From the rise of Islamic State to the Ukraine crisis, we all watched history in the making this year. Here's Murad Gazdiev's wrap-up of the events that
31 Dec 2014
Couple Had Their 2-year-old Daughter Stolen from Them for “Smoking Pot.”
A little girl was confiscated from her loving parents because they smoked marijuana. Hill’s two-year-old daughter Alex, short for Alexandria, was removed from her parent’s home last November for “neglectful supervision” following her parents’ admission that they smoked pot after she was put to bed, reported KVUE.
“We never hurt our daughter. She was never sick, she was never in the hospital, and she never had any issues until she went into state care,” Hill told KVUE. This is a truly heartbreaking example of the state’s atrocious ‘war on drugs.’ The war on drugs is nothing more than a license to destroy innocent lives. To all those who enforce such immoral and unjust laws against humanity, how can you sleep at night?
30 Dec 2014
Chimpanzee Sees the Blue Sky for the Very First Time…
The Humane Society of the United States rescued 111 chimpanzees from horrendous conditions in testing facilities, and gave them — for the first time, or for the first time in a long time — their natural right to a peaceful habitat.
Rescuers brought the chimps to Chimp Haven, which is a vast stretch of land designated exclusively to rescued chimpanzees, located in northwest Louisiana. This group of apes has nearly doubled the size of the sanctuary, and is the largest number of chimps ever rescued at once.
29 Dec 2014
Russia launches ‘wartime government’ HQ in preparations for War?
Russia is launching a new national defense facility, which is meant to monitor threats to national security in peacetime, but would take control of the entire country in case of war.
The new top-security, fortified facility in Moscow includes several large war rooms, a brand new supercomputer in the heart of a state-of-the-art data processing center, underground facilities, secret transport routes for emergency evacuation and a helicopter pad, which was deployed for the first time on Nov. 24 on the Moscow River. The Defense Ministry won’t disclose the price tag for the site, but it is estimated at the equivalent of several billion dollars.
The new National Defense Control Center (NDCC) is a major upgrade on what was previously called the Central Command of the General Staff, a unit tasked with round-the-clock monitoring of military threats against Russia, particularly ballistic missile launches, and deployment of strategic nuclear weapons. It was roughly a counterpart to the US National Military Command Center, the Pentagon’s principal command and control site.
RT.com - Red Ice Creations - whatdoesitmean.com
27 Dec 2014
Saudi Women Drivers Referred To Terrorism Court
Two Saudi women detained for nearly a month in defiance of a ban on females driving were referred on Thursday to a court established to try terrorism cases, several people close to the defendants said. The cases of the two, Loujain al-Hathloul and Maysa al-Amoudi, were sent to the anti-terrorism court in connection to opinions they expressed in tweets and in social media, four people close to the two women told The Associated Press.
They did not elaborate on the specific charges or what the opinions were. Both women have spoken out online against the female driving ban. Activists say they fear the case is intended to send a warning to others pushing for greater rights. The four people spoke on condition of anonymity because of fear of government reprisals.
The Specialized Criminal Court, to which their cases were referred, was established in the capital Riyadh to try terrorism cases but has also tried and handed long prison sentences to a number of human rights workers, peaceful dissidents, activists and critics of the government. For example, this year it sentenced a revered Shiite cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, a vocal critic of the government, to death for sedition and sentenced a prominent human rights lawyer, Waleed Abul-Khair, to 15 years in prison on charges of inciting public opinion.
25 Dec 2014
24 Dec 2014
Pope Francis Delivers Blistering Christmas Message To Vatican Curia
To the Catholic Church's "seven deadly sins," Pope Francis has added the "15 ailments of the Curia."
Francis issued a blistering indictment of the Vatican bureaucracy Monday, accusing the cardinals, bishops and priests who serve him of using their Vatican careers to grab power and wealth, of living "hypocritical" double lives and forgetting that they're supposed to be joyful men of God.
Francis turned the traditional, genteel exchange of Christmas greetings into a public dressing down of the Curia, the central administration of the Holy See which governs the 1.2-billion strong Catholic Church. He made clear that his plans for a radical reform of the structures of church power must be accompanied by an even more radical spiritual reform of the men involved.
Huffington Post - The 15 ailments of the Vatican Curia, according to Pope Francis at washingtonpost.com
Oh, also see: Eyewitnesses Testify: Pope Francis Raped and Killed Children
23 Dec 2014
The 'Suspicious Deaths' Of Westminster Child Abuse Whistleblowers
A campaigning MP has called for the reinvestigation of the suspicious deaths more than 20 years ago of two whistleblowers who he believes had significant information relating to organised child abuse by a group with alleged links to Westminster. Labour's John Mann made the comments after he handed Scotland Yard a dossier that includes allegations about the involvement of 22 politicians - some of them apparently still serving - in paedophile rings. He told Sky News: "What I want to see is both those suspicious deaths reinvestigated because what links them together was both were people who in essence were blowing the whistle on child abuse." One was council official Bulic Forsythe, whose body was found in a burning flat in 1993, and the other an unnamed Lambeth caretaker who died in a suspected arson attack a couple of years earlier.
