A cargo plane has crashed after take-off near a motorway in Dubai, killing two crew members aboard, officials say. The plane, operated by the delivery company United Postal Service (UPS), crashed near the Emirates Road. Some reports said a fire had broken out in the plane just after it took off from Dubai airport. The official news agency WAM said the plane had come down in an unpopulated area on Friday evening. The Boeing 747-400 crashed into the ground inside the fence of a military air base, reports say.

A cargo plane has crashed after take-off near a motorway in Dubai, killing two crew members aboard, officials say. The plane, operated by the delivery company United Postal Service (UPS), crashed near the Emirates Road. Some reports said a fire had broken out in the plane just after it took off from Dubai airport. The official news agency WAM said the plane had come down in an unpopulated area on Friday evening. The Boeing 747-400 crashed into the ground inside the fence of a military air base, reports say.

What is the difference between today's economy and Lehman Brothers just before it collapsed in September 2008? Should Lehman, the economy, Wall Street - or none of the above - be bailed out of bad mortgage debt? How did the Fed and Treasury decide which Wall Street firms to save - and how do they decide whether or not to save U.S. companies, personal mortgage debtors, states and cities from bankruptcy and insolvency today? Why did it start by saving the richest financial institutions, leaving the "real" economy locked in debt deflation? Stated another way, why was Lehman the only Wall Street firm permitted to go under? How does the logic that Washington used in its case compare to how it is treating the economy at large? Why bail out Wall Street - whose managers are rich enough not to need to spend their gains - and not the quarter of U.S. homeowners unfortunate enough also to suffer "negative equity" but not qualify for the help that the officials they elect gave to Wall Street's winners by enabling Bear Stearns, A.I.G., Countrywide Financial and other gamblers to pay their bad debts? There was disagreement last Wednesday at the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission now plodding along through its post mortem hearings on the causes of Wall Street's autumn 2008 collapse and ensuing bailout. Federal Reserve economists argue that the economy - and Wall Street firms apart from Lehman - merely had a liquidity problem, a temporary failure to find buyers for its junk mortgages. By contrast, Lehman had a more deep-seated "balance sheet" problem: negative equity. A taxpayer bailout would have been an utter waste, not recoverable.

A 7.0 magnitude earthquake rocked New Zealand's second largest city Christchurch early Saturday, causing widespread damage including the collapse of some buildings and power outages, witnesses and the U.S. geological survey said. The Civil Defence ministry said the national crisis management centre had been activated. "We've had a wide range of reports of some serious damage," a civil defence spokesman said. Although many people with minor injuries sought treatment, hospitals said there were no reports of any serious injuries although doctors were on standby because of the intensity of the quake and the damage to buildings. The quake struck at a depth of 16.1 kilometres some 30 kilometres northwest of Christchurch at 4:35 a.m. (11:35 a.m. ET Friday), the USGS said. Roads in the seaside suburbs were packed with cars as residents moved inland but there were no tsunami alerts issued. A swarm of aftershocks were ongoing and police said damage was widespread throughout Christchurch, with electricity supplies cut to about half of the city of about 340,000. Sewer lines were damaged and residents were being urged to conserve water supplies. Local resident Colleen Simpson told the Stuff website that many people had run out onto the streets in fear, while the mobile phone network was failing. "Oh my God. There is a row of shops completely demolished right in front of me," Simpson said. Kevin O'Hanlon, from Mairehau in Christchurch, said: "Just unbelievable. I was awake to go to work and then just heard this massive noise and, boom, it was like the house got hit. It just started shaking. I've never felt anything like it."

