I did a quick cursory survey of what has transpired in the first week of 2011 and, WOW, the headlines really speak for themselves! If this is any indicator of what the rest of the year will be like...
NATURAL DISASTERS
Dead fish cover 20-miles of Arkansas River
Arkansas Game & Fish is trying to figure out why 100,000 fish in Northwest Arkansas turned up dead. They were found along a 20-mile stretch between the Ozark Dam and Highway 109 Bridge in Franklin County. The 20-mile stretch along the Arkansas River where an estimated 100,000 drum fish were found washed ashore and floating looks much different now.
http://www.todaysthv.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=136401&catid=2
Thousands of birds fall from the sky in Beebe
BEEBE, Ark.-- Friday night, ringing in the New Year took on a whole different meaning for the citizens of Beebe. Around 11:30 p.m., enforcement officers with Arkansas Game and Fish Commission began getting reports of dead black birds falling from the sky in the city limits of Beebe.
http://www.todaysthv.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=136195&catid=2
Mystery of mass animal death epidemic deepens after 8,000 turtle doves fall dead in Italy
Thousands of dead turtle doves rained down on roofs and cars in an Italian town in the latest in a growing spate of mass animal deaths across the globe. Residents in Faenza described the birds falling to the ground like 'little Christmas balls' with strange blue stains on their beaks. Initial tests on up to 8,000 of the doves indicated that the blue stain could have been caused by poisoning or hypoxia.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1344913/Animal-death-mystery-Two-MILLION-dead-fish-wash-Maryland-bay.html
Expert calls bed bugs a "pandemic"
No place seems safe. They could be in your bed, at your grocery store, and at your favorite night club. Bed bugs may not spread disease like mosquitoes, but they are annoying and can even traumatize people. Plus, they're tough to get rid of. Robert Rosenberg from the National Pest Management Association told FOX31 News the bed bug problem is a crisis for the country. "It's a pandemic in the United States. I mean there are an astronomical number of people that are being affected by bed bugs," Rosenberg said.
http://www.kwgn.com/news/kdvr-expert-calls-bed-bugs-a-pandemic-20110105,0,7373402.story
Researchers find "alarming" decline in bumblebees
They documented a 96 percent decline in the numbers of the four species, and said their range had shrunk by as much as 87 percent.
http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/tre7023p7-us-bees-decline/
Famine to get worse as dry weather sets in
(Kenya)Famine in most arid parts of the country is expected to get worse as the La Nina weather phenomenon start kicks in.A drought monitoring bulletin from the office shows that livestock had declined sharply by the end of the year and all indicators of food security were negative. The bulletin recommended that the government increase the allocation of relief food and trucking of water to save people. “Based on our general overview, the prevailing food security in the region is bad and getting worse.”
http://www.nation.co.ke/News/Famine%20to%20get%20worse%20as%20dry%20weather%20sets%20in%20/-/1056/1083728/-/10vnqelz/-/
Southern Iran Struck by 5.4-Magnitude Earthquake, 16 Injured
According to the semi-official Mehr news agency, more than a dozen villages were damaged, and a number were "completely destroyed" in the Ardakan region of Fars province.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/141557
Small quake hits northern England
London - A small earthquake shook parts of the north of England late Monday, the second in the region in two weeks, the British Geological Survey (BGS) said Tuesday.
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/uk/news/article_1609270.php/Small-quake-hits-northern-England
Earthquake shakes central Chile
A strong earthquake has shaken central Chile, disrupting power and communications but causing no casualties or serious damage. The quake had a magnitude of 7.1 and its epicentre was 70km (45 miles) northwest of Temuco with a depth of 25km, the US Geological Service said. Hundreds of people in coastal areas fled to higher ground for fear of a tsunami, but no alert was issued.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-12106034
Earthquake in the North, None Hurt
A earthquake hit northern Israel on Saturday evening. It was felt most strongly in the region of Beit Shean and Afula; residents of Tzfat reported feeling motion as well. Scientists have warned that Israel is likely to experience a strong earthquake, measuring at least 7.5 on the Richter scale, in the near future. The epicenter will be near Beit Shean, they say.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/141466
7.0 earthquake hits northern Argentina
A magnitude-7.0 earthquake struck a rural area of northern Argentina Saturday morning, but its epicenter was so deep that it gave only a light shake to towns nearby. The U.S. Geological Survey said Saturday that the quake, initially registered at 6.9, hit at 6:56 a.m. about 150 kilometers (115 miles) northeast of Santiago del Estero at a depth of 563 kilometers (350 miles).
