Saturday, February 2, 2008

EUROPE AND ITS ADMINISTRATION DerSchockwellenreiter: "Diese Woche startete in den EU-Ländern das Sepa-System. Eine Sepa-Überweisung verhält sich zu einer herkömmlichen wie ein aktuelles Steuererklärungsformular zu einem Bierdeckel - zumindest was den Aufwand und das Fehlerrisiko betrifft. Doch Sepa erhöht nicht nur den bürokratischen Aufwand erheblich, sondern auch das Risiko. Bislang haben die Banken eine Prüfpflicht: Sie müssen die Kontonummer mit dem Namen des Kontoinhabers abgleichen. Durch die EU-Richtlinie für Zahlungsdienstleistungen, die Grundlage von Sepa, wird zukünftig die 22-stellige IBAN-Nummer 'führend', welche die Banken nicht mehr mit dem Namen des Kontoinhabers abgleichen müssen. Wenn in Zukunft Name und Kontonummer nicht übereinstimmen wird die Überweisung trotzdem ausgeführt." The new SEPA system for international payments was introduced this week. The name and the IBAN number will no longer be checked to see if they belong to the same person. Another possible source of fraud and mistakes. Tapping of phone lines and other communications is in the Netherlands a high priority. 39 Tapping units are operative, next to the central tapping unit. More are planned. Holland is the country with the largest number of taps. In 1998 Dutch police tapped 10,000 phone lines, that is more than in the UK or the US. Has this decreased criminality here? Forget it. Most of the tapping is even done illegally. 4:01:47 PM

THE WORST PRESIDENT EVER InternationalHeraldTribune: "A federal appeals court ruled against the Bush administration Friday in a central case on Guantánamo detainees, declining to reconsider an order that the government has to turn over virtually all its information on many detainees. Unless the Justice Department obtains a stay, the decision, from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, will clear the way for detainees' lawyers to press 180 appeals cases of inmates at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, challenging their detentions. The cases contest decisions by military panels that the men are properly held as unlawful enemy combatants." IHT: "As many as 121 U.S. Army soldiers committed suicide in 2007, a jump of about 20 percent over the year before, officials said Thursday. The rise came despite numerous efforts to improve the mental health of a force stressed by a longer-than-expected war in Iraq and the most deadly year yet in the six-year conflict in Afghanistan." BoingBoing: "Authorities in Afghanistan have sentenced a 23-year-old journalism student to death for having downloaded and shared copies of a report criticizing the oppressive treatment of women in some Islamic societies." George W. Bush may be proud of his achievements, but he is the worst president ever. 3:42:15 PM

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