According to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin. "One of my soldiers went without ammo for five weeks once they got to Afghanistan because of shortages. I can't reveal the name, because they are frightened of reprisals. If they can do what they did to a four star general like [General Stanley A] McChrystal, what would they do to a buck private?" That comes from a woman who, with her husband, has taken it upon herself to adopt soldiers and provide them with many of the needed basics.

The woman, assigned a pseudonym of "Beth," insisted her name not be used because of the possibility of reprisals against her or the soldiers. But she told WND she received a report that a US soldier bought a $15 knife "and slept with their hand on the handle in the waist of their pants because it was all they had for the moment to protect themselves." The woman confirmed she and her husband are involved in supplying the basic necessities for some 50 soldiers - because the military isn't.

"If the military doesn't supply what they need, they must depend on family or people like me," Beth said. "Many of these families are struggling on low wages, some parents are on disabilities and unable to help. Sending a box once a month during their deployment is not only good for their morale, but they need (to be) resupplied with many items."

The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment on the allegations. But one soldier told Beth the work days are 18 hours long, and they have few "real meals."

Mr Baroin is quoted by Reuters saying: "We can't ask for deficit reduction on the one hand, to adhere to the logic of the stability pact, and on the other hand make demands for increases which are objectively inadmissible. We confirmed this point". He continues: "I will take the same steps with my British colleagues in a few days so that the largest contributors [to the EU budget] are heard". Two weeks ago the UK voted against this reduced increase together with six other member states, calling for deeper cuts to the overall EU budget for 2011.

Slovak PM: "When democratically elected politicians raise criticisms they have the right to do so. But European administrators do not have this right, not under any circumstances." When commenting on EU Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs Ollie Rehn's public criticism for not taking part in the bailout she says: "the way in which [he], a non-elected official from Brussels, spoke about the freely elected members of the Slovakian parliament was insulting. I will demand an official apology for this from Brussels during my visit to Berlin".

"Europe must not be constituted by a big brother and many satellites which have to obey the larger, more powerful and wealthier. We remember very well what it means to be a satellite... I don't want to compare, I only want to highlight that democracy also means to listen to the arguments of those who may be very small but are aware of their responsibilities", she says in Faz. She continues: "Talk that Slovakia is acting irresponsibly must stop. To say it in all clarity: When democratically elected politicians raise criticisms they have the right to do so. But European administrators do not have this right, not at any time".

Hankel has already warned in 2005 that the Euro system is unsustainable. While I am still wondering to whom Germany will sell all the goods it now produces (and warehouses) when all important trade partners face the same economic and social problems, Hankel focuses on the adverse effects the hastily pushed through financial aid laws for Greece - which is already running into difficulties to comply with the austerity conditions that are part of the bailout - will have on Germany in the future.

He warns of dire consequences and states that Merkel may run afoul of the German constitution and her oath to stave off the German sovereign from bad damage.

Here is Hankel's letter translated into English.

Honored Federal Chancellor,

Unfortunately you have not answered my first letter dated March 27, 2010. For this reason I have to repeat my concerns as the problem approaching Germans and Europeans has become worse meanwhile.

Both the "Greek Aid Law" from May 7, 2010, as well as the following "Emergency Umbrella Law" from May 7, 2010, do not only constitute strong offences against EU law, but also against our own German constitution. You know the situation due to the legal action introduced by 5 university professors at the German constitutional court. Your assistants have informed you of this as well.

This is a case of breaking the law in the most severe way. This is even more dangerous than the economic consequences. Europe is the homeland of states ruled under the law. The Euro will not regain its former strength but it will be relegated into a European soft currency. Those countries close to a state default, especially the southern, but also the western Eurozone, will neither get out of debt nor will it change their past behaviour.

After all the money of the rescue fund does not flow to the states but to their insolvent banks. And the governments of these countries will not fulfill the conditions coming with the rescue funds, as doing so would endanger their political and economical stability. It is highly implausible when your finance minister announces austerity packages while allocating 70% of annual federal tax revenues for rescue packages whose failure is already written on the wall.

