The global economy will contract in 2009 by more than initially thought, given rising unemployment and underutilization of capacity, World Bank President Robert Zoellick said.

Speaking before a weekend meeting in Italy of finance ministers from the Group of Eight major industrial nations, Zoellick said indications were that the world economy would shrink by close to 3 percent, worse than the previous estimate of 1.75 percent.

 

CIA Director Leon Panetta said on Thursday the U.S. intelligence agency believes al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is hiding in Pakistan and hopes joint operations with Pakistani forces will find him.

Asked whether he was sure that bin Laden was in Pakistan, Panetta told reporters: "The last information we had, that's still the case."

A team in Germany first produced 112 in 1996 by firing charged zinc atoms through a 120-meter-long particle accelerator to hit a lead target.

"The new element is approximately 277 times heavier than hydrogen, making it the heaviest element in the periodic table," the scientists at the GSI Helmholtz Center for Heavy Ion Research said in a statement late on Wednesday.

 

Hormone experts said they are becoming worried by a chemical [found in plastics] called bisphenol A, which some politicians say they want taken out of products and which consumers are increasingly shunning.

They said they have gathered a growing body evidence to show the compound, also known as BPA, might damage human health. The Endocrine Society issued a scientific statement on Wednesday calling for better studies into its effects.

The great scholar Seymour Lipset said, “The histories of bilingual and bicultural societies that do not assimilate are histories of turmoil, tension and tragedy.”  Kant said, "Language and culture are the two great dividers."

Mesa Senator, Russell Pearce, slipped an amendment into an appropriations bill declaring you and your property his to play with.

 

Since I drive a General Motors product, I have more than a passing interest in Brian Deese. He's the 31-year-old kid who has been put in charge of dismantling GM. Considering that the GM bailout cost you and me $450,000 per day, this is heady territory. 

 

Want to see what it's like, just for a few minutes, to be Liberty Rider? Watch this video or better yet, get your bicycle out of the garage and join Michael for a few miles in your home state.

 

In the continuing conflict between the sovereign Mohawk Nation, US and Canadian federal security over the arming of border guards on Mohawk land, peaceful protest is planned. Mainstream news coverage of these protests is often non-existent.

 

 

 

 

 

Operation Rescue is appalled to learn that Philadelphia Women’s Center gave away free abortions on Tuesday as a means of “honoring” slain late-term abortions George Tiller.(The Killer)

Internal Bank of America documents and e-mails among federal banking regulators show that federal officials leaned on the bank to seal the acquisition of Merrill Lynch in December or else face a management upheaval if the company wanted government assistance.

The internal documents, subpoenaed this week by

A tobacco control bill set to win Senate approval would give the federal government broad new powers to monitor and change a toxic substance that contributes to some 400,000 deaths every year.

The legislation, heading for a vote Thursday, would for the first time give the Food and Drug Administration legal authority to regulate the sale, manufacturing and marketing of tobacco products.

 

To the relief of the Obama administration, the South Pacific island nation of Palau agreed Wednesday to take the 17 Muslim Uighurs from China who're still being held at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, the first major release of detainees since President Barack Obama announced his plan to close the prison by January.

 

The State Department expressed gratitude for the offer, but it said the details haven't been settled. Spokesman Ian Kelly also

Palau President Johnson Toribiong denied his government's move was influenced by any massive aid package from Washington, saying that the Uighurs have become "international vagabonds" who deserve a fresh start. China said it opposes any country taking them.

It's the first time since 2006 that the U.S. has successfully resettled any of Guantanamo's Uighurs. The U.S. government had determined

Four Guantanamo Bay detainees have been released and resettled in Bermuda, U.S. officials said.

The four are part of a group of 17 Chinese Muslims who have been in legal limbo at the military detention center in Cuba.

 

It's no secret that Sonia Sotomayor calls herself a latina -- a latina from Puerto Rico.  The secret is that she was only able to overcome her bias for one day.  That explains plenty.

Scientists show you how to Cook your Brain in one easy step.