The Arab Organization for Human Rights confirmed that they received a distress call from the prisoners of Abu Ghraib, west of Baghdad, after the head of the prison and the guards stormed the prisoners' cells and assaulted them without revealing any reasons behind the storm. The organization, stationed in Britain, added "the violations that reveal a sectarian dimension are continued in the Iraqi prisons." Prisoners staged a sit-in protesting against the inhumane practices and human rights violations committed against them. According to a report issued by the Arab Organisation, the Prisons' Administration used an excessive force
Despite all his years in the media, Tucker had never once heard of Bilderberg and he realized—as any real journalist should—that there was something wrong. As Tucker summarized it—all quite correctly—time and again, over the years, “If a hundred of the world’s best known sports figures or film stars were gathered at some exclusive resort behind closed doors for a private meeting, the entirety of the mass media would be on hand, clamoring for admittance and demanding to know what was going on. But when the world’s richest bankers, media barons, industrialists, members of royalty, and political leaders were meeting secretly and discussing public policy matters that impacted on the course of the world’s affairs, the establishment press never said a word.”
From 1975 to 1982, as editor of The Spotlight, Tucker supervised a wide-ranging array of journalists who trailed the Bilderberg and Trilateral gangs here and abroad. But in 1983, Tucker himself went on the road as The Spotlight’s man on the scene and scorched the Bilderbergers and Trilateralists with blistering real news coverage, from Japan to Portugal to France, England, Germany—wherever and whenever the global intriguers met, even as the rest of the American media remained mum, despite the fact that, over and over again, over the next three decades, Tucker’s pioneering investigations unveiled Bilderberg-Trilateral plans that had a direct influence on public policy affecting every man, woman and child on the face of the planet.
After the demise of The Spotlight in 2001—orchestrated by a clique of figures (including a corrupt federal judge) with known links to the Central Intelligence Agency and to Israel’s intelligence service, the Mossad—Tucker picked up his work with the newly-launched AMERICAN FREE PRESS, for which he served for several years as managing editor, and continued pressing the Bilderberg and Trilateral vultures wherever they swooped down to nest and hatch their latest plots.
Each and every year up until 2012—Tucker was there. Hustling about, grooming sources (including members of the staffs of the hotels where Bilderberg met), lending his support to other journalists who came on the scene, and generally driving the Bilderberg elite up the wall—and, literally, into the wall: On one occasion Tucker discovered a secret listening device planted in the wall of the hotel room he was occupying in an inn located close to Bilderberg’s gathering place at one of the exclusive resorts the shadowy intriguers regularly met.
For more than a decade, wads of American dollars packed into suitcases, backpacks and, on occasion, plastic shopping bags have been dropped off every month or so at the offices of Afghanistan’s president — courtesy of the Central Intelligence Agency.
All told, tens of millions of dollars have flowed from the C.I.A. to the office of President Hamid Karzai, according to current and former advisers to the Afghan leader. “We called it ‘ghost money,’ ” said Khalil Roman, who served as Mr. Karzai’s deputy chief of staff from 2002 until 2005. “It came in secret, and it left in secret.”
The C.I.A., which declined to comment for this article, has long been known to support some relatives and close aides of Mr. Karzai. But the new accounts of off-the-books cash delivered directly to his office show payments on a vaster scale, and with a far greater impact on everyday governing
Persistent allegations of corruption aimed at Hamid Karzai's family are undermining Western efforts in Afghanistan and feeding the Taliban-led insurgency, Washington policy-makers have warned. Read more on Rawa.org
He was known far beyond Germany's borders for his portrayal of Detective Chief Inspector Stephan Derrick on television. On Friday, information emerged suggesting actor Horst Tappert served as a member of the notorious Waffen-SS and hid the fact for years.
