The health director who approved the release of President Obama's birth certificate has died in a plane crash, Hawaiian officials said Thursday.

Loretta Fuddy died after the Cessna Grand Caravan aircraft she was travelling on went down shortly after leaving Kalaupapa Airport at around 3:15 p.m. local time (10:15 a.m. ET) on Wednesday.

The other eight people on board were rescued, Richard Schuman, president of Makani Kai Air, told NBC News early Thursday, adding that that there was no indication as to why the plane had crashed.

Fuddy hit the headlines two years ago when she approved a waiver request allowing Obama to access certified copies of his birth certificate, signed by the delivery doctor, Obama's mother and the local registrar. His mother, then 18, signed her name (Stanley) Ann Dunham Obama.

The U.S. government lobotomized roughly 2,000 mentally ill veterans - and likely hundreds more - during and after World War II, according to a cache of forgotten memos, letters and government reports unearthed by The Wall Street Journal.

"They got the notion they were going to come to give me a lobotomy," Roman Tritz, a World War II bomber pilot, told the newspaper in a report published Wednesday. "To hell with them."

Tritz said the orderlies at the veterans hospital pinned him to the floor, and he initially fought them off. A few weeks later, just before his 30th birthday, he was lobotomized.

Besieged by psychologically damaged troops returning from the battlefields of North Africa, Europe and the Pacific, the Veterans Administration performed the brain-altering operation on former servicemen it diagnosed as depressives, psychotics and schizophrenics, and occasionally on people identified as homosexuals, according to the report.

The VA's use of lobotomy, in which doctors severed connections between parts of the brain then thought to control emotions, was known in medical circles in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and is occasionally cited in medical texts. But the VA's practice, never widely publicized, long ago slipped from public view. Even the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs says it possesses no records detailing the creation and breadth of its lobotomy program.

The Wall Street Journal's reporting series began with Wednesday's Forgotten Soldiers and included a documentary, archived photos, maps and medical records.

Chile - The IMF just dropped another bombshell.

After it recently suggested a "one-off capital levy" - a one-time tax on private wealth as an exceptional measure to restore debt sustainability across insolvent countries - it has now called for "revenue-maximizing top income tax rates".

The IMF's team of monkeys has been working around the clock on this one, figuring that developed nations can increase their overall tax revenue by increasing tax rates.

They've singled out the US, suggesting that the US government could maximize its tax revenue by increasing tax brackets to as high as 71%.

Coming from one of the grand wizards of the global financial system, this might be the clearest sign yet that the whole house of cards is dangerously close to being swept away.

Think about it - solvent governments with healthy economies don't go looking to steal 71% of people's wealth. They're raising this point because these governments are desperate. And flat broke.

The ratio of public debt to GDP across advanced economies will reach a historic peak of 110% next year, compared to 75% in 2007.

That's a staggering increase. Most of the 'wealithest' nations in the West now have to borrow money just to pay interest on the money they've already borrowed.

The retired FBI agent who seemed to vanish in Iran seven years ago was in fact on a strange unauthorized mission for the CIA that was organized by intelligence agents who did not have the authority to do so, a shocking new report has revealed.

Robert Levinson, a former DEA and FBI employee who gathered intelligence in Latin America for the Central Intelligence Agency after leaving the bureau, was long believed to have flown to an Iranian resort in 2007.

Known as Kish Island, the small Persian Gulf outpost is known to be a place where tourists and international criminals mingle. Levinson then disappeared just days after meeting with an admitted killer, with the US government maintaining all along that his fate was that of a private citizen whose status was unknown.

Yet, in a report published Thursday, the Associated Press revealed that the popular narrative that has pervaded in the media for the last seven years was not entirely true. The White House, FBI, US State Department, and CIA would all learn that Levinson's trip was planned by three CIA analysts who did not follow the proper vetting process or seek approval for the mission from the necessary supervisors.

Levinson was paid to gather intelligence on US foes in South America and was paid by the CIA to gather intelligence on the Iranian government in 2007.

Thailand's former Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva was formally indicted Thursday on murder charges over a military crackdown on street protests in 2010 that left scores dead.

The indictment comes amid the biggest political upheaval in the country since the 2010 protests and risks further inflaming tensions. Antigovernment protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban, who served as Mr. Abhisit's deputy at the time, faces similar charges.

Mr. Suthep was due to appear for the indictment session Thursday, but he didn't show up. A public prosecutor told reporters that Mr. Suthep's lawyer had asked the court to postpone Mr. Suthep's appearance to mid-January, which prosecutors were considering. Both men deny the charges against them.

