Biodefense Scientists Fight Lassa Fever
Scientists are at work in Sierra Leone studying the rat-carried Lassa fever with the aim of developing a speedy and uncomplicated process for diagnosing the virus in the event of a bioterrorism attack, Reuters reported yesterday (see GSN, Nov. 23, 2010).
A laboratory in Sierra Leone’s southeast is conducting U.S.-funded research on Lassa fever, which is classified as a “category A” pathogen, a designation given to biological agents such as botulism and anthrax that can produce significant health threats.
The disease is found in a particular species of rat that is widespread in sub-Saharan Africa and regularly consumed for Read more…
World Bank: Food prices at “dangerous levels”
Global food prices have hit “dangerous levels” that could contribute to political instability, push millions of people into poverty and raise the cost of groceries, according to a new report from the World Bank.
The bank released a report Tuesday that said global food prices have jumped 29 percent in the past year, and are just 3 percent below the all-time peak hit in 2008. Bank President Robert Zoellick said the rising prices have hit people hardest in the developing world because they spend as much as half their income on food.
“Food prices are the key and major challenge facing many developing countries today,” Zoellick said. The World Bank estimates higher prices for corn, wheat and oil have pushed 44 million people into extreme poverty since Read more…
Shocking! Unemployment shoots to 17.3%
© 2011 WorldNetDaily
Editor’s Note: The following report is excerpted from Jerome Corsi’s Red Alert, the premium online newsletter published by the current No. 1 best-selling author, WND staff writer and senior managing director of the Financial Services Group at Gilford Securities.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics appears to be intentionally understating the current unemployment rate, most likely with an aim to bolstering the Obama administration’s claim that the unemployment rate is improving as jobs are created in a recovering economy, Jerome Corsi’s Red Alert reports.
In a news release on Feb. 4, the unemployment rate was reported to have fallen 0.4 percent to 9.0 percent in January 2011, even though only Read more…
Iranian MPs call for execution of opposition leaders
Moussavi and Karroubi under house arrest
222 members of Iran’s 290-seat Parliament calling for the execution of opposition leaders Mir Hossein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi, who remain under house arrest after being detained from attending anti-government protests in Read more…
4.3-magnitude earthquake near Mount St. Helens is biggest in 30 years
By Stuart Tomlinson, The Oregonian
Fault line, won’t you be my Valentine?
The second largest earthquake since Mount St. Helens erupted — a magnitude 4.3 shaker — rocked a fault line six miles north of the volcano Monday morning. People felt it as far away as Astoria, Lake Oswego, Hood River and even Bremerton, Wash., near Seattle.
The last one, as it happens, was 30 years ago also on Valentine’s Day, a magnitude 5.5 temblor.
That 1981 earthquake appeared to be the result of the earth’s crust readjusting after magma oozed up through the fault and blew the mountain’s Read more…
Stonehenge Beneath the Waters of Lake Michigan
Has a Stonehenge like structure been discovered underneath the waters of Lake Michigan. If so, the site could be around 10,000 years old!
[Image: Standing stones beneath Lake Michigan? View larger].
In a surprisingly under-reported story from 2007, Mark Holley, a professor of underwater archaeology at Northwestern Michigan University College, discovered a series of stones – some of them arranged in a circle and one of which seemed to show carvings of a mastodon – 40-feet beneath the surface waters of Lake Michigan.
If verified, the carvings could be as much as 10,000 years old – coincident with the post Read more…
Inflation in China rises as food prices soar
In January, the price of fresh fruit soared by 34.8 percent over a year earlier, while eggs rose 20.2 percent, the National Bureau of Statistics reported.
Adding to a squeeze on food supplies, China’s wheat-growing northeast is in the grip of a severe drought that threatens its crop. Beijing has launched a $1 billion emergency campaign of cloud-seeding to induce rains and expanded irrigation.
Also in January, inflation that so far has been confined mostly to food began to spread to Read more…
Tens of thousands march against Yemen’s president
By AHMED AL-HAJ
Associated Press
SANAA, Yemen (AP) – Thousands of people marching for the ouster of Yemen’s U.S.-allied president clashed Tuesday with police and government supporters, and at least three demonstrators were injured in a fifth straight day of Egypt-inspired protests.
Police tried to disperse the demonstrators using tear gas, batons and stun guns, but about 3,000 protesters defiantly continued their march from Sanaa University toward the city center, chanting slogans against President Ali Abdullah Saleh, including “Down with the president’s thugs!”
The procession gained momentum with hundreds of students and rights activists joining along the way.
The unrest comes as ties between the U.S. and Saleh have been Read more…
South Korea chaos after ‘heaviest’ snowfall (Video)
The heaviest snowfall in more than a century on South Korea’s east coast is causing widespread chaos.Hundreds of houses have collapsed under the weight of the snow. One newspaper described it as a snow bomb.
The South Korean government has deployed 12,000 soldiers to rescue stranded residents.
The worst weather has been in Gangwon province. Weather experts say there will be more snowfall in the area in the coming hours.
“I am 83 years old. It’s the heaviest snow in my life. I am really grateful for the soldiers’ help,” said Park Chae-ran.
The BBC’s Nick Ravenscroft in Seoul says that Read more…
NATO Saw Potential For Russian Tactical Nuke Use, Cable Says
NATO in 2009 judged that the Russian armed forces remained ready to use tactical nuclear arms to respond to low-level or other military conflicts, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 14).
In general, the alliance assessed that Russia’s military was prepared to deal with no more than a medium-level conflict in the nation’s western sector, according to a diplomatic dispatch from the U.S. mission to NATO made public by the transparency organization WikiLeaks. Two large-scale Russian military drills conducted in 2009 were handicapped by personnel shortfalls and outdated technology, the document said (Slobodan Lekic, Associated Press/Google News, Feb. 14).
“(Russia is) still relying on the use of tactical nuclear weapons, even in local or regional conflicts,” the Xinhua News Agency quoted the dispatch as saying.
NATO’s conventional military edge is thought to be a key reason for the nuclear power’s continued holding of an estimated 2,000 battlefield nuclear weapons within Russian borders. Comparatively, the United States is believed to have only 200 nonstrategic nuclear arms fielded in five NATO states.
Washington has announced it wants to begin talks within one year with Moscow on negotiating a pact that would limit the two sides’ tactical nuclear weapons. The former Cold War antagonists recently enacted the New START arms control pact, which caps each sides’ deployed strategic nuclear arsenal at 1,550 (Xinhua News Agency/People’s Daily Online, Feb. 15).
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