（澳洲‧堪培拉29日訊）澳洲沿岸城市出現男少女多，悉尼及墨爾本等大城市鬧“男人荒”，許多達適婚年齡的剩女在城市找不到對象，紛紛參加婚姻介紹所舉辦的週末郊遊團，到鄉下尋覓佳偶。
這種週末旅行團名為“謝天謝地 他是農村男”，行程包括在農村酒吧進行8小時密集式極速約會。
主辦人彼得森說，從昆士蘭一間農村酒吧東主處得悉，布里斯班和悉尼的不少單身女性來信表示希望結識當地農夫。
彼得森遂得到靈感，舉辦相親旅行團：“這些女士明顯需要幫助，把兩組人放到同一地方，就是這麼簡單。”
首團配對成功率85%
首個旅行團便帶了50名悉尼女子到小鎮塔姆沃思相親，配對成功率達85%。
彼得森說，會為墨爾本、布里斯班及珀斯等地的女子舉辦更多旅行團。
參加者稱，質素比數量更重要，認為農村男更有紳士風度，對女性更細心，這些才是吸引人之處。
人口統計學家索爾特分析，速配郊遊團如此成功，皆因自1960年代開始，鄉郊年輕女性不再安於 畢業後就嫁人，紛紛跑到城市找工作，“農夫很想找妻子，因為附近的鄉鎮都找不到單身女子。當18歲少女們離開，令鄉鎮性別失衡，因為那裡不夠妙齡女性，她 們也令悉尼性別失衡，因為太多女人入城”。
（德國‧柏林29日訊）毒黃瓜狂襲歐洲！至今已有約千人因食用毒黃瓜而感染“腸出血性大腸桿菌”（EHEC），其中，德國死亡人數已增加至10人，但疫情尚未達高峰，釀成德國史上最大規模、也是全球最嚴重的大腸桿菌疫情之一。
初步調查顯示，病源可能來自西班牙南部生產的沙拉用黃瓜，誤食者會引發致命性的溶血性尿毒綜合症（HUS）。
告誡遊德西勿吃沙拉
各國紛紛告誡國人赴德國與西班牙旅行時，要避免生吃當地黃瓜、生菜和番茄等蔬菜，俄羅斯甚至考慮禁止進口德國蔬菜。
這波疫情來勢洶洶，德國衛生官員上週六宣佈，又有4人疑似食用遭感染致命出血性大腸桿菌污染的黃瓜後，出現溶血性尿毒症而死亡，累積死亡人數已達10人，其中2人為確診病例。
感染10天後才出現病症
德國當局警告，疫情爆發高峰期還未到，因為部份患者感染腸出血性大腸桿菌後，可能在10天左右才出現病症，提醒大家要提高警覺。
目前，德國已出現至少800宗確診和疑似病例，疫情已擴散至全國16州，無一倖免。
此外，疫情也蔓延至歐洲多國，包括法國、丹麥、荷蘭、奧地利、瑞典、瑞士、蘇格蘭與英國，均傳出疑似病例，過去1週有約300人出現病徵，正在接受治療；其中部份患者近期曾到過德國。
專家擔心全球大爆發
主管歐洲疾病防治與控制事務的官員達利警告，這次的疫情爆發是溶血性尿毒綜合征在全球各地傳出疫情以來最嚴重的一次，也是重創德國最大的一次。
漢堡一家診所指出，他們推出了以抗生素遏制腎衰竭的新療法，但需要數周時間才能知道這種療法是否有效。
世界衛生組織（WHO）表示，這次疫情不尋常，自德國3周前錄得首宗個案以來，發展非常迅速。
流行病專家擔心，這代表“一場可稱為溶血性尿毒綜合合症／志賀氏毒素大腸桿菌在全球大爆發”。
（喬普林29日美聯電）美國密蘇里州喬普林龍捲風災死亡人數持續增加，讓期盼奇蹟降臨的親屬希望破滅，迄今至少有139人遇難，逾100人失蹤，連同其他州份的龍捲風風災死亡人數，美國今年以來已有至少520人死於龍捲風風災，是1950年以來，最多人死於龍捲風的一年。
中西部近日遭受有史以來最強烈的龍捲風為害，特別是密蘇里州的喬普林鎮，當地政府此前稱死亡人數達142人，隨後又下修至139人，但沒有說明原因。
有官員透露，停屍間現有142具屍體，但部份人體殘肢可能來自同一名死者。
最新一名證實遇害的民眾，是一位剛參加完高中畢業典禮的18歲少年諾頓，他在駕車返家途中被龍捲風捲出車外失蹤，遺體最終在附近的池塘被發現，讓許多期待好消息的民眾深感惋惜。
奧巴馬將視察災區
在他失蹤期間，各大社交網站紛紛刊出尋人啟事，豈料最後只等到惡耗。
總統奧巴馬計劃在稍後前往災區視察及慰問災民，並出席哀悼會。
截至目前，歷來死亡紀錄最高的一年是1953年的519人，在此之前曾有更致命的龍捲風災，但數據沒有經過準確統計。
Typhoon Songda, the storm last week forecast to pass over Japan’s stricken nuclear plant, weakened to an "extratropical cyclone" after its forecast trajectory earlier moved south of Fukushima prefecture.
The storm was moving at a speed of 55 kilometers per hour (34 miles per hour) at 3:50 p.m. local time, the Japan Meteorological Agency said on its website. The eye of the storm was about 80 kilometers south-southwest of Murotomisaki, part of Japan’s Shikoku island west of Tokyo, and moving northeast at 65 kilometers an hour at 2:40 p.m., the agency said.
The U.S. Navy Joint Typhoon Warning Center’s forecast graphic last week projected the possibility that the storm may pass over the plant, which spewed radiation after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami knocked out cooling systems and left three of six reactor buildings with no roofs after explosions. Tokyo Electric Power Co., operator of the plant, said last week it was still considering typhoon measures and that it couldn’t announce detailed plans.
Takeo Iwamoto, a spokesman for the utility known as Tepco, said it plans to complete the installation of covers for the buildings by October.
