret of his investment success. Indeed, when a Dutch magazine ran a profile a few years ago, he tried to buy all the copies and destroy them. “I wanted to be private,” he says. But these days Berggruen Holdings has a website, which says that the group holds real estate and long-term stakes in ventures ranging from GLG hedge fund to Karstadt and La Prisa and, more recently, the British Resolution insurance group. These, he says, have created his wealth. “My father helped me through school but everything else I did on my own.”
And, having conjured a fortune, he has now a second more ambitious goal: a bold initiative to change the way that western politics and government is conducted. A few years ago, he started attending university courses and became fascinated with the flaws in western government systems. “I have always been very interested in history, so I sat down with a group of intellectuals and wrote a utopian constitution.”
He also used $100m of his money to create a think-tank, the Berggruen Institute, which promotes fresh debate about politics and constitutional reform. Then, four months ago, he used $25m to launch a more specific campaign to “save” California, a place where he spends several months each year, usually living at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills.
The institute is now promoting radical fiscal measures to tackle the state’s ballooning debt burden and to implement longer-term structural reforms, under the rubric of the “Think Long Committee for California”. Berggruen has so much clout that his committee is now backed by a formidable array of political and business heavyweights, such as Condoleezza Rice, former US secretary of state, Eric Schmidt, chief executive of Google, and Gray Davis, former governor of California.
But why does he care so much about the Golden State? Until now his most notable contribution to the region has been to throw a star-studded party each year for the Oscars (where he is usually photographed with a bevy of beautiful stars; he does not have a long-term companion).
“California is the kind of place where change is possible,” he explains. “California is in trouble – but I think California is ready.” More specifically, the severity of the debt problem in California – which is almost comparable to that of Greece or Ireland – makes it a bellwether for the rest of the US but has also bred a sense of crisis and receptiveness to change. And, since California has a constitution that allows politicians to introduce new reforms through a popular vote, Berggruen plans to put his ideas directly to the electorate. “California is worth saving,” he insists.
Our food arrives but Berggruen barely notices. Earnestly, he explains that since his teenage years he has always wanted to write a better constitution for the modern world, drawing on the best traditions of both east and west. “I feel very strongly that the two things that make a country good or not are culture and government ... my utopian constitution combines western values of the individual with the excellence of government and ideal of harmony that exists more in the east ... The key issue is: how good are the structures of government, how good are they at delivering to citizens?” And now, he argues, this issue is doubly relevant given that so many western government institutions appear to be hopelessly paralysed and deficient.
But if you want to fix something, I say, why not start with Germany? “If I went to Germany and said, ‘Listen, I’ve got a bag of reforms for you,’ they would throw me out. They would say, ‘We’re Germans, we’re wonderful, we’re perfect,’ ” he says. “But here [in the US] there is a very different attitude. The system is broken, people realise it’s very broken. In California they’re all unhappy.”
So what model does he want instead? Singapore? “I think it’s probably the best-run country in the world. It probably is on the authoritarian side and it needs to loosen up a little bit,” he observes. “But the ideal system is not necessarily the most exciting system. Probably, on average, boring is good for the average person.”
That medicine is presumably not intended for him, I observe; after all, he would not park in “boring” Singapore for long. “I am a hypocrite,” he admits. “But I am not thinking of me but what is good for most.”
I laugh but, as I eat my lobster salad, I feel torn. Is it just a crazy fantasy to hope that a billionaire could solve California’s fiscal woes simply by sprinkling about some intellectual fairy dust? Perhaps. Yet his passion is mesmerising; this is a man who truly believes that he can conjure a new future. And having worked in the US for the past year, I agree with Berggruen’s criticism of the modern political system. I am also impressed that he wants to do more than just grumble.
So, I ask, is this going to be your legacy? He confesses that these days he gets “bored” making billions through business ventures. He plans to continue with his investments but wants to put more effort into politics and philosophy; one model, he concedes, is George Soros, the financier and philanthropist. Since Berggruen does not have any children, he also plans to give his money away to his political think-tank and other reform causes. He is considering creating a media empire to provide an alternative to Rupert Murdoch’s, and promote civil society.
“The biggest problem is time, not enough time to do everything and not enough time to be bored,” he complains. “My greatest luxury is boredom, but it never happens.”
I glance at my watch and say that I should get the cheque; his plate is barely touched but I have eaten most of my salad.
“You seem to be in a rush, I’m much more relaxed than you,” he chides.
I point out that his office had told me that my allotted time was one hour.
“No, you had an hour and a half,” he insists. “In six minutes, I go.” Being a global nomad might sound bohemian, but a team of earthly staff is clearly organising his diary with Teutonic precision.
I gesture for the cheque, and he grabs it. Equally firmly, I lunge. But he pulls it away. “I live here, this is my house,” he declares, laughing. “I pay.”
No, I argue, I have to pay. It’s the rules of the article.
“I know. But in this case, we’ve bypassed the rules.”
We sit frozen in a stand-off, staring at each other. Then he glances at the bill: “Hold on – oh my God, it’s very expensive!” he says. “That’s very embarrassing.” I glance too: it is, indeed, startlingly expensive; though my lobster salad tasted very pleasant, it was not so extraordinary.
“See, I must pay,” he says.
I wonder whether I dare make a huge scene – and then give up. Being a homeless billionaire, I reflect, can clearly be a very expensive business; especially if you camp in places such as the Carlyle. But as I leave the ornate restaurant, without the bill, I also feel oddly cheered.
If Berggruen displays as much stubborn determination in pushing his ideas as he did with this bill, then maybe – just maybe – they might actually fly. In any case, I would like to dream so: right now, the western world certainly needs political magic.

