By ANDREW E. KRAMER
The rebel government has lifted a ban on private coal mining, a widespread practice in the financially struggling region.
Published: January 31, 2015 at 07:00PM
from NYT World http://ift.tt/1ClE8Ec
By Unknown Author
The rebel government has lifted a ban on private coal mining, a widespread practice in the financially struggling region.
Published: January 31, 2015 at 07:00PM
from NYT World http://ift.tt/1EwBtbK
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Hundreds of miners are rallying in Prague to pressure the government to allow the expansion of brown coal mining in northern Czech Republic.
Published: January 29, 2015 at 01:39AM
from NYT World http://ift.tt/1z6J91h
Look out below!
West Texas Intermediate crude futures prices just broke through the $45 barrier down to $44.26. At the same time, the 10Y -2Y yield curve slope broke down to 126.75, less than half of what it was on January 1, 2014.
This occurred after The Federal Reserve announced no change to the Fed Funds Target rate.
The Fed feels that inflation is under control. Its easy to control inflation when oil prices fall by more than 50%.
We where shoes every single day of our lives — for the most part. A good sturdy shoe protects not only our feet, but will give better support to our backs, which has a variety of positive health effects. Our shoes are our roots, and our shoes are our anchors, so it only makes sense that we put more thought into the purchase of our shoes, ensuring that they are high quality and built to last.
Accidents and disasters can strike at any moment, without warning. Being prepared for the worst is…
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Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls via NASA http://ift.tt/1zyp1a3
To help answer some of these questions, NASA suborbital sounding rockets carrying university-developed experiments — the Mesosphere-Lower Thermosphere Turbulence Experiment (M-TeX) and Mesospheric Inversion-layer Stratified Turbulence (MIST) — were launched into auroras from the Poker Flat Research Range in Alaska. The experiments explore the Earth’s atmosphere’s response to auroral, radiation belt and solar energetic particles and associated effects on nitric oxide and ozone.
This composite shot of all four sounding rockets for the M-TeX and MIST experiments is made up of 30 second exposures. The rocket salvo began at 4:13 a.m. EST, Jan. 26, 2015. A fifth rocket carrying the Auroral Spatial Structures Probe remains ready on the launch pad. The launch window for this experiment runs through Jan. 27.
Image Credit: NASA/Jamie Adkins
> More: M-TeX and MIST Experiments Launched from Alaska via NASA http://ift.tt/1yL9zFf
As people who follow foreign relations for any country in the world know, economic sanctions are a repeating aspect of foreign policy and diplomacy between countries who dislike each other enough to want to cause damage but not enough to start a war. Economic sanctions have been most recently in the news due to a combination of two factors: the warming of relations between the United States of America and Cuba and Russia’s actions during the crisis in Ukraine. In both situations sanctions are in place but that’s where the difference ends. While the sanctions might be lifted or lessened in Cuba, there is a strong likelihood of stronger and more aggressive sanctions against Russia. Even Iran is doing better when it comes to potentially facing less sanctions than Putin is.
While sanctions might seem like a good idea and like governments are actually taking actions in line with their public policies, they actually vary in effectiveness and can be used to give the illusion of a government taking a hardline when in reality they don’t do all that much anyways. The actual effects of sanctions are usually somewhat disappointing and rarely ever force the change that’s desired. Even when that change does happen, the sanctions play a relatively small role and can more or less be discounted (such as US sanctions against Latin America countries during the Cold War).
That being said, there are moments when sanctions do work and are responsible for major policy shifts. Apartheid in South Africa was ended because basically the entire world decided to enact sanctions on the racist South African government, depriving it of any and all trade partners and ruining the economy. That being said, even when it looks like the sanctions are working there is usually some other force at play. The sanctions on Russia are certainly hurting the economy, but they’re being bolstered by the effects of a growth slowdown in China and a drop in shale-gas price due to increased production in the US. Of course, it still looks good for the government to say that it’s all because of them.
If you’d like to read more, the link is here.
from Edmund Scarborough’s Historical Business Site http://ift.tt/1C8ND9F
Ah colonialism. Who doesn’t remember those heady days when British warships ruled the waves and English society was the most impressive and imitated throughout the world? One of the best benefits of colonialism was being able to spread your people and culture around the world, even if the people you’re spreading are from the bottom of the societal barrel. It’s this that brings us to the importance of January 26th to one very specific group of people, Australians. When we decided to ship all of our convicts around the world to clean up British society, we didn’t know when they would land. It just happens that they landed today, January 26th, in 1788.
