AUG, SEPT, OCT, NOV 2011

AUG 2011

8/29/11

A brutal heat wave, now entering its fifth week, has strained the state's power generating supply, and pushed power prices to record levels.

Extreme heat covering the state, led to record weekend power use Saturday and Sunday; as Texans cranked up air conditioners, to cope with triple-digit temperatures and drought.

Houston, the state's biggest metropolitan area, hit 109 Fahrenheit Saturday; and is forecast to see a high of 102 Monday.

Dallas hit 106 on Saturday; and is projected to hit 105 Monday.

8/29/11

With thousands of homeowners enduring flooding there will be questions over whether insurance policies offer cover and whether the federal government's flood program can handle the claims. All this came at a time of austerity in Washington and in cash-strapped states.

8/29/11

This year, has been one of the most extreme for weather, in U.S. history; with $35 billion in losses so far, from: floods, tornadoes and heat waves.

8/29/11

Vermont deals, with its worst floods, in 84 years.

8/29/11

Renowned for its 'tiger economy', Malaysia saw rapid growth in the early 1990s, as its manufacturing industries, took advantage of the boom in electrical products.

But when, a financial crisis spread across Asia, at the end of the 1990s, the foreign investment that previously poured into Malaysia, vanished overnight, and its economy stalled.

With a 350% rise in GDP per capita since 1990 and the ensuing growth of the middle classes, Malaysia has suffered a shortage of manual labourers for many years. The country relies heavily on foreign workers, mainly from Indonesia, to fill jobs in the manufacturing, construction and service industri

In some circumstances, ethnic Chinese and Indians remaining in Malaysia can receive the preferential treatment normally accorded to Malays by converting to Islam. The Malaysian constitution, which defines ethnic Malays as Muslim, has strengthened the Muslim community, which now accounts for 61% of the population.

Ethnic Malays, should they wish to leave Islam, they must renounce their legal Malay status and all related preferential treatment.

8/30/11

Dick cheney

It's important to have people at the helm who are prepared to be unpopular, to take the criticism and the hits, that go with implementing policies."

8/30/11

space station

Launched in 1998, it was initially expected to remain in space for 15 years (2013), until an agreement was reached to keep it operating through 2020.

8/31/11

An engineered virus, injected into the blood, can selectively target cancer cells throughout the body in what researchers have labeled a medical first.

Researchers said: the findings could one day "truly transform," therapies.

"Intravenous delivery is crucial for cancer treatment because it allows us to target tumors throughout the body as opposed to just those that we can directly inject."

Infection prevented further tumor growth in six patients for a time. However, the virus did not cure cancer. Patients were given only one dose of the virus as the trial was designed to test the safety of the virus.

It is thought that the virus could be used to deliver treatments directly to cancerous cells in high concentrations.

8/31/11

Pfizer Inc.‘s just-approved Xalkori, the first new medicine in several years for deadly lung cancer.

Xalkori is approved for the roughly 4 percent of patients with non-small cell lung cancer who have what’s called the ALK fusion gene. That’s only about 6,000 Americans a year,

8/11/11

The US trade deficit with the rest of the world widened to $53.1bn (£32.9bn) in June, as exports fell faster than imports, official figures have shown.

US trade deficit is at its highest level for 32 months.

"Even a historically low dollar could not drive excess foreign demand."

SEPT 2011

9/2/11

Researchers at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analysed hospital data on up to eight million patients a year between 1995 and 2008.

In Annals of Neurology, they say stroke rates in five to 44-year-olds rose by about a third in under 10 years.

Higher blood pressure, diabetes and obesity were common in stroke patients.

In all age groups the increase was greater in men than in women.

"We know that high blood pressure, is the biggest risk factor for stroke; along with other factors such a: obesity, diabetes, poor diet and smoking.

9/2/11

Crime in the city’s subways has jumped about 17%; – mostly due to a spike in thefts of: cell phones, iPods, and other gadgets.

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9/2/11

Obama: Brooklyn: yesterday when FEMA’s list of counties eligible for disaster aid included every New York City borough, but theirs.

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9/2/11

An unemployment report showing the US economy didn't gain any jobs in August coupled with investors' reluctance to stay in the market over the holiday weekend sent stocks plunging 2 percent Friday.

9/2/11

Black unemployment surged to 16.7% in August, its highest level since 1984, while the unemployment for whites, fell slightly to 8%, the Labor Department reported.

Black unemployment has been roughly double that of whites, since the government started tracking the figures in 1972.

9/5/11

Stock markets continue the slide begun late last week, as fears over Italian and Spanish debts, reassert themselves.

9/5/11

Former French President Jacques Chirac is due to go on trial charged with illegal party funding during his time as mayor of Paris.

However, there are doubts whether the trial can go ahead as planned after a medical report found that Mr Chirac, 78, is suffering memory lapses.

Mr. Chirac, who was mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995, is accused on two counts of paying members of his Rally for the Republic (RPR) party for municipal jobs that did not exist.

If found guilty he faces up to 10 years in jail and a fine of 150,000 euros (£131,000).

9/5/11

The motor, made from a single molecule just a billionth of a metre across, is reported in Nature Nanotechnology.

The minuscule motor could have applications in both nanotechnology and in medicine, where tiny amounts of work can be put to efficient use.

Tiny rotors based on single molecules have been shown before, but this is the first that can be individually driven by an electric current.

The butyl methyl sulphide molecule was placed on a clean copper surface, where its single sulphur atom acted as a pivot.

By modifying the molecule slightly, it could be used to generate microwave radiation or to couple into what are known as nano-electromechanical systems, Dr Sykes said.

Also it could be used in the controlled delivery of drugs to targeted locations.

9/6/11

The 110-storey landmarks that dominated the Manhattan skyline for nearly 30 years, were reduced to rubble in the 9/11 suicide attacks of 2001.

9/6/11

This year’s West Indian Day Parade was marred by an unusual amount of violence, not seen in past years parade. The parade violence was preceded by a particularly gruesome J'ouvert celebration the night before.

Total Labor Day Weekend Tally: 48 Shot, 8 Dead

NY Daily News

2 Cops Among 67 Shot, in Weekend Violence;

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said Tuesday the city should not consider shutting down the parade, which often sees violence and had fatal shootings in 2003 and 2005.

Kelly said, the gunman who killed Gay had an extensive criminal history, including criminal possession of a firearm and assault and drug charges.

The annual Labor Day parade celebrates the culture of the Caribbean islands and is one of the city's largest outdoors events.

9/6/11

Carbapenem antibiotics, are considered the last line of defense ,against resistant bacteria. However, some are now resistant even to these drugs.

The way bacteria freely exchange genes between themselves, and even between species, means this resistance gene could spread to other disease-causing bacteria.

Scientists say this knowledge could be used to develop two types of treatment.

A drug could be designed to inactivate NDM-1 so current drugs would work again or to create different antibiotics which are not susceptible to NDM-1.

9/6/11

Helicopters ferried supplies Tuesday to thousands of people, still cut off by Japan's worst storm in 28 years.

9/7/11

A devastating outbreak of wildfires, has destroyed more than 1,000 homes in the last two days, and that number, is expected to continue to climb.

More than 170 fires have erupted in the past week across the state, killing at least four people and burning more than 135,000 acres. In the last two days, 1,023 homes have been destroyed, the TFS said.

9/7/11

Disclosure of the results of a study by the Hudson Institute, which provides a framework, certainly unprecedented, in the country's religious landscape:

MARCO TOSATTI

In France, there are more Islamic mosques being built, and more frequently, than Catholic churches; and there are more practicing Muslims, than practicing Catholics in the country.

Nearly 150 new mosques, are currently being built in France; home to the largest Islamic community in Europe.

The total number of mosques in France, has already doubled, to exceed 2,000 in the last ten years.

The Catholic Church in France, has only twenty new churches built in the last ten years; and formally closed more than 60 churches, many of which, could become mosques.

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Although 64% of the French population (41.6 million people, out of about 65 million inhabitants) are defined as Roman Catholic, only 4.5% (about 1.9 million people) are practicing Catholics, according to the French Institute of Public Opinion (IFOP).

Also in the field of comparison, 75% (4.5 million) of the approximately 6 million Muslims of North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa in France are identified as "believers", and 41% (about 2.5 million) claim to be "practitioners", according to a report posted on Islam in France by the IFOP on August 1 of last year.

Research says that more than 70% of French Muslims claimed to have observed Ramadan in 2011.

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Every Friday, thousands of Muslims in Paris and other French towns close roads and sidewalks (and consequently, block local trade, and trap the non-Muslim residents in homes and offices) to accommodate the faithful who are unable to enter the mosque for Friday prayers. Some mosques have started to broadcast sermons and chants of "Allahu Akbar" in the streets.

These hardships have caused anger and reactions, but despite many official complaints, authorities have not intervened so far in fear of igniting incidents. The issue of illegal street prayers reached the top of the French political agenda in December 2010 when Marine Le Pen, the new charismatic leader of the National Front, denounced the occurrence "an occupation without troops or tanks."

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The French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose popularity was at 25% in July, the lowest figure ever recorded for an incumbent president, a year before the presidential election.

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Many French agree. In fact, the issue of Islamic prayers in the street – and the wider issue of the role of Islam in French society – has become a problem of the greatest magnitude in view of the presidential election of 2012. According to a survey by the IFOP, 40% of the French agree with Le Pen.

9/7/11

Nearly one in three Americans, who grew up middle-class, has slipped down the income ladder as an adult.

Downward mobility is most common among middle-class people who are divorced or separated from their spouses, did not attend college, scored poorly on standardized tests, or used hard drugs, the report says.

9/7/11

Working-age poor population, is highest since '60s.

Americans are having fewer children than before — the now-weakened economy, and limited government safety net for workers, are heightening the effect.

It will mark the fourth year in a row of increases in the U.S. poverty rate, which now stands at 14.3 percent, or 43.6 million people.

9/7/11

Steven Kull opinion: Muslims have much they do not like about how America treats them. But there is one thing that is the most fundamental: their perception that America seeks to undermine Islam - a perception held by overwhelming majorities.

Muslims tend to view current events through the lens of a long-standing historical narrative. According to this narrative, going back to the Middle Ages Christian forces from the West have persistently sought to break the grip of Islam on its people. By holding fast, Muslims believe, they were able to flourish as a civilization, at times superseding the West in many dimensions.

Today, they believe, that struggle continues - except today the challenge is greater. Western cultural products are seen as seductively undermining Islamic culture.

More importantly, Western powers have gained extraordinary military might that is seen as threatening and coercively dominating the Muslim world and propping up secular autocrats ready to accommodate the West. U.S. support for Israel, sometimes described as ‘America’s aircraft carrier in the region’, is seen as integral to U.S. plans for domination. All this is seen as also serving Western economic interests, such as in securing oil, which dovetails with the agenda of keeping Islam under foot.

For many Muslims this pluralistic bonhomie masks an American narrative that is actually quite oppressive.

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According to this American narrative - which Muslims perceive as arrogant and dismissive - human society naturally and inevitable evolves through the stages that the West has gone through. As in the Renaissance, religion is largely banished from the public sphere, thus allowing pluralism and diversity of beliefs in the private sphere while maintaining a secular public sphere. This leads naturally to the elevation of individual freedoms and the emergence of democratic principles that make the will of the people the basis of the authority of law rather than revealed religious principles.

From this assumed American perspective, Muslim society is seen as simply behind the West in this evolutionary process. Retrogressive forces in Muslim society are seen as clinging to Islamic traditions that make Sharia the basis of law, not the will of the people, and inevitably keep women in their traditional oppressed roles and minority religions discriminated against.

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Currently in Congress there are efforts to ensure that U.S. funding of democracy promotion in Egypt only benefits liberal, secular parties and does not in any way benefit Islamist parties such as the Muslim Brotherhood.

To most Muslims this American perspective on Muslim society is simply incorrect and American efforts to choose the winner is really about America seeking to impose its Western secular model of governance and to eradicate the role of Islam in the public sphere. Since to Muslims Islam is, by definition, meant to be in the public sphere, American efforts are seen as seeking to undermine Islam itself.

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America’s interventions, produce a backlash, making Muslims feel that they need to do more to defend their Islamic foundations, and making advocates of liberal ideas suspect.

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There are reasons to believe that this effect was al Qaeda’s intended goal of the 9/11 attacks. By provoking America into military action against Muslim targets, al Qaeda hoped to revive the age-old narrative of the crusading West and to drive the Muslim people into the arms of al Qaeda’s vision of a purely traditional Islamic society devoid of liberal or Western elements.

Muslims believe that they are on a different path than the West . This path is central to their notion of their freedom to practice their religion. When they feel that America is threatening their religion and their aspirations, they grow resolutely hostile.

9/7/11

Trying to portray Obama as pro-Israel, is not a simple task. From the outset of his tenure in office, Obama has distinguished himself, as the most anti-Israel president ever.

But an apparently unprecedented number of American Jews, are unwilling to ignore reality, and continue supporting this anti-Israel president.

9/7/11

If you want to be effective in any activity, you have to be willing and able to look at the truth of a situation, face up to your mistakes, learn from your successes and failures, and change course accordingly. This is what allows you to learn, to grow, and to adapt to reality.

The trouble for Obama and others on the left is, that their deeply held beliefs, do not match with reality; so to learn and grow from their mistakes, would be to question their deeply held beliefs. This is an extremely difficult thing, for people to do.

9/7/11

In Denmark, the poorest 30%, pay 14.1% of all taxes; and the richest pay 48.7%, -- while in the United States, the poorest 30% pay just 6.1 % of all taxes, and the richest 30%, pay a whopping 65.3%?

The surprising thing is, not that the richest pay most of the taxes, but that the U.S. has nearly the most progressive tax system in the world; while the Scandinavian countries have about the least progressive tax systems, contrary to commonly held belief.

The above facts, along with hundreds of other useful tidbits, are found in a compelling new book, Government Versus Markets: The Changing Economic Role of the State (Cambridge University Press, 2011), by one of the world's most highly regarded economists, Vito Tanzi. It, and one other book, should be required reading for Washington dummies.

9/8/11

President Barack Obama, is the unlikely star of a new Palestinian media campaign.

Part of a speech Obama gave in 2010, to the United Nations General Assembly, is featured in an ad, aimed to rally support for the Palestinians upcoming bid for statehood, at the United Nations on Sept. 20, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

“When we come back here next year, we can have an agreement, that can lead to a new member of the United Nations, an independent, sovereign state of Palestine; living in peace with Israel,” Obama said in the 2010 speech, in the clip that is played in the radio ad.

Abbas has called the statement, the “Obama promise,” Reuters wrote.

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9/8/11

Google said, that its data centers continuously drew almost 260 million watts — about a quarter of the output of a nuclear power plant — to run Google searches, YouTube views, Gmail messaging and display ads on all those services around the world.

