Europe Keeps Hope Alive for Gas Pipeline From Russia

BRUSSELS — The European Union’s top official is not yet ready to take “nyet” for an answer on a natural gas pipeline from Russia.

The South Stream pipeline crossing southeastern Europe could still be completed, despite the stated intention of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to abandon the project, according to Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission.

The comments by Mr. Juncker, at a news conference here on Thursday, indicated that the bloc was intent on keeping at least the idea of the South Stream project alive — despite the European Union’s sanctions against Russia over the crisis in Ukraine, and despite the Europeans’ longstanding skepticism about a pipeline that could extend the region’s heavy reliance on Russian energy.

“South Stream can be built,” Mr. Juncker said. But, he added, “the ball is in the court of Russia.”

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Mr. Juncker’s comments — as surprising in some respects as Mr. Putin’s sudden decision to reroute the pipeline — were the latest twist in a project that has became a geopolitical tug of war between Brussels and Moscow.

Some countries in the European Union, like Hungary, have taken a favorable view of South Stream, seeing the project as a way to ensure more secure supplies of gas for domestic use. Hungary is in southeastern Europe, a region badly affected by midwinter cuts in supply because of pricing disputes between Russia and Ukraine.

Serbia, which is seeking to join the European Union, sees South Stream as a way to earn money from gas transit fees and to bolster its construction industry.

But the European Commission, the union’s executive body, has long sought to stop Russia from using the pipeline as a way to enable Gazprom, the giant Russian gas exporter, to maintain its tight grip on some European energy markets. The commission wants those markets open to greater competition as a condition for the construction of South Stream.

Mr. Juncker said nothing on Thursday that might break the deadlock over one of the big sticking points for Moscow: the insistence by the European authorities that if the pipeline were built, other gas suppliers would have to have access to it.

Russia and Gazprom fiercely oppose sharing the pipeline, and on Monday,Mr. Putin announced that Russia would reroute it to Turkey.

A Russian official reiterated that intention on Thursday.

“In my view, the decision is final,” said Alexander Novak, the Russian energy minister, according to Russian news reports. “Today, we’re working on the construction of the pipeline by another route.”

Argentina Accuses HSBC of Aiding People in Tax Evasion

BUENOS AIRES — Argentina’s tax agency accused the HSBC bank on Thursday of helping more than 4,000 Argentines evade taxes by placing their money in secret Swiss accounts.

The head of country’s AFIP tax agency, Ricardo Echegaray, said Argentine citizens had evaded about $3 billion in taxes that were handled by intermediaries through a network of offshore accounts.

Mr. Echegaray contended that some of those accounts in Geneva were owned by HSBC Argentina’s president and other bank executives. He did not say if the bank’s operations had been suspended in Argentina.

“There’s no doubt that the AFIP will keep cracking down on tax havens because our objective is to collect taxes and to avoid harming those who have less,” he said.

The tax agency said it got its information from France, where HSBC was placed under formal investigation last week for possibly aiding tax evasion. The banking company has also been charged in Belgium with organized fiscal fraud.

AFIP charged the local branch of HSBC and its executives in an Argentine federal court.

HSBC said it respected Argentine laws and had committed no wrongdoing.

“HSBC Argentina emphatically rejects its participation in any illegal association, including any organization that allows capital flight aimed at evading taxes,” the bank said in a statement. “HSBC Argentina wants to clarify that it doesn’t have an account in HSBC Switzerland.”

Argentina’s government has denounced several foreign companies in its fight to curb capital flight. The left-leaning government recently accused Procter & Gamble of tax fraud and said it had suspended the operations of the household goods company.

Argentina has been kept from global credit markets since defaulting on its debt during its 2001-2 financial crisis, and it suffered another default in July. Officials have been trying to keep dollars in the country for the central bank to use to pay off government debts, but the bank’s reserves have continued to plunge.

