Apple appears to be dipping back into its greatest hits collection. Bloomberg is reporting today (Aug. 20) that  Apple will revive its Mac Mini  desktop computer, and release a redesigned version of its MacBook Air laptop later this year. Apple’s computer sales have been  surprisingly durable  over the last few years, regaining the mantle as the company’s second-largest hardware division in 2016—behind the iPhone—and generating over $25 billion in the last four quarters alone.   The Mac Mini, a favorite for consumers looking to turn their TVs into streaming devices in the pre-smart-TV days, has not been updated at all in the last four years, and hasn’t had a design refresh  in about eight years . The Mini is Apple’s cheapest desktop, starting at about $500 (though it doesn’t come with a monitor, keyboard, or mouse). This year’s model, Bloomberg reports, will be marketed to more “pro” users—the audience Apple targets with its Mac Pro, MacBook Pro...

After decades of work, scientists found direct evidence of ice on the Moon By  Katherine Ellen Foley August 21, 2018 The idea that there was ice on the Moon tantalized astronomers for years, even before NASA’s Apollo mission to send astronauts to the lunar surface began. When the NASA spacecraft  Clementine  brought sent back data that hinted at the possibility that there was ice on the surface of the Moon in 1994, it stirred excitement once again. The trouble was, the measurements recorded weren’t definitive. Since then, scientists have been plugging along for proof of lunar surface ice. Today (Aug. 20), a team of scientists led by researchers at the University of Hawaii found the first direct evidence of  frozen water on the Moon’s poles (paywall).  The discovery is based on data gathered by the Moon Mineralogy Mapper, a NASA instrument that flew to the Moon back in 2008. Reanalyzing these data today, the researcher...

The rise in the US unemployment rate isn’t bad news By  Eshe Nelson July 6, 2018 In June, the  US unemployment rate unexpectedly rose  to 4% from 3.8% the month before, coming off an 18-year low. Rather than being an omen of bad things to come, the rise suggests a positive outlook for the US economy as it coincides with more than 600,000 people entering the labor force. These new entrants to the labor market have good reason to think their prospects of finding a job are good: Job growth is really strong. Last month, US employers added 213,000 jobs, exceeding already high expectations of 195,000. The figures for the previous two months were also revised higher. It’s the 93rd consecutive month of job gains, an  impressively long and strong stretch of growth . That said, the labor market isn’t perfect. Pay increases remain the missing part. Even with more and more jobs, annual wage growth has remained stubbornly below 3% since early 2009. In...

The BRICS are considering an internal gold trading platform, according to Russian officials. When this happens, the global economy will be significantly reshaped, and the West will lose dominance, predicts a precious metal expert. In 2016, 24,338 tons of physical gold were traded, which was 43 percent more than in 2015, according to Claudio Grass, of Precious Metal Advisory Switzerland. Read more ‘Gold price will explode & dollar get wiped out’ – warns investor Peter Schiff Gold moving from the West to the East “We have to put the BRICS initiative into a broader context. It is just part of a geopolitical tectonic shift which started decades ago. We have seen a constant outflow of physical gold from the West to the East. At the same time, the West has lost the economic war, and as a consequence, the focus now turns to the financial system. China dominates the world economy and has displaced the US as the world’s most formidable economic powerhouse, ”  he told RT...

BEIJING:  China, seeking to skirt US sanctions, will use oil tankers from Iran for its purchases of that country´s crude, throwing Tehran a lifeline while European companies such as France´s Total are walking away due to fear of reprisals from Washington.  The United States is trying to halt Iranian oil exports in an effort to force Tehran to negotiate a new nuclear agreement and to curb its influence in the Middle East. China, which has cut imports of U. S. crude amid a trade war with Washington, has said it opposes unilateral sanctions and defended its commercial ties with Iran.  On Monday, sources told Reuters Chinese buyers of Iranian oil were beginning to shift their cargoes to vessels owned by National Iranian Tanker Co (NITC) for nearly all their imports. The shift demonstrates that China, Iran´s biggest oil customer, wants to keep buying Iranian crude despite the sanctions, which were reimposed after the United States withdrew in May from a 2015...

LAHORE: The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is a mutually beneficial project for both Islamabad and Beijing, and its immediate benefit to China would be the drastic reduction in the transportation cost to Europe and Middle East. The short term benefit for Pakistan would be the fee it would charge for transportation of goods through this trade corridor. The benefits would be similar to those that are available to Panama from Panama Canal and Egypt from the Suez Canal. If we succeed in providing a suitable environment to China in relocating its labour intensive industries, we would gain more. Long-term benefits are linked to improvement of education, health and skill indicators of the country. This would pave the way for investments in higher tech industries. Currently, goods shipped to Europe from central China travel a cumulative distance of 19,132 miles of which 16,507 is by sea, and 2,625 miles by land (distance from Shanghai port to central China).  After complet...

EVERYBODY knows that the country has all the resources to become an economic power but nobody knows 'whats wrong with us. By 1969, Pakistans  manufac tured exports were higher than the exports of Thailand, Ma laysi a and Indonesia combined and today they are far ahead of us individually. Let me share with you some of the glaring facts that need to be brought into the limelight so that the people at large could ha ve an understanding of the potential the country has. Pakistan  i s  t h e 24th largest economy in the world (according to Purchasing Power criterion), 45th Largest economy in the world (according to a b solute US Dollars term), 6th Biggest Country in the world (according to population out of 230 countries), 36th Biggest country in the world (acco rding  to area), Largest irrigation network in the world, One of the eighth Nuclear Powers in the World and second biggest technical workforce (in absolute numbers) in the Muslim world (after Turkey). Surprised?...