Fetch your tin helmets once again. The European Central Bank is opting for a monetary purge. So too is the US Federal Reserve, now ruled from Dallas. Ãœber-hawks and Cromwellians have gained the upper hand at the great fortress banks. Whether or not they admit it, both are embarked on policies that must lead to retrenchment across the Atlantic world. The City mood turned wicked as the full import of this policy switch sank in last week. On Wall Street, the Dow’s 396-point dive on high volume late Friday had an ugly feel. ‘There is now the distinct possibility of a simultaneous sell-off in global bonds, equities and commodities,’ said Jonathan Wilmot from Credit Suisse. ‘I would advise Mr Trichet to be more careful in his comments,’ said Spain’s premier Jose Luis Zapatero. The counter-attack has begun. Spain’s property crash is calamitous. House prices have tumbled 15pc since September, say the developers (APCE). Over 98pc of Spanish mortgages are on floating rates, priced off three-month Euribor. This rate leapt 32 basis points to 5.24pc after Mr Trichet opened his mouth. The ECB demarche is ominous for the rest of us as well. We may […]
A quarter of a century after the outbreak of Aids, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has accepted that the threat of a global heterosexual pandemic has disappeared. In the first official admission that the universal prevention strategy promoted by the major Aids organisations may have been misdirected, Kevin de Cock, the head of the WHO’s department of HIV/Aids said there will be no generalised epidemic of Aids in the heterosexual population outside Africa. Dr De Cock, an epidemiologist who has spent much of his career leading the battle against the disease, said understanding of the threat posed by the virus had changed. Whereas once it was seen as a risk to populations everywhere, it was now recognised that, outside sub-Saharan Africa, it was confined to high-risk groups including men who have sex with men, injecting drug users, and sex workers and their clients. Dr De Cock said: ‘It is very unlikely there will be a heterosexual epidemic in other countries. Ten years ago a lot of people were saying there would be a generalised epidemic in Asia – China was the big worry with its huge population. That doesn’t look likely. But we have to be careful. […]
HONOLULU — Federal officials have confirmed what biologists have long thought: The Caribbean monk seal has gone the way of the dodo. Humans hunting the docile creatures for research, food and blubber left the population unsustainable, say biologists who warn that Hawaiian and Mediterranean monk seals could be the next to go. The last confirmed sighting of a Caribbean monk seal was in 1952 between Jamaica and Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries Service confirmed Friday that the species is extinct. Kyle Baker, a biologist for NOAA’s Fisheries Service southeast region, said the species is the only seal to become extinct from human causes. The seals were first classified as endangered in 1967, and wildlife experts investigated several reported sightings over the past few decades. But officials determined they were other seal types. The federal agency says there are fewer than 1,200 Hawaiian and 500 Mediterranean monk seals remaining, and their populations are declining. ‘We hope we’ve learned from the extinction of Caribbean monk seals, and can provide stronger protection for their Hawaiian and Mediterranean relatives,’ Baker said. The Hawaiian monk seal population, protected by NOAA, is declining at a […]
U.S. Department of Energy Analysis Finds That Wind Can Be Major Contributor to Energy Mix. Wind power is capable of becoming a major contributor to America’s electricity supply over the next three decades, according to a report released today by the U.S. Department of Energy. The groundbreaking report, 20% Wind Energy by 2030: Increasing Wind Energy’s Contribution to U.S. Electricity Supply, looks closely at one scenario for reaching 20% wind energy by 2030 and contrasts it to a scenario of no new U.S. wind power capacity. ‘DOE’s wind report is a thorough look at America’s wind resource, its industrial capabilities, and future energy prices, and confirms the viability and commercial maturity of wind as a major contributor to America’s energy needs, now and in the future,’ DOE Assistant Secretary of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy for the U.S. Department of Energy Andy Karsner, said. ‘To dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions and enhance our energy security, clean power generation at the gigawatt-scale will be necessary, and will require us to take a comprehensive approach to scaling renewable wind power, streamlining siting and permitting processes, and expanding the domestic wind manufacturing base.’ Included in […]
MILTON, Fla. — Three months after the local police inspected more than a dozen businesses searching for illegal immigrants using stolen Social Security numbers, this community in the Florida Panhandle has become more law-abiding, emptier and whiter. Many of the Hispanic immigrants who came in 2004 to help rebuild after Hurricane Ivan have either fled or gone into hiding. Churches with services in Spanish are half-empty. Businesses are struggling to find workers. And for Hispanic citizens with roots here - the foremen and entrepreneurs who received visits from the police - the losses are especially profound. ‘It was very hard because the community is very small, and to see people who came to eat here all the time then come and close the business,’ said Geronimo Barragan, who owns two branches of La Hacienda, Mexican restaurants where the police arrested 10 employees. ‘I don’t blame them,’ Mr. Barragan added. ‘It’s just that it hurts.’ Sheriff Wendell Hall of Santa Rosa County, who led the effort, said the arrests were for violations of state identity theft laws. But he also seemed proud to have found a way around rules allowing only the federal government to enforce immigration […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
