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BREAKING: Rocket fired from Egypt hits Israeli city of Eilat

A Grad rocket has landed in the southern Israeli city of Eilat, but has caused no damage or injuries, Israeli security officials said.

District police chief Ron Gertner told Israeli radio the rocket had been fired from Egypt’s Sinai peninsula.

He said it struck a construction site close to a residential area shortly after midnight (21:00 GMT).

The blast took place as thousands congregated in the resort town for the Jewish holiday of Passover.

Rocket attacks from Egyptian soil are uncommon. Attacks on Eilat and the nearby Jordanian town of Aqaba in 2010 killed one person and injured another four.

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Dumping is All the Rage

With a looming water crisis world wide it is a wonder why we allow for such behavior. Remember we may not destroy mother earth, but we may create an inhabitable world.

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Next Great Depression? MIT Researchers Predict ‘Global Economic Collapse’ by 2030

By Eric Pfeiffer

A new study from researchers at Jay W. Forrester’s institute at MIT says that the world could suffer from “global economic collapse” and “precipitous population decline” if people continue to consume the world’s resources at the current pace.

Smithsonian Magazine writes that Australian physicist Graham Turner says “the world is on track for disaster” and that current evidence coincides with a famous, and in some quarters, infamous, academic report from 1972 entitled, “The Limits to Growth.

Produced for a group called The Club of Rome, the study’s researchers created a computing model to forecast different scenarios based on the current models of population growth and global resource consumption. The study also took into account different levels of agricultural productivity, birth control and environmental protection efforts. Twelve million copies of the report were produced and distributed in 37 different languages.

Most of the computer scenarios found population and economic growth continuing at a steady rate until about 2030. But without “drastic measures for environmental protection,” the scenarios predict the likelihood of a population and economic crash.

However, the study said “unlimited economic growth” is still possible if world governments enact policies and invest in green technologies that help limit the expansion of our ecological footprint.

 

The Smithsonian notes that several experts strongly objected to “The Limit of Growth’s” findings, including the late Yale economist Henry Wallich, who for 12 years served as a governor of the Federal Research Board and was its chief international economics expert. At the time, Wallich said attempting to regulate economic growth would be equal to “consigning billions to permanent poverty.”

Turner says that perhaps the most startling find from the study is that the results of the computer scenarios were nearly identical to those predicted in similar computer scenarios used as the basis for “The Limits to Growth.”

“There is a very clear warning bell being rung here,” Turner said. “We are not on a sustainable trajectory.”

Read the rest here.

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Syria must be held to the law of war

(CNN) — The U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Syria recently determined that the fighting in Syria is not an “armed conflict” (PDF) — the legal term for war — under international law because the opposition forces are not sufficiently organized. Yet surely the protesters, dissident fighters and terrified citizens caught up in the violence in Syria believe they are at war.

States and other international legal experts are following the same overly technical approach and, as a result, not applying the law designed for just this situation: the law of war. The international community is left unable to use every available tool in its efforts to halt the violence and protect civilians from extraordinary suffering.

Failing to call Syria’s upheaval an armed conflict — the legal term for war — has real and immediate consequences. Contrary to what events in Syria suggest, war is not waged in a legal vacuum. International law regulates permissible conduct during war, even civil war.

The law of war exists specifically to restrain brutality in war, protect innocent civilians from direct attack and minimize suffering. It prohibits deliberate attacks on civilians and using them as human shields, requires humane treatment of the wounded or detained personnel, obligates parties to respect and protect medical aid providers, mandates efforts to facilitate delivery of humanitarian relief, and imposes criminal responsibility on those who disregard these obligations. These basic and essential protections apply during any armed conflict.

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Al Qaeda Warns New York

Al Qaeda Warns New York

 

A graphic appearing on jihadi forums Monday caught the NYPD’s attention—not just for its announcement of a potential terrorist threat but for its unusually sleek graphic design. The graphic features a stylized image of New York City with the headline “Al Qaeda: Coming Soon Again to New York.” An NYPD spokesman said the website where it appeared is heavily used by Islamic militants, and that the city police and the FBI were investigating.

