Global population of billionaires surge

Billionaire Chauffeur (Photo credit: Tc Morgan)

Jon Oringer
Being a billionaire isn't so special anymore. A new study from Wealth-X and UBS finds that the global population of billionaires has surged past 2,000. Their combined wealth totals $6.5 trillion-more than the combined gross domestic product of France and Germany.

Previous estimates placed the world's billionaire population at between 1,200 and 1,600.

The World Ultra Wealth Report found that just under 200,000 people in the world are worth $30 million or more. The $30 million-plus group, labeled the "ultra-wealthy," grew by 6 percent in 2013 and have a combined fortune of $28 trillion.

Surprisingly, most of the growth in the number of ultrawealthy was in the U.S. and Europe rather than in emerging markets. Luxury brands have been calling China, Brazil, Russia and other emerging countries the future of wealth. But economic slowdowns in China and Brazil led to a drop in their number of billionaires this year. Read more >>

US spied on Brazil, Mexico presidents

The US National Security Agency spied on the communications of the Brazilian and Mexican presidents, accessing the Mexico leader's emails before he was elected, Brazil's Globo television reported.

Rio de Janeiro-based journalist Glenn Greenwald, a columnist for the Guardian newspaper who obtained secret files from NSA leaker Edward Snowden, told Globo on Sunday that a document dated June 2012 shows that Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto's emails were being accessed.

That was a month before his election. The NSA also intercepted some of Pena Nieto's voicemails. The communications included messages in which the future leader discussed the names of potential cabinet members. A Mexican foreign ministry spokesman told AFP he had seen the report but had no comment. A presidency spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment.

As for Brazil's Dilma Rousseff, the NSA said in the document that it was trying to better understand her methods of communication and interlocutors using a program to access all Internet content the president visited online.

Rousseff, who is due to make a state visit to Washington in October, held a working meeting to study the revelations in the Globo report, the channel said.

"If these facts prove to be true, it would be unacceptable and could be called an attack on our country's sovereignty," Justice Minister Jose Eduardo Cardozo said. Read more >>

NSA collecting data from billions of calls, e-mails in Latin America

A Brazilian newspaper on Tuesday published an article it said is based on documents provided by the former American contractor Edward Snowden asserting that the United States has been collecting data on telephone calls and e-mails from several countries in Latin America, including important allies such as Brazil, Colombia and Mexico.

The paper, O Globo, based in Rio de Janeiro, says the documents show the National Security Agency amassed military and security data on countries such as Venezuela, an American adversary that has been accused of aiding Colombia’s Marxist rebels and maintaining close ties with Iran. But the documents also show that the agency carried out surveillance operations to unearth inside commercial information on the oil industry in Venezuela and the energy sector in Mexico, which is under state control and essentially closed to foreign investment.

U.S. officials have declined to address issues about intelligence gathering or the O Globo report, except to issue a statement saying that “we have been clear that the United States does gather foreign intelligence of the type gathered by all nations.” Read more >>

100,000 People Now Printing Out Their Own Handguns

Downloaders have successfully acquired at least 100,000 schematics for Defense Distributed's printable 3D handgun over the course of two days.

By comparison, the first episode of Game of Thrones clocked in at a million downloads per day.
Andy Greenberg of Forbes reports that company owner Cody Wilson teamed up with controversial Kim Dotcom to upload the gun's print plans to the website Mega.

Predictably, Greenberg notes, Americans have surged into the lead for the country with the most downloads, in front of Spain, Brazil, Germany and the U.K. And the plans are spreading. Read more >>

Horsemeat scandal draws in Nestlé and largest beef producer

The escalating horsemeat scandal has ensnared two of the biggest names in the food industry, Nestlé, the world’s number-one food maker, and JBS, the largest beef producer by sales.
Switzerland-based Nestlé on Monday removed pasta meals from shelves in Italy and Spain and suspended deliveries of all processed products containing meat from German supplier, H.J. Schypke, after tests revealed traces of horse DNA above 1 per cent. Nestlé said it had informed the authorities.

H.J. Schypke was subcontracted by JBS Toledo, part of Brazil-based JBS, which claims on its website “to supply the ready meals and catering industry with only the highest quality processed meat without concessions. From the selection of animals to the final packing, every facet of the production flow meets the most exacting requirements.”

JBS late on Monday moved to distance itself from the scandal, saying none of the tainted products came from its factories and clarifying that H.J. Schypke “is not in any way part of the JBS Group”.

