Today's stories

Nestle chief warns of new food riots

France 24

7 October, 2011

AFP - The head of the world's biggest food company Nestle said on Friday that rising food prices have created conditions "similar" to 2008 when hunger riots took place in many countries.

"The situation is similar (to 2008). This has become the new reality," the Swiss giant's chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe told the Salzburger Nachrichten daily in his native Austria in an interview.

"We have reached a level of food prices that is substantially higher than before. It will likely settle down at this level.

"If you live in a developing country and spend 80 percent of your income on food then of course you are going to feel it more than here (in Europe) where it is maybe eight percent."

For article GO HERE

Cesium levels off Fukushima Prefecture 58 times higher than before quake

Asahi

Levels of radioactive cesium 137 in waters off Fukushima Prefecture are 58 times higher than before the March 11 quake that crippled a nuclear power plant there, a government survey shows.

The science ministry conducted sophisticated sensitive analysis of seawater sampled in 11 locations, mostly about 45-320 kilometers off the coasts of Fukushima, Miyagi, Ibaraki and Chiba prefectures, in late August.

Cesium 137 levels about 140 kilometers east of the stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant came to 0.11 becquerel per liter, or 58 times more than in 2009, the ministry said Oct. 5.

Still, the figures for all locations were less than 1 percent of the legal standard of 90 becquerels for ocean waters.

It was the first sensitive analysis covering large areas.

In a 2009 ministry survey off the four prefectures, maximum readings were between 0.0015 and 0.0023 becquerel per liter.

The latest survey detected 0.10 becquerel about 215 kilometers southeast of the Fukushima No. 1 plant, 50 times more than in 2009, and 0.076 becquerel about 200 kilometers northeast of the plant, 33 times more.

Seawater sampled off Chiba Prefecture contained 0.0012-0.0023 becquerel, roughly unchanged from 2009

Riot-hit Britain plans to put prisoners to work

News Daily

MANCHESTER, England, Oct. 4, 2011 (Reuters) — Britain wants to put more prisoners to work in an attempt to rehabilitate a "growing feral underclass" blamed for riots that swept English cities two months ago, Justice Secretary Ken Clarke said on Tuesday.

Manchester, hosting the annual conference of the ruling Conservatives, was one of a number of English cities hit by rioting and looting that rippled out from London after police shot and killed a black suspect in August.

Clarke, a veteran viewed as a moderate in the center-right party, won backing for his plan from a group of business executives led by Richard Branson, chairman of travel and entertainment company Virgin Group.

"I want to see hard work flourishing in every single jail in the UK," Clarke said.

US: Insurer Catastrophe Claim Payouts Nearly $25B This Year

I expect a few major insurance companies to go down very soon. And I suspect that almost all claims aren't being paid or being delayed. Remember the stats we posted showing that something like 40% of all small businesses in the path of a storm like Irene failed. All of this works together to make overly complex civilizations fail harder, faster, and with more fireworks. -- MCR

Claims Journal

There are still three months left in 2011, and hurricane season is not over until November 30, yet this year will go down as record-setting when it comes to federal disaster declarations, according to the Insurance Information Institute (I.I.I.).

“The federal government issued 86 disaster declarations as of September 30, breaking the previous annual U.S. record total of 81, which was set just last year,” said Dr. Robert Hartwig, an economist and president of the I.I.I. “The number of U.S. disaster declarations has been trending sharply upward, particularly over the past 15 years,” he added. “The average number of declarations between 1953 and 2010 was 34 per year. We’re likely to see nearly three times that many by year-end 2011.”

Hartwig noted that the increase in recent years was due both to growth in the actual number of catastrophes, as well as to an apparent increase in the propensity to issue federal disaster declarations.

For article GO HERE