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Iran, Russia to Discuss Plan for Resuming Atomic Dialogue
A senior Russian official is set on Monday to discuss with Iranian leaders a blueprint for rekindling multilateral dialogue over the Middle Eastern nation’s atomic activities, Reuters reported (see GSN, Aug. 12).
Presidential Security Council chief Nikolai Patrushev, who is expected to meet in Tehran with his Iranian equivalent as well as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, would discuss Moscow’s proposal for addressing U.S. and European concerns that the Persian Gulf nation’s atomic efforts are geared toward weapons development (see GSN, July 14). Iran, which has maintained its nuclear ambitions are purely nonmilitary in nature, most recently joined discussions with the five permanent U.N. Security Council members and Germany in January; the meeting yielded little progress on the atomic issue (see GSN, Jan. 24).
Iran might prove more open to a Read more…
Why is George Soros selling gold and buying farmland?
(NaturalNews) Food prices are skyrocketing all across the globe, and there’s no end in sight. The United Nations says food inflation is currently at 30% a year, and the fast-eroding value of the dollar is causing food prices to appear even higher (in contrast to a weakening currency). As the dollar drops in value due to runaway money printing at the Federal Reserve, the cost to import foods from other nations looks to double in just the next two years — and possibly every two years thereafter.
That’s probably why investors around the globe are flocking to farmland as the new growth industry. “Investors are pouring into farmland in the U.S. and parts of Europe, Latin America and Africa as global food prices soar,” reports Bloomberg magazine (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-…). “A fund controlled by George Soros, the billionaire hedge-fund manager, owns 23.4 percent of South American farmland venture Adecoagro SA.”
Jim Rogers is also quoted in the same story, saying, “I have frequently told people that one of the best investments in the world will be farmland.”
That’s because demand for food is accelerating even as Read more…
FBI wants businesses watching for customers paying with cash
Just days after the White House announced a community-based approach to combating terrorism in the United States, the FBI and other agencies are asking managers of surplus stores to spy on their customers, watching whether they pay in cash, make “extreme” religious statements or purchase products such as waterproof matches.
And the request from the government also is going to gun shops, fertilizer suppliers, motels and hotels, authorities say.
Earlier this month, the Obama administration announced a new plan titled “Empowering local partners to prevent violent extremism in the United States.” In it, Obama wrote, “Communities – especially Muslim American communities whose children, families and neighbors are being targeted for recruitment by al-Qaida – are often best positioned to take the lead because they know their communities best.”
The report warns that while the Constitution recognizes freedom of expression, “even for individuals who espouse unpopular or even hateful views,” it also is the responsibility of government to Read more…
World Bank Head Warns Markets Heading to New Danger Zone
United States and Europe, coupled with a fragile economic recovery have pushed markets into a new danger zone, something that policymakers have to take seriously, the head of the World Bank said on Sunday.
(Photo: REUTERS / Tim Wimborne)
World Bank Chief Robert Zoellick gestures while speaking at the Asia Society’s annual dinner in Sydney August 14, 2011.
Speaking at the Asia Society dinner in Sydney, Australia, Robert Zoellick also said the global economy was going through a multi-speed recovery, with developing countries now the source of growth and opportunity.
“What’s happened in the past couple of weeks is there is a convergence of some events in Europe and the United States that has led many market participants to lose confidence in economic leadership of some of the key countries,” he said.
“I think those events combined with some of the other fragilities in the nature of recovery have pushed us into a new danger zone. I don’t say those words lightly … so that policymakers Read more…
Russian runaway banker steals billions, lands on UK’s rich list
More Snow On The Way For New Zealand
A new blast of cold weather gripped New Zealand over the weekend as the coldest winter in many years continued to affect large swathes of the country. Snow is currently falling in the South Island and in southern parts of the North Island too, with the northern city of Auckland seeing its first snow since 1939. Sunday saw Wellington’s greatest snowfall for 30 years.
July 22 – 25th was previously the coldest snap since 1995, with snowfall causing disruption across the South Island and some parts of the North Island. Today’s snowfall been more widespread, however, and snow was reported down to sea level in the city of Wellington and other parts of the North Island. The New Zealand Met Serviceis predicting falls of 20 – 35 cm above 300 m in the Wellington area, with lesser falls continuing at lower levels.
A Severe Weather Warning issued Sunday evening stated “An extremely cold Read more…
Pakistan Let China See U.S. ‘Stealth’ Chopper
Aug. 15 – Pakistan has allowed Chinese military engineers to photograph and take samples of a U.S. “stealth” helicopter that crashed during the operation in May which led to the death of former Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.
If the disclosure is substantiated, Pakistan’s move will further exacerbate the already fragile relationship between the two countries, which was seriously strained when the United States carried out a clandestine raid on May 2 to assassinate bin Laden in Abottabad, located some 30 miles northeast of Islamabad, without notifying Pakistani authorities.
“The U.S. now has information that Pakistan, particularly the ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence), gave access to the Chinese military to the downed helicopter in Abbottabad,” a person in “intelligence circles” was quoted as saying.
When U.S. Navy SEALs raided the fortified mansion of “Terrorist No.1,” one of two modified Blackhawk helicopters crashed into the wall of the mansion due to a technical malfunction, according to officials. The Navy SEALs team tried to destroy the helicopter after the crash, but the tail section remained intact.
Chinese engineers were allowed to Read more…
Biometric recognition and privacy concerns
Face recognition software of the kind incorporated into biometric identification tools, photo-gallery applications and social media websites can be very useful but the technology raises privacy concerns, given the seeming ease with which faces in photos can now be tied to an individual. Researchers in Russia and Poland hope to take face recognition technology an important step forward with the even more powerful software they have developed.
Writing in the International Journal of Biometrics, Georgy Kukharev of Saint Petersburg Electrotechnical University in Russia, and colleagues Paweł Forczmański and Andrzej Tujaka of the West Pomeranian University of Technology, Szczecin, Poland, explain how Read more…
Darkest Planet Found: Coal-Black, It Reflects Almost No Light
Newfound world is off-the-charts dark—and the cause is a mystery, experts say.
Illustration courtesy David A. Aguilar, CFA
Andrew Fazekas
It may be hard to imagine a planet blacker than coal, but that’s what astronomers say they’ve discovered in our home galaxy with NASA’s Kepler space telescope.
Orbiting only about three million miles out from its star, the Jupiter-size gas giant planet, dubbed TrES-2b, is heated to 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit (980 degrees Celsius). Yet the apparently inky world appears to reflect almost none of the starlight that shines on it, according to a new study.
“Being less reflective than coal or even the blackest acrylic paint—this makes it by far the darkest planet ever discovered,” lead study author David Kipping said.
“If we could see it up close it would look like a near-black ball of gas, with a slight glowing red tinge to it—a true Read more…
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