Earlier this week, the Forex Blog speculated that the tide was turning on the Euro, which had retreated from the $1.60 threshold. Sure enough, the month of April saw the best monthly performance by the Dollar in over two years. The sudden about-face by the Dollar stems from changes in interest rate expectations. Only a couple weeks ago, the consensus among investors was that the Fed would cut rates further at its next meeting; the only point of uncertainty was whether rates would be cut by 25 or 50 basis points.

As of today, however, there is only a 25% chance that the Fed will cut rates at all, if you go by futures prices. Regarding the Euro, investors are no longer so sure that the ECB will hike rates in response to surging inflation. In short, the new consensus is that the US/EU interest rate differential has stabilized. Then there is the economic picture; investors have “chosen” to be pleasantly surprised by the most recent economic data. While the economic downturn still seems inevitable, it may not be as severe as investors had previously feared. Reuters reports:

In contrast to slightly stronger U.S. data, the Ifo German business sentiment index this week showed the biggest monthly fall since September 2001.

Read More: «www.reuters.com»

LOS ANGELES: A Missouri woman was indicted Thursday for her alleged role in perpetrating a hoax on the online social network MySpace against a 13-year-old neighbor who committedsuicide.

Lori Drew, 49, of suburban St. Louis, who allegedly helped create a MySpace account in the name of someone who did not exist to convince Megan Meier she was chatting with a 16-year-old boy named Josh Evans, was charged with conspiracy and fraudulently gaining access to someone elsescomputer.

Megan hanged herself at home in October 2006, allegedly after receiving a dozen or more cruel messages, including one stating the world would be better off withouther.

Salvador Hernandez, assistant agent in charge of the Los Angeles FBI office, called the caseheart-rending.

“The Internet is a world unto itself,” he said. “People must know how far they can go before they must stop. They exploited a young girls weaknesses. Whether the defendant could have foreseen the results, shes responsible for heractions.”

Drew was indicted by a federal grand jury on one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization to get information used to inflict emotional distress on thegirl.

Drew has denied creating the account or sending messages toMegan.

Dean Steward, a lawyer representing Drew in the federal case, said a legal challenge to the charges was being planned. He characterized them as unusual andpuzzling.

“We thought when prosecutors in St. Louis looked at the case and all the facts, it was clear no criminal acts occurred,” Stewardsaid.

A man who opened the door at the Drew family home in Dardenne Prairie, Missouri, on Thursday said the family had nocomment.

Megans mother, Tina Meier, said she believed media reports and public outrage helped move the case forward forprosecution.

“Im thrilled that this woman is going to face charges that she has needed to face since the day we found out what was going on, and since the day she decided to be a part of this entire ridiculous stunt,” shesaid.

Megans father, Ron Meier, 38, said he began to cry “tears of joy” when he heard of the indictment. The parents are now separated, which Tina Meier has said stemmed in part from the circumstances of their daughtersdeath.

Tina Meier has acknowledged Megan was too young to have a MySpace account under the Web sites guidelines, but she said she had been able to closely monitor the account. Meiers family has also acknowledged that Megan was also sending mean messages before herdeath.

Megan was being treated for attention deficit disorder and depression, her family has said. Meier has said Drew knew Megan was onmedication.

MySpace issued a statement saying it “does not tolerate cyberbullying” and was cooperating fully withauthorities.

The U.S. attorney, Thomas OBrien, said this was the first time the federal statute on accessing protected computers has been used in a social-networking case. It has been used in the past to addresshacking.

“This was a tragedy that did not have to happen,” OBriensaid.

Both the girl and MySpace are named as victims in the case, hesaid.

Rebecca Lonergan, a former federal prosecutor who now teaches law at the University of Southern California, said use of the federal cyber crime statute may be open tochallenge.

Lonergan, who used the statute in the past to file charges in computer hacking and trademark theft cases, said the crimes covered by the law involve obtaining information from a computer, not sending messages out to harasssomeone.

“Here it is the flow of information away from the computer,” she said. “Its a very creative, aggressive use of the statute. But they may have a legally tough time meeting theelements.”

She said, however, that because “a very bad harm was done,” the courts may grant somelatitude.

MySpace is a subsidiary of Fox Interactive Media, which is owned by News Corp. The indictment noted that MySpace computer servers are located in Los AngelesCounty.

