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Our Perspective on the 8 Strategic Factors Shaping Oil Price in 2012
The price of oil is still one of the most important factors shaping the economy. It can determine not just how much you’ll pay for a gallon of gasoline but also how fast the American and the eurozone economies will recover. It even has a say in who will be the next American president. This is why many people and companies try to predict the price of oil and better understand the events that influence its volatility.
Two people that tried to give it a shot are Gregory Copley and Yossef Bodansky, who are editors at GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs. They published a list of 8 strategic factors that will likely to influence the price of oil in 2012. This is a very interesting list, although it comes from a business-as-usual perspective, which doesn’t look much beyond the price volatility implications of geo-political events. Adding the green energy market point of view might provide an even more comprehensive picture of the upcoming year, so here’s our take on 2012: Read more…
Iran’s Ahmadinejad touring Latin American countries
Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi announced during the weekend that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad began his low-key tour of Latin American countries, according to a report obtained by the Terrorism Committee of the National Association of Chiefs of Police.
FM Salehi stated that the planned Latin American tour will take the Ahmadinejad to Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba and Ecuador, all nations run by left-wing governments hostile to the United States.
According to several intelligence reports from U.S. agencies and the U.S. Congress, Venezuela is home to a number of Iranian intelligence and military officers, as well as members of the Lebanon-based terrorist group Hezbollah, which is supported by the Iranian regime.
During his tour, the President Ahmadinejad is expected to Read more…
5 Things You Should Know About the FBI’s Massive New Biometric Database
The FBI claims that their fingerprint database (IAFIS) is the “largest biometric database in the world,” containing records for over a hundred million people. But that’s nothing compared to the agency’s plans for Next Generation Identification (NGI), a massive, billion-dollar upgrade that will hold iris scans, photos searchable with face recognition technology, palm prints, and measures of gait and voice recordings alongside records of fingerprints, scars, and tattoos.
Ambitions for the final product are candidly spelled out in an agency report: “The FBI recognizes a need to collect as much biometric data as possible within information technology systems, and to make this information accessible to all levels of law enforcement, including International agencies.” (A stack of documents related to NGI was obtained by the Center for Constitutional Rights and others after a FOIA lawsuit.)
It’ll be “Bigger — Better — Faster,” the FBI brags on their Web site. Unsurprisingly, civil libertarians have concerns about the Read more…
Satellite imagery detects thermal ‘uplift’ signal of underground nuclear tests
Nuclear Explosion Location at the Lop Nor test site, China
CORVALLIS, Ore. – A new analysis of satellite data from the late 1990s documents for the first time the “uplift” of ground above a site of underground nuclear testing, providing researchers a potential new tool for analyzing the strength of detonation.
The study has just been published in Geophysical Research Letters.
Lead author Paul Vincent, a geophysicist at Oregon State University, cautions that the findings won’t lead to dramatic new ability to detect secret nuclear explosions because of the time lag between the test and the uplift signature, as well as geophysical requirements of the underlying terrain. However, he said, it does “provide another Read more…
In The First Few Days Of 2012, US Mint Sells More Silver Than In Most Months Of 2011
In the first few days of 2012, the US mint has already sold 4.3 million ounces in silver coins. This is more than in all individual months of 2011 except for January and September, when the mint sold 6.4 million and 4.5 million ounces. Is the retail love affair with physical silver coming back with a vengeance?
2012:
Launch of ‘Bullets’ In A Black Hole’s Jet
nanopatentsandinnovations.blogspot.com
Indonesia issues tsunami warning following 7.6 quake off Sumatra
JAKARTA (BNO NEWS) — A powerful 7.6-magnitude earthquake struck off the Indonesian island of Sumatra on early Wednesday morning, seismologists said, prompting a tsunami warning for local coastlines.
The earthquake at 12.37 a.m. local time (1837 GMT Tuesday) was centered about 423 kilometers (262 miles) southwest of Banda Aceh on Sumatra. It struck about 29.1 kilometers (18.1 miles) deep, making it a shallow earthquake, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS).
The Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG), the seismological agency of Indonesia, measured the strength of the earthquake at 7.6 on the Richter scale. The USGS put the magnitude at 7.3 on the regional moment magnitude (Mw) scale.
Although the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said there was Read more…
Eyes on the Street: How Traffic Surveillance Invades Your Privacy
Credit: DreamstimeIs it cutting-edge, or just downright creepy? Surveillance technology is increasingly being implemented in municipalities across the country. But while such gadgets aim to curtail crime and decrease traffic accidents, some people are wondering about the costs to both town budgets and privacy.
“Overall, we wonder if the costs will outweigh the benefits,” said Jay Stanley, a Washington, D.C.-based senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Policy and Technology Project.
Such technology, which includes everything from neighborhood video cameras, red-light cameras and, most recently, parking-space sensors, is popping up faster than mushrooms in a shady forest.
“Over the last several years, traffic-centric surveillance applications Read more…
FTC seeks public comments on facial recognition
The USA’s Federal Trade Commission is seeking public comments on facial recognition technology and the privacy and security implications raised by its increasing use.
A public workshop held in December – “Face Facts: A Forum on Facial Recognition Technology” – focused on the current and future commercial applications of facial detection and recognition technologies, and explored an array of current uses of these technologies, possible future uses and benefits, and potential privacy and security concerns. (The agenda for the workshop can be found here, and an archived webcast of the proceedings is viewable here).
The deadline for filing comments is 31 January 2012.
FTC says that facial detection and recognition technologies have been adopted in a variety of new contexts, ranging from online social networks to Read more…
IAEA Confirms Iran Has Started 20% Uranium Enrichment
ranian technicians at the Uranium Conversion Facilities in Isfahan. (File photo)
The geopolitical foreplay is getting ridiculous. At this point it is quite obvious that virtually everyone involved in the US-Israel-Iran hate triangle is just itching for someone else to pull the trigger. And the latest report out of the IAEA will only precipitate this. Who – remember the IAEA? The same IAEA which did not find nukes in Iraq in 2003 only to be overriden by Dick “WMD” Cheney to “justify” an invasion. As RIA reports: “The International Atomic Energy Agency officially confirmed that Iran has started enriching uranium to the 20-percent level, which can easily be turned into fissile warhead material. “The IAEA can confirm that Iran has started the production of uranium enriched up to 20 percent using IR-1 centrifuges in the Fordo Fuel Enrichment Plant,” the agency said in a statement. However, IAEA Spokeswoman Gill Tudor said that all nuclear materials and operations in the Fordo facility are “under the Agency’s containment and surveillance.”” Naturally, that leaves the Read more…
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