Following last weekend's bloodbath, the government in Thailand - led by long-time partners of the German Friedrich Naumann Foundation (FDP) - is threatening to continue its use of military force against mass protests in Bangkok. As observers note, the escalating confrontation between demonstrators demanding new elections and the army is bringing Thailand "to the brink of civil war". The country's old elite - made up of the military, big industry and the royal dynasty - fear that the growing democratic movement will restrict their predominance. Some in the old elite, particularly the Democrat Party of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, have for years already been cooperating with the Friedrich Naumann Foundation. Alone since May 14, they are responsible for the deaths of at least 36 protesters. The Naumann Foundation had shown sympathy toward a putsch by the traditional elite in 2006 and the subsequent, heavily contested outlawing of a popular party, because "it could not have been done democratically". The assistant, who was responsible for the Naumann Foundation's activities at the time and for the support of the traditional elites from 2007 to 2009, is today head of the Asia department in the German Ministry for Development.

Upon his appointment as Prime Minister in 2008, Abhisit's officially declared personal assets worth 51.8 million baht (nearly $2 million). This increased to 54.4 million upon leaving office. Given that Abhisit has never worked in the private sector, the vast majority of his wealth was either inherited or given to him.^[76]

Since today is "judgement day" according to the minority protesters in Thailand who refuse to work with the current elected government and who also refuse to participate in the upcoming emergency elections being held because they took their balls and went home (quit the House seats they occupied (150 out of 500) because they couldn't get their way, I thought I would provide some history to the conflict in order to give readers here a little perspective.

The US and UK have suspended all "non-lethal" support for rebels in northern Syria, but not humanitarian aid.

A US spokesman said it was concerned about reports that Islamist rebels had seized bases belonging to the Western-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA).

Fighters from the Islamic Front, a new alliance of rebel groups, ousted FSA-aligned fighters from the Bab al-Hawa border crossing with Turkey last week.

The non-lethal aid includes medicine, vehicles and communications equipment.

The Catalan regional parliament has set November next year for a referendum on the Spanish province's independence. The government in Madrid blandly said the vote won't happen, but activists wonder how it might be stopped.

Catalonia's four pro-independence parties, which hold a majority in the regional parliament, announced Thursday that the rich industrial Spanish province will hold a referendum on whether to gain greater autonomy or even total independence from the country's central government.

The vote's preliminary date is November 9, Catalan regional government head Artur Mas said. The people will be asked two questions: "Do you want Catalonia to be a state?" and "Do you want that state to be independent?"

The former question was added for those Catalans who seek to change Spain into a federation, with Catalonia forming part of it. According to a Metroscopia poll in newspaper El Pais last month, 46 percent of Catalans favor separatism versus 42 percent who wish to remain within Spain. The support for greater autonomy, however, is very strong.

Some of the most respected prognosticators in the financial world are warning that what is coming in 2014 and beyond is going to shake America to the core. Many of the quotes that you are about to read are from individuals that actually predicted the subprime mortgage meltdown and the financial crisis of 2008 ahead of time.

So they have a track record of being right. Does that guarantee that they will be right about what is coming in 2014? Of course not. In fact, as you will see below, not all of them agree about exactly what is coming next. But without a doubt, all of their forecasts are quite ominous. The following are quotes from Harry Dent, Marc Faber, Gerald Celente, Mike Maloney, Jim Rogers and nine other respected economic experts about what they believe is coming in 2014 and beyond...

-Harry Dent, author of The Great Depression Ahead: "Our best long-term and intermediate cycles suggest another slowdown and stock crash accelerating between very early 2014 and early 2015, and possibly lasting well into 2015 or even 2016. The worst economic trends due to demographics will hit between 2014 and 2019. The U.S. economy is likely to suffer a minor or major crash by early 2015 and another between late 2017 and late 2019 or early 2020 at the latest."

-Marc Faber, editor and publisher of the Gloom, Boom & Doom Report: "You have to say that we are again in a massive financial bubble in bonds, in equities, in [other] asset prices that have gone up dramatically."

-Gerald Celente: "Any self-respecting adult that hears McConnell, Reid, Boehner, Ryan, one after another, and buys this baloney... they deserve what they get. And as for the international scene... the whole thing is collapsing. That's our forecast. We are saying that by the second quarter of 2014, we expect the bottom to fall out... or something to divert our attention as it falls out."