The German television show "Derrick" was one of the most successful crime show exports in the country's history, with broadcasters in 102 countries running it in syndication over the years. It emerged on Friday that the actor who played the enormously popular television detective, Horst Tappert, had a secret. He served as a member of the SS during World War II. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported on Friday that Tappert was a member of an SS anti-aircraft group (SS-Flakabteilung), in Arolsen, Germany, that was under the command of the notorious Waffen-SS. Later he joined 14. SS-Panzergrenadierregiment 1 "Totenkopf".
Sociologist Jörg Becker uncovered a document showing Tappert had been a member of the SS while conducting research at the German agency WASt -- which maintains records of members of the former Wehrmacht, the German military under the Nazis -- for a memoir he is writing about another person. Becker told the newspaper the document shows that Tappert became a member of the Waffen-SS as a low-level grenadier by March 1943 at the latest, at the age of 19.
Ramón Gustavo Castillo Gaete, who refers to himself as “Antares from the Light,” is on the run from police after four members of his group were arrested by Chilean authorities for the ritualistic murder of an infant girl.
Chilean authorities arrested the four, including the child’s mother Natalia Guerra, on Thursday, though the killing played out last November (prior to what Gaeta reportedly believed would be the end of the world, said the BBC). Miguel Ampuero, the vice-chief of the Policía de Investigaciones de Chile, told reporters from the AP, “The baby was naked. They strapped tape around her mouth to keep her from screaming. Then they placed her on a board. After calling on the spirits they threw her on the bonfire alive.”
Investigators believe the cult was founded in 2005 and has only 12 members, reported the International Business-Times. Gaete is said to use the plant ayahuasca, a known hallucinogen more famously used in religious rituals by indigenous peoples (and now tourists) in what is now Peru, and was last scene traveling there to procure more of the plant.
In response to a shocking 2012 national survey revealing that three out of five American teachers report hunger in their classrooms, West Virginia’s House of Delegates passed a bill to address childhood hunger, with an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote of 89-9. Tyler Kingkade from The Huffington Post reports that SB633 — also known as the “Feed to Achieve” Act — will provide free breakfasts and lunches to all K-12 public school students, and make up for any budgetary shortfalls by establishing non-profit organizations to collect donations. W. VA Governor Earl Ray Tomblin is expected to sign the bill into law.
US State Delegate Ray Canterbury (R-Greenbriar), turned the proceedings into a fiery debate when he claimed that school children should be required to work for their school lunches: I think it would be a good idea if perhaps we had the kids work for their lunches: trash to be taken out, hallways to be swept, lawns to be mowed. If they miss a lunch or they miss a meal they might not, in that class that afternoon, learn to add, they may not learn to diagram a sentence, but they’ll learn a more important lesson.
This video addresses the issue of an everchanging society with advancements in technology and interest and schools preparing students the same way they did years ago with no adaptation to today's world. His point is that our generation is worth more then what grades we receive and no matter what it's possible to create our own destiny. Obviously education is important but most schools don't teach us what we really need to thrive in today's world.
Sarah Palin called for the invasion of the Czech Republic today in response to the recent terrorist attacks in Boston. In an interview with Fox News, the former governor of Alaska said that although federal investigators have yet to complete their work, the time for action is now.
"We don't know everything about these suspects yet," Palin told Fox and Friends this morning, referring to Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who allegedly carried out the Boston Marathon attacks. "But we know they were Muslims from the Czech Republic.”
"I betcha I speak for a lot of Americans when I say I want to go over there right now and start teaching those folks a lesson. And let's not stop at the Czech Republic, let's go after all Arab countries. The Arabians need to learn that they can't keep comin' over here and blowing stuff up. Let's set off a couple of nukes in Islamabad, burn down Prague, then bomb the heck out of Tehran. We need to show them that we mean business."
At the top of Monday night’s “Rachel Maddow Show,” host Rachel Maddow described the remarkable scene that unfolded on Monday in the hospital room of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving Boston bombing suspect. Federal Judge Marianne Bowler and attorneys converged at the 19-year-old’s bedside at Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center to read him his Miranda rights and advise him of his right to an attorney.
