LONDON (AP) – On Tuesday the Royal Dutch Shell announced that it has controlled the main leakages of the platforms in the North Sea, but said that it was difficult to stop a minor leak in an inaccessible area on the seabed. Glen Cayley, technical director of the exploration and production in Europe for Shell, said the company deeply regrets the spill, which was unfortunately the worst in Britain... 

The interconnectedness of all the problems facing America today makes discussing them difficult. Where are we supposed to begin? How do we stay on track? How do we know when we’re done? That last question is the easiest to answer – we don’t. Instead, we need to let go of the concept of ‘solving’ a problem. Most problems are never solved permanently; the best we can hope for is to alleviate... 

The American economy has another hidden weakness – over five percent of our Gross National Product is based on the U.S. Government’s expenditures on the military. That does not include peripheral, indirect military-related aspects of our economy, for which there seem to be no hard numbers. But it is safe to say that a much larger chunk of our economy is dependent upon our military industry. ... 

When looking at crime and the criminal justice system, one thing becomes immediately apparent: once again, we have a problem that has many layers, each effecting the others. We have increasing rates of crime, which means increased burdens on our police, our courts, our prisons – and of course, on our taxpayers. We are confronted with inadequacies in our education, social welfare and other sectors.... 

An equated monthly installment (EMI) is what you pay every month towards repayment of your loan. Your Home Loan EMI depends on the loan amount, the rate of interest and the tenure of the loan. For a given loan amount and interest rate, your EMI can be lower if you increase the loan tenure. Check out our Home Loan EMI Calculator to find out by how much you can reduce your present EMI. Of course, keep... 

Washington D.C Despite all the ongoing debates regarding another possible depression, the next year’s U.S elections have already become a hotly debated topic in the U.S. Barack Obama who will be the candidate of the Democratic Party has kick started his campaign a few months ago through his website. The Obama team has started showing much care in planning and collecting the Election funds, till... 

Colombo: Reports have revealed that India has reached an agreement to buy high speed boats from Sri lanka. The irony is that these boats are said to be an Utter copy of the boats that were used by the LTTE.   If this rumor turns out to be true, India could be the first country to buy weapons and accessories from a country that is much smaller in Technological advances.   The sri lankan websites... 

Representational democracy in America is under imminent threat from the triumvirate of government, media and corporate hegemony – this is the premise of Corby Griffin’s political thriller, FREEDOM FIRST: A Novel of the Next American Revolution. Set in the near future, it tells the story of a latter-day Thomas Paine who rises from obscure slackerdom to the leadership of a political revolution... 

So let’s turn our gaze now to the role of the so-called “Fourth Branch of Government”, the media. When the framers of our Constitution declared the need for ‘freedom of the press’, they were of course referring to the printing press. This is an important point to keep in mind. America in the late 1700’s was a rather wild land with poor roads and (obviously) no means of instant communication.... 

Virtual reality is the interaction between a person or people and a virtual (computer generated) world. The computer is programmed with information about a real or imaginary place, building sizes, textures, lighting etc and then rendered to a visual form. Most virtual reality simulations are visual environments but can include sound, and more recently they can contain tactile information for interacting...