RFERL.org
July 28, 2012

The report looked at the amount of money hidden away.

Gaps in cross-border tax rules have allowed a very small number of the world’s super-rich elite to hide an estimated $21 trillion in offshore bank accounts. That’s according to a new study, “The Price of Offshore Revisited.”

The astounding amount of hidden money cited in the report is more than the gross domestic products of the American and Japanese economies combined. The research was commissioned by the Tax Justice Network -- an independent organization started by the British Parliament to promote reform. The report’s author, James Henry, is the former chief economist for the global management consultant firm McKinsey & Company. RFE/RL's Bruce Jacobs spoke with him by phone from New York.

NationalGeographic.com

Stefan Lovgren and Ted Chamberlain

Updated July 27, 2012

Greek games rife with prostitution, sacrifices, doping—and legendary athleticism.

As if raw athleticism weren't enough, the ancient Olympics were the "total pagan entertainment package," kicked off with an opening ceremony as memorable in its way as anything in 2012 London, says Tony Perrotet, author of The Naked Olympics: The True Story of the Ancient Games.

PressTV.ir

Sat Jul 28, 2012 4:58PM GMT

According to various internet sources, a team of researchers at the Johns Hopkins University in conjunction with the US Air Force Office of Scientific Research at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Arlington, Virginia, is helping develop what they are calling a micro aerial vehicle (MAV) that will undertake various espionage tasks.

To read the rest of this story, visit PressTV.ir.

RT.com
Published: 31 July, 2012, 16:56

German unemployment rose for a fourth straight month in July as crisis-hit businesses delayed hiring. It’s a reminder the country, which many in the Eurozone are looking to for help, may have to set its sights on its own economic problems.

The number of people out of work rose a seasonally adjusted 7,000 to 2.89 million, the Federal Labor Agency in Nuremberg said on Tuesday. The adjusted jobless rate held at 6.8%. The current rate is still low compared with 8.2% in the US, 10.1% in France and Italy and a euro-area average of 11.1%. However it isn’t showing a turn around with German unemployment sustaining an almost uninterrupted decline for more than two and a half years. Germany’s jobless rate was 5.6% in May, according to the latest harmonized OECD figures.

To read the rest of this story, visit RT.

GFP Note: Extreme weather events are generally seen as physical signs of Mother Earth's ascension process.

Yahoo.com
By Andrew Gully | AFP – Fri, Jul 27, 2012

A field of dead corn sits next to an ethanol plant July 25, in Palestine, Illinois. The drought in America's breadbasket is intensifying at an unprecedented rate, experts warned, driving concern food prices could soar if crops in the world's key producer are decimated. (AFP Photo/Scott Olson)