Massacre Survivors Share Camp Escape Stories-
-Survivors, in front of camera, describe how they escaped shooting and death
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
The Spacecraft Liberty Bell 7.[2355 ]
NASA Image of the Liberty Bell 7
Liberty Bell 7
Astronaut Gus Grissom climbs into his 'Liberty Bell 7' spacecraft on July 21, 1961. The Mercury-Redstone 4 rocket successfully launched the Liberty Bell 7 at 7:20 a.m. that morning. This was the second in a series of successful U.S. manned suborbital flights.View interactive feature.
Image Credit: NASA
Monday, July 25, 2011
Norwegian gunman appears in court...[ 2354 ]
Norwegian gunman appears in court
Anders Behring Breivik is said to be linked to far-right groups
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BBC., 25 July 2011 Last updated at 13:24 GMT
The man who has admitted carrying out Friday's twin terror attacks in Norway, Anders Behring Breivik, has made his first appearance in court in Oslo.
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The hearing was held behind closed doors, as ruled by the judge, who will make a statement later.
A minute's silence was held at 1200 (1000 GMT) to remember the victims.
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Mr Breivik, 32, has admitted carrying out a bombing in Oslo, and a massacre on an island youth camp, killing at least 93 people in total.
He is said to be linked to far-right groups and to have spent years planning the attacks.
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Read more -
Sunday, July 24, 2011
China sacks officials after fatal train crash ...[ 2353 ]
| China sacks officials after fatal train crash | ||
Government fires three top railway officials, as rescue efforts continue in bid to find victims of high-speed crash. Last Modified: 24 Jul 2011 18:26 | ||
The Chinese government relieved the head of the Shanghai railway bureau, his deputy and the bureau's Communist Party chief of their responsibilities on Sunday, a day after the deadly crash, in which a high-speed train smashed into a stalled train and derailed. The three will "also be subject to investigation", China's railways ministry said in a statement on its website. "As leaders ... they should take ultimate responsibility for the main cause of the accident," railways ministry spokesman Wang Yongping told reporters. The accident, which occurred on Saturday in eastern China, has raised questions about the safety of the country's fast-growing rail network. "There's been a lot of talk in the country, a lot of suspicion in China about the bullet trains and in many ways this actually really confirms a lot of people's suspicions about the safety and the technology and whether China is really ready to adopt this technology," Al Jazeera's Melissa Chan, reporting from the site of the accident in Wenzhou, said. Badly damaged cars The accident caused two carriages on one of the high-speed trains to derail. According to the official Xinhua news agency, four cars on the second train also derailed, but it did not say how serious that incident was. The first train was travelling from the Zhejiang provincial capital of Hangzhou; it struck the other train - which had been stalled after being struck by lightning - in Wenzhou city. One carriage from the first train fell about 20 to 30 metres from an elevated section of track. Pictures posted on the internet showed one badly damaged car lying on its side by the bridge and the second car leaning against the bridge after landing on its end. Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang, visiting the scene, "pledged that the investigators will find out the cause of the accident and those responsible will be seriously punished according to the law", the official Xinhua news agency reported. Rescue mission Rescuers worked all night and into the morning pulling people - alive and dead - out of the trains. "The task for us now is to clear the debris and also to check for survivors in those areas that we have not gone to," 35-year-old rescue worker Wang Jun told the Reuters news agency. "Also, we are trying to get the railway line to be operational again." While the exact number of passengers is unknown, almost 200 people have been hospitalised - 12 in critical condition. Among those killed were two foreigners, including a woman in her 20's. A flicker of good news broke earlier on Sunday when a four-year-old girl was pulled alive from the train wreck almost 21 hours after the accident had occurred. State television said that a male toddler had also been pulled alive from the wreckage. First generation trains The trains involved are "D" trains, the first generation bullet train with an average speed of about 150km per hour but not as fast as the new Beijing-Shanghai line. Xinhua said the train hit by lightning was "D3115", and that the ministry of railways confirmed that it was hit from behind by train "D301". China has spent billions of dollars and plans more massive spending to link the country with a high-speed rail network. But the former minister of railways, who oversaw much of that development, is currently under investigation and charged with corruption. The showcase high-speed line between Beijing and Shanghai has been plagued by power outages and other malfunctions since it opened on June 30. Official plans call for China's bullet train network to expand to 13,000km of track this year and 16,000km by 2020. The huge spending connected with the rail expansion also has been blamed for corruption, and Railways Minister Liu Zhijun was dismissed this spring amid an investigation into unspecified corruption allegations. No details have been released about the allegations against him, but news reports say they include kickbacks, bribes, illegal contracts and sexual liaisons. | ||
Euro debt trouble...[ 2352 ]
Euro debt trouble: Another Greek bailout
MOSCOW, RUSSIA, July 23, 2011 – “Stock markets and the euro rallied on Thursday after European leaders moved closer to hammering out a new rescue plan... to stimulate the Greek economy,” wrote the British Guardian yesterday.
To put it in simple terms: Greece is going to get bailed out once again.
The plan, however, has a couple of fatal flaws.
