Start-Ups: Silicon Valley Ep. 8 -- the grand delusion

Sarah. Who is working. On herself.

(Credit:
BravoTV Screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)

Last night saw some history in "Start-Ups: Silicon Valley."

Yes, given its rather tawdry ratings -- 20 percent of those of "Real Housewives," so rumor has it -- this could be the last episode ever. So the excitement was more palpable than that for the discovery of the tomb of a hitherto unknown ancient Egyptian king.

We began with grunting. Yes, Sarah (blonde lifecaster, recently recovering from not having breast cancer) and David (gay, vaguely sane) are working out.

Sarah has found a wonderful sponsor for the launch party of David's app. It's called Goal Sponsors. The app is about health. The only sponsor Sarah can find is a vodka company.

Which, like other small elements of this show, doesn't quite work.

Ben (short, pretty, pretty high-pitched voice) still doesn't have the money he was promised by investors. Ben is a "technologist" but doesn't code. He needs coder money. The money hasn't arrived.

His sister and occasional partner Hermione (blonde, loud, fond of dildos) is late for the meeting with the coder.

Ben and Hermione beg their investors. The investors are silver-tongued. And, wait, Hermione is off to South America. Ben tells her she "doesn't have the productivity to back it up."

"It" being, well, working. Ben admits he wants to slap her. "Ben is acting like a dick," she declares.

Yes, this is what happens at top-flight startups. Nothing different than what happens at high school.

Kimmy is still dull
Meanwhile, Kim (brunette, nasal, dull) is still taking herself more seriously than anyone else should. Her startup is something to do with fashion. Because that's what the fashion market really needs. Another Web site.

Her method is simply to go around talking to other people and getting ideas. Indeed, she isn't shown doing anything else -- other than talking to Dwight (hairy, actually codes).

"I'm confused," she says. Viewers might, by this stage, have been just bored. Kimmy's musings are about as fascinating as the soot after Santa's visit down the chimney.

David is preparing for his party. He is desperate for beta users. Otherwise his product won't work. However, few people have come to his party so far. His app is, like AA, all about people helping people.

But if there aren't any people, then there'll be no people who can help people.

Where are the lesbians?
Stunningly, he has invited Ben and Hermione to have a booth at his event. Sarah -- who dislikes Hermione like she dislikes smudged makeup -- is appalled. She, after all, is working for free.

Hermione makes a presentation about her startup -- called Ignite -- and offers treats to winners of challenges.

The first prize is champagne. The consolation prize is a date with her.

Sarah decides to intervene and demand that lesbians should come forward to partake of the consolation prize challenge. David pulls her away, before she makes a fool of herself. Well, slightly after.

Yes, it is all cringeworthy watching. Thank you for asking.

Sarah is frustrated that Ben, Hermione and David are all chummy.

Hermione is frustrated that she is in meetings trying to raise Series A funding. She could be "masturbating."

No, Hermione doesn't once think about the viewers and what they could be doing. Why would she? She's Hermione.

The grand delusion
Sarah demands a business meeting with David. She whines that she didn't have a booth at the party. She then whines that David "physically assaulted" her at the event.

"You laid your hands on me," she continues. "The definition of assault is a sudden physical attack," she explains.

"You are a child," replies David.

More Technically Incorrect

She is clearly delusional. "You are delusional," says David.

Oh, dear. A friendship is destroyed in one sad business meeting. Which, naturally, takes place in some restaurant.

"Will you please leave?" demands Sarah. There are no loyalties in business, she wisely explains. Sarah is very loyal. To herself and her delusions.

Hermione explains to Ben that, now they have their $500,000, she's off to South America on another project for a mere month.

You see, these people are involved in so many different projects and companies. How did they ever have the time to shoot a reality show?

Meanwhile Kimmy and Dwight have a meeting. Yes, in a restaurant.

Kimmy's heard. Because all Kimmy does is talk to people. Dwight has sold his Carsabi to Facebook. Kimmy's bottom lip emerges. She is envious.

"He won. Most people lose," is her inner thought, outwardly expressed.

