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Military Hush-Up: Incoming Space Rocks Now Classified
Leonard David
SPACE.com
2009-06-10 22:36:00
For 15 years, scientists have benefited from data gleaned by U.S. classified satellites of natural fireball events in Earth's atmosphere - but no longer.
A recent U.S. military policy decision now explicitly states that observations by hush-hush government spacecraft of incoming bolides and fireballs are classified secret and are not to be released, SPACE.com had learned.
The satellites' main objectives include detecting nuclear bomb tests, and their characterizations of asteroids and lesser meteoroids as they crash through the atmosphere has been a byproduct data bonanza for scientists.
The upshot: Space rocks that explode in the atmosphere are now classified.
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Fear Rulez Amerika
Paul Craig Roberts
Counterpunch
2009-06-10 20:47:00
The power of irrational fear in the US is extraordinary. It ranks up there with the Israel Lobby, the military/security complex, and the financial gangsters. Indeed, fear might be the most powerful force in America.
Americans are at ease with their country's aggression against Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan, which has resulted in a million dead Muslim civilians and several million refugees, because the US government has filled Americans with fear of terrorists. "We have to kill them over there before they come over here."
Fearful of American citizens, the US government is building concentration camps, apparently all over the country. According to news reports, a $385 million US government contract was given by the Bush/Cheney Regime to Cheney's company, Halliburton, to build "detention centers" in the US. The corporate media never explained for whom the detention centers are intended.
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U.S. News
41 U.S. Counter-Terrorism and Intelligence Agency Veterans Challenge the Official Account of 9/11
Alan Miller
Voltairenet
2009-05-19 22:30:00
Following in the footsteps of well over 1,000 scientists and other professional groups who have already gone on record questioning the official theory, more than 40 U.S. Counter-Terrorism and Intelligence Agency veterans have come forward to challenge the Government's rendition of the September 11, 2001 attacks. Their behind-the-scenes knowledge and experience of sensitive and classified issues places them in a uniquely authoritative position. In this sense, their critical stance is all the more damning for the government. Conspicuously absent from the landscape are the mainstream media professionals, as they continue to provide cover for the government's totally bankrupt theory and fail to report on landmark developments such as this.
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Carradine Family Expert: David's Death Not a Suicide
E! Online
2009-06-11 20:11:00
David Carradine's family was right all along: The actor's death was not the result of suicide.
In a statement issued today, brothers Keith and Robert Carradine announced that Dr. Michael Baden, the forensics expert they independently hired to carry out a second autopsy on the actor, determined that their sibling did not take his own life.
"The autopsy findings and the evidence thus far available demonstrate that Mr. Carradine's death was not the result of suicide," Baden said.
The chief forensic pathologist for the New York State Police conducted the autopsy in California, after the body arrived from Bangkok earlier this week.
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Flashback: Jewish press: too few Jews to pray at WTC on 9/11
The 800 Pound Gorilla
2008-09-18 10:01:00
In the wake of 9/11, an interesting story appeared in the Jewish online press that appeared to offer an explanation for the low Jewish turnout on the morning of the attacks.
"In a small, makeshift synagogue not far from the Twin Towers, Jewish professionals regularly meet early each morning for daily prayer services. Usually there is no problem rounding up a minyan (quorum of ten men required to pray) and the cramped quarters often overflow with worshipers," according to a September 2002 article published in Jewish website jewsweek.com. "But on the morning of September 11th, there was an uncommon dearth of available men."
The story first appeared on September 11, 2002 on Jewish website jewsweek.com, under the name "The Miracle Minyan." Although that story no longer appears to be available, the same article resurfaced later under the title "Waiting for the Tenth Man."
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Phoenix tot brain dead after being thrown to floor
Associated Press
2009-06-10 13:12:00
A 2-year-old Phoenix girl was brain dead and on life support after police say her mother's boyfriend threw her on a cement floor because she was crying.
Police said Tuesday that the girl wasn't breathing when she was admitted to the hospital Saturday and later was found to be brain dead. Doctors also found cigarette burns and bruises covering the girl's body.
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Shooting at Holocaust Museum in D.C. Kills Guard
David Stout
The Newyork Times
2009-06-11 00:00:00
An 88-year-old white supremacist with a rifle walked into the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, one of the capital's most visited sites, on Wednesday afternoon and began shooting, fatally wounding a security guard and sending tourists scrambling before he himself was shot, the authorities said.
The gunman was identified by law enforcement officials as James W. von Brunn, who embraces various conspiracy theories involving Jews, blacks and other minority groups and at one point waged a personal war with the federal government.
The gunman and the security guard were both taken to nearby George Washington University Hospital, with Mr. von Brunn handcuffed to a gurney, witnesses said. The guard, Stephen T. Johns, died a short time later. Museum officials said he had worked there for six years; The Associated Press reported his age as 39.
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Former White House Lawyer Tells Senate that "Indefinite Detention" Without Trial Is Occurring In Afghanistan and Iraq, As Well As Guantanamo
Washington's Blog
2009-06-11 09:44:00
Richard Klingler, a lawyer in the Office of White House Counsel under former president George W. Bush, told senators today:
"The "debate on indefinite detention often wrongly focuses on Guantanamo Bay," arguing the practice is "considerably more widespread."
It is a practice Obama "will continue to pursue," in Afghanistan, Iraq, and at Guantanamo, and he noted they have already followed in the Bush administration's footsteps by defending it repeatedly in court, added Klingler.
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UK & Euro-Asian News
Woman who missed Flight 447 is killed in car crash
Philippe Naughton
Times Online
2009-06-11 17:52:00
Woman who missed Flight 447 is killed in car crash
An Italian woman who arrived late for the Air France plane flight that crashed in the Atlantic last week has been killed in a car accident.
Johanna Ganthaler, a pensioner from Bolzano-Bozen province, had been on holiday in Brazil with her husband Kurt and missed Air France Flight 447 after turning up late at Rio de Janeiro airport on May 31.
