Friday 6 February 2015

Headlines - 02/05/2015

Oh boy, if this doesn't give the impression of things breaking apart, nothing will!!


## Global Ponzi meltdown/House of Cards ##
Before protesters ousted Ukraine's former pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, Russia accounted for one-third of the country's foreign trade, on par with all of its trade with the European Union, Prystaiko said. Today, that trade has fallen off sharply, and Western sanctions intended to punish Russia for its support of separatists are harming Ukraine, too. "Sanctions on Russia are killing us," Prystaiko said.

## Gold ##
With gold typically priced in dollars, and labor and other expenses paid in rubles, Russian mining companies led by Polyus Gold International Ltd. are gaining from the weak currency. It doesn’t hurt that the price of gold has climbed about 7 percent this year as slowing world economies spur demand for the metal.

## Airline Death Spiral ##
Asia's airlines -- full-service and budget carriers alike -- are running into financial trouble despite falling fuel prices and forecasts of healthy travel demand in the region. Only four of the 17 airlines in Southeast Asia posted operating profits in the first half of last year, according to a market analysis by Sydney-based CAPA-Centre for Aviation.
The deadly crash of a TransAsia plane into a river in Taiwan is again focusing the world's attention on the safety challenges facing fast-growing Asian airlines.
It's nothing more than a drop in the bucket, and it certainly won't save the airline industry. -- RF

## Fault lines/flashpoints/powder kegs/military/war drums ##
From the moment the video emerged of ISIS executing Jordanian pilot Lt. Moaz al-Kasaesbeh, US officials were salivating at the prospect of Jordan being sucked deeper into their war. It looks like they may get their wish.
Saudi Arabia is under a new cloud after a jailed al-Qaeda operative implicated senior Saudi officials as collaborators with the terror group – and the shadow could even darken the political future of Israeli Prime Netanyahu because of his odd-couple alliance with Riyadh.
At a time when defense budgets among most NATO nations are expected to be flat at best for the foreseeable future, NATO has been experimenting with pooling and co-development arrangements through its Smart Defense program as a way to share costs and risks in developing and fielding new weapons systems.
NATO defence ministers will today (5 February) strengthen the alliance's presence in eastern Europe by setting up a network of small command centres that could rapidly reinforce the region in the event of any threat from Russia.

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

## Energy/resources ##
The global rebirth of nuclear power was meant to be well under way by now. But in fact, nuclear's share of world power generation is on a steady long term decline, and new reactors are getting ever harder to build, and finance. The only real growth area is decommissioning, but that too has a problem: where's the money to pay for it?
A tripartite committee has been set up to tackle the current crisis resulting from the acute shortage in cooking gas with a view to finding a permanent solution.

## Infrastructure scavenging ##

## Got food? ##
Humans may be to blame for rising mercury levels in a species of fish that's very popular as food, according to a news study published this week. Levels of a potentially poisonous form of the element have been creeping up in Pacific yellowfin tuna 3.8 percent every year since 1998, according to a report.
Thailand will experience its worst drought in more than a decade this year, the irrigation department said on Thursday, damaging crops in one of the world's biggest rice-exporting nations.

## Environment/health ##
“This is going to affect the gulf for years to come,” Chanton said. “Fish will likely ingest contaminants because worms ingest the sediment, and fish eat the worms. It’s a conduit for contamination into the food web.”
According to a leaked document, the highly secretive Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA) negotiations that will resume in Geneva on Monday will include discussion of wide-ranging reforms to national public health systems to promote "offshoring" of health care services.
Here's a disaster in the making. Rich elites will travel abroad for their specialized health treatments or operations, while the rest of us settle for whatever we can find at rock-bottom prices. It's yet another chapter in the saga of healthcare system collapse. -- RF
Hundreds of contaminated facilities left in the wake of 50 years of nuclear weapons production and energy research during the Cold War and Manhattan Project are still years away from being cleaned up, according to a recent audit report by the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Inspector General (IG).
Add these facilities to the long list of nuclear power plants that will never be properly decommissioned. Can you spell "environmental catastrophe"? -- RF
Good. It's a waste of money. -- RF
Soaring demand for tiger parts in China has emptied Asia’s forests, frustrating efforts to protect the big cats, wildlife experts said as an anti-poaching conference opened in Katmandu on Monday.

## Intelligence/propaganda/security/internet/cyberwar ##
For many years, the East German Stasi was viewed as the most totalitarian of intelligence services, relentlessly spying on its citizens during the Cold War. But the Stasi’s capabilities pale in comparison to what the NSA can now do.
Torture supporters outnumbered opponents 2-to-1 on major news shows

## Systemic breakdown/collapse/unsustainability ##
The country that suffers more electrical blackouts than any other developed nation is — the United States.
There is a stubborn belief among many people that our children and grandchildren will be on the hook for this debt. Theoretically that is so, but it assumes that our children and grandchildren will have decent-paying jobs which enable them to pay the taxes and whatever that will service the debt. Ain't gonna happen. The days of good jobs for everyone and a prosperous middle class are drawing to a close, and ultimately much (most?) of this debt will just have to be written off. -- RF
As Night Closes In (The Archdruid Report)

## Japan ##
Security in the South China Sea, claimed almost wholly by China, impacts Japan's interests and could warrant a rethink of military patrol aircraft deployments, the defense minister said after a U.S. Navy officer said Washington would welcome a Japanese presence in the region.
Major Japanese oil firm Idemitsu Kosan Co. said Tuesday the sharp oil price plunge since last July would lead it to log its largest ever group net loss of 98 billion yen ($835 million) in fiscal 2014.

## China ##

## UK ##
The death rate in England and Wales is about a third higher than normal for this time of year, official figures show, as the winter freeze tightens its grip on swaths of Britain. About 28,800 deaths were registered in the fortnight ending 23 January, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). This is 32% higher than the average for that period over the previous five years (21,859).

## US ##

And finally...

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