Google says, that people conduct over a billion searches a day, and numerous other downloads and queries

9/8/11

Monica Lewinsky

She was 21 at the time, Monica now is 38.

17 yrs later: A social pariah': Lonely Monica Lewinsky, has failed to find happiness.

Denial: In one of the most famous broadcasts ever, President Clinton wagged his finger, and sternly told a national audience: he 'did not have sex with that woman'

But she could not resist speaking out two years ago, saying Clinton lied under oath, when he described their relationship during an impeachment trial.

The claims were made in the book: The Death of American Virtue, by law professor Ken Gormley,

In an email to Gormley, Lewinsky made it clear, she believes the president lied.

‘There was no leeway [there], on the veracity of his statements, because they asked him detailed and specific questions, to which he answered untruthfully,’ she wrote.

9/8/11

A counter-terrorism bureau was created, intelligence experts from the CIA were drafted in and hundreds of heavily armed officers working in teams known as Hercules began to be deployed on the streets.

Three times a day "surges" take place across New York as police officers join an exercise which is part emergency drill, part show of strength - in which dozens of police vehicles from every precinct converge on a designated location at high speed.

9/11/11

Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned, that it will only be a matter of time, before America endures another terrorist attack; if Congress ends up blaming the defense budget, for this country’s red ink woes.

“The Department of Defense, is not what’s causing the debt and the deficit, It’s the entitlement programs.

Instead, explained Rumsfeld, the lesson we must remember on the 10th anniversary of 9/1,1 is why President Bush changed the country’s foreign policy direction, to one that targeted and dismantled terrorist strongholds, before they became operationally dangerous to the United States.

“If we were going to protect the American people, some structures had to be in place and coalitions had to be formed so that he [President Bush] could put pressure on the terrorists, wherever they were, and make it harder for them to talk to each other, and harder for them to move between countries and to find a country that would be hospitable to them.”

Rumsfeld told HUMAN EVENTS, that Obama’s decision to keep many of the tools and tactics President Bush implemented to fight terrorism, is reassuring. Even though Obama spent his entire 2008 presidential campaign promising to roll back those same terror-fighting policies, the President has discovered that they’ve “contributed to the protection of the American people these past 10 years.”

Today’s terrorists, can “attack anytime, anyplace, using any technique.” A chemical weapon, could easily wipe out 300,000 people, not 3,000. The “lethality of weapons” on the market today, is vastly greater, in the carnage they could create. “We need to recognize, that a President’s margin for error, is less than it was in earlier decades, and therefore we have to be even better at knowing what’s taking place.”

9/11/11

TRIPOLI, Libya (CNN) - A potent stash of Russian-made surface-to-air missiles is missing from a huge Tripoli weapons warehouse amid reports of weapons looting across war-torn Libya.

They are Grinch SA-24 shoulder-launched missiles, also known as Igla-S missiles, the equivalent of U.S.-made Stinger missiles.

Grinch SA-24s are designed to target front-line aircraft, helicopters, cruise missiles and drones. They can shoot down a plane flying as high as 11,000 feet and can travel 19,000 feet straight out.

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Peter Bouckaert, Human Rights Watch emergencies director, told CNN he has seen the same pattern in armories looted elsewhere in Libya, noting that "in every city we arrive, the first thing to disappear are the surface-to-air missiles."

He said such missiles can fetch many thousands of dollars on the black market.

"We are talking about some 20,000 surface-to-air missiles in all of Libya, and I've seen cars packed with them." he said. "They could turn all of North Africa into a no-fly zone."

Gilles de Kerchove, the European Union counterterrorism coordinator, raised concerns Monday about the possibility that al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, based in North Africa, could gain access to small arms, machine guns and surface-to-air missiles.

Western officials worry that weapons from the storage sites will end up in the hands of militants or adversaries like Iran.

The governments of neighboring Niger and Chad have both said that weapons from Libya are already being smuggled into their countries, and they are destined for al Qaeda. They include detonators and a plastic explosive called Semtex. Chad's president said they include SA-7 missiles.

Gilles de Kerchove, the European Union counterterrorism coordinator, raised concerns Monday about the possibility that al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, based in North Africa, could gain access to small arms, machine guns and surface-to-air missiles.

Western officials worry that weapons from the storage sites will end up in the hands of militants or adversaries like Iran.

The governments of neighboring Niger and Chad have both said that weapons from Libya are already being smuggled into their countries, and they are destined for al Qaeda. They include detonators and a plastic explosive called Semtex. Chad's president said they include SA-7 missiles.

There have been similar concerns in Afghanistan, where the United States provided thousands of Stinger missiles to the Afghan mujahedeen when they were fighting the Soviets in the 1980s. The United States has spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to buy them back, fearful that they would fall into the hands of terrorists.

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In Mexico - where 40% of the world's avocado crop is grown - this fruit is sacrosanct. In fact, Mexicans are estimated to eat up to 8kg of avocado each, every year.

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I talked to a security expert who claimed he knew the reason for the spiralling price. The great majority of Mexican avocados come from the state of Michoacan, in the west, a region badly affected by the presence of drug cartels.

I talked to a security expert who claimed he knew the reason for the spiralling price. The great majority of Mexican avocados come from the state of Michoacan, in the west, a region badly affected by the presence of drug cartels.

9/11/11

European Central Bank chief economist Juergen Stark has resigned amid speculation of conflicts within the ECB over its bond-buying program.

The ECB said, the German was leaving "for personal reasons", but would stay in the job until a successor is found.

In February, Axel Weber quit the ECB over the bank's policy of buying the debts of troubled eurozone governments.

Analysts said Mr Stark's surprise move pointed to continuing divisions in Germany over the ECB's direction.

European stock markets fell after the news, on concerns that any differences within the ECB would make tackling the eurozone debt crisis more problematic.

Mr. Stark's departure, comes almost three years, before his term is due to expire in May 2014.

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He was reportedly one of four members of the ECB who voted against last month's controversial decision to revive a programme of buying the bonds of indebted Eurozone nations.

In recent weeks, the ECB has bought more than 35bn euros (£30bn) in bonds, significantly reducing Italian and Spanish spreads over benchmark German Bunds, on top of the 76bn euros in Greek, Irish and Portuguese bonds it has bought since May 2010.

Politicians in Germany are under pressure amid public anger that they are helping to finance the bailouts of weaker economies.

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9/11/11

Global share prices, remain almost a third lower, than their peak prior to the crisis.

Financial stocks, have lost two-thirds of their value.

Developed world government bonds are no longer the risk-free investment they once were. In fact, credit markets show that government debt is now perceived to be riskier than corporate debt in western Europe.

Attention was focused on France last week.

Economic growth slowed to 0.3% in the US, and 0.2% in the UK.

Germany, - the Eurozone’s hitherto star performer, - expanded just 0.1%; and France stagnated.

Increasing numbers of analysts are questioning the survival of the euro due to the political tensions.

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It's not only the euro which faces problems.

The Chinese authorities are now calling for a new world reserve currency to replace the US dollar following S&P's downgrade.

9/11/11

High blood pressure: One series of chemical reactions involving nitric oxide, which opens up blood vessels, has been highlighted as a potential target.

9/12/11

More people go to church on Sunday in China, than in the whole of Europe.

It is impossible to say how many Christians there are in China today, but no-one denies the numbers are exploding.

A conservative figure is 60 million.

The new converts can be found from peasants in the remote rural villages to the sophisticated young middle class in the booming cities.

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Throughout the 20th Century, Christianity was associated with Western imperialism. After the Communist victory in 1948, the missionaries were expelled, but Christianity was permitted in state-sanctioned churches, so long as they gave their primary allegiance to the Communist Party.

Mao, on the other hand, described religion as "poison", and the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 70s attempted to eradicate it. Driven underground, Christianity not only survived, but with its own Chinese martyrs, it grew in strength.

Since the 1980s, when religious belief was again permitted, the official Churches have gradually created more space for themselves.

They report to the State Administration for Religious Affairs. They are forbidden to take part in any religious activity outside their places of worship and sign up to the slogan, "Love the country - love your religion."

In return the Party promotes atheism in schools but undertakes "to protect and respect religion until such time as religion itself will disappear".

Inch by inch, the Vatican and the government have been moving towards accommodation. Most bishops are now recognised by both, with neither side admitting the greater sovereignty of the other.

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In the mountains West of Beijing, I visited the village of Hou Sangyu where a Catholic Church has stood since the 14th Century.

The tough faith of these old people had withstood the Japanese invasion and the Cultural Revolution. The village clinic was run by nuns, one from Inner Mongolia, a Catholic stronghold.

It is from such villages that the Catholic Church recruits its young ordinands, to undertake training for the priesthood.

The official Protestant Church is growing faster than Catholicism.

On Easter morning, in downtown Beijing, I watched five services, each packed with over 1,500 worshippers. Sunday school was spilling on to the street.

However, these numbers are dwarfed by the unofficial "house churches", spreading across the country, at odds with the official Church which fears the house churches' fervour may provoke a backlash.

It seems to be an indigenous Chinese movement - charismatic, energetic and young.

In church people feel warm, they feel welcome… they feel people really love them so they really want to join the community, a lot of people come for this."

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In some areas the state has sought to enlist Christianity into its "big idea" of a "harmonious society" - the slogan that dominates Chinese public life. There has been official interest in the Western evangelical Alpha Marriage Course, because of alarm at the escalating divorce rate among young Chinese.

What must unsettle the authorities most is the reason why so many are turning to the churches.

I heard people talking again and again, of a "spiritual crisis" in China - a phrase that has even been used by the Premier Wen Jiao Bao.

The old, have seen the old certainties of Marxism-Leninism, transmute into the most visceral capitalist society, on earth.

For the young, in the stampede to get rich, trust in institutions, between individuals, between the generations; is breaking down.

As one of China's most eminent philosophers of religion - Professor He Guanghu, at Renmin University in Beijing, put it to me: "The worship of Mammon… has become many people's life purpose. "I think it is very natural, that many other people will not be satisfied... will seek some meaning for their lives; so when Christianity falls into their lives, they seize it very tightly."

9/12/11

French banks also fell amid rumours of a possible downgrade of their debt and concerns about their exposure to Greece and Italy.

By mid-morning in New York, the Dow Jones was down by 1%.

London's FTSE 100 closed down 1.6%, France's Cac 40 dropped 4.0% and Germany's Dax lost 2.3%. The declines followed heavy falls in Asia, where Hong Kong ended 4% down.

The euro fell to a 10-year low against the yen, and investors poured money into German bonds in a flight to safety.

The latest crisis of confidence in the markets came amid worries that Germany had lost patience with Greece - and other heavy indebted eurozone nations - and might not help future bailouts.

But stock markets remained deep in the red, especially French banks' shares, which are among the most exposed to Greek debt.

France's two other big banks, Societe Generale and Credit Agricole, closed down 11%. In Germany, Deutsche Bank fell 7.3% and Commerzbank 8.3%.

"Conditions are getting very serious and everyone is worried how the issue will unfold.

9/12/11

More than 200 people have died and millions remain affected after two weeks of flooding in Pakistan's southern Sindh province, officials say.

The situation is worsening each day as water levels are rising because of poor drainage.

Meanwhile, in India's eastern Orissa state more than one million have been displaced and 16 killed in floods.

About 2,600 villages have been submerged across 19 districts.

Heavy monsoon rains have been battering South Asia for days but southern Pakistan has borne the brunt of the bad weather in recent weeks.

Almost one million houses there have been destroyed or damaged and floods have affected nearly 4.2m acres of land, the UN said

The United Nations Children's Fund, Unicef, said up to 2.5 million children had been affected.

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9/13/11

The number of Americans living in poverty, rose to a record 46.2 million last year, official data has shown.

This is the highest figure, since the US Census Bureau started collecting the data in 1959.

In percentage terms, the poverty rate rose to 15.1%, up from 14.3% in 2009.

The US definition of poverty is an annual income of $22,314 (£14,129) or less for a family of four and $11,139 for a single person.

The number of Americans living below the poverty line has now risen for four years in a row, while the poverty rate is the biggest since 1993.

Poverty among black and Hispanic people was much higher than for the overall US population last year, the figures also showed.

The Census Bureau data said 25.8% of black people were living in poverty and 25.3% of Hispanic people.

Its latest report also showed that the average annual US household income fell 2.3% in 2010 to $49,445.

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Meanwhile, the number of Americans without health insurance remained about 50 million.

9/13/11

A sophisticated new camera system, can detect lies, just by watching our faces as we talk, experts say.

The computerized system uses a simple video camera, a high-resolution thermal imaging sensor and a suite of algorithms.

Researchers say the system could be a powerful aid to security services.

It successfully discriminates, between truth and lies, in about two-thirds of cases,

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We give our emotions away in our eye movements, dilated pupils, biting or pressing together our lips, wrinkling our noses, breathing heavily, swallowing, blinking and facial asymmetry. And these are just the visible signs seen by the camera.

Even swelling blood vessels around our eyes betray us, and the thermal sensor spots them too.

Traditional lie detection depends on the venerable polygraph, first developed in 1921.

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"In a real, high-stress situation, we might get an even higher success rate," noted Professor Ugail, who believes he'll eventually be able to detect around 90% of those who are lying, which is similar to the performance of the polygraph.

The researchers acknowledge, though, that these tests can never be 100% accurate.

What they detect are emotions, such as distress, fear or distrust, and not the act of lying itself. Fear can sometimes be the fear of not being believed rather than the fear of being caught.

9/13/11

Along 800 miles (1,287km) of French coast, lie some of the most substantial and evocative vestiges of war-time Europe.

Remaining sections of the wall have fallen into disrepair

The so-called Atlantic Wall - Hitler's defensive system against an expected Allied attack - stretched all the way from the Spanish border to Scandinavia.

Inevitably, it was in France that the most extensive building took place.

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9/14/11

The design for a huge rocket ,to take humans to asteroids and Mars, has been unveiled by the US space agency Nasa.

The Space Launch System (SLS), as it is currently known, will be the most powerful launcher ever built - more powerful even than the Saturn V rockets that put men on the Moon.

On top of the SLS, Nasa plans to put its Orion astronaut capsule, which is already in development.

The agency says the first launch should occur towards the end of 2017.

This will be an uncrewed test flight, and it is estimated the project will have cost $18bn (£11.4bn) by that stage.

______

The SLS will borrow many technologies developed for the recently retired space shuttle program. These include the shuttle orbiter's main engines.

But whereas the reusable space-plane had three such power units on its aft, the SLS main core stage in its full-up configuration will have five.

In 2017, the SLS should be able to lift 70 tonnes to LEO. It must evolve to 130 tons eventually.

By comparison, today's biggest commercial launch vehicles, such as the Ariane 5 or the Delta IV Heavy, can put just over 20 tonnes in LEO.

