Wednesday 1 April 2015

The European Union Times

Nationwide ‘Emergency Alert’ Test Causes Panic, Confusion

Posted: 31 Mar 2015 03:07 AM PDT

A test of the national ‘Emergency Alert System’ which was seen by television viewers this morning in states across the country prompted panic and confusion, with many taking to Twitter to express their concerns.
The test began at around 11am EST and was broadcast in Washington DC, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. The emergency alert contained no details and merely listed the states it affected and said the alert would run from 11am until 12 midnight.
Viewers in Sacramento, CA also reported seeing the test, which lasted for about 10 minutes before the regular TV broadcast resumed. At no point were viewers advised that the alert was only a test.
Some said the alert made them panic.
Others also tweeted their confusion and nervousness at seeing the alert, with many noting that the message had frozen on screen.
Last October, an emergency alert from the White House interrupted TV viewers across America, advising them to stand by for an emergency message and not to use their phones.
AT&T blamed a “nationally syndicated radio station” for sending the alert message by mistake, despite the fact that only the federal government can send out EAS alerts. The alert system, “can only be activated by the President in times of emergency,” reported Fox 5.
The EAS is operated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and the National Weather Service (NOAA/NWS). Mandatory test messages are sent via broadcast and cable television as well as all radio outlets. A separate system was introduced in 2013 for cellphones.
Meanwhile, a test of the Amber alert system in Michigan awoke people with a text message from state police at 5am on Saturday morning, prompting some complaints. The 6-year-old girl in question was later found safe.
Source

Beijing partially bans traffic on heavy pollution days

Posted: 31 Mar 2015 02:51 AM PDT

Beijing has introduced new traffic rules to combat the massive smog that has cloaked the Chinese capital for years. When city authorities issue a ‘red alert’, a number of cars will be banned on the roads and heavy vehicles completely banished.
Four types of pollution alerts, blue, yellow, orange and red, will be issued on ‘heavy pollution’ days, according to Beijing’s Environmental Protection Bureau. The term will be applied if the Air Quality Index tops 200.
Orange and red alerts are to be announced 24 hours before these heavily polluted days, Yao Hui, deputy head of the bureau, told Xinhua news agency.
Vehicles bearing odd and even-numbered license plates will be allowed on the streets on alternating days during red alerts. Also 30 percent of government cars will be banished from the city traffic irrespective of their plate numbers.
All factories will be shut down during orange alerts. Heavy vehicles, such as construction trucks, will also be completely banned during orange and red alerts. The same system is applied to battle another big city problem, traffic jams.
“With the new plan, strong pollution measures could be implemented more often and public health, particularly that of children, can be protected more effectively,” Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public and Environmental based in Beijing, told the Global Times.
“The only concern is whether the government will be determined enough to issue red alerts considering the difficulties in implementing the controversial car ban,” he said.
Beijing is the world’s most-polluted city. A map of air quality in the capital and other Chinese cities shows that numerous locations are smog-bound. In some areas the air quality index already tops 200.
On Tuesday, Plumelabs.com, a website that monitors 60 cities, indicated Beijing AQI (Air quality index) level of 176. It means that there is “critical level of pollution and harmful impacts on the general public” in the city.
China has been suffering a pollution crisis for decades which has left big cities shrouded in constant smog and half the groundwater contaminated. Pollution from the coal industry alone killed 670,000 people in China in 2012, according to last year’s study by the Natural Resources Defense Council.
The level of air pollution in China was more than double the national standard in 2014 with the indicators of environmental pollution over the limit in 90 percent of 161 Chinese cities. The level of small particles that pose a danger to human health, averaged 85.9 micrograms per cubic meter in 2014 in Beijing compared with the national standard of 35.
Only eight of China’s 74 large cities have managed to meet official air safety standards in 2014, according to the Environmental Protection Ministry.
Source

