Link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081117/ap_on_bi_ge/citigroup_jobs;_ylt=AvwtfVbjsiaT_tSJDc1wNees0NUE

The company said total headcount is being reduced by 20 percent from its peak of 375,000 at the end of 2007; the company had already announced in October that it was eliminating about 22,000 jobs from those levels. The total workforce reductions include thousands of jobs that will be lost when Citigroup completes the sale of Citi Global Services and its German retail banking business.

Link: http://www.alternet.org/workplace/107340/%242_trillion_handed_out_by_paulson_and_bernanke%2C_but_who_got_it%2C_nobody_knows/

The fox and the hounds, of course, have a clear idea of what they want to do and how they want to do it, which is more than you can say of Paulson. Sums of incalculable size are being spent or pledged by Paulson and his playmate, Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, and nobody outside their organizations, or maybe inside them either, knows who got what, how much they got, and under what conditions they got it. In the past couple of months Bernanke has loaned out $2 trillion to unnamed companies under eleven different programs and all but three of them were slapped together in the past fifteen months of financial crisis. To repeat, we do not know who got this money or what collateral was put up in return for the loans or what conditions were attached to them. -We can be fairly certain that Israel got most of it if the trillions that Zakheim stole for the shitty little state are anything to go by...

Link: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10987

The G20 is meeting today in Washington , D.C. , to discuss the world financial crisis, its causes, and what can be done about it. But this won’t help the people of the U.S. who have been victimized by their own financial system. The stated objectives are to find ways to stabilize and reduce speculation in the financial markets and make financial transactions more transparent, more efficient, and more international in scope. But this is also a revolt by the nations of the world against over-reliance on the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency. What we are likely to see over time is a multi-currency regime that includes the Euro and one or more Asian currencies as well. But the conference will not address the real causes of why the world is heading into a global recession or why the U.S. economy in particular is in such dire straits. Nor will the meeting lresult in redress of the staggering level of bankers’ criminality abetted by the U.S. government in the creation of the financial bubbles whose collapse is underway. The Nation: The more details emerge, the clearer it becomes that Washington's handling of the Wall Street bailout is not merely incompetent. It is criminal.

Link: http://lataan.blogspot.com/2008/11/final-confrontation-will-israeli.html

[This would mean that we'll see more of this: An Israeli aircraft fired a missile hit a house, killing a man, his sister who was seven months pregnant and her unborn baby as you can seen in the photo! "Majzara" -means massacre- is her name. Her father Ahmad Sufian has chosen this name as a message to the world who keeps silent upon the unmerciful Israeli strikes attacking palestinians in their houses!]

It’s become fairly obvious to most observers that the Israeli ploy as far as the Gaza is concerned has been to pressure and provoke the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to the point that their fighters react to the Israeli aerial and ground attacks and the ghettoising of the Strip. This will then provide an excuse for the Israelis to invade with the aim of ostensibly destroying Hamas, who the Israelis see as a ‘terrorist’ organisation, and ultimately driving all Palestinians from the Gaza on the basis that any Palestinians in the there will always be a security threat to Israel. Palestinian Pundit: Olmert orders his officers to end Hamas rule in Gaza. MoA: Olmert The Liar.

Link: http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/node/9189

The damage control team for Rahm Emanuel has been assembled since the moment he was appointed, beginning with a television media blitz that attempted to shape his mainstream public image. However online where the public is a bit more astute, Emauel's image is a total disaster. Enter James Zogby: Rahm Emanuel's left gatekeeper.

Link: http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/czech

The New York-based Campaign for Peace and Democracy sent an open letter today to Czech officials in support of mass protests planned for Monday, November 17th in Prague against the planned U.S. radar military base. A copy of the letter was sent to President Bush, whose administration has pushed hard for the installation of the Czech radar base and its companion missile base in Poland. It was also sent to President-Elect Barack Obama, who has not yet made a final decision on the question of “missile defense” in Eastern Europe. The letter will be hand delivered at 1pm on November 17 to the Czech Mission to the U.N., located at 1109-1111 Madison Avenue, near 83rd Street in Manhattan

Link: http://www.lewrockwell.com/engelhardt/engelhardt361.html

One of the eerier reports on the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan appeared recently in the New York Times. Journalist John Burns visited the Russian ambassador in Kabul, Zamir N. Kabulov, who, back in the 1980s, when the Russians were the Americans in Afghanistan, and the Americans were launching the jihad that would eventually wend its way to the 9/11 attacks… well, you get the idea…

