Archive
Archive for June, 2011
Tribal fighters take over major city in Yemen, eyewitnesses say
June 7, 2011
Comments off
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh (pictured in 2008) was injured Friday from an attack at his presidential compound.
(CNN) — Tribal fighters took control of a top Yemeni city on Tuesday, a setback for an embattled government whose injured president is confined to a hospital in Saudi Arabia.
More than 400 tribal gunmen took over Taiz in southwest Yemen, eyewitnesses there said.
The gunmen had been clashing with Yemeni security forces near the city’s Republican Palace and eyewitnesses said they are now in control of the city. The palace is not far from the city’s Freedom Square — a focal point of anti-government protests.
Government forces have been regrouping in an effort to re-enter the city. Yemen’s government has faced international criticism for excessive Read more…
Categories: Yemen
Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, al Qaeda, Ali Abdullah Saleh, Freedom Squar, protests, Sanaa, Saudi Arabia, Taiz, Yemen
Mexican cartels now using ‘tanks’
June 7, 2011
Comments off
(HECTOR GUERRERO/ AFP/GETTY IMAGES ) - Mexican policemen stand guard next to an armoured car seized to alleged members of the Mexican drug cartel "Los Zetas".The armoured car called "The Z Monster" has a capacity to transport about 20 men and has a turret to place.
Categories: Mexico
drug cartel, gulf cartel, Los Zetas, Mexico, Organized crime, technology
Australia evaluates sea level threats
June 6, 2011
Comments off
Australia’s major cities are all coastal. Confirmed sea level rises, combined with ongoing severe coastal erosion, have been worrying people for the last decade. It’s now looking like the famous Australian beachside lifestyle is riding on the tides.
The problem is that Australia has been glued to the coast, with inland development relatively slow. Much of the coast is based on sandstone and big sediment-based cliffs, which are as prone to erosion as California’s notorious hills. They’re basically big sand dunes, with little or no resistance to hits from big tides. Some areas have seen large areas of coastline literally dissolving. Many coastal councils are already introducing restrictions on Read more…
NIA Releases U.S. Economic and Inflation Update
June 6, 2011
Comments off
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
June 6, 2011
Comments off
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
June 6, 2011
Comments off
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…
Categories: Israel, Syria
Gaza Strip, Golan Heights, Israel, Naksa Day, Six-Day War, Syria, West Bank
Gold Price Nears $1,550, Time for a Gold Standard?
June 6, 2011
1 comment
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…
Categories: GOLD
commodities, economy, Federal Reserve, gold, gold standard, precious metals, silver, United States, US Dollar
Plutonium Found Outside Fukushima Plant
June 6, 2011
Comments off
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.
Categories: Japan
Fukushima, Japan, plutonium, plutonium-239
Something Strange With Volcano Eruption in Chile
June 6, 2011
Comments off
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…
Categories: Chile, Strange Events, volcano
Chile, earthquakes, eruption, Puyehue, Puyehue volcano, ring of fire, Volcano, volcanoes
Local levees threatened by record-setting releases into Missouri River
June 6, 2011
Comments off
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…
Categories: Flood, Missouri
Columbia, drinking water, Floods, Kansas City, levee, Missouri, Missouri River, Montana, Nebraska, Rain, snowmelt, South Dakota, St. Louis, United States
![[Most Recent Quotes from www.kitco.com]](https://i0.wp.com/www.kitconet.com/charts/metals/gold/t24_au_en_usoz_2.gif)
![[Most Recent Quotes from www.kitco.com]](https://i0.wp.com/www.kitconet.com/charts/metals/silver/t24_ag_en_usoz_2.gif)
crisisboom
CRISISBOOM 
You must be logged in to post a comment.