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London Underground strike could cause two days of chaos
Ben Webster
The Times
2009-06-10 05:39:00
Millions of commuters face two days of severe travel disruption in London, with few Tube services running and extra congestion on buses and mainline trains as people seek alternative ways of getting to work.
Thousands of football fans will struggle to get to Wembley for tonight's World Cup qualifier between England and Andorra. The cost to business in terms of lost working time from the 48-hour strike, which started at 7pm yesterday, is estimated at more than £100 million.
Last night service was completely suspended on three lines and there were severe delays to two others. The strike is expected to cause even more disruption than the previous Tube stoppage in September 2007 when two thirds of services were cancelled.
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Far-right British National Party leader Nick Griffin pelted with eggs outside Parliament
Fiona Hamilton
The Times
2009-06-10 05:28:00
Nick Griffin, the leader of the far-right British National Party, was forced to abandon a press conference yesterday when he was ambushed by protesters outside the Houses of Parliament.
Mr Griffin and his colleague Andrew Brons, who were elected to the European Parliament last week, were pelted with eggs and chased down the street by more than 50 anti-fascism protesters chanting: "Off our streets, Nazi scum."
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Psychopathic tactics spread: UK suspends 6 officers after waterboarding reports
Press TV
2009-06-10 20:31:00
The British police watchdog suspends six London Metropolitan police officers who have been allegedly involved in torturing drug suspects.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) said it was investigating "the conduct and actions of six police officers during the execution of two drugs warrants at addresses in north London on November 4, 2008."
The development follows the British media reports that some police officers had resorted to methods similar to waterboarding while interrogating suspects.
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Russia could scrap nuclear arms alongside other nations - Putin
RIA Novosti
2009-06-10 19:48:00
Russia could abandon nuclear weapons if other nuclear powers - official and unofficial - scrap them, the Russian prime minister said on Wednesday.
Asked by German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier if he believed Russia could be secure without nuclear weapons, Vladimir Putin said: "You bet."
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Russia to keep at least 1,500 nuclear warheads
RIA Novosti
2009-06-10 19:45:00
Russia's strategic nuclear forces need at least 1,500 nuclear warheads, and this must be taken into account in a new strategic arms deal, the commander of the Strategic Missile Forces said on Wednesday.
Col. Gen. Nikolai Solovtsov said Russia "must not go below the level of 1,500 nuclear warheads, but that is up to the country's political leadership to decide."
Under the Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty (START I), which expires on December 5, Russia and the United States are to reduce their nuclear warheads to 6,000 and their delivery vehicles to 1,600 each. In 2002, a follow-up agreement on strategic offensive arms reduction was concluded in Moscow. The agreement, known as the Moscow Treaty, envisioned cuts to 1,700-2,200 warheads by December 2012.
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Around the World
Identification of Air France victims could prove jet broke up
Marco Sibaja and Alan Clendenning
Associated Press
2009-06-11 22:45:00
Brazilian authorities started to identify bodies recovered from a downed Air France jet on Thursday, and the names of victims found 53 miles (85 kilometers) apart in the ocean could help prove whether the jet broke up in the air.
A French ship also reported sighting more bodies, but here was no immediate information on how many were spotted or when they might be picked up, said Brazilian Air Force. Gen. Ramon Cardoso.
Rainstorms hit parts of the search area and bodies and debris were dispersed by currents, and Cardoso said Brazil's aerial search was hindered by reduced visibility.
"It is becoming more and more difficult to find and recover bodies," he said 11 days after the May 31 crash hundreds of miles (kilometers) off Brazil's coast. "And the chances of recovering the bodies of all the passengers of the Air France flight are very remote."
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Flashback: Out of Madness, A Matriarchy
Kimberlee Acquaro and Peter Landesman
Mother Jones
2003-02-01 21:39:00
They survived machetes and mass rapes. Now, Rwanda's women -- nearly two-thirds of the population -- are learning how to lead their country out of the darkness.
On April 7, 1994, when the genocide was in its second day, Joseline Mujawamariya, then 17, huddled with her twin sister and younger brother in the tall grass on the outskirts of her village, Butamwe, in central Rwanda. They hid for three days as Hutu men and boys they had grown up with, armed with machetes, began a rampage of butchery and rape, burning homes and hunting down their Tutsi friends and neighbors. Then the Hutus set fire to the fields.
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WHO Raises Swine Flu Threat Level to Highest Level
David Brown
Washington Post
2009-06-11 21:19:00
The World Health Organization today declared the global outbreak of the novel H1N1 influenza virus to be in Phase 6 -- a full-scale pandemic.
The announcement essentially warns WHO's 194 member nations to expect the arrival of the new flu strain, which is likely to infect up to one-third of the population in the first wave and return in later waves over the next several years.
"The world is moving into the early days of its first influenza pandemic of the 21st century," Margaret Chan, WHO's director general, said this morning. "We anticipate that this action will raise many questions and that often these questions do not have simple answers."
Simultaneously, Chan said WHO is advising the world's makers of influenza vaccine "quickly to prepare commercial-scale pandemic vaccine of this H1N1 virus," which was called swine flu at first because it is believed to have emerged in pigs.
The move to Phase 6, the highest level in WHO's graduated scale of pandemic alerts, has been expected for weeks and in the opinion of many experts is overdue. By WHO's definition, it means that the virus is showing "community-level transmission," which means it is being passed from person to person without an easily traceable chain of infection, in two or more regions of the world.
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Former British commander in Afghanistan says Treasury spending cap is crippling war
Michael Evans
The Times
2009-06-10 05:45:00
The British military operation in Afghanistan was crippled by a spending cap imposed by the Treasury, a former senior officer told MPs yesterday. Brigadier Ed Butler, who commanded 16 Air Assault Brigade in Helmand province in 2006, told the Defence Select Committee that the financial constraints meant that the Army could "just about hold the line, but couldn't sustain a higher tempo" in its campaign against the Taleban.
The brigadier resigned his commission last year, claiming that he wanted to spend more time with his family. But his premature resignation was widely acknowledged to be in protest at the handling of operations.