_______

The immense lift capability is necessary to put all the equipment in orbit that is needed to undertake a deep-space mission. This would consist of not only the Orion capsule but perhaps a habitation module and a landing craft to go down to the surface of another planetary body.

In the case of a Mars mission, several SLS launches would probably be needed.

9/14/11

In the interviews with a White House historian, she says civil rights leader Martin Luther King is "a terrible man".

Jackie Kennedy, who died in 1994, reveals how JFK was scathing about Vice-President Lyndon Johnson and some world leaders.

She also strongly criticized Dr King, recalling how her brother-in-law Robert Kennedy told her the civil rights leader had been intoxicated at JFK's funeral and mocked Cardinal Richard Cushing's Mass.

French President Charles de Gaulle was "that egomaniac" and "that spiteful man", while future Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was a "bitter, kind of pushy, horrible woman".

Jackie Kennedy also said her husband had been disappointed upon meeting Winston Churchill in the 1950s.

"Jack had always wanted to meet Churchill. Well, the poor man [Churchill] was really quite ga-ga then," she said.

"I felt so sorry for Jack that evening because he was meeting his hero, only he met him too late."

______

Born Jacqueline Lee Bouvier on 28 July 1929, in Southampton, New York

Married John F Kennedy - then senator, - on 12 September 1953, in Newport, Rhode Island.

Became first lady aged 31.

Gave birth to a stillborn baby in 1956.

Gave birth to a daughter, Caroline, in 1957, and a son, John, in 1960;

Her second son, Patrick, died two days after he was born in 1963.

Suffered the assassination of her husband, later that year.

Married Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis in 1968; Widowed in 1975 following his death.

_________

She also said, it had not been easy marrying into the Kennedy family.

She recalled that her closest moments with her husband came during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, when the US and Soviet Union seemed on the brink of nuclear war.

The young widow described her marriage with JFK as a "rather terribly Victorian or Asiatic relationship" and said she got all her opinions from him.

______

JFK had asked the academic if Lincoln would have been rated as such a great president if he had not been killed.

The historian replied that it was unlikely since Lincoln's reputation would ultimately have suffered while tackling the problem of post-Civil War reconstruction.

The former first lady said: "And then I remember Jack saying after the Cuban missile crisis, when it all turned [out] so fantastically, he said: 'Well, if anyone's ever going to shoot me, this would be the day they should do it.'"

______

her husband ended the fashion of male hat-wearing, by refusing ever to be seen in headgear.

The rows that the couple had, are known to have had over the president's serial adultery.

Kennedy scholars had long speculated, to be the main reason for her 50-year rule, governing the availability of her oral history; - that she had confided in Schlesinger, about the president's marital infidelity.

In this context, her comments about retiring to bed early on the night of the inauguration have an unintended significance. That was the very night Kennedy committed his first adulterous act as president.

_______

Jackie describes how her husband wept in their bedroom at news of the Bay of Pigs, the disastrous CIA-backed attempted invasion of Cuba in 1961 that amplified questions early in his presidency over whether he was truly up to the job. So outwardly confident, Kennedy went through an uncharacteristic bout of introspection after the debacle.

The tapes contain other humanizing details, including the president's nightly prayer ritual. "

Given what we now know about Kennedy's playboy presidency - which, in many ways, was a pornographic presidency - this, again, is intriguing. It highlights the difference between what might be called the Saturday night Kennedy and the more pious Sunday morning Kennedy.

LBJ once said. "Here was a young whippersnapper, malaria-ridden and yellah, sickly, sickly. He never said a word of importance in the Senate and he never did a thing. But somehow with his books and his Pulitzer prizes he managed to create the image of himself as a shining intellectual, a youthful leader who could change the face of the country."

The March on Washington, at which King delivered his famed I Have a Dream speech; Fearing a massive race riot, they then orchestrated one of the biggest military deployments in American peacetime history to prevent any outbreak of violence.

9/14/11

If Greece goes bust:

JAPANESE BANKS: HOLD $432 MILLION IN GREEK DEBT

SPANISH BANKS: HOLD $540 MILLION IN GREEK DEBT

U.S. BANKS: HOLD $1.5 BILLION IN GREEK DEBT

ITALIAN BANKS: HOLD $2.35 BILLION IN GREEK DEBT

UK BANKS HOLD: $3.4 BILLION IN GREEK DEBT

FRENCH BANKS: HOLD $14.96 BILLION IN GREEK DEBT

GERMAN BANKS: HOLD $22.65 BILLION IN GREEK DEBT

GREEK BANKS: HOLD $62.8 BILLION IN GREEK DEBT

_____

9/14/11

With his outcome of his own reelection effort 14 difficult months away, President Obama suffered a sharp rebuke at the polls Tuesday, when voters in New York elected a conservative Republican to represent a Democratic congressional district that has not been in Republican hands since the 1920s.

9/14/11

The Eurozone crisis could wreck the European Union, top EU officials warned on Wednesday as the leaders of Germany and France held talks with Greece to avoid a default and widespread chaos.

Highlighting the threat to the global economy, Geithner is to exceptionally attend talks between European Union finance ministers and central bankers in Poland on Friday.

Credit rating giant Moody's, downgraded two major French banks; given their exposure to Greek debt.

"Europe is in danger," Polish Finance Minister Jacek Rostowski, whose country currently chairs EU meetings, told the European Parliament in Strasbourg.

His underlying message was backed up by European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso, who described the crisis as "the most serious challenge of a generation."

Barroso stressed: "This is a fight... for the economic and political future of Europe."

EU economic affairs commissioner Olli Rehn warned that "a default or exit of Greece from the eurozone would carry dramatic social, economic and political costs.

"Not only for Greece, but also for euro area member states, other EU states, as well as global partners."

Italy's debt stands at 120 percent of gross domestic product, and many analysts are convinced it is next in line to draw sustained bond-market fire.

EU officials have warned repeatedly that Athens will not receive the next slice of aid, worth eight billion euros ($11.0 billion), unless it can persuade EU and IMF auditors, about to resume work, that it can overcome its deficit crisis.

Problems also remain to be resolved over support for wider bailout funding in Finland, Slovakia and the Netherlands at least.

________

The stakes are rising: after US President Barack Obama called for greater European efforts, the BRICS grouping -- Brazil, Russia, India, China and South

Africa Moody's downgraded Credit Agricole and Societe Generale, and left BNP Paribas on tenterhooks.

Shares in all three French banks had recently plummeted over concern at exposure to Greek debt.-- said they would discuss possible aid to Europe over Greece next week.

9/14/11

The income of the typical American family—long the envy of much of the world—has dropped for the third year in a row; and is now roughly where it was; in 1996 when adjusted for inflation.

The income of a household considered to be at the statistical middle fell 2.3% to an inflation-adjusted $49,445 in 2010, which is 7.1% below its 1999 peak, the Census Bureau said.

The fraction of Americans living in poverty clicked up to 15.1% of the population, and 22% of children are now living below the poverty line, the biggest percentage since 1993.

9/14/11

Bank of America, is ramping up its foreclosure processing, sending out far more notices of default to borrowers in August, than in previous months, well over 200 percent more month-to-month.

9/14/11

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) - Clergy sex abuse victims, upset that no high-ranking Roman Catholic leaders, have been prosecuted for sheltering guilty priests have turned to the International Criminal Court, seeking an investigation of the pope and top Vatican cardinals for possible crimes against humanity.

The Vatican called the move a "ludicrous publicity stunt."

The odds against the court opening an investigation are enormous. The prosecutor has received nearly 9,000 independent proposals for inquiries since 2002, when the court was created as the world's only permanent war crimes tribunal, and has never opened a formal investigation based solely on such a request.

Attorneys for the Survivors Network argued that no other national entity exists that will prosecute high-level Vatican officials who failed to protect children.

In the U.S., no Roman Catholic bishop has been criminally charged for keeping accused clergy in parish jobs without warning parents or police. Within the church, only the pope can discipline bishops.

Vatican officials and church leaders elsewhere have apologized repeatedly, clarified or toughened church policies on ousting abusers and, in the U.S. alone, paid out nearly $3 billion in settlements to victims and removed hundreds of priests.

However, the scandal is far from resolved.

The Vatican is fighting on multiple legal fronts in the U.S. against lawsuits alleging the Holy See is liable for abusive priests. Just last month, the Vatican was forced to turn over internal personnel files of an abusive priest to lawyers representing a victim in Oregon.

9/14/11

The Republicans have scored an upset victory in a House race that started as a contest to replace New York Rep. Anthony Weiner

Obama's Israel policy seen as factor that cost him House seat

‪‪Bob Turner, who repeatedly criticized Obama on Israel, defeats Democrat David Weprin, in district that is 40% Jewish.

9/14/2011
Nature is pummeling the United States this year with extremes.

Unprecedented triple-digit heat and devastating drought. Deadly tornadoes leveling towns. Massive rivers overflowing. A billion-dollar blizzard. And now, unusual hurricane-caused flooding in Vermont.14/11

The U.S. has had a record 10 weather catastrophes, costing more than a billion dollars:

Five separate tornado outbreaks,

Two different major river floods in the Upper Midwest and the Mississippi River, drought in the Southwest

A blizzard that crippled the Midwest and Northeast,

Hurricane Irene.

9/15/11

Shoppers spent $32.6 billion online, during the holidays in 2010, a 12 percent increase from the year before, according to comScore.

Last year was the first time, that sales on Cyber Monday — a critical online buying day that falls the Monday after Thanksgiving, — exceeded $1 billion.

9/15/11

United Parcel Service Inc., based in Atlanta, delivers to more than 100 million residential addresses, each year.

9/16/11

Consumers paid more for a range of goods and services last month, pushing up inflation, and squeezing Americans' purchasing power.

The Consumer Price Index rose 0.4 percent in August after jumping 0.5 percent in July. The core index, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, rose 0.2 percent.

For the 12 months that ended in August, the core index surged 2 percent, the biggest year-over-year increase in nearly three years. That's at the high end of the Federal Reserve's informal inflation target. It could limit the central bank's ability to take further steps to try to revive the economy.

The Labor Department said food prices rose 0.5 percent, the biggest increase since March. That was due to higher prices for cereals and dairy products. Energy prices increased 1.2 percent.

Among the factors driving up the core index were rental costs. They rose 0.4 percent, the most in nearly three years. Many Americans have been renting rather than buying homes, pushing up rents.

Clothing costs rose 1.1 percent, extending a string of increases that stem partly from steep rises in cotton prices earlier this year. Airline fares rose 1.1 percent, the most since March.

Sharp price increases for gas and food have pushed up most measures of inflation this year. That has reduced consumers' purchasing power, cut into their ability to spend on other items and weakened the economy. 15/11

9/15/2011

Leading House Democrats, are accusing the Obama administration of ignoring the lingering mortgage crisis, and threatening tens of millions of Americans with foreclosure in the process.

The lawmakers — encouraged by Obama's mention of mortgage relief in his address to Congress last week — were quickly deflated just days later when their efforts to learn the details of the White House plan proved unsuccessful.

"The administration has been AWOL on this issue," charged Rep. Dennis Cardoza (D-Calif.), "and the American people are suffering because of the mismanagement."

"In my entire political career, I've never seen anything this irresponsible," he added.

_______

9/16/11

The U.S., is coming to Europe's financial rescue.

So far, America's role is fairly limited. But if the crisis continues to grow and the U.S. takes on a wider role, U.S. consumers and taxpayers could feel a bigger impact. The biggest exposure could come from America's status as the single largest source of money for the International Monetary Fund.

The latest round of American financial assistance came Thursday with a promise by the Federal Reserve to swap as many dollars for euros as European bankers need. In the short run, those transactions won't have much impact because the central banks are simply swapping currencies of equal value. If the move helps avert a wider crisis, it could help spare the global economy from another recession.

"This is a lender of last resort function," he told CNBC. "With the dollar injections that the Fed has done, it's like giving a patient medicine with really bad side effects." Ryding said the bad side effect in the U.S. has been inflation, which has picked up to 3.8 percent year over year.

Since the advent of email and other electronic communication, the postal service has seen a steady decline in its use. More than 43 billion, fewer pieces of mail are sent, now than they were five years ago.

First-class mail has dropped 25 percent, and the transmission of stamped letters is down 36 percent over that time frame. The postage purchased to send first-class mail, is a primary source of revenue for the USPS.

9/16/11

Mayor Bloomberg predicts riots in the streets, if economy doesn't create more jobs.

"We have a lot of kids graduating college, can't find jobs," Bloomberg said on his weekly WOR radio show.

"That's what happened in Cairo. That's what happened in Madrid. You don't want those kinds of riots here."

In Cairo, angry Egyptians took out their frustrations by toppling presidential strongman Hosni Mubarak - and more recently attacking the Israeli embassy.

As for Madrid, the most recent street protests were sparked by widespread unhappiness that the Spanish government was spending millions on the visit of Pope Benedict instead of dealing with widespread unemployment.

Bloomberg's unusually alarmist pronouncement, came as President Obama has been pressuring reluctant Republicans, to pass his proposed job creation plan.

"The damage to a generation, that can't find jobs, will go on for many, many years," the normally-measured mayor said.

Obama's approval rating has sunk along with the economy, but the ratings of the Republicans who have stymied his attempts to repair the damage, are even worse, most polls show.

9/18/11

Europe’s combined year-end, annual deficit is 4.5 percent of Gross Domestic Product, -- whereas the United States, expects its public deficit to reach, 8.8 percent this year.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, said the United States, was carrying the world's, heaviest debt burden.

9/18/11

At least seven people, have been killed in Nepal and northern parts of India, after a 6.8-magnitude earthquake struck the region.

The quake was also felt in, Bangladesh and Bhutan.
_____

9/18/11

Now that reading DNA code is almost simple, he wants to write and edit it, too.

The 57 yr. old DNA of Harvard genetics professor George Church. About 30 years ago, Prof Church was one of a handful of people, who dreamed up the idea of sequencing the entire human genome.

He envisions a day, when a device implanted in your body, will be able to identify the first mutations of a potential tumor, or the genes of an invading bacteria. You'll be able to pop an antibiotic, targeted at the invader, or a cancer pill, aimed at those few renegade cells.

Another device, will monitor your outside environment, warning you away from sites, that pose a health risk.

A range of genetic disorders, will be identified at birth, or even conception; and tiny, preprogrammed viruses, will be sent into the body, to penetrate compromised cells, and correct the damage. Changing the adult body, at the first signs of illness, will be just as easy, he predicts.

There's no reason, Prof Church says, why people won't be able to live to be 120, and then 150.

9/18/11

Samsung has promised to release its first mobile phone, with a graphene screen, in the near future.

Professor Andrea Ferrari of Cambridge University says, that besides being totally flexible, a touch screen of a phone or a tablet made of grapheme, could even give you "sensational" feedback.

"Your phone will be able to sense if you're touching it, will sense the environment around - you won't have to press a button to turn it on or off, it will recognize if you're using it or not."

