October 6th, is the 38th anniversary of the first act of terrorism against civilian aviation in the western hemisphere - the unparalleled Cubana air disaster on the coastline of Barbados on October 6, 1976 - the Barbados crime. Cubana flight 455 was hit by two C-4 explosives bombs just after the aircraft took off from the then Seawell Airport (now the Grantley Adams International Airport) in Barbados at an altitude of 18,000 feet.

Rather than crashing into the white sands of the beach called Paradise and killing the vacationers, the Cubana pilot, Wilfredo Pérez Sr., courageously banked the plane away from the beach and towards the Atlantic Ocean, saving the lives of many tourists. It crashed in a ball of fire one mile north of Deep Water Bay. The crash occurred about eight kilometres short of the airport.

Cubana flight 455 was a routine, scheduled commercial, passenger flight of no military significance. There were no survivors. All 73 passengers and five crew members aboard the plane were assassinated: 57 Cubans, 11 Guyanese, and five North Koreans.

Ukraine's president approved a disputed anti-graft measure on Thursday that could see up to a million civil servants with alleged links to past Soviet or pro-Russian governments immediately sacked.

The so-called "lustration law" follows the example of other eastern European nations that broke free of decades of Moscow's domination at the end of the Cold War.

It was also a rallying cry of the protests that convulsed Kiev last winter and led to the ouster of pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych and a secretive band of Ukrainian tycoons.

The law removes anyone who held a federal or regional government position for more than a year under Yanukovych, who is now in self-imposed exile in Russia.

It also sets up a special commission to investigate judges and law enforcement agents suspected of living lavish lifestyles on humble government wages.

Another provision prevents anyone unable to explain their sources of income or assets from holding office for five to 10 years.

Lawmakers' initial failure to adopt the legislation last month sparked violent protests outside parliament that engulfed the building in the black smoke of burning tyres and brought riot police out on the streets.

The bill itself says it was drafted to help "restore trust in the authorities and create a new system of government that corresponds to European standards".

"This is a historic day for Ukraine," President Petro Poroshenko posted on his Facebook account.

"The state machine will be cleansed. Glory to Ukraine!"

But the legislation has been bitterly fought by lawmakers representing Russian-speaking eastern regions -- the power base of the former regime and now partially controlled by separatist rebels.

Health authorities in Spain have put to death the dog of a nurse infected with the Ebola virus in Madrid, sparking protests from animal rights groups.

Activists scuffled with police outside her home as the dog was taken away.

The nurse, Teresa Romero, is the first person known to have contracted the deadly virus outside West Africa.

She had treated two missionaries who later died from Ebola. The virus has killed 3,879 people, mostly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

A court order to euthanise Ms Romero's dog was issued on Tuesday despite uncertainty over whether the animal was also infected or risked spreading the disease.

On Wednesday about 50 animal rights activists held a protest outside the nurse's home in Madrid, shouting "assassins".

Two protesters were hurt when they tried to stop the van in which the animal was being transported, El Pais newspaper reported.

The fate of the dog, named Excalibur, sparked huge interest on social networks, after Ms Romero's husband, who like her is being kept in isolation in a hospital, alerted animal protection groups via social networks.

It's frightening that some Canadians support President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine rather than Canada's values of national sovereignty and territorial integrity, be it in the media or in public demonstrations like the one planned for Parliament Hill on Saturday.


Russia's war of terror - Crimea annexation, ethnic cleansing, abduction, torture and murder, downing of the Malaysian plane - are abominations. The criminal is Putin not the Ukrainian freedom fighters who have a right to defend their country. He needs censuring for violating international law while lying that Russia is not "involved." His "humanitarian" convoys and phoney referendums in Ukraine are a freak show. His criminality belies Russia's greatness and throws it back to its nefarious past and into company of despicable despots.

As parties to various conflicts increasingly resort to satellite and drone images as court evidence, two British experts have decided to become founding fathers of a one-of-a-kind specialist agency - claiming to be unique "space detectives".

Ray Harris, an emeritus professor of Geography, and Ray Purdy, a visiting senior research fellow at the Faculty of Laws, both from the University College London, have launched "Air & Space Evidence" - the first space detective agency in the world.

