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Jon Stewart Eviscerates Fox News (Video)
Verena von Pfetten
Air America
2009-10-31 10:27:00
Jon Stewart dedicated more than 11 minutes of Thursday night's show on what he calls the "hyperbolic" war between the White House and Fox News.
Though he certainly gave the White House a few nudges for saying they are "speaking truth to power" by fighting with Fox, Stewart spends the majority of the segment putting together one of the best and biggest takedowns of the network we have ever seen. The meatiest part involves For News Senior Vice President Michael Clemente's claim that Fox's designated "news" hours are from 9AM to 4PM and 6-8PM.
Stewart explains:
For the audience here, let me help you out--because it does get confusing. The three hours you spend in the morning with "Fox & Friends": not news. Your 4 o'clock to 5 o'clock post-tea and crumpets Neil Cavudo break: not news. The 5 o'clock to 6 o'clock emotional whirlwind and national group therapy session that is Glenn Beck: not even close to news.
O'Reilly, Hannity, van Susteren-en-en-en: not news. This is according to Fox News. Those people--the ones featured in promos about how fair and balanced Fox News is--are not news. These people--otherwise known as the only people you ever think of when you think of Fox News--are not news. They are Fox 'opinutainment.'
That's our favorite part. Please watch and tell us what yours is:
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Cheney FBI Interview: 72 Instances Of Can't Recall
Associated Press
2009-11-02 10:10:00
Washington - Federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald famously declared in the Valerie Plame affair that "there is a cloud over the vice president." Last week's release of an FBI interview summary of Dick Cheney's answers in the criminal investigation underscores why Fitzgerald felt that way.
On 72 occasions, according to the 28-page FBI summary, Cheney equivocated to the FBI during his lengthy May 2004 interview, saying he could not be certain in his answers to questions about matters large and small in the Plame controversy.
The Cheney interview reflects a team of prosecutors and FBI agents trying to find out whether the leaks of Plame's CIA identity were orchestrated at the highest level of the White House and carried out by, among others, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's chief of staff.
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U.S. News
Ford Union Workers Overwhelmingly Reject Contract Concessions
Jeff Bennett
The Wall Street Journal
2009-11-02 18:07:00
Ford Motor Co. (F) and United Auto Worker leaders must now seek contract changes through informal talks after the union's rank-and-file soundly rejected the auto maker's demands for more cost concessions.
A total of 70% of the voting production members and 75% of the skilled trade workers turned down the contract modifications, the UAW officially announced Monday. The results weren't a surprise, given early voting returns last week which showed building momentum against the changes.
"While we will not be returning to the bargaining table, our leadership will continue to work with Ford on a daily basis in an effort to keep new products coming into our plants," UAW President Ron Gettelfinger and Vice President Bob King said in a joint statement. "We will also continue to work with Ford to ensure they maintain the highest ratings in quality and productivity and insure that they remain competitive.
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Federal Reserve Policy Audit Legislation 'Gutted,' Paul Says
Bob Ivry
Bloomberg
2009-10-30 17:59:00
Representative Ron Paul, the Texas Republican who has called for an end to the Federal Reserve, said legislation he introduced to audit monetary policy has been "gutted" while moving toward a possible vote in the Democratic-controlled House.
The bill, with 308 co-sponsors, has been stripped of provisions that would remove Fed exemptions from audits of transactions with foreign central banks, monetary policy deliberations, transactions made under the direction of the Federal Open Market Committee and communications between the Board, the reserve banks and staff, Paul said today.
"There's nothing left, it's been gutted," he said in a telephone interview. "This is not a partisan issue. People all over the country want to know what the Fed is up to, and this legislation was supposed to help them do that."
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Nevada: Power Restored to South Reno after Mysterious Outage
KoloTV
2009-11-02 17:35:00
The lights are back on for about 4,200 residents and businesses in south Reno, after a power outage Monday morning.
NVEnergy spokesman Karl Walquist says power has been restored to the Donner Springs Subdivision, after being out for an hour.
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Ron Paul tweaks Michael Moore on capitalism, still agrees with him
Stephen C. Webster
Raw Story
2009-11-01 11:10:00
Speaking to veteran CNN interviewer Larry King on Sunday, Texas Republican Congressman Ron Paul argued that he is just as upset with America's economic system as activist filmmaker Michael Moore -- except the longtime doctor does not believe the illness is purely based on capitalism.
"We have lost our faith and confidence and understanding in how free markets work," he said. "We turned it upside-down by saying that any time corporations get benefits, we call it capitalism and freedom, and it's corporatism. It's the military industrial complex. It's all the special interests."
Paul continued: "This is where Michael Moore gets it all wrong. He believes diligently in free markets because he believes in the First Amendment. He believes in making films. He doesn't believe in prior restraints. So, why should he condemn capitalism? He's condemning corporatism. I condemn it too. Special privileges for corporations is a big problem."
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Cousin: Japanese Captured Amelia Earhart
David C. Henley
Nevada Appeal
2009-10-31 06:00:00
Wally Earhart of Carson City, the fourth cousin of Amelia Earhart, says the U.S. government continues to perpetrate a "massive coverup" about her mysterious disappearance in the Pacific 72 years ago.
Because of the current surge in interest about the pilot's fate spurred by the recent release of the film Amelia, starring Richard Gere and Hilary Swank, it is time the American public "know the truth about Amelia's last days," said Earhart, who will portray Abraham Lincoln as grand marshal of the Nevada Day parade today.
Amelia and her navigator, Fred Noonan, did not die as claimed by the government and the Navy when their twin-engine Electra plunged into the Pacific on July 2, 1937, Wally Earhart said in an interview.
"They died while in Japanese captivity on the island of Saipan in the Northern Marianas," claims Earhart, a 38-year Carson City resident who often portrays Lincoln and other historical figures at appearances sponsored by groups such as the Nevada Historical Society.
"The Navy and the federal government would have you believe that Amelia and Noonan died on impact when their plane ran out of gas while attempting to reach Howland Island during their flight around the world," Earhart said.
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What's Behind the False Flag Flu Emergency?
Bill Sardi
Lew Rockwell
2009-10-27 11:00:00
On Friday I stood before an audience in Phoenix, Arizona and attempted to shock them with something similar to a repeat of Orson Welles' War Of The Worlds radio broadcast, a 1938 Halloween night radio announcement that said, in a series of news bulletins, Martians had landed on the earth. The public cowered in fear then, even when Welles announced it was just a radio drama, not reality.
