Core microanalytical components of the recently field-tested U-M analyzer. Image courtesy: Edward T. Zellers.
A lab-on-a-chip technology that measures trace amounts of air contaminants in homes was successfully field-tested by researchers at the University of Michigan. Even in the presence of 50 other indoor air contaminants, the U-M-built microsystem found levels of the targeted contaminant so low that it would be analogous to finding a particular silver dollar in a roll stretching from Detroit to Salt Lake City.
“This is the first (known) study of its kind,” said Ted Zellers, professor in the U-M School of Public Health and the Department of Chemistry, and project director.
“Most lab-on-a-chip technologies are used for biomedical analysis of liquids,” Zellers said. “Our technology is designed for monitoring contaminants in the air, and this groundbreaking study is the first to prove that it can work outside the laboratory in real-life applications.”
The applications are potentially limitless because the device, called a microfabricated gas chromatograph, can be tailored to detect any contaminants, Zellers said. For instance, the team is adapting the same technology to detect certain industrial chemicals in the breath and saliva of exposed workers, biomarkers of cancer and other chronic disease, and markers of explosives for airport screening applications.
The Department of Defense contracted the U-M team to adapt and test two prototypes devices in homes near Utah’s Hill Air Force Base to measure indoor concentrations of trichloroethylene, or TCE. TCE was used on military bases until the 1970s, and improper disposal caused TCE to become a pervasive groundwater contaminant that can seep into homes above plumes.
“The core microfabricated silicon chips, when stacked, are roughly the size of a wristwatch,” Zellers said. They require less power and can be made smaller and less expensively than traditionally manufactured counterparts.
The microsystem was designed and built by faculty and students affiliated with the Center for Wireless Integrated MicroSensing and Systems in the College of Engineering.
Zellers said the group is currently negotiating with several companies interested in commercializing the technology.
A series of articles describing the results appeared this month in the journal Environmental Science and Technology. Co-authors include Sun Kyu Kim, Hungwei Chang, and Jonathan Bryant-Genevier, of U-M; David Burris of IST, Inc., and Kyle Gorder and Erik Dettenmeier of Hill Air Force Base.
What does the term “natural flavors” really mean? Could it be that the term “natural flavors” includes genetically modified, pesticide-laden food? There are also plenty of “food products” on the shelves that read “all natural” on the label, but they still contain large amounts of synthetic, laboratory-concocted food agents, many of which cause diseases and disorders. So how much more confusing can it get to simply shop for food that doesn’t kill you slowly?
Exactly who makes the rules about terms put on labels? You better hope it doesn’t all fall in the hands of the FDA, the same organization responsible for allowing genetically modified food to exist and be sold completely undercover ever since its inception. And does natural flavoring include the migraine headache monster monosodium glutamate? Also, can “natural flavoring” include bugs that are ground up to turn your food into some “happy” colors that help you celebrate some birthday or big event? One final question: could “natural flavoring” mean the food contains meat, even though it’s a vegetarian or vegan product?
Maybe “natural flavoring” means it’s not natural at all, instead, some food scientists were paid millions to create un-natural, immune system “crippling” foods, drinks, candies and medicine, just to make some extra money off of your sickness. There’s a point where conspiracy theory bleeds over into the real world of unnatural food and medicine, where paranoia of cancer scams and epidemics spill over into actual statistics (United States), the ones which include every other man and every third women in the most “powerful country in the world.”
MSG, Aspartame and bugs in your food are all considered “natural flavors” and “natural colors”
Do you know what autolyzed yeast extract really is? It’s MSG. Do you know what hydrolyzed soy protein (also MSG) does to your body? Have you thought about eating some beetles lately, or do you only do that when you have cupcakes, popsicles, birthday cake and cough medicine?
Has your doctor discussed with you the fact that your ingestion of artificial sweeteners may be the main cause of your muscle aches, headaches, irritable bowels and even fibromyalgia? Do allopathic doctors, surgeons and oncologists in America have to take even one single class in college on nutrition? No, they don’t. What about continuing education to keep up with the latest food toxins? Nope!
Who regulates whether or not something qualifies as a “natural flavor?” Who does inspections at factories and laboratories, or is that left up to the manufacturer, much like the way it’s up to vaccine manufacturers to report adverse effects? When the police themselves are crooks, there’s no “policing” of the crimes they are committing. In fact, the whole differentiation of GMO & artificial from Natural & Organic has become a murky mess. The line of distinction between foods labeled “all natural” and cancer causing food is not only blurred, it barely exists.
First of all, regulations for the word “natural” only apply to flavors; anywhere else you find it on food packaging means absolutely nothing regarding quality. Secondly, the FDA definition of “natural flavors” and “natural flavoring” allows for the substance to be extracted from plant or animal “matter.” So when you buy something that’s organic, vegetarian, or vegan, and it has “natural flavoring,” you could be eating a pig, cow, turkey, chicken, or lamb which was shot up with growth hormones, fed GMO pesticide-laden corn and grain – probably mixed with other animals of it’s same breed, then shot up with antibiotics due to infections and diseases from living in confined quarters on slats covered in feces.
Your enemy wears a friendly mask
Gary Reineccius, a professor in the Department of Food Science & Nutrition at the University of Minnesota has a tricky explanation for all you researchers. He convinces you to think more about the practical difference between “natural flavoring” and artificial flavoring, which is an angle that might make you think he’s looking out for your best interest, but then he contends that the “flavorist” creating any artificial flavoring could never achieve the same “desired flavor,” and therefore, if a consumer “purchases an apple beverage that contains an artificial flavor, he/she will ingest the same primary chemicals that he/she would take in if he/she had chosen a naturally flavored apple beverage. What a complete farce!
Of course, this makes no sense at all, but it’s one of those resources out there to throw consumers off track who have the energy and the “gumption” to look up the difference online. Mr. Reineccius, the illustrious professor, goes on to tell you more lies. Next he informs you that, “Artificial flavorings are simpler in composition and potentially safer because only safety-tested components are utilized.” Really, so where are all the great results from the GMO tests they’ve run on humans?
MSG is the grim reaper of food additives
Monosodium Glutamate is a neurotoxin that can be legally hidden from you and/or be labeled “natural flavors” in the ingredients list. MSG is not a natural flavor – in fact, it can cause brain lesions, neuro-endocrine disorders, and neurodegenerative disease in humans, but you won’t hear any doctors of Western Medicine mentioning that at your next extreme migraine emergency visit. There are more than 25 names for MSG, so sometimes you find it spread out a little, just in case the manufacturer gets “checked out” by anyone other than the FDA.
The FDA does not require that any source of MSG be identified. This means that the FDA code does not require that “constituents” of an ingredient be disclosed to the consumer. Yet in hundreds of studies around the world, scientists are creating obese mice using MSG because it triples the amount of insulin the pancreas creates, causing rats (and perhaps humans) to become obese. This is what the FDA calls natural. There’s even a name for the fat rodents that eat this “Natural Flavor” additive: they’re called “MSG-Treated Rats.”
Not only is MSG scientifically proven to cause obesity, it is an addictive substance. Since its introduction into the American food supply 50 years ago, MSG has been added in larger and larger doses to processed meals, soups, chips, and fast foods. The FDA has set no limits on how much of it can be added to food.
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 29 2012 (IPS) – A landmark case filed against U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon by a former employee has spotlighted the dangers of whistle-blowing inside the U.N. exposing a faulty accountability system.
In 2007 James Wasserstrom, an ex American diplomat, drew attention to suspected cases of corruption among top U.N. officials of the U.N. Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK).
Unwarranted searches of his flat and car ensued and his career as a U.N. employee came to an end.
Currently U.N. officials have recourse to an anti-corruption watchdog titled the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), an ethics office and a whistle-blowing protection policy should they wish to file a complaint or claim.
But these accountability mechanisms were deemed “fundamentally flawed” by the dispute tribunal, an independent adjudicator introduced in 2009, which has ruled in Wassertrom’s favor.
Wassertrom took issue with U.N. sponsored conduct in Kosovo and found evidence to suggest that two senior officials might have been bribed to approve the construction of a coal-fired power plant and mine.
He made his suspicions known to the OIOS and believes that his claims were leaked to the officials he sought to implicate, putting him at risk of reprisals.
The ethics office found a clear case of retaliation by senior U.N. officials implicated in Wasserstrom’s corruption claims, but the OIOS rejected claims of retaliatory intent and tempered its judgment concluding that the conduct of officials “appeared to be excessive”.
According to the Government Accountability Project (GAP), a watchdog organization in Washington, of 297 cases Wasserstrom’s case was only the second time in six years that the ethics office had fully sided with a whistleblower complaining of retaliation whilst seeking to expose misconduct within the U.N.
Numerous cases have been documented in independent media reports, and a recent article in the Guardian gave details of three further whistleblowers that saw their claims rejected and careers terminated.
An article in Foreign Policy similarly documents the case of Georges Tadonki who was sacked amid claims that his attempts to warn his seniors of the impending threat of cholera has been neglected prior to the countrywide outbreak in Zimbabwe in 2009.
In the recent ruling of the tribunal, Judge Goolam Meeran was scathing in his rebuke of the conduct of a global institution renowned for the promotion human rights, for having “condoned humiliating and degrading treatment of a member of its own staff”. Ban is yet to respond to the judgment. Journalist Matthew Lee of Inner City Press raised the issue in a U.N. noon briefing Jun. 25, but Ban’s spokesmen Martin Nesirky declined to comment.
The Guardian newspaper received an email from Nesirky stating, “The U.N. Dispute Tribunal issued a judgment on liability in the case of Mr Wasserstrom, but has not yet ruled on compensation and remedies. In that sense, the matter is still open. The United Nations Secretariat is studying the judgment and, in keeping with its policy on ongoing cases, is not in a position to provide any comment now.
A two-income American family with an average income that dutifully invests in a 401(k) plan using typical strategies will lose $155,000 – or about 30 percent of what they should have saved for retirement — to Wall Street fees, according to a study by an economic justice advocacy organization.
The Demos study, released last month, is just the latest in a long string of research showing 401(k) plans are a better deal for Wall Street than for you. Many show that people lose about one-third of their retirement money to fees that they don’t even know they’re paying. The actual lifetime impact of fees is a matter of widespread debate, but it shouldn’t be. In one dramatic example, John Bogle, the inventor of index funds, demonstrated how fees can consume 80 percent of an investor’s money through something he’d dubbed “the tyranny of compounding fees.” (Click on the link to see his proof.)