Songda, which strengthened to a supertyphoon after battering the Philippines, weakened to a Category 3 storm from Category 5 as it passed Taiwan on May 28. The typhoon’s path also shifted south compared with the earlier projections, lowering the risk of heavy rain or winds affecting the nuclear plant.
Japan is regularly buffeted by typhoons and tropical storms during the northwestern Pacific cyclone season. In 2004, eight cyclones passed over or skirted the country’s Tohoku region, where the Fukushima station is located, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency. The earliest was in May that year. The eyes of two storms passed within 300 kilometers of Tohoku last year, the agency’s data show.
Songda, the name of a branch of the Red River in Vietnam, is the fourth storm to form over northwest Pacific this year. The storm lashed the Philippines as it passed the eastern seaboard, leaving one person dead, according to the country’s disaster council. Songda prompted evacuations of coastal areas and caused flooding that jammed traffic and stranded travelers.
Damage to crops was “very minimal” as most had been harvested before the storm passed, Philippine Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala told reporters March 27.
The U.S. Navy Joint Typhoon Warning Center classifies storms as supertyphoons when their maximum sustain winds reach at least 150 miles per hour, according to the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory.
To contact the reporters on this story: Masumi Suga in Tokyo at
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Paul Tighe at ptighe@bloomberg.net
We're at a funny place. The American establishment has finally come around, in unison, to admitting that America is in crisis, that our debt actually threatens our ability to endure, that if we don't make progress on this, we are going to near our endpoint as a nation. I am struck very recently by the number of leaders in American business, politics and journalism who now get a certain faraway look at the end of an evening or a meal and say, "It's worse than people think, you know." The debt crisis in Europe is not easing but worsening, the ...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304520804576347743251994196.html
Anyone aware of the US Government's real financial situation knows that time is running out. The Government has $15.5 trillion in admitted debts but those debts, when calculated under Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), or 'honest accounting', is over $70 trillion. $70 trillion divided by 300 million+ Americans works out to $233,000 per person in US Federal Government debt and obligations. Or nearly $1 million per family of four.
