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Joe Quinn
Sott.net 2006-03-16 12:00:00
Now and again, a story pops up that reminds us that, even in the more liberal mainstream press, nothing is ever as it seems and real investigative journalism simply doesn't exist (if it ever did)... |
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H.P. Albarelli Jr.
WND 2002-10-07 15:35:00
One day in early September 1957, Antonio Jette came home from his job at the Arms Textile Mill in Manchester, N.H., and uncharacteristically went to bed early. He told his wife, Anna, that he was tired, wasn't in the least hungry and felt like he was coming down with a cold. The next morning, Antonio said he was feeling better. It was Saturday and he and Anna drove to Vermont, four hours away, to attend the Rutland State Fair. It was an event they had been looking forward to for months. But as they were entering the fair's gate, Antonio turned to Anna and said they had to go back home. "I'm sorry," he told Anna, "I feel really sick." On the way home, Antonio had several fits of dry coughing and he said that his chest hurt. The following day, Sunday, Antonio and Anna went to church. After returning home, Antonio again said that he felt tired. He told Anna he was going to lie down for a couple of hours. An hour later Anna checked on Antonio and found him soaked with perspiration and mumbling incoherently. She took his temperature, saw that it was 103 degrees Fahrenheit and called the family's doctor. The doctor gave Antonio a shot of penicillin for what he thought was a bronchial infection. He told Anna to keep Antonio in bed for the next few days. Two hours later, Anna found Antonio's temperature had risen to 104, and she was unable to wake him up. With the help of neighbors, Anna took her husband to a nearby hospital. Doctors at St. Joseph's Hospital in Nashua found Antonio's temperature to be 105 degrees. His breathing was rapid and shallow. Rales were audible over both his lungs. Tests revealed blood in his lumbar region. Doctors told Anna that they thought her husband had suffered a cerebral hemorrhage. His chances for recovery didn't look good, they said. Antonio never regained consciousness. He died the next morning, Sept. 6, at 6 a.m., the same time that every morning he walked to church before heading off to work at the mill. |
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Alan R. Cantwell Jr., M.D.
New Dawn Magazine 2001-10-08 16:02:00
The following article appeared in New Dawn, No. 68 (Sept-Oct 2001). In preparing America for nuclear attack during the Cold War years following World War II, thousands of US citizens became the innocent victims of over 4,000 secret and classified radiation experiments conducted by the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and other government agencies, such as the Department of Defense, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, the Public Health Service (now the CDC), the National Institutes of Health, the Veterans Administration (VA), the CIA, and NASA. Millions of people were exposed to radioactive fallout from the continental testing of more than 200 atmospheric and underground nuclear weapons, and from the hundreds of secret releases of radiation into the environment. Over 200,000 "atomic vets" who worked closely with nuclear detonations at the Nevada test site during the 1950s and 1960s were especially vulnerable to radiation fallout. Also affected were the thousands of so-called "downwinders", who lived in nearby small towns in Nevada, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico. These downwinders (along with the animal populations) suffered the worst cumulative radioactive effects of fallout, along with a contaminated environment teeming with radioactive food and farm products. The plight of these poor country people exposed to government-induced radiation sickness has been recorded in Carole Gallagher's remarkable photo-essay American Ground Zero: The Secret Nuclear War (The Free Press, 1993). In reviewing declassified AEC records (now the Department of Energy) from the 1950s, Gallagher was shocked to discover one document that described the people downwind of the Nevada Test Site as "a low use segment of the population." Her shock at such callous bigotry caused her to eventually move West to research, investigate and document those who lived closest to the Test Site, as well as workers at the site, and soldiers repeatedly exposed to nuclear bombs during the military tests. |
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Abby Martin, 'Breaking the Set'
Abby Martin speaks about the blatant hypocrisy regarding Obama's "red
line" of chemical attacks as the motivating factor to intervene
militarily in Syria, citing the top four chemical weapons attacks that
the US military does not want you to know about.RT, U.S. Edition 2013-09-09 00:02:00
Comment: See here for more on the gruesome St Louis case, where citizens were deliberately sprayed with zinc cadmium silfide laced with Radium 226. Then there's the Manchester Mill anthrax case. In fact, there are THOUSANDS of chemical attacks the U.S. government wants you to forget... America's history of chemical weapons 'experiments' against its own people: Over 4,000 radiation experiments killed or poisoned hundreds of thousands of citizens Feeling safer yet? |
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Finian Cunningham
Islamic Republic Falls Foul in African Cradle of America's 'War on Terror'Global Research 2012-07-06 19:16:00
An alleged spectacular Iranian bomb plot uncovered in Kenya this week has all the hallmarks of a Western intelligence "false flag" operation - with the aim of tightening international oil sanctions even further on Iran. Two men alleged to be Iranian nationals and members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps appeared in court in Kenya's capital, Nairobi, earlier this week on terrorism charges. Media reports on 2 July said the men are accused of planning to blow up American, British, Saudi and Israeli targets in Kenya, including the British High Commission office, a chain of hotels and a synagogue. |
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Joshua Davidovich
The Times of Israel 2013-08-16 16:51:00
Members of the Israeli Mossad spy agency and the FBI are reportedly helping investigate whether terrorism was behind a massive fire at a Kenyan airport earlier this month. The August 7 fire at Nairobi's Jomo Kenyatta International Airport shut down operations at the major gateway to East Africa and gutted the arrivals hall. US President Barack Obama pledged support to Kenya after the fire, and according to Kenya's Citizen News, members of the FBI and the Mossad were probing the cause of the blaze. A Kenyan official told the Associated Press that terror was ruled out by investigators. Michael Kamau, the cabinet secretary for transport and infrastructure, said Kenyan officials were receiving assistance from international agencies "because we intend to carry out a full investigation on what happened yesterday." One of the officials who spoke to AP confirmed that members of the FBI were assisting. |
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Suzannah Hills
Daily Mail, UK 2012-03-03 18:17:00
A secret luxury hideaway used by a 7/7 bomber's fugitive widow to evade capture has been revealed by investigators in Kenya. While security agencies step up their hunt for Samantha Lewthwaite, who is wanted in connection with a suspected terrorist plot, it appears the widow of suicide killer Jermaine Lindsay has been living in the lap of luxury. These photos show the sprawling five-bedroom villa, situated just minutes from the sandy white beaches of Mombasa, were it is suspected Ms Lewthwaite has been living and aiding a terror cell plotting to blow up hotels and shopping centres across the East African city. And it is believed police might even have discovered Ms Lewthwaite, 28, at the villa during a raid on the property but let her go when she provided a South African passport under the name of Natalie Faye Webb. When they returned a few days later they discovered a smashed laptop and ammunition and have now confirmed the fugitive was staying at the villa. |
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T.J. Coles
Axis of Logic 2012-07-04 17:55:00
British security analysts fear that the militant Islamic Somali group Al-Shabaab, which has admitted to carrying out acts of terrorism, may attack the London Olympic Games. The military and its secret services count on the media to "set the agenda" (Chatham House)1 and to "shape perceptions" (Ministry of Defence).2 It is not surprising, then, that the government's terrorism claims are repeated uncritically by the media, which specialise in "white propaganda" (an official term for establishment messages).3 In reality, Al-Shabaab was infiltrated by old MI6 assets long ago, and its foreign forces are recruited and trained by MI5 agents (see below). If there is an attack on the Olympic Games carried out by Al-Shabaab, it will almost certainly be a false-flag designed to propel a war-weary public into supporting yet more bloodshed in the Pentagon's quest for Full Spectrum Dominance.4 With one million Somalis dependent on Red Cross food aid (and not by accident), a British-led invasion could lead to mass starvation. Shell and BP have long-standing oil contracts in Somalia, which the country's socialist Islamic Courts Union jeopardised by permitting Chinese and Russian prospecting.5 A Chatham House study sponsored by BP recommended that because "Voters will not actively call for a more effective foreign policy," the unelected Tory-Liberal government "should define its international mission as managing risks on behalf of British citizens."6 |
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Greg Palast
GregPalast.com 2013-09-16 00:00:00
Joseph Stiglitz couldn't believe his ears. Here they were in the White House, with President Bill Clinton asking the chiefs of the US Treasury for guidance on the life and death of America's economy, when the Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers turns to his boss, Secretary Robert Rubin, and says, "What would Goldman think of that?" Huh? Then, at another meeting, Summers said it again: What would Goldman think? A shocked Stiglitz, then Chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisors, told me he'd turned to Summers, and asked if Summers thought it appropriate to decide US economic policy based on "what Goldman thought." As opposed to say, the facts, or say, the needs of the American public, you know, all that stuff that we heard in Cabinet meetings on The West Wing. Summers looked at Stiglitz like Stiglitz was some kind of naive fool who'd read too many civics books. |