BP Wins Australian Exploration Permits

BP awarded four permits to drill off the South Australia coast ~ • Minister says BP must show it 'has learned the lessons from Deepwater Horizon'  BP has been given its first-ever oil exploration permits off the Australian coast, but the government warned on Monday that the London-based energy group will have to demonstrate higher safety standards than it had applied in the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster before it is allowed to drill. ~ BP holds stakes in the Northwest Shelf and Gorgon natural gas fields in Western Australia state but has never before applied for its own offshore exploration permits in Australia.  Resources and energy minister Martin Ferguson announced on Monday that BP has been awarded four of seven offshore exploration permits approved by the government as part of an annual tender process. BP will be allowed to explore to depths exceeding 15,000 feet (4,600 metres) off the coast of South Australia state. The other three permits awarded to Australian companies Woodside Energy, Riverina Energy and Finder No. 4 are off Western Australia. Oil companies are facing increased scrutiny in the United States after an explosion and spill at BP's Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico killed 11 workers on 20 April last year and caused massive environmental damage to the US coast. "The permits awarded to BP follow an extensive assessment and due diligence process that examined the technical and financial competence of BP to undertake the proposed work programme in accordance with the stringent requirements of Australian legislation," Ferguson said in a statement. "Additional conditions have also been attached to these permits, emphasising the need for oil field best practice behaviour by the operator," he added. "This reinforces BP's undertaking, given as part of the assessment process, to fully integrate lessons learned from the Deepwater Horizon incident into its systems and processes."

Stereotaxis Expands Catheter Partnership

 

Image-guided interventional surgery firm Stereotaxis said it has extended an exclusive worldwide distribution agreement with the supplier of its magnetic ablation catheters through 2015.

As part of the extension, Stereotaxis' strategic partner has agreed to pursue an expanded indication -- the treatment of atrial fibrillation -- for the magnetic-irrigated catheter in the U.S., according to the St. Louis-based company. In addition, both firms have agreed to expand the product offering covered by the deal to include a next-generation irrigated magnetic catheter, which will include technological advances from both companies, Stereotaxis said.

The deal also covers further submissions for regulatory approval in new markets, such as Asia, for mutually agreed magnetic catheters, the company said. The exclusive distribution agreement for these products will expire at various later dates.

Facebook raises new funding at $50B valuation

Facebook is now worth $50 billion,according to a report in The New York Times that says the company has raised $500 million in new funding from Goldman Sachs and Russian firm Digital Sky Technologies.

Goldman invested $450 million, while DST (which has already invested about $500 million into Facebook) provided the remaining $50 million. Goldman also plans to create a “special purpose vehicle” to pool its clients and invest another $1.5 billion in Facebook without triggering the Securities and Exchange Commission’s 500-shareholder threshold, The Times says. (Companies that break the threshold are required to disclose more information publicly.)

Facebook’s valuation has been climbing steadily on the secondary markets where shares are sold. (The SEC is now investigating those markets.) Early Facebook investor Accel Partners recently sold off some of its shares at a $34 billion valuation.

