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Pepe escobar
Asia Times Online 2013-06-13 12:51:00
The lunatic is in my head / The lunatic is in my head
You raise the blade / you make the change You re-arrange me 'til I'm sane. You lock the door / And throw away the key There's someone in my head but it's not me - Pink Floyd, Brain Damage
Let's talk about PRISM. And let's see some implications of the Edward Snowden-leaked National Security Agency (NSA) Power Point presentation for Total Cyber-Domination. What's in a name? A prism breaks light into a spectrum of color. PRISM, as expressed in its Dark Side of the Moon-ish logo, is no less than a graphic expression of the ultimate Pentagon/neo-con wet dream; the Full Spectrum Dominance doctrine. The NSA - also known as No Such Agency - is part of the Pentagon. Full Spectrum Dominance was conceptualized in the Pentagon's 2002 Joint Vision 2020. [1] It's the Pentagon/NSA blueprint for the foreseeable future; in trademark Pentagonese, it identifies "four capabilities - "dominant maneuver, precision engagement, focused logistics and full-dimensional protection". In sum: Total Information Awareness (TIA). |
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| Puppet Masters |
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Mark Mazzetti, Michael R. Gordon and Mark Landler
WASHINGTON - American and European intelligence analysts now believe
that President Bashar al-Assad's troops have used chemical weapons
against rebel forces in the civil war in Syria, an assessment that will
put added pressure on a deeply divided Obama administration to develop a
response to a provocation that the president himself has declared a
"red line."The New York Times 2013-06-13 17:20:00 Comment: Comment: Now that's one opening paragraph loaded with assumptions and inaccuracies - the ones that the public is supposed to swallow. Think of what the following words imply: "analysts", "believe", "rebel forces", "civil war", "assessment", "pressure", "deeply divided", "response", "provocation" and "red line". What they are trying to make us believe is that the good and noble people of the Obama administration have been trying to reach the Truth ("analysts") about this messy business that Assad got himself into ("civil war"). Against the best intentions of Obama and Friends to not get involved, Assad has finally proven himself to be a tyrant of the type that uses weapons of mass destruction against his own people ("rebels"). Therefore, and in spite of the internal divisions, the pressure this new evidence delivers is too much to bear and a red line has been crossed. Action must be taken ("provocation")! According to an internal memorandum circulating inside the government on Thursday, the "intelligence community assesses that the Assad regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale against the opposition multiple times in the last year." President Obama said in April that the United States had physiological evidence that the nerve gas sarin had been used in Syria, but lacked proof of who used it and under what circumstances. He now believes that the proof is definitive, according to American officials. Comment: Of course, you need to tell lies step by step to make sure that the public gets used to the idea they will want you to accept later. It is called priming. But a flurry of high-level meetings in Washington this week only underscored the splits within the Obama administration about what actions to take to quell the fighting, which has claimed more than 90,000 people. The meetings were hastily arranged after Mr. Assad's troops - joined by fighters from the militant group Hezbollah - claimed the strategic city of Qusayr and raised fears in Washington that large parts of the rebellion could be on the verge of collapse. Senior State Department officials have been pushing for an aggressive military response, including airstrikes to hit the primary landing strips in Syria that the government uses to launch the chemical weapons attacks, ferry troops around the country, and receive shipments of matériel from Iran. But White House officials remain wary, and one American official said that a meeting on Wednesday of the president's senior advisers yielded no firm decisions about how to proceed. Comment: Oh, but they will. And it won't be friendly. |
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Comment: Remember Colin Powell making a fool of himself
at the United Nations before the Iraq war, trying to convince the world
that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction?
Some things never change. |
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Malcolm Holland
SPURIOUS and unscientific claims about the dangers of vaccines can
now be tracked as soon as they appear on social media around the world. The Daily Telegraph 2013-06-13 17:07:00 British and American scientists have developed a computerised monitoring system which alerts experts to quickly spreading rumours, outright lies, misinformation, and legitimate public concerns, about vaccinations in 144 countries including Australia. "Recent measles outbreaks in the UK, stemming from children not-vaccinated due to fears prompted by now-discredited research over a decade ago, is one example of the long-term consequences of broken public trust in vaccines" lead author Heidi Larson, from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine in the UK, said. "The Internet has speeded up the global spread of unchecked rumours and misinformation about vaccines and can seriously undermine public confidence, leading to low rates of vaccine uptake and even disease outbreaks.'' |
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Comment: Those at the top are really scared of what people can figure out when they start talking to each other, aren't they?
