June 11, 2009 · 12:16 pm

It’s an Official Pandemic

WHO declares first 21st century flu pandemic

By Stephanie Nebehay

Photo: CDC Influenza Laboratory

Photo: CDC Influenza Laboratory

GENEVA (Reuters) – The World Health Organization declared the first flu pandemic of the 21st century on Thursday, Sweden’s health ministry said.

The health ministry said the United Nations agency was raising its pandemic flu alert to the top phase 6 on a six-point scale, indicating the first influenza pandemic since 1968 is under way.

“Today… the Minister for Elderly Care and Public Health Maria Larsson has called a press conference following a decision by the WHO to raise the pandemic level to six for the influenza A H1N1 virus,” the ministry said in a statement.

Continue reading…

Background on recent pandemic scares (avian flu, SARS).

2 Comments

Filed under Life, Science

Tagged as , , ,

June 11, 2009 · 2:41 am

Chávez to Seize All Seaport Warehouses

VENEZUELA-IRAN-CHAVEZ-AHMADINEJAD

The Associated Press is reporting that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez will seize all of his nation’s privately-owned seaport warehouses, citing “state security” as the reason. The message came from the country’s Public Works Minister Diosdado Cabello.

Chávez has already expropriated a significant portion of the gold and petroleum industries, a good deal of the food staple distribution system, as well as most steel and iron manufacturing, and has designs on doing the same with the gas industry. Chávez has also managed to suppress the bulk of Venezuela’s dissenting media over the past few years by not renewing their communications licenses.

In 2008, he began to phase out the nation’s currency, the Bolívar, replacing it with “el Bolívar fuerte” (the Strong Bolívar); each of the new marks being worth one thousand of the old. The move induced a short-lived confidence in the Venezuelan market, but the value of the existing currency has fallen by almost 80% versus the US Dollar during the past year and a half . While against the burgeoning Euro, it has done much worse. On the black market (proving, I suppose, that there is no honour among thieves) the ‘back-alley service charge’ on the new currency is higher than for the standard Bolívar. (Note: Most currency exchange systems list only the standard Bolívar by default.)

At this rate, how will Chávez be able to afford his considerable sword addiction? Or, more importantly, how will the average family be able to afford the basic necessities of life?

I wonder where he could be getting such crazy ideas?

Leave a comment

Filed under Chicanery, Conflict, Economy

Tagged as , , , , ,

June 10, 2009 · 7:50 pm

A Story Untitled

dreamerYour life may turn out to be just a dream; that’s okay. Create your own story. Make of it what you will. Always be respectful of your co-authors. Pray for inspired criticism and the wisdom to recognise it. And, whenever you get the chance, dream a little dream of peace. 

Leave a comment

Filed under Life, Reason, Words

Tagged as

June 10, 2009 · 6:52 pm

Russia, China Set to Cast Off US Treasuries for IMF Debt

Here’s a Bloomberg article on the intended swap. 

Want to know why? 

It ties into this story: BRIC to Discuss New World Currency.

But the overall plan is outlined here: On the Current State of Currency.

Leave a comment

Filed under Conflict, Economy

Tagged as , , , , ,

June 9, 2009 · 12:49 pm

DPRK: Nuke Warning

kim-jong-ilPer our June 2nd posting, North Korea has begun to ratchet up its rhetoric in advance of the anticipated succession of Kim Jong-un to the leadership of the DPRK; the chief rationalisation seeming to be that any leader of the insular communist regime must be tried by fire. 

In its latest round of hostile hyperbole (as reported by the Korean Central News Agency – KCNA) it was declared that the nation’s growing nuclear arsenal would be wielded as a “merciless offensive means to deal a just retaliatory strike to those who touch the country’s dignity and sovereignty even a bit.” 

(Even a bit? C’mon, Mr. Kim. By that standard, you’d certainly have to nuke yourself, personally. And maybe more than once!  — Ed.) 

It was the first time that North Korea’s nuclear arms have been portrayed as “offensive” in nature by its official news agency. 

More details on Jong-un’s rise (including acknowledgement of that apparent fact by his eldest brother) and the DPRK’s most recent threats are available in this linked TimesOnline article.
 

Read about some little-known DPRK nuclear developments 
in the following stories from our recent archives:
 

Sum Yung Sun Rises, in the North

JUNE 2, 2009 Watch for Kim Jong-il to create a ‘defining moment’ to mark his youngest son’s anticipated ascendancy…

 

The Syrian ex-Nuclear Site

MAY 31, 2009  The following is a collection of images taken during (and after) the construction of the Syrian facility bombed by Israeli commandos on September 6, 2007. […]

 

Exactly 55 Years, 10 Months

MAY 27, 2009  Fifty-five years and ten months. That’s precisely how long the Korean Armistice lasted. […]

 

DPRK: N-Test, Take X

MAY 25, 2009  The UN Security Council has unanimously condemned North Korea’s latest nuclear firing test, which everyone seems to be assuming is their second such detonation. That might not be the case…

 

DPRK: N-Test, Take 2

APRIL 27, 2009  It was early October, 2006. Overhead, satellites skimmed the sky above the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and took careful note of the goings-on below.
On the ground, as well as far beneath it, technicians busily prepared for North Korea’s highly-anticipated, first nuclear weapons test – an event that was confirmed in dramatic fashion on October 9th, when it appeared on one of the seismographs I was monitoring…

 

6 Comments

Filed under Chicanery, Conflict

Tagged as , , , , , ,