Kim Carollo: Fruits and Vegetables Could Modify Gene Linked to Heart Disease g

Eating a healthy amount of greens could have an effect on genes linked to heart disease, according to a new study. Researchers from Canada's McMaster and McGill universities found that eating fruits and vegetables may actually change a gene variant, called 9p21, that is one of the strongest predictors for heart disease. "We found that in people with this high-risk gene who consumed a diet rich in vegetables and fruits, their risk came down to that of people who don't have that gene," said Dr. Sonia Anand, a lead author and professor of medicine and epidemiology at the Michael G. DeGrote School of Medicine at McMaster University. The researchers analyzed the diets of more than 27,000 people from different parts of the world, who were already enrolled in two separate studies looking for heart disease. "Despite having a high genetic risk for heart disease, a healthy lifestyle can actually turn off the gene," said Anand. She also said it's not yet clear exactly how diet affects the gene. The study participants who lowered their risk through their diet ate at least two servings of fruits and vegetables a day. Raw fruits and vegetables played the biggest role in lowering risk, Anand said.

Brother Nathaneal Kapner: Putin Foils the Jews Again

Vladimir Putin has once again upset the Judaic geopolitical "bagel cart" by announcing his forthcoming creation of a "Eurasian Union" modeled after the economic integration of the European Union. Putin, who recently declared his intention to run for president of the Russian Federation, boasted that the bloc would become a "major" global player. Indeed, Eurasia is the prize, awash with oil, and blessed by providence with a strategic location. Apparently, Russia's prime minister is the first to claim the coveted Eurasian pot, sitting on the end of the geopolitical rainbow. Putin also confirmed that Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan were already going ahead with market cooperation complete with a full-blown Customs Union established by the three countries in 2010. "The Eurasian grouping will become an indivisible part of Greater Europe," Putin told the Izvestia Daily in his article, Eurasia: The Future Born Today. The Union is an open project, and we welcome the addition of new partners,"the Russia leader added. All of this flies in the face of Zbigniew Brzezinski's strategy for the Zionist West's takeover of Eurasia, as outlined in his book: "The Grand Chessboard." Central to Brzezinski's program is that no challenger should emerge, who may be capable of dominating Eurasia, and therefore challenging America.

Gerald Celente: Celente Picks 2012 Presidential Winner

And the next President of the United States will be: Barack Obama. Should the Republicans nominate one of the three current frontrunners: Mitt Romney, Rick Perry or Michelle Bachman, Barack wins, despite polls showing him with with just a 41 percent approval rating. By playing the "populist card" he's already begun to deal. The President is already calling the bluff of his Republican foes, demanding a millionaire's tax, and daring a gridlocked Congress NOT to pass it! "Warren Buffet's secretary shouldn't pay a higher tax than Warren Buffett," Obama moralizes. "It is wrong that in the United States of America, a teacher, or a nurse, or a construction worker who earns $50,000 should pay higher taxes than someone pulling in $50 million." Obama began rehearsing his self-described role as "warrior for the middle class" some months ago. In the Summer 2011 issue of the Trends Journal, we alerted subscribers to Obama's populist campaign strategy: "Undaunted by his string of broken promises, in the summer of 2011, the born-again populist positioned himself to retain his core Democratic base, while wooing swelling legions of the hard-pressed, desperate for a government handout, the out of work and down and out were left with a Hobson's Choice: Either take Obama, or be left out in the cold by Republicans!

Poll:US headed in the Wrong Direction!

According to a joint survey by the Wall Street Journal and NBC News, released on Monday, 74% of the respondents said that the US is "off on the wrong track," while only 17% believed the country was headed in the right direction. Thirty-two percent of respondents also believe that the US economy would get worse, compared to only 21% who believed it would get better. Some 45% said it would stay the same. The survey included interviews with 1,000 adults from Oct. 6 to Oct.10, and had a margin of error plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. The survey found a plurality supporting the "Occupy Wall Street" demonstrations against the financial sector in New York and elsewhere in across the US. Some 80% of the respondents said they had heard of the protests. Of those, 37% said they supported the demonstrators, and 18% said they tend to oppose them. When asked about the US government, only 1% said the government was "healthy" and "vibrant", while 17% said it was "OK and needs only small reforms." However, 47% said government was "not working well and needs large reforms," while 35% called it "unhealthy"and "stagnant."

