| uppet Masters |
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Thierry Meyssan
Voltaire Net 2014-04-22 16:22:00
Lies have shorter and shorter legs. Two months after the change of regime in Kiev, the Polish press has disclosed the role of Donald Tusk's government in preparing the coup. The new revelations belie Western discourse and demonstrate that the current interim government of Oleksandr Tourtchynov was imposed by NATO in violation of international law. The Polish left-wing weekly Nie (No) published a startling witness account of the training given to the most violent of the EuroMaidan [1] activists. According to this source, in September 2013, Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski invited 86 members of the Right Sector (Sector Pravy), allegedly in the context of a university exchange program. In reality, the guests were not students, and many were over 40. Contrary to their official schedule, they did not go to the Warsaw University of Technology, but headed instead for the police training center in Legionowo, an hour's drive from the capital. There, they received four weeks of intensive training in crowd management, person recognition, combat tactics, command skills, behavior in crisis situations, protection against gases used by police, erecting barricades, and especially shooting, including the handling of sniper rifles. | |
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Syria Committees
2014-04-22 15:44:00
Syria will hold a presidential election on June 3, state media reported on this Monday, setting the date for a vote likely to give President Bashar al-Assad a third term."The 3rd of June is the date for the election," Syrian state television said, quoting the parliament speaker. Assad has not said whether he will stand again, but his allies in Russia and in Lebanon's Hezbollah Shia movement have predicted he will participate and win. In Damascus, preparations for Assad's candidacy have already begun. Announcing the election on state television, the parliamentary speaker, Mohamed Jihad al-Laham, said requests for nomination would be accepted until 1 May. Voting for Syrians outside the country would take place at Syrian embassies on 28 May, he said. Syria's parliament set residency rules for presidential candidates in March, a move that would bar many of Assad's foes who live in exile. Assad said last week the conflict had reached a "turning point" due to his forces' military gains against the rebels. facebook.com/syria.committees syria-committees.org | |
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David M. Herszenhorn
New York Times 2014-04-17 11:49:00
Even as the world's top diplomats were gingerly drafting a tentative accord to "de-escalate tensions" in Ukraine, President Vladimir V. Putin was on national television here, brashly declaring Russia's historical claims over Ukrainian territory, reiterating a threat to use military force and generally sounding a defiant, even mocking, tone toward the United States. Mr. Putin, appearing cool and confident during a four-hour question-and-answer show, referred repeatedly to southeast Ukraine as "New Russia" - a historical term for the area north of the Black Sea that the Russian Empire conquered in the 1700s. And, he said, only "God knows" why the region became part of Ukraine in the 1920s, signaling that he would gladly correct that error. Dropping previous pretenses, he calmly acknowledged for the first time that Russian troops had been deployed to occupy and annex Crimea. And in perhaps the day's most astonishing moment, he took evident delight in fielding a prerecorded question fromEdward J. Snowden, the fugitive American who is wanted on espionage charges for leaking documents on surveillance programs. | |
Comment: While the NYT seems to by parrotting some of the same talking points as the Guardian (e.g., Putin "mocking" Obama), on the whole their coverage here is more objective. Russia is in a strong position, and is challenging U.S. hegemony in the world. It's has nothing to do with "Putin vs. Obama".
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Paul Lewis
Guardian 2014-04-17 11:30:00
Vladimir Putin may have wanted his televised interview with citizens on Thursday to portray a conciliatory side. But the Russian president's current antipathy towards the US was never far beneath the surface during his phone-in with the nation. "To a certain extent, trust has been lost. But we do not think we are to blame," Putin said, conceding that relations had plummeted to their worst level since the cold war. "The United States can act in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, but Russia is not allowed to defend its interests." Catching himself, Putin added: "I want to emphasize once again: Russia is interested in growing relations with the United States, and will do everything to ensure that this confidence is restored." He made similar overtones towards Europe: "We do not intend to spoil the relations between Russia and Europe, and we hope that this is not part of our European partners' plans." Putin even offered an uncharacteristically charitable assessment of Barack Obama, when asked by a six-year old girl if the US president would come to his rescue if he were drowning. "He's a decent and brave man," Putin said. "He would do it." Yet Putin's animosity toward Obama, and the western powers he represents, was clear. | |
Comment: The Guardian continues with their slimy, inaccurate, biased coverage of all things Putin. Notice the language: Putin couldn't contain is "antipathy" and "animosity" to the West, as if Putin's convictions were mere personal gripes and not legitimate reactions to Western criminality. Snowden's question MUST have been a pre-approved PR move. Putin's resistance to another illegal war in Syria was mere cover for a personal attempt to "mock" Obama. And Lewis makes no comment on the fact that Obama is the puffer here: just look at who has demonstrated the most weakness during the crisis in Ukraine these past months! In a ponerized, hystericized society, anyone espousing real values and concerns MUST have a hidden agenda. Thus, the main force of Putin's positions on Libya, Syria, and Ukraine are sidelined, ignored, downplayed, and not given any due consideration.