The contrived crisis I created was the President of the United States had just announced a national emergency because of a massive number of deaths attributed to a fast-spreading strain of flu virus that had combined with a mortal form of flu virus. My hand was shaking as I read the announcement. People in the audience thought it was real. The audience began to squirm and wonder, before I finished my melodrama, just how they were going to return home without having to undergo forced vaccination at the airport.
They were relieved when I told them this crisis was purely fictional. I added the announcement for just such a contrived crisis was probably already programmed into the President's teleprompter. Little did I know how true these words were to become.
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UK & Euro-Asian News
Minister says Ukraine flu epidemic to create emergency in Hungary
Caboodle.hu
2009-11-02 17:53:00
There is no flu epidemic in Hungary but the epidemic in Ukraine may create an emergency situation, the health minister said on public television late on Sunday.
"There is a very rapid and virulent virus in Ukraine; the number of patients multiplies overnight and this creates an emergency situation in Hungary because the virus will not stop at the border," Tamas Szekely said.
Previously, the virus was expected to arrive in Hungary from the west and south, the minister said. Currently there is no epidemic in Hungary, he added. Last week, around 14,600 people reported to suffer from flu-like symptoms, less than the week before. An epidemic is declared when the number of new cases reaches 20,000 a week.
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British Hacker's Extradition Placed on Hold: McKinnon Reportedly Suffers from Asperger's Syndrome
Michael Barkoviak
Daily Tech
2009-10-28 16:44:00
British UFO hacker won't be sent to the U.S. to face computer charges... yet
Britain's Home Secretary Alan Johnson will analyze recently introduced medical evidence before admitted NASA hacker Gary McKinnon can be extradited to the United States.
McKinnon reportedly suffers from Asperger's Syndrome, a unique form of autism, and it has been argued it would be inhumane to extradite McKinnon to face charges in the U.S. The Briton has admitted he hacked into computer networks belonging to NASA and various branches of the U.S. military.
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U.S. Ship Fires on Poland
WKRG Channel 5
2009-10-29 02:49:00
Shots were fired form the destroyer USS Ramage as it was leaving the Polish port of Gdynia on Wednesday (October 28), Polish media reported.
A witness working in a port warehouse told news channel TVN24 he heard rounds hitting a wall and video shot on Thursday (October 29) shows marks on the building's exterior.
"We were in the warehouse of our furniture company, on the balcony. At one point we heard a shot, a pretty loud bang. We didn't know what was going on and as we later found out, the shots hit around 98 Feet (30 meters) from us. As it turned out later, they posed a real threat to us," Adam said.
"It was really a coincidence that it didn't hit us, but the wall. Our cars are here, we work and spend whole days here, so there was a high risk, I can't hide that it affected us in some way," he added.
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EU Making Paedophilia Legal Across Europe
The Tap Blog
2009-09-29 04:35:00
The German Government is promoting sexual contact between parents and children.
If you cannot imagine this is true, you have to read the leaflet shown in Germany and EU to Legalise Paedophilia. The leaflet is a publication of a German Government Children's Department, which is distributed by the million, free of charge.
Extract from the link:
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Flashback: German Government Publication Promotes Incestuous Pedophilia as Healthy Sex Ed!
John-Henry Westen
LifeSiteNews.com
2007-07-30 04:05:00
Micheal O'Brien, author on crisis of culture in West, says this "German state intervention in family life is a new level of auto-destruction"
Booklets from a subsidiary of the German government's Ministry for Family Affairs encourage parents to sexually massage their children as young as 1 to 3 years of age. Two 40-page booklets entitled Love, Body and Playing Doctor by the German Federal Health Education Center (Bundeszentrale für gesundheitliche Aufklärung - BZgA) are aimed at parents - the first addressing children from 1-3 and the other children from 4-6 years of age.
"Fathers do not devote enough attention to the clitoris and vagina of their daughters. Their caresses too seldom pertain to these regions, while this is the only way the girls can develop a sense of pride in their sex," reads the booklet regarding 1-3 year olds. The authors rationalize, "The child touches all parts of their father's body, sometimes arousing him. The father should do the same."
Canadian author and public speaker Michael O'Brien who has written and spoken extensively about the crisis of culture in the West spoke to LifeSiteNews.com about the shocking and extremely disturbing phenomenon. It is, he said, "State-encouraged incest, which in most civilized societies is a crime." The development is, he suggests, a natural outcome of the rejection of the Judeo-Christian moral order.
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EU to ban all shop refunds
Kirsty Buchanan
Daily Express
2009-11-01 03:54:00
EU Bureaucrats want to end the right of shoppers to get their money back for shoddy goods.
This would end the 100 years of protection British consumers have enjoyed.
For more than a century, shops have offered refunds to people who return unwanted or faulty goods.
Plans by the European Union to "harmonise" consumer law will short-change them by removing that right and weakening safeguards.
Ministers have vowed to fight the Consumer Rights Directive but the UK Government has no power to stop the change if it is backed by the majority of European Union states.
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Around the World
Girls' school hit in Pakistan double bomb attack
Zahid Hussain
Times Online
2009-11-01 16:00:00
Two explosions ripped through a girls' school today in Pakistan's in northwestern border region, the latest militant attack on an educational institution.
The attack destroyed a part of a 18-room school in the Khyber tribal region near Peshawar, the provincial capital. Four people were wounded including a security guard at the school, which was closed at the time of the blast.
A local official said several class rooms were demolished and nearby houses damaged by the blast, which wounded three residents.
The Taleban has destroyed more than 200 girls' schools in northwestern Pakistan in the past year, declaring it un-Islamic to educate females. Three women students were among ten people killed last month in a double suicide bomb attack on an Islamabad university.
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India: Mysterious metal plate caught in fish net
Times of India
2009-11-01 15:58:00
A mysterious metal plate caught in the fishing net of a boat off Mangrol coast is foxing security agencies.
According to sources in custom department and security agencies, the plate is 3.5-feet-long with the diameter of 12 centimetre. It was found in the net of Devu Machh, who had gone for fishing in his boat Varun Devta' on October 26.
