Stick an onion in your ear while you sleep to get rid of a cold. To get rid of warts, rub a raw potato on them and bury it in the yard. Drill a hole in your head to become closer to God. In the history of the human race, we've come up with some truly bizarre ideas of what can cure disease and make us well. Are they just delusional, or are there some with legitimacy?

Join us Friday, September 18 at 10 am EST on the SOTT Talk Radio Network's Health and Wellness Show as we explore this strange and fascinating topic.

Running Time: 02:10:00

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"An iron curtain has descended across the continent..."

So said Winston Churchill during his speech at Harry Truman's Missouri hometown in 1945, more or less officially declaring the Cold War to 'contain' Soviet Russia and establish the West's de facto control of the planet. That 'iron curtain' was mostly metaphorical, but the steel wire chain-link fences that are being erected today along Hungary's border with Serbia are very real. As Hungary, Austria, Slovakia and the Netherlands all follow Germany's lead to impose border controls, effectively suspending the EU's open borders policy, you have to wonder what other moves are afoot in Europe's unfolding migration/refugee crisis.

The stream of refugees from Syria is just one branch of many coming to Europe from as far away as Afghanistan and central Africa. All these places have been - or are still being - destroyed by NATO and/or proxy forces in the post-9/11 war frenzy. Regarding the broader refugee crisis, Western leaders knew full well, prior to obliterating Libya, that a significant increase in the numbers of people coming north from Africa into Europe would be the logical result:

Italy and Silvio Berlusconi face Libya dilemma

BBC News, 1 March 2011

"Italy's interior and foreign ministers seemed equally cautious at first, painting Libya not as a military priority but a humanitarian one.

They conjured up disturbing predictions of mass unchecked migration from Libya into the EU - suggesting it would be of biblical proportions with as many as 300,000 fleeing to Europe.

Other EU capitals said Italy was over-reacting to a crisis that had yet to materialise, but the Italian worries had been registered.‌

By most accounts, the refugees from Syria alone constitute the largest mass movement of people since the last major US-Russia proxy war in Afghanistan in the 1980s. How fitting that right-wing Islamist nut-jobs - funded, armed and trained by the US and allies - are responsible for both sets of refugees. Among the waves of people coming from all across Washington strategists' "arc of crisis", there have been many children who have washed up dead on European shores in recent years - all of them fleeing the direct or indirect consequences of the West's 'humanitarian' wars.

For almost 30 years, investigator Ole Dammegård has been on a quest to find the truth behind some of the worst conspiracies in the history of world - such as the murders US President John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, John Lennon and the blowing up of m/s Estonia killing at least 852 innocent people.

This has taken him on a very frightening and dangerous journey into unknown territories. What has been claimed as acts by lone madmen has turned out to be connected to the International military industrial complex and top level high finance, all sanctioned locally behind dark smoke screens.Ole has also analysed the assassination of the Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, who was gunned down in February 1986.

Pyschopathic assassins, top politicians and innocent scapegoats make up the characters in the macabre drama known as global politics.

Ole recently joined Behind the Headlines hosts Niall Bradley and Joe Quinn for a riveting radio show...

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Just over a week ago, Hungary decided to allow around 12,000 refugees passage through the country, on their way to Germany via Austria. This was after plans were proposed to build a fence along Hungary's border with Serbia to prevent any more 'illegal crossings'. Well, the razor-wire fence has now been completed. The border is now closed, ahead of schedule, after Sunday saw a record 5,809 refugees enter the country on that day alone. Hungary's total number of refugee border crossings this year is estimated at around 190,000.

But Hungary isn't the only country to close its borders and tighten up security measures in the past few days. The Schengen system of open borders between EU nations seems to be falling apart.

Germany, which has willingly received the bulk of the refugees so far, stepped up their border controls this week, halting trains from Austria and stationing more police on their border with Austria. Slovakia (which has said it only wants Christian refugees - they have no mosques, apparently) has done the same on their borders with Hungary and Austria. Austria in turn sent the army to its borders. Hungary had done the same, with authorities planning to arrest and jail anyone entering the country illegally. Police in riot gear blocked the main railway track used by migrants. Hungarian police detained 9 Syrians and 7 Afghans, accused of 'breaching' the new razor-wire barrier. The government has made a decision to declare a crisis in the south of the country because of the 'problem'. Finland plans to increase its border monitoring; along with the Czech Republic and Poland, too.

Today, Tuesday, after the detentions in Hungary, migrants have begun a sit-down hunger strike.

Broadcasting from deep in the heart of the American Empire, join your host Elan Martin, and fellow Sott.net editors, as they discuss everything from current events and the latest machinations and manipulations of the global elite to history, science, and religion, and how it all fits together.

This week, join The Truth Perspective as we discuss the 14th anniversary of 9/11 and how the world has changed. We'll be talking about how 9/11 has influenced a new and darker reality of endless war, pervasive surveilence, police barbarity, and all out global chaos.

The Truth Perspective is brought to you by the SOTT Radio Network and SOTT.net, your one-stop source for independent, unbiased, alternative news and commentary on world events.

Live every Saturday from 2-4pm EST / 11am-1pm PST / 8-10pm CET.

