BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE
As part of India's modernization program, Prime Minister Narenda Modi has called for doubling the nation’s coal production by 2020. For the villages in the Jharia coalfield, which is frequently shrouded in smoke from underground fires, the government’s plans have only increased the pressures and dangers of living alongside huge, burning open-pit mines.
360 Yale Environment
On Burning Ground: The Human Cost
Of India’s Push to Produce More Coal
“Come,” says Raju. “Let me show you my house.” His clean white shirt, well-brushed hair, and calm demeanor belie the almost apocalyptic landscape in which he and his family lived.
READ MORE
Gallup Poll: The Biggest Threat To World Peace Is America
Researchers for WIN and Gallup International surveyed more than 66,000 people across 65 nations and found that 24% answered that the US “is the greatest threat to peace in the world today.” Pakistan and China fell significantly behind the US, with 8 and 6%. Afghanistan, Iran, Israel and North Korea all tied for fourth place with 4%.
Could Nuclear Disaster Come to America?
On March 11, 2011, following earthquake and tsunami, Fukushima melted down. Radioactive cesium contaminated 12,000 square miles. 12.5 square miles around the plant so poisoned it was declared a permanent “exclusion” zone. (At Chernobyl a 1,000 square mile exclusion zone is still in place.) One hundred and twenty thousand evacuees have still not gone home. Sixteen to twenty-two million bags of contaminated soil and debris will someday be buried in a vast landfill near the plant, but it may take decades to get them there and that’s only the beginning of the problems to come. And let’s not forget that the ocean waters around Fukushima received "the largest single contribution of radionuclides to the marine environment ever observed."
16 US Ships That Aided Japan Still Contaminated With Radiation
Sailors entering spaces deep within the ship, testing for high levels of radiation, and if it was found, sanding, priming and painting the areas. They say there were given little to no protective gear, a claim that the Navy denies
"They cannot run out of the which they create" ?????
The ECB Explains Why Central Banks Can't
Go Bankrupt in a Footnote
This morning the European Central Bank published a research paper titled "Profit distribution and loss coverage rules for central banks."
The paper dryly outlines how central banks account for profits and losses, and how those profits and losses are distributed to the shareholders of those central banks—usually the state in which they are based.
The paper is useful though, for one very important point it makes. As the ECB engages on its expanded €80 billion per month asset purchase program, questions will arise over what would happen should the central bank make a loss on those purchases.
In talking about profitability of a central bank the ECB says in its paper that it is not necessary for a central bank to make money, as this is not a useful measure of the efficacy of the bank. While noting that profitability may be useful for a central bank's credibility, the paper makes the critical point that losses made by a central bank do not lead to the bank needing to be recapitalized, or the bank becoming insolvent.
Go Bankrupt in a Footnote
This morning the European Central Bank published a research paper titled "Profit distribution and loss coverage rules for central banks."
