The Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA) views with great alarm the violence perpetrated against the democratically elected government and civilians in Venezuela that has resulted, as of February 12, 2014, in three confirmed deaths, 61 persons wounded and 69 detained. The carnage and destruction in Caracas on Wednesday comes on the heels of generally peaceful marches held on the 200th anniversary of the battle of La Victoria, a battle in which students played a critical role in a victory against royalist forces during Venezuela's war of independence. While some groups of students marched in celebration of the Day of the Student, anti-government demonstrators used the occasion to protest episodic shortages of some basic goods, persistent crime, and to demand the release of students who had been arrested in earlier demonstrations.

The vicious street attack near the national headquarters of the prosecutor's office in Caracas came after several days of often violent anti-government protests in the streets of Aragua, Lara, Mérida and Táchira. [1] Some of these protests included the use of rocks, guns, and Molotov cocktails, and were largely directed against government buildings, the public (pro-government) television station Venezolana de Televisión, vehicles and other property, the police, and civilians.

Among the injured were three students of the Central University of Venezuela who were reportedly wounded by gunfire as well as 17 Bolivarian National Police personnel, two of whom were attacked with Molotov Cocktails. Among those killed in Caracas were Juan Montoya, a community activist in the pro-Chavista 23rd of January barrio and Bassil Da Costa, a marketing student. A third person was killed in the Chacao neighborhood in the Eastern part of the Venezuelan capital.

In February 2014 David Cameron outright refused to recognise the sacrifices made by some 10,000 British military personnel that were exposed to intense levels of radiation during the 1950s and 1960s.

These men were ordered to do things like watch nuclear detonations at close range, fly aircraft through mushroom clouds, handle radioactive materials and explore blast zones, all with no protective gear.

Many hundreds have died of cancer and other radiation related illnesses but this isn't even the most horrifying legacy. Due to the genetic damage these men sustained, the families of many of these men have been affected by birth defects, meaning that the legacy of suffering is continuing down the generations.

The European Commission announced having "freed up" Syria's frozen assets, in order to fund the destruction of Syrian chemical weapons.

This unilateral decision runs counter to the OPCW resolution, adopted 15 November 2013, which highlights Syria's financial inability to pay for their destruction and creates a special international fund as a substitute.

Reacting to this measure, the Syrian government has condemned the theft of assets belonging to the Syrian people. It furthermore recalled that member governments of the European Union have and continue to fund terrorism in Syria, in violation of relevant UN resolutions. In addition, EU Member States are illegally buying Syrian oil siphoned off by the Contras at the expense of the Syrian people.

The United States relied on the assistance of dozens of German scientists to develop invasive interrogation techniques targeting the Soviet Union in the early years of the Cold War, according to a new book on the subject. The book, entitled Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America, by American journalist Annie Jacobsen, is to be published this week.

Operation PAPERCLIP was initially set up during World War II by the US Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Its aim was to recruit scientists that had previously been employed by the German Third Reich, with the primary goal of denying German scientific expertise to the USSR.

Hundreds of former Nazi scientists were brought to the US under secret military research contracts during the second half of the 1940s. Eventually, the recruited scientists were used to augment an entire array of American government-sponsored endeavors, including the space program and several intelligence collection techniques.

Government watchdog group Judicial Watch published a U.S. Navy map on Wednesday showing the locations of ships in the region surrounding Libya on the night of the deadly Benghazi Attack.

The unclassified map was obtained by Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Randall R. Schmidt via a Freedom of Information of Act (FOIA) request. Schmidt is reportedly investigating the U.S. military's response to the Benghazi attack and provided a copy of the map to the group.

"The U.S. military had a multitude of forces in the region surrounding Libya when terrorists attacked the Special Mission in Benghazi and murdered four Americans," Judicial Watch writes.

"Destroyers could have responded to the attack," Schmidt said.

He also said the military had "rapid reaction forces" and "armed predators" in the region. So far, the Department of Defense has refused to provide him records on the air fleet on Sept. 11, 2012.

"The point is there were enough forces to respond," Schmidt added.

This isn't a spoof. In addition to this story, we'll provide you with a round-up of GMO-related news, including why your neighbor may shortly be planting GMO grass right next to you. Action Alerts!

