Chinese Protests
June 15th, 2011Via: The Australian:
AN eruption of protests throughout China has sent armoured vehicles into town centres, prompted an internet blackout by the government and left thousands across the country blogging about “crazy” violence on the streets.
The summer surge of protests, which flared in the southern industrial hub of Zengcheng over the weekend, has been linked to a range of frustrations with modern China – furies that have drawn the government into crackdowns on activism and massive increases in the domestic security budget.
…
Although few see China as a likely arena for uprisings in the style of the Arab Spring, Beijing remains terrified that the fast-rising tally of localised protests could be linked via mobile social networking and Twitter-style websites.
Some Chinese academics believe that the true number of protests in the country last year was more than 180,000. After several big clashes in recent weeks the names of half a dozen big towns have been eradicated from the search engines of the country’s most popular microblogging sites.
$6.7 Billion In Cash Missing in Iraq
June 15th, 2011I don’t know how many times I’ve posted this one, but CNN has just aired a new piece about it, and, yep, the cash is still missing.
Maybe it went to the same place as the missing $2.3 trillion that Rumsfeld mentioned on September 10, 2001.
Via: CNN:
And Now… ‘Shit Burger’
June 15th, 2011Note the helpful label on the fridge.
Via: Inhabitat:
Yep, you heard me correctly — Japanese scientist Mitsyuki Ikeda has developed a “burger” made from soya, steak sauce essence, and protein extracted from human feces.
Related: Yes Men Hunger Presentation [Thanks, Dennis]
Half of Properties for Sale in California Are Distressed
June 15th, 2011Via: CNBC:
As big banks and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac push foreclosures through the pipeline, the inventory of REO (bank-owned) properties is rising.
That pushes distressed and overall home prices down.
Note in California, median home prices took their steepest dive in May, down 8.2 percent year over year to $280,000, as distressed sales made up more than half the market.
Related: U.S. Housing Crisis Is Now Worse Than Great Depression
Cryptogon Reader Sends Contribution
June 15th, 2011JS sent $20. Thank you, JS.
Europe Braces for Serious Crop Losses and Blackouts
June 14th, 2011Via: Scientific American:
One of the driest spring seasons on record in northern Europe has sucked soils dry and sharply reduced river levels to the point that governments are starting to fear crop losses and France, in particular, is bracing for blackouts as its river-cooled nuclear power plants may be forced to shut down.
French Agriculture Minister Bruno Le Maire warned this week that the warmest and driest spring in half a century could slash wheat yields and might even push up world prices despite the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization’s predicting a bumper global crop due to greater plantings.
France has pledged hundreds of millions of euros in aid to its drought-stricken livestock farmers, who have watched feed supplies dwindle and prices rise. Water restrictions are in place in more than half of the country’s administrative regions or departments.
“The situation is serious for French farmers. We wanted to act swiftly and on a large scale,” Le Maire told reporters last week.
And the French government has set up a committee to keep an eye on the country’s electricity supply situation and monitor river levels, as 44 of the 58 nuclear reactors that supply 80 percent of France’s electricity are cooled by river water.
The problem appears to be not that the reactors might overheat because of the lack of water but that the depleted rivers might overheat, creating ecological havoc, when the water returns to them after cooling the reactors.
Miracle-Gro for Pot Growers
June 14th, 2011Via: Wall Street Journal:
In an unlikely move for the head of a major company, Scotts Chief Executive Jim Hagedorn said he is exploring targeting medical marijuana as well as other niches to help boost sales at his lawn and garden company.
“I want to target the pot market,” Mr. Hagedorn said in an interview. “There’s no good reason we haven’t.”
Fukushima: 34,000 Children to Wear Radiation Dosimeters Around the Clock for Three Months
June 14th, 2011This is a giant, open air radiation experiment. Human subjects, in vivo, in situ.
Government issued dosimeters? Oh sure. I wonder what will happen to the data…
Via: AFP:
Japan’s Fukushima city said on Tuesday it would hand radiation dosimeters to 34,000 children to gauge their exposure from the crippled nuclear power plant about 60 kilometres (40 miles) away.
The city will hand the measuring devices to all children aged between four and 15 for three months from September so that they can wear them around the clock, an official at the city’s education board told AFP.
The city is outside the government’s 20-kilometre (12-mile) evacuation and no-go zone around the tsunami-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, but many residents are concerned about radiation, he said.
“There have been fixed-spot radiation measurements but parents and citizens are concerned about individual exposure,” said the official.
“We also believe the distribution of dosimeters will help ease parents’ worries if they confirm their children’s exposure does not pose health risks.”
He added that radiation in the city had been below the official threshold for health risks, and said the children’s dosimeters would be read out once a month to assess cumulative radiation exposure.
Japanese Schools Asked to Map Fallout Contamination
June 14th, 2011Via: Reuters:
Fukushima is estimated to have released just 15 percent of the radiation at Chernobyl, but a complicated software modeling system created by the government to predict where the radiation would drift proved useless.
Under pressure to provide a more accurate picture of the contamination, the Ministry of Education has promised to complete a detailed survey of the evacuated area by October.
Since last week, local governments have been enlisted to provide daily reports of radiation.
More than 1,000 public schools in Fukushima were equipped with dosimeters in late May and teachers were asked to record hourly radiation readings to help create a contamination map.
But some experts say even these added steps are far from enough. “We need a new and more comprehensive system for monitoring radiation,” said Takumi Gotoh, a Nagoya-based cancer specialist. “The system that exists now is not sufficient.”
Saudi Oil Spare Capacity Shrinking Fast
June 14th, 2011Via: Reuters:
Saudi Arabia’s cushion of spare oil capacity is thinning far faster than widely believed, threatening to trigger price spikes in the months ahead, energy industry experts warned at the Reuters Global Energy and Climate Summit on Monday.
Concerns are growing over the kingdom’s ability to pump more oil beyond an anticipated summer boost, leaving the world exposed to any further unexpected disruptions. The world’s top exporter promised to produce as much oil as the market needs after the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries last week failed to reach a deal.
Saudi newspaper al-Hayat reported Saudi Arabia would boost output to 10 million barrels per day (bpd) in July, which Goldman Sachs’ global head of commodities research Jeff Currie said would leave only 500,000 bpd spare. Currie and his team have warned for months about overstated Saudi output capacity.
“If you get up to (10 mln bpd), you start to really create a very tight market relative to spare capacity,” he told the Reuters Global Energy and Climate Summit in London.
“But the question that’s more appropriate is when do you get to 9.5, when do you get to 10? Because when you start to look out over the horizon, their ability to create more flexibility in spare capacity increases tremendously.”