But some relief may be on the way. Regulations first set in motion in in 2007 (!) will finally kick in next week. Soon, 401(k) statements will include a fact box — similar to the new info-boxes on credit card bills — that lists the fee rates (“expense ratios’) associated with fund selections and shows in dollars how much the investor paid.
The disclosure box is a welcome change, but it’s probably not going to make much of a difference, laments Robert Hiltonsmith, author of the Demos study.
“It will be underwhelming from a sticker shock point of view. It will not have the effect the doomsayers predict,” Hiltonsmith said. The dollar amounts shown will reflect annual amounts, not the real harm from loss of compounding growth, he said. A 27-year-old with $10,000 invested in a mutual paying a 1 percent expense ratio will pay only about $100 in fees in a year, a number that will hardly inspire shopping around, Hiltonsmith figures.
But that benign-sounding 1 percent annual fee is the source of most 401(k) folly. Compounded, it can result in loss of one-third of retirement savings, or more.
……………..Issa’s failure to secure any damning evidence against top officials suggests that his investigation has largely run its course, said Charles Tiefer, a professor at the University of Baltimore Law School.
“This contempt vote is not the beginning of something. It’s the end of something,” Tiefer said. “It’s the last little bit of life that can be squeezed out of the Fast and Furious investigation.”
Tiefer, who served as chief counsel to three Democratic House speakers in the 1980s and 1990s, testified as an expert during a Fast and Furious hearing at Issa’s invitation.
Documents and testimony overwhelmingly indicate that the “gun-walking” tactics of Fast and Furious were conceived and executed by field agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and supervised by the federal prosecutor’s office in Phoenix, with limited involvement by senior Justice Department staff.
Emails exchanged after the Republican probe in Fast and Furious began in early 2011 further show that DOJ officials were repeatedly told by ATF officials that no gun-walking occurred during the operation. Those denials were transmitted to a Republican senator then retracted.
In a hearing Wednesday, Issa said that documents being withheld by Holder cover internal deliberations over congressional and media inquiries, and date from February 2011 to today — after Fast and Furious already had come to an end. Issa said he had no evidence indicating a cover-up by Holder or White House officials, or indicating their involvement in authorizing or managing the botched operations.
The former ATF director, Kenneth Melson, was forced to step down last year and other agents and officials directly involved in Fast and Furious have been reassigned pending the outcome of an internal Justice Department investigation.
Shortly before Thursday’s contempt vote, the Associated Press reported that documents recently offered by Holder to Issa’s committee dated February 2011 show the attorney general aggressively seeking answers on what went wrong in Fast and Furious.
“We need answers on this. Not defensive BS. Real answers,” Holder wrote to a subordinate after seeing a story by CBS alleging gun-walking by ATF.
The documents offered to Issa also show senior officials with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives sought to convince Holder and other Justice Department officials that “gun-walking” never occurred in Fast and Furious. Those assertions appear to have been questioned by Holder.
White House officials claim that these and other internal emails are protected by executive privilege, but said they were willing to disclose many of them in a show of good faith to the oversight panel. The offer was rejected.
Some open-government advocates have joined Republicans in denouncing the White House’s invocation of executive privilege, calling it unnecessary and a slap in the face to transparency. “The president cannot assert this power merely to avoid the release of potentially embarrassing or politically inconvenient details,” wrote Mark J. Rozell and Mitchel A. Sollenberger, both political science professors and experts on executive power, in an essay for CNN…………………….
Black market for body parts spreads among Europe’s poor
‘When you need to put food on the table, selling a kidney doesn’t seem like much of a sacrifice’
By DAN BILEFSKY
BELGRADE, Serbia — Pavle Mircov and his partner, Daniella, nervously scan their e-mail in-box every 15 minutes, desperate for economic salvation: a buyer willing to pay nearly $40,000 for one of their kidneys.The couple, the parents of two teenagers, put their organs up for sale on a local online classified site six months ago after Mr. Mircov, 50, lost his job at a meat factory here. He has not been able to find any work, he said, so he has grown desperate. When his father recently died, Mr. Mircov could not afford a tombstone. The telephone service has been cut off. One meal a day of bread and salami is the family’s only extravagance.
“When you need to put food on the table, selling a kidney doesn’t seem like much of a sacrifice,” Mr. Mircov said.
Facing grinding poverty, some Europeans are seeking to sell their kidneys, lungs, bone marrow or corneas, experts say. This phenomenon is relatively new in Serbia, a nation that has been battered by war and is grappling with the financial crisis that has swept the Continent. The spread of illegal organ sales into Europe, where they are gaining momentum, has been abetted by the Internet, a global shortage of organs for transplants and, in some cases, unscrupulous traffickers ready to exploit the economic misery.
$250K for lungs In Spain, Italy, Greece and Russia, advertisements by people peddling organs — as well as hair, sperm and breast milk — have turned up on the Internet, with asking prices for lungs as high as $250,000. In late May, the Israeli police detained 10 members of an international crime ring suspected of organ trafficking in Europe, European Union law enforcement officials said. The officials said the suspects had targeted impoverished people in Moldova, Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.
“Organ trafficking is a growth industry,” said Jonathan Ratel, a European Union special prosecutor who is leading a case against seven people accused of luring poor victims from Turkey and former communist countries to Kosovo to sell their kidneys with false promises of payments of up to $20,000. “Organized criminal groups are preying upon the vulnerable on both sides of the supply chain: people suffering from chronic poverty, and desperate and wealthy patients who will do anything to survive.”
The main supply countries have traditionally been China, India, Brazil and the Philippines. But experts say Europeans are increasingly vulnerable.
An estimated 15,000 to 20,000 kidneys are illegally sold globally each year, according to Organs Watch, a human rights group in Berkeley, Calif., that tracks the illegal organ trade. The World Health Organization estimates that only 10 percent of global needs for organ transplantation are being met.
Nancy Scheper-Hughes, the director of Organs Watch and a professor of medical anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, said the attempt by poor Europeans to sell their organs was reminiscent of the period after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when chronic joblessness created a new breed of willing sellers.
Trade in organs in Serbia is illegal and punishable by up to 10 years in prison. But that is not deterring the people of Doljevac, a poor municipality of 19,000 people in southern Serbia, where the government refused an attempt by residents to register a local agency to sell their organs and blood abroad for profit.
‘Blood group A’ Violeta Cavac, a homemaker advocating for the network, said that the unemployment rate in Doljevac was 50 percent and that more than 3,000 people had wanted to participate. Deprived of a legal channel to sell their organs, she said, residents are now trying to sell body parts in neighboring Bulgaria or in Kosovo.
“I will sell my kidney, my liver, or do anything necessary to survive,” she said.
Hunched over his computer in Kovin, about 25 miles from Belgrade, Mr. Mircov showed a reporter his kidney-for-sale advertisement, which included his blood type and phone number.
“Must sell kidney. Blood group A,” the ad said. “My financial situation is very difficult. I lost my job, and I need money for school for my two children.”
GNS Science and University of Nevada-Reno scientists have found that the southern part of the 800 kilometre-long fault _ which runs along the western edge of the Southern Alps from Marlborough to Milford Sound _ causes quakes of around magnitude 8 every 330 years on average.
Dating leaves and seeds from a river terrace at Hokuri Creek near Lake McKerrow in far northwestern Southland, just north of Milford Sound, revealed 24 Alpine Fault quakes between 6000BC and the present.
Other research has found the most recent was in 1717, meaning the next may be only 30 or 40 years away, based on averages.
Professor Richard Norris, from the geology department at Otago University, said the Alpine Fault had the highest level of probability for rupture of any fault in New Zealand.
“Westland obviously is at high risk, with widespread damage likely and roads, bridges and other transport links likely to be badly affected (as well as the tourist trade),” he said.
The fault crossed the main West Coast road in many places, and with an estimated 8m displacement would completely destroy it.
”Intensities further east in places like Queenstown, Te Anau, Wanaka and Mt Cook will be high enough to cause landslips and do damage,” Norris said.
”Further east in the major cities of Christchurch and Dunedin, the intensities will be lower but the duration of shaking could still be sufficient to damage poorly constructed buildings…and possibly cause some liquefaction.”
Places such as Nelson, Wellington and Invercargill could also expect to feel some shaking.
Project leader Kelvin Berryman of GNS Science said ”a major earthquake in the near future would not be a surprise”.
”Equally it could be up to 100 years away. The bottom line is, if not in our lifetimes then increasingly likely in our children’s or our grandchildren’s.”
The study’s findings, published today in the journal Science, were new and internationally significant, Berryman said.
The site had provided one of the world’s best ever records of regular fault rupture.
”Prior to this project, the ages of only the last four Alpine Fault earthquakes were well known.
”Long records with more than 20 earthquakes have been obtained from other faults around the world such as the San Andreas Fault in California, but they are very rare.
”The Alpine Fault is perhaps only the fifth such long record and it has revealed the most regular rupture behaviour yet reported.
Auckland University biostatics professor Thomas Lumley said the intervals between quakes on the Alpine Fault tended to be quite close to the average interval, with relatively little spread.
Most recurrence intervals longer than 295 years _ the position now _ were shorter than 400 years, and many were only slightly longer than 295 years.
”That is, most of the time when a quake hasn’t happened for 295 years, it happens within the next century and often within the next half-century. …The risks are high, but that’s because it seems to be an unusually regular fault.”
Manchas sobre el mar que provienen de la erupción volcánica submarina junto a la isla de El Hierro. La preocupación en la zona va en aumento
Translation (Family Survival Protocol) :
Patches of white appearing on the oceans surface show signs of the underwater activity near the Island of El Hierro. The uptick in seismic activity increasing the anxiety levels of those in the area.
Following days of almost continual earthquakes, residents of the small Canary island of El Hierro are once again living in fear of a volcanic eruption as their island begins to lift.
