Thursday, 18 December 2014

Headlines -12/17/2014

Bankia’s saga of lies, deception, and fraud should (but probably won’t) culminate in the imprisonment of a former IMF president, crippling fines for the auditors (Deloitte), and fireworks at financial regulators.

## Airline Death Spiral ##
Delta continues to pull back in Memphis. The airline announced in 2013 that it would drop Memphis as a hub and has whittled away at its presence there ever since. Now, after yet another round of cuts revealed on Friday, it appears Delta's retrenchment in Memphis is nearly complete.
A survey by the International Air Transport Association suggested that 43 per cent of airlines experienced more than 100 cases of unruly passengers in a year. We round up the more bizarre cases of air rage that have come to light in recent years.

## Fault lines/flashpoints/powder kegs/military/war drums ##
60-plus nations nominally in the coalition and over 1,000 airstrikes between Iraq and Syria, the US has thrown myriad data at  Congress to try to prove “progress” in the war on ISIS. Yet a closer inspection reveals anything but.

Scientific data shows Greenland's continental shelf is connected to a ridge beneath the Arctic Ocean, giving Danes a claim to the North Pole and any potential energy resources beneath it, Denmark's foreign minister said.
Watch as more countries come up with their own versions of the nine-dash line. -- RF
Global arms sales by top 100 defense companies in the world fell for the third year in a row, while Russian arms sales went up by 20 percent, according to new data compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), a Sweden-based independent think tank.
The population of Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank has continued to surge during Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's years in office, growing at more than twice the pace of Israel's overall population, according to newly obtained official figures.

## Global unrest/mob rule/angry people/torches and pitchforks ##

## Energy/resources ##
As hard as it is to believe - given the strength of the "Russia-is-doomed" meme - Crude oil prices for Russia (in Rubles) are unchanged since February... This is important as all costs are Ruble denominated while revenues are USD denominated, leaving Russian oil companies’ margins insulated despite the dollar decline in price.
Severe droughts are forcing researchers to rethink how technology can increase the supply of fresh water.
Ukraine’s bid to rid itself of its dependence on Russian energy just took a huge hit.

## Got food? ##

## Lifestyle Solutions ##

## Environment/health ##

## Intelligence/propaganda/security/internet/cyberwar ##
Researchers in the Netherlands have found what they say is a way to make it impossible for criminals to forge passports, ID cards or credit cards.
This of course assumes that we'll have the power to run the necessary electronics and the internet. Even temporary power outages would wreak havoc on such a system. -- RF

## Systemic breakdown/collapse/unsustainability ##
It's the kind of defiant hubris one expects from a dying empire. -- RF
Of course all added layers of security entail greater cost and also increase complexity, thereby hastening collapse. -- RF

## Japan ##
Electrics, hybrids, fuel-cell cars... Futile attempts to save a dying system. -- RF

## China ##
About 300 Chinese people are fighting alongside the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, a Chinese state-run newspaper said on Monday, a rare tally that is likely to fuel worry in China that militants pose a threat to security.

## UK ##
Hospitals and fire services will be run “outside the public sector” as the Conservatives dramatically shrink the state and cut costs, a senior minister has disclosed.
The Dalai Lama says Britain kowtowed to China over the protests in Hong Kong because its “pocket is more or less empty”

## US ##
The bottom line for the vast majority of us is that there is an extremely high price to be paid for independence from fealty to the State or Corporate America.
The Empire is falling on hard times. -- RF
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson came to this South Texas outpost on Monday to inaugurate a 50-acre detention center that will hold up to 2,400 migrants caught crossing the Mexican border illegally, becoming the largest immigration detention facility in the country.
Housing starts collapsed in November. They weren’t good, they weren’t even so-so as media reports intimated. The seasonally adjusted annualized number which the paid flacks report is absolute nonsense. It’s fiction.

And finally...

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.