Due to juvenile privacy rules, the U.S. attorneys office said, the indictment refers to the girl asMTM.

FBI agents in St. Louis and Los Angeles investigated the case, Hernandezsaid.

Each of the four counts carries a maximum possible penalty of five years inprison.

Federal officials said Drew will be arraigned in St. Louis and moved to Los Angeles for trial. Her lawyer, however, said Drew did not have to surrender in Missouri but would be arraigned in early June in LosAngeles.

The indictment says MySpace members agree to abide by terms of service that include, among other things, not promoting information they know to be false or misleading; soliciting personal information from anyone under age 18 and not using information gathered from the Web site to “harass, abuse or harm otherpeople.”

Health Canada has issued a warning to consumers about the Trophic brand natural health product labelled “Kelp and Glutamic Acid HCI” because of high levels of iodine.

It warns that pregnant or breastfeeding women, or people with thyroid conditions such as Graves’ disease, are most vulnerable.

Too much iodine can lead to the enlargement of the thyroid, the butterfly-shaped gland at the front of the neck that regulates metabolism, and can cause it to become underactive or overactive. While hypothyroidism (underactive thyroid) can lead to infertility and heart disease, hyperthyroidism (overactive thyroid) can cause sudden weight loss, rapid or irregular heart beat, increased sensitivity to heat or irritability.

Babies exposed to excessive levels of iodine while in the womb can be born with an enlarged thyroid. Such a condition can also cause the baby to have difficulty breathing.

In Graves’ disease patients, high levels of iodine can reduce the effectiveness of antithyroid medications.

People considering taking this product are advised to consult their doctors before doing so, according to Health Canada.

Kelp and Glutamic Acid HCI is not approved by Health Canada though it is sold in pharmacies and over the Internet.

The company that manufactures the product, Trophic Canada Ltd., has initiated its recall, and Health Canada says it will monitor the situation.

Should Bill C-51 pass, natural health products sold in Canada will require them to be licensed by Health Canada and labelled with a drug identification number before they can be sold in stores.
Story Tools: | | Text Size: | | Related External Links Health Canada warns consumers not to use Trophic Kelp & Glutamic Acid HCl due to health risk

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(05-16) 04:00 PDT New York —

Comcast Corp.’s interference with Internet traffic has prompted a federal investigation and is at the center of calls for network neutrality laws, but another U.S. cable company appears to be doing the same thing without drawing scrutiny.

A study released Thursday found conclusive signs that file-sharing attempts by subscribers of Cox Communications were blocked, along with customers at Comcast.

Of the 788 Comcast subscribers who participated in the study, 62 percent had their connections blocked. At Cox, 54 percent of subscribers examined were blocked, according to Krishna Gummadi at the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems in Saarbruecken, Germany. The institute examined the network connections of 8,175 Internet subscribers around the world.

Comcast is the country’s second-largest Internet service provider, with 14.1 million subscribers. Cox is the fourth-largest, with 3.8 million; it is part of privately held Cox Enterprises Inc.

Comcast’s practice of interfering with traffic was brought to light by user reports last year and confirmed by an Associated Press investigation in October.

Consumer advocacy groups and legal scholars criticized the interference, saying that letting a service provider selectively block some connections makes it a gatekeeper to the Internet, violating the network’s open principles. Their complaints prompted the Federal Communications Commission to start an investigation, which is ongoing.

Legislation also has been introduced in Congress to guarantee net neutrality, or equal treatment of traffic by Internet service providers.

“This research proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that consumers, Congress and the FCC must urgently pursue the complaints against network providers,” said Ben Scott, policy director of Free Press, one of the groups that urged the FCC to fine Comcast.

File-sharing programs like BitTorrent, which let people exchange documents, songs, movies and other content, can be heavy users of Internet bandwidth.

Comcast maintains that hampering such programs helps ensure that traffic other than file sharing is not impeded by a few big users. The company says that it is delaying file transfers rather than blocking them. Even that will end later this year, Comcast said in March, as it pledged to stop the practice.

At least since 2006, Cox’s subscriber agreement has noted that the company engages in “protocol filtering,” which means it treats different types of Internet traffic, like Web surfing, e-mail and file sharing, differently.

