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Highlights of the $3.73 Trillion Budget Request for 2012
WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama released a $3.73 trillion budget for fiscal-year 2012 Monday where he sought to balance two competing and conflicting agendas: dramatic cuts to federal spending while also investing in programs to improve U.S. competitiveness.
A look at what President Barack Obama has requested in his $3.73 trillion budget for the 2012 fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.
Summary: Homeland Security gets $44 Billion with a priority on naked body scanners. The Transportation Department gets over a half Trillion dollars for new highway and rail construction, including $53 billion for high-speed trains. $500 million will go to the new Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and Enforcement (See my article on LOST.) and NIST, the group that dropped the ball on the Sept. 11th investigation will be getting $764 million, roughly a 17% increase from last year.
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Agency: NASA
Spending: $18.7 billion
Percentage Change from 2011: 0.9 percent decrease
Discretionary Spending: $18.7 billion
Highlights: Obama’s space budget is about the same as the previous year, avoiding the major proposed cuts other agencies are facing, partly because of the long planned Read more…
Pirates hijack $200 million crude oil: owners say Somali pirates dangerously disrupting world oil supplies
A supertanker carrying about $200m (£125m; 146m euros) worth of crude oil has been hijacked off the coast of Oman, the vessel’s Greek operator says.
Athens-based shipping company Enesel said they had lost communication with the Irene SL.
The 333m (1,093ft) vessel was on its way from the Gulf to the Gulf of Mexico when it was attacked.
Although the incident happened hundreds of miles from Somalia, pirate gangs are known to operate there.
A body representing the owners of much of the world’s tanker fleet warned that Read more…
Climate phenomenon La Nina to blame for global extreme weather events
Cyclone Yasi over Australia in February 2011. Image credit: NASA
(PhysOrg.com) — Recent extreme weather events as far as Australia and Africa are being fueled by a climate phenomenon known as La Nina — or “the girl” in Spanish. La Nina has also played a minor role in the recent cold weather in the Northeast U.S.
The term La Niña refers to a period of cooler-than-average sea-surface temperatures in the Equatorial Pacific Ocean that occurs as part of natural climate variability. This situation is roughly the opposite of what happens during El Niño (“the boy”) events, when surface waters in this region are warmer than normal. Because the Pacific is the largest ocean on the planet, any significant changes in average conditions there can have consequences for temperature, rainfall and vegetation in distant places.
Scientists at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI), part of Columbia’s Earth Institute, expect moderate-to-strong La Niña conditions to continue in the tropical Pacific, potentially causing additional shifts in rainfall patterns across Read more…
Yes, Islamists Are Coming Through Mexico
Said Jaziri was seen getting in the trunk of a smuggler’s car by bystanders, captured only by luck and their patriotism.
When chaos reigns supreme in a nation that shares an almost two-thousand mile border with the United States, and that border is not protected to the extent it should be, undesirable elements sneaking their way from Mexico into the U.S. becomes the rule instead of the exception. We have all been made aware of the drug shipments that come into the U.S. through the porous and undermanned Mexican border, and we all know of the steady stream of Mexicans that for decades have snuck through looking for a better life in the U.S. for themselves and their families back in Mexico. However, it is next to impossible to tell who else comes across the U.S./Mexico border until they are apprehended, or worse.
On January 11, U.S. Border Patrol agents pulled over a BMW near the Golden Acorn Casino, 50 miles east of San Diego, California. The vehicle was driven by Kenneth R. Lawler. Border Patrol agents found Lawler had tucked away in the trunk of his car a souvenir of sorts from Mexico: a radical Muslim cleric by the name of Said Jaziri.
Lawler was arrested and is being held on charges of alien smuggling, while Jaziri is being held for Read more…
The African Chinese Connection
Shu Yunguo & James Shikwati
China and Africa had established relations as early as 2,000 years ago, during which, there were no wars, aggression or looting but only exchanges of trade between China and Africa. The history and tradition of China-Africa relations not only exerted positive and enormous influence, but also laid a solid foundation on the relationship development between countries in modern times.Secondly, developing countries have common qualities. Both China and African countries are developing countries meaning they have not only common history, but also share similar targets for development. Developing countries’ common qualities determine that there is no conflict of interest between them, and also that the countries have the same or similar opinions on many major international issues (such as the establishment of a new international political and economic system).
Thirdly, they are all eager to develop themselves. Currently, developing countries are still weak compared with the strong developed countries. When dialogue between developing and developed countries is progressing slowly, the cooperation between developing countries becomes especially important. Both China and African countries are developing countries, and strengthening cooperation is the request of the era and the common need to develop.
Fourthly, the countries stood the test of practice. The establishment of the People’s Republic of China and African countries gaining independence proved that the equal, reciprocal and win-win relationship between China and Africa has strong vitality and the prospect of sustainable development. Fifthly, the relationship can be guaranteed by a system and mechanism. China and Africa launched the Read more…
China Funneling Weapons to Afghanistan
Originally published on www.DarkGovernment.com
The Chinese are believed to be working with Afghan Taliban groups who are now in combat with NATO forces, prompting concerns that China might become the conduit for shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, improved communications and additional small arms to the fundamentalist Muslim fighters.
QW-1M / SA-18 Grouse Anti-Aircraft Weapon
A British military official contends that Chinese specialists have been seen training Taliban fighters in the use of infrared-guided surface-to-air missiles. This is supported by a May 13, 2008, classified U.S. State Department document released by WikiLeaks telling U.S. officials to confront Chinese officials about missile proliferation.
China is developing knock-offs of Russian-designed man-portable air defense missiles (manpads), including the QW-1 and later series models. The QW-1 Vanguard is an all-aspect, 35-lb. launch tube and missile that is reverse-engineered from the U.S. Stinger and the SA-16 Gimlet (9K310 Igla-1). China obtained SA-16s from Unita rebels in then-Zaire who had captured them from Angolan government forces. The 16g missiles have a slant range of 50,000 ft. The QW-1M is a variant that incorporates even more advanced SA-18 Grouse (9K38 Igla) technology. Read more…
Violent Seismic Activity Tearing Africa in Two
Cynthia Ebinger, a geologist from the University of Rochester in New York, could hardly believe what the caller from the deserts of Ethiopia was saying. It was an employee at a mineralogy company — and he reported that the famous Erta Ale volcano in northeastern Ethiopia was erupting. Ebinger, who has studied the volcano for years, was taken aback. The volcano’s crater had always been filled with a bubbling soup of silver-black lava, but it had been decades since its last eruption.
The call came last November. And Ebinger immediately flew to Ethiopia with some fellow researchers. “The volcano was bubbling over; flaming-red lava was shooting up into the sky,” Ebinger told SPIEGEL ONLINE. Read more…
South Africa: Another BRIC in China’s Wall
China’s President Hu Jintao has sent an invitation to South African President Jacob Zuma to attend the third BRICs leaders’ summit to be held in China. Picture: Zuma (center) celebrates the 25th anniversary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) on December 4, 2010 in Johannesburg. (File Photo/CFP)
At China’s invitation, South Africa is set to join the Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) group of emerging nations and will attend the first summit of the leading emerging economies in April this year. The group will thus be renamed the “BRICS,” but doubts remain over the suitability of the African nation to join the exclusive club of the fast-growing economies.
Lauding the Chinese decision to invite her country to the BRIC bloc, South Africa’s Cooperation Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane said the invitation was conveyed to her by China’s Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi. She said Chinese President Hu Jintao also sent an invitation to President Jacob Zuma to attend the third BRIC leaders’ summit to be held in China. Read more…
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