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| Puppet Masters |
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Patrick Counihan
IrishCentral.com 2013-09-23 17:33:00
County Down woman Samantha Lewthwaite has been on the run since 2011 Police in Britain and Kenya are investigating links between an Irish woman branded the "White Widow" and the shopping mall siege in Nairobi that has claimed 69 lives so far. County Down born terrorist Samantha Lewthwaite is suspected of involvement in the attack. Kenyan soldiers stated a white woman with a veil was calling out orders to gunmen in Arabic during the dreadful massacre at Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi. Al Qaeda linked terror group, Al Shabaab, claimed responsibility and wrote on Twitter that Samantha Lewthwaite, the "White Widow" of London 7/7 bomber Jermaine Lindsay, was "in their ranks" and a "brave lady". The 29-year-old from Banbridge is on the run from the Kenyan authorities after she was previously linked to a terrorist cell that planned to attack a hotel or shopping mall in 2011. | |
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Raw Story
2013-09-23 14:40:00
The Pentagon warned its workforce on Monday that it is preparing for a possible government shutdown if Congress fails to break a political impasse. If US government agencies are forced to shutter, American troops around the world would stay on the job and some civilian employees would be ordered on unpaid leave, Pentagon spokesman George Little told reporters. But paychecks for military service members might be delayed while Congress would have to take action to ensure retroactive pay for civilians required to come to work, he added. "Military personnel would be paid but maybe not on time," he said. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel planned to send out a memo to department workers Monday saying the Office of Management and Budget had asked the Pentagon "to review and update our plans in order to prepare for an orderly government shutdown," according to Little. |
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RT
2013-09-23 05:31:00
Angela Merkel's bloc (CDU-CSU) has won the German election with 41.5 percent of the votes. The conservatives beat their main rival, the Social Democrats (SPD), which received 25.7 percent of the votes, according to preliminary final results. Merkel secured herself a third term and led the conservatives to their best result in more than 20 years. However, the CDU's junior coalition allies - the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) - received only 4.8 percent, which is below the five percent threshold required to gain a seat in parliament. Germany's Left party, which aims for democratic socialism, came in third with 8.6 percent, while the Greens got 8.4 percent. The Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which campaigned on eurosceptic fears about the cost of eurozone bailouts, came in with 4.7 percent. The Pirate Party, advocating for internet freedom and copyright law reform, ended up with 2.2 percent and the far-right nationalist NDP party received 1.3 percent. All other parties received a collective 2.7 percent of the votes. Merkel has urged her bloc to celebrate after leading the conservatives to their best result in over 20 years. "We will do everything we can in the next four years to make them successful ones for Germany," she said at the CDU headquarters, adding that it was too early to consider coalitions. "We will talk about this tomorrow when we know the final results - but we can surely celebrate tonight, as we have done a great job." |
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BrasscheckTV
2013-09-22 16:20:00
Introducing "Usama" bin Laden This was a strange story when it happened... Where did Clinton get off bombing a pharmaceutical factory in the Sudan? How many innocent people were killed by these attacks? Note that Bin Laden was never formerly charged with the embassy attacks - and he he "got away." We're trying to find videos that document the fact that some officials at the US embassies that were attacked don't believe the official story and suspect these were false flag operations.
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Comment: Kenyan false flag bomb plot aimed at tightening sanctions noose on Iran, Friday 6 July 2012
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The Guardian
2013-09-22 08:13:00
Thousands of Iraqis have been killed in recent months, in the worst violence the country has seen since 2008 Two suicide bombers, one in an explosives-laden car and the other on foot, struck a cluster of funeral tents packed with mourning families in a Shia neighbourhood in Baghdad, the deadliest in a string of attacks around Iraq that killed at least 96 people on Saturday. The assaults, the latest in a surge of violence lasting several months, are a chilling reminder of insurgents' determination to re-ignite sectarian conflict more than a decade after the US-led invasion. Thousands of Iraqis have been killed in violent attacks in recent months, a level of bloodshed not seen since Iraq pulled back from the brink of civil war in 2008, despite appeals for restraint from Shia and Sunni political leaders. The attack on the funeral was one of the largest single terrorist assaults on civilians in Iraq in recent years. It happened shortly before sunset in the densely populated Shia neighborhood of Sadr City in northeastern Baghdad. | |
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Comment: By the time the U.S. was done 'pacifying
Vietnam', it had killed up to 4 million people. In addition, the
country's gene pool was permanently altered due to DNA mutations caused
by 20 million gallons of Agent Orange (a chemical weapon in
Monsanto/Pentagon's arsenal) being sprayed indiscriminately.
Will they outdo themselves in Iraq? |
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The Guardian
2013-09-22 07:43:00
Officials say worshippers were targeted as they left church in Peshawar A suicide bomb attack on a historic church in north-western Pakistan has killed at least 60 people and wounded more than 120, officials said, in one of the worst assaults on the country's Christian minority in years. The bombing underlines the threat posed by Islamic extremists as the government seeks a peace deal with domestic Taliban militants. It occurred as worshippers were coming out of the church service in Peshawar city to get a free meal of rice offered on the front lawn, said a top government administrator, Sahibzada Anees. "There were blasts and there was hell for all of us," said Nazir John, who was at the church with at least 400 other worshippers. "When I got my senses back, I found nothing but smoke, dust, blood and screaming people. I saw severed body parts and blood all around." | |
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Comment: Again, we're being asked to believe the
incredible without the slightest bit of evidence provided. The same goes
for all preceding 'suicide attacks' where there were neither witnesses
nor surveillance footage confirming that one or more persons blew
themselves up (which is probably the vast majority of such attacks).
That leaves us with car bombs, some form of pre-planted explosives, or persons forced by some third party to serve as 'bomb mules', against their will. Given how often these attacks happen in Pakistan, Afghanistan and elsewhere, we're obviously looking at perpetrators who are powerful enough to direct local police investigations and state media. |
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Update: At least 59 killed and 175 wounded in Kenya terror attack; gunmen still inside shopping mall
RT News
2013-09-22 07:08:00
At least 59 people were killed and 175 others wounded, including foreigners, after Al-Qaeda-linked gunmen stormed an upscale mall in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi, according to a government minister. The minister also says 10 to 15 gunmen are still inside the shopping mall, where the hostage standoff has entered its second day. AP journalists reported from the scene that gunfire was heard in the mall Sunday morning. They added that following the shooting two wounded Kenyan security forces were carried from the mall. The operation to recover all the hostages and secure control of Nairobi's Westgate mall is still continuing, according to Kenyan security officials. Kenya's National Disaster Operation Centre stated that gunmen are still holding an uncertain number of shoppers and staff hostage inside the mall. "Operations are continuing...We will free all those inside and stop this, of course we cannot give details of the operations except to say that everything that can be done is being done," a security officer said, as quoted by AFP. President Uhuru Kenyatta said the attack sought to intimidate and divide the nation, but stated that the "terrorists" will be defeated, according to Reuters. The president added that he lost "very close family members" in the mall shooting, Reuters reported. "The despicable perpetrators of this cowardly act hoped to intimidate, divide and cause despondency amongst Kenyans," Kenyatta said in a televised address to the nation. "We have overcome terrorist attacks before. We will defeat them again."
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Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya
The US intelligence community has been put to shame by the dedication
and determination of a lone Christian nun. Her modest study of the
videos of the Syrian chemical attack shows they were productions
involving staged bodies.RT 2013-09-19 20:40:00 Those who take the time to read the report by Mother Agnes and the International Support Team for Mussalaha in Syria (ISTEAMS) will realize that it disgraces the entire US intelligence community for endorsing video footage that is clearly dubious and not credible upon careful study by even a layperson.
