After careful and thorough consideration of the facts contained herein and following consideration of the views of those Federal agencies having jurisdiction by law or special expertise with respect to the environmental impacts described, the undersigned finds that the Proposed Action is consistent with existing national environmental policies and objectives as set forth in Section 101(a) of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA)
So now it's a 30 day waiting period and then SpaceX can start making a new Space Launching range at Brownsville!
Levels of the harmful air pollutant nitrogen dioxide at a city-center monitoring station are the highest in Europe. Concentrations are greater even than in Beijing, where expatriates have dubbed the city's smog the "airpocalypse."
It's the law of unintended consequences at work. European Union efforts to fight climate change favored diesel fuel over gasoline because it emits less carbon dioxide, or CO2. However, diesel's contaminants have swamped benefits from measures that include a toll drivers pay to enter central London, a thriving bike-hire program and growing public-transport network.
"Successive governments knew more than 10 years ago that diesel was producing all these harmful pollutants, but they myopically plowed on with their CO2 agenda," said Simon Birkett, founder of Clean Air in London, a nonprofit group. "It's been a catastrophe for air pollution, and that's not too strong a word. It's a public-health catastrophe."
But at least you aren't going to die of climate change, right?~
--
(Reuters) - Authorities flew 400 people suspected of entering the United States illegally to Arizona over the weekend and released them at bus stops because detention facilities were full after a surge in migrants, U.S. officials said on Thursday.
Over the past month, detention facilities in Texas overflowed with migrants for the first time as a large influx of Central Americans crossed the border into the Rio Grande Valley, said Andy Adame, a U.S. Border Patrol spokesman in Tucson, Arizona.
"We have enough manpower, it's due to detention space," Adame said in explaining why the immigrants, mostly families with young children, were sent to Arizona.
The 400 migrants who crossed into Texas were transferred into the custody of ICE and released, dropped off at bus stops in Tucson and Phoenix, according to that agency.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the migrants will be required to report within 15 days to an agency office near where they were dropped off, and their cases will then be handled based on immigration enforcement priorities.
A sophisticated network of metal thieves has targeted some 20 French wind turbines in a new looting trend, scaling the near 40-metre-high structures and stealing up to one tonne of metal from a single engine, Le Figaro reported Wednesday.
Citing an anonymous police source, the daily newspaper said the ring stole metal from wind farms in sparsely populated areas, where they had less chance of being caught.
"They cut the power to turn off the engine propeller motor," the officer said, noting the thieves broke through the doors at the bottom of the turbines, before using the stairs to reach the engine which is located at the top -- often as high as 40 metres off the ground. "By using bolt cutters and makeshift tools they then cut and ripped out the whole metal wiring, which is mostly made of copper," he said.
The officer said a metal raid of a single wind turbine engine could amount to as much as one ton of loot. One ton of copper is estimated to be worth around 4,500 euros on the market.
#3
Probably Roma (gypsy) immigrants. They have initiative.
(It was just sitting on the side of the road...)
Posted by: ed in texas ||
05/29/2014 7:31 Comments ||
Top||
#4
they have to sell the metal to someone. Someone who knows where it came from despite assertions to the contrary. Put some of those in PITA prison and that shit will taper off
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/29/2014 8:04 Comments ||
Top||
#11
The worlds refrigerators are less than 17% covered in magnets by area. Great areas of South America have bare-ass Kelvinators and untouched Kenmores for the exploitation thereof. No. And China, think of China, if every ChinaPerson bought just 3 cute magnets a year rare-earth prices would asplode! Get on the ground floor of the (wait for it) cool opportunity nao!
[An Nahar] Final results of the EU vote in Bulgaria on Wednesday sparked talk of snap elections and renewed instability as they confirmed the ruling Socialists' poor showing.
The conservative opposition GERB party, led by ousted premier Boyko Borisov, won Sunday's vote with 30.4 percent support, ahead of the Socialists on 18.93 percent, the central electoral commission announced.