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Angela Monaghan
The Guardian 2013-06-13 17:10:00
Downbeat forecasts help drive wave of selling in Japan amid fears that central bank stimulus measures might be withdrawn The World Bank cut its forecasts for this year, citing a deeper than expected recession in Europe and a slowdown in China and India. Renewing fears about growth, it said the global economy was likely to grow by 2.2% this year, a downgrade from its January forecast of 2.4%. The downbeat forecasts helped to drive a wave of selling in Japan, where the Nikkei index tumbled 6.35% amid fears that central bank stimulus measures - led by the US - might be withdrawn. The World Bank also cut its forecast for growth in 2014 to 3.1% from 3%, but maintained its prediction that global GDP would increase by 3.3% in 2015. |
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Amy Goodman
As the Justice Department prepares to file charges against Booz Allen
Hamilton employee Edward Snowden for leaking classified documents about
the National Security Agency, the role of private intelligence firms has
entered the national spotlight. Despite being on the job as a contract
worker inside the NSA's Hawaii office for less than three months,
Snowden claimed he had power to spy on almost anyone in the country. "I,
sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone,
from you or your accountant to a federal judge, to even the president,
if I had a personal email," Snowden told The Guardian newspaper.Democracy Now! 2013-06-11 17:05:00 Over the past decade, the U.S. intelligence community has relied increasingly on the technical expertise of private firms such as Booz Allen, SAIC, the Boeing subsidiary Narus and Northrop Grumman. About 70 percent of the national intelligence budget is now spent on the private sector. Former NSA Director Michael V. Hayden has described these firms as a quote "digital Blackwater." We speak to Tim Shorrock, author of the book Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Outsourced Intelligence.
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Amy Goodman
As the American Civil Liberties Union sues the Obama administration over
its secret NSA phone spying program, we look at how the government
could use phone records to determine your friends, medical problems,
business transactions and the places you've visited.Democracy Now! 2013-06-13 16:59:00 While President Obama insists that nobody is listening to your telephone calls, cybersecurity expert Susan Landau says the metadata being collected by the government may be far more revealing than the content of the actual phone calls. A mathematician and former Sun Microsystems engineer, Landau is the author of the book Surveillance or Security?: The Risks Posed by New Wiretapping Technologies.
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Middle East Monitor
2013-06-04 16:39:00
Official statistics from the Ministry of Information in Ramallah have revealed that 1,518 Palestinian children were killed by Israel's occupation forces from the outbreak of the second Intifada in September 2000 up to April 2013. That's the equivalent of one Palestinian child killed by Israel every 3 days for almost 13 years. The ministry added that the number of children injured by the Israelis since the start of the Second Intifada against Israel's occupation has now reached 6,000. |
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Matt Taibbi
Rolling Stone 2013-06-13 10:35:00
I'll get into this in more detail later (I'm on deadline for a magazine feature), but this story just landed. Given the LIBOR story, the Interest Rate Swap manipulation story, the Euro gas price manipulation story, the U.S. energy price manipulation story, and (by now) countless others of the "Everything is Rigged" variety, this screams out for immediate notice. Via Bloomberg:
This time the rates allegedly being rigged are in the foreign-exchange or "FX" markets, meaning that if this story is true, it would almost certainly trump LIBOR for scale/horribleness. |
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Becky Oskin
OurAmazingPlanet 2013-06-13 11:12:00
A budding subduction zone offshore of Spain heralds the start of a new cycle that will one day pull the Atlantic Ocean seafloor into the bowels of the Earth, a new study suggests. Understanding how subduction zones start is long-lasting mystery in plate tectonics, said lead study author João Duarte, a research fellow at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. Subduction zones are key players in creating supercontinents and opening and closing Earth's oceans. In a subduction zone, one of Earth's tectonic plates dives beneath another, sinking into the mantle, the layer under the crust. As oceanic crust disappears, continents may draw closer together and collide, as has happened numerous times in the history of the planet. Subduction zones also spawn the biggest earthquakes on the planet, as in Japan, Chile and Alaska. On the flip side are passive margins, the seamless transition between oceanic and continental crust, as is seen along eastern North America and northern Europe. But while northern Europe may have a gentle transition, the folded and fractured seafloor offshore of southwestern Spain leads scientists to think Earth's crust is poised on the brink between the two types of plate boundaries. "We are precisely in the transition between a passive and an active margin. The plate is breaking in two and starting to converge," Duarte told OurAmazingPlanet in an email interview. |
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Democracynow.com
2013-06-12 11:02:00
Edward Snowden's decision to leak a trove of secret documents outlining the NSA's surveillance program has elicited a range of reactions. Among his detractors, he's been called "a grandiose narcissist who deserves to be in prison," (Jeffrey Toobin of The New Yorker), who's committed "an act of treason," (Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee). |
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Jonathan Kaiman
The Guardian 2013-06-13 05:41:00
Chinese press awash with news of scandal as whistleblower Edward Snowden says he plans to remain in territory Hong Kong is bracing itself for what could become a protracted legal battle after the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed to a local newspaper that he had no plans to leave the territory. "I am not here to hide from justice, I am here to reveal criminality," Snowden told the South China Morning Post, adding that he had evidence of US-led cyberespionage in both Hong Kong and mainland China and that Washington had been "trying to bully" the territory into extraditing him. Regina Ip, a member of Hong Kong's legislative council who was once the city's top security official, said: "It's not a question of bullying or not bullying. I can't speak for the Hong Kong government now, but if the US gives a request, the government will deal with it in accordance with due process." |