Ron Paul: About Protecting Our Constitution!

According to the Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution, Americans are never to be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. The Constitution is not some aspirational statement of values, allowing executions when convenient, but rather, it is the law of the land. It is the basis of our republic, and our principal bulwark against tyranny. Last week's assassination of two American citizens, Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, is an outrage and a criminal act carried out by the President and his administration. If the law protecting us against government-sanctioned assassination can be voided when there is a "really bad American", is there any meaning left to the rule of law in the United States? If, as we learned last week, a secret government committee, not subject to congressional oversight or judicial review, can now target certain Americans for assassination, under what moral authority do we presume to lecture the rest of our world about protecting human rights? Didn't we just bomb Libya into oblivion under the auspices of protecting the civilians from being targeted by their government? Timothy McVeigh was certainly a threat, as were Nidal Hassan and Jared Lee Loughner. They killed people in front of witnesses. They took up arms against their government in a literal way, yet were still afforded trials.

Kuwait News Agency: NATO now an Alliance Based on Security Partnership

NATO has evolved from an Alliance focused on a singular threat, to an Alliance based on security partnership between the 28 members and the rest of the world, thanks to the military intervention in Libya, a senior NATO official said here. "The Libya operation was a logical outflow of the view that we need to have partnerships with countries around the world. NATO would not have intervened in Libya without the Arab League making this request to the UN Security Council," said Ivo H. Daalder, United States Ambassador to NATO. His remarks were during a briefing on "US Policy on NATO", as part of the US-NATO Program for Opinion Makers from the Middle East, held at NATO Headquarters last night. In response to a question by Kuweit News Agency (KUNA), Ambassador Daalder said, "NATO is a source of stability in an unpredictable world. You become a source of stability by being ready to be able to act, if a crisis demands that action." "Who would have thought in November 2010 in Lisbon that four months later, NATO would lead a military operation in North Africa, under a UN mandate and at the behest of the Arab League: No one." NATO's 2010 Lisbon summit adopted a new "Strategic Concept", the alliance's new ten-year plan adopted at the 1999 Washington summit.

Franklin Lamb: Israel May Not Survive the Arab Awakening!

Three weeks after being named by President Obama in January 2009 as the 19th Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and during his first day on the job, Leon Panetta, now US Secretary of Defense, signed off on a March 2009 "eyes only" CIA Report that had just been completed by his new agency. As reported at the time, the CIA Report predicted the demise of Israel within 20 years, if present political trends in the region continued. The CIA intelligence analysts concluded that it was unlikely that Israeli leaders would grant even minimal concessions in order to achieve a settlement with their neighbors, which comprise increasingly disillusioned and rapidly growing dignity and justice-seeking populations. The CIA Report noted that Israeli officials felt emboldened in taking Palestinian land by the myriad support Israel was receiving from the leadership of Egypt, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Jordan and three other Arab leaders. Israel and its two most powerful US lobbies, the US Congress and AIPAC, quickly squelched the 2009 Report, and only seven copies were eventually acknowledged, one by AIPAC and the others by staffers of select supporters of Israel on key Congressional Committees. During last week's meetings with Israeli officials, both sides knew that the 2009 CIA study was front and center even without Panetta being the first one to refer to it. President Obama sent Panetta to engage in frank discussions, which included the White House displeasure at Netanyahu's repeated humiliation of the President over the past 18 months, and Israeli threats to cut off Jewish aid to Obama's 2012 re-election campaign!