While currency controls make it nearly impossible to legally trade pesos for dollars, many Argentines have turned to black market money changers to obtain dollars to protect themselves from one of the world’s highest inflation rates.

Sask. government introduces changes for commercial vehicle seizures

REGINA – The Saskatchewan government is changing legislation governing commercial vehicle seizures in the province. The proposed change will make it less complicated for business owners to have seized vehicles released due to employee’s driving behaviour.

At the same time, proposed amendments to the Traffic Safety Act will toughen penalties for drivers, establishing a three-day licence suspension for drivers of commercial vehicles who commit high-risk driving offences.The issue came to light when the owner of a Saskatoon business had a commercial vehicle seized after an employee was caught texting and driving for a second time.

MORE: Government reconsidering new vehicle seizure laws

“We listened to concerns brought forward by businesses and have consulted with numerous stakeholders to reach this decision,” said Don McMorris, the minister responsible for Saskatchewan Government Insurance.

“We believe these changes strike a fair balance between considering the business interests of commercial vehicle owners, and ensuring road safety by continuing to be tough on high-risk drivers.

MORE: What you need to know about new Saskatchewan traffic laws

The change will allow for an appeal process for owners of commercial vehicles seized due to the driving behaviour of an employee provided three conditions are met:

• the employee is not the owner of the commercial vehicle;
• the owner can produce evidence that they have a written and communicated safety plan in place; and
• the owner has obtained a driver’s abstract from the employee within the previous 12 months.

An appeal would also trigger a National Safety Code compliance audit for the business. The cost of an appeal is one-hundred dollars.

The regulation change is expected to take effect in early January while the suspension change should pass during the spring sitting of the legislature.

Here’s why you don’t have to share that status update about Facebook’s copyright rules

TORONTO – You may have noticed some of your Facebook friends sharing a long-winded post regarding Facebook’s copyright policies recently. The post – which is usually a good three to four paragraphs long – is made up of legal jargon that reads in short, “I declare that my rights are attached to all my personal data, drawings, paintings, photos, texts etc. published on my profile.”

But before you copy and paste the text into your own profile – listen up. The status update means absolutely nothing.

It appears that many users have fallen victim to a version of the social media email chain letter – you know, the kind that used to tease something to the effect of,  “if you don’t share this email with 20 friends you won’t win $1 million.”

This type of status updates does nothing to change Facebook’s Terms of Service, which each user must accept when signing up for the site. Additionally, many of the copyright concerns listed in the letter are already addressed by the service agreement.

First, let’s look at an example of one of the many variations of this post:

“Concerning the new Facebook policies/guidelines…

Today, [date here], in response to the Facebook guidelines and under articles L.111, 112 and 113 of the code of intellectual property, I declare that my rights are attached to all my personal data, drawings, paintings, photos, texts etc… published on my profile. For commercial use of the foregoing my written consent is required at all times. Those reading this text can copy it and paste it on their Facebook wall. This will allow them to place themselves under the protection of copyright. By this release, I tell Facebook that it is strictly forbidden to disclose, copy, distribute, broadcast, or to take any other action against me on the basis of this profile and/or its contents. The actions mentioned above apply equally to employees, students, agents and/or other staff under the direction of Facebook. The contents of my profile includes private information. The violation of my privacy is punished by the law (UCC 1 1-308 – 308 1 – 103 and the Rome Statute).

Facebook is now an open capital entity. All members are invited to post a notice of this kind, or if you prefer, you can copy and paste this version. If you have not published this statement at least once, you will tacitly allow the use of elements such as your photos as well as the information contained in your profile.”

Copyright rules are outlined in Facebook’s rules

In its “Statement of Rights and Responsibilities,” Facebook outlines that you own all of the content and information you post to the social network.

However, the social network adds that “you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide licence to use any IP content [such as photos and videos] that you post on or in connection with Facebook.”

According to Facebook, that license only ends when you delete your Facebook page.