GERB will take six of Bulgaria's 17 seats in the European parliament, while the Socialists and their ruling partner -- the liberal Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF), which finished an expected third with 17.27 percent -- will each have four.
GERB's unexpectedly big victory and the Socialists' drop in support now spell trouble for Prime Minister Plamen Oresharski.
On Wednesday, MRF leader Lyutvi Mestan hinted that the results had dented his party's staunch backing for the cabinet, noting that Oresharski did not stand a chance to complete his four-year term in office.
He added he was open to discuss a cabinet reshuffle or a snap vote with the Socialists in the coming days.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/29/2014 00:00 ||
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[The Peninsula] Ukrainian aircraft and paratroopers killed more than 50 pro-Russian rebels in an assault that raged into a second day yesterday after a newly elected president vowed to crush the revolt in the east once and for all.
The unprecedented offensive throws a challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin ...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead... , who has said he reserves the right to defend Russian speakers under threat, but whose past assertions that Kiev is led by an illegitimate "junta" were undermined by the landslide election victory of billionaire Petro Poroshenko.
Journalists counted 20 bodies in combat fatigues in one room of a city morgue in Donetsk. Some of the bodies were missing limbs, a sign that the government had brought to bear heavy firepower against the rebels for the first time.
"From our side, there are more than 50 (dead)," the prime minister of the rebels' self-styled Donetsk People's Republic, Alexander Borodai, said at the hospital.
The government said it suffered no losses in the assault, which began with air strikes hours after Ukrainians overwhelmingly voted to elect 48-year-old confectionery magnate Poroshenko as their new president.
Putin demanded an immediate halt to the offensive. Moscow said a visit by Poroshenko was not under consideration, though it has said it is prepared to work with him.
Until now, Ukrainian forces have largely avoided direct assaults on the separatists, partly because they fear tens of thousands of Russian troops massed on the border could invade.
But Poroshenko and his government appear to have interpreted his victory as a clear mandate for decisive action. He won more than 54 percent of the vote in a field of 21 candidates, against 13 percent for his closest challenger.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/29/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
Plenty more where they came from. Conveniently close, too.
[Ynet] Jewish Agency helps two families stranded at embattled Donetsk airport to arrive safely in Israel.
Israel's Jewish Agency came to the rescue of two Jewish Ukranian families after rebels seized control of Donetsk airport as they were waiting to emigrate to Israel, an agency front man said on Tuesday.
The two families, numbering six people, were stranded at the airport when it was shut down on Monday. The agency then launched a "fast-paced operation," front man Avi Mayer said.
The families were driven to the Ukrainian city of Dnepropetrovsk then flown to Kiev where they boarded a plane for Tel Aviv, Mayer said. He gave no further details.
The Jewish Agency handles relations with Jews around the world and cooperates with Israel's Immigration Ministry.
Jewish immigration from Ukraine has more than doubled since the start of the year over 2013 figures, the agency said. Israel has seen 762 immigrants arrive from Ukraine between January and April, compared to 315 over the same period a year ago.
The agency is preparing to help facilitate the departure of more families from Donetsk should the hostilities there continue.
Agency chairman Natan Sharansky, a former Soviet dissident who was born in Donetsk, said in a statement: "Due to the current situation in the country we have significantly expanded our activities, assisting those who wish to immigrate to Israel."
An estimated 11,000 Jews live in Donetsk and about 130,000 in all of Ukraine.
An Israeli immigration official said some recent newcomers from Ukraine to Israel had flown in initially as tourists then asked for citizenship. Israeli law offers citizenship to any Jews who apply for it.
Sharansky himself was placed in durance vile Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out! for his human rights One man's rights are another man's existential threat. activities in the then Soviet Union and was freed in 1986 after nine years in prison as part of an East-West spy swap.