Facebook is expected to have its initial public offering as soon as 2012, although the company hasn’t said anything specific on the matter. It reportedly brought in $2 billion in revenue in 2010, and chief Mark Zuckerberg has said that the company is barely profitable, because it’s not focused on profits yet.

Last month, the second-hottest social networking company, Twitter, raised $200 million at a $3.7 billion valuation.

by : Anthony Ha

@VentureBeat

McKesson completes purchase of US Oncology

Healthcare information systems and pharmaceutical distribution corporation McKesson announced today that it has completed its acquisition of US Oncology.

US Oncology, headquartered in The Woodlands, TX, is the largest community-based cancer care and research network in the U.S., with more than 500 affiliated sites of care, including 100 radiation therapy treatment centers.

The acquisition, for $2.16 billion in cash, was announced by McKesson of San Francisco on November 1 and was approved by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice on December 20. However, the sale was halted on December 21 by an order from the Supreme Court of the State of New York, based on a complaint filed by Cancer Clinics of Excellence (CCE) of San Rafael, CA. An evidentiary hearing was scheduled for January 10, 2011.
J. Ike Nicoll, president and CEO of CCE, announced that a settlement agreeable to both CCE and McKesson had been reached, and that the complaint was withdrawn from the New York Supreme Court today. A spokesperson for McKesson Specialty Care Solutions concurred, stating that terms of the settlement had been successfully negotiated.

Oil Tycoon Convicted of Embezzlement Again !

A judge in Moscow on Monday handed down a new conviction against Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, the former oil tycoon, in a case that has been widely seen as an indicator of the Kremlin’s tolerance for political dissent. Mr. Khodorkovsky, who has already been imprisoned for seven years after feuding with Vladimir V. Putin, was found guilty on embezzlement charges that could keep him behind bars for several more years. Formerly Russia’s richest man, Mr. Khodorkovsky, 47, is the country’s most well-known prisoner, and his treatment has been held up by opponents of the Kremlin as evidence that the justice system here is readily manipulated by those in power.
The judge did not immediately pass sentence, and it was unclear when he might do so. While a guilty verdict was expected, the length of the sentence will be scrutinized as a sign of whether the Kremlin wants to loosen or tighten control over the political system.
Mr. Putin, the former president and current prime minister, has often assailed Mr. Khodorkovsky as a criminal who ordered his associates to kill people so that he could amass wealth. Just this month, Mr. Putin referred to Mr. Khodorkovsky as a thief who should “sit in jail” — criticism that Mr. Khodorkovsky’s lawyers described as a blatant attempt to pressure the court.
A short prison sentence might be considered a victory for Mr. Putin’s protégé, President Dmitri A. Medvedev, a former law professor who is thought of as less of a hard-liner. Mr. Medvedev has been promoting policies to modernize Russia, and analysts say the Khodorkovsky case is an obstacle toward convincing foreign investors that the country’s legal system is fair.
Mr. Khodorkovsky’s co-defendant and business associate, Platon L. Lebedev, was also found guilty on Monday by the judge, Viktor Danilkin.Mr. Khodorkovsky earned his fortune in the rough-and-tumble 1990’s after the fall of Communism, snapping up state-owned oil fields at a fraction of their worth and then creating one of the world’s largest oil companies. Like many Russian businessmen at the time, he had a reputation for engaging in practices that would be illegal or unsavory in the West.
He later decided to reform both his image and his business, and became a champion, at least publicly, of good corporate governance. He also delved into politics, which is where he seems to have run into trouble.
After Mr. Putin became president in 2000, he made clear to the class of tycoons who earned their fortunes in the 1990’s that they could keep their holdings if they did not interfere with the Kremlin.
Mr. Khodorkovsky apparently did not heed the message. He financed political parties and ignored increasingly pointed warnings from Mr. Putin’s associates. In 2003, Mr. Khodorkovsky was arrested on the tarmac of an airport in Siberia. He has been in prison since then.
He was convicted of tax fraud in 2005, and his companies were essentially confiscated by the government.
His current sentence ends in 2011, which is just before Russia’s next presidential election. Analysts suggested that Mr. Putin did not want Mr. Khodorkovsky out of prison before then, which is why prosecutors brought fresh charges against him.
In the current case, he was accused of stealing $27 billion in oil from subsidiaries of his own oil conglomerate through pricing schemes. Mr. Khodorkovsky’s lawyers call the charges absurd, and politically motivated.

