Japan and South Korea Bar Imports of U.S. Wheat
June 4th, 2013Via: New York Times:
Japan and South Korea suspended some imports of American wheat, and the European Union urged its 27 nations to increase testing, after the United States government disclosed this week that a strain of genetically engineered wheat that was never approved for sale was found growing in an Oregon field.
Although none of the wheat, developed by Monsanto Company, was found in any grain shipments — and the Department of Agriculture said there would be no health risk if any was shipped — governments in Asia and Europe acted quickly to limit their risk.
Acid Jobs
June 4th, 2013Via: Reuters:
“All this anti-fracking language misses the target and I am very concerned it is a diversion,” said Steve Shimek, of environmental group Monterey Coastkeeper.
The Monterey shale holds an estimated 15 billion barrels of oil, more than most estimates for Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and twice the reserves of North Dakota’s Bakken shale oil deposit, which has transformed that state and moved the country a bit closer to energy independence.
California’s focus on fracking, which uses water and chemicals to shatter rock formations and release oil or gas, threatens to divert attention from what some environmentalists are starting to see as the real threat: acid jobs.
It is an old well completion method that involves pumping chemicals such as hydrofluoric acid into wells to melt rocks and other impediments to oil flow, and companies are not required to report when they do it.
“These are super-hazardous, poisonous chemicals and we have no idea what they are doing out there with it – how deep it is going, the volumes – nothing,” said Bill Allayaud of the Environmental Working Group. “Why shouldn’t our state agency be regulating it as we hope they’ll be regulating hydraulic fracturing?”
Occidental Petroleum Corp, which is leading the way on Monterey development, said in 2011 it was mainly using acid jobs to get at the shale, and Occidental said this month that only a sixth of its California wells were fracked.
Russian Official: FBI Missed Boston Warning
June 4th, 2013Via: AP:
A senior Russian official said Tuesday that the Boston Marathon bombings could have been prevented if American officials had followed through with Russian intelligence.
Officials previously hewed to President Vladimir Putin’s statement that Russia had no information that could have prevented the attacks.
“The Russian side warned the American side about the Tsarnaev brothers, but this information was not taken seriously by the American side, which is what led to that tragedy,” Valentina Matvienko, the speaker of Russia’s senate, said Tuesday, referring to suspects Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Interfax news agency reported.
Matvienko made the remarks after a meeting with Britain’s ambassador to Russia.
Two-Thirds of Uninsured Americans Don’t Know If They Will Buy Insurance Under Obamacare
June 4th, 2013Via: CNBC:
There’s no assurance folks will be buying insurance under Obamacare, and that could spell trouble for the Affordable Care Act.
Nearly two-thirds of Americans who currently lack health insurance don’t know yet if they will purchase that coverage by the Jan. 1 deadline set by the ACA, a new survey revealed Monday.
Some Obama Top Political Appointees Using Secret U.S. Government Email Accounts
June 4th, 2013Via: AP:
Some of President Barack Obama’s political appointees, including the secretary for Health and Human Services, are using secret government email accounts they say are necessary to prevent their inboxes from being overwhelmed with unwanted messages, according to a review by The Associated Press.
The scope of using the secret accounts across government remains a mystery: Most U.S. agencies have failed to turn over lists of political appointees’ email addresses, which the AP sought under the Freedom of Information Act more than three months ago. The Labor Department initially asked the AP to pay more than $1 million for its email addresses.
British Nutrition Foundation Student Survey
June 4th, 2013Via: BBC:
Almost a third of UK primary pupils think cheese is made from plants and a quarter think fish fingers come from chicken or pigs, suggests a survey.
Nearly one in 10 secondary pupils thinks tomatoes grow under ground, according to the poll for the British Nutrition Foundation (BNF).
Some 27,500 five-to-16-year-olds were questioned last month.
The charity says the figures prove the need for better teaching about cooking and healthy eating.
The survey also revealed confusion about the source of staples such as pasta and bread among younger pupils, with about a third of five-to-eight-year-olds believing that they are made from meat.