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Killed off? US lowers Aghan population estimate by 5.2 million
Al Kamen
Washington Post
2009-11-02 15:46:00
President Obama is still working hard to figure out the next steps in the very difficult war in Afghanistan. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top commander in the field, is pressing for an additional 40,000 troops. Obama's top advisers are split. Americans seem to be increasingly skeptical about prospects for victory.
But the task has suddenly become a lot easier: The CIA has gotten rid of 5 million Afghans! Poof! Just like that!
Turns out the agency was substantially overestimating the country's population. The long-used number -- 33.6 million -- was derived from a 30-year-old census that has now been determined to be high.
Not just a little too high, but 5.2 million people too high. The new official count, 28,396,000, is lower by more than 15 percent. A CIA spokesman e-mailed Friday that the agency's population figures, both the old and new ones, were provided by the population division of the U.S. Census Bureau.
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Diego Garcia Military Base: Islanders Forcibly Deported
Sherwood Ross
Global Research
2009-10-27 15:31:00
In order to convert the sleepy, Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia into a dominating military base, the U.S. forcibly transported its 2,000 Chagossian inhabitants into exile and gassed their dogs.
By banning journalists from the area, the U.S. Navy was able to perpetrate this with virtually no press coverage, says David Vine, an assistant professor of anthropology at American University and author of "Island of Shame: the Secret History of the U.S. Military on Diego Garcia (Princeton University Press)."
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Argentina: Disappearing Farmers, Disappearing Food
Marie Trigona
Global Research
2009-10-30 15:17:00
Worldwide, industrial mono-culture farming has displaced traditional food production and farmers, wreaking havoc on food prices and food sovereignty. This is particularly true for the global south, where land has been concentrated for crops destined for biodiesel and animal feed. In response, peasants and small farmers organized actions in more than 53 countries on October 15 for International Food Day as an initiative of Via Campesina, one of the largest independent social movement organizations, representing nearly 150 million people globally.
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Under US Pressure Afghan Officials Cancel Election, Declare Karzai Winner
Jason Ditz
Antiwar.com
2009-11-02 15:02:00
Despite claims as recently as last night that Afghan President Hamid Karzai was very much looking forward to this weekend's runoff election, in which he would run unopposed since his opponent formally withdrew from the votes and wouldn't appear on the ballot, it looks like it won't happen.
Citing international pressure, particularly from the US, the Independent Election Commission (IEC), the Karzai-appointed election body which oversaw the first round of votes, cancelled the runoff and declared Karzai the winner.
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Big Brother
Freedom for Sale - How we made money and lost our liberty
Samuel Brittan
FT.com
2009-11-02 10:55:00
Freedom for Sale: How We Made Money and Lost Our Liberty
By John Kampfner
Simon & Schuster £18.99, 304 pages
It is no longer a startling observation that the more western governments have spoken about freedom and democracy in the struggle against their enemies, the more the freedom part, at least, has been curtailed. In Britain, the Thatcher government tightened the screws on freedom of expression. The Blair government went further in curtailing historical rights such as habeas corpus and free speech.
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San Jose Police Often Use Force in Resisting-Arrest Cases
Sean Webby
Mercury News
2009-10-31 00:00:00
Scott Wright was fixing the emergency brake on an old Cadillac in a parking lot near Willow Glen last year when the San Jose police rolled up. Within minutes, he had been shot with a Taser and beaten with batons, breaking his arm.
The cause of the trouble? Wright reached into his van to wash his greasy hands.
Police said they feared he was going for a weapon, but no weapon was found. Wright was charged with resisting arrest, but the district attorney dismissed the case before it got to trial.
What happened to Wright is no isolated event. Hundreds of times a year interactions between San Jose police and residents where no serious crime has occurred escalate into violence.
Many times the reason for the encounter is as innocuous as jaywalking, missing bike head lamps, or failing to signal a turn. But often, as the incidents develop, police determine the suspect is uncooperative and potentially violent and strike the first blow.
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CCTV - not spying but 'guardians for people'
thisisnorthdevon.co.uk
2009-11-02 09:51:00
The use of CCTV often sparks debate and divides opinion.
The police and the Government say they are vital crime prevention tools, protecting and reassuring the public.
The critics argue they are an invasion of privacy and another example of a nanny state.
When the Journal spent an evening in the CCTV control room in North Devon on Saturday evening, the operators were anxious that Barnstaple was not portrayed as a town rife with alcohol-fuelled disorder and that we avoid references to "Big Brother".
"We don't see ourselves as spying on people," said the CCTV control room manager, who we are referring to only as Steve.
"We are very proud to serve the people of North Devon and to protect them and provide reassurance.
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Europe's own surveillance state
Stephen Boothe
The Guardian
2009-11-02 09:48:00
It's not just Whitehall we have to keep an eye on - to defend our civil liberties we must watch Brussels too
As eloquently expressed in this forum before, the defence of our civil liberties is now a war on two fronts. While the UK government pushes ahead with new ways to stockpile our personal data and watch us at every street corner, the European Union is quietly getting on with establishing its very own Europe-wide version of the surveillance state.
Despite the stalwart efforts of groups such as Statewatch, most people, including in the media, have not yet woken up to this. Perhaps it is the sheer scale of the erosion of citizens' freedom in the UK that leaves the majority numb to anti-privacy developments that are already well underway in Brussels.
Through the use of CCTV, UK citizens are among the most surveilled in the democratic world. Our DNA is collected and stored by the state at five times the rate of the next highest EU country (Austria), and telecoms service providers are obliged to hold records of our phone calls, emails, and text messages for 12 months.
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Europe plots black boxes for cars
John Oates
The Register
2009-11-02 09:36:00
Project Veronica not a privacy problem
The European Commission's study into feasibility of fitting black box recorders to cars to record 20 types of data in case of accidents looks set to recommend the devices are fitted to all European cars.
Project Veronica, which began in 2003 and cost £2.4m, has dismissed privacy concerns because the boxes only record data in the event of an accident. The boxes will be triggered by sudden deceleration and will only record movement in the 30 seconds prior to an accident, and a few seconds afterwards.
The Commission hopes the boxes will have an impact on road safety by improving accident reconstruction, as well as helping police and insurance companies.
The project team said there were no data privacy problems because the boxes do not continuously monitor cars and do not contain other personal information. They will however need a secure download path so that the data contained may be used in court.
