The European Union Times |
- ISIS bulldozes ancient Assyrian city in Iraq
- Euro falls to 11.5-year low against US Dollar
- Lord Rothschild Warns Investors of ‘Most Dangerous Geopolitical Situation Since WWII’
- Tanzania sentences 4 to death over albino murder
- NASA: Mars once had ocean bigger than Arctic
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Posted: 06 Mar 2015 02:33 PM PST
 Islamic state extremists have ‘bulldozed’ an ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud in northern Iraq near Mosul with heavy military vehicles, the country’s authorities said. This is the latest in the series of ISIS attacks against Iraqi heritage. “They [Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS)] assaulted … Nimrud and bulldozed it with heavy machinery, appropriating the archaeological attractions dating back 13 centuries BC,” says a statement from Iraq’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities on its official Facebook page. The ministry added that the group continues to “defy the will of the world and the feelings of humanity.” However, it didn’t specify the extent of the damage made to one of the pearls of the Assyrian era. The destruction started on Thursday after noon prayers, an Iraqi antiquities official told AFP, adding that the trucks were also seen at the historic site.    “Islamic State members came to the Nimrud archaeological city and looted the valuables in it and then they proceeded to level the site to the ground,” a tribal source told Reuters. “There used to be statues and walls, as well as a castle that Islamic State has destroyed completely.” UNESCO has slammed the destruction of the ancient city, calling it a ‘war crime.’ “We cannot remain silent. The deliberate destruction of cultural heritage constitutes a war crime,” said UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova. “I call on all political and religious leaders in the region to stand up and remind everyone that there is absolutely no political or religious justification for the destruction of humanity’s cultural heritage.” Some scientists and experts compare the destruction of Nimrud to the demolition of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan by the Taliban in 2001. “It’s really called the cradle of Western civilization, that’s why this particular loss is so devastating,” Suzanne Bott, head of heritage conservation for Iraq and Afghanistan at the University of Arizona, who worked at Nimrud, told AP. “What was left on site was stunning in the information it was able to convey about ancient life,” she added, “People have compared it to [ancient Egyptian] King [Tutankhamun’s] tomb,” Bott said. The extremists are intentionally destroying the heritage of Iraqi people, believes Jack Green, chief curator of the Oriental Institute Museum at the University of Chicago and an expert on Iraqi art. “It’s the deliberate destruction of a heritage and its images, intended to erase history and the identity of the people of Iraq, whether in the past or the present,” he said. “And it has a major impact on the heritage of the region.” Assyrian city of Nimrud was founded in the 13th century BC, and is located on the Tigris River. The Assyrian Empire was one of the most powerful states of antiquity, rising around 2500 BC and occupying territory from the Mediterranean Sea to the Caspian Sea. In the 1980s, scientists discovered the city’s royal tombs, one of the notable archaeological finds of the 20th century. Most of the priceless artifacts have been moved to museums of Mosul, Baghdad, Paris and London. However, the giant statues of lamassu – an Assyrian deity depicted with a bull or lion’s body, eagle’s wings and human’s head – remained on site. The attack on Nimrud comes a week after Islamic State militants destroyed another historic site – a museum in Iraqi city of Mosul which was captured by them in June. The group posted video online showing militants destroying ancient statues and other artifacts, saying they are symbols of idolatry. Some of the objects date from the seventh century BC. In February, the jihadists blew up the Mosul Public Library using homemade bombs. The previous month, the militants took all the books from the Central Library of Mosul, leaving only Islamic texts. Source           |
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Posted: 06 Mar 2015 02:06 PM PST
 The euro has dived to its lowest level against the dollar in 11.5 years after the European Central Bank (ECB) announced a new stimulus program. On Friday, the euro dropped to USD 1.0963 in currency trade markets, marking the lowest level since September 2003. The record low came a day after a meeting by the ECB governing board in the Cyprus capital Nicosia, during which the central bank announced plans to launch its 1.1-trillion-euro (USD 1.2 trillion) quantitative easing stimulus early next week. ECB President Mario Draghi signaled an “open-ended aggressive asset purchase program aimed at restoring price stability over the medium-term.” The new program aims to revive the EU economy by the quantitative easing, a policy implemented by a central bank through buying specified amounts of financial assets from commercial banks and other private institutions to raise the prices of those financial assets and lower their yield. The eurozone’s single currency settled below USD 1.11 in currency trade markets on Wednesday, a day ahead of the meeting. Speculations on US non-farm payrolls data and anticipation of creation of 240,000 jobs in February and a fall in the unemployment rate to 5.6 percent from 5.7 percent seem to be among other main reasons behind the euro slide. “The euro has fallen to fresh lows versus the dollar as investors anticipate another solid US employment report in February, increasing the likelihood of a Fed tightening by mid-year,” AFP quoted RIA Capital Markets analyst Nick Stamenkovic as saying. Draghi (shown below) had announced in January 2015 that the ECB plans to buy €60 billion (USD 66.5 billion) worth of private and public bonds each month as of the beginning of March until September 2016. According to Stamenkovic, as there is a widening policy divergence between ECB and Fed, the eurozone unit could reach parity against the dollar. “Diverging policy stances between the Fed and ECB look set to persist for some time, pushing the euro towards parity over the medium-term as the search for yield drives euro area investors to increase exposure to overseas assets,” Stamenkovic added. ECB officials believe that not only will the 1.1-trillion euro program end the deflation in the 19-member bloc, but it also spurs the eurozone’s economy. However, international currency traders have a different outlook, predicting a future drop in the value of the euro. Foreign exchange traders forecast the euro will drop to USD 1.08 in six to 12 months. Source      |
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Posted: 06 Mar 2015 01:37 PM PST