His brigade suffered high casualties during its six-month tour. Thirty-five members of the Armed Forces died during the brigade's tour of duty, although 14 of these were killed when an RAF Nimrod caught fire in mid-air and exploded.
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Air France crash killed two prominent illegal arms foes
John Byrne
The Raw Story
2009-06-09 04:19:00
The puzzling crash of Air France's Flight 447 killed two of the world's "most prominent" illegal arms trade and international drug trafficking foes, according to a little-noticed report.
In a revelation sure to fuel conspiracy theories over the plane's demise, the report reveals that two key figures in the neverending internecine battle against global arms and drug trafficking perished when the plane abruptly fell out of the sky. Both were particularly active in efforts to stem illegal arms trading in Latin America.
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Submarine at air crash scene to hunt Air France black boxes
Marco Sibaja and Emma Vandore
Associated Press
2009-06-10 20:15:00
A French nuclear submarine reached the crash zone of Air France Flight 447 on Wednesday to join the search for the plane's black boxes, which may be the key to determining what brought the Airbus down in the sea off Brazil with 228 people on board.
The attack sub Emeraude plans to trawl 13 square miles (35 square kilometers) a day, using sonar to try to pick up the boxes' acoustic beacons or "pingers," French armed forces spokesman Christophe Prazuck said Wednesday.
It's a race against time, because the beacons will start to fade 30 days after the May 31 crash. If the boxes are spotted, the Emeraude will work with the mini-sub Nautile, which can descend to the ocean floor and was a key part of the search for the Titanic.
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Big Brother
UK: Crackdown on home-schooling as parents face annual checks and registration
Laura Clark
Mail Online
2009-06-11 22:55:00
Parents who home-school their children will be required to pass annual checks or see them sent back to school under a crackdown that sparked fury this evening
Ministers announced a new monitoring regime after a review raised concerns about the quality of education in some homes.
Parents who wish to educate their children at home - around 80,000 across the country - will be put under a legal duty to register with their local council every year. They will also be required to allow council officials access to their homes so they can evaluate the standard of education on offer.
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Leaving 'Friendprints': How Online Social Networks Are Redefining Privacy and Personal Security
Knowledge@Wharton
2009-06-10 16:40:00
A generation is growing up with social networking web sites such as Facebook and MySpace, casually posting accounts of their lives for their friends -- and the world -- to see. Few of these users realize that the information they post, when combined with new technologies for gathering and compiling data, can create a fingerprint-like pattern of behavior. The information provides opportunities not only for legitimate business purposes, but also for the nefarious aims of identity thieves and other predators, according to faculty at Wharton and elsewhere.
"The way privacy has traditionally been defined is being challenged," according to Wharton legal studies professor Andrea Matwyshyn, who earlier this year organized the Information Security Best Practices Conference at Wharton. Among other topics, the conference addressed security and safety issues raised by the social networks.
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UK porn cops accused of misleading public
John Ozimek
The Register
2009-06-11 16:35:00
Jim Bates, once recognised as one of the country's leading computer forensic experts, has made the extraordinary claim that senior police officers in Avon & Somerset and in the Met's Child Exploitation Online Protection Team (CEOP) have deliberately stirred up and misled public opinion, in an effort to distract attention from a scandal that could soon engulf them.
In a statement to the Reg Bates says that he is now going public unwillingly, but that the level of misinformation being fed to the national media by Avon & Somerset Chief Constable Colin Port is so significant that he has little option but to provide some balance.
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Big Brother database on UK adults working with children may ruin innocent lives, warns watchdog
James Slack
The Mail Online
2009-06-11 16:29:00
Creating a database of the 11million adults who work with children could ruin the lives of innocent people, the privacy watchdog warns today.
Richard Thomas, who is stepping down after more than six years as Britain's first Information Commissioner, says he has serious concerns about the system being launched in October for the Independent Safeguarding Authority.
The ISA computer will contain detailed files on all the adults who work with children, whether professionally or as volunteers.
But it will not only record criminal convictions, but also any so-called soft intelligence on individuals - which could include unfounded allegations, rumours or gossip passed to the police or social services.
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Cartoon lion urges Lancs kids to dob in terrorist classmates
Lewis Page
The Register
2009-06-10 16:24:00
Guy Fawkes left-footer extremists particularly feared
Primary schoolchildren in Lancashire are to be shown a police-produced film warning about the danger from terrorists, and urging them to report anyone with "extremist views" to the authorities. The message is illustrated using the story of Catholic extremist Guy Fawkes, whose views apparently "began forming" while he was at school.
The Lancashire Telegraph reports on the plan by the Lancashire Constabulary's Blackburn-based Preventing Violent Extremism team. The terrorism-warning kiddy film is apparently part of the plods' "Streetwise" campaign, designed to inform local nippers of dangers such as drowning, fires, "stranger danger" and the internet sicko deviant grooming threat. And, of course, terrorists. The film will be shown to "more than 2,000" ten and eleven-year-olds by school liaison officers.
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Should Facebook, Twitter follow IM providers and block access to U.S. 'enemies'?
Eric Lal
Computer World
2009-06-10 16:18:00
Facebook and Twitter should join instant messaging (IM) services and block access to U.S.-sanctioned countries in order to avoid running afoul of the government's trade embargoes, say legal experts.
However, others say that doing so would be premature and run against the U.S. government's goals regarding trade embargoes and for bringing democracy to the countries.
Computerworld spoke with two lawyers who advise companies on how to comply with bans on exports of goods and services set by the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
OFAC's sanctions currently block U.S. firms and citizens from trading with Cuba, Iran, and Sudan, as well as providing goods or services to certain institutions or individuals, called specially-designated nationals (SDNs), in Syria and North Korea, said Clif Burns, a lawyer with the Washington D.C. office of Bryan Cave LLP, and author of the ExportLawBlog.
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Axis of Evil
Psychopathic 'Moral' Chabad rabbi: Jews should kill Arab men, women and children during war
Nathaniel Popper
Haaretz
2009-06-10 10:42:00
Like the best Chabad-Lubavitch rabbis, Manis Friedman has won the hearts of many unaffiliated Jews with his charismatic talks about love and God; it was Friedman who helped lead Bob Dylan into a relationship with Chabad.