Date-Time: Friday, September 03, 2010 at 16:35:46 UTC Saturday, September 04, 2010 at 04:35:46 AM at epicenter Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones Location: 43.375°S, 172.016°E Depth: 12 km (7.5 miles) set by location program Region: SOUTH ISLAND OF NEW ZEALAND Distances: 55 km (35 miles) WNW of Christchurch, New Zealand 185 km (115 miles) S of Westport, New Zealand 305 km (190 miles) NNE of Dunedin, New Zealand 325 km (200 miles) SW of WELLINGTON, New Zealand

The first snow of winter fell in Scotland at the weekend - still August - forecasters have revealed. Temperatures on the highest peaks of the Cairngorms began dropping below freezing on Saturday night into Sunday morning and mountains more than 1100 metres high in the area saw a light powder of snow. Geoff Monk of Mountain Weather Info Service, which produces forecast for eight different mountain areas of the UK, said that very cold winds had given the Munros a wintry feel. He added that he would not be surprised to see snow on the top of Ben Nevis this weekend. Mr Monk said: "There were snow showers across the Cairngorms. They lasted a couple of hours, it was almost ongoing. On some places the snow remained on the ground. "Most of it was gone after a few hours, but some fresh patches remained there until Monday morning. "It is something that very occasionally happens in Scotland. Northerly winds from the Arctic cause them. It's very unlikely more snow will fall in the next 10 days.

Date-Time: Friday, September 03, 2010 at 11:16:08 UTC Friday, September 03, 2010 at 02:16:08 AM at epicenter Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones Location: 51.785°N, 176.010°W Depth: 50.8 km (31.6 miles) Region: ANDREANOF ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN IS., ALASKA Distances: 45 km (30 miles) E of Adak, Alaska 130 km (80 miles) WSW of Atka, Alaska 1905 km (1180 miles) WSW of Anchorage, Alaska 2715 km (1680 miles) W of JUNEAU, Alaska

Date-Time: Friday, September 03, 2010 at 11:16:08 UTC Friday, September 03, 2010 at 02:16:08 AM at epicenter Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones Location: 51.785°N, 176.010°W Depth: 50.8 km (31.6 miles) Region: ANDREANOF ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN IS., ALASKA Distances: 45 km (30 miles) E of Adak, Alaska 130 km (80 miles) WSW of Atka, Alaska 1905 km (1180 miles) WSW of Anchorage, Alaska 2715 km (1680 miles) W of JUNEAU, Alaska

New Statesman, a piece by Bill Parry, author of Against the Wall: ...now one of Britain's most successful bands, Massive Attack, is publicly backing the boycott. "I've always felt that it's the only way forward," Robert Del Naja, the band's lead singer, tells me when we meet at the Lazarides gallery in Fitzrovia, London... "We were asked to play Israel and we refused," he says. "The question was asked: 'If you don't play there, how can you go there and change things?' I said: 'Listen, I can't play in Israel when the Palestinians have no access to the same fundamental benefits that the Israelis do.' I think the best approach is to boycott a government that seems hell-bent on very destructive policies. And it's sad, because we've met some great people in Israel, and it's a difficult decision to have to make."...

Silver may rally to $21.35 an ounce after completing a so-called pennant formation, according to Barclays Capital. Silver for immediate delivery rose above $19.47 this week, breaking out of a narrow trading range that began in May and capped prices below $20, said MacNeil Curry, a technical analyst at Barclays in New York. The breakout means that silver will resume a bull trend that began in October 2008, he said. A gain to $21.35 would be the highest price since March 17, 2008. A pennant is formed when upper and lower trend lines intersect to form a triangle. If a security gains above the trend line, it is seen as a bullish sign. The upper-resistance line was established when silver climbed to about $19.47 in June.

Wheat rose to the highest level in almost three weeks on signs of increased demand for U.S. supplies as world inventories are forecast to fall for the first time in three years. Before today, wheat gained 68 percent from a three-year low on June 9 as adverse weather hurt crops in Russia, Kazakhstan, the European Union and Canada. U.S. exporters sold 110,000 metric tons of wheat to Egypt and 275,000 tons to unknown destinations, the Department of Agriculture said today. Russia will extend a grain-export ban until after the next harvest, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said yesterday. "We continue to see good, strong export demand for U.S. wheat," said Shawn McCambridge, the senior grain analyst for Prudential Bache Commodities LLC in Chicago. "World buyers are concerned about rising prices and the tightening supplies situation."