For more on what Putin is actually doing, see this from blogger The Saker: Putin and Russia: The thing which everybody seems to be missing | |
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Ali Watkins, Jonathan S. Landay and Marisa Taylor
McClatchy 2014-04-11 11:27:00
A still-secret Senate Intelligence Committee report calls into question the legal foundation of the CIA's use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques on suspected terrorists, a finding that challenges the key defense on which the agency and the Bush administration relied in arguing that the methods didn't constitute torture. The report also found that the spy agency failed to keep an accurate account of the number of individuals it held, and that it issued erroneous claims about how many it detained and subjected to the controversial interrogation methods. The CIA has said that about 30 detainees underwent the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques. The CIA's claim "is BS," said a former U.S. official familiar with evidence underpinning the report, who asked not to be identified because the matter is still classified. "They are trying to minimize the damage. They are trying to say it was a very targeted program, but that's not the case." The findings are among the report's 20 main conclusions. Taken together, they paint a picture of an intelligence agency that seemed intent on evading or misleading nearly all of its oversight mechanisms throughout the program, which was launched under the Bush administration after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and ran until 2006. Some of the report's other conclusions, which were obtained by McClatchy, include:
The 6,300-page report is the culmination of a four-year, $40 million investigation into the detention and interrogation program by the Democrat-led committee. A final draft was approved in December 2012, but it has undergone revisions. The panel voted 11-3 on April 3 to send the report's 480-page executive summary, the findings and conclusions to the executive branch for declassification prior to public release. | |
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Fred Hiatt
The Washington Post 2014-04-18 15:53:00
Poland and the United States will announce next week the deployment of U.S. ground forces to Poland as part of an expansion of NATO presence in Central and Eastern Europe in response to events in Ukraine. That was the word from Poland's defense minister, Tomasz Siemoniak, who visited The Post Friday after meeting with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel at the Pentagon on Thursday. Siemoniak said the decision has been made on a political level and that military planners are working out details. There will also be intensified cooperation in air defense, special forces, cyberdefense and other areas. Poland will play a leading regional role, "under U.S. patronage," he said. But the defense minister also said that any immediate NATO response to Russian aggression in Ukraine, while important, matter less than a long-term shift in the defense postures of Europe and America. The United States, having announced a "pivot" to Asia, needs to "re-pivot" to Europe, he said, and European countries that have cut back on defense spending need to reverse the trends. | |
Comment: The U.S. is in the war business. This slimey piece of propaganda would lead you to believe there is a good reason to send troops to Poland when there is no convincing argument or evidence to do so.
