Several dozen youths smashed paving stones with hammers in order to throw them at riot police in Syntagma Square in central Athens on Thursday. The protesters chanted “Killer! Killers!” as police used tear-gas and flash grenades against the crowd. Earlier the same day some 1,000 protesters had gathered to lay flowers, candles and messages at the place where 77-year-old Dimitris Christoulas shot himself in the head. Teachers, students, members of leftist groups and the "indignants", who held daily sit-ins for months last year, attended the demonstration near the improvised shrine. A peaceful demonstration also took place in the city of Thessaloniki.

On Wednesday evening, following the pensioner’s suicide, hundreds of protesters rallied in central Athens chanting: "This was not a suicide, it was a state-perpetrated murder" and "Blood flows and seeks revenge.” A couple of scuffles broke out between the protesters and riot police, who used pepper-spray to repel youths throwing bottles of water at them.

The retired pharmacist, who committed suicide just outside the parliament building, said in his suicide note that he refused “to search garbage for food” and become “a burden” on his child. He has been described as a martyr as his death symbolizes the painful effect of over two years of the harsh austerity measures imposed on debt-stricken Greece to secure bailouts from international lenders.

Thank the robosettlement, where in exchange for a few wrist slaps, contract law was thoroughly trampled by America's attorneys general, but far more importantly to the country's crony capitalist system, the foreclosure pipeline was once again unclogged, and whether one does or does not have a legal title on a given house, the banks are now fully in their right to foreclose on it.

What this means also is that America's record shadow housing inventory, which is far greater than any fabricated number the NAR reports on a monthly basis, is about to get unleashed on buyers, shifting the supply curve much further to the right, as up to 9 million new properties slowly but surely appear on the market. And while many will no longer be able to live mortgage free, forcing them to go out and rent (and no longer be able to afford incremental iGizmos), it also means that the prevalent price of homes is about to take another major tumble, making buffoons out of all those who, once again, called for a housing bottom in early 2012.

Here's the simply math: there will be no housing bottom until the 9 million excess homes clear. Period. Until then it is a buyer's market, even if said buyer is unable to obtain bank financing, as ultimately it will be the seller who is forced to monetize (or vacate if underwater) their home in a world of ever diminishing cashflows. The fear of the supply onslaught will only make the dumpage that much faster.

Some male participants wore tallit and tefillin. Others had small, colorful signs that read "love" and "one world". Group organizer Pesach Stadlin said they purposely tried to not be disruptive and kept to the back of the plaza to maintain the peacefulness of the location. Stadlin represents a group called Spiritual Judaism - One People World United, which, according to its Facebook page "promotes experiencing 'ALL is ONE' in the Jewish tradition."

"Before Moses came to lead the Jewish people out of slavery and into freedom the people let out a cry," Stadlin stated. "We are trying to revive this anicent universal prayer technique."

Lahore’s “The Nation” newspaper on Sunday published an editorial entitled, “War with India inevitable: Nizami,” the newspaper’s Editor-in-Chief and Nazaria-i-Pakistan Trust Chairman, Majid Nizami, asked his fellow citizens to prepare for a war with India over water issues. Nizami told those attending the “Pakistan-India relations; Our rulers' new wishes” session at Aiwan-e-Karkunan Tehrik-e-Pakistan, which he chaired, “Indian hostilities and conspiracies against the country will never end until she is taught a lesson…”

At issue are Pakistan’s concerns over India’s ongoing construction of two hydroelectric dams on the upper reaches of the Indus River. Islamabad is concerned that the 45 megawatt, 190-foot tall Nimoo-Bazgo concrete dam 44 megawatt Chutak hydroelectric power project will reduce the Indus River’s flow towards Pakistan, as they are capable of storing up to 4.23 billion cubic feet of water, violating the terms of the bilateral 1960 Indus Water Treaty. The Indus, which begins in Indian-controlled Kashmir, is crucial to both India and Pakistan, but is currently experiencing water flows down 30 percent from its normal levels.