Stephen Lendman: Israeli Rogue State "Peace And Justice"

Most of the entire world knows that Israel is a repressive rogue state. When I served as Intelligence Operations Officer for our 4th Armored Division in Goeppingen, Germany, I had the misfortune of listening to the Israeli Air-force machine gun the survivors of the USS Liberty, and at the time, the Commanding General of our Division commented: "With friends like the Israelis, we have no need of enemies!" On October 10, without provocation, Israeli jets bombed northern Gaza, while Israeli bulldozers demolished a Palestinian home near Bethlehem. Palestinians were prevented from entering or leaving, so all of them were doomed to die! On October 6, Israeli forces demolished homes, barns, and barracks belonging to Palestinian shepherds in Wadi Al-Mahel and Al-Hamma north of the Jordan Valley. At the same time, IDF (Israeli Defense Force) troops stormed Beit Kahlil northwest of Hebron, to destroy another Palestinian home! Olive trees were uprooted and other property bulldozed, while Israeli soldiers fired tear gas at residents trying to stop them. On October 8, Israeli gunboats opened fire on Gaza fishermen, causing extensive damage. At-Tawfeeq Society of Fishermen head Mahmoud Al Aassy said Israel terrorizes Gazans to deter them from fishing to earn a living and feed their families.

Stephen Lendman: NATO Brussels Summit Claims Successful Afghan, Libyan Campaigns

Despite NATO claims, Libyans heroically keep resisting overwhelming genocidal slaughter, but NATO measures its success by body count: It far exceeds 100,000, and many more injured, with some life-threatening, others debilitating. In a country of six million people, the catastrophic numbers are horrific. If America experienced an equivalent toll, with 50 times Libya's population, it would be an unprecedented disaster, including over five million dead and 25 million wounded. At its October 5 and 6 Brussels summit, NATO calls this a "success". Washington Post writer Craig Whitlock headlined: "NATO puts off decision on ending Libya operations," saying: On Thursday, NATO leaders said "they would continue in Libya, patrolling its coastline, because of ongoing resistance from forces loyal to Gaddafi". In fact, loyalists are besting NATO's blitzkrieg in cities, towns and villages across Libya, including in Tripoli Benghazi, and other major areas which media scoundrels had already reported as "secure". As a result, NATO's campaign may continue for years like Afghanistan, despite the pronouncements of secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen, saying: "Our operations in Libya, Afghanistan and elsewhere demonstrate that NATO is the "indispensable Alliance."

Century Magazine, 1928: A Real Case Against Jews

If you look at what we now know about history, we can look back on the great Roman Empire, and we can see that its fall brought 1,000 years of darkness to Europe. In its time, the Roman Empire was at least 1,000 years ahead of others. Among other things, the Romans invented concrete, but the arrival of Christianity was a severe threat: The Romans of those times murdered Christians because they were the communists of their day. If you read historical studies like Gibbons' famous: "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" you will see that he attributes the rise of Christianity to it. This is an article written in 1928 by a Jew, who gives it to us straight. He tells us that we have thrown away the values which brought us greatness under the Roman Empire: The Romans were very pragmatic people, religiously tolerant of many religions, except for Christianity. The Roman Empire was the greatest and longest lasting political structure ever created by men enywhere. In its day, it was technologically way ahead of its time. Its laws and structures brought peace and progress in a way never seen before. According to an article written by the Jewish writer Marcus Eli Ravage, reprinted from Century Magazine, January 1928: He comments Of course you do resent us, so let us not waste time on denials and alibis. The thing that intrigues me me about this anti-Jewish business, you seem to be suffering from self-consciousness so horribly, that if the performance were not so grotesque it would be irritating.

Michel Comte: Canada Required to Arrest George W. Bush!

