Is lightning striking twice in the same place? Kommersant has sounded the tocsin, warning that once again peat bogs around Moscow are burning: "According to the Ministry of Emergency Situations, on Sunday in the region around Moscow sixteen wildfires broke out simultaneously."
Authorities said that the fires have been extinguished, but Kommersant quoted Grigory Kuksin, of Greenpeace Russia, who refuted the good news. "In the Gus-Khrustalny district alone, five fires are burning," Kuksin said. "The situation in the region is bad. There aren't enough resources to put out fires or even contain them."
The bogs currently ablaze may prefigure a return of the catastrophic wildfires that last summer coincided with a record-shattering heat wave and raged for weeks, generating lethal smog that blanketed the capital, wrought billions of dollars worth of damage and, at least indirectly, caused tens of thousands of deaths.
Disaster may well hit again. Zhivoy Zhurnal published a photo of a grim poster of unknown provenance that has mysteriously been turning up in the capital's elevators. The poster states: "In accordance with predictions of an emergency in 2011, the threat of wildfires in the Moscow region continues."
Puppet Masters
AntiSec strikes again
Universal Music websites suffered a breach that exposed the usernames and passwords of fans of bands who had signed up for updates on their favourite musicians.
Infamous hacktivist group Anonymous claimed responsibility for the hack as part of its AntiSec campaign, which aims to expose the weak spots in the internet security of big firms and government organisations. The group released a cache of files stolen from Universal as well as similar data extracted from Viacom, the Wall Street Journal adds.
Universal Music websites suffered a breach that exposed the usernames and passwords of fans of bands who had signed up for updates on their favourite musicians.
Infamous hacktivist group Anonymous claimed responsibility for the hack as part of its AntiSec campaign, which aims to expose the weak spots in the internet security of big firms and government organisations. The group released a cache of files stolen from Universal as well as similar data extracted from Viacom, the Wall Street Journal adds.
Orlando police said Wednesday they are treating a photo taken by computer hackers outside the mayor's house as a threat.
Members of the group Anonymous, which has been launching cyberattacks on Orlando-related websites, turned up the dial on what it calls "Operation Orlando."
During the weekend, the group posted online a nighttime picture taken outside Mayor Buddy Dyer's home in College Park. One of the group's telltale Guy Fawkes masks, made famous in the 2006 film V for Vendetta, was left hanging from a street sign.
Members of the group Anonymous, which has been launching cyberattacks on Orlando-related websites, turned up the dial on what it calls "Operation Orlando."
During the weekend, the group posted online a nighttime picture taken outside Mayor Buddy Dyer's home in College Park. One of the group's telltale Guy Fawkes masks, made famous in the 2006 film V for Vendetta, was left hanging from a street sign.
A French boat, as part of an international aid flotilla II, is on its way to the Palestinian territories while other activists are determined to get to the blockaded Palestinian enclave by air.
This comes as Greece has blocked the international flotilla II from leaving its ports.
Press TV interviewed Joe Catron, who is with the International Solidarity Movement, to shed light on Israel's aggressive nature in its efforts to stop activists from reaching the impoverished Gaza Strip.
Press TV: The Israeli argument is that the sea blockade stops weapons from reaching Hamas...and both the US administration and Israel have said the Freedom Flotilla is a "political provocation". What is your take on that?
Catron: Well I am on the record as saying that it is in fact a political provocation, people can call it a propaganda ploy as well if they want to. Knowing something about the fundraising that I wish it had been cheaper than it actually was.
Efforts to claim that is unnecessary because of aid coming to Gaza are cheap contemptible efforts to change the subject and reframe the debate.
Off course Gaza is seeing a massive international aid. That is not the issue. This flotilla has never been about the international aid, it's never claim to be about international aid, and the Zionists who pretend otherwise are making fools of themselves publicly.
The goals of the flotilla are to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people who are resisting the Israeli colonialism and occupation, that is the mission and that is our goal.
© BBC
Kenyan farmers say genetically modified crops threaten their survival
Kenyan farmers say genetically modified crops threaten their survival
They were protesting at reports that Kenya would lift its restrictions on GM crops following a recent drought, leading to maize shortages.
The demonstrators said they believed a shipment had already arrived and feared it could contaminate the soil.
Kenyan millers want to import cheap GM maize to cope with the shortages.
The BBC's Odhiambo Joseph in Nairobi says the protesters included farmers and environmentalists.
