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Australia evaluates sea level threats
NIA Releases U.S. Economic and Inflation Update
The official U.S. unemployment rate rose during the month of May to 9.1%, up from 9% in April, with only 54,000 non-farm jobs being created for the month. The real unemployment rate including short and long-term discouraged workers is now 22.3%. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) used the birth/death model to produce a positive monthly bias during the month of May of 206,000 jobs, up from 175,000 in April, 117,000 in March, and 112,000 in February. Without the birth/death model, 152,000 jobs were lost during the month of May.
By utilizing the birth/death model, the BLS is assuming that during the month of May, the number of new jobs created by start-up businesses were 206,000 greater than the number of jobs lost from companies going out of business. NIA finds this assumption to be Read more…
India approves $4bn Boeing military deal
Photo: Reuters
A Boeing C-17 transport aircraft, known as the Globemaster, shown here at the Papa Air Base in Papa, Hungary, July 27, 2009.
NEW DELHI — India on Monday cleared a more than $4.0-billion deal to buy military transport planes from Boeing in the biggest ever defence deal between New Delhi and an American firm, officials said.
The agreement for the C-17 Globemaster III planes, used for transporting heavy equipment, was cleared at a meeting of the government’s cabinet committee on security affairs, a senior government official said.
The Indian defence ministry declined to comment but the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP that the cabinet gave its clearance to buy 10 C-17 aircraft.
He said the procurement would be done as Read more…
Israel says 10 killed on Golan, Syria inflated toll
The Israeli army on Monday said 10 people had been killed during Sunday’s “Naksa Day” protests along the Syrian ceasefire line, describing Damascus’s toll of 23 as “exaggerated.”
Troops in the Golan Heights remained on high alert after Sunday’s bloodshed in which Syrian state television said 23 people were killed and 350 wounded when Israeli troops shot at protesters marking the anniversary of the 1967 Six-Day War.
But the Israeli military said it counted 10 protesters dead — none of whom was killed by Israeli fire.
“We are aware that around 10 of the casualties that the Syrians reported yesterday were killed by the fact that they used Molotov cocktails in the Quneitra area that hit some Syrian landmines,” Lieutenant Colonel Avital Leibovitz told AFP.
“I think there is solid ground to believe that (the Syrian figures) are exaggerated,” she said. “A big number of them died as a result of their own deeds.”
Asked whether any protesters were killed or wounded by Israeli fire, she was Read more…
Gold Price Nears $1,550, Time for a Gold Standard?
GOLD PRICE NEWS – The gold price, at $1,542.50 per ounce, traded near unchanged Monday morning despite modest strength in the U.S. dollar. While gold prices were flat, silver advanced higher by 1.5% to $36.79 per ounce. Global equity prices have been under pressure over the past month with the S&P 500 falling for five consecutive weeks. Weak data points in housing, manufacturing, and labor have all combined to heighten worries over the prospect of a double-dip recession. Precious metals, notably gold, have benefited from their safe haven qualities as investors seek to lower their risk profiles.
The strong performance of the gold price in recent years has led to a growing collection of calls for the United States to return to a gold standard. Steve Forbes, the billionaire CEO of Forbes Inc., wrote a piece in Forbes Magazine urging candidates for the 2012 U.S. presidential election to consider returning to some form of gold standard to support the value of the U.S. dollar.
Forbes began the article by stating that “Monetary policy is one of Read more…
Plutonium Found Outside Fukushima Plant
Minute amounts of plutonium have been detected for the first time in soil outside the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
Shinzo Kimura of Hokkaido University collected the roadside samples in Okumamachi, some 1.7 kilometers west of the front gate of the power station. They were taken during filming by NHK on April 21st, one day before the area was designated as an exclusion zone.
Professor Masayoshi Yamamoto and researchers at a Kanazawa University laboratory analyzed the samples and found minute amounts of 3 kinds of plutonium.