Amnesty International called on Canadian authorities Wednesday to arrest and prosecute George W. Bush, saying that the former US president authorized torture when he directed the US-led war on terror. Bush is expected to attend an economic summit in Surrey, in Canada's westernmost British Columbia province on October 20. The London-based group charged that Bush has legal responsibility for a series of human rights violations in a memorandum submitted last month to Canada's attorney general but only now released to the media. "Canada is required by its international obligations to arrest and prosecute former president Bush, given his responsibility for crimes under international law, including torture," Amnesty's Susan Lee said in a statement. "As the US authorities have, so far, failed to bring former president Bush to justice, the international community must step in. A failure by Canada to take action during his visit would violate the UN Convention Against Torture, and demonstrate contempt for fundamental human rights," Lee said. A spokesman for the Canadian government was not immediately available for comment. Bush cancelled a visit to Switzerland in February, after facing similar public calls for his arrest!

Carta Maior: Honoring the Memory of the Immortal Che!

Eduardo Galeano says when he met Che Guevara, he was a man who said exactly what he thought, and lived exactly what he said. There aren't many men carved in this wood, and there isn't much of that wood in the world! Then, there are the dead who never die, like Che. On the day they executed Che Guevara in La Hiuera, a hamlet lost in the wilds of Bolivia, Julio Cortazar, who was then working as a translator for UNESCO, was in Algiers. It took more than a day to travel around the world, and still more to get to Algiers from La Higuera. Twenty days later, back in Paris, where he lived, Cortazar wrote a letter to Cuban poet Roberto Fernandez Retamar, telling what he felt: "I let the days go by in a nightmare, buying one newspaper after another, without wanting them to convince me, looking at these pictures that we all look at, reading the same words and entering, one hour after another, in the hardest conformity. It is the truth that I am writing today, and before that, it seems to me the most banal of the arts, a kind of refuge, almost of pretense, replacing the irreplaceable. Che died, and I have nothing more than silence."

Michael J. Murphy: Why in the World Are They Spraying?

Could the agenda behind chemical/geo-engineering programs be more than what geoengineers are admitting? As awareness of these damaging programs increases around the world, theories about them include weather control, population control, morgellons disease, food control, etc. On October 3-7, 2011, scientists from around the world gathered in Orlando, Florida for the American Association for Aerosol Research (AAAR) conference. The lectures at this conference included: "Air Quality Modeling:, "Health Disparities", "Ambient Air Particle Pollution", and an area of particular interest to many who are aware of the chemical/geoengineering issue,"Aerosols, Clouds and Precipitation". While geoengineering was not the main focus of the event, some of the lectures provided vital clues as to what some of the true agendas of these damaging programs might be. As was exposed in the groundbreaking documentary, "What in the World Are They Spraying?" Geoengineer's models include 10 to 20 million tons of toxic aluminum oxide and other aerosols into our atmosphere for the stated goal of cooling the planet, studies suggest that adding aerosols into our atmosphere can create a temporary regional cooling at the cost of an overall warming of the planet,since the aerosols crate a blanket and trap heat. These studies contradict the premise of geoengineering, which leads many to ask questions about the true reasons for these programs!

Sherwood Ross: New 9/11 Investigation May Be In the OFFING!

Ten years have gone by since the terrible attacks on New York City and the Pentagon, yet there is no closure on what happened on "9/11", and who was behind it. An initiative led by former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel, a Democrat, will be on the Massachusetts ballot next year, if Gravel gets 70,000 signatures by December. "Polls have repeatedly shown that millions of Americans seriously doubt the official story about 9/11," Gravel said. According to a report by Byron Belitsos published in the September "Rock Creek Free Press," of Washington, DC, "thousands of courageous Americans have lent their names to the call for a new investigation, including over 200 senior military intelligence and other government officials: Over 1,500 engineers and architects, over 250 pilots and aviation professionals, and over 400 professors. Critics of the official spin point out that even John Farmer, the 9/11 Commisson's own senior counsel, stated that, "At some level of the government, at some point in time, there was an agreement not to tell the truth about what happened." There are just too many unexplained happenings and coincidences, too many people on the scene - photographers, reporters, ambulance drivers, etc. who had no reason to lie about what they saw - and whose testimony shreds the official Bush regime findings.

