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Dairy and meat prices hit record levels in 2013 as global food prices remain highest for third year running

Suzie Horne
Farmers Weekly
Fri, 17 Jan 2014 08:29 UTC
Image
World food prices were at their third highest in 2013, with dairy and meat values hitting record levels, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation.

Its food price index averaged 209.9 points for the year, a slight fall on 2012 levels, but well below the 2011 peak of 230.1.

"Last month, the FAO food price index remained elevated as strong demand for certain high-protein foods continued to drive up prices overall, countering falling prices of major food crops after last year's abundant harvests," said FAO economist Abdolreza Abbassian.

The index measures the prices of five major food commodities on international markets: cereals, dairy products, meat, sugar and vegetable oils. Large supplies pushed down international prices of cereals (apart from rice prices), oils and sugar. Overall, in 2013, sugar prices were 18% lower than in 2012, while the dairy index averaged 243 points - its highest ever annual value.
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USA

Russian media: Boston Bomber Tamerlan Ţarnaev was trained in terrorism by Americans in Georgia


Yahoo News Romania
Wed, 24 Apr 2013 10:36 UTC
Translation by Google.

Documents obtained by the Russian press has a number of reports by Colonel Grigori Cianturia , head of counterintelligence in the Georgian Interior Ministry , which was observed activities of the organization " Fund Caucasus " ( Caucasus Foundation )

This foundation was established in 2008 , immediately after the Russian-Georgian conflict in South Ossetia , "to control the processes taking place in the North Caucasus region ," notes the publication, and is funded with the support of the Foundation of Jamestown U.S. whose board of directors included the Zbigniew Brzezinski , former national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter.

In reports submitted Interior Minister Irakli Garibaşvili , head of the Georgian Interior Ministry's counter- claimed that " Caucasus Foundation and Jamestown were conducted in the summer of 2012 a series of workshops and conferences for young people in the Caucasus , including Russian Caucasus " .

Documents obtained by the Russian media show that Tamerlane Ţarnaev, the terrorist involved in explosions in Boston , was present at several of the trainings organized by the " Caucasus Fund " in the period January to July 2012 , when Tamerlane has left the U.S. . Here young people were trained , among others , and prepare terrorist acts.
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Dollar Gold

Top German regulator: Precious metal and currency manipulation are worse than Libor


Washington's Blog
Thu, 16 Jan 2014 00:00 UTC
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© Business Insider
The New Largest Financial Scandal In History ...

The Libor interest rate scandal was the biggest financial scandal in history:
  • Even though RBS and a handful of other banks have been fined for interest rate manipulation, Libor is still being manipulated. No wonder ... the fines are pocket change - the cost of doing business - for the big banks
But the head German financial regulator said today that manipulation in gold, silver and currencies is worse than the Libor scandal:
Germany's top financial regulator said possible manipulation of currency rates and prices for precious metals is worse than the Libor-rigging scandal, which has already led to fines of about $6 billion.
While this is the first time a regulator has said this, several financial writers - including Thomas Pascoe - have previously said the same thing.

Yup, Currency Markets Are Rigged

Indeed, currency markets are massively rigged. And see this and this.
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Laptop

Say goodbye to the Internet we've known: U.S. court decision to affect net neutrality

Troy Wolverton
Phys.org
Fri, 17 Jan 2014 14:00 UTC
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© Trickscentral.com
If you like how cable television works, you're going to love how a court decision this week could change the Internet.

Thanks to the ruling, broadband providers can now exert a lot more control over what sites you visit on the Internet and what services you can access. The decision would allow Comcast, for example, to bar its Internet subscribers from seeing videos from Netflix or from using Vonage's Internet phone service.

Made by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, the decision Tuesday overturned rules put in place by the Federal Communications Commission in 2010 that barred wired Internet providers from blocking access to particular sites or services, and generally required them to treat all Internet traffic equally.

While the court's ruling will worry and anger advocates of an open Internet, it's federal regulators, not the judges, who are to blame. Their subservience to the big telecommunications companies and timidity in writing the rules governing Internet traffic led directly to the court's decision.

One thing that has made the Internet distinct from pay television services is the role of the service provider. With pay TV, the cable or satellite company determines what channels you can watch, which often depends on what kind of financial deals the providers can strike with the channel operators. As subscribers have seen, disputes over who should pay what can lead to channels or programs going off the air.
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Stormtrooper

Political prisoner released in north of Ireland after 4 years in capitivity based on 'secret charges'


Irish Republican News
Fri, 17 Jan 2014 05:32 UTC
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Martin Corey
After almost four years in jail without charge, Irish prisoner of conscience Martin Corey was released from custody on Wednesday -- but only on condition that he stay away from the media and his home town or face being returned to jail.

Mr Corey was hidden from members of the press who had gathered outside the Maghaberry jail on Wednesday night. He was taken out in a blacked-out prison van directly to a train station where he was released to his lawyer.