The samples of plutonium-239 and 240 make up a total of 0.078 becquerels per kilogram.
This is close to the amount produced by past atomic bomb testsBut the 3 substances are most likely to have come from the plant blasts, as their density ratio is different from those detected in the past.
Professor Yamamoto said the quantities are so minute that people’s health will not be harmed.
But he recommended that the contamination near the plant should be fully investigated, saying that a study may shed light on how radioactive materials spread in the air.
Something Strange With Volcano Eruption in Chile
What appears to be an enormous ash cloud rising from the eruption of a long dormant volcano named Puyehue in southern Chile on June 4, 2011, isn’t quite matching up with the location of the recorded earthquakes today in the immediate area.
“The Cordon Caulle (volcanic range) has entered an eruptive process, with an explosion resulting in a 10-kilometer-high gas column,” Chilean state emergency office said.
The thing is, for some unknown reason, as of this writing, eight earthquakes near magnitude 5 have shook the earth near the Puyehue volcano. The problem is, the earthquakes are located 20 to 40 miles away from the eruption! Very Strange Indeed. (Strange because one would think that Read more…
Local levees threatened by record-setting releases into Missouri River
COLUMBIA — Workers at the city’s water treatment plant in the Missouri River bottoms are getting the boats out of storage.
Two levees protect McBaine from river levels up to 32 feet, and a flood wall at the plant itself can withstand up to 40 feet, said Floyd Turner, Columbia’s manager of water operations.
Extremely high amounts of rainfall and melting snow along the northern sections of the Missouri River are expected to raise river levels enough to possibly overwhelm levees throughout the state. One of those at risk, the McBaine Levee District, protects the Columbia Drinking Water Plant.If the Missouri River overflows the levees along the river, though, plant workers will need their two 14-foot boats to navigate between the nearby wells and possibly transport workers to and from the plant.The water plant’s staff was stockpiling sand for spot leaks along with other supplies in case floods limit access to the plant, engineer Michael Anderson said Friday. Workers at the plant were also checking on emergency generators in the event the plant loses electricity.
A forecast from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers shows the Missouri River overflowing as many as 58 levees between Kansas City and St. Louis by the end of the month.
After a year’s worth of rain in recent weeks and snowpack 140 percent above average in the Read more…
Millions displaced by natural disasters last year
AP Photo/Zhang WuOSLO, Norway (AP) — About 42 million people were forced to flee their homes because of natural disasters around the world in 2010, more than double the number during the previous year, experts said Monday.
One reason for the increase in the figure could be climate change, and the international community should be doing more to contain it, the experts said.
The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre said the increase from 17 million displaced people in 2009 was mainly due to the impact of “mega-disasters” such as the massive floods in China and Pakistan and the earthquakes in Chile and Haiti.
It said more than 90 percent of the disaster displacements were caused by weather-related hazards such as floods and storms that were probably impacted by global warming, but it couldn’t say to what extent.
“The intensity and frequency of extreme weather events is increasing, and this trend is only set to continue. With all probability, the number of Read more…
China defends naval actions
General Liang Guanglie, China’s defence minister, has rejected criticism that his country was acting belligerently in the South China Sea, saying China was pursuing a “peaceful rise”.
“You say our actions do not match our words. I certainly do not agree,” Gen Liang replied to critics at the Shangri-La Dialogue, a high-profile Asia defence forum in Singapore.
Speaking days after Vietnam and the Philippines accused China of aggressive behaviour in the South China Sea, Gen Liang denied that China was threatening security in the strategically important and energy-rich disputed waters, saying “freedom of navigation has never been impeded”.
He was the first Chinese defence minister to participate in the forum, which was attended by Robert Gates, US defence secretary, and other Asian defence ministers. It was Gen Liang’s first big international speech.
Mr Gates expressed “increasing concerns” about China’s recent maritime behaviour. But when asked if Beijing was undermining its “peaceful rise” claim, he replied: Read more…
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