China says flood waters at the Three Gorges Dam will peak within the next 24 hours, after torrential rain further up the Yangtze river over the weekend.
More heavy rain is expected in parts of southern China from now until Thursday.
News has only just emerged of a bridge collapse in Henan province on Saturday in which 33 people died and up to 21 are still missing.
China suffers monsoon-type rains every year but this year's rainfall has been the heaviest in more than a decade.
Water levels in one tributary of the Yangtze river were reported to be the highest in 30 years this weekend.
Since Sunday night, officials at the Three Gorges Dam have been pumping increased amounts of water through the sluices in anticipation of the coming flood.
Water flows in the upper reaches of the Yangtze river rose after the heavy rain at the weekend.
The surge was predicted to reach the dam on Wednesday morning.
The authorities say it is likely to be slightly smaller than that seen at the dam last week though.
Washed away
In one village in Henan province in central China, 33 bodies have been recovered after a bridge collapsed.
Local government officials say the water in the river under the bridge was usually less than a metre high.
But the area had been lashed by the heaviest rain in 100 years.
Water levels rose substantially and the river was flowing 63 times faster than normal when the bridge was washed away completely.
The accident happened on Saturday but has only just been reported by the national media.
China says disasters caused by the bad weather have left more than 1,250 people dead or missing.
The economic losses are estimated to be more than $22bn (£14bn).
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As they prepare for holiday reading in Tuscany, City bankers are buying up rare copies of an obscure book on the mechanics of Weimar inflation published in 1974.
Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, himself a scholar of the Great Depression, has indicated he would consider extra stimulus for the economy.
During the inflationary crisis of Weimer Germany, grand pianos became a currency of sorts, according to an account of the period.
Ebay is offering a well-thumbed volume of "Dying of Money: Lessons of the Great German and American Inflations" at a starting bid of $699 (shipping free.. thanks a lot).
The crucial passage comes in Chapter 17 entitled "Velocity". Each big inflation -- whether the early 1920s in Germany, or the Korean and Vietnam wars in the US -- starts with a passive expansion of the quantity money. This sits inert for a surprisingly long time. Asset prices may go up, but latent price inflation is disguised. The effect is much like lighter fuel on a camp fire before the match is struck.
People’s willingness to hold money can change suddenly for a "psychological and spontaneous reason" , causing a spike in the velocity of money. It can occur at lightning speed, over a few weeks. The shift invariably catches economists by surprise. They wait too long to drain the excess money.
"Velocity took an almost right-angle turn upward in the summer of 1922," said Mr O Parsson. Reichsbank officials were baffled. They could not fathom why the German people had started to behave differently almost two years after the bank had already boosted the money supply. He contends that public patience snapped abruptly once people lost trust and began to "smell a government rat".
Some might smile at the Bank of England "surprise" at the recent the jump in Brtiish inflation. Across the Atlantic, Fed critics say the rise in the US monetary base from $871bn to $2,024bn in just two years is an incendiary pyre that will ignite as soon as US money velocity returns to normal.
Morgan Stanley expects bond carnage as this catches up with the Fed, predicting that yields on US Treasuries will rocket to 5.5pc. This has not happened so far. 10-year yields have fallen below 3pc, and M2 velocity has remained at historic lows of 1.72.
As a signed-up member of the deflation camp, I think the Bank and the Fed are right to keep their nerve and delay the withdrawal of stimulus -- though that case is easier to make in the US where core inflation has dropped to the lowest since the mid 1960s. But fact that O Parsson’s book is suddenly in demand in elite banking circles is itself a sign of the sort of behavioral change that can become self-fulfilling.
As it happens, another book from the 1970s entitled "When Money Dies: the Nightmare of The Weimar Hyper-Inflation" has just been reprinted. Written by former Tory MEP Adam Fergusson -- endorsed by Warren Buffett as a must-read -- it is a vivid account drawn from the diaries of those who lived through the turmoil in Germany, Austria, and Hungary as the empires were broken up.
Near civil war between town and country was a pervasive feature of this break-down in social order. Large mobs of half-starved and vindictive townsmen descended on villages to seize food from farmers accused of hoarding. The diary of one young woman described the scene at her cousin’s farm.