About 19% of this age group did not realise that potatoes grew under ground, with 10% thinking they grew on bushes or trees.
Dear Leader Dreams of Sushi
June 4th, 2013Via: GQ:
The chef’s name, an alias, is Kenji Fujimoto, and for eleven years he was Kim Jong-il’s personal chef, court jester, and sidekick. He had seen the palaces, ridden the white stallions, smoked the Cuban cigars, and watched as, one by one, the people around him disappeared. It was part of Fujimoto’s job to fly North Korean jets around the world to procure dinner-party ingredients—to Iran for caviar, Tokyo for fish, or Denmark for beer. It was Fujimoto who flew to France to supply the Dear Leader’s yearly $700,000 cognac habit. And when the Dear Leader craved McDonald’s, it was Fujimoto who was dispatched to Beijing for an order of Big Macs to go.
U.S. Manufacturing Unexpectedly Shrank in May at the Fastest Pace in Four Years
June 3rd, 2013Via: Bloomberg:
Manufacturing (NAPMPMI) in the U.S. unexpectedly shrank in May at the fastest pace in four years, showing slowdowns in business and government spending are holding back the world’s largest economy.
The Institute for Supply Management’s factory index fell to 49, the lowest reading since June 2009, from the prior month’s 50.7, the Tempe, Arizona-based group’s report showed today. Fifty is the dividing line between growth and contraction. The median forecast of 81 economists surveyed by Bloomberg was 51.
Enlarge image May ISM Manufacturing Index Decreased to 49 from 50.7 in April
Across-the-board federal budget cuts and overseas markets that are struggling to rebound will probably continue to curb manufacturing, which accounts for about 12 percent of the economy. At the same time, demand for automobiles, gains in residential construction and lean inventories may spark a pickup in orders and production in the second half of the year.
China Is Reaping Biggest Benefits of Iraq Oil Boom
June 3rd, 2013For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.
-Sun Tzu, The Art of War
The Chinese had nothing to do with the war, eh?
Attention Michael Makovsky: China bought hundreds of billions of dollars worth of U.S. Debt, which provided the funding that made the war possible.
Now China’s getting the oil along with interest payments from the next few generations of Americans.
Via: New York Times:
Since the American-led invasion of 2003, Iraq has become one of the world’s top oil producers, and China is now its biggest customer.
China already buys nearly half the oil that Iraq produces, nearly 1.5 million barrels a day, and is angling for an even bigger share, bidding for a stake now owned by Exxon Mobil in one of Iraq’s largest oil fields.
“The Chinese are the biggest beneficiary of this post-Saddam oil boom in Iraq,” said Denise Natali, a Middle East expert at the National Defense University in Washington. “They need energy, and they want to get into the market.”
Before the invasion, Iraq’s oil industry was sputtering, largely walled off from world markets by international sanctions against the government of Saddam Hussein, so his overthrow always carried the promise of renewed access to the country’s immense reserves. Chinese state-owned companies seized the opportunity, pouring more than $2 billion a year and hundreds of workers into Iraq, and just as important, showing a willingness to play by the new Iraqi government’s rules and to accept lower profits to win contracts.
“We lost out,” said Michael Makovsky, a former Defense Department official in the Bush administration who worked on Iraq oil policy. “The Chinese had nothing to do with the war, but from an economic standpoint they are benefiting from it, and our Fifth Fleet and air forces are helping to assure their supply.”
Related: Who Won the Iraq War? China
SEC Bringing Lowest Number of Corporate Accounting Fraud Cases in a Decade
June 3rd, 2013Post 2008, what’s fraud?
Via: New York Times:
In April 2003, a New York Times article discussed the push by federal prosecutors to crack down on accounting fraud in which one expert said, “These have become the hot, sexy cases.”
What followed were the convictions of chief executives including Jeffrey K. Skilling of Enron, Bernard J. Ebbers of WorldCom and John J. Rigas of Adelphia Communications.
The attraction seems to have worn off. The number of corporate accounting cases at the Securities and Exchange Commission has dropped to its lowest level in a decade, with only 79 such cases filed in the most recent fiscal year.