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Axis of Evil
FBI Kills Islamic Cleric, Arrests Followers, for Being Muslims at the Wrong Time in America
Stephen Lendman
The People's Voice
2009-11-02 17:14:00
On October 28, New York Times writer Nick Bunkley wrote the following:
"Federal agents (today) fatally shot a man they described as the leader of a violent Sunni Muslim separatist group in Detroit." Targeted was Luqman Ameen Abdullah "whom agents were trying to arrest in Dearborn on charges that included illegal possession and sale of firearms and conspiracy to sell stolen goods."
The Times echoed FBI allegations that Abdullah "began firing at them from a warehouse (and) was shot in the return fire...." Ones also that he said:
- "America must fall;".
- if police tried to arrest him he'd "strap a bomb on and blow up everybody;" and.
- that he urged his followers to get bulletproof vests by "shoot(ing) a cop in the head and tak(ing) their vest.".
In fact, neither happened, and no surprise. No bombs were found or went off, and bulletproof vests are easily bought online from web sites like bulletproofme.com, so why shoot anyone to get them.
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Opium, Rape and the American Way
Chris Hedges
Truthdig
2009-11-02 14:47:00
The warlords we champion in Afghanistan are as venal, as opposed to the rights of women and basic democratic freedoms, and as heavily involved in opium trafficking as the Taliban. The moral lines we draw between us and our adversaries are fictional. The uplifting narratives used to justify the war in Afghanistan are pathetic attempts to redeem acts of senseless brutality. War cannot be waged to instill any virtue, including democracy or the liberation of women. War always empowers those who have a penchant for violence and access to weapons. War turns the moral order upside down and abolishes all discussions of human rights. War banishes the just and the decent to the margins of society. And the weapons of war do not separate the innocent and the damned. An aerial drone is our version of an improvised explosive device. An iron fragmentation bomb is our answer to a suicide bomb. A burst from a belt-fed machine gun causes the same terror and bloodshed among civilians no matter who pulls the trigger.
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Orwell's Epiphany
Michael Doliner
swans.com
2009-11-02 13:35:00
And it was at this moment, as I stood there with the rifle in my hands, that I first grasped the hollowness, the futility of the white man's dominion in the East. Here was I, the white man with his gun, standing in front of the unarmed native crowd -- seemingly the leading actor of the piece; but in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind.
- George Orwell in Shooting an Elephant
George Orwell, as a policeman in Burma in 1924, found that he was forced to shoot an elephant that had earlier run amok but, by the time he arrived, had already calmed down and was harmless. It was the expectations of the huge crowd (he estimated it at at least 2000 people) that forced him to shoot the elephant. "A sahib has got to act like a sahib," he comments. That he was forced to do what he did not want to do, that he had become a "puppet" the crowd manipulated, was, to Orwell, what marked imperialism as absurd and futile. He concludes, "I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool." Today no American would think of doing in Iraq what Orwell did in Burma -- saunter out in front of a large crowd armed only with an old gun and shoot an elephant essential to somebody's life. Someone would be sure to pop him off. Americans cannot administer the nether regions the way the British did. They have to ride around in heavily armed vehicles when they go on patrol.
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Former Blackwater now marketing services to civilians
Robert McCabe
Virginian-Pilot
2009-11-02 11:17:00
The Moyock firearms training center formerly known as Blackwater is now marketing its services to civilians in addition to law enforcement and the military.
A recent ad for the facility now called the U.S. Training Center in The Virginian-Pilot highlighted an array of course offerings, for beginners on up, for handgun, shotgun and carbine. Women-only classes also are available.
Shotgun Life, an online magazine for wing-and-clay shotgun enthusiasts, is promoting a three-day, $1,700 course at the center. The "shooting package" includes three nights at the Westin Virginia Beach Town Center and dinner "with one or two members of U.S. Training Center's management team."
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Torture Taxi spotted in Birmingham, UK
Robert Booth
The Guardian
2009-11-02 07:46:00
An American plane named in an inquiry by the European parliament into alleged CIA torture flights landed at Birmingham airport last month and was met by British special forces helicopters.
Plane spotters said the Gulfstream jet touched down from an undisclosed location on 2 October and was met by two army air corps Dauphin 2 helicopters used by the SAS at Hereford.
The 22-seat plane is registered to L-3 Integrated Systems, a Montana-based subsidiary of a US defence corporation. It made numerous flights between Ireland and Egypt in 2003 and was involved in an accident at Bucharest airport in Romania in 2004 after a flight from Bagram airbase in Afghanistan.
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America, stop sucking up to Israel
Gideon Levy
Haaretz
2009-11-01 19:26:00
Barack Obama has been busy - offering the Jewish People blessings for Rosh Hashanah, and recording a flattering video for the President's Conference in Jerusalem and another for Yitzhak Rabin's memorial rally. Only Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah surpasses him in terms of sheer output of recorded remarks.
In all the videos, Obama heaps sticky-sweet praise on Israel, even though he has spent nearly a year fruitlessly lobbying for Israel to be so kind as to do something, anything - even just a temporary freeze on settlement building - to advance the peace process.
The president's Mideast envoy, George Mitchell, has also been busy, shuttling between a funeral (for IDF soldier Asaf Ramon, the son of Israel's first astronaut Ilan Ramon) and a memorial (for Rabin, though it was postponed until next week due to rain), in order to find favor with Israelis. Polls have shown that Obama is increasingly unpopular here, with an approval rating of only 6 to 10 percent.
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Middle East Madness
Lawsuit Probes Role of Psychologists in Terror War
William Fisher
IPS
2009-11-02 18:11:00
New York- The state board responsible for licensing - and disciplining - psychologists in Louisiana is accused of turning a blind eye to serious allegations of abuse against one of its members, including complicity in beatings, religious and sexual humiliation, rape threats and painful body positions during his service as a senior advisor on interrogations for the U.S. military in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.
Dr. Trudy Bond, an Ohio-based psychologist, is suing the Louisiana State Board of Examiners of Psychologists to compel it to investigate the actions of Louisiana psychologist and retired U.S. Army colonel Dr. Larry C. James, a former high-ranking advisor on interrogations for the U.S. military in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.
Deborah Popowski, an attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights, part of the legal team representing Bond, told IPS that, according to James's own statements, he played an influential role in both the policy and day-to-day operations of interrogations and detention at the prison camps.
