House prices to drop much lower: Greenspan
"There is no doubt about the fact that low interest rates for long-term government bonds have caused the real estate bubble in the United States," he said.

26 percent of U.S. homeowners see home price fall
A record 26 percent of U.S. homeowners say the value of their homes has fallen during the past year, above the previous peak of 24 percent seen in 1992, a survey released on Friday showed.

Canadian dollar at parity with U.S. greenback
US Dollar Reaches Parity With Canadian Dollar, Falls to Record Lows Against Euro, Indian Rupee.

Expert warns of housing crisis
Robert Shiller, a Yale university economist, told a US congressional panel that he feared “the collapse of home prices might turn out to be the most severe since the Great Depression”.

“The decline in house prices stands to create future dislocations, like the credit crisis we have just seen,” he told the Senate’s joint economic committee.

Mr Shiller, who designed the respected Case-Shiller house price index and predicted the bursting of the dotcom bubble in a bestselling book, said that while there had been a focus “on lax and irresponsible lending standards, I believe that this loss in housing value is the major ultimate reason we see a crisis today.”

Fear of US dollar collapse as Saudis take fright
There is now a growing danger that global investors will start to shun the US bond markets. The latest US government data on foreign holdings released this week show a collapse in purchases of US bonds from $97bn to just $19bn in July, with outright net sales of US Treasuries.

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Meanwhile, other than a worldwide economic meltdown, things are getting even more tense on Israel's Syrian border

Israel scrambles warplanes to intercept 'Syrian' birds [fully expecting an attack but not knowing when]

Israeli fighter pilots scrambled warplanes on Friday after radar spotted a potential airborne enemy flying from Syria only to discover the culprits were migratory birds, army radio reported. Israeli radar picked up the birds over the Syrian border but officers were unable to rule them out as enemy aircraft from the screen, the radio said. Tensions have soared on Israel's northern border with Syria since Damascus said its air defences fired on Israeli warplanes that dropped munitions deep inside its territory in the early hours of September 6.