No one denies that chemical weapons were used. The US federal government and the mainstream media in the US and countries allied to it have been playing a dirty game of equating the a) rejection of accusations that the Syrian government used chemical weapons with b) an outright denial that chemical weapons were used. The two are deliberately being mixed together to confuse the general public. The question is who used the chemical weapons? |
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Duncan Gardham
The Telegraph, UK 2012-02-29 18:03:00
Samantha Lewthwaite, the widow of one of the July 7 bombers, Jermaine Lindsay, is thought to be on the run accused of links with a terrorist cell planning bomb attacks in Kenya. Police in Kenya have issued an arrest warrant for a woman using the name Natalie Faye Webb, and carrying a forged South African passport. Helped by officers from Scotland Yard who flew out to offer advice, they have published her picture to alert the public. But investigators say the woman has three separate identities and one is that of Samantha Lewthwaite, who was married to Jermaine Lindsay, one of the 7/7 bombers. Lindsay killed 26 people when he blew himself up on the Piccadilly Line between King's Cross and Russell Square in July 2005. Lewthwaite, from Aylesbury, Bucks, who converted to Islam at the age of 15 and married Lindsay in 2002, is said to be travelling with her three children. |
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T.J. Coles
Axis of Logic 2013-09-21 17:47:00
Afghanistan. Iraq. Pakistan. Libya ... Who will be next in the Anglo-American quest for Full Spectrum Dominance? Jonathan Evans, the head of Britain's intelligence agency MI5, alleged that "Somalia has become the next destination after Pakistan for terrorist training due to the presence of al-Shabaab, an extremist group with links to al-Qa'ida."1 "This region could become the next big conflict for the [Ministry of Defence]," officials were quoted as saying in November 2011.2 The fact that the British press can make statements such as "Until now, the Shebab [sic] ... has thrived through the very fact that the rest of the world has left Somalia to its own devices", should reduce readers to an aching belly-laugh. The fact that such statements can appear without utter ridicule is an example of how well indoctrinated most Britons are. Since special forces began funding, arming, and training the Ethiopian-based Transitional Federal Government (TFG) back in 2004, Britain has been the cause of much of Somalia's grief, which dates back to the days of Empire.3 Somalia is in such a precarious humanitarian situation, thanks largely to UK foreign policies initiated under the New Labour Government, that any military action will exacerbate the suffering of millions of people, and may well lead to hundreds of thousands of deaths. A month after the plan of attack was announced in the British press, the Red Cross reported that it "has distributed beans, rice and oil to over 917,000 people in southern and central Somalia," meaning that at least one million people are dependent on food aid delivered by NGOs. Any bombing could drive out the NGOs.4 This fact, vastly more important than any alleged terror threat, was not reported. |
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Matt Taibbi
Rolling Stone 2013-09-20 13:55:00
I got a lot of letters from folks this week about an online column for Forbes written by a self-proclaimed Ayn Rand devotee named Harry Binswanger (if that's a nom de plume, it's not bad, although I might have gone for "Harry Kingbanger" or "Harry Wandwanker"). The piece had the entertainingly provocative title, "Give Back? Yes, It's Time for the 99% to Give Back to the 1%" and contained a number of innovatively slavish proposals to aid the beleaguered and misunderstood rich, including a not-kidding-at-all plan to exempt anyone who makes over a million dollars from income taxes. This article is so ridiculous that normally it would be beneath commentary, but there's a passage in there I just couldn't let go:
What a world we live in, where Mother Teresa wins more moral praise than Lloyd Blankfein! Who can bear living in a society where such a thing is possible? Quel horreur! It reads like an Onion piece, just hilarious stuff. I mean, Jesus, even Lloyd Blankfein himself didn't go so far as to take the "God's work" thing 100% seriously, and here's this jackass saying, without irony, that the Goldman CEO literally out-God-slaps Mother Teresa. |
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Jason Lewis
Daily Mail, UK 2013-09-21 17:11:00
Terrorist sleeper cells said to be planning attacks in the UK have been unmasked after the bodies of Britons killed in US bombing raids in Somalia were identified by a top-secret SAS mission. The four British men were among an estimated 400 people killed in a series of American air raids on Al Qaeda training camps in the war-torn East African state in January. In March, British and US special-forces troops were secretly sent back into the region to take DNA samples from the exhumed remains of more than 50 of those killed during the attacks. The joint SAS and Delta Force teams spent a number of days in the former Al Qaeda strongholds of Hayo and the island of Lamu, trying to identify foreign terrorists. They were armed with profiles of wanted terrorists they believed had been hiding and training in the area. The wanted list included people who were tracked from America, the UK and other European countries - notably France, Spain, Italy and Germany. | |
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Comment: What they probably meant was 'SAS mission to Somalia covers for British terror cells'...
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The Tower
2013-09-18 13:49:00
A Thai court today convicted a Lebanese national allegedly linked to Hezbollah for possessing bomb-making materials. The conviction comes a month after a different Thai court sentenced two Iranians to lengthy jail sentences for their roles in the attempted February 2012 attack on Israeli diplomats. The convict blames Israel for setting him up: Iran and Hezbollah have been linked to terror plots staged in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Thailand, Georgia, India, Azerbaijan, Nigeria, Singapore, and Turkey. |
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Okoth Osewe
Kenya Stockholm Blog 2013-03-23 16:59:00
Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto had no possibility of rigging the 2013 Election 1. Since President Mwai Kibaki took power in a democratic election in 2002, and after stealing Raila's Presidency in 2007, the Mount Kenya Kikuyu mafia cartel has presided over a litany of corruption scandals, some of which have been well documented. The Helicopter scandal, the Anglo Leasing scandal, the Tritton scandal, the Chatter Bank scandal, the Computer error scandal and a host of others are too fresh in the minds of Kenyans. The Kikuyu mafia fears that once Raila takes over, these scandals will be re-opened because although detailed investigations were done and Reports submitted, no one was ever brought to book. 2. The military Generals have been the most notorious in looting the Kenyan economy through the so called military contracts. In the name of "security concerns", these contracts, worth billions of Kenyan shillings, have been closed to public scrutiny. The Generals have literally become billionaires through these contracts and the fear is that if Raila takes over power, it will mean an end to stealing of Tax payer's money through secretive contracts which Kibaki has been tolerating. Raila must therefore be kept at bay even if it means rigging elections repeatedly and using the crudest methods available in the book. |
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Reuters
2013-09-21 16:24:00
Gunmen stormed a shopping mall in the Kenyan capital Nairobi on Saturday, killing at least 30 people including children and sending scores fleeing in panic, in an attack claimed by the Somali Islamist group al Shabaab. Shooting continued hours after the initial assault as troops surrounded the Westgate mall and police and soldiers combed the building, hunting the attackers shop by shop. A police officer inside the building said the gunmen were barricaded inside a Nakumatt supermarket, one of Kenya's biggest chains. "We got three bodies from this shop," said volunteer Vipool Shah, 64, standing a dozen meters from the supermarket entrance and pointing to a children's shoe shop where blood lay in pools. Shah turned to a nearby hamburger bar where piped music still played and food lay abandoned. "And a couple of bodies here." Al Shabaab, which is battling Kenyan and other African peacekeepers in Somalia, had repeatedly threatened attacks on Kenyan soil if Nairobi does not pull its troops out of the Horn of Africa country. |
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| Society's Child |
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Sara C Nelson
A tiny snake "about the width of a pencil" is responsible for grounding a jet of 370 passengers.huffingtonpost 2013-09-23 12:10:00 While the eight-inch reptile didn't cause quite the same high octane scenes as his cold-blooded cousins in the Samuel L Jackson film Snakes On A Plane, it succeeded in raising the profile of the humble Mandarin Rat Snake. The live specimen was found in the passenger cabin of a Qantas Boeing 747 in Sydney on Sunday night.
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The Canadian Press
Residential school reconciliation walk ends week-long of Truth and Reconciliation Commission eventCBC News 2013-09-22 16:16:00
Thousands of people braved a pouring rain in Vancouver Sunday to take part in a reconciliation walk marking the sad history of residential schools in Canada, erupting in a raucous cheer as the daughter of American civil rights hero Martin Luther King Jr. urged all Canadians to move forward and heal. Bernice King told the crowd not to give up on the process of progress. A young First Nations boy beats a drum as he walks with thousands of people during the Walk for Reconciliation in Vancouver, B.C., on Sunday September 22, 2013. "My father said something very powerful about progress. He said, human progress is neither automatic, nor inevitable," she said from a stage set up at the start of the march, which drew a huge crowd that some estimates put more than 10,000. "Even a superficial look at history reveals that no social advance rolls in on the wheels of inevitability. Every step towards the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering and struggle." |
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Lizzy Davies
The Guardian, UK 2013-09-22 18:35:00
Pope Francis has called for a global economic system that puts people and not "an idol called money" at its heart, drawing on the hardship of his immigrant family as he sympathised with unemployed workers in a part of Italy that has suffered greatly from the recession. Addressing about 20,000 people in the Sardinian capital of Cagliari, the Argentinian pontiff said that his parents had "lost everything" after they emigrated from Italy and that he understood the suffering that came from joblessness. "Where there is no work, there is no dignity," he said, in ad-libbed remarks after listening to three locals, including an unemployed worker who spoke of how joblessness "weakens the spirit". But the problem went far beyond the Italian island, said Francis, who has called for wholesale reform of the financial system. "This is not just a problem of Sardinia; it is not just a problem of Italy or of some countries in Europe," he said. "It is the consequence of a global choice, an economic system which leads to this tragedy; an economic system which has at its centre an idol called money." The 76-year-old said that God had wanted men and women to be at the heart of the world. "But now, in this ethics-less system, there is an idol at the centre and the world has become the idolater of this 'money-god'," he added. |