War Whores want your money: Military's top general propaganda on nation's defense | |
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Alexei Anishchuk
Yahoo! News 2014-04-18 09:30:00
Royal Dutch Shell is committed to expansion in Russia, Chief Executive Ben van Beurden told Russian President Vladimir Putin at a meeting on Friday amid sanctions imposed on the country after its annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region. Shell plans to expand Russia's only liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant with Russian partner Gazprom, he said at a meeting at Putin's residence. "We, of course, will pledge all the necessary administrative guidance and support," Putin said in response in a meeting that was later broadcast on national television. The United States and European Union have imposed targeted sanctions against a list of Russian and Ukrainian individuals and firms in retaliation for Moscow's annexation of Crimea last month. EU and U.S. diplomats have indicated that they may consider wider sanctions against whole sectors of the Russian economy if Russian forces were to enter Ukraine. "We are very keen to grow our position in the Russian Federation," van Beurden said. "We look forward with anticipation and confidence on a very long-term future here in Russia." | |
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RT
2014-04-22 00:02:00
Members of the United States intelligence community must now operate within the boundaries of a new media policy, as contact with a journalist without prior approval can now be considered a fireable offense, their boss said on Sunday. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper signed on Sunday a directive which outlines new restrictions that intelligence analysts must consider before speaking to the press about both classified and unclassified information. | |
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Rasmussen Reports
2014-04-18 07:22:00
Thirty-seven percent (37%) of Likely U.S. Voters now fear the federal government, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Forty-seven percent (47%) do not, but another 17% are not sure. Perhaps in part that's because 54% consider the federal government today a threat to individual liberty rather than a protector. Just 22% see the government as a protector of individual rights, and that's down from 30% last November. Slightly more (24%) are now undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.) As recently as December 2012, voters were evenly divided on this question: 45% said the federal government was a protector of individual rights, while 46% described it as a threat to those rights. Two-out-of-three voters (67%) view the federal government today as a special interest group that looks out primarily for its own interests. Just 17% disagree, while 15% are undecided. | |
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The Connexion
2014-04-14 07:11:00
Contrary to popular belief in Britain, the French do work and they do read work-related emails after 6pm. That's the shocking news the French media would like to tell their counterparts in the UK after Lucy Mangan's blog post When the French clock off at 6pm, they really mean it in The Guardian last week sparked another round of "French-bashing" in the British press. Ms Mangan's post cited an article in Les Echos, about a deal - which affects about 250,000 employees in the technology and consultancy sectors - allowing staff to "disconnect" from work calls and emails to ensure they have the appropriate rest time allowed under French employment law. Other British newspapers picked up on the story. The Daily Mail claimed this "new legal agreement" proved that France was "arguably the laziest country in Europe". | |
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Prof. James Petras
Global Research 2014-04-22 02:54:00
During the beginning of his first term in office President Obama promised "to remake the Middle East into a region of prosperity and freedom". Six years later the reality is totally the contrary: the Middle East is ruled by despotic regimes whose jails are overflowing with political prisoners. The vast majority of pro-democracy activists who have been incarcerated, have been subject to harsh torture and are serving long prison sentences. The rulers lack legitimacy, having seized power and maintained their rule through a centralized police state and military repression.Direct US military and CIA intervention, massive shipments of arms,military bases, training missions and Special Forces are decisive in the construction of the Gulag chain from North Africa to the Gulf States. We will proceed by documenting the scale and scope of political repression in each US backed police state. We will then describe the scale and scope of US military aid buttressing the "remaking of the Middle East" into a chain of political prisons run by and for the US Empire. The countries and regimes include Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Iraq, Yemen, Jordan and Turkey . . . all of which promote and defend US imperial interests against the pro-democracy majority, represented by their independent social-political movements. | |
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John W. Whitehead
The Rutherford Institute 2014-04-21 22:55:00
