Poverty spikes to record highs in US
The number of American people living in poverty has soared to record-high levels, with African Americans suffering the bulk of the economic hardship in the US, reports say. Read more…
China’s yuan at record ahead of Washington talks
HONG KONG (MarketWatch) — China’s yuan rose to a fresh record against the U.S. dollar on Monday, edging up a fraction from its close in the previous trading session ahead of senior-level talks between Chinese and U.S. officials, slated for later Monday in Washington. China’s central bank set the official central parity rate for the U.S. dollar at 6.4988 yuan, compared to Friday’s setting of 6.5003 yuan. The level represented a record high against the dollar, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency. The U.S. dollar dropped below the 6.50-level for the first time on April 29, and was at 6.4955 around midday in East Asia on Monday, according to FactSet data.
Record wildlife die-offs reported in Northern Rockies
SALMON, Idaho — A record number of big-game animals perished this winter in parts of Montana, Idaho and Wyoming from a harsh season of unusually heavy snows and sustained cold in the Northern Rockies, state wildlife managers say.
“Elk, deer and moose — those animals are having a pretty tough time,” said Wyoming Game and Fish biologist Doug Brimeyer.
Snow and frigid temperatures in pockets of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming arrived earlier and lingered longer than usual, extending the time that wildlife were forced to forage on low reserves for scarce food, leading more of them to starve.
Based on aerial surveys of big-game herds and signals from radio-collared animals, experts are documenting high mortality among offspring of mule deer, white-tailed deer and pronghorn antelope.
This comes as big-game animals enter the last stretch of a period from mid-March through early May that is considered critical for survival.
Wildlife managers estimate die-offs in the tens of thousands across thousands of square miles that span prairie in northeastern Read more…
Fukushima Groundwater Contamination Worst in Nuclear History (Video)
Pakistan Prime Minister to warn US over Osama bin Laden raid
Pakistan’s prime minister will on Monday warn the United States it will defend its air space if American forces mount another raid on terrorists suspected of hiding inside the country.
Yusuf Raza Gilani will seek to restore some dignity in an address to the nation after the humiliation caused when American forces killed Osama bin Laden at a compound close to Pakistan’s main military academy in Abbottabad last week without alerting Pakistan.
A senior government source close to the prime minister said while Mr Gilani will take an aggressive stand to shore up the government’s position.
The source said: “The Prime Minister will say that the United States should not have bypassed Pakistan. We have made a huge contribution in fighting terrorism. We’ve arrested close to 100 al-Qaeda people, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
“We’ll take appropriate action if any further violation takes place. We will defend our air space by any means we have.”
He will say that Washington’s decision to launch the raid without consulting Islamabad had plunged military and political relations Read more…
Mystery of cosmic ray source bombarding the southern pole of Earth intensifies
May 6, 2011 – ANTARCTICA – Cosmic rays crashing into the Earth over the South Pole appear to be coming from particular locations, rather than being distributed uniformly across the sky. Similar cosmic ray “hotspots” have been seen in the northern skies too, yet we know of no source close enough to produce this pattern. “We don’t know where they are coming from,” says Stefan Westerhoff of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It’s a mystery because the hotspots must be produced within about 0.03 light years of Earth. Further out, galactic magnetic fields should deflect the particles so much that the hotspots would be smeared out across the sky. But no such sources are known to exist. One of the hotspots seen by IceCube points in the direction of the Vela supernova remnant, a possible source of cosmic rays, but it’s almost 1000 light years away. Cosmic rays coming from such large distances should be constantly buffeted and deflected by galactic magnetic fields on route, and should thus have lost all directionality by the time they reach Earth. In other words, such long-distance cosmic rays should appear to come from all parts of the sky. That’s not what has been observed. (Source article below) Read more…
Scores flee homes as surging Mississippi nears record level
Houses have been engulfed by water in Memphis, Tennessee. Photo: Getty ImagesTourists gathered and gawkers snapped photos of the rising Mississippi River, even as more residents were told to flee their homes and the river’s crest edged towards Memphis in Tennessee.
US officials went door-to-door on Sunday, warning about 240 people to get out before the river reached its expected peak on Tuesday.
In all, residents in more than 1300 homes have been told to go, and about 370 people were staying in shelters.
The Mississippi spared Kentucky and north-west Tennessee catastrophic flooding, but some low-lying towns and farmland along the Read more…
Russian resources fuel China’s economic growth
China has increased high tech exports to Russia 300% in the past five years, while its imports from Russia are dominated by commodities, the Economic Development Ministry said.
China accounted for the bulk of Russia’s bilateral trade, which reached $60 billion in 2010. Russia has increased equipment exports by only 30% since 2005, according to a ministry report on economic relations with China.
No government documents pertaining to Russia’s relations with economic partners are ever published. There is a confidential part to Russia’s foreign economic strategy through 2020, which gives a detailed description of goals and risks related to contacts with each of Russia’s economic partners. Based on this strategy, two years ago the Economic Development Ministry worked out very specific country plans through 2012.
The 2010 report on the China plan progress is addressed to Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov, who chairs the Russian-Chinese Commission.
In 2009 Zhukov said shortly before Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s visit to China: “Unfortunately, the share of machinery and equipment in our exports to China is sparse. Our plan is to increase exports of products with a high level of processing.”
However, the ministry report indicates that the progress has been unimpressive so far. Russia’s imports from China are $19bn Read more…
Egypt and Israel Headed for Crisis
Israeli officials have expressed alarm at a succession of moves by the interim Egyptian government that they fear signal an impending crisis in relations with Cairo.
The widening rift was underscored yesterday when leaders of the rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah signed a reconciliation pact in the Egyptian capital. Egypt’s secret role in brokering the agreement last week caught both Israel and the United States by surprise.
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, called the deal “a tremendous blow to peace and a great victory for terrorism”.
Several other developments have added to Israeli concerns about its relations with Egypt, including signs that Cairo hopes to renew ties with Iran and renegotiate a long-standing contract to supply Israel with natural gas.
More worrying still to Israeli officials are reported plans by Egyptian authorities to open the Rafah crossing into Gaza, closed for the Read more…
Big Brother Gov’t Seeks to Tax and Track All Drivers
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| Dees Illustration |
Eric Blair
Activist Post
“Oh, say can you see…the land of the fee, and home of the slave?” Americans really better wake up before it’s too late. Perhaps it already is.
Today Pete Kasperowicz of The Hill reported that the Obama administration, following a March Congressional Budget Office report, has “floated” the idea of taxing drivers per mile. Kasperowicz writes:
The plan is a part of the administration’s ‘Transportation Opportunities Act,’ an undated draft of which was obtained this week by Transportation Weekly.
…Among other things, CBO suggested that a vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax could be tracked by installing electronic equipment on each car to determine how many miles were driven; payment could take place Read more…
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