"In the cart I saw three slaughtered pigs. The cowshed was drenched in blood. One cow had been slaughtered where it stood and the meat torn from its bones. The monsters had slit the udder of the finest milch cow, so that she had to be put out of her misery immediately. In the granary, a rag soaked with petrol was still smouldering to show what these beasts had intended," she wrote.
Grand pianos became a currency or sorts as pauperized members of the civil service elites traded the symbols of their old status for a sack of potatoes and a side of bacon. There is a harrowing moment when each middle-class families first starts to undertand that its gilt-edged securities and War Loan will never recover. Irreversible ruin lies ahead. Elderly couples gassed themselves in their apartments.
Foreigners with dollars, pounds, Swiss francs, or Czech crowns lived in opulence. They were hated. "Times made us cynical. Everybody saw an enemy in everybody else," said Erna von Pustau, daughter of a Hamburg fish merchant.
Great numbers of people failed to see it coming. "My relations and friends were stupid. They didn’t understand what inflation meant. Our solicitors were no better. My mother’s bank manager gave her appalling advice," said one well-connected woman.
"You used to see the appearance of their flats gradually changing. One remembered where there used to be a picture or a carpet, or a secretaire. Eventually their rooms would be almost empty. Some of them begged -- not in the streets -- but by making casual visits. One knew too well what they had come for."
Corruption became rampant. People were stripped of their coat and shoes at knife-point on the street. The winners were those who -- by luck or design -- had borrowed heavily from banks to buy hard assets, or industrial conglomerates that had issued debentures. There was a great transfer of wealth from saver to debtor, though the Reichstag later passed a law linking old contracts to the gold price. Creditors clawed back something.
A conspiracy theory took root that the inflation was a Jewish plot to ruin Germany. The currency became known as "Judefetzen" (Jew- confetti), hinting at the chain of events that would lead to Kristallnacht a decade later.
While the Weimar tale is a timeless study of social disintegration, it cannot shed much light on events today. The final trigger for the 1923 collapse was the French occupation of the Ruhr, which ripped a great chunk out of German industry and set off mass resistance.
Lloyd George suspected that the French were trying to precipitate the disintegration of Germany by sponsoring a break-away Rhineland state (as indeed they were). For a brief moment rebels set up a separatist government in Dusseldorf. With poetic justice, the crisis recoiled against Paris and destroyed the franc.
The Carthaginian peace of Versailles had by then poisoned everything. It was a patriotic duty not to pay taxes that would be sequestered for reparation payments to the enemy. Influenced by the Bolsheviks, Germany had become a Communist cauldron. partakists tried to take Berlin. Worker `soviets' proliferated. Dockers and shipworkers occupied police stations and set up barricades in Hamburg. Communist Red Centuries fought deadly street battles with right-wing militia.
Nostalgics plotted the restoration of Bavaria’s Wittelsbach monarchy and the old currency, the gold-backed thaler. The Bremen Senate issued its own notes tied to gold. Others issued currencies linked to the price of rye.
This is not a picture of America, or Britain, or Europe in 2010. But we should be careful of embracing the opposite and overly-reassuring assumption that this is a mild replay of Japan’s Lost Decade, that is to say a slow and largely benign slide into deflation as debt deleveraging exerts its discipline.
Japan was the world’s biggest external creditor when the Nikkei bubble burst twenty years ago. It had a private savings rate of 15pc of GDP. The Japanese people have gradually cut this rate to 2pc, cushioning the effects of the long slump. The Anglo-Saxons have no such cushion.
There is a clear temptation for the West to extricate itself from the errors of the Greenspan asset bubble, the Brown credit bubble, and the EMU sovereign bubble by stealth default through inflation. But that is a danger for later years. First we have the deflation shock of lives. Then -- and only then -- will central banks go to far and risk losing control over their printing experiment as velocity takes off. One problem at a time please.
The objectivism of the scientific method seems to have been hijacked by corporations who often pay for scientists to support their products, as well as politicians who move through the revolving door between the private and public sector. Even worse is that sometimes the consumer protection agencies themselves are complicit.
