| Puppet Masters |
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RT
2015-01-31 21:37:00
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has denied reports that his wife, Sara, stole thousands of dollars worth of state funds from bottles returned to local supermarkets on her orders. In a Facebook post, Netanyahu railed against the "false accusations against me and my wife that seek to topple the Likud and bring the left to power." Netanyahu criticized local media who jumped at the opportunity to ridicule Sara, just a month-and-a-half ahead of scheduled snap elections which will pit Netanyahu's ruling Likud party against a united center-left front. "All of this aims to detract attention from what is really important - who will lead the country," he wrote. But Israeli media did seize the chance to make fun of Sara. A frequent target for left-leaning Haaretz,she is often portrayed as out of touch and extravagant. | |
Comment: Seems like the couple is in the news: Netanyahu and his wife are being sued for 'racist and physical abuse' of African bodyguard and maid
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Philip Weiss
Mondoweiss 2015-01-31 19:44:00
In the last 24 hours the controversy over the planned speech by Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu to both houses of Congress on March 3 to rebut the president's policy on Iran has blown up to a new level. Muted outrage over the invitation has turned into open rage. The opposition to the speech by major Israel supporters across the political spectrum, liberal J Street, center-right Jeffrey Goldberg,and hard-right Abraham Foxman, all of whom say the speech-planners have put the US-Israel relationship at risk by making it a political controversy in the U.S., has been conveyed to the Democratic establishment. The New York Times and Chris Matthews both landed on the story last night, a full week after it broke, to let us know what a disaster the speech would be if it's ever delivered. So these media are acting to protect the special relationship by upping the pressure to cancel the speech. With even AIPAC washing its hands of the speech, it sure looks as if Israel supporters want an exit from this fiasco. Jettisoning Israeli ambassador Ron Dermer or cancelling the speech would seem like a small price to pay in the news cycle next to a spectacle in which leading Democrats are forced to line up against Netanyahu in Washington, even as they file in and out of the AIPAC policy conference and praise Israel to the skies. | |
Comment: What a spectacle the Netanyahu invitation is turning out to be.
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IMEMC News & Agencies
2015-01-29 19:38:00
Israeli bulldozers, on Thursday, destroyed a water pipe being used in connecting the West Tubas district's Atoof village with Khirbet Yezra, in the northern Jordan Valley. Head of Al-Maleh local council, Aaref Daraghmeh, said that the pipe had length of 1,000 meters, and was donated by Agricultural Relief to provide the residents of Yezra with water, since the area has no water sources. According to the PNN, Dr. Hanna Issa, professor and expert on international law, strongly condemned the action, saying that occupation authorities provide settlers with water, while depriving Palestinians of their own sources. | |
Comment: What possible justification could Israel have for doing such a thing - except, perhaps, for the goal of making life even more difficult for the oppressed Palestinian population living the West Bank.
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Zeidy David
Counter Current News 2015-01-26 13:01:00
Benjamin Netanyahu has long been accused by Palestinians and African refugees of being a racist. But now the Israeli Prime Minister is being sued by a former bodyguard who says that he was constantly subjected to racist and physical abuse. Manny Naftali, 35, says that Bibi and his wife Sarah did not just provide him with a job, primarily as a bodyguard, they also provided him with constant abuse. The former soldier says that the humiliating treatment by Mrs Netanyahu was the worse, and it occurred almost entirely with her husband's knowledge. The lawsuit was just filed with Jerusalem district labour court. Mr Naftali explains in the suit that he worked for 20 months at the Balfour Street residence. During that time, he describes one particularly disturbing incident when Mrs Netanyahu complained him about a Shabbat meal. "We are sophisticated Europeans," she explained to the Moroccan-descended Naftali. "We don't eat as much food as you Moroccans. You are stuffing us, so that when they photograph us abroad, we look fat." It is unclear why the meal was being blamed on their African Jewish bodyguard. | |
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Raw Story
2015-01-31 17:26:00
The CIA and Israel's spy agency Mossad were behind an elaborate plot to kill Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyeh in a 2008 car bomb attack in Syria, the Washington Post reported. Citing former intelligence officials, the newspaper reported that US and Israeli spy agencies worked together to target Mughniyeh on February 12, 2008 as he left a restaurant in the Syrian capital Damascus. He was killed instantly by a car bomb planted in a spare tire on the back of a parked car, which exploded shrapnel in a tight radius, the Post said. | |
Comment: Mossad and CIA are cohorts in many murders. Why is this being published now? Is there a political motivation? See:Obama will not meet U.S.-bound Netanyahu, but Bibi will address U.S. Congress
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RT
2015-01-31 17:03:00
Fighters of the notorious paramilitary battalion Aidar have rallied in Kiev against their disbandment, attempting to storm the Ukraine Defense Ministry's HQ and accusing the regular army of deliberately shelling Aidar's own positions with heavy artillery. Ukraine's most infamous volunteer squad, the Aidar battalion - condemned by Amnesty International for its unmatched brutality in eastern Ukraine - allegedly came under Grad and Smerch rocket fire by the regular military near the town of Schastya in Lugansk region. "[Ukrainian] artillery is working against Aidar battalion's positions," said Aidar commander and MP representing Ukraine's Radical Party, Sergey Melnichuk, during a protest outside the Defense Ministry's building in Kiev. Citing his own fighter, Melnichuk claimed that Kiev's artillery targeted the battalion's positions "15-20 times." | |
Comment: My oh my, what psychopaths fighting each other looks like.
