THE POSTS MOSTLY BY GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION

THE POSTS MOSTLY BY GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION

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Boston artist Steve Mills - realistic painting

Thursday, February 2, 2012

World loses passion for diamonds

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World loses passion for diamonds

01.02.2012 18:09
World loses passion for diamonds. 46510.jpeg
The prices on both rough and cut diamonds have been unstable recently. The uneasy situation on the market can be explained with dominating sentiments of major consumer of diamond jewelry in Asia, Europe and the USA, RBC Capital Markets said.
Sales volumes were not bad at all last year. Asia still takes leading positions in terms of the industry growth. The USA, the world's largest market for the diamond industry, showed unpromising results, albeit not in all parts of the country.
The world's largest diamond wholesale center - Antwerp - is worried about the results achieved in the first quarter of the current year. It will be possible to reach success only when the US market retrieves the situation that it had before the crisis. The leading diamond-mining companies - De Beers of Britain and Alrosa of Russia - can improve the situation if they voluntarily restrict the shipments of precious stones on the diamond market.
According to RBC Capital Markets, the program to recreate the sub-industry of rough diamonds includes three basic factors. First off, it goes about the movement of cash assets on the volumes of annual sales of diamond products in large centers. The sales income of De Beers and Alrosa are the second factor. The degree of the debt capital of the bank industry in diamond-cutting centers, particularly in India (due to the fall of the local currency) is the third one.
Nevertheless, the majority of diamond companies believe that the second half of the current year will be marked with more favorable price policies. RBC analysts say that the situation on the market will be favorable enough for both old-timers (Petra DiamondsHarry Winston DiamondGem Diamonds) and newcomers (Stornoway Diamond).
Russian analysts are not so optimistic in their forecasts. They believe that the reason of the international economic crisis, which directly influences the diamond industry, lies in the deindustrialization of the USA and its allies. The level of mass consumption of goods and services remains too high, though. The States is a country with five percent of the global population. At the same time, this country consumes 50 percent of luxury goods. To crown it all, the USA controls 50 percent of international defense budgets of the world. That would be ok if it was not for one little detail. The US GDP is a bubble.
America and many of its allies do not live within their means. This situation lasts for several decades. The total debt o the US government, corporations and households exceeded $50 trillion. The government tries to solve the problem with the help of unbacked money. In the meantime, the number of industrial enterprises in the USA dropped by 56,000 during the past decade. The country was losing 15 factories every day.
For the time being, the USA needs to have political uncertainty and debt problems in Europe. The worse it is for Europe, the better it is for the USA. America needs to be careful, though: the pressure on the Old World must not lead to its collapse.
No grand changes are expected in the United States before the presidential election in the fall of 2012. Brazil, Russia, India and China will be used as sales markets for American and European products with an opportunity for credit and speculative bubbles to grow. As a result, the world diamond market will grow by five percent a year.
Vladimir Teslenko

Russian winter goes extreme, claims lives

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Russian winter goes extreme, claims lives
01.02.2012 15:46
Russian winter goes extreme, claims lives. 46508.jpeg
Winter temperatures in Russia have gone extreme. The air in some regions of the republic of Yakutia (Siberia)[ΠΑΝΕΜΟΡΦΗ ΠΕΡΙΟΧΗ ΜΕ ΥΠΕΡΟΧΑ ΓΚΟΥΛΑΓΚ--ΔΙΑΡΚΕΙΑ ΖΩΗΣ ΚΡΑΤΟΥΜΕΝΟΥ: ΕΝΑ ΕΤΟΣ] has cooled down to -50 degrees Centigrade.[ΜΕΙΟΝ ΠΕΝΗΝΤΑ ΒΑΘΜΟΙ ΚΕΛΣΙΟΥ!!!] Anomalous cold of -40 degrees is expected in the Perm region of Russia, Vesti.Ru reports.
In the European part of Russia, the current temperatures are ten degrees below the norm. On Wednesday morning, the temperature in the Moscow region dropped to 26 and even 30 degrees below zero Centigrade.!!!!
Cold weather is expected to become even colder this week in Moscow and the region, RIA Novosti reports. Winter cold has already claimed several human lives. One person died of frostbite yesterday in Moscow. Ten others asked for medical help and were hospitalized.
Ukraine suffers from extreme cold as well. According to Ukrainian news agencies, the cold has killed 30 people during the last three days. More than 600 people asked for medical help, 544 of them were hospitalized.
Russia's Chief Sanitary Doctor Gennady Onishchenko believes that there is a positive side to such severe winter cold. Low temperatures prevent the epidemic of flu, the official said.
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Over 40 million women trapped in prostitution

