$5 Billion Hedge-Fund Firm Switches Holdings To Physical Gold

If a notoriously risk taking institution such as a hedge fund switches to Physical gold you know the dollar has a serious problem.

Is Obama Continuing the Bush/Cheney Assassination Program?

Jeremy Scahill is a veteran investigative journalist who exposed the practices of Blackwaters mercenaries in Iraq and Aghanistan.

By Jeremy Scahill

In June, CIA Director Leon Panetta allegedly informed members of the House Intelligence Committee of the existence of a secret Bush era program implemented in the days after 9-11 that, until last month, had been hidden from lawmakers. The concealment of the plan, Panetta alleged, happened at the orders of then-Vice President Dick Cheney.

Now, The New York Times is reporting that this secret program that had “been hidden from lawmakers” by Cheney was a plan “to dispatch small teams overseas to kill senior Qaeda terrorists.” The Wall Street Journal, which originally reported on the plan, reported that the paramilitary teams were to implement a “2001 presidential legal pronouncement, known as a finding, which authorized the CIA to pursue such efforts.”

The plan, the Times says, never was carried out because “Officials at the spy agency over the years ran into myriad logistical, legal and diplomatic obstacles.” Instead, the Bush administration “sought an alternative to killing terror suspects with missiles fired from drone aircraft or seizing them overseas and imprisoning them in secret C.I.A. jails.”

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Value of taxpayer’s holding in British banks plummets

Each family has invested £3,000 in bailed-out banks, with a paper loss of £11bn

By James Moore, Deputy Business Editor

Taxpayers are sitting on losses of nearly £11bn from the Government’s “investments” in Britain’s banks, the body charged with overseeing them admitted yesterday.

John Kingman, chief executive of UK Financial Investments, said every family in the country now had more than £3,000 invested in Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland. The value of those holdings has plunged to £24bn since the Government stepped in, although the situation is considerably better than it was in February, when the unrealised loss stood at £18bn. The report says taxpayers’ losses at Lloyds at the end of June stood at £6.2bn, with RBS worth £4.7bn less than when the Government stepped in.

The taxpayer has a 70 per cent stake in RBS and 43.3 per cent of Lloyds, but this is set to increase through the two banks’ involvement in the Treasury-backed asset protection scheme to cover them against what could be multibillion-pound losses on bad loans.

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Ex-Powell aide suggests CIA assassination program was actually active

The secret CIA program allegedly aimed at assassinating suspected terrorists abroad has raised the eyebrows of at least one former senior Bush Administration official who hints that the program may have actually gone into effect, despite the denials of the agency and congressional staff who have been briefed.

The aide, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, was chief of staff to Bush Secretary of State Colin Powell. He says he heard “echoes” of the program from US ambassadors abroad, who informed him that clandestine military teams were being dispatched to their countries.

“We, very early on, after 9/11, at the State Department, learned from our ambassadors in the field that there were teams being dispatched to their cities, to their countries, and these teams were clandestine and essentially aimed at capturing al Qaeda leaders or al Qaeda affiliates and interrogating them,” Wilkerson told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Tuesday. “So the fact that it might have gravitated over to the CIA or the CIA might have joined in, which is something that happens a lot these days with Delta Force and other special operators is no surprise to me.

“What I suspect has happened is what began to happen while I was still in the government, and that was we’re killing the wrong people,” Wilkerson added. “And we’re killing the wrong people in the wrong countries. And the countries are finding out about it, or at least there was a suspicion that the countries might find out about it, and so it was shut down. That’s my strong suspicion.”

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Health Insurance Whistle-Blower Knows Where the Bodies Are Buried

Just in case you think that private healthcare or PPPS is a good idea.

Wendell Potter is the health insurance industry’s worst nightmare. He’s a whistle-blower. Potter, the former chief spokesperson for insurance giant CIGNA, recently testified before Congress, “I saw how they confuse their customers and dump the sick – all so they can satisfy their Wall Street investors.”