Those tempted to write off the standoff at the Bundy Ranch as little more than a show of force by militia-minded citizens would do well to reconsider their easy dismissal of this brewing rebellion. This goes far beyond concerns about grazing rights or the tension between the state and the federal government. Few conflicts are ever black and white, and the Bundy situation, with its abundance of gray areas, is no exception. Yet the question is not whether Cliven Bundy and his supporters are domestic terrorists, as Harry Reid claims, or patriots, or something in between. Nor is it a question of whether the Nevada rancher is illegally grazing his cattle on federal land or whether that land should rightfully belong to the government. Nor is it even a question of who's winning the showdown - the government with its arsenal of SWAT teams, firepower and assault vehicles, or Bundy's militia supporters with their assortment of weapons - because if such altercations end in bloodshed, everyone loses. What we're really faced with, and what we'll see more of before long, is a growing dissatisfaction with the government and its heavy-handed tactics by people who are tired of being used and abused and are ready to say "enough is enough." And it won't matter what the issue is - whether it's a rancher standing his ground over grazing rights, a minister jailed for holding a Bible study in his own home, or a community outraged over police shootings of unarmed citizens - these are the building blocks of a political powder keg. Now all that remains is a spark, and it need not be a very big one, to set the whole powder keg aflame. As I show in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, there's a subtext to this incident that must not be ignored, and it is simply this: America is a pressure cooker with no steam valve, and things are about to blow. This is what happens when a parasitical government muzzles the citizenry, fences them in, herds them, brands them, whips them into submission, forces them to ante up the sweat of their brows while giving them little in return, and then provides them with little to no outlet for voicing their discontent. | |
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John Fund
National Review Online 2014-04-18 04:00:00
Military-style units from government agencies are wreaking havoc on non-violent citizen Regardless of how people feel about Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy's standoff with the federal Bureau of Land Management over his cattle's grazing rights, a lot of Americans were surprised to see TV images of an armed-to-the-teeth paramilitary wing of the BLM deployed around Bundy's ranch. They shouldn't have been. Dozens of federal agencies now have Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams to further an expanding definition of their missions. It's not controversial that the Secret Service and the Bureau of Prisons have them. But what about the Department of Agriculture, the Railroad Retirement Board, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Office of Personnel Management, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service? All of these have their own SWAT units and are part of a worrying trend towards the militarization of federal agencies - not to mention local police forces. | |
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The Connexion
2014-04-14 20:56:00
Tension is mounting between police and hoteliers in Montpellier, after an official email apparently requested all visitors from Eastern Europe should be reported to authorities. The email from the Regional Service of Judicial Police (SRPJ), seen by the Languedoc-Rousillon regional broadcasting arm of France 3 asked hoteliers and restaurateurs to "report the arrival in your institution of individuals, groups or families from Eastern Europe", including, if possible, the licence plates of their vehicles. Jacques Mestre, regional president of the Union of Hospitality Trades and Industries (UMIH), claimed that the email effectively asked him to discriminate against visitors from Eastern Europe and warned that it amounted to "racial profiling". | |
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Michael Goodwin
NY Post 2014-04-20 18:15:00
It's official: Treason is cool and traitors are acceptable sources for journalists. The Pulitzer Prize says so. In giving the 2014 Public Service award to The Washington Post and The Guardian for publishing stories based on Edward Snowden's stolen documents, the Pulitzer judges gave their stamp of approval to news organizations that cooperate with criminals and compromise national security. No doubt the lesson will trickle down to scoop-hungry young journalists that they should cultivate people willing to betray America. And why not? Those scribes whose sources steal the most important documents could win a Pulitzer and be the toast of anti-Americans around the world. No responsibility for catastrophe is required. Other ambitious young people might conclude there is glory in being the next Snowden. If they're really successful, they might get to be part of a propaganda event with Vladimir Putin, as the fugitive Snowden was last week. | |
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| Society's Child |
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BBC News
2014-04-21 18:16:00
A man accused of robbery and assault was shot and killed in a Salt Lake City court after he lunged at a witness giving evidence. Siale Angilau, 25, died in hospital after being shot several times by a US marshal in front of the jury at the new federal courthouse. The FBI said he had rushed towards the witness with a pen in an "aggressive, threatening manner". Angilau was the last of 17 accused gang members tried as part of a 2010 case. The case included 29 counts, including assault, conspiracy, robbery and weapons offences. Perry Cardwell, who was in the courtroom with his adult daughter, told the Associated Press news agency at least six shots were fired. | |
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Abby Goodnough
The New York Times 2014-04-21 14:58:00
Steve Huber, an affable salesman who is still paying off an unexpected medical bill, was not among the millions of Americans who signed up for health insurance under theAffordable Care Act during the enrollment period that ended March 31. After seeing television ads for Kentucky's new online insurance marketplace, Mr. Huber, 57, made several attempts to explore the website but found it too complicated. Moreover, his income has dropped in recent years, he said, and he felt certain that he could not afford coverage. So he never priced plans or researched whether he qualified for financial assistance. | |