The Indus is Pakistan’s primary freshwater source, on which 90 percent of its agriculture depends. According to a number of Pakistani agriculture and water experts, the nation is heading towards a massive water shortage in the next couple of years due to insufficient water management practices and storage capacity, which will be exacerbated by the twin Indian hydroelectric projects, as they will further diminish the Indus’ flow.

"What Must Be Said" is the title that Günter Grass chose for his poem. It begins with the words: "Why have I been silent, kept quiet for too long, about what is obvious." The poem, which was published in Germany's Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper on Wednesday and which has already provoked considerable outrage, deals with Grass's silence on Israel and the threat of military conflict between Israel and Iran. It's also about Germany supplying weapons to Israel, and about the relationship between Germans and Israelis. It's about a subject, where the title alone, "What Must Be Said", implies an unpleasant flippancy: the flippancy of breaking taboos.

"What must be said" is a thinly veiled version of another phrase that Germans who don't hold a Nobel Prize for Literature like to use when they're sitting around in the pub, setting the world to rights. It can be loosely translated as: "There's no law against saying that…" Yes, there's no law against saying these things - except that there is an unwritten law in Germany against saying certain things, particularly given the country's difficult history. And so Grass, a few lines after he has posed the rhetorical question about why he has kept quiet, gives an explanation for his previous reticence. He felt under a "constraint," he writes - a constraint that "promises punishment if it is flouted."

It is in poor taste when the Germans, of all people, start telling the Israelis what to do. Never in the history of postwar Germany has an intellectual as prominent as Grass presented such hollow clichés about Israel in such a vain manner. It completely overshadows his reasonable call for both the Israeli and Iranian nuclear capabilities to be monitored by "an international entity."

In addition to supplying restaurant chains and supermarkets including Safeway Inc and Supervalu Inc, both of which have said they will drop the product, AFA Food also sells its finely textured beef products under the brand names "Moran's" and "Miller Quality Meats," according to MSNBC.

Bloomberg reported AFA Foods, which is owned by Yucaipa, filed Chapter 11 papers in US Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Delaware, listing assets of $219 million and debt of $197. AFA interim Chief Executive Officer Ron Allen said "Ongoing media attention has called into question the wholesomeness of the meat, and has dramatically reduced the demand for all ground beef products.”

In spite of the negative reaction to the issue of ground beef having pink slime added to it, US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack insists the product is safe to eat. Rick Perry, the Texan governor, joined other politicians in a visit to Beef Products Inc’s operating plant in South Sioux City, Nebraska, another maker of the alleged "pink slime." "Let’s call this product what it is. And let pink slime become a term of the past," Governor Perry said after the tour, critiquing the media for their supposed misrepresentation of the beef.

Girls as young as 7 are now beginning to undergo body changes that their mothers hadn’t experienced until years later. At this rate, by the time that they’ll be taught about puberty in the school curriculum, they will have already finished it. This trend is so puzzling, and yet slowly is becoming considered an inevitable “new norm” rather than being highlighted as an aggravated health condition.

Toxic BPA is featured in the vast majority of plastics used commercially today. This chemical has the property of mimicking estrogen when leeched into the body. The delicate hormonal balance in the developing human body is being offset by the introduction of BPA and other chemicals into an average child’s life. Nearly out of the womb, children who are given plastic toys, pacifiers or bottles all come under the influence of this hormone disruption incredibly early.

In girls, this disturbance accelerates their growth rate, setting off puberty at much younger ages. In boys, this can retard their growth and stop them from reaching full maturity altogether. The damage also carries into adulthood, causing a number of health problems associated with hormonal imbalance including breast cancer. The average person has looked at this recent phenomenon and dismissed it due to the lack of information, combined with the incredible subtlety with which the chemical culprits have been woven into daily life.

Another notable culprit is the presence of soy foods and products in the diet. Soy is pushed as a health food, but is often highly genetically modified. In addition, it contains large amounts of estrogen.

