Inhalt:

They've shown that too much carbon dioxide, which plants need for energy, actually can inhibit a plant's ability to assimilate nitrates — nitrogen-based nutrients pulled from the soil that plants use to make enzymes and other essential proteins.

Without those essential proteins, plant health — and food quality — may suffer, the researchers say in a study published online Thursday in the journal Science.

"What is scarce here is fish," he said, calling for an increase in the stock of fish, not the stock of fishing capacity."

Creating marine preservation areas to allow female fish to grow to full size, thereby hugely increasing their fertility, is one vital solution, the report says.

Another is restructuring the fishing fleets to favor smaller boats that -- once fish stocks recover -- would be able to land bigger catches.

The advertisement focused on the appalling human rights record of Shell in Nigeria. It compared the company’s $9.8bn profits with the consequences of pollution caused by the oil giant for the people of the Niger Delta.

Numerous oil spills, which have not been adequately cleaned up, have left local communities with little option but to drink polluted water, eat contaminated fish, farm on spoiled land, and breathe in air that stinks of oil and gas.

He said the calculation could be off by 20 percent — meaning the spill could range from between 76,000 to 104,000 barrels a day. But Wereley said he would need to see videos that were not compressed and showed the flow over a longer period so that it would be possible to get a better calculation of the mix of oil and gas from the wellhead.

In all, he's tracked as many as 25 deep-water wells that show rapid declines.

“That's been the pattern in all the deep-water fields,” he said. “We are at the twilight of offshore oil and gas.”

It appears that European demand is the driver. There are signs of recovery in Germany, and there has been considerable action in the futures market. Other contributing factors have probably been the long running threat of a strike in South Africa and seasonal rains in Indonesia.

The government has already introduced a motion in the Parliament to extend the term of the Assembly for one year. It is hoping to avert a political crisis by extending the Assembly's term for another year to give the deadlocked political parties more time to frame a new constitution.

As negotiations are proceed between AA and the union, which represents 16,550 of its the carrier's flight attendants, nearly 97 percent of those casting ballots to are in favor of a strike,

He said more than 54,000 teachers in the province were ready to go on strike to force the Teachers Service Commission to act.

SPIEGEL: Nach der sogenannten Rettung sind es sogar 350 Milliarden Euro...

Pöhl: ... die das Land noch viel weniger abbauen kann. Ohne einen "haircut", also einen teilweisen Forderungsverzicht, wird und kann das nicht gehen. Warum also nicht gleich?
[...]
Es ging darum, die deutschen, vor allem aber die französischen Banken vor Abschreibungen zu bewahren. Französischen Bankaktien sind am Tag, als das Paket verabschiedet wurde, um bis zu 24 Prozent gestiegen. Daran sieht man, worum es wirklich geht, nämlich um die Rettung der Banken und der reichen Griechen.

Pöhl: Natürlich, das ist möglich. Es ist sogar plausibel.

In ein paar Wochen wird die Fregatte den Flugzeugträger auf dem Weg über den Atlantik begleiten, zum Mittelmeer und dem Horn von Afrika.
[...]
Die HESSEN muss sich also bei dieser Entsendung darauf beschränken, die Amerikaner bei der Luftraumüberwachung des jeweiligen Gebiets zu unterstützen, in dem die Flotte unterwegs ist. Dafür ist sie mit ihrem Radar, das eine Fläche von 500.000 Quadratkilometern abdecken kann, bestens ausgerüstet. Geachtet wird dabei vor allem auf kleine Boote oder Flugzeuge.
[...]
Denn wenn der Verband angegriffen wird, dürfen auch die deutschen Marinesoldaten auf der HESSEN das Feuer eröffnen.

The average transaction price of commercial residential properties in Beijing for the week ended May 9 fell 1,790 yuan per square meter or 9.6 percent week-on-week to 16,898 yuan per square meter, reports The Beijing News, citing statistics released by Beijing Real Estate Information Network.

Compared with the week ended April 11, the average transaction price of commercial residential properties in Beijing plunged 31.43 percent to 7,744 yuan per square meter. In the last weeks of April, the transaction volume of commercial residential properties in Beijing decreased by 10.34 percent, 11.39 percent and 30.82 percent respectively. Average transaction price was flat at between 22,000 yuan to 23,000 yuan per square meter.

This compares to RMB 464 billion and RMB 591 billion in April of 2008 and 2009,

Railway authroties have also planned to shut down at least 120 non-revenue generating trains after a decrease in oil supply. The initial shutting down phase includes sixty routes with five per cent revenue generation.
[...]
Earlier, Pakistan Railways reduced its oil stock from three month to one month due to increase in oil prices. It was further trimmed to seven days. Pakistan Railways pay an annual sum of Rs14 billion to purchase oil.

Research has shown that once negative equity exceeds 25 percent "owners begin to default with the same propensity as investors", and it is these 4.9 million borrowers - with $656 billion in debt - that are most at risk for foreclosure.

Yet builders here are putting up 1,100 homes, and they are frantically buying lots for even more.

Las Vegas is trying to recover by building what it does not need. It is an unlikely pattern being repeated in many of the areas where the housing crash was most severe.

This means that more than 7 million homes remain weighing down the market, due to bank's having repossessed them or the loans being in delinquency.

It's interesting to note, per this chart from Whitney Tilson's T2 Partners, this does not include new defaults, which are around 300,000 per month.

The index is up 1.7% over the last year, and off 30.5% from the peak.

This suggests the slump for commercial real estate design might be nearing a bottom. However, according to the AIA, there is an "approximate nine to twelve month lag time between architecture billings and construction spending" on non-residential construction. So there will probably be further declines in CRE investment through all of 2010, and probably into 2011.

Units built for rent set an all time record low in Q1 (19,000 units in Q1 2010 compared to the previous record low of 20,000 units in Q4 2009). This year a record low number of rental units will be built, and that is one reason the rental vacancy rate should continue to decline (household formation should be significantly higher than the increase in housing units in 2010).

Owner built units are just above the record low set in Q1 2009 (25,000 units in Q1 2010 compared to 24,000 units in Q1 2009).

Mayor Dave Bing has pledged to knock down 10,000 structures in his first term as part of a nascent plan to "right-size" Detroit, or reconfigure the city to reflect its shrinking population.

A notice in the Official Gazette announced the "forced acquisition" of the property and assets of Molinos Nacionales CA, or Monaca.