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110101/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_argentina_earthquake
Tornado outbreak kills six in south and mid-western US
A series of tornadoes in the south and mid-western US have killed six people, injured several others and caused power failures for thousands in the region. Three residents of the small town of Cincinnati in Arkansas were killed by a twister early on Friday morning. Tornadoes were later spotted near St Louis, Missouri and were blamed for the death of three people in the southern part of the state, authorities said.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12100240
Flooded Queensland hit by fresh rain
Heavy rain has been falling in eastern Australia, bringing fresh misery to flood-hit communities where hundreds of homes are already under water. Forecasters predict central and southern Queensland will be worst hit by the latest deluge, which will last into the weekend. In Rockhampton, however, waters are slowly starting to recede after the Fitzroy river peaked on Wednesday.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12124805
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12116919
Return of bird flu to South Korea sparks cull
South Korea has confirmed its first outbreak of avian flu since 2008 and is culling many thousands of birds. The agricultural ministry confirmed that two farms in the centre and south-west of the country had been contaminated with the H5N1 virus. So far, more than 100,000 chickens have been culled and more than 10,000 ducks.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12097615
Natural disasters 'killed 295,000 in 2010'
The Haiti earthquake and floods in Pakistan and China helped make 2010 an exceptional year for natural disasters, killing 295,000 and costing $130 billion, the world's top reinsurer said Monday. The last time so many people died in natural disasters was in 1983, when 300,000 people died, mainly due to famine in Ethiopia.A total of 950 natural disasters were recorded last year, making 2010 the second worst year since 1980. The average number of events over the past 10 years was 785.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jjhitek3_tWICijAzzGZcOcj6NFg?docId=CNG.0fdda25599cfdc1fbf798ce7851d9c51.3a1
POLICE STATE
US urges action to prevent insider leaks
The White House is telling US agencies to create "insider threat" programmes to ferret out disgruntled workers who may leak state secrets, reports say. The move follows the leaking of thousands of secret US cables to the whistle-blowing website Wikileaks. An 11-page memo by US intelligence officials detailing the advice has been published by US broadcaster NBC.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12117113
The Transhumanist and Police State Agenda in Pop Music
Through the news, movies and the music industry, this agenda is being insidiously presented to the masses, using various techniques. If the news scares people into accepting measures diminishing their personal freedoms and ushering in a "new era", the music business accomplishes the same job by making it seem sexy, cool and trendy.
http://www.pakalertpress.com/2010/12/31/the-transhumanist-and-police-state-agenda-in-pop-music/
Court OKs searches of cell phones without warrant
The California Supreme Court allowed police Monday to search arrestees' cell phones without a warrant, saying defendants lose their privacy rights for any items they're carrying when taken into custody. Under U.S. Supreme Court precedents, "this loss of privacy allows police not only to seize anything of importance they find on the arrestee's body ... but also to open and examine what they find," the state court said in a 5-2 ruling. Court OKs searches of cell phones without warrant
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/01/03/BA5N1H3G12.DTL&tsp=1
FCC challenges app makers to protect open Internet
U.S. regulators are asking software developers in an "Open Internet Challenge" to create apps that let Internet users know when their service provider -- fixed or mobile -- is interfering with content. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is trying to get consumers to help police Internet service providers for network management abuses such as slowing bandwidth-hogging content from movies.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110105/wr_nm/us_fcc_internet_competition
With Air Force's new drone, 'we can see everything'
This winter, the Air Force is set to deploy to Afghanistan what it says is a revolutionary airborne surveillance system called Gorgon Stare, which will be able to transmit live video images of physical movement across an entire town. ..."Gorgon Stare will be looking at a whole city, so there will be no way for the adversary to know what we're looking at, and we can see everything."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/01/AR2011010102690.html
ECONOMY
World Food Prices Jump to Record on Sugar, Oilseeds
World food prices rose to a record in December on higher sugar, grain and oilseed costs, the United Nations said, exceeding levels reached in 2008 that sparked deadly riots from Haiti to Egypt. ...Sugar climbed for a third year in a row in 2010, and corn jumped the most in four years in Chicago. Food prices may rise more unless the world grain crop increases "significantly" in 2011, the FAO said Nov. 17. At least 13 people died last year in Mozambique in protests against plans to lift bread prices.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-05/global-food-prices-climb-to-record-on-cereal-sugar-costs-un-agency-says.html
UN warns record food prices put millions at risk
The United Nations warned Friday millions of people are at risk after global food prices hit their highest level ever, as clashes over rising prices erupted in Algeria this week. Surging prices for cooking oil, cereal and sugar in particular, "will affect millions of people," Abdolreza Abbassian, an economist at the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in Rome, told AFP.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20110107/tbs-un-warns-record-food-prices-put-mill-5268574.html?
