India forms new climate change body
The Indian government has established its own body to monitor the effects of global warming because it “cannot rely” on the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the group headed by its own Nobel prize-winning scientist Dr R.K Pachauri.

Discussing Iran sanctions hinders diplomacy: China
China told other world powers on Thursday that discussing broader sanctions against Iran was counterproductive, striking a blow to a Western push to rein in Tehran's nuclear program.

Iraq condemns lifting candidate ban, MPs to meet
Iraq's government called on Thursday for a special session of parliament and branded as illegal an appeals panel decision to suspend a ban on candidates suspected of ties to an outlawed party until after an election.

India offers to resume talks with Pakistan
India has offered to resume official talks with Pakistan that were suspended after the bomb attacks on Mumbai (Bombay) in 2008.

New Iraqi media rules raise specter of muzzled past
Battling what it says are broadcasts that incite sectarian violence, Iraq wants to impose new restrictions on the media that critics say could bring back draconian censorship last seen under Saddam Hussein.

Video shows fighter jets shooting down US missionaries
A video has emerged showing a bungled CIA operation that led to the shooting down of a light plane carrying American missionaries in Peru.

New Balkan Wars Loom on the Horizon
The contours of the Kosovo separatists' plan to suppress the Serbian resistance in the northern part of the province with the help of the US and the EU are getting increasingly visible.

U.S., Haiti holding talks on detained missionaries
The U.S. and Haitian governments are holding talks on the fate of 10 American missionaries accused of illegally trying to take children out of the quake-hit Caribbean country, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday.

FAO Raises the Red Flag over Food Situation
An estimated 3.8 million Kenyans will require emergency food aid this month amid a relentless rally in prices of key cereals.

Shocking stories of US tortures in Afghanistan
An ever increasing number of U.S. troops are fighting for peace in Afghanistan. But an investigative journalist claims to have revealed the shocking truth about surprise night raids by American forces and secret prisons where detainees are routinely tortured. In an exclusive interview to RT, Anand Gopal says Obama's mission in Afghanistan is not much different from Bush's in Iraq.

Bomb blast near Pakistani girls' school kills three US soldiers
A bomb blast near a girls’ school in northwestern Pakistan has killed three American soldiers involved in a low-profile joint US-British programme to train the country’s paramilitary Frontier Corps.

Intelligence officials say al-Qaeda will try to attack U.S. in next 6 months
The Obama administration's top intelligence officials on Tuesday described it as "certain" that al-Qaeda or its allies will try to attack the United States in the next six months, and they called for new flexibility in how U.S. officials detain and question terrorist suspects.

Israeli officers get 'slap on wrist' for white phosphorus use in Gaza
Israel has reprimanded two senior army officers who were responsible for firing white phosphorus artillery shells at a UN compound during last year’s offensive in Gaza.

Iran announces launch of animals into space
It test-fires a rocket designed to carry satellites. Tehran's advances in missile technology are worrisome to the West.

Treasury expects to hit debt limit in February
The Treasury Department said Wednesday that it expects to reach the government's limit on borrowing, known as the debt ceiling, by the end of this month.

Intel Chief: U.S. at Risk of Crippling Cyber Attack
The United States is at risk of a crippling cyber attack that could "wreak havoc" on the country, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair said.

Obama Submits Largest Budget in History, But Portrayed as Fiscal Conservative by Networks
ABC, CBS and NBC reports on federal budget give the president pass on spending, ignore critical liberal and conservative economists who argue it is 'unsustainable.'

Eustace Mullins, 1923-2010
Legendary author of hundreds of books and pamphlets demolishing the lies of warmaking mainstream media, historian Eustace Mullins died Tuesday, Feb. 2, at the home of his caretaker in a small town in Texas.

Next in line for a bailout: Social Security
Don't look now. But even as the bank bailout is winding down, another huge bailout is starting, this time for the Social Security system. A report from the Congressional Budget Office shows that for the first time in 25 years, Social Security is taking in less in taxes than it is spending on benefits.

Study: Hunger in America jumps ‘unprecedented’ 46 percent
It was not long ago when President Barack Obama’s new drug czar, former Seattle police chief Gil Kerlikowske, swept into Washington, D.C. and declared the “drug war” a public policy relic.

Scarborough Shows Low Taxes = Low Unemployment in New Hampshire
MSNBC 'Morning Joe' host draws a parallel between tax rates and unemployment by comparing state to Rhode Island.

Deficits May Alter U.S. Politics and Global Power
In a federal budget filled with mind-boggling statistics, two numbers stand out as particularly stunning, for the way they may change American politics and American power.

