31 May 2014
30 May 2014
Bilderberg 2014: Global leaders converge for annual 'secret' summit
The elite Bilderberg group gathers every year the most powerful business, political and military leaders from across the world to discuss global ‘megatrends’. While who attends these summits is not secret, the topics, nature and results of debate are kept private from the media and public.
The Bilderberg group is celebrating its 60th birthday at its annual summit this week in Denmark, where, according to the official participant list, both the Shadow Chancellor and George Osborne are due to attend. Attending industry and military leaders include the Google Chairman, Eric Schmidt, the current Supreme Allied Commander of NATO forces in Europe, General Philip Breedlove and the former NSA chief, Keith Alexander. One can only guess Edward Snowden’s invite was lost in the post.
Fury as UK Cabinet Secretary cooks up deal to keep Blair and Bush letters secret
The Iraq War inquiry was condemned as a whitewash last night after more than 150 crucial messages from Tony Blair to George W Bush were censored.
Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood has vetoed the release of the letters and phone calls in the run-up to the 2003 conflict, officials revealed. In them, Mr Blair is said to have promised the US President: 'You know, George, whatever you decide to do, I'm with you.'
The decision raises the possibility that the long-delayed findings of the £10million inquiry will be published before the general election. The official reason for the censorship is that publication would deter prime ministers from speaking freely in private.
29 May 2014
Caesar's Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus
Was Jesus the invention of a Roman emperor? The author of this ground-breaking book believes he was. "Caesar's Messiah" reveals the key to a new and revolutionary understanding of the origin of Christianity, explaining what is the New Testament, who is the real Jesus, and how Christ's second coming already occurred. The clues leading to these startling conclusions are found in the writings of the first-century historian Flavius Josephus, whose "Wars of the Jews" is one of the only historical chronicles of this period. Closely comparing the work of Josephus with the New Testament Gospels, "Caesar's Messiah" demonstrates that the Romans directed the writing of both. Their purpose: to offer a vision of a "peaceful Messiah" who would serve as an alternative to the revolutionary leaders who were rocking first-century Israel and threatening Rome. Similarly, "Caesar's Messiah" will rock our understanding of Christian history as it reveals that Jesus was a fictional character portrayed in four Gospels written not by Christians but Romans. This Flavian Signature edition adds Atwill's latest discoveries of numerous parallel events in sequence which ultimately reveal the identity of the true authors of the Gospels.
27 May 2014
26 May 2014
Man shot in the back of the head by FBI during 8-hour interrogation
An unarmed man was shot to death in his own apartment by the FBI after a grueling 8-hour interrogation. The man was Ibragim Todashev, a Chechen immigrant being investigated because he was an acquaintance of one of the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing. He was ultimately shot 6 times in the chest and once in the back of the head, which his father describes as an “execution” performed to “silence” his son. Months later, the Feds still have not offered any cogent explanations of the the incident or why their agents altered their story multiple times.
Ibragim Todashev’s death came during the third of three separate interrogations by the FBI in the spring of 2013, according to his father, Abdulbaki Todashev. The first time the FBI visited Ibragim Todashev it was to question him about his relationship with Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the suspects accused in the Boston Marathon bombings. His second encounter with the FBI dealt with a triple murder in Waltham, Massachusetts, that the police believed Tsarnaev was involved with. The third, and final, interview took place in Orlando, Florida, at the home of Todashev and included both FBI and Massachusetts State Police.
The FBI and Department of Justice are conducting an internal investigation into the shooting, but the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the ACLU have called for independent inquiries into the shooting due to the government’s secrecy surrounding the case. Both requests have been rejected by law enforcement, saying that it would be inappropriate.
In October, the Boston Globe reported that the Florida medical examiner’s office said that Todashev’s autopsy report was completed and ready for release on July 8th of 2013. The following Tuesday, the 16th , the medical examiner’s office told reporters that the FBI had ordered the office not to release the autopsy report because of the federal agency’s ongoing internal investigation into Todashev’s death.
“(The FBI) took me and my friend, the suspect that got killed. They were talking to us, both of us, right? And they said they need him for a little more, for a couple more hours, and I left, and they told me they’re going to bring him back.
They never brought him back.” — Khusen Taramov
“Maybe my son knew something, some information the police did not want to be made public. Maybe they wanted to silence my son,” Todashev’s father said.
The secrecy surrounding the shooting and the nature of the internal investigation has done little to help answer lingering questions while creating many more. In a newly detailed account of the interrogation, David Boeri of WBUR Boston shines unprecedented light on the events leading up to Ibragim Todashev’s death. His sources say that at some point during the long night of questioning in the cramped, oppressively hot condominium, Todashev cracked and blamed Tsarnaev for the Waltham murders.
“I was there, but I didn’t do the murders,” Todashev allegedly said, according to those who killed him.
Thai king endorses army chief as new leader
Thailand's king has endorsed the army chief who seized power in a coup last week, amid widespread international criticism and increasing detention of those considered to be opposed to the takeover.
