Weird Links

 http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/wildlife...

[Scientists] are putting forward the theory that radiation given off by mobile phones and other hi-tech gadgets is a possible answer to one of the more bizarre mysteries ever to happen in the natural world - the abrupt disappearance of the bees that pollinate crops. Late last week, some bee-keepers claimed that the phenomenon - which started in the US, then spread to continental Europe - was beginning to hit Britain as well.

The theory is that radiation from mobile phones interferes with bees' navigation systems, preventing the famously homeloving species from finding their way back to their hives. Improbable as it may seem, there is now evidence to back this up.

 http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=vie...

About 60 percent of Iran's oil income is currently in non-dollar currencies...demanding payment for Iranian oil in currencies other than the dollar is seen by many experts as a more direct attack on the dollar, especially if the Iranian decision backs a worldwide move away from using the dollar as the underpinning of world foreign exchange reserves.

The dollar has lost 9 percent of its value against the euro in the last year and is down 35 percent against the euro in the last five years.

See also: Iran Planning To Stop Using U.S. Dollar To Price Oil.

 http://news.yahoo.com/s/infoworld/20070412/tc_info...

Cisco Systems and Intelsat General, a subsidiary of Intelsat, are among the companies selected by the U.S. Department of Defense for its Internet Routing In Space (IRIS) project, which aims to deliver military communications through a satellite-based router.

Although satellites have been passively relaying IP traffic since the 1970s, the use of an orbiting satellite as an active part of the Internet is a more recent development. After testing, the technology will be available for commercial use.

 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6544257....

Water has been detected for the first time in the atmosphere of a planet outside our Solar System. The planet, known as HD 209458b, is a Jupiter-like gas giant located 150 light-years from Earth in the constellation Pegasus.

 http://economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?stor...

According to a paper published in Neuroscience this month, innoculating mice with Mycobacterium vaccae seems to alleviate depression by promoting the production of seratonin in the brain as part of the immune response.

Here's a bonus link to the abstract: Identification of an immune-responsive mesolimbocortical serotonergic system: Potential role in regulation of emotional behavior (Lowry et al 2007).

 http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/ar...

A failed American attempt to abduct two senior Iranian security officers on an official visit to northern Iraq was the starting pistol for a crisis that 10 weeks later led to Iranians seizing 15 British sailors and Marines.

 http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-...

Speaking under oath, he [Abd al Rahim al Nashiri] said he made up a long list of Al Qaeda plots and attacks so his captors would stop torturing him, even telling interrogators that Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden had a nuclear bomb.

 http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/lando/49845/

Double-quoting from the article:

The difficulty is that the maritime delimitation in the North West of the Persian Gulf, between Iraq, Kuwait and Iran, has never been resolved. It is not therefore a question of just checking your GPS to see where you are. This is a perfectly legitimate dispute, in which nobody is particularly at fault

 http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/03/28/business...

Iran is planning to stop using the U.S. dollar to price oil, with less than half of its oil income now paid in the U.S. currency, Iran's central bank governor said...Iran's central bank is also shifting to holding its foreign reserves in a basket of 20 currencies and away from U.S. dollars, which now make up less than 20 percent of the reserves.

Now might be a good time to re-read a pre-Iraq invasion article called "The Real Reasons for the Upcoming War With Iraq: A Macroeconomic and Geostrategic Analysis of the Unspoken Truth", which puts forward the argument that Saddam sealed his fate when he switched the trade currency for Iraqi oil from US Dollars to Euros in November of 2000.

Why does it matter? Well as I understand it, if the Dollar stops being the global reserve currency for oil then its value will weaken; to quote from the 2003 article:

The reality is that the "safe harbor" status of the U.S. dollar since 1945 rests on it being the international reserve currency. Thus it has assumed the role of sole currency for global oil transactions (ie. `petrodollar'). The U.S. prints hundreds of billions of fiat dollars, which U.S. consumers provide to other nations via the purchase of imported goods. These dollars become "petro-dollars" when are then used by those nation states to purchase oil/energy from OPEC producers (except Iraq, to some degree Venezuela, and perhaps Iran in the near future). Approximately $600 to $800 billion `petrodollars' are annually from OPEC and invested back into the U.S. via Treasury Bills or other dollar-denominated assets such as U.S. stocks, bonds, real estate, etc. This recycling bolsters the dollar's international liquidity value.

Consider this alongside the following very interesting paragraph (written back in 2003, remember):

...other risks might arise if the Iraq war goes poorly or becomes prolonged. It is possible that civil unrest may unfold in Iran, Saudi Arabia or other OPEC members in the Middle East. Such events could foster the very situation this administration is trying to prevent: another OPEC member switching to euros as their oil transaction currency standard.

Thus the linked news here is interesting because it means that Iran is trying the hit the US where it'll hurt the most, right in the wallet

 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6495753.stm

The British government was advised against publicly criticising a report estimating that 655,000 Iraqis had died due to the war.
..the Ministry of Defence's chief scientific adviser said the survey's methods were 'close to best practice' and the study design was 'robust'.

This is referring to a report published in The Lancet back in October of 2006 which concluded that Iraqi deaths exceed 600,000 between March 2003 and Summer 2006, which is more than Saddam managed in 20 years.