The trust placed by consumers in scientific studies and Federal oversight committees has been violated in service to profit so that products are allowed to enter the marketplace with reduced safety standards. The synthetic chemicals we encounter on a daily basis in our food, water, and environment are increasingly shown to be disastrous to our physical and mental well-being. Volumes can be written -- indeed have been written -- by experts in both mainstream and alternative medicine who have documented the sleight of hand used to hoodwink consumers and threaten our health. The categories below are worth deeper investigation as prime examples of what we might face as a species if this chemical bombardment continues.
GMO foods --Monsanto started as a chemical company that brought the world poisons like Agent Orange and Roundup. Now they are more well known for theirdomination of Genetically Modified agriculture, owning nearly 90% of staple GMO crops such as corn, soy, and cotton. In independent studies GMO "frankenfood" has been linked toorgan failure, and a recent Russian study has concluded near-total sterilityin GMO-soy-fed hamsters by the third generation. Despite these and many other legitimate health concerns, it is unlikely that theMonsanto-controlled FDAwill curb the growth of GMO foods, while the USDA's biotechnology risk assessment research arm has a paltry$3 million at its disposal. Of course the industry-funded studies show that the effects GMO on human health are "negligible."
Food additives -- When most of us think of harmful food additives we think of Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) which is still in many processed foods, but unfortunately MSG appears to be the least of the poisons now found in our food. In 2008 Melamine was found in infant formula and some food products from China; the FDA went on record to say it was OK, despite sickening tens of thousands. Dangerous food additives appear in nearly all processed foods with even the most common food dyes Red 40, Yellow 5 and Yellow 6 being linked to cancer. Most recently 92,000 pounds of frozen chicken was recalled because it contained "blue plastic pieces," while McDonald's Chicken McNuggets have been found to have "silly putty" chemicals in them. In fact, some researchers estimate that today's chicken is so full of chemicals that it only contains 51% actual meat.
Fluoride -- Not all fluoride is bad; only the type promoted by dentistry and added to our water and food supply. Calcium fluoride is a naturally occurring mineral, while its synthetic counterpart, sodium fluoride (silicofluoride), is an industrial-grade hazardous waste material made during the production of fertilizer. It's past history includes patented use as rat poison and insecticide. There are many blind- and double-blind studies that show sodium fluoride has a cumulative effect on the human body leading to allergies, gastrointestinal disorders, bone weakening, cancer, and neurological problems. In this case, the EPA's Union of scientists issued a white paper condemning fluoridation of drinking water. However, as a hazardous waste, it is extremely expensive to dispose of as such. And here might be a clue as to why this chemical, more toxic than lead and almost on par with arsenic, has been disposed of for our consumption.
Mercury -- A dangerous heavy metal in its natural quicksilver form, but more so as the neurotoxin, methylmercury, released into the environment by human activity. In both organic and inorganic form, mercury wreaks havoc with the nervous system -- especially the developing nervous system of a fetus. It penetrates all living cells of the human body, and has been documented most as increasing the risk for autism. This calls into question mercury's use in dental fillings, vaccines, and just about anything containing high fructose corn syrup -- a near staple in the American diet . . . including baby food. But the Corn Refiners Association naturally supports this chemical that is "dangerous at any level."
Aspartame -- The king of artificial sweeteners was allowed to the market in 1981 when the U.S. Commissioner of Food and Drugs, Arthur Hull Hayes, overruled FDA panel suggestions, as well as consumer concerns. Aspartame is a neurotoxin that interacts with natural organisms, as well as synthetic medications, producing a wide range of proven disorders and syndromes. So who installed this commissioner that would rule against scientists and the public? Donald Rumsfeld, CEO of G.D. Searle; the maker of Aspartame. Rumsfeld was on Reagan's transition team, and the day after Reagan took office he appointed the new FDA Commissioner in order to "call in his markers" with one of the most egregious cases of profit-over-safety ever recorded. Aspartame is now nearly ubiquitous, moving beyond sugarless products and into general foods, beverages, pharmaceuticals, and even products for children. It recently has been renamed to the more pleasant sounding AminoSweet.