SOURCE

 

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Arizona Gets Frisky Passing a Sweeping Internet Censorship Bill

The state legislature of Arizona has passed a bill that vastly broadens telephone harassment laws and applies them to the Internet and other means of electronic communication.

The law, which is being pushed under the guise of an anti-bullying campaign, would mean that anything communicated or published online that was deemed to be “offensive” by the state, including editorials, illustrations, and even satire could be criminally punished.

The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund breaks down Arizona House Bill 2549:

“The bill is sweepingly broad, and would make it a crime to communicate via electronic means speech that is intended to ‘annoy,’ ‘offend,’ ‘harass’ or ‘terrify,’ as well as certain sexual speech. Because the bill is not limited to one-to-one communications, H.B. 2549 would apply to the Internet as a whole, thus criminalizing all manner of writing, cartoons, and other protected material the state finds offensive or annoying.”

First Amendment activist group Media Coalition has written to Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, urging her not to sign the legislation into law.

The letter notes that the terms used in the bill are not defined in the statute or by reference, and thereby the law could be broadly applied to almost any statement.

“H.B. 2549 would make it a crime to use any electronic or digital device to communicate using obscene, lewd or profane language or to suggest a lewd or lascivious act if done with intent to ‘annoy,’ ‘offend,’ ‘harass’ or ‘terrify,’” the letter notes. … ‘Lewd’ and ‘profane’ are not defined in the statute or by reference. ‘Lewd’ is generally understood to mean lusty or sexual in nature and ‘profane’ is generally defined as disrespectful or irreverent about religion or religious practices.”

“H.B. 2549 is not limited to a one to one conversation between two specific people. The communication does not need to be repetitive or even unwanted. There is no requirement that the recipient or subject of the speech actually feel offended, annoyed or scared. Nor does the legislation make clear that the communication must be intended to offend or annoy the reader, the subject or even any specific person.” the letter continues.

In this respect the law could even technically be applied to someone posting a status update on Facebook.

“Speech protected by the First Amendment is often intended to offend, annoy or scare but could be prosecuted under this law.”The Media Coalition letter continues….”

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ANALYSIS: Lack of Leadership at the Top of Corporate Ladder

“As I was reading former Wall Street executive Greg Smith’s bombshell of an Op-Edin the New York Times last week, I mentally inserted the names of the big for-profit health insurers — two of which I worked for — in place of Goldman Sachs, where Smith worked until resigning on the day his column was published.

Smith wrote that he decided to leave Goldman-Sachs because it had veered so far from the company he had joined straight out of college that he could no longer say in good conscience “that I identify with what it stands for.”

He put the blame squarely on Goldman’s current CEO and president. It was during their watch, he wrote, that “the firm changed the very way it thought about leadership.

“Leadership used to be about ideas, setting an example and doing the right thing. Today, if you make enough money for the firm (and are not currently an ax murderer) you will be promoted into a position of influence.”

Had Smith been an executive at any one of the big investor-owned insurers that have come to control the U.S. health care system, he could have written the same thing.

Like Smith, I came to realize toward the end of my career that the companies I had worked for had changed so much during my two decades with them that I could not in good conscience continue to serve as an industry cheerleader and spokesman.

Shortly before I turned in my notice in 2008, the human resources manager who had hired me nearly 15 years earlier turned in his as well. He told me that in his exit interview, his boss, the head of HR, told him — not with regret but with pride — that the company he was leaving was not the company he had joined. He was right, which is why that HR manager and I and many other former colleagues have left in recent years, dismayed at what the leaders of health insurance companies have come to value more than anything else: making big money for themselves and their companies’ shareholders.

Smith wrote in his op-ed that “not one single minute [at Goldman] is spent asking questions about how we can help clients. It’s purely about how we can make the most possible money off of them.”

In the many executive-level sessions I participated in over the years — including with peers from other companies at trade association meetings — I cannot recall one time in which we talked for a single minute about designing health benefit plans that truly were in the best interest of consumers. We talked instead about making sure policyholders had sufficient “skin in the game” to ensure “profitable growth.”