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Robert Parry
Consortium News 2015-01-28 16:48:00
Comment: As it was then, so it is now. You will likely not read or hear about media moguls like Murdoch visiting Obama in the White House to discuss public opinion strategies, but you can be that the very same meetings that occurred during the Reagan administration are happening today. The government and media work very closely together to mould public opinion, to basically tell people what to think. As you can see below, this strategy has been employed for quite a long time. Through Fox News and a vast media empire, Rupert Murdoch wields enormous political clout in the United States, but his entrée into the world of Washington power came from the notorious McCarthyite Roy Cohn who opened the door into Ronald Reagan's Oval Office, reports Robert Parry. Rupert Murdoch, the global media mogul who is now a kingmaker in American politics, was brought into those power circles by the infamous lawyer/activist Roy Cohn who arranged Murdoch's first Oval Office meeting with President Ronald Reagan in 1983, according to documents released by Reagan's presidential library. "I had one interest when Tom [Bolan] and I first brought Rupert Murdoch and Governor Reagan together - and that was that at least one major publisher in this country ... would become and remain pro-Reagan," Cohn wrote in a Jan. 27, 1983 letter to senior White House aides Edwin Meese, James Baker and Michael Deaver. "Mr. Murdoch has performed to the limit up through and including today." The letter noted that Murdoch then owned the "New York Post - over one million, third largest and largest afternoon; New York Magazine; Village Voice; San Antonio Express; Houston Ring papers; and now the Boston Herald; and internationally influential London Times, etc." Cohn sent the letter nine days after Murdoch met Reagan in the Oval Office along with Cohn, his legal partner Thomas Bolan, and U.S. Information Agency Director Charles Wick. In a photograph of the Jan. 18, 1983 meeting, Cohn is shown standing and leaning toward Reagan who is seated next to Murdoch. Following that meeting, Murdoch became involved in a privately funded propaganda project to help sell Reagan's hard-line Central American policies, according to other documents. That PR operation was overseen by senior CIA propaganda specialist Walter Raymond Jr. and CIA Director William Casey, but the details of Murdoch's role remain sketchy partly because some of the records are still classified more than three decades later. | |
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RT
2015-01-31 15:22:00
The US and EU have advised Israel to drop its plans to construct an additional 450 settlement homes in the West Bank, warning that failure to do so would further destabilize the situation in the region and diminish prospects for peace. On Friday, Israel announced tenders to build new settlements on the Palestinian territories in a move that has been deemed illegal under international law. In particular, the announced projects include 156 units in Elkana, 114 homes in Geva Binyamin, 102 in Kiryat Araba, and 78 in Alfei Menashe, according to Jerusalem Post. Some of those tenders are being reissued, however, since contractors refused to take many of the projects in the past. If Israel proceeds with construction, it will become "an obstacle to peace," the European Union said in a statement. In addition, it will further "undermine the viability of the two-state solution." "Israel should reverse these decisions, thereby putting an end to settlement expansion," the Europeans warned. By refusing to do so, Israel faces the risk of "inflaming the very tense situation on the ground." | |
Comment: Israel continues to build settlements despite the warnings from other nations and violates international law. Apparently peace between Israel and Palestine is not seriously on Israel's agenda.