Potter was deeply involved in CIGNA and industrywide strategies for maintaining their profitable grip on U.S. health care. He told me: “The thing they fear most is a single-payer plan. They fear even the public insurance option being proposed; they’ll pull out all the stops they can to defeat that to try to scare people into thinking that embracing a public health insurance option would lead down the slippery slope toward socialism … putting a government bureaucrat between you and your doctor. They’ve used those talking points for years, and they’ve always worked.”

In 2007, CIGNA denied a California teenager, Nataline Sarkisyan, coverage for a liver transplant. Her family went to the media. The California Nurses Association joined in. Under mounting pressure, CIGNA finally granted coverage for the procedure. But it was too late. Two hours later, Nataline died.

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£200bn crisis hits company pensions

While the bankers divide huge profits amongst themselves the old and the poor will suffer.

The scale of the pensions crisis was laid bare yesterday as figures showed the deficit in company schemes had soared above £200billion.

A staggering 88 per cent of the country’s 7,400 defined-benefit pension schemes face a shortfall amid pressure from falling stocks and people living longer.

In June 2007, pension funds were registering a surplus of more than £100billion. A year later this had turned into a deficit of £13billion.

But yesterday’s figures from industry safety net the Pension Protection Fund showed the shortfall between assets and liabilities in the 7,400 plans rocketed to £200.1billion at the end of June.

Pensions regulator chairman David Norgrove yesterday warned of ‘severe pressures’ on employers, pension fund trustees and members.

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As Goldman Sachs Posts Record Profits, Matt Taibbi Probes Role of Investment Giant in US Financial Meltdown

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Afghanistan War Resister to “Put the War on Trial”

While the Sun, the Daily telegraph, the Times, and even “left” leaning news papers are showing the coffins of young men who died in Afghanistan and the UK and US army clamours for more men and material in an unprecedented propaganda attack on the UK population one brave man stands up and says what we should all be saying. Those kids should not have been in Afghanistan in the first place. The War in Afghanistan is an illegal war of aggression.

US Army Specialist Victor Agosto served a 13-month deployment in Iraq with the 57th Expeditionary Signal Battalion. “What I did there, I know I contributed to death and human suffering,” Agosto told Truthout from Fort Hood, in Killeen, Texas, in May, “It’s hard to quantify how much I caused, but I know I contributed to it.”

His experience in Iraq, coupled with educating himself about US foreign policy and international law, has led Agosto to refuse to deploy to Afghanistan. “It’s a matter of what I’m willing to live with,” he said of his recent decision, “I’m not willing to participate in this occupation, knowing it is completely wrong.”

Agosto’s lawyer, James Branum, who is also the legal adviser to the GI Rights Hotline and co-chair of the Military Law Task Fore, told Truthout during a phone interview on July 10 that, contrary to mainstream opinion that believes Afghanistan to be a “justified” war, the invasion and ongoing occupation are actually in violation of the US Constitution and international law.

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Internet filter sparks outrage

And so it should.

The Government is spending $150,000 on website “filtering” software, outraging some bloggers who say the move amounts to censorship of the internet.

Since 2007 the Department of Internal Affairs’ Censorship Compliance Unit has worked with a small group of internet service providers on a “trial” project to block access to websites distributing child pornography.

The project, using hardware and software supplied by a Swedish technology company, thwarts access to more than 7000 websites known to offer child sexual abuse material.

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How Bad Will the Economy Get? Really, Really Bad

I don’t know what Bollard is thinking but as in the past he came up with a doozy again yesterday. We are going to be the first Nation to come out of the recession and together with John Key’s cycle path idea we’ll all be sweet. Oh that and we must save more because they (whoever “they “are) are worried about our debt level.

What are these people smoking?

The biggest economy in the world, the US is collapsing spectacularly thanks to the Financial system and the fact that not a single economic growth producing factory or farm is left in the country of plenty and they have over a trillion debt to pay off thanks to John Key’s banking palls who are looting the bloody place.

John Key said today that our economy has been fuelled by a housing bubble and debt and he should know. He was after all a banker when they repealed the Glass Steagall act and he was the manager of the Merrill Lynch derivatives department. The very same derivatives now crippling the global financial system.

