The hidden frontline of Europe's migration crisis

(Telegraph.co.uk) June 30 2015 - Dressed only in a thin white polo shirt and jeans, Ashraf, a 17-year-old from Damascus, shivers in the rain next to the dense Serbo-Hungarian forest where he has lived without food and water for three days. His exhausted father holds up a handful of grass: “For three days now we’ve had nothing else to eat but this.”

Ashraf, who set out from Syria with his father in November, has just been caught after crossing into Hungary from Serbia, with the aim of reaching Germany. He and around 60 compatriots, including families with babies and a dozen children under 10, were captured by Hungarian police and rounded up between a forest and an industrial estate.

“We are good people, my father is an electrician. I want to be a dentist. Germany needs us, we are good people,” Ashraf says.

He and his father, like thousands of others, passed through Turkey, Greece and Macedonia. They walked for seven hours a day, for seven months.

According to government statistics, they were among at least 61,000 migrants who have entered Hungary this year, up sharply from 43,000 in all of 2014. This is more refugees per capita than any other EU country apart from Sweden. Around 95 per cent of them cross from Serbia, which is not a member of the EU but has started accession talks.

As a gateway to both the EU and the Schengen passport-free zone, Hungary has become the hidden front line of Europe’s migration crisis. Its government wants to ensure that Ashraf is among the last to enter the country via this route. Hungary – the first nation to dismantle its borders before the collapse of Communism in 1989 – is planning to erect a 110-mile long, 13ft-high barbed wire fence along its border with Serbia. The plan has outraged the United Nations and the EU. Natasha Bertaud, a European Commission spokesman, said last week: “We have only just torn down walls in Europe: we should not be putting them up.” Full Story

Drinking Too Much Water Can Kill You: Study

(universityherald.com) - Drinking too much water can be life-threatening and should only be consumed when an individual is thirsty, according to a recent study.

Researchers at Loyola University Health System revealed that a condition called exercise-associated hyponatremia, which results from drinking too much water or sports drinks, has killed at least 14 athletes, including marathon runners and football players.

But new guidelines from an international expert panel shows that there's an easy way to prevent hyponatremia: Simply put, drink only when you're thirsty.

"Using the innate thirst mechanism to guide fluid consumption is a strategy that should limit drinking in excess and developing hyponatremia while providing sufficient fluid to prevent excessive dehydration," according to the guidelines, published in the Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine.

Exercise-associated hyponatremia occurs when drinking too much fluid overwhelms the ability of the kidneys to excrete the excess water load. Sodium in the body becomes diluted. This leads to swelling in cells, which can be life-threatening.

Symptoms of this condition include lightheadedness, dizziness, nausea, puffiness and gaining weight during an athletic event. Severe symptoms include vomiting, headache, altered mental status (confusion, agitation, delirium, etc.), seizure and coma.

Researchers said that Athletes often are mistakenly advised to "push fluids" or drink more than their thirst dictates by, for example, drinking until their urine is clear or drinking to a prescribed schedule. But excessive fluid intake does not prevent fatigue, muscle cramps or heat stroke.

"Muscle cramps and heatstroke are not related to dehydration," James Winger, sports medicine physician at Loyola University Medical Center, said in a statement. "You get heat stroke because you're producing too much heat."

The guidelines say Exercise-associated hyponatremia can be treated by administering a concentrated saline solution that is 3 percent sodium -- about three times higher than the concentration in normal saline solution.

Read more: HERE. .

Greek Exit from Euro appears Imminent

(WND) June 28 2015 NEW YORK – Greece is on the verge of default having failed to reach a refinancing agreement with the EU in a series of EuroSummit negotiations last week that broke off Saturday without conclusion.

On Sunday, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras announced banks and the stock exchange in Greece will be closed on Monday in a “bank holiday” that the governing council of ministers has recommended be extended through next week to calm down a panicked run of citizens who withdrew €1.3 billion in cash from ATMs over the weekend.

