ZooLights Back On at DC's National Zoo

By MYFOXDC STAFF/myfoxdc

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The weekend snowstorm might have been fun for the National Zoo's beloved giant panda, Tai Shan, but it temporarily put a freeze on their annual winter celebration. ZooLights has been postponed since the bad weather hit, but its back on as of Wednesday.

ZooLights features animal sculptures all lit up in LED lights, and the Fujifilm Giant Panda Habitat is also open so that visitors can see Tai Shan before he departs for China in early 2010.

Tickets for the event are $5 for members and $8 for non-members, and they can be purchased at the gate. Tickets for December 19-22 are also being honored for any of the remaining nights.

ZooLights is open on December 23, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, and January 1 and 2 from 6 – 8:30 p.m.

Source:myfoxdc.com/

Obama Disapproval Jumps after Furtive Senate Health Vote

WASHINGTON, D.C., December 23, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Rasmussen Reports' Daily Presidential Tracking Poll has showed a spike in disapproval of President Obama's job performance following Monday's 1 am cloture vote on the Senate health care bill.

On Wednesday 44% of voters said they "strongly disapprove" of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President, while 26% say they "strongly approve," giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -18. On Tuesday, the divide was 46%-25%, giving an index of -21 - the highest strong disapproval and lowest index yet recorded for the President.

55% at least somewhat disapproved of Obama's job performance, the same percentage that disapproved of the health care bill Democrats are currently pushing through the Senate.

In addition, only 29% of U.S. voters now say the country is heading in the right direction, the lowest level measured since early February, according to Rasmussen. 65% believe America is "heading down the wrong track."

Source:lifesitenews.com/

United Nations Rise Against Wooden Dollar

British economists from Capital Economics said as a result of a recent research that the Russian ruble was expected to lose about ten percent of its value against the dollar. Russian analysts share such a conclusion and say that there is nothing terrible about it. The United Nations Organization in its turn published a new research in which it criticized the dollar as an international currency and offered to replace with an artificial one.The report from the UN conference on Trade and Development particularly stated that the global currency system was not efficient. The system, the report said, hampers the development of the world economy and serves one of the reasons for the current economic crisis.

One of the authors of the report said that replacing the dollar with an artificial currency could solve a number of problems connected with the state debt and the imbalance in the field of international trade.

"A viable solution to the exchange-rate problem would be a system of managed flexible exchange rates targeting a rate that is consistent with a sustainable current-account position, which is preferable to any 'corner solution.' But since the exchange rate is a variable that involves more than one currency, there is a much better chance of achieving a stable pattern of exchange rates in a multilaterally agreed framework for exchange-rate management," said the U.N. body.

“This subject is not new at all, but I do not think that this problem will be paid any attention to during the upcoming several years. The crisis of trust and the crisis of finance is enough for the economy today, no one needs a currency crisis. One needs to look into current problems and not create new ones,” finance expert Alexander Osin told the Noviye Izvestia newspaper.

However, a new currency has all chances to emerge some day, the expert said.

The subject of the dollar’s replacement surfaced for the first time in November of 2008, during the G20 summit in Washington. It was Russia and China that offered the issue for discussion. China support Russia, but other members of the summit decided to take a break without setting forth any objections, though.