Also, he said, one day we might not need to carry around GPS devices - along with other graphene-based sensors, they could be woven into our clothes.

"Besides GPS, you could have something that will monitor your heart rate for instance - and it'll be integrated into the fabric," explains Professor Ferrari.

And graphene could even help airplanes, "communicate" with pilots.

9/19/11

Despite being more than 5,000 miles from Washington D.C., a default in Athens, could trip up the global banking system just enough, to tip the U.S. into a recession; investors and economists said.

9/19/11

It's not just millionaires who'd pay more under President Barack Obama's latest plan to combat the deficit.

Air travelers, federal workers, military retirees, wealthier Medicare beneficiaries and people taking out new mortgages are among those who would pay more than $130 billion in government revenues raised through new or increased fees.

Airline passengers would see their federal security fees double from $5 to $10 for a nonstop round-trip flight and triple to $15 by 2017, raising $25 billion over the coming decade. Federal workers would face an additional 1.2 percentage point deduction from their paychecks to contribute $21 billion more for their pensions over the same period. Military retirees would pay a $200 fee upon turning 65 to have the government pay their out-of-pocket Medicare expenses. They'd also pay more for non-generic prescription drugs.

9/19/11

Scientists have found a way to prevent HIV from damaging the immune system, and say their discovery, may offer a new approach to developing a vaccine against AIDS.

AIDS kills around 1.8 million people a year worldwide. An estimated 2.6 million people caught HIV in 2009, and 33.3 million people are living with the virus.

The virus also mutates quickly and can hide from the immune system, and attacks the very cells sent to battle it.

"HIV is very sneaky," Boasso said in a statement. "It evades the host's defenses by triggering overblown responses that damage the immune system. It's like revving your car in first gear for too long -- eventually the engine blows out.

9/20/11

At least 12 million people enslaved in the world today.

South Asia, being the largest numbers of people in the world.

But if you look at the International Labor Organization analysis of the problem, slavery in Europe and in North America - while it's smaller numbers, it's the high-value slavery. It's the thing that was making millions of dollars for people who are trafficking other human beings.

FOSTER: Because it's all about money, at the end of the day, isn't it? And all of the money's in Western Europe and the U.S., for example? The rich economies.

MCQUADE: Yes. And there's a basic rule in all business which is, if you can reduce costs, you will increase profits. And so there is a compulsion upon people-running - particular in the black and gray economies in this part of the world, to reduce their costs as much as they can by using slavery, for example.

9/20/11

Four earthquakes struck southern Guatemala, within hours of each other, on Monday.

The largest of the quakes had a magnitude of 5.8 and was located about 53 kilometers (32 miles) southeast of Guatemala City, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. 25 miles deep.

The other quakes had reported magnitudes of 4.8 or lower, and hit within less than about 40 miles of the capital.

9/20/11

Tokyo (CNN) -- About 80,000 residents have been ordered to flee, and more than 1 million people were urged to evacuate Nagoya, a city in central Japan, Tuesday as a typhoon was expected to hit the area.

Typhoon Roke, was packing winds of 185 kph (115 mph).

9/20/11

His nickname is "The Fever." Mexican officials say Jose Carlos Moreno Flores was a major drug lord in charge of trafficking and operations for a large Mexican cartel in the coastal state of Guerrero, where the beach resort of Acapulco is located.

According to Mexico's Ministry of Defense, Moreno Flores was caught Sunday in Mexico City's Tlalpan District. His capture is particularly important because Moreno is allegedly tied to the Sinaloa Cartel led by Joaquin "El Chapo" (Shorty) Guzman, Mexico's most wanted man.

Guzman, who remains a fugitive, commands such a vast international drug trafficking network and his profits from the illicit trade are so big that he made Forbes Magazine's list of the world's most powerful. He appeared at number 60 on last year's list with an estimated fortune of $1 billion. The magazine calls him "the biggest drug lord ever."

9/20/11

Obama sought to reinforce a foreign policy strategy that emphasizes cooperation and shared responsibility after what has been criticized as a "might makes right" posture by the United States in past decades.

9/20/11

Washington (CNN) -- Violent crime in the United States declined 6% last year, according to statistics compiled by the FBI and released Monday.

Despite difficult economic conditions, the 2010 figures show a continuing decline in violent incidents nationwide, which have been dropping annually since 2006.

There were slightly fewer than 1.25 million violent crimes in the United States in 2010, a 6% decline from calendar year 2009.

Since 2001, violent incidents have now dropped 13.4%.

The criminologists say, high unemployment and housing issues, that might have been expected to be factors, have not noticeably affected the crime statistics.

9/20/11

Among the major advanced economies, the IMF now thinks Germany and Canada, will be the only countries to grow by more than 2% in 2011.

"Although [US] unemployment is below post-World War II highs, job losses during the crisis were unprecedented and came on top of lacklustre employment performance during the preceding decade," the report said.

It added that news of the US housing market had been disappointing, with "no end in sight to the overhang of excess supply and declining prices".

9/20/11

Three nations in the eurozone - the 17 nations that use the euro - have been recipients of bailouts, as attempts to solve the crisis keep stalling.

Italy became the latest, to feel the domino effect of the markets, when its debt rating was lowered, the latest in a series of downgrades.

Greece, Spain, the Irish Republic and even Cyprus, have also had their ratings cut this year. The future of the euro, is being questioned in a way, it never has since 1999.

_______

Greece's huge debts, about $478bn. Greece finally admitted, its debts were the highest, in the country's modern history.

Most observers remain highly skeptica,l of Greece's ability to ever repay its huge mountain of debt. Talk persist,s of an unprecedented default, or of Greece leaving the eurozone.

Because of the interconnectedness of the European economy, this would cause huge losses for French and German banks.

Greece is now considered to be "junk" by the ratings agencies, meaning it has a very high chance of defaulting.

S&P has cut its debt seven times since 2009, from A to CC, the third-lowest rung on its rating scale.

_______

Italy has the highest total debt in the eurozone, amid stagnant growth.

If Italy was to be bailed out, few think that the eurozone (or Germany in particular) could actually afford it.

But Italy has the advantage, of having most of its debt, owed to its own people, rather than external investors.

______

Spain, like Italy, is considered too expensive a proposition, for the eurozone to realistically bail out.

________

France- The country's banks, bear a heavy exposure to Greek debt.

________

Germany- While that growth has slowed, the main problem is that Europe's largest economy, is the biggest contributor to the bailout fund used to help stricken nations.

Germany's banks, have a heavy exposure to debt from Greece, Europe's biggest headache.

This means in the event of a Greek default, Germany would probably have to bail out its own banks.

But having taken the lead in bailing out three nations - Greece twice, - how many more can the country afford?

________

UK banks, have a heavy exposure to Irish debt.

The country's budget deficit, was 10.3% last year, - this is just behind Greece, greater than Spain's, and more than triple that of Germany.

__________

Irish- The country's banking system collapsed.

The country's biggest banks ,were taken under government control, in the financial crisis and recapitalized. The cost of doing that, has been about 70bn euros.

________

Portugal- The country has been the third to get a bailout, worth 78bn euros.

9/21/11

An in-depth analysis of the injustice done to Sholom Mordechai Rubashkin time and time again, in a way that shows that anti-semitism is alive and kicking in 21st Century America, ironically dubbed "Land of the Free"

Lawyer Nathan Lewin says: that such a decision is "the most massive injustice I have encountered in 50 years of practicing law."

From using false legal doctrines, which have no merit, and fly in the face of logic and common sense, to absurdity on part of the "Judge" Linda Reade, this case smells of prejudice, and contains violations of Federal laws.

9/22/11

Stocks Nose Dive 400 points, Treasury Yields Plummet as Economic Dread Grips Wall Street.

"There is a legitimate fear, that both monetary and fiscal policy, has been too timid, and the new measures will be ineffectual."

The euro took a beating in early trading, tumbling 1.1% against the U.S. dollar, while the greenback leaped nearly 1% against a basket of world currencies.

9/22/11

6 Million people age 25-34, live with parents; up 25%.

9/22/11

Fattal and Bauer, were released earlier Wednesday, on bail of $500,000 each.

Many, she says, were at Evin prison in iran, for believing in Baha'i, a monotheistic faith, believers are persecuted for in Iran.

These prisoners told me, "We don't hate (the guards), but we forgive them," which was incredible to me. I tried hard to hate the sin and not the sinner. ... I realized we are all human beings, and (the prison workers) do their jobs to have job security. They get paid for it. Some of them do believe in the ideology, and some don't.

Iranians say, they are kind to foreigners.

I tried to keep my sanity by singing songs like Christmas carols, and "We Will Rock you," and I played notes, with my fingers on the wall. I kept saying things that gave me courage, like Gandhi's "I do believe, I am seeking only God's truth, and have lost all fear of man."

"Today can only be described as the best day of our lives," they said in a statement. "We have waited for nearly 26 months for this moment and the joy and relief we feel at Shane and Josh's long-awaited freedom knows no bounds.

9/22/11

Mexico- Drug-related violence, has been on the rise in Veracruz, as cartel members battle over territory. Boca del Rio, is in Veracruz state's most populated area.

Government figures indicate, that more than 34,600 people have been killed, in drug-related violence, since Mexican President Felipe Calderon began a crackdown on cartels, in December 2006. Other reports estimate ,that more than 40,000 have died.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon: ¨Today we must be aware, that organized crime today is killing more people, and more youth, than all the dictatorial regimes combined at this time,¨ he said.

______

Since the 1960s, Colombia has been at war with the FARC, -- the Spanish acronym for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, -- a guerrilla group.

"Women and girls in Colombia, are often treated as trophies of war. They are raped and sexually abused, by all the warring parties, as a way to silence and punish them.

Of the more than 20,000 cases of sexual violence reported in 2010, 84% were women, and 85% were under the age of 18, Amnesty found. Colombian officials have allowed impunity to reign for decades.

_______

In some Indian villages, girls are sent into prostitution by their families - a tradition that began as religious obligation but is now continued for money.

Stories like this are common in the Bharatpur district of Rajasthan state in Western India, where girls are sold to brothels, once they hit puberty.

Locals mark this rite of passage with a coming of age ceremony called Nathni Utarna – which translates as taking off the nose ring - that signifies a girl is ready to be sent into the sex trade, that she's considered ready to sleep with her first client.

Often, young girls are pushed into the sex business by their own fathers and brothers. The men see nothing wrong with it.

They say it is a tradition that has been passed down through generations. It began with the devdasi culture (devdasi means servant of God).

Under the devdasi system, girls were dedicated to a life of sex work in the name of religion.

Initially, they would serve upper class men in the local community. The girls would entertain princes and landlords with song and dance.

________

Money is key. In the sleepy village some residents make money from farming and others are daily wage laborers. But there is very little money.

It's an area of extreme poverty – so sending a daughter into the sex business is seen as a way for parents to unburden themselves of a child -and, it's lucrative.

A former prostitute told CNN she would earn as much as $20 a day working in New Delhi's red light district. It's a lot of money for families in this area, many of whom live on less than a dollar a day.

_________

"It's difficult to get women who are already in the sex trade to quit, because they get used to the income.

9/22/11

Puzzling results from Cern, home of the LHC, have confounded physicists - because it appears subatomic particles have exceeded the speed of light.

Neutrinos sent through the ground from Cern toward the Gran Sasso laboratory 732km away seemed to show up a tiny fraction of a second early.

The result - which threatens to upend a century of physics - will be put online for scrutiny by other scientists. The consequences can be very serious."

________

The speed of light is the Universe's ultimate speed limit, and much of modern physics - as laid out in part by Albert Einstein in his special theory of relativity - depends on the idea that nothing can exceed it.

Thousands of experiments have been undertaken to measure it ever more precisely, and no result has ever spotted a particle breaking the limit.

But Dr Ereditato and his colleagues have been carrying out an experiment for the last three years that seems to suggest neutrinos have done just that.

Neutrinos come in a number of types, and have recently been seen to switch spontaneously from one type to another.

_________

It was Albert Einstein, no less, who proposed more than 100 years ago that nothing could travel faster than the speed of light.

186,282 miles per second.

John Ellis, a theoretical physicist, said Einstein’s theory underlies “pretty much everything in modern physics”.

9/22/11

I had the chance to talk with a few local doctors in Vancouver, Canada. All of them told me to get an x-ray. Several others told me to check my mezuzot.

This is going to sound weird, but as soon as he hung the final now kosher mezuzah, I felt a surreal sense of light and healing pervade our home. Like everything was going to be OK.

I’m not sure, if it’s due to our new certified-kosher mezuzot, but God has slowly but surely, returned my wrist to full function.

9/25/11

A top restaurateur is throwing in the apron, saying he’s done with New York City because a wave of vicious lawsuits, coupled with draconian state regulations, threatens to cripple the industry.

_________

Eateries have paid out close to $30 million in settlements over wage and tip complaints in the past few years — and that’s just from suits filed by one Manhattan lawyer, Daniel Maimon Kirschenbaum.

The city’s biggest names, including Nobu, Jean Georges, Sparks and Mesa Grill, have forked over millions, and more restaurants are on the hook. The ‘21’ Club reached a tentative $2 million settlement last week in a suit that alleged it stiffed workers on overtime pay and did not properly distribute a service charge to banquet staff.

“Money-hungry lawyers, through frivolous lawsuits, are shaking down the very foundation of Manhattan’s restaurant industry,” fumed Joe Bastianich, co-owner of Eataly, Del Posto and Babbo.

______

New wage rules from the state Labor Department, which took effect in January, regulated tip distribution for the first time. For restaurant owners who lose their cases in court, the damages are now much harsher.

“You’re forced to settle. Why go to trial and risk a $5 million settlement if you can settle for a million and a half?” Bastianich said.

_______

The avalanche began five years ago as lawyers filed class-action cases drawing together busboys, waiters and other staff, sometimes by the hundreds. The more plaintiffs, the larger the potential settlement, with lawyers typically taking one-third of the payout.

“I invented this business,” said Kirschenbaum, a Manhattan lawyer who has launched more than 100 suits in federal court, including one against Bastianich and his partner Mario Batali.

The class-action suit claims the restaurant denied overtime to workers, didn’t pay a required premium for long shifts, and illegally kept a portion of tips.

_______

But Bastianich maintains that workers in New York eateries are paid the “best restaurant wages in the world.”

“Plaintiffs are waiters and busboys making 70, 80, $100,000 a year,” he said.

The issues stem from a competitive industry that deals largely in cash and where rules regarding salaries and tip distribution are complicated, said lawyer Louis Pechman, who won the largest settlement against a single restaurant — a $3.15 million payment from Sparks steakhouse in 2009.

Stephen Hans, a Long Island City-based lawyer who defends many small restaurants, said predatory lawyers even look for plaintiffs by advertising in El Diario and other ethnic newspapers.