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Ed Pilkington & Nicholas Watt
The Guardian 2013-06-13 05:24:00
Lawyers and intelligence experts with direct knowledge of two intercepted terrorist plots that the Obama administration says confirm the value of the NSA's vast data-mining activities have questioned whether the surveillance sweeps played a significant role, if any, in foiling the attacks. The defence of the controversial data collection operations, highlighted in a series of Guardian disclosures over the past week, has been led by Dianne Feinstein, chairwoman of the Senate intelligence committee, and her equivalent in the House, Mike Rogers. The two politicians have attempted to justify the NSA's use of vast data sweeps such as Prism and Boundless Informant by pointing to the arrests and convictions of would-be New York subway bomber Najibullah Zazi in 2009 and David Headley, who is serving a 35-year prison sentence for his role in the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Rogers told ABC's This Week that the NSA's bulk monitoring of phone calls and internet contacts was central to intercepting the plotters. "I can tell you, in the Zazi case in New York, it's exactly the programme that was used," he said. | |
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Comment: Of course they had to throw Headley to the
wolves once his identity was outed, but his profile is in fact the
typical one for a spy: a drug-dealing, mass-murdering maniac with a
penchant for harming others.
Now that we know Big Brother is neither interested in finding 'terrorists' by storing everyone's information, nor could find 'terrorists' that way even if it wanted to, we're left with the question: what was the real purpose behind erecting this global mass surveillance police state? Tune in to SOTT Talk Radio this Sunday! |
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Charles Arthur & Dominic Rushe
The Guardian 2013-06-12 05:17:00
Technology companies join Google and Facebook in wanting government's permission to give public a more detailed list of demands for data from their servers Microsoft and Twitter have joined calls by Google and Facebook to be able to publish more detail about how many secret requests they receive to hand over user data under the controversial Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa). "Permitting greater transparency on the aggregate volume and scope of national security requests, including Fisa orders, would help the community understand and debate these important issues," Microsoft said in an emailed statement to the Reuters news agency. At Twitter the chief lawyer, Alex Macgillivray, tweeted: "We'd like more NSL [national security letter] transparency and Twitter supports efforts to make that happen." A national security letter is used by US government agencies such as the FBI and NSA to demand access to data from companies - who are forbidden from revealing that they have been served such a request. Google, Microsoft and Twitter publish "transparency reports" detailing how many government requests they receive for user data in various countries, but those for the US do not include Fisa requests or other NSL demands. Facebook has not so far published a transparency report. |
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| Society's Child |
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Allan MacDonell
Jessie Thornton was driving in Surprise, Arizona, minding his own
business as a law-abiding citizen. His lawyer says Jessie made one
mistake - the color of his skin.Takepart 2013-06-13 16:10:00
Drunk driving is a serious problem in the United States, impacting many thousands of Americans every year, and so is racism. The two issues converged recently during a routine traffic stop of 64-year-old retired firefighter Jessie Thornton by police officers in Surprise, Arizona. The motorist was handcuffed and taken into custody. Thornton submitted to a Breathalyzer sobriety test and blew a 0.000 blood alcohol content (BAC). Despite the seeming exoneration of the test, the suspect was charged with a DUI, an assessment that led Thornton's attorney to quip that the real crime was, "D-W-B. Driving While Black." Thornton told the local ABC News affiliate that he has been pulled over 10 times and issued four tickets since moving from Ohio to retire in the community of Surprise. This latest stop was the first time he'd been taken to the Surprise lockup. The arresting officer cited the retiree's red eyes as grounds for the arrest. Thornton credits chemicals in the neighborhood L.A. Fitness's lap pool for the redness, a theory in line with Surprise law enforcement's resident DRE - drug recognition expert. |
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Caroline May
The Daily Caller 2013-06-10 15:50:00
Off-duty cops in two counties in Alabama spent the weekend collecting saliva and blood samples from drivers at roadblocks. According to Lt. Freddie Turrentine with the St. Clair County Sheriff's Department, drivers were asked to voluntarily offer samples of their saliva and blood for a study being conducted by the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation. The drivers were compensated for their samples. "They've got big signs up that says 'paid volunteer survey' and if they want to participate they pull over there and they ask them questions and if they are willing to give them a mouth swab they give them $10 and if they are willing to give them a blood sample they give them $50. And if they don't do anything they drive off," Turrentine explained to The Daily Caller. Comment: And if they don't do anything and drive off you can bet their license number is duly noted. Failure to submit to authority is highly suspicious behavior after all. |
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The Daily Mail, UK
Unmanned aircraft are among a raft of new security measures being brought in2013-06-13 13:52:00 These include stadium fly-overs by Air Force jets and helicopters kitted out with surveillance equipment Confederations Cup is being seen as a 'dry run' for next year's World Cup and the 2016 Rio Olympics Brazilian police are to use surveillance drones to monitor crowds at the Confederations Cup football tournament, paving the way for their use at next year's World Cup. The unmanned aircraft are among a raft of security measures being brought in including thermal cameras, stadium fly-overs by Air Force fighter jets and helicopters kitted out with surveillance equipment including high-resolution, night-vision and thermal cameras. The Confederations Cup football tournament gets underway this weekend, with thousands of fans from across the world expected to attend.