Here is how it would work, according to a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announcement posted in today’s Federal Register, the daily journal of the US government; the agency will grant “unlawful presence waivers” to illegal aliens who can prove they have a relative that’s a US citizen. Currently such aliens must return to their native country and request a waiver of inadmissibility in an existing overseas immigrant visa process. In other words, they must enter the US legally as thousands of foreigners do on a yearly basis. Besides the obvious security issues, changing this would be like rewarding bad behavior in a child. It doesn’t make sense.

“But the system often causes US citizens to be separated for extended periods from their immediate relatives,” according to the DHS. The proposed changes, first announced in January, will significantly reduce the length of time US citizens are separated from their loved ones while required to remain outside the United States during the current visa processing system.

The administration also claims that relaxing the rule will also “create efficiencies for both the US government and most applicants.” How exactly is not listed in the Federal Register announcement, which gives the public 60 days to comment. That’s only a formality since the DHS has indicated that the change is pretty much a done deal.

The cause? Monsanto’s cost-inflated and ineffective seeds have been driving farmers to suicide, and is considered to be one of the largest — if not the largest — cause of the quarter of a million farmer suicides over the past 16 years.

According to the most recent figures (provided by the New York University School of Law), 17,638 Indian farmers committed suicide in 2009 — about one death every 30 minutes. In 2008, the Daily Mail labeled the continual and disturbing suicide spree as ‘The GM (genetically modified) Genocide’. Due to failing harvests and inflated prices that bankrupt the poor farmers, struggling Indian farmers began to kill themselves. Oftentimes, they would commit the act by drinking the very same insecticide that Monsanto supplied them with — a gruesome testament to the extent in which Monsanto has wrecked the lives of independent and traditional farmers.

To further add backing to the tragedy, the rate of Indian farmer suicides massively increased since the introduction of Monsanto’s Bt cotton in 2002. It is no wonder that a large percentage of farmers who take their own lives are cotton farmers, the demographic that is thought to be among the most impacted. Dr Mercola, an osteopathic doctor that has been educating the world about natural health for many years, recently saw the destruction of traditional Indian farmers first hand. Dr Mercola found out about the notorious ‘suicide belt’ of India, where 4,238 farmer suicides took place in 2007 alone.

Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said, according to The World Tribune, that the Israeli leadership saw Washington as attributing the higher gas prices to “Israel’s posturing” on Iran. “They think the Iranians should be held responsible for the higher gasoline prices,” Satloff was quoted as having said. He added that the officials told him the Obama administration was staging a campaign to undermine Israel.

“I cannot underscore how deep and visceral the [Israeli] comments of the leaking that came out of Washington were,” Satloff said, noting Israel is alarmed by what officials determined were leaks by the administration of US President Barack Obama of purported Israeli preparations to attack Iran. The Israeli concerns come in the wake of a report in Foreign Policy magazine last week, according to which Israel has purchased an airfield in Azerbaijan on Iran's northern border, prompting the United States to watch very closely.

Journalist Mark Perry wrote that the Obama administration is monitoring Israel's relations with Azerbaijan, particularly its military ties. The Americans believe Israel may use the site as a springboard for an attack on Iran's nuclear plants, or as a landing and refueling spot following one. The site could also be used for aircraft needed for search, rescue and recovery in the wake of an attack. “We're watching what Israel is doing in Azerbaijan. And we're not happy about it,” an official told the Foreign Policy writer.

Senate Bill 1813 (Highway trust fund), which was passed by the Senate last week and is now pending in the House of Representatives contains a provision that would allow the IRS to order the State Department to refuse to grant, refuse to renew, revoke or restrict the passport of any US citizen which the IRS certifies owes the IRS $50,000 or more in unpaid taxes. There is no requirement that the tax payer be guilty of or even charged with tax evasion, fraud, or any criminal offense - only that the citizen is alleged to owe the IRS back taxes of $50,000 or more.