Nestlé withdrew two chilled pasta products, Buitoni Beef Ravioli and Beef Tortellini from sale in Italy and Spain. Lasagnes à la Bolognaise Gourmandes, a frozen meat product for catering businesses produced in France, will also be withdrawn. Read more >>

8,000 requests for Google user data from USGOVT in last 6 months

Google received more requests from the U.S. government to hand over user data during the first half of this year than from any other country, according to the search company's biannual "Transparency Report" released on Tuesday.

From January to June, Google received nearly 8,000 requests for user data from the U.S. government. The search company said it "fully or partially" compiled with roughly 90 percent of them. That's up from the 5,950 requests for user data that Google received from the U.S. government during the same period a year ago.

More than 16,000 Google accounts were specified in the U.S. government's user data requests, according to the report.

However, the search company cautioned that the total number of U.S. government requests for user data also tallied requests "issued by U.S. authorities on behalf of other governments pursuant to mutual legal assistance treaties and other diplomatic mechanisms."

Still, that number dwarfs the requests from other countries: India and Brazil came after the U.S. with 2,319 and 1,566 requests for user data, respectively, during the first half of 2012. Read more >>

The Big Mac index

A WEAK currency, despite its appeal to exporters and politicians, is no free lunch. But it can provide a cheap one. In China, for example, a McDonald’s Big Mac costs just 14.5 yuan on average in Beijing and Shenzhen, the equivalent of $2.18 at market exchange rates. In America, in contrast, the same burger averages $3.71.

That makes China’s yuan one of the most undervalued currencies in the Big Mac index, our gratifyingly simple guide to currency misalignments, updated this week (see chart). The index is based on the idea of purchasing-power parity, which says that a currency’s price should reflect the amount of goods and services it can buy. Since 14.5 yuan can buy as much burger as $3.71, a yuan should be worth $0.26 on the foreign-exchange market. In fact, it costs just $0.15, suggesting that it is undervalued by about 40%.

The tensions caused by such misalignments prompted Brazil’s finance minister, Guido Mantega, to complain last month that his country was a potential casualty of a “currency war”. Perhaps it was something he ate. In Brazil a Big Mac costs the equivalent of $5.26, implying that the real is now overvalued by 42%. The index also suggests that the euro is overvalued by about 29%. And the Swiss, who avoid most wars, are in the thick of this one. Their franc is the most expensive currency on our list. The Japanese are so far the only rich country to intervene directly in the markets to weaken their currency. But according to burgernomics, the yen is only 5% overvalued, not much of a casus belli. More...

Jim Rogers: gold will surge to $2,300 per ounce

David Lew
The rally in gold prices has driven several bullion analysts to frenzied forecasts. Some say gold prices will reach $2,000 per ounce soon. Others are predicting big boom for the yellow metal, saying gold prices will zoom to $5,000 and eventually to even $15,000 per ounce in the years to come.

These days, the biggest gold buyers are not individual customers or families, but global central bankers that are vying with each other to accumulate gold reserves in an attempt to get out of their decades-old dependence on the US dollar as the best asset class. India jumped into the bullion fray to buy 200 tonnes of gold from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) early this month. Other countries like China, Russia, Brazil and Sri Lanka are frantically trying to accumulate gold reserves.

Agreed that gold has emerged as the best asset class among bullion traders, central bankers and families across the world, how far can the yellow metal price surge?

One of the avid proponents who is arguing that gold price will surge past $2,000 soon is the legendary commodities investor Jim Rogers. Rogers, chairman of Singapore-based firm Rogers Holdings, says gold prices are booming because currencies across the world are dropping and the US dollar is collapsing. His latest forecast: gold will touch double the current price—around $1,150. Meaning, Rogers says gold will surge to $2,300 per ounce in the coming months.

The rest of Dave's article is nonsense.

D225G Ukraine Norway Link and China Spread

Recombinomics Commentary 14:15
November 25, 2009
The same mutation has been found in both fatal and mild cases elsewhere, including in Brazil, Japan, Mexico, Ukraine, and the United States, said the WHO.

WHO's spokeswoman in Beijing, Vivian Tan, said the agency is aware of three such cases in China that occurred in June and July that were similar to the cases being investigated in Norway. Tan said WHO had no information on the cases mentioned in the Xinhua report Wednesday.

There is no evidence the mutated swine flu virus is circulating widely in the world, Tan said, but since it has been linked to deaths in Norway and elsewhere, investigators are focusing on whether this mutation could be a marker for more severe disease.

The above comments are associated with a report of eight D225G isolates with in China. Genbank has three of the sequences, as noted earlier. The increase in examples to eight is not surprising since D225G was in four of four fatal cases in Ukraine and reports from Norway cited detection in three isolates, 2 fatal and 1 severe case who had recovered.