The European Central Bank decided over the weekend not to increase the €89 billion ($100 billion) in Emergency Liquidity Assistance the European Central Bank has reserved to provide Eurozone central banks, including the central bank in Greece, with the liquidity needed to keep ATMs and banks open during a financial crisis like that currently experienced in Greece.

Tsipras is pushing a national referendum on Friday, July 5, calling for a “yes” or “no” vote regarding whether to accept the new austerity measures demanded by the international creditors including the International Monetary Fund, but the vote could turn out to be moot with the European Union threatening to withdraw the current refinancing deal and cut off emergency funds on Tuesday, June 30, if Greece defaults, as appears likely, on a €1.3 billion payment to the IMF scheduled due that day.

“I’m making an appeal for calm,” Tsipras said in an appeal to the nation on Sunday. “Your bank deposits are safe.”

Meanwhile, financial markets around the world are preparing for the likelihood of what in Europe is being called a “Grexit,” the exit of Greece from the euro, given that without a refinancing agreement from the international creditors including the European Union Central Bank and the IMF, Greece has no prospect of meeting the interest and principal payments scheduled on the nation’s huge €300 billion euro debt.

Solutions to Greek debt crisis have stalemated as EU bankers have grown tired of lending Greece the money needed to make scheduled interest payments on the outstanding debt, realizing that promises by Greek politicians to raise additional government funds by raising taxes and cutting pensions are unlikely to work in a nation where additional austerity measures are likely only to depress further an already depressed Greek economy.

The “elephant in the room” turns out to be Deutsche Bank with a $75 trillion exposure in derivatives, an amount 20 times the gross domestic product, GDP, of Germany, that could go south should the bank’s complex bets on the Greek debt crisis collapse, causing a failure reminiscent of the derivatives collapse that caused Lehman Brothers to collapse in bankruptcy in 2008, as the bank’s highly leveraged derivative position in the collateralized mortgage market.

On Sunday, Citigroup economist Ebrahim Rahbari, the economist who coined the term “Grexit” in February 2012, advised clients in a research note that he expects the Greek referendum July 5 will result in a comfortable majority for the “yes” camp, eliminating the chance Greece will withdraw from the euro this ear and reducing the likelihood of a Grexit in subsequent years.

Bloomberg reported Sunday that a majority of Greeks support retaining the euro, although in a country with a 25 percent unemployment rate and an economy that has contracted by a quarter since 2010, there is not a majority to support the further tax increases and government spending cuts EU creditors may demand

A decision by Greece to exit the euro would not necessarily mean a decision by Greece to exit the European Union.

Still, the financial disruption a Greek exit from the euro would cause throughout the EU is likely to be sufficient to cause European stock markets to decline precipitously after opening on Monday morning, with the prospect of an EU stock-market collapse causing jitters worldwide.

Read more at HERE.

U.S. gasoline prices dip for first time in more than two months -survey

(ReutersAfrica) - NEW YORK, June 28 (Reuters) - The average price of regular grade gasoline fell by nearly 2 cents over the last two weeks, the first nationwide price decline at the pumps after more than two months of steady increases, according to the Lundberg survey released on Sunday.

Drivers paid an average of $2.85 a gallon, 86 cents below the average price paid at this time last year. Strong U.S. gas supplies and steady crude oil prices point to likely further declines in the coming weeks, said Trilby Lundberg, publisher of the survey.

"In the absence of any significant rise in crude oil prices, which have been quite stable over more than two months, the flush supply and high refining capacity utilization in the U.S. has offset the impact of our robustly growing gasoline demand," she said.

The lowest average-price gasoline in the survey of cities in the lower 48 states was found in Jackson, Mississippi, at $2.44 a gallon. The most expensive was San Diego, at $3.52 a gallon.