We the people call for a total national strike April 15 -- 18
The spark of Freedom is igniting within the hearts and minds of the people in America, as well as globally, and we all have the moral obligation to fan the flames. The time for taking our freedom for granted has passed.

Pentagon’s Black Budget Tops $56 Billion
Cobbling together this round figure for the military’s hush-hush projects is easier than it seems.

Backdoor taxes to hit middle class
The Obama administration's plan to cut more than $1 trillion from the deficit over the next decade relies heavily on so-called backdoor tax increases that will result in a bigger tax bill for middle-class families.

Largest-ever federal payroll to hit 2.15 million
The era of big government has returned with a vengeance, in the form of the largest federal work force in modern history.

Patient in a vegetative state ‘talks’ to scientists
British scientists are hailing a world-first ‘ conversation’ with a man diagnosed as being in a permanent vegetative state.

NASA Still Spreading Antarctic Worries
NASA themselves appear very confused about Antarctic temperature trends.

Forests in the Eastern United States are growing faster than they have in the past 225 years
Speed is not a word typically associated with trees; they can take centuries to grow. However, a new study to be published the week of Feb. 1 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has found evidence that forests in the Eastern United States are growing faster than they have in the past 225 years. The study offers a rare look at how an ecosystem is responding to climate change.

Dentist puts tell-all microchip in tooth
Dr. Kevin Brunski wants to chip your tooth. More specifically, the Crown Point dentist, who has a patent pending on his invention, I-Denti-Fied, hopes to one day see every person in the United States wearing the device -- a chip about the size of a grain of rice that stores a person's unique identification number linked to his or her entire medical history.

Leaked climate change emails scientist ‘hid’ data flaws
Phil Jones, the beleaguered British climate scientist at the centre of the leaked emails controversy, is facing fresh claims that he sought to hide problems in key temperature data on which some of his work was based.

New study: a common flame retardant causes infertility
So many US women have difficulty becoming pregnant that the fertility industry has become a huge business, raking in between three and five billion dollars a year.

Pachauri fails to get UK support over ‘unsubstantiated’ climate report claims
Rajendra Pachauri, who has faced criticism as chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change following allegations of inaccurate statements in panel reports, suffered a fresh blow last night when he failed to get the backing of the British government.

Fears Rise of Euro Government Default
Financial markets swooned Thursday amid rising fears of a government debt default in Europe, highlighting the seriousness of the challenges facing the euro currency as fiscally challenged countries like Greece, Portugal and Spain dig themselves out of debt.

Portugal near political crisis over debt
Portugal moved towards a political crisis on Thursday night as its finance minister appealed to opposition parties not to defeat the minority Socialist government over a regional finance bill that he said would undermine the country’s international credibility.

Euro Bludgeoned As Portuguese Government Debt Disaster Sparks Credit Default Swap Panic
The Eurozone has become a cluster of sovereign financial explosions lately. The latest burst comes from Portugal.

Poof: Another 800,000 jobs disappear
As bad as the government's jobs readings numbers have been during the Great Recession, we'll soon find out the real situation likely was worse.

NY Fed chief worries about recovery's strength
A top Federal Reserve official says he's worried about the weakness of the economic recovery but doesn't think it will slip into another recession.

New York AG filing civil charges against BofA
The New York Attorney General's office said Thursday it is filing civil charges against Bank of America and its former CEO Ken Lewis, saying the bank misled investors about Merrill Lynch when it acquired the Wall Street bank in late 2008.

U.S. business bankruptcies rose 7 pct in January
U.S. business bankruptcy filings rose 7 percent in January from a year ago, according to a bankruptcy data provider on Wednesday, as the sluggish economy hurt sales and hindered businesses' ability to
refinance heavy debt obligations.

Retailers Likely to Close More U.S. Stores: Analysis
Retailers are likely to close more U.S. stores to cut costs in the months ahead after expanding during the recession, an analysis shows.

Loan repurchases are a $10 billion problem for big banks
Just when they thought the worst of the mortgage crisis was behind them, billions of dollars in bad loans from the debacle may be rising from the dead and creeping back on the balance sheets of the largest U.S. banks.

The Bankruptcy of the United States is Now Certain
It's one of those numbers that's so unbelievable you have to actually think about it for a while... Within the next 12 months, the U.S. Treasury will have to refinance $2 trillion in short-term debt. And that's not counting any additional deficit spending, which is estimated to be around $1.5 trillion.