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Anoosh Chakelian
New Statesman 2015-01-29 16:19:00
Information concerning three of the UK's most sensitive inquiries has been lost in the post. It's one of those Whitehall clichés. A civil servant leaves their briefcase full of weapons-grade government secrets on the train. Following the story of a bungling UK spy who did just that back in 2008 with documents on Iraq and al Qaeda, the legislative lost property tale has become a bit of a parable for government incompetence. And now it's happened again. This time, the Ministry of Justice appears to have lost some very important discs in the post containing information about three of the UK's current most sensitive inquiries: the role of the police in the deaths of Robert Hamill, Azelle Rodney and Mark Duggan. The latter is the most recent case; the fatal police shooting in 2011 sparked the London riots. The department admits that the documents went missing in the post, and have been lost since early January this year: "Immediate steps were taken, including intensive searches to locate the discs. These searches continue, with police assistance. The discs have not, as yet, been found." | |
Comment: It is not uncommon for important, sensitive files to go 'missing' in the UK: See Home Office loses pedophile dossier naming big names
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RT
2015-01-30 23:17:00
The Ukraine army's chief of staff has admitted that Kiev troops are not engaged in combat with Russian units, thereby thwarting all Western allegations of Moscow's "military invasion," said Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov. "Yesterday afternoon the Chief of the General Staff - Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine - Viktor Muzhenko officially acknowledged during a briefing for foreign military attachées that Russian troops are not involved in the fighting in the country's southeast," Konashenkov said on Friday. Given the fact that Muzhenko directly supervises military operations in the southeast, "his statement is a legal fact, which thwarts numerous accusations made by NATO and Western states"concerning Russia's alleged "military invasion" in Ukraine, the spokesman added. The Russian Defense Ministry, however, was puzzled by a statement from Muzhenko's subordinate, Sergey Galushko, made several hours later. According to Galushko - an employee of the Department of Information Technology - Russian troops are located in the so-called "second echelon." On Thursday, Muzhenko said "the Ukrainian army is not engaged in combat operations against Russian units." He added, however, that he had information about Russian individuals fighting in the country's east. He also said the Ukrainian army has everything it needs to drive off armed units in Donbass. His speech was aired by Ukraine's Channel 5 television, owned by President Petro Poroshenko. | |
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Stuart J. Hooper
Greece's new anti-austerity and anti-Western Oligarchy ruling party, Syriza, is coming under attack from an all too familiar angle. Keep in mind that this accusation came on the very first day Syriza took office.21st Century Wire 2015-01-30 03:47:00
According to CNN, "there may be some 200 people in the country with links to jihadist groups such as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or the al Nusra Front". Supposing this is true, should we not instead look to those who funded and created those groups; namely Western nations? An unnamed "source close to the Greek intelligence services told CNN" of this alleged problem, so for all we know this could be a complete lie; probably from the mind of a pro-Western, anti-Syriza propaganda agent working for Wall Street and the City of London. Accusations of such magnitude require far more than an unnamed source before we can verify their existence in the realms of reality. This spectral source supposedly said "Greece is not a target, just a gateway into Europe and a stop on the fighters' return home", which essentially paints the entire state of Greece as a problem. CNN says of this source that "he added"; in regard to his alleged statements. How does this unnamed source feel about having his anonymity damaged in this regard? This is an absolute failure in narrative construction, and suggests to us that questioning this piece is not an unwarranted task. | |
Comment: This outlandish accusation springs out of nowhere within 24 hours of an anti-austerity, pro-sovereignty government in the Eurozone being elected to power. No rest for the wicked in the mainstream media, it seems.