And we must produce more, work harder, probably for less pay.

Well let me tell you what is really going to happen. Americans are no longer going to be able to buy our meat and milk powder. They also can’t afford our wood and other assorted export products, and that is going to be the end of it. China’s going to loose it’s wealth due to the collapse of the dollar which will have a very serious effect on its 1 billion population and cause all sorts of mayhem and might actually tempt them into going to war with India in order to keep their population distracted from their plight and also doesn’t need our high quality crap.

NZ Farms have lost 25% of their value in the last year which means that farmers who bought a farm last year for 4 million thinking that the milk and dairy business was going to keep on growing are now under water for a cool mill. Trust me I know some of them and they look mighty pale at the moment.

No, it’s not going to get any better anytime soon  and even English’s forecast of a drugery 10 years may be on the optimistic side.
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Historically, every financial and economic crisis has been used to further centralize power and concentrate wealth. This one is no different, and in fact the moves being promoted by the Obama administration and the central banks of the Western powers will take the whole world to the pinnacle of financial despotism — unless enough people wake up and claim their own “money power.”

In recent months, the Fed has expanded its “assets” from about $800 billion to more than $2,000 billion. Those so-called assets are securities it bought from financial institutions and loans made to central banks in other countries. But the Fed refuses to name the specific recipients of those funds, while admitting that by doing so they are manipulating the value of the US dollar on foreign exchange markets. (Congressman Alan Grayson Grills Fed Vice Chair Donald Kohn.)

Where does the Fed get the money to buy those “assets” or to make those loans? Quite simply, it creates the money. Unlike you or me or any other economic entity, the Fed has the power to create Federal Reserve dollars by effectively writing a check against no funds. This is the function known as “Open Market Operations.”

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What’s up with the Clayton Weatherston murder trial

No, I won’t comment on the case itself  because I don’t believe that it’s a good idea to do in an active case. What I can’t figure out is why this case gets such a detailed front page coverage.

It’s almost as if we are prepared for changes in our legal system.  It’s almost as if we are propagandised into demanding he be put to death or something.

Clayton Weatherston is fighting a marginal difference between murder and manslaughter, has confessed to killing Sophie Elliott with 216 stabs with a knife he brought with him and will probably go to prison for life but the newspapers can’t get enough of him and his every word is spelled out on the front pages of every major mainstream media and I wonder why? Are we being hyped up over what is clearly an atrocious crime? Are we being pushed towards heavier punishment? The sensible sentencing crowd are silent but by putting a face of a self confessed killer on the front page with his defence so detailed can only serve to anger the simpletons reading this crap and into thinking they should just kill the bastard for what he’s done.

Than you put out a poll about the death penalty and bingo a majority feels that it would be justified to put people to death in cases such as this.

Exiting GM CEO Wagoner gets lifetime salary, millions in benefits

Let me get this straight; GM went under under his watch and he gets rewarded with a huge salary for the rest of his life and millions over the next five years? When are the US citizens going to get the Guillotine finally out and have themselves a bit of a revolution?

Rick Wagoner, who oversaw the company’s worst financial downturn ever and was told to resign by U.S. President Barack Obama, will be handsomely compensated for his service, according to a published report.

After 32 years with the company, Wagoner plans to officially resign on August 1, though he ceased work in his role as CEO on March 27. He will receive $1.6 million in annual benefits over the next five years, along with an annual salary of $74,030 for the rest of his life, The Wall Street Journal revealed late Tuesday.

“Wagoner will continue to receive liability insurance coverage at a level similar with other retired executives until Jan. 1, 2010,” the paper noted. “He also will receive a life insurance policy, which the company has maintained for his benefit since Jan. 1, 1997, or its cash value, currently $2.6 million.”

The Detroit Free Press estimated the package to be worth $8.2 million.

“His retirement benefits had been valued at $22.1 million in 2008, but pensions for top executives were cut by two-thirds as part of the company’s bankruptcy sale to a government-owned entity,” the noted. “Wagoner also had held about 3 million options to buy GM shares that are now worthless.”