And so this show winds to an end. Many in Silicon Valley feared it would embarrass the Valley.

It didn't. It merely showed that most of these pretty people are pretty frighteningly self-regarding, frighteningly uninteresting and frighteningly smug. Which was what many had expected.

Hermione has now returned from South America. Her absence made no difference. Ben regrets he gave her 50 percent of the company. She was only worth 20.

Sarah feels she needs to work on herself.

Dwight now works for Facebook.

Meanwhile, Kimmy is not working on not being dull.

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New York Stock Exchange to be sold

NEW YORK The New York Stock Exchange (NYX) is being sold to a rival exchange for about $8 billion, ending more than two centuries of independence for the iconic Big Board.

The buyer, IntercontinentalExchange Inc. (ICE), an upstart exchange based in Atlanta, made clear Thursday that little would change for the iconic trading floor in Manhattan's financial district if regulators approve the deal.

There will be dual headquarters in New York and Atlanta and ICE will open an office in Manhattan. NYSE CEO Duncan Niederauer will become president of the combined company and CEO of NYSE Group.

ICE said that the tie-up will create a top exchange operator covering a diverse lineup of markets and boosting efficiency.

"We believe the combined company will be better positioned to compete and serve customers across a broad range of asset classes by uniting our global brands, expertise and infrastructure," said IntercontinentalExchange Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Sprecher. "With a track record of growth and returns, clearing and M&A integration, we are well positioned to transform our combined companies into a premier global exchange operator that remains a leader in market evolution."

Sprecher will keep his positions. Four members of the NYSE board will be added to IntercontinentalExchange's board, expanding it to 15 members.

NYSE Euronext Inc. shareholders can chose to receive either $33.12 in cash, .2581 IntercontinentalExchange Inc. shares, or a combination of $11.27 in cash plus .1703 shares of stock.

IntercontinentalExchange plans to fund the cash portion of the acquisition with a combination of cash and existing debt. It added that the addition of NYSE will help it cut costs and should boost its earnings by more than 15 percent in the first year after the deal closes.

The deal has been approved by the boards of both companies, but still needs the approvals by regulators and the shareholders of both companies. It's expected to close in the second half of next year.

Exchanges have repeatedly attempted to merge recently as competition intensifies and commissions decline.

Last year, IntercontinentalExchange and Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. made a failed $11 billion bid to buy NYSE Euronext.

Earlier this year, European regulators blocked Deutsche Boerse AG from buying NYSE Euronext.

Shares of NYSE jumped 40 percent in premarket trading to $33.75 and are headed for a new high for the year. Shares if ICE rose 5 percent, to $134.98.

Shares of both companies had been halted in premarket trading earlier Thursday.

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Inside One School's Extraordinary Security Measures

While schools across America reassess their security measures in the wake of the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., one school outside of Chicago takes safety to a whole new level.

The security measures at Middleton Elementary School start the moment you set foot on campus, with a camera-equipped doorbell. When you ring the doorbell, school employees inside are immediately able to see you, both through a window and on a security camera.

“They can assess your demeanor,” Kate Donegan, the superintendent of Skokie School District 73 ½, said in an interview with ABC News.

Once the employees let you through the first set of doors, you are only able to go as far as a vestibule. There you hand over your ID so the school can run a quick background check using a visitor management system devised by Raptor Technologies. According to the company’s CEO, Jim Vesterman, only 8,000 schools in the country are using that system, while more than 100,000 continue to use the old-fashioned pen-and-paper system, which do not do as much to drive away unwanted intruders.

“Each element that you add is a deterrent,” Vesterman said.

In the wake of the Newtown shooting, Vesterman told ABC News his company has been “flooded” with calls to put in place the new system. Back at Middleton, if you pass the background check, you are given a new photo ID — attached to a bright orange lanyard — to wear the entire time you are inside the school. Even parents who come to the school on a daily basis still have to wear the lanyard.

“The rules apply to everyone,” Donegan said.

The security measures don’t end there. Once you don your lanyard and pass through a second set of locked doors, you enter the school’s main hallway, while security cameras continue to feed live video back into the front office.

