US Banks Announce Ripple Protocol Integration

Ripple Labs has sealed new partnerships that will bring its Ripple protocol to two US banks.

According to the company’s 24th September announcement, Kansas-based CBW Bank and Cross River Bank, located in New Jersey, will be the first American banks to adopt Ripple’s open-source distributed transaction infrastructure.

The news comes several months after Ripple inked its first deal with the banking sector, when German bank Fidor became the first institution of its kind to integrate the Ripple protocol. Like Fidor, CBW Bank and Cross River Bank will now be able to tap Ripple’s low-cost currency transfer and remittance capabilities.

BitPay And PayPal, An Unbeatable Payment Partnership

http://blog.bitpay.com/2014/09/23/bitpay-and-paypal-an-unbeatable-payment-partnership.html

September 23rd, 2014 — Tony Gallippi — merchants

Today we are excited to reveal our relationship with PayPal to increase the adoption of bitcoin worldwide. The first project we have completed is an integration with PayPal’s Payments Hub, which is their alternative payments platform for digital goods. Customers with a bitcoin wallet will be able to pay participating merchants in bitcoin for games, music, videos, news, ebooks, and other digital content.

Islands save up to 79 tons of CO2 a day with modern desalination plant

A new Reverse Osmosis (RO) plant in the Aeolian Islands desalinates seawater quicker, more efficiently and at a lower cost than previously, providing tourists and natives with an abundance of potable water while reducing energy consumption to less than one-third of former levels.

For more than six centuries, visitors have been drawn to the beauty and mystery of Italy’s Aeolian Islands, a volcanic archipelago that lies about 40 kilometres north of Sicily.

The popularity of the islands increased after 2000 when they were designated a World Heritage site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the first nature site in Italy to receive this recognition. Since then, the scarcity of potable water on Lipari, the largest island and main entrance point for tourists, has become increasingly pressing.

Lipari has a permanent population of about 11,000 and no source of fresh water (read more under the tab "Thirsty islands" at the top of this story). For years, water was shipped from Sicily and Naples to satisfy the needs of locals and visitors. At a reported cost of more than EUR 10 per metric cube of shipped water, this solution was feasible – although costly – during winter months.

In the summer, however, the island’s population and water needs grow dramatically. Official figures cite 200,000 tourists throughout the season; Lipari’s mayor, Marco Giorgianni, suggests twice as many may arrive over the August peak.

Ebola test drug supply exhausted world-wide – Germany asks soldiers to volunteer to fight the outbreak in Africa

September 2014 – AFRICA - Doctors treating a Spanish priest who was repatriated from West Africa on Monday after being diagnosed with the Ebola virus said there were no samples of experimental drug ZMapp available in the world right now, and they were considering alternative treatments. The priest, Manuel Garcia Viejo, 69, was in serious condition and was suffering from dehydration, with kidney and liver complications, said Javier Rodriguez, chief health officer for the Madrid region. Garcia Viejo, a medical director of the San Juan de Dios Hospital in Lunsar, Sierra Leone, was transferred to Madrid Carlos III hospital after being flown back from Sierra Leone in a medically-equipped military plane.

Batteri "elettrici" per purificare l'acqua senza consumare energia

Un salasso di elettroni ai batteri che depurano l'acqua per ridurre, e al limite azzerare, l'energia consumata dagli impianti di depurazione. All'Università di Alcalà, Madrid, un gruppo di ricercatori che studia la bio-elettricità, cercando di capire come estrarre energia elettrica dai processi di depurazione delle acque, ha scoperto che sfruttando fenomeni di elettricità naturale è possibile stressare i batteri che si nutrono degli inquinanti, portandoli a mangiare molto senza ingrassare e senza riprodursi. Ciò rende inutili trattamenti energivori tipici degli impianti di depurazione, come il pompaggio di aria o ossigeno, abbattendone i consumi di elettricità. Consumi che in Italia, per esempio, pesano per circa l'1,5% del fabbisogno di energia elettrica.

http://www2.uah.es/master_universitario_hidrologia/archivos/proyectos_2011.pdf

QUALE SARà IL TREND DEL PREZZO DEL CAFFE ?

