The world's population is projected to pass 7 billion on October 31 as it heads toward 10 billion or more by the end of the century, a new U.N. report said on Tuesday. The report also predicted that the global population would be higher by mid-century than its last edition forecast two years ago, reaching 9.31 billion instead of 9.15 billion.

It attributed this to fewer deaths as well as more births than it had anticipated. The October date for reaching the 7 billion mark is based on calculations from current trends and Hania Zlotnik, head of the U.N. economic department's population division, said it should be taken "with a grain of salt." Nevertheless, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) announced it would start a seven-day countdown on October 24 that would include a series of events. The world reached 6 billion people in 1998 and was 6.89 on July 1.

The report, "2010 Revision of World Population Prospects," projected there would be 10.1 billion people on the planet by 2100, the first time it has looked that far ahead. But it said that if global fertility was just half a child more per woman than it expected, that figure could be almost 16 billion. U.N. officials said their figures were based on the assumption that fertility would taper off during the century.

Gerald Celente is known to love to make the following statement: "When people lose everything and have nothing left to lose - they lose it." Sadly, Celente is exactly right about this. As the U.S. economy continues to collapse, Americans are going to becoming increasingly frustrated, and this frustration will inevitably boil over into rioting and violence. Could we be starting to see the start of this already? The number of Americans that have "gone wild" seems to be escalating. Years ago, losing a job was not that big of a deal. Now a job loss is enough to cause some Americans to snap and go over the edge. We are seeing restaurant brawls and open violence in the streets that would have been unthinkable 50 years ago. All over the nation people are losing it and are literally going crazy. The news stories and the videos posted below of "Americans gone wild" are very graphic and very shocking. There is a reason for this. These examples are meant to show you that the very fabric of our civilized society is falling apart. It won't matter who ends up leading us politically if this is the kind of people we become.

Divorce seems to have become a trend in the modern times, and unlike earlier when people used to be surprised at the increasing number of divorce cases, no more does the society pay much attention to them nowadays.

But recently, a new trend seems to emerging in the coastal districts. According to recent reports, girls have suddenly begun disappearing from their houses shortly after or just before their engagements were to take place. The news is shocking, but at the same time thought-provoking too.

During the last week of April, Girija, from Mangalapadavu of Veerakamba village disappeared a few days after her engagement to one Narayana, chosen by her parents, and they were on the verge of getting married on April 27. But just two days before the wedding was to take place, Girija vanished.

Her case was followed by Amita, a 22-year-old who went missing from Hengavalli near Shankaranarayana. She was betrothed to a certain Narasimha. She left home for getting back her laundry, but never returned. Rumours are rife that after leaving home, she called her fiance and told him that she had already married someone else.

A member of the Austrian Olympic swim team had to be rescued after he used a bucket to dig a large hole that collapsed and trapped him, authorities said.

It took 60 rescuers two hours to free Jakub Maly, 19, who had spent a few hours Sunday digging the hole that was 7 feet (2.1 metres) deep and 6 feet (1.8 metres) wide. It's not clear why he jumped in after he finished digging. Rescue officials asked a teammate to lean over the hole and talk to Maly during the rescue, according to fire rescue officials.

"He looked more in shock when he came out," said Pompano Beach Fire Rescue spokeswoman Sandra King. "He was obviously traumatized."

Maly was in danger of being crushed by the pressure from the sand. The swim team first dug out Maly's head so he could breathe, and rescue officials gave him an oxygen mask as soon as they arrived. Large boards were placed along the outside of the hole to keep more sand from falling in on him, King said.

Maly was taken to North Broward Hospital and released early Monday. He and his team were scheduled to leave South Florida by early Monday afternoon, King said. It wasn't immediately known what injuries Maly sustained or if he dug the hole alone.

King said the Austrian Olympic team had been training in South Florida since April. Sunday was an off day for team members.

Source: The Canadian Press

Uganda's top opposition leader was kicked off a flight from Kenya on Wednesday, prompting riots back home that police quelled with tear gas only a day before the country's president of 25 years was due to be sworn in for another term.

Kizza Besigye said he was waiting to board a flight when a Kenya Airways official informed him that the plane would not be allowed to land in Uganda with Besigye on it. A government spokesman in Uganda denied that authorities had interfered with his return.

