German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has asked the economy, environment and finance ministries to lay the legal framework to keep the country’s three nuclear power plants operational until as late as April 15, 2023, a letter seen by Reuters showed on Monday. Reuters reports: Germany had planned to complete a phase-out of nuclear power by the end of this year, but a collapse in energy supplies from Russia because of the war in Ukraine has prompted the government to keep two plants on standby. Lengthy disagreements within the ruling coalition government over the merits and drawbacks of nuclear energy delayed the implementation of a draft law to put the two plants on reserve beyond their planned phase-out at the end of this year.

As well as the Isar II and Neckarwestheim II plants already included in the draft law, Finance Minister Christian Lindner has been pushing to keep a third plant, Emsland, operational, which Economy Minister Robert Habeck — whose Green Party is historically anti-nuclear — agreed to. The three plants have 4,300 megawatts (MW) of power capacity, contributing 6% to Germany’s electricity production this year. Scholz also requested that the ministries present an “ambitious” law to increase energy efficiency, and put into law an agreement to phase out coal by 2030.

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Source: Slashdot – Germany Pushes To Extend Lifespan of Three Nuclear Plants

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: Twenty countries most vulnerable to climate change are considering halting their repayment of $685 billion in collective debt, loans that they say are an “injustice,” Mohamad Nasheed, the former president of the Maldives, said on Friday. When the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund conclude their annual meetings in Washington on Sunday, Mr. Nasheed said he would tell officials that the nations were weighing whether to stop payments on their debts. The finance ministers are calling instead for a debt-for-nature swap, in which part of a nation’s debt is forgiven and invested in conservation. “We are living not just on borrowed money but on borrowed time,” said Mr. Nasheed, who brought global attention to his sinking archipelago nation in the Indian Ocean by holding an underwater cabinet meeting in 2009. “We are under threat, and we should collectively find a way out of it.” Mr. Nasheed said poor nations were locked in a Sisyphean trap: they must borrow money to ward off rising seas and storms — only to see disasters made worse by climate change destroy the improvements they make. But the debt remains, and often countries are left to borrow once again.

The debt discussions at the I.M.F. and World Bank meetings come as diplomats from nearly 200 countries prepared for global climate change negotiations in November. That United Nations conference, which will take place in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, will focus heavily on whether wealthy nations most responsible for the carbon dioxide emissions driving climate change should compensate poor countries that are suffering the worst impacts. Many developing countries and low-lying island nations are pressing for the creation of an international fund that would compensate them for losses and damage caused by climate change. The United States, Europe and other wealthy countries that have historically emitted the bulk of greenhouse gases have opposed the creation of such a fund, in part because they fear being held legally liable for skyrocketing disaster costs.

Mr. Nasheed said he believed focusing on a debt swap could bypass contentious debates over creating a new international fund for reparations. He also noted that many funds that have been created have gone unfilled, he said. If debts owed by countries were shaved by 30 percent and that money was instead invested in projects such as improving water systems or preserving mangrove forests that protect shorelines from hurricanes, “it would have a huge impact,” Mr. Nasheed said. Kristalina Georgieva, the head of the I.M.F., said last year that such debt swaps could help developing countries address climate change and pledged to work with the World Bank to “advance that option” at the United Nations climate meeting in Egypt. According to the World Bank, 58 percent of the world’s poorest countries are at risk or are in “debt distress.” At the same time, the loss and damage needs for vulnerable countries are projected in one study at $290 billion to $580 billion annually by 2030. David Theis, a spokesman for the World Bank Group, said in a statement the banks were “committed to comprehensive debt solutions that bring real benefits to people in poor countries, particularly countries with high debt vulnerabilities that lack the financial resources to deal with the challenges they face.”