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Farmers struggle under settlers' harrassment in Bethlehem and Salfit to pick olives
Stop the Wall
2009-10-13 19:46:00
With the olive harvest beginning this month, farmers and their families across the West Bank will spend their days picking, cleaning and sorting olives. They will also face settler attacks and restricted access to their groves, which are often isolated behind the Wall, in settlements or adjacent to military bases and closed zones.
Despite restrictions, several villages in the Bethlehem area were able to successfully pick some of their olives on Saturday. 35 farmers and international supporters harvested olives in al-Ma'sara, but were unable the 3,500 dunums isolated by the Wall and settlements.
The following day, 70 farmers and their supporters undertook another successful harvest in Um Salamuna, near al-Ma'sara, where they managed to cover 200 trees. The land is located near the Afrat settlement, and soldiers stationed in the area questioned farmers about the work and remained in the area to monitor the situation throughout the day.
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Blair's eight-year-old niece sees the real Palestine
Ma'an News Agency
2009-10-27 19:32:00
Eight-year-old Alexandra Darby, the niece of Quartet envoy Tony Blair, toured the West Bank this week on a bicycle, peddling an estimated 200 kilometers from Amman to Jerusalem.
Asked what she will tell her school friends about the Peace Cycle journey, Alex reflected, "I'll tell them that the people here are very nice, not like they say in the newspapers."
The West Bank is not a usual vacation site for most eight-year-olds. But, as mother, journalist and activist Lauren Booth explained, "She's been asking me for the last five years why she can't go to Palestine, and despite the fact that the Israelis can make it bloody trying to get in and out, the greeting here I knew would be so sensational for her that I didn't have a reason not to bring her."
Why doesn't Alex think other kids get to come to Palestine? "Because, of course, the telly, which says Palestinians are not like us, that they are a revolting people, a violent people, a nasty people, it's mad. In fact it's the exact opposite, it's the Israelis."
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Iran claims to have neutralised CIA hit on 'top official'
Press TV
2009-11-02 15:06:00
Iranian security forces say they have twice foiled a plot, masterminded by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), to assassinate a top Iranian official.
"Based on the confiscated evidence and documents, mercenary terrorists had planned to, with the support of the CIA and its scheme, assassinate a political official within the establishment," read a statement by the Intelligence Ministry on Monday.
The plan, aimed at creating chaos in line with the unrest and riots that sparked following the presidential election in June, was thwarted through following up on intelligence, the statement added.
Although the details of the terror plan was not revealed, the ministry said the terrorists had failed to eliminate the unnamed official when the Parliament (Majlis) was approving President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's ministers for his new term.
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Iran says UN-backed nuclear deal is not dead
Eileen Ng
Associated Press
2009-11-02 04:47:00
Iran said Monday it has not rejected a U.N.-backed plan aimed at limiting the country's ability to make nuclear weapons as it called for a technical panel to review its terms.
Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told reporters in Kuala Lumpur that Iran conveyed its stand to the International Atomic Energy Agency two days ago. Mottaki is in Malaysia to attend a meeting of foreign ministers of eight Islamic countries.
His statement could be seen as a softening of Iran's stand after senior Iranian lawmakers rejected the plan on Saturday. Earlier last week, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also said his government will persist with its nuclear program despite international concerns.
Asked if this meant Tehran has rejected the deal, Mottaki simply said, "No."
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Top IDF officer warns: Settlers' radical fringe growing
Anshel Pfeffer
Haaretz
2009-10-20 19:27:00
The extremist fringe of West Bank settlers is growing, a senior officer on the Israel Defense Forces General Staff warned this week.
Though most West Bank settlers are law abiding, the officer said, recent years have seen an upswing in violent attacks by extremist settlers against both IDF troops and neighboring Palestinians.
The officer blamed individuals "formerly in positions of power, who are now unemployed and setting up all kinds of committees," for fanning the flames of radical sentiment among settlers. He did not name names, but top army officials suggested he might be referring to former Kedumim mayor Daniella Weiss.
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Grand Theft Economics
California to withhold a bigger chunk of paychecks
Shane Goldmacher and W.J. Hennigan
Los Angeles Times
2009-11-02 12:27:00
The amount goes up 10% on Sunday as Sacramento borrows from taxpayers. Technically, it's not an income tax increase: You'll get the money back eventually.
Reporting from Los Angeles and Sacramento - Starting Sunday, cash-strapped California will dig deeper into the pocketbooks of wage earners -- holding back 10% more than it already does in state income taxes just as the biggest shopping season of the year kicks into gear.
Technically, it's not a tax increase, even though it may feel like one when your next paycheck arrives. As part of a bundle of budget patches adopted in the summer, the state is taking more money now in withholding, even though workers' annual tax bills won't change.
Think of it as a forced, interest-free loan: You'll be repaid any extra withholding in April. Those who would receive a refund anyway will receive a larger one, and those who owe taxes will owe less.
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Cut Wall Street Out! How States Can Finance Their Own Economic Recovery
Ellen Hodgson Brown J.D.
truthout.org
2009-11-02 02:48:00
Pouring money into the private banking system has only fixed the economy for bankers and the wealthy; it has not done much to address either the fundamental problem of unemployment or the debt trap so many Americans find themselves in.
President Obama's $787 billion stimulus plan has so far failed to halt the growth of unemployment: 2.7 million jobs have been lost since the stimulus plan began. California has lost 336,400 jobs. Arizona has lost 77,300. Michigan has lost 137,300. A total of 49 states and the District of Columbia have all reported net job losses.
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CIT Group files for US bankruptcy
BBC
2009-11-01 22:58:00
The US lender, CIT Group, has filed for bankruptcy protection, after a debt-exchange offer to bondholders failed.
However, the majority of bondholders have agreed a reorganisation plan that will reduce CIT's debt by $10bn (£6bn) while allowing it to go on operating.
The group's operating subsidiaries, including CIT Bank, were not included in the bankruptcy filing in New York.
CIT Group suffered as the credit crisis left it unable to fund itself, and the recession exposed it to many bad loans.
Under the reorganisation plan which has been approved by bondholders, creditors will end up owning the company.
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How Goldman secretly bet on the U.S. housing crash
Greg Gordon
McClatchy Newspapers
2009-11-01 20:54:00
Washington - In 2006 and 2007, Goldman Sachs Group peddled more than $40 billion in securities backed by at least 200,000 risky home mortgages, but never told the buyers it was secretly betting that a sharp drop in U.S. housing prices would send the value of those securities plummeting.