Link: http://www.reuters.com/article/vcCandidateFeed7/idUSLH492272

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari and U.S. ambassador Ryan Crocker signed a long-awaited accord on Monday requiring Washington to withdraw its forces within three years. -Does this include the 14 military bases that the US is building in Iraq? -Hardly! The signing ceremony put a formal end to months of negotiations over the pact on the future of the U.S. presence, which the Iraqi government approved on Sunday. The pact must still be passed in the Iraqi parliament, but the government is confident it will achieve this by the end of the month. PressTV: 'Parliament will reject US-Iraq pact'.

Link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/11/16/do1610.xml

A surreal scientific blunder last week raised a huge question mark about the temperature records that underpin the worldwide alarm over global warming. On Monday, Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore's chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, announced that last month was the hottest October on record. Daily Tech: Sea Ice Growing at Fastest Pace on Record. Irish Times: Film-makers taking on our 'global warming hysteria'.

Link: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/50000-flee-homes-as-fires-rage-in-california-1021729.html

Thousands of weary evacuees will begin returning to their Los Angeles homes this morning, after a chaotic weekend in which their city was encircled by some of the most destructive wildfires in living memory.

Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7732760.stm

Three men have gone on trial in Moscow charged with involvement in the murder of prominent Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya in 2006. The capital's military court ruled that the trial would be open to public. The suspected killer remains at large, and Ms Politkovskaya's supporters say there is little likelihood the trial will reveal who ordered her killing. Ms Politkovskaya, a Kremlin critic, was shot dead outside her home in Moscow on 7 October 2006.

Link: http://www.daily.pk/politics/politicalnews/8152-a-second-911-to-implicate-pakistan.html

CIA [is] planning another 9 / 11 and then they will come after Pakistan !! The trap is being set now once again to blame Pakistan for another 9/11. This time, US will NOT ask "are you with us or against us" because the target this time would be Pakistan itself !! We as a nation [must] forge unity within our ranks and rise to this new Obama threat !! The warnings of a new terrorist attack on US shores are accelerating: Iran recruiting homicide bombers to attack the US, Britain becoming a staging area for al Qaeda, Arab press reporting that Usama Bin Laden was planning an attack that would dwarf 9/11 are all headlines from the last few weeks. Pakistan Daily: Pakistan The Next US Target.

Link: http://www.russiatoday.com/features/news/33361

More than 30 years after it ended, the Vietnam War is still having a devastating impact on the lives of ordinary people. Up to five million Vietnamese were exposed to Agent Orange, a deadly herbicide sprayed by the U.S. Army over wide areas.

Link: http://www.russiatoday.com/features/news/33365

Israel’s latest blockade against Gaza, imposed more than a week ago in retaliation for rocket attacks by Palestinian militants, is causing great suffering among ordinary people. For some it has become a struggle for life itself. About half of Gaza’s 1.5 million residents lost power a week ago after Israel stopped the flow of fuel to the territory. For many, the blackouts are a great inconvenience. But for one paralysed Palestinian boy, the fuel shortage poses a deadly threat. Eight-year-old Makher Al-Asli is completely dependent on an artificial respirator. His one is powered by a diesel generator. Makher's family members spend days on fuel-finding missions, just to keep Makher alive. “Tomorrow we'll have to visit all petrol stations to find a couple of gallons of diesel,” Makher's father says. To watch the story of a boy struggling for life, please click the VIDEO button. The Guardian: 'Ethnic cleansing by stealth'.

Link: http://www.lewrockwell.com/sardi/sardi96.html

No sense letting thousands of hard-earned dollars slither away at the time when they are becoming more scarce. The cost of food has risen 6% and energy 29% in the past year. Here is a list of suggestions I have developed on how to save money, mainly by buying products of better value and durability.

Link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20081117/sc_livescience/akeytosharpoldmindsfound;_ylt=Akz7VibKiiBoXtNLtaphWU.s0NUE

In a new study, researchers examined the brains of five dead people who were considered super aged because after age 80 they had performed higher on memory tests than others their age. The scientists compared these brains to those of "normal" dead people - elderly, non-demented individuals.