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Source: Slashdot – 20 Nations At High Risk From Global Warming Might Halt Debt Payments

Following increased U.S. export controls against working with Chinese companies, Apple has halted plans to use YMTC chips in the iPhone. AppleInsider reports: According to Nikkei Asia, YMTC flash memory is at least 20% cheaper than that of rivals, and the company’s 128-layer 3D NAND chips are the most advanced by a Chinese company. They remain reportedly one or two generations behind the chips made by Micron and Samsung, both of which are known to be working with Apple. Nikkei Asia claims that Apple had completed is months-long testing and verification. Political pressure and criticism from US policymakers made it abandon the plan.

“The products have been verified, but they did not go into the production lines when mass production of the new iPhone began,” an unspecified source told Nikkei Asia. Reportedly, the intention had been to initially use YMTC chips only for iPhones being sold in China. Another unnamed source, though, claimed that Apple was considering ultimately buying 40% of all its worldwide iPhone NAND flash memory from the company. “YMTC is government-subsidized so they can really outprice competitors,” said another source.

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Source: Slashdot – Apple Bows To Pressure, Drops Plan To Buy Chinese Memory Chips

The Clearing House, a banking association and payments company owned by the largest commercial banks in the U.S., has joined the Open Invention Network (OIN) — the world’s largest patent nonaggression consortium. ZDNet reports: The OIN has long protected Linux and Linux-related software from patent aggression by rival companies. With the increase in patent troll attacks, the OIN is also defending companies from these assaults. You may not think financial companies and banks are subject to such attacks. I mean, TCH’s roots go all the way back to 1853. Think again.

As Keith Bergelt, CEO of OIN, said in June, “The most sophisticated and compelling global banking and fintech companies have essentially become technology companies that employ open-source software to deliver their services at scale.” Further, patent trolls “appear to be targeting them for this reason, along with the fact that financial services companies have not historically been active patent filers.” That’s because, historically, they’ve purchased most of their tech from third-party vendors.

That was then. This is now. Today, financial institutions generate more tech in-house, so they’re more concerned about being granted patents, building patent portfolios, and related patent issues. Indeed, these days fintech businesses have their own Fintech Open Source Foundation (FINOS), the financial sector branch of the Linux Foundation. So, Bergelt said in a release Wednesday, “Advancements in financial services and fintech increasingly rely on open-source technologies. As the most experienced payment company in the US, and a keystone for the financial services industry, we are pleased that The Clearing House is committed to patent nonaggression in core Linux and adjacent open-source technologies.”

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Source: Slashdot – Fintech Giant ‘The Clearing House’ Joins Open-Source Patent Protection Powerhouse OIN

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: A former Wall Street Journal reporter is accusing a major U.S. law firm of having used mercenary hackers to oust him from his job and ruin his reputation. In a lawsuit filed late Friday, Jay Solomon, the Journal’s former chief foreign correspondent, said Philadelphia-based Dechert LLP worked with hackers from India to steal emails between him and one of his key sources, Iranian American aviation executive Farhad Azima. Solomon said the messages, which showed Azima floating the idea of the two of them going into business together, were put into a dossier and circulated in a successful effort to get him fired.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, said Dechert “wrongfully disclosed this dossier first to Mr. Solomon’s employer, the Wall Street Journal, at its Washington DC bureau, and then to other media outlets in an attempt to malign and discredit him.” It said the campaign “effectively caused Mr. Solomon to be blackballed by the journalistic and publishing community.” Dechert said in an email that it disputed the claim and would fight it in court. The lawsuit is the latest in a series of legal actions related to hired hackers operating out of India, notes Reuters. “In June, Reuters reported on the activities of several hack-for-hire shops, including Delhi area-companies BellTroX and CyberRoot, that were involved in a decade-long series of espionage campaigns targeting thousands of people, including more than 1,000 lawyers at 108 different law firms.”

Solomon said in a statement Saturday that the hack-and-leak he suffered was an example of “a trend that’s becoming a great threat to journalism and media, as digital surveillance and hacking technologies become more sophisticated and pervasive. This is a major threat to the freedom of the press.”

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Source: Slashdot – Former WSJ Reporter Says Law Firm Used Indian Hackers To Sabotage His Career