Goldman's sales and its clandestine wagers, completed at the brink of the housing market meltdown, enabled the nation's premier investment bank to pass most of its potential losses to others before a flood of mortgage defaults staggered the U.S. and global economies.
Only later did investors discover that what Goldman had promoted as triple-A rated investments were closer to junk.
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The Living Planet
Major storm slams Vietnam; thousands evacuate
Associated Press
2009-11-02 14:42:00
Tropical Storm Mirinae slammed into Vietnam's central coast Monday, unleashing heavy rains and winds and forcing more than 80,000 people to evacuate before losing steam as it moved inland.
The storm was packing winds of 63 miles per hour (102 kilometers per hour) as it made landfall in Phu Yen province Monday afternoon, toppling trees and utility poles and causing blackouts, said Nguyen Ba Loc, deputy chairman of the provincial People's Committee.
The storm lost force and was downgraded to a tropical depression as it moved deeper inland later Monday, according to the national weather forecast center.
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From Barren Central Asian Steppes, a Devastated Sea is Reborn and Along with It - Hope
Petter Leonard
The Associated Press
2009-10-26 02:32:00
Standing on the shore under the relentless Central Asian sun, Badarkhan Prikeyev drew on a cigarette and squinted into the distance as one fishing boat after another returned with the day's catch.
Until recently, this spot where the fish merchant was standing, in a man-made desert at the edge of nowhere, represented one of the world's worst environmental calamities.
Now fresh water was lapping at his boots, proclaiming an environmental miracle - the return of the Aral Sea.
The Aral Sea was once the world's fourth-largest body of fresh water, covering an area the size of Ireland. But then the nations around it became part of the Soviet Union. With their passion for planned economics and giant, nature-reversing projects, the communists diverted the rivers that fed the inland sea and used them to irrigate vast cotton fields. The result: The Aral shrank by 90 percent to a string of isolated stretches of water.
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Air Pressure Changes Trigger Landslides
Michael Reilly
Discovery News
2009-11-02 04:00:00
A river of rock and soil nearly 2.5 miles long and 1,000 feet wide, the Slumgullion landslide winds like an earthy freight train down the hills of southwestern Colorado. But this incredible force of nature is swayed by the tiniest push.
According to a new study, the daily ups and downs in air pressure -- equivalent to the weight of about half a glass of water -- are enough to get the behemoth rolling.
Just like the ocean, the atmosphere has tides of air that swish over the planet, controlled by the sun's heat. Around the hottest part of the day, air pressure is diminished -- 'low tide' -- and it gradually goes up as things cool off.
William Schulz of the United Stated Geological Survey in Denver compared detailed records of the Slumgullion landslide's movement against pressure readings taken in the area.
They fit hand-in-glove: each time pressure lowered during the warmest part of the day, the Earth slid a little bit faster.
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Venomous Shrew and Lizard: Harmless Digestive Enzyme Evolved Twice into Dangerous Toxin in Two Unrelated Species
ScienceDaily
2009-11-02 07:00:00
Biologists have shown that independent but similar molecular changes turned a harmless digestive enzyme into a toxin in two unrelated species - a shrew and a lizard - giving each a venomous bite.
The work, described this week in the journal Current Biology by researchers at Harvard University, suggests that protein adaptation may be a highly predictable process, one that could eventually help discover other toxins across a wide array of species.
"Similar changes have occurred independently in a shrew and a lizard, causing both to be toxic," says senior author Hopi E. Hoekstra, John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Natural Sciences in Harvard's Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. "It's remarkable that the same types of changes have independently promoted the same toxic end product."
Lead author Yael T. Aminetzach, a postdoctoral researcher in the same department, suggests that the work has important implications for our understanding of how novel protein function evolves by studying the relationship between an ancestral and harmless protein and its new toxic activity.
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Health & Wellness
Girl Mistakenly Given Swine Flu Vaccine Went To ER
Gothamist
2009-10-31 11:57:00
Now it turns out that one of the public school students given the swine flu vaccine without parental consent had to go to the emergency room after getting sick. Six-year-old Nikiyah Torres, who suffers from epilepsy (her parents had been waiting to see what their family doctor said about the swine flu vaccine) told WCBS 2, "He just gave me the needle, without asking me what is my name."
The little girl told the Daily News, "My stomach was hurting, and I was itching," and was taken to the hospital from her school, PS 335 in Brooklyn. According to the News, "When the nurse called for a student Thursday morning, Nikiyah's teacher misunderstood and sent the wrong student, [NIkyah's mother Naomi] Troy said. The error was compounded when the nurse didn't check Nikiyah's name before sticking her in the shoulder."
When the nurse realized what happened, the school called Troy to appear - and the nurse asked her to sign the consent form even though the shot was already given to her daughter. Troy fumed to WCBS 2, "He knew he was in big trouble and he wanted to cover himself."
The News also reports that a third child was given the swine flu vaccine without consent, prompting the nurses' union to say "I told you so" because it had warned about problems with making school nurses responsible for this: "We don't like it when we're right, because usually when we're right someone does get hurt somewhere along the way."
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Chased by their church: When you try to leave Scientology, they try to bring you back
Joe Childs and Thomas C. Tobin
St. Petersburg Times
2009-10-31 11:29:00
For years, the Church of Scientology chased down and brought back staff members who tried to leave.
Ex-staffers describe being pursued by their church and detained, cut off from family and friends and subjected to months of interrogation, humiliation and manual labor.
One said he was locked in a room and guarded around the clock.
Some who did leave said the church spied on them for years.
Others said that, as a condition for leaving, the church cowed them into signing embellished affidavits that could be used to discredit them if they ever spoke out.
The St. Petersburg Times has interviewed former high-ranking Scientology officials who coordinated the intelligence gathering and supervised the retrieval of staff who left, or "blew."
They say the church, led by David Miscavige, wanted to contain the threat that those who left might reveal secrets of life inside Scientology.
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Genes Drive Behaviour, But Culture can Select Genes
Marlowe Hood
Agence France-Presse
2009-10-29 05:00:00
Culture, not just genes, can drive evolutionary outcomes, according to a study released Wednesday that compares individualist and group-oriented societies across the globe.
Bridging a rarely-crossed border between natural and social sciences, the study looks at the interplay across 29 countries of two sets of data, one genetic and the other cultural.