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CBSNews.com
2013-06-13 11:33:00
An inspector who surveyed a Philadelphia building before it collapsed last week, killing six people, has committed suicide, a city official confirmed. Deputy Mayor Everett Gillison said 52-year-old inspector Ronald Wagenhoffer was found with a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a pickup truck Wednesday night. Wagenhoffer as a 16-year veteran of the Department of Licenses and Inspections and had inspected the building May 14. CBS station KYW reports that was the last inspection before the fatal accident. |
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Daily Mail UK
Multiple injuries have been reported after an explosion at a Louisiana
chemical plant. Louisiana State Police say there was an explosion at a
plant in the town of Geismar and footage showed thick, black smoke
pouring from a huge fire at the facility. The fire broke out Thursday
morning around 8:30am at The Williams Companies Inc. plant about 20
miles from Louisiana capital Baton Rouge.2013-06-13 10:53:00
A neighboring plant told WAFB that Williams Olefin has a hydrocarbon fire that continues to rage uncontrolled. One area hospital, Our Lady of the Lake, reportedly took on five victims of the explosion. Other hospitals took on the injured, but have not reported any numbers. No deaths have been reported. The Williams Company announced around 11:30am that emergency shutdown valves have been closed and the fire has been 'greatly diminished.' They said the safety of their employees and that of the rescue workers was their greatest concern. The company's website says the plant puts out about 1.3 billion pounds of ethylene and 90 million pounds of polymer grade propylene a year. The plant makes highly flammable gases that are basic building blocks in the petrochemical industry. |
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Mike Bradley & Charlie Skelton
On the public side of the giant Bilderberg security fence, Michael
Meacher, Labour MP for Oldham West and Royton, addresses protesters
outside the Grove Hotel, Watford, Hertfordshire, on Saturday. The
Bilderberg Group is an annual private conference of invited guests from
North America and Europe, including senior politicians, heads of state
and industrialistsThe Guardian 2013-06-13 06:15:00
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Ian Black
The Guardian 2013-06-13 06:07:00
MEP says he is on fact-finding mission to Damascus and wants to highlight risk of UK supporting opposition fighters Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National party, has waded into controversy by paying an officially sponsored visit to Damascus as part of a delegation of far-right and nationalist European politicians. Griffin, an MEP for north-west England, used his Twitter account to publicise selected details of his "fact-finding" trip, calling the Syrian capital a "modern, bustling city". Aside from "occasional explosions" in the distance, life in Damascus was normal, he tweeted. Syrian state media reported that suicide bombings in Marja Square in the centre of the city had killed 14 people and injured 31. Griffin later visited the site and commented: "Vile ... smells like an abbatoir. Hague wants your taxes to arm these terrorists!" The BNP spokesman Simon Darby said Griffin was not being paid by the Syrian regime and did not want his presence in the country to be seen as an endorsement of President Bashar al-Assad. But anyone entering Syria - as Griffin did by road from Lebanon - needs a visa, which would require the approval of the information and foreign ministries. Other members of his delegation are MEPs and MPs from Belgium, Russia and Poland. The BNP is part of the Alliance of European National Movements in the European parliament. Other members include Jobbik, the Movement for a Better Hungary, France's National Front, Italy's Tricolour Flame, Sweden's National Democrats and Belgium's National Front. |
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Russia Today
2013-06-13 05:57:00
Turkish protesters remain defiant after Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan declared that the disturbances must end within 24 hours. Overnight riot police used tear gas and water cannons to break up activists in Ankara as they built barricades. "I have given orders to the interior minister," Erdogan said Wednesday. "This will be over in 24 hours." He added that the protests were hurting Turkey's image and economy. Meanwhile, Turkey's Ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) Deputy Chairman Huseyin Celik has said a referendum might be held to decide whether to build replicas of Ottoman-era barracks in Gezi Park or leave it as it is. Erdogan's deadline is unlikely to be observed by the protesters, reports RT's Irina Galushko from Istanbul. Following PM's statements, activists at Taksim Square were chanting and singing in defiance of his order to leave. The city was relatively quiet overnight, but the capital Ankara saw its fifth night of rioting in a row. There police again used tear gas and water cannons to break up some 2,500 protesters, as they were trying to erect barricades on a road leading to government offices.