They are barely bigger than the assault rifles they grasp clumsily in their hands. Yet these children are being trained to become the next generation of terrorists from the age of just five. Sitting in long lines as if on a school outing, they struggle to lift deadly AK-47s as they are made to fire off a flurry of rounds, their tiny bodies getting knocked back by the recoil.
Others grapple with pistols as they are brainwashed into waging Jihad on the West and becoming suicide bombers. The terrifying footage was taken from an Al Qaeda terror camp in north Waziristan, near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Many of the children are orphans of the terrorist organisation's 'martyrs' following the same deadly route as their fathers.
Deep within the jungle and high atop the mountain peeks of Peru are the living remains of an ancient advanced people who still live among us today. Discover the Hidden Planet of the Inca.
From "Wag The Dog" Comment on YouTube: Great movie about manipulation in media, what you see is actually NOT what's happening...Same old story all over the world.
According to reports from UNHCR (the UN Refugee Agency) the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) ranks third out of countries with the highest number of refugees fleeing to Turkey, only outnumbered by neighboring Syria and Iraq. Every year, thousands of refugees flee Iran to escape persecution on account of their ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation and political and social beliefs. However, the life that awaits Iranian refugees across the border in Turkey, while their asylum claim is pending with UNHCR, is not without its difficulties. Despite the efforts of the Turkish government to provide refugees with the services they need as they await resettlement in a third country, limited financial resources and a lack of access to medicine and adequate healthcare are all a routine part of an Iranian refugee's daily life in Turkey.
In this IHRDC video, the challenges that one such Iranian refugee faced are described in detail. Marjan Ahouraee--an Iranian transsexual refugee--died from complications from pneumonia on April 3, 2013 in Kayseri, Turkey. Had she lived, she would soon have been resettled in Canada to begin her new life. In the following short clip, Marjan's close friend, Sayeh, talks about Marjan's life and her inability to get the financial assistance and the resources she needed to treat her sickness in a timely fashion. Sayeh also has one important message for everyone who has mourned Marjan after her death: there are other "Marjans" out there and they need your help.
North Korea's newest batch of future soldiers – scrawny 11-year-olds with freshly shaved heads – punch the air as they practice taekwondo on the grounds of the Mangyongdae Revolutionary School. Students and teachers here say they're studying harder these days to prepare for a fight.
Across the country, banners, slogans and artwork have been redrawn to focus on fighting "the imperialist Americans and their traitorous followers," a reference to South Korea. Slogans on improving North Korea's economy had dominated since 2009, but anti-American propaganda has re-emerged over the past year, particularly following U.S.-led censure of North Korea's decision to launch a long-range rocket and test a nuclear bomb.
At the military school, where students work on desktop computers without Internet access and practice their English with chants such as "The respected Marshal Kim Jong Un is our father," classwork is infused with conflict. "Because of the present situation, I am trying to study harder, because I really think that's how I can get my revenge on the American imperialists: by getting top marks in class," one student, Jo Chung Hyok, told The Associated Press. "It's my revolutionary duty," Jo said. "I'm working extra hard to get top marks in military subjects like tactics and shooting."
Jordanian police in the small town of Ruseifeh outside of the capital of Amman have discovered the partially burned dead bodies of a woman and her unborn child, the apparent victims of a so-called honor killing, as reported by the Saudi Gazette on April 14, 1013.
The unidentified woman was reported to have "her throat was slit in a hideous way" according to a Jordanian police spokesman. The woman's belly was also sliced open, revealing her 4 month old unborn child who was also burned. The local law enforcement officials believe the double murder is due to Islamic Sharia'a Law, in which women merely accused of dishonoring her family may be put to death, usually by the woman's father, brothers and/or husband.