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Michael Daly
The Daily Beast 2014-04-22 00:00:00
This Easter weekend, 45 people were shot in the city that's come to be known as 'Chiraq.' And until Obama can get the guns off the streets of his hometown, the bloodshed won't stop. President Obama may have gotten our troops out of Iraq, but the gunfire in his hometown of Chicago is still earning it a searing nickname coined by young people who live there. Chiraq On Easter weekend, 45 people were shot in the city, six of them children. Five youngsters under the age of 15 - four girls and a boy - were shot in a playground where they had gone after Easter services at a nearby church. Witnesses agree that a car pulled up and one of the occupants asked the youngsters if they were in a gang. There is some dispute about whether the youngsters even got a chance to say no before the people in the car started shooting. The most seriously wounded, 11-year-old Tymisha Washington, was listed in critical condition with multiple gunshot wounds. She is expected to survive. | |
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RT
2014-04-22 08:36:00
Katsutaka Idogawa, former mayor of Futaba, a town near the disabled Fukushima nuclear plant, is warning his country that radiation contamination is affecting Japan's greatest treasure - its children. Asked about government plans to relocate the people of Fatuba to the city of Iwaki, inside the Fukushima prefecture, Idogawa criticized the move as a "violation of human rights." Compared with Chernobyl, radiation levels around Fukushima "are four times higher," hetold RT's Sophie Shevardnadze, adding that "it's too early for people to come back to Fukushima prefecture." | |
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japantimes.co.jp
2014-04-22 10:23:00
As head of his village, Prajob Naowa-opas battled to save his community in central Thailand from the illegal dumping of toxic waste by filing petitions and leading villagers to block trucks carrying the stuff - until a gunman in broad daylight fired four shots into him. A year later, his three alleged killers, including a senior government official, are on trial for murder. But the prosecution of Prajob's murder is a rare exception. A survey released Tuesday - the first comprehensive one of its kind- says that only 10 killers of 908 environmental activists slain around the world over the past decade have been convicted. The report by the London-based Global Witness, a group that seeks to shed light on the links between environmental exploitation and human rights abuses, says murders of those protecting land rights and the environment have soared dramatically. It noted that its toll of victims in 35 countries is probably far higher since field investigations in a number of African and Asian nations are difficult or impossible. | |
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Police State USA
2014-04-22 08:33:00
A man says that when he called police to report that his home had been burglarized, he waited hours for an officer to arrive - only to witness his dog promptly being shot in the head by the responding deputy. He says when more backup arrived, they mocked and intimidated him with a taser. On April 18th, Cole and Jayna Middleton discovered that their home had been broken into. Several items had been stolen, including the family's firearms. Mr. Middleton phoned the Rains County Sheriff's Office for help. Mr. Middleton, a farmer and cattle rancher, tended his crops while waiting approximately 2.5 hours for a deputy to arrive and take a police report. Middleton's father was in the pasture with him, along with the family's beloved pet and trusted cow-herder 'Candy.' Candy was a 3-year-old Blue Heeler (also known as an Australian Cattle Dog) and weighed approximately 40 pounds. She was sitting in the back of a pickup truck as they worked. | |
Comment: If you live in the USA, especially if you have a dog, calling the police for any reason at all is a recipe for total disaster.
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Yuka Obayashi
The Japan Times 2014-04-22 08:11:00
The manager of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant has admitted to embarrassment that repeated efforts have failed to bring under control the problem of radioactive water, eight months after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told the world the matter had been resolved. Tokyo Electric Power Co., the plant's operator, has been fighting a daily battle against contaminated water since Fukushima No. 1 was wrecked by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Abe's government pledged half a billion dollars last year to tackle the issue, but progress has been limited. | |
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Padraic Flanagan and Laura Donnelly
The Telegraph 2014-04-22 00:35:00
At least 1,000 hospital patients are dying needlessly each month from dehydration and poor care by doctors and nurses, according to an NHS study. The deaths from acute kidney injury could be prevented by simple steps such as nurses ensuring patients have enough to drink and doctors reviewing their medication, the researchers say. Between 15,000 and 40,000 patients die annually because hospital staff fail to diagnose the treatable kidney problem, a figure that dwarfs the death toll from superbugs like MRSA. The report comes less than a year after the NHS watchdog NICE was forced to issue guidelines on giving patients water after it found that 42,000 deaths a year could be avoided if staff ensured the sick were hydrated. | |
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Tengri News
2014-04-22 15:10:00