It all comes at a cost. Donegan’s school district — with the help of security consultant Paul Timm of RETA Security — has spent more than $175,000 on the system in the last two years. For a district of only three schools and 1100 students, that is a lot of money, but it is all worth it, she said.

“I don’t know that there’s too big a pricetag to put on kids being as safe as they can be,” Donegan said.

“So often we hear we can’t afford it, but what we can’t afford is another terrible incident,” Timm said.

Classroom doors open inward — not outward — and lock from the inside, providing teachers and students security if an intruder is in the hallway. Some employees carry digital two-way radios, enabling them to communicate at all times with the push of a button. Administrators such as Donegan are able to watch the school’s security video on their mobile devices. Barricades line the edge of the school’s parking lot, keeping cars from pulling up close to the entrance.

Teachers say all the security makes them feel safe inside the school.

“I think the most important thing is just keeping the kids safe,” fourth-grade teacher Dara Sacher said.

Parents like Charlene Abraham, whose son Matthew attends Middleton, say they feel better about dropping off their kids knowing the school has such substantial security measures in place.

“We’re sending our kids to school to learn, not to worry about whether they’re going to come home or not,” she said.

In the wake of the horrific shooting at Sandy Hook last Friday, Donegan’s district is now even looking into installing bullet-resistant glass for the school building. While Middleton’s security measures continue to put administrators, teachers, parents and students at ease, Sacher said she thinks that more extreme measures — such as arming teachers, an idea pushed by Oregon state Rep. Dennis Richardson — are a step too far.

“I wouldn’t feel comfortable being armed,” Sacher said. “Even if you trained people, I think it’d be better to keep the guns out of school rather than arm teachers.”

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Park wins South Korea presidency, to be first woman leader

SEOUL (Reuters) - The daughter of a former military ruler won South Korea's presidential election on Wednesday and will become the country's first female leader, saying she would work to heal a divided society.

The 60-year old conservative, Park Geun-hye, will return to the presidential palace in Seoul where she served as her father's first lady in the 1970s, after her mother was assassinated by a North Korean-backed gunman.

With more than 88 percent of the votes counted, Park led with 51.6 percent to 48 percent for her left-wing challenger, human rights lawyer Moon Jae-in, giving her an unassailable lead that forced Moon to concede.

Her raucous, jubilant supporters braved sub-zero temperatures to chant her name and wave South Korean flags outside her house. When she reached her party headquarters, Park was greeted with shouts of "president".

An elated Park reached into the crowd to grasp hands of supporters wearing red scarves, her party's color.

"This is a victory brought by the people's hope for overcoming crisis and for economic recovery," she told supporters at a rally in central Seoul.

Park will take office for a mandatory single, five-year term in February and will face an immediate challenge from a hostile North Korea and have to deal with an economy in which annual growth rates have fallen to about 2 percent from an average of 5.5 percent in its decades of hyper-charged growth.

She is unmarried and has no children, saying that her life will be devoted to her country.

The legacy of her father, Park Chung-hee, who ruled for 18 years and transformed the country from the ruins of the 1950-53 Korean War into an industrial power-house, still divides Koreans.

For many conservatives, he is South Korea's greatest president and the election of his daughter would vindicate his rule. His opponents dub him a "dictator" who trampled on human rights and stifled dissent.

"I trust her. She will save our country," said Park Hye-sook, 67, who voted in an affluent Seoul district, earlier in the day.

"Her father ... rescued the country," said the housewife and grandmother, who is no relation to the candidate.

For younger people, the main concern is the economy and the creation of well-paid jobs in a country where income inequalities have grown in recent years.

"Now a McDonald's hamburger is over 5,000 Korean won ($4.66) so you can't buy a McDonald's burger with your hourly pay. Life is hard already for our two-member family but if there were kids, it would be much tougher," said Cho Hae-ran, 41, who is married and works at a trading company.

Park has spent 15 years in politics as a leading legislator in the ruling Saenuri party, although her policies are sketchy.

She has a "Happiness Promotion Committee" and her campaign was launched as a "National Happiness Campaign", a slogan she has since changed to "A Prepared Woman President".