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Jay Syrmopoulos
Free Thought Project 2015-01-29 03:09:00
Washington, D.C. - A new piece of legislation was introduced in the House of Representatives, H. R. 378, labeled the Responsible Body Armor Possession Act, which if enacted would deprive law abiding citizens of another means of self defense. The legislation, forwarded by Rep. Mike Honda, would ban citizens from ownership of enhanced body armor, defined as "body armor, including a helmet or shield, the ballistic resistance of which meets or exceeds the ballistic performance of Type III armor, determined using National Institute of Justice Standard-0101.06" in the bill. Level III and higher body armor can defeat most common rifle ammunition. The body armor in question has a sole purpose of protecting the wearer from potential serious injury or death from being shot. If passed, this bill would usurp people's ability to own a truly defensive form of protection, with penalties for possession/ownership ranging from fines to jail time or both. In his press release, Rep. Honda states:
This speaks to the heart of the law enforcement problem in America. Laws are continually being proposed to solve problems that don't exist, which is exactly how we have gotten into the current police state mess we find ourselves in. | |
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Police State USA
2015-01-28 03:00:00
The ability to travel in the United States is about to become more restrictive as the TSA announces it will soon be enforcing new identification standards in American airports. Beginning in 2016, passengers attempting to pass through a federal TSA checkpoint will be subject to the requirements of the REAL ID Act. To that end, the TSA will put higher scrutiny on travelers' identities, and will only accept a federal passport or a "REAL-ID" card, which is issued by the states to meet federal requirements. Passengers will not be allowed to fly through an American airport without submitting to the advanced federal specifications. Both federal passports and REAL-ID cards require a number of unique personal identifiers to be stored together in government databases, including his or her full name, date of birth, Social Security Number, scanned signature, and other identifiers. Both cards require biometric data: a front-facing digital photograph of the passenger's face, which is ultimately used with a facial recognition database. "It is a choice," flippantly explained David Fierro, the Public Information Officer for the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles. "If you use a passport when you're traveling you don't have any problems. If you use your driver's license as identification, you'll need to either apply for the Real ID card or get a passport." | |
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Eric Zuesse
Global Research 2015-01-30 23:26:00
On January 22nd, Rupert Murdoch's Sky News (Murdoch founded it, his son James headed it for a while, and their 21st Century Fox owns "a controlling stake" in it) telecast a puff-piece for Ukraine's right-wing extremists, several times calling them "heroes" to "patriotic" Ukrainians. This segment of their documentary series Ross Kemp: Extreme World, was titled "Ukraine: The Rise of The Right." In it, Ukraine's "far right" are described as being patriots who are protecting all of Ukraine from a Russian invasion, and who are therefore being increasingly admired by Ukrainians. It says: "The ultras [ultra-rightists] are actually patriotic young people who are ready to fight - not only on the Maidan, but also at the war for our land. ... These men - seen now by many as heroes - are fighting for the Azov Battalion in Mariupol, Maryinka and Iliovaisk." The message is that whereas these far-rightists were previously despised, they now are widely respected: "Just a few years ago they were on the fringes of society - shunned for their violent behaviour and xenophobic beliefs, but since the 2014 Maidan revolution - and the subsequent fighting against pro-Russian groups - their popularity has grown." In the segment here, the presenter, Ross Kemp, says, at 15:25, that, Ukraine "faces the threat of a full-scale Russian invasion. NATO has called the crisis in Ukraine, the biggest threat to European security since World War Two. Amidst this chaos, volunteer far-right battalions have put up some of the strongest resistance." He then notes that the city of Mariupol in Ukraine's southeast "is currently being defended by a right-wing militia called the Azov Battalion." Comment: Oh how the Western media likes to distort reality! The truth is that it's the U.S./EU/NATO that is the biggest threat to global security since Hitler's Germany. The lies used by the lamestream media to demonize Russia, the one country standing up to the Western elites who are hellbent on world domination, are sickening. | |
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DB/MHB
Press TV 2015-01-31 00:47:00
Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud has dismissed Prince Bandar bin Sultan from the National Security Council. King Salman on Thursday issued a number of royal decrees that removed or changed a number of top Saudi officials. The new king, who succeeded the late King Abdullah last week, also removed Intelligence Chief Prince Khaled bin Bandar from his post and appointed him as his advisor. He also sacked two of the late king's sons from big jobs. King Salman replaced Riyadh Governor Turki bin Abdullah with Faisal bin Bandar, and reinstated Khaled al-Faisal as Mecca governor less than two years after he was replaced by Mishaal bin Abdullah. | |
Comment: We will see if these changes the Saudi king has implemented will have any effect to the current Saudi policies.
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| Society's Child |
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Arturo Garcia
Raw Story 2015-01-31 00:00:00
Bill Maher closed Real Time on Friday by ripping Republicans' embrace of the phrase "middle-class economics." "It's the new bullsh*t, and it's what's for dinner," he said, noting that both Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney had started decrying income inequality. (At least, before Romney eliminated himself as a presidential candidate on Friday.) Even former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) tried to get into the act, Maher noted, before showing footage of her mangling the term "status quo" during her infamous speech in Iowa last week. | |
Comment: Bill Maher explains it very nicely (in this instance).