An Almaty-Atyrau passenger train No.41 has run off track in Aytrau Oblast in western Kazakhstan on Saturday evening, April 19. Kazakhstan Transport Prosecutor's Office opened a criminal case in relation to the accident, Tengrinews reports citing the press office of the Ministry of Emergency Situations. 580 tickets were sold the train, but according to the Emergency Situations Department there was a total of 495 people on the train travelling to Atyrau during the accident, both passengers and train staff. 5 people were hospitalized with serious injuries after the accident. No one was killed. | |
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RT
2014-04-21 19:48:00
Spending cuts in Greece have caused some 500 male suicides since their implementation, according to a new study. The research found a positive correlation between austerity and suicide rates after other possible links proved to be unrelated. The 30-page study, titled 'The Impact of Fiscal Austerity on Suicide: On the Empirics of a Modern Greek Tragedy' and published in the Social Science and Medicine journal was authored by Nikolaos Antonakakis and Alan Collins from Portsmouth University. "Suicide rates in Greece (and other European countries) have been on a remarkable upward trend following the global recession of 2008 and the European sovereign debt crisis of 2009," states the study's abstract. | |
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Wynton Hall
Breitbart 2014-04-20 07:28:00
California Obamacare enrollees are struggling to find doctors who accept their newly purchased health insurance plans. UCSF Dr. Kevin Grumbach calls the phenomenon "medical homelessness." CBS San Francisco says that many of the health care clinics for low-income individuals that helped people enroll in Obamacare are now seeing those same people "coming back to the clinic begging for help." "They're coming back to us now and saying, 'I can't find a doctor,'" Rotacare clinic staffer Mirella Nguyen told CBS San Francisco. "What good is coverage if you can't use it?" The problem stems from Obamacare's "narrow networks" - extreme restrictions on access to doctors and hospitals in an effort to cut costs. California single mother of two Thinn Ong experienced the pain of Obamacare's narrow networks when she realized that her $200-a-month Obamacare plan is not accepted by many of the doctors in her area. | |
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RINF
After a soccer game at Vandegrift High School in Austin, Texas ecstatic high school students charged the field to celebrate their team's victory; yet not all were happy.2014-04-21 15:18:00 A police officer was caught on tape kicking, tripping, and shoving several young girls and boys as they stormed the field, with one forced to leave the field limping in pain. After video surfaced and parents responded with outrage, Georgetown police responded saying they've forwarded the case for internal "investigation," also known as investigating one's self.
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Anthony Watts
What's up with That 2014-04-21 16:50:00
From ARStechnica and the stupid, it burns, department comes this ridiculous story of a bureaucrat gone off the rails. See the video that set off this pissing match below. The city of Portland, OR will empty a 38-million gallon reservoir after a teenager allegedly urinated in it, according to the Associated Press. It's the second time in three years that Portland is flushing its Mount Tabor reservoir after a urine-related incident. | |
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Tanya Lewis
Live Science 2014-04-21 14:01:00
The 16-year-old boy who survived a flight across the Pacific Ocean stowed away in an airplane's wheel well has everyone wondering just how he achieved this remarkable feat. The teenager climbed aboard Hawaiian Airlines Flight 45 at San Jose International Airport Sunday morning (April 20) and survived the five-and-a-half-hour flight to Maui with minimal oxygen at an altitude of 38,000 feet (11,600 meters) and temperatures of about minus 80 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 62 degrees Celsius). The boy remained unconscious for most of the flight, but was unharmed, The Associated Press reported. The teenager probably survived by entering a state of suspended animation, in which the body's metabolism slows down and requires less oxygen and energy, medical experts say. "It is a true miracle that a lot of physicians have postulated in the past," said Dr. Evelina Grayver, a cardiologist at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, N.Y. The boy most likely lost consciousness due to the low oxygen level as the plane ascended, and then, the low temperatures probably put his cells into a frozen state, Grayver told Live Science. Not everyone believes the story, however. "Somebody surviving at 35,000 feet for five hours with no supplemental oxygen supply; I just don't believe it," aviation consultant Jim Nance told ABC News. | |
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Brett Barrouquere
ABC News 2014-04-21 07:09:00
A prison doctor has been fired and two other staffers are in the midst of being dismissed after an inmate at the Kentucky State Penitentiary starved himself to death, a case that has exposed lapses in medical treatment and in how hunger strikes are handled at the facility. Prison officials have asked prosecutors to investigate after The Associated Press began asking questions about the inmate's death. James Kenneth Embry, 57 and with just three years left on a nine-year sentence for drug offenses, began to spiral out of control in the spring of 2013 after he stopped taking anti-anxiety medication. Seven months later, in December, after weeks of erratic behavior - from telling prison staff he felt anxious and paranoid to banging his head on his cell door - Embry eventually refused most of his meals. By the time of his death in January of this year, he had shed more than 30 pounds on his 6-foot frame and died weighing just 138 pounds, according to documents reviewed by the AP. An internal investigation determined that medical personnel failed to provide him medication that may have kept his suicidal thoughts at bay and didn't take steps to check on him as his condition worsened. The internal review of Embry's death also exposed broader problems involving the treatment of inmates - including a failure to regularly check inmates on medical rounds and communication lapses among medical staff. | |
