U.S. Corn Reserves Hit Lowest Level in 15 Years
February 9th, 2011Via: AP:
U.S. reserves of corn have hit their lowest level in over 15 years in part because of higher demand from the ethanol industry, hinting at tighter supplies and higher food prices in 2011.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported Wednesday that the ethanol industry demand for corn is up 50 million bushels after record-high production in December and January.
That means the United States will have about 675 million bushels of corn left over at the end of year. That’s roughly 5 percent of all corn that will be consumed, the lowest surplus level since 1996.
WikiLeaks Cables: Saudi Arabia Oil Reserves Overstated by 40%
February 9th, 2011Via: AFP:
THE US fears Saudi Arabia may not have enough oil reserves to prevent prices rising sharply, according to leaked cables.
The cables from the US embassy in Riyadh, obtained by WikiLeaks, urge Washington to take heed of a warning from a former Saudi government oil executive that the kingdom’s crude oil reserves may have been overstated by as much as 40 per cent.
US diplomats reported that Sadad al-Husseini, the ex-head of exploration at Saudi oil monopoly Aramco, “disagreed” with Aramco’s analysis that it had reserves of 716 billion barrels and that would rise to 900 billion barrels in 20 years.
The claims about the world’s largest crude oil exporter, published in The Guardian newspaper, come as the price of oil has soared in recent weeks to more than $US100 a barrel amid tensions in the Middle East and global demand.
Jet Loaded with Millions in Gold and Cash Seized by Congolese Authorities Linked to Texas Philanthropist
February 9th, 2011Via: Dallas News:
A Gulfstream jet seized by Congolese authorities suspected of being used to smuggle gold from rebel-controlled strongholds is apparently owned by a North Texas aviation firm owned by Southlake philanthropist David Disiere, records show.
Dow Jones reported today that the tail number on the jet is N886DT, which FAA records shows to be owned by Southlake Aviation LLC. Disiere is that company’s director and president.
Disiere did not return phone calls to his house in Southlake today. It’s unclear whether he was leasing the plane to someone else or had any knowledge of the African incident.
Forgive Me iPhone, For I Have Sinned
February 9th, 2011Via: CBS:
A new app for devices like the iPhone and iPad aims to take the intimidation factor out of Confession for Catholics — and the Church is giving it the thumbs-up.
Forgive Me iPhone, For I Have SinnedYou’ll still have to tell a priest your sins in person, but “Confession: A Roman Catholic App” holds your hand through the process via your hand-held.
Katie, a Temple University sophomore, likes how the app takes you step-by-step, preparing you for the sacrament by asking questions that might point out a sin or two you’ll want to divulge.
“I like how you have the ‘in the name of the Father’ — like what they should say,” Katie said.
CIA Officers Make Grave Mistakes, Get Promoted
February 9th, 2011Via: AP:
In December 2003, security forces boarded a bus in Macedonia and snatched a German citizen named Khaled el-Masri. For the next five months, el-Masri was a ghost. Only a select group of CIA officers knew he had been whisked to a secret prison for interrogation in Afghanistan.
But he was the wrong guy.
A hard-charging CIA analyst had pushed the agency into one of the biggest diplomatic embarrassments of the U.S. war on terrorism. Yet despite recommendations by an internal review, the analyst was never punished. In fact, she has risen to one of the premier jobs in the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center, helping lead President Barack Obama’s efforts to disrupt al-Qaida.
In the years since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, officers who committed serious mistakes that left people wrongly imprisoned or even dead have received only minor admonishments or no punishment at all, an Associated Press investigation has revealed. The botched el-Masri case is but one example of a CIA accountability process that even some within the agency say is unpredictable and inconsistent.
Pentagon’s New Ground Robot Can Hear You Breathing… Through a Wall
February 9th, 2011Via: Wired:
America’s robots make deadly weapons. But there are countermeasures to even the most fearsome bot now in service. To avoid detection by aerial drones, Taliban fighters in Afghanistan have begun traveling in smaller groups. In his excellent book War, Sebastian Junger even describes Afghan fighters covering themselves with blankets on sun-warmed rocks to erase their infrared signatures, confounding the drones’ IR sensors.