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CIA linked to Benazir Bhutto

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Upcoming Military Robot Could Feed on Dead Bodies

It could be a combination of 19th-century mechanics, 21st-century technology — and a 20th-century horror movie.

A Maryland company under contract to the Pentagon is working on a steam-powered robot that would fuel itself by gobbling up whatever organic material it can find — grass, wood, old furniture, even dead bodies.

Robotic Technology Inc.’s Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot — that’s right, “EATR” — “can find, ingest, and extract energy from biomass in the environment (and other organically-based energy sources), as well as use conventional and alternative fuels (such as gasoline, heavy fuel, kerosene, diesel, propane, coal, cooking oil, and solar) when suitable,” reads the company’s Web site.

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Ex-FBI Agent: Why I Support a New 9/11 Investigation

In the absence of my being there in New York City to stand with the 9/11 families, first responders and survivors, I offer the following statement in support of your goal of a new investigation into the attacks of September 11th and the NYC CAN campaign to place it on the ballot for November. coleenrowleyAt the time of 9-11, I had been an FBI agent for over 20 years. My main responsibilities by then were teaching criminal procedure to FBI agents and other law enforcement officers, mostly about 4th Amendment search and seizure, 5th and 6th Amendment law of interrogation, right to attorney and constitutional protection of rights to “free speech”, due process, habeas corpus, and against cruel and unusual punishment. A week before 9-11, I and the rest of the FBI’s ethics instructors were mandated (as a result of an earlier public FBI scandal) to give a one hour PowerPoint presentation, a form of remedial training on “law enforcement ethics” which I accomplished in a fairly perfunctory way, just reading the slides. After 9-11, with the knowledge I had of the bitter internal dispute inside the FBI that was being hushed up but had kept some of our better agents from possibly uncovering more of the 9-11 plot before it happened, I couldn’t forget two of the slides in that Law Enforcement ethics curriculum: “DO NOT: Puff, Shade, Tailor, Firm up, Stretch, Massage, or Tidy up statements of fact.” And “Misplaced Loyalties: As employees of the FBI, we must be aware that our highest loyalty is to the United States Constitution. We should never sacrifice the truth in order to obtain a desired result (e.g. conviction of a defendant) or to avoid personal or institutional embarrassment.”

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Amended Version of Journal of 9/11 Studies Paper

Enhanced GPS service (WAAS) now in use by the U.S. commercial aviation industry and activated 13 months prior to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, provided virtual aerial navigation corridors only 243 wide and a 95% confidence that an aircraft’s true position will fall within such a corridor . Such corridors can be navigated entirely by autopilot and flight management systems scheduled in 1996 and 1998 to be contained by United and American airlines Boeing 757 and 767 aircraft like those used during the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

RNP .02 / Boeing 767-200 / World Trade Center Tower

WAAS also supports required navigation performance (RNP) operations, says Raytheon, providing a precision navigation capability down to RNP 0.02 (an accuracy of 0.02nm).

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2003/01/07/159964/ups-wins-faa-cert… RNP is a required navigation performance level described by the specification of a numeric value indicating the required navigation accuracy for a specific operation, typically specified laterally in nautical miles – e.g., RNP 1 is a Required Navigation Performance of ± 1 nautical mile (95%

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Pentagon Envisioning a Costly Internet for War

With this and the drones currently used they can go anywhere anytime and kill from behind their office desks.

The Pentagon is building its own Internet, the military’s world wide web for the wars of the future.

The goal is to give all American commanders and troops a moving picture of all foreign enemies and threats – “a God’s-eye view” of battle.

This “Internet in the sky,” Peter Teets, under secretary of the Air Force, told Congress, would allow “marines in a Humvee, in a faraway land, in the middle of a rainstorm, to open up their laptops, request imagery” from a spy satellite, and “get it downloaded within seconds.”

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Bigard’s 9/11 series: the magical passports

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Cut population by a third, say crowded Britons.

