Algeria: 32 militants killed, with 23 hostages
ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) — In a bloody finale, Algerian special forces stormed a natural gas complex in the Sahara desert on Saturday to end a standoff with Islamist extremists that left at least 23 hostages dead and killed all 32 militants involved, the Algerian government said.
With few details emerging from the remote site in eastern Algeria, it was unclear whether anyone was rescued in the final operation, but the number of hostages killed on Saturday – seven – was how many the militants had said that morning they still had. The government described the toll as provisional and some foreigners remain unaccounted for.
The siege at Ain Amenas transfixed the world after radical Islamists linked to al-Qaida stormed the complex, which contained hundreds of plant workers from all over the world, then held them hostage surrounded by the Algerian military and its attack helicopters for four tense days that were punctuated with gun battles and dramatic tales of escape.
U.S. automakers urge Obama to punish Japan for weak yen
WASHINGTON (Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama should tell Japan’s new government that the U.S. will retaliate for policies aimed at weakening the yen, a group representing Ford Motor Co., General Motors Co. and Chrysler LLC said.
Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party, which reclaimed power last month, has let the yen continue its slide against the dollar, making U.S. auto exports relatively expensive, the American Automotive Policy Council said today in a statement.
“We urge the Obama administration to make it clear to Japan that such policies are unacceptable and will be met by reciprocal measures,” Matt Blunt, a former Republican governor of Missouri and president of the Washington-based industry group, said in the statement.
U.S. automakers have said the undervalued yen distorts trade and stunts job growth for American manufacturers. The group has said Japan should be blocked from joining Pacific-region trade talks that include the U.S. until the Asian nation’s auto market is more open to foreign competition.
The yen has declined 14 percent against the dollar since Sept. 13 and fell to a 30-month low against the U.S. currency on Jan. 10. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has pledged to weaken the yen to boost his nation’s economic growth.
Japan is “determined to repeat the ‘beggar thy neighbor’ policies of the
via U.S. automakers urge Obama to punish Japan for weak yen.
CDC Researchers Find Lower Mortality Rates Among Overweight People – The Daily Beast
The world of public health was knocked off the rails a bit this week with the release of a study demonstrating that you can, in fact, be too thin. Reviewing 97 studies involving almost 3 million people divided into groups according to weight, researchers at the Centers for Disease Control demonstrated that the overweights—not the obese, but decidedly not the thins or the very thins—had lower overall mortality rates than the rest of the pack.
The finding represents the first momentum shift in a century, since fashion and cinema made thin synonymous with beauty and health. The rout of the public by the thin-ocracy has been so complete that a goal other than blind pursuit of the flat stomach and the sharp jaw seems sacrilegious.
Well, the low body mass index (BMI) hegemony appears to be coming to an end. The findings are clear and simple. Researchers pored over endless studies that previously had examined rates of death in people of various shapes and sizes. And they had a lot to select from: the researchers found more than 7,000 articles in the medical literature that have studied the issue. They placed patients into categories according to BMI (normal, overweight, obese) and ran a series of complex statistical analyses.
Compared to people with a normal weight (a BMI less than 25), the overweight (BMI between 25 to 30) had a 6 percent lower mortality rate—and both groups had a rate about 15 percent lower than the obese, especially the very obese (BMI above 35).
The explanation for the finding is uncertain. Perhaps the pleasantly plump but not obese have an extra reserve—a literal spare tire—that confers a survival advantage should they become seriously ill, whereas the lean-iacs do not. Or maybe the thin ones were thin because of a serious illness that, in the course the various studies, killed them. Or maybe the thin ones were thin because they were chain smokers living off Scotch and potato chips. Or just maybe the occasional pig-out does soothe the soul and make for a happier, healthier individual.
Whatever the explanation, the observation—a truly startling one—stands. Yet the most impressive aspect of the finding is not the fact disclosed. Rather it is the willingness of the CDC investigators to be guided by the data and not by a preconceived notion of the “message.” After all, the public health message for decades has been that big is bad and bigger is worse. Delineation of the current U.S. obesity epidemic has been one of the main accomplishments of the CDC over the last decade.
via CDC Researchers Find Lower Mortality Rates Among Overweight People – The Daily Beast.
I’m Mentally Ill, I Love Violent Video Games, And They’ve Never Made Me Feel Like Killing Anyone
Note: You really have to read this to believe it. I’m sure I’ll sleep well tonight. HT
When it was reported that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the perpetrators of the Columbine High School massacre were big fans of Doom, the original first person shooter in the eyes of many, I dismissed the idea that violent video games could have been responsible for inspiring the event. As a lifelong devotee of video games, I thought that idea was ridiculous.
That was back in 1999 when I was in my early 20s. It was also the year when I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. It’s impossible to pinpoint precisely when the illness began, but mood disorders often kick in with the onset of puberty. My parents sent me to my first therapist when I was 15 years old, so that sounds about right. It also means that I’d coincidentally been suffering from bipolar disorder for about 15 years before I sought treatment.
via I’m Mentally Ill, I Love Violent Video Games, And They’ve Never Made Me Feel Like Killing Anyone.