Related: Oil hits three-week lows as Greek crisis worsens; eyes on Iran

US: Millennials now outnumber Boomers, Census Bureau says

(USAToday.com) - It's finally happened: Millennials are taking over the Union.

Millennials, or those born from 1982 through 2000, now make up more than one quarter of the U.S. population (83.1 million), exceeding the 75.4 million Baby Boomers who were born from 1946 through 1964, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates released Thursday.

They're also more diverse than any generation before them – 44.2% of American Millennials are part of a minority race or ethnic group, according to the estimates.

In fact, the whole U.S. population is more racially and ethnically diverse. A total of 37.9% of Americans identified as minorities in 2014, up from 32.9% in 2004.

Another milestone: In 2014, those younger than 5 years old "became majority-minority for the first time, with 50.2% being part of a minority race or ethnic group," according to the estimates.

"Majority-minority" refers to when less than half of a population are non-Hispanic, single-race Whites.

The U.S. as a whole is expected to become majority-minority by 2044, according to another report from the Census Bureau.

"These latest population estimates examine changes among groups by age, sex, race and Hispanic origin nationally, as well as in all states and counties, between April 1, 2010, and July 1, 2014," the report said.

PR China presses US to invest more in its own economy

(YahooNews) June 23/2015 Washington (AFP) - Chinese Finance Minister Lou Jiwei called Tuesday on the United States to boost its domestic savings and investment to strengthen growth, including spending to improve infrastructure.

Speaking during the first day of the annual Strategic and Economic dialogue between the rival political and economic powers, Lou countered US pressure for China to stop relying on investment to power growth.

He pointed out that China's contribution to global growth is 30 percent, while the US, the largest economy in the world, added only 10 percent.

To enhance the world economy, he said, the United States should save more and turn that into productive investment, especially in infrastructure.

"We also hope that the United States accelerates its structural reform process and develops effective processes to increase labor force participation and then enhancing the savings rate," he said in a press conference, speaking through an interpreter.

"The United States should have a proper mechanism to mobilize more savings to direct to investment. At the same time we would suggest that the US could use the opportunities of greater fiscal space to increase the investment in infrastructure."

By giving investment a "greater role" in growth, the United States could make a "great contribution to world economic development," he added. Full Story

Nebraska: More consumers shopping local as bird flu drives up egg prices

NEBRASKA CITY, Neb. —As a result of the bird flu, many people are looking at other options to buy eggs, even going local.

One Nebraska farmer said she can't produce them fast enough.

All of the birds at Nebraska Freedom Farms are healthy, but the impacts of bird flu can still be felt.

When Lisa Burkey-Jeeves started selling the farm fresh eggs produced by her healthy Nebraska City flock, she heard from skeptics who told her that her price was too high.

"They thought I was a little crazy at $4 a dozen for eggs," Burkey-Jeeves said.

However, when birds started dying by the millions at big farms, she started hearing something different.

"I'm hearing, 'Can I get some?'" Burkey-Jeeves said.

The prices for a dozen eggs got a lot more competitive.

"When you look in the store now, the regular eggs have shot up," Burkey-Jeeves said. "Just regular eggs are $3.29."

Her chickens can't keep up with demand and it's hard for her to expand the flock. All poultry events in Nebraska have been cancelled until at least January.

"We're going to attempt next year to hatch our own," Burkey-Jeeves said. "So the more self-sustaining you are, the better things are."

The bird flu hasn't made for an easy spring for any farmers, but Burkey-Jeeves said she believes it has made consumers more aware of what they're eating.

"That's kind of what our farm is about, is to help people reconnect with where their food comes from -- whether its a plant or eggs or whatever we're doing," Burkey-Jeeves said.

The farm hopes to keep up with demand for fresh eggs by this fall, but with prices increasing at the grocery story, it's hard to predict.

According to the Nebraska Department of Agriculture, about 4.9 million birds have been impacted by the avian flu in the state. All of those cases have been in Dixon County Read More via ketv.com