Smith soured on common practices at Goldman like persuading clients to invest in mortgage backed securities without mentioning to those clients that the company had already bet against those very same securities. By doing this, Goldman was guaranteeing itself a profit, even as some of its clients were losing a fortune and many of the rest of us were about to lose our homes and our jobs.

Similarly, I soured on common practices in the health insurance industry like refusing to sell coverage to children and others with “pre-existing conditions,” cancelling peoples’ coverage when they got sick and spending less and less every year of policyholders’ premiums on their medical care because of pressure from Wall Street analysts and investors….”

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Red Flags Ignored by DOE Over Solyndra

“The Department of Energy was fully aware of the risks in backing Solyndra Inc., a start-up company that pocketed a half-billion dollar DOE loan but never turned a penny in profit before shutting its doors, concludes a former FBI agent hired to examine the company’s books.

The expert’s report, filed this week in Solyndra’s voluminous bankruptcy case in California, could embolden critics who say the government ignored financial red flags in supporting the solar panel maker with President Obama’s maiden green energy loan in 2009.

The $535 million loan, which bankrolled a vast new manufacturing plant in Fremont, Calif., was part of a broad government mission to kick-start the clean energy movement: Solyndra’s unique solar panels would cover commercial rooftops across the country, aiding the environment and boosting the economy.

Yet the company collapsed under a sea of debt and a business plan that, amid dramatic shifts in the global solar market, caused it to sell far fewer panels at far higher costs than envisioned. From 2009-11, it cost Solyndra $3.92 more per watt to make its panels than to sell them, the bankruptcy report shows.

Solyndra filed for bankruptcy Sept.6, 2011. Two days later, it faced a raid by agents from the FBI and the Energy Department inspector general. With those clouds looming, the company’s board hired R. Todd Neilson — the former federal agent and veteran trustee in bankruptcy cases — as chief restructuring officer.

Solyndra’s board wanted a CRO to not only manage its bankruptcy case, but to explore whether the company committed misdeeds on its road to collapse. “In light of the Federal criminal investigation and ongoing Congressional investigation … the Subcommittee agreed that the CRO would act in an independent capacity in determining if any improprieties had occurred with respect to the Debtors’ finances,” Neilson’s report said.

After examining tens of thousands of pages of records, Neilson concluded that Solyndra did not improperly divert funds. “The construction costs were correctly recorded in the accounting records and no material funds were diverted from their original intended use,” he wrote.

All funds drawn from the DOE loan, he found, “were spent in accordance with the relevant loan documents.”

And, Neilson made clear, the DOE was fully informed of Solyndra’s finances when it initially backed the company in 2009 — and restructured its loan in 2011, seven months before the bankruptcy and raid.

“The CRO has reviewed the vast level of communications and the underlying records between the DOE and Solyndra,” he wrote. “It is the opinion of the CRO that the DOE had sufficient information to understand the risks and challenges associated with the guarantee obtained from DOE and make an informed decision as to the ongoing financial condition of Solyndra throughout the loan guarantee time frame.”

In fact, records show, the Energy Department supported the Solyndra financing in the early days of the Obama administration in the face of criticism from officials within several wings of government — the Office of Management and Budget, the U.S. Treasury and DOE. “This deal is NOT ready for prime time,” one OMB employee wrote March 10, 2009, government emails show. Ten days later, energy officials announced Solyndra was in line to be the first company to secure a green energy loan guarantee….”

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Mastercard, $MA, Warns Over a Data Breach

Source 

MasterCard Inc. MA -0.95% said Friday that it is investigating a possible breach of cardholder account data involving a U.S.-based payment processor.

The Purchase, N.Y., credit-card company said law enforcement has been notified of the matter and an “independent data security organization” is conducting an ongoing forensic review of the matter. The company is alerting card-issuing banks regarding “certain MasterCard accounts that are potentially at risk.”

“MasterCard’s own systems have not been compromised in any manner,” a company spokesman said.

The spokesman declined to say how many cards may have been compromised or how many banks it is notifying.