That does not included personal debt, state debt or municipal debt.
This debt plus an economy that has been completely hollowed out by the Federal Reserve system ensures that there is no way the US Government can ever pay off this debt. And, everyone knows it.
The indications that the US Government is moving very quickly to enact any legal measure or fine against Americans and to make it nearly impossible for any American to escape payment to pay for their sins are everywhere.
We recently commented on how It Is now Easier to Enter the US Than It Is To Leave. Customs agents and cash sniffing dogs stand on guard at most international US airports checking to make sure no one has more than $10,000 in cash without declaring it. The standard response to this is: "They are only making it difficult for criminals to move about and to transfer money".
Well, the problem is, the US Government is moving very quickly to make it so almost everyone is seen as a criminal in the eyes of the US legal system.
Now We Are All Criminals
It is already said that there are so many laws, rules and regulations in the US that each person in the US breaks at least one law per day, if not much more - without even knowing it. But the US Government is becoming more obvious in how it will go about making everyone a criminal and fining them ridiculous amounts of money in doing so.
This week, an American family who said they were just trying to teach their son about responsibility and entrepreneurship was fined $90,000 by the USDA because the teenager sold $4,600 worth of bunnies in one calendar year without a license. Not only were they demanded to pay $90,000, but if they did not pay within a short period of time the fine could increase to as high as $4 million.
This one case only goes to show how easy it is, within the system, to take any small transgression and to blackmail someone for, for all intents and purposes, every penny they have - or more.
Students to be Forced into the Military to Repay Debts
We also recently commented on how the US college system draws people into large debts (Debtucation) and how student debt is now larger than credit card debt in the US. It is the US Government itself that has made college education so expensive by offering student loans to anyone who can fog a mirror but again they have shown their intentions by making student loan debt the only debt which can not be forgiven. A 2005 decree from the Bush Administration stated that student loan debt could not be dissolved through bankruptcy proceedings. The only other scenario where this “no-escape” clause exists is debt from criminal acts and debt from fraud. In other words, student loan debt is seen, by the US Government, as being similar to proceeds from crime!
What will this mean with more young Americans in student loan debt than any other time? It's anyones guess but it would not be out of the realm of possibility to force students who can not pay off their debt into the military to repay their debt.
And with the US military with 800 military bases worldwide with US military personnel in 156 countries and US Military bases in 63 countries and currently occupying or attacking Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and with other drone operations in places like Yemen and Pakistan, the US is all but ensuring that it is screwing around in enough places to eventually draw in one of the big boys. Russia, China or Iran.
And, hey, we Gotta Support the Troops, right?
US Government Eyeing Pensions and Retirement Funds
On the other end of the spectrum, seniors and those in retirement, the US Government recently made it very obvious that funds held in retirement accounts are going to be the first to be taken when times get tough.
In the recent scuffle over raising the debt ceiling, the US Government was short of some funds after reaching the United States' $14.3 trillion debt ceiling last Monday. Where was the very first place the US Government went to find new sources of funds? Last week they dipped into state pension funds in order to make payments.
It is no great leap to think that as things worsen in the US Government's financial situation, which is all but guaranteed, that the first thing that will be nationalized will be all tax sheltered retirement accounts. After all, we all have to do our part to pay for the debts of the Government, right?
Anyone living off of US pensions should be very worried. And anyone with significant funds in retirement accounts should be running, not walking, to get any funds they can outside of the direct control of the US Government. We recommend looking at "Unleash Your IRA", a great program for diversifying your IRA internationally.