But Friedman, who today travels the country as a Chabad speaker, showed a less warm and cuddly side when he was asked how he thinks Jews should treat their Arab neighbors.
"The only way to fight a moral war is the Jewish way: Destroy their holy sites. Kill men, women and children (and cattle)," Friedman wrote in response to the question posed by Moment Magazine for its "Ask the Rabbis" feature.
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Revealed: Blackwater Still Working in Iraq for John McCain-linked 'Non-Profit'
Jeremy Scahill
rebelreports
2009-06-10 13:02:00
A new lawsuit reveals that the notorious mercenary firm is working, under a different name, for the International Republican Institute in Iraq.
It seems as though every week there is a new lawsuit filed against Blackwater for the killing of civilians in Iraq. While the Justice Department has failed to prosecute most of these cases (the September 2007 Nisour Square massacre being an exception), attorney Susan Burke has dedicated a substantial part of her practice to holding the company responsible for its crimes. She works in cooperation with the Center for Constitutional Rights.
Not only is Burke representing the victims of Nisour Square in their civil suit, and the family of an Iraqi guard allegedly murdered by a drunken Blackwater operative, but she has filed at least a half a dozen other cases against the company. "Erik Prince, a modern-day merchant of death, acts as if he is above the rule of law," charges Burke.
But beyond the specifics of her lawsuits, Burke is also alleging Blackwater/Xe remains firmly entrenched in Iraq, using affiliate companies like Greystone. She also says Blackwater is working for a "non-profit" organization, started under the Reagan administration, with a history of interference in internal affairs and elections of various nations, including allegations it helped foment a coup in Haiti: the International Republican Institute.
"The Iraqi government has barred Xe-Blackwater from operating in Iraq, and has refused to grant the licenses needed to carry weapons in Iraq," Burke says. "Yet Prince continues to provide armed personnel to the International Republican Institute. Such repeated illegal conduct by Prince must be stopped."
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Middle East Madness
New exhaustive report: Israel is practicing apartheid
Jews sans frontieres
2009-06-11 19:11:00
The Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa (HSRC) has released a study indicating that Israel is practicing both colonialism and apartheid in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). The study is being posted for public debate on this website.
The interim report, which will form part of a discussion at an upcoming HSRC conference on the subject, titled Re-envisioning Israel/Palestine, on 13 and 14 June in Cape Town, serves as a document to be finalised later this year.
The HSRC commissioned an international team of scholars and practitioners of international public law from South Africa, the United Kingdom, Israel and the West Bank to conduct the study. The resulting 300-page draft, titled Occupation, Colonialism, Apartheid?: A re-assessment of Israel's practices in the occupied Palestinian territories under international law, represents 15 months of research and constitutes an exhaustive review of Israel's practices in the OPT according to definitions of colonialism and apartheid provided by international law. The project was suggested originally by the January 2007 report by eminent South African jurist John Dugard, in his capacity as Special Rapporteur to the United Nations Human Rights Council, when he indicated that Israel practices had assumed characteristics of colonialism and apartheid.
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No we can't, Israeli hardliners tell Obama as he pushes for peace
Sheera Frenkel
The Times Online
2009-06-10 22:12:00
President Obama's push for peace in the Middle East has provoked the ire of right-wing Israelis, who have launched a campaign against his initiative with the slogan "No you can't".
The words are a play on the "Yes we can" campaign that propelled Mr Obama into the White House.
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Do You Really Think Arabs in the Middle East Clapped for Obama's Speech?
Chris Hedges
Truthdig
2009-06-11 01:12:00
Did they play Barack Obama's speech to the Muslim world in the prison corridors of Abu Ghraib, Bagram air base, Guantanamo or the dozens of secret sites where we hold thousands of Muslims around the world? Did it echo off the walls of the crowded morgues filled with the mutilated bodies of the Muslim dead in Baghdad or Kabul? Was it broadcast from the tops of minarets in the villages and towns decimated by U.S. iron fragmentation bombs? Was it heard in the squalid refugee camps of Gaza, where 1.5 million Palestinians live in the world's largest ghetto?
What do words of peace and cooperation mean from us when we torture - yes, we still torture - only Muslims? What do these words mean when we sanction Israel's brutal air assaults on Lebanon and Gaza, assaults that demolished thousands of homes and left hundreds dead and injured? How does it look for Obama to call for democracy and human rights from Egypt, where we lavishly fund and support the despotic regime of Hosni Mubarak, one of the longest-reigning dictators in the Middle East?
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Lebanon charges 10 more Israel-affiliated spies
Press TV
2009-06-10 20:14:00
Lebanon has charged ten more people with spying for Israel's notorious intelligence agency amid a crackdown on espionage rings in the country.
"They are accused of collaborating with the Israeli enemy for money and [in exchange] giving it information about civilian and military outposts," a Lebanese judicial official said.
The Wednesday charges bring to 68 the number of people formally accused of espionage for Tel Aviv. The defendants could face death penalty if convicted.
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Iraq market explosion death toll hits 32
Press TV
2009-06-10 20:14:00
The death toll from an explosion in Iraq's Dhiqar Province reaches 32 and is expected to rise as some of the 70 injured civilians are reportedly in critical condition.
A sticky bomb planted on a car went off in a crowded food market in the town of al-Bathaa, 30 km (20 miles) west of the provincial capital of Nasiriya.
Initial reports had put the death toll at 28 and the number of injured at 40. Children and women are said to account for a considerable number of the casualties.
"We are now transporting the casualties to the General Hospital in Nasiriyah," said al-Bathaa mayor Ali Fahad.
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Paperless Palestinian refugee left to rot in Israeli Negev prison
Ma'an
2009-06-10 20:01:00
After nine days of hunger strike the stateless Palestinian born refugee Subhi Abdullah Abu Loz appealed to Human Rights institutions from captivity in Israel's Negev Prison.
Abu Loz was detained in Gaza on 23 March 2006 because he had no official identity papers. He was set to be released on 11 August 2008, but has remained in Israeli custody and has received no answers to his repeated pleas for help and questions over his continued detention.