The researchers found that most people in countries widely described as collectivist have a specific mutation within a gene regulating the transport of serotonin, a neurochemical known to profoundly affect mood.
In China and other east Asian nations, for example, up to 80 percent of the population carry this so-called "short" allele, or variant, of a stretch of DNA known as 5-HTTLPR.
Earlier research has shown the S allele to be strongly linked with a range of negative emotions, including anxiety and depression.
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Angry Faces: Facial Structure Linked to Aggressive Tendencies, Study Suggests
ScienceDaily
2009-11-02 11:11:00
Angry words and gestures are not the only way to get a sense of how temperamental a person is. According to new findings in Psychological Science, a quick glance at someone's facial structure may be enough for us to predict their tendency towards aggression.
Facial width-to-height ratio (WHR) is determined by measuring the distance between the right and left cheeks and the distance from the upper lip to the mid-brow. During childhood, boys and girls have similar facial structures, but during puberty, males develop a greater WHR than females. Previous research has suggested that males with a larger WHR act more aggressively than those with a smaller WHR. For example, studies have shown that hockey players with greater WHR earn more penalty minutes per game than players with lower WHR.
Psychologists Justin M. Carré, Cheryl M. McCormick, and Catherine J. Mondloch of Brock University conducted an experiment to see if it is possible to predict another person's propensity for aggressive behavior simply by looking at their photograph. Volunteers viewed photographs of faces of men for whom aggressive behavior was previously assessed in the lab. The volunteers rated how aggressive they thought each person was on a scale of one to seven after viewing each face for either 2000 milliseconds or 39 milliseconds.
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When Internet Use Becomes a Problem
Elizabeth Cooney
Boston Globe
2009-11-02 05:00:00
The trouble signs are all there. They don't sleep enough, they don't eat right, they've lost touch with their friends, and their school performance has dropped off a cliff.
Their worried parents bring them to the doctor, fearing drug abuse or depression, but the evaluations come up empty. A doctor at Children's Hospital Boston says something else may be at work. "We see kids who are just gaming, and they appear to their parents to have all of the signs and symptoms of drug use,'' Dr. Michael Rich said about the seductive world of online games. "But in fact they are only hooked on the drug of electrons on their screen.''
Climbing levels in games like World of Warcraft, where unlimited numbers of role-playing competitors play around the clock and around the world, can be habit-forming and disruptive for both adolescents and adults. Other online activities, from visiting porn sites to incessantly checking e-mail, can also interfere with work, school, and relationships. In a world where always being connected seems as vital as breathing, how much is too much? And does excessive Internet use equal addiction?
A debate already divides behavioral addictions such as compulsive gambling or shopping from physiological addictions to alcohol or other drugs. People don't die when they unplug from the Internet, Dr. Ronald Pies points out.
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Study Shows Diets High in Sodium and Artificially Sweetened Soda Linked to Kidney Function Decline
Shari Leventhal
Medical News Today
2009-11-02 03:00:00
Individuals who consume a diet high in sodium or artificially sweetened drinks are more likely to experience a decline in kidney function, according to two papers presented at the American Society of Nephrology's annual meeting in San Diego, California.
Julie Lin MD, MPH, FASN and Gary Curhan, MD, ScD, FASN of Brigham and Women's Hospital studied more than 3,000 women participating in the Nurses' Health Study to identify the impact of sodium and sweetened drinks on kidney function.
"There are currently limited data on the role of diet in kidney disease," said Dr. Lin. "While more study is needed, our research suggests that higher sodium and artificially sweetened soda intake are associated with greater rate of decline in kidney function."
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Science & Technology
The Science of Magic: Not Just Hocus-Pocus
John Blackstone
CBS News
2009-11-01 15:38:00
Neuroscientists and Magicians Are Studying How Sleight of Hand Affects the Brain, and Its Potential to Diagnose Autism
Las Vegas can be a magical place. It certainly is for Penn and Teller, who have been performing magic in their own Las Vegas theatre for almost eight years.
The house is packed every night - a testament to both Penn and Teller's draw . . . and to the universal appeal of magic itself.
"What makes for a successful trick?" Blackstone asked Teller, who never says a word on stage. He broke his silence for our interview (but insisted that we not show his moving lips).
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World's Oldest Submerged Town?
Press TV
2009-11-01 16:34:00
Archeologists say the world's oldest submerged town, located off the southern Laconia coast of Greece, dates back to 5,000 years ago.
Final Neolithic ceramics found during the five-year study project showed that the city of Pavlopetri was at least 1,200 years earlier than previously thought.
A collaborative team of experts at Nottingham University and the Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture found 150 square meters of new buildings as well as ceramics that show the city was occupied throughout the Bronze Age - from at least 2800 to 1100 BCE.
The newly found buildings could be the first example of a pillar crypt ever discovered on the Greek mainland, ScienceDaily reported.
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Forest Clearances Sealed Ancient Civilisation's Downfall
University of Cambridge
2009-11-02 05:00:00
An ancient South American civilization which disappeared around 1,500 years ago helped to cause its own demise by damaging the fragile ecosystem that held it in place, a study has found.
Archaeologists examining the remains of the Nasca, who once flourished in the valleys of south coastal Peru, have uncovered a sequence of human-induced events which led to their "catastrophic" collapse around 500 AD.
The Nasca are probably best known for the famous "Nazca Lines", giant geoglyphs which they left etched into the surface of the vast, empty desert plain that lies between the Peruvian towns of Nazca and Palpa.
The depictions have spawned various wild theories, including that they were created by aliens. Most scholars now believe that they were sacred pathways which Nasca people followed during the course of their ancient rituals.
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Russia Hopes Nuclear Ship Will Fly Humans to Mars
Vladimir Isachenkov
The Associated Press
2009-10-29 09:21:00
"Russia should build a new nuclear-powered spaceship for prospective manned missions to Mars and other planets," the nation's space chief said Thursday.
Anatoly Perminov first proposed building the ship at a government meeting Wednesday but didn't explain its purpose. President Dmitry Medvedev backed the project and urged the government to find the money.
In remarks posted Thursday on his agency's Web site, Perminov said the nuclear spaceship should be used for human flights to Mars and other planets. He said the project is challenging technologically, but could capitalize on the Soviet and Russian experience in the field.
Perminov said the preliminary design could be ready by 2012, and then it would take nine more years and cost 17 billion rubles (about $600 million, or euro400 million) to build the ship.