According to the Irish news organ, Muslims perpetrate 91 percent of all "honor killings" world-wide. The news portal Gendercide Watch cites though technically illegal under the broad legal umbrella defining murder, "honor killings" are still legal under Jordan's heavily Sharia'a-influenced criminal and civil laws: "'Honour' killings are sanctioned by law. According to Article 340 of the criminal code, 'A husband or a close blood relative who kills a woman caught in a situation highly suspicious of adultery will be totally exempt from sentence.' Article 98, meanwhile, guarantees a lighter sentence for male killers of female relatives who have committed an 'act which is illicit in the eyes of the perpetrator.'"
Zubeidat K. Tsarnaeva, the Boston bombing suspect's mother, thinks this whole thing is a set up. Business Insider says: Tsarnaeva said that Tamerlan Tsarnaev got involved in "religious politics" five years ago, and that the FBI had previously contacted her about her son's activities.
She says: "He was controlled by the FBI, like for three, five years," she said. "They knew what my son was doing, they knew what actions and what sites on the Internet he was going [to], they used to come...and talk to me...they were telling me that he was really a serious leader and they were afraid of him. How could this happen?...They were controlling every step of him, and they are telling today that this is a terrorist attack," she added.
Further she says: "FBI, they were scared of my oldest son, they always told me that he's a leader...they are afraid of him because, you know, he is a leader, he talks about Islam a lot. They were talking to my son, and they called me officially and they told me that my son is an excellent boy and they have no problem with him," she added. "At the same time, they were telling me that...he is getting information on really extremists...sites, so they were very, very afraid of him. So that's why I think that this is a setup."
He ruined the lives of millions of Indochinese innocents and overthrew democratically elected governments, yet he keeps being rewarded and lauded.Henry Kissinger's quote recently released by Wikileaks," the illegal we do immediately; the unconstitutional takes a little longer", likely brought a smile to his legions of elite media, government, corporate and high society admirers. Oh that Henry! That rapier wit! That trademark insouciance! That naughtiness! It is unlikely, however, that the descendants of his more than 6 million victims in Indochina, and Americans of conscience appalled by his murder of non-Americans, will share in the amusement. For his illegal and unconstitutional actions had real-world consequences: the ruined lives of millions of Indochinese innocents in a new form of secret, automated, amoral U.S. Executive warfare which haunts the world until today.
As the Cyprus fiasco focuses attention once again on the faltering Euro, the public is finally questioning the value of the money in their wallets and bank accounts. But as the issue of monetary reform gains currency amongst the public, a vast array of complementary currencies are already helping people facilitate transactions without the central bank administered fiat money. Find out more in this week's GRTV Backgrounder on Global Research TV.
The Jesuits are a priestly militia who aren't that known in our modern culture. In our digital age, truth seekers are obsessed with secret societies, where the Papacy and its loyal soldiers the Jesuits, Knights of Malta and Opus Dei have been overlooked, making their work of global control a lot easier. Respectable books on them are either out of print, or in some archive which most of the public won't have access to. The Jesuits are experts at covering their tracks and they have played a key role and have been behind many of the bloodiest wars and assassinations in almost five hundred years - The Spanish Armada (1588), The Gunpowder Plot (1605), The Thirty Years War (1618-1648), American Civil War (1861-1865), World War I (1914-1918) and World War II (1940-1945) and many modern wars in both Vietnam & Argentina. With the election of a Jesuit Pope what might you think is in store for the world?
Dutch republicans have a message for the Netherlands' Crown Prince Willem-Alexander, who will become king when his mother Queen Beatrix abdicates at the end of April: you're not worth it.
Hans Maessen of the New Republican Fellowship — which seeks to abolish the monarchy — said Monday his organization is launching a petition to have the new king's annual salary of 825,000 euros ($1.1 million) lowered.
"If you look at the demands of the job, it's totally out of proportion," Maessen said. The Dutch monarch earns more than twice the salary of the president of the United States, four times that of the president of Germany, and five times that of the king of Spain or the Dutch prime minister.