With Capital Control measures expected to be implemented in 2013, which would force Americans to keep their money from going offshore, the laws being legislated are now affecting the average citizen far more than any action against terrorists, or in support of the 'War on Terror'.

The swift departures led to comparisons with Britain’s embarrassingly flawed efforts to remove hate preacher Abu Qatada who is wanted in Jordan on terror charges. He is out on bail after the European Court of Human Rights blocked his deportation on the grounds that Qatada would not face a fair trial if returned.

Home Secretary Mrs May has insisted she wants to secure an agreement with Jordan which would satisfy the Strasbourg court and allow Qatada to be removed from Britain. Despite this however, officials insist any attempt to remove him in breach of the court’s ruling would be met with a court injunction by his lawyers. French law allows swift removal of foreigners, with around 20,000 non-EU nationals being expelled every year. Unlike in Britain, where cases can drag on for years, rights of appeal are strictly curtailed.

In this country, ministers wait until a subject’s legal options are exhausted before removing them from the country. This can include a lengthy appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. But in France, Italy and other European countries, terror suspects have been removed even if legal proceedings are still going on, or even in breach of a Strasbourg ruling.

The Russian Navy will be represented by the guided missile cruiser Varyag, and three large antisubmarine ships in an exercise that is to take place between April 22 and 29 in the Yellow Sea. In all, more than 20 Russian and Chinese warships and support vessels will participate. Since 2005, China and Russia have conducted several joint military exercises within the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The group also includes the Central Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and aims to promote regional cooperation and check US influence.

As many as 11,500 households have lost power because of the storm in Toyama and Ishikawa prefectures, Hokuriku Electric Power Co said in a statement. Many companies and stores closed early. Winds of up to 140 kilometers per hour were nearly typhoon strength, reports Bloomberg, but the storm was triggered by a low pressure system. "This is like the core of a typhoon, but it is staying for a long time. A typhoon usually moves rather quickly," a spokesman for the Japanese Meteorological Agency said.

The storm has already dumped up to 6 centimeters (2.4 inches) of rain an hour in central Japan as it crossed from the southwest and is heading for the capital city. This is the strongest storm to hit Tokyo since 1959. Japan's weather agency has issued a warning of possible tornadoes in the western half of the country and said heavy rain could also trigger landslides and flooding. The outlook for Wednesday shows strong winds are likely to move northwards, producing waves up to 10 metres high.

Jens Lütke opposes genetic engineering and the expansion of roads. He also protests against the construction of new power plants and volunteers once a year at an environmental action day. "I often get asked if I'm a member of the Green Party," he says. But Lütke doesn't support the environmentalist party - he backs the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD). He's the party's top candidate for state parliament in elections in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein to be held this May.

When Lütke collects trash as a volunteer on an environmental action day, it's hard to tell which party he belongs to. "We don't bring an NPD banner with us when we participate," he says. Still, he isn't alone within the party with his efforts on behalf of the environment. The party regularly coopts the issue of environmentalism in an insidious attempt to make the party more acceptable in German society. Often, it's difficult to recognize the right-wing extremist ideologies behind these efforts.

The tactic is visible in an environmental affairs magazine published by right-wing extremists entitled Umwelt & Aktiv, or "Environment & Active," which resembles a normal magazine focusing on the environment - at least at first glance. And although the publication's articles on biofuels, genetic engineering, gardening tips and children's songs may seem legitimate, further examination yields pages on Germanic myths and pagan rites. Under the heading "homeland security," readers of last year's March edition learn that the German people will perish both biologically and spiritually if they procreate with people of other ethnic origins.

The so-called environmental magazine also stirs up hatred about religion, claiming that the slaughter of animals without anesthesia is the barbaric custom of Jews and Muslims. "So that all migrants feel at home," the January 2007 issue reports, other "religion-based customs" such as genital mutilation, stoning and hand amputation from the "Orient" could also be imported into the country.