Nigel Farage - Europe is Collapsing, Buy Gold & Expect QE

On the heels of Fed Chairman Bernanke’s comments, Spain being downgraded and key meetings taking place in Europe, today King World News interviewed MEP (Member European Parliament) Nigel Farage, to get his take on the ongoing crisis.  Farage told KWN that “when I look into the eyes of the leaders of Europe ... what I’m seeing now is madness, absolute, total and utter madness.” 

Farage also discussed the action in the gold market, but first, here is what Farage had to say about the deteriorating situation in Europe:  “Of course, over the last couple of years we’ve had two bailouts of Greece, a bailout of Ireland, Portugal.  We’re now on the verge of needing a bailout in Cyprus, but perhaps more significantly, a bailout in Spain.”
     
“There is all sorts of twisting and turning going on with the Spanish saying, ‘Please save our banks, but don’t put us under the austerity measures that you’ve put the other countries under.’

If one looks globally, we’ve got people like David Cameron, and importantly, President Obama, who are basically saying, ‘The euro project must be saved.  It must be saved at all costs.’ ....

“For that to happen the Eurozone has to turn into a state, and a state that effectively has a Fed.

The Germans are saying, “Hang on guys, we don’t really want to take on the debt for the whole of ‘Club Mediterranean’ countries.”  There’s been a meeting in Berlin today, and Angela Merkel has, for the first time, said that she’s prepared to countenance this becoming a full fiscal and political union, but it has to be constructed on German terms.

So it would appear that despite the fact that the eurozone is a disaster, despite the fact that nobody is prepared to recognize just what a mess our banks are in, despite all of this, our political classes in Europe and America are prepared to continue this project of total failure. 

If we continue with this route, we are heading for money printing on a scale that has never been seen before in the history of mankind.  Clearly, as history teaches us, that will lead to massive inflation, and huge asset depreciation.”

Farage also added:  “All I can tell you is when I look into the eyes of the leaders of Europe, and as a leader of a group in the European Parliament I do get eyeball to eyeball with them, when I look into the eyes of these people, frankly what I’m seeing now is madness, absolute, total and utter madness.

The project, the idea is what must be protected and to hell with the consequences.  I really believe that when we look back in decades or centuries to come, we will see what is happening now in the eurozone as something of huge historical significance.

People will say to themselves in classrooms, in a couple of hundred years time, ‘How could they have been so stupid?’”

Farage also had this to say regarding gold:  “I think we are at that level where people who have waited to add to their gold portfolios should be adding now.  You may well get a situation where if they do pull off some grand deal that gold falls ... but we are now back in the buying zone for gold.

I always felt, and I’ve said for some months on your show, that I thought gold would come back (down), and indeed it has.  I think investors that are scared of what may happen to paper money, you’d have to be very complacent not to be, we are in a buying territory for gold now in my view.”

This is an incredibly important and timely interview with Farage. The KWN interview with Nigel Farage will be available shortly and you can listen to it by CLICKING HERE.

'Tooth Tattoo' That Could Save Your Life

A 'tooth tattoo' made from silk strands and gold wires could be used to detect life-threatening illnesses, researchers have said.

The tiny wireless device sticks to dental enamel and transmits real-time updates on chemicals in the breath and saliva.

Engineers at Princeton University in America have used it to detect bacteria that causes surgical infections and stomach ulcers, and say it could also be used to recognise viruses.

The sensor is in the early stages of development, but the university’s researchers say it could one day be used to monitor human health with unprecedented accuracy.

During a demonstration, a volunteer breathed across a prototype sensor attached to a cow’s tooth.
It generated an instant response which was sent to a nearby monitor.

"The antenna coil is what transmits the signal," said Michael McAlpine, the team's principal investigator, “you don't need a battery."

Details of the invention were reported in the medical journal Nature Communications.
The researchers created the device by bundling the silk and gold with graphene - an extremely thin sheet of carbon.

Yet despite its complexity, it can be applied to a tooth's surface with water "like a child's transfer tattoo", the university said.

The sensor is currently too big to fit onto a human tooth, and needs further work to scale it down.
The team also plans to improve the sensor so that it can withstand eating and brushing over a long period of time.

"Ideally, you want something that would be there for a while. We have a way to go before we could master that," Mr McAlpine said.

“Whopping” number of earthquakes shake around Hawaii volcano“

HAWAII VOLCANOES NATIONAL PARK, Hawaii: A large number of earthquakes has been rattling the Volcano area on Hawaii Island over the last few days. The quakes have been small, with no damage reported. Still, a handful of those temblors have been 3.0 magnitude and over.

The USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory’s “Recent Earthquakes in Hawaii” page shows a constant swarm of quakes surrounding the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, home of the active Kilauea Volcano. We took a screen grab of the screen of the USGS HVO earthquake page, and it shows the long list stretching all the way back to Friday, June 1st.

16 earthquakes have already registered on the list before noon on Tuesday, Hawaii time.

On Tuesday, the HVO staff makes mention of the quakes on their Kilauea volcano update page:

The GPS network recorded weak extension overall for the past few months with superimposed contraction and extension fluctuations corresponding to DI tilt events. Seismic tremor levels were generally low, decreasing from a peak around 11 am Sunday. A whopping thirty-three earthquakes were strong enough to be located beneath Kilauea volcano: 4 deep earthquakes below the southwest rift zone, 3 beneath the west edge of the summit area, 7 within and below the upper east rift, 1 north of the middle east rift zone, 7 on south flank faults, and 11 mostly shallow long-period (LP) earthquakes within the Koa`e Fault Zone beneath the Kulanaokuaiki Camp Ground; a quick check this morning showed no obvious new cracking on the surface near the campground.

The rise of the Kilauea summit lava lake level in Halemaumau crater continued with several overflows of the inner ledge. At Pu`u `O`o, scientists report lava also rose within the east collapse pit; to the southeast, lava flows continued to advance on the coastal plain.

World's largest biometric database

In the last two years, over 200 million Indian nationals have had their fingerprints and photographs taken and irises scanned, and given a unique 12-digit number that should identify them everywhere and to everyone.

This is only the beginning, and the goal is to do the same with the entire population (1.2 billion), so that poorer Indians can finally prove their existence and identity when needed for getting documents, getting help from the government, and opening bank and other accounts.

This immense task needs a database that can contain over 12 billion fingerprints, 1.2 billion photographs, and 2.4 billion iris scans, can be queried from diverse devices connected to the Internet, and can return accurate results in an extremely short time.

The program - dubbed UIDAI - is lead by techno tycoon Nandan Nilekani, and is already a big success, as its effectiveness has been proved by a number of trials that allowed citizens to open bank accounts electronically, receive payments from the government directly into them, and withdrawing the money from them by authenticating themselves on a slew of simple devices.

According to BBC's Saritha Rai, the database in question has an open source backbone, and it's not locked into any specific hardware or software. The collected information - stored in a data centre in Bangalore - is secured by multiple layers of security, and it is transmitted to and from the database in encrypted form.

The 12-digit number each individual is assigned is unique and random, so it can't be guessed. And the combination of photo, fingerprints of all ten hand fingers and iris scans of both eyes makes it practically impossible for someone not to get identified or to get identified as another person, especially after the three planned de-duplication checks are executed.

Using the latest biometric, cloud computing and connection technologies, this program is likely to become a great example for future ones dealing with even larger databases.

Password Theft: Hacking Probe At LinkedIn

Millions of users of the social networking website LinkedIn have been told to reset their passwords after security information was stolen.

The site, which is aimed at professionals and has in excess of 161 million members in more than 200 countries, was compromised and members' details were posted online.

LinkedIn director Vicente Silveira said in a statement: "We can confirm that some of the passwords that were compromised correspond to LinkedIn accounts."

He said the company was investigating the security breach and added that those who were affected will notice their LinkedIn passwords will no longer be valid.

It is thought the passwords of more than 6.5 million people were stolen.

Mr Silveira said: "Members that have accounts associated with the compromised passwords will notice that their LinkedIn account password is no longer valid.

"These members will also receive an email from LinkedIn with instructions on how to reset their passwords."

Users were told they should never change their passwords by following a link sent on an email.
"These affected members will receive a second email from our customer support team providing a bit more context on this situation and why they are being asked to change their passwords," Mr Silveira added.

IT security and data protection firm Sophos said the leaked encrypted data does not include associated email addresses but warned that hackers will be working to crack the "unsalted" password hashes and "it is reasonable to assume that such information may be in the hands of the criminals".

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, said: "It would seem sensible to suggest to all LinkedIn users that they change their passwords as soon as possible as a precautionary step."

Mr Silveira said LinkedIn had recently improved its security, which included the "hashing and salting" of current password databases.

California-based LinkedIn launched in 2003 and made its stock market debut in May 2011 in the hope of raising money for expansion.

LinkedIn gets more than two-thirds of its revenue from fees it charges companies, recruiting services and other people who want broader access to the profiles and other data on the company's website. The rest comes from advertising.