Get a 2nd Passport
There are two ways to look at the upcoming battle between the US Government and US citizens. You can stay and fight or you can run and hide.
If you plan to stay and fight we wish you good luck and will try to support your efforts in any way we can.
If you would rather run and hide then one of the first things you should be looking to do at this time is to at least get a second passport. This is still legal for Americans and there are many options. We discuss many of them, regularly in our newsletter.
As well, if you have the financial capability, we highly recommend buying some foreign real estate - preferably somewhere you like to live. Our favorite place, at the moment, is La Estancia de Cafayate in Argentina (email them for more information at tdv@lec.com.ar).
2011 Last Year to Get Out
Most things are still legal in the US. It is still legal to have foreign bank accounts - although you are required by law to report them to the Government. It is still legal to get a second passport. It is still legal to move assets in your IRA outside of the country. It is still legal to move money outside of the country and buy foreign real estate.
The window of opportunity is closing. If you live in the US and still have all your assets inside of the US, you likely have months, not years, to internationally diversify your assets and to get your affairs in order. Anything much after 2011 is taking a big risk of losing it all.
The Government Can
After all, we, as individuals have to live within our means and it is considered a crime if we forcibly take money from others to pay for our debts. The Government, on the other hand? The Government Can.
GARDEN GROVE, Calif. – The Southern California megachurch founded by one of the nation's pioneering televangelists, the Rev. Robert H. Schuller, on Friday filed a bankruptcy plan that would pull the Crystal Cathedral out of crushing debt by selling its sprawling campus and famous, glass-spired sanctuary to a local real estate investment group for $47 million.
The church would lease back most of its core buildings under the plan, which must be approved by a bankruptcy judge, so worshippers and visitors won't notice any changes in services or outreach. The church's popular, decades-old televangelist program "Hour of Power" broadcasts would also continue, the church said.
The plan would allow the ministry to lease the church buildings back for a guaranteed 15-year period, with the additional option of buying the core campus back at a fixed price within four years, said Marc Winthrop, the church's bankruptcy attorney.
The deal would erase the cathedral's $36 million mortgage and wipe out almost all of the $10 million in unsecured debt — including $7.5 million owed to vendors — that has plagued the Crystal Cathedral for several years after a disastrous leadership transition and a devastating slump in donations.
The ministry must be out of the Family Life Center, which houses administrative offices and a private school, within two years, the attorney said.
"The ministry is going to continue in the same place, in the same buildings," said Winthrop said. "It's just that we had to go through a financing transition to get rid of the debt."
A court hearing is set for July 13.
The plan specifies that the ministry will sell the property to the Orange County-based real estate investment firm Greenlaw Partners LLC, according to disclosures filed with the bankruptcy court. The property will be divided into up to five parcels and multi-family housing will be built on two parcels, with a parking lot on a third parcel.
The buyer has agreed to pay $46 million with an additional $900,000 set aside in escrow, according to court papers.
The charismatic Schuller got his start in Southern California preaching about the "power of positive thinking" from the roof of a concession stand at a drive-in theater as the car culture began to boom in the post-World War II era. He was considered a theological radical at the time, but people were soon driving from all over the Los Angeles area to sit in their cars and listen to Schuller preach through the movie loudspeakers that hooked to their windows.
Schuller, now 84, soon turned his humble pulpit into one of the nation's first megachurches, beaming his weekly Sunday service into 1 million homes worldwide through the "Hour of Power" TV show, which went on the air in 1970. Schuller became a familiar presence on television, a smiling figure in flowing robes, with snowy white hair and wire-rimmed aviator glasses.
In 1980, he opened the Crystal Cathedral, a 2,900-seat see-through church made of 10,664 panes of glass. A $20 million architectural marvel designed by the acclaimed Philip Johnson, it became a major Southern California landmark and a tourist attraction that drew people from all over the world. Schuller soon added a K-12 school and a tourist center.