U.S. May Lose 824,000 Jobs as Employment Data Revised: Analysis
The U.S. may lose 824,000 jobs when the government releases its annual revision to employment data on Feb. 5, showing the labor market was in worse shape during the recession than known at the time.

The crisis is not over
By Paul Craig Roberts
The threats to the U.S. economy are extreme. Yet, neither the Obama administration, the Republican opposition, economists, Wall Street, nor the media show any awareness.

The Great Global Arms Bazaar
By Michael Werbowski
Currently, “the military industrial complex” seems to be thriving even in these hard times.

20 reasons Global Debt Time Bomb explodes soon
By Paul B. Farrell
Retire? You can fuggetaboutit if the new Global Debt Time Bomb is detonated by any one of 20 made-in-America trigger mechanisms.

Ron Paul On The Tea Party Movement
Warning voters about the dangers of an overstretched and overcommitted government, Paul provided today’s Tea Partiers with a blueprint for grassroots success.

The True State of the Union: We Have No Rights Whatsoever
It has been almost a week since President Obama gave his first State of the Union address, and it has been analyzed from the left, right, center, front, and back. Of course, the speech is really about the performance of the federal government, particularly its wonderful accomplishments under the leadership of the sitting president.

The lessons of Iraq have been ignored. The target is now Iran
The US military buildup in the Gulf and Blair's promotion of war against Tehran are a warning of yet another catastrophe

Michael Mann as innocent as OJ – possibly more so – finds internal Penn State investigation
Penn State University has completed its internal investigation into potential wrongdoing by its star professor Michael Mann, creator of the most discredited graph in scientific history – the incredible, completely made-up Hockey Stick.

Penn State report on Mann: new investigation to convene
Excerpts from the report are below, where they considered 4 allegations. They say only one had merit. That will be the subject of the upcoming investigation.

Taking the ‘Neo’ Out of ‘Conservative’
By Jack Hunter
Neoconservatives care about one thing—war (and where they can wage it).

A CIA Propaganda Apparatus Aimed At The American People
If we remember these mistakes from the Iran-contra era, we might avoid repeating them as we face the era defined by the war on terrorism.

Police Want Backdoor to Web Users’ Private Data
They’re pushing for the creation of a national Web interface linking police computers with those of Internet and e-mail providers so requests can be sent and received electronically.

Children Prisoners of the U.S. War of Terror
By Kenneth J. Theisen
Many people in this country are aware of the atrocious conditions and treatment of adult prisoners in the U.S. war of terror. These prisoners have been held at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Bagram, and other hellholes run by the U.S. But few are aware that thousands of children have also been taken by the U.S. and its allies in this war of terror.

Why You’ve Never Heard of the Great Depression of 1920
By Matt Hawes
As President Obama continues to try to sell the country on the necessity of government intervention, this Mises Institute video from April 2009 looks at what happened when a president made the rare choice to restrain government action in an economic crisis.

War, Budgets and Blind Ambition
By Chris Floyd
The American elite’s unbounded, unquestioned, indeed unconscious sense of imperial entitlement and dominance — based ultimately on war, the threat of war and the profit from war — is one of the defining characteristics of our age.

The State of Obama's Union
By Sheldon Richman
Despite what some popular right-wing talk-show hosts claim, Obama is not pushing Marxism, revolutionary or otherwise.

Two analogies for everyone to understand how US wars in Iraq and Iran are unlawful
By Carl Herman
Laws are meant to be perfectly clear and followed; especially those to save human beings from the scourge of war.

US doing 'scientific research' to boost interrogations
An elite US interrogation unit will conduct "scientific research" to find better ways of questioning top suspected terrorists, US intelligence director Dennis Blair said Wednesday.

Does safer flying mean a risk of radiation?
So-called “naked” body- scanning machines at airports, the latest defence against would-be plane bombers, have already raised concern for breaching flyers’ privacy and, potentially, feeding the voyeurism of security officials. But could being screened also pose a health risk?

Journalist calls for euthanasia of disabled newborns
The article titled “Finish it off so it doesn’t suffer,” which calls for the euthanasia of disabled newborn children, has caused public outrage in Russia and has led to fierce debates in the blogging community.

Caught On Tape : Officer Chases Student With Taser
The victim says he was walking through the hall looking for his little sister when a teacher grabbed his arm. The teen says he was scared and pulled away -- but the teacher started to yell and push him. When the teen turned around - he says the teacher told a police officer to get him.

The IRS Is Looking For 60 12-Gauge Pump Actions Guns To Arm Its Investigators
The IRS apparently has plans to buy 60 Remington Model 870 police 12 gauge pump action shotguns for the Criminal Investigation Unit.