Scenes from a very hard-to-find movie made in 1972: "State of Siege". It's a fictionalized account of a true story. Using an "aid" program as a cover, the CIA trained police officers throughout South America to fight "subversives" using of torture, assassination, and police-staged explosives to blame on terrorists. Of course, they'd never do that in the US.
Project Gladio in Italy attempted to use domestic terrorism on a longstanding basis to maintain the political status quo. Seems to be a strategy also discussed in the report from Iron Mountain. The tactics beat down the public disfavor with the present government with fear of a ubiquitous, and nebulous threat so that the same masses ultimately seek protection from the government, and conform to the government's political order and agenda as a quid pro quo. Sometimes the far right is infiltrated and made a scape goat; other times a leftist patsy is apprehended and held in public display.
University of Mobile's Cross Country Coach, who was near the finish line of the Boston Marathon when a series of explosions went off, said he thought it was odd there were bomb sniffing dogs at the start and finish lines. "They kept making announcements to the participants do not worry, it's just a training exercise," Coach Ali Stevenson told Local 15.
Stevenson said he saw law enforcement spotters on the roofs at the start of the race. He's been in plenty of marathons in Chicago, D.C., Chicago, London and other major metropolitan areas but has never seen that level of security before. "Evidently, I don't believe they were just having a training exercise," Stevenson said. "I think they must have had some sort of threat or suspicion called in."
Nicolás Maduro Moros, (born 23 November 1962) is a Venezuelan politician and has been the President of Venezuela since April 14th 2013. He previously was the Vice President of Venezuela from 2012 and the Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2006 to 2013. Maduro became interim President following the death of Hugo Chávez. The electoral authority declared Maduro as the President on April 14, 2013.
A former bus driver, Maduro went on to become a trade union leader, before being elected to the National Assembly in 2000. He was appointed to a number of positions within the Venezuelan Government under Chávez, ultimately being made Foreign Minister in 2006. He was described during this time as the "most capable administrator and politician of Chávez's inner circle".
After Chávez's death in 2013, Maduro became interim President. A special election was held on 14 April to elect a new President, and Maduro was unanimously adopted as the candidate of the United Socialist Party and won.
Thousands of Spaniards have staged a large protest rally in Madrid, calling for the abdication of the country’s scandal-stricken monarchy.
Spanish protesters on Sunday took to the streets in the capital, Madrid, chanting slogans such as “Tomorrow, Spain Will Be Republican,” and waving thousands of red, gold and purple Republican flags. The demonstration was organized to commemorate the country’s Second Republic, which was established on April 14, 1931, and was followed by 40 years of dictatorship under General Francisco Franco after a 1936-39 civil war.
“Considering the current situation in Spain, what we need is a republic, and to put an end to the plundering by the Bourbons,” said a young protester, Anabel Galiano, referring to Spain’s royal house. Veronica Ruiz, another protester, also said, “Nobody elected the king,” adding, “We want a referendum. It would be the fair and democratic way to find out what the people want.”
“If we go back to the beginning, we shall find that ignorance and fear created the gods; that fancy, enthusiasm, or deceit adorned them; that weakness worships them; that credulity preserves them and that custom, respect and tyranny support them in order to make the blindness of men serve their own interests. If the ignorance of nature gave birth to gods, the knowledge of nature is calculated to destroy them.”
Inmates at the Guantanamo Bay prison have clashed with guards during an attempt to end a two-month long hunger strike there. Officers tried to forcibly remove detainees from communal living quarters and isolate them in individual cells. Non-lethal rounds were fired at the prisoners as they resisted with improvised weapons. More on RT
Lawlessness continues to haunt Uttar Pradesh. Who you are seeing on your screen is not a thief or a juvenile criminal but a rape victim, a 10-year-old rape victim who had been locked up by insensitive Uttar Pradesh police. The victim was put behind bars by women cops after she approached them to file a complaint along with her mother. The victim spent several hours behind the bars after her mother brought her to a women's police station to lodge a complaint against a local goon for allegedly raping her. She was rescued only after locals protested over the matter.