European stocks climbed, extending the Stoxx Europe 600 Index's biggest weekly gain in almost two months, after U.S. companies added more jobs than forecast in August, easing concern the economic recovery is faltering. Credit Suisse Group AG and BNP Paribas SA led banks higher and Rio Tinto Group paced a rally in raw-material producers after the U.S. payrolls data. Aggreko Plc surged 5.5 percent as it said it has not received any takeover bids. Neopost SA, the French mailroom equipment maker, climbed 2 percent after reporting increased revenue. The benchmark Stoxx 600 gained 0.9 percent to 260.4 at the 4:30 p.m. close in London, the highest level since Aug. 9. The gauge has rallied 3.7 percent this week, the most since July 9, as accelerating growth in U.S. and Chinese manufacturing and today's jobs figures reassured investors. The measure is still 4.3 percent below this year's high in April.

On Monday, a man gunned down six members of a Roma family living on a ramshackle estate on the outskirts of the Slovak capital of Bratislava. The murderer, Lubomir Harman, aged 48, was a neighbor of the six victims. Harman had lost his job in 2008, having worked at no less than four different companies since the 1990s. He was a member of his local shooting club and owned six guns, including a Kalashnikov assault rifle. Having shot down the Roma family, which included a 12-year old boy, Harman continued his shooting spree. He claimed a seventh victim, a woman on a balcony, and wounded 15 others, including a 3-year old boy, before being shot down by police. Slovak police and political representatives quickly sought to downplay the significance of the attack, claiming there was no indication of a racial motive. Slovak Police President Jaroslav Spisiak even tried to shift the blame for the tragedy onto the Roma family itself who, he declared, "lived a very lively social life and often received visits". Despite attempts by the police to divert attention from this question, witnesses spoke of long standing antagonisms between the shooter and the Roma family. According to a surviving member of the family quoted in a Slovak daily paper, the gunman had repeatedly harassed the family. "He'd always been very hostile to coloured people and hated us", said a granddaughter of one of the victims. "He picked on us all the time".

Chief executive officers responsible for the 50 biggest mass layoffs of 2009 pulled in $12 million for the year on average, 42 percent higher than other CEOs at major companies, and hundreds of times more than the average US worker. The 50 CEOs, who took home a combined $598 million, cut the jobs of 531,363 workers in 2009, according to a new report by the Institute for Policy Studies. The 50 mass layoffs accounted for three quarters of cuts at the 500 biggest US companies. The report, "Executive Excess 2010: CEO Pay and the Great Recession," released September 1, found that of the 50 firms, 36 of them (72 percent) announced layoffs even as earnings were up. In fact, the top 50 "layoff leaders" averaged a profit increase of 44 percent in 2009. The data reflects the continual drive of the corporate elite to squeeze higher profits out of a smaller, lower-paid, more burdened workforce. Inequality has soared over the course of the last 30 years, with the average compensation of corporate managers leaping from an already high ratio of some 30 to 1 compared to the average compensation of American workers, to upwards of 260 to 1. The report notes that even in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, CEO salaries for 2009 were double the 1990s average, four times that of the 1980s, and eight times that of the CEO average pay for all the decades of the mid-20th Century. Over the same period, real wages for workers have fallen sharply.

Winston Churchill ordered the assassination of Benito Mussolini as part of a plot to destroy potentially compromising secret letters he had sent the Italian dictator, a leading French historian has suggested. Pierre Milza, an expert on fascist Italy, theorizes that the wartime prime minister may have wanted Mussolini dead to prevent the letters, in which Churchill expressed his admiration for his Italian counterpart before the outbreak of the Second World War, coming to light. "There is no doubt, judging by his public declarations back in the 1920s and early 1930s, that Churchill was a fan of Mussolini. Roosevelt too," Mr Milza said. "Churchill even once said: 'Fascism has rendered a service to the entire world... If I were Italian, I am sure I would have been with you entirely'.