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Dian Zhang
McClatchy Washington Bureau 2015-01-31 17:38:00
To the issues dividing Americans by race, add the publication of satirical cartoons about religion. A survey released by the Pew Research Center this week found that Americans, by more than 2-to-1, believe it's OK to publish cartoons poking fun of religion, such as those printed by the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. But that seemingly overwhelming support for the right to make fun came largely from white respondents to the survey, the organization reported. A plurality of non-whites, just shy of a majority, said they were opposed to such satire. Why that divide exists has much to do with the way the country's dominant culture has treated minority groups over the years, say experts on race and religion. No one likes being the butt of jokes - and if that's been your role in society, you're more sensitive to the offense, they said. "Non-white Americans might be more sensitive than whites to negative media images of Islam (and religious diversity in general) because they understand how it feels to believe, rightly or wrongly, that one's community is under attack by the media and mainstream society," said Henry Goldschmidt, director of education programs at Interfaith Center of New York, a nonprofit organization that promotes communications among different faith, ethnic and cultural traditions. | |
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Paul Craig Roberts
Institute for Political Economy 2015-01-30 17:36:00
Anyone paying attention knows that 9/11 has been used to create a police/warfare state. Years ago NSA official William Binney warned Americans about the universal spying by the National Security Agency, to little effect. Recently Edward Snowden proved the all-inclusive NSA spying by releasing spy documents, enough of which have been made available by Glenn Greenwald to establish the fact of NSA illegal and unconstitutional spying, spying that has no legal, constitutional, or "national security" reasons. Yet Americans are not up in arms. Americans have accepted the government's offenses against them as necessary protection against "terrorists." Neither Congress, the White House, or the Judiciary has done anything about the wrongful spying, because the spying serves the government. Law and the Constitution are expendable when the few who control the government have their "more important agendas." Bradley Manning warned us of the militarization of US foreign policy and the murderous consequences, and Julian Assange of WikiLeaks posted leaked documents proving it. Were these whistleblowers and honest journalists, who alerted us to the determined attack on our civil liberty, rewarded with invitations to the White House and given medals of honor in recognition of their service to American liberty? | |
Comment: Well said Dr. Roberts. It's truly a despicable state the Americans are in. History repeats until we learn our lessons.
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Sputnik
2015-01-31 16:41:00
Thousands of people gathered in Madrid on Saturday in an anti-governmental rally organized by the Spanish anti-austerity left-wing party Podemos, following the recent victory of the eurosceptic Syriza party in Greece's parliamentary elections. "Thousands of people have already filled up Cibeles [a square in Madrid], have come to tell the government of Rajoy [Mariano Rajoy, Prime Minister of Spain] that they will not continue tolerating the plundering to which we are subjected to, that we will chuck them out," Podemos wrote on its Facebook page. More than 260 buses with more than 10,000 people from all over the country came to Madrid ahead of the rally, local media reported. Around 100 people have volunteered to carpool, a Podemos spokesperson told Sputnik. | |
Comment: This will make Spain's upcoming elections this year very interesting.
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Julian Robinson and Damien Gayle
Mail Online 2015-01-29 15:48:00
At least seven people have been killed and dozens more are injured after a powerful fuel tank explosion outside a maternity and children's hospital in Mexico. Four babies and three adults were killed in the blast in Mexico City today, according to the latest tally. Some are still feared trapped under the rubble of the collapsed building. Rescue workers have been scouring through ruined sections of concrete and twisted metal for survivors. 'For the moment there are seven people dead, four of them babies, two women and a man,' an official in the Mexico City mayor's office told AFP. Passers-by rushed into the building after the blast and made their way to the nursery section, rescuing eight babies, it has been reported. Dozens were evacuated after the truck exploded outside the hospital with many of the injuries caused by broken glass. The city's mayor Angel Mancera had told Milenio television earlier that a woman and two men were among the dead. He told the Televisa network that at least 54 people were injured, 22 of them children. Most of the injuries were relatively minor, he said, many caused by flying glass.
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RT
One of Russia's largest academic libraries, which contains millions of unique historic documents, has gone up in flames in Moscow. A part of the building's roof collapsed before dozens of fire fighters managed to contain the blaze.2015-01-31 15:06:00
The fire erupted at around 10 pm local time (7 pm GMT) on the third floor of the Academic Institute of Scientific Information on Social Sciences (INION) in Moscow. According to the Emergency Situations Ministry, some 2,000 square meters were engulfed in flames, prompting the roof to cave in. According to preliminary data, the cause of the fire could be a malfunction of the electrical system, a law-enforcement source told RIA Novosti news agency. "A short circuit in the electrical system is currently being regarded as a primary lead," he said Saturday. На юго-западе Москвы сгорела библиотека ИНИОН РАН. https://t.co/vm2LCuZiHxpic.twitter.com/qBO8AH2xxbA total of 147 rescue workers and 38 pieces of fire-fighting equipment were used to contain the fire shortly after midnight, the ministry said.