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Lisa Schlein
Voice of America 2013-06-11 21:21:00
Geneva - The International Labor Organization estimates 10.5 million children around the world are working as domestic workers in hazardous, sometimes slave-like conditions. The ILO is marking World Day Against Child Labor June 12 by calling for action to eliminate child labor in domestic work. The International Labor Organization reports all regions of the world employ children as domestic laborers, often in brutal conditions. The report finds 6.5 million of the 10.5 million child domestic laborers are aged between five and 14 years. More than 70 percent are girls. International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor Director Constance Thomas says children carry out a variety of domestic tasks such as cleaning, ironing, cooking, gardening, looking after other children, and caring for the elderly. "We know that they are vulnerable to physical, psychological and sexual violence and abuse. They are isolated from their own families. They are hidden from the public eye by the nature of where they are working. And, they can become in a state of high dependence on the family or the people in whose household they are working. We have evidence that some do end up becoming commercially sexually exploited," said Thomas. Thomas describes the situation of many domestic workers as a serious violation of child rights. She says the conditions under which they work are appalling, with long hours and no time for rest or leisure. She says many are exposed to toxic chemicals, carry heavy loads, and use dangerous tools like axes and knives. She says the children often are underfed, receive humiliating and degrading treatment and suffer verbal and sexual abuse. |
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| Secret History |
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No new articles. |
| Science & Technology |
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Nancy Atkinson
Universe Today 2013-06-07 14:39:00
A truck-sized asteroid just discovered yesterday (Thursday, June 6) will give Earth a relatively close shave later today/early tomorrow, depending on your time zone. Asteroid 2013 LR6 is somewhere between 5- 16 meters (16 to 54 feet) in diameter and will be flying by at only about 111,000 kilometers (69,000 mi, 0.29x Lunar Distances) from Earth at 4:43UTC/12:43AM EDT on June 8, 2013. This is similar in size to the space rock that exploded over Russia back in February of this year. The Russian asteroid was about 15 meters (50 feet) in diameter before it exploded in an airburst event about 20-25 km (12-15 miles) above Earth's surface. Find out how you can watch the flyby live online, below. |
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Rachel Reilly
Daily Mail 2013-06-05 12:59:00
Professor Con Slobodchikoff is developing new technology that interprets the calls of the prairie dog and says the technology could eventually be used to interpret other animals. He also suggested that the technology could one day be fine-tuned to enable humans to talk back to animals and engage in conversation. |
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Clara Moskowitz
SPACE.com 2013-06-12 18:22:00
Astronomers have discovered 26 new likely black holes in the neighboring Andromeda galaxy - the largest haul of black hole candidates ever found in a galaxy apart from our own. Black holes, which emit almost no light themselves, can be seen only by the light given off by material falling into them. The supermassive black holes that populate the centers of most galaxies are easy to spot because their surroundings are so bright, but much smaller stellar mass black holes are considerably harder to find. The 26 new candidates, in combination with nine previously discovered black holes in Andromeda, bring the known tally in that galaxy to 35. "While we are excited to find so many black holes in Andromeda, we think it's just the tip of the iceberg," Robin Barnard, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., said in a statement. "Most black holes won't have close companions and will be invisible to us." Most of the newfound black holes have about five to 10 times the mass of our sun, and resulted from the deaths of giant stars. Seven of the new candidates were found within 1,000 light-years of the center of the Andromeda galaxy - more than the number of black holes near the core of our own Milky Way. "We are particularly excited to see so many black hole candidates this close to the center, because we expected to see them and have been searching for years," Barnard said. |
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| Earth Changes |
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Sarah Brumfield
Yahoo News 2013-06-13 16:31:00
A massive storm system surged Thursday toward the Mid-Atlantic after causing widespread power outages and flash flooding, but largely failed to live up to its fierce billing through the Upper Midwest. The Washington, D.C., area braced for the storms, and the National Weather Service issued severe thunderstorm watches and warnings for much of the region. Forecasters warned that the storms could produce damaging winds and large hail, and said the threat would run from early afternoon to early evening Thursday. A flash flood watch was in effect. Morning thunderstorms caused relatively minor damage. In Maryland and Delaware, officials reported trees down, roads closed, and tens of thousands of power outages after a line of heavy thunderstorms moved through. In Washington, the Office of Personnel Management said federal agencies in the area would open but that workers would be allowed to take unscheduled leave or work from home. In Delaware, thousands were without power and a 19-year-old woman who works at Plumpton Park Zoo in Rising Sun, Md., was struck by lightning and sent to the hospital. |
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Nicholas Riccardi
Yahoo News 2013-06-13 16:21:00
Residents of 1,000 homes in Colorado Springs are being ordered to evacuate because of a wildfire that's already destroyed at least 360 houses. Thursday's evacuation order is the first within the city limits. About 38,000 people already have been evacuated because of the fire that started in a populated, wooded area east of the city. The city of about 430,000 people is also asking residents of 2,000 more homes to be ready to evacuate because the fire has reached a designated trigger point. The blaze in the Black Forest area is now the most destructive in Colorado history. | |
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Comment: Bearing in mind that the bar was set by last
year's 'most destructive wildfires in Colorado history', locals have got
to be asking themselves, like El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa
above, "What's up?"...