Archaeologists are puzzled as to the exact purpose of an ancient oak road unearthed on a Bord na Móna bog in Co Tipperary. Operations manager and site director with Archaeological Development Services (ADS) Jane Whitaker believes the track, which runs parallel to a modern road, may have formed part of an ancient road network. The road, discovered by ADS during a walking survey, is constructed from oak planks laid across oak beams and gravel. Mortise holes have been bored into the planks to facilitate wooden pegs. All of the materials were brought to the site from other locations.

New technique may help restorers identify decades-old pigments. A team of McGill chemists have discovered that a technique known as photoacoustic infrared spectroscopy could be used to identify the composition of pigments used in art work that is decades or even centuries old. Pigments give artist's materials colour, and they emit sounds when light is shone on them.

Attorney says county must comply with law before burial. The bodies of poor and indigent people for whom Des Moines County would be required to pick up the bill for burial or cremation will soon be offered up to medical schools to use for educational purposes before being laid to rest at public expense. During a recent review of state law while helping update the county's general assistance manual, Senior Assistant County Attorney Amy Beavers turned up an old law, previously unenforced by the county, requiring bodies being buried with taxpayers' dollars must be offered for use by medical science. Once the college or medical school has finished with the body, it will be properly buried or cremated. The only exceptions are for veterans, and if the decedent had a written declaration of what should happen with the body. The funerals of poor and needy veterans are handled through the county's Veteran Affairs Office, not through general assistance.

Reflections on Jack Kennedy - by Stephen Lendman

Though much about his background and public service warrants criticism, he also deserves praise rarely given properly, this article offering some and the writer's personal reflections on his commencement address to my June 14, 1956 graduating class, a message not heard now by US leaders - erudite, incisive and timely. More on it below.

Some Background

Had an assassin not taken his life, his health surely would have, some around him saying "from a medical standpoint, (he) was a mess." Indeed so, having been hospitalized more than three dozen times in his life and given last rites on three occasions.

At age 2 years, 9 months, he nearly died of scarlet fever. He contracted measles, whooping cough and chicken pox the same year, and as a child, was susceptible to upper respiratory infections and bronchitis. In 1935, he suffered jaundice, had a history of sports-related injuries because of his weak physique, and his mother remembered him as "a very, very sick little boy." In the 1930s, he began taking steroids for colitis, later developing complications, including a duodenal ulcer, back pain, digestive trouble, and underactive adrenal glands known as Addison's disease.

He had a host of other problems as well, including a bout of malaria as a naval officer in the Pacific. At age 43, the 1960 presidential campaign exhausted him because he overdid it for a man of his health and stamina. In 1947, his Addisonism was diagnosed, at the time told he had one year to live, and was given his last rites shortly afterward. Yet as senator and president, his health problems were hidden, an observer calling it "one of the most cleverly laid smoke screens ever put down around a politician('s)" physical well-being.

His Assassination

Much about it has been written and speculated, some of the best from James Douglas in his 2008 book titled, "JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters," debunking mainstream myths and much more. From a wealth of information he uncovered, he showed how threatening Kennedy was to the military-industrial complex and had to go, "the CIA's fingerprints....all over the crime and the events leading up to it."

The notion of a lone gunman is ludicrous, the evidence clearly implicating a national security state coup against one of its own deemed unreliable. Though to some degree a cold warrior, he changed, was chastened by the failed Bay of Pigs invasion and refused another. He also fired CIA Director Allen Dulles, his assistant General Charles Cabell, and once said he wanted "to splinter the CIA in a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds," reason enough to kill him.

Worst of all was his growing opposition to imperial wars, specifically in Southeast Asia. Though he initially sent troops and advisors, he changed, in 1961 opposing advice to send more to Laos, telling Averell Harriman, his Geneva Conference representative: "Did you understand? I want a negotiated settlement in Laos. I don't want to put troops in."

The same year, he opposed using nuclear weapons in Berlin and Southeast Asia and once called Pentagon generals "crazy" for suggesting them, perhaps with Curtis LeMay (1906 - 1990) in mind, a zealot who wanted to nuke the Soviets while we had the edge, even at the cost of a few US cities.