@nytimes.com

WikiLeaks : 5 Basic Questions

The WikiLeaks controversy pits one hallowed purpose of US government – preventing security threats from abroad – against another, that of protecting constitutional rights of expression by the media and individuals. Striking that balance has become difficult in an age of the Internet hackers, bloggers, self-appointed public policy watchdogs, and thousands of online “publications” marked by ideology and attitude.

So far, WikiLeaks has released more than 700,000 sensitive or classified documents about US military and diplomatic activity – 92,000 on the war in Afghanistan, 392,000 on the Iraq war, and now nearly 250,000 diplomatic cables that US officials say are damaging to foreign relations and intelligence operations. Within weeks, WikiLeaks says, it’ll release inside information on business interests – starting with a major American bank.
Here are answers to five key questions by Brad Knickerbocker, Staff writer  ThFire.com

1. Who is responsible for the leaks?
WikiLeaks describes itself as a “not-for-profit media organization” whose goal is to “bring important news and information to the public.” Launched in 2006, it is a loose network of individual leakers and advisers with a post office box at the University of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia. A shadowy, mostly volunteer organization, WikiLeaks operates on many servers and under domain names around the world. Much of its work is conducted from a rented house in Iceland.
Australian Julian Paul Assange is WikiLeaks' editor in chief and only spokesman. He is in his late 30s, studied physics, math, and computer programming, all of which made him an expert computer hacker. Mr. Assange seems to travel constantly, although not to the United States, sometimes altering his appearance to avoid being recognized or possibly arrested.
The other prominent name connected to WikiLeaks is US Army Pfc. Bradley Manning. Manning was a military analyst in Iraq, where, despite his low rank, he had wide access to sensitive and classified information. Among other things, he allegedly downloaded and leaked video footage of an attack by a US Apache helicopter gunship that killed Iraqi civilians, including two employees of the Reuters news agency.
Manning was arrested in May and later charged with violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice in conjunction with “transferring classified data onto his personal computer and adding unauthorized software to a classified computer system,” as well as “communicating, transmitting and delivering national defense information to an unauthorized source.



2. How could so much classified information be stolen?
During the months Manning worked with the Army’s 10th Mountain Division in Iraq, it was apparently easy for him to find, download, and copy sensitive military information. Writing in an online chat, he claims to have had “unprecedented access to classified networks 14 hours a day 7 days a week for 8+ months.”
“I would come in with music on a CD-RW labeled with something like ‘Lady Gaga’ … erase the music … then write a compressed split file,” he wrote. “No one suspected a thing … I listened and lip-synched to Lady Gaga’s ‘Telephone’ while exfiltrating possibly the largest data spillage in American history.”
“Weak servers, weak logging, weak physical security, weak counterintelligence, inattentive signal analysis,” Manning wrote. “A perfect storm.”
“No one suspected a thing,” he wrote to a former computer hacker who eventually tipped off the FBI and Army officials. “I didn’t even have to hide anything.”
Officials have told the Associated Press that Manning is the prime suspect in the most recent leak of diplomatic cables. He is now awaiting court martial at the US Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Va. He faces up to 52 years in prison.


3. How did the information become public?
WikiLeaks provided the latest cache of 251,287 diplomatic cables to Der Spiegel, El País, Le Monde, and The Guardian newspapers. The New York Times, which had published earlier reports critical of Assange and Manning, was snubbed by WikiLeaks for this round of leaked documents. But the Guardian quickly passed along the leaked material to the Times.
In justifying the decision to publish reports on the leaked cables, New York Times editor Bill Keller offered this explanation:
“We have edited out any information that could identify confidential sources – including informants, dissidents, academics and human rights activists – or otherwise compromise national security,” he wrote in response to questions on the Times website. “We did this in consultation with the State Department, and while they strongly disapprove of the publication of classified material at any time, and while we did not agree with all of their requests for omission, we took their views very seriously indeed.” He also noted that the Times chose "a small selection of the cables – about 100 in all, out of a quarter of a million documents – that we think provide useful source material for the articles we have written.”