Luis R. Miranda: Gulf of Mexico Sea Floor Unstable, Fractured, Spilling Hydrocarbons

The Gulf of Mexico disaster has not gone away: In fact, it has grown exponentially since the mainstream media stopped talking about it. According to the Gulf Rescue Alliance, an organization composed of scientists, medical professionals and seafood industry professionals, among others, the problem cannot be simplified to the damage already caused by the oil spill. It is worse, much worse! The Real Agenda received exclusive information regarding the current state of the ongoing emergency in the Gulf of Mexico. The latest assessment performed by the Gulf Rescue Alliance reveals not only that the oil spill is still happening, but also that the Gulf of Mexico's sea floor grew more unstable since the explosion in 2010. Additionally, analysis provided by experts like BK Lim, shows that the geohazards developed that derive from the rolling leakage of toxic matter, combined with the ongoing use of the highly toxic chemical dispersant "COREXIT", will most likely result in the permanent decline of marine life, while posing out-of-control public health risks, just as it did after the Exxon Valdez spill, where the same chemical dispersant was used, resulting in in a rapid decline of marine life until, for example, the Herring industry completely collapsed, and has never recovered since then.

Rev. Ted Pike: UNESCO vote Slams Israel!!

Jewish media tried to describe it as a 'victory' that OBAMA betrayed his 2010 promise to support a UN vote for Palestinian statehood. They gave the impression that the international community now backs Israel's demand for renewed Israel-Palestinian negotiations, not a Palestinian seat at the UN. This impression was reinforced by Congress's resolution last week that $200 million in aid will stop if the Palestinians hold to their bid for statehood. Yet sympathy for the Palestinian cause erupted dramatically last week in (UNESCO), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization executive board. Of its 58 members, 40 voted in favor of a Palestinian seat in the UN. Fourteen abstained, and only four voted against it, including the US. As this proves, political backstabbing against the beleaguered Palestinians will not diminish their case. Obama's treachery may well fuel the flames of worldwide righteous indignation against the Jewish state. The Palestinians are almost certain to be defeated in the upcoming UN Security Council vote, yet the UNESCO vote provides a dramatic straw poll of potentially overwhelming support for their position. Should a vote also be submitted to the UN General Assembly, estimates say 120 to 150 nations will vote for Palestinian statehood. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Israel, deeply mired in international disfavor, because of her crimes against the Palestinians, seems paralyzed, unable to do anything that could revive even a hint of the idealistic admiration it once accepted as its right.

Petras: Obama at the General Assembly, Sacrificing Palestine for Zionists!

There are two views of Obama's speech to the General Assembly on September 21, 2011, and his opposition to the recognition of Palestine as a sovereign state. The common opinion of foreign policy experts was that Obama led the US to an ignominious diplomatic defeat, deepening US isolation in the international system. The White House's blatant parroting of Israel's position to continue bilateral negotiations, while Tel Aviv continued to colonize Palestinian land and forcibly evicts its residents, alienated the 1.5 billion Muslims throughout the world. Obama's refusal to even mention the return to the return to the 1967 borders as a basis for a "peace settlement", totally undermined any pretext that the US could act as an "honest broker" in Mid-East peace negotiations, even in the eyes of its most slavish supporters in the PLO. His one-sided reference to Israel's minimal casualties in maintaining the Occupation, while omitting any mention of the 12,000 Palestinian political prisoners, thousands of assassinations, everyday humiliation, routine torture of suspects, and frequent defacement of Palestinian religious centers - mosques and churches, cemeteries and shrines, undermined any US effort to win favor among the millions of people involved in the pro-democracy social movements sweeping the Arab world, from Tunisia, Egypt to the Gulf states. Washington's insistence that its NATO allies line up with it in supporting continued "bilateral" negotiations, has led to the German government's public humiliation when it followed Obama's line of pressuring Abbas back to "negotiations", only to have Netanyahu announce the construction of 1,000 illegal Jews-only housing units in Palestine. When I served as Intelligence Operations Officer of our 4th US Armored Division in Germany, our commander, General Sherrer, upon hearing of Israel's murder of our sailors machine-gunned by Israeli planes, commented: "With friends like the Israeli's, we have no need of enemies"!