According to the National Geographic Institute of Spain, increases in seismic activity on the island has seen literally hundreds of earthquakes, known as a swarm, shaking the island and gradually increasing in strength since June 25. Around 750 earthquakes have been recorded although few have been strong enough to be felt by the residents until the last two days The island has been placed on yellow alert by the security committee in charge of operations as the earthquakes increase. The largest so far was registered at 4.0 on the Richter scale on Wednesday June 27. More frightening for the approximately 10,000 residents is the fact that a bulge has developed in the island, lifting it five centimetres in four days. Whereas the volcanic activity of 2011 was based out at sea, this time the magma appears to be forming right underneath the island and the pressure is building. Scientists on the island are using the position of the earthquake epicentres to try and work out where the magma from the volcano will come to the surface.The longer it takes to find a vent, the more the pressure from the magma will grow and the larger any possible eruption is likely to be. Earthquake Report says that PEVOLCA (Civil Protection from Volcanic Risk) has said that there is an acceleration in the flow of magma, with a “clear process of inflation”. As reported by Digital Journal on June 25, the island suffered serious seismic activity last year, resulting in an undersea volcanic cone as can be seen in the video. However, over time, the activity died down and it was thought by experts that was the end of the event. The research vessel ‘Hesperides’ which had been investigating went home and the live cameras were turned off. Now the ‘Hesperides’ is hurrying back to the island but the cameras have not as yet been turned back on. The website Decoded Science, in an article by Jennifer Young, explains how magma chambers work and how scientists are processing information from volcanoes to learn more about predicting possible eruptions. It is this activity that the scientists on the ‘Hesperides’, in conjunction with those on the island itself, will be studying in an effort to try and predict if and when the volcano under El Hierro will erupt. Official reports have been few and far between and the Spanish media has concentrated rather more on the football and the economy than the volcano growing under one of Spain’s most popular holiday destinations, just as the season gets into full swing.
HASTINGS NE
TOPEKA KS
KANSAS CITY/PLEASANT HILL MO
WILMINGTON OH
INDIANAPOLIS IN
SPRINGFIELD MO
PHOENIX AZ
TULSA OK
WICHITA KS
MOUNT HOLLY NJ
GOODLAND KS
In the past week, 1,011 records have been broken around the country, including 251 new daily high temperature records on Tuesday.
Tulsa tied its calendar day record high for June 25, 105 degrees, on Monday.
The heat is creating consequences ranging from the catastrophic to the comical, from wildfires in the Rocky Mountains to frying bacon on an Oklahoma sidewalk.
If forecasts hold, more records could fall in the coming days in the central and western parts of the country.
University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver says the current heat wave “is bad now by our current definition,” but that this will be “far more common in the years ahead.”
No matter where you are this week, the objective is the same: stay cool.
PTI | 08:06 PM,Jun 27,2012 New Delhi, Jun 27 (PTI) The sweltering heat wave that had much of North India in a stranglehold for over two months eased marginally today with sporadic showers in many places pushing down the mercury level. A brief spell of light rains in capital Delhi, however, failed to bring much relief with the mercury level stubbornly staying above normal. The maximum temperature was recorded at 40.2 degrees Celsius, three notches above normal, while the minimum settled at 31 degrees Celsius. After simmering for over a month under an intense hot spell, the desert state of Rajasthan heaved a sigh of relief with the mercury level dropping marginally in many places. Churu remained the hottest in the state with a day temperature of 42.3 degrees Celsius, while SriGanganagar and Bikaner recorded maximums of 41.6 and 39.7 degrees Celsius respectively. According to the MeT department the temperature in many parts of the state dropped below 40 degrees Celsius, bringing respite to people. Kota, Barmer and Jaipur recorded a high of 39.4, 39 and 38.7 degrees Celsius respectively, it said. The heat wave ebbed marginally in Punjab and Haryana as well with the temperature recording a drop of up to three notches. However, a high humidity level of up to 60 per cent played spoilsport and forced most people to remain indoors. Amritsar was the hottest in the region with a high of 41.2 degrees Celsius, three notches above normal, while Hisar and Ludhiana recorded maximums of 40.6 degrees and 38.7 degrees Celsius respectively, both a notch each above normal. Among other places, temperatures at Ambala and Patiala settled at an identical high of 38.1 degrees Celsius, a degree above normal, while Chandigarh saw a maximum of 37 degrees Celsius
The Waldo Canyon Fire rages underneath of a starlit sky near Boulder, Colo., on June 27, 2012. This photo was tweeted by 57@UN.
A lack of drenching rainfall could continue through much of the summer over Colorado and neighboring areas, adding to wildfire woes.
While there has been some thunderstorm activity of late in the region, not enough rain will fall over a broad enough area to significantly impact tinder-dry conditions.
In many cases the storms have brought and will continue to bring little or no rainfall in the weeks ahead.
The air over the region is much too dry to allow the rain falling at cloud level in the storm to reach the ground.
What happens is that the evaporating rain cools the air, which then races to the ground in the form of strong gusts. In turn, the gusty winds generated nearby from the storms fan the flames of existing fires, while lightning strikes from the storms threaten to start new fires.
According to Paul Pastelok, head of AccuWeather.com’s Long Range Experts, “It appears the zone of high pressure over the region now will last through much of July and could continue through much of August.”
Pastelok pointed out that some moisture will continue and may increase over the Southwest in general in the coming weeks, but it will tend to “go around” rather than through most of Colorado.
Pastelok is referring to the phenomenon known to locals as the monsoon, which brings more humid air up from Mexico, and produces thunderstorm activity.
“It is possible a non-monsoon feature with a more liberal amount of showers and thunderstorms may swing from Texas to New Mexico next week, but only the southern part of Colorado would be grazed,” Pastelok said.
Otherwise, the region will have to wait until the high pressure area breaks down or shifts position and shorter days with lower sun intensity assist with matters.
While temperatures will occasionally throttle back in coming weeks, the overall massive heat pump will remain in place over Colorado through the middle of summer.
Even in areas that manage to get a couple of rainfalls of 0.10 of an inch from one of the spotty thunderstorms the next week or so, long sun-filled days and evaporation rates of 0.25 to 0.50 of an inch per day will rapidly trump rainfall.
Are You Prepared For The Coming Economic Collapse And The Next Great Depression?
As America watches large sections of Colorado literally burn to the ground, many are wondering why all of this is happening. There have always been wildfires, but what we are experiencing now seems very unusual. So is the number of wildfires in the United States increasing? As you will see later in this article, the answer is yes. 2011 was a record setting year for wildfires and this wildfire season is off to a very frightening start. Right now the eyes of the nation are focused on the Waldo Canyon Fire in Colorado. It doubled in size overnight and it has consumed more than 300 homes so far. It is threatening the city of Colorado Springs, and at this point more than 35,000 people have been forced to evacuate – including the U.S. Air Force Academy. On Twitter and Facebook residents are describing what they are seeing as “the apocalypse” and as “the end of the world”. But this is just the beginning of the wildfire season. We haven’t even gotten to July and August yet.
The Waldo Canyon fire is rapidly becoming one of the most expensive and destructive wildfires in Colorado history. The historic Flying W Ranch has already been burned totally to the ground by this fire. Local authorities are struggling to find the words to describe how nightmarish this fire is. The following are a couple of quotes from a CNN article….
Richard Brown, the Colorado Springs fire chief, described it as a “firestorm of epic proportions.”
Gov. John Hickenlooper surveyed the Waldo Canyon Fire, telling reporters it was a difficult sight to see.
“There were people’s homes burned to the ground. It was surreal,” he said late Tuesday night. “There’s no question, it’s serious. It’s as serious as it gets.”
But this is not the only wildfire that is raging in Colorado. Right now there are 10 wildfires burning in the state. Overall, there are 33 large wildfires currently burning in twelve U.S. states.
If you will remember, New Mexico just experienced one of the worst wildfires that it has ever seen. Conditions throughout most of the western United States are ideal for wildfires right now. As USA Today reports, much of the western half of the country is under a “red flag warning” right now….
Throughout the interior West, firefighters have toiled for days in searing, record-setting heat against fires fueled by prolonged drought. Most, if not all, of Utah, Colorado, Wyoming and Montana were under red flag warnings, meaning extreme fire danger.
But wait, didn’t this kind of thing happen last year too?
Yes it did.
In fact, 2011 was one of the worst years ever for wildfires in America. The following is a short excerpt from an EarthSky article….
Thousands of wildfires raged across the United States last year, 2011, burning a record amount of land, especially in the southern U.S. In fact, 2011 the third-most-active fire season since 1960 (when this record-keeping began) with respect to acres burned, according to preliminary data released from the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) in late December 2011. The NIFC will be releasing an official summary report detailing the 2011 wildfire season later in 2012, but for now you can read some of the details in the State of the Climate Wildfires 2011 report from NOAA.
During 2011, a total of 73,484 wildfires burned an estimated 8,706,852 acres (35,235 square kilometers) of land across the United States. Wildfire activity during 2011 was exceptionally high and was only exceeded in the historical record by wildfire activity during the years 2006 and 2007.
We have seen highly unusual wildfire activity throughout America in recent years. In the article quoted above you can find a chart which shows that wildfire activity in the United States has been far above normal during the past decade.
Wildfire records have only been kept since 1960. The 6 worst years on record for wildfires in the U.S. have all happened since the year 2000. The following is from an Earth Island Journal article that I found….
In the United States, where some of the most accurate wildfire statistics are kept, the six worst fire seasons in the past 50 years have occurred since 2000. In Texas, nearly 4 million acres were burned in 2011, double the previous record. This included the Bastrop Fire last September that destroyed 1,600 homes and became the most destructive fire in Texas history. In Arizona more than one million acres were burned in 2011, a new record. The Wallow Fire, which destroyed nearly a half million acres, was the largest fire in Arizona history. The Pagami Creek Fire in northern Minnesota became the third largest fire in state history when it burned 100,000 acres in September 2011, most of this in an unprecedented 16-mile run on a single day.
Arkansas Forestry Commission crews are battling a forest fire in central Arkansas. Commission spokeswoman Sheila Doughty says crews were dispatched to the area Thursday afternoon but she didn’t know the blaze’s size or whether any structures were in its path. In Little Rock, two firefighters were hurt while helping battle a fire that began in an unoccupied house and spread to the surrounding grass. Capt. Jason Weaver says crews were called to the residence near Cantrell Road about 2:44 p.m. and had both fires extinguished around 5 p.m. While battling the fire, Weaver says one firefighter fell through a deck but wasn’t seriously injured. Another firefighter suffered an ankle injury and was transported to a hospital for treatment.