Reign of Fire: Meteorites, Wildfires, Planetary Chaos and the Sixth Extinction |
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The Express Tribune
2013-06-10 12:34:00
Hyderabad: At least 14 peacocks have reportedly died and several others have fallen ill in various villages in Thar over the last four days, setting off alarm bells about the resurgence of a fatal virus. Reports about the death of peacocks have emerged in Mithi, Diplo and Nagarparkar tehsils. Though Thar's villagers may harbour concerns about the emergence of the Newcastle Disease Virus - or Ranikhet, the wildlife department has yet to verify the deaths and maintains that the birds may have died of other causes. The illness, along with a severe deficiency of vitamins and minerals, affects birds' nervous systems. An acute shortage of water, sweltering heat and a very low yields of millet, maize and other plants which the peacocks feed on, results in the deficiency. When infected, the peacocks start to feel dizzy and whirl to their deaths. According to unconfirmed reports, more than 300 died last year in the same season. Heman Das, a resident of Sajai village in Diplo, said, "They spin round and round for two to three minutes and then after a brief rest, continue the behaviour again relentlessly." |
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US Geological Survey
2013-06-13 12:25:00
Event Time 2013-06-13 16:47:23 UTC 2013-06-13 23:47:23 UTC+07:00 at epicenter Location 10.030°S 107.182°E depth=11.1km (6.9mi) Nearby Cities 170km (106mi) ENE of Flying Fish Cove, Christmas Island 313km (194mi) SSW of Kawalu, Indonesia 313km (194mi) SSW of Singaparna, Indonesia 314km (195mi) S of Banjar, Indonesia 423km (263mi) S of Jakarta, Indonesia Technical Details |
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Alison Benjamin
British Beekeepers Association attributes worst losses since survey
began to washout summer leading to long winter, exacerbated by late
springThe Independent, UK 2013-06-13 11:53:00
More than a third of all honeybee colonies in England died over the winter, according to figures from the British Beekeepers Association, the worst losses since its winter survival survey began. On average, 33.8 colonies in every 100 perished over the long winter of 2012-13 compared with 16.2% the previous winter. In the south-west of England, more than half of all colonies were wiped out and in the northern part of the country 46.4% didn't survive. In Scotland and Wales, honeybees fared no better. The Scottish beekeepers association, which has yet to complete its annual survey, predicts losses of up to 50%. And bee farmers in Wales have reported 38% losses. The BBKA attributed the alarming high bee mortality to the poor weather during 2012 continuing into 2013 and exacerbated by the late arrival of spring. "The wet summer prevented honey bees from foraging for food, resulting in poorly developed colonies going into winter. When they could get out there was a scarcity of pollen and nectar. Honeybee colonies which are in a poor nutritional state become more vulnerable to disease and other stress factors," said a BBKA spokeswoman. Many beekeepers also reported incidence of "isolation starvation", when the cluster of bees in the hive becomes too cold to move close enough to eat their food stores in another part of the hive, and so starve. |
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John Vidal
The Guardian 2013-06-13 04:54:00
Wet autumn followed by cold spring has led to one of the smallest harvests in a generation, hitting food production The wettest autumn since records began, followed by the coldest spring in 50 years, has devastated British wheat, forcing food manufacturers to import nearly 2.5m tonnes of the crop. "Normally we export around 2.5m tonnes of wheat but this year we expect to have to import 2.5m tonnes," said Charlotte Garbutt, a senior analyst at the industry-financed Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board. "The crop that came through the winter has struggled and is patchy and variable. The area of wheat grown this year has been much smaller." Analysts expect a harvest of 11m-12m tonnes, one of the smallest in a generation, after many farmers grubbed up their failing, waterlogged crops and replanted fields with barley. According to a National Farmers Union poll of 76 cereal growers covering 16,000 hectares, nearly 30% less wheat than usual is being grown in Britain this year. Britain is usually the EU's third biggest wheat grower but it will be a net importer for the first time in 11 years. "Our poll is a snapshot but it is extremely worrying. If this plays out nationally, we will be below average production for the second year in a row," said NFU crops chair Andrew Watts. "If the experts are to be believed and extreme weather is to become more frequent, we must look at ways of supporting the industry." Comment: What the 'experts' neglect to mention, largely due to ignorance, is that there is nothing industry can do about it. | |
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Comment: How refreshing to see a mainstream article on
the topic of food prices and climate change without any absurd
references to 'man-made global warming'.