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British Holidaymaker Discovers Lost Underwater 'City'
Lawrence Marzouk
The Telegraph
2009-10-28 10:30:00
A British holidaymaker has uncovered what is believed to be a lost, ancient temple while snorkelling in the Mediterranean.
Michael Le Quesne, 16, was swimming off a popular beach in Montenegro with his parents and his ten-year-old sister Teodora when he spotted an odd looking 'stone' at a depth of around two metres.
It turned out to be a large, submerged building which may have been the centrepiece of an important Greek or Roman trading post, swallowed up by the sea during a massive earthquake.
A British team of experts led by Dr Lucy Blue, presenter of BBC Two show Oceans, is to investigate the significant find in this largely unexplored corner of south east Europe.
Dr Blue said that if the discovery is confirmed to be an underwater temple it would "put Montenegro on the map".
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Solar Winds Triggered by Magnetic Fields
PhysOrg
2009-11-02 05:00:00
Solar wind generated by the sun is probably driven by a process involving powerful magnetic fields, according to a new study led by UCL (University College London) researchers based on the latest observations from the Hinode satellite.
Scientists have long speculated on the source of solar winds. The Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer (EIS), on board the Japanese-UK-US Hinode satellite, is now generating unprecedented observations enabling scientists to provide a new perspective on the 50-year old question of how solar wind is driven. The collaborative study, published in this month's issue of Astrophysical Journal, suggests that a process called slipping reconnection may drive these winds.
Deb Baker, lead author from UCL Mullard Space Science Laboratory, says: "Solar wind is an outflow of million-degree gas and magnetic field that engulfs the Earth and other planets. It fills the entire solar system and links with the magnetic fields of the Earth and other planets. Changes in the Sun's million-mile-per-hour wind can induce disturbances within near-Earth space and our upper atmosphere and yet we still don't know what drives these outflows."
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Our Haunted Planet
Fiji: Villager leaves mysterious burnt footprints
Theresa Ralogaivau
Fiji Times
2009-11-02 17:48:00
An early morning walk to his farm has left footprints which burnt portions of grass on his village lawn.
Villager Sikeli Nadiri, who lives in Daroko settlement, outside Savusavu, is baffled as he tries to figure out the cause of his mysterious brown prints.
The incident has attracted fellow villagers to his house to have a feel of his feet trying to find a clue to the mystery.
Mr Nadiri said it happened the previous week on Wednesday when he went to his farm to tend to his cows.
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US, New York: Woman on UFO site claims object spotted in Pavilion area
Howard Owens
The Batavian
2009-11-02 16:54:00
An anonymous poster on a UFO site claims she and her husband saw a strange object in the sky in the Pavilion area Saturday night.
The poster says they spotted the object just around 8 p.m. and that other cars on Route 63 apparently saw it, too, because cars were swerving and stopping along the side of the road.
It was very dark out and about 8:15pm when we saw an object with 5 LARGE white lights and 1 SMALL red blinking light hovering low above the road in the distance ahead. Coming from Batavia we thought it was a radio tower or airplane or something of that nature. As we neared it we noticed it was some type of aircraft. We both were pretty calm at first because neither my husband or I believed in UFO's. As we drove directly under this object we both became extremely nervous. I didn't know what to make of what I just saw, my husband couldn't even speak. I know we were not the only ones who saw it because there were several cars in front of us an behind us.
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US: Weird Destin - Is the truth out there?
TheDestinLog.com
2009-10-30 20:00:00
"I hope that Eglin Air Force Base is testing something." - Fisherman to UFOinfo.com
Should we rename ourselves The World's Spookiest Fishing Village?
There are many tall tales of ghosts, UFOs and other oddities from every part of the world. Destin is no exception when it comes to these close encounters of the strange kind. Ghosts of America, a Web site that chronicles haunted happenings around the nation, maintains that Destin is a haunted hotspot.
While most of the so-called sightings seem like nonsense, Destin's Holiday Inn seems to have emerged as a favorite ghost story setting. There have been a couple of accounts from commenters of strange events there.
Both so-called eye-witnesses awoke in their rooms to see ghosts, including a "tall black shadow of a man standing at the end of the bed," and a "transparent little boy who smiles sweetly and has long eyelashes."
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Don't Panic! Lighten Up!
Canada: Man Dressed as Purple Teletubby Wanted by Police
Christopher Collette
WTSP Channel 10
2009-11-01 21:00:00
An armed suspect dressed as an oversized purple Teletubby is wanted by police in London, Ontario in connection with a robbery on Halloween.
A woman reports she was walking home alone just after midnight, when she was approached by a man dressed as a Teletubby, carrying a handgun.
Police say he demanded money from the victim, then fled on foot with an amount of cash.
The suspect is described as a 6 ft. 2 in. man weighing 200 to 240 pounds, with short dark hair, clean shaven, and a muscular build.
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Stay away from anonymous stock calls during results season
The Economic Times
2009-11-02 02:06:00
Indian stock markets (or perhaps just India's investing media) is in the grip of someone called Mr Expector, whose behaviour is now almost as strange as the famous Mr market. Investment homilies often refer to someone called Mr Market, a character which embodies the market.
The originator of Mr Market was the great Benjamin Graham, many of whose investing parables have a person called Mr Market. Invariably, Graham's Mr Market is an unstable, neurotic character who is susceptible every irrational knee-jerk that investors are capable of.
While reading news reports and viewing business news about the stock markets, I have recently detected a similar character whose sole task seems to be go around expecting mutually contradictory things to happen simultaneously. As I am writing this, Mr Expector has excelled himself with some amazing expectations about the quarterly numbers of both Reliance Industries and Bharti Airtel.
In both cases, the pink newspapers as well as the business channels were victims of Mr Expector's conspiracies. He told a certain set of people that both these companies' quarterly numbers will be good and another set of people that the numbers will be bad.
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Sports fan dressed as sheep set alight
BBC
2009-11-01 19:54:00
A 24-year-old football fan dressed as a sheep suffered serious burns to his arms and legs when his suit caught fire on a train in Fife.
Aberdeen fans said the man ran ablaze through the carriage as others threw beer on him to douse the flames.
The Edinburgh to Aberdeen service was stopped at Kirkcaldy at about 1900 GMT on Saturday to allow him to be treated.
British Transport Police said a 23-year-old man had been arrested in connection with the incident.
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