Personal care and cleaning products -- Everyday household items and cosmetic products are applied directly to the skin, absorbed through the scalp, and inhaled. The Story of Cosmetics uses an animated video to tell a haunting tale of industrial violations and complicit "public safety" groups . . . and still only tells half of that story. The list of common products and their chemical components is encyclopedic. The sum total of the overwhelming presence of these chemicals has been linked to nearly every allergy, chronic affliction, and disease known to man. Most recently, household cleaning products have been linked to breast cancer and ADHD in children.
Airborne pollutants -- In a NASA article titled "Airborne Pollutants Know No Borders" they stated that, "Any substance introduced into the atmosphere has the potential to circle the Earth." The jet stream indeed connects all of us. There is one category of airborne pollution that has been conspiracy theory despite a voluminous number of unclassified documents from 1977 Senate hearings: chemical spraying (chemtrails) by both private and commercial aircraft. Recent admissions by public officials strengthen the case. Fallout from these chemical trails has been tested and shows very high levels of barium and aluminum. Interesting to note that Monsanto announced that they recently developed an aluminum-resistant gene to be introduced. Chemtrails might seem like abject paranoia, but there is a current example of chemical spraying that is undeniable: the spraying of Corexit oil dispersant over the Gulf. This process of aerial application can be likened to crop-dusting, which we know has been going on for nearly 100 years. Wars abroad even seem to be affecting global air quality, as military munitions such as depleted uranium have entered the upper atmosphere, spreading around the planet. The observable effects of depleted uranium are not pleasant. Airborne pollutants have been linked to allergies, genetic mutations, and infertility.
This is all leading to scientific, governmental, and medical management of the health and rights of the individual. It is ironic (or coincidental) that when one becomes sick due to the unnatural products listed above, the mainstream medical establishment aims to treat the afflictions with more unnatural chemicals. Furthermore, some of the people at high levels of American government and academia such as John P. Holdren, the current White House Science Czar, have advocated population control via "pollution particles" as far back as 1977 in books such as Ecoscience. Holdren's views of humanity could make one question the intentionality of the poisons in our environment.
Not long after Wikileaks dumped tens of thousands of classified Afghanistan “war” documents into the public arena for consumption, the corporate media zoomed in on Pakistan. “WikiLeaks documents released Sunday shine a spotlight on Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, a spy agency that has been accused for years of having links to terrorist groups,” writes the Wall Street Journal.
“In the reports, the retired general [Hamid Gul] and former head of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) from 1987 to 1989 is accused of ordering IED attacks against Afghan and international forces in December 2006 and of plotting to kidnap United Nations staff to use as hostages in exchange for militant prisoners,” reports the Christian Science Monitor. “The ISI is mentioned in at least 190 reports, and is accused of backing attacks against US and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces in Afghanistan.”
Demonizing Pakistan and Gul play right into the Pentagon’s script as the puppet Barry Obama expands the “war” in Afghanistan and sends drones armed with Hellfire missiles into Pakistan’s tribal areas to kill a never-ending cast of intelligence created bad guys.
It is also highly suspicious the documents appeared a couple days after the Bilderberg-attending globalist and Rockefeller minion Richard Holbrooke, who is Obama’s Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said “links between the ISI and the Taliban are a problem.” Holbrooke readily linked the Taliban with the mythical al-Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and the Haqqani network.
The Pakistan connection eluded to in the documents also underscore the attempt by the U.S. to put Gul and three other former ISI officials on the United Nations’ international terrorist list.
Holbrooke, of course, did not bother to mention that Pakistan’s support for Lashkar-e-Taiba was signed off on by the CIA. French investigating magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguiere said as much last year.
The founder of the Haqqani network, Jalaluddin Haqqani, was involved in the CIA-ISI effort in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union. The Afghan was cultivated as a “unilateral” asset of the CIA and received tens of thousands of dollars in cash, according to an account in The Bin Ladens, a book by Steve Coll. Haqqani helped and protected the infamous CIA asset Osama bin Laden. He was subsequently named military commander for another CIA contrivance, the Taliban.
Earlier this month Senate fixture Carl Levin called for stepping up attacks inside Pakistan. Levin specifically mentioned the Haqqani network and said the group “directly” threatens the “mission” in Afghanistan.