The two men's deaths were "undoubtedly linked to child abuse and potentially linked into the wider scandal", Mr Mann added. "There are figures in authority who are linked in, in both cases, and therefore it's all the more important that they are fully investigated," he said. "And that means putting significant resource in. That's what I'm calling for - enough police officers with enough specialism in there so that every stone is turned over to see what lies beneath it. There's certainly a lot there with these two cases." It was "crystal clear" that Mr Forsythe's death was highly suspicious and that he had "crucial information about child abuse" which was "very precise and relates to what's come much more to light in the last 12 months", said the Bassetlaw MP.
Huffington Post - Westminster paedophile dossier on Wikipedia
22 Dec 2014
Christmas: Behind the Curtain
Is Jesus the reason for the season? Seth Andrews takes a look at the origins of the Christmas holiday in this 14-minute special produced for AtheistTV
20 Dec 2014
18 Dec 2014
Barbaric slaughterhouses in China use the hide of pets slaughtered for food to make leather goods
Leather gloves, shoes and other goods being sold in British shops and online may be made out of dogs slaughtered in horrific factories in China, it has been claimed. Dog skin produced in the slaughterhouses are used in products, labelled real leather, destined for export to the West, according to an animal rights group.
Footage taken by People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) shows workers stood by a door at a slaughterhouse in the northern province of Hebei. As dogs are led through the door, the men kill them with a heavy stick. Sometimes it takes several blows to finish off the unwitting animals.
A pair of gloves made using dog skin. With dog meat restaurants popular in many parts of the country, several establishments later sell the animals' skin to leather producers, which likely sell to Western stores. 'Skin looks the same, whoever it comes from, and Chinese dog killers are not likely to advertise their skins honestly, so it's impossible to tell if those leather gloves or wallets are made out of dog, cow, pig, or goat skin.
'PETA is calling on British shoppers to consider the terror that dogs and other animals endure when they're mercilessly slaughtered and make the safe, vegan choice in clothing and accessories for the holidays and every day.'
17 Dec 2014
15 Dec 2014
Bahrain: More Bloodshed
Earlier this year, VICE News correspondent Ben Anderson traveled to Bahrain undercover to document the ongoing protests there. Bahrainis — inspired by the Arab Spring — have been taking to the streets every night for almost four years, calling for democracy.
One of the people Ben interviewed was Yousif Badah. His son, Ali Badah, was killed while protesting three years ago, when a police SUV repeatedly ran into him, pinning him against a wall.
On the third anniversary of his son's death, Yousif and others held a vigil for Ali. That vigil turned into a march, and was similarly met with police violence, this time resulting in injury to Yousif himself.
14 Dec 2014
Martinez news conference in North Korea
In a video released by DPRK state media, Arturo Pierre Martinez, an American from El Paso, Texas, denounces the United States, he made a risky journey to North Korea "so that I can pass on some very valuable and disturbing information."
Timelapse video reveals massive size of New York City protests
The massive protest marches against police brutality on Saturday in Washington D.C. and New York City have received a fair bit of media attention, but just how big were those protests? Although some officials have released numbers, we still don't have a final, definitive call on just how many protesters came out. Some reports put the D.C. march at 10,000, while others, from the NYPD, put the New York march at 12,000 (a number that has been disputed by protesters on the ground).
But one aerial video of the MillionsMarchNYC march in New York, shot from a window overlooking 6th Avenue and 29th Street, offers a hint at just how large the march was. It's impossible to get an accurate count from watching the video, but the stream of humanity is impressive, whatever the final number.
12 Dec 2014
Was Alan Turing murdered?
Code-breaking genius Alan Turing was murdered, a new book claims. The brilliant mathematician who cracked Hitler's Engima wartime code machines was found dead in 1954 at the age of 41. Author Roger Bristow claims a note from the pathologist casts doubt over the official conclusion of suicide. The post mortem report said he died from cyanide poisoning, but the note adds that: 'Death appears to be due to violence.'
Mr. Bristow, a former mayor who has spent almost 30 years researching Turing and his work at Bletchley Park, said he was carrying out secret work before his death. He believes the code-cracker was killed by the FBI because he had information that would be 'extremely damaging or embarrassing.' Mr Bristow adds that Turing had been working on the top secret operation Verona, deciphering wartime radio signals to identify Russian agents in the United States. He describes how some of the agents managed to get themselves into highly prominent positions, with one even becoming a personal assistant to President Roosevelt.
Turing, who was prosecuted for being gay, was found dead in his bedroom in Wilmslow, Cheshire in June 1954. Two years earlier he had been convicted of gross indecency and sentenced to chemical castration. A post mortem found traces of potassium cyanide in his body - a substance he used for his chemical experiments.
'My theory is that he had stumbled upon some information that could be extremely damaging or embarrassing to certain people in America. 'His body was found on the Tuesday morning and he was buried by Wednesday afternoon. How could proper tests have been conducted in that time? 'Also there is no evidence he was depressed before his death. In fact there are reports from neighbours that he seemed cheerful. 'But the final sentence on the pathologist report says it all: 'Death appears to be due to violence.'
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