Lady Thatcher’s death could propel The Wizard Of Oz track "Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead” to the top of the charts. Those who saw her death as a cause for celebration have prompted a download surge for the track. Within 48 hours of the former Prime Minister’s death, the song has entered the official UK chart at number 10. It is expected to climb higher as a result of a Facebook campaign being set up to encourage sales.
The Facebook group, encouraging people to download the "Witch" song to get it to number one, already had 664 members and was originally set up back in July 2007. The BBC said it would decide whether to play Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead during Radio 1's top 40 countdown when places are finalised this weekend. In a statement it said: "The Official Chart Show on Sunday is a historical and factual account of what the British public has been buying and we will make a decision about playing it when the final chart positions are clear."
A Soviet spacecraft may have been spotted on Mars by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Space fans from Russia scanned NASA images to discover the spacecraft’s remains.
The craft landed on Mars in 1971, but mysteriously stopped working. The craft, Mars 3, worked for just 15 seconds before it stopped communications. It was part of a double mission launched by the Soviet Union in 1971. Mars 3′s twin craft, Mars 2, crashed on arrival at the Red Planet.
Photos by NASA’s MRO appear to show the Mars 3 lander and its parachute, heat shield, and other hardware. It jettisoned the majority of its hardware while landing. The Russian space fan group has followed the Curiosity rover, NASA’s latest project on Mars. At the group’s request, NASA flew the MRO over an area earlier this year that was thought to be the Mars 3 craft’s landing spot. The resulting pictures show features consistent with a spacecraft landing.
Digital files obtained during the raid that killed Osama bin Laden can be used to determine whether Wikileaks’ leaker Army Pfc. Bradley Manning “aided” Al Qaeda, a judge ruled during a pre-trial hearing Wednesday. Manning pled guilty to leaking classified information, but denied aiding the enemy, the most serious charge leveled against him.
As Firedoglake’s Kevin Gosztola reported from Fort Meade, Judge Denise Lind rejected a motion from Manning’s defense to disallow files obtained from Bin Laden’s compound on the basis that “evidence of circumstances surrounding receipt is relevant to whether he did give it to the enemy.”
According to court documents Tweeted by independent journalist Alexa O’Brien, the defense argued that such files are “not relevant” and serve “unfair prejudices” and “confusion of the issues.” Part of their argument rests on the question of “receipt.” As Gosztola notes, whether Bin Laden accessed files leaked by Manning does not prove the soldier personally passed them along to Al Qaeda: No evidence has been presented yet to indicate that Manning gave information to WikiLeaks and then someone within WikiLeaks turned around and passed that information to an Al Qaeda member. The government is making its entire argument on the fact that it was published to the Internet and accessible to the “enemy” and, therefore, Manning “aided the enemy.”
Greece is considering slapping a €162 billion invoice on Germany as compensation for the Second World War. Athens has compiled a top-secret report that says the cash - enough to solve the Greeks' debt crisis - is owed in war reparations, Der Spiegel reported.
But the Greeks are said to be reluctant to take on mighty Germany over the debt, for fear of antagonising its Eurozone paymaster. The Greek media is said to be more bullish, with the To Vima newspaper headlined: "What Germany Owes Us". It set out a number of possible ways that Germany could repay the cash, after a panel of experts spent months preparing the 80-page classified report.
Two of the most clever and entertaining non-believers, Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, dismantle assorted religious Kooks and their man-made texts with the finesse of Olympic Samurais, dicing religious dogma into microscopic particles too small to be retrieved by even the sharpest religiously-minded creature, e.g. those with IQ's between 0 and 36 (beneath Moron Level). As religiosity increases, intelligence drops, like a grand piano off a cliff.