#1
Let's see, they were already scheduled to emigrate, filed their papers, and were waiting at the airport to leave when it closed. So they were basically Israelis at that point.
Entebbe it ain't, but you have to give Israel points for cleaning up loose ends.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
05/29/2014 7:37 Comments ||
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NEW DELHI: Within two days of taking charge, the Narendra Modi government has begun work on allowing up to 100% foreign investment in defense production, in a bid to send a strong signal to global investors as well as to try and move the production base of some equipment into the country. Foreign direct investment (FDI) is a direct investment into production or business in a country by an individual or company of another country, either by buying a company in the target country or by expanding operations of an existing business in that country. Foreign direct investment (FDI) is currently limited in India. For example, the FDI limit in the aviation sector is a maximum of 49%.
The commerce and industry ministry has circulated a Cabinet note seeking comments from other government agencies, sources familiar with the development told TOI.
The ministry is also readying other proposals to allow FDI in sectors such as railways, where the list of areas where investment will be allowed is being expanded, according to sources. Earlier, the government had planned to allow FDI in high-speed train systems, suburban corridors, high-speed tracks and freight lines connecting ports and mines. Similarly, there is a proposal to ease FDI norms in construction.
On Tuesday, Arun Jaitley had spoken of the governmen's intent to hike the FDI cap in the sector to 100% from 26% at present - a move that has been resisted by the defense ministry for years.
NEW DELHI: Ajit Kumar Doval (69), Narendra Modi's national security advisor-designate, started big on his new job -- before the PM met his Pakistan counterpart Nawaz Sharif for a one-on-one meeting, he went through a background note prepared by Doval. People familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition they not be identified told ET that Doval, a former Intelligence Bureau chief, had worked closely with Modi's Principal Secretary Nripendra Misra over the weekend. Doval and Misra had worked out talking points to be taken up with various SAARC leaders.
Talks with Pakistan were especially crucial and emphasis was on improving bilateral ties and delivering a firm message on terrorism. Getting the message right was the first major task for Doval, known for having a tough approach to terror. Doval's appointment was the first file Modi's principal secretary took to the PM. The PM signed the file in the morning. People familiar with the matter said Prime Minister Modi had met Doval three times before the government formation exercise was complete."They get along really well...and have same views on many critical security issues," one person said.
"Modi expects Doval to give concrete shape to India's anti-terror and anti-Maoist strategy and streamline anti-terror and anti-Maoist operations," this person added. Doval will only be the second NSA after MK Narayanan to have a professional career in intelligence. Most NSAs such as Brajesh Mishra for Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and JN Dixit, Shyam Saran and SS Menon for Manmohan Singh, had foreign service backgrounds. And the foreign service is never used as cover for intelligence.~
In fact, Narayanan started as Singh's internal security advisor, and only took over NSA duties when Dixit passed away. An official in the PMO who spoke on the condition of anonymity said Modi may appoint a deputy NSA with a foreign service background. Among the names being considered should the post of deputy NSA be created is Hardeep Puri, retired IFS, who was India's man in the United Nations. Close observers of India's security apparatus and its talent level say Doval's career as a spymaster has been among the more successful in recent past.
A 1968 batch IPS officer who spent virtually all his career in IB, Doval is credited by security experts with intelligence successes like infiltrating the Mizo National Army and planning key Myanmar- and China-related missions. His intelligence work was also crucial in Operation Black Thunder, the mop-up operation that followed Operation Blue Star, the first big action against Punjab militants in Golden Temple. Undercover work in Pakistan and the tough job of being one of the negotiators in the 1C-814 hijacking episode added sufficiently to his CV so that when BJP lost power in 2004, the Congress government appointed him as IB chief, despite Doval's perceived closeness to BJP leaders.
Doval retired in 2005 and was considered a certainty for NSA's job had BJP won in 2009 elections. The long wait for Doval between 2005 and 2014 was spent mostly in setting up the Vivekananda International Foundation, a Delhibased think tank with a centreright intellectual perspective.