Peter Schiff Reveals CPI Propaganda By Calculating Real Price Inflation / ETF DAILY NEWS
In a recent newsletter update and video message, Peter Schiff explains how the official price inflation measurement is not reflecting the daily reality. That is because since the 1970′s the preferred government inflation metrics have changed thoroughly. Beginning in the early 1980′s the methodologies were altered to compensate for a variety of consumer behavior. The new “chain weighted CPI” for instance incorporates changes in relative spending, substitution bias, and subjective improvements in product quality. If you simply focus on price, especially on those staple commodity goods and services that haven’t radically changed over the years, the underreporting of inflation becomes more apparent.
Automakers that spend hundreds of millions developing electric and hybrid cars have an unexpected problem: The government says the vehicles are too quiet.
It seems like a strange problem to have until a hybrid running on only electric power glides past while making a turn at an intersection. Because the traditional gasoline or diesel engine is shut off at low speeds there’s virtually no sound to alert a pedestrian to an oncoming vehicle.
That could be fatal to a sight-impaired person stepping off the curb.
The National Highway Traffic Administration proposes minimum sound standards for hybrid and electric vehicles that create noise that can be heard above ambient street noise.
via Auto Outlook: Electric, hybrid cars too quiet, feds say add some noise – UPI.com.
More Americans are becoming preppers, according to a CBS News study. The massive storm in July that left hundreds of thousands without power, and Hurricane Sandy, are credited with adding to the prepper ranks. The divisive battle between gun control vs. gun rights and the potential for civil unrest over the controversial issue is also reportedly sending more folks into gun stores and ordering buckets of food online.
A recent North Carolina Readiness Seminar attracted approximately 2,000 residents eager to learn how they can better protect their families should a man-made or natural disaster strike. As previously reported by The Inquisitr, concerns over a solar flare peak in 2013 also has a plethora of citizens Googling how to build a Faraday Cage.
As with any group or organization, negative stereotypes can emerge. The typical American prepper is not a rural hermit sitting at the ready for a zombie apocalypse. Watching the attractive actors of The Walking Dead run around Georgia fighting for their lives is an enjoyable way to spend an hour on Sunday evening, but really does not accurately depict why Jon and Jane Doe are mindful of how many cans of soup are on their shelves.
via More Americans Are Becoming Preppers, According To New Report [Op-Ed].
The world is on the brink of a fresh “currency war,” Russia warned, as European policy makers joined Japan in bemoaning the economic cost of rising exchange rates. “Japan is weakening the yen and other countries may follow,” Alexei Ulyukayev, first deputy chairman of Russia’s central bank, said at a conference today in Moscow.
The alert from the country that chairs the Group of 20 came as Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker complained of a “dangerously high” euro and officials in Norway and Sweden expressed exchange-rate concern.
The push for weaker currencies is being driven by a need to find new sources of economic growth as monetary and fiscal policies run out of room. The risk is as each country tries to boost exports, it hurts the competitiveness of other economies and provokes retaliation.
Yesterday “will go down as the first day European policy makers fired a shot in the 2013 currency war,” said Chris Turner, head of foreign-exchange strategy at ING Groep NV in London.
via Russia Says World Is Nearing Currency War as Europe Joins – Bloomberg.
As Biofuel Demand Grows, So Do Guatemala’s Hunger Pangs
GUATEMALA CITY — In the tiny tortillerias of this city, people complain ceaselessly about the high price of corn. Just three years ago, one quetzal — about 15 cents — bought eight tortillas; today it buys only four. And eggs have tripled in price because chickens eat corn feed.
Meanwhile, in rural areas, subsistence farmers struggle to find a place to sow their seeds. On a recent morning, José Antonio Alvarado was harvesting his corn crop on the narrow median of Highway 2 as trucks zoomed by.
“We’re farming here because there is no other land, and I have to feed my family,” said Mr. Alvarado, pointing to his sons Alejandro and José, who are 4 and 6 but appear to be much younger, a sign of chronic malnutrition.
Recent laws in the United States and Europe that mandate the increasing use of biofuel in cars have had far-flung ripple effects, economists say, as land once devoted to growing food for humans is now sometimes more profitably used for churning out vehicle fuel.
In a globalized world, the expansion of the biofuels industry has contributed to spikes in food prices and a shortage of land for food-based agriculture in poor corners of Asia, Africa and Latin America because the raw material is grown wherever it is cheapest.
via In Fields and Markets, Guatemalans Feel Squeeze of Biofuel Demand – NYTimes.com.
Two teenage girls have been arrested after allegedly drugging the parents of one of the girls, by putting sleeping pills inside milkshakes, so that they could use the internet after their curfew.
Police said that the 15-year-old girl and her 16-year-old friend offered to collect milkshakes for the younger girl’s parents from a local fast food restaurant.
Officers in Rocklin, California, allege that the drinks were spiked with prescription sleeping pills and that the parents drank about half of them before complaining that they tasted “grainy”, according to the Sacramento Bee newspaper.
The parents are said to have woken the following morning feeling unwell and went to the local police station to ask for a drug testing kit. The parents later reported the incident to officers and the girl’s were arrested.
Lon Milka, a spokesman for the Rocklin Police Department, said that the internet connection in the house was routinely cut off at 10pm.
He said: “The girls wanted to use the internet, and they’d go to whatever means they had to.” He added: “They wanted to use the internet after 10pm and we believe, based on our understanding, that they felt the best method was to drug the parents.” The teens were arrested on charges of conspiracy and wilfully mingling a pharmaceutical with food.
via Teenage girls arrested for drugging parents to use the internet – Telegraph.
ARL News 