Early Headlines: Mayweather Wins, Mess in Nigeria, No Cars with Drivers in Cities, Global Migrations, Nepal Death Toll Above 7,000 and More

Early Bird Headlines 03 May 2015

Econintersect: Here are some of the headlines we found to help you start your day. For more headlines see our afternoon feature for GEI members, What We Read Today, which has many more headlines and a number of article discussions to keep you abreast of what we have found interesting.

Global

• Floyd Mayweather Beats Manny Pacquiao (Huffington Post) Floyd Mayweather Jr. extended his undefeated record on Saturday, beating Manny Pacquiao in one of the most widely anticipated boxing matches of the decade. Statistically Mayweather had the advantage with 148 landed punches vs. 81 for Pacquino, but both fighters landed damaging blows and either might have gotten a KO or TKO victory with only a few more landed punches.
• Urban Mobility System Upgrade: How shared self-driving cars could change city traffic (International Transport Forum) Hat tip to Roger Erickson. Self-driving vehicles could revolutionize travel within cities. TaxiBots combined with high-capacity public transport could remove 9 out of every 10 cars in a mid-sized European city. Even in the scenario that least reduces the number of cars (AutoBots without high-capacity public transport), nearly eight out of ten cars could be removed. So Uber drivers, are you ready for Uber bots? You can go stand in line with the buggy whip makers.

U.S.

• Buffett Says Minimum Wage Increase Isn’t Answer to Income Gulf (Bloomberg) Billionaire Warren Buffett said the level of income inequality in the U.S. is “extraordinary” but that raising the minimum wage isn’t the best solution.
• Here’s Why Tesla Is Building Batteries for Your Home (Bloomberg) The home market is not the big objective, just a stepping stone and a convenient publicity tool. The big market for batteries will be businesses and utilities.

Nigeria

• Nigerian military: 234 more women, girls rescued from Boko Haram (Al Jazeera) Outgoing President is succeeding in his final weeks as he was unable to do before the election he lost. Boco Haram is apparently being routed of its last remaining strongholds.
• Senate President, Mark, bemoans poor electricity supply in Nigeria (Premium Times) The Senate President, David Mark, has decried the ceaseless epileptic power supply in the country despite the promises made in the wake of the privatization of the sector.
• Nigeria Government Reshuffle Sparks Charges of Patronage Politics (Voice of America) Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has fired the head of the police and other powerful government agencies weeks before he is to hand over his office to incoming president Muhammadu Buhari. Some analysts say the moves are evidence of last-minute score settling and patronage appointments by the outgoing administration.

Iraq

• Oil Market: Why You Should Be Worried About Iraq Now (Bloomberg) For Iraq to meet the projections for increased production over the next decade there will be more than $500 billion investment needed. Iraq doesn’t have it and who will invest there?

Nepal

• Nepal quake: Airport customs holding up aid relief – UN (BBC News) The United Nations has urged Nepal to relax customs controls which it says are holding up deliveries of aid to survivors of last week’s earthquake.
• U.S. sending as many as 500 troops to help with Nepal quake recovery (LA Times) With the official death toll now above 7,000 and expected to exceed at least 10,000, the U.S has committed to send support troops to aid with recovery. Over 2,000,000 have no homes so providing temporary shelter will be a huge task.
  

Panama

• Crossing the Darién Gap: US-bound migrants marooned in Panama jungle (Al Jazeera) Global migration is becoming an ever larger wave. This latest story is about migrants from South America, Bangladesh, Nepal, Somalia, South Africa and elsewhere who are struggling to pass through the Darien Gap jungle in Panama, the one remaining unbuilt link in the Pan American Highway.

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