________

The settlements, which usually come with no admission of wrongdoing, often don’t end up enriching waiters and busboys much.

In the case of the $2.5 million Nobu settlement, $833,333 went to Kirschenbaum’s and other firms. The 200 or so workers who sued got an average payment of $3,300 each.

9/25/11

Morgan Freeman, in an interview to be aired on CNN Friday evening, says that President Obama has made racism worse in America.

Chatting with Piers Morgan, the Oscar-winning actor, also blames the Tea Party saying they're "going to do whatever [they] can, to get this black man outta here.

9/25/11

Get ready for 'The Return of the Great Depression'

Expert: We're in 'early stages of ongoing economic contraction of massive proportions.'

The Great Depression 2.0, will be wider, deeper, and longer than its predecessor,

9/25/11

Profits at airlines, will drop by almost a third next year, according to a global airline body.

9.25.11

"Boeing's saving grace is, that the fuel-efficient 787 family represents a stunning technological breakthrough, unseen in the history of aviation.

It lays the foundation, for the way in which all future generations of planes will be built, - using stronger, lighter materials, such as composites, rather than traditional, aluminum, steel and other metals."

9.25.11

Sarkozy has become slightly more popular in the past few months, but he remains one of the least well-liked presidents in post-war France.

French voters are depressed about their economic prospects, unemployment remains stubbornly high and a European debt crisis has invited intensive scrutiny of France's public finances.

9/26/11

The cost of treating cancer in the developed world is spiraling, and is "heading towards a crisis", an international team of researchers says.

It says the number of cancer patients, and the cost of treating each one, is increasing.

About 12 million people worldwide, are diagnosed with cancer each year. That figure is expected to reach 27 million by 2030.

The cost of new cancer cases, is already estimated to be about $286 bn a year.

"In general, increases in the cost of healthcare are driven by innovation. We spend more, because we can do more, to help patients."

For example, the number of cancer drugs available in the UK has risen from 35 in the 1970s to nearly 100, but the report warns they can be "exceedingly expensive".

It adds: "Few treatments or tests are clear clinical winners, with many falling into the category of substantial cost for limited benefit."

There is also criticism of "futile care" - providing expensive chemotherapy which gives no medical benefit in the last few weeks of a patient's life.

9/26/11

Banks are adding fees to recover from new regulations that could cost billions in lost revenue, says Greg McBride, senior financial analyst for Bankrate. Starting Oct. 1, the maximum fee banks can charge retailers when customers pay with a debit card is 21 cents, down from an average of 44 cents. Last year, the Federal Reserve Board prohibited overdraft fees unless customers sign up for the service.

“When the government intervenes in markets and eliminates a source of income, a bank, like any other business, has to find some way to make up that lost income,” says Nessa Feddis, senior counsel for the American Bankers Association.

9/26/11

Sly & the Family Stone’s 10th and final album, 1982’s “Ain’t But the One Way,” flopped.

He was arrested a few times in the 1980s for cocaine possession and performed sporadically, but his days of sold-out shows and magazine covers were gone. A 1987 performance would prove to be his last for 19 years.

Today, Sly is disheveled, paranoid -- the FBI is after him; his enemies have hired hit men.

9/26/11

The chief of the New York Police Department says, city police could take down a plane if necessary.

Commissioner Ray Kelly tells CBS' "60 Minutes" that after the Sept. 11 attacks, he decided the city couldn't rely on the federal government alone. He set about creating the NYPD's own counter-terrorism unit. He says the department is prepared for multiple scenarios and could even take down a plane.

9/27/11

Earth in crosshairs, of gigantic solar storm, that could blow circuits of ANYTHING from, satellite TV, to the electric power grid.

A sunspot, 62,000 miles across - so big it would dwarf the Earth - is releasing gigantic solar flares that could in theory wreak havoc with electrical communications ranging from handheld electronics such as iPhones to sections of the power grid.

There is some danger, too, that the solar activity will disrupt communication systems, especially in upper latitudes such as northern Canada and Scandinavia.

9/27/11

Sheikh Khaled Sherrif, a lifelong Islamist, now wants to be part of Libya's political mainstream.

In the 1980s, as a young man, he went to Afghanistan to fight the Soviet occupation, and stayed. He knew Osama Bin Laden and lived alongside the al-Qaeda leader and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri.

He was captured by the Americans in 2003, held by them for two years at Bagram Air Base and, he says, tortured.

Sheikh Khaled is a close lieutenant of Abdel Hakkim Belhaj, a fellow former Islamist fighter and political prisoner and now one of the most powerful men in Tripoli.

Both men have denounced democracy in the past, asserting that jihad was the only way to ensure the victory of Islam.

Libya is a conservative, and highly religious society.

“We want our Islamic culture, but not an Islamic state."

_____

Many secular and liberal Libyan activists, have come to believe, that the former Islamists are ready to seize the opportunity the revolution provides, to abandon armed jihad.

Secularist- "We have been sharing ideas [with the Islamists]," she told me. "We have been taking advice from each other. We have been running in this revolution together. I think we can show that Islam is not contradictory to human rights or democracy."

Western intelligence services have long held deep suspicions about Libya's Islamists, and view their new prominence here with alarm.

Sheikh Khaled Sherrif, and his fellow Islamists, appear to be seeking a new relationship with the West.

9/27/11

Paul Crook left China and came to the UK, where he worked at the BBC World Service for nearly 30 years.

On 16 May 1966, Chairman Mao launched the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.

The 10-year political and ideological campaign was aimed at reviving revolutionary spirit, produced massive social, economic and political upheaval

Millions of radical youths, came to be known around the world as, the Red Guards

Millions of young Chinese, were packed off to the countryside, to learn from the peasants.

Hundreds of thousands of people, were persecuted.

By the end of 1968, the revolution had brought China to the brink of civil war, - Mao ordered the Red Guard to be disbanded.

_________

We had all been educated to think, that things were getting better all the time, but sometimes there would be mistakes.

As I recall, I don't think I seriously thought that my father would ever not be released, and I did not think he would be abused physically, so we just went on living.

My mother was repeatedly summoned for questioning, but eventually she too disappeared.

We were anxious about what had happened to our parents, but we weren't eaten up by anger or worry, as we were brought up to believe, that if you were innocent, then this would be proved in due course.

In the end, my mother was freed, after just over three years of lock-up, on the university campus.

My father was released from prison, after five years, much of it spent in solitary confinement.

When my father came out, he found that many of his Chinese colleagues, had gone through very similar experiences.

__________

They were sustained by their belief, that all this upheaval was part of an attempt to create a better society.

Like many of my friends, I grew to be rather skeptical; to be critical of what people's stated intentions were, and what their grand visions entailed.

Chairman Mao, actively courted the young.

9/27/11

For more than 40 years, the processing power of the silicon chip has grown in line with a prediction made by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore in 1965.

Moore's Law states, that the number of transistors that can be placed on a chip for the same cost, will double roughly every two years.

Generally, that doubling has been achieved, by shrinking transistors, - the basic processing units of a silicon chip.

But everyone knows that, at some point, Moore's Law will halt because transistors can get no smaller.

__________

Around the world, professors, PhD candidates and grad students, are looking to nanotechnology, to go far beyond the tiny dimensions in current chips.

The latest chips from Intel, will be built with components only 22 nanometres (nm) across. By comparison, a human hair is about 60,000 nm wide. Intel and other chip makes have plans to go to 14nm and then 11nm.

Changing the way chips are made, is the only option, according to Mr Mayberry.

"The horizon, is about 10 years away."

9/27/11

Congress: "I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused."

It is, of course, all about spending versus cuts. The Republicans don't want to pass a bill that spends more on disaster relief without spending cuts elsewhere.

The Democrats don't accept that trade-off. But the stand-off is dangerous.

In August, Standard and Poor's downgraded the US, not because of its economic prospects, but because of how near it came, to not agreeing a budget; and the danger that revealed "governance and policymaking, becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable."

He points out, that only works when one party (or coalition) is in charge, whereas "in a system built around an administration and a bicameral Congress, everybody is part of the government - and the government only functions if there exists a certain baseline spirit of co-operation between the mutually indispensable parts".

Frum argues, that the glue that held American government together, has dissolved in a partisan, polarized atmosphere, no longer lubricated by prosperity.

The trouble is, no-one has faintest clue how to solve it.

9/27/11

Mobile firm Three, has warned, that it may begin running out of capacity in urban areas by the end of next year, if spectrum auctions do not go ahead.

Networks increasingly face congestion, as the demand for data soars.

9/27/11

A new type of "smart" window, that switches from summer to winter mode, has been made by South Korean scientists.

The window darkens when the outside air temperatures soar, and becomes transparent when it gets cold in order to capture free heat from the sun.

"This type of light control system may provide a new option for saving on heating, cooling and lighting costs through managing the light transmitted into the interior of a house," said the scientists.

"Smart windows can prevent the inside of a building from becoming overheated by reflecting away a large fraction of the incident sunlight in summer.

"Alternatively, they can help keep a room warm by absorbing the sun's heat in winter."

OCT. 2011

10/2/11

Ozone loss over the Arctic this year was so severe, that for the first time it could be called an "ozone hole," like the Antarctic one, scientists report.

10/3/11

Data from 800 patients, has already shown, those previously given beta blockers, had half the chance of their cancer spreading, as women who had not.

So-called secondary cancers, have a high death rate.

_________

Breast cancer, spreading to other parts of the body, is the biggest cause of death from the disease.

It is thought, that about 30% of breast cancers spread, yet these account for up to 90% of all deaths from the disease.

The early work on beta blockers found, that the women who had taken them, had a 71% reduced risk, of a cancer-related death.

10/3/11

We know that drinking too much alcohol is bad for us. It gives us hangovers, makes us feel tired and does little for our appearance - and that is just the morning afterwards.

Long term, it increases the risk of developing a long list of health conditions including breast cancer, oral cancers, heart disease, strokes and cirrhosis of the liver.

Research shows that a high alcohol intake can also damage our mental health, impair memory skills and reduce fertility.

However, drinking more than three drinks a day has been found to have a direct and damaging effect on the heart. Heavy drinking, particularly over time, can lead to high blood pressure, alcoholic cardiomyopathy, congestive heart failure and stroke. Heavy drinking also puts more fat into the circulation of the body.

The link between alcohol and cancer is well established,

Cancer experts say that for every additional 10g per day of alcohol drunk, the risk of breast cancer increases by approximately 7-12%.

Continue reading the main story

High alcohol intake - the surprises

Digestive problems

Spotty, bloated face

Cellulite

Disrupted sleep

Depression

Short-term memory failure

Reduced fertility

For bowel cancer, previous studies show that increasing alcohol intake by 100g per week increases the cancer risk by 19%.

A recent report in BioMed Central's Immunology journal found that alcohol impairs the body's ability to fight off viral infections.

And studies on fertility suggest that even light drinking can make women less likely to conceive while heavy drinking in men can lower sperm quality and quantity.

_______

Why alcohol has this negative effect on all elements of our health could be down to acetaldehyde - the product alcohol is broken down into in the body.

Acetaldehyde is toxic, and has been shown to damage DNA.

His research implies that a single binge-drinking dose of alcohol during pregnancy may be sufficient to cause permanent damage to a baby's genome.

Foetal alcohol syndrome, he says, "can give rise to children who are seriously damaged, born with head and facial abnormalities and mental disabilities".

_________

"You cannot get a cancer cell occurring unless DNA is altered. When you drink, the acetaldehyde is corrupting the DNA of life and puts you on the road to cancer.

Over the past 20 to 30 years, Dr Sheron says, deaths from liver disease have increased by 500%, with 85% of those due to alcohol.

10/3/11

One of the 21st Century's grand scientific undertakings has begun its quest to view the "Cosmic Dawn".

The Atacama large milllimetre/submillimetre array (Alma) in Chile is the largest, most complex telescope ever built.

Alma's purpose is to study processes occurring a few hundred million years after the formation of the Universe when the first stars began to shine.

Its work should help explain why, the cosmos looks the way it does today.

One of Alma's scientific operations astronomers, Dr Diego Garcia, said that the effective switching on of the giant telescope ushered in a "new golden age of astronomy".

"We are going to be able to see the beginning of the Universe, how the first galaxies were formed. We are going to learn so much more about how the Universe works," he told BBC News.

Alma consists of an array of linked giant antennas on top of the highest plateau in the Atacama desert, close to Chile's border with Bolivia.

It has been under construction since 2003. With the addition of new antennas, the telescope has been able to see progressively deeper into the cosmos and discern star formation processes in ever greater detail.

The full testing and commissioning of its 20th antenna has enabled Alma to record events that have never been seen before. It is now that the first scientific discoveries can be made.

The aim is for Alma to have 66 antennas by 2013.

Alma observes light at millimetre and sub-millimetre wavelengths. It is at these wavelengths that astronomers can make out the swirling gas that came together in the very early Universe, more than 13 billion years ago, to form the very first stars to shine in the Universe.

Another intriguing project is to study the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy known as Sagittarius A. Dust prevents it from being seen by optical telescopes - but using Alma, astronomers will be able to see this mysterious object in unprecedented detail.

Mr. Martinez's job is to supervise the assembly of antennas on Alma's lower site, which is still at very high altitude - nearly 3,000m above sea level.

10/3/11

The rout that erased $2.9 trillion from U.S. equities, has pushed valuations in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index 25 percent, below the average level, from the last nine recessions, even as profit estimates fall.

“We’re diving into the second dip, of a double-dip recession.

U.S. stocks hit fresh session lows, as the latest developments regarding Greece's debt crisis overshadowed stronger-than-expected domestic manufacturing activity.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average recently fell 138 points, or 1.3%, to 10775. The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index slipped 17 points, or 1.5%, to 1114, led lower by financial and energy stocks. The technology-oriented Nasdaq Composite lost 44 points, or 1.8%, to 2372.

Financial shares had the biggest drop in the S&P 500 as Bank of America Corp. slumped 8.3 percent.

____

Shares of American Airlines parent AMR Corp (AMR.N) fell as much as 41 percent on Monday on growing fears the third-largest U.S. airline is headed for bankruptcy.

AMR stock was halted seven times on the New York Stock Exchange. Shares of a stock are halted on the NYSE each time it moves more than 10 percent in a five-minute period.

American Airlines is the only major carrier that did not restructure in Chapter 11 during the recent industry downturn. As a result the airline has operating costs, including labor costs, that are higher than those of competitors. The company is currently renegotiating contracts with its labor unions.

Its top rivals, UAL Corp and Delta Air Lines (DAL.N), both used bankruptcy protection to slash costs in the last decade and have since found merger partners. Delta bought Northwest Airlines and UAL Corp bought Continental Airlines to form United Continental Holdings (UAL.N).