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Comment: What a tragic loss to researchers everywhere. It can only be hoped INION will be able to salvage some of the collection.
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Uriel J. Garcia
Santa Fe New Mexican 2015-01-30 00:30:00
A special prosecutor says she won't pursue charges against two Santa Fe police officers who shot a 26-year-old man in the cheek in August 2013 as he tried to flee in an SUV that his mother had reported stolen. A Santa Fe County grand jury, in a rare finding in an officer-involved shooting, determined last year after reviewing evidence in the case that the shooting was not justified. But Roswell District Attorney Janetta Hicks announced Thursday in a letter to New Mexico State Police that she will not prosecute Officers John DeBaca and Stephen Fonte. First District Attorney Angela "Spence" Pacheco had asked Hicks to serve as a special prosecutor in the case after the local grand jury's October finding. Comment: So, what's the point of a grand jury? Tom Clark, who represents the injured man, Roberto Mendez, said he was in shock when he learned that Hicks had declined to prosecute the case. "This means that the grand jury doesn't mean anything," Clark said. "I would have liked to see justice out of the criminal justice system," he said, adding that he plans to file a lawsuit against the city. In September, Clark filed a tort claim notice informing the city of his client's intention to sue. Hicks' announcement comes at a time when police use of force is under heightened scrutiny around the country. Earlier this month, District Attorney Kari Brandenburg of Albuquerque filed murder charges against two Albuquerque officers who had fatally shot James Boyd, a 38-year-old mentally ill homeless man who had been camping illegally on a mountainside in March 2014. Brandenburg said she was deviating from her past practice of presenting evidence in officer-involved shooting cases in secret grand jury proceedings because she wanted transparency in how the widely publicized incident is handled by the criminal justice system. Comment: The timing is quite interesting. God forbid that the idea that police are held accountable for their excessive use of force should become a new social theme. See: Hicks' letter says that after she reviewed evidence of the Santa Fe officers' actions, she determined that "a reasonable person in the same circumstances would be in fear of death or great bodily harm to himself or others and might use deadly force." | |
Comment: Police have been militarized and set out in class all to themselves, above reproach and superior to the values of community and a sense of justice. There is no recognition of duty to the citizens anymore. It is eerily similar to the breakdown of law via the SS in Nazi Germany well documented in Sebastian Haffner's memoir, Defying Hitler.
See also: Chaos and Consent: The Logistics of the One World Government | |
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TheJournal.ie
2015-01-30 23:24:00
Protesters who attend a planned anti-Islam event outside Clonskeagh Mosque on Sunday arewelcome to come in for a cup of tea, the Islamic Cultural Centre has said. Speaking to TheJournal.ie today, Summayah Kenna, spokesperson for the centre, said they had been informed by members of their community about plans for a protest. "Like any protest we can't and we will not object," she said. "Everybody has a right to protest. All we can ask is that it goes off peacefully." Plans for the protest have been circulating online, and it is said the event has been organised by an Irish anti-Islam group. A counter-event has also been organised by Anti-Imperialist Front Ireland. | |
Comment: This is reminiscent of what a mosque in York, England, did in May 2013 during an English Defence League (EDL) protest. The mosque countered the protest with tea, biscuits and football:
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Ali Abunimah
Electronic Intifada 2015-01-28 22:56:00
Comment: Let's not forget: this is an 8-year-old. It should be obvious to anyone that a child that age would say things they would not really understand, or learned from someone older, and should not be considered a threat or a criminal based on vague statements. This boy may well have been psychologically traumatized by this encounter with the police and school officials. Just when it seemed that the crackdown on free speech in France could not get worse, French police today questioned a second grader on suspicion of "defending terrorism." BFMTV says that administrators at a primary school in Nice reported the child to police on 21 January after the boy allegedly said that he "felt he was on the side of the terrorists." "A police station is absolutely no place for an eight-year-old child," the boy's lawyer Sefen Guez Guez told BFMTV. He said that the incident showed that France was going through a state of "collective hysteria." Guez Guez said that on 8 January, the day after two French gunmen attacked the offices of the magazine Charlie Hebdo, the boy, whose name has been reported as Ahmed, was in class when he was asked if he was "Charlie." "He answered, 'I am on the side of the terrorists, because I am against the caricatures of the prophet,'" the lawyer said. | |
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RT
2015-01-30 21:37:00