But his religious empire began to collapse after a disastrous attempt in 2006 to hand over the leadership to his son, Robert A. Schuller.
The much-heralded changeover alienated older "Hour of Power" viewers and ended in a bitter and very public family spat, with the younger Schuller disappearing from the broadcasts and abruptly leaving the church altogether in 2008, less than three years after he assumed his father's mantle. The elder Schuller's daughter, Sheila Schuller Coleman, was eventually named senior pastor, a position she continues to hold.
A plummeting economy also took its toll, and viewer donations declined by as much as 24 percent in 2009, the year before the church declared bankruptcy. Its local congregation now stands at fewer than 5,000 people, although new Spanish-language and Arabic-language services draw about 2,000 and 400 worshippers respectively.
The church laid off 250 of its roughly 450 employees, sold its beloved retreat center, cut salaries and canceled contracts with more than 100 TV stations nationwide. It also canceled its world-famous Christmas and Easter pageants and racked up unpaid bills to 550 creditors, including vendors who provided live animals, costumes and other props and services for the epic holiday shows.
A week after declaring bankruptcy, the elder Schuller went on the "Hour of Power" with an emotional plea to viewers to donate more to help his ministry survive.
"If you are a tither, become a double-tither. If you are not a tither, become a tither," he said at the time. "This ministry has earned your trust. This ministry has earned your help."
Schuller Coleman said in a statement posted on the church's website that the church had picked this restructuring plan from among several because it allowed vendors to be repaid immediately and put the church on solid financial footing to pursue a new vision, including global outreach to the poor.
"We need to rise up and be the hands of Christ to help a hurting world one neighborhood at a time. Reaching future generations with the positive message of Jesus Christ requires an outreach of love," she said in the statement. "I'm excited about what God is doing now and will be doing in the future through the Crystal Cathedral
On Friday, worshippers and tourists at the church's Garden Grove campus said they were cautiously optimistic and continued to support the cathedral and its new vision.
"It sounds to me like it's a good thing," said Mike Amaneck, who has attended church at the cathedral every Sunday for 13 years. "It's a wonderful positive place and I was really inspired by the news ... because it's better for the church to go through this to be in a position where they'll come out stronger — and they will come out stronger, there's no doubt about it.
As Amaneck spoke, tourists from as far away as Germany wandered the 40-acre grounds in the sunshine, snapping pictures and lingering outside the sanctuary, where a private funeral was being held.
"I think the news today is an opportunity of hope," said Amaneck's wife, Sarah. "There are times in life when things look kind of dark and gloomy, but God will have the last word."
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| Gulf of Mexico 'dead zone' - NASA Image |
FEDERAL WAY, Wash. - Dan Eisenman loved his cat, Lucy. He and his wife don't have children, so she was it. When she died last July it was devastating.
They want to move on, but say the Federal Way Police Department is making it more difficult.
Dan says he received a notice of delinquency last year after Lucy's death. It was from the Federal Way Police Department, advising him he needed to license his pet.
He says he called the department twice to let them know she died. Yet, just recently he received another letter. "Final Warning Notice" is at the top of it. The letter saying his home could be searched and if evidence of a pet is found he would face a $100 fine.
"When somebody rubs salt in the wound by enforcing licensing for your deceased pet, it's not something you want to go through every single day," said Eisenman.
Eisenman says he understands the need for licensing but the department needs to keep better records and be more understanding about their loss.
"You never completely put a pet of 15 years or anyone you care about behind you,” he said.
The commander in charge of this is out of town for the weekend, so we were unable to get a response. A spokesperson said they hope this is an isolated incident.
This sounds like wishful thinking to us. Blankfein will do everything in his power to stay on as CEO, including but not limited to bake sales for Obama 2012, community service in the Hamptons, and a series of public PSAs discussing the Rapture, Harold Camping and doing God's work on Wall Street.
Full story plus Gasparino video inside.
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Gasparino reveals Blankfein to be offered up by Goldman Board...