Asia scrambles to contain food inflation
Record high food prices are moving to the top of the agenda for many Asian policymakers as the prospect of higher inflation in 2011 poses a major threat to the region's strong revival from the global financial crisis.
http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/tre7051jz-us-food/
Rising oil price threatens fragile recovery
High oil prices threaten to derail the fragile economic recovery among developed nations this year, the leading energy watchdog has warned, putting pressure on the Opec oil cartel to increase production. Over the past year the oil import costs for the 34 mostly rich countries that make up the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development have soared by $200bn to $790bn at the end of 2010, according to an analysis by the International Energy Agency.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/056db69c-1836-11e0-88c9-00144feab49a.html#axzz1AAAjLUqG
Triple-digit oil prices strangle the economic recovery
The global economy seems to be moving in the right direction, but that tenuous recovery could come quickly undone if the price of oil continues to rise. The price of a barrel of oil has been trending steadily upward at the conclusion of 2010: It stood at $91 as of Wednesday, Dec. 29, up 22 percent from a year earlier.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/12/30/the_stories_to_watch_in_2011
Bolivia's Morales drops planned fuel prices hike
Bolivian President Evo Morales has rescinded a decree which raised fuel prices by more than 70% and sparked civil unrest. Mr Morales reversed the price rises introduced less than a week ago following talks with trades unions and groups representing indigenous peoples. The fuel price hike had provoked mass protests and a transport strike.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-12101199
South Carolina scrambles to deal with budget shortfall
South Carolina Governor-elect Nikki Haley and state budget writers are scrambling for solutions as South Carolina faces a nearly $1 billion budget shortfall in its $5 billion budget.
http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/tre70452y-us-budget-southcarolina/
National Debt Tops $14 Trillion
The U.S. Treasury website today reported that as of last Friday, the last day of 2010, the National Debt stood at $14,025,215,218,708.52. It took just 7 months for the National Debt to increase from $13 trillion on June 1, 2010 to $14 trillion on Dec. 31. It also means the debt is fast approaching the statutory ceiling $14.294 trillion set by Congress and signed into law by President Obama last February.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20027090-503544.html
European nations begin seizing private pensions
People’s retirement savings are a convenient source of revenue for governments that don’t want to reduce spending or make privatizations. As most pension schemes in Europe are organised by the state, European ministers of finance have a facilitated access to the savings accumulated there, and it is only logical that they try to get a hold of this money for their own ends. In recent weeks I have noted five such attempts: Three situations concern private personal savings; two others refer to national funds.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/The-Adam-Smith-Institute-Blog/2011/0102/European-nations-begin-seizing-private-pensions
States Facing Showdown With Unions
States are moving to curb public-sector unions at a time of deepening budget deficits and rising public anger at government workers' pay and benefits, The New York Times reports. Republicans, in particular, have stepped up efforts to curtail the ability of state-employee unions to strike, compel payment of union dues, or collectively bargain for wages. Read more: States Facing Showdown With Unions
http://www.newsmax.com/US/states-unions-budgets-deficits/2011/01/04/id/381831
SOCIETAL TRENDS
Were Nazis a homosexual, pagan cult?
It's a book that is disturbing, compelling and persuasive on its major point - that homosexuals dominated the German Nazi Party from its birth through its catastrophic demise. The real target of the homosexual pagan cult of Nazism was Judeo-Christian morality, the book finds.