Mike Barrett: CT Scans in Children on the Rise, Prompting Radiation Fears

CT scans have been working really hard to claim their spot in emergency rooms as a routine test. As if going to an emergency room weren't bad enough already, with the excessive waiting and increased chance to contract some type of illness, new people have a nice dosage of radiation to look forward to. Both adults and children are being urged to have CT scans in order to pinpoint any possible problem. The problem is that with the combination of every medical device and technology around us, people are being experiencing very high radiation exposure levels, especially children. One study shows that children in pediatric emergency rooms are receiving an incredible amount of CT scans now, compared to years ago. In 1995, the number of CT scans given to children in pediatric emergency rooms was 330,000. Compare that to the 1.65 million CT scans given to children in 2008, and we're looking at an increase of five times. Although the population has increased, there is no reason for CT scans to be administered nearly as much as they are: Children aren't necessarily getting injured more, leading to a necessary CT scan. Technology has simply advanced so much that the imaging rate has gone up on modern scanners, causing an increase in radiation levels and radiation exposure!

Elizabeth Nicholas: Saddam Hussein Predicted in 1993 That America Would Overspend Disastrously on Foreign Wars!

When coalition forces marched into Baghdad in April of 2003, one of the many spoils of war were hundreds of hours of audio recordings between Saddam Hussein and his inner circle. In the forthcoming "Saddam Tapes: The Inner Workings of a Tyrant's Regime, 1978-2001, transcripts provide a rare glimpse into the dictator's inner monologue on everything from the Iran-Iraq War to relations with George W. Bush's administration and its ties to oil and gas companies. But it is a passage from a January 1993 meeting on relations with the incoming Clinton administration that offers perhaps the most penetrating look at Hussein's foresight and strategic acumen. In describing "the new international situation," the late Iraqi leader looks into the future, and analyzes American foreign policy, making predictions that in the intervening years, in part, have come to pass. Here, in an excerpted portion, he discusses the United States' foray into Somalia in the early 1990's: Saddam: "If the Americans continue such politics, they are going to face major troubles. Why would anyone want to elect an American? What did he say to him to influence him? He will probably say to him that he promises to improve the economic situation. How could he improve the economic situation with American soldiers spread all over the world? Their economy will never improve with the expenses they spent in the Gulf and in Europe. They spent $68 billion in the Gulf, and in Europe they spent $128 billion! If America does not withdraw its troops from all over the world, its economy could never improve! Sic transit gloria mundi!!!

As Shukria Dellawar and Antonioa Juhasz Point Out - Violence Never Solved Anything!!

In fact, when I served as Advisory Team Leader north of Kontum, I told the soldiers under my command, that I would use violence only as a last resort: In Afghanistan, violence escalates daily with the approach of the 10-year anniversary of the US invasion on October 7. At the same time, a little noted energy agenda is moving rapidly forward that may not only deny Afghans the much needed economic benefits their energy resources could provide, but may also exacerbate insecurity and instability, ensuring a prolonged US and foreign military presence. It is an agenda remarkably similar to one well underway in Iraq. Eight years of war in Iraq succeeded in transforming the country's oil industry from a nationalized model, largely closed to American oil companies, into an all but privatized industry open to foreign oil companies. Exxon-Mobile and BP, among other companies, are today producing oil in Iraq for the first time in over 30 years under some of the most corporate-friendly terms in the world. However, opposition from Kurdish leaders, Iraqi unions, civil society organizations, and some parliamentarians, who worry that the terms would grant undue benefit to foreign companies, to the detriment of Iraq's economic stability and security, has kept the Iraqi Oil and Gas Law, written to lock in access, from passage. Afghanistan's known hydrocarbons are primarily located in the North. Its approximately 1.6 billion barrels of crude oil, and 15.7 billion cubic feet of natural gas, are minor in comparison to the the resources of its neighbors: (Iraq's oil reserves are estimated at 115 billion barrels), but are comparable to those in nations such as Chad and Equatorial Guinea, and may be considerably larger, since there has been no significant exploration in decades.