Snip:
Wall Street executives and senior people inside Goldman Sachs say Lloyd Blankfein may want to hang on as CEO of the big Wall Street firm, but the final decision will not be his to make. Rather, his fate rests in the hands of the U.S. Justice Department, which is probing statements he made before a Senate committee investigating Goldman’s role in the 2008 financial crisis, FOX Business has learned.
If a probe by the DOJ into Goldman’s conduct ahead of the financial crisis is expedited and the focus turns to Blankfein’s actions, the thinking goes, Goldman’s board of directors will likely offer Blankfein up as a sacrifice in exchange for leniency.
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Video - Gasparino on Blankfein - May 13, 2011
Lloyd is on thin ice says Charlie.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday Bloomberg's Jonathan Weil detailed the impropriety of various members of Goldman's board including Stephen Friedman.
(Reuters) - The United Nations warned on Wednesday of a possible crisis of confidence in, and even a "collapse" of, the U.S. dollar if its value against other currencies continued to decline.
In a mid-year review of the world economy, the U.N. economic division said such a development, stemming from the falling value of foreign dollar holdings, would imperil the global financial system.
The report, an update of the U.N. "World Economic Situation and Prospects 2011" report first issued in December, noted that the dollar exchange rate against a basket of other key currencies had reached its lowest level since the 1970s.
This trend, it said, had recently been driven in part by interest rate differentials between the United States and other major economies and growing concern about the sustainability of the U.S. public debt, half of which is held by foreigners.
"As a result, further (expected) losses of the book value of the vast foreign reserve holdings could trigger a crisis of confidence in the reserve currency, which would put the entire global financial system at risk," it said.
The 17-page report referred at another point to the "still looming risk of a collapse of the United States dollar."
Rob Vos, a senior U.N. economist involved with the report, said if emerging markets "massively start selling off dollars, then you can have this risk of a slide in the dollar.
"We're not saying the collapse is imminent, but the factors are further building up that we could quickly come to that stage if other things are not improving quickly on other fronts -- like the risk of the U.S. not being able to service its obligations," he told Reuters.
U.N. economists have for some time queried whether the dollar should continue to be the world's sole reserve currency. Others have also expressed concerns about U.S. finances.
Standard & Poor's threatened on April 18 to downgrade the United States' prized AAA credit rating unless the Obama administration and Congress found a way to slash the yawning federal budget deficit within two years.
A downgrade would erode the status of the United States as the world's most powerful economy and the dollar's role as the dominant global currency.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Wednesday the U.S. government would "never default on its obligations."
ASSET BUBBLES
Assessing the broader global economy, the U.N. report said recovery from the 2008 financial crisis continued to be led by China, India and Brazil, but that their growth outlook was moderating due to fears of inflation and domestic asset price bubbles.
It took a slightly more optimistic view of world growth prospects than it did six months ago, forecasting 3.3 percent expansion this year and 3.6 percent in 2012, compared with 3.1 percent and 3.5 percent respectively.
The United Nations uses a different exchange rate calculation than the International Monetary Fund and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, making its global growth figures slightly lower.
It boosted its forecast for U.S. gross domestic product growth this year from 2.2 percent to 2.6 percent but kept next year's estimate steady at 2.8 percent.
The report cut Japan's growth outlook this year by more than a third to 0.7 percent following March's catastrophic earthquake, tsunami and nuclear plant crisis. It put damage to buildings and infrastructure at about 25 trillion yen ($305 billion) or 5 percent of GDP.
Despite a recent surge in oil prices, it predicted that barring major disruptions from political unrest in the Middle East, they would level off at an average $99 a barrel this year -- close to the price of U.S. crude on Wednesday -- and fall to an average of $90 next year.
"Supply and demand conditions do not warrant a continued upward trend," it said.
Food prices have also been soaring but the report said better harvests were expected to moderate them in the second half of this year.
(Editing by Dan Grebler)