______

10/3/11

From performing household chores, to entertaining and educating our children, to looking after the elderly, roboticists say we will soon be welcoming their creations into our homes and workplaces.

Researchers believe, we are on the cusp of a robot revolution, that will mirror the explosive growth of the computer revolution, from the 1980s onwards.

They are developing new laws for robot behavior, and designing new ways for humans and robots to interact.

"I think robotics technology, will change who we are, just as eyeglasses and fire changed who we were before.

_______

The latest prototypes from Japan are able to help the elderly to get out of bed or get up after a fall. They can also remind them when to take medication, or even help wash their hair.

The time is coming, when robots start looking less like machines, and more like people.

The global population is living longer, and getting older, which presents new challenges.

"The question becomes: who will take care of everyone? While people will always be the best caregivers for people, there just aren't enough people.

Roboticists have had impressive results with autistic children, who often find communication difficult. Children seem to be able to interact more easily with a robot 'buddy' than with other people.

_______

One of the most celebrated science fiction authors, Isaac Asimov, outlined 'Three Laws of Robotics' in a novel featuring human-like robots. The rules were designed to protect people from harm.

A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

_______

At present, robots are not sophisticated enough to be made to behave ethically. Prof Winfield says that means roboticists building them need to behave ethically instead.

The UK's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, together with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, has drafted a set of ethical principles for robot design - which can be summarised as follows:

Robots should not be designed solely or primarily to kill or harm humans.

Humans, not robots, are responsible agents. Robots are tools designed to achieve human goals.

Robots should be designed in ways that assure their safety and security.

Robots are artefacts; they should not be designed to exploit vulnerable users by evoking an emotional response or dependency. It should always be possible to tell a robot from a human.

It should always be possible to find out who is legally responsible for a robot.

10/4/11

Fair-skinned people, who are prone to sunburn, may need extra vitamin D.

The Cancer Research UK-funded team say that even with a lot of sun exposure, those with fair skin may not be able to make enough vitamin D.

And too much sun causes skin cancer.

Clearly, for this reason, increasing sun exposure is not the way to achieve higher vitamin D levels in the fair-skinned population, say the researchers. But taking supplements could be.

______

Supplements are already recommended for groups at higher risk of deficiency. This includes people with dark skin, such as people of African-Caribbean and South Asian origin, and people who wear full-body coverings, as well as the elderly, young children, pregnant and breastfeeding women and people who avoid the sun.

Based on the latest findings, it appears that pale-skinned people should be added to this list.

Vitamin D is important for healthy bones and teeth.

Most people get enough vitamin D with short exposures to the sun (10 to 15 minutes a day). A small amount also comes from the diet in foods like oily fish and dairy products.

But people with fair skin do not seem to be able to get enough, according to Prof Julia Newton-Bishop and her team at the University of Leeds.

"People with fair skin are at higher risk of developing skin cancer and should take care to avoid over-exposure to the sun's rays.

Most people could safely take 10 micrograms a day of vitamin D, without any side-effects.

10/4/11

In August an average of 880,000 trades were completed each day on the London Stock Exchange alone, with an average daily value of £6.17bn.

10/4/11

Greece- With tax revenues shrinking as the economy shrivels, debt is likely to rise to an eye-watering 173 percent of GDP in 2012 from 162 percent this year.

To illustrate the speed of the deterioration, the IMF based its May 2010 bailout of Greece on forecasts that gross debt would peak in 2012 at 149 percent of GDP.

10/4/11

US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has told Congress, that the US economy is "close to faltering," and more action may be needed.

10/4/11

The jobs picture was already bleak at the start of the year - but, if anything it now looks even worse, with unemployment still hovering around the 9% mark, and a record 40% of the jobless now unemployed for more than six months.

A few startling statistics highlight the failure of the US economy to deliver jobs for its rising population: in 1958, 85% of working age American men were in work. Today, less than 64% have jobs, and - in case you think that is simply due to women entering the workforce - the share of all Americans, men and women, in work is now lower than it has been since the early 1980s.

It's not only jobs. In its latest assessment of the US economy, the IMF looked in detail at the past ten US recessions. On nearly all the key measures - loss of output, employment, investment or growth in personal disposable income, the two downturns of the 21st century (2000-1 and 2008-9) have been the worst.

That is what gives rise to the suggestion that the US has already suffered a "lost decade" - at least on Main Street. Real average household income fell by 3.6% between 2001 and 2009, and real incomes have fallen again in 2011, as inflation has picked up but wages have remained flat. The weakness in earnings is also uncannily similar to Japan (see Capital Economics chart 8).

______

The problem is that commentators are starting to see another feature which the US in 2011 shares with Japan in the 1990s: political paralysis. This, more than weak growth or the current level of public debt, is what has given the major ratings agencies cause for concern.

Even with China allowing only a modest nominal appreciation of the yuan against the dollar, American firms are looking a lot more competitive than they were a few years ago.

In most European countries, the labor force is now shrinking, and so, probably, is the long term potential growth rate.

10/5/11

Forty million smokers, could die from TB by 2050, research suggests.

Smokers are about twice as likely, to get the lung infection and die from it, compared with non-smokers.

Many of the new TB cases, will be in Africa, the eastern Mediterranean and Southeast Asian regions, according to projections published in the BMJ.

_______

Tuberculosis is a contagious infection, that mainly affects the lungs, but can spread to other parts of the body.

If not treated, it can damage the lungs to such an extent, that a person cannot breath properly.

Sometimes, people do not experience any symptoms for many months or even years after being infected.

TB can treated with antibiotics, but is sometimes fatal.

10/5/11

Stem cells, are one of the great hopes of medicine because they can turn into any other type of cell - nerve, heart, bone, skin, liver etc.

Create heart cells and it might be possible to repair the damage from a heart attack. Insulin-producing cells are destroyed in patients with type 1 diabetes, but stem cells could one day be used to grow more.

10/5/11

The wall street demonstrations, are now in their third week, and show no sign of fading.

They have been venting grievances, over the 2008 corporate bailouts, high US unemployment, and home repossessions.

Protests have also been held recently in Las Vegas, Chicago, Ohio and Florida, where a rally last weekend drew a crowd carrying signs that read, "End Corporate Welfare" and "It is Time for a Revolution".

_______

Students at colleges across the US ,have been urged to walk out of class, in solidarity with the activists, at lunchtime on Wednesday.

Rallies are planned in the cities of”: Boston, Washington DC and Los Angeles.

But the biggest event, is set to be in New York, where organizers expect dozens of unions and community organizations, to join a march on Wall Street at 16:30 EDT (20:30 GMT).

Among the groups planning to attend, are the Transport Workers Union, which offered its financial support last week.

The AFL-CIO federation of unions, the Communication Workers of America and the United Federation of Teachers have also said they would take part.

Union chiefs said, the decision to back the protests, came from shared grievances.

"These young people on Wall Street are giving voice to many of the problems that working people in America have been confronting over the last several years," Larry Hanley, international president of the Amalgamated Transit Union, told CNN.

______

Protesters' numbers have swollen since they first gathered as a small group camping out in Zuccotti Park, near Wall Street and the Federal Reserve.

A number of grassroots organisations such as the New York Communities for Change and United NY are expected to take part.

Camille Rivera, executive director of United NY, told the Associated Press news agency: "I think they're capturing a feel of disempowerment, feeling like nobody is listening to them. What do you do when no one is listening to you? You speak up, you take action."

MoveOn.org - a liberal activism website - is encouraging participants to post photos of themselves with the caption, "I'm the 99%".

This is said to be a reference to those people not among the wealthiest 1% of Americans.

10/5/11

SAN FRANCISCO -- A cold weather front took aim at Northern California Tuesday, packing a potent punch with as much as 10 inches of snow for the Sierra peaks, the earliest return of winter conditions to Tahoe since 1969, according to weather forecasters.

10/5/11

Stress 'is top cause of workplace sickness;' and is so widespread, it's dubbed the 'Black Death of the 21st century'.

Stress has even eclipsed: stroke, heart attack, cancer and back problems, according to the report from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

Long-term absence is defined as taking four weeks or more off at one time because of sickness.

In later stages, stress can manifest itself in over-eating or under-eating as well as smoking or drinking to excess.

Short periods of it are manageable, but it can lead to serious health problems, such as heart disease or stomach and bowel problems, if it persists.

People are suffering from presenteeism [working long hours simply to impress the boss], which affects their home life.

10/5/11

There has been much crowing over the "death of neo-liberalism", but actually we are moving into a phase, beyond the collapse of a mere ideology.

In 1931, as the Austrian bank Creditanstalt collapsed, pulling down the banks of Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland, a run on the German currency forced it off the Gold Standard in May, then the British Labor government struggled to maintain its currency peg - imposing austerity onto its own voters as the price.

The most telling comment, from the entire episode, came from a stunned ex-Labor minister who, on hearing Britain had quit Gold, observed: "We didn't know, you could do that."

From this distance, what is interesting, is to observe how confused politicians were, as they moved from a world, in which you were required not to have a currency policy, into a world where currency policy was the key weapon.

They began to be able to do powerful things they had previously "not known you could do". Bilateral loans, overt trade protectionism, wrecking each others' economies with politically inspired runs on banks, currencies etc.

It is quite similar, to the world we are moving into.

China, of course, with its dollar peg, and Brazil with the imposition of capital controls to prevent the real rising against the US dollar.

What you learn from reading the micro-details of the early 1930s, is how immediately domestic social policy, banking and currency were related. A strike here, a wage rise, a run on this bank, the failure of this or that loan, even a moratorium on war reparations… it all becomes, instantly, a destabilizing factor.

If you lock failing economies together in a currency union, is the lesson, you have to be very nimble to prevent the micro symptoms of failure destroying the union.

The lesson of the 1930s, drawn by current Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, when he was still an academic, is clear, those who devalued their currency first, recovered first.

And where it leaves the eurozone is this - internally, the euro is the one major currency that has no strategy to save itself or defend itself.

In Greece last week, one woman who had seen her income halved said to me: "It would be a nice time for the politicians to be heroes."

You hear this a lot. People want leadership, clarity, decision, communication. A plausible course of action that is going to stop the spiral of crisis and austerity.

"Beggar thy neighbor tactics, may lead to retaliation; so that each country ends up in a worse position, from having pursued its own gain.

10/5/11

Mexican forces, have arrested a man they say, is a key figure in the country's most powerful drugs cartel.

Noel Salgueiro Nevarez is accused of running the Sinaloa cartel's operations in the northern state of Chihuahua, where drug violence is rampant.

Mexican forces have arrested a man they say is a key figure in the country's most powerful drugs cartel.

Noel Salgueiro Nevarez is accused of running the Sinaloa cartel's operations in the northern state of Chihuahua, where drug violence is rampant.

Mr. Guzman, 54, is Mexico's most wanted man and thought to be one of the country's richest.

At a news conference, federal police counter-narcotics chief Ramon Pequeno described how La Familia splintered after the security forces killed the cartel's then-leader Nazario Moreno in December 2010.

10/5/11

Israel is paying the price, for not striking Iran, and for Washington's evolving ties with the Muslim Brotherhood.

NATO would not have attacked Libya, if Muammar Qaddafi had not given up his nuclear weapons. Tehran appears, to have reached the same conclusion.

Israel's isolation, is rooted in US-imposed military inaction, and Arab revolt backing.

Egypt uncovers Libyan SA-24 anti-air missiles, and sea mines bound for Gaza.

10/5/11

Our assessment is, that cyberattacks will be a significant component of future conflicts. Over thirty countries, are creating cyber units in their militaries. It is unrealistic to believe, that each one will limit its capabilities to defense. Moreover, the centrality of information technology to the U.S. military and society, virtually guarantees, that future adversaries will target it.

Panetta recently noted how the disruptive effects of a cyberattack may well be worse than 9/11 and Pearl Harbor combined.

Cyber intrusions have been directed at nearly every sector of our economy. Victims include the IMF, Citibank, Sony's PlayStation network, the secure data provider RSA, Google, and NASDAQ.

The United States' critical infrastructure has also been probed. Because much of this infrastructure supports military operations, its failure could compromise national defense.

Ninety percent of U.S. military voice and Internet communications, for example, travel over the same private networks that service private homes and offices. The U.S. military relies on the civilian transportation system to move its personnel and freight, on commercial refineries to provide its fuel, and on the financial industry to process its payments.

Within critical infrastructure, the private defense companies that build the equipment and technology the U.S. military uses are especially important to protect. Their networks hold valuable information about U.S. weapons systems and their capabilities.

Alarmingly, foreign intruders have already extracted terabytes of data from defense industry networks in recent years. In a single intrusion in March, 24,000 files were taken. Some of the data stolen during this and other attacks is mundane, but a great deal concerns the United States' most sensitive systems, including aircraft avionics, surveillance technologies, satellite communications systems, and network security protocols.

10/5/11

Many people — politicians and pundits alike — prattle on, that China and, to a lesser extent Japan, own most of America's $14.3 trillion in government debt.

America owes foreigners about $4.5 trillion in debt; but America owes Americans, $9.8 trillion.

10/5/11

Falls, are the main cause of death among Chinese, 65 and older: check for head injuries.

10/6/11

The Governor of the Bank of England, said last night: The world is facing the worst financial crisis, since at least the 1930s, “if not ever.”

10/6/11

The first Iranian nuclear power station, is inherently unsafe, and will probably cause a “tragic disaster for humankind.”

It claims that Bushehr, which began operating last month after 35 years of intermittent construction, was built by “second-class engineers” who bolted together Russian and German technologies from different eras; that it sits in one of the world’s most seismically active areas but could not withstand a major earthquake.

10/7/11

Sydney's storm season is about to strike, with a ferocious four months, of intense lightning activity, predicted.

During Sydney's lightning season peak last year, about 7500 strikes were recorded in November and December.

"The season starts in Octobe,r and goes through to February.

10/7/11

Barack Obama’s background is full of: Marxists, terrorists, pornographers, criminals and rabid anti-American racists.

Europe is just a few years ahead of America, in all the bad things plaguing the West: – Islamic subversion, godless secularism, socialism, multiculturalism, and bankruptcy. So we can easily see our future, by just peering over the Atlantic.

Ironically, just as Obama is intent on "fundamentally transforming" America into a socialist utopia like Europe; socialist Europe is melting down, country after country – Greece, Portugal, Spain, Ireland, Italy.

And the smaller countries, are threatening to bring down the bigger countries, because of the interconnectedness, of the European state economies.

Obama feels deeply at home with weird, perverse, radically dysfunctional people – after all, that's who he grew up with and was shaped by. But get him around normal people – Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu or Gordon Brown, the former British prime minister – and there's this mystifying coldness, aversion and incomprehension.

This growth of spiritual darkness in America is the result of decades of assault by the political and moral left – a two-front war consisting of confrontation and simultaneous infiltration of almost every major institution in America: our government, our public schools and colleges, our news and entertainment media, the arts, the foundations and philanthropies, psychiatry and psychology at the highest levels, and even our churches.