Kennedy also wouldn't attack or invade Cuba during the 1962 missile crisis, saying throughout it he "never had the slightest intention of doing so."

He swung to peace, away from war, telling an American University audience in 1963 that nuclear weapons should be abolished, the Cold War ended, followed by a "general and complete disarmament," and America no longer using its might to force Pax Americana on the world. Shortly afterward he signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty with the Soviets, and in October 1963 (about a month before his assassination), he signed National Security Action Memorandum 263, calling for removing 1,000 US troops from Vietnam by year's end and the remainder by December 1965.

Douglas wrote how, as president, he underwent a spiritual transformation from cold warrior to peacemaker, knowing it put him at odds with the Pentagon, CIA, most members of Congress, and nearly all of his advisors. As a result, he understood his vulnerability, perhaps by coup or assassination, a condition he nonetheless accepted and paid for with his life.

Besides turning toward peace and more, he also signed Executive Order (EO) 11110 on June 4, 1963 to:

-- amend EO 10289 (dated September 17, 1951) designating and empowering the Treasury to perform certain "functions of the President without the approval, ratification, or other action of the President;" and

-- perhaps bypass the Fed and empower the president to issue currency; it constitutionally empowered the federal government to create and "issue silver certificates against any silver bullion, silver, or standard silver dollars in the Treasury."

Though not verified, some believe he then ordered the Treasury Secretary to issue nearly $4.3 billion worth of United States notes, perhaps to replace Federal Reserve Notes. Whether or not he wanted to end the Federal Reserve System (and return money creation power to Congress as the Constitution mandates) is speculation, but perhaps fearing it, besides the above cited reasons and more, led to his assassination five months later.

In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson said: "Silver has become too valuable to be used as money." In late 1963, after he became president, US notes were withdrawn from circulation, and noted Fed critic and author of "The Creature from Jekyll Island," G. Edward Griffin, wrote on page 569 of his book:

"There was a third point, however, which everyone seemed to overlook. The Executive Order 11110 did not instruct the Treasury to issue Silver Certificates. It merely authorized it to do so if the occasion should arise. The occasion never arose. The last issuance of Silver Certificates was in 1957....six years before the Kennedy (EO). In 1987, (it) was rescinded by (EO) 12608 signed by Ronald Reagan."

Without mentioning EO 11110, he did it by amending EO 10289, rescinding the Treasury's right to issue silver-backed notes.

Had Kennedy lived and served a second term, imagine the possibilities. Ending the Vietnam war alone would have been a powerful legacy.

Kennedy's June 14, 1956 Commencement Speech

Given outdoors on a blistering hot/humid day, he began expressing "pleasure to join with my fellow alumni in this pilgrimage to the second home of (my) youth," noting the difference between academia's purpose to advance knowledge and his own "where the emphasis is somewhat different," saying:

"Our political parties, our politicians are interested, of necessity, in winning popular support - a majority; and only indirectly truth is the object of our controversy," often sacrificed for political advantage.

The "political profession needs to have its temperature lowered in the cooling waters of the scholastic pool. We need both the technical judgment and the disinterested viewpoint of the scholar, to prevent us from becoming imprisoned by our own slogans. Therefore, it's regrettable that the gap between the intellectual and the politician seems to be growing."

No wonder, he added, that politicians are so scorned, quoting James Russell Lowell's mid-19th century satiric attack on Caleb Cushing, a celebrated Attorney General and congressional member, calling him "true to one party, that is himself." It's as true today than then.

Kennedy's entire talk was full of scholarly references and quotes, including Lord Melbourne to a youthful historian Thomas Macauley about the differences between scholars and politicians. Another from philosopher Sidney Hook, saying "Many intellectuals would rather die than agree with the majority, even on the rare occasions when the majority is right."

Yet he reminded the audience that today's politicians and intellectual climate have a common ancestry, America's early leaders, also distinguished for their writing and intellect, including Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, Franklin, and John Adams among others.