A British official said: "The Parole Commissioners have decided to release Martin Corey on a licence that is subject to conditions which are designed to manage the risk they assess him to pose."

Two of those conditions are that Mr Corey is forbidden to give media interviews and also that he must not live in or near his home in Lurgan, County Armagh.

The 63-year-old has been in prison since he was ordered to be interned by the then British Direct Ruler Shaun Woodward, in April 2010, on the basis of "closed material".
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Blackbox

The end of ownership: Why you need to fight America's copyright laws

Kyle Wiens
Wired
Fri, 17 Jan 2014 09:30 UTC
Copyright Week
© dodo4466/Getty
Just the other day, I got a card in the mail for my 30th birthday. When I opened it up, the card started singing "Happy Birthday." And that little thing - pealing out at the top of its automated lungs - made me laugh. What a strange thing to computerize.

But it suddenly occurred to me that this silly card was the perfect example of what I call The Law of Electronic Eventuality: If something can have a computer in it, eventually it will have a computer in it. Our physical objects aren't just physical anymore. Code runs unseen through phones, watches, smoke alarms, birthday cards, and more like connective tissue. As with muscle, it's that connective tissue that makes a thing work.

Without code, without software, our Things become inert. Dead.

While this ushers in a whole new world of possibilities, it's also redefining ownership. Because when you purchase a physical object, you don't actually buy the software in it - that code belongs to someone else. If you do something the manufacturer doesn't like - repair it, hack it, unlock it - you could lose the right to use "their" software in "your" thing. And as these lines between physical and digital blur, it pits copyright and physical ownership rights against each other.

Welcome to the brave new world of copyright. If you want to truly own what you buy, you'll have to fight for those rights - because they are disappearing.
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Chess

Putin: We must show no fear to terrorists


BBC News
Fri, 17 Jan 2014 11:45 UTC
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he will 'show no fear to terrorists' as he outlined security measures ahead of the Winter Olympics in Sochi.

He said security would be neither "intrusive nor too visible."
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MIB

US spy program penetrated Russian military networks - reports


RIA Novosti
Wed, 15 Jan 2014 16:43 UTC
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© RIA Novosti. Vitali Belousov
US Spy Program Penetrated Russian Military Networks – Report
The United States has infiltrated Russian military networks under a program that uses radio frequencies to spy on computers not connected to the Internet, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

The penetration was carried under a US National Security Agency (NSA) program, code-named Quantum, that has been used primarily against the Chinese Army but also against Mexican drug cartels, European trade institutions and targets in Pakistan, India and Saudi Arabia, the newspaper reported on its website, citing NSA documents, US officials and computer security experts.

The report, based in part on documents disclosed by fugitive US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden, did not provide further details about the infiltration of Russian military computers.
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Top Secret

Why is billionaire co-founder of eBay Pierre Omidyar funding Glenn Greenwald's NSA-Snowden leaks to the tune of $250 million?

James Corbett
The Corbett Report
Tue, 17 Dec 2013 13:04 UTC
secret keepers

Despite what Time Magazine would have us believe, there is no doubt that the most influential newsmaker of the year has been Edward Snowden, a former CIA employee and NSA subcontractor who at the age of 29 became the unlikely center of global attention with his release of documents allegedly detailing the inner workings of various NSA spying programs.

Of the many intriguing aspects of this story, by far one of the most frustrating is that, other than a few interviews and press conferences, almost everything we know about Snowden, his motivations, and the documents themselves come from intermediaries who have found themselves in the position of spokespeople on the case. Even such basic questions as how many documents Snowden leaked is still unclear, with various sources listing anything from 10,000 to 1.7 million documents. If details as basic as these vary so widely between sources, how much more opaque are the more difficult questions of Snowden's motivations and intentions, let alone the specifics of any deals he may have made with journalists about how this data was to be disseminated?


Comment: While we wait for the release of the rest of the Snowden files, read the following related articles:

Snowden's leaks become company assets?
Wolf in sheep's clothing? Billionaire neoliberal Pierre Omidyar
Extraordinary promise of the new Greenwald-Omidyar venture?

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Arrow Down

53 years to the day that Eisenhower warned of the military-industrial complex, Obama will further its cause

Mike Masnick
TechDirt
Fri, 17 Jan 2014 05:50 UTC
Eisenhower
© ChicoTown.com
Fifty three years ago today, President Dwight Eisenhower gave his famous speech warning of the military-industrial complex. It's quite a speech, and well worth reading, listening to or watching. But, the famous lines are the ones that still rings true today:
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
The White House claims that it's a mere coincidence that President Obama has chosen the anniversary of that speech to give his speech, outlining what are expected to be merely cosmetic reforms to the NSA's surveillance efforts, still convinced that even if the programs are incredibly broad and powerful, that it's okay since he won't abuse them.
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