The Turks, a repressed, fear-based tribal culture, hated the Armenians because of their brightness, and so they degraded and killed them.

Here's how I see it: The Islamic world's obsession with the Temple Mount – which is exceedingly precious to Jews – is like the desire an angry, jealous sibling has for a toy that his brother is happily playing with.

The jealous kid never cared about that toy before, but now that his brother has it and is happily playing with it, the angry boy feels compelled to take it away, because he hates his brother.

Of course, the only "happiness" he would obtain by getting the toy is the perverse satisfaction of depriving his brother of it.

There is no mention of Jerusalem in the entire Quran. Mecca, the holiest place to Muslims, and Medina, the second holiest, are mentioned dozens of times. But Jerusalem? Not a single reference, nor is there any historical evidence Muhammad ever went there.

Though in spiritual terms, Israel may be the center of the universe; but in worldly terms, it's just a little strip of desert, the size of New Jersey; with no oil, or unusual riches.

Yet the Jewish people, with a special blessing of G-d on them, have made it bloom.

But people living in darkness and oppression, are jealous – they feel persecuted by the light. So their minds invent all sorts of conspiracy theories, to demonize Jews.

What's it really all about? Envy – blinding, all-consuming envy.

10/7/11

A computer virus, has infected the cockpits of America’s Predator and Reaper drones, logging pilots’ every keystroke as they remotely fly missions over Afghanistan and other warzones.

“We keep wiping it off, and it keeps coming back,”

And the infection underscores the ongoing security risks in what has become the U.S. military’s most important weapons system.

Since President Obama assumed office, a fleet of approximately 30 CIA-directed drones have hit targets in Pakistan more than 230 times; all told, these drones have killed more than 2,000 suspected militants and civilians,

More than 150 additional Predator and Reaper drones, under U.S. Air Force control, watch over the fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. American military drones struck 92 times in Libya between mid-April and late August. And late last month, an American drone killed top terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki — part of an escalating unmanned air assault in the Horn of Africa and southern Arabian peninsula.

10/7/11

Jobs befreo hisdemise, has ensured at least four years’ worth of products, in the pipeline, according to Apple sources.

Three apples changed the world: ‘The One that Eve ate; the one that dropped on Newton’s head; and the one that Steve built.’

10/8/11

Thailand's worst floods in more than half a century have reached a ''crisis level'' and threaten to swamp the capital, Bangkok, next week.

10/9/11

At least 24 people have been killed and more than 200 wounded in the worst violence since Egypt's former President Hosni Mubarak was ousted in February.

Clashes broke out after a protest in Cairo against an attack on a church in Aswan province last week which Coptic Christians blame on Muslim radicals.

The Copts - who make up about 10% of the population - accuse the governing military council of being too lenient on the perpetrators of a string of anti-Christian attacks.

The Copts, the largest minority in Egypt, complain of discrimination;, including a law, requiring presidential permission, for churches to be built.

Egypt only recognizes conversions from Christianity to Islam, not the other way.

10/10/11

UK doctors are being told, the antibiotic normally used to treat gonorrhea, is no longer effective, because the sexually transmitted disease is now largely resistant to it.

The Health Protection Agency says, we may be heading to a point, when the disease is incurable ,unless new treatments can be found.

For now, doctors must stop using the usual treatment cefixime ,and instead use two more powerful antibiotics.

One is a pill, and the other a jab.

________

The bacterium that causes the infection - Neisseria gonorrhoeae, - has an unusual ability to adapt itself, and has gained resistance, or reduced susceptibility, to a growing list of antibiotics; - first penicillin itself, then: tetracyclines, ciprofloxacin, and now cefixime.

"This highlights the importance, of practicing safe sex.

10/10/11

Thousands of Egyptian Christians, gather for funerals of protesters, killed on Sunday, with many mourners expressing anger at the military.

10/10/11

Millions of BlackBerry smartphone users, have been cut off by a major fault at RIM, the Canadian company that makes the devices.

The glitch, which struck at around 11AM, was affecting online services for consumers all over Europe, the Middle East and Africa. All are served by a RIM data centre in Slough.

They have been unable to browse the web or instant messages, or access other internet services such as email.

10/11/11

What Recovery? Household Incomes Plummeted After 2009.

10/17/11

Climate change poses "an immediate, growing and grave threat" to health and security around the world, according to an expert conference in London.

Officers in the UK military warned that the price of goods such as fuel is likely to rise as conflict provoked by climate change increases.

Scientific studies suggest that the most severe climate impacts will fall on the relatively poor countries of the tropics.

UK military experts pointed out that much of the world's trade moves through such regions, with North America, Western Europe and China among the societies heavily dependent on oil and other imports.

"The price of energy will go up - for us, England, and goods made in southeast Asia, a lot of which we import."

A number of recent studies have suggested that climate impacts will make conflict more likely, by increasing competition for scare but essential resources such as water and food.

The International Institute for Strategic Studies, for example, recently warned that climate change "will increase the risks of resource shortages, mass migration and civil conflict", while the MoD's view is that it will shift "the tipping point at which conflict occurs".

"From the year 2000 onwards, we have been seeing commodity prices climb, and this is not likely to stop," he said.

"It is primarily driven by resource scarcity, and the trends suggest that depletion of these natural resources is unlikely to be reversed.

__________

Rear Admiral Morisetti recalled, that when commanding an aircraft carrier, it took a gallon of oil to move just 12 inches (30cm), while as many as 20 tones per hour were burned, during a period of intensive take-off and landing.

"You can do that [with oil prices at] $30 a barrel, but not at $100 or $200," he said.

____________

"Modest life style changes - such as increasing physical activity, through walking and cycling - will cut rates of heart disease and stroke, obesity, diabetes, breast cancer, dementia and depressive illness.

10/18/11

There has been a fall of just over 20%, in the number of deaths from malaria worldwide in the past decade, the World Health Organization says.

10/18/11

Bank of America is the largest bank in the US by assets.

10/18/11

Barack Obama is the most antibusiness president in a generation, perhaps in American history. Thanks to him the era of big government is back.

Obama runs up taxpayer debt not in the billions but in the trillions. He has expanded the federal government's control over home mortgages, investment banking, health care, autos and energy.

The Weekly Standard summarizes Obama's approach as: omnipotence at home, impotence abroad.

10/18/11

Apple reports 85% growth in full year profits.

10/18/11

A miniature "kamikaze" drone, designed to quietly hover in the sky, before dive-bombing and slamming into a human target, will soon be part of the US Army's arsenal, officials say.

Dubbed the "Switchblade," the robotic aircraft, represents the latest attempt by the United States, to refine how it takes out suspected militants.

Weighing less than two kilos, the drone is small enough to fit into a soldier's backpack; and is launched from a tube, with wings quickly folding out as it soars into the air, according to manufacturer AeroVironment.

10/19/11

Every five hours, a child dies from abuse or neglect in the US.

The latest government figures show an estimated 1,770 children were killed as a result of maltreatment in 2009.

A recent congressional report concludes, the real number could be nearer 2,500.

In fact, America has the worst child abuse record, in the industrialized world.

The child maltreatment death rate in the US, is triple Canada's, and 11 times that of Italy. Millions of children are reported as abused and neglected every year. Why is that?

Part of the answer is that teen pregnancy, high-school dropout, violent crime, imprisonment, and poverty - factors associated with abuse and neglect - are generally much higher in the US.

Further, other rich nations have social policies that provide child care, universal health insurance, pre-school, parental leave and visiting nurses to virtually all in need.

In the US, when children are born into young families not prepared to receive them, local social safety nets may be frayed, or non-existent. As a result, they are unable to compensate for the household stress the child must endure.

In the most severe situations, there is a predictable downward spiral and a child dies. Some 75% of these children are under four, while nearly half are under one.

______

Children from Texas are twice as likely to drop out of high school as children from Vermont. They are four times more likely to be uninsured, four times more likely to be incarcerated, and nearly twice as likely to die from abuse and neglect.

In Texas, a combination of elements add to the mix of risks that a child faces. These include a higher poverty rate in Texas, higher proportions of minority children, lower levels of educational attainment, and a political culture which holds a narrower view of the role of government in addressing social issues.

Texas, like many other traditionally conservative states, is likely to have a weaker response to families that need help in the first place, and be less efficient in protecting children after abuse occurs.

The sharp differences between the states raises the question of an expanded federal role.

______

But instead as the US economy lags, child poverty soars, and states cut billions in children's services, we are further straining America's already weak safety net.

Inevitably, it means more children will die.

10/19/11

There a bigger, darker concern, about centralized digital curriculum. If you put all your educational eggs, in one digital basket, you might hatch a monster.

An unscrupulous government, could relish the fact, that everything a child learns is controllable through one, easily manipulated, digital portal.

Such fears have been examined in the novel, The Book, by M Clifford. The US author presents a dystopian civilization in which all information is accessed through an e-reader. The people discover that the digital content has been subtly altered by a corrupt government.

"There is something about paper that commands trust," Mr Clifford said. "And reading is very personal. A bonfire of books used to make us cringe because it represented the destruction of that trustworthy bond."

The delicate manipulation, one word at a time, to alter someone's perception of the truth.

_________

China's education performance - at least in cities such as Shanghai and Hong Kong - seems to be as spectacular as the country's breakneck economic expansion, outperforming many more advanced countries.

international maths, science and reading tests: Shanghai, taking part for the first time, came top in all three subjects.

These two Chinese cities, have outstripped leading education systems, around the world.

China says, a devotion to education, not shared by some other cultures".

More than 80% of Shanghai's older secondary students attend after-school tutoring. They may spend another three to four hours each day on homework under close parental supervision.

Such diligence also reflects the ferociously competitive university entrance examinations.

Certainly, parents are devoted to their children's education

_______

Certainly both these open and outward-looking cities set great store by education, willing to adopt the best educational practices from around the world to ensure success. In Hong Kong, education accounts for more than one-fifth of entire government spending every year.

"Shanghai and Hong Kong are small education systems, virtually city states, with a concentration of ideas, manpower and resources for education," says Prof Cheng.

The innovation in these cities is not shared by other parts of China - not even Beijing, he says.

Under the banner "First class city, first class education", Shanghai set about systematically re-equipping classrooms, upgrading schools and revamping the curriculum in the last decade.

It got rid of the "key schools" system which concentrated resources only on top students and elite schools. Instead staff were trained in more interactive teaching methods and computers were brought in.

About 80% of Shanghai school leavers go to university compared to an overall average of 24% in China.

Hong Kong, like Singapore, now recruits teachers from the top 30% of the graduate cohort. By contrast, according to the OECD, the US recruits from the bottom third.

Shanghai controls who lives and works in the city through China's notorious "houkou" or permanent residency system, allowing only the best and the brightest to become residents with access to jobs and schools.

"For over 50 years Shanghai has been accumulating talent, the cream of the cream in China. That gives it an incredible advantage,"

10/19/11

Germany's banks, including some of the biggest in the world, have a tough message for the European public.

Michael Kemmer, of The Association of German Banks tells Steve Evans:

we can't afford the welfare state, any more.

10/22/11

Correspondents say, few Libyans are worried about the manner of their former dictator's Muammar Gaddafis humiliating end, which has been celebrated across the country.

Col Gaddafi, who came to power in a coup in 1969, was toppled in August. He was making his last stand in Sirte alongside two of his sons, Mutassim and Saif al-Islam, according to reports.

There are conflicting reports as to the whereabouts of Saif al-Islam, and Col Gaddafi's security chief - who are both at large.

_______

Muammar Gaddafi secretly salted away more than $US200 billion ($A196 billion) in bank accounts, real estate and corporate investments around the world before he was killed, according to senior Libyan officials.

Revelation of the stunning size of the portfolio may stir anger among Libyans-about one-third of whom live in poverty.

And it is likely to spur an effort to return the money to Libya's transitional government, which says it wants to embark on ambitious plan to modernise the country after nearly 42 years of rule by Gaddafi's whim.

Libya has the largest proven oil reserves in Africa.

10/24/11

Mr. Abdul Jalil said, the new Libya would take Islamic law as its foundation. Interest for bank loans would be capped, he said, and restrictions on the number of wives Libyan men could take would be lifted.

10/26/11

Mining is one of the job markets where employers are seeing a shortage of trained workers - even as unemployment overall remains high.

"Depending on who's estimates you want to believe, there's 400,000 to 750,000 vacancies in the skilled trades.

The lack of skilled laborers. made headlines in 2006 and 2007.

"There is a disconnect in thinking that all worthwhile knowledge comes out of college," says Mike Rowe. The host of Dirty Jobs on the Discovery Channel, Rowe set up a foundation in 2008 to raise awareness of vocational careers.

While he supports the value of a college education, he says, the idea that a four-year university is the only way to succeed, is a damaging one, and one that steers people away from worthwhile careers in a trade.

"We've drubbed out, vocational education from the schools," he says, so that most students are prepared for and sold on the college experience without being able to consider other paths.

Both Holzer and Rowe point. to the apprentice system in countries like Germany, which both promotes skilled labor in the general culture. and provides educational alternative to classroom learning. and university tracking.

Restructuring American education to be more inclusive of vocational careers could help not just future employment numbers, but the entire American economy.

As Joel Kotin points out this week in New Geography magazine, the US workforce "is expected to grow by over 40% between 2000 and 2050. In contrast, during the same period the number of entrants to the labour pool will decline by 25% in the European Union and Korea and plummet over 40% in Japan."

This boom in young workers, thanks to increasing fertility rates, could lead to an increase in spending and productivity - but not until the system has time to change.

10/26/11

Occupy protesters in Atlanta and Oakland face police crackdowns, as new data shows confidence in government and economic equality have plummeted.

10/27/11

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, surged 339.51 points, or 2.86 percent, to finish at 12,208.55.

10/27/11

Tunisia's moderate Islamist Ennahda party, has won the country's post-Arab Spring elections.

10/27/11

Taking a daily dose of aspirin, can reduce the incidence of bowel cancer, in people at high risk of the disease.

10/27/11

Hewlett Packard (HP,) says it will now keep its personal computer division, after reviewing a plan by its former chief executive to sell it.

The decision to retain the personal systems group (PSG), was made by HP's new head, Meg Whitman, who said HP would be a "stronger" firm as a result.

Her predecessor, Leo Apotheker, said earlier this year the company would look to spin-off the hardware arm.

PSG, is the world's biggest maker of personal computers.

10/28/11

Europe's leaders have agreed, to change the EU's treaty, if necessary, to allow greater fiscal integration.

But some critics have warned, this could leave non-euro EU members like Britain, Sweden and Poland, excluded from key decisions, affecting the whole of Europe.