"Books were their tools, not their enemies. Locke, Milton, Sydney, Montesquieu, Coke, and Bollingbroke were among those widely read in political circles and frequently quoted in political pamphlets. Our political leaders traded in the free commerce of ideas with lasting results both here and abroad."

A contemporary of Jefferson called him "A gentleman of 32, who could calculate an eclipse, survey an estate, tie an artery, plan an edifice, try a cause, break a horse, dance a minuet, and play the violin." He was also a statesman and third US president.

"Daniel Webster could throw thunderbolts at Hayne on the Senate floor and then stroll a few steps down the corridor and dominate the Supreme Court as the foremost lawyer of his time. John Quincy Adams, after being summarily dismissed from the Senate for a notable display of independence, could become Boylston professor of rhetoric and oratory at Harvard and then become a great Secretary of State" as well as president.

"The link between the American scholar and American politician" lasted over a century. In the 1856 campaign, Republicans had "three brilliant orators - William Cullen Bryant, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Those were the carefree days when the eggheads were all Republicans." One of their own became president on March 4, 1861, denied a second term by his April 1865 assassination, challenging the establishment and existing order also his undoing.

Kennedy quoted John Milton, Bismark, Goethe and others, his erudition on display for those attending, a man with an intellect who used it. He reminded the audience that politicians and intellectuals "operate within a common framework - a framework we call liberty. The lock on the door of the legislature, the Parliament, or the assembly hall - by order of the King, the Commissar, or the Fuehrer - has historically been followed or preceded by a lock on the door of the university, the library, or the print shop."

Where freedom is endangered, he said, politicians and intellectuals "should be natural allies, working more closely together for the common cause against the common enemy." They both must decide whether to be "an anvil or a hammer....whether (they are) to give to the world in which (they were) reared and educated the broadest possible benefits of (their) learning" for society's benefit, or do it solely for their own. "As one who is familiar with the political world, I can testify" to the challenge we face.

He opted against handing over political and public life to experts "who ignore public opinion. Nor would I adopt from the Belgian constitution of 1893 the provision giving 3 votes instead of 1 to college graduates; or give Harvard a seat in the Congress as William and Mary was once represented in the Virginia House of Burgesses."

But he urged politicians and intellectuals to work together, warning that we don't "need scholars or politicians like Lord John Russell, of whom Queen Victoria remarked, he would be a better man if he knew a third subject - but he was interested in nothing but the constitution of 1688 and himself. What we need are men who can ride easily over broad fields of knowledge and recognize the mutual dependence of our two worlds."

He ended quoting what an English mother once wrote the Provost of Harrow, saying "Don't teach my boy poetry; he is going to stand for Parliament."

"Well, perhaps she was right - but if more politicians knew poetry and more poets knew politics, I am convinced the world would be a little better place in which to live on this commencement day of 1956."

Aged 39, he scarcely had more than seven years left before America's dark forces killed him, a lesson his successors never forgot. Neither should we knowing the rogues that followed and their agendas, worst of all post-9/11, putting the nation on a fast track toward despotism unless cooler heads can stop them.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.

Sisseton - An 18-year-old high school student stockpiled bomb-making materials in his bedroom and wrote about wanting to blow up his school, target individuals he hated, rape women and "become the world's most infamous sociopath," authorities said. Joseph Thomas Hansen, of Claire City, was arrested Aug. 23 after someone tipped off a police school resource officer that Hansen had talked about an attack, authorities said. "Thanks to an alert citizen and a school resource officer, they were able to prevent a very serious and potentially dangerous situation," state Attorney General Marty Jackley said by phone Wednesday. Hansen pleaded not guilty Tuesday to selling, transporting or possessing an explosive device and possessing substances with the intent to make a destructive device, and is due back in court Sept. 14. If convicted of all charges, he could face up to 25 years in prison, Jackley said. Hansen remained jailed Wednesday in lieu of $500,000 bond and was unavailable to comment. A man who answered the phone at the family's home who identified himself as Hansen's father, Roland Hansen, referred questions to his son's attorney, Scott Bratland. Bratland did not immediately return phone messages seeking comment.