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Hi guys, Been receiving sms/whatapps etc txt on asking ppl to avoid rain due to the jap nuclear leak. the mgs seems quite official, stating sources from BBC etc. Any truth to that? or ppl just sending for fun trying to stir sh!t?

President Barack Obama faces a daunting political reality: the world he envisioned in the spring and summer of 2008, when he was formulating his political strategy and building his political alliances, has been replaced by a world in economic danger. More Related Obama Links Energy Troubles to Unpopular Cheney The Spin Begins... Obama, McCain React to Job Report His $3.5 trillion budget might make sense if these were normal times, with a newly elected, very liberal Administration wanting to focus on reshaping America and redistributing wealth. However, these are not normal times. We are in the midst of the worst economic challenge in 80 years. (See pictures of the down-and-out economy.) Japan's gross domestic product dropped 13% in the fourth quarter. The Russians are so short of cash, they are signing a lopsided 20-year deal for oil sales to China in exchange for a $25 billion loan. Iceland is bankrupt. The World Bank predicted on March 8 that in 2009 the global economy will shrink for the first time since the 1940s. Here in America, the unemployment numbers keep growing. Such icons of U.S. economic power as Citigroup, General Motors and General Electric are in trouble. The big-spending strategy employed by George W. Bush and now Obama has so far failed to turn around the economic decline. Congressional leaders are talking about the need for a second stimulus package. No one should underestimate the danger posed by these policy failures. Gigantic economic dislocations have gigantic noneconomic consequences. The Great Depression led to the rise of Nazi Germany and a militaristic Japan, the spread of communism and World War II. (See 25 people to blame for the financial crisis.) In this environment, the only two relevant objectives are creating jobs and restoring financial institutions to functional stability. Yet the Obama budget has the potential to do exactly the opposite. If the country's No. 1 priority is to create jobs, then a hidden $1,300-per-family energy-tax increase in the guise of a cap-and-trade system is absolutely destructive. Herbert Hoover raised taxes in 1932, and it further crippled the economy. The war-on-wealth rhetoric (Obama talks about punishing companies that send jobs overseas; Vice President Joe Biden said he wanted to throw CEOs "in the brig"; Senator Claire McCaskill referred to CEOs as "idiots") and policies of this Administration and the Democratic Congress are making it difficult to stabilize the stock market and much harder to get successful people to invest in American jobs. If we want to keep money in the U.S., then sending it overseas for oil and gas is counterproductive. Yet the Obama budget includes a 13% excise tax on offshore oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico, threatening the domestic oil and gas industry at a time when we should be encouraging it to return resources home to America. The various tax increases in the Obama budget combine to form as great a threat to economic growth as the Smoot-Hawley Tariff

CNA Sport News reported : Football: EPL braces for fallout from market mayhem Posted: 02 October LONDON: Fears are mounting that an English Premier League (EPL) football club could be the next high-profile victim of the financial crisis that has brought banks to their knees across the world. The global credit crunch is set to make it a grim winter for British business and a football industry that has long displayed a hedge fund manager's appetite for excess risk will be no exception, according to some within the game. Paul Duffen, the chairman of EPL newcomers Hull, warned this week that his club's highly-geared rivals could easily go the way of Northern Rock, HBOS or Bradford and Bingley, the British banks that have been submerged by the crisis. Hull are rare among England's top flight clubs in being debt-free, a status their chairman savours in the current climate. "We're not as rich as Croesus as some of our competitors are, but in some ways we're maybe one of the wealthiest clubs as we don't have any debt," he said. "A lot of the clubs have themselves highly geared and in these highly uncertain banking times I think there could be a few casualties in the Premier League later in the season sadly." Portsmouth are seen as the club most likely to sink under the weight of their rising debt. It stands at 53 million pounds (US$94 million) but outstanding instalments on the transfer deals that enabled Harry Redknapp to build an FA Cup winning squad mean it could be nearer 80 million by the end of the season. The club's Russian owner, Alexandre Gaydamak, denies he wants to cut his losses and sell up while admitting he would "listen to offers" - hardly the stance of a man convinced he has a sustainable business model on his hands. Portsmouth are not alone in their current predicament. Newcastle's owner, Mike Ashley, is so keen to get out he has cut the asking price for the club from 450 million pounds to 300 million. Everton are also desperate to find a new cash-rich backer with their chairman, Bill Kenwright, recognising that rising interest rates will soon start to bite. "We know what's going on at the moment in the world," he said. "The banks are tighter than they've ever been." At the end of the 2006/07 season, the 20 clubs that then made up the EPL had combined debts of just under 2.5 billion pounds. Set against combined turnover of 1.5 billion, that is not an exceptional figure by the standards of other industries. Now, the new reality for the majority of clubs is that, unless they start cutting costs drastically, their debt can only go in one direction at a time when the liquidity crisis in capital markets is pushing the cost of financing any form of credit sharply upwards. Just ask Liverpool's American owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett, who last month announced an indefinite delay in the construction of the club's planned new 73,000-seat stadium because they cannot currently raise the 400 million pounds needed to finance it. Only clubs like Chelsea, underwritten by Roman Abramovich's personal fortune, and Manchester City, now cushioned by the reassuringly deep pockets of the Abu Dhabi United Group, can claim to be truly immune from contamination by the tsunami of toxic debt that triggered the current crisis. Even Manchester United, England's most valuable but also most indebted club, could be vulnerable to a c0cktail of rising bank rates and a downturn in merchandising and match-day revenues. Not so, say their American owners, the Glazer family, who insist that operating profits (60 million pounds for the 2006/07 financial year) are high enough to service debts that stood at 666 million pounds at the last count. It has not gone unnoticed however that recent hikes in season ticket prices have eliminated the long-standing waiting list for a guaranteed seat at Old Trafford. Will some of the EPL clubs last through the whole 2008/09 season........ or collapse before Christmas.......