 Lord Jacob Rothschild has warned investors that the world is mired in the most dangerous geopolitical situation since World War II. The 78-year-old chairman of RIT Capital Partners, a £2.3bn trust, used the organization’s annual report to caution savers that the focus of the firm would be the preservation of shareholders’ capital and not short term gains. Rothschild said that “a geopolitical situation perhaps as dangerous as any we have faced since World War II” has created a “difficult economic background” of which investors should be wary. Rothschild, whose business associates include Warren Buffett and Henry Kissinger, blamed the fraught climate on, “chaos and extremism in the Middle East, Russian aggression and expansion, and a weakened Europe threatened by horrendous unemployment, in no small measure caused by a failure to tackle structural reforms in many of the countries which form part of the European Union”. “RIT is popular among private investors thanks to its excellent track record and its conservative approach to conserving capital,” notes the Telegraph’s Richard Dyson. Rothschild and his daughter Hannah jointly own shares in the trust worth approximately £160m. Rothschild’s warning follows reports from January’s Davos Economic Forum during which it was revealed that the wealthy are purchasing secret hideaways in remote locations in order to escape social upheaval and possible riots. Economist Robert Johnson made headlines when he divulged that “hedge fund managers all over the world….are buying airstrips and farms in places like New Zealand because they think they need a getaway.” Johnson cited income inequality and the potential for civil unrest and riots as the reason for the panic. “A lot of wealthy and powerful people are quite afraid right now – they see us on an unstable trajectory,” said Johnson. “As the system doesn’t have proper resources, as it doesn’t represent people, things are getting more and more dangerous as say Ferguson, Missouri brings to bear.” Realtors in New Zealand subsequently confirmed the flight to safety by the elite, noting that “paranoia” and concerns about personal safety and global crises were driving the trend. Source      |
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Posted: 06 Mar 2015 06:06 AM PST
 A Tanzanian court has handed down death penalties to four people convicted of killing an albino woman. On Thursday, Tanzania’s High Court sentenced four people to death for killing 22-year-old Zawadi Mangidu in 2008 in the northwestern town of Geita. “The prosecution has proved the case beyond reasonable doubt,” said High Court judge Joaquine Demello, adding that the verdict was issued in consideration of “the escalating killing of people with albinism in the country.” The convicted people, including the victim’s husband Charles Nassoro, severed her legs and right hand with an axe and machete. The court’s ruling came despite the fact that Tanzania has called a moratorium on capital punishment for the past 20 years, casting doubts on the verdict’s practicality. According to reports, 17 other criminals are awaiting execution for a similar offence. Over 75 Albino people have been killed in Tanzania since 2000 as many people in the African country superstitiously believe that Albino body parts are endowed with magical powers, the United Nation announced. The reports also said Albino body organs are traded in Tanzania’s market for USD 600 a piece, while the price of an entire Albino corpse amounts to USD 75,000. Currently, 200,000 albinos live in the African country. Earlier in the week, Tanzania’s President Jakaya Kikwete condemned the killings as embarrassing and disgraceful, vowing to increase efforts to put an end to the atrocities. “The government has long tried to do everything possible to stop the killings, we are very serious with this. But we still need to enhance our efforts to bring to an end these killings, which are disgusting and a big embarrassment to the nation,” said Kikwete. “It is a false belief that if someone has the body part of a person with albinism, this will bring success in business, fishing and mining activities. This is what has been fuelling this ongoing evil,” he added. Albinism is a genetic disease which partially or completely disrupts the production of melanin in the body and thus results in the absence of pigment in the hair, eyes and skin. Source      |
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Posted: 06 Mar 2015 05:51 AM PST
 Analysis of water residue in Martian ice caps indicates that the Red Planet was once, at least partly, blue. Billions of years ago, Mars had a body of water that held more water than Earth’s Arctic Ocean, according to a NASA study published Thursday. “Our study provides a solid estimate of how much water Mars once had, by determining how much later was lost to space,”said Geronimo Villanueva, a scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and lead author of the paper. The study, published in Science magazine, is a result of observations and computations based on data from three telescope facilities on Earth, the instruments of which were able to distinguish the chemical signatures of two different types of water in the remnants of Mars’ atmosphere. Much of the Martian ice is composed of “heavy” water, or molecules in which the regular hydrogen atoms have been replaced by an isotope known as deuterium. After analyzing the ratio of these molecules, scientists believe they have calculated the amount of water Mars once had based on known rates of water loss to space. According to the study, only 13 percent of Mars’ original water remains in the ice caps. Scientists have estimated that 4.3 billion years ago, the planet had enough water for an ocean taking up 19 percent of its surface and reaching a depth of more than a mile (1.6 kilometers) in places. NASA videos released Thursday show the ocean covering much of Mars’ northern hemisphere. In terms of surface area, Mars’ ocean was even larger than the Atlantic Ocean, which covers 17 percent of Earth’s surface. NASA’s Curiosity probe has previously documented planetary features shaped by water flows and lakes. The existence of oceans on Mars suggests the planet may have been more hospitable to life than initially believed. “With Mars losing that much water, the planet was very likely wet for a longer period of time than was previously thought, suggesting it might have been habitable for longer,” said Michael Mumma, a senior scientist at Goddard and the second author of the paper. NASA currently has two robotic rovers operating on Mars, and three orbiting probes. The latest probe arrived in the Martian orbit in September 2014, on a mission to study the planet’s upper atmosphere. The agency is not planning any manned exploration missions until the 2030s at the earliest. Private explorers may reach Mars before that, however. Mars One, a Dutch nonprofit, has been selecting candidates for a four-person, one-way mission from a pool of over 200,000 applicants over the past two years, narrowing it down to 100 finalists recently. They hope to send an unmanned advance mission to Mars by 2018. Source     |
