Mainstream News

Indian gold smugglers take body route to outwit customs

"Smugglers and couriers who bring gold into the country illegally, have usually been known to bring the commodity by hiding it outside their body through various means. But with air intelligence units of the customs wising up to myriad modes of concealment, smugglers have resorted to reshaping gold to get it through. In Monday’s incident two men who arrived from Sri Lanka at the airport had shaped crude gold bits to fit inside the base of their mouth under the tongue. In another incident, a buxom lady was arrested after sleuths found that her bosom appeared extra-large as she had sewn 4 kg of shaped gold into her brassiere." Continue reading →

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Slump in gold price releases years of pent-up retail demand

"Gold retailers struggled to cope this week as parents buying dowries, casual shoppers and tourists snapped up bars, coins, nuggets and jewellery as a slump in the price of the yellow metal released years of pent-up retail demand. The price decline in the past week, the steepest in 30 years, has tarnished gold's appeal for the portfolio investors whose money had fuelled a 12-year bull run. As investors rush out, consumers that were priced out of the market for years have rushed in. In the United States, sales of American Eagle gold for two days this week topped the volumes for the whole of March." Continue reading →

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Why It’s So Hard For Scientists To Study Medical Marijuana

"Both the American Medical Association and the American College of Physicians have called for more research into the therapeutic uses of marijuana and for the U.S. government to reconsider its classification as a Schedule I substance. The University of Mississippi grows and harvests cannabis for studies funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, yet because NIDA's congressionally mandated mission is to research the harmful effects of controlled substances and stop drug abuse, the institute isn't interested in helping establish marijuana as a medicine." Continue reading →

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Syrian opposition leader resigns, castigating global ‘inaction’

"Khatib’s renewed threat to quit, almost a month after he first tendered his resignation amid recriminations over the choice of a perceived Muslim Brotherhood nominee as rebel prime minister, threw the opposition into fresh disarray as debate about the wisdom of arming it intensifies. In Istanbul, the United States pledged to double its aid to the armed opposition, including additional non-lethal military equipment. But it again held back from agreeing to opposition calls to arm the rebels, amid mounting concerns that weapons deliveries might fall into the wrong hands in a conflict in which Al-Qaeda has played a prominent role on the battlefield." Continue reading →

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Czechs unrelated to Chechens, diplomats remark after Boston blast

"Make no mistake: the Czech Republic is not Chechnya. That's a distinction the Czech ambassador to the United States wants to make crystal clear after news emerged that the two suspects in Boston Marathon bombing had Chechen origins. 'The Czech Republic and Chechnya are two very different entities - the Czech Republic is a Central European country; Chechnya is a part of the Russian Federation,' Petr Gandalovic, the Czech ambassador, wrote on the embassy's website on Friday. The unusual statement followed a series of Twitter messages from people who apparently struggled to distinguish the two places with similar names." Continue reading →

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Gene wars: the last-ditch battle over who owns the rights to our DNA

"US biotechnology giant Myriad Genetics is demanding that the US supreme court back the patents it has taken out on the BRAC genes. The company believes it should be the only producer of tests to detect mutations in these genes, a business it has carried out in the United States for more than a decade. On the other side, a group of activists, represented by lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union, argues that it is fundamentally absurd and immoral to claim ownership of humanity’s shared genetic heritage and demands that the court ban patents." Continue reading →

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Google CEO Schmidt calls for end to private drone use

"'It’s probable that robotics becomes a significant component of nation state warfare,' he said. 'I’m not going to pass judgment on whether armies should exist, but I would prefer to not spread and democratise the ability to fight war to every single human being. 'It’s got to be regulated. You just can’t imagine that British people would allow this sort of thing, and I can’t imagine American people would allow this sort of thing. It’s one thing for governments, who have some legitimacy in what they’re doing, but have other people doing it … It’s not going to happen.'" Continue reading →

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G-20 Pushes for Global Measures to End Tax Evasion

"The Group of 20 countries called on Friday for a coordinated effort to stop international tax evasion, urging governments to systematically share bank data. Finance ministers and central bankers of the G-20, meeting in Washington, said in a communiqué that automatic exchange of tax-relevant bank information should be adopted as the global standard. The automatic exchange of tax data, an approach the United States has pushed, would represent a major change from the current procedures, in which countries are expected to provide such information only on request." Continue reading →

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U.S. and Russia to bolster ties after Boston bombings

"Russia and the United States agreed Saturday to step up cooperation in their fight against terror in the wake of news that two ethnic Chechens were suspected of organising the deadly Boston Marathon bombings. The Kremlin said Russian leader Vladimir Putin called US President Barack Obama to once again express his condolences and discuss ways the two sides can work more closely on security in the runup to the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi. 'I think that contacts will be conducted between our intelligence services,' Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in separate televised remarks." Continue reading →

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Central Bankers Admit They Are Flying Blind

"Growing concern at the International Monetary Fund over the long-term side-effects of interest rates close to zero came as some of the leading figures in central banking conceded they were flying blind when steering their economies. It is troubling for monetary policy experts that their crisis-fighting tools - rates stuck at zero, money printing operations to bring down longer-term interest rates and encourage private sector spending, and efforts to calm financial market fears - might have nasty side-effects. The central bankers were clear that they had got it wrong before the crisis, lulled into thinking they had eliminated financial vulnerabilities." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingCentral Bankers Admit They Are Flying Blind