Toyota announced the premier of a new car, not in the United States, but India!
The new car is a small low priced car called the Etios Liva. It’s smaller than most Toyota sedans. The price is about U.S.$9,000.
Toyota also announced that India was becoming its fastest growing car market. The number of Toyotas sold in India, last year, was double the number sold five years ago.
Nissan/Renault announced they plan to expand their global market share by 8% (an increase of about 10 million cars by 2017). How are they going to do that? Definitely not by selling more cars in the United States.
Nissan/Renault says it will expand sales in China, India and Brazil. They will boost production in China and India, and build a new factory in Brazil, that will produce 200,000 cars per year.
They will also buy more than 50% stake in Russian car maker Avtovaz.
The Nature Genetics Journal reporting that the “lean gene” not only keeps people skinny but causes type 2 diabetes.
Conventional thinking by health officials is that obese (fat) and sedentary (lazy) people are the most at risk for type 2 diabetes (despite the fact that the majority of diabetics live in China and India, where there isn’t that many fat or lazy people).
A study of the IRS1 gene revealed that not only does it keep people skinny by burning up fat, but it also increases heart disease and type 2 diabetes by 20%. Scientists weren’t expecting that result. The study proves that just because you’re naturally skinny doesn’t mean you’re healthy.
The Lancet Journal reporting that despite efforts to stop diabetes, world rates have only gone up. There are now 347 million people considered diabetic.
The United States and Russia clam 36 million of those diabetics, but China and India beat the U.S. and Russia by 100 million. China and India have 138 million diabetics.
UN World Health Organization officials were not expecting such a high number of diabetics. They had estimated about 285 million, not 347 million that the study came up with.
Type 2 diabetes is the fastest growing form, and is always blamed on being fat and lazy. But there’s a problem with that reasoning: 138 million diabetics in China and India, where not that many people are fat or lazy!
Anyone who understands the diet of most people in China and India, and knows how hard they work, should question the standard reasons for getting type 2 diabetes. There must be something else going on to cause this explosion of diabetes.
Last week the Pentagon presented Congress with a plan to provide African countries with up to $145 million in military aid. The aid, in money and equipment, is for so called counter terrorism operations.
The $145 million, to be split between several African countries, doesn’t compare to what just one country got last year. Yemen, on the Arabian Peninsula, got $155 million in aid last year, paid for by taxpayers. And this year the Pentagon wants give Yemen $200 million!
Out of the $145 million in military aid going to African countries, only $600,000 is for ‘human rights training’.
An independent panel, investigating the Japanese government’s policies, regarding natural disasters, has found many faults that actually made things worse after the March 11 disasters.
Two primary faults were pointed out at a press conference.
One was the lack of an evacuation policy. It seems the government never expected to have to evacuate survivors. The panel said in the future, evacuation plans must be a pillar of dealing with natural disaster.
The second major fault (pun intended) was that the government ignored geographical evidence of 9.0 earthquakes, and hundred feet high tsunamis along Japan’s coastline. The result was that buildings and seawalls along the coastline were not built strong enough.
Also, the panel discovered that most of the government’s hazard maps and historical tsunami data are totally wrong.
The independent panel will now research ways for the Japanese government to come up with a functional natural disaster preparedness plan.
Efforts to find the origins of a deadly e.coli strain (that some scientist say was engineered in a lab) continues, as more people get sick.
France has eight people in the hospital. Seven of them ate sprouts at an open house party. The sprouts were not grown in Germany, but in France. The seeds for those sprouts came from a company in the United Kingdom, a company called Thompson & Morgan.
Understanding how e.coli works makes it difficult to suspect seeds, however, if this strain of e.coli was engineered in a lab, then anything is possible.
On Saturday, June 25, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision announced that all major international banks, and central banks (like the U.S. Federal Reserve) are going to increase their capital reserves.
This means they are going to hold onto more money and issue less loans. Some banks refer to capital reserves as putting their money to ‘rest’ (aka bank reserves, desired reserves).
The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision refused to give a list of which banks will be holding back on their money. This is an indication that the major international, and central banks do not expect any short term improvement in the world economies.
The increase in capital reserves is to help banks handle monetary emergencies, like traditional “runs on banks”. Just how long does the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision think the economy will suck? The new tighter control on money will be implemented in phases, becoming fully in effect in 2018. Mmmm, it’s 2011 now, uh oh!
Puyehue volcano, in Chile, continues to spew ash. Now several airports in Argentina are shut down, some until July 1.
Puyehue erupted June 4. The last time the volcano erupted was in 1960. Flights to Australia and New Zealand are still being grounded.
So what if Obama is actually going to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, they’re just going to be used somewhere else.
In response to continued attacks against Syrian police and army troops (three mass graves filled with hundreds of Syrian cops and soldiers have been found), and the fact that Turkey is allowing the build up of NATO forces on a Turkish air base, the Syrian government is massing troops along the Turkish border.
There are reports that Syrian forces attacked impromptu refugee camps along the border. The United States is warning Syria that their actions could escalate the situation (as if that isn’t what the U.S. wants).
“Unless the Syrian forces immediately end their attacks and their provocations that are not only now affecting their own citizens but (raising) the potential of border clashes, then we’re going to see an escalation of conflict in the area.”-Hillary Clinton, U.S. Secretary of State
The Syrian refugees fled into Turkey. Last week Turkey said it could handle the refugee situation, up to a point. A Turkish official said they could handle about 10,000 refugees, if the refugee situation escalated beyond that Turkey would have to take action (the official didn’t specify what “action” would be taken).
According to a BBC report, Turkey (a member of the U.S. led NATO) is now massing troops on the border.