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Salam Al Amir
A man strangled his wife to death because he felt divorce would be too costly, a court heard yesterday.The National 2013-09-22 15:38:00 AQ, 23, from India, murdered Bushra Atif with the help of his friend RA, 28, from Pakistan, then wrapped her body in a bin bag and dumped it in the desert, prosecutors told the Criminal Court. The bag was discovered on the Dubai to Al Ain Road by a municipality cleaner who spotted the woman's head protruding and called police. When officers tried to contact the woman's husband they discovered he had left the country on the same day as her death - March 11. The court heard that the man had brought his wife to the UAE about three years ago but that he had moved out of their home and moved in with his friend, whom the wife believed to be a bad influence. "She told me that she often warned him about his friend and asked him to stay away from him but he wouldn't listen," testified the dead woman's father-in-law, QA, 55. The couple's problems grew after the man quit his job. Once he came home drunk and assaulted his wife because she asked him to look for work, said the father-in-law. |
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RIA Novosti
2013-09-18 13:28:00
A bill to hand over control of research institutions in Russia from the country's Academy of Sciences to the federal government was approved on Wednesday in the federal parliament despite vehement objections from the scientific community. The landmark bill, which has yet to be approved by the upper house of parliament and signed by the president, was hurriedly passed by the lower house of parliament, the State Duma, on Wednesday in the second and third readings while hundreds of scientists were rallying outside the legislature's building. Despite decades of decline since the end of the Soviet Union, the Academy of Sciences is still the country's leading scientific research establishment comprising about 50,000 researchers across its 434 scholarly institutions. |
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The Sparrow Project
2013-09-19 09:30:00
New York, NY - Six students were arrested Tuesday evening in an unprovoked police attack against a peaceful protest lead by City University of New York (CUNY) students and faculty decrying the University's appointment of former CIA chief and ex-General, David Petraeus as an adjunct professor to the Honors College. Students were punched, pushed against parked vehicles and thrown to the pavement by police captains and officers after the NYPD forced them off the sidewalk and into the street. Tuesday's demonstration was called for by the Ad Hoc Committee Against the Militarization of CUNY. The arrested students were arraigned Wednesday evening, September 18, at the Manhattan Criminal Court located at 100 Centre Street. The courtroom was flooded with supporters ranging from activists, to fellow students, to CUNY faculty outraged at the NYPD's response to their student's attempts to peaceably assemble. "As students were chanting 'War Criminal Petraeus Out of CUNY Now,' I was shocked to see several police officers grab and brutalize one of the demonstrators," said City College student Yexenia Vanegas. "This was completely unprovoked, as demonstrators made [it] clear that they were there to defend our university in a peaceful protest." The attack occurred in front of CUNY's Macaulay Honors College, where Petraeus has been appointed to teach a class on public policy. "Protestors were marching in a circle on the sidewalk and chanting, but the police forced them into the street and then charged. One of the most brutal things I saw was that five police officers slammed a Queens College student face down to the pavement across the street from Macaulay, put their knees on his back and he was then repeatedly kneed in the back," said Hunter student Michael Brian. "The student was one of those pointed out by 'white shirt' officers, then seized and brutalized. A Latina student was heaved through the air and slammed to the ground." |
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Subodh Varma,
The Times of India 2013-09-20 20:22:00
If you were to ask any random aam aadmi anywhere in India what is the single biggest failing of the UPA, the answer would be - price rise. This is so because the most important items of family spending - food items - have relentlessly risen for the past several years despite repeated promises to bring them down by the economic mandarins and policy wonks that run the country's economy. Poorer families have had to stop eating various foods in order to save crumbling family budgets. |
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Tony Gosling
RT 2013-09-20 09:54:00
Click! Another notch on the ratchet turning the UK from civilization to fascism this week as Britain's Justice minister, Chris Grayling, announced ten year jail sentences for those who claim too much state benefit. The latest statistics from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) show that £1.3bn was fraudulently claimed in 2012/13. Tax Justice Network figures estimating tax fraud by the super-rich at £60bn, which is around 50 times greater, seem to have 'evaded' Grayling; as has the estimated five times greater figure of £10bn in unclaimed benefits. The sad fact is simply that tyrants are running the show and rather than pay their fair share they intend to squeeze the poor until the pips squeak. |
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Helena Smith
Clashes between far-right Golden Dawn and anti-fascists raise fears that crisis has reached new stageThe Guardian 2013-09-20 09:39:00
It was not the scene that Greece's international stewards envisaged when they last visited the country at the epicentre of Europe's financial mess. When representatives of the "troika" of creditors arrived in June, book-keeping in Athens had been problem-free and monitors described their inspection tour as "almost boring". The great Greek debt crisis, it seemed, had finally gone quiet. But when mission heads representing the European Union, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank fly into Athens on Sunday - for the start of a review upon which the future of Greece will hang - what they will find is a country teetering on the edge: its people divided as never before, its mood brittle, its streets the setting for running battles between anti-fascists and neo-Nazis. And unions girding for battle. After six years of recession, four years of austerity and the biggest financial rescue programme in global history, it is clear that Greeks have moved into another phase, beyond the fear, fatigue and fury engendered by record levels of poverty and unemployment. Along with the teargas - fired on Monday for the first time in more than a year outside the administrative reform ministry - there is a new sense of foreboding: a belief that they might never be "saved" and, worse still, could turn against each other. |
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Julia Talanova
CNN 2013-09-21 09:23:00
An animal control officer on disability kept 850 snakes, including two 6-foot Burmese pythons, while running an illegal snake business out of his suburban New York home, according to authorities who made the discovery on Thursday. Richard Parrinello, of Brookhaven, New York, kept the snakes in his detached garage, all neatly stacked in containers and at the right temperature, according to Roy Gross, chief of the Suffolk County SPCA. Burmese pythons are illegal in New York, and Parrinello's were taken from the house to a reptile sanctuary in Massachusetts while the rest of the snakes are still in his garage, according to Jack Krieger, communications director for the Town of Brookhaven on Long Island. Gross said all the snakes appeared to be in good health and there was no animal abuse or neglect. "It was a well-maintained facility, it was very clean and organized, it was a business," Krieger said. |
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Kami Dimitrova
Two Michigan drivers shot and killed each other Wednesday night after a
road rage incident took a fatal turn in a drive-in car wash parking lot,
police said.ABC News 2013-09-20 09:16:00
Robert Taylor, 56, and James Pullum, 43, were driving on a highway in Ionia, Mich., when Taylor began to closely follow Pullum, according to the Ionia Public Safety Department, based on witness reports. The two drivers eventually pulled into the parking lot of Wonder Wand Car Wash, at the intersection of M-66 highway and Steele Street. where they got out of their vehicles and fired shots at each other, police said. The two men exchanged a total of eight to nine shots, police said. |
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George Jahn
Kollapriel, Austria - A gunman in Austria killed four people,
including three police officers, and fired sporadically at police on
Tuesday after barricading himself in a farm building, officials said.The Washington Post 2013-09-17 01:51:00
After a 12-hour standoff, police stormed the building with body armor and assault weapons and were searching for the suspect, Interior Ministry spokesman Karl-Heinz Grundboeck told The Associated Press. It wasn't immediately clear whether he was still in the building and the search was widening to other nearby buildings on the farm grounds. The hunt stretched on more than three hours. Grundboeck said police were moving carefully in an area with many possible hideouts and locked doors. "The safety of our police is our top priority," he said, shortly before midnight. |
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RT
2013-09-20 21:48:00
Chicago police say two gunmen attacked a crowd on a park basketball court, with at least 13 people injured in the shooting, including three-year-old, their conditions from serious to critical. The gunmen haven't been taken into custody yet. Chicago Fire Department officials report the child is in critical condition. "They hit the light pole next to me, but I ducked down and ran into the house," Julian Harris, uncle of the wounded child, said. "They've been coming round here looking for people to shoot every night, just gang-banging stuff. It's what they do." A witness at the scene told the Chicago Tribune that three police officers carried the child to an ambulance. "I didn't hear any sounds from the child," the witness said. |
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WangXin、Yao Chun
PeopleDaily, China 2013-09-20 21:26:00
Wearing beaded necklaces and traditional wool costumes, members of the Lhoba people dance around the Yin-Yang tree, a real-life version of the Tree of Souls from the movie Avatar. Unlike the mysterious Na'Vis, the Lhoba people, with a total population of more than 3100, are performing a traditional sword dance to entertain visitors to the forest-concealed area in the southeast of the Tibet Autonomous Region. "The costume has been listed as the nation's intangible cultural heritage," said Dawa Chodron, a 31-year-old local tour guide who has returned to her hometown after graduating from a high school in a second-tier city in southwest China. The sword dance is a Lhoba tradition celebrating harvest, hunting or the practice of becoming sworn brothers, according to Chodron. "Visitors from home and abroad are also attracted by our ancestral customs and religious practices," she said. The Lhoba, one of China's smallest ethnic minorities in terms of population, live mainly in Mainling County of Nyingchi Prefecture in Tibet. Located near the Brahmaputra River, Chodron's hometown of Qionglin Village in Nanyi Lhoba Ethnic Township is the largest inhabitation for the ethnic group. Chodron's ancestors were the first cultivators in the Himalaya mountains, but they led a primitive life even as late as 1950. |
