“I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.”-Steve Jobs
Co-founder of Apple, Steve Jobs, has been fighting cancer, and now he has resigned. No confirmation if it’s due to his health.
Tim Cook has already been picked to replace Jobs, and the board of Apple is rushing to get Cook into the CEO position.
The new facilities that are being opened were built years ago, and the reason was because the U.S. and its ally Israel were constantly making threats against Iran, against international law, that they will bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities.”-Seyed Marandi, Tehran University
Iran has begun moving centrifuges and uranium enrichment equipment to underground bunkers. They have already told the International Atomic Agency about the move.
Iranian officials say the move is to try and protect scientists. Already several Iranian nuclear scientists have been assassinated. Iran suspects Israel or the Untied States of the assassinations.
“Whoever visits Facebook.com or uses a plug-in must expect that he or she will be tracked by the company for two years.”-Thilo Weichert, privacy commissioner
German officials, in the state of Schleswig-Holstein, have discovered that every time the Facebook ‘like’ button is clicked, it sends your private info back to several U.S. databases. This violates European privacy laws.
Website owners are ordered to remove ‘like’ buttons, and other similar buttons, from their websites, or face a U.S.$72,000 fine.
According to The Metro, recently the NYPD “Disorder Control Unit” held a massive civil unrest exercise involving 180 cops.
One New York City cop arrogantly dismissed recent riots in England: “The London response wasn’t that great, they were outnumbered and taken by surprise.”-Mike Codella, retired NYPD detective
Part of the training involves teaching the cops how to “troll” social media sites. The trolling skills are now mandatory for a newly created juvenile justice unit
Vanguard Defense Industries was hacked by AntiSec.
Vangard Defense sells the UAV “ShadowHawk” to the military, police and even private companies.
The AntiSec hackers put Vangard documents online, they belong to Senior Vice President Richard T. Garcia. They contain internal meeting notes, contracts, schematics, non-disclosure agreements, employee’s personal information, and counter-terrorism documents.
Japan says it will offer less developed countries money, and other aid, to help them develop infrastructure and industries, in exchange for exclusive mining rights for rare earth minerals.
China has been using the same tactic for decades. Japan says they’re adopting such a policy in order to compete with China.
Rare earth minerals are used in high tech products like cell phones and hybrid cars. Because of the rapid development of high tech devices, and the increasing global dependence on them, rare earth minerals could become the “oil” of the 21st century.
“Fiat is intensively examining St. Petersburg along with Nizhniy Novgorod. No decision has been made yet. Most likely the Italian automaker will select a green field site. We expect that they will make a decision on the site in the fall.” –Dmitry Levchenkov, Russia’s Economic Development Ministry
Fiat, the owner of Chrysler, is actively looking to start factories in Russia, to build cars and spare parts. The reason? Car sales are booming in Russia.
Just in the first 8 months of 2011, Fiat saw a 59% increase in sales in Russia. That’s impressive when you realize that most Russians are hesitant to own a Fiat: “Few Russian drivers opt for Fiat because the service and spare parts are difficult to find in Russia. However, if Fiat builds an assembly facility and handle the production and create a unique distribution channels with service centers its world popular five door hatchbacks could invade the Russian cities frequently.”-Alexandr Tsipin, journalist
Fiat has already made deals with Russian car maker GAZ. Fiat hopes to build 120 thousand cars per year in Russia.
The major reason for Fiat’s huge jump in sales, they’re the cheapest foreign car in Russia.
I wonder what Fiat will do with it’s Chrysler operations in the U.S. and Canada? Canadian labor unions have been warning that Fiat will shut down Chrysler factories.
It’s called Ground Force One, a $1.1 million dollar bus made in Canada, and used by the Obama administration.
There’s also a Ground Force Two, because your government bought two of these behemoth buses. And your taxes paid for them!
Ground Force Two is actually being called Stagecoach. But don’t blame Obama, the second bus will be used to transport the Republican candidate for the 2012 election campaigns.
Officially the public is being told the buses came from a Tennessee company, but ABC News found out they were built in Canada, and only modified in Tennessee.
“Anonymous demands that this activity revolving around censorship cease and desist and we know you are already planning to do this again.”-warning to BART police from Anonymous
In retaliation for the Bay Area Rapid Transit police cutting off cell service, to prevent a mass protest, Anonymous hacked them and took personal data of at least 2,000 BART users.
San Fransisco’s BART officials say the Anonymous hack will not stop them from cutting off cell service in the future: “It’s one of the tactics we have at our disposal. We may use it; we may not. And I’m not sure we would necessarily let anyone know in advance either way.”-Jim Allison, BART
Operation BART is now being investigated by the Department of Homeland Security.
“I have believed for a long time that Israel wants this al-Aqsa Mosque simply not to exist.”-Mark Dankof
August 11, Israel orders the construction of 1,200 illegal settlement homes around al Quds (Jerusalem). On top of that one Israeli official said they are about to authorize another 2,700 more homes in occupied Palestinian territory.
Some officials say they’re going ahead with the illegal settlement homes to address the bad economy that so many Israelis are protesting. Officials say the settlements will provide affordable housing.
The European Union says Israel’s continued illegal settlement construction guarantees there will be no peace: “Settlement activity threatens the viability of an agreed two state solution and undermines ongoing efforts to resume negotiations.”-Catherine Ashton, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy
Egyptian and Russian officials have stressed that the settlements are illegal. They violate UN resolution 452, which bans settlement construction in occupied Palestinian territory.