Australia To Start Taxing Bank Deposits

Posted: 31 Mar 2015 02:43 AM PDT

Up until now, the world’s descent into the NIRPy twilight of fiat currency was a function of failing monetary policy around the globe as central bank after desperate central bank implemented negative and even more negative (in the case of Denmark some four times rapid succession) rates, hoping to make saving so prohibitive consumers would have no choice but to spend the fruits of their labor, or better yet, take out massive loans which they would never be able to repay. However, nobody said it was only central banks who could be the executioners of the world’s saver class: governments are perfectly capable too. Such as Australia’s.
According to Australia’s ABC News, the “Federal Government looks set to introduce a tax on bank deposits in the May budget.”
Ironically, the idea of a bank deposit tax was raised by Labor in 2013 and was criticized by Tony Abbott at the time. Much has changed in two years, and as ABC reports, assistant Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has indicated an announcement on the new tax could be made before the budget.
Mr Frydenberg is a member of the Government’s Expenditure Review Committee but has refused to provide any details.
“Any announcements or decisions around this proposed policy which we discussed at the last election will be made in the lead up or on budget night,” he said.
Speaking at the Victorian Liberal State Council meeting Mr Abbott has repeated his budget message, focusing on families and small businesses.
“There will be tough decisions in this year’s budget as there must be, but there will also be good news.”
For the banks and creditors, yes. For anyone who is still naive enough to save money in the hopes of deferring purchases for the future, not so much.
The banking industry has raised concerns about a deposit tax, saying it will have to pass the cost back onto customers.
Steven Munchenberg from the Australian Bankers’ Association said it would be a damaging move for the Government.
“It’s going to make it harder for banks to raise deposits which are an important way of funding banks. And therefore for us to fund the economy,” he said. “And we also oppose it because particularly at this point in time with low interest rates a lot of people who are relying on their savings for their incomes are already seeing very low returns and this will actually mean they get even less money.”
Don’t worry Steven, neither central banks nor government care about “a lot of people” – they just care about a select few. As for the banks, once China, and immediately thereafter Australia, launches QE as the entire world descends into a monetary supernova, and Australia’s banks are flooded with trillions in excess reserves like those in the US, all shall be forgiven. As a reminder, banks such as JPM are so flush with zero-cost cash from other sources, wellone other source, they are now actively turning away depositors.
As for Australia, while central banks are untouchable and unaccountable to anyone (except their commercial bank directors and anyone else they secretly meet during those bimonthly sessions in the BIS tower in Basel), the government can be voted in and voted out. Especially a government that is about to break one of its main election promises:
The Federal Opposition has accused the Government of breaking an election promise by planning to introduce a tax on bank deposits.
The former Labor Government put forward the policy in 2013 to raise revenue for a fund to protect customers in the event of a banking collapse.
Shadow Assistant Treasurer Andrew Leigh said Treasurer Joe Hockey criticised the proposal at the time. “When we put it on the table Joe Hockey said that it was a smash and grab on Australian households just aimed at repairing the budget,” he said.
It is almost surprising, but not really, how when it comes down to money, the thin white line between “us” and “them” always disappears when the money runs out.
As for Australia’s savers, welcome to the NIRP world where savers in increasingly more countries are now on the endangered species list.
Source

Americans tired of both Bushes and Clintons

Posted: 31 Mar 2015 01:54 AM PDT

An American political analyst says people in the United States are tired of policies of the families of Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush when they were in power.
“They’re really tired of both Bushes and Clintons. One is perhaps enough. Maybe there should be new faces and new names there,” William Jones from Executive Intelligence Review told Press TV on Monday.
He made the comments after former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley criticized potential presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush for planning to pass the US presidency between their families.
“Let’s be honest here, the presidency of the United States is not some crown to be passed between two families,” O’Malley said.
Former secretary of state Clinton and former Florida governor Bush are considered to be candidates of Democratic and Republican Parties respectively.
Bill Clinton, Hillary’s husband, was the president of the United States. George W. Bush, Jeb’s brother, and George H. W. Bush, their father, were also the country’s presidents in the past.
“The United States is not a monarchy,” Jones said.
“It is not a hereditary structure and therefore the idea of families following one another and of course if there were a Bush presidency, there would be a third Bush first time in history and Clinton presidency, of course there would be similar to the few times when there were two members of the two families a father and a son serving together,” he added.
Source

Pesticides on fruits and vegetables could account for 49% loss in sperm

Posted: 31 Mar 2015 01:48 AM PDT

A major study of men’s sperm found that those who ate regular quantities of fruit and vegetables that had pesticide residue on them had half the sperm count of men who ate less, a new study showed.
The Harvard University study, the first of its kind on the issue, analyzed sperm samples from 155 men who attended a fertility clinic during 2007-2012, Reuters reported. The men involved were attending a fertility clinic because they and their partners were unable to conceive, and were asked about the food they ate, including how often they ate fruit and vegetables like apples, avocados or cantaloupe.
Researchers then examined data from the US Department of Agriculture to measure whether the produce in these men’s diets contained a high, moderate or low amount of pesticide residue. They found that foods like peppers, spinach, strawberries, apples and pears rate high for pesticide residue, whereas peas, beans, grapefruits and onions rated lower to moderate.
Men who ate the highest amount of fruit and vegetables with high levels of residue had a 49 percent lower sperm count, with a 32 percent lower percentage of normally-formed sperm than men who consumed a lower amount of produce, or less than 1.5 servings a day.
“These findings should not discourage the consumption of fruit and vegetables, in general,” said co-author Jorge Chavarro of the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health.
Chavarro said the problem is not the quantity of fruit and vegetables eaten, it is the quality. He said men who consumed high qualities of fruit and vegetables that have lower levels of pesticide residue have “normally shaped” sperm. Organic produce also helps.
Men who ate fruit and vegetables heavily laden with pesticides had an average total sperm count of 86 million sperm per ejaculation. Men who ate the least-affected food produced 171 million sperm per ejaculation. Previous studies have tied poor semen quality to occupational and environmental exposure to chemicals, but this latest study points to the effect of pesticides in the diet. Researchers said the results did not specify which pesticides were responsible but pointed to pesticide mixtures.
“Given that pesticides are designed to kill and harm pest reproduction, it is not surprising that they are harmful to human reproduction,” study co-author Dr. Hagai Levine of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York told Reuters.
Chavarro and his team are also investigating whether women’s markers of fertility may also be linked to pesticides in the diet, he said.
In 2013, a related study of diet and sperm from Harvard’s School of Public Health – from the same study sample of men – showed that processed red meat consumption could also reduce sperm quality and quantity, and the study recommended increasing consumption of white and dark fish meat.
Source