A peculiar part of paperwork that's presented to new parents in New York City is raising eyebrows around the Big Apple. The new form, according to recent reports, asks parents to specify if a newborn's mother is male or female. The New York Post first reported on Friday that an updated Department of Health (DOH) form handed to parents requesting a birth certificate removes the risk of misgendering new mommies. The form [PDF], provided by the New York City DOH's Bureau of Vital Statistics, requires parents to answer if the "woman giving birth" is male or female, along with more run of the mill questions concerning legal names and Social Security Numbers. "What is your DATE OF BIRTH, current AGE and SEX?" the form asks in the section labeled "Mother/Parent (Woman Giving Birth)." | |
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| Secret History |
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RT
2015-01-31 18:17:00
Russian neurosurgeons alongside anthropologists and archaeologists have carried out pioneering tests to better understand how incredible operations on skulls were conducted more than 2,000 years ago. Experts at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography united with prominent Russian neurosurgeons for a series of tests that revealed the exceptional skillfulness of ancient doctors, equipped only with primitive tools, The Siberian Times reported on Thursday. | |
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Ian Sample
The Guardian 2015-01-28 17:53:00
Skull found in northern Israeli cave in western Galilee, thought to be female and 55,000 years old, connects interbreeding and move from Africa to Europe An ancient skull found in a cave in northern Israel has cast light on the migration of modern humans out of Africa and the dawn of humanity's colonisation of the world. For most palaeontologists that might be enough for a single fossil, but the braincase has offered much more: a likely location where the first prehistoric trysts resulted in modern humans having sex with their heavy-browed Neanderthal cousins. Discovered in a cave in western Galilee, the partial skull belonged to an individual, probably a woman, who lived and died in the region about 55,000 years ago, placing modern humans there and then for the first time ever. Homo sapiens walked out of Africa at least 60,000 years ago, but the harsh climate in parts of Europe at the time hampered their spread across much of the continent until about 45,000 years ago. | |
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| Science & Technology |
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Medical Xpress
Ongoing research at Iowa State University is investigating the long-term neurological damage caused by hydrogen sulfide poisoning, a threat to both humans and animals that can originate from sources as varied as swamps to industrial processes to manure pits.2015-01-23 16:47:00 Wilson Rumbeiha, a professor of veterinary diagnostic and production animal medicine, said thepoison targets multiple systems in the human body, including the respiratory and cardiovascular systems and the brain. In high enough concentrations, exposure to the gas can be acutely fatal. But Rumbeiha's research is focused on the long-term consequences of hydrogen sulfide poisoning in survivors. He said exposure can bring about psychological and neurological problems in humans, sometimes months after the exposure. "In some cases, survivors can end up in a permanent vegetative state," Rumbeiha sad. "We don't have an antidote, and little is known about the mechanisms behind how it works. It's really a novel area that hasn't been investigated very well." Rumbeiha recently received a two-year grant from the National Institutes of Health to study the long-term risks associated with exposure to the gas and to test a drug that may pave the way to a therapy in humans. Rumbeiha is working with personnel at the University of California, San Diego, to determine if a novel compound currently being investigated as a treatment for cyanide exposure may also have benefits in cases of hydrogen sulfide poisoning. |
Comment: Such research may prove highly significant given the increasing number of 'stinky smell' cases all around the world, such as in Moscow recently. See also:
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RT
2015-01-31 15:12:00
A mesmerizing new video showcases what the Earth looks like in infrared light - something that is invisible to the human eye but that nonetheless radiates from the planet's surface constantly. Using images captured by two of NASA's geostationary satellites, GOES 13 and GOES 15, University of Victoria graduate student James Tyrwhitt-Drake pieced them together to create an impressive time lapse. The video covers nearly two months of time, between November 30, 2014 and January 26, 2015. The resulting footage depicts infrared light as it is absorbed by the planet's clouds and water vapor. The brighter a section looks in the video, the more infrared light is being blasted into space. | |
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| Earth Changes |
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The New Indian Express
2015-01-31 20:40:00
A black-legged kittiwake, a gull which is found in the North Pacific and North Atlantic Oceans, has been sighted in Odisha for the first time. A team of Wild Orissa recorded the bird on Balasore coast last week. Rissa Tridractyla, as the species is known, was spotted by bird expert Nanda Kishore Bhujabal and photographer Chinmaya Bhujabal in a water tank in the coastal district during a survey. The team members observed the lone bird closely and took its photographs for analysis. The winged visitor had a white head and body; its back was grey and wings tipped with solid black. It had black legs and a bill which had dull greenish yellow colourations. Its distinct black legs and dull greenish yellow bill was what made it different from other gull species found in Odisha. "Since this species is not mentioned in any bird manuals on India, it was a bit difficult to confirm its identification," said Nanda Kishore. While its physical features did not match with any gull species found in Odisha, literature available were examined and institutions were consulted which led to the conclusion that it was a Black-legged Kittiwake. | |
