[Hot Air] Welcome to the 21st-century party, pals. Those who have experienced the process of acquiring a security clearance from the federal government know just how invasive and personal it can become, depending on the level of access needed to classified material. Investigators go through financial records, tax returns, and interview family, friends, and even co-workers and neighbors to determine whether the risk is manageable.
What they haven’t done is look on the Internet to read publicly available statements. Until now, anyway:
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Britannia warned Friday it may seek EU sanctions over "acts of repression" in the Democratic Republic of the Congo ...formerly the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Zaire, and who knows what else, not to be confused with the Brazzaville Congo aka Republic of Congo, which is much smaller and much more (for Africa) stable. DRC gave the world Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Mobutu, followed by years of tedious civil war. Its principle industry seems to be the production of corpses. With a population of about 74 million it has lots of raw material... , as police clashed with supporters of a key opposition leader accused of hiring foreign mercenaries.
The warning came after the mineral-rich African country’s Constitutional Court this week ruled that President Joseph Kabila, in power since 2001, can stay in office beyond 2016 without being re-elected.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
05/14/2016 00:00 ||
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The Baltic Exchange’s main sea freight index, tracking rates for ships carrying dry bulk commodities, remained unchanged on Thursday, even as rates for capesize and panamax vessels rose.
The overall index, which factors in rates for capesize, panamax, supramax and handysize shipping vessels, was flat at 579 points.
The capesize index rose 11 points to 724 points.
Average daily earnings for capesizes, which typically transport 150,000-tonne cargoes such as iron ore and coal, were up $31 to $5,552.
Freight rates for large capesize dry cargo ships on key Asian routes are set to hold around the current levels next week, after having slipped to multi-week lows this week, as higher fuel prices provide support in a lackluster cargo market, ship brokers said on Thursday.
The panamax index rose six points to 589 points.
Average daily earnings for panamaxes, which usually carry coal or grain cargoes of about 60,000 to 70,000 tonnes, increased $49 to $4,709.
Among smaller vessels, the handysize index slid two points to 347 points and the supramax index was down five points at 555 points.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Apeksha Nair in Bengaluru)
Bulk shipping falters as commodities stumble Color charts at the link
The Baltic Dry Index (BDI) has been notoriously volatile this year. After touching an all-time low of 290 points on 10 February, the index shot up to 715 on 27 April. But, since then, it has declined 17% till 10 May (see chart).
What gives? For one, the drop to the lowest level in the index, which tracks transport costs on international trade routes for dry bulk commodities such as coal and iron ore, was overdone. Two, the Chinese stimulus held out hopes of higher demand for commodities, especially steel and iron ore. But higher iron ore inventories at Chinese ports could well weigh on demand in the coming days and reflect in the index performance. In any case, there were doubts on the sustainability of either the commodity rally or BDI’s increase to begin with. Also, it’s important to note that despite the rise from the pits, the rates are not profitable.
The current levels of BDI are still way below the break-even levels of 2000, wrote analysts from ICICI Securities Ltd in a note on 9 May. “As metal prices recover, scrapping volumes for the first four months were at 17 million DWT compared to 42 million DWT in CY15,” pointed out the report. Importantly, “with the current order book estimated at ~20% of the existing fleet size, scrapping needs to continue to keep these BDI rates sustained,” added ICICI Securities. DWT refers to deadweight tonnage and measures the carrying capacity of a ship.
Oversupply of ships and subdued global trade has been a plague for the shipping industry. Container shipping indices too have suffered. The Shanghai (Export) Containerized Freight Index (SCFI), which reflects spot rates for container transport from Shanghai to the rest of the world, and the China Containerized Freight Index (CCFI), a broader measure tracking spot and contractual rates from China to the rest of the world, have declined from the beginning of this year. Global container demand is estimated to have grown around 1% during the March quarter, while the global container fleet grew by more than 7%, according to a recent Maersk Group presentation.
Dharmakirti Joshi, chief economist, Crisil Ltd, said China is facing rough weather as far as exports are concerned and the country’s trade linkage with the rest of world has definitely weakened. “The way China used to export earlier I don’t think that will happen in future as the country slowly phases out its low value added products from trade activity and rebalances its economy towards consumption from investment/export led growth,” added Joshi. Add to that, subdued demand from other economies too is expected to weigh on global trade. Simply put, if trade does not expand faster, the shipping industry will bear the brunt.
[DAWN] BADIN: A 12-year old boy was killed in Tando Mohammad Khan after reportedly being gang-raped, stifled and thrown into a water drain by two suspects, the police said on Friday.
SSP Tando Mohammad Khan Shabir Ahmed Sethar said the police have tossed in the clink Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit! two suspects Abdul Sattar Sathio and Mashooq Ali Sathio who have confessed to the crime.
SSP Sethar said the accused revealed that they have been involved in such acts before as well. The postmortem report of the dear departed victim has established gang rape and stifling of the throat, he added.
The Tando Mohammad Khan police on the complaint of the victim's father Khuda Dino Sathio, registered an FIR under Sections 302, 201, 377 of Pakistain Penal Code.
While talking to Dawn, SSP Sethar said that after further investigations two more FIRs would be registered against the arrested suspects for their involvement in two similar incidents.
In a similar incident last month, a minor girl was kidnapped from Badin city and was gang raped and killed near Tando Ghulam Ali town of Badin district.
Station House Officer (SHO) Tando Ghulam Ali Dhani Buksh Marri announced the arrest of two suspects and said that in preliminary questioning they confessed that they kidnapped the minor girl and raped her for seven days. They also confessed strangling her to death later, he added.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/14/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
He was dressed provocatively, just asking for it
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/14/2016 10:28 Comments ||
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Actually, there was a system made by the soviets that could "jam" the guidance system on early versions of the TOW missile. (DROZD if I recall correctly)
TOW SACLOS works by tracking a strobe light source on the back of the missile, and sending steering commands down the wires. If the target has a strobe on it blinking at the same rate, it may confuse the SACLOS computer and cause the missile to miss.
I know it was fixed somehow, but I do not recall exactly how.
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.