Germany and the few other still economically stable countries in the Eurozone are sinking money into a barrel without a bottom. This money, that the German taxpayers will have to come up with, will be lost for German citizens and their future. By now you had to acknowledge that our country can neither fulfill its social obligations, nor satisfy its promises to keep and create jobs. I am confident you will live to see that this austerity policy will lead to similar effects as we see them nowadays in Greece: protesting people, burning cars, shattered windows and maybe still worse actions. Can you account for this?

I appeal to you to repeal these laws before the constitutional court will nullify them. Your oath included "to fend off damage for the German people" - with this you stand the chance to do so. The emergency umbrella from Brussels will not save the common currency.

This is my and our public call to the German sovereign and to you. Realize it!

Kind regards

Wilhelm Hankel

American Science & Engineering, a company based in Billerica, Massachusetts, has sold US and foreign government agencies more than 500 backscatter x-ray scanners mounted in vans that can be driven past neighboring vehicles to see their contents, Joe Reiss, a vice president of marketing at the company told me in an interview. While the biggest buyer of AS&E's machines over the last seven years has been the Department of Defense operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, Reiss says law enforcement agencies have also deployed the vans to search for vehicle-based bombs in the US.

The Z Backscatter Vans, or ZBVs, as the company calls them, bounce a narrow stream of x-rays off and through nearby objects, and read which ones come back. Absorbed rays indicate dense material such as steel. Scattered rays indicate less-dense objects that can include explosives, drugs, or human bodies. That capability makes them powerful tools for security, law enforcement, and border control.

It would also seem to make the vans mobile versions of the same scanning technique that's riled privacy advocates as it's been deployed in airports around the country. "It's no surprise that goverments and vendors are very enthusiastic about [the vans]," says Marc Rotenberg, executive director of EPIC. "But from a privacy perspective, it's one of the most intrusive technologies conceivable."

But EPIC's Rotenberg says that the scans, like those in the airport, potentially violate the fourth amendment. "Without a warrant, the government doesn't have a right to peer beneath your clothes without probable cause," he says. Even airport scans are typically used only as a secondary security measure, he points out. "If the scans can only be used in exceptional cases in airports, the idea that they can be used routinely on city streets is a very hard argument to make." Reiss adds that the vans do have the capability of storing images. "Sometimes customers need to save images for evidentiary reasons," he says. "We do what our customers need."

See the system working - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGCd0KPJcMs&feature=player_embedded

After two decades of historically low inflation and interest rates, we are often too quick to forget the terrible risks faced by ordinary homeowners. Since the early 1990s, we have allowed ourselves to be lulled into a false sense of security by an unprecedented period of single-figure interest rates. Despite the agony for ordinary middle-class families, interest rates are the simplest and most powerful weapon against high inflation.

Indeed, the record of the last Conservative government from 1979 to 1997 should remind us that rates can go up - and up, and up - as well as down. Soon after Margaret Thatcher came to power, base rates peaked at 17 per cent, something most people aged under 40 find impossible to imagine. Even in 1982, when she had already wrung much of the inflation out of the system, the base rate was still more than 14 per cent. Almost overnight, the bottom dropped out of the housing market. 'The phones stopped ringing and people simply stopped coming through the door,' one estate agent recalled later. As rates soared, some two million people found themselves caught in the dreaded negative equity trap, owing more on their mortgages than their homes were worth. In 1991 alone, almost 100,000 people lost their homes.

Fast forward to 2010 and project forwards: For with Britain already battered by recession and crippled by debt, the social and economic fallout could be incalculable. The nightmare scenario would see Britain emerging from a double-dip recession in mid-2011 and embarking on a new burst of growth, fuelled by the Bank's quantitative easing scheme and renewed consumer borrowing. For a few months, the Coalition Government would bask in public popularity. But then reality would come crashing in. By mid-2012, inflation would be out of control, hitting 10 per cent in the spring. And as the Bank of England pushes interest rates up to 8 per cent, the smiles would turn to scowls.

Picture the scene a year later, in the summer of 2013. With the Bank struggling to get inflation down, and mortgage rates hitting almost 12 per cent, middle-class families who were paying less than 700 pounds a month back in 2010 are now paying a staggering 2,000 pounds. Repossessions have gone through the roof. With the waiting lists for rented flats and council houses reaching record levels, thousands have been forced onto the streets. And as the temperature rises, frustration turns to fury and the inner cities erupt in riots. The Coalition Government has never seemed more impotent.