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Over 40 million women trapped in prostitution

17.01.2012

Over 40 million women trapped in prostitution. 46392.jpegThe Fondation Scelles has released its latest report on sexual exploitation in which it links the oldest profession in the world directly to organised crime, generating huge profits for those who engage in human trafficking and in which it claims there are currently between 40 and 42 million people caught in prostitution, many of them children.

The Report drawn up by the Scelles Foundation (*) claims that today, prostitution is synonymous with sexual exploitation, human trafficking, dangerous organised crime,generating huge profits for those who use and abuse women and girls. It is "dominated by an unparalleled violence, physical, sexual, psychological, social ..." and is nothing less than a "violation of the integrity of human beings and the exploitation of a scandalous state of our moral treatise".

The report answers those who defend the right to prostitute themselves as being part of their freedom as human beings to do what they want with their own bodies, claiming that this position hides a darker and deeper reality, namely "the oppression of women, the trafficking of human beings", and "sexual abuse, insecurity, drugs, social exclusion". It has to do more with the destruction of a human being than with the openness and freedom of a person to do what (s)he wants.

In terms of facts and figures, the report states that there are between 40 and 42 million people working in prostitution worldwide, the vast majority of these being women; 75% of these are aged between 13 and 25 years of age, 90% of them controlled by agencies or pimps. In Europe, the report reveals that there are between one and two million prostitutes, most of these being immigrants, "the victims of human trafficking". To give an idea of the dimension of the criminal activity surrounding prostitution, there are 30 criminal trafficking networks dismantled every year in France alone.

The report suggests that the glamourisation of prostitution is one of the main dangers, luring women and girls into what they imagine to be a life of luxury, apart attracting punters. The full report will be released towards the beginning of February.

As the world gears up for the next Olympic Games, in London, the report warns that football (soccer) and the Olympic Games are the two sports venues which are "the great planetary stages of sexual exploitation".

(*)Fondation Scelles
"Rapport mondial sur l'exploitation sexuelle : La prostitution au cœur du crime organisé"
(World report on sexual exploitation : Prostitution at the heart of organised crime), Directed by Yves Charpenel.

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
Pravda.Ru

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McDonald's to expose everything about its chemical food in Russia


McDonald's to expose everything about its chemical food in Russia

16.01.2012 15:09
Consumer rights' advocates filed a lawsuit against McDonald's fast food chain in Russia. The lawsuit was filed at Moscow's Tverskoy Court. The plaintiffs intend to oblige the company to indicate the complete list of ingredients on packaging, rather than the content of protein, fat and carbohydrates.
Representatives of the Consumer Rights Protection Society claim that concealing the content of products the company violates the status of the retail outlet of finished products, not to mention the fact that it misleads consumers. According to experts, the range of milkshakes, which the chain sells, can not be referred to as "milk" under the Russian law, Adindex.ru reports.
Experts discovered the fat of vegetable origin in McDonald's "milkshakes." This drink, according to experts at the Institute of Laboratory of Nutrition, can be called "milk-containing" but not "milk". The advocates of consumers rights do not demand any fines from McDonald's. They only say the company should disclose information and redesign the product packaging. However, even this measure will entail multi-million costs for McDonald's once the court upholds it.
The Society for the Protection of Consumers' Rights reminded that in July 2012, the Federal Arbitration Court of the Moscow District issued a landmark ruling on the suit of McDonald's  against the Moscow territorial division of the Federal Tax Service. The court ruled that McDonald's in Russia does not provide restaurant services. Instead, the court said, the company sells food products as a store. Therefore, the activities of the corporation should be taxed with 10 instead of 18 percent of VAT.
However, according to the Russian legislation, a store that sells food products (in this case the store also acts as the manufacturer of the food), unlike the restaurant, is obliged to provide all required and accurate information, including the information about the ingredients, food supplements, biologically active supplements, the information about the presence of the GMO, food value, purpose, conditions of use and storage of food, weight (volume), date and place of manufacture and packaging of food. The information about contraindications and indications for use at certain diseases shall also be provided on the product packaging.
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