Thursday, 17 September 2015

The European Union Times

Posted: 16 Sep 2015 04:09 AM PDT

European Central banks keep demanding the return of their gold bullion from the vaults of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, reducing the gold stockpile kept under the streets of Manhattan to its lowest level in decades; economist Lew Rockwell is convinced that the move is an indication that Europe is desperately striving for independence.
Gold always glitters, and once upon a time, the reputation of the United States as a safe place to store nationally-owned gold reserves offshore did as well.
However, many economists, such as Economist Lew Rockwel, are now convinced that this may not be the case, and insist that US supplies are rapidly becoming depleted.
It all started in 2012, when Germany attempted to request that the US repatriate its gold. It was followed by The Netherlands, France, Belgium and, finally, Austria.
Since then, the central banks of these countries have taken about 250 tons of the precious metal, decreasing the stash kept in the vaults of the NY Fed to 5,950 tons, its lowest level in two decades.
The last repatriation occurred back in 2007-2008, when foreign central banks took out about 400 tons of the metal.
Lew Rockwel, who is also the founder and chairman of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, says the move indicates a growing desire of the aforementioned states to get more independence from the US.
It is very typical for empires to keep the gold hoard of their colonies and dependent states, he said in his interview with the Russian news channel RT. The decision to claim it back does not please Washington as such, but it is very important for the independence of those states.
Historically, the stability of national currencies was based on their reserves of precious metals, gold, silver and platinum. During uncertain times, when the economies of countries which are lucky enough to be printing widely-held reserve currencies falter, central banks return to the security of gold.
Interestingly enough, in the early twentieth century, the most reliable currencies in the world were the British pound and the Russian ruble, which were 100% backed by gold. London was a global issue center.
However, in the 1940s, Britain’s financial system, undermined by World War II, relinquished this position to the United States of America, which was considered too far away to be threatened by European wars.
This process was facilitated by a system of lend-lease, in which supplies of arms, equipment and strategic materials to recipient countries were paid for in gold. As a result, the US built up its gold reserves from 13,000 tons in 1938 to 21,800 tons in 1949, concentrating 70% of the world’s reserves of the yellow metal in one place.
The second source of gold income for the US was the Bretton Woods financial system, created in 1944, which made the paper dollar equivalent to gold. This system included the creation of the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank); all settlements between them were either in dollars or in gold. The founding countries contributed in gold, and in dollars bought with gold.
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, acting as a financial regulator, used the buying and selling of gold to establish a Gold Pool, in which the central banks of seven Western European countries (Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands and Switzerland) were forced to participate.
Participants in the pool were compensated for the excessive selling of gold by this organization from America’s own gold reserves, and profits were shared at a ratio of 50:50. Half went to the US, the other half to all the other participants in the pool. In 1959 France alone lost $3 billion by participating in this Gold Pool.
This European dependence on the US was disturbing for many people. Charles de Gaulle once said: “While the Western countries of the Old World are subordinated to the New World, Europe cannot be European”.
In 1965, he demanded that the United States exchange $1.5 billion dollars for gold. America had no choice but to agree. In two years, de Gaulle made US gold stores 3,000 tons lighter.
Following this, Germany and other countries made the same exchange. And by 1970, the gold reserves of the United States had decreased by more than half, to 9,838.2 tons.
Since that time, the volume of issued cash and, most importantly, non-cash dollars, has been impossible for Americans to cover with precious metals, and in 1971, President Richard Nixon announced his “temporary” refusal to convert dollars into gold.
Attempts to restore the security of the American currency via two dollar devaluations failed, and in March 1973, the global financial system moved from a fixed exchange rate against the dollar and gold to a value defined on the basis of supply and demand.
Gold obtained the status of a commodity, while the US dollar was now traded using a new standard of value.
Source

Some Earth Creatures Already Live Eternal Life

Posted: 16 Sep 2015 03:59 AM PDT

Hydra is a genus of small, simple, fresh-water animals that possess radial symmetry. Hydra are predatory animals belonging to the phylum Cnidaria and the class Hydrozoa. They can be found in most unpolluted fresh-water ponds, lakes, and streams in the temperate and tropical regions and can be found by gently sweeping a collecting net through weedy areas. They are multicellular organisms which are usually a few millimetres long and are best studied with amicroscope. Biologists are especially interested in Hydra because of their regenerative ability; they appear not to age or die of old age.

Turritopsis nutricula is a small jellyfish. This is the one of the known reported organisms that can revert its life cycle to the polyp stage even after becoming sexually mature, defining itself as an immortal organism in the animal kingdom. Therefore, the animal is having prime importance in basic biological, aging, and biomedical researches.

A HeLa cell also Hela or hela cell, is a cell type in an immortal cell line used in scientific research. It is the oldest and most commonly used human cell line. The line was derived from cervical cancer cells taken on February 8, 1951, from Henrietta Lacks, a patient who eventually died of her cancer on October 4, 1951. The cell line was found to be remarkably durable and prolific – which has led to its contamination of many other cell lines used in research.

A bristlecone pine can refer to one of three species of pine trees (family Pinaceae, genus Pinus, subsection Balfourianae). All three species are long-lived and highly resilient to harsh weather and bad soils. One of the three species, Pinus longaeva, is the longest-lived life form on Earth; the oldest individual is more than 5,000 years old, making it the oldest known individual of any species.

Some coral species in the Pacific Ocean can live for over 4,000 years. Such long-living species of corals can be found in the waters off the Hawaii, at a depth from 300 to 500 meters.