And yet, despite seeing how serious the situation is now, they still believe everything will just somehow work out... Warning: extreme weather is only going to get even more extreme. |
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Manuel Vigo
PeruThisWeek 2013-06-10 21:01:00
Heavy snowfall has hit the Arequipa region in southern Peru over the past few days, El Comercio reported. According to the daily at least 80 homes in the district of San Juan de Tarucani were affected by the snowfall. District Mayor Floro Choque said local residents were worried about the impact the low temperatures would have on the health of their alpacas, and said he would ask the central government for food and medicine for the 33,000 alpacas in the area. "The snow that fell over the past three days has covered the grass in the district, and animals don't have anything to eat," Choque said. The mayor added that the district was also lacking warm clothing for children and the elderly, as well as roofing sheets for homes. According to the daily between 25 and 35 centimeters (9.8 and 13.7 inches) of snow fell on San Juan de Tarucani over the past few days. The Arequipa region has seen a drop in temperatures over the past month. Last week strong winds led to the temporary closure of the regional airport's runway. |
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| Fire in the Sky |
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No new articles. |
| Health & Wellness |
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Sciencedaily.com
2013-06-12 15:34:00
Pre-treatment scans of brain activity predicted whether depressed patients would best achieve remission with an antidepressant medication or psychotherapy, in a study funded by the National Institutes of Health. "Our goal is to develop reliable biomarkers that match an individual patient to the treatment option most likely to be successful, while also avoiding those that will be ineffective," explained Helen Mayberg, M.D., of Emory University, Atlanta, a grantee of the NIH's National Institute of Mental Health. Mayberg and colleagues report on their findings in JAMA Psychiatry, June 12, 2013. "For the treatment of mental disorders, brain imaging remains primarily a research tool, yet these results demonstrate how it may be on the cusp of aiding in clinical decision-making," said NIMH Director Thomas R. Insel, M.D. Currently, determining whether a particular patient with depression would best respond to psychotherapy or medication is based on trial and error. In the absence of any objective guidance that could predict improvement, clinicians typically try a treatment that they, or the patient, prefer for a month or two to see if it works. Consequently, only about 40 percent of patients achieve remission following initial treatment. This is costly in terms of human suffering as well as health care spending. |
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David Jockers, DC
Primal Docs 2013-06-12 12:49:00
Many cultures have used bone broth to make healing elixirs, soups and stews for many centuries. The Jewish community made chicken soup the popular remedy for the common cold without fully understanding the unique health benefits in this dish. Science has revealed the amazing health benefits that come with bone broth. Bone broth can be made from any animal with bones and the most popular soup bones include those of fish, chicken, turkey, beef, lamb and venison. The bones house a variety of powerful nutrients that become released when they are slowly simmered in water for a few hours. These nutrients include bone marrow which helps provide the raw materials for healthy blood cells and immune development. Key nutrients that enhance healing Other valuable nutrients include collagen, gelatin, hyaluronic acid, chondroitin sulfate, glycosamino glycans, proline, glycine, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium and potassium. These all help with the development of healthy joints, bones, ligaments and tendons as well as hair and skin. These nutrients are considered beauty foods because they help the body with proper structural alignment and beautiful skin and hair. Glycine and proline are essential for connective tissue function which is the biological glue that holds are bodies together. Without them we would literally fall apart. These two amino acids are essential for healing microscopic wounds throughout the body and they also suppress inflammatory activity. This is especially important for individuals with chronic inflammation or auto-immune conditions. Bone broth provides the nutritional synergy to calm an overactive immune system while supplying the body with raw materials to rebuild stronger and healthier cells. This is why it is such a great healing food to have when the body is encountering stress from bacterial or viral infections as well as digestive disorders and leaky gut syndrome. |
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Benita Matilda
Scienceworldreport.com 2013-05-20 11:47:00
A new study conducted by researchers at the University of Illinois links women's reproductive function to their immune status. Previously, studies have found this relation in human males, but this is the first study to find the association in females. The study was led by Kathryn Clancy, an anthropology professor from the University of Illinois. According to Clancy, the first priority of the body is maintenance, consisting of tasks inherently related to survival that includes immune function. The energy that is left out is then contributed to reproduction. A balance has to be maintained between the resources allocated to maintenance and reproductive efforts, and environmental stressors can reduce these available limited resources. |