She has cited former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, a tough proponent of free markets, as her role model as well as Angela Merkel, the conservative German chancellor who is Europe's most powerful leader.

NEGOTIATE WITH NORTH

One of those who voted on Wednesday was Shin Dong-hyuk, a defector from North Korea who is the only person known to have escaped from a slave labor camp there.

He Tweeted that he was voting "for the first time in my life", although he didn't say for whom.

Park has said she would negotiate with Kim Jong-un, the youthful leader of North Korea who recently celebrated a year in office, but wants the South's isolated and impoverished neighbor to give up its nuclear weapons program as a precondition for aid, something Pyongyang has refused to do.

The two Koreas remain technically at war after an armistice ended their conflict. Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of the North's current leader, ordered several assassination attempts on Park's father, one of which resulted in her mother being shot to death in 1974.

Park herself met Kim Jong-un's father, the late leader Kim Jong-il, and declared he was "comfortable to talk to" and he seemed to be someone "who would keep his word".

The North successfully launched a long-range rocket last week in what critics said was a test of technology for an intercontinental ballistic missile and has recently stepped up its attacks on Park, describing her as holding a "grudge" and seeking "confrontation", code for war.

Park remains a firm supporter of a trade pact with the United States that and looks set to continue the free-market policies of her predecessor, although she has said she would seek to spread wealth more evenly.

The biggest of all the chaebol, Samsung Group, which produces the world's top selling smartphone as well as televisions, computer chips and ships, has sales equivalent to about a fifth of South Korea's national output.

(Additional reporting by Jumin Park, Seongbin Kang, Narae Kim, SoMang Yang; Writing by David Chance; Editing by Robert Birsel)

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Bank of England votes 8-1 to maintain stimulus

LONDON: Bank of England policymakers voted 8-1 to maintain their quantitative easing stimulus programme at their December meeting, repeating the voting pattern from the previous month, minutes showed on Wednesday.

The BoE's nine-member monetary policy committee (MPC) had voted earlier this month to keep the QE stimulus amount at 375 billion pounds ($611 billion, 460 billion euros).

Polcymakers were also unanimous in keeping the bank's key interest rate at 0.50 percent, according the minutes from the December 5-6 gathering. British borrowing costs have stood at this record low level since March 2009.

Lone policymaker David Miles voted again this month for an extra £25 billion for the asset purchasing programme in order to lift economic growth, repeating his call from November.

Under quantitative easing, the Bank of England creates cash that is used to purchase assets such as government and corporate bonds with the aim of boosting lending and in turn economic activity.

- AFP/de

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FTC, EU to postpone Google antitrust decisions, report says

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission's final decision on its 20-month long antitrust probe of the search giant will be delayed until next year, Bloomberg reported late yesterday after speaking with unnamed sources.

The results of the probe were expected to be announced this week.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based company has been in talks with the FTC over the past two weeks, and according to Bloomberg, Google has been preparing a letter with voluntary changes to try to end the FTC's investigation without it resulting in a formal settlement or eventual lawsuit.

In addition, the FTC has also been preparing to file a decree on patents that would limit the search engine giant from seeking court orders barring products when Google has previously agreed to license technology based on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms.

"Questions about Google's search bias and other anti-competitive practices will not end if the FTC fails to take legally binding action to protect consumers and innovators in the U.S., where the market conditions and law are different than the EU," Fairsearch.org, a group of search engine competitors and a critic of the idea that Google may be able to avoid a formal settlement, said in an e-mailed statement to the news agency.

Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt and the European Union antitrust chief Joaquin Almunia met last week in Brussels, Belgium, where Almunia said he expected an offer from Google by January 2013 to settle an additional antitrust probe, which is investigating complaints by rival firms that Google engaged with anti-competitive behavior.

In 2010, the EU launched an antitrust probe into Google's business practices after rival firms alleged that the tech giant uses methods that competition. The EU received over a dozen formal complaints, including Microsoft-owned search engine Ciao, Foundem, eJustice, Expedia, and TripAdvisor.

There are four main areas of concern that the EU has investigated.