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| Secret History |
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Björn Hengst and Benjamin Dürr
Spiegel Online 2013-09-20 14:21:00
After some initial digs, a Dutch filmmaker believes he may have found the site of buried Nazi treasure long rumored to exist. He was led to the Bavarian town of Mittenwald after cracking a code believed to be hidden in a music score. Three attempts have been made in recent weeks to find buried Nazi treasure in the Bavarian town of Mittenwald, close to the Austrian border. Even though the holes in the ground have since been filled, the traces left by drills and blue markings are still visible below a thin layer of autumn leaves. Authorities granted permission for the undertaking in "a bid for clarity," and before too long, the story was making headlines in local papers. "The Hunt for Nazi Gold," the Garmisch-Partenkirchner Tagblatt called it. Residents' reactions range from annoyed to amused. "I've never seen anything like it," says one. "I can't wait to see what they find down there," says another. Behind it all is 51-year-old Leon Giesen, a Dutch filmmaker and musician with a tantalizing theory. He is convinced that Nazi treasure is languishing below Mittenwald's roads -- gold or diamonds, at the very least. |
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Rossella Lorenzi
Italian archaeologists have unearthed a 2,600-year-old intact Etruscan
tomb that promises to reveal new depths of one of the ancient world's
most fascinating and mysterious cultures.Discovery.com 2013-09-23 11:27:00
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Harriet Sherwood
The Guardian, UK 2013-09-22 15:21:00
Herod the Great's fortified complex at Masada was a winter retreat but also an insurance against a feared rebellion of his Jewish subjects or an attack from Rome. Luxurious palaces, barracks, well-stocked storerooms, bathhouses, water cisterns sat on a plateau 400m above the Dead Sea and desert floor. Herod's personal quarters in the Northern Palace contained lavish mosaics and frescoes. But by the time the Jews revolted against the Romans, Herod had been dead for seven decades. After the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, the surviving rebels fled to Masada, under the command of Eleazer Ben Yair. Around 960 men, women and children holed up in the desert fortress as 8,000 Roman legionnaires laid siege from below. Using Jewish slave labour, the Romans built a gigantic ramp with which they could reach the fortress and capture the rebels. On 15 April in the year 73CE, Ben Yair gathered his people and told them the time had come to "prefer death before slavery". Using a lottery system, the men killed their wives and children, then each other, until the last survivor killed himself, according to historian Flavius Josephus's account. The Romans advanced but found only "an awful solitude, and flames within and silence, they were at a loss to conjecture what had happened Here encountering the mass of slain, instead of exulting as over enemies, they admired the nobility of their resolve". Josephus recorded that two women and three children survived to tell the tale. |
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| Science & Technology |
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Nola Taylor Redd
SPACE.com 2013-09-23 14:37:00
More than 35 million years ago, a 15-story wall of water triggered by an asteroid strike washed over Virginia from its coast, then located at Richmond, to the foot of the inland Blue Ridge Mountains - an impact that would affect millions of people should it occur today. Yet despite its age, the effects of this ancient asteroid strike, as well as other epic space rock impact scars, can still be felt today, scientists say. The Virginia impact site, called the Chesapeake Bay Crater, is the largest known impact site in the United States and the sixth largest in the world, said Gerald Johnson, professor emeritus of geology at the College of William and Mary in Virginia. Despite its size, clues about the crater weren't found until 1983, when a layer of fused glass beads indicating an impact were recovered as part of a core sample. The site itself wasn't found until nearly a decade later. The comet or asteroid that caused the impact, and likely measured 5 to 8 miles (8 to 13 kilometers) in diameter, hurtled through the air toward the area that is now Washington, D.C., when it fell. The impact crated a massive wave 1,500 feet (457 meters) high, researchers said. Though the impactor left a crater about 52 miles across and 1.2 miles deep (84 km across and 1.9 km deep), the object itself vaporized, Johnson explained. "I'm just sad we can't have a piece of it," Johnson said in a statement. |
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The Guardian
2013-09-20 00:00:00
Nasa video footage shows what the moon would look like as it rotates. The images are impossible to witness from Earth, because the moon is 'tidally locked' to it, meaning only one of its faces ever points toward the planet. These timelapse pictures were captured using Nasa's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which circles the moon at an altitude of 50km |
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The Spokesman-Review
2013-09-22 16:40:00
A spacecraft that gave scientists their first peek into a comet's icy interior will explore no more, NASA said Friday. The space agency declared an end to the Deep Impact spacecraft after it unexpectedly fell silent. Engineers tried for a month to regain contact, but lost hope. Mission scientist Jessica Sunshine of the University of Maryland said she was "saddened at the loss of an old friend." Deep Impact put on a celestial fireworks display July 4, 2005, when it fired a projectile into comet Tempel 1. The high-speed impact carved a crater and hurled a plume of debris into space, giving scientists their first glimpse of the comet's frozen primordial ingredients. Afterward, Deep Impact journeyed toward comet Hartley 2, flying through a blizzard of ice particles and escaping unharmed. It later flew by the distant comet Garradd and also observed stars in search of Earth-size planets outside the solar system. Before Deep Impact lost contact last month, it was studying another comet named Ison that could shine as bright as the moon when it makes a close swing by Earth in November. |
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Science Daily
2013-09-22 15:33:00
Since the discovery of the Van Allen radiation belts in 1958, space scientists have believed these belts encircling Earth consist of two doughnut-shaped rings of highly charged particles -- an inner ring of high-energy electrons and energetic positive ions and an outer ring of high-energy electrons. In February of this year, a team of scientists reported the surprising discovery of a previously unknown third radiation ring -- a narrow one that briefly appeared between the inner and outer rings in September 2012 and persisted for a month. In new research, UCLA space scientists have successfully modeled and explained the unprecedented behavior of this third ring, showing that the extremely energetic particles that made up this ring, known as ultra-relativistic electrons, are driven by very different physics than typically observed Van Allen radiation belt particles. The region the belts occupy -- ranging from about 1,000 to 50,000 kilometers above Earth's surface -- is filled with electrons so energetic they move close to the speed of light. |
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University of Oxford
The explosion of animal life on Earth around 520 million years ago was
the result of a combination of interlinked factors rather than a single
underlying cause, according to a new study.2013-09-19 12:44:00 Dozens of individual theories have been put forward over the past few decades for this rapid diversification of animal species in the early Cambrian period of geological time. But a paper by Professor Paul Smith of Oxford University and Professor David Harper of Durham University suggests a more holistic approach is required to discover the reasons behind what has become known as the Cambrian Explosion. Theories for the Cambrian Explosion fall into three main categories - geological, geochemical and biological - and most have been claimed as standalone processes that were the main cause of the explosion. Whatever the cause, this major evolutionary event led to a wide range of biological innovation, including the origin of modern ecosystems, a rapid increase in animal diversity, the origin of skeletons and the first appearance of specialist modes of life such as burrowing and swimming. |
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Deborah Byrd
Earth Sky 2013-09-17 11:45:00
Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) has been the most talked-about comet of 2013. When discovered in late 2012, it was said to have the potential to become a striking object visible to the eye alone around the time of its perihelion - or closest point to the sun - on November 28, 2013. People started saying Comet ISON and comet of the century in the same sentence. In June and July 2013, Comet ISON was behind the sun as seen from Earth, but when it was recovered in early August, it wasn't as bright as hoped. What will happen with Comet ISON in the remaining months of 2013? Comets are notoriously unpredictable, but it's safe to say that many are waiting to see if Comet ISON will sizzle ... or fizzle. |
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| Earth Changes |
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StarTribune
Rio De Janeiro - Around 30 large dolphins beached themselves in
northeastern Brazil over the weekend, and news reports said Monday that
at least seven of them had died.2013-09-23 15:35:00 The dolphins, known as false killer whales, ran aground early Sunday on the shallow sands of Upanema beach in Areia Branca, roughly halfway between the cities of Fortaleza and Natal. Images distributed by the environmental police of Rio Grande do Norte state show beachgoers and passers-by attempting to aid the animals, which lay stranded in inches- (centimeters-) deep water. Most of the animals were still, occasionally twitching their tails, as beachgoers swabbed them with wet T-shirts. O Globo newspaper reported Monday that at least seven on the animals died, six of them on the Upanema beach. O Globo said one animal died following an apparent shark attack after it was returned to the ocean. The report stressed that the dolphin was likely attacked in very deep waters and that area beachgoers needn't worry about shark attacks. The paper said it was not immediately known why the animals beached themselves, but biologists were examining whether the pod leader might have been ill. Another hypothesis is that the dolphins were pursuing a school of fish and were trapped on Upanema's high sand banks. O Globo said it was among the largest collective beachings in Brazil in recent decades. In 1991, around 19 whales beached themselves on the sands of the nearby town of Sao Miguel do Gostoso, the report said. Source: Associated Press |
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Tamara Cohen
Daily Mail 2013-09-23 05:03:00
