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— BP would like to implement a “static kill” of the well, which involves sending mud and later cement down into the well through the cap, according to BP Senior Vice President Kent Wells. The company is waiting for government approval.

If the debtor doesn’t show up to that hearing, the hammer of justice can come down hard and fast. From there, the judge can order the debtor in contempt of court and issue a warrant for their arrest. If this seems unnecessarily punitive, the price to get out of jail is even more so, say consumer advocates: Generally, the judge sets the cost of bail at the amount of the disputed debt, an amount which is then turned over to the creditor.

But the next generation of unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs) won’t be the airborne equivalent of fish in a barrel. They’ll fly faster and higher than the current drone crop. And they’ll be somewhat stealthy, as well.

Take the Avenger UCAV, unveiled last year by General Atomic Aeronautical Systems, the company behind the Predator and Reaper drones. With a 41-foot long fuselage and 66-foot wingspan, the Avenger is capable of staying in the air for up to 20 hours, and operating at up to 50,000 feet. Powered by a 4,800-lb. thrust Pratt & Whitney PW545B jet engine, it can fly at over 400 knots — 50 percent faster than the turboprop-powered Reaper unmanned plane, and more than three times as quick as the Predator.

Experts say that the practice of having such engineering work carried out in China, rather than the US, saves money and is common in the industry.

This weekend BP remained cautiously optimistic that the cap placed on top of the Gulf of Mexico well on Thursday night would continue to hold back the torrent of oil. It is the first time the flow has been stopped since the accident happened almost three months ago. But BP said that the pressure readings from the Macondo well were not as high as it had hoped, which could indicate that it has ruptured and that oil could be leaking out somewhere else.

There is no evidence that the significant modifications to the blowout preventer (BOP), which were carried out in China in 2005, caused the equipment to fail. But industry lawyers said BP could be made liable for any mistakes that a Chinese subcontractor made carrying out the work. It would be almost impossible to secure damages in China, where international law is barely recognised.

It is understood that lawyers for Cameron International, the manufacturer of the BOP, will argue the device was so significantly modified in China that it no longer resembled the original component, and that Cameron should therefore not be held liable.

Cameron said he will press ahead with a proposal set out in the coalition government’s program to establish a “Big Society Bank” to finance moves by charitable groups and not-for-profit companies to take over jobs currently done by the government.

“These unclaimed assets, alongside the private-sector investment that we will leverage, will mean that the Big Society Bank will over time make available hundreds of millions of pounds of new finance to some of the most dynamic social organizations in our country,” Cameron said in a speech in Liverpool, northwest England, today.

Cameron said the idea ties in with his plans for a general overhaul of the public services, as the government tries to narrow a record budget deficit. The new Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts that 490,000 public-sector jobs will be lost by April 2015.

“We’ve got to get rid of the centralized bureaucracy that wastes money and undermines morale,” Cameron said. “In its place, we’ve got to give professionals much more freedom and open up public services to new providers like charities, social enterprises and private companies so we get more innovation, diversity and responsiveness to public need.”

Existing Legislation

In a letter addressed to Bob Dudley, BP managing director, National Incident Commander Thad Allen said tests had detected a “seep a distance from the well and undetermined anomalies at the well head.” The letter was posted yesterday on the website of the joint information center for the spill.

No decision was announced on whether BP will be ordered to open the valves sealing the well, which would allow oil to resume flowing. BP would resume efforts to capture the oil and funnel it to vessels at the surface after the well is opened.

When it comes to national security, all too often no expense is spared and few questions are asked – with the result an enterprise so massive that nobody in government has a full understanding of it. It is, as Dana Priest and William M. Arkin have found, ubiquitous, often inefficient and mostly invisible to the people it is meant to protect and who fund it.

The articles in this series and an online database at topsecretamerica.com depict the scope and complexity of the government’s national security program through interactive maps and other graphics. Every data point on the Web site is substantiated by at least two public records.

Because of the nature of this project, we allowed government officials to see the Web site several months ago and asked them to tell us of any specific concerns. They offered none at that time. As the project evolved, we shared the Web site’s revised capabilities. Again, we asked for specific concerns. One government body objected to certain data points on the site and explained why; we removed those items. Another agency objected that the entire Web site could pose a national security risk but declined to offer specific comments.

We made other public safety judgments about how much information to show on the Web site. For instance, we used the addresses of company headquarters buildings, information which, in most cases, is available on companies’ own Web sites, but we limited the degree to which readers can use the zoom function on maps to pinpoint those or other locations.

Our maps show the headquarters buildings of the largest government agencies involved in top-secret work. A user can also see the cities and towns where the government conducts top-secret work in the United States, but not the specific locations, companies or agencies involved.

However, Moody’s lead analyst for Ireland Dietmar Hornung said it was a “gradual, significant deterioration, but not a sudden, dramatic shift”, and the agency believed Ireland has “turned the corner”.

The general government debt-to-GDP ratio was at 64 per cent at the end of last year, up from 25 per cent before the financial crisis took hold, and is continuing to rise.

“Today’s downgrade is primarily driven by the Irish government’s gradual but significant loss of financial strength, as reflected by its deteriorating debt affordability,” said Mr Hornung.

The support provided to the banking system, which includes the transfer of billions of euro worth of loans from banks to the National Asset Management Agency, was also cited as a key factor in the rating downgrade. Recapitalisation measures already announced may reach €25 billion, the agency said, but Anglo Irish Bank may require further support.

“While we do not expect the government – not even in a moderately stressed scenario — to incur permanent losses in excess of 25 per cent of the country’s 2009 GDP as a result of these obligations, we believe that the uncertainty surrounding final losses would exert additional pressure on the government’s financial strength,” the agency said in a statement.

The move comes just over a year after Moody’s last downgraded the country’s rating. On July 2nd 2009, the agency gave the bonds a Aa1 rating, with a negative outlook.

Today the Whangarei Growers Market is a thriving venture providing a living for around 30 local producers. Many more seasonal suppliers jostle for space throughout the year.

The market was started 12 years ago by Robert Bradley and Murray Burns in what has been likened to a David and Goliath struggle.

Robert Bradley says the supermarket chains were using their buying power to dictate prices, with low returns driving small to medium sized growers out of business.

Tomato grower and market co-founder Murray Burns was one of those whose margins were being whittled away.

“The only way to deal with that was to get much bigger or close down – and we wanted to do neither,” says Murray.

The pair were inspired by the concept of village markets in Europe and the United Kingdom, and a resurgence of farmers’ markets in the United States.

They found other growers who shared their predicament and a group of 12 held the first market in a car-park in Whangarei in 1998.

It now takes place every Saturday morning and, when Country Calendar visited, everything from fruit, vegetables, meat, eggs, milk and cheese to macadamia nuts and olive oil was on sale. The market has a rule that all produce must originate in Northland.

The local-only principle has kept struggling growers afloat and encouraged new businesses that may not otherwise have been viable. Asparagus, for example, is now grown in Northland for the first time in many years.

The market is also a venue for growers and consumers to meet face-to-face – there is a requirement that growers are also the stallholders.

At the peak of the growing season, the market attracts up to 6000 shoppers over the four hours it is open. Around 50 pallets, or 2000 cases, of produce is sold each Saturday.

Robert Bradley says the key to success has been offering significant qualities of high quality local produce at moderate prices.

Many similar markets have sprung up around the country in the last decade but the Whangarei enterprise deliberately distances itself from the popular farmers’ market movement.

Robert believes some of the newer markets have got sidetracked into “food fashion”.