GENEVA — World trade talks collapsed here on Tuesday after seven years of on-again, off-again negotiations, in the latest sign of India’s and China’s growing might on the world stage and the decreasing ability of the United States to impose its will globally. Pascal Lamy, director general of the World Trade Organization, could not bridge differences between a group of newly confident developing nations and established Western economic powers. In the end, too few of the real power brokers proved committed enough to make compromises necessary to deliver a deal. The failure appeared to end, for the near term at least, any hopes of a global deal to further open markets, cut farm subsidies and strengthen the international trading system. ‘It is a massive blow to confidence in the global economy,’ said Peter Power, spokesman for the European Commission. ‘The confidence shot in the arm that we needed badly will not now happen.’ After nine consecutive days of high-level talks, discussions reached an impasse when the United States, India and China refused to compromise over measures to protect farmers in developing countries from greater liberalization of trade. Supporters of the so-called Doha round of talks, […]
IRKUTSK, July 29 – A team of Russian scientists descended to the bottom of Siberia’s Lake Baikal in two mini-submarines on Tuesday, setting a new world record for a freshwater dive. (Photo tour with RIA Novosti: Lake Baikal) News channel Vesti-24 said the submersibles, Mir-1 and Mir-2, reached a depth of 1,680 meters (5,500 feet) in the world’s deepest lake, which holds 20% of the planet’s fresh water. The ongoing expedition in what locals call the ‘Sacred Sea’ was organized by Artur Chilingarov, a Russian lawmaker who led a symbolic dive to the North Pole seabed last August, during which a Russian flag was planted on the seabed. Chilingarov earlier said the Mir dives were ‘a logical continuation of lake exploration that was begun 30 years ago with the Pisces apparatus.’ Soviet scientists in a Pisces submersible reached a depth of 1,410 meters (4,600 feet) in 1977, and examined the lake’s bed with searchlights. The lake has since been the focus of numerous Soviet, Russian and international research expeditions. Chilingarov said ‘major technical problems’ have to be overcome in deep dives into the lake, due to ‘difficult weather conditions which dictate their own special […]
Aides to former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales violated federal law by improperly using political considerations when hiring career Justice Department lawyers and immigration judges, an agency report found. The audit, by the Justice Department inspector general and ethics chief, concluded that Monica Goodling, the White House liaison, and Gonzales’s chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, committed misconduct. Gonzales, who resigned under pressure last year, was generally unaware of his aides’ actions, the report said. The screening ‘resulted in high-quality candidates for important department positions being rejected,” the agency’s inspector general, Glenn Fine, said in a statement. The report, the second of four that the internal watchdogs are releasing this year on politicization at the Justice Department, cites several other officials for improperly screening job candidates or for making inaccurate statements about the process. The first audit, released last month, said department staffers used partisan considerations to hire interns and young lawyers. Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who succeeded Gonzales, said in a statement that he was ‘disturbed” by the report’s findings. ‘I have said many times, both to members of the public and to department employees, it is neither permissible nor acceptable to consider political affiliations […]
WASHINGTON — The White House predicted yesterday that President Bush would leave a record $482 billion deficit to his successor, a sobering turnabout in the nation’s fiscal condition from 2001, when Bush took office after three consecutive years of budget surpluses. The worst may be yet to come. The deficit announced by Jim Nussle, the White House budget director, does not reflect the full cost of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the potential $50 billion cost of another economic stimulus package, or the possibility of steeper losses in tax revenues if individual income or corporate profits decline. The new deficit numbers also do not account for any drains on the national treasury that might result from further declines in the housing market. The White House forecast was prepared before passage of the huge housing assistance package that Bush has promised to sign. That legislation would put taxpayer money at risk in numerous ways, especially if housing prices continue to decline. Nussle predicted yesterday that the deficit would more than double in the current fiscal year – to $389 billion, from $162 billion in 2007 – before shooting up to $482 billion in fiscal 2009, which […]
Wind power should account for 20% of U.S. energy needs within a decade – compared with virtually nothing now – as the country’s energy needs are increasingly taken care of by sources of alternative energy, former Texas oilman-turned-wind-power-entrepreneur T. Boone Pickens told Congress last week. Speaking before the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, the legendary investor warned that crude oil prices could rocket past the $300 a barrel level within the next 10 years as global reserves decline. Pickens also was there to lobby for the construction of energy transmission lines from his Texas-based wind power Pampa Project, currently under construction, and an eventual $10 billion alternative energy project that has the potential to become the world’s largest wind farm. At a time when the U.S. economy is facing its first nationwide energy squeeze since the gasoline shortages of 1974 and 1979, Pickens is politicking for wind power. Oil prices recently hit new records near $150 a barrel, before backing off slightly, although consumers continue to worry about summer gasoline prices and winter heating-oil costs. It could end up being a global competitiveness issue, as well, since China is making wind power a priority; […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
