UK - The ban on GM crops by European countries should be reassessed, the president of UK science body the Royal Society says. Professor Venki Ramakrishnan said the science of genetic modification had been misunderstood by the public and it was time to set the record straight. He said it was inappropriate to ban an "entire technology" and products should be assessed on a case-by-case basis. But opponents say GM crop technology is untested and the ban should remain.
UK - Urging people to follow low-fat diets and to lower their cholesterol is having “disastrous health consequences”, a health charity has warned. In a damning report that accuses major public health bodies of colluding with the food industry, the National Obesity Forum and the Public Health Collaboration call for a “major overhaul” of current dietary guidelines.
USA - In 2007, more than a dozen of the world’s largest banks colluded to deliberately depress the rate at which they paid out on investments. This rate is known as the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR), which is the average of interest rates estimated by each of the leading banks in London that it would be charged were it to borrow from other banks.
GERMANY - The domestic political disquiet over the refugees since the March 13 state elections in Germany has not subsided. On the contrary, the debate about German identity and the chancellor’s governance has grown more intense.
USA - On June 4, 1963, a virtually unknown Presidential decree, Executive Order 11110, was signed with the authority to basically strip the Federal Reserve Bank of its power to loan money to the United States Federal Government at interest. With the stroke of a pen, President Kennedy declared that the privately owned Federal Reserve Bank would soon be out of business.
EUROPE - Over recent weeks I have traversed the country debating whether the UK should leave the EU. I have been struck by the way that most speakers for Remain readily acknowledge that the euro is a disaster yet still argue that we should stay in the EU. Apparently, they regard these two as unrelated, or at least as separable.
USA - Trevor Timm of the Electronic Freedom Frontier dug up a very interesting nugget. It was embedded in the heralded December 2013 White House task force report on spying and snooping. Under Recommendations, #31, section 2, he found this: “Governments should not use their offensive cyber capabilities to change the amounts held in financial accounts or otherwise manipulate financial systems.”
EUROPE - Eurozone finance ministers have struck a deal with Greece and the International Monetary Fund to release over €10 billion in emergency bailout payments, much of which Athens will send straight back to its creditors to avert default in the summer. Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem confirmed that an agreement has been reached to green light €10.3 billion ($11.5 billion) in bailout loans to Greece. The bailout cash will be released in tranches, with over €7.5 billion ($8.4 billion) to be allocated in June, and another payment expected sometime in the fall. Meanwhile Slovakia's Finance Minister Peter Kažimír said that the new tranche will provide Greece with enough “breathing space until October.”
USA - Have you noticed that our planet has begun to shake, rattle and roll? Over the past few days we have seen major volcanic eruptions in Costa Rica and Indonesia, and according to Volcano Discovery 40 volcanoes around the planet are erupting right now as you read this article.
ISRAEL - A year and a half ago he was a fringe Temple Mount activist expected to die, the victim of a point-blank assassination attempt. This week he will enter the Knesset, the ruling Likud party’s replacement legislator for outgoing Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon.
VATICAN - When Pope Francis met with Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb on Monday, he told him that “our meeting is the message”. So precisely what kind of “message” was Pope Francis attempting to convey?
USA - The Pope says that ISIS’ conquest of the Middle East is just like Jesus sending out his disciples. I must have missed that bible chapter where Jesus’ disciples behead people, force them into sex slavery and make them pay a tax on pain of death if they refuse to convert. When will the Pope actually behave like a Christian by defending Christianity instead of constantly undermining it?
IRAN - If supreme leader gives order, Revolutionary Guards ‘will raze the Zionist regime’ quickly, says senior adviser of elite al-Quds unit. Ahmad Karimpour, a senior adviser to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ elite unit al-Quds Force, said if Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei gave the order to destroy Israel, the Iranian military had the capacity to do so quickly.
MIDDLE EAST - An Islamic State group spokesman has urged sympathizers in Europe and the US to launch attacks on civilians there if they are unable to travel to the group's self-declared caliphate in Syria and Iraq. In a 31-minute audio message released late Saturday by the IS media arm al-Furqan, Abu Mohammed al-Adnani told his followers that, "the tiniest action you do in the heart of their land is dearer to us than the biggest action by us ... there are no innocents in the heart of the lands of the Crusaders." He encouraged lone wolf attacks during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which is expected to start early next month, "to win the great award of martyrdom." Al-Adnani also said the US-led war against the group was doomed to failure and that America "fell in the swamp of perdition."
MIDDLE EAST - With a media blitz, the Islamic State has set its sights on Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula as the next shot at expanding its empire and establishing a base from which to attack neighboring Israel. The terrorist group’s propaganda units have gone into high gear for recruitment this month to build a force in Sinai large enough to one day conquer Jerusalem — the same way its fighters took over large parts of Syria and Iraq. Last week, Marine General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned of the Islamic State’s presence in Sinai, where the group may have placed as many as 1,000 terrorists. The general’s concern is a signal that the US faces another war front against the Islamic State in addition to Iraq, Syria and Libya.