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Grand Theft Economics
Brazil to make $10bn loan to IMF
Gary Duffy
BBC News
2009-06-11 22:24:00
Brazil says it is to offer $10bn in financing to the IMF to help improve the availability of credit in developing countries. It is the first time that South America's biggest economy has ever made a loan of this kind.
Brazil's Finance Minister Guido Mantega said it was part of a united approach by Brazil, Russia, India and China to help boost global financial stability. He said China had plans to invest $50bn and Russia $10bn.
In the past Brazil was more accustomed to seeking help from the International Monetary Fund and the fact that it is now able to offer a loan instead is a striking indication of how its position has changed.
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Russia May Swap Some U.S. Treasuries for IMF bonds
Alex Nicholson and Dakin Campbell
Bloomberg
2009-06-10 22:21:00
Russia may switch some of its reserves from U.S. Treasuries to International Monetary Fund bonds, the central bank said today. The comment drove Treasuries and the dollar lower.
Alexei Ulyukayev, first deputy chairman of Russia's central bank, said some reserves may be moved from Treasuries into IMF debt, reiterating comments made last month by Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin. Ulyukayev's remarks were confirmed by a Bank Rossii official who declined to be named, citing bank policy.
Treasuries fell, pushing 10-year yields toward the highest level in seven months, in response to Ulyukayev's statement. The dollar fell against the euro on speculation that Russia will reduce its holdings of U.S. debt.
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It's Official -- The Era of Cheap Oil Is Over: Energy Department Changes Tune on Peak Oil
Michael T. Klare
TomDispatch
2009-06-11 14:52:00
Buckle your seatbelt, you may be going nowhere -- and it could be a very bumpy ride. Oil futures have just passed $71 for a barrel of "light, sweet crude oil" (sweet for energy stocks, anyway) on its way to... well, we don't know exactly where, but it won't feel good, not at the pump and not in the economy either. In the Midwest and scattered other locations, gas prices are already at the edge of $3.00 a gallon and the height of summer isn't even upon us.
Much of this sudden rise has been fueled by OPEC production cuts, investor dreams of a global economic recovery (and so a heightened desire for energy), and the enthusiasm of market speculators. Explain it as you will, the price of crude, which hit a low of about $32 a barrel in December, as the planet seemed to meltdown economically, has doubled in recent months.
Oil is like the undead. Just when you think it's gone down for the count, it rises from the grave ravenous. As Clifford Krauss of the New York Times reported recently, gas prices have risen 41 days in a row, and yet the price at the pump is still "lagging behind the increase in the price of oil." According to Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service, consumers are now shelling out one billion dollars a day to keep their tanks full. (It was $1.5 billion last summer when the price of a barrel of oil hit an astronomical $147.)
Whether this is the energy version of irrational exuberance and a mini-bubble to be burst as further economic bad times hit or the reality of our near future, sooner or later, far worse is in store on the energy front, as Michael Klare, author of Rising Powers, Shrinking World: The New Geopolitics of Energy, makes clear. But don't listen to him. Instead, check out his latest energy scoop -- the real news he found buried in the most recent report from the U.S. Department of Energy, whose seers have put irrational exuberance in mothballs and brought out the sackcloth and ashes. - An Introduction by Tom Engelhardt
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US government securities worth $134.5 billion seized from Japanese nationals, not clear whether real or fake
Asia News Italy
2009-06-11 12:21:00
Bonds worth US$ 134.5 billion are seized. This is the largest financial smuggling case in history. But are they real? Concern over 'funny money' or counterfeit securities is spreading in Asia. The international press is silent.
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California nears financial "meltdown" as revenues tumble
Jim Christie
Reuters
2009-06-11 12:15:00
California's government risks a financial "meltdown" within 50 days in light of its weakening May revenues unless Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and lawmakers quickly plug a $24.3 billion budget gap, the state's controller said on Wednesday.
Underscoring the severity of California's cash crisis, Controller John Chiang, who has previously warned the state's government risks running out of cash without a budget deal, said revenues in May fell by $1.14 billon, or 17.7 percent, from a year earlier.
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Lawmakers Order Fed to Relinquish Merrill Documents
Amit R. Paley
Washington Post
2009-06-11 09:36:00
A congressional oversight committee issued a subpoena yesterday to force the Federal Reserve to turn over internal documents related to Bank of America's acquisition of Merrill Lynch, part of a growing investigation into whether government officials pressured the bank to withhold details about the deal from investors.
The subpoena, which was issued by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, is highly unusual and the first issued by the panel this year. It comes after the Fed refused to send the committee internal e-mails and notes related to its role in the purchase.
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The Living Planet
Texas Town Hires Geologist After 5 Earthquakes
CBS News 11
2009-06-11 21:22:00
Cleburne - A fourth earthquake prompted city officials to hire a geologist and then another earthquake happened about an hour before the emergency meeting.
The fifth earthquake took place Tuesday at 6:19 p.m. and the U.S. Geological Survey measured it at a 2.1-magnitude. Cleburne officials called for an 8 p.m. emergency meeting Tuesday after the fourth earthquake, measuring a 2.6, happened that same day at 5:10 p.m.
No damage or injuries have been reported from the tremors.
"I've been here all my life, since 1950. Everybody's worried about it. That's all the talk all over town - earthquakes. You know everybody blames the oil companies, gas companies," said Cleburne resident James Barton. The city's leaders are not ruling gas drilling as a cause.
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It's raining tadpoles in Japan
Agence France-Presse
2009-06-10 18:19:00
Meteorologists in Japan say the rainy season has just started in Tokyo, but residents in a small coastal town have reported a different phenomenon -- tadpoles dropping out of the sky.
An office clerk in Nanao said he first noticed the anomaly when he heard a dull thud in a parking lot last week, news reports said. Looking around, he saw about 100 dead amphibians splattered on car windshields and the ground.
More reports followed from bewildered residents in Nanao.