Perhaps this vision sounds a little apocalyptic. But remember that it is not so different from the state of the nation during the early 1980s, when only Mrs Thatcher's shock therapy purged inflation from the economy. Indeed, the shock today would be far greater than it ever was under Mrs Thatcher precisely because we have become such a nation of borrowers. In the 1980s, British households actually managed to save about 4 per cent of their income every year, something that would seem unimaginable now.

Given that the average household already owes almost 60,000 pounds, high interest rates would have a shattering effect on the economy. The level of private borrowing in this country remains an international scandal. With the average household borrowing almost 5 per cent of its annual income every year, WE HAVE BECOME ADDICTED TO LIFE ON THE NEVER-NEVER.

Seduced by low interest rates, TOO MANY OF US CANNOT IMAGINE A LIFE WITHOUT CREDIT. We still have time to mend our ways. But if we fail to do so, then when the whacking great mortgage bills come tumbling through the letterbox and the homeless gather on the street corners, like ghostly reminders of the hubris that led to disaster, we will have only ourselves to blame.

"People do come back and realize that things are worse than when they went away in the summer, or have not improved," said Andrew Clare, professor of asset management at Cass Business School in London. With the US economy struggling more than it was a few months ago - a condition corroborated by the Federal Reserve itself - this does not bode well for risk in the coming month.

The significance of September over other months is that it is supposed to be the time that investors get back to work after the summer break and volumes pick up. The old British market adage "Sell in May and go away. Stay away till St Legers Day" hints at this, given that the St Leger horse race, first run the year the US Declaration of Independence was signed, is run this year on September 11. There are mixed reviews of how good a market guide the adage is, but there is little doubt that September does see the return of volume to markets.

So history suggests that September is volatile and can see major losses on stock markets that in current conditions would be likely to hit other riskier assets as well. It also suggests that some volume will return, easing the exaggerated moves that can occur in summer. But does the month tell us anything about what to expect in the following quarter? The answer to that is not clear cut. Comparing developed stock market gains and losses in September with those in the fourth quarter over the past 30 years comes up with a small, positive correlation of 0.2. This means that more often than not what happens in September also occurs in Q4, but not in a way that provides any certainty. Interestingly, however, the correlation over the past 10 years is twice as strong, at 0.4.

So, buckle up for September, it could be a meaningful ride.

While the German economy is growing at a rate not seen since the Berlin Wall came down, things are a good bit worse in Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Italy and especially Greece, all of which face some combination of an austerity-induced recession and debts public and private which threaten their banking systems, local governments and Treasuries.

Investors have looked at this on the one hand and on the other a $1 trillion bailout, a pliant International Monetary Fund and the results of the stress tests and have voted with their feet: average spreads between German and peripheral country bonds are back in territory last seen in June and heading north. Ten-year Greek bonds now yield 861 basis points more than German issues, or about where they were in May when we were all debating the chances of the euro surviving in its current form.

Irish bonds too have underperformed alarmingly as austerity without debt rescheduling does what austerity without debt rescheduling does: kills growth and kills the prices of assets the debts are secured upon, leaving the country less able to service its debts and more likely to default even harder.

THIS IS THE PROBLEM: Europe cannot support its banks, honor all its debts, increase the competitiveness of the weak and hold on to a common currency all at the same time. This is not a problem that market confidence can solve, even if market confidence can be generated. Like the United States, Europe has decided that the banks won't be allowed to fail and has reasoned outward from there, a debts over people, or taxpayers if you like, strategy.

Welcome back, policymakers, you have an interesting autumn ahead.

With promotions on its website and Facebook page, it invites Christians to burn the Muslim holy book at the church from 6pm to 9pm. "We believe that Islam is of the devil, that it's causing billions of people to go to hell, it is a deceptive religion, it is a violent religion and that is proven many, many times," Pastor Terry Jones told CNN's Rick Sanchez earlier this week.

The National Association of Evangelicals, the nation's largest umbrella evangelical group, issued a statement urging the church to cancel the event, warning it could cause worldwide tension between the two religions.