The breach was reported early Friday by the Krebs On Security blog, which also said that Visa Inc. V -0.64% was also notifying banks about a breach involving a third-party payment processor.

Representatives for Visa couldn’t immediately be reached for comment Friday morning.

Visa and MasterCard don’t lend or issue cards to consumers; rather, they process transactions for banks that issue their cards and those that handle transactions for merchants.

Representatives of several banks, including Bank of America Corp. BAC -0.72% andJ.P. Morgan Chase JPM +0.13% & Co., either couldn’t be reached for comment or declined to comment Friday morning.

MasterCard said it will “continue to both monitor this event and take steps to safeguard account information.”

Cardholders who are concerned about their accounts should contact the banks that issued them their cards, the company said.”

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Not Surprised: Former Pentagon Official Says All Chinese Electronics In The US Could Have Built-In Trapdoors

“Richard Clarke Has another disturbing prediction for America.

Clarke worked with four White House administrations during 30 years of government service before opening his own cybersecurity firm in the corridors of Arlington, Va  outside the nation’s capital.

He was at the State Department, the Department of Defense, has a master’s Degree from MIT and was the Bush counter-terrorism guy who told the White House that al Qaeda was plotting a grand attack on American soil in the weeks leading up to 9/11.

After the attack, Clarke sat before the 9/11 commission and told them directly: “Your government failed you.”

Clarke recently spoke to Ron Rosenbaum at Smithsonian Magazine and told him the government is slipping up again, that while we now have the ability to coordinate a successful cyberwar, like slipping the Stuxnet virus into Iran’s nuclear system, the U.S. has absolutely no cyber defenses.

Which is a bad thing for a superpower that gets the lionshare of its electronic components, both civilian and military from China, one of its biggest global adversaries….”

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Russia Claims Iran is Breaking U.N. Resolutions

Iran is breaching United Nations resolutions and increasing the size of its nuclear program amid an “alarming” escalation in global rhetoric toward its atomic plans, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said.

“The scale of the Iranian nuclear program is expanding,” Ryabkov said yesterday in an interview in New Delhi. This “is in direct violation of UN resolutions.”

The so-called BRICS group of major emerging nations that met yesterday in India said the situation in Iran can’t “be allowed to escalate into conflict,” according to a communique. Iran faces growing economic and financial sanctions over its nuclear program, which the U.S. and its allies say is a cover for making atomic weapons. Iran says it’s for civilian purposes.

A military confrontation over the nation’s nuclear plans would trigger a new global economic crisis, Ryabkov said, adding that he doesn’t rule out strikes against Iran by countries such asIsrael.

The BRICS group is worried that a failure to reach a political agreement will lead to “an explosion of energy prices with a subsequent slowdown in the economic recovery and a collapse in energy prices soon after that,” Ryabkov said.

‘Very Alarming’….”

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Four Numbers Add Up to an American Debt Disaster

Caroline Baum

Consider the following numbers: 2.2, 62.8, 454, 5.9.

Drawing a blank? Not to worry. They don’t mean much on their own.

Now consider them in context:

1) 2.2 percent is the average interest rate on the U.S. Treasury’s marketable and non-marketable debt (February data).

2) 62.8 months is the average maturity of the Treasury’s marketable debt (fourth quarter 2011).

3) $454 billion is the interest expense on publicly held debt in fiscal 2011, which ended Sept. 30.

4) $5.9 trillion is the amount of debt coming due in the next five years.

For the moment, Nos. 1 and 2 are helping No. 3 and creating a big problem for No. 4. Unless Treasury does something about No. 2, Nos. 1 and 3 will become liabilities while No. 4 has the potential to provoke a crisis.

In plain English, the Treasury’s reliance on short-term financing serves a dual purpose, neither of which is beneficial in the long run. First, it helps conceal the depth of the nation’s structural imbalances: the difference between what it spends and what it collects in taxes. Second, it puts the U.S. in the precarious position of having to roll over 71 percent of its privately held marketable debt in the next five years — probably at higher interest rates.

Read the rest here.

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