4. What information got released?
In July, WikiLeaks released some 92,000 documents on the war in Afghanistan, including information on civilian casualties, the strength of the Taliban, friendly fire episodes, and links between Pakistan’s intelligence services and the Taliban.
Three months later, WikiLeaks disclosed nearly 392,000 US Army field reports – the largest military leak in US history – dubbed the “Iraq War Logs.” Among other things, the information included details of torture and abuse of Iraqi prisoners, secret civilian death counts, Iran’s involvement with Shiite militias operating in Iraq, tensions between Kurds and Arabs in northern Iraq, and new information about three American hikers arrested along the Iraq-Iran border and taken to Iran.
Of the 250,000 confidential and secret diplomatic cables released Nov. 28, 15,652 are classified as “secret.” Of those, 4,330 also are labeled “NOFORN,” meaning they should not be seen by foreign nationals. The frankly worded cables revealed US spying on United Nations officials, included disparaging remarks about national leaders such as Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and recounted Saudi Arabia’s urging the US to attack Iran over that nation’s nuclear program.


5. Could this kind of leak happen again?
Unless the US changes how it distributes and tracks sensitive information, the short answer is “yes.”
After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, agencies began sharing information that previously had been “stove-piped.” At the same time, the number of individuals with access to classified information via the secure Secret Internet Protocol Router Network grew to nearly 2.5 million people (most of them at the Defense Department). Manning was one such person
“Obviously that aperture went too wide,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates told Pentagon reporters recently. The Pentagon is now tightening controls on classified information. For example, classified computers will be “read-only,” preventing the use of thumb drives and other removable media to copy and walk away with sensitive data.
The State Department and other agencies, too, are tightening information-sharing. Moreover, the White House has directed government entities that handle classified information to review their "implementation of procedures for safeguarding classified information against improper disclosures.”

Cisco and T-Mobile Announce Wi-Fi Calling For Business

Cisco Systems, Inc. and T-Mobile USA have announced the Wi-Fi Calling for Business. This service ensures reliable voice calls over a Wi-Fi connection. The service also ensures seamless roaming of voice and data traffic between cellular networks and Wi-Fi.

This service will help businesses save on communication costs. Cytec Industries is one of the early adopters of the service. About 1,000 out of 6,000 Cytec employees have actively been using the service for the last 6 months.
This service requires a Cisco wireless LAN infrastructure. The infrastructure includes Unified Wireless Network technology and Cisco Compatible Extensions (CCX). Unfortunately CCX currently only works for BlackBerry and Nokia smartphones, but not Android and iPhone yet.



@computerworld.com

John W Henry Seals Liverpool Takeover

New England Sports Ventures’ front man John W. Henry has revealed his delight after completing a £300 million takeover of Liverpool.

The 61-year-old, who also owns the Boston Red Sox baseball team, has reflected on the last week, which was bombarded with legal hurdles after former American owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett attempted to hold on to the Premier League club.

“It has been a dramatic few days, twists and turns, it's been stressful but finally we have it done and that was our goal and our hope," Henry told the club’s official website. "I'm extremely proud of this team that worked on this deal.

“We're incredibly pleased. Talking to all the partners in the States, they're extremely happy.”

The deal finally became official on Friday afternoon, however due to Hicks and Gillett’s legal accusations, Henry conceded he was not completely confident everything would go to plan and he admitted that, during the turmoil, he was worried NESV would be turned away from a sale.

He added: “There were many days where I was wondering whether or not we'd be going home. In fact, even today I wasn't a hundred per cent confident.

“There were days where I was confident but there were a lot of twists and turns here. It was a terrific team [Broughton, Ayre, Purslow] who did a tremendous job of managing this process and I'm just happy it ended successfully.”

The Illinois-born businessman revealed that similarities between the Boston Red Sox and Liverpool are what drew him into taking over the historic club.

“There are a lot of similarities and that was something we've been discussing as we started doing our due diligence. We found more and more similarities between Liverpool 2010 and the Red Sox of 2001.

“For instance the stadium issue was a big issue in Boston in 2001 and we went in there not knowing what we should do, whether we should build a new ball park or refurbish Fenway. We have the same issue here.

“We have to listen, learn, talk to the community, talk to the council, talk with the supporters, but the biggest issue of all is really what makes the most sense for Liverpool long term.”

The position of the club, on and off the field, has been dismal and Henry is under no illusion that it will be easy to bring back winning ways for the Reds.

He continued: “There's a lot of work to be done to get this club to where it needs to be in the grand scheme of things. We really, through all the work we've done over the last two months, saw the challenges and problems which exist and we've got to work to address those.

 “There is a great nucleus here off the field and on the field and we think we can build from that, but it's not going to be easy. We've got real challenges.”

While Liverpool fans have been welcome to the new owners, they have also expressed caution and uncertainty over another tenure of American ownership.