Targeting another group it calls "godless," the Dove center is also hosting a protest against Gainesville Mayor Craig Lowe, who is openly gay, on Monday at Gainesville's City Hall. The group previously fought - unsuccessfully - to derail Lowe's election campaign.

"We protest sexual perversion because the Bible protests it... What is acceptable to today's leadership becomes acceptable to tomorrow's society," the church says in its blog entry about the event.

On the outreach center's front lawn, alongside a sign reading "August 2 Protest, No Homo Mayor, City Hall," stands not just one, but three signs bearing the slogan "Islam is of the Devil." One of the signs - one reading "Islam" on one side, "Devil" on the other - was vandalized. On its blog last week, the church said the sign will be replaced. "This is private property and vandalism is a crime here in America," the blog says. "In Islam, many actions that we consider to be crimes are encouraged, condoned or sheltered under Islamic teaching and practice, though. Another reason to burn a Quran."

Day after day, investors have been hit with more evidence that the economy is stalling. The Dow is down over 4% this month, after an ebullient July that was fueled by impressive earnings results from US companies. But earnings season is now over and investors are far more focused on potential troubles ahead, from the US economy to Europe's sovereign-debt woes and lingering worries about slowing demand in China. As well, Japan's economy is under threat from a relentless rise in the yen.

The selloff on Tuesday began in Asia where the Nikkei Stock Average fell 1.3%, pulling the Japanese index into bear-market territory. Stocks of large exporters tumbled as the yen reached 15-year highs. Investors have piled into the currency, which is seen as a safe-haven in times of crisis. The declines spread to Europe where sovereign-debt worries have re-emerged. In Ireland, concern about the health of the country's banking system sent stocks there down 5.8%. Standard & Poor's late on Tuesday downgraded the country's credit rating.

"If people had confidence, they wouldn't be pouring money into Treasury securities yielding nothing, and paying more than $1,200 for an ounce of gold," said Morris Mark, president of Mark Asset Management. "There's a concern here that the strength of the world economy is not going to be able to get us out of this."

But then as now, those signs of recovery were unsustainable and only provided a false sense of stability, said Rosenberg. Rosenberg calls current economic conditions "a depression, and not just some garden-variety recession," and notes that any good news both during the initial 1929-33 recession and the one that began in 2008 triggered "euphoric response."

"Such is human nature and nobody can be blamed for trying to be optimistic; however, in the money management business, we have a fiduciary responsibility to be as realistic as possible about the outlook for the economy and the market at all times," he said. The 1929-33 recession saw six quarterly bounces in GDP with an average gain of 8 percent, sending the stock market to a 50 percent rally in early 1930 as investors thought the worst had passed.

"False premise," Rosenberg said. "And guess what? We may well be reliving history here. If you're keeping score, we have recorded four quarterly advances in real GDP, and the average is only 3%." Rosenberg's warning comes as a slew of major analysts - Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan among them - have slashed GDP projections for 2010 to the 1.5 to 2 percent range. Chicago Federal Reserve President Charles Evans said in a speech Tuesday that the risk of a double-dip recession has escalated. He said government programs to help distressed homeowners have been ineffective and aren't helping the pivotal housing sector recover.

The dour outlooks come on the same day that the National Association of Realtors said home sales reached a 15-year low in June, dousing hopes that the industry had reached a bottoming point.

The latest trigger has prompted the Omen's creator, Jim Miekka, to exit the market. "I'm taking it seriously and I'm fully out of the market now," Miekka, a blind mathematician, said in a telephone interview from his home in Surry, Maine. "I would've probably stayed in until the beginning of September," depending on how the indicators varied. "That was my basic plan, until the Hindenburg came along."

The Omen has been behind every market crash since 1987, but significant stock-market declines have followed only 25% of the time. So there's a high likelihood that the Omen could be nothing more than a false signal. But that isn't stopping Miekka from taking any chances, especially as September, typically the market's worst-performing month, sits only one week away.

"It's sort of like a funnel cloud," he said. "It doesn't mean it's going to crash, but it's a high probability. You don't get a tornado without a funnel cloud." He added he's not currently shorting anything, although he may look to short Nasdaq stock index futures in the next few weeks, "depending on how the technicals go."

