Link: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/august-social-security-paid-out-more-it

The U.S. Treasury has needed to borrow money to pay Social Security benefits in 15 out of the last 25 months on record because the Social Security system was in deficit in those months, with the cost of monthly benefit payments exceeding the Social Security tax revenues flowing into the Old Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance "trust funds," according to data published by the Social Security Administration.

Link: http://www.businessinsider.com/socgens-albert-edwards-says-the-us-public-is-about-to-revolt-2010-10

Albert Edwards of Societe Generale thinks U.S. citizens are on the brink of a political revolt, based on a declining standard of living brought on by an inefficient economic relationship with China. Here's why, according to Edwards: This would happen in any nation where a vision of prosperity has been shown to be a Ponzi sham, engineered by the authorities to help disguise the fact that the rich have been getting a whole lot richer. What Edwards sees is the depressed state of the U.S. citizen getting worse. He sees unemployment rising and another recession near. The fluoride drinking mercury lobotomized American sheeple are going to revolt?

Link: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=53232

The U.S.-led invasion and then occupation of Iraq brought a sharp setback to the rights of women in that country, UNFPA head Thoraya Obaid tells IPS in an interview. The view that Muslim societies are necessarily backward on the position of women arises from stereotyping, she says. And she speaks of herself as a Muslim woman who does not fit the stereotype.

Link: http://www.counterpunch.org/marliere10202010.html

The French are deeply unhappy with the way they have been governed, but their main grievance is about pension reform, which is seen as a cynical ploy to make ordinary people work more for inferior entitlements, while bailed-out bankers and the rich get tax rebates and continue to enjoy the high life.

Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2010/10/20101019212440609775.html

Founders of the Zetas drug gang learned special forces techniques at Ft. Bragg before waging a campaign of carnage. Despite the deployment of 50,000 troops, Mexico seems to be losing the 'war on drugs' It was a brutal massacre even by the gruesome standards of Mexico’s drug war: 72 migrant workers gunned down by the "Zetas" - arguably the country’s most violent cartel - and left rotting in a pile outside a ranch in Tamaulipas state near the US border in late August.

Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2010/10/2010102011504468626.html

Harshest austerity measures since second world war unveiled as public spending is slashed to deal with country's debts. Osborne said that the job losses were 'unavoidable when the country has run out of money'. Britain will cut 490,000 public sector jobs over four years under austerity measures designed to reduce the country's record deficit. George Osborne, the finance minister, told parliament on Wednesday that the job losses were "unavoidable when the country has run out of money". "Today is the day that Britain steps back from the brink. It is a hard road but it leads to a better future," he said.

Link: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/oct/20/wall-street-mogul-picked-for-state-department-post/

President Obama's nominee for deputy secretary of state has earned more than $8 million in salary and bonuses since January 2009 as an executive at a Wall Street bank that received a federal bailout. Thomas R. Nides, a six-figure fundraiser for Hillary Rodham Clinton during her 2008 presidential run, disclosed his compensation from Morgan Stanley in a recent filing with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics.

Link: http://www.debka.com/article/9093/

Persian Gulf US carriers USS Abraham Lincoln now opposite IranThe United States has posted a second aircraft carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, in the Persian Gulf and northern Arabian Sea. The announcement came from the Pentagon Tuesday, Oct. 19, two days after the vessel put into port at Fifth Fleet headquarters in Manama, Bahrain. debkafile's sources note that this is the first time in two years that Washington had deployed two aircraft carriers at same time in waters opposite Iran and Afghanistan.

Link: http://ibnlive.in.com/generalnewsfeed/news/russia-may-do-without-poultry-meat-import-next-year--putin/429966.html

Russia may do without poultry meat import next year, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said while discussing the draft budget for 2011 and for the 2012-2013 period with LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky. "I believe we will actually have no need for import next year and in the subsequent years, the more so that our veterinary inspectors are ever more often concerned, about how these products are transported and preserved,"

Link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304011604575564661615005500.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTWhatsNewsCollection

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said he would use weekend meetings of G-20 finance ministers to advance efforts to "rebalance" the world economy so it is less reliant on U.S. consumers, to move toward establishing "norms" on exchange-rate policy, and to persuade others the U.S. doesn't aim to devalue its way to prosperity.