"People speculate that a waterspout picked them up and dropped them from the air," an official at a local weather observatory told AFP. "But from a meteorological point of view, I have to say it is most unlikely."
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We Have Become a Spoiled, Obese, Expectant and Fearful People
Adam Shake
Twilight Earth
2009-06-03 17:53:00
I've spent a lot of times in foreign countries. I've seen people in Bosnia eat the bark off of trees and I claim the Appalachian Trail as a previous address.
I may be jaded but I also realize that for thousands of years, people lived without the luxuries that we now consider necessities. In fact, a recent study just found that what we thought were necessities just last year, we think of as luxuries. Things like cell phones, air conditioning.... Not too long ago, electricity and automobiles were luxuries. Maybe as a result, I think that we can all toughen up just a tiny bit.
In 1st world countries, we have become a spoiled, obese, expectant and fearful group of people. We have learned to manipulate nature and our philosophies to our benefit, our comfort and our profit, to the detriment of our planet, our society, our ethics, our health, our children and ourselves:
We live in climate controlled 72 degree homes, offices and cars, 12 months a year.
We demand and get, fat and ripe strawberry's grown in Latin America in the middle of February.
We build our homes further into the woods and mountains and then kill the animals who stray into our yards.
We eat beef that has been doped with antibiotics from birth.
We leave our porch lights on all night, not realizing that 130,00 Americans die every year from fine particulate matter spewing from coal plants.
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Typhoons trigger earthquakes on Taiwan
Agence France-Presse
2009-06-11 17:12:00
Surprised scientists say that typhoons which hit Taiwan unleash long, slow earthquakes, a phenomenon that may save the island from devastating temblors.
Seismologists installed movement sensors in boreholes at depths of 200-270 metres (650-870 feet) in eastern Taiwan, monitoring a spot where two mighty plates, the Philippine Sea Plate and the Eurasian plate, bump and jostle in an oblique, dipping fault.
Over five years, researchers saw a remarkable link between tropical storms and "slow" earthquakes, a seismic beast first identified three decades ago.
Slow quakes entail a slippage in the fault that unfolds progressively over hours or days, rather than a sudden, violent release of the kind that destroys buildings and lives.
The sensors noted 20 such slow earthquakes, 11 of which coincided with typhoons, during the study period.
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Three eruptions from Colombia's Galeras volcano
NBC
2009-06-09 04:03:00
Three volcano eruptions in southwest Colombia sent smoke and ash into the sky and prompted Colombian authorities to declare a red alert in the area.
Authorities believe a larger eruption is imminent from the 14,000 foot Galeras volcano.
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US: Lake Mohave carp deaths caused by virus
Associated Press
2009-06-10 12:49:00
Bullhead City, Arizona - Biologists have determined that a carp die-off in Lake Mohave is being caused by a virus.
Several thousand dead carp have washed up on the shore of the reservoir along the Colorado River in recent weeks. Arizona Game and Fish Department spokesman Zen Mocarski says it appears the Koi herpes virus has now spread downriver and is killing carp in Lake Havasu.
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Health & Wellness
Oily Fish 'Can Halt Eye Disease'
BBC News
2009-06-08 19:27:00
People with age-related macular degeneration (AMD) should eat oily fish at least twice a week to keep their eye disease at bay, say scientists.
Omega-3 fatty acids found in abundance in fish like mackerel and salmon appear to slow or even halt the progress of both early and late stage disease.
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Hormone Experts Worried About Plastics, Chemicals
Maggie Fox
Reuters
2009-06-11 18:41:00
Hormone experts said on Wednesday they are becoming worried by a chemical called bisphenol A, which some politicians say they want taken out of products and which consumers are increasingly shunning.
They said they have gathered a growing body evidence to show the compound, also known as BPA, might damage human health. The Endocrine Society issued a scientific statement on Wednesday calling for better studies into its effects
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Pathological: Antipsychotics get tentative OK for kids
Rita Rubin
USA Today
2009-06-11 01:24:00
Adelphi, Maryland - With varying degrees of enthusiasm, a Food and Drug Administration advisory committee Wednesday concluded that three newer antipsychotic drugs already widely used "off-label" in children and teens are "acceptably safe" and effective in treating them for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
However, because of the risks involved with the drugs - mainly weight gain, sleepiness and increases in blood fats and sugars - several panel members expressed concerns about their inappropriate use in pediatric patients who don't have schizophrenia or bipolar disorder or are younger than the age range studied.
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Swine flu cases in Australia could force WHO to declare pandemic
Bonnie Malkin
Telegraph
2009-06-10 00:00:00
The World Health Organization is "very, very close" to declaring an official swine flu pandemic, after a sharp spike in cases in several countries, including Australia.
The WHO has so far left its six-level pandemic alert scale unchanged at phase five, signalling that a pandemic is "imminent." But a swift increase in cases in the southeastern Australian state of Victoria could prompt the organisation to declare its first pandemic in four decades.
The country has recorded 1,211 infections, with 1,011 in Victoria, the fourth highest number of infections in the world. Less than a month ago Australia had only a handful of cases of the H1N1 virus but its spread has been rapid.
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Music speeds recovery
Sylvia Thompson
Irish Times
2009-06-10 17:00:00
Patients recovering from heart surgery who were given music to listen to through headphones while they were still asleep and on ventilators, spent about three and a half hours less in an American intensive care unit (ICU) than patients receiving normal post-operative care, according to recent research.
"The music-listening patients also reduced their sedative medication by 10 per cent," said Dr Fred Schwartz, anaesthesiologist at the Piedmont Hospital, Atlanta, Georgia, who presented the study, Music and the Heart, at the first meeting of the International Association for Music and Medicine at University of Limerick at the weekend.
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Flashback: Common Chemicals Linked to Infertility
Dr. Mercola
2009-02-17 19:27:00
Your cookware and cleaning supplies could make it harder for you to have a baby.
Researchers have found that chemicals called perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) might be linked to delays in getting pregnant. PFCs are everywhere -- in Teflon cookware, shampoos, floor wax, food wrapping, carpet treatments and other cleaning products. PFCs are also present in air and water in the form of industrial waste from chemical plants.