Ming (c. 1499 – 2006) was a nickname given to a specimen of the ocean quahog clam (Arctica islandica, family Veneridae), that was dredged off the coast of Iceland in 2006 and whose age was calculated by counting annual growth lines in the shell. Ming was the oldest individual (non-colonial) animal ever discovered whose age could be accurately determined. Originally thought to be 405 years old, Ming was later determined to be 507 years old.

The American lobster, Homarus americanus, is a species of lobster found on the Atlantic coast of North America, chiefly from Labrador to New Jersey. It is also known as true lobster, northern lobster, or Maine lobster. This crustacean can live up to 140 years.

UN Vows to Find Alternative Routes Allowing Refugees to Flood into Europe

Posted: 16 Sep 2015 03:20 AM PDT

Illegals now go on hunger strike to protest against Hungarian border closure.

Refugees on the Hungarian-Serbian border have declared a sit-down hunger strike in response to not being allowed to cross into Hungary and proceed to Germany and other destinations in Europe, according to Twitter posts.
Hungary has declared a state of emergency in two of its southern counties, reportedly Bacs-Kiskun and Csongrad. The government has warned refugees they will be arrested if they attempt to break through a fence erected along the border with Serbia.
Refugees have gathered along the border demanding entry into Hungary and the EU. “Open border, open border!” they demanded, according to a Reuters reporter.
The border was officially closed at midnight on Monday and refugees from Syria and Afghanistan were turned back.
Serbia has protested the border closure. “Europe has to find a solution fast before the situation escalates even further. This border crossing, one of the main ones in Europe, has to remain open,” said Aleksandar Vulin, the Serbian social affairs minister.
The United Nations is working to bypass Hungary and find other countries that will allow passage of hundreds of thousands of refugees into Europe.
“We’re definitely in touch with different countries on contingencies and UNHCR is ready to move and assist different countries as best we can. It’s going to be just as much a struggle as it has been for Macedonia and Greece,” said Melissa Fleming, the spokeswoman for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Source

Muslim Hoards Now Invade Croatia as Hungary Starts Arresting Migrants

Posted: 16 Sep 2015 02:59 AM PDT

Refugees have started heading from Serbia to Croatia instead of Hungary, which has rushed to set up a razor-wire fence to stop their flow onto its soil.
A first busload of Muslim refugees arrived near Serbia’s border with Croatia on Wednesday.
The group, which mostly consisted of Muslims from Pakistan masquerading as Syrians or Afghans, came off at the Serbian border town of Sid after an overnight journey from the country’s border with Macedonia at the southernmost Serbian town of Presevo.
More than 200,000 refugees have illegally entered Hungary so far this year, mostly heading for Austria before setting off for Germany.
The move by Budapest to stem their progress has attracted international criticism from leftist imbeciles.
Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban has announced plans for a similar barrier on its frontier with Romania. Romania criticized the planned fence as “out of step with the spirit of Europe.”
Budapest also made its first arrests under tough new laws punishing “illegal border-crossing” or damaging the border fence with prison terms of up to three years.

Japan Dumps 850 Tons of Radioactive Water Into The Ocean Again

Posted: 16 Sep 2015 02:24 AM PDT

The first batch of radioactive groundwater filtered below “measurable limits” at Japan’s tsumani-stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant has been dumped into the ocean, as TEPCO seeks to ease toxic water building-up at the site.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) that operates the crippled nuclear plant released its first 850 tons of filtered radioactive groundwater by sundown on September 14. This is a part of TEPCO’s “subdrain plan” that was approved in late July after a year-long battle with local fishermen who opposed the release fearing that it would pollute the ocean and contaminate marine life.
A third party panel has given the green light to the release after confirming that the radioactive content was below measurable limits, according to The Japan Times. TEPCO allows one becquerel of radioactive cesium per liter of decontaminated groundwater, three becquerels for elements that emit beta rays and up to 1,500 becquerels for tritium, which cannot be removed with existing technology.
Monday’s batch measured 330 to 600 becquerels per liter, TEPCO said, citing analyses conducted by the company and an outside organization.
Under the plan, TEPCO has to pump tons of water from 41 subdrain wells around the main buildings of the power plant and decontaminate it before the release. It has planned to pump 100 to 200 tons of groundwater daily and later increase it to 500 tons unless it triggers problems with the decontamination facilities.
By dumping the treated water into the ground, TEPCO and the government expects to halve the approximately 300 tons of contaminated water that is generated at the plant daily as well as reduce groundwater flowing into the reactor buildings.
TEPCO has yet to deal with remaining 680,000 tons of water that was used to cool the reactors during the 2011 meltdown.
“The risk that you run is that you have all these tanks full of water,” Dale Klein, the chairman of a committee created to prevent possible meltdowns, told AFP. “The longer you store the water, the more likely you are going to have (an) uncontrolled release,” he said. Klein added that he hopes the supplies will be released from storage in the next three years.
TEPCO, much criticized for handling the tsunami-triggered meltdown at Fukushima No.1 reactors, is running behind schedule on a project to build a huge underground ice barrier – the “ice wall” – around Fukushima plant as it tries to stop groundwater from reaching the reactor building basements.
In addition, flooding from Typhoon Etau caused new leaks of contaminated water to flow from the Fukushima nuclear power station into the ocean last week. The incident came after a rush of water overwhelmed the site’s drainage pumps.
Source