Today
Forest / Wild Fire
USA
State of South Dakota, [Black Hills National Forest]
The 300-acre Dakota Fire amassed a tower of smoke above the Black Hills on Wednesday as firefighters worked on the forest floor to secure its perimeter. The smell of smoke settled over Sheridan Lake as plumes rose above the trees. Wednesday’s cloud cover and a lack of trees infested with mountain pine beetles kept the Black Hills National Forest fire out of the trees and easier to control, Jared Hohn, assistant fire management officer for the Hell Canyon Ranger District, said. “It’s not decimating the timber,” he said. “It’s actually just having a ground fire, for the most part.” Reaching 30 percent containment by midday, fire crews worked to surround the blaze north of Sheridan Lake with a fire line but opted to push the perimeter out farther to avoid potentially dangerous and steep terrain, Hohn said. Hohn expected that firefighters would bring the Dakota Fire to under 50 percent containment by the end of Wednesday and complete the fire line around the perimeter. “If we’re able to accomplish the burnout, we’ll have the fire in a fairly secure manner,” Hohn said. Once the burnout of the interior is completed, the Dakota Fire will be about 500 acres, as long the fire line holds, he said.Evacuation warnings were issued to 18 homes in the area, according to Rapid City-Pennington County Emergency Management, but the fire was not immediately threatening any structures Wednesday, Hohn said. The cause of the fire is under investigation. There were reports of lightning in the area before the fire was reported Tuesday, according to Dave Slepnikoff, acting ranger for the Mystic Ranger District. On Wednesday, 15 fire personnel, a Bear Mountain hand crew, a South Dakota Wildland Fire Suppression Division hand crew, two Forest Service dozers, one helicopter and three Forest Service engines worked the fire. Rapid Valley, Black Hawk, North Haines, Rockerville and Whispering Pines volunteer fire departments also assisted. A type II fire team on standby in Denver was expected to arrive Wednesday night to take over operations from the local type III team, Hohn said. The large number of fire resources battling Colorado’s blazes makes it difficult to bring in heavier firefighting power. “We have a lot of outstanding orders that we’re trying to work on,” Hohn said. “It would be nice to have a couple more resources, but with the things we have right now, we’re doing the best we can with the adequate resources we have.” On Wednesday, fire officials shut down Sheridan Lake Recreation Complex sites on the north shore — the beach, boat ramp, marina, group campground and picnic ground — to ensure firefighter and public safety while a helicopter filled its bucket, Slepnikoff said.The south boat launch is also closed, along with the Flume Trail and Centennial Trail between Upper Spring Creek Trailhead and Calumet Point. The south shore family campground, beach and picnic ground remain open. Slepnikoff urged the public to be cautious in the Black Hills and to forgo campfires if possible, especially during this week’s high temperatures. He said an unattended illegal campfire was found Wednesday morning on the Flume Trail by a hiker and had to be put out by firefighters. “If you don’t need a campfire, don’t have one, even in the campgrounds,” Slepnikoff said. “The campgrounds are no different than the rest of the forest: They catch on fire.”
Unusually hot and dry conditions this summer have turned the green hills of Himachal Pradesh into a tinderbox – literally. Forest wealth estimated at well over Rs 2 crore (over $400,000) spread over 20,000 hectares has been destroyed in forest fires in just two months this year. A forest department official said the prolonged dry spell, particularly in the mid and low hills, has led to widespread forest fires. Now, the delay in the arrival of monsoon has further aggravated the situation. “More than 20,000 hectares of forest has been destroyed in the wild fires till date. This time the damage to forests is more than 10 times compared to last year’s loss of 1,758 hectares,” Avtar Singh, Chief Conservator (Forest Protection and Fire Control), told IANS. The loss to the forest wealth this season was estimated at Rs.2.44 crore, whereas it was just Rs.43 lakh last year. The total forest loss in 2010 was 7,654 hectares in the state, while it was 24,849 hectares in 2009. Records of the forest department say 22 percent or 8,267 sq km of the total forest area in the state is fire-prone. “The last few days (of the peak summer) are quite challenging. Huge tracts of forest near our village have literally turned into a tinderbox. We are praying for timely showers to end the long dry spell,” said Jeevan Lal, who is settled on the outskirts of Dharampur town in Solan district.Forest officials said most fire incidents are deliberate acts. The local villagers also tend to set grasslands afire to get softer grass after the rains. In most cases, the fire from grasslands spreads to nearby forests. NGO Nature Watch India national convener Rajeshwar Negi, who is based in Shimla, said earlier, fires were mostly confined to pine forests, but now even oak and deodar forests have been experiencing fires. Billowing smoke from the hills of Kasauli, Chail, Dharampur and Shimla towns have become common these days. “It’s simply an ecological disaster. From wild animals to birds to thousands of reptiles to fully grown deodar, Himalayan oak and pine trees, all are simply vanishing due to government callousness,” he said. Sadly, the forest department, he said, has stopped doing its annual ritual of controlled forest fires and clearing of fire lines ahead of the fire season. Citing reports of the Forest Survey of India (FSI), Negi said 100 percent of forest fires in the state are caused by human interference. “The state has no mechanism to restrict human activity. There is a provision under which rights of villagers can be curtailed if they fail to assist the forest department in extinguishing forest fires, but it has not been enforced,” he added. Contrary to Negi, the forest department said besides clearing fire lines and controlled fires ahead of the fire season, it’s involving the locals to counter the fires. Chief conservator Singh said over 100 self-help groups comprising villagers have been formed in Hamirpur, Sirmaur, Shimla, Kangra, Bilaspur and Una districts, where most of the wildfire incidents are being reported. “Every day, the groups patrol the forests to check fire incidents. Such exercises have been on every year during peak summer since 2008.” “Hot spots have been identified. We prefer to stay there till sunset. In the evening, another group of villagers, mainly male adults, replaces us. In case of a fire, we report to the forest guards and other villagers,” said Preeti Verma, a leader of a group from Bamson village in Hamirpur district, where the maximum number of fire incidents have been reported this year. According to the Forest Survey of India report of 2009, Himachal Pradesh has 37,033 sq km of forest area, out of which 3,224 sq km is very dense forest.
TEPCO, the operator of Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, said Wednesday record amounts of radiation had been detected in the basement of reactor number 1, further hampering clean-up operations.
TEPCO took samples from the basement after lowering a camera and surveying instruments through a drain hole in the basement ceiling.
Radiation levels above radioactive water in the basement reached up to 10,300 millisievert an hour, a dose that will kill humans within a short time after making them sick within minutes.
The annual allowed dose for workers at the stricken site is reached in only 20 seconds.
“Workers cannot enter the site and we must use robots for the demolition,” said TEPCO.
The Fukushima operator said that radiation levels were 10 times higher than those recorded at the plant’s two other crippled reactors, number two and three.
This was due to the poor state of the nuclear fuel in the reactor compared to that in the two others.
The meltdown at the core of three of Fukushima’s six reactors occurred after the March 11, 2011 earthquake and ensuing massive tsunami shut off the power supply and cooling system.
Demolition of the three reactors as well as the plant’s number 4 unit is expected to take 40 years and will need the use of new technologies.
One of Wisconsin’s three nuclear reactors stopped operating Wednesday night after a problem developed with the plant’s turbine. The problem with the Point Beach reactor occurred shortly before 9 p.m., according to a report that NextEra Energy Services filed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The problem took place on the non-nuclear side of the plant and did not pose any safety risks, the company said. NextEra told the NRC that it shut down the reactor and that all safety-related equipment to cool the nuclear reactor operated without problems. The cause of the problem is being investigated, said Sara Cassidy, spokesman for NextEra. “We’ll get it back up as soon as we find out what the issue is and get it safely returned to service,” she said. The reactor is offline during what is projected to be the hottest day of the year, but Wisconsin and Midwest utilities had ample power supply to meet rising demand for power. The other reactor at Point Beach was generating at full power Thursday, as was the nearby Kewanuee Power Station, according to the NRC. Point Beach’s electricity is sold to Milwaukee-based We Energies, WPPI Energy of Sun Prairie and Missouri River Energy Services of Sioux Falls, S.D. “The safety equipment functioned as we expected it to during the shutdown,” said Viktoria Mitlyng, spokeswoman for the NRC’s regional office near Chicago. “Our senior resident inspector was at the plant until midnight making sure things were functioning as they were supposed to with the safety equipment.”
State of New Mexico, [Rio Arriba and Taos counties]
Epidemic Hazard in USA on Friday, 29 June, 2012 at 02:57 (02:57 AM) UTC.
Description
A 9-year-old girl who had not been vaccinated against measles is the first case of the contagious disease in the state since early last year. The New Mexico Department of Health reported it is now working with the girl’s family to identify people who may be been exposed to the disease to prevent more cases. The girl had contacts in both Rio Arriba and Taos counties, according to the DOH. “This case should serve as a reminder to all of us to keep our immunizations up to date, especially when it comes to children,” state Secretary of Health Dr. Catherine Torres said in a statement released by the DOH. “Immunizations are the best tool we have to protect people from serious and potentially life-threatening diseases.” The last confirmed case of measles in New Mexico was reported in February 2011. The DOH described measles as a highly contagious disease easily transmitted from one person to another via droplets or through the air.
Biohazard name:
Measles
Biohazard level:
3/4 Hight
Biohazard desc.:
Bacteria and viruses that can cause severe to fatal disease in humans, but for which vaccines or other treatments exist, such as anthrax, West Nile virus, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, SARS virus, variola virus (smallpox), tuberculosis, typhus, Rift Valley fever, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, yellow fever, and malaria. Among parasites Plasmodium falciparum, which causes Malaria, and Trypanosoma cruzi, which causes trypanosomiasis, also come under this level.
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Fifty four victims of food poisoning in Gatakawa village in Kankara Local Government Area of Katsina State have survived food poisoning. The Chief Nursing Officer of the Kankara General Hospital, Mr Joshua Danjuma, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday, in Kankara, that they were brought to the hospital same day and put on admission. He said the victims reportedly consumed a local cake prepared with treated beans meant for planting. “The beans had been mixed with chemicals and prepared to be used as seeds but was bought by a woman who prepares bean cake for sale.’’ Danjuma said that all the victims had survived what could have been a tragedy after series of medications, stressing that they were admitted at the stage of convulsion. He said the victims, who included school children and adults, were brought to the clinic unconscious with most of them vomiting and excreting some substances. Danjuma said that samples of the flesh of animals, which died after drinking the water used in washing the beans, had been taken to Katsina for further medical test. He said that a medical team from the state government also assisted in treating the victims. Danjuma said the last four patients were discharged from the hospital on Thursday. The Primary Health Care Coordinator of Kanakara Local Government Area, Alhaji Sani Kusada, confirmed the incident. He said the victims were supported with drugs and other items needed to contain the situation. Kusada commended the effort of the caretaker committee chairman of the area, Alhaji Abduhadi Abdullahi, as well as the health workers for promptly responding to the situation. He also urged the people to be vigilant and report such problems to the health centre immediately. NAN recalled that a similar incident had occurred on June 4, in Kafur Local Government where 26 persons consumed locally-made food (Tuwo) prepared with treated guinea corn.