However, 25 HA sequences deposited at Genbank had an HA sequence that contained D225G, A/Norway/2924/2009, but also had the wild type sequence, raising concerns that D225G was circulating as a mixture that was most easily detected in lung samples, because the D225G was more than a "marker". It is a polymorphisms that was found in 1918 and 1919 samples which were well characterized for receptor binding properties, which indicated the change conferred increased binding to gal 2,3 receptors which are present in lung.

Concerns that this receptor binding domain change was widely circulating were increased because an HA marker on the Norway isolate with D225G was found on additional isolates in Norway, and worldwide (see list here). This marker was also in the HA sequences from the fatal cases in Ukraine. Full sequences from one of the Norway isolates, A/Norway/3364-2/2009, were deposited, and a marker on the NA sequence matched isolates with the HA marker, linking this broader set of isolate from Norway with the Ukraine sequences, which also had the NA marker, as did multiple other isolates (see list here).

These associations link Ukraine to Norway, but the D225G polymorphism has jumped onto multiple genetic backgrounds, which are widespread, increasing concerns the D225G is circulating undetected because it is concentrated in lung tissues and is poorly represented in nasopharyngeal swabs. Release of full sequences from China, as well as Norway, would be useful.

Ukraine Dead Approach 400 - D225G Spreads
Recombinomics Commentary 23:30
November 24, 2009
1,679,237 Influenza/ARI

99,661 Hospitalized

397 Dead

The above figures from the latest daily update from the Ukraine Ministry of Health support a decline in the rate of increases of cases and deaths, but the total is now almost 400 fatalities (see map). The spread was likely slowed by the country-wide closing of schools along with warmer weather. However, it is likely that the virus will return as temperatures drop and the traditional flu season begins, although it is unclear if seasonal flu will be in circulation in 2010.

The receptor binding domain change, D225G, was in four of four sequence from fatal cases, raising concerns that the 2,3 alpha specificity of D225G drove the H1N1 to the lungs and the total destruction. Three patients in Norway were said to also have D225G, and two of the three died while the third had been in serious condition. 25 HA sequences from Norway were deposited at Genbank, but only one had D225G, and it was a mixture. In Brazil both patients with D225G in lung samples had died, and the case in China had been in serious condition.

However, the severity of the infection may be related to the ratio of sequences with and without D255G, as well as viral load, because milder cases involving D225G have also been reported in the United States and Hong Kong.

More detail on additional cases, including sequences from upper and lower respiratory tract from the same patient would be useful.

A/H1N1 has mutated to something more deadly - 1918 RBD D225G in Lung Cases in Ukraine and Norway

Image via Wikipedia

1918 RBD D225G in Lung Cases in Ukraine and Norway
Recombinomics Commentary 11:29
November 21, 2009

For the two 1918 HA variants, the South Carolina (SC) HA (with Asp190, Asp225) bound exclusively alpha2-6 receptors, while the New York (NY) variant, which differed only by one residue (Gly225), had mixed alpha2-6/alpha2-3 specificity, especially for sulfated oligosaccharides.

The above description is from a paper analyzing receptor binding domain differences in sequences from the 1918 pandemic. The New York variant had D225G, the same change found in lung tissues from fatal swine H1N1 sequences in Brazil, Ukraine, and Norway. The above result clearly demonstrated a change in receptor specificity for D225G, which was present in A/New York/1/1918 and A/London/1/1919, demonstrating the same change I 1918 that has been described in 2009. Although WHO stated that this change was "not significant" in the Ukraine samples, it was associated with the fatal cases and is cause for concern. The concern was increased by the announcement from Norway indicating the same change was found in fatal H1N1 lung infections there also.

Although there have been comments that this change was "spontaneous" and did not spread, the finding of the same change in all four deceased patients in Ukraine from two distinct locations, indicates it did spread, as did the finding of the same change in multiple cases in Brazil and Norway. Although the concept of "random mutation" has been used to explain away the sudden appearance of the same polymorphism on multiple backgrounds, the appearance via recombination is a much stronger argument for the same change to appear at multiple locations at the same time.

The spontaneous mutation theory, which is the foundation of WHO policy and statements on significance of changes relies heavily on a "selection" component, arguing that the same change keeps appearing on different backgrounds because of string selection pressure. However, this same phenomenon was described for a silent mutation on H5N1, which offers no clear selection pressure. Similarly, a silent change was also found in seasonal H1N1 in sequences that had acquired the Tamiflu resistance marker, H274Y. Thus, these silent (synonymous) changes string argue against a coincidental spontaneous mutation, and instead argue that this acquisition is concurrently acquired because of a widespread common donor.

