Spot gold rose to a peak at $1,464.80 an ounce and was bid at $1,464.12 an ounce at 1354 GMT, against $1,457 late in New York on Wednesday.
U.S. gold futures for June delivery were up $7 an ounce to $1,465.50, having earlier peaked at $1,467 an ounce.
As many as 20 people are feared dead after a gunman invaded a primary school in Rio de Janeiro and opened fire.
One witness told the Guardian he had seen between 15 and 20 children dead or seriously wounded inside the Tasso da Silveira primary school in western Rio.
"It is a massacre, a true massacre," said Roni de Macedo, a fireman who arrived on the scene shortly after the shooting began and dragged eight seriously injured children from the second floor classroom. "There is blood on the walls, blood on the chairs. There are 15 to 20 dead I think," said De Macedo, who was covered in blood
The exercise takes place Wednesday at Butts Army Airfield at Fort Carson, just outside Colorado Springs.
The exercise will involve resources and personnel from around Fort Carson, including Evans Army Community Hospital and first responders from nearby communities.
* Political discontent in Saudi not resolved-Yamani
* "Surprises on the horizon" Yamani predicts
* Consultant says Saudi a "time bomb", change inevitable
By Emma Farge
LONDON, April 5 (Reuters) - Oil prices could rocket to $200- $300 a barrel if the world's top crude exporter Saudi Arabia is hit by serious political unrest, former Saudi oil minister Sheikh Zaki Yamani told Reuters on Tuesday.
The three-day meeting of experts of various disciplines in Chicheley Hall is about, with technical refinements in the processes of nature to intervene to cool the atmosphere. And about who would make that decision in order to save the planet.
The previously unknown risks of the so-called geo-engineering in many delegates out of the meeting in March discomfort. "If we could experiment with the atmosphere and literally play God, it's very tempting for a scientist," says geoscientist
We Are Change
April 5, 2011
European Council President Herman van Rompuy was questioned by students at Warsaw University on democracy in the European Union. He seemed irritated at the suggestion that the EU was undemocratic, despite the fact that he’s completely unaccountable to the people of Europe.
Yet the past three weeks have found the council – this time with a less noisy Anglo-American wing – willing to pass stunningly powerful resolutions allowing missile strikes against murderous leaders.
Both resolution 1973 on Libya and resolution 1975 on Ivory Coast give external forces the authority to take "all necessary" measures to protect civilians from violence – practically a carte blanche.
When scientists speak of radiation, they speak not only of single doses but also of cumulative doses.
See for example, this research from the University of Iowa showing that “cumulative radon exposure is a significant risk factor for lung cancer in women".
And see these studies on the health effects cumulative doses of radioactive cesium. (As I noted on March 29th, the radioactive cesium fallout from Japan already rivals Chernobyl. And the amount of radioactive fuel at Fukushima dwarfsChernobyl).
Admittedly, the damage from huge single doses may be greater than the same cumulative dose from many small exposures. But the smaller doses can still add up.
Many studies have shown that repeated exposures to low levels of ionizing radiation from CT scans and x-rays can cause cancer. See this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this.
Remember, the radiation from CT scans and x-rays are external emitters - the radiation emanates from outside the body. In contract, internal emitters keep emitting their radiation inside the body. Therefore, the cumulative effect of multiple small doses of radiation from internal emitters could be even more dramatic, depending on the half life, metabolic pathways and other properties of the particular radioactive particle.
As the European Committee on Radiation Risk notes:
Cumulative impacts of chronic irradiation in low doses are ... important for the comprehension, assessment and prognosis of the late effects of irradiation on human beings ...
And see this.
A military briefing written by the U.S. Army for commanders in Iraq states:
Hazards from low level radiation are long-term, not acute effects... Every exposure increases risk of cancer.
(Military briefings for commanders often contain less propaganda than literature aimed at civilians, as the commanders have to know the basic facts to be able to assess risk to their soldiers.)
The briefing states that doses are cumulative, citing the following military studies and reports:
Why was the military advising commanders on radiation in Iraq? Presumably because the American military used depleted uranium in Iraq (see this, this, this, this, this and this).
One of the Giant's of Radiation Exposure Science Warned of Cumulative Low-Dose Exposures
American reporter Dahr Jamail reports today for Al Jazeera:
