You heard it here first! You heard it here only… Well, anyway, Politalking is to undergo a shift away from the more news-oriented format we used in the past. Rather than news, we will be focusing on writing about singular news stories about technology, science, media and a little bit of politics, less of the industrial business mentions we were doing before.

Why? Well, it became something of a downer constantly writing about bankruptcies and collapses and frauds and wars and all those other intensely depressing things which are occurring in the world. Unfortunately for us, we simply don’t have the power or influence to make writing about such things truly worthwhile on any sort of philanthropic plain.

So, instead, we turn out proverbial pens to the work of technology, science and media, where the developments and evolution are always interesting and worth discussion in this modern age.

We hope you all enjoy the new version of Politalking, which may have a name change, when it comes back very soon.

Until then, thanks for reading, and sleep tight…

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the British Fertility Society are in the process of finalising a joint statement warning women in their 20s and 30s to carefully consider freezing eggs to suit lifestyles and career aspirations, according to a report in The Observer.

The article consults Professor Bill Ledger, professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at Sheffield University and a member of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, who says that it is perfectly fair for women with cancer about to undergo chemotherapy to freeze their eggs to avoid seriously damaging their child bearing abilities, but said it was morally and ethically questionable for women to choose to freeze their eggs for the purpose of allowing a certain lifestyle.

Any and all medical subjects, particularly those which specifically work to retrace the steps of nature, are always going to have, if not be entirely grey areas. This one seems indicative of much of the want from the medical profession to continue progression in their fields whilst attempting to maintain a full sense of ethical and moral control. I don’t disagree that the morals of women deciding to freeze their own eggs, abusing the service in this way does denigrate what its original intention very likely was. But is this really any different from women who get abortions when their lifestyle doesn’t suit a baby. That may seems callous but that doesn’t just include those women who do this due to career, that encompasses those too young to look after a baby or those aborted the result of a rape. If anything, this represents both a parallel and turn from those aborting due to lifestyle needs. Women freezing eggs for this reason are inherently putting forward their desire to have children, admitting that they cannot currently provide the kind of love and attention they need without having to sacrifice much when the entire process could be delayed and performed better later in life. If anything, that seems a very responsible act rather than anything callous or lacking in moral fibre.

I understand the need for the medical profession to express the need for their progressions to be used ‘responsibly’ but this seems more a PR effort laying out outdated if noble ideas which fail to resonate in the modern world.

President Barack Obama has described Wall Street executives as ’shameful’ following the news of their receipt of almost $20 billion in bonuses in the past year, despite the hundreds of billions in taxpayer money extended to the troubled industry to prevent it from collapsing. His comments come after the past few weeks in which John Thain, the former chief executive at Merrill Lynch, has become the unofficial poster boy for Wall Street excess and greed. This image was perpetuated by both the revelation of his spending $1.2m on a remodelling of his office after taking over at the bank last year, his request of a $10m bonus and his rushing through of bonuses for executives just prior to the takeover of Merrill by Bank of America earlier this year, the latter of which could end up being paid back.

Obama is right, this sort of behaviour is shameful. Thain seems to have believed, although he later waived his bonus, that he should be paid extra compensation for essentially running a company into the ground, losing its independence and reputation, but not quite performing as poorly as Dick Fuld, his counterpart at Lehman Brothers. As for the level of bonuses being given, where is the humility? Wall Street institutions have collapsed to a point where none of the big five (Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Lehman and Bear Stearns) exist as investment banks any longer, due to failure-into-merger, outright failure or shift to bank holding company status, the latter for the sole purpose of gaining state aid. How the executives of these institutions can believe they deserve more, I just cannot fathom. Surely a key for things getting better is not only stimulus packages and lending incentives, but a forced return of humility and responsibility amongst those partly at fault for the problems we are all paying for.

Gordon Brown, unveiling his new banking stimulus plan, says the new measures are necessary to protect jobs in the UK as banks are encouraged to raise lending levels. Shares in Royal Bank of Scotland collapsed in trade on the back of the new government rescue and its unveiling of a record loss, the worst seen in UK corporate history.

Kenneth Clarke, the former Chancellor, returned to the British political fray to take up the role of shadow business sectretary, putting him head-to-head with Lord Mandelson.

Israel says it will withdraw its troops from Gaza before the inauguration of Barack Obama amid the cease fire in the region which ended a brutal three-week barrage.

Power-sharing talks continued in Zimbabwe today between Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai.

Russia and the Ukraine have signed a ten-year gas deal which will clear the way for supplies to resume across Europe.

Israel carried out fifty air strikes on Gaza yesterday, ahead of the vote due in the country’s cabinet for a unilateral truce to be struck. The cabinet is reportedly ready to approve a cease fire agreement.

George W Bush will leave office with an approval rating of 22 per cent, the lowest seen for an outgoing president since Gallup began collating the numbers seventy years ago.

Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland crashed in trade on Friday on the back of the massive losses revealed by Citigroup, Bank of America and Merrill Lynch. The losses in Barclays’ share price were particularly hit by the lifting of the ban on short-selling.

Inauguration Talk: All of Obama’s Senate nominees are likely to sail through the confirmation process. White supremacists are being watched in the lead up to his administration taking power. Obama is to retrace the steps of Abraham Lincoln in getting to the inauguration, travelling to Washington by train after a town hall meeting in Philadelphia.

