QUES: Our sun and other stars release light energy. At least this is what we see. Our Sun and stars also emit more than just light. Scientists call the type of energy that our Sun and stars release electromagnetic energy. This form of energy travels through space. Electromagnetic energy includes the light we see. It also includes much more. Many of these things we know about, but dont always think about. Electromagnetic energy includes radio waves, microwaves, and X rays. We now have devices in our homes and offices that release these same forms of energy. We use electromagnetic energy to make our lives better.
Do you have any questions?
MY QUESTION: What type of energy can we see?

QUES: The second major point on which the principals had agreed on March 10 was the need to crack down on terrorist organizations and curtail their fund-raising. The embassy bombings of 1998 had focused attention on al Qaeda's finances. One result had been the creation of an NSC-led interagency committee on terrorist financing. On its recommendation, the President had designated Bin Laden and al Qaeda as subject to sanctions under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. This gave theTreasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) the ability to search for and freeze any Bin Laden or al Qaeda assets that reached the U.S. financial system. But since OFAC had little information to go on, few funds were frozen. In July 1999, the President applied the same designation to the Taliban for harboring Bin Laden. Here, OFAC had more success. It blocked more than $34 million in Taliban assets held in U.S. banks. Another $215 million in gold and $2 million in demand deposits, all belonging to the Afghan central bank and held by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, were also frozen. After October 1999, when the State Department formally designated al Qaeda a "foreign terrorist organization," it became the duty of U.S. banks to block its transactions and seize its funds. Neither this designation nor UN sanctions had much additional practical effect; the sanctions were easily circumvented, and there were no multilateral mechanisms to ensure that other countries' financial systems were not used as conduits for terrorist funding. Attacking the funds of an institution, even the Taliban, was easier than finding and seizing the funds of a clandestine worldwide organization like al Qaeda. Although the CIA's Bin Laden unit had originally been inspired by the idea of studying terrorist financial links, few personnel assigned to it had any experience in financial investigations. Any terrorist-financing intelligence appeared to have been collected collaterally, as a consequence of gathering other intelligence. This attitude may have stemmed in large part from the chief of this unit, who did not believe that simply following the money from point A to point B revealed much about the terrorists' plans and intentions. As a result, the CIA placed little emphasis on terrorist financing. Nevertheless, the CIA obtained a general understanding of how al Qaeda raised money.
Do you have any questions?
MY QUESTION: In 1999 the president decided to apply the same designations of freezing assets of the Taliban held in the United States and it resulted in how much money being frozen?

QUES: These experiments in political Islam faltered during the 1990s: the Iranian revolution lost momentum, prestige, and public support, and Pakistan's rulers found that most of its population had little enthusiasm for fundamentalist Islam. Islamist revival movements gained followers across the Muslim world, but failed to secure political power except in Iran and Sudan. In Algeria, where in 1991 Islamists seemed almost certain to win power through the ballot box, the military preempted their victory, triggering a brutal civil war that continues today. Opponents of today's rulers have few, if any, ways to participate in the existing political system. They are thus a ready audience for calls to Muslims to purify their society, reject unwelcome modernization, and adhere strictly to the Sharia. Social and Economic Malaise In the 1970s and early 1980s, an unprecedented flood of wealth led the then largely unmodernized oil states to attempt to shortcut decades of development. They funded huge infrastructure projects, vastly expanded education, and created subsidized social welfare programs. These programs established a widespread feeling of entitlement without a corresponding sense of social obligations. By the late 1980s, diminishing oil revenues, the economic drain from many unprofitable development projects, and population growth made these entitlement programs unsustainable. The resulting cutbacks created enormous resentment among recipients who had come to see government largesse as their right. This resentment was further stoked by public understanding of how much oil income had gone straight into the pockets of the rulers, their friends, and their helpers. Unlike the oil states (or Afghanistan, where real economic development has barely begun), the other Arab nations and Pakistan once had seemed headed toward balanced modernization. The established commercial, financial, and industrial sectors in these states, supported by an entrepreneurial spirit and widespread understanding of free enterprise, augured well. But unprofitable heavy industry, state monopolies, and opaque bureaucracies slowly stifled growth. More importantly, these state-centered regimes placed their highest priority on preserving the elite's grip on national wealth. Unwilling to foster dynamic economies that could create jobs attractive to educated young men, the countries became economically stagnant and reliant on the safety valve of worker emigration either to the Arab oil states or to the West. Furthermore, the repression and isolation of women in many Muslim countries have not only seriously limited individual opportunity but also crippled overall economic productivity. By the 1990s, high birthrates and declining rates of infant mortality had produced a common problem throughout the Muslim world: a large, steadily increasing population of young men without any reasonable expectation of suitable or steady employment-a sure prescription for social turbulence.
Do you have any questions?
MY QUESTION: Which Political Islam experiments faltered during the 1990's?

QUES: A flood occurs when a river overflows its banks. This might happen because of heavy rains. Floodplains In very flat regions, flood water may spread out on the surface of the land. It then slows down and drops its sediment. If a river floods often, a floodplain develops. A floodplain is an area where a thick layer of rich soil is left behind as the floodwater recedes. Thats why floodplains are usually good places for growing plants. They are very flat areas and they have very rich soils. The Nile River valley is a great example of a floodplain. Each year, the Nile River rises over its banks. This floodwater carries a lot of sediment. This sediment has been eroded off areas of land from upstream. This sediment is dropped as the water slows down after spreading across the land. What is left behind is a very rich soil. Thats why crops can be raised in the middle of a sandy desert. Natural Levees A flooding river often forms natural levees along its banks. A levee is a raised strip of sediments deposited close to the waters edge.
Do you have any questions?
MY QUESTION:
What may cause a river to flood and overflow its banks?