Up to 130 of the 166 detainees left in Guantanamo are reported to be taking part in a hunger strike with at least 11 being force fed (see also this piece by Chris Hayes at MSNBC). What is not widely reported is the brutal way that detainees have been force fed by the Guantanamo medical staff, a protocol that appears to be in use now.
As detainee lawyer Ramzi Kassen explains in Doctors of the Dark Side, detainees are strapped in a 5-point restraint chair–dubbed by some detainees the “torture” chair–and large tubes that may be left in for days are jammed down their noses without anesthesia or lubricants. When detainees resist the brutal procedure, they are forcibly extracted from their cells by soldiers in full riot gear at the direction of the medical staff.
Lawyers for the despairing detainees, of whom 86 were approved for release over two years ago, are very worried that their clients will die or be permanently injured in the hunger strike.
WikiLeaks strikes again. The whistleblowing website has released 1.7 million cables dating from 1973-1976 that shine a bright light on U.S. foreign policy.
WikiLeaks says the documents were obtained from Freedom of Information requests and the State Department’s “systematic declassification review.” WikiLeaks is calling it the Public Library of US Diplomacy. The organization has now published the cables on their website in a searchable format, saying it is “the world's largest searchable collection of United States confidential, or formerly confidential, diplomatic communications.”
Many of the files deal with U.S. foreign policy under the helm of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. He wrote some of the cables published on the WikiLeaks website. The files also expose diplomatic documents on American dealings with authoritarian regimes and the 1973 war between Israel and Arab states.
“The collection covers US involvements in, and diplomatic or intelligence reporting on, every country on Earth. It is the single most significant body of geopolitical material ever published,” said WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in a statement.
Indigenous people that lived in southeastern Brazil in the late 1800s shared some genetic sequences with Polynesians, an analysis of their remains shows. The finding offers some support for the possibility that Pacific islanders traded with South America thousands of years ago, but researchers say that the distinctive DNA sequences, or haplogroups, may have entered the genomes of the native Brazilians through the slave trade during the nineteenth century.
Most scientists agree that humans arrived in the Americas between 15,000 and 20,000 years ago, probably via the Bering land bridge linking northeastern Asia with what is now Alaska. But the precise timing and the number of ‘migration waves’ is unclear, owing largely to variations in early Americans’ physical features, says Sérgio Pena, a molecular geneticist at the Federal University of Minas Gerais in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
One broad group of these Palaeoamericans — the Botocudo people, who lived in inland regions of southeastern Brazil — stands out, having skull shapes that were intermediate between those of other Palaeoamericans and a presumed ancestral population in eastern Asia.
Two more infants have been infected with a deadly herpes virus in the last three months after undergoing a controversial religious oral circumcision in New York City.
The latest cases bring the count to 13 infants since 2000, two of which suffered brain damage and two died from the virus which can rapidly spread throughout its body.
The ultra-Orthodox Jewish practice of metzitzah b'peh requires a practitioner to orally suck the baby's penis to 'cleanse' the open wound following its circumcision, making them susceptible to the virus.
Western nations, including Britain, are deciding whether to pull diplomats out of North Korea after being told that their safety cannot be guaranteed beyond Wednesday. Whitehall has been told it should consider evacuating its embassy in Pyongyang.
The Foreign Office last night said it had ‘no immediate plans to withdraw’ Britain’s embassy in Pyongyang and condemned ‘provocations’ by the North Korean regime. The US does not have an embassy in Pyongyang. Russia said yesterday that it was considering airlifting its workers out of the country and had been in discussions with China – North Korea’s closest ally.
The warning came just a day after David Cameron claimed that Kim Jong-un’s military have weapons which could threaten the UK. Mr Cameron said: ‘North Korea does now have missile technology that is able to reach, as they put it, the whole of the United States. ‘If they are able to reach the whole of the United States they can reach Europe too, they can reach us too. That is a real concern.’
