Remarkable stories from the web in a new, easier format.

The reality is that the Spanish and Italian economies will shrink by a further 2pc in 2013. Greece is on course to contract by an additional 5pc to 7pc and Portugal by 3pc to 4pc. Far from being on the mend, the economic crisis across the South is deepening. Real interest rates are increasing from already high levels.

Triple shocks threaten Europe’s sickly and deformed recovery – Telegraph

the state and local pullback is one significant reason that this recovery has been weaker than those in the past.

Government jobs are (still) the problem

So why is there so much debate over such a seemingly costless endeavor? Because things might go wrong. In particular, these 10 things could go wrong

10 things that could go very wrong if we attack Syria

Here’s an incredible chart that shows how rapidly solar power is being installed in America. In 2006, just 7 years ago, there was one new installation of a solar unit every 80 minutes. Today? There’s one installation every four minutes.

New Solar Installation 83 Seconds – Business Insider

Fruit juices and smoothies represent a new risk to our health because of the amount of sugar the apparently healthy drinks contain, warn the US scientists who blew the whistle on corn syrup in soft drinks a decade ago

Smoothies and fruit juices are a new risk to health, US scientists warn | Society | The Guardian

With news leaking out that Apple will soon introduce a lower-priced iPhone, many investors, managers, competitors and observers are focused on how this will boost Apple’s market share, especially in emerging markets. Perhaps of even greater interest to me, however, is what this means for Apple as a company, and more generally, whether corporate cultures are fluid enough to accommodate abrupt shifts in strategy. My conclusion: Leaders should be careful what they wish for.

BBC – Capital – The end of Apple as we know it?

Even sober scientists are now talking of the jellification of the oceans. And the term is more than a mere turn of phrase. Off southern Africa, jellyfish have become so abundant that they have formed a sort of curtain of death, “a stingy-slimy killing field,”

FuturePundit: Stung: Jellyfish Taking Over Many Ocean Regions

But turns out economists have been getting increasingly bearish on Latin America as a whole.

Latin America GDP Downward Revision – Business Insider

The price-earnings ratio for the nation’s companies dropped to 14.3 times estimated profits from 17.1 at the start of 2013 because the Topix’s 34 percent surge, the biggest among 24 developed countries tracked by Bloomberg, has failed to keep up with analyst forecasts for 60 percent income growth. Nowhere have valuations contracted faster than in Japan. Multiples have increased in the U.S., France and the U.K.

World Gaining Faith in Japan as Topix Index Gets Cheaper – Bloomberg

Before freaking out, though, consider just how much radiation was detected in the tuna. As more than one writer has observed, you would get a dose of radiation that’s 20-fold greater from eating a banana, which has a naturally occurring potassium isotope. You don’t hear much about how we all need to start monitoring exposure to a daily banana equivalent dose of radiation. Nor is anyone in a panic about potatoes, kidney beans, sunflower seeds or a host of other foods that have naturally occurring radioactive elements. And don’t even mention Brazil nuts, which have five times the radioactivity of bananas.

Your Phone Is Deadlier Than Pacific Sushi – Bloomberg

About one in 20 people who used either patches or e-cigarettes managed to quit completely six months after the test started, according to research published today in The Lancet. Meanwhile, users of electronic cigarettes — battery-powered devices that deliver vaporized nicotine — were more likely to have cut their use of the real thing in half even if they didn’t quit entirely.

E-Cigarettes May Be as Effective as Patch to Help Smokers Quit – Bloomberg

However, investors don’t think central banks will be successful with these new forward guidance tactics, which are expected to ramp up soon.

Investors Think Central Banks Will Fail – Business Insider

A 107-year-old man was killed in a shootout with police, after he held two people at gunpoint in the US state of Arkansas, authorities said.

BBC News – US police kill 107-year-old suspect in home shootout

Singer James Blunt has told the BBC how he refused an order to attack Russian troops when he was a British soldier in Kosovo.Blunt said he was willing to risk a court martial by rejecting the order from a US General.

BBC News – Singer James Blunt ‘prevented World War III’

Japan’s economy expanded much faster than initially expected in the second quarter, adding to growing signs a solid recovery is taking hold

Japan growth revised up sharply for second quarter