To begin with, most of the Eurozone countries are deeply indebted themselves. Public debt averages more than 85 percent of GDP across the Eurozone. Several of the nations – such as Spain, Italy and Ireland – are teetering on the verge of default.
This means that the Eurozone does not really have money for any bailouts. Neither is there much room for borrowing as nervous creditors are beginning to demand higher interests rates. To save Greece, the European Central Bank will have to print money in the end.
Paying creditors with freshly-minded money may seem like a clever way out. The problem is that the influx of the new cash will expand the money supply and further debase the already fragile currency. As a result, people in Europe will get less for their buck.
The second problem is that Greece will never repay the new loans that are coming its way. This is because Greece is a country that is simply incapable of adhering to fiscal discipline, if history is anything to go by.
According to a recent book by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, Greece has reneged on its debts five times since gaining independence in 1829. Reviewing the book in the Wall Street Journal, Matthew writes that Greece “has existed in a 'perpetual state of default' since its independence... having spent 50.6% of those years in default or rescheduling.”
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This is the worst record in Europe hands down.
The Land of Hellas will eventually default, which is what Greece always does when it finds itself under fiscal duress. Defaults are simply the traditional Greek way of dealing with its obligations.
Bailing out Greece now will only postpone the inevitable. A highly-placed trader by the name of Will Hedden is quoted by the Guardian as saying, “the Greece problem has not really gone away, just been brushed aside."
Hedden gets it right. We will surely hear of Greece yet again. After all, it got a massive 110 billion euro bailout in May 2010, which, we were told, would fix things once and for all. And here we go again.
The only way to solve the Greek sovereign debt problem is to cut the country loose from the Eurozone. This much should be quite obvious.
Sarkozy and Merkel, the architects of the latest bailout which is worth 159 billion euros, undoubtedly know this.
So why do they keep pouring money down the fiscal black hole that is the Land of Hellas?
As in most cases, we can find the answer if we follow the money trail. Guess who holds large portions of Greek government debt? It is banks and and pension funds in Germany and France. If Greece defaults, many of them will go down with it.
Hence the Greek bailout is really a bailout of German and French financial institutions. Too bad, that it is only a temporary fix, since the Greek debt problem is not going away. It will rear its ugly head soon.
When it comes to making tough choices, Europe's politicians – just like those in the US – prefer to kick the can down the road.
It would be much wiser for the EU to let Greece go and take the loses now than to do it down the line when the unavoidable default will bring much more pain.
When that happens, the Eurozone will have lost untold billion in bailouts that were in vain. The heavily indebted and devalued euro may itself not survive the strain.
We are in for some interesting times.
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To put it in simple terms: Greece is going to get bailed out once again.
The plan, however, has a couple of fatal flaws.
To begin with, most of the Eurozone countries are deeply indebted themselves. Public debt averages more than 85 percent of GDP across the Eurozone. Several of the nations – such as Spain, Italy and Ireland – are teetering on the verge of default.
This means that the Eurozone does not really have money for any bailouts. Neither is there much room for borrowing as nervous creditors are beginning to demand higher interests rates. To save Greece, the European Central Bank will have to print money in the end.
Paying creditors with freshly-minded money may seem like a clever way out. The problem is that the influx of the new cash will expand the money supply and further debase the already fragile currency. As a result, people in Europe will get less for their buck.
The second problem is that Greece will never repay the new loans that are coming its way. This is because Greece is a country that is simply incapable of adhering to fiscal discipline, if history is anything to go by.
According to a recent book by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, Greece has reneged on its debts five times since gaining independence in 1829. Reviewing the book in the Wall Street Journal, Matthew writes that Greece “has existed in a 'perpetual state of default' since its independence... having spent 50.6% of those years in default or rescheduling.”
----
This is the worst record in Europe hands down.
The Land of Hellas will eventually default, which is what Greece always does when it finds itself under fiscal duress. Defaults are simply the traditional Greek way of dealing with its obligations.
Euros!
Hedden gets it right. We will surely hear of Greece yet again. After all, it got a massive 110 billion euro bailout in May 2010, which, we were told, would fix things once and for all. And here we go again.
The only way to solve the Greek sovereign debt problem is to cut the country loose from the Eurozone. This much should be quite obvious.
Sarkozy and Merkel, the architects of the latest bailout which is worth 159 billion euros, undoubtedly know this.
So why do they keep pouring money down the fiscal black hole that is the Land of Hellas?
As in most cases, we can find the answer if we follow the money trail. Guess who holds large portions of Greek government debt? It is banks and and pension funds in Germany and France. If Greece defaults, many of them will go down with it.
Hence the Greek bailout is really a bailout of German and French financial institutions. Too bad, that it is only a temporary fix, since the Greek debt problem is not going away. It will rear its ugly head soon.
When it comes to making tough choices, Europe's politicians – just like those in the US – prefer to kick the can down the road.
It would be much wiser for the EU to let Greece go and take the loses now than to do it down the line when the unavoidable default will bring much more pain.
When that happens, the Eurozone will have lost untold billion in bailouts that were in vain. The heavily indebted and devalued euro may itself not survive the strain.
We are in for some interesting times.
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