We won't spend time in this article reiterating past research on why genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are dangerous - you probably already know that they can randomly produce toxic effects; introduce alarming levels of chemicals into our ecosystems and diet; and have been shown to cause serious health problems - but there have been some recent developments in GMO politics, science, and regulation that we want to share with you.

Here are the news items we'll cover:

• Monsanto Wins Award for..."Sustainability"?
• GMOs Aren't Enough - Monsanto Wants to Monopolize Conventional and Organic Crops, Too.
• Is Someone Growing Unregulated GMO Grass Right Next to You?
• All Eyes on New Global Precedent for GMO Contamination
• Industrial Herbicides Are Even More Toxic Than We Thought
• Is Industry Persuading Scientists to Quash Chilling Scientific Findings?

South Africa's economy is still mostly under the control of whites who held power under apartheid and the government needs to take more drastic steps to make sure the black majority can benefit from its wealth, President Jacob Zuma said on Tuesday.

Zuma, speaking at the start of a major policy meeting of his ruling African National Congress, said the challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality posed long-term risks for Africa's richest country 18 years after the end of apartheid.

"The structure of the apartheid-era economy has remained largely intact," Zuma told several thousand ANC delegates.

"The ownership of the economy is still primarily in the hands of white males as it has always been," he said.

The ANC has drafted a raft of policy documents that call on mining firms to pay more to the state to help finance welfare spending. The proposals also advocate relying on state-owned enterprises to be engines of job creation and growth.

Cable and media giant Comcast has made a $45 billion bid to acquire its rival Time Warner Cable, a merger that would create the largest cable and Internet supplier in the US by far, along with one of the world's biggest media content conglomerates. Comcast is currently the largest US cable provider; Time Warner is number two.

The new Comcast would deliver Internet and cable service to some 33 million households from the start - about a 30 percent market share - and would vastly expand its operations, only three years after having acquired NBC Universal.

According to Comcast, the new company would save $1.5 billion annually in gained "synergies," a euphemism for money saved through layoffs.

Comcast executives have expressed confidence the deal will be approved by federal regulators in spite of the obvious threat it poses to consumers. Media analysts point to the firm's lobbying operations and political clout in Washington.

David Cohen, Comcast's executive vice president, is linked closely to the Democratic Party and President Obama. Last week, Cohen and his wife dined in the White House with the Obamas and French President François Hollande.

Hundreds of riot police attempted to clear out anti-government protest sites around Thailand's capital on Tuesday, triggering clashes that left four people dead and 64 others injured.

Multiple gunshots were heard near the prime minister's offices, where riot police had started to remove protesters and dismantle a makeshift stage. Witnesses said shots were fired by both sides. Police later withdrew.

In another blow for the prime minister, Yingluck Shinawatra, the state anti-corruption agency accused her on Tuesday of improperly handling an expensive rice subsidy scheme, putting her in jeopardy of being impeached.

The National Anti-Corruption Commission said Yingluck's government proceeded with the scheme despite advice from experts that it was potentially wasteful and prone to corruption. The government has been months late in making payments to farmers for the rice they pledged to sell at above-market prices.

The world's 85 richest individuals possess as much wealth as the 3.5 billion souls who compose the poorer half of the world's population, or so it was announced in a report by Oxfam International. The assertion sounds implausible to me. I think the 85 richest individuals, who together are worth many hundreds of billions of dollars, must have far more wealth than the poorest half of our global population.

How could these two cohorts, the 85 richest and 3.5 billion poorest, have the same amount of wealth? The great majority of the 3.5 billion have no net wealth at all. Hundreds of millions of them have jobs that hardly pay enough to feed their families. Millions of them rely on supplements from private charity and public assistance when they can. Hundreds of millions are undernourished, suffer food insecurity, or go hungry each month, including many among the very poorest in the United States.

Most of the 3.5 billion earn an average of $2.50 a day. The poorest 40 percent of the world population accounts for just 5 percent of all global income. About 80 percent of all humanity live on less than $10 a day. And the poorest 50 percent maintain only 7.2 percent of the world's private consumption. How exactly could they have accumulated an amount of surplus wealth comparable to the 85 filthy richest?

Hundreds of millions live in debt even in "affluent" countries like the United States. They face health care debts, credit card debts, college tuition debts, and so on. Many, probably most who own homes - and don't live in shacks or under bridges or in old vans - are still straddled with mortgages. This means their net family wealth is negative, minus-zero. They have no propertied wealth; they live in debt.