The concept of acquisition via recombination has serious implications for the current pandemic. It was used to predict the D225G change, in part because the change was "in play" and appearing in July/August sequences at increasing frequency, even though the H1N1 sequences represented different genetic backgrounds. Similarly the clusters of Tamiflu resistance in Wales and North Carolina are also driven by recombination, as happened when the identical change was acquired in H1N1 seasonal flu in patients who were not taking Tamiflu (oseltamivir).

Thus, the concept of recombination predicts that the D225G receptor binding domain change, and the H274Y Tamiflu resistance change, which continue to spread via recombination

The Dollar Is Finished

Economic historian Niall Ferguson warns that China's love affair with the dollar is fading faster than anyone realizes.

TechTicker: "The idea they don't have anywhere else to go or would shoot themselves in the foot if there were a steep decline in the dollar or appreciation of their currency
reassures many people in Washington ‘we can relax'," he says. "An appreciation of the renminbi may reduce value of their international reserves but increases the value of every other asset the Chinese own," most notably the commodity assets they have been buying all over the world.

China's "current strategy is to diversify out of dollars and into commodities," Ferguson says. Furthermore, China's recent pact with Brazil to conduct trade in their local currencies is a "sign of the times."

Perhaps most importantly, China's massive stimulus program is helping to generate internal consumption in the People's Republic, meaning local manufacturers are less dependent on exports. Because of the "rapid growth" of Chinese domestic consumption, Ferguson predicts China's international trade surplus could be gone by next year.

Tamiflu-resistant swine flu cases multiply

Consider the following excerpt from today's Canadian Press:

TORONTO — Canada has recorded a case of Tamiflu-resistant swine flu virus, in a Quebec man who had been given the drug to prevent infection. Meanwhile, Japan revealed Tuesday it had found a second such case of Tamiflu resistance, in a person who has no ties to the country's earlier reported case. The cases are the fourth and fifth globally since the new H1N1 virus was discovered in April.

Dr. Guy Boivin, Canada Research Chair on emerging viruses and antiviral resistance in Quebec City told CBC news: "he suspects the Quebec father was already infected when he was given a low preventive dose of the antiviral drug Tamiflu. Boivin suspected the father’s virus adapted to the drug at that point, becoming resistant."

If the Quebec father was already infected, who infected the father? Wouldn't they be spreading a resistant strain?

Recombinomics Commentary 04:15
July 22, 2009 - source

"We know the exact, specific mutation, and this is a mutation that has been reported before in human viruses that were resistant to Tamiflu, so it's not totally unexpected," said Boivin.

Boivin said he suspects the Quebec father was already infected when he was given a low preventive dose of the antiviral drug Tamiflu.

The above comments describe another case of oseltamivir resistance in pandemic H1N1 swine flu. The description indicates the resistance is due to H274Y because all reported oseltamivir resistance since 2007 has been H274Y in H1N1. Earlier this month there were three cases described, and two of the three were also on prophylactic oseltamivir. However, since all cases have involved H274Y, the treatment may simply be aiding in the detection of H274Y, rather than selecting for de novo mutations. Sequence data reports consensus sequences, so a low level of H274Y would not be seen unless multiple clones were sequenced or levels increased due to the elimination of wild type H1N1 by oseltamivir treatment.

In addition to the H274Y in Quebec, a sequence released today from Yamaguchi Province in Japan also had H274Y. The characterization sheet provides little detail on the patient, but Yamaguchi Province gives detailed reports on each H1N1 confirmed case, and the reports give no support for the development of H1N1 in contacts under prophylactic treatment. Therefore, it is likely that the Yamguchi isolate is from a sample collected prior to Tamiflu treatment.

The sequence of A/Yamaguchi/22/2009 is distinct for the other two published sequences with H274Y. However, like A/Hong Kong/2369/2009, there are several NA sequences which are exact matches, other than position H274Y. These precursors are widespread, and the earliest isolate is from the United States (Sullivan county in New York), and all subsequent isolates are from other countries (Japan, China, Brazil) once again raising questions about surveillance of mild H1N1 cases in the United States. In Japan there have been no reported pandemic H1N1 deaths and most of the cases in in Yamaguchi province have been mild and patients have recovered without hospitalization.

These two cases of resistance raises the total to five and all involve H274Y, the same polymorphism reported in seasonal H1N1, where the level quickly rose to 100% last season and is reported at 100% in the southern hemisphere this season. The presence of H274Y on seasonal H1N1, which is co-circulating with pandemic H1N1, offers the opportunity of recombination between seasonal and pandemic H1n1 to allow the H274Y to jump from seasonal H1N1 to pandemic H1N1.

The reports of H274Y in five patients this month raises concerns that the frequency will rise in the near term, with recombination and genetic hitchhiking driving the levels to 100%, due in part to widespread use of oseltamivir and in part to the large reservoir of H274Y in seasonal flu.