The new study looked at more than 1,200 women when they were six to 12 weeks pregnant. If they reported that it took them longer than 12 months to get pregnant or if they used drugs designed to increase their chances of conceiving, they were considered to have infertility -- this is a generally accepted definition of infertility by experts in the field.
One kind of PFC, called PFOS, increased the odds of infertility anywhere from 70 to 134 percent. Another PFC called PFOA was linked to a 60 to 154 percent increase in the chance of infertility.
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Science & Technology
First extragalactic exoplanet may have been found
Stephen Battersby
New Scientist
2009-06-11 18:51:00
We could find planets in other galaxies using today's technology, according to a new simulation. The study gives credence to a tentative detection of a planet in Andromeda, our nearest large galactic neighbour.
The idea is to use gravitational microlensing, in which a distant source star is briefly magnified by the gravity of an object passing in front of it. This technique has already found several planets in our galaxy, out to distances of thousands of light years.
Extending the method from thousands to millions of light years won't be easy, says Philippe Jetzer of the University of Zürich in Switzerland, but it should be possible.
Jetzer and five colleagues simulated microlensing from the Andomeda galaxy, which is more than 2 million light years away. They started by populating Andromeda with planets, assuming that they will have the same range of sizes and orbits as known exoplanets in our own galaxy. "These are reasonable guesses, probably right within a factor of two," Jetzer told New Scientist.
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Flashback: Space 'Rosetta Stone' Unlike Anything Seen Before
Andrea Thompson
SPACE.com
2009-03-25 18:45:00
Meteorite fragments of the first asteroid ever spotted in space before it slammed into Earth's atmosphere last year were recovered by scientists from the deserts of Sudan.
These precious pieces of space rock, described in a study detailed in the March 26 issue of the journal Nature, could be an important key to classifying meteorites and asteroids and determining exactly how they formed.
The asteroid was detected by the automated Catalina Sky Survey telescope at Mount Lemmon , Ariz., on Oct. 6, 2008. Just 19 hours after it was spotted, it collided with Earth's atmosphere and exploded 23 miles (37 kilometers) above the Nubian Desert of northern Sudan.
Because it exploded so high over Earth's surface, no chunks of it were expected to have made it to the ground. Witnesses in Sudan described seeing a fireball, which ended abruptly.
But Peter Jenniskens, a meteor astronomer with the SETI Institute's Carl Sagan Center, thought it would be possible to find some fragments of the bolide. Along with Muawia Shaddad of the University of Khartoum and students and staff, Jenniskens followed the asteroid's approach trajectory and found 47 meteorites strewn across an 18-mile (29-km) stretch of the Nubian Desert.
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Flashback: Small Stony Asteroids Will Explode and Not Hit Earth, Study Shows
Robert Roy Britt
Space
2003-07-16 18:39:00
When asteroids fall through Earth's atmosphere, a variety of things can happen. Large iron-heavy space rocks are almost sure to slam into the planet. Their stony cousins, however, can't take the pressure and are more likely to explode above the surface.
Either outcome can be dismal. But the consequences vary.
So scientists who study the potential threat of asteroids would like to know more about which types and sizes of asteroids break apart and which hold together. A new computer model helps to quantify whether an asteroid composed mostly of stone will survive to create a crater or not.
A stony space rock must be about the size of two football fields, or 720 feet (220 meters) in diameter, to endure the thickening atmosphere and slam into the planet, according to the study, led by Philip Bland of the Department of Earth Science and Engineering at Imperial College London.
"Stones of that size are just at the border where they're going to reach the surface -- a bit lower density and strength and it'll be a low-level air burst, a bit higher and it'll hit as a load of fragments and you'll get a crater," said Bland, who is also a Royal Society Research Fellow.
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Flashback: Catastrophe Calculator: Estimate Asteroid Impact Effects Online
Robert Roy Britt
SPACE.com
2006-12-29 12:00:00
The history of Earth's encounters with asteroids remains largely mysterious to scientists. They can't even agree whether a huge space rock that hit Mexico's Yucatan Penninsula 65 million years ago killed off the dinosaurs or not.
Nor can astronomers say when the next catastrophic impact will occur. They only know that it will happen, sooner or later.
However, now anyone with a passing interest in the fate of the planet can remove some of the mystery regarding the effects of the next collision. A new University of Arizona web page allows visitors to plug in a hypothetical space rock's size, the visitor's distance from the impact site, and other parameters to generate an outline of devastation.
But be warned: Removing the mystery invites a bit of terror over the hypothetical slams, bangs, fireballs, falling skies and rushing winds generated by a giant impact.
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Scientists discover two newborn stars
United Press International
2009-06-11 00:17:00
Pasedena, Calif.,-- Astronomers using the infrared capability of the U.S. space agency's Spitzer Space Telescope have found two newborn stars at the center of our galaxy.
The heart of the Milky Way spiral galaxy is cluttered with stars, dust and gas, and at its center, a supermassive black hole, National Aeronautics and Space Administration scientists said. Conditions there are harsh, but astronomers have known stars can form in such chaotic space, however, until now nobody had been able to definitively locate any such baby stars.
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Thinnest superconducting metal created
United Press International
2009-06-11 00:10:00
Austin Texas, -- University of Texas at Austin physicists have created a superconducting lead sheet only two atoms thick, the thinnest such metal layer ever created.
Professor Ken Shih and colleagues said the achievement lays the groundwork for future superconductor technologies.
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Our Haunted Planet
Germany: Meteor Hits Boy on Way to School
The Local
2009-06-11 16:26:00
A pebble-sized meteorite crashed and burned into Earth, grazing 14-year-old Gerritt Blank while on his way to catch the school bus.
"At first, I only saw a big, white ball of light. Then, my hand hurt, and then it slammed into the street," he told daily Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung. "After I saw the white light, I felt something on my hand."
The result was a 10-centimetre burn on the back of his left hand, but Blank knew something special had happened to him.
"I thought the meteor struck me, but it could also be a result from the heat as it went by me," he said.