Biohazard name:
Mass. Food Poisoning
Biohazard level:
2/4 Medium
Biohazard desc.:
Bacteria and viruses that cause only mild disease to humans, or are difficult to contract via aerosol in a lab setting, such as hepatitis A, B, and C, influenza A, Lyme disease, salmonella, mumps, measles, scrapie, dengue fever, and HIV. “Routine diagnostic work with clinical specimens can be done safely at Biosafety Level 2, using Biosafety Level 2 practices and procedures. Research work (including co-cultivation, virus replication studies, or manipulations involving concentrated virus) can be done in a BSL-2 (P2) facility, using BSL-3 practices and procedures. Virus production activities, including virus concentrations, require a BSL-3 (P3) facility and use of BSL-3 practices and procedures”, see Recommended Biosafety Levels for Infectious Agents.
Wreckage found on an Alaskan glacier is the remains of a missing Air Force plane that crashed in the 1950s, killing all 52 people on board.
Authorities revealed today the site has been identified after it was discovered on Knik Glacier near Anchorage earlier this month.
It means the victims’ families may finally get answers as to why their loved ones died nearly 60 years on from the tragedy.
Specialised team: Team members from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command and Northern Warefare Training Center, searches for aircraft wreckage on Knik Glacier near Anchorage, Alaska
Joint POW-MIA Accounting Command spokesperson Captain Jamie Dobson said the wreckage is of a Douglas C-124A Globemaster II.
The Korean War-era Air Force cargo plane crashed on November 22, 1952, NBC station KTUU of Anchorage reported.
It was found on June 10 on Colony Glacier, around 45 miles east of Anchorage, by a UH-60 Blackhawk crew with the Alaska Army National Guard.
While evidence collected by the eight-man team is en route to JPAC’s Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii for further analysis, Cpt Dobson said the plane was identifiable by materials found at the scene.
Identified: Captain Jamie Dobson said the wreckage spotted was that of a Douglas C-124A Globemaster II. The Korean War-era Air Force cargo plane went missing on November 22
‘Some of the evidence has already been positively correlated with this crash,’ Cpt Dobson told KTUU.
Harsh weather prevented a recovery at the time and later the authorities could not locate it.
The Globemaster II entered Air Force service in 1950 as the world’s largest transport plane.
Its forward loading ramp and aft cargo elevator, as well as its ability to carry 68,500 pounds of cargo or 200 passengers on two decks of seating, made it the Air Force’s primary heavy-lift transport into the early 1960s.
Workhorse: The Douglas C-124C Globemaster II was the largest transport aircraft when it was introduced into service in 1950
In action: Seen here in the Korean War the aircraft’s unique front-loading system allowed for 68,000lbs of cargo or 200 passengers seated on two decks
The four-propeller transport was eventually replaced by the C-141 Starlifter jet, but its name lives on in Alaska skies with the C-17 Globemaster III, operated by the 517th Airlift Squadron at Anchorage’s Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson.
Crash researcher Tonja Anderson, whose grandfather Airman Isaac Anderson died in the crash, told KTUU the cargo plane was on a flight from McChord Air Force Base in Washington to Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage when it crashed near the 8,000ft level of Mount Gannett.
Locator map: The crash site area is on Knik Glacier near Anchorage, Alaska
Just after a violent flare on its parent star bathed it in intense X-ray radiation, the planet’s atmosphere gave off a powerful burst of evaporation.
Astronomer Alain Lecavelier des Etangs (CNRS-UPMC, France) and his team used Hubble to observe the atmosphere of exoplanet HD 189733b during two periods in early 2010 and late 2011, as it was silhouetted against its parent star.
While backlit in this way, the planet’s atmosphere imprints its chemical signature on the starlight, allowing astronomers to decode what is happening on scales that are too tiny to image directly.The observations were carried out in order to confirm what the team had previously seen once before in a different planetary system: the evaporation of an exoplanet’s atmosphere (heic0403).HD 189733b has a blue sky, but that’s where the similarities with Earth stop.
The planet is a huge gas giant similar to Jupiter, but it lies extremely close to its star, just one thirtieth the distance Earth is from the Sun.
Even though its star is slightly smaller and cooler than the Sun, this makes the planet’s climate exceptionally hot, at above 1000 degrees Celsius, and the upper atmosphere is battered by energetic extreme-ultraviolet and X-ray radiation.
As such, it is an excellent candidate to study the effects of a star on a planetary atmosphere.
“The first set of observations were actually disappointing,” Lecavelier says, “since they showed no trace of the planet’s atmosphere at all. We only realised we had chanced upon something more interesting when the second set of observations came in.”
Artist’s impression of exoplanet HD 189733b as it passes in front of its parent star. Credit: NASA, ESA, L. Calçada
The team’s follow-up observations, made in 2011, showed a dramatic change, with clear signs of a plume of gas being blown from the planet at a rate of at least 1000 tonnes per second. “We hadn’t just confirmed that some planets’ atmospheres evaporate,” Lecavelier explains, “we had watched the physical conditions in the evaporating atmosphere vary over time.
Nobody had done that before.”
The next question was: why the change?
Despite the extreme temperature of the planet, the atmosphere is not hot enough to evaporate at the rate seen in 2011. Instead the evaporation is thought to be driven by the intense X-ray and extreme-ultraviolet radiation from the parent star, HD 189733A, which is about 20 times more powerful than that of our own Sun. Taking into account also that HD 189733b is a giant planet very close to its star, then it must suffer an X-ray dose 3 million times higher than the Earth.
What HD 189733b could look like – Artist’s impression of a giant hot exoplanet. (Courtesy: Spitzer Space Telescope).
Evidence to support X-ray driven evaporation comes from simultaneous observations of HD 189733A with the Swift satellite, which, unlike Hubble, can observe the star’s atmosphere-frying X-rays. A few hours before Hubble observed the planet for the second time, Swift recorded a powerful flash of radiation coming from the surface of the star, in which the star briefly became 4 times brighter in X-rays.
“X-ray emissions are a small part of the star’s total output, but it is the part that it is energetic enough to drive the evaporation of the atmosphere,” explains Peter Wheatley (University of Warwick, UK), one of the co-authors of the study.
“This was the brightest X-ray flare from HD 189733A of several observed to date, and it seems very likely that the impact of this flare on the planet drove the evaporation seen a few hours later with Hubble.”
X-rays are energetic enough to heat the gas in the upper atmosphere to tens of thousands of degrees, hot enough to escape the gravitational pull of the giant planet. A similar process occurs, albeit less dramatically, when a space weather event such as a solar flare hits the Earth’s ionosphere, disrupting communications. While the team believes that the flash of X-rays is the most likely cause of the atmospheric changes they saw on HD 189733b, there are other possible explanations.
For example, it may be that the baseline level of X-ray emission from the star increased between 2010 and 2011, in a seasonal process similar to the Sun’s 11-year sunspot cycle.
Regardless of the details of exactly what happened to HD 189733b’s atmosphere, which the team hope to clarify using future observations with Hubble and ESA’s XMM-Newton X-ray space telescope, there is no question that the planet was hit by a stellar flare, and no question that the rate of evaporation of the planet’s atmosphere shot up.
This research has relevance not only for the study of Jupiter-like planets. Several recent discoveries of rocky “super Earths” near their parent stars are thought to be the remnants of planets like HD 189733b, after the complete evaporation of their atmospheres.
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The popularity of US President Barak Obama is continuing to decrease. Recently, another scandal broke out which made it decrease further. It has become known that the US secret services had failed an operation against the Mexican mafia. However, for some reason, Mr. Obama is trying to hush up the details of the unsuccessful operation.
The governor of Texas Rick Perry has compared these attempts of Mr. Obama to the notorious attempts of President Nixon to hush up the Watergate scandal.
Mr. Perry, probably, really has the right to say so. The fact itself that the secret services failed this operation works against the popularity of the current US president. It seems to be understood by everybody that the best thing to keep a good reputation after making a mistake is to openly acknowledge it and to apologize for it. But the US administration, for some reason, has chosen the worst scenario – the policy of hushing up the details of this mistake.
The operation, called “Fast and Furious,” was carried out by the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. It was planned that agents of this bureau, under the guise of weapon smugglers, would sell weapons to Mexican criminal groups, and, then, catch them red-handed.
The first part of this plan was successful. A big amount of weapons was really sold to the Mexican mafia. However, it turned out that not all the criminals were caught red-handed. Moreover, the largest part of these weapons remained in the hands of criminals. Two Kalashnikov guns from this lot were found at the place of the murder of US border guard Brian Terry. It was also found out that other weapons from this lot had also been used for a number of murders in Mexico.
An investigation of this case started in the US. However, some details of this case looked so scandalous for certain high-ranking US politicians that they tried to hamper this investigation.
For example, recently, the House of Representatives demanded that the US Attorney General Eric Holder should be charged of lack of respect for the Congress. The reason for that is that Mr. Holder has concealed several documents concerning the failed operation with weapons from the Department of Justice. For some reason, President Obama, instead of ordering to make the documents concealed by Mr. Holder public, ordered to further keep them secret. (It is in the US laws that the president has the right for an individual decision of putting a label of secrecy on any documents.) This decision of Mr. Obama made many people suspect that these documents really hold something which the US authorities prefer not to reveal.
For Republicans, this was another chance to criticize their perpetual opponents, the Democrats. As it has already been mentioned, the governor of Texas Rick Perry compared this story with the Watergate scandal.
The name “Watergate scandal” refers to the notorious scandal of 1972, when the Republican Party was accused of setting eavesdropping devices in rooms occupied by Democrats in the Watergate Hotel in Washington. As a result of that scandal, US President Richard Nixon, a Republican, had to retire.
Rick Perry stresses that the Watergate scandal, for all its ugliness from the moral point of view, was, in fact, a minor accident in comparison with the failure of the operation “Fast and Furious.” This failure may have presented a serious threat for the security of the whole US, Mr. Perry insists.
The failure of the operation was a serious mistake for President Obama’s administration – but the attempts to hush up its details were probably a not lesser mistake. At present, when President Obama’s popularity is catastrophically declining, such mistakes are something what Mr. Obama needs less of all. Such mistakes may make many of those who voted for Barack Obama refrain from voting for him again at the coming presidential elections.
In fact, Mr. Obama has fulfilled very few, if any, of his promises of his first pre-election campaign. In 2008, he promised to bring order into the country’s home policy. Now, when his first (and, probably, the only) presidential term is nearly over, the US has managed to spoil the relations with Pakistan, which used to be probably the US’s most reliable partner in the whole Moslem world.