Don’t worry they’re working on it. The only problem is that to our ruling elite you and me don’t matter. We are dispensable.

Watch this really funny rant by George Carlin about religion and about our rights. It’s simple: They have a big club and you and I ain’t in it.

One in four Britons would like to see the population reduced by up to a third to ease overcrowding.

A survey has revealed deep anxiety about pressure on the environment and the impact
of migrants on public services and social cohesion.

Nearly seven out of ten adults believe the best way to curb population growth is to cut immigration, the poll showed.

More than half of Britons believe rising immigration is having a dramatic effect on life in the UK (file photo)

The findings, gathered in a YouGov survey for the environmental pressure group Optimum Population Trust, suggest there is widespread unhappiness over official projections that the population will rise to 70million in the next 20 years.

The number of British citizens has grown by around two million in the past decade.

The exact figure is unknown because of the difficulties in precisely measuring immigration. This has brought the population to around 61million.

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Snooping through the power socket

Power sockets can be used to eavesdrop on what people type on a computer.

Security researchers found that poor shielding on some keyboard cables means useful data can be leaked about each character typed.

By analysing the information leaking onto power circuits, the researchers could see what a target was typing.

The attack has been demonstrated to work at a distance of up to 15m, but refinement may mean it could work over much longer distances.

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Ireland Makes Blasphemy Illegal

Irish atheists are horrified by new legislation making blasphemy illegal, and punishable by a 25,000-Euro fine. Christians of all stripes should be, too.

As part of a revision to defamation legislation, the Dail (Irish Parliament) passed legislation creating a new crime of blasphemy. Update: The bill went to the Seanad on Friday, July 10, passing by a single vote. This attack on free speech, debated for several months in Europe, has gone largely unnoticed in the American press.

The text of the legislation is provided at the end of this post.

How does this impact free speech? Just don’t be rude.

• Atheists can be prosecuted for saying that God is imaginary. That causes outrage.
• Pagans can be prosecuted for saying they left Christianity because God is violent and bloodthirsty, promotes genocide, and permits slavery.
• Christians can be prosecuted for saying that Allah is a moon god, or for drawing a picture of Mohammed, or for saying that Islam is a violent religion which breeds terrorists.
• Jews can be prosecuted for saying Jesus isn’t the Messiah.

Is it really THAT big a deal?

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Kevin R. Ryan: Demolition access to the WTC Towers

On occasion, the public has been asked by George W. Bush to refrain from considering certain conspiracy theories. Bush has made such requests when people were looking into crimes in which he might be culpable. For example, when in 1994 Bush’s former company Harken Energy was linked to the fraudulent Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) through several investors, Bush’s spokeswoman, Karen Hughes, shut down the inquiry by telling the Associated Press — “We have no response to silly conspiracy theories.” On another occasion, Bush said in a televised speech — “Let us never tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories concerning the attacks of September the 11th.”

But paradoxically, we have also been asked to believe Bush’s own outrageous conspiracy theory about 9/11, one that has proven to be false in many ways. One important way to see the false nature of Bush’s conspiracy theory is to note the fact that the World Trade Center buildings could only have fallen as they did through the use of explosives. A number of independent scientific studies have pointed out this fact ^{[1, 2, 3, 4]}, but it was Bush’s own scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), through their inability to provide a convincing defense of the official line, who ultimately proved that explosives were necessary.^{[2, 5, 6, 7]}

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Military Escalation: From Afghanistan To the Caspian Sea and Central Asia

The Pentagon and its NATO allies have launched the largest combat offensive to date in their nearly eight-year war in South Asia – Operation Khanjar (Strike of the Sword) with 4,000 US Marines, attack helicopters and tanks and Operation Panchai Palang (Panther’s Claw) with several hundred British engaged in airborne assaults – in the Afghan province of Helmand.

The American effort is the largest ground combat operation conducted by Washington in Asia since the Vietnam War.