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Ciarán D'Arcy
The Irish Times 2015-01-31 18:28:00
Marine biologists are working to remove the body of a killer whale which washed up on a beach near Tramore in Waterford on Friday morning. The five metre whale was spotted by a passerby who alerted members of the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group (IWDG). It is believed the predatory mammal may have died of malnutrition and was dead before it washed up on shore. "It's probably a youngish female, but its teeth are worn down which is kind of surprising. Looking at the teeth you'd think it's a very old animal," said Andrew Malcolm of the IWDG. "When you see the teeth as worn down as that you would speculate that it could be malnourished, and that it wasn't getting enough to eat. | |
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upi.com
2015-01-30 16:04:00
Britain's Highways Agency said the violent swaying of lamp posts in a video taken by a motorist driving in high winds was an example of "vortex-shedding." Bob Hill posted a video on YouTube showing lamp posts swaying violently in the wind while he was driving Wednesday on M62 near Lofthouse, England. The Highways Agency posted a comment explaining why the posts were swaying while other tall objects in the background, including other lamp posts, didn't move at all. "This video shows 'vortex-shedding' -- when the natural frequency of a lamp column matches the speed of the wind. It only happens at certain wind speeds and is a fairly rare event," the comment read.
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| Fire in the Sky |
No new articles.
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| Health & Wellness |
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Sayer Ji
Greenmedinfo.com 2015-01-31 20:40:00
20 years ago, the MMR vaccine was found to infect virtually all of its recipients with measles. The manufacturer Merck's own product warning links MMR to a potentially fatal form of brain inflammation caused by measles.Why is this evidence not being reported? The phenomenon of measles infection spread by MMR (live measles-mumps-rubella vaccine) has been known for decades. In fact, 20 years ago, scientists working at the CDC's National Center for Infectious Diseases, funded by the WHO and the National Vaccine Program, discovered something truly disturbing about the MMR vaccine: it leads to detectable measles infection in the vast majority of those who receive it. Published in 1995 in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology and titled, "Detection of Measles Virus RNA in Urine Specimens from Vaccine Recipients," researchers analyzed urine samples from newly MMR vaccinated 15-month-old children and young adults and reported their eye-opening results as following:
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Comment: Check out Mass measles hysteria outbreak and Arizona cardiologist: Don't vaccinate your kids, adopt Paleo-diet for protection for more vital information.
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Jon Stone
The Independent, UK 2015-01-31 20:29:00
A woman born with no reproductive organs who was told she could never have children has given birth to twin girls. Doctors used hormone therapy to grow a womb, ovaries, and fallopian tubes inside Hayley Haynes, who is from North London. Ms Haynes, who is now 28, discovered her condition at age 19 after consulting doctors when she did not get any periods despite going through other signs of puberty. Doctors told her she had been born with XY chromosomes, which made her genetically male. Mrs Haynes told the Daily Mirror newspaper: "When they told me I had no womb I was so confused I felt sick. My biggest fear was never having children. "Suddenly a huge piece of my life was missing. I felt like half a woman and was embarrassed. How I was going to tell a guy I was genetically male when I started dating?" Scans of her body in 2007 revealed that she had a womb measuring millimetres in size inside her, which doctors treated with hormones to enlarge. After years of treatment she began IVF, which she had to pay for privately at a clinic in Cyprus after the NHS refused to fund her course. The treatment cost £10,500. | |
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Gut Microbiota Watch
2015-01-27 01:09:00
Giving antibiotics to mothers while they are giving birth affects the process of establishing the intestinal microbiota of the new born baby, according to a study led by the Spanish National Research Council (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas de España-CSIC, in Spanish)and recently published in Journal of Pediatrics. In the case of premature babies, the study says, the alterations could be even more serious. At birth, bacterial colonization of the gut begins, and this is key to the maturation of a newborn's immune system. Any disruption that occurs in this process, experts believe, could increase the risk of the baby suffering various diseases in the future. "In previous studies we have found large differences in the process of bacterial colonization between preterm and term infants and wanted to delve into perinatal factors responsible for these differences. We knew that breastfeeding, vaginal delivery and antibiotics could be key factors," explains to Gut Microbiota Worldwatch Miguel Gueimonde, lead author of the study. | |