During his first pre-election campaign, Barack Obama promised to do away with the legacy of the gloomy epoch of George W. Bush – the notorious prisons for POWs. However, the prisons are still functioning. Besides, Mr. Obama is risking to lose the respect of the Hispanic population of the US because of his inability to resist the adoption of stricter laws of control over immigration. Recently, Mr. Obama abolished a number of tough anti-immigrant laws in the Alabama state, but did not abolish the right of the state’s authorities to check documents of people who are suspected of violating the US laws on immigration. However, initially, Mr. Obama promised to totally abolish such checking, saying that this practice runs counter to the US constitution.
But these are not the only reasons for the US citizens to be dissatisfied with President Obama. Many Americans believe that it is the ineffectual policy of the Republican Party, of which Mr. Obama is a member, that has drawn the country into a deep financial crisis. However, the Republicans are now trying to make President Obama a scapegoat for this.
Only a miracle can help Barack Obama to regain his former popularity again. But miracles, as a rule, happen very rarely.
Unilateral withdrawal, by consent
Cautious, incremental unilateral actions by Israel will pave the way for a two-state solution.
By Gilead Sher
HAARETZ
Retired army officers and politicians have criticized the “land for peace” idea in general and unilateral action in particular. For example, in an opinion published in Haaretz on June 5, Moshe Arens argued, “Israeli leadership suffers from unilateral withdrawal syndrome.”
The strategy of unilateral withdrawal combined with the “land for peace” paradigm has been used time and again despite the harm it has caused Israel, Arens argued.
But what is the alternative?
Last week, an exhibition of work by Israeli artist Larry Abramson called “1967″ opened at the Gordon Gallery in Tel Aviv. Death notices of soldiers that fell during the Six Day War peer out from paint-smeared editions of Haaretz from the time. Alongside the death notices are headlines, such as “IDF Powerfully Strikes Arab Aggressor,” and ads calling for the annexation of the territories.
The exhibition leaves the impression that the 45 years since the Six Day War have brought us no closer to fulfilling the Zionist dream of a nation-state founded on the principles of equality and democracy. In the seventh decade since its establishment, Israel has neither recognized borders nor a constitution, both of which are vital to ensuring its identity as a Zionist and democratic state for the Jewish people.
BRUSSELS – Another European treaty. Another Irish referendum. Once again the main political parties, somewhat battle weary, join forces to argue Yes. Sinn Fein and Declan Ganley, the maverick federalist, campaign for a No.
Most voters evince no or little knowledge about what the referendum is officially about ‑ the Treaty on Stability, Co-ordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union, or fiscal compact treaty for short. Come polling day, 31 May, many may not vote.
The significance of the Irish referendum seems also to have escaped Ireland’s EU partners.
Pierre Moscovici, France’s new minister of finance, speaks blithely about changing the treaty. The German Bundestag has postponed its own ratification of the treaty from 25 May until after the Greek elections on 17 June. For the moment, the SDP and Greens are happy to play domestic electoral politics with ratification by depriving Chancellor Angela Merkel of the two-thirds majority she needs.
These second thoughts about the treaty in Paris and Berlin are distinctly unhelpful to the Irish Yes cause. Such cavalier treatment of the Irish voter is rightly resented in Ireland.
The rest of Europe should have learned by now that Ireland’s verdict is very important. The opinion polls give the Yes side a lead but, as always in referendums, the gap narrows. What is really at stake?
The fiscal compact treaty was conceived at the December European Council in the teeth of British opposition. It is not, of course, another European Union treaty, but works by explicit analogy with them, respecting EU competences and seeking to deploy EU institutions.
It is an archetypal confederal treaty, committing the governments which sign it to a course of action which, in the event, they may choose not to pursue without formal penalty. The price of confederacy is high moral hazard.
The European Commission may help to implement the fiscal compact treaty, but cannot use its full powers vested under the EU treaties.
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) is enjoined to act at the behest of one member state against another according to Article 273 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU in a dispute “which relates to the subject matter of the [EU] Treaties.”
Offenders who commit crimes linked to the Olympic Games will face “instant justice” as courts extend their working hours and set up “virtual” hearings to fast-track convictions.
Criminals committing offences linked to the Olympics will be dealt with swiftly, the CPS has promised
The Crown Prosecution Service has vowed to learn the lessons of last summer’s riots to deal with criminals swiftly, ensuring they are charged within hours.
Prosecutors will be on call 24 hours a day to assist, with courts sitting between 8am and 7.30pm, according to plans disclosed by The Times newspaper. The timescale for offences began on May 1 and will run to September 30.
Those alleged to have committed crimes will be assessed under a defined “Olympics offence”, dependent on whether it happened during the Games, at a venue or involved an athlete, spectator or official.
Offenders will also be “beamed” into virtual courts in Camberwell and Bromley using a live video link, to save the time and expense of transporting prisoners and minimise traffic disruption.
Alison Saunders, Chief Crown Prosecutor for London, said: “Many people who come to the Olympics won’t live here, so it is important that if offences are committed we act quickly.
Cypriot President Demetris Christofias (R) meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi in Nicosia, June 26, 2012
Thu Jun 28, 2012 5:56PM GMT
1
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejects claims that the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Iran is included on the list of persons banned of entering or exiting Cyprus (Stop List).”
Statement by the Cyprus Ministry of Foreign Affairs
The Cypriot Ministry of Foreign Affairs has dismissed reports by the Zionist-affiliated media that the Iranian Foreign Minister Dr. Ali Akbar Salehi was detained in Cyprus during a recent visit.
In a statement issued on Thursday, the Cypriot Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied that “any problem was created either on his (Dr. Ali Akbar Salehi’s) arrival or departure.”
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejects claims that the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Iran is included on the list of persons banned of entering or exiting Cyprus (Stop List),” the statement added.
Citing Cypriot media, the Turkish television channel TRT Turk earlier alleged that the Iranian foreign minister had been detained at the airport of Larnaca in Cyprus on Tuesday.
The false report alleged that Salehi had been detained because his name was on the EU sanctions list, but he had been quickly released.
Cypriot authorities have extended their apologies for the misinformation regarding the senior Iranian official.
The fabricated report is yet another manifestation of the seemingly interminable campaign by Western media, especially those affiliated to the Zionist regime of Israel, aimed at tarnishing the image of Iranian authorities and portraying the Islamic Republic in a negative light.
Salehi departed Tehran for the eastern Mediterranean country on Tuesday to hold talks with Cypriot officials, including President Demetris Christofias, on bilateral ties as well as the recent regional and international developments.
“The visit was successful and in accordance with the agreed program,” the Cypriot Foreign Ministry statement said.
Cypriot President Demetris Christofias (R) meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi in Nicosia, June 26, 2012
Thu Jun 28, 2012 1:20PM GMT
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Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast has rejected reports that the country’s Foreign Minister Dr. Ali Akbar Salehi had been briefly detained in Cyprus.
Citing Cypriot media, the Turkish television channel TRT Turk earlier alleged that the Iranian foreign minister had been detained at the airport of Larnaca in Cyprus on Tuesday.
The false report alleged that Salehi had been detained because his name was on the EU sanctions list, but he had been quickly released.
Cypriot authorities have now extended their apologies for the misinformation regarding the senior Iranian official.
The fabricated report is yet another manifestation of the seemingly interminable campaign by Western media aimed at tarnishing the image of Iranian authorities and portraying the Islamic Republic in a negative light.
Salehi had departed Tehran for the eastern Mediterranean country on Tuesday to hold talks with Cypriot officials, including President Demetris Christofias, on bilateral ties as well as the recent regional and international developments.
HMV/HJL/IS
Report: Police intelligence told to target Israeli Arabs joining social protests
Unlike the directives about Jewish demonstrators, which focus on rioters and anarchists, a directive issued to intelligence officers does not specify which type of Arab demonstrators police should watch out for.
Police intelligence officers have been told to collect information about Israeli Arabs who join the social justice protests, Channel 10 reported last night. Police Commissioner Yohanan Danino issued a directive to the police top brass ordering them to document every “involvement of the Arab community in the protests.”
Unlike the directives about Jewish demonstrators, which focus on rioters and anarchists, the section about Arabs does not specify which type of demonstrators police should watch out for, referring only to Arabs in general.
The social protest movement is planning to follow up Thursday’s dissident “Black Night” events with another march in Tel Aviv on Saturday night against government economic policy. Scores of artists, musicians and other performers last night joined in a boycott of the municipality’s annual White Night in a continuation of the protests over police violence against social justice demonstrators.
Marchers will head out from Habima Square for a rally outside the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, where the organizers will present a social economic contract including guidelines for the next state budget. They will call on the government to reduce poverty and inequality, increase the state’s share in the gross domestic product, implement tax reform and strengthen the pension reserves.
Ben-Gurion University Prof. Yossi Yonah, one of the protest leaders’ advisers, and south Tel Aviv activist Itzik Amsalem will be among the rally’s speakers.
File photo shows traders working in the New York Stock Exchange on June 1, 2012.
Stocks in the United States have dropped sharply following a verdict by the US Supreme Court upholding President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform plan which requires all American citizens to obtain health insurance or face a penalty fine.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average went down to 136 points at 12,491, while the bank stocks were hardest hit as the court ruled that the requirement to have health insurance can be construed as a tax.
JPMorgan Chase shares plunged 4.4 percent following a report indicating that its losses from a mismanaged trade could hit USD 9 billion.
Shares of hospital chains jumped, while stocks of major insurance companies fell sharply. UnitedHealth Group declined 3 percent, WellPoint almost 6 percent and AFLAC 1.5 percent.
In other trading, the Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 13 points to 1,319 and the Nasdaq composite index fell 40 points to 2,836. On the Nasdaq, eBay shares fell 3.6 percent, Seagate 5.6 percent, Intel 2.2 percent and Microsoft 1.7 percent.
The reforms, officially known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, were introduced on March 23, 2010, Obama’s first year in the White House.
With a 5-4 decision, the Court’s justices ruled in favor of the reforms on Thursday, saying although the individual mandate was not valid under the US Constitution’s Commerce Clause, it was legal under the US government’s tax powers.
The Court’s ruling is considered a major victory for Obama before the presidential elections in November as the law is intended to spread health insurance coverage to more than 30 million un-insured Americans.
However, the mandate has been severely opposed by 28 Republican-controlled states, as they believe the Obama administration has no right to force people into insurance programs.