Scientists working on the most authoritative study on climate change were urged to cover up the fact that the world's temperature hasn't risen for the last 15 years, it is claimed. A leaked copy of a United Nations report, compiled by hundreds of scientists, shows politicians in Belgium, Germany, Hungary and the United States raised concerns about the final draft. Published next week, it is expected to address the fact that 1998 was the hottest year on record and world temperatures have not yet exceeded it, which scientists have so far struggled to explain. The report is the result of six years' work by UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which is seen as the world authority on the extent of climate change and what is causing it - on which governments including Britain's base their green policies. But leaked documents seen by the Associated Press, yesterday revealed deep concerns among politicians about a lack of global warming over the past few years. Germany called for the references to the slowdown in warming to be deleted, saying looking at a time span of just 10 or 15 years was 'misleading' and they should focus on decades or centuries. The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has changed its tune after issuing stern warnings about climate change for years Hungary worried the report would provide ammunition for deniers of man-made climate change. Belgium objected to using 1998 as a starting year for statistics, as it was exceptionally warm and makes the graph look flat - and suggested using 1999 or 2000 instead to give a more upward-pointing curve. |
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RT
2010-07-12 16:33:00
Nearly 5,000 new emergency bomb shelters will be built in Moscow by 2012 to save people in case of potential attacks. Moscow authorities say the measure is urgent as the shelters currently available in the city can house no more that half of its population. In the last 20 years, the area of air-raid defense has been developed little, and the existing shelters have become outdated. Moreover, they are located mostly in the city center, which makes densely populated Moscow outskirts especially vulnerable in the event of a nuclear attack. In order to resolve the issue, the city has given architects a task to construct a typical model of an easy-to-build shelter that will be located all over the city 10 to 15 meters underneath apartment blocks, shopping centers, sport complexes and parks, as in case of attack people will need to reach the shelters within a minute. Moscow saw its first mass building of shelters in the 1930s, after which 7,000 of them were constructed. Some of Russia's metro stations have been built very deep underground so that they could double as air raid shelters. However, in the early 1990s, many shelters were privatized by commercial firms that used them as warehouses, parking lots, and even restaurants. |
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Hannah Hickey
University of Washington 2013-09-17 13:55:00
Much attention is paid to melting sea ice in the Arctic. But less clear is the situation on the other side of the planet. Despite warmer air and oceans, there's more sea ice in Antarctica now than in the 1970s - a fact often pounced on by global warming skeptics. The latest numbers suggest the Antarctic sea ice may be heading toward a record high this year. Comment: "Melting sea ice in the Arctic?" We wonder if the so called scientists in the University of Washington: a) live on the same planet b) are dangerously ignorant c) deliberately distort the facts because last time we heard about Arctic ice, it was actually growing: Ice Age cometh: Record return of Arctic ice cap as it grows by 60% in a year; top scientists warn of global cooling NASA stumped: Summer Arctic ice extent among highest this decade, Antarctica "headed toward record extent" While changes in weather may play a big role in short-term changes in sea ice seen in the past couple of months, changes in winds have apparently led to the more general upward sea ice trend during the past few decades, according to University of Washington research. A new modeling study to be published in the Journal of Climate shows that stronger polar winds lead to an increase in Antarctic sea ice, even in a warming climate. Comment: Oh, so it's still a Global Warming, but we will find ourselves under a mile of ice...ahem...just like during an Ice Age? Don't let the corrupted science confuse you. Read Fire and Ice: The Day After Tomorrow to learn about the reality of the situation. "The overwhelming evidence is that the Southern Ocean is warming," said author Jinlun Zhang, an oceanographer at the UW Applied Physics Laboratory. "Why would sea ice be increasing? Although the rate of increase is small, it is a puzzle to scientists." | |
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Comment: Famous last words.
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Last Messages
Youtube 2013-09-21 11:59:00
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Josh Pennell
A number of dead birds found near the base of a Bell Aliant cellular
tower in Conception Bay South have both a resident and a councillor
concerned.The Telegram, Canada 2013-09-21 13:12:00 Ward 3 councillor and C.B.S. candidate for the mayor's chair Ken McDonald was out campaigning Thursday evening when a call came in from a resident who had been walking his dog near the cellular tower on Eason's Road behind the Manuels River Interpretation Centre.
The resident said he had seen a number of large, dead birds near the tower. "He was concerned, one, for the dog and secondly that this is above the Manuels River and everything runs towards there," said McDonald. "He felt it might be something related to the tower or some seepage that's coming from the water that's trickling past it." McDonald met with The Telegram at the site Friday morning. There were at least a half dozen bird carcasses - what appeared to be crows and ravens, which belong to a group called the corvids. |
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Samantha Wohlfeil
The source of a mysterious smell coming off the waterfront and wafting
through Bellingham remained a mystery Thursday afternoon, Sept. 19, as
reports continued to come in to official agencies.The Bellingham Herald 2013-09-19 11:18:00 More than 100 callers reported a sulfur, natural gas, methane or petroleum smell in Bellingham Wednesday evening, Sept. 18. Callers to 911 first reported the smell in the area of Fieldston Road, south of Fairhaven, around 5 p.m. About 20 calls continued to come in as the smell apparently moved north toward the Columbia and Birchwood Neighborhoods, said David Doll, deputy chief of Bellingham Police. The calls dropped off around Alderwood Avenue. |
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The Times of India
A strong odour that wafted across the city on Friday created panic among citizens.2013-09-21 11:13:00 Residents of Maryhill first reported the odour in the morning. People from other areas said it seemed cooking gas had leaked somewhere. Many checked their LPG cylinders. Residents of Mallikatte reported it at 1pm, and those of Maroli at around 1.30. |
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US Geological Survey
2013-09-20 23:19:00
Event Time 2013-09-21 01:39:14 UTC 2013-09-21 09:39:14 UTC+08:00 at epicenter Location 7.264°S 119.961°E depth=536.8km (333.6mi) Nearby Cities 119km (74mi) NNW of Nggilat, Indonesia 136km (85mi) N of Labuhanbajo, Indonesia 159km (99mi) NNW of Ruteng, Indonesia 191km (119mi) NE of Bima, Indonesia 635km (395mi) WNW of Dili, East Timor Technical Details |
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Guardian
2013-09-18 21:08:00
Storms leave 40,000 holidaymakers cut off and locals in shelters, with supplies running short and airports waterlogged Thousands of tourists are still trapped in Acapulco after roads to Mexico's most famous beach resort were blocked by flash floods and landslides set off by some of the worst storms in decades. Across the country at least 55 people have been killed in floods after a three-day downpour, spawned by two major storms that converged on Mexico from the Pacific and the Gulf. Some 40,000 tourists remain stranded in Acapulco after several roads into the city were blocked by mud, while its international airport terminal was still waist-deep in water. Two of Mexico's largest airlines were running flights from the airport, and a nearby military airbase was also used to evacuate stranded tourists. Families waited for as long as eight hours before jostling to gain a seat on commercial flights, helicopters and seven cargo planes pressed into duty. Many told of horror stories of spending the weekend trapped by torrential rains inside their hotels, emerging to discover there was no way back home. "It's probably one of the worst holidays I've ever been on," said David Jefferson-Gleed, a 28-year-old Briton from Bristol, who teaches English at a private school in Mexico City. "It wasn't really a holiday, more of an incarceration." Adding insult to injury, a few immaculately dressed families skipped the line and were escorted to private jets by soldiers, to the incredulous stares of the sweltering masses. |
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| Fire in the Sky |
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Sam Womack
Statesman.com 2013-09-22 15:15:00
Hundreds of people across Texas flocked online to report seeing a bright ball of light in the sky around 9 p.m. Saturday. People in Austin, San Antonio, Houston, Plano, Waco and Abilene, among other cities, described a brilliant flash or a white fireball. Some even caught colors and a sparkling tail. Most reported seeing one, while a few spotted a second, smaller flash. A witness in Georgetown said it looked like a firework about to explode in a report submitted to the American Meteor Society. A Reddit poster said they were facing northwest from the University of Texas campus when they saw a bright light. And a Smithville volunteer firefighter posted on Facebook that she spotted "the most brilliant, enormous falling star" begin as a green streak and then explode into a white fireball with orange projectiles. |
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The Chronicle, Australia
2013-09-20 21:12:00
People across south-east Queensland have reported seeing the bright, large meteor that shot across night skies about 8pm yesterday. The meteor was seen from Sydney to Gympie. Sightings have been reported in Toowoomba, Highfields, Chinchilla and across the Sunshine Coast. Social media lit up with reports of the meteor. Higgins Storm Chasing posted photos from fixed cameras across the state, including one at Archerfield in Brisbane and another at Redcliffe. |
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| Health & Wellness |
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Lewa Pardomuan and Marcy Nicholson: Reuters
Chocoholics may have to dig deeper to pay for their favorite treat this
festive season as sweet makers face sky-high prices for cocoa butter,
the special ingredient that gives chocolate its melt-in-the-mouth
texture.chicagotribune.com 2013-09-13 04:01:00
Increased demand from Asia's expanding middle class and a turnaround in sales in big consuming countries have seen butter prices nearly double to more than $7,000 a tonne (1.1023 ton) from $4,000 a tonne six months go. With supplies tightening and demand showing no sign of slowing ahead of the Christmas and New Year period, some chocolate makers may have little choice but to pass on the increased costs to consumers. In the secretive industry, which has only a handful of big players, chocolatiers tightly guard the recipes that distinguish their products, and are equally cautious on prices. |
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Kashmira Gander
A Which? survey out today reveals that rising grocery bills are causing real hardshipindependent.co.uk 2013-09-22 00:00:00
