President becomes UN Special Envoy to earthquake-stricken Haiti.

Venezuelan, Nicaraguan, Bolivian, French and Swiss rescue organizations accuse the US military of refusing landing rights to planes bearing necessary medicines and urgently needed potable water to the millions of Haitians stricken, injured and homeless.

Behind the smoke, rubble and unending drama of human tragedy in the hapless Caribbean country, a drama is in full play for control of what geophysicists believe may be one of the world’s richest zones for hydrocarbons-oil and gas outside the Middle East, possibly orders of magnitude greater than that of nearby Venezuela.

Chanos Sees `Overheating and Overindulgence' in China 

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Fox News Shuns Obama Q&A, MSNBC Gets Snitty When He Encourages Senators To Turn Off TV

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/03/fox-news-shuns-obama-qa_n_447537.html

Cancer Research UK is more forthright in condemning those who hype resveratrol for its cancer- inhibiting properties. "Many vitamin and mineral supplements were believed to be potent cancer fighters until trials and large studies showed they are usually ineffective and can even increase the risk of cancer in some cases," says the charity's Yinka Ebo. "Resveratrol has a few anticancer properties when tested in animals or cells grown in a lab. But, to date, there is no strong evidence that resveratrol supplements can prevent cancer in people."

Read the whole story at Wired

Since an article appeared in "Nature" in 2003 about the potential life-extension capabilities of resveratrol, many people both in and out inside of the life-extension community have been interested in this supplement. Red wine became touted even more as a heath drink due to its (meager) resveratrol content, and people began to have hope in this as a potential CR mimetic. The possibility to obtain the benefits of CR with out the actual calorie restriction made the ears of the nation perk.

By 2006 and 2007, the results from different groups were beginning to conflict. Studies began to indicate that while resveratrol had health benefits in elderly and obese mice, the longevity effects were not consistently observed in ad lib fed mice stared on the supplement midlife. However, a very interesting observation showed that resveratrol could improve insulin and glucose levels in mice on a high-fat (over-consumption) diet, but note that cholesterol and free fatty acid levels did not improve.

I was astonished to read Lord Myners’s assertion that banks use our deposits to lend out to businesses and homebuyers. (Comment, 25 January). This is simply not the case, and has not been the case since 1694 when the British banking system was established, and intangible bank money began the process of creating deposits in the banking system.

We have just lived through a period of asset price inflation fuelled by credit-creation that bore little relation whatsoever either to a) our deposits in banks, or b) to the underlying value of assets. Far from the bank starting with a deposit or reserves as a basis for lending, the bank starts with an application for a loan, the asset (eg property) against which to guarantee or secure repayment, and the promise to repay with interest.

A bank clerk then enters the number into a ledger/computer, and charges it to the account of the borrower. This is credit and has been known since 1694 as bank money – intangible and essentially free. The bank does not need savings, deposits or reserves to create credit. If this were the case there would only be as much credit as there are deposits in the bank.

Caution Is Advisable

Although laboratory tests have demonstrated that resveratrol might help prevent cardiovascular disease and cancer, there are several reasons why a population-wide increase would be premature.

- The research on resveratrol has focused on its short-term effects and has been dominated by in vitro (laboratory) studies on non-human models.

- Not enough is known about the absorption and clearance of resveratrol, the identities of its metabolic products, or its effects on the liver.

- Resveratrol's role as a potentiator of breast carcinomas may significantly limit its use.

-  While taking resveratrol pills is certainly safer than heavy wine consumption, supplementing with unproven substances is generally unwise. At this point, occasional use of red wine seems far more prudent.

The Bottom Line

In Flat Earth News, award-winning journalist Nick Davies takes the lid off newspapers and broadcasters, exposing the mechanics of falsehood, distortion and propaganda; naming names and telling the stories behind stories.

This website is intended to be a focal point for exposing past, current and future media abuse.

Readers of the book can find more information about the book, the author and full coverage of the footnoted stories from the book as well as reaction to the book from senior Fleet Street figures, working journalists and reviewers.

Readers are also encouraged to leave their comments on the book.

Journalists, and anyone else with direct knowledge of media malpractice, are invited to blog about examples of media falsehood and distortion; PR tactics and propaganda; and the use of illegal news-gathering techniques. All visitors are invited to make comments on these blog posts.

01. Introduction 04 min 46 sec
02. I. Why 2009 Turned Out Better Than Expected 00 min 36 sec
03. Timmer: Was it a Good Year? 02 min 06 sec
04. Dadush: Aggressive Stimulus, Healthy Asian Economies 04 min 59 sec
05. Decressin: Advanced Economies Recovering Early 02 min 55 sec
06. II. What to Expect for 2010 00 min 20 sec
07. Lachman: Recession May Return to US in 2010 04 min 16 sec
08. Suttle: Synchronized Upturn, Emerging Markets, Aggressive Corps 04 min 49 sec
09. Dadush: Emerging Markets, Corp Sector, Policy Support 06 min 40 sec
10. III. Advanced Versus Emerging Economies 00 min 42 sec
11. Timmer: Heterogeneity Among the Emerging Economies 04 min 36 sec
12. Lachman: Public Finance Emerging Markets, Commodity Prices 05 min 09 sec
13. Decressin: Advanced Economies' Structural Weaknesses 03 min 59 sec
14. IV. Risks to Forecasts 00 min 26 sec
15. Dadush: Underestimating Cycles, Policy Tightening, Protectionism 05 min 31 sec
16. Suttle: Oil, US Treasury, Eurozone, Banking Sector 05 min 06 sec
17. Lachman: Crisis in Eurozone, Middle East, Protectionism 05 min 03 sec

Efforts to slow the march of old age with a pill have been dealt a blow. Drugs that might treat disease by tampering with the biology of ageing are being tested, but new research questions whether they work as thought.

The compounds include resveratrol, a much-touted component of red wine that is thought to prevent the cellular damage that underlies ageing. Also under test are several chemicals intended to mimic resveratrol's effects by activating SIRT1, a protein implicated in ageing. Experiments have led some to conclude that these drugs ramp up the protein's activity, but the new studies suggest that those experiments suffered from errors.

Other vitamins and nutrients may get more headlines, but experts say as many as two billion people around the world have diets deficient in zinc – and studies at Oregon State University and elsewhere are raising concerns about the health implications this holds for infectious disease, immune function, DNA damage and cancer.

One new study has found DNA damage in humans caused by only minor zinc deficiency.

Zinc deficiency is quite common in the developing world. Even in the United States, about 12 percent of the population is probably at risk for zinc deficiency, and perhaps as many as 40 percent of the elderly, due to inadequate dietary intake and less absorption of this essential nutrient, experts say. Many or most people have never been tested for zinc status, but existing tests are so poor it might not make much difference if they had been.

More Observations On The Federal Reserve Buying Stocks

The insightful authors of "This Time It's Different" Carmen Reinhardt and Ken Rogoff are at it again, doing a simple yet crucial empirical analysis correlating sovereign debt (both government and external), and inflation (in some case) with GDP growth. It will come as no surprise to anyone that the more indebted a country is, with a government debt/GDP ratio of 0.9, and external debt/GDP of 0.6 being critical thresholds, the more GDP growth drops materially. Alas for the US, which is on the wrong side of this threshold, at the rate Geithner is issuing debt, the US economy will be able to grow organically, and not through stimulus after Keynesian stimulus, only after the administration manages to find a way to reduce its massive and growing debt load. In other words never.

Read the full article at Zero Hedge