While Australia might be a beautiful country with a powerful economy and a coastline that draws jealousy from all around the world, it should be known that things were much different in 1788. When Arthur Phillip and his 11 ships landed in the British colony of New South Wales, they had no idea what to expect from a land they had never been to that was populated by flora and fauna unlike any they had encountered before. Of the 1,000 people who landed in Australia after the 8 month voyage that took them around Africa, over 700 were convicts. However few of them were violent or murderous convicts; back in the day you could be thrown in jail for something as simple as defaulting on debts or trying to escape indentured servitude!
Either way, the criminals and marines that were sent to watch over them had a very hard time. The soil in Australia was poor for growing and no one even knew how to farm (remember, they were criminals)! Add to the situation the obvious fact that everything in Australia is violent and perfect for killing people and you have the making of a very sad story. However this wasn’t to be the case and the British convicts (now Australians) pulled themselves up and began claiming the land for themselves; turning it into the beautiful country it is today. Australians will forever celebrate January 26th as Australia Day (because that’s when it was founded) and we British will forever celebrate January 26th as the day we got rid of all those awful criminals. Everyone wins!
If you’d like to read more, the link is here.
from Edmund Scarborough’s Historical Website http://ift.tt/1zjTOXX
The Department of Veterans Affairs has been having a rough time over the past year as more and more news of chronic inefficiency totally destroyed what little faith both the public and returning soldiers had in its abilities to properly treat the men and women returning from war zones. As people hopefully remember from last year, the VA was rocked by scandals when investigations found out that veterans were getting turned away from hospitals, weren’t getting the care that they needed and were promised, and that hospital officials were lying and doctoring books to make it seem as though everything was going according to plan and that the veterans were receiving the proper care.
In an attempt to shield itself from all the negative criticism and bad press that it’s multiple failings have brought upon itself, the VA has just announced that it is open to the idea of allowing the United States Army Corps of Engineers to construct all big hospital projects, an area where the VA has been facing even more criticism than usual. While the decisions hasn’t been made yet, VA Deputy Secretary, Sloan D. Gibson, has announced that he and those in charge of the VA are certainly open to the idea and are going to explore all possible options before making the decision.
An example of just how poor a job the VA has done when building hospitals can be seen in Denver, Colorado. The VA has been trying to build a hospital in the area since 2010 with a completion date of 2013. The total cost of the project was estimated at $800 million with $604 million being earmarked for construction costs. However, the hospital still isn’t done and it has so far cost over $1 billion with more to be completed. This happened because the VA officials in charge of the project were pushing for a firm target price ($800 million) without even having a set plan and design in place. This meant that costs continued to climb as what should’ve been completed before construction even started was still being figured out. Hopefully the Corps will take over and our veterans won’t have to suffer anymore due to the inefficiencies of the VA.
If you’d like to read more, the link is here.
from Ed Scarborough’s Construction Website http://ift.tt/1uTcmNe
Image Credit: NASA/Terry Virts via NASA http://ift.tt/1JtMz0Y
By LEAH HAGER COHEN
A novel of van Gogh’s anguished time in Belgium.
Published: January 24, 2015 at 07:00PM
from NYT Books http://ift.tt/1y8K6Re
By NIDA NAJAR
President Obama and Prime Minister Narendra Modi will discuss climate change, energy issues and business opportunities for American companies in India.
Published: January 23, 2015 at 07:00PM
from NYT World http://ift.tt/1CJJfdL
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Coal-mining Peabody Energy Corp. soon will have a new chief executive.
Published: January 22, 2015 at 08:51AM
from NYT Business Day http://ift.tt/1yT4EEn
This view of the region pictured above was acquired August 7, 2012, by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on NASA’s Terra satellite. In April 2012, the feature caught the attention of a NASA pilot, who snapped this picture from the cockpit of a high-flying ER-2 aircraft during a research flight over the Greenland ice cap.
More information.
Image Credit: NASA/Terra via NASA http://ift.tt/1xDQdxZ