[DAWN] The Archbishop of Canterbury on Wednesday called for Pakistain to safeguard the rights of its religious minorities and afford them equal treatment under the law.
Nobody expects Anglican ministers to be connected either to God or to reality...
Justin Welby, the leader of the world's Anglicans, was on a two-day visit to the eastern city of Lahore where he met with church leaders, government officials and members of the minority Christian community.
"Christians, historically, have given tremendous services to this country and I hope they can be given the scale of freedom and equal rights under the law," he told AFP.
He added his message to the people and government of this country was to respect and safeguard the rights of all minorities.
Talking to media, he said he met many Mohammedan religious leaders and government fumitories including Punjab governor Muhammad Sarwar.
"Everybody is concerned about the private use of blasphemy laws, which is a sensitive matter in Pakistain," he said.
"However, man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them... they don't suggest a way forward and mechanism how to stop it."
Most of Pakistain's Christians are poor and working in menial jobs.
They have suffered attacks and riots in recent years, most notoriously last September when a double suicide kaboom at a church in the northwestern city of Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire. killed 82 people.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/29/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
Nobody expects Anglican ministers to be connected either to God or to reality
I've know quite a few that were grounded in both. They chose not to involve themselves in the preenings and rantings of the upper Church hierarchy.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
05/29/2014 11:53 Comments ||
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#3
This Archbishops is a major improvement on Rowen Williams who was Archbishop for 10 years until the last day of 2012.
Williams was dogged in his pursuit of ways to excuse islamic terror and oppression, creative in finding ways to ignore it when it couldn't be excused and stubborn in defending both his excusemaking and his ignorance.
Posted by: lord garth ||
05/29/2014 13:20 Comments ||
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#4
. Treat other as you want to be treated.
2. Do unto others as you want to be treated.
3. If you massacre others, expect to be massacred.
In short , you stink at equal rights
Everything for you, nothing for others.
And ha's why you never get equality, you never give it to others.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
05/29/2014 15:45 Comments ||
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#5
I have been raised in the Episcopalian faith which is pretty darn close to Anglican and it always amazes me how far left these two denomination's outspoken leaders seem to be and and how "right" I am anyway.
#6
"The Archbishop of Canterbury on Wednesday called for Pakistain to safeguard the rights of its religious minorities and afford them equal treatment under the law."
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Good one, Arch!
Oh, wait - you were serious?
GFL on that one.
Posted by: Barbara ||
05/29/2014 19:42 Comments ||
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#7
Okay, I agree that this Archbishop of Canterbury is a vast improvement over that Rowen guy, who was really keen on preemptively surrendering to whoever would take the keys to the building. And the new guy is speaking truth to power, with real consequences for his people, if not for him. But Barbara summed up my feeling about the entire thing, I'm afraid.
This concerns me, as apparently cynicism is a strong risk factor for Alzheimers.
Dear warthogswife, a number of Episcopalian churches have submitted themselves to the much more conservative African bishoprics. So you aren't alone.
[DAWN] Armed men kidnapped five children belonging to minority Hindu community from Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... 's volatile Jaffarabad district on Wednesday, bigwigs said.
Syed Zafar Ali Shah, the Deputy Commissioner Jaffarabad told Dawn.com that the children were going to school when kidnapped by the gunnies near Dera Allah Yar. He, however, added that four accused belonging to a local tribe were jugged ... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not... in connection with the kidnapping.
"The ages of children are between five to 10," Syed Ashfaq Ahmed, the District Police Officer Jaffarabad said. He said one of the local journalists was also arrested during police raid with regard to the incident.
The deputy commissioner stated that the kidnappers had shifted all five children to Rato Dero area of Sindh.
"Very soon, we will recover the children unharmed," vowed Shah.
