WASHINGTON — China, wary of the troubled US economy, has already ‘canceled America’s credit card’ by cutting down purchases of debt, a US congressman said Thursday. China has the world’s largest foreign reserves, believed to be mostly in dollars, along with around 800 billion dollars in US Treasury bonds, more than any other country. But Treasury Department data shows that investors in China have sharply curtailed their purchases of bonds in January and February. Representative Mark Kirk, a member of the House Appropriations Committee and co-chair of a group of lawmakers promoting relations with Beijing, said China had ‘very legitimate’ concerns about its investments. ‘It would appear, quietly and with deference and politeness, that China has canceled America’s credit card,’ Kirk told the Committee of 100, a Chinese-American group. ‘I’m not sure too many people on Capitol Hill realize that this is now happening,’ he said. The Republican lawmaker said that China was justified in concerns about returns from finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which were bailed out by the US government due to the financial crisis. Kirk said he was the first member of Congress to tour the Bureau of […]
COLOMBO — The Sri Lankan government is increasingly tilting towards Iran, Libya and China for foreign aid as its traditional Western allies ramp up their criticism of the war against Tamil rebels. Many Western nations have outlawed the Tamil Tigers and cut off their funding networks, but the Colombo administration is deeply upset over repeated calls from the United States and the European Union for a truce. President Mahinda Rajapakse believes he is on the verge of victory over Tamil separatists after 37 years of fighting, and he fears that nations such as Britain, France and the US could throw a lifeline to the rebels. ‘Never did history unmask the hypocrisy and the sanctimony of the Western powers than (it has in) their behaviour towards Sri Lanka during recent times,’ the defence ministry said on Sunday, without naming specific countries. Rajapakse himself vowed last week that he would not bow to outside pressure for a ceasefire, and lashed out at what he regards as Western interference. ‘They are trying to preach to us about civilians. I tell them to go and see what they are doing in Iraq and Afghanistan,’ he said in a speech. […]
Look out! The Big Bellies are here to eat your trash. The city yesterday unveiled one of the new solar-powered trash compactors that they plan to install throughout Center City in the next several months. Dubbed ‘Big Bellies,’ after the company that manufactures them, the cans compact trash using solar power. The city plans to replace 700 wire trash baskets with 500 solar litter compactors between now and July. Philly is also poised to start offering pedestrian recycling for the first time. Recycling cans will be placed next to 210 of the compactors. Mayor Nutter yesterday appeared next to a new solar trash can and a recycling can installed at 15th Street and John F. Kennedy Boulevard. ‘This is all part of that larger effort to clean Philadelphia up, get people to recycle more,’ Nutter said. The compactors require fewer collections, which saves the city on fuel for sanitation vehicles and frees up workers for other tasks, officials said. They also hold up to 200 gallons of trash, compared with the 55-gallon capacity of a regular wire trash basket. Because of that capacity they require five weekly collections, compared with the 19 […]
SHERMAN COUNTY, OR — look at the one renewable source of energy that started booming a decade ago: wind power. Companies like GE and Seimens make turbines; the federal government offers utilities big financial incentives to build wind farms; and as Kristian Foden-Vencil reports, hundreds of windmills have gone up in Oregon alone. Biglow Wind Farm consists of about 80 enormous windmills on the ridge of the Columbia River Gorge. Standing underneath one, you can actually hear the blades swooshing past at 120 miles-per-hour. Biglow Wind Farm – Photos by Kristian Foden-Vencil Today, Eric Melbardis has offered to take me up a tower to see a turbine up close. Eric Melbardis: ‘What we’re going to do now is climb to check on a couple of technicians that are performing preventative maintenance. See you in a little bit. Kristian: ‘So I’m the first 30 or 40 rungs up a ladder that reaches almost up to the sky. It goes up 260 to 280 feet which is the equivalent of the justice center in downtown Portland, that may be about 26 stories high and I’ve just got to keep climbing. Eric Melbardis: ‘Okay […]
Pakistan is continuing to expand its nuclear bomb-making facilities despite growing international concern that advancing Islamist extremists could overrun one or more of its atomic weapons plants or seize sufficient radioactive material to make a dirty bomb, US nuclear experts and former officials say. David Albright, previously a senior weapons inspector for the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency in Iraq, said commercial satellite photos showed two plutonium-producing reactors were nearing completion at Khushab, about 160 miles south-west of the capital, Islamabad. ‘In the current climate, with Pakistan’s leadership under duress from daily acts of violence by insurgent Taliban forces and organised political opposition, the security of any nuclear material produced in these reactors is in question,’ Albright said in a report (pdf) issued by the independent Institute for Science and International Security in Washington. Albright warned that the continuing development of Pakistan’s atomic weapons programme could trigger a renewed nuclear arms race with India. But he suggested a more immediate threat to nuclear security arose from recent territorial advances in north-west Pakistan by indigenous Taliban and foreign jihadi forces opposed to the Pakistani government and its American and British allies. ‘Current US policy, focused primarily on […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