Eric Blair: Obama and Congress ARE Wall Street!

Barack Obama and his challenger John McCain both received more money from Wall Street donors than their combined lifetime government salaries: It was a billion-dollar-plus campaign. In fact, all of Congress makes more from Wall Street and corporate campaign contributions than their public salaries. It is the nature of the modern political system! Timothy Geithner, despite cheating on his own taxes, was plucked from the New York Federal Reserve to serve as US Treasury Secretary. My question is: whom can "we, the people", turn to for solutions? Some very well- meaning people have suggested that apparent solutions to alleviate some of these challenges mean a separation of money and politics! Some have called for ending the Federal Reserve System. Some have suggested a complete write-off of all fraudulent debt. Some want higher taxes imposed on the well-to-do. Some demand more free government services like healthcare and higher education. Some say ending of wars at home and abroad will be the cure-all. Each of these proposed solutions seem to have some attractions, but they also have flaws that need to be addressed!

Musharraf: Afghanistan Is a "Proxy Conflict" Between Pakistan and India!c

Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said he believes that Afghanistan has become the source of a proxy battle between his country and India. "In Afghanistan there is some kind of a proxy conflict going on between Pakistan and India. India is trying to create an anti-Pakistan Afghanistan," he said in an interview with David Bradley, owner of the Atlantic Media Company, at the Washington Ideas Forum on Thursday. Musharraf, who led Pakistan from 1999 through 2008, said this was part of "India's vision of dominating the region" and its "ambition to create a weak Pakistan." Musharraf, who was personally involved in Pakistan's conflicts against India, added that many Afghan officials are trained by their Indian counterparts. "We know that Afghanistan's intelligence, Afghanistan's diplomats, Afghanistan's soldiers and army, all go to India for training, so we have offered them free training. Not one man has come to Pakistan for such training! We receive diplomats, soldiers, intelligence officers indoctrinated against Pakistan's interests." He did however urged calming of that relationship. "I have called India to tell them that I am a man of war, but I am really a man of peace. I understand the ravages of war more than most people."

Andy Kroll: Food Pantries Picked Over, Incomes Drying Up!

Here is our current dilemma: Food pantries picked over, Incomes drying up, Shelters bursting with the homeless. Job seekers spilling out the doors of employment centers. College grads moving back in with their parents. The angry and disillusioned filling the streets. Pan your camera from one coast to the other, from city to suburb to farm and back again, and you'll witness scenes like these. They are the legacy of the Great Recession, the Lesser Depression, or whatever you choose to call it. In recent months, a blizzard of new data, the hardest of hard numbers, has laid bare the dilapidated condition of the of the American economy, and particularly of the once-mighty American middle class. Each report sparks a flurry of news stories and pundit chatter, but never much reflection on what it all means, now that we have just enough distance to look back on the first decade of the twenty-first century, and see how Americans fared in that turbulent period, and yet the verdict couldn't be more clear-cut. For the American middle class, long the pride of this country and the envy of the world, the past ten years were a bust, a washout, a decade from hell! Paychecks shrank. Household wealth melted away like so many sandcastles swept off by the incoming tide. Poverty spiked, swallowing an ever-greater share of the population, young and old: "This is truly a lost decade," Harvard University economist Lawrence Katz said of these last years. "We think of America as a place where every generation is doing better, but we're looking at a period when the median family is in worse shape than it was in the late 1990's."

Robert Harris: How Supercomputers are Taking Over World Stock Markets.