The children belong to an ancient Hindu community living in Dera Allah Yar area of Balochistan and they are daughters and sons of well-known Hindu trader and newspaper agent Saith Bhojraj.
The deputy commissioner stated that the children were coming back from school when kidnapped by the gunnies.
Balochistan Police also approached Rato Dero Police for the recovery of kidnapped children.
It is, however, yet to be confirmed that whether it was a family dispute or the children were kidnapped for ransom, police said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the kidnapping.
Jaffarabad is considered to be one of the most sensitive districts of Balochistan.
Kidnapping for ransom in the area remained rampant. Besides this, the area is also considered to be one of the hubs of bully boyz targeting vital national installations and the security forces.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/29/2014 00:00 ||
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[Arab News] HANOI: Vietnam on Thursday accused Chinese war ships of pointing their weapons at Vietnamese vessels during an escalating standoff near an oil rig in contested waters.
The tense confrontation came as China moved its deep-sea rig to a new location earlier this week that Hanoi considers is still within its territory. China moved the rig?
"When we approached (the Chinese warships guarding the rig) they uncovered their guns, turned them and pointed them at the Vietnamese vessels," Ha Le, deputy chief of Vietnam's Fisheries Surveillance Department, told AFP.
Japanese media, meanwhile, reported a standoff during which at least eight Chinese ships surrounded and trained their machine guns on a Vietnamese coastguard boat, just six kilometers from the rig.
One Chinese ship kept a machine gun pointed on the Vietnamese vessel as it came within just 200 meters, according to a Yomiuri Shimbun journalist at the scene.
The report said that at least 100 Chinese ships had been in the area as Chinese jets flew overhead.
[The Peninsula] Thailand's junta has appointed as advisers two retired generals with palace connections, putting powerful establishment figures hostile towards former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra firmly in the ascendant in the country's long-running power struggle.
Hoping to show things are getting back to normal, the military also relaxed a night-time curfew brought in after it seized power in a May 22 coup, and is expected to speed up efforts to get the economy moving again after months of debilitating political protests.
Data yesterday showed trade shrank in April and factory output fell for a 13th straight month, underscoring the damage political unrest has caused and the tough job the military government faces reviving an economy on the brink of recession.
The team of advisers announced in a brief statement late on Tuesday included a former defence minister, General Prawit Wongsuwan, and former army chief General Anupong Paochinda. The two men are towering figures in Thailand's military establishment and have close ties to coup leader General Prayuth Chan-ocha. All three are staunch monarchists and helped oust Thaksin, who remains at the heart of the political crisis, in a 2006 coup.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/29/2014 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Levels of the harmful air pollutant nitrogen dioxide at a city-center monitoring station are the highest in Europe. Concentrations are greater even than in Beijing, where expatriates have dubbed the city's smog the "airpocalypse."
A sophisticated network of metal thieves has targeted some 20 French wind turbines in a new looting trend, scaling the near 40-metre-high structures and stealing up to one tonne of metal from a single engine, Le Figaro reported Wednesday.
...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead...
NEW DELHI: Within two days of taking charge, the Narendra Modi government has begun work on allowing up to 100% foreign investment in defense production, in a bid to send a strong signal to global investors as well as to try and move the production base of some equipment into the country.
IB, Doval is credited by security experts with intelligence successes like infiltrating the Mizo National Army and planning key Myanmar- and China-related missions. His intelligence work was also crucial in Operation Black Thunder, the mop-up operation that followed Operation Blue Star, the first big action against Punjab militants in Golden Temple. Undercover work in Pakistan and the tough job of being one of the negotiators in the 1C-814 hijacking episode added sufficiently to his CV so that when BJP lost power in 2004, the Congress government appointed him as IB chief, despite Doval's perceived closeness to BJP leaders.
[Arab News] HANOI: Vietnam on Thursday accused Chinese war ships of pointing their weapons at Vietnamese vessels during an escalating standoff near an oil rig in contested waters.