General Prayuth Chan-ocha told journalists on Monday morning that the much revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej, 86, had officially backed him as the leader of the military council now running the country.
Prayuth seized power on Thursday after six months of political in-fighting between the now-deposed government and its critics, who had taken to the streets and besieged government buildings in an effort to oust it. At least 28 people were killed and more than 700 injured in sometimes violent clashes after anti-government protests began in November.
25 May 2014
These Sarcastic Drawings Make Fun Of Everything Wrong With Our World In Genius Ways
Polish artist Pawel Kuczynski has worked in satirical illustration since 2004, specializing in thought-provoking images that make his audience question their everyday lives. His subjects deal with everything from social media to politics to poverty, and all have a very distinct message if you look closely enough...
24 May 2014
23 May 2014
The scariest inhabitant of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is not what you think
When you think of terrifying monsters that might inhabit the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, what do you think of? Mutant sharks? Pissed-off squid? Rabid barnacles? (Well, ok, probably not rabid barnacles.)
Nope. The scariest inhabitant of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is this.
Meet Halofolliculina. It is a single-celled organism – a ciliate – about the size of a sesame seed with teeny tiny devil horns. (They are actually pericytostomial wings, not devil horns, but I won’t tell if you don’t.) My collaborators Hank Carson and Marcus Eriksen found these little buggers living on plastic debris floating way offshore in the western Pacific, which wouldn’t be terrifying in itself since a lot of strange critters live on plastic debris (see our paper for a complete list). But Halofolliculina is a pathogen that causes skeletal eroding band disease in corals, and this piece of debris was headed towards Hawaii.
Saving South Sudan
Late last year, South Sudan's president, Salva Kiir, accused his former vice president, Riek Machar, of attempting a coup d'état amid accusations of rampant corruption within the government. Infighting immediately broke out within the presidential guard, sparking what has now become a brutal tribal and civil war that has pitted Machar's ethnic Nuer loyalists against the majority Dinka, who have sided with Kiir. Machar narrowly escaped assassination, fleeing to the deep bush as Kiir's troops razed his home and killed his bodyguards. And now the world's newest sovereign nation is in imminent danger of becoming a failed state.
22 May 2014
No foul play Brazil!
The lead up to the World Cup has prompted large scale demonstrations and public protests to which the police have responded with use of force, and in some cases "less lethal" weapons such as tear gas and rubber bullets.
Protests are likely to continue in coming weeks and the Brazilian Congress is considering new laws that could be used to crack down on protesters. Additionally, inadequate regulations and training for policing demonstrations pose a risk of more injuries to protesters due to excessive use of force by police.
Everyone has the right to peaceful protest -- to exercise their human rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly - and the Brazilian Government has a duty to ensure that they can. aiyellowcard.org
We are (not) Happy from Tehran
Six young men and women in Iran have been released by the country’s police, after they were arrested for appearing in a parody video of Pharrell William’s hit song Happy.
The video's director, Sassan Soleimani, was still being detained, according to the New York-based International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. The organisation also quoted a source close to the family of one of those arrested as saying the group had been told they would be prosecuted.
Since it was uploaded to YouTube on 19 May, the footage has garnered over 300,000 views. It shows three women, not wearing headscarves as required by the country’s law, and three men, lip syncing to the song while they dance on a roof and inside a home in the capital Tehran.
Tehran's police chief, Hossein Sajedinia, said he had ordered the arrest of the six young people featured in the clip because they had created an "obscene video clip that offended the public morals", according to the ISNA news agency.
21 May 2014
ExecutedToday.com
Last year on this date, to the impotent howls of human rights groups, five men were beheaded in Jizan, Saudi Arabia and then “crucified.” “In Saudi Arabia, the practice of ‘crucifixion’ refers to the court-ordered public display of the body after execution,” Amnesty UK noted, “along with the separated head if beheaded. It takes place in a public square to allegedly act as a deterrent.”
Jizan is a city being developed as a deep water shipping depot by Saudi Aramco in Saudi Arabia’s extreme southwest corner near Yemen; this was the ethnicity of the executed men as well. According to the Saudi Interior Ministry, brothers Khaled, Adel and Qassem Saraa as well as Saif Ali al-Sahari and Khaled Showie al-Sahari comprised a gang who carried out robberies in various different cities. They beat and strangled to death at least one man.
18 May 2014
17 May 2014
Child Soldiers in the UK? No, Child Police
Imagine his horror when Charles Veitch popped out to get a pint of milk and this silent and strange ceremony was taking place outside his Town Hall.
Such beaming parents all round, teary eyed, seeing little Johhny and Sarah turn into uniformed rows of obedient troops marching to what the man in the checkerboard says...
US 'tent city' dwellers face eviction
High unemployment rates have forced many people in the US to move out of their homes. Some people have set up makeshift homes, using tents as a last resort.
One such community in Rhode Island is being run like a small town, with a committee that votes on how the camp is run. But now the state is trying to evict them.