Other NATO and allied nations have also boosted or intend to increase their troop strength in Afghanistan, with German forces to exceed 4,000 for the first time, Romanian troops to top 1,000 and contingents to be augmented from dozens of other NATO member and partner states, including formerly neutral Finland and Sweden.

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Washington is Playing a Deeper Game with China

After the tragic events of July 5 in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China, it would be useful to look more closely into the actual role of the US Government’s ”independent“ NGO, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). All indications are that the US Government, once more acting through its “private” Non-Governmental Organization, the NED, is massively intervening into the internal politics of China.

The reasons for Washington’s intervention into Xinjiang affairs seems to have little to do with concerns over alleged human rights abuses by Beijing authorities against Uyghur people. It seems rather to have very much to do with the strategic geopolitical location of Xinjiang on the Eurasian landmass and its strategic importance for China’s future economic and energy cooperation with Russia, Kazakhastan and other Central Asia states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

The major organization internationally calling for protests in front of Chinese embassies around the world is the Washington, D.C.-based World Uyghur Congress (WUC).

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The Importance of Including Truth Emergency Inside the International Progressive Media Reform Movement

An international truth emergency, now in evidence, is the result of fraudulent elections, compromised 9/11 investigations, illegal preemptive wars, and continued top down corporate media propaganda across the spectrum on public issues. Glenn Beck recently was able to say on national Fox News television that 9/11 Truth people openly supported the shooting at the Holocaust Museum. Beck claimed that 9/11 truth proponents see James von Brunn as a “hero.” Beck’s statement is completely without factual merit and represents a hyperrealist slamming of a group already slanderously pre-labeled by the corporate media as “conspiracy theorists.”   Conspiracies tend to be actions by small groups of individuals rather than massive collective plots by entire governments. However, small groups can be dangerous, especially when the individuals have significant power in huge public and private bureaucracies. Corporate boards of directors meet in closed rooms to plan to how best to maximize profit. If they knowingly make plans that hurt others, violate laws, undermine ethics, or show favoritism to friends, they are involved in a conspiracy.

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The Federal Reserve is the counterfeiter of the world

Yes, the Federal Reserve is the counterfeiter of the world and John Key knows it.

Slippery Geithner Refuses to Rule Out Using American Taxpayer as Piggy Bank for Derivatives Loses

Does this guy remind you of someone? Yep, you guessed it. Our own Slippery John Key.
the same John Key who ran the derivatives scam for Merrill Lynch.

Here he is seen avoiding ruling out that the banks who are still selling their derivatives crab will need more bailouts funded by the taxpayer. In this article he is promising the Arabs who have huge amounts of soon to be worthless dollars that they will remain valuable while as he speaks the Chinese are dumping their dollars to buy $ 80 billion worth of gold. That’s about twice as much as was once locked away in Fort Knox

Obama promises 10,000 more troops for Afghanistan

As I said yesterday: the propaganda machine is in full swing. Afghanistan is a quagmire but they will still throw more meat in the grinder.

US marines, from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, patrol in the town of Garmser in Helmand province, Afghanistan. Photograph: Rafiq Maqbool/AP

Barack Obama yesterday pledged to increase US troops in Afghanistan by a third if he becomes president, sending 10,000 more to reinforce the 33,000 already there.

He was speaking after the US lost nine soldiers at the weekend in the deadliest attack on its forces in the country since 2005.

Obama has promised, soon after becoming president in January, to begin scaling back the 156,000 US troops in Iraq and Kuwait, and to shift the focus to Afghanistan.

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Did the Swine Flu Escape from a Lab?

National Public Radio notes that Professor John Oxford at St. Bart’s and the Royal London Hospital says that the 1957 H1N1 pandemic probably started when it escaped from a lab:

“We reckon now, in retrospect, it was probably released accidentally from a laboratory, probably in northern China or just across the border in Russia, because everyone was experimenting with those viruses at the time in the lab.” It was nothing malicious, Oxford believes, just some flu vaccine research that broke out of containment.

Similarly, Bloomberg notes:

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911 was an inside job. Is the US congress going to commit treason by ignoring the facts?

Read the peer reviewed article here