But hiding from the Pentagon’s unmanned army could get a lot harder, thanks to new ground robot that can actually hear you breathing, even through a wall. The bot’s originator calls it “enhanced situational awareness.” We call it terrifying. Still, the robot does have potentially serious limitations.
Beginning late last year, California firm TiaLinx began rolling out a suite of hardware designed to detect the most minuscule signs of human presence. The Eagle5-N, which debuted late last year, is a low-power, wide-bandwidth radar mounted on a tripod. “In addition to breath detection, it can monitor a heartbeat and, by extension, the stress level of a person,” National Defense reported. “While the device was designed to detect humans behind walls, it also makes sense for rescue missions or monitoring human trafficking at the border — above and underground.”
Suez Canal Still Operating as Service Workers Strike
February 9th, 2011Via: Bloomberg:
Shipping on Egypt’s Suez Canal, used to carry about 8 percent of global seaborne trade, is transiting on schedule after service workers linked to the waterway began striking, the Suez Canal Authority said.
Workers from Suez Canal Co. began a sit-in today, Al-Ahram newspaper reported earlier today in its online edition, without saying where it got the information. The 6,000 workers are from Suez, Port Said and Ismailia, Al-Ahram said.
“This doesn’t have anything to do with Suez Canal traffic and the canal is operating normally,” Mohamed Motair, director of companies at the Suez Canal Authority, said by phone. The striking employees belong to seven service companies linked to the waterway and are not involved in operations, he said.
China Creates Rare Earth Strategic Reserves
February 9th, 2011Via: AFP:
China is building up strategic reserves of rare earth metals in a move that could give it better control over the resource so indispensable to high tech products, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Storage facilities have been built in recent months in the northern region of Inner Mongolia with the capacity to hold more than the 39,813 tonnes of the metals China exported last year, the paper said.
But details of the strategic reserves have not been made public, it added on Monday.
FCC: Presidential Emergency Alerts to be Tested
February 8th, 2011Via: Federal News Radio:
Everybody has heard the national Emergency Alert System (EAS). Those familiar “duck calls” that reassure listeners “THIS is a test…this is ONLY a test…”
The FCC is planning an upgrade to the tests by including presidential announcements in the system.
Lisa Fowlkes, deputy chief of the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau of the FCC, explained to the Federal Drive the Presidential Alert isn’t new.
“The primary goal is to provide the President with a mechanism to communicate with the American public during times of national emergency,” said Fowlkes. The change, she said, is that prior to last week’s order there was no rule in place to call for or allow a test from top to bottom.
Fowlkes said, “There’s never been a test from top to bottom where it’s issued by FEMA and it goes straight down to all the different levels of EAS to the American public. So this is a way for us to glean, okay, if there were an actual emergency and the federal government needed to activate the Presidential EAS, making sure that it actually works the way it’s designed to.”
Now that there’s a rule in place, the next challenges are going to be working with all the stakeholders on timing of the test and to reach out to the public so they understand it’s a test and not a real emergency, Fowlkes said.
JPMorgan Allowing Gold to Be Used as Collateral for Some Types of Trading
February 8th, 2011Is JPM trying to get its tentacles around enough metal to cover physical withdrawals from clients?
Via: Bloomberg:
Gold may get a boost as JPMorgan Chase & Co. joins exchanges in allowing the metal to be used as collateral for trading, according to MF Global Holdings Ltd.
JPMorgan yesterday said it will accept bullion “to satisfy securities lending and repo obligations” as more clients seek to use gold as an inflation hedge and to post as collateral. CME Group Inc. in October 2009 allowed gold to be used as collateral for trades on all its markets as an alternative to debt or equities, and Intercontinental Exchange Inc. in November allowed gold’s use as collateral for energy and credit default swaps on its ICE Clear Europe clearinghouse.
“The announcement should be slightly positive for gold prices, as it further grows the belief that gold is a currency and has more uses than simply acting as a safe haven or portfolio diversifier,” Tom Pawlicki, an analyst at MF Global in Chicago, said today in a report.
