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Fears grow over global food supply

By Javier Blas and Jack Farchy in London, Courtney Weaver in Moscow and Simon Mundy in Johannesburg

 

A woman carries her child through the rubble in Maputo
Two days of unrest in Maputo, Mozambique, left seven people dead and 280 injured after the government decided to raise bread prices by 30%

 

Wheat prices rose further on Friday in the wake of Russia’s decision to extend its grain export ban by 12 months, raising fears about a return to the food shortages and riots of 2007-08.

In Mozambique, where a 30 per cent rise in bread prices triggered riots on Wednesday and Thursday, the government said seven people had been killed and 288 wounded. Read more »

Taliban Claim Deadly Attack on Shiites in Pakistan

By SALMAN MASOOD

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A blast ripped through a Shiite protest, the second such attack in three days, in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta on Friday, killing at least 40 people and wounding 80, police and rescue officials said.

The New York Times Read more »

W.H. mulling emergency stimuli. Fist packages failed and Democrats see the Elections in the Balance

The Obama administration is mulling a raft of emergency fixes to stimulate the economy before the midterms, including an extension of the research and development tax credit and new infrastructure spending, according to several people familiar with the situation.Administration officials have been huddling almost continuously during the past week, brainstorming for ideas that would boost employment without hiking the massive federal deficit — with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner rushing to the West Wing for further consultations late Thursday. Read more »

These Talks Are Doomed

Mona Charen

Hamas sent a greeting card to the quintet of leaders meeting in Washington, D.C., this week to initiate negotiations about a peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. In a well-planned ambush, they killed four Israeli civilians near the city of Hebron, two men and two women (one nine months pregnant), creating seven orphans. The murderers escaped, and may perhaps have videotaped the atrocity Read more »

Obama Justice Dept Seeks Stay of Order Nixing NIH Embryonic Stem Cell Funding

By Peter J. Smith
 

WASHINGTON, D.C., September 2, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The U.S. Justice Department is requesting a federal judge stay his order stopping the National Institute of Health’s embryo-destroying stem-cell research pending an appeal, saying that cutting off the money to scientists would harm their research efforts.
 
Chief Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled last week that embryonic stem cell research projects funded by the NIH violate the Dickey-Wicker amendment, which prohibits federal dollars from going to research that destroys human embryos.

Read more »

Arpaio Says He Is Administration’s ‘Whipping Boy’

 

An Arizona sheriff accused the US administration of treating him as a “whipping boy” after Washington launched legal action over alleged discrimination against illegal immigrants.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio also accused the US Justice Department of engaging in “a fishing expedition” by filing suit alleging that he was being uncooperative with federal investigators.

“Let them sue us,” he told reporters in the state capital Phoenix, hours after the legal action was announced in Washington. “I’m not going to surrender.” Read more »

Obama Loses Backing on Taxes

By: Stephen Ohlemacher

Defying President Obama, Congress seems increasingly reluctant to let taxes go up, even on wealthier Americans.

Worried about the fragile economy and their own upcoming elections, a growing number of Democratic lawmakers are joining the rock-solid Republican opposition to Mr. Obama’s plans to let some of the tax cuts passed under President George W. Bush expire as scheduled at the end of the year.

Democratic leaders in Congress still back Mr. Obama, but the willingness to raise taxes is waning among the rank and file as the stagnant economy threatens the party’s majority in the House and Senate. Read more »

Cantor: Jobs Report Reflects Fear of Obama Policies

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor issued a sharp response to the August jobs report issued today, saying that the policies of President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats are instilling fear that cripples the economy.

The Virginia Republican also called on the Obama administration not to “raise taxes” by allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire at the end of the year. Read more »

De Borchgrave: Chance of Israeli Attack on Iran 50-50 and Rising

By: David A. Patten

The chance that Israel will launch a pre-emptive attack on Iran’s rogue nuclear-weapons facilities is now 50-50 and appears to be rising steadily, says Middle East expert and award-winning journalist Arnaud de Borchgrave.

“I think it is, as of now, a 50-50 proposition,” de Borchgrave tells Newsmax.TV in an exclusive interview. “It seems to be moving up the ladder.”

De Borchgrave has warned that international sanctions won’t be enough to encourage Iran’s theocrats to relinquish their nuclear ambitions. But he tells Newsmax that the leaders of several Persian Gulf nations have said privately they would welcome a U.S. attack on Iran’s nuclear-enrichment sites. Read more »

American Academy of Pediatrics Says Media Portrayal of Sex ‘Unhealthy’

Friday, September 03, 2010
By Matt Cover, Staff Writer

(CNSNews.com) – Calling media portrayals of sex “unhealthy,” the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has issued new guidelines calling on all media outlets to present human sexuality in a healthy, scientifically accurate manner.

At the same time, the group pomoted the use of contraceptives among teenagers and denigrated abstinence-only education. Read more »

Intel Report Confirmed 18 Freed Gitmo Detainees Returned to Terror–Including in Afghanistan–Before Obama Ordered Closing of Prison

By Fred Lucas | CNSNews

On Jan. 7, 2009, less than two weeks before Barack Obama was sworn in as president, a Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report indicated that up until that date there had been 18 confirmed and 43 suspected cases of detainees who had been released from the Guantanamo Bay prison and who had returned to terrorism. Read more »

Shock Prediction: GOP to Take House, Maybe Senate in 2010 Election

UVA’s Larry Sabato also sees Republicans gaining eight governorships in his crystal ball

By Paul Bedard | U.S. News & World Report

Typically cautious Larry Sabato, head of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, is rocking the political world with a new “Crystal Ball” prediction: The GOP will win the House, making Ohio’s John Boehner speaker, might get a 50-50 split in the Senate, Read more »

Private Sector Adds 67,000 Jobs

U.S. Economy Lost 54,000 Jobs in August; Unemployment Rate Rises to 9.6%

By Tom Barkley and Victoria McGrane | The Wall St. Journal

Job losses continued to mount in the U.S. economy last month, though at a more modest pace than expected, putting further pressure on policy makers to take action to spur growth and employment.

Nonfarm payrolls fell by 54,000 last month Read more »

National Weather Forecast

After Earl, nice Labor Day weekend ahead

By Mark Avery, Lead Meteorologist | The Weather Channel
Sep. 3, 2010 5:36 am ET

Northeast |

Hurricane Earl will bring heavy rain, gusty winds, coastal flooding, and dangerous surf to much of the coast today and tomorrow.

The rain should spread into Maine tomorrow. Read more »

Less Taxes, More Revenue

Richard Bernstein

In recent American history three presidents, Republicans Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush—and Democrat icon John Fitzgerald Kennedy—all lowered taxes in response to economic recessions. In all three cases, more money flowed into federal coffers than expected, and all three recessions ended. Read more »

The Justice Department is suing Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio over his refusal to comply with their demands for documents

The U.S. Justice Department filed suit Thursday against Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio in an effort to force the Arizona lawman to turn over records that the government says may prove a pattern of discrimination. Arpaio has refused the demands for over a year saying that the department has failed to be specific in its document requests. Arpaio is one of over a dozen Arizona sheriffs being sued by the American Civil Liberties Union over their attempts to stop the invasion of their state by Mexican lawbreakers.