After the intial shock, Blank looked at the glowing rock that left a sizable crater in Brakeler Wald Street. He then took the iced tea from his school lunch and doused his glowing pebble and took it to school with him.
"At school, I told the story. My classmates believed me," he said. His parents didn't get to hear the story until the end of the school day.
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Flashback: Small Asteroids Pose Big New Threat
Charles Q. Choi
Space.com/Yahoo!News
2007-12-19 07:39:00
The infamous Tunguska explosion, which mysteriously leveled an area of Siberian forest nearly the size of Tokyo a century ago, might have been caused by an impacting asteroid far smaller than previously thought.
The fact that a relatively small asteroid could still cause such a massive explosion suggests "we should be making more efforts at detecting the smaller ones than we have till now," said researcher Mark Boslough, a physicist at Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque, N.M.
The explosion near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River on June 30, 1908, flattened some 500,000 acres (2,000 square kilometers) of Siberian forest. Scientists calculated the Tunguska explosion could have been roughly as strong as 10 to 20 megatons of TNT - 1,000 times more powerful than the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
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Flashback: Comets, Meteors & Myth: New Evidence for Toppled Civilizations and Biblical Tales
Robert Roy Britt
Space
2001-11-13 18:25:00
"...and the seven judges of hell ... raised their torches, lighting the land with their livid flame. A stupor of despair went up to heaven when the god of the storm turned daylight into darkness, when he smashed the land like a cup."
-- An account of the Deluge from the Epic of Gilgamesh, circa 2200 B.C.
If you are fortunate enough to see the storm of shooting stars predicted for the Nov. 18 peak of the Leonid meteor shower, you'll be watching a similar but considerably less powerful version of events which some scientists say brought down the world's first civilizations.
The root of both: debris from a disintegrating comet.
Biblical stories, apocalyptic visions, ancient art and scientific data all seem to intersect at around 2350 B.C., when one or more catastrophic events wiped out several advanced societies in Europe, Asia and Africa.
Increasingly, some scientists suspect comets and their associated meteor storms were the cause. History and culture provide clues: Icons and myths surrounding the alleged cataclysms persist in cults and religions today and even fuel terrorism.
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Flashback: Exploding Asteroids; Satellites Monitor Threat to Earth
Robert Roy Britt
SPACE.com
2002-11-20 18:19:00
Researchers have determined, with the assistance of US military satellites, that the risk of Earth being struck by a killer asteroid is less likely than previously believed.
If you've ever gazed up and spotted a shooting star, you engaged in a form of astronomy in which Earths atmosphere serves as a giant detector: Space debris screams through the air, which heats the stuff up and makes it visible.
By noting observations night after night, you could develop a record of how frequently certain sized objects most no larger than a pea meet their demise by running into our planet.
But if you want to know how often larger hunks of cosmic rubble arrive, your job is far more difficult. It could take hundreds or even thousands of years of continuous observations to arrive at a reliable estimate.
The prospect was not an option for Peter Brown of the University of Western Ontario. So he and some colleagues turned to a higher-tech version of the same method, and then applied some fancy extrapolations. The researchers studied observations by U.S. government satellite sentinels that watch for potential nuclear detonations around the globe, 24/7.
More than eight years of data reveal 300 in-air explosions of space rocks ranging in size from large televisions to studio apartments.
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Flashback: When Meteors Explode: Full Account of a Wild Chicago Night
Robert Roy Britt
Space
2004-04-19 18:07:00
You might think meteor expert Steven Simon knew exactly what was happening one evening when the skies over his home were lit up by an exploding, 2,000-pound space rock bigger than a refrigerator. But it was only the next day, when nearby residents brought him chunks of the extraterrestrial visitor that had landed in the street and punched through their roofs, that Simon began to understand the true nature of the frightening event.
Now after a year of study, the University of Chicago researcher has helped produce a full account of the giant rock that tore through the atmosphere at 54 times the speed of sound.
Simon was in his Park Forest home about 30 miles south of Chicago with the drapes drawn near midnight on March 26, 2003.
"I saw the flash, and although it lasted longer than a lightning flash, that's what I thought it was," he told SPACE.com last week. "I knew it had rained that night, and thought maybe it was multiple flashes, perhaps diffused by the clouds."
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US: Hot UFO sightings report for early June 2009 in the Grass Valley California area
Gregory Brewer
Examiner.com
2009-06-08 02:38:00
A few incredible UFO events occurred in the Grass Valley California area and was reported to the Sacramento UFO Examiner as the following. While traveling up Hwy 20 toward Grass Valley from Penn Valley area of the California foothills a local woman slammed on her brakes with little regard to who or what was behind her. She was over come by a circular craft approximately 35 to 40 feet in diameter shoot over the trees and turn on it edge while ducking into the tree line in the area of Condon Park. She observed the craft cut between two tall pine trees possibly on approach for a landing. She made her way to the area where she thought it had landed and found nothing other than a cloudy disturbance. This was reported to the Sheriffs dept by a few others as well. The Craft may have been cloaked but was not verifiable. The property in question was fenced and not accessible.
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Don't Panic! Lighten Up!
US family turned into advertising
BBC News
2009-06-11 04:18:00
A couple from the United States got a shock when they learned their family photo was being used, unauthorised, on an advertising poster in Prague.
Danielle and Jeff Smith used the photo as their Christmas card, and also posted it on an internet blog.
A friend travelling in the Czech capital alerted them when he spotted the Smiths smiling at him, life-size, from a poster in a supermarket.
The owner of the shop has promised to remove the image.
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Israeli woman throws out mattress with $1m inside
The Telegraph
2009-06-10 18:09:00
A woman in Tel Aviv, Israel, mistakenly threw out a mattress with $1 million hidden inside, setting off a frantic search through tons of garbage at a number of landfill sites.
The woman told Army Radio that she bought her elderly mother a new mattress as a surprise on Monday and threw out the old one, only to discover that her mother had hidden her life savings inside. She was identified only as Anat.
When she went to look for the mattress it had already been taken by garbage men, she said. Subsequent searches at three different landfill sites turned up nothing.
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