These include how Google's products are incorporated within general search results, mainly the firm's "vertical search" function which may push out competing services. In addition, Google allegedly "copies content" such as user reviews without prior consent. The "exclusivity" of agreements concerning Google advertising on other sites is also under scrutiny. Finally, the display of third-party content and the flexibility of AdWords advertising is a worry for the EU, which thinks that restrictions on software developers may harm seamless campaign advertising from competitors.

Previously, talks were said to be on a "knife-edge," but the EU and Google are potentially making headway.

"Since our preliminary talks with Google started in July, we have substantially reduced our differences regarding possible ways to address each of the four competition concerns expressed by the commission," Almunia said in a statement Tuesday.

In order to bring the European antitrust probe to a close, Google has been told it may have to make drastic changes to its mobile services, which would include mobile search and advertising.

If Google is found guilty, under European law, the firm could face a fine of up to 10 percent of its global revenue, which equates to roughly $4 billion.

We've contacted the European Commission and will update this story when we hear back.

This story was originally posted as "FTC, EU to delay Google antitrust decisions: report" on ZDNet.

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Robert Bork, failed high court nominee, dies at 85

Updated at 11:11 a.m. ET

MCLEAN, Va. Robert H. Bork, who stepped in to fire the Watergate prosecutor at Richard Nixon's behest and whose failed 1980s nomination to the Supreme Court helped draw the modern boundaries of cultural fights over abortion, civil rights and other issues, has died. He was 85.

Son Robert H. Bork Jr. confirmed to The Associated Press his father died Wednesday at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, Va. The son said Bork died from complications of heart ailments.

A spokesman for the Washington think-tank Hudson Institute where Bork was a distinguished fellow confirmed his death to CBS News.

Brilliant, blunt, and piercingly witty, Robert Heron Bork had a long career in politics and the law that took him from respected academic to a totem of conservative grievance.

Along the way, Bork was accused of being a partisan hatchet man for Nixon when, as the third-ranking official at the Justice Department he fired Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox in the Saturday Night Massacre of 1973. Attorney General Elliot Richardson resigned rather than fire Cox. The next in line, William Ruckelshaus, refused to fire Cox and was himself fired.

Bork's drubbing during the 1987 Senate nomination hearings made him a hero to the right and a rallying cry for younger conservatives.

The Senate experience embittered Bork and hardened many of his conservative positions, even as it gave him prominence as an author and long popularity on the conservative speaking circuit.

"Robert Bork was a giant, a brilliant and fearless legal scholar, and a gentleman whose incredible wit and erudition made him a wonderful Hudson colleague," said Hudson Institute head Kenneth Weinstein.

Known before his Supreme Court nomination as one of the foremost national experts on antitrust law, Bork became much more widely known as a conservative cultural critic in the years that followed.

His 1996 book, "Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline," was an acid indictment of what Bork viewed as the crumbling ethics of modern society and the morally bankrupt politics of the left.

"Opportunities for teen-agers to engage in sex are ... more frequent than previously; much of it takes place in homes that are now empty because the mothers are working," Bork wrote then. "The modern liberal devotion to sex education is an ideological commitment rather than a policy of prudence."

Bork, known until his death as "Judge Bork," served a relatively short tenure on the bench. He was a federal judge on the nation's most prestigious appellate panel, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, from 1982 until 1988, when he resigned in the wake of the bitter Supreme Court nomination fight.

Earlier, Bork had been a private attorney, Yale Law School professor and a Republican political appointee.

At Yale, two of his constitutional law students were Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham.

"I no longer say they were students," Bork joked long afterward. "I say they were in the room."

Nixon named Bork as solicitor general, the administration's advocate before the Supreme Court, in January 1973.

Bork served as acting attorney general after Richardson's resignation, then returned to the solicitor general's job until 1977, far outlasting the Nixon administration.

U.S. Supreme Court nominee Robert H. Bork testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee during his confirmation hearings on Capitol Hill in Washington Sept. 16, 1987.

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AP Photo

Long mentioned as a possible Supreme Court nominee, Bork got his chance toward the end of Ronald Reagan's second term. He was nominated July 1, 1987, to fill the seat vacated by Justice Lewis F. Powell.