"The importation of GM maize is a ploy by leading millers to kill us - the small-scale farmer," protester Gacheke Gachihi said.
The march was organized by the African Biodiversity Network and the Unga Revolution.
© Wikipedia Commons
Officials from Brazil's environmental agency IBAMA were first tipped to the illegal clearing by satellite images of the forest in Amazonia; a helicopter flyover in the region later revealed thousands of trees left ash-colored and defoliated by toxic chemicals. IBAMA says that Agent Orange was likely dispersed by aircraft by a yet unidentified rancher to clear the land for pasture because it is more difficult to detect than traditional operations that require chainsaws and tractors.
A ten-minute collection of audio-video clips from the base of the WTC on 9/11 that will forever change the way you think of that event.
It features numerous reporters from different networks, many emergency services personnel, and many survivors describing repeatedly secondary explosions within the Twin Towers, suspicious devices, an exploding van parked inside one of the buildings, and similar occurrences -- all real time, as they happened on 9/11, and that somehow or other disappeared from the media record shortly afterward. Proof positive that the impacting planes alone did not bring down the Twin Towers.
It features numerous reporters from different networks, many emergency services personnel, and many survivors describing repeatedly secondary explosions within the Twin Towers, suspicious devices, an exploding van parked inside one of the buildings, and similar occurrences -- all real time, as they happened on 9/11, and that somehow or other disappeared from the media record shortly afterward. Proof positive that the impacting planes alone did not bring down the Twin Towers.
When Obama launched his re-election propaganda campaign to trick the American public into thinking that he intends to end the Af-Pak War, he said that the "War on Terror" has cost $1 trillion over the past decade. While that is a staggering amount of money, he was being deceitful once again.
As you may have heard, a newly released study by the Eisenhower Research Project at Brown University revealed that the cost of the War on Terror is significantly greater than Obama has said. The little passing coverage the study received in the mainstream press cited $3.7 trillion as the total cost, which was the most conservative estimate. The moderate estimate, which the mainstream media ignored, was $4.4 trillion. In addition, interest payments on these costs will most likely exceed $1 trillion, which brings the total cost up to at least $5.4 trillion. The report also states that the following costs are not even included in this total:
"These totals do not inclue: Medicare costs for injured veterans after age 65; Expenses for veterans paid for by state and local government budgets; Promised $5.3 billion reconstruction aid for Afghanistan; Additional macroeconomic consequences of war spending including infrastructure and jobs."David Callahan, reporting for The Policy Shop, summed up the report's cost estimates:
"... the total direct and indirect costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may exceed $6 trillion.... That figure comes from combining congressional appropriations for the wars over the past decade ($1.3 trillion), additional spending by the Pentagon related to the wars ($326 - $652 billion), interest so far on Pentagon war appropriations, all of which was borrowed ($185 billion), immediate medical costs for veterans ($32 billion), war related foreign aid ($74 billion), homeland security spending ($401 billion), projected medical costs for veterans through 2051 ($589 - $934 billion), social costs to military families ($295 - $400 billion), projected Pentagon war spending and foreign aid as troops wind down in the two war zones ($453 billion); and interest payments on all this spending through 2020 ($1 trillion)."
© unknown
Pterodactyl_UAV
Pterodactyl_UAV
The large number of drones at recent exhibitions underlines not only China's determination to catch up in that sector by building equivalents to the leading US combat and surveillance models, the Predator and the Global Hawk, but also its desire to sell this technology abroad, The Washington Post reports.
According to the Aviation Industry Corp. of China, it has begun offering international customers a combat and surveillance drone comparable to the Predator called the Yilong, or "pterodactyl" in English.
Zhang Qiaoliang, a representative of the Chengdu Aircraft Design and Research Institute, which manufactures many of the most advanced military aircraft for the People's Liberation Army, said that the company anticipates sales in Pakistan, the Middle East and Africa.
© Alternet
Just after midnight on May 16, 2010, a SWAT team threw a flash-bang grenade through the window of a 25-year-old man while his 7-year-old daughter slept on the couch as her grandmother watched television. The grenade landed so close to the child that it burned her blanket. The SWAT team leader then burst into the house and fired a single shot which struck the child in the throat, killing her. The police were there to apprehend a man suspected of murdering a teenage boy days earlier. The man they were after lived in the unit above the girl's family.
The shooting death of Aiyana Mo'Nay Stanley-Jones sounds like it happened in a war zone. But the tragic SWAT team raid took place in Detroit.
