Flashback 2009: Drug Money Saved Banks in Global Crisis
January 22nd, 2015Via: Guardian:
Drugs money worth billions of dollars kept the financial system afloat at the height of the global crisis, the United Nations’ drugs and crime tsar has told the Observer.
Antonio Maria Costa, head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, said he has seen evidence that the proceeds of organised crime were “the only liquid investment capital” available to some banks on the brink of collapse last year. He said that a majority of the $352bn (£216bn) of drugs profits was absorbed into the economic system as a result.
California Is Going Through the Worst Drought in 500 Years
January 21st, 2015Via: Vice:
In the first episode of our new show, California Soul, we investigate the state’s worst drought in nearly 500 years. From the driest towns in California to the empty reservoirs, we see just how screwed our world really is and what people are doing to carry on.
Google and Fidelity Invest $1 Billion in SpaceX
January 20th, 2015Via: cnet:
Google is cementing its interest in outer space.
The company, along with investment firm Fidelity, is pumping $1 billion into SpaceX, the rocket company co-founded by billionaire Elon Musk.
The deal, confirmed on Tuesday by SpaceX, is just the latest bet Google has made on space technologies. The company has recently made investments in satellites, and was rumored to be considering a stake in the space tourism venture Virgin Galactic. The investment, which was reported earlier by The Information, would apparently value SpaceX at $10 billion and give Google and Fidelity close to a 10 percent stake in the company.
It’s still unclear what could come of the investment, but some have speculated the deal could bolster Google’s and SpaceX’s plans for providing low-cost Internet access to under-served regions of the globe.
Yemen: Coup Underway
January 20th, 2015Via: Globe and Mail:
A Yemeni army commander says Shiite Houthi rebels have seized the presidential palace in the capital, Sanaa, a move he described as a “coup.”
Col. Saleh al-Jamalani, the commander of the Presidential Protection Force that guards embattled President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, says the rebels swept into the presidential palace on Tuesday afternoon.
He told The Associated Press that the rebels were aided by insiders and are looting arm depots on the palace grounds.
Brazil Orders Rolling Blackouts as Electricity Demand Spikes in Record Heat
January 20th, 2015Via: Reuters:
Rolling blackouts swept across parts of Brazil on Monday as the grid operator ordered select power cuts to avoid a larger crisis, drawing attention to a fragile electric system that is buckling under the strains of record-breaking heat and dryness.
Grid operator ONS said it orchestrated 2,200 megawatts of controlled outages in eight states as the hottest day of the year in Sao Paulo, where the temperature hit 36.5 Celsius (97.7 Fahrenheit), and other southeastern cities led to surging demand from air conditioners and other power-hungry appliances.
Prosecutor Who Accused Argentinian President of Iranian Bomb Cover-Up Found Dead
January 20th, 2015Via: Independent:
An Argentinian prosecutor who accused the country’s president of orchestrating a cover-up of the investigation into a notorious bomb attack on a Jewish community centre has been found dead – hours before he was to testify at a closed-door hearing.
Reports said that Alberto Nisman, 51, who had been examining the 1994 blast that left 85 people dead and over which Iranian officials have accused, was found dead in his apartment in Buenos Aires. A small calibre handgun was found next to his body by security guards, alerted on Sunday afternoon by Mr Nisman’s mother who said he was not answering his phone or else the door of his 13th floor flat.
“Alberto Nisman was found dead on Sunday night in his flat on the 13th floor of the tower Le Parc, in the Buenos Aires district of Puerto Madero,” the Argentinian security ministry said in a statement. “Next to Nisman’s body, a .22-calibre handgun was found, together with a bullet casing.”
New Police Radars Can ‘See’ Inside Homes
January 19th, 2015Via: USA Today:
At least 50 U.S. law enforcement agencies have secretly equipped their officers with radar devices that allow them to effectively peer through the walls of houses to see whether anyone is inside, a practice raising new concerns about the extent of government surveillance.
Those agencies, including the FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service, began deploying the radar systems more than two years ago with little notice to the courts and no public disclosure of when or how they would be used. The technology raises legal and privacy issues because the U.S. Supreme Court has said officers generally cannot use high-tech sensors to tell them about the inside of a person’s house without first obtaining a search warrant.
The radars work like finely tuned motion detectors, using radio waves to zero in on movements as slight as human breathing from a distance of more than 50 feet. They can detect whether anyone is inside of a house, where they are and whether they are moving.
Majority of U.S. Public School Students Are in Poverty
January 19th, 2015Via: Washington Post:
For the first time in at least 50 years, a majority of U.S. public school students come from low-income families, according to a new analysis of 2013 federal data, a statistic that has profound implications for the nation.
The Southern Education Foundation reports that 51 percent of students in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade in the 2012-2013 school year were eligible for the federal program that provides free and reduced-price lunches. The lunch program is a rough proxy for poverty, but the explosion in the number of needy children in the nation’s public classrooms is a recent phenomenon that has been gaining attention among educators, public officials and researchers.
Project Blue Book Collection
January 19th, 2015Via: The Black Vault:
This site was created by The Black Vault to house 129,491 pages, comprising of more than 10,000 cases of the Project Blue Book, Project Sign and Project Grudge files declassifed. Project Blue Book (along with Sign and Grudge) was the name that was given to the official investigation by the United States military to determine what the Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) phenomena was. It lasted from 1947 – 1969. Below you will find the case files compiled for research, and available free to download.
Body of Missing AIG Executive Found in Golf Course Pond
January 19th, 2015Via: Fox News:
A body found floating in a pond on a golf course in California has been identified as the AIG executive who disappeared two weeks ago while attending a work conference in the area.
The Riverside County Coroner’s Office confirmed that it was the body of Omar Meza on Friday, according to KESQ. The cause of death is under investigation and it is not clear how long Meza was in the pond.
Meza, 33, was last seen around 11 p.m. local time on Jan. 8 at the JW Marriott Desert Springs Resort in Palm Desert after having dinner with co-workers.
The wife of the AIG Financial Distributors vice president, Diane Meza, said he was dropped off by an Uber driver at the wrong hotel. Surveillance footage on the property shows Omar Meza walking out of the hotel lobby. Authorities later found Omar’s jacket neatly folded on the resort’s golf course over the weekend, along with his wallet.
Meza’s body was discovered on Thursday afternoon when golfers finishing their round spotted it floating in a pond.
Authorities scoured the property for days, including looking in ponds with dive teams and search dogs, MyFoxLA reports, and didn’t find anything.