Nearly four months later the Senate voted 58-42 to defeat him, after the first national political and lobbying offensive mounted against a judicial nominee.

It was the largest negative vote ever recorded for a Supreme Court nominee.

Reagan and Bork's Senate backers called him eminently qualified — a brilliant judge who had managed to write nearly a quarter of his court's majority rulings in just five years on the bench, without once being overturned by the Supreme Court.

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., summed up the opposition by saying, "In Robert Bork's America there is no room at the inn for blacks and no place in the Constitution for women."

Critics also called Bork a free-speech censor and a danger to the principle of separation of church and state.

Bork's opponents used his prolific writings against him, and some called him a hypocrite when he seemed to waffle on previous strongly worded positions.

Despite a reputation for personal charm, Bork did not play well on television. He answered questions in a seemingly bloodless, academic style and he cut a severe figure, with hooded eyes and heavy, rustic beard.

Stoic and stubborn throughout, Bork refused to withdraw when his defeat seemed assured.

The fight has defined every high-profile judicial nomination since, and largely established the opposing roles of vocal and well-funded interest groups in Senate nomination fights. Bork would say later that the ferocity of the fight took him and the Reagan White House by surprise, and he rebuked the administration for not doing more to salvage his nomination.

The process begat a verb, "to bork," meaning vilification of a nominee on ideological grounds. In later years, some accused Bork of borking Clinton nominees with nearly the zeal that some liberal commentators had pursued him.

Bork denied any animus, and said he was happy commenting, writing and making money outside government. Even friends did not entirely believe that.

"He was very embittered by the experience," said lawyer Andrew Frey, a longtime friend who worked for Bork in the solicitor general's office. "He was not well treated, and partly as a result of that he did become more conservative."

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Assault Weapons Ban: What Was It and Did It Work?

Editor's Note: This post is part of a larger series by ABC News examining the complex legal, political and social issues in the gun control debate. The series is part of ABC's special coverage of the search for solutions in the wake of the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.

When the 113th Congress is sworn in in January, expect the debate over gun control to have renewed urgency. Several prominent lawmakers have already come forth to call for a re-examination and re-working of our nation's gun laws in the wake of Friday's mass shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.

While new legislation likely won't be introduced until after Jan. 3, statements from top Senators such as Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) suggest that new proposals could be similar to the Federal Assault Weapons Ban that was in in place from 1994 to 2004.

"I can tell you that he is going to have a bill to lead on because as a first-day bill I'm going to introduce in the Senate and the same bill will be introduced in the House -- a bill to ban assault weapons," Feinstein said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

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"High-capacity magazines -- devices that dramatically boost a weapon's firing power -- were prohibited from 1994 until 2004, when the federal assault weapons ban was in place... It's time to end the bloodshed and restore common sense to our gun laws -- beginning with a permanent ban on high-capacity gun magazines," Lautenberg wrote in an op-ed on the Huffington Post that he penned with Democratic Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy, whose husband was killed in the Long Island Railroad shooting of 1993.

What Did the Assault Weapons Ban Do?

Passed by Congress on Sept. 13, 1994, and signed by Bill Clinton later that day, the Federal Assault Weapons Ban prohibited the manufacturing of 18 specific models of semiautomatic weapons, along with the manufacturing of high-capacity ammunition magazines that could carry more than 10 rounds. The ban had a provision that allowed it to expire in September 2004.

Several attempts were made in Congress to re-up the ban, the most recent in June 2008, according to the Library of Congress, but none of them have been successful. Republicans generally opposed it; high-profile Democrats typically shied away from the issue.

In the second presidential debate of the 2012 campaign, President Obama said he was interested in re-instituting the ban.

"Weapons that were designed for soldiers in war theaters don't belong on our streets. And so what I'm trying to do is to get a broader conversation about how do we reduce the violence generally," the president said. "Part of it is seeing if we can get an assault weapons ban reintroduced."

Could a Ban Have Prevented the Connecticut Shootings?

