Just in case you need another reason to dislike the thieving Federal Reserve. From Reuters:

(Reuters) – The top 113 earners among staff at the Federal Reserve’s Washington headquarters make an average of $246,506 per year, excluding bonuses and other benefits – more than Fed Chair Janet Yellen and nearly double the normal top government rate.

Don’t worry Janet, once you leave, you can earn $250k per speech like your hero Banana Ben Bernanke.

● When the Bush administration revealed in 2005 that it was secretly interpreting a treaty ban on “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment” as not applying to C.I.A. and military prisons overseas, Barack Obama, then a newly elected Democratic senator from Illinois, joined in a bipartisan protest.
● Mr. Obama supported legislation to make it clear that American officials were legally barred from using cruelty anywhere in the world. And in a Senate speech, he said enacting such a statute “acknowledges and confirms existing obligations” under the treaty, the United Nations Convention Against Torture.
● But the Obama administration has never officially declared its position on the treaty, and now, President Obama’s legal team is debating whether to back away from his earlier view. It is considering reaffirming the Bush administration’s position that the treaty imposes no legal obligation on the United States to bar cruelty outside its borders, according to officials who discussed the deliberations on the condition of anonymity.

A political analyst has termed the suspicious death of Press TV’s correspondent in Turkey, Serena Shim, as an act of “assassination” by the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. ● “The reality is that our sister Serena was assassinated by Erdogan’s regime,” Shabir Hassan Ali, a political analyst from London, said in an interview with Press TV on Sunday night, adding, “Serena was hounded in a fashion by Turkish intelligence.” The analyst further said that she was “assassinated” because “she gave the truth about what this regime in Turkey, that has been oppressing its people, that has been oppressing the Kurdish population and that is actively working to support…this terrorist organization known as the ISIL” is doing.

PressTV: We do not believe Serena died in car accident: Family

Stephen Lendman ■ It's pure fantasy. None whatever exists. US-installed coup d'etat putschists run things. Neo-Nazis have power. Ordinary Ukrainians have no say. Elections when held are farcical. Expect scheduled October 26 parliamentary ones to reflect business as usual. ● Excluding democratic choices. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland said Washington spent around $5 billion sabotaging Ukrainian democracy over the past 20 years. She lied calling it "democracy promotion…We stand with the people of Ukraine," she hyperventilated. USAID spent about $1.8 billion assuring ordinary Ukrainians had no say. Calling it "critical development assistance in support of the Ukrainian people." Nuland was caught red-handed urging regime change on tape. Her conversation with US Ukraine ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt was recorded. It circulated on You Tube earlier. It remains damning. More evidence of Washington's dark side.

The Swedish military did not confirm allegations that “a damaged Russian submarine” is being hunted for in waters east of Stockholm, while adding that a search for a “foreign vessel” is ongoing. Moscow said none of its military vessels have been damaged. The official statement by the Swedish military said the search around the Stockholm archipelago was due to “alien underwater activity."

RT.com: Sweden deploys troops near Stockholm due to alleged underwater threat
Ruters: Sweden says credible reports of foreign submarine in its waters

The average worker saw a 8pc decline in real wages between 2008 and 2013, says NIESR. ● British workers have suffered an “unprecedented” decline in real wages over the past six years, with the average employee £2,000 worse off since the financial crisis hit, according to new research. “The scale of the real wage falls is historically unprecedented, certainly in the past 50 years where broadly comparable records exist,” said Paul Gregg, Stephen Machin and Mariña Fernández Salgado, the authors of the report. Official data this month showed that workers experienced a 7.6pc fall in real wages over the past six years. However, the research published by NIESR revealed that young workers, among the hardest hit by the downturn, also saw the biggest decline over the period, with pay falling by 14pc between 2008 and 2013. [Hat Tip: Steigan Blogger]

Evening Standard: Occupy London protesters start week long demonstration in Parliament Square
Michael Roberts ■ UK: the agony and the ecstasy

An Israeli lawmaker says there is no difference between Israeli soldiers and militants of the ISIL and that both are “armies of murderers with no boundaries and red lines.” “They (ISIL) kill one person at a time with a knife and the IDF at the press of a button [kills] dozens of Palestinians,” Haneen Zoabi said in a Sunday interview with Channel 2 Online. The Arab member of the Israeli Knesset added that an Israeli pilot is no less a terrorist than a person who takes a knife and commits a beheading. The Israeli military unleashed aerial attacks on Gaza in early July and later expanded its military campaign with a ground invasion of the Palestinian strip. Over 2,130 Palestinians, including around 570 children, lost their lives and some 11,000 were injured in the raids.

AWIP Search: Zoabi

German journalist and editor Udo Ulfkotte says he was forced to publish the works of intelligence agents under his own name, adding that noncompliance ran the risk of being fired. Ulfkotte made the revelations during interviews with RT and Russia Insider. “I ended up publishing articles under my own name written by agents of the CIA and other intelligence services, especially the German secret service,” Ulfkotte told Russia Insider. He made similar comments to RT in an exclusive interview at the beginning of October.

Eric van de Beek ■ Interview with Udo Ulfkotte, German Editor Turned CIA Whistleblower