How can you invest for retirement in a low-interest rate environment? One answer is to invest in bonds. Learn why many retirees choose to invest in bonds, what the risks are, and how to buy them.

Investing in a bond fund can help diversify your portfolio. This week’s Goldstein on Gelt podcast gives a link for a video about bond laddering and an article that explains how bond funds can increase your portfolio’s diversification.

Professor Burton G. Malkiel of Princeton University, bestselling author of A Random Walk Down Wall Street, takes the idea of investing at low risk further. He recommends three tools that may help you to invest for retirement in today’s low-interest environment and shares his predictions for inflation and interest rates.

The Goldstein On Gelt Show is a financial podcast. Click on the player below to listen. For show notes and contact details of the guest, go to www.GoldsteinOnGelt.com

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The Hatrurim oil and gas exploration license in the Dead Sea area contains an oil reservoir worth $321 million, according to a resources report published Sunday morning by the companies holding the license, Globe reported. The report states with 100% geological certainty that the reservoir could contain between 7 and 11 million barrels of oil. Some oil has already been produced from the reservoir, according to Globes.

The Hatrurim Formation or Mottled Zone is a 36 sq. mile geologic formation with outcrops all around the Dead Sea Basin, including the Negev Desert, the Judaean Desert, and western Jordan. It includes impure limestone along with coal-bearing chalk and marl. The rocks have been subjected to pyrometamorphism resulting from combustion of contained or underlying coal or hydrocarbon deposits. The formation is named for exposures in the Hatrurim Basin which lies west of the Dead Sea.

In 1995, Delek Group Ltd. carried out an initial drilling in the license, to a depth of two kilometers, and found oil. It was decided at the time not to pursue drilling oil there because prices at the time were too low to justify the endeavor, and Delek and Avner Oil embarked on off-shore digging instead.

25% of the Hatrurim license was awarded last year to Israel Opportunity Energy Resources LP and its partners.

A powerful 7.8-magnitude earthquake flattened numerous cities on the Ecuador coastline Saturday, killing at least 77 people and injuring more than 500 others.

The air quality in the area around the Haifa Bay has improved over the past year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

The region saw an 11 percent drop in air pollution levels coming from the industrial sector, the agency announced Tuesday, reaching a 65 percent drop since 2009. The first quarter report of a new action plan for the region said 77 percent of the biggest Haifa Bay factories are also now mandated to comply with stricter emissions controls.

Haifa Mayor Yona Yahav called it an “historical day.” For the first time in the history of the state, said the mayor, “a government representative has assumed not only the authority but also the responsibility of the state to correct the distortions and even the crimes committed in the Haifa Bay.”

The figures were presented in the first quarterly report of the National Action Plan for the Haifa Bay Area, a five year plan budgeted at NIS 330 million.

The government approved the project in September, tasking the program to improve the air quality in the region while reducing environmental risks. In addition, the program is being used to promote research, increase accessibility to data and beef up supervision, enforcement and monitoring of environmental issues in the area.

On the surface, it seems odd that U.S. President Barack Obama and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin both are taking the time and trouble to attend a global climate change conference this month in Paris.

But both were asked to speak on the first day of a conference in which thousands from around the world are planning to participate. Both are also involved in a life-threatening battle in Syria that now appears to have spread to Egypt despite the best efforts of Western fighters.

It is possible — likely even — the two leaders may find time to discuss their mutual concerns while at the conference for climate control as well, albeit away from the very interested eyes of the media.

More than 100 other leaders of nations joined the two world leaders Sunday as they arrived in Paris to prepare the groundwork for the talks at the COP 21 event. The three-day conference is convened with the aim of reaching the most ambitious accord ever — aimed at limiting greenhouse emissions that cause global warming.

Despite being one of the driest nations in the world, has become a world leader in the management of precious ecological and environmental resources, particularly water.

The European Union Ambassador Lars Faaborg-Andersen sat down with Avi Gabbay, Israel’s Environmental Protection Minister last week and ambassadors of EU member states for a working breakfast to prepare for the Paris conference.

Organizers are hoping to reach a new global climate deal at the conference by the time the event reaches its last day in December.

“Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is a win-win situation, for the environment and for the economy, in Israel and in the EU,” said Gabbay. “Governments and business leaders must work together to reduce emissions, and foster a global transition to a low-carbon economy. We look forward to continuing our cooperation with the EU and its members on this issue,” he said.

“French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabian told international media that Putin accepted an invitation to speak on the first day of the conference, scheduled for Nov. 30-Dec. 11. He is to be joined by Obama, as well as the leaders of India and China on that first day, but the Kremlin has yet to confirm his participation, according to the Associated Press.

Some 40,000 people are expected to attend the gathering in addition to thousands of activists from the fields of human, environmental and ecological rights.

A forest fire was blazing in the Gush Etzion bloc in Judea on Sunday morning.

Fire officials ordered the closure of Route 367, in order to keep motorists safe from the flames in the Gevaot Forest.

It is not yet clear how the fire got started.

The American Secretary of State now has promoted, or demoted, himself to be the sole judge of whether a presidential candidate’s positions qualify him to be president of the United States of America.

John Kerry’s problem with Republican candidate Donald Trump is the maverick billionaire scoffs at global warning, a subject that is close to Kerry’s heart, perhaps even more than the “peace process.”

Trump, whose expertise on everything often is not supported by any knowledge, tweeted this week:

The Donald is sure he is right because cold weather stormed into the East Coast Monday, not unusual for mid-October.

Liberal media had a field day mocking Trump, but no one went so far as Kerry to “disqualify” a man because he thinks differently from the Secretary of State, whose expertise on world matters often is not supported by knowledge or common sense.

Kerry tweeted:

However, Kerry’s judgmental attitude reflects to a certain extent that of President Barack Obama, whose press secretary Josh Earnest said last May of those who are against a United Nations climate treaty:

Well these are individuals whom, many of whom at least, deny the fact that climate change even exists. So I’m not sure they would be in the best position to decide whether or not a climate change agreement is one that is worth entering into.”

In other words, the “freethinkers” draw the line when someone does not think like they do.