Additionally, if you post anything to Facebook’s “Public” network (meaning every user can see it – not just your friends) you are allowing everyone, including people who don’t use Facebook, to access and use that information.

Users can review their privacy settings, including what content is public, through Facebook’s “Privacy Checkup” tool. You can access your privacy settings by clicking on the lock symbol at the top right hand side of your Facebook page.

READ MORE: Facebook encourages users to review settings with ‘privacy checkup’

Don’t be fooled by lines that read, “If you have not published this statement at least once, you will tacitly allow the use of elements such as your photos as well as the information contained in your profile.”

According to experts, these status updates have no legal standing against Facebook’s user agreement.

“Unfortunately taking control of your online identity is not as simple as making a declaration on your Facebook wall. Using any website to store content or personal details requires compliance with the site’s Terms of Service,” wrote Sophos security expert Chester Wisniewski in a blog post.

“These messages are simply another chain letter type hoax pinned upon wishful thinking.”

Copyright chain letters have been around for years

This isn’t the first time that these chain letters have started making the rounds on Facebook – this type of hoax has been around for years.

Sophos security first wrote about the chain letter in 2012 and, in June 2012,Facebook itself was forced to address the issue.

WATCH: Tom Cruise almost hit by bus in London

WATCH: Actor Tom Cruise almost got hit by a bus while filming in London.

TORONTO – Paramount Pictures is probably thanking its lucky stars after Tom Cruise was nearly hit by a double-decker bus while filming in London.

The actor is currently in England shooting scenes for the fifth instalment of Mission: Impossible – which Paramount is set to distribute in North America.

Cameras were rolling as Cruise strolled around Piccadilly Circus while pedestrians seemed oblivious to his presence.

The Top Gun star focused his attention in one direction while crossing a street. Moments later, an oncoming bus honked at Cruise who nimbly backtracked to safety.

Mission: Impossible 5, which also stars Jeremy Renner, Alec Baldwin and Rebecca Ferguson, is set for release in just over a year – December 25, 2015.

Must watch this Video

15,000 robots usher in Amazon's Cyber Monday

SAN FRANCISCO — An army of 15,000 robots is ready to roll as Amazon's fulfillment centers prepare for the holiday sales onslaught.

To pick, pack and ship those items, the company is launching a full-scale deployment of a robotic fulfillment system it purchased in 2012 and tested in 2013

Amazon bought Kiva Systems for $775 million. The robots are one part of a complex software and hardware system that simplifies picking and packing at warehouses that can contain literally millions of items.

This shopping season, they will traverse the floors of 10 mammoth Amazon fulfillment centers in California, Florida, New Jersey, Texas and Washington state.

"The Kiva drive units are about a foot tall and weigh about 350 pounds. They can lift 700 pounds," said Dave Clark, Amazon's senior vice president for worldwide operation and customer service.

The Kiva software determines which items each packer at a packing station needs and in what order. It sends instructions to robots throughout the warehouse and tells them to bring the shelving units that contain those items to the packer.

Following bar-coded stickers on the floor, the foot-tall Kiva robots make their way to the correct shelving unit and scoot under it.

A line of shelving slowly passes by the packer, stopping just long enough for the correct item to be plucked from the shelf. Then the Kiva robot carries the whole unit back to its place, sets the shelving unit down and goes to get another one.

Hundreds of the robots, moving at a steady 5 mph, crisscross the warehouse floor, bringing a steady stream of shelving to pickers who stand at their packing stations at the edges of the warehouse.

This allows Amazon to double the inventory each fulfillment center can hold, in part because the Kiva units require smaller lanes to move around.

"This dramatically increases what's available locally, because we can get so much more inventory into one space," Clark said.

Kiva eliminates the miles of walking Amazon pickers used to have to do, which brings the shipping process down to minutes instead of hours, he said.