A study released yesterday by credit agency Moody's notes that although overall growth in the eurozone is up it "may fall short of preventing credit-rating agencies from downgrading some member countries if their economies begin to suffer in the face of tight austerity budgets". Spain could face a possible reduction in its credit rating in September, according to El Pais. Meanwhile, the European Central Bank (ECB) announced yesterday that it had again stepped up purchases of eurozone government bonds buying 338 million euros last week, up from just 10 million euros purchased a week earlier.

Writing in Les Echos, investment manager Alan Brown notes that "the German shock treatment will leave Southern European 'on the dole' for 10 years or more, while condemning the whole Eurozone and the PIIGS in particular to anaemic growth. It is very plausible that the euro breaks up through an exit of the most solid countries, thereby only leaving Portugal, Italy, Spain, Ireland and Greece in the euro". The front page of Handelsblatt warns that there are "concerns about the German recovery. As the local economy is growing, the cooling down in the US, fears of overheating in China and the debt crisis in Southern Europe threaten to endanger exports".

Meanwhile, German Professor Harald Uhlig, who is Chairman of the University of Chicago's Department of Economics, writes on his Handelsblatt blog "should Germany leave the Euro? Should the Neuro be introduced? Thereby bringing flexbility in the North-South Exchange rate?" He laments that "German politics has returned to the open cheque book policy of [former Chancellor Helmut] Kohl to solve Europe's problems. But maybe there will be a leading German female politician who has the courage, the backbone, to seriously discuss a Eurozone split up".

Protection of Chesney echoed action by the Catholic Church in Ireland to shield its priests from allegations of child sex abuse. Scandals surrounding the abuse and subsequent cover-ups have helped topple the Church from its once dominant position in Irish life. Today's report states detectives believed Father Chesney was the IRA's director of operations in south Derry and was a prime suspect in the July 31 attack as well as other terrorist incidents.

Chesney, who was a priest in a neighbouring parish, always denied any involvement, although a sniffer dog found traces of explosive in his car when he was stopped at a checkpoint two months later.

Soon after the attack he was transferred to a parish in County Donegal, outside the Northern Ireland jurisdiction, following secret talks between the then secretary of state William Whitelaw and the head of the Catholic Church in Ireland, Cardinal William Conway. The two men discussed the scandal after being approached by a senior Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) officer as the police were apparently reluctant to arrest the cleric for fear of inflaming the security situation.

As regards the role of Church and State officials, Mr Hutchinson said his investigation found no evidence of criminal intent on the part of any government minister or official or any official of the Catholic Church. But he added: "The morality or 'rightness' of the decision taken by the government and the Catholic Church in agreeing to the RUC request is another matter entirely and requires further public debate. Placing this information in the public domain in a transparent manner enables that debate to take place."

Moreover, the failures have not occurred for trivial reasons. They have occurred because of profound divergences in the interests and outlooks of each side. These particular talks are further flawed because of their origin. Neither side was eager for the talks. They are taking place because the United States wanted them. Indeed, in a certain sense, both sides are talking because they do not want to alienate the United States and because IT IS EASIER TO TALK AND FAIL THAN IT IS TO REFUSE TO TALK.

The problem is that neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians are sufficiently unsettled to make peace. Both Egypt and Israel were shocked and afraid after the 1973 war. Mutual fear is the foundation of peace among enemies. The uncertainty of the future sobers both sides. But the fact right now is that all of the players prefer the status quo to the risks of the future.

Hamas doesn't want to risk its support by negotiating and implicitly recognizing Israel. The PNA doesn't want to risk a Hamas uprising in the West Bank by making significant concessions. The Israelis don't want to gamble with unreliable negotiating partners on a settlement that wouldn't enjoy broad public support in a domestic political environment where even simple programs can get snarled in a morass of ideology. UNTIL REALITY OR SOME AS-YET-UNCOMMITTED FORCE SHIFTS THE GAME, IT IS EASIER FOR THEM - ALL OF THEM - TO DO NOTHING.

But the Americans want talks, and so the talks will begin.