Infinite Unknown

WASHINGTON—Studies indicate that credit card defaults and related write-offs increased drastically since 2006. Today, lenders write off 33 percent more in credit card debt than they did two years ago.

Statistics show that about 35 percent of all credit card holders are already exhibiting signs of possible default. Late credit card payments result in fees many consumers can’t afford.

Credit card debt accelerated to unprecedented heights since bank loans began to dry up due to mortgage defaults. Total U.S. credit card debt reached almost $800 billion in November 2007, up from around $680 billion in March of last year, according to the latest available government statistics.

In the aftermath of the U.S. mortgage crisis, the credit card bubble may be next to burst. In the past few years, banks have aggressively marketed credit card ownership and usage to consumers with limited income and low credit scores. Credit card standards remain lax, while loan standards have tightened to a degree. Continue reading »

Tags: Credit Card, Credit Crisis, crisis, Debt, default, Fed, Mortgages, U.S.

The former Air Force Office of Special Investigations agent maintains he found Saddam’s WMD bunkers, but that the U.S. military declined to follow up. His repeated allegations were picked up by a number of media outlets– and attracted the attention of prominent Congressmen, like then-Sen. Rick Santorum, then-Rep. Curt Weldon, and Rep. Peter Hoekstra. There hasn’t been any confirmation, however.

Lately, Gaubatz has been pushing another eye-opening assertion. Earlier this month, Gaubatz claimed that the Active Denial System, the military’s allegedly-nonlethal “heat ray,” is really a killer weapon, after all. It’s an allegation that, if true, would mean the entire public face of the program is a cover up of sorts. Gaubatz says he saw first hand the military testing the ray gun on… goats.

DANGER ROOM caught up with Gaubatz recently to quiz him a bit about his claims: Continue reading »

Tags: Air Force, animals, Dave Gaubatz, Iraq, Ray Guns, U.S., weapon, WMDs

A village in south-west England will shortly be swarming with robots competing to show off their surveillance skills.

The event is the UK Ministry of Defence’s (MoD) answer to the US DARPA Grand Challenge that set robotic cars against one another to encourage advances in autonomous vehicles.

Enlarge image
This village, built for urban warfare training during the Cold War, will host teams of ground-based and aerial robots hunting for snipers, bombs, and other threats (Image: MoD)

The MoD Grand Challenge is instead designed to boost development of teams of small robots able to scout out hidden dangers in hostile urban areas.

Over 10 days in August, 11 teams of robots will compete to locate and identify four different threats hidden around a mock East German village used for urban warfare training, at Copehill Down, Wiltshire (see image, top right).

The robots must find snipers, armed vehicles, armed foot soldiers, and improvised explosive devices hidden around the village, and relay a real-time picture of what is happening back to a command post. Continue reading »

Tags: DARPA, Explosives, Ministry of Defence, Robots, Silicon Valley, snipers, Soldiers, Surveillance, UAVs, UGVs

Big New Shock at the Pump Forecast by Two Analysts

Get ready for another economic shock of major proportions — a virtual doubling of prices at the gas pump to as much as $10 a gallon.

That’s the message from a couple of analytical energy industry trackers, both of whom, based on the surging oil prices, see considerably more pain at the pump than most drivers realize.

Gasoline nationally is in an accelerated upswing, having jumped to $3.58 a gallon from $3.50 in just the past week. In some parts of the country, including New York City and the West Coast, gas is already sporting a price tag above $4 a gallon. There was a pray-in at a Chevron station in San Francisco on Friday led by a minister asking God for cheaper gas, and an Arco gas station in San Mateo, Calif., has already raised its price to a sky-high $4.62. Continue reading »

Tags: Canada, Commodities, Economy, Europe, Mexico, Middle East, Nigeria, Oil, OPEC, U.S.

PALO ALTO, Calif. – Rationing of rice by retail stores has spread as far as Israel since The New York Sun reported on the phenomenon in Northern California last week.

The Blue Square and Supersol supermarket chains have begun limiting purchases of rice, Israeli newspapers said yesterday. Supersol is restricting each customer to “three bags per type of grain product,” the Jerusalem Post reported.

Meanwhile, Asian grocery stores seem to be joining their larger wholesale-style competitors in curbing purchases. A supermarket chain which caters to Chinese Americans, 99 Ranch, is imposing two-bag-per-customer limits on most of its 20-pound and 50-pound sacks of rice, according to signs at its store in Cupertino, Calif. That store and others in the chain were selling rice without limitation a week ago. Continue reading »

Tags: Grain, India, Israel, rationing, rice, U.S., Vietnam

FEMA announced recently that they will be conducting a national disaster exercise called National Level Exercise 2-08 (NLE 2-08) from May 1st through May 8th. The purpose of this exercise is to prepare and respond to multiple incidents including natural disasters and terrorist incidents. Specifically the exercise involves a Category 4 hurricane impacting the Mid Atlantic Coast and the National Capitol Region as well as multiple terrorist attacks in Washington State, an accidental chemical agent release in Oregon and assorted aerospace events in North American airspace. Considering that the U.S. government conducted drills and exercises like Operation Northern Vigilance, Tripod II, among others to serve as cover for the government sponsored false flag terror attacks of 9/11, we need to pay close attention to these government sponsored drills and exercises. A similar scenario also occurred during the 7/7 terror attacks in London. On that day, drills depicting events mirroring the actual terror attacks were run at the exact same time the bombings took place. The odds of these being two completely random events is so incredibly unlikely that it boggles the mind. NLE 2-08 is a wide ranging exercise that will include not only FEMA but the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Transportation Command, the National Guard, USNORTHCOM, NORAD and Canada Command. Much like TOPOFF-4/Vigilant Shield 08 a martial law exercise that took place last year involving many of the same government institutions, we definitely need to keep track of NLE 2-08.

