News Headlines - 03 December 2012
▽Economists want minimum wage raised | NBC News
More than 650 economists, including five winners of the Nobel Prize for economics, called Wednesday for an increase in the minimum wage, saying the value of the last increase, in 1997, has been “fully eroded.”
▽AFP: Britain to unveil plans to target tax-dodgers
British finance minister George Osborne was on Monday to announce a ￡154 million crackdown on tax avoidance and evasion as public anger rises over the tax arrangements of big-name multinational firms. The money, equivalent to $246.5 million or 190 million euros, will be used to establish a team of investigators to target high-earning individuals and companies who aggressively shield their earnings from the British government.
Downing Street said the Prime Minister was opposed to any move that would undermine taxpayer confidentiality despite criticism by a powerful committee of MPs that the Government “lacked determination” to tackle the problem.
▽Leveson Report: The devil is in the detail - Telegraph
Exactly 78 minutes after the judge finished speaking, David Cameron, the Prime Minister, told MPs he could not accept the central demand, for what Lord Justice Leveson called the “voluntary independent self-regulation” of the press, with a law — a “statutory underpinning” — to lay down the broad principles that the “independent self-regulator” must follow.
▽Underwater robots to replace dolphins in US Navy | SmartPlanet
The U.S. Navy is planning to replace its fleet of mine-tracking dolphins and sea lions with underwater robots as soon as five years from now. Starting in 2017, about one-quarter of the Navy’s 80 trained dolphins will give their jobs to unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs).