Running Time: 01:52:00

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The iconic image of 3-year-old refugee Aylan Kurdi's lifeless body on a beach on the Turkish coast went 'viral' recently and brought the two-year-long European 'refugee crisis' to widespread public attention. EU nations are now facing an influx of potentially hundreds of thousands of migrants fleeing their NATO-war-torn countries in search of safety and stability. Whether or not they'll find it is still an open question.

This 'refugee' problem is, of course, not new, and Aylan was not the first tragic death directly related to the problem. Consider the hundreds of thousands of deaths in Syria alone that have resulted from the U.S. government-manipulated 'revolution' in that country 4 years ago. Or think of the unprovoked attacks on and invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan or the NATO bombardment of Libya and subsequent installation of a fundamentalist 'Jihadi' regime there. Then consider that 2,600 people, or more, have already died attempting to cross the Mediterranean into Europe. The 'refugee crisis' has been brewing for over two years, but it took Aylan's body to make many people sit up and take notice.

The refugee crisis is very real, at least in the sense that Western-backed death squads have made life miserable for millions of Syrians in particular (almost half of the Syrian population is internally or externally displaced). Whereas the U.S. (along with its lackeys Canada, Australia, the Gulf States, and others) bear the most responsibility, they have been the least willing to accept refugees from the states they're destroying, and which they claim they wish to 'save'. Europe is forced to bear the brunt of dealing with the fallout: humans in need of food, shelter, and jobs. It's possible of course, if there is the will. Russia has willingly taken in close to a million Ukrainian refugees (again, the result of an American phony revolution in Ukraine last year). But so far, Germany is the only EU nation that appears willing to really open their doors to people in need, making allowances for 800,000 refugees this year alone.

There are probably as many misconceptions in regards to pet health as there are in human health. Today on the Health and Wellness Show we're going to be taking a closer look at how to care for our inter-species companions (and even how they help care for us!). What's the best thing to feed your pet? How can you best care for them in an emergency? What are the signs that something is wrong? All these topics and more will be covered in today's show. With us this week, live, is our resident pet health specialist is Zoya.

Join us every Friday at 10 am EST for the SOTT Talk Radio Network's Health and Wellness Show.

Running Time: 01:59:00

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Dear readers of Sott.net, this is the sixth in a series of letters I have been writing to a friend. I find myself surprised that I am writing him. I find myself surprised that I am writing so much. My friend is 43, I am 69. These numbers seem unreal because the last time I saw this friend was when he was a young teenager. At the time, his ability to learn things with great ease astonished me.

Almost the same month my friend was born, the book Be Here Now came into my life and this is when my spiritual journey started. There have been many twists and turns. This series of letters started with his questions about astral travel, as well as Nisargadatta and Ramana Maharshi, two of my favorite guru-type personalities. I don't know much about astral travel, but I can easily dive into Nisargadatta and Ramana. I took a long route to steer my letters to what you will read below.

August 2015 saw apocalyptic deluges of rain and hail inundating cities from China to the US, intense electrical storms frying power grids and damaging infrastructure, and unusually powerful storms destroying crops and inundating vast areas of inhabited regions.

The most memorable event of the month was the series of massive explosions at Tianjin port in northeastern China. Although it's assumed that human error was to blame, the unusual scale of the event suggests that something 'out-of-the-ordinary' was involved. With 'Earth opening up' in so many ways - enormous sinkholes, multiple volcanic eruptions, increased seismic activity, pockets of gas exploding on beaches, geysers of methane and steam erupting on golf courses and in streets - we strongly suspect the Tianjin event was 'more of the same', only BIGGER.

Last month, meteor fireballs turned night into day in Scandinavia, the UK, the US, Chile, and the Caribbean. Sinkholes swallowed people and streets in China, and portions of highways in the UK and US. Wildfires raged across southern Siberia. Hailstorms added two more passenger aircraft to their hit-list. Italy saw cars swept down streets in 'biblical' deluges, while three typhoons lined up in the Pacific for the first time in recorded history.

The exponential increase in all phenomena - volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, meteors, sinkholes, floods, lightning strikes, exploding transformers and chemical plants - is well illustrated by US wildfire statistics. There are only 6 other years when more than 8 million acres burned in the US - 2012, 2011, 2007, 2006, 2005, and 2004. As of September 1st, 2015 is set to beat the record set of 9.8 million acres consumed in 2006...

These were the signs of the times in August 2015...

Perhaps more than any other crisis in recent years, the current 'migrant' crisis in Europe has exposed the profound moral bankruptcy of Western society as represented and directed by white men and women in positions of political and economic power. But perhaps 'moral bankruptcy' is the wrong phrase to describe the essence of the problem, because it suggests that Western government policy makers ever had a functioning moral compass or genuine concern for the 'other'.

A cursory yet objective glance at Western powers' domestic and foreign policies over the course of the last 100 years shows a repeated penchant for exploitation, abuse, insatiable greed and mass murder, all under the guise of 'fiscal responsibility', 'peace keeping', 'foreign investment', 'fighting terrorism' or some other paramoralistic hokum. If you don't agree, then you're probably an authoritarian follower, emotionally or 'spiritually' unable to accept such a truth; or you may have ingested too much 'truth' from Fox or BBC news. A strict regimen of abstinence is advised.