When Hicks and Gillet bought the Anfield outfit in 2007, promises were made by the duo that never came into fruition.

“It's been a tough three years and there were a lot of expectations created, so one thing I'm going to try not to do is to create a lot of expectations,” Henry admitted.

“I'm going to hopefully rather than make promises, deliver. When I say I, I mean New England Sports Ventures.

“We've got a very strong organisation, financially and otherwise, we have some terrific strategic thinkers and we're going to be attacking this head on starting tomorrow.”

“All I can say at this point is we're going to work as hard for you [Liverpool fans] as we possibly can and there's no doubt about it, you deserve it,” Henry continued.

“You have supported this club through the worst of times now and we're going to do everything in our power to make the supporters proud of their club and of us. It's a big challenge but I think we're up for that challenge.”


@GOAL.COM

Fielding A Dream

The Boston Red Sox completed one of the most storied seasons in baseball history in 2004 by coming back from a 3-0 deficit to defeat the New YorkYankees and then sweeping the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series to break a“curse” dating back to 1918. As he has done with his trading, owner John Henry has infused his long-term thinking into the Red Sox system. It goes far beyond bringing in a left-handed pitcher to face a left-handed batter, to include selecting the right players and the right tactics for situations based on probabilities.

Henry is actively involved in both JWH, his money management firm, and the

Red Sox, but gives much of the credit for success in both areas to outstanding staff members such as Mark Rzepczynski, president of JWH, who has been with the firm since 1998, and the front office team of the Red Sox.Here's CME journal's interesting interview with John W. Henry:

CME: First of all, congratulations on your success with the Red Sox. It’s an amazing story. A lot of Clubs fans in Chicago wish they could have some of that magic.

JWH: Yes, it was a gratifying year.

CME: Let’s get right into your trading career.What got you interested in trading futures in the first place?

JWH: My father and mother were farmers in Arkansas. When my father died in thelate 1970s, I decided that I needed to understand agricultural markets. So I spent a few years studying markets, game theory and probability. I was immediately fascinated with market movements. I retain the same fascination today.

CME: You have been described in The New York Times and elsewhere as “a cerebral man with a head for mathematics.” But how did you learn to trade futures – books,trial-and-error . . . ?

JWH: Early on I read Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, the autobiography of Bernard Baruch, and the writing of W.D. Gann. I was particularly taken with Gann’s philosophy. I had been a student of philosophy and quickly began to find a bias toward trading philosophy over and above results. I always distrusted results in the commodity markets and eventually across all markets.Life is too dynamic to place a lot of credence in the past results of any program or any trader. I strongly felt that the key to success in markets over the very long term was in having a valid philosophy of the markets that could not be shaken by results over the short or intermediate term. I equated this with valid philosophies in other areas such as business principles that endure regardless of cycles. With any valid philosophy in any field, there are going to be periods in which doing the right thing every day appears to be counterproductive.

If Keynes said, “In the long run, we are all dead,” I would say, “Remaining true to your principles, if they are valid, will produce great results over the long run.”

CME: What were your early experiences in trading like? Did you start with big losses and then decide to figure out what trading was all about, as some well-known traders have done?

JWH: I started with a diversified portfolio called the “Original Program.” The first week of trading was in June of 1981. I was so confident in my research and philosophy that I left the country and left stops with my broker. After dinner one night in Oslo that first week, I saw a chart on the front page of the Financial Times. It was an amazing chart that showed the price of coffee had skyrocketed. I knew I was short.

I called my broker and he said, “You know, you are on to something. We’re limit up every day in coffee going against us, but we’ve made money every day you’ve been gone.”

CME: What markets did you trade in your early days?

JWH: Soybeans, 30-year U.S. bonds,gold, British pounds, Japanese yen,copper, wheat, sugar, coffee and cocoa at the very beginning.

CME: As you began to evolve as a trader, how did you develop your trend-following trading approach?

JWH: I did not have access to computers.PCs were just coming out. I didn’t have a desire to find the holy grail by testing different methodologies. I came up with a philosophy of very long-term trend-following. I knew the approach would be very profitable, but I also knew the nature of long-term trend-following is to have volatility.

CME: How has your basic approach changed over the years?

JWH: It hasn’t. Portfolios have changed as the markets have expanded. Programs have been added. But the basic philosophy is the same.

CME: How many different trading programs does JWH offer today?