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=247121
U.S. court says Christian cross is unconstitutional
In a 3-0 ruling in the Jewish War Veterans v. City of San Diego case, the panel decided that the 29-foot concrete cross, which has stood for 57 years, constitutes a government endorsement of religion and therefore violates the First Amendment's establishment clause.
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=247701
Egypt's Christians fear new attack on holiday
Many Egyptian Christians say they fear a repeat attack on their community on Coptic Christmas Eve Thursday and authorities are planning to deploy heavy security around churches to protect them. A suicide bombing of a church in the coastal city of Alexandria shortly after midnight on New Year's killed 21 people and injured about 100. It touched off days of enraged protests and riots by Christians who accuse the government of neglecting to protect the minority.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9KI60T84&show_article=1
Tower of Babel’s Ruins Waiting for Archaeologists
World Monuments Fund conservationist Jeff Allen told The New York Times this week that archeologists are beginning to work on ancient Babylonian sites and possibly restore some of them. A mound of mud-brick buildings is all that remains of the ancient city in Babylon where the Tower was being built, whose foundations appear to be a square of earthen embankments, measuring 300 feet on each side.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/141505
Obama wants Jews to pay terror-supporting state
The Obama administration has drawn up a plan for Israel to give much of the strategic Golan Heights to Syria,... And what land Israel continues to use, it must rent, according to the plan.
http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=247041
U.S. officials: Barak 'deceived' us about his role in peace process
The U.S. administration is furious with Defense Minister Ehud Barak over the stalled peace talks, sources have told Haaretz. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama's senior advisers say that for more than a year and a half Barak misled them about his persuasive powers with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regarding the peace process.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/u-s-officials-barak-deceived-us-about-his-role-in-peace-process-1.334697
Report warns U.S. unprepared for bioterror
In the wake of a recent "credible" threat that a food-poisoning attack could target hotels and restaurants, a new report warns the United States is unprepared to respond to a major bioterror "incident,"
http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=247073
'Israeli airport security unsuitable for US'
US Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano has rejected calls to adopt Israeli-style security checks at American airports. Napolitano, who came this week to Israel, said during an interview Wednesday that methods suitable for a small country like Israel would not necessarily work for the world's largest superpower.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4009267,00.html
US approves new trial of embryonic stem cells
US biotech company Advanced Cell Technology said Monday it was cleared by the government to start its second trial using human embryonic stem cells to treat blindness, this time in older people. The trial will examine the therapy's ability to safely treat people with a condition known as dry age-related macular degeneration, the most common form of irreversible vision loss in people over age 60.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.63ce099f0759b32debc0c53d5ee39e68.541&show_article=1
US to renew military ties with a rising China
Stealth fighter jets in development. Guided missiles dubbed "carrier killers." As America's top defense official visits China next week, its growing military capabilities are redrawing the security landscape in Asia, putting the country with the largest standing army on a potential collision course with the United States. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who arrives late Sunday for a five-day visit, will formally restore military-to-military exchanges, cut off a year ago by Beijing over U.S. arms sales to Taiwan.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20110107/D9KJF0B80.html
US announces major defence cuts
The reductions target expensive and burdensome weapons systems, staff, independent contractors and other overhead and will take place over five years, Gates said. Further cuts to eliminate wasteful spending will allow the military to reallocate the savings into higher priorities, he said in what is key part of his 'reform agenda.'
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/usa/news/article_1609998.php/US-announces-major-defence-cuts
Extrasensory perception paper published in respected journal
The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology plans to print "Feeling The Future", by Professor Daryl Bem later this year, which presents what he claims is strong evidence for extrasensory perception (ESP). Prof Bem, of Cornell University, New York, said the results of nine experiments he had carried out on students over the past decade suggested humans could accurately predict random events.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/8244419/Extrasensory-perception-paper-published-in-respected-journal.html
Drug Killings Make 2010 Deadliest Year for Mexico Border City
The embattled border city of Ciudad Juarez had its bloodiest year ever with 3,111 people killed in drug violence, an official said Saturday. The city across from El Paso, Texas, has seen its homicide rate soar to one of the highest in the world since vicious turf battles broke out between gangs representing the Juarez and Sinaloa cartels in 2008.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/01/01/mexico-border-city-record-drug-killings/
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