Prime minister Cameron said: "London - the centre of financial services in Europe - is under constant attack through Brussels directives. It's an area of concern, it's a key national interest that we need to defend."

shadow chancellor Ed Balls said:

"Unless we get a plan for jobs and growth in Britain, and I have to say across Europe too, unless we get growth in our economies, this is not going to be a solution."

10/29/11

An unseasonable snowstorm has hit the US East Coast, threatening to bring up to 10in (25cm) of early snow.

The last time Pennsylvania saw a major storm so early was in 1972.

3 million people have no electricity.

Earliest New York City one-inch snowfall since records began in 1896.

More than 250,000 customers lost power in Pennsylvania and Maryland

More than 1,000 flights in or out of America cancelled

Experts predict up to 10 inches of snow to fall across North East

Only fourth time since Civil War, that snow has fallen in NYC in October

Around 60 million people will experience the rare October snowstorm.

10/30/11

stem cells

Embryonic stem cells can generate all the tissues of the body. So if such cells could be developed from a patient’s adult cells, it might be possible to make replacement cells for any diseased tissue without fear of rejection.

Many scientists now contend: that with years of continued research, stem cells may help treat, if not cure: spinal cord paralysis, cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, damaged hearts, kidneys and livers, and many other ailments.

10/31/11

The global economy, is on the verge of a new and deeper jobs recession, that may ignite social unrest, the International Labor Organization (ILO) has warned.

It will take at least five years for employment in advanced economies to return to pre-crisis levels, it said.

The ILO says the employment situation is already "precarious" around the world

The ILO also noted that in 45 of the 118 countries it examined, the risk of social unrest was rising.

The OECD's message to world leaders came as it predicted a sharp slowdown in growth in the Eurozone, and warned that, some countries in the 17-nation bloc were likely to face negative growth.

_________

It said approximately 80 million net new jobs would be needed over the next two years to get back to pre-crisis employment levels.

But it said the recent slowdown in growth suggested that only half the jobs needed would be created.

It said scores of countries faced the possibility of social unrest, particularly those in the EU, and the Arab region.

10/31/11

Veracruz is about 260 miles (420km) east of Mexico city, on the Gulf of Mexico.

Over recent months local authorities have reported a rise in drug-related crime. They said rivals of the Zetas cartel were challenging it for control of the area.

Drugs gangs have been linked to the killings of other campaigners who used the internet to denounce the cartels' activities.

10/31/11

The world’s population, is projected to top 7 billion today, Oct. 31.

10/31/11

Michelle Obama is back, and she’s madder than ever. She was already pretty angry, seemingly unhappy with just about everything. As her husband wrapped up the Democratic nomination in 2008, she let fly her real feelings: “For the first time in my adult lifetime, I’m really proud of my country.” A few months into her job as first lady, her French counterpart asked how she liked the gig: “Don’t ask!” she reportedly spat. “It’s hell. I can’t stand it!”

She even seems to be mad at her silver-tongued husband. When the two were to set off on a luxurious 10-day vacation to Martha’s Vineyard, she left early - four hours early - and flew up alone. And those private vacations. She’s traveled to some of the world’s most plush resorts, taking 42 days off in the past year - that’d be eight weeks of vacation time, if she held down a normal job.

Now, she is ready to spew her bilious disgust with America on the campaign trail. A dignified, transcendent first lady? No chance. Michelle is going to break with a hundred years of tradition and play the role of attack dog, heaping derision on her husband’s political opponents like no other first lady before her.

________

Yes, Republicans hope to regain the White House so they can install Supreme Court justices who will trample Americans’ privacy, ignore the nation’s security, crush free speech and persecute the religious.

Oh, and they’re rich and racist to boot. “Will we be a country where opportunity is limited to just the few at the top? Who are we? Or will we give every child a chance to succeed no matter where they’re from, or what they look like or how much money their parents have. Who are we?”

___________

That’s right, rich people (white, of course), certainly don’t want black people to succeed. They want to squelch success based on what people look like, how much money they have. “Are we going to let them succeed?” the first lady yelled. “Nooo!” the rich white people screamed.

Just as her husband’s re-election strategy is inanely simplistic - blame the Republicans for thwarting his brilliant, economy-saving policies - so too is the first lady’s. She will go to the opulent homes of rich people across the country to tell them how rich people are to blame for America’s woes and guilt them into giving millions for her husband’s campaign.

10/31/11

Her new show "Oprah's Next Chapter," will premiere on her OWN Network in January; and will feature interviews, with spiritual leaders all around the world, the Brooklyn Paper said.

What was not reported, was the months of preparation,n and collaboration between the crew of the OWN network, and staff of Chabad-Lubavitch Media Center - Chabad.org.

10/31/11

China has taken the next step in its quest to become a major space power, with the launch of the unmanned Shenzhou 8 vehicle.

It would be the first time China has joined two space vehicles together.

The capability is required, if the country is to carry through its plan, to build a space station by about 2020.

Beijing sees the Tiangong and Shenzhou dockings as the next phase in its step-by-step approach to acquiring the skills of human spaceflight operations.

At about 60 tonnes in mass, this future station would be considerably smaller than the 400-tonne international platform operated by the US, Russia, Europe, Canada and Japan, but its mere presence in the sky would nonetheless represent a remarkable achievement.

___________

China is investing billions of dollars in its space program. It has a strong space science effort under way, with two orbiting satellites having already been launched to the Moon and a third mission expected to put a rover on the lunar surface.

Next week, should see its first Mars orbiter - Yinghuo-1 - begin its journey to the Red Planet.

The Asian countr,y is also deploying its own satellite-navigation system, known as BeiDou-Compass.

NOV 2011

11/1/11

Israel is: extending Jericho III missile's range; developing ICBM capabilities; and expanding its nuclear-tipped cruise missile enabled, submarine fleet.

The country seems to be on course, on the back of its satellite launch rocket program, for future development of an, inter-continental ballistic missile.

Israel currently has three submarines, and two more being manufactured in Germany.

Earlier this year, the Der Spiegel reported that Germany had granted Israel's request to provide it with a six Dolphin submarines said to be capable of carrying nuclear weapons.

Experts estimate, they have the longest cruising range, of all submarines.

________

Meanwhile, the world's nuclear powers are planning on spending hundreds of billions of dollars modernizing and upgrading their nuclear warheads, The Guardian said. Despite budgetary issues and international rhetoric calling for nuclear weapons disarmament, the report points to "era of nuclear weapons."

According to the report, the United States will spend some $700 billion on its nuclear weapons industry in the upcoming decade, while Russia is expected to spend &70 billion on cruise missile systems alone.

__________

Other countries, including Israel, India, China and Pakistan, are also expected to spend significant amounts of money on their strategic weaponry systems.

The Basic report claimed that for countries such as Israel, Russia, Pakistan and France, having nuclear weapons is not just about deterrence. For Russia and Pakistan nuclear weapons are also designated for attacks, claimed the report.

_______

11/1/11

Greece

A referendum could have defused the tense atmosphere last May; now, it is a Molotov cocktail, which will explode in the government's hands.

The mistakes of this government, its amateurism and obtuseness, have legitimised the rhetoric of the Left, creating a climate of deep unrest similar only to the events of 1965 in Greek political history.

We may be nearing the end of the period defined by the Greek word "metapolitefsi" [transition]. The fall of the government appears to be a matter of a few days or even hours.

Referendum, is a new way to suicide.

As part of the latest "three-pronged" agreement to solve the region's huge debt crisis: private banks holding Greek debt, have now accepted a loss of 50%.

________

Greece has been living beyond its means in recent years; and its rising level of debt, has placed a huge strain on the country's economy.

The Greek government borrowed heavily, and went on something of a spending spree, after it adopted the euro.

Public spending soared; and public sector wages, practically doubled, in the past decade.

The money flowed out of the government's coffers; and tax income was lowered, because of widespread tax evasion.

The ratings agency S&P, recently decided, that Greece was the least credit-worthy country, it monitors.

_______

The concern in the markets is, that the eurozone's political structures, do not have the authority to deal, with the magnitude of the economic problems.

The bailouts of Portugal and the Irish Republic, were designed to tide both countries over until they could borrow commercially again, just as was hoped for Greece.

If that hasn't been possible in Greece, investors may question whether the same solution will work for the other two bail-out recipients.

__________

The Spanish and Italian economies, are far bigger than those of Greece, Portugal and the Irish Republic. Therefore, the European Union, would struggle to bail them out, if that became necessary.

Europe's banks are big holders of Greek debt, with perhaps $50bn-$60bn outstanding.

An "orderly" default could mean, a substantial part of this debt being rescheduled, so that repayments are pushed back decades.

A "disorderly" default could mean, much of this debt not being repaid - ever.

Either way, it would be extremely painful, for banks and bondholders.

What's more, Greek banks are exposed to the sovereign debts of their country. They would need new capital, and it is likely some would need nationalizing.

A crisis of confidence, could spark a run on the banks; as people withdrew their money, making the problem worse.

That confidence crisis, may spread to overseas banks, which could stop lending, until the full extent of a default was known.

It might be a repeat of the credit crunch that pushed European and the US into recession three years ago.

_____

If Greece can force a "haircut" on its creditors, then why not Portugal or the Republic of Ireland?

The political and economic structures that have bound the 17-nation bloc together could begin to unravel.

German public opinion is already tiring of the government's lead role in bailing out the eurozone in a bid to hold the bloc together.

11/2/11

The onset of wrinkles, muscle wasting and cataracts, has been delayed, and even eliminated in mice, say researchers in the US.

It was done by "flushing out" retired cells that had stopped dividing. They accumulate naturally with age.

The study, published in Nature, focused on what are known as "senescent cells".

The researchers estimated, that around 10% of cells, are senescent, in very old people.

11/3/11

Abuse of prescription painkiller, have reached "epidemic" levels in the US, a government report says.

Overdoses of pain relievers, cause more deaths than, heroin and cocaine combined, the report has found.

Narcotic painkillers, are prescribed to relieve chronic pain; but the drugs can be "highly addictive", the report says.

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The report, published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said fatalities caused by narcotic pain relievers have more than tripled in the last 10 years - equivalent to 40 deaths a day.

Last year, a national survey on drug use and health showed that one in 20 Americans over the age of 12 said they had used painkillers for non-medical reasons.

Named as the fastest growing drug problem facing the US, narcotic painkillers are increasingly used recreationally - for the high they cause.

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"Almost 5,500 people, start to misuse prescription painkillers, every day.

The report says enough medicine was prescribed last year to keep every American adult medicated for one month.

Florida was found to have the highest rate of sales of narcotic painkillers per person, almost three times the rate in Illinois, which had the lowest rate.

In 2008, almost 15,000 deaths, were caused by prescription painkillers.

11/4/11

Mathematicians and their trading programs, are increasingly taking the place of professional investors, in financial centers across the world.

Firms are now employing gifted academic statisticians. to track patterns or trends in trading behavior, and create formulae to predict future market movements. These formulae. are then fed into powerful computers, that buy and sell automatically, according to triggers generated by the algorithms.

These so-called quantitative trading programs. underpin all quick-fire trades - known as high-frequency trading (HFT). - in which stocks can be held for just a matter of seconds.

"They have been around long enough now, to assume, they are extremely profitable".

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One commentator says two of the biggest HFT firms, Tradebot and Getco, alone account for about 15%-20% of all equity trading in the US.

As they are private companies, it is hard to know precisely how far their influence extends.

Indeed, a recent government-backed study in the UK estimated that between a third and a half of all share trading in Europe, and more than two-thirds in the US, was HFT.

"The vast majority of firms use quantitative trading," says Mr Patterson.

"It drives almost everything that goes on on Wall Street."

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However, it did highlight one important concern, known in the trade as self-reinforcing feedback loops.

This essentially means a small trigger leading to a series of similar events, each amplifying the last, until the overall impact is significant.

Imagine a share falls in value, triggering a sale on one quant program, pushing the share price even lower. This in turn triggers a sale on another program, pushing the price lower still, and so on and so on.

The problem is exacerbated by the fact that many programs run on the same formulae, and so are piling in and out of the same stocks.

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Nowhere is this better demonstrated than by the so-called Flash Crash of May last year, when the US stock market plummeted 700 points in less than five minutes, wiping out about $800bn (£517bn).

When the auto-pilot switches were turned off and the systems overridden, order was restored and the market bounced back within half an hour.

An unfortunate one-off, some say. Others point to far more damaging consequences, citing quant trading as a key contributor to the massive sell-off in stocks in 2008 that saw the US market almost halve in value.

Hedge funds, they say, sold equities fast in order to balance heavy losses on their mortgage investments following the collapse of the US property market, triggering a domino effect across quant trading systems with devastating consequences.

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Paul Wilmott, a prominent lecturer in quantitative finance, has questioned whether they are "capable of thinking beyond maths and formulas".

"Do they appreciate the human side of finance, the herding behavior of people, the unintended consequences?"

Far fewer human traders will be needed, in the major financial markets of the future".

11/4/11

Earthquakes have a bigger impact on health, than other natural disasters such as, floods and hurricanes, US researchers say.

There are more than a million earthquakes, of varying severity, around the world each year.

As well as the immediate deaths, many people receive serious injuries, which cannot be treated because of the quake damage to infrastructure.

The Lancet review says, children are often at particularly high risk.

Many of the world's major cities are on fault lines, including: Los Angeles, Tokyo, New York, Delhi and Shangha;, putting millions of people at risk from earthquakes.

In the past decade, earthquakes have caused more than 780,000 deaths - almost 60% of all disaster-related mortality.

Other disasters, such as floods and hurricanes, typically cause many deaths from drowning, but fewer injuries.

It is estimated that for every person killed in an earthquake, three others are injured.

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Depression can also be common after earthquakes - affecting up to 72% of the population.

Following the 1999 Turkey earthquake, 17% of the population had suicidal thoughts.

Children are often at higher risk of injury and death during earthquakes than adults. In Haiti in 2010, 53% of patients were younger than 20 years old and 25% were under five.

The team, led by Dr Susan Bartel of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative in Boston, wrote in the Lancet: "Because earthquakes frequently affect populous urban areas with poor structural standards, they often result in high death rates and mass casualties with many traumatic injuries."

11/4/11

Google has overhauled the way it serves up results in response to search queries.

The update, is designed to work out, whether a person wants up-to-date results, or historical data.

The US firm estimated, the alterations to its core algorithm would make a difference to about 35% of searches.

The changes try to make results more relevant, and beef up features which Google believes set it apart from rivals.

By contrast, Microsoft's Bing search engine emphasizes social search.

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The update could have potential disadvantages, warned Mr Sullivan.

"Rewarding freshness potentially introduces huge decreases in relevancy, new avenues for spamming or getting "light" content in," said Mr Sullivan.

11/4/11

Scientists have observed, that the toads at the edge of their range have bigger front legs and stronger back legs; all the better to invade new areas.

And when toads at the frontiers breed, their offspring inherit these longer, stronger limbs.