"If you're singing The Twelve Days of Christmas, your order could already be in the truck before you finish," he said. WATCH THIS VIDEO

Santa wars? Google, NORAD trackers square off

The holiday season is back in full swing, which means digital Santa trackers are counting down the days until the jolly old man's flight around the world on Dec. 24.

The Google Maps Santa Tracker showcases Santa's dashboard, which features Google Maps technology and "sleigh engineering" to follow him on some of his stops. You can also play games, music and view the interactive Santa Village.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command has been tracking Santa every Christmas Eve since the 1950s. The NORAD tracker uses a radar system, called the North Warning System, which has 47 installations across Canada and Alaska.

"The moment our radar tells us that Santa has lifted off, we begin to use the same satellites that we use in providing air warnin

 

There are a number of ways you can track Santa!

To track Santa on Cesium and Bing Maps, return to this page on December 24th.

NORAD worked with Google in the past but in 2007 it dropped Google Maps for Microsoft Bing.

Sprint deal: Half price for AT&T, Verizon defectors

NEW YORK — Sprint is trying to entice AT&T and Verizon Wireless customers to defect by promising to slash their wireless bills in half.

The beleaguered No. 3 U.S. wireless carrier has adopted an aggressive stance since CEO Marcelo Claure took the reins this summer. That aggression reaches new levels with the half-price deal that takes effect Friday.

Under the plan, Sprint will provide unlimited talk and text to anywhere in the U.S. network, while matching the data allowance for half the price that AT&T and Verizon customers are currently paying.

As an added incentive, activation fees are waived, and Sprint will pay any early termination fees or installment billing obligations for switchers, up to $350 per line. Those people will be paid with repaid Visa cards. The half-price deal goes for the life of the plan, but the promotion itself is temporary, with Sprint not specifying how long it will last.

Sprint says the half-off rate will be based on the monthly voice, text and data rate plan charge for all lines on the customer's Verizon or AT&T bill. So, a Verizon customer paying $140 per month for four lines of service to share can get four lines of service from Sprint for $70 per month. You will have to swap out your old phone for a new device.

The half-rate deal does not apply to current Sprint customers or to customers of T-Mobile, which has been a disruptive low-cost force in the industry.

Sprint says AT&T and Verizon combined have about 70% market share and traditionally the highest prices.

A rumored merger between Sprint and T-Mobile never got off the ground largely because of concerns that such a union would not meet regulatory approval.

Chief information security officers hard to find — and harder to keep

SANFRANCISCO — Sony was in the midst of a changeover of chief information security officers when the company was hit with a crippling attack on its computer network that Tuesday was still keeping some employees from being able to work.

The FBI on Monday sent a warning to some U.S. businesses that hackers had unleashed malicious software that allowed them to overwrite data on a company's hard drives — making it almost impossible to recover the information.

The five-page FBI confidential "flash" warning went to security personnel at large companies. It asked the businesses to be on the lookout for similar malware, security researcher Brian Krebs reported.

The position at a large company that protects against such breaches is known as a chief information security officer. Experts say these jobs are becoming increasingly difficult to fill.

Little-known just a decade ago, CISOs today are worth their weight in gold now and hard to keep. Perhaps more surprising, the position is still not universal at large corporations, but it should be, said Geoff Webb, senior director of strategy at NetIQ in Houston.

"It's not window dressing. It's critical. You need someone who can go into the board room and tell them they've got to spend money on security and make them listen. It's not a popular conversation," he said.

Too often, companies only hired a CISO after they've experienced damaging breaches.

JPMorgan didn't have a CISO when it was breached earlier this year. Neither didTarget when it was hit in 2013. Or Heartland Payment Systems in 2009 or TJX in 2007.

Sony only hired its first CISO in 2011, after it was hit with a massive breach of the PlayStation Network, its online system that connects PlayStation video game consoles.

That was Philip Reitinger, previously the Department of Homeland Security's deputy undersecretary for the National Protection and Programs Directorate.