Anti-government marches led by Besigye over the last month have been the most serious unrest in sub-Saharan Africa since protests swept out leaders in Egypt and Tunisia. Human Rights Watch says that Uganda security forces have killed nine people during the protests.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who first came to power in 1986, has said repeatedly that his government will not fall to protests. He was re-elected in February and his inauguration is set for Thursday.

Italians are to leave Rome over fears a giant earthquake is coming following a seismologist's 1915 prediction that "the big one" would hit the capital on May 11, 2011. Here is a list of end of the world predictions:

Oct 3 1533 - Michael Stifel, a German associate of Martin Luther, urged his small band of followers to sell all their property after becoming convinced by his mathematical study of the Bible that the end of the world was approaching. On the appointed day he led his followers to the top of a hill so they could be delivered to heaven. A few hours later, with the world very much intact, he hurried down the hill and had to be locked in a local prison for his own protection.

As of press time Tuesday, nuclear plant personnel are continuing to investigate Monday night's automatic shutdown of Constellation Energy Nuclear Group's (CENG) Nine Mile Point Nuclear Station Unit 1.

The shutdown at the Scriba-based facility reportedly occurred at 8:51 p.m.

"(Nuclear power plants) are designed to automatically shut down when there are certain indications that come into the control room, and that is one of the foundational safety measures built into the plant," said Jill Lyon, a spokeswoman for CENG. "So everything worked as it was designed to."

The shutdown occurred while the reactor was operating at 47 percent power, Lyon said. Unit 1 operators lowered reactor power on April 26 based on indications within the feedwater system. In addition, the plant had been operating at reduced levels while equipment repairs were in progress.

An orthodox rabbi has been convicted of groping a female Israeli army officer on a transatlantic flight to New York.

Gavriel Bidany, a 47-year-old father of 11 children, reached out under a blanket and fondled the woman twice as she slept next to him on the Delta Airlines flight to JFK.

Bidany, who is also Israeli, tried to claim he accidentally touched her in his sleep, but a Brooklyn magistrate yesterday dismissed his testimony as 'not worthy of belief'.

Bangkok, Thailand - Nikolai Yezhov served as a soldier in the Russian revolution, as a party member during Stalin's rise, then as a leading participant in Stalin's notorious purge. It is said that a policy paper penned by Yezhov served as the rhetorical justification for the arrest of 40 million Russians, 20 million of which would end up dead. He would lead the purging of not only the regime's opponents, but also the systematic purging of various military units and political supporters as well. For when the megalomaniacal tyrant looks across his dominion, all before him, both friend and foe, is but a sea of potential usurpers.

In the end, not even Nikolai Yezhov escaped the astronomical atrocity he had helped perpetuate. It is said he was dragged, weeping hysterically to the executioner's room. He then scurried about like a rat attempting to dodge the bullets he had once so eagerly dealt out. After his execution, Stalin would literally have his memory erased by having his image removed from photos taken together. Yezhov was not the only treacherous set of helping hands to be cut off by Stalin's regime. His predecessor and successor both met similar fates.

The moral of this story, beside the cost of allowing a degenerate elite to paralyze an entire nation of millions in fear for nearly a generation, is that those who help the elite do so, inevitably pay the price as well. They pay the price not at the hands of those they see as enemies, but at the very hands that feed them. While the story of the Russian people frozen in inaction is an instructive tale for most of us, the story of Nikolai Yezhov is for the pundits, the police, the military, the policy makers, and the bureaucrats who blindly serve a system, or worse yet, knowingly serve a system that preys on its own people. When the system is done consuming its enemies, it turns in upon itself. After it is done setting false pretenses to brutalize foreign and domestic enemies, it begins setting pretenses to brutalize its own allies. No one is safe at that point, and the system's brutes soon become the weeping, cowering victims themselves.

Photographer: 'I do not believe that an 8-month-old constitutes a security threat'

A photo posted on Twitter of a baby receiving a pat-down at Kansas City International Airport is the latest in a number of recent highly publicized incidents of airport security screenings involving young children.

The photo taken by Kansas City pastor Jacob Jester on Saturday and posted on Twitter has been viewed nearly 300,000 times.

"I really didn't stop to think about what would happen," Jester told msnbc.com. "I just snapped a picture."

Jester said he was traveling to Albuquerque on Saturday when he noticed the woman behind him was traveling with a baby about the same age as his son. He had just passed through security when he looked back and saw the baby receiving the pat-down.

"My thinking was, this is an extreme measure. I wouldn't want that to happen to my own son," Jester said.