JWH: JWH offers 11 different trading programs to investors. Our diversified portfolios are the Original Investment Program, Global Diversified Portfolio

and the Global Analytics Family of Programs. Our financial portfolios include the Financial and Metals Portfolio, Global Financial and Energy Portfolio and Worldwide Bond Program.

Our foreign exchange programs are the International Foreign Exchange Program, the G-7 Currency Portfolio and the Dollar Program. Additionally,we offer two trading programs that combine the others – the Strategic Allocation Program, which can invest in any of the other programs, and theCurrency Strategic Allocation Program,which limits itself to the foreignexchange-only programs.

CME: How do you “sell” your managed futures programs as an asset class to these clients?

JWH: The primary benefit of managed futures is the low historical correlation to traditional assets. Our programs have done especially well during periods of market stress or dislocation. This is when you have strong market trends. Our market selection and our investment methodology combine to give a return

stream that is unlike a traditional long only portfolio of equities and fixed income instruments.

CME: With the spectrum of instruments available, what is your view about trading futures instead of cash markets – specifically, in FX(Foreign Exchange)?

JWH: Futures offer a uniformity and transparency not found in many cash markets. That having been said, we have not been as active in FX futures markets. This is primarily due to the liquidity available in cash FX markets.Nevertheless, we have seen a significant increase in volume and liquidity at the CME from electronic trading. This is causing us to reevaluate our trading atthe CME, especially for any active trading program.

CME: What are the most significant changes that you have seen in futures trading and in managed futures since the early 1980s?

JWH: Electronic trading has been the most significant change in futures trading. It is so much easier to access the market and transact trades. The influx of competitors to the managed futures field has been significant to our industry. There are more managed futures managers and global macro managers who use futures as a means of diversification and profit opportunity.There also has been a shift of emphasis towards shorter time horizons for trading as a result of the decreasing execution costs. There is less emphasis on long-term trend-following, which is our specialty.

CME: What developments do you see coming in futures/options trading?

JWH: Technology’s emergence into a predominant position in our industry is something that is ongoing in our industry. Another development I see on the horizon is the return of markets that will look very different from the low-volatility situation to which many traders have become accustomed.

CME: What developments would you like to see in futures/options trading?

JWH: We are constantly looking for new markets to trade. With developments in electronics, the cost of entering new futures markets is much lower. We hope to see new products at CME.We also look forward to new market participants in futures trading. This clearly adds to liquidity,which is good for everyone.

CME: In view of your baseball success in addition to your trading success, we have to ask a couple of baseball questions.What was your baseball background as a player or coach?

JWH: I played second base in Little League. I set a strikeout record at the Chicago White Sox Boys Camp in 1960…as a hitter !

CME: What prompted you to get into baseball ownership?

JWH: The investment business can be very insular. Owning a baseball team deeply connects you to important aspects of a community. And if you are a sports fan, there can be no greater dream than to own a team and become a participant. Of course, I don’t make player decisions.I’m not qualified to run a baseball team. So I am fortunate to have a brilliant general manager and a tremendous CEO.

Buying the Red Sox and winning a World Series with great partners was a storybook opportunity and a great accomplishment for an organization that had come so close over many decades. I owned part of the Yankees for a decade, so I knew exactly what we were up against. It’s the greatest rivalry in sports. Being a lifetime baseball fan and having a great love for markets, I’m incredibly lucky to have the Red Sox and JWH.

CME: With such success in two diverse areas, what relationship do you see between successful trading and putting together a successful baseball team?

JWH: There are a number of dissimilarities that people don’t want to hear about. But there are a few principles that guide both the Red Sox and JWH.It’s important to have a plan, remain disciplined in executing that plan and pay attention to what is actually happening rather than what you expect to happen. We try to be as objective as possible in our analyses. I’m a stickler for that. Some may see objectivity as

impossible. But that’s why systematic approaches make sense. It’s not always easy for people who are involved every day to stay with a plan when misfortune occurs for a time.You always encounter the unexpected, and this can push discipline right out of the way in the name of prudence. But prudence almost always dictates staying with the approach that has made you successful. I see that as one of my primary roles. I often encourage everyone during difficult days to be patient.I don’t blame people for the unexpected.

Every time JWH struggles – and that is usually annually – people ask if the markets have changed. I always say,“Yes, the markets have changed. That is the nature of markets, and that is why we have been successful over the long term.The nature of trend-following is to adjust to changing market conditions.”