The fear haunting Europe is the specter of capitalism. A vast and highly unstable mixture of debt, trillions of dollars of sovereign, corporate and private borrowing, accumulated over decades, is strapped to the Western economies like a suicide bomber's gelignite vest. The task facing our politicians is somehow to defuse the bomb, without inadvertently triggering the sequence of defaults and bankruptcies that would set it off. No wonder they walk around the problem scratching their heads, prodding it gingerly here and there. The horrible truth is dawning that the problem may not be technically solvable. For the first time in my life, I get the sense of what it must have been like to have lived in my grandparent's or great-grandparents' generation: In 1913, say, or 1937. One feels a great smash coming ever closer, almost in slow-motion, and yet there seems to be nothing that can be done to avoid it. How have we gotten ourselves into this mess? After all, we ae supposed to be living in an era of unprecedented peace and prosperity. Communism had collapsed, and the threat of nuclear annihilation had receded. Immense advances in computer technology were creating a whole new economies. Vast markets were opening up in the developing world. Above all, we were supposed to have learned enough about economics to have created the necessary institutions - the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the G20, the OECD, to ensure we never repeated the mistakes of the Thirties. Where did it all go wrong? A good place to start looking is a hole in the ground near the small town of Waxahachie, Texas, or, to be more precise, 17 holes in the ground, each of them an air shaft leading down to 14 miles of abandoned tunnel dug into the hard Texan rock, which are all that remains of a grandiose scientific project called the Desertron.

Steven Lendman: Palestinian UN Membership Roulette!

As Palestinian legal adviser in1987, Law Professor Francis Boyle drafted its Declaration of Independence, creating a Palestinian state. Palestinians now want to, and deserve official recognition, and full de jure UN membership, but Washington and Israel - the latter who dared to sink the USS Liberty with rockets and machine-guns, when I served as Intelligence Operations Officer of our American 4th US Armored Division in Goeppingen, Germany. At the time, General Sherrer, our commanding general had commented: "With friends like the Israelis, we have no need of enemies!" But I digress: Israeli contempt for the rule of law, democratic values, and equal justice is palpable. On the Progressive Radio News Hour, to air October 2, Boyle said 170 nations support Palestinian UN membership, according to the Financial Times! In all, 193 nations may vote, but only 129 are needed to admit Palestine as the UN's 194th member. According to Boyle, it's achievable by mid-October if Abbas follows proper procedures. Nevertheless, diplomatic roulette continues. On September 23, Abbas petitioned the Security Council for membership. It recommends new members, and only the General Assembly admits them by a simple two-thirds majority of voting member states, minus those abstaining!

Dave Hodges: The Great BP Gulf Coast Holocaust!

The horrible Gulf Coast Holocaust of April 20, 2010, also known as the BP oil spill, stands as the greatest ecological disaster in mankind's history! What has been labeled as a tragic accident by America's corporate "controlled" media, was anything but that! The four horsemen of that Apocalypse (Trans-ocean, British Petroleum, Halliburton and Goldman Sachs had demonstrable foreknowledge of the impending explosion on the Deep-water Horizon oil rig. Rather than alerting the authorities, the public and the employees stationed on the Deep-water Horizon oil rig of the impending disaster, they chose to remain silent and tried to position themselves to profit from the event, which resulted in 11 completely avoidable fatalities, as well as resulting in the ecological destruction of an entire region, with an ever-expanding perimeter of devastation! "Follow the money" is a familiar refrain when one wants to get the heart of a matter!" Greed was certainly a motivating factor for the collective criminal actions of "The Four Horsemen". However, this deplorable incident is not just a case of unrestrained greed. The Gulf oil spill consists of a combination of greed and utter stupidity, perhaps even the need to acquire unwarranted levels of power, leading to the establishment of of a "one world currency": Here is the lurid story of Trans-ocean's shady past: On the food chain of Gulf Coast co-conspirators, we see Transocean merely as a "bottom feeder", yet that criminal organization willingly served as a "perfect stooge", from which to do the bidding of a global elite (Read Goldman Sachs). Contrary to popular belief, BP did NOT own the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. The real owner was a Trans-ocean, a proven criminal enterprise with a long history of the bribery of foreign governmental officials, tax fraud, tax evasion and falsifying records!