Cox said Thursday that it takes such steps “to ensure the best possible online experience for our customers.” But Cox denied that protocol filtering amounts to discrimination of any specific services.

The blocking observed by Gummadi’s group occurs when a subscriber has downloaded a file using the BitTorrent application and tries to upload it, or share it with others, over the Internet. The main victims are the other Internet subscribers, who will not be able to download a file if a complete version is not available from someone else’s computer.

Persistent attempts by file-sharing software to get through an Internet service provider’s filtering may succeed after several minutes, as experienced in the Associated Press test last year. But Gummadi’s test did not look at the duration of the traffic blocks.

Gummadi found signs of interference at seven other U.S. Internet providers, all of them cable companies.

HONG KONG: Anthony del Rosario, who crews an oil tanker plying the route between the Middle East and South Korea, is sending home less money to his family in the Philippines. Takeshi Okada, a shoe manufacturer in Japan, is concerned about the possibility of declining export sales.

And Brenton Fry, who heads the import-export operation of an old Australian winemaker, Yalumba, is fighting to hold down retail prices for wine sold in the United States by cutting profit margins.

All three have a common worry: The sliding value of the U.S. dollar against most global currencies is putting them under increasing financial pressure.

The decline in the buying power of the dollar is, according to economic analysts, only a high-profile symptom of the economic slowdown and credit crunch in the United States. But for many businesses and workers who once regarded themselves as lucky to be paid in dollars or dollar-linked currencies, the depreciating U.S. currency is a sure sign of tougher economic times ahead in Asia and globally.

“The dollar is a very visible financial variable,” said Duncan Wooldridge, chief Asian economist at UBS in Hong Kong. “But the underlying problem is that the U.S. is going to be working through some of the excesses it built up in recent years, and that is just going to mean less demand for Asian exports than we have grown accustomed to.”

The dollar - in general decline for much of this decade - has fallen nearly 12 percent against the yen and 6 percent against the euro just since the beginning of this year.

The pain is felt well beyond Asia. President Nicolas Sarkozy of France said Wednesday that he wanted to work with Britain to press U.S. policy makers to put an end to the dollars decline.

“Cant we weigh together on our American friends so that the dollar recovers?” Sarkozy said in an interview with BBC, according to a transcript of the interview given to reporters by his press office.

Companies like European Aeronautic Defense Space are cutting jobs and relocating production abroad to offset the competitive disadvantage of selling goods in foreign markets.

On Wednesday, the dollar traded at 99.45, a bit stronger than recent 13-year lows. The euro was also at $1.5709, slightly below a record high.

The real problem for many exporters is a likely U.S. recession, but the “weak dollar makes those goods more difficult to sell into the U.S. market, so it amplifies the downturn,” said Wooldridge.

For Misuzu, a maker of womens shoes based in Tokyo that employs about 175 people, the strength of the yen against the dollar threatens to eat into export sales in Taiwan and China because the shoemakers transactions with those countries are conducted in dollars. When those sales are converted back into yen, Misuzu has fewer yen than it would if the dollar were strong.

“I am very concerned about what effect the weaker dollar will have on our overseas sales,” said Okada, a merchandiser with Misuzu. “It could take a few months before we know, but everything depends on our customers, and we will have to wait and see.”

Deepening Misuzus woes is the rising price of crude oil. High oil prices are forcing up the cost of petrochemical products, which make up about 90 percent of the materials used in Misuzus line of shoes.

Despite having limited price increases to less than a third of the product line and capped them at about 10 percent, Misuzu is likely to be one of many Asian exporters to face declining sales in the coming months.

Weaker consumer demand in both the United States and Europe is forecast by economists to significantly reduce Asian export volumes and slow the pace of regional growth. A forecast by Deutsche Bank that growth will slip from an average of 9.2 percent in 12 Asian economies in 2007 to 7.7 percent in 2008 is typical of the view among private sector economists.

But Michael Spencer, Deutsche Banks chief economist for Asia in Hong Kong, said the declining dollar will have little impact on the competitiveness of Asian exporters.

“The dollar is not in itself going to influence exports in Asia,” he said.

“The main thing is that real income growth in the U.S. is slowing down.” Fierce competition among Asian exporters has been forcing them to find production savings and steadily reduce the dollar prices of exports to the United States since 1994, Spencer argued. European companies have been doing the same as the euro rises.