TNP/HJL/SS
The Disastrous Consequences of a Euro Crash
REUTERS
As the debt crisis worsens in Spain and Italy, financial experts are warning of the catastrophic consequences of a crash of the euro: the destruction of trillions in assets and record high unemployment levels, even in Germany. By SPIEGEL Staff
It wasn’t long ago that Mario Draghi was spreading confidence and good cheer. “The worst is over,” the head of the European Central Bank (ECB) told Germany’s Bild newspaper only a few weeks ago. The situation in the euro zone had “stabilized,” Draghi said, and “investor confidence was returning.” And because everything seemed to be on track, Draghi even accepted a Prussian spiked helmet from the reporters. Hurrah.
Last week, however, Europe’s chief monetary watchdog wasn’t looking nearly as happy in photos taken in front of a circle of blue-and-yellow stars inside the Euro Tower, the ECB’s Frankfurt headquarters, where he was congratulating the winners of an international student contest. He smiled, shook hands and handed out certificates. But what he had to tell his listeners no longer sounded optimistic. Instead, Draghi sounded deeply concerned and even displayed a touch of resignation. “You are the first generation that has grown up with the euro and is no longer familiar with the old currencies,” he said. “I hope we won’t experience them again.”The fact that Europe’s top central banker is no longer willing to rule out a return to the old national currencies shows how serious the situation is. Until recently, it was seen as a sign of political correctness to not even consider the possibility of a euro collapse. But now that the currency dispute has escalated in Europe, the inconceivable is becoming conceivable, at all levels of politics and the economy.
Collapse of Currency a ‘Very Likely Scenario’
Investment experts at Deutsche Bank now feel that a collapse of the common currency is “a very likely scenario.” German companies are preparing themselves for the possibility that their business contacts in Madrid and Barcelona could soon be paying with pesetas again. And in Italy, former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is thinking of running a new election campaign, possibly this year, on a return-to-the-lira platform.
Nothing seems impossible anymore, not even a scenario in which all members of the currency zone dust off their old coins and bills — bidding farewell to the euro, and instead welcoming back the guilder, deutsche mark and drachma.
It would be a dream for nationalist politicians, and a nightmare for the economy. Everything that has grown together in two decades of euro history would have to be painstakingly torn apart. Millions of contracts, business relationships and partnerships would have to be reassessed, while thousands of companies would need protection from bankruptcy. All of Europe would plunge into a deep recession. Governments, which would be forced to borrow additional billions to meet their needs, would face the choice between two unattractive options: either to drastically increase taxes or to impose significant financial burdens on their citizens in the form of higher inflation.
A horrific scenario would become a reality, a prospect so frightening that it ought to convince every European leader to seek a consensus as quickly as possible. But there can be no talk of consensus today. On the contrary, as the economic crisis worsens in southern Europe, the fronts between governments are only becoming more rigid.
The Italians and Spaniards want Germany to issue stronger guarantees for their debts. But the Germans are only willing to do so if all euro countries transfer more power to Brussels — steps the southern member states, for their part, don’t want to take.
The Patient Is Getting Worse
The discussion has been going in circles for months, which is why the continent’s debtor countries continue to squander confidence, among both the international financial markets and their citizens. No matter what medicine European politicians prescribe, the patient isn’t getting any better. In fact, it’s only getting worse.
For weeks, investors and experts demanded a solution to the Spanish banking crisis, preferably in the form of a cash infusion from the two Luxembourg-based European bailout funds, the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) and the European Stability Mechanism (ESM). When Madrid finally decided to request what could ultimately amount to almost €100 billion ($125 billion), the experts realized that this would suddenly send Spain’s government debt shooting up from 70 to 80 percent. As a result, interest rates started rising instead of falling.
The experience of the last few days describes the entire dilemma faced by European politicians trying to rescue the euro: A step that was intended to provide relief only exacerbated the problem.
The same thing happened with the next proposal, which made the rounds last week. Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti wanted the European bailout funds to intervene on behalf of Spain and Italy to bring down their borrowing costs.
But that would have required the affected countries to submit to a program of reforms, a path Monti and his Spanish counterpart, Mariano Rajoy, want to avoid. They would prefer to have the money without conditions. But the German government is unwilling to accept this, which puts Europe at its next impasse. Furthermore, the rescue strategists’ resources are limited. Although the Luxembourg bailout funds still have more than €600 billion in uncommitted resources, it is already clear that the money would be used up quickly if what many experts now believe is unavoidable came to pass, namely that not just the Spanish banking industry but in fact the entire country required a bailout. The bailout funds would be completely overtaxed if Italy also needed help.
Even ECB Has Largely Exhausted Resources
Until now, the defenders of the euro have been able to resort to the massive funds of the ECB, if necessary. If things got tight, the monetary watchdogs could inject new money into the market.
But now even the ECB has largely exhausted its resources. It has already bought up so much of the sovereign debt of ailing countries that any additional shopping spree threatens to backfire, causing interest rates to explode instead of fall. At the same time, the conflict between Northern and Southern Europe in the ECB Governing Council is heating up. Last week, the head of Spain’s central bank managed to convince the ECB to ease its rules to allow Spanish banks to use even weaker collateral than before in exchange for borrowing money from the ECB. This could set off a tiff with the central bankers from the donor countries, who are loath to look on as the risks in the central bank’s balance sheet continue to grow.Indeed, the European leaders seeking to save the euro are in a race against the clock. The question is whether the economy in Southern Europe will recover before the euro rescuers’ tools are exhausted, or whether it will be too late by the time the recovery arrives. It’s a question of growth and the economy, but also of character. How willing are the Spaniards and Italians to accept reforms and hardship, and how willing, on the other hand, are the donor countries of the north to provide assistance and make sacrifices?
Not willing enough, say many experts. As a result, the world is imagining the unthinkable: the withdrawal of several Southern European countries from the monetary union, or possibly even the general collapse of the euro zone. It isn’t easy to predict how such a tornado would affect the global economy, but it’s clear that the damage would be immense.
Chinese currency Renminbi (RMB) has embarked on a quick internationalization process, and is on the way to become a world payments currency, according to Mark Boleat, Policy Chairman with the City of London Corporation.
Chinese currency Renminbi (RMB), or yuan, has embarked on a quick internationalization process, and is on the way to become a world payments currency, Mark Boleat, Policy Chairman with the City of London Corporation, said in London on Tuesday.In an interview with Xinhua, Boleat said he expected to see the amount of RMB-denominated trade settlement to further increase in the future.
“The internationalization of the Chinese currency is helping to increase trade and investment flows between China and the rest of the world,” he added.
He noted that China had undergone a number of reforms in its financial system over the last decade, including the introduction of the Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor scheme (QFII), and the Qualified Domestic Institutional Investor scheme (QDII) to allow capital flows.
“These sorts of reforms, alongside work to increase international use of the RMB, are important for the development of the Chinese financial system,” he said.
According to a report from the City of London Corporation on Monday, European corporate and institutional investors interested in China welcomed the availability of RMB products and services in London, highlighting benefits of adopting the RMB in cross-border trade settlements with China.
However, commenting on the possibilities for RMB to become a reserve currency internationally, Boleat said it could take a long time.
The RMB may well ultimately become a major global currency on par with the U.S. dollar and the euro, Boleat said. But right now, the focus should be put on increasing the use of the RMB in trade, and on building on Hong Kong’s success in developing RMB investment products.
“This is a big job in itself – becoming a reserve currency could only come when RMB has become an internationally used trade and investment currency.”
Boleat will leave on Tuesday for a seven-day visit in China, during which he will attend a meeting held by the Shanghai International Financial Advisory Council, and is scheduled to speak at the high-profile Lujiazui Forum on RMB internationalization, and on globalisation of the Chinese financial system.
Boleat described the visit to China as an important opportunity for the City of London to engage with key Chinese decision makers and businesses.
“Enhancing the financial sector links between the UK and China, supporting the international usage of the RMB for trade and investment, and promoting London’s role as a western hub for the international RMB market are all priorities of my visit and the City of London’s work with China in the long term.”
BRUSSELS – Cyprus on Monday (25 June) became the fifth euro country to ask for help from the zone’s bailout funds, hours after Spain formalised its request for a bank rescue.
“I welcome the formal application for financial assistance that I have received today from the Cypriot authorities,” Eurogroup chief Jean-Claude Juncker said in a statement, adding that the eurozone finance ministers he presides over will respond “swiftly.”
A “necessary policy conditionality” accompanying the bailout – meaning a reform plan – will be drafted by the EU commission and the European Central Bank.
“This will include measures that will address the main challenges of Cyprus’ economy, primarily those of the financial sector and I expect that Cyprus will engage with strong determination in the required policy actions,” he noted.
Earlier that day, Cyprus suffered another downgrade by Fitch ratings agency, which slashed its rating to BB+ – a “junk” category meaning investors need to take extra risk insurance against a possible Cypriot default.
It remains unclear whether it will be a full-blown bailout, as was the case for Ireland, Portugal and Greece, or limited to the banking sector, as with Spain.
The amount has not been specified either, but EU officials quoted by Reuters say it may be around €10 billion.
The Cypriot banking system has been severely hit by the Greek crisis and the associated debt-restructuring deal.
The tiny country has just four days to raise at least €1.8 billion – equivalent to about 10 percent of its domestic output – to meet an EU deadline in recapitalising Cyprus Popular Bank. The island’s second largest lender saw its balance sheet swamped by bad Greek debt.
Cyprus had earlier angled for a bilateral loan from Russia, with which it has close economic ties.
Last year it received €2.5 billion loan from Moscow following an act of negligence, when 13 people were killed and almost a seventh of the country’s GDP was wiped out in an explosion that destroyed the country’s main power plant.
Spanish troubles
Meanwhile, Spain was the first country to ask for a partial bail-out from the eurozone bail-out funds, a novelty under the funds’ new rules allowing for sectoral bail-outs.
But in the two weeks that passed since it first announced its intention to seek up to €100 billion in aid, Spain has seen its borrowing costs go above the seven-percent threshold considered bail-out territory.
This has fed speculation the Spanish state itself will need to be bailed out.
Adding to the problems, Moody’s ratings agency on Monday downgraded by one to four notches 28 of Spain’s 33 rated banks. The move comes after all three big ratings agencies slashed Spain’s sovereign rating close to “junk.”
At a summit on Thursday, EU leaders are set to look at ways of cutting the link between banks and government debt.
Many Spanish banks having amassed Spanish bonds on their books, while the government itself is dependent on the banks to lower its borrowing costs. But Germany so far has been opposing these moves.