The mystery surrounding a video that appears to show a young woman talking on a cell phone in 1938 may be solved. The explanation, if true, is sure to disappoint many conspiracy theorists.The black-and-white footage shows a group of young people, possibly factory workers, walking out of a building. A brunette in a light-colored dress smiles into the camera, her hand pressed to her ear. She is holding what looks to be a large portable phone.
According to the posts, Planetcheck professes to be the grandchild of the cell phone woman. Her name is Gertrude Jones, Planetcheck writes, and she was not a time traveler. "She was 17 years old," Planetcheck writes. "I asked her about this video and she remembers it quite clearly. She says Dupont [the company that reportedly owns the factory in the video] had a telephone communications section in the factory. They were experimenting with wireless telephones. Gertrude and five other women were given these wireless phones to test out for a week. Gertrude is talking to one of the scientists holding another wireless phone who is off to her right as she walks by."
Jose Rodrigues Moreira, a Brazilian man accused of conspiring to kill two environmental activists, has been acquitted, as two other men were found guilty. The jury set Moreira free on Thursday due to insufficient evidence, disappointing family members of the murdered married couple who claim he was the alleged mastermind of the attack and has enjoyed impunity.
Jose Claudio da Silva and his wife, Maria do Espirito Santo, had for years campaigned against loggers and ranchers who force slave labour to clear-cut large swaths of the Amazon. They had reported illegal loggers to police and federal prosecutors, and were killed in a May 2011 ambush near the Amazonian town of Maraba.
Two men, Lindonjonson Silva Rocha and Alberto Lopes do Nascimento, were found guilty of killing the couple and sentenced to more than 40 years in prison each. "This is a clear defeat for the families of the victims," said Al Jazeera's Gabriel Elizondo, reporting from the court. "This was the person they really wanted to see go to jail.
"There are about 100 people outside the court; family members, friends, acquaintances. They're all chanting 'justice' and 'crime'." Prosecutors vowed to appeal the acquittal of Moreira.
Femen activists have declared 4 April “topless jihad day” as a gesture of support for a Tunisian woman who was threatened with death by stoning for baring her breasts online.
Amina Tyler ignited a storm when she posted images of herself with the words “Fuck your morals” written across her chest to the Femen-Tunisia Facebook page. Another image showing her smoking a cigarette with: "My body belongs to me, and is not the source of anyone's honour", written in Arabic script across her bare chest, was also posted. As a preacher called for her death over fears “her act could bring about an epidemic”, Femen has responded with fury, calling for a “topless jihad day”.
Presented by twice Oscar nominated actor & activist Woody Harrelson
From criminal conflicts of interest in politics, to unregulated corporate power, to a news media in the hands of multi-national conglomerates, to a military industrial complex that effectively owns the US government. Ethos looks at the systemic issues that work against democracy, the environment, democracy, justice and our own personal liberty.
Millions of internal records have leaked from Britain's offshore financial industry, exposing for the first time the identities of thousands of holders of anonymous wealth from around the world, from presidents to plutocrats, the daughter of a notorious dictator and a British millionaire accused of concealing assets from his ex-wife.
The leak of 2m emails and other documents, mainly from the offshore haven of the British Virgin Islands (BVI), has the potential to cause a seismic shock worldwide to the booming offshore trade, with a former chief economist at McKinsey estimating that wealthy individuals may have as much as $32tn (£21tn) stashed in overseas havens.
In France, Jean-Jacques Augier, President François Hollande's campaign co-treasurer and close friend, has been forced to publicly identify his Chinese business partner. It emerges as Hollande is mired in financial scandal because his former budget minister concealed a Swiss bank account for 20 years and repeatedly lied about it.
In Mongolia, the country's former finance minister and deputy speaker of its parliament says he may have to resign from politics as a result of this investigation.
But the two can now be named for the first time because of their use of companies in offshore havens, particularly in the British Virgin Islands, where owners' identities normally remain secret.