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James F. Tracy
Global Research 2013-06-08 00:00:00
Health Impacts of Radio Frequency (RF) Microwave Emissions On May 22 my household received a "Notification Letter" from Florida Power and Light (FPL) stating the company's intent to replace our existing analog meter with a new device equipped to communicate with other such meters in the utility's wireless "mesh network."{1] According to FPL we are among roughly 20,000 of Florida homes that have rejected the new digital device in lieu of an analog model.[2]The letter carries the industry's familiar line - that the "meter upgrade" is intended to "provide you with more information so you can take more control over your energy use and monthly bills" while more readily "identify[ing]" and resolving power outages. |
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CBC News
2013-06-06 03:28:00
Maastricht University physiologist Mark Post is expected to grill a patty of lab-grown meat that has taken two years and €250,000 ($338,000) to produce. A hamburger patty made from lab-grown meat - or "schmeat" - is expected to be unveiled and grilled later this month at an event in London that is highly anticipated by animal rights activists and other backers. "The vision for this burger is really to attract support, to attract funding," said social sciences researcher Neil Stephens in an interview with CBC's The Current host Anna Maria Tremonti. "And I'm sure it will because it's a very enticing idea for many people." Stephens, a professor at Cardiff University in Wales, has been studying the ethical and cultural issues around in vitro meat and has interviewed all the key scientific figures in the field. |
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PRNfm
Youtube 2013-05-23 20:21:00
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| Science of the Spirit |
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Stephanie Pappas
LiveScience 2013-06-12 16:00:00
Babies may be able to show sympathy before their first birthday, according to a new study in which 10-month-olds preferred the victims rather than the aggressors in a bullying encounter. The research, published Wednesday (June 12) in the journal PLOS ONE, is the first to find evidence of possible sympathy in children younger than toddlers, the researchers said. Sympathy is the feeling of concern for others. Because 10-month-olds can't yet express sympathy verbally, Kyoto University researcher Shoji Itakura and colleagues turned to a common tactic in baby-brain research: using simple animations to determine what infants prefer. They showed 40 babies an animation of a blue ball and a yellow cube. Half of the infants watched a short clip in which the blue ball chased the yellow cube around the screen, hitting it seven times before finally squishing it against a wall. The other half of the group saw the same movements, including the squishing, but the two shapes moved independently without interacting. In some cases, the "bully" and "victim" roles were swapped, so that the yellow cube was the bad guy. After watching the show, the babies were shown a real yellow cube and a real blue ball, and given the chance to reach for one of the objects. In cases where the babies had seen one shape beating up on the other, they overwhelmingly reached for the victim, 16 out of 20 times. In comparison, when the shapes hadn't interacted, the babies' choices were basically random - nine went for the shape that had gotten squished, and the other 11 went for the nonsquished shape. |
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| High Strangeness |
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UFOnewsUK
YouTube 2013-05-07 00:00:00
From April 29, 2013 to May 3, 2013 researchers, activists, political leaders, and former members of military services and government agencies representing ten countries gave testimony at the Citizen Hearing on Disclosure in Washington, D.C. to six former members of the United States Congress on the evidence of an extraterrestrial presence engaging the human race. In this video, the Hon. Paul Hellyer, former Minister of Canada's National Defense testified to "knowing of 4 alien races actively visiting Earth since thousands of years." Source YouTube Channel Citizen Hearing on Disclosure Producer: Reuben Langdon | |
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Comment: It's interesting to us that the
Extraterrestrial Hypothesis remains the dominant model for understanding
a phenomenon that is clearly paranormal in nature...
UFOs, Aliens and the Question of Contact |
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| Don't Panic! Lighten Up! |
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The Telegraph, UK
A plumber from Lincolnshire who already holds three Guinness World
Record titles - including one for the world's fastest mobility scooter -
has built a jet-powered push bike dubbed Norah. 2013-06-13 13:32:00
Colin Furze, 32, had the idea for this latest invention after saving his friend's mother's cycle from the scrap-heap. By attaching a crude jet engine to the back of the old Raleigh bike and extending the frame to put the rider a safe distance from the heat, the 32-year-old managed to reach speeds of 50mph on-board the modified bike that he has named "Norah". Footage of his test ride has been viewed just under 150,000 times on YouTube since it was uploaded on Thursday. Mr Furze, who left school at 16, has become an online sensation after creating a YouTube channel dedicated to his weird and wonderful creations. The speed-loving self-styled "garage inventor" also lays claim to Guinness World Records for the world's longest motorbike and the world's fastest mobility scooter. |