Debt crisis: Angela Merkel dismisses Spain and Italy’s pleas for aid
Pleas from Spain and Italy for urgent financial aid from the eurozone to bring down borrowing costs were dismissed by Angela Merkel as divisions hardened on the eve of a critical summit.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel addresses the Bundestag, the lower house of parliament in Berlin on Wednesday. Before flying last night to Paris for emergency talks with Francois Hollande, the French President, Mrs Merkel told German MPs that instead of more cash the eurozone needed to step up debt reduction and economic reforms. Photo: AFP
Germany’s Chancellor angrily rejected desperate pleading by Italy and Spain as a Franco-German rift over eurozone debt sharing threatened to unravel efforts to find a fix for the single currency at a meeting of European leaders on Thursday.
Before flying last night to Paris for emergency talks with Francois Hollande, the French President, Mrs Merkel told German MPs that instead of more cash the eurozone needed to step up debt reduction and economic reforms.
“I fear that at the summit we will talk too much about all these ideas for joint liability and too little about improved controls and structural measures,” she said.
Mariano Rajoy, the Spanish Prime Minister, said he would plead with other leaders to allow euro bail-out funds or the European Central Bank to stabilise financial markets by helping to reduce borrowing costs, running at nearly 7pc for Spain.
“We can’t keep funding ourselves for a long time at the prices we’re currently funding ourselves,” he said. “There are institutions and also financial entities that cannot access the markets. It is happening in Spain, it is happening in Italy and it is happening in other countries.”
Mortgage holders, credit card users and small businesses may have been charged too much for their loans after one of Britain’s biggest banks admitted systematically rigging financial markets.
The Telegraph
Bob Diamond, the Barclays chief executive, said he will give up his multi-million-pound bonus over the scandal but faced calls to resign Photo: REUTERS
Barclays was fined a record £290 million for repeatedly distorting basic financial data which are used to set interest rates on millions of loans and other transactions around the world.
Bob Diamond, the Barclays chief executive, said he will give up his multi-million-pound bonus over the scandal but faced calls to resign amid claims that his bank’s actions posed a threat to the global market system.
As MPs suggested that a criminal inquiry should be held, financial regulators warned that other major British banks may also have been involved in attempts to manipulate data about interest rates. Up to 40 global banks face being named and shamed as part of the investigation.
The scandal relates to the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor), the interest rate that banks pay on money they borrow from one another.
The Libor rate is one of the basic pieces of information on which trillions of pounds of financial transactions are based. It helps determine the interest rate that is applied to loans, including some mortgages, credit cards and business loans.
Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud has ordered the country’s security forces to go on a state of high alert due to what he calls a ‘turbulent situation’ in the region.
King Abdullah issued the order in a “top secret” letter addressed to the kingdom’s security and intelligence chiefs as well as the ministers of defense and interior.
A copy of the letter, dated June 27, 2012, has been obtained by Press TV.
The decree, calling for preparation against “foreign or terrorist attacks,” warns the Saudi security forces against any negligence in following the order.
The Saudi Defense Ministry consequently put all armed forces on high alert, saying all the forces inside and outside of the kingdom were ready to take part in an operation dubbed as “al-Farouq.”
Saudi Arabia has witnessed anti-regime demonstrations over the past months.
Since February 2011, Saudi protesters have held demonstrations on an almost regular basis in the oil-rich Eastern Province, mainly in the Qatif region and the town of Awamiyah, calling for the release of all political prisoners, freedom of expression and assembly, and an end to widespread discrimination.
However, the demonstrations have turned into protests against the Al Saud regime, especially since November 2011, when Saudi security forces killed five protesters and injured many others in Eastern Province.
According to Human Rights Watch, the Saudi regime “routinely represses expression critical of the government.”
File photo shows anti-government gangs in Qusayr, 15 km from the western Syrian city of Homs.
Fourteen members of the Palestine Liberation Army (PLA) have been kidnapped in northern Syria by anti-government armed groups.
The incident occurred on Thursday in the city of Aleppo, where gunmen seized and took away the PLA members at gunpoint.
There were not immediately any reports about the destination the kidnapped men where transported to.
The PLA, considered as the military wing of the Palestine Liberation Organization, was established at the 1964 Arab League summit in Alexandria, with the mission of countering the Israel regime.
Syria has always been deemed as in the frontline of the anti-Israeli resistance and has been praised by Palestinians and the Lebanese for its unflagging support for the resistance in the passage of years.
The country has been plagued by more than a year of rampant violence and bloodshed, which Damascus blames on terrorist elements funded and masterminded from abroad.
In May, Syrian militants abducted 13 Lebanese nationals near the town of Aazaz, which is on the border with Turkey.
The Lebanese were returning to Lebanon after visiting Shia shrines in Iran when the militants reportedly hijacked their bus, then kidnapped the men onboard the vehicle.
People carry the coffin of Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan during his funeral after the Friday prayers outside Tehran University, Iran, January 13, 2012.
All the elements involved in the assassinations of the country’s nuclear scientists have been identified and arrested.”
Statement by Iran’s Intelligence Ministry
Iran’s Intelligence Ministry says all the Israeli-linked elements behind the assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists have been apprehended.
“All the elements involved in the assassinations of the country’s nuclear scientists have been identified and arrested,” Iran’s Intelligence Ministry announced in a Thursday statement.
The ministry pointed to the continuation of extensive investigations both domestically and abroad which have led to the identification and arrest of all elements of the terrorist cell.
A number of countries, whose territories and facilities had been misused by the Mossad-backed terrorist teams, have provided the Iranian officials with relevant information, the statement read.
Over the course of the investigations, all other elements behind the assassinations of the Iranian scientists Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, Majid Shahriari and Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan as well as Reza Qashqaei (Roshan’s driver) have been apprehended, the statement read.
Some of the perpetrators of the assassination of Dr. Fereydoun Abbasi, the current head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, are among those arrested, the ministry added.
On May 15, Majid Jamali Fashi, who assassinated Dr. Ali-Mohammadi in January 2011, was executed under the Iranian judicial system.
Later in mid-June, the Intelligence Ministry announced the capture of the main elements of the assassination of Shahriari, Roshan and Qashqaei.
Roshan and his driver (Qashqaei) were assassinated in January 2012 after an unknown motorcyclist attached a magnet bomb to their car in Tehran.
On November 29, 2010, Professor Majid Shahriari and Dr. Fereydoun Abbasi were targeted by terrorist attacks; Shahriari was killed immediately and Dr. Abbasi sustained injuries.
According to the Thursday statement, Iran’s Intelligence Ministry has detected some of Mossad’s bases within the territories of one of Iran’s Western neighbors, which provided training and logistic support to the terrorist networks.
The investigations established that, apart from the assassination of the nuclear scientists, the members of the cells had received instructions from Mossad to carry out a number of terrorist attacks and acts of sabotage in public places inside Iran, the Intelligence Ministry said.
The announcement pointed out that the arrested individuals have also confessed to receiving all-out support from Western intelligence services, particularly the CIA and MI6.
The ministry says it will release more information on the issue in the upcoming days.
Transition towns are a movement modeled after the UN’s Agenda 21 to create communities that adhere to initiatives that center around reducing CO2 emissions.
Under the alarmist perspective of man-made climate change, founders Rob Hopkins and Naresh Giangrande created the Transition Model based on studies conducted by Ben Brangwyn on global relocalization agendas.
At an initial Transition Bristol meeting in the UK, the Tudor Trust began funding this initiative. This led to the creation of the Transition Initiatives Primer, an explanatory guide to the scheme and fake grassroots groups who coerced communities into adopting the plan.
Transition Initiatives were created in Australia, Canada, England, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Scotland, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, USA, and Wales. Training courses have been developed to ensure that this ideal becomes a global movement.
Issues under Transition Initiatives governance are food production, manipulation techniques in dealing with local governments, sustainable housing, reduction of public energy consumption, adaptation of communities to resemble transition cities and control over local economies.
A propaganda film entitled In Transition 1.0 was produced with the global audience in mind, giving more credence to this UN takeover of our local communities.
Groups like the West Coast Environmental Law (WCEL) have been pushing for Transition Towns for several years. In British Columbia alone, they have begun to take root in Victoria, Vancouver, Nelson, Salt Spring, Powell River and the Cowichan Valley.
The dangers that Transition Towns impose on our sovereignty and individuality are:
Refocus town planning and infrastructure on implementation of Agneda 21.
Appear to be grassroots operations.
Promote the Peak Oil mythology as an energy scare-tactic.
Support SmarthGrowth which is code for Agenda 21.
Aspire to control framing, disburse ability to farm, and pressure governmental policies on farming that reflect Agenda 21.
Use the hoax of man-made climate change as the purpose for imposing policy control by building cities that are designed to reduce carbon emissions.
Securitize local food stores, businesses, healthcare and fuel.
Ensure SmarthGrowth controls all citizens ability to acquire any needs for human survival.
Create internal advocacies that band together to purvey Transition Town propaganda to elected officials and local governments.
By working on the ground level, Transition Towns can take over states and nations quicker than funneling through the bureaucracy of national governments.
To anticipate any problems, this movement has secured a legion of lawyers to be hired at the whim of the Environmental Dispute Resolution Fund, a WCEL “society” developed to infuse the court system with legal disputes to intimidate lawmakers into submitting to their “suggestions”. They impose “identifying structures and rules that encourage . . . favored strategies” as defined by the Transition Town movement.
[In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit, for research and/or educational purposes. This constitutes 'FAIR USE' of any such copyrighted material.]
The Waldo Canyon Fire rages underneath of a starlit sky near Boulder, Colo., on June 27, 2012. This photo was tweeted by 57@UN.
Specialised team: Team members from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command and Northern Warefare Training Center, searches for aircraft wreckage on Knik Glacier near Anchorage, Alaska
Identified: Captain Jamie Dobson said the wreckage spotted was that of a Douglas C-124A Globemaster II. The Korean War-era Air Force cargo plane went missing on November 22
Workhorse: The Douglas C-124C Globemaster II was the largest transport aircraft when it was introduced into service in 1950
In action: Seen here in the Korean War the aircraft’s unique front-loading system allowed for 68,000lbs of cargo or 200 passengers seated on two decks
Locator map: The crash site area is on Knik Glacier near Anchorage, Alaska
MessageToEagle.com – Dramatic climate changes in the upper atmosphere of a faraway exoplanet have been observed by astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.
Artist’s impression of exoplanet HD 189733b as it passes in front of its parent star. Credit: NASA, ESA, L. Calçada