The rise in the price of food is an extra source of stress for households who are already struggling to make ends meet, new research has revealed. A survey by the consumer group Which? shows that as incomes stagnate, eight in 10 people in Britain are concerned that food is too expensive, and more than half worry about how they will pay for their groceries in the future if prices continue to climb. The findings come at a time when the cost of food has grown over and above general inflation by 12.6 percentage points over the last six years, according to the Office for National Statistics. Since last year, the price of food and alcoholic drinks rose by 3.9 per cent on average. However, in the same period, incomes rose by only 2.1 per cent, with three-quarters of consumers saying their income has stayed the same or decreased in the last year. The result of this is that three in 10 people now struggle to feed themselves or their family. Richard Lloyd, executive director of Which?, said: "While people seem to have accepted their grocery bill going up, stagnating incomes and rocketing food prices are causing stress and worry, and leaving people wondering how they are going to cope. |
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Bruce E. Levine
AlterNet 2013-09-19 14:39:00
It was an amazing victory for mental health treatment reform activists and one investigative reporter: on Aug. 28, 2013, National Institute of Mental Health director Thomas Insel announced that psychiatry's standard treatment for people diagnosed with schizophrenia and other psychoses needs to change. After examining two long-term studies on schizophrenia and psychoses, Insel came to what was previously considered a radical conclusion: in the long-term, some individuals with a history of psychosis do better off medication. Insel finally recognized what mental health treatment reform activists and investigative reporter Robert Whitaker have been talking about for years - the research shows that American psychiatry's standard treatment protocol has hurt many people who could have been helped by a more selective and limited use of drugs, and a more diverse approach such as the one used in Finland, which has produced the best long-term outcomes in the developed world. Like many treatment reform activists and Whitaker, Insel does not completely reject the use of medications, but instead called for a more judicious use of them. Insel concluded: Antipsychotic medication, which seemed so important in the early phase of psychosis, appeared to worsen prospects for recovery over the long-term....What is amazing about this recent conclusion by the NIMH director is that it means less money for drug companies, which in the past, have heavily influenced psychiatric treatment through their financial clout. Big Pharma has profited enormously from the current standard treatment protocol that calls for lifetime antipsychotic medication after a single psychotic episode. Because of this treatment protocol and the increasing use of antipsychotic drugs for nonpsychotic conditions, antipsychotics grossed over $18 billion a year in the United States by 2011. The antipsychotic Abilify became the highest grossing of all drugs in the first quarter of 2013, and it is on track to gross $6 billion this year (entire corporations that only grossed approximately $5 billion last year include Facebook and Yahoo). |
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Dr. Vandana Shiva
The Guardian 2013-08-29 14:19:00
What happens to the seed affects the web of life. When seed is living, regenerative and diverse, it feeds pollinators, soil organisms and animals - including humans. When seed is non-renewable, bred for chemicals, or genetically engineered with toxic Bt or Roundup Ready genes, diversity disappears. In recent years, beekeepers have been losing 25 percent of their hives each winter. According to a scientific study in 2008, bees and pollinators contribute more than €153 billion annually to agriculture. Chemically-farmed soils, sprayed with herbicides and pesticides kill the beneficial organisms that create soil fertility and protect plants. Organic seeds and organic farming do not just protect human health; they protect the health and wellbeing of all. | |
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Comment: Dr. Vandana Shiva has written several excellent articles on the topic of seed saving and food sovereignty:
Great Seed Robbery Food poisoning on a global scale GMOs: Myths, Falsehoods, Superstitions Monsanto and the Big Fat Lie of Food Safety Vandana Shiva: Understanding the Corporate Takeover Vandana Shiva on the Problem with Genetically Modified Seeds GM Seeds and the militarization of food - and everything else |
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Katy Haldiman, RN
Primal Docs 2013-09-22 14:26:00
Clients that seek holistic nutritional therapy services often have a long history of failed attempts to obtain answers for their health issues through the conventional health care system. All too frequently, these clients come to nutritional and health coaching after their physicians have told them things like, "Well, I can't seem to find a reason for your fatigue (or body aches, or stomach distress, or headaches, or rash, or....). But I'd like you to go ahead and try some Prozac (or any number of other pharmaceutical drugs) and see if it makes you feel better." Some clients have also reported physicians and other providers becoming abrupt or even rude when pressed for more direct answers and explanations. Others have been told that nothing is wrong with them because "all of the lab results are normal", despite their ongoing symptoms and poor quality of life. And still other clients have fallen victim to the general acceptance of the decline of health in our society, in which they are treated as though it is quite normal to be coping with issues such as acid reflux, osteoporosis, and high blood pressure. And, of course, the acceptable way to cope with these insidious health problems is through the use of pharmaceutical medications. So, what is happening with the delivery of health care in the United States and other developed nations? Why are more and more clients struggling to find the answers to treating their health concerns? I've pondered this question for one reason or another since becoming a nurse and there is no easy answer. An argument for the greatest failure, perhaps, is that the focus of our system is not truly on "health". From the bottom up, conventional health care is designed to be reactive, instead of proactive. The priority is on caring for those with disease, rather than promoting healthy lifestyles to prevent disease. There is nowhere that this fact is more obvious than in the observation of health care billing and payment structures. It's safe to say that physicians do not make the bulk of their money off providing preventative exams and other wellness services. There is much more money to be made in billing for encounters in which diseases are diagnosed and managed. In reality, our "health" care system is really a sick care system. |
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Noel Brinkerhoff
AllGov 2013-09-21 14:19:00
Going to the hospital is increasingly a risky proposition, considering that more Americans die from mistakes in the hospital than those killed by strokes and accidents combined. A new study published in the Journal of Patient Safety estimates that between 210,000 and 440,000 patients annually don't make it out of hospitals because of some kind of preventable harm. These figures eclipse those reported in earlier studies that blamed bad hospital care for 98,000 deaths (1999, Institute of Medicine) and 180,000 fatalities (2010, Office of Inspector General for Health and Human Services, which only focused on Medicare patients). The new study, produced by John T. James, a toxicologist with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in Houston who runs an advocacy organization called Patient Safety America, means hospital deaths are now the third leading cause of death in the U.S., behind only heart disease (No. 1) and cancer (No. 2). When asked about James' conclusions, a spokesman for the American Hospital Association told ProPublica that the organization was inclined to stick with the Institute of Medicine's lower number of 98,000 deaths. |
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Enrico Gnualati
Alternet 2013-09-10 13:46:00
The following is an excerpt from Enrico Gnualati's new book Back to Normal: The Overlooked, Ordinary Explanations for Kid's ADHD, Bipolar, and Autistic-Like Behavior (Beacon Press, 2013): On December 13, 2006, paramedics arrived at the Plymouth County, Massachusetts, home of four-year-old Rebecca Riley only to find her slumped over on her parents' bed, dead. The medical examiner on hand identified the cause of death as heart and lung failure brought about by the medications she was on. Rebecca was being prescribed Depakote, Seroquel, and Clonidine by Dr. Kayoko Kifuji, a Tufts - New England Medical Center child psychiatrist. She had diagnosed Rebecca with ADHD and bipolar disorder when she was two years old. Rebecca's death provoked a national debate on how a child as young as two could ever be diagnosed with major mental illnesses and be put on powerful tranquilizers. Katie Couric eventually covered the story in a CBS 60 Minutes segment. Ultimately, Rebecca's parents were tried for and convicted of murder due to allegedly overdosing her. But this harrowing outcome didn't take the national spotlight off the shocking revelation that a toddler could be diagnosed with mental illness and put on not just one but three powerful tranquilizers. None of the drugs Rebecca was prescribed was approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use with kids her age - not then and not now. There was absolutely no robust scientific justification for Dr. Kifuji making the medication choices that she made. How could a reputable psychiatrist be so inclined to diagnose a child so young with diagnoses so severe and treat with medications so unapproved? The main answer lies with the spectacular success of twenty-first-century pharmaceutical marketing of psychiatric drugs. | |
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Comment: Childhood is not a mental disorder! Read the following articles to learn more about the mass drugging of children in America:
The Psychiatric Drugging of Infants and Toddlers: An American Phenomenon Mainstream Media and Medical Journals Pushing ADHD Drugs for Six-year-olds Medicating your kids for peace and quiet: Is it ever OK? A Look at How the Field of Psychiatry Is Over-Medicating Our Country BigPharma and Wall Street Profit from the Drugging of Children and Elderly Disturbing! Drugging Kids: Backlash on bipolar diagnoses in children Drugging America: The drug industry exposed Drugging foster kids shows more neglect |
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Elizabeth Renter
Natural Society 2013-09-21 02:36:00
We spend a lot of time at NaturalSociety talking about Big Pharma and their role in the health care industry. These huge pharmaceutical companies make billions every single year by perpetuating a culture of dis-ease and illness. They exaggerate conditions, offer their solutions as the only viable treatments, and essentially market disease to the American people. But they aren't acting alone. Some of their biggest sellers are drugs created to treat mental health issues, diseases, and symptoms. Doctors and professionals within the mental health industry, therefore, act as their top salespeople. Mike Bundrant is the host of Mental Health Exposed, a radio program from our friends at Natural News. He is a former mental health counselor and had an inside look at how the system works. as Bundrant points out, the system has some "dirty secrets". "The conventional mental health system is a cruel joke," he writes for Natural news. "It's ugly." Bundrant and others like him say the mental health industry is just as dirty as Big Pharma itself, creating conditions and "curing" with prescriptions. This means many counselors and psychiatrists are interested in treating mental illness with one solution - drugs. | |
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Comment: For a comprehensive program on how to boost mental health see Mass nervous breakdown: Millions of Americans on the brink as stress pandemic ravages society.