Both al-Qaeda and the Taliban are CIA assets. The Taliban emerged from madrassas established by the Pakistani government along the Afghanistan border and funded by the U.S., Britain, and the Saudis. The creation of the Taliban was “actively encouraged by the ISI and the CIA,” according to Selig Harrison, an expert on U.S. relations with Asia, a fact affirmed by Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher.
“Between 1994 and 1996, the USA supported the Taliban politically through its allies Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, essentially because Washington viewed the Taliban as anti-Iranian, anti-Shia, and pro-Western. Between 1995 and 1997, US support was even more driven because of its backing for the Unocal [pipeline] project,” writes Ahmed Rashid, a long-time expert on Pakistan and Afghanistan.
In 2009, appearing before a congressional hearings on the Obama administration’s foreign policy, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton admitted the U.S. created the Taliban. “Let’s remember here… the people we are fighting today we funded them twenty years ago… and we did it because we were locked in a struggle with the Soviet Union,” said Clinton.
Following Clinton’s remarks, Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari told NBC News the ISI and the CIA worked together to create the Taliban. “I think it was part of your past and our past, and the ISI and the CIA created them [the Taliban] together,” said Zardari.
The Taliban conquered Afghanistan with the avid assisstance of the ISI and CIA. According to files at one European intelligence agency, the Taliban received “strong military training, not only by the Pakistani services, but also by American military advisers working under humanitarian cover” and were provided with “satellite information giving the secret locations of scores of Soviet trucks that contain vast amounts of arms and ammunition.”
Hamid Gul became the head of Pakistan’s ISI at the behest of the CIA. Gul was a favorite of CIA Station Chief Milt Bearden and U.S. ambassador to Pakistan Arnie Raphel, who viewed him as an ally and a potential national leader of Pakistan. Bearden would later claim that Gul wandered off the reservation and the corporate media would ultimately accuse him of complicity in the attacks of September 11, 2001.
Support and funding for the Taliban continues to the present day. In June, Rep. Dennis Kucinich accused the Pentagon of funding the Taliban. “Our troops are dying in Afghanistan, and now it turns out we may be funding their killers,” Kucinich told Raw Story. “The American people are paying to prop up a corrupt government that may be using our money to pay private companies to drum up business by paying the insurgents to attack our troops,” he said.
In addition, the U.S. has paid the Taliban to not attack convoys in the country. “A congressional investigation revealed that millions of dollars spent by the US military for security purposes has inadvertently gone into the pockets of the Taliban,” Aljazeera reported on June 23.
“Welcome to the wartime contracting bazaar in Afghanistan,” writes Aram Roston. “It is a virtual carnival of improbable characters and shady connections, with former CIA officials and ex-military officers joining hands with former Taliban and mujahedeen to collect US government funds in the name of the war effort.”
Afghanistan is America’s longest war for good reason — it is highly profitable for the military-industrial complex and provides an excuse for the government to maintain a foothold in central Asia while constructing a surveillance and control grid at home.
Pakistan is the new frontier of the Forever War on Manufactured Terror and the sudden appearance of tens of thousands of documents in part pointing a finger at the CIA’s junior partner in crime is highly suspicious to say the least, especially considering the CIA’s fondness for patsies taking the fall.
A Beavercreek couple who left their infant daughter's fate to God rather than seek medical treatment for a mass that grew over her left eye will face charges of first-degree criminal mistreatment.
Prosecutors revealed Thursday during a custody hearing that a grand jury has indicted Timothy and Rebecca Wyland, members of Oregon City's Followers of Christ church.
The Wylands' 7-month-old daughter, Alayna, was placed in state custody earlier this month after child-welfare workers received a tip about the untreated and ballooning growth. Doctors said that the condition could cause permanent damage or loss of vision.
The Wylands were indicted within the past few days and probably will be arraigned next week, said Colleen Gilmartin, the deputy district attorney handling the custody case in juvenile court.
Under Oregon law, it is a crime for parents to intentionally and knowingly withhold necessary and adequate medical attention from their children. First-degree criminal mistreatment is a Class C felony punishable by up to five years in prison.
The Wylands and their church reject medical care in favor of faith-healing -- anointing with oil, laying on of hands, prayer and fasting. The parents testified at a juvenile court hearing last week that they never considered getting medical attention for Alayna. ... Continue reading
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