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| Secret History |
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Robert Coolman
LiveScience 2014-04-19 00:18:00
How did we come to divide the hour into 60 minutes and the minute into 60 seconds? These smaller divisions of time have been in practical use for only about 400 years, but they were vital to the advent of modern science. For millennia, ancient civilizations looked to the sky to measure the big units of time. There's the year, which is the time it takes Earth to complete one orbit around the sun; the month, which is approximately how long it takes the moon to orbit our planet; the week, which is approximately the time between the four phases of the moon; and the day, which is the duration of one rotation of the Earth's on its axis. Dividing the day was not so straightforward, though hours and minutes have their origins in traditions tracing back thousands of years. | |
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Thomas Sumner
Science Shot 2014-04-21 15:00:00
When in ancient Rome, don't drink as the Romans do. High-born Romans sipped beverages cooked in lead vessels and channeled spring water into their homes through lead pipes (pictured). Some historians argue that lead poisoning plagued the Roman elite with diseases such as gout and hastened the empire's fall. Now, a team of archaeologists and scientists has discovered just how contaminated Roman tap water was. The team dredged sediment downstream from Rome in the harbor basin at Portus, a maritime port of imperial Rome, and from a channel connecting the port to the Tiber River. The researchers compared the lead isotopes in their sediment samples with those found in preserved Roman piping to create a historical record of lead pollution flowing from the Roman capital. Tap water from ancient Rome likely contained up to 100 times more lead than local spring water, the team reports online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. While the lead contamination was measureable, the team says the levels were unlikely high enough to be harmful, ruling out tap water as a major culprit in Rome's demise. The team's thousand-year historical record included noticeable changes in lead pollution from Rome following major events such as the Gothic Wars in 535 C.E., Byzantine repairs to abandoned Roman aqueducts in 554 C.E., and the mid-9th century Arab sack of Rome. The team says this timeline can support historians studying the changing character of Rome and Portus during the turbulent post-empire years. | |
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| Science & Technology |
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Jason Major
Phys.org 2014-04-17 10:07:00
This Earth Day, Tuesday, April 22, three former NASA astronauts will present new evidence that our planet has experienced many more large-scale asteroid impacts over the past decade than previously thought... three to ten times more, in fact. A new visualization of data from a nuclear weapons warning network, to be unveiled by B612 Foundation CEO Ed Lu during the evening event at Seattle's Museum of Flight, shows that "the only thing preventing a catastrophe from a 'city-killer' sized asteroid is blind luck." Since 2001, 26 atomic-bomb-scale explosions have occurred in remote locations around the world, far from populated areas, made evident by a nuclear weapons test warning network. In a recent press release B612 Foundation CEO Ed Lu states: | |
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Lydia Smith
International Business Times 2014-04-22 13:17:00
A study of ancient fossil shells has revealed that the Antarctic was once as warm as the California coast. Yale University scientists came to their conclusion after trying a different model to gauge historic temperatures. Their findings underscore the potential for seesawing temperatures at the Earth's poles and the associated risk of melting polar ice and rising sea levels. | |
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David Dickinson
Universe Today 2014-04-21 22:41:00
Will anyone see next week's solar eclipse? On April 29th, an annular solar eclipseoccurs over a small D-shaped 500 kilometre wide region of Antarctica. This will be the second eclipse for 2014 - the first was the April 15th total lunar eclipse - and the first solar eclipse of the year, marking the end of the first eclipse season. 2014 has the minimum number of eclipses possible in one year, with four: two partial solars and two total lunars. This month's solar eclipse is also a rarity in that it's a non-central eclipse with one limit. That is, the center of the Moon's shadow - known as the antumbra during an annular eclipse - will juuuust miss the Earth and instead pass scant kilometres above the Antarctic continent. | |
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Charles Q. Choi
livescience 2014-04-21 21:04:00
Neanderthals were remarkably less genetically diverse than modern humans, with Neanderthal populations typically smaller and more isolated, researchers say. Although Neanderthals underwent more genetic changes involving their skeletons, they had fewer such changes in behavior and pigmentation, scientists added. Modern humans are the only humans alive today, but Earth was once home to a variety of other human lineages. The Neanderthals were once the closest relatives of modern humans, with the common ancestors of modern humans and Neanderthals diverging between 550,000 and 765,000 years ago. Neanderthals and modern humans later interbred - nowadays, about 1.5 to 2.1 percent of DNA of people outside Africa is Neanderthal in origin. | |
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