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Tara Lohan
Alternet 2013-09-17 20:02:00
A report from the CDC reveals the grave dangers of antibiotic resistance and says factory-farmed animals are a big contributor. What would our healthcare system look like if we couldn't perform surgeries, administer chemotherapy, replace joints, treat diabetes? It would be the end of modern medicine as we know it. A new report from the Centers for Disease Control warns we could be headed toward that very future. Antibiotics revolutionized medicine in the 1940s, saving millions of lives over the last 70 years. But during that time bacteria have evolved to become resistant to certain antibiotics. The more antibiotics we use, the quicker resistance builds up. This has deadly repercussions. In the report, Antibiotic Resistance Threats in the United States, 2013, the CDC estimates (conservatively) that 2 million people in the U.S. get antibiotic-resistant infections, and 23,000 die from them every year. In addition to the loss of life, it's also costly. | |
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Comment: Read the following articles for a more in depth look at the problem with Factory Farms:
Why Factory Farms Threaten Your Health Factory Farms Make You Sick. Let Us Count the Ways Farmacology: Antibiotics resistance generated at factory farms The FDA Finally Reveals How Many Antibiotics Factory Farms Use As MRSA Gets Worse, the FDA Discovers Antibiotic Abuse on Factory Farms How Factory Farms Are Pumping Americans Full of Deadly Bacteria and Pathogens And... if your thinking about sharing/researching information about factory farms watch out: FBI Says Activists Who Investigate Factory Farms Can Be Prosecuted as Terrorists |
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Activist Post
Rady Ananda 2013-09-13 19:32:00
Among several "chemicals of concern" recently removed from a list of proposed regulations by the Environmental Protection Agency, Bisphenol A, a neurotoxin and endocrine disruptor that also damages DNA, has been banned in several other nations and in eleven US states. BPA is used in making plastics from bottles to food packaging, and in thermal receipt paper. It's found on paper money, and in epoxy resin used in food cans and textiles. Though BPA penetrates nearly half of all food stuffs, several more toxic bisphenols, like BPS, reports GreenMedInfo, also invade the food supply. BPA has been linked to Type II diabetes, premenopausal breast cancer, abnormal heart rhythm, and lowered thyroid hormones in boys. Not only is BPA linked to obesity, but prenatal exposure tends to feminize boys and masculinize girls. Truly, the list goes on. Belgium, Austria, Denmark and France currently restrict BPA in foodstuffs and/or infant products, as does Turkey, Japan, China and the UAE. Canada, meanwhile, has reversed itself twice. In 2008, Health Canada didn't see a problem with BPA; in 2010 it did, and then in 2012 it decided BPA is okay after all. |
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Aradhana Aravindan and Rajendra Jadhav
iol.co.za 2013-09-20 08:00:00
Mumbai - The aroma of frying onions from the Britannia restaurant in Mumbai may not penetrate the office of India's new central bank governor, Raghuram Rajan, a block away, but like the eatery's customers, he cannot escape the soaring price of the pungent vegetable. The price of onions has added to Rajan's already full plate as the new head of the Reserve Bank of India wrestles over how to help stabilise the rupee exchange rate and tackle inflation without further dampening economic growth. A former International Monetary Fund chief economist, Rajan took over at the central bank on September 4 in the middle of India's worst economic crisis in 20 years. He will announce his first monetary policy review today. The US Federal Reserve's surprise decision on Wednesday not to wind down its massive monetary stimulus just yet helped the rupee to a one-month high yesterday, so inflation may have now moved up on his list of priorities. Last month the cost of onions was 245 percent higher than a year earlier, while other vegetables shot up 77 percent, driving headline inflation to a six-month high. Onion prices have risen further this month, prompting the government to take steps to limit exports. |
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Giles Sheldrick
A GLOBAL food crisis will see the cost of household staples rocket by almost a fifth in five years, economists warned yesterday.express.co.uk 2013-09-19 00:00:00
Growing demand for essentials like meat and grain, topsy-turvy weather and land commandeered for the production of biofuels will add at least £850 to typical annual food spending, they claimed. Retail analysts at research agency Conlumino said food price inflation would add almost £20billion to the nation's annual grocery bill by 2018, a rise of almost 18 per cent. Experts calculated the increases would add £1.50 to a 2lb joint of roasting beef, 25p to a loaf of Hovis sliced bread and almost 10p to a pint of milk at Asda. The bleak outlook could only be reversed, experts said, by setting aside more land on which cattle can be reared and grain harvested. On average, households spend almost £5,000 a year on groceries. Neil Saunders, of Conlumino, said: "These figures will shock hard-working households because everyone has to eat to live and it's jolly hard to economise on the basics. "The foods we are talking about here are essentials, it's not discretionary spending. "This is a global problem, it's not one unique to Britain. "Salaries look like they are going to be eaten up by the increase in food prices. "The only consolation is that over the longer period households might see their disposable income increase. |
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| Science of the Spirit |
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Tara Laserna
Source 2013-09-23 16:22:00
Regardless of industry, profession, town, city or nation, highly effective and happy people share many of the same perspectives and beliefs and they act on those beliefs. 1. Time doesn't fill me. I fill time. The average person who is given two weeks to complete a task will instinctively adjust his or her effort so it actually takes two weeks. Average people allow time to impose its will on them; remarkable people impose their will on their time and allow fluidity. They don't stress about time and because their perception is more fluid, time does not become their focus and tasks become more manageable. 2. I understand balance. They know that the terms money and success are not interchangeable. They understand that people who are successful on a financial level only, are not successful at all. They have an off switch. They know how to relax, enjoy what they have in their life and to have fun. Their career is not their identity, it's their job. It's not who they are, it's what they do. Unfortunately we live in a society which teaches that money equals success. Like many other things, money is a tool. It's certainly not a bad thing but ultimately, it's just another resource. Unfortunately, too many people worship it. |
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Robert Preidt
HealthDay 2013-09-22 20:16:00
Being a victim of racism may trigger poor mental health, depression and anxiety in children and teens, according to a new review. The report, published in the October issue of the journal Social Science & Medicine, looked at 461 cases of links between racism and the health and well-being of youngsters. "The review showed there are strong and consistent relationships between racial discrimination and a range of detrimental health outcomes such as low self-esteem, reduced resilience, increased behavior problems and lower levels of well-being," lead researcher Naomi Priest, of the University of Melbourne in Australia, said in a university news release. Most of the racism experienced by children and teens involved discrimination by other people, rather than institutional or systemic racism, according to the findings. The review also revealed an increased risk of poorer birth outcomes among children whose mothers experienced racism during pregnancy. |
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Bruce E. Levine
Alternet 2013-09-21 20:30:00
Our belief in "progress" has increased our expectations that life should be more satisfying, resulting in mass disappointment. In The Epidemic of Mental Illness: Why? (New York Review of Books, 2011), Marcia Angell, former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, discusses over-diagnosis of psychiatric disorders, pathologizing of normal behaviors, Big Pharma corruption of psychiatry, and the adverse effects of psychiatric medications. While diagnostic expansionism and Big Pharma certainly deserve a large share of the blame for this epidemic, there is another reason. A June 2013 Gallup poll revealed that 70% of Americans hate their jobs or have "checked out" of them. Life may or may not suck any more than it did a generation ago, but our belief in "progress" has increased expectations that life should be more satisfying, resulting in mass disappointment. For many of us, society has become increasingly alienating, isolating and insane, and earning a buck means more degrees, compliance, ass-kissing, shit-eating, and inauthenticity. So, we want to rebel. However, many of us feel hopeless about the possibility of either our own escape from societal oppression or that political activism can create societal change. So, many of us, especially young Americans, rebel by what is commonly called mental illness. |
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| High Strangeness |
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No new articles. |
| Don't Panic! Lighten Up! |
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Jen Carlson
Gothamist 2013-09-23 15:54:00
When we first saw this image of a duck entering the New York City subway system, we naively believed that he stepped right out of a children's book and was playing out his magical and triumphant story about a little duck in a big city. And what joy this duck was surely bringing to fellow straphangers as he waddled along to catch the N train to their yelps of "Only in New York!" But moments later we discovered that our new feathered friend did not make a personal choice to ride the rails today, instead he was forced to by the corporate overlords of one of the nation's largest insurance companies. Yep, it's the Aflac duck. |