Below is taken from FEMA’s press release on this upcoming drill. Continue reading »

Tags: Al-Qaeda, Canada Command, CIA, FEMA, Homeland Security, Iran, Martial Law, National Guard, NORAD, Terrorism, Terrorist Attack, Terrorists, U.S., USNORTHCOM

A top Russian official is arriving in Tehran on Sunday to discuss security, topical international and regional issues, the Supreme National Security Council of Iran said on Sunday.

Valentin Sobolev, acting secretary of Russia’s National Security Council, will hold talks with his Iranian counterpart, Saeed Jalili, and other Iranian officials.

Sobolev will be paying a return visit to Tehran following a visit by Jalili to Moscow in December 2007, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said.

Source: Ria Novosti

Tags: Iran, Moscow, National Security Council, Russia, Saeed Jalili, Tehran, Valentin Sobolev

The FNI militia is accused of carrying out massacres of villagers in DR Congo

The UN has covered up claims that its troops in Democratic Republic of Congo gave arms to militias and smuggled gold and ivory, the BBC has learned.

The allegations, based on confidential UN sources, involve Pakistani and Indian troops working as peacekeepers.

The UN investigated some of the claims in 2007, but said it could not substantiate claims of arms dealing.

UN insiders told the BBC’s Panorama they had been prevented from pursuing their inquiries for political reasons.

Gold and ivory

The United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Monuc) is the global body’s largest, with 17,000 troops spread across the country.

It’s true they did, give us arms. They said it was for the security of the country ‘Kung-fu’ FNI leader Meeting Kung Fu and Dragon Spotlight on India and Pakistan DR Congo: Key Facts

The BBC’s Martin Plaut, who returned to DR Congo to follow up his initial investigation into the allegations, says they have managed to bring a measure of stability since they were first established by the UN in February 2000.

They have also helped disarm the warring factions, run democratic elections and assisted with reconstruction.

But an 18-month BBC investigation for Panorama has found evidence that:

- Pakistani peacekeepers in the eastern town of Mongbwalu were involved in the illegal trade in gold with the FNI militia, providing them with weapons to guard the perimeter of the mines

- Indian peacekeepers operating around the town of Goma had direct dealings with the militia responsible for the Rwandan genocide, now living in eastern DR Congo

- The Indians traded gold, bought drugs from the militias and flew a UN helicopter into the Virunga National Park, where they exchanged ammunition for ivory

The UN looked into the allegations concerning the Pakistani troops in 2007.

It concluded that one officer had been responsible for dealing in gold – allowing traders to use UN aircraft to fly into the town, putting them up at the UN base and taking them around the town.

But the UN decided that “in the absence of corroborative evidence” its investigators “could not substantiate the allegation” that Pakistani peacekeepers supplied weapons or ammunition to the militia.

It did, however, identify “an individual who seemed to have facilitated gold smuggling”. Continue reading »

Tags: BBC, Democratic Republic of Congo, Drugs, Human Rights Watch, ivory, Kofi Annan, old, U.N., U.N. peacekeepers

Says diminishing farmland will lead to food riots, despite being behind corn-based ethanol push

“There are a lot of different problems being caused by an ever-increasing number of people in a finite-sized world,” Turner told CNBC’s Bob Pisani. “The resources of the planet just can’t keep up with the demand and I’m afraid this going to be more commonplace. I’m afraid we’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg. It’s very complicated I do want to say.”

Watch the video.

“We’ve had warnings for a number of years,” Turner said. “Grain stocks have been dropping every year for the last 10 years or pretty close to that – the reserves. And, the environment in so many different areas is being – the pressure being put on it by the ever-increasing number of people and the number of people using more stuff and more energy – that’s what ‘s leading to global climate change and the over-fishing of the oceans,” he added. Continue reading »

Tags: cannibalism, Food Crisis, Food Prices, Food Riots, Global Warming, Malaria, Ted Turner, U.N., WTO

ALGIERS (Reuters) – OPEC President Chakib Khelil does not rule out oil prices reaching $200 a barrel, even though supply is adequate, because the market is driven by the dollar’s slide, Algerian government newspaper El Moudjahid reported on Monday.

“Questioned about a possible rise which would go to $200, the minister did not rule out this eventuality, explaining that this rise is indexed from now on to the fall in the dollar or to the rise in the dollar,” El Moudjahid reported.

“In terms of fundamentals, stocks are high, demand is easing, supply is satisfactory. Therefore normally, without geo-political problems and the fall of the dollar, the prices of oil would not be at this level,” he was quoted as saying.

Khelil, a former World Bank official, is also Algeria’s Minister of Energy and Mines.

He added: “The prices are high due to the fact of the recession in the United States and the economic crisis which has touched several countries, a situation which has an effect on the devaluation of the dollar, and therefore each time the dollar falls one percent, the price of the barrel rises by $4, and of course vice versa,” he was quoted as saying in brief remarks to journalists on Sunday.

He added that: “If this (the dollar) strengthens by 10 percent, it is probable that (oil) prices will fall by 40 percent.”

If the U.S. economic situation improved from now to the end of the year “that would help the market to stabilize.”

“But I don’t think that an increase in production would help lower prices, because there is a balance between supply and demand and the stocks of gasoline in the United States have recorded a surplus and are at their highest level for five years.”

The independent El Watan newspaper reported Khelil as saying that if the dollar’s value on currency markets stayed as it was at present, then oil prices would be expected to remain at between $80 and $110 a barrel.

(Reporting by William Maclean; editing by James Jukwey)

Mon Apr 28, 2008 5:59am EDT

Source: Reuters

Tags: Dollar, Oil, Oil Prices, OPEC, U.S., World Bank