It's impossible to say for sure, but it seems unlikely that if the law were still in place, as it was written, it could have done much to prevent Friday's tragedy. Lanza's primary weapon, the Bushmaster .223 rifle, is a type of AR-15 semiautomatic rifle, certain models of which were prohibited from being sold under the ban, but the Bushmaster model used by Lanza was not on that list.

Additionally, the language in the law was loose enough that a gun enthusiast who was interested in adding a type of AR-15 to their collection could have purchased one legally.

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Egyptian prosecutor's resignation angers Brotherhood

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's public prosecutor resigned under pressure from his opponents in the judiciary, dealing a blow to President Mohamed Mursi and drawing an angry response on Tuesday from the Islamist leader's supporters in the Muslim Brotherhood.

Seeking to keep pressure on Mursi, the main opposition coalition staged protests against an Islamist-backed draft constitution that has divided Egypt but which looks set to be approved in the second round of a referendum on Saturday.

A few hundred protesters made their way through the streets of Cairo chanting "Revolution, revolution, for the sake of the constitution" and calling on Mursi to "Leave, leave, you coward".

But as the protest got under way, the numbers were well down on previous demonstrations.

Mursi obtained a 57 percent "yes" vote for the constitution in a first round of the referendum last weekend, state media said, less than he had hoped for.

The opposition, which says the law is too Islamist, will be emboldened by the result but is unlikely to win the second round, to be held in districts seen as even more sympathetic towards Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood.

Protesters broke into cheers when the public prosecutor appointed by Mursi last month announced his resignation late on Monday.

In a statement on its Facebook page, the Muslim Brotherhood, which propelled Mursi to power in elections in June, said the enforced resignation of public prosecutor Talaat Ibrahim was a "crime".

The Supreme Judiciary Council, which governs the country's judicial system, should refuse to accept the prosecutor's resignation, the Brotherhood said.

Further signs of opposition to Mursi emerged when a judges' club urged its members not to supervise Saturday's vote. But the call is not binding and balloting is expected to go ahead.

If the constitution passes next weekend, national elections can take place early next year, something many hope will help end the turmoil that has gripped Egypt since the fall of Hosni Mubarak nearly two years ago.

The National Salvation Front opposition coalition said there were widespread voting violations in the first round and called for protests to "bring down the invalid draft constitution".

The Ministry of Justice said it was appointing a group of judges to investigate complaints of voting irregularities around the country.

DEMONSTRATIONS

Opposition marchers headed for Tahrir Square, cradle of the revolution that toppled Mubarak, and Mursi's presidential palace, still ringed with tanks after earlier protests.

A protester at the presidential palace, Mohamed Adel, 30, said: "I have been camping here for weeks and will continue to do so until the constitution that divided the nation, and for which people died, gets scrapped."

The build-up to the first round of voting saw clashes between supporters and opponents of Mursi in which eight people died. Recent demonstrations in Cairo have been more peaceful, although rival factions clashed on Friday in Alexandria, Egypt's second biggest city.

On Monday evening, more than 1,300 members of the General Prosecution staff gathered outside the public prosecutor's office, demanding Ibrahim leave his post.

Hours later, Ibrahim announced he had resigned. The crowd cheered "God is Great! Long live justice!" and "Long live the independence of the judiciary!" witnesses said.

The closeness of the first-round referendum vote and low turnout give Mursi scant comfort as he seeks to assemble support for difficult economic reforms.

OPPOSITION BOOST

"This percentage ... will strengthen the hand of the National Salvation Front and the leaders of this Front have declared they are going to continue this fight to discredit the constitution," said Mustapha Kamal Al-Sayyid, a professor of political science at Cairo University.

Mursi is likely to become more unpopular with the introduction of planned austerity measures, polarizing society further, Sayyid told Reuters.

To tackle the budget deficit, the government needs to impose tax rises and cut back fuel subsidies. Uncertainty surrounding economic reform plans has already forced the postponement of a $4.8 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund. The Egyptian pound has fallen to eight-year lows against the dollar.

Mursi and his backers say the constitution is needed to move Egypt's democratic transition forward. Opponents say the document is too Islamist and ignores the rights of women and of minorities, including Christians who make up 10 percent of the population.