Dopo la siccità in Brasile e i problemi sulla conformazione dei chicchi, adesso il Coffee deve attraversare anche la tempesta del fungo della ruggine. Non c’è pace per la bevanda in questione.  Il fungo della ruggine rappresenta sicuramente un grosso problema per i caficoltori, che vedono il loro raccolto deteriorarsi velocemente a seguito di questa infezione. A subire maggiormente gli effetti della malattia sono i coltivatori che si dedicano alle colture biologiche, poiché non possono intervenire tramite l’ applicazione di pesticidi in quanto tali trattamenti impedirebbero la classificazione “bio” del prodotto, un evento questo che causerebbe la perdita del premio ricevuto per il particolare tipo di coltivazione. Attualmente quella che sembra essere la peggiore epidemia di Roya degli ultimi trent’ anni sta avendo risvolti deleteri anche dal punto di vista sociale, basti pensare che in El Salvador quasi 50000 persone hanno perso il lavoro a causa della contrazione di lavoro nelle piantagioni indotto dalla malattia. In ogni caso il disagio dovuto alla malattia si estende anche alle coltivazioni tradizionali, che, nonostante i trattamenti appositi, risentono dell’ infezione in modo pesante. Per quanto concerne i prezzi stiamo assistendo ad una sorta di lateralizzazione dei prezzi, che si attestano a ridosso di una forte area di supporto; non dimentichiamo tuttavia che il prodotto si presenta sempre nervoso e sensibile alle news in arrivo a mercato, con gli enti preposti che iniziano a valutare la possibile produzione della prossima stagione, sono quindi presenti tutti i fattori per assistere ad escursioni di prezzo importanti. - See more at: http://www.commoditiestrading.it/spread-trading/Zucchero-amaro-e-caffe-nervoso--pericolo-per-le-soft-commodities-1593.aspx#sthash.8oqnOFoc.dpuf

http://www.commoditiestrading.it/spread-trading/Zucchero-amaro-e-caffe-nervoso--pericolo-per-le-soft-commodities-1593.aspx

Dutch MH17 Investigation Omits US “Intel”. Fabrications and Omissions Supportive of US-NATO Agenda Directed against Russia

By Tony Cartalucci

Global Research, September 19, 2014

Url of this article:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/dutch-mh17-investigation-omits-us-intel-fabrications-and-omissions-supportive-of-us-nato-agenda-directed-against-russia/5402970

The absence of America’s so-called “intelligence” regarding the downing of Malaysia Airlines MH17 over Ukraine in a 34 page Dutch Safety Board preliminary report raises serious questions about the credibility and legitimacy of both America’s political agenda, and all agencies, organizations, and political parties currently behind it.
The report titled, “Preliminary Report: Crash involving Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200 flight MH17″ (.pdf), cites a wide variety of evidence in its attempt to determine the cause of flight MH17′s crash and to prevent similar accidents or incidents from occurring again in the future. Among this evidence includes the cockpit voice recorder (CVR), the flight data recorder (FDR), analysis of recorded air traffic control (ATC) surveillance data and radio communication, analysis of the meteorological circumstances, forensic examination of the wreckage (if recovered and possible foreign objects if found), results of the pathological investigation, and analysis of the in-flight break up sequence.
Satellite images are referenced in regards to analyzing the crash site after the disaster, however, no where in the report is mentioned any evidence whatsoever of satellite images of missile launchers, intelligence from the United States regarding missile launches, or any information or evidence at all in any regard suggesting a missile had destroyed MH17. In fact, the report concludes by stating:

PayPal to start acccepting bitcoin payments The digital currency is being integrated into Braintree, which provides payment capabilities on apps like Uber Technologies Inc. and Airbnb Inc.

(Bloomberg) -- EBay Inc.'s PayPal service will start accepting bitcoins, opening up the world's second-biggest Internet payment network to virtual currency transactions.

"Today we're announcing PayPal's first foray into bitcoin," Bill Ready, the chief of EBay's Braintree unit, said at Techcrunch's Disrupt SF conference Monday. "Over the coming months we'll allow our merchants to accept bitcoin. On the consumer side it will be a sleek experience."

EBay, as the world's biggest Web marketplace and operator of a global payments service, is the most significant business to date that's embraced bitcoin. The move could potentially enable PayPal's 152 million registered accounts to transact using the virtual currency, spurring wider use and acceptance of bitcoin, according to Gil Luria, an analyst at Wedbush Securities Inc.

"PayPal integrating bitcoin into Braintree is a very substantial development," Mr. Luria said. "Not only will it make it possible for some of the fastest-growing apps to integrate bitcoin seamlessly, it opens the door for PayPal to integrate bitcoin into its main wallet functionality. If that happens millions of retailers will de facto be accepting bitcoin overnight."