Tech Five: Amazon is not done with Fire Phone

Jeff Bezos isn't done with Amazon's struggling Fire Phone. Let's take a look at the technology stocks to watch Wednesday:

Amazon. The company's CEO says it will take "several iterations" before determining the success of its Fire Phone. According to Re/code, Bezos made the comments during the Business Insider conference in New York. Last week, Amazon slashed the price of the Fire Phone to $199 without a contract.

Hewlett-Packard. The PC maker unveiled its latest laptop, which looks similar to Apple's popular Macbook Air. The Verge reports The EliteBook Folio 1020 runs Windows 8 and boasts an Intel Core M processor.

Apple. The tech giant lost an appeal in Australia to trademark the term "app store." The Sydney Morning Herald reports Apple can freely use "app store" to describe its mobile marketplace, but they won't be able to stop other companies from using the term.

Pandora. The streaming music service unveiled a massive redesign of its mobile apps that features new ways to personalize radio stations. The update wlll roll out to mobile and tablet in the coming months.

Sony. The company's Hollywood studio, Sony Pictures Entertainment, is struggling to restore its systems after a huge cyberattack. According to Reuters, some employees receive new computers to replace infected devices.

First look: Kindle Paperwhite an easy read.

Amazon's new, fifth-generation monochrome device may not have the flash of its high-tone Kindle Fire HD cousins, but don't overlook this new version of the basic e-reader.

SANTA MONICA, Calif. – I've only had a hands-on demonstration of the new Kindle Paperwhite electronic reader that Amazon announced on Thursday. Amazon didn't provide review units. But it is immediately obvious the first time you pick up the thin and light reader and look at its impressive display that these new Kindles are very sweet.

As a conventional monochrome e-reader, Paperwhite may not have the sex appeal of color tablets such as its new and more expensive siblings, notably the Kindle Fire HD devices. But if reading books is your primary purpose, the Paperwhite models have plenty to recommend them. The company sells two versions, one with Wi-Fi for $119; one with Wi-Fi plus 3G cellular for $179. Prices climb to $139 and $199, respectively, if you order the Kindles without what Amazon refers to as "special offers" — meaning ads. Units ship Oct. 1, though you can pre-order one now.

Amazon says the touch display on this fifth-generation Kindle boasts 62% more pixels (212 pixels per inch resolution) and a 25% increase in contrast over earlier versions, with whiter whites and blacker blacks. All this sounds good, well, on paper. But in fact it's all borne out when you examine the screen and see just how crisp the fonts look.

Another major selling point is the built-in, front-lit display that lets you read on the beach — or in a dark bedroom without disturbing your partner. Through its patented technology, Amazon distributes light evenly underneath an anti-glare layer and down toward the display, away from the reader's eyes. To my eyes, the light did indeed seem evenly distributed across the screen, much more so than on the rival Nook with GlowLight that Barnes & Noble began selling earlier in the year. I liked the Barnes & Noble device a fair bit, but Amazon leaps pasts its rival with Paperwhite.

The light on Paperwhite is actually on all the time. Before you fret about the strain that might put on the battery, keep in mind that Amazon is claiming battery life of up to two months, based on half an hour of reading a day. Obviously, I haven't been able to put that to the test. You can tap the screen to summon a control to adjust the brightness of the light. There's no sensor that would automatically choose the optimal level.

I'm also looking forward to putting another new feature to the test. It's called Time to Read and the idea is that the Kindle can detect your reading speed and clue you in on how long it will take to finish a chapter or the entire book. That's especially useful, I'd think, at bedtime.

Another plus is the X-ray feature that will let you find all mentions of fictional characters or ideas in a book, and explore them in greater detail.

As with any Kindle, you can tap into Amazon's massive bookstore, with millions of titles, including 180,000 that Amazon says are exclusives.

My first impressions of Paperwhite are overwhelmingly positive, but they are just that, impressions. I want to spend more time actually reading on the device before arriving at a final conclusion.