Demonstrations erupted when Mursi awarded himself extra powers on November 22 and then fast-tracked the constitution through an assembly dominated by his Islamist allies and boycotted by many liberals.

The referendum has had to be held over two days because many of the judges needed to oversee polling staged a boycott in protest. In order to pass, the constitution must be approved by more than 50 percent of those voting.

(Additional reporting by Tamim Elyan and Edmund Blair; Writing by Giles Elgood; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

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Coal use set to surpass oil in a decade: IEA

PARIS: Coal is set to surpass oil as the world's top fuel within a decade, driven by growth in emerging market giants China and India, with even Europe finding it hard to cut use despite pollution concerns, according to a report published Tuesday.

"Thanks to abundant supplies and insatiable demand for power from emerging markets, coal met nearly half of the rise in global energy demand during the first decade of the 21st century," said Maria van der Hoeven, head of the International Energy Agency.

Economic growth is expected to push up further coal's share of the global energy mix, "and if no changes are made to current policies, coal will catch oil within a decade," she said in a statement.

The latest IEA projections see coal consumption nearly catching oil consumption in four years time, rising to 4.32 billion tonnes of oil equivalent in 2017 against 4.4 billion tonnes for oil.

That has consequences for climate change as coal produces far more carbon emissions responsible for global warming than other fuels.

But the IEA report on coal found that even countries which have committed themselves to reducing carbon emissions are finding it difficult to resist the renewed allure of coal.

A number of European countries have seen their use of coal for electricity consumption jump at the beginning of this year, including by 65 per cent in Spain, 35 per cent in Britain and 8 per cent in Germany.

The shale gas boom in the United States has led to a slump in coal prices there and subsequently on the market in Europe, where natural gas remains expensive.

This gave a price advantage to coal beginning last year, with the low price of polluting in Europe's emission trading scheme also a contributing factor.

"Low coal prices, supported by a low (emissions) price resulted in a significant gas-to-coal switch in Europe," said the report.

European countries have been slow to exploit shale gas deposits, concerned about possible environmental damage, but the IEA pointed out that the US experience shows that tapping it can bring benefits from lower coal use as well as lower electricity costs.

"Europe, China and other regions should take note," said van der Hoeven.

Moreover, the IEA report doesn't foresee within the next five years the widespread take-up of technology to capture and store underground carbon emissions from burning coal.

Van der Hoeven warned that "coal faces the risk of a potential climate policy backlash" unless there is technological progress or a replication of the US experience.

The IEA, the energy advisory arm of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development of 34 industrialised nations, sees non-OECD developing countries as driving the increase in coal consumption due to population growth and rising electricity consumption as their economies grow and modernise.

In its baseline scenario, the IEA sees rapid increases in power generation making India the second-largest coal consumer in 2017, displacing the United States where the shale gas boom makes coal uncompetitive.

Chinese coal consumption is forecast to account for more than half of global demand by 2014, with the country also displacing the United States as the biggest coal polluter on a per-capita basis.

The IEA sees China's coal demand increasing by an average of 3.7 per cent per year to 3,190 million tonnes of coal equivalent in 2017.

Even in the case of a slowdown in the breakneck growth in the Chinese economy the IEA sees the country's use of coal growing by 2 per cent per year, as well as the overall coal market growing.

The agency said that given its position developments in the Chinese market would largely determine the course of the global coal market, saying: "China is coal. Coal is China."

The IEA believes that current mining and port expansion projects are sufficient to meet China's rising needs, but expressed concern if the current low prices and uncertainties about the economic outlook make investors overly cautious.

Cancellations or a slowdown in "development projects might lead to tightened international coal markets" in the next five years, the IEA warned.

The report sees only the United States making reductions on coal-based carbon emissions on per capita and per economic output measures thanks to cheap gas displacing coal.

Increased coal use pushes up China's emissions on a per capita basis, displacing the United States as the top polluter.

However. China is also seen as making the most gains in emissions efficiency, followed by the United States.

Neither the Europe nor India are forecast to make considerable gains in emissions efficiency.

- AFP/fa

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