Slim pickings today as I’ve been recovering from an atrocious bout of flu. While I get myself back up to speed with the world here are a few things that leapt out from my feed reader today…

The digital switchover isn’t due in the UK until 2012 but in America it was going to be much sooner. Barack Obama is in favour of moving the February deadline to June to enable the many who will not necessarily be geared up to make the change. There’s a tiny nugget of slight irony to Obama’s support for a delay in change… No? Just me then.

I like music! Don’t you? Well heck, some people like music so much they’re willing to throw a ridiculous amount of money at their separates for ultimate audio quality. You’re possibly right to assume there’s a certain amount of bitterness to this entry as I’m reminded on a daily basis that my mother has a profoundly better system than I have, purely by waking up and looking at my stack of equipment. It’s painful sometimes. But I think audiophiles and wannabes like myself are united in thinking that $64,000 might be a bit much for a turntable.

I’m staying on the music tip here and submitting a story about iPod headphones being breeding grounds for nasty bacteria. Does this really come as a surprise when you think about it? In particular the article highlights something truly lovely:

Harmful bacteria was found on 92 per cent of ear swabs taken from people who regularly shared their earphones with friends, compared with only eight per cent of those who shared less frequently.

All the more reason to not stick these things in your ears, give me doughnuts any day.

Transport Secretary Geoff Hoon today gave approval to the expansion plans for Heathrow which involves the building of a third runway. 

House Democrats have unveiled a $825bn stimulus package which includes a combination of spending and tax cuts with the aim of getting millions of unemployed people in the US back to work.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has condemned the attack on a UN relief agency compound in Gaza which was purportedly carried out by Israeli forces.

JPMorgan Chase has reported a 76 per cent dive in profits in the fourth-quarter, indicating that even it, one of the banks to have performed relatively well amid the downturn, is struggling. The news sent both Bank of America and Citigroup to multi-year lows.

Alexander Lebedev, the Russian billionaire and former KGB agent, is to buy The Evening Standard from the Daily Mail and General Trust chairman Lord Rothermere.

Two interesting pieces concerned with Citigroup in Time today. One, from Curious Capitalist Justin Fox, considers what the problems were that finally brought the insitution, once the world’s largest financial services company, to its knees. The other, from Douglas McIntyre, argues that Citigroup never really mattered and that its demise was always inevitable as keeping such diversity under one roof simply doesn’t work.

Fox rightly points out in his piece that many of the points put forward by McIntyre, specifically that Citigroup was too much of a mixing bowl of corporate and commercial banking worlds, that such a model exists widely in Europe and does not necessarily dictate that the institutions must fall. Granted, the majority of British retail banks with major investment banking operations, especially Royal Bank of Scotland and Barclays, have struggled in recent months owing to the problems coming from corporate finance operations, but groups like Bank of New York Mellon and State Street prove that weathering the storm can be done by diversified single operations.

Citigroup’s problem is set out nicely at the commencement of McIntyre’s piece, that former Citi boss Sandy Weill wanted to create the biggest financial group in the world and went for broke with the merger with Travelers Group. They overstepped their bounds in too short-a-space to build a sustainable business and they suffered because they didn’t balance the commercial and corporate banking worlds as well as so many of their peers. They should have been able to follow the example of HSBC in weathering the storm, but they got greedy, like so many of their US peers, and now they sit with AIG in providing an example that greed ain’t so good.

Osama Bin Laden today called for a global jihad on Israel over its actions in Gaza. Further missiles entered Israel from Lebanon as the war continued to gain new fronts of fighting. And, if all that wasn’t enough, Bolivia has cut its ties with Israel over the Gaza crisis.

Susan J Crawford, the convening authority of military commission charged with determining whether detainees at Guantanamo Bay should be brought to trial, ruled today that the US military tortured a Saudi national suspected to have been involved in 9/11. According the Washington Post, they ‘interrogating him with techniques that included sustained isolation, sleep deprivation, nudity and prolonged exposure to cold, leaving him in a ‘life-threatening condition.”

Baroness Vadera, the Business Minister, has come under criticism after saying during an interview with ITV News that she could see ‘a few green shoots’ of recovery in the British economy. The comments have come under fire partly due to the echoing of statements made in 1991 by then-Chancellor Norman Lamont that he detected ‘the green shoots of economic spring’, considered widely to be a premature assertion.

The Government today announced a £20 billion debt refinacing plan for SMEs in the UK under which it will provide guarantees to banks on half the risk of companies (with turnover of up to £500 million) up the the total amount.

Hillary Clinton spoke of the promotion of ’smart power’ during her confirmation hearing for the position of US Secretary of State, following the party line Obama ran with during the campaign of being open to discussion and negotiation with perceived enemies. She said she would lead the new administration in forging new relationships globally and eschew the ideologically-driven foreign policy philosophy of the Bush era.

Everything is different when you are campaigning and trying to win every vote from every corner of your party, but doesn’t this seem a near u-turn from Clinton from her statements early in the campaign last year when she advocated ‘totally obliterat(ing)’ Iran should it launch a nuclear strike on Israel. Amid the Iraq war and Bush’s war president aspirations, Clinton’s remarks provided Obama with a chance to paint Hillary as another war-hungry candidate and was likely another major factor in his beating her to the nomination.

I have no doubt she means what she says, but you can’t help but sigh as the politicking that has gone on for her over the past year, and reflect that the US did manage to elect a new president who didn’t pander to all sides of the party during the campaign and try to win those gun-loving Republicans.