The academics' team-work on interdisciplinary projects on Earth observation data during the last few years revealed that most people, even lawyers, insurance investigators and legal enforcement officials lack experience and knowledge in the developing field.

Their potential clients could be both from public and private sectors, as the pair have some background in tackling a variety of legal cases, ranging from investigating fraud to environmental assaults, and from border and boundary disputes to human rights investigations.

According to the company's directors, it's not always easy to use such sources of information as Google Earth as satellite data has some pitfalls. "Trials have been collapsing because courts cannot be convinced of the authenticity of image data," Purdy told New Scientist.

The US is doing its best to estrange the EU from Russia to get the upper hand in a free trade deal, and also, to manipulate European countries into buying America's relatively more expensive natural gas.

TTIP and Ukraine

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is a Euro-Atlantic free trade agreement that is the subject of ongoing negotiations between the US and the EU. The deadline for finalizing the TTIP free trade agreement is in 2015. Its goal is to create what is referred to as the Trans-Atlantic Free Trade Area (TAFTA) and to cement the European Union with the United States as one supranational trading bloc.

These trade negations have been passing under the public's radar, because they have been taking place very discreetly behind closed doors. The very TTIP's name is designed to conceal, and was selected by policy and trade mandarins, because of their fears a public backlash could erupt against the negotiations, as it did in the case of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) talks in 2001. Like the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), which was signed in Ottawa between Canada and the EU on September 26, wordsmiths calculatingly picked the name TTIP to try to hide the fact that it is a free trade agreement.

You've probably heard privacy advocates talk about how it isn't just one set of data, or one surveillance technology, that we need to worry about, but rather the combination of them. When corporations and the government figure out how to seamlessly integrate our license plate records, cell phone location histories, education and health data, and biometric identifiers into one easily mapped dossier, the surveillance state will have reached its apotheosis - and privacy will be a relic of the pre-digital age.

The real-world application of a fully integrated surveillance state isn't hard to conjure. If you think of the data we leave behind and that is created about us as a 3D puzzle with thousands of pieces of different shapes and materials, the integration of all of that data would be a 3D recreation of our lives. The result is a digital hologram of our person, mapping out everything we do, everywhere we go, and everything we are from the moment we are born until the moment we die.

That sounds awfully futuristic and maybe even paranoid, but the basic puzzle pieces are already here, and many of them are already being assembled. The FBI isn't afraid to publicly admit that "data aggregation" is a central goal at the bureau's IT department. They have so much data, and they are daily acquiring more and more kinds, but they don't yet know exactly how to process it. Enter "identity resolution" and "record linkage."

The European Union should consider easing its economic sanctions against Russia if it succeeds to negotiate natural gas deliveries with Ukraine, Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka said in an interview published Wednesday by the Mlada fronta Dnes daily.

"In my opinion, it is absolutely legitimate - if Russia continues to show its good will, and the tension [in Ukraine] subsides, and both parties deliver on their promises - that the European Union should consider easing or winding down sanctions," Bohuslav Sobotka said.

He added that the restart of Russian gas deliveries to Ukraine ahead of the winter season was a crucial aspect of the plan.

"Russia could also show its good will in the handling of this issue. And if it does, this could be a good opportunity for a certain gesture of good will on the part of the EU," the Czech prime minister added.

In terms of purchasing power, China now has the largest economy on the entire planet, but that is not the only area where China has surpassed the United States. China also accounts for more total global trade than the U.S. does,

China consumes more energy than the U.S. does, and China now manufactures more goods than the U.S. does. In other words, the era of American economic dominance is rapidly ending. Global economic power is making a dramatic shift to the east, and that is going to have huge implications for our future.

We already owe the Chinese well over a trillion dollars, and as our economic infrastructure crumbles we are feverishly borrowing even more money in a desperate attempt to prop up our falling standard of living. We can't seem to match the work ethic, inventiveness and determination of China and other Asian nations and it is showing. If we continue down this path, what will the future look like for future generations of Americans?

Bomber targets checkpoint operated by Shia Houthi rebels in centre of capital Sana'a, near where rally was about to be held

A suicide bomber has killed at least 42 people, including several children, in the Yemeni capital Sana'a, medics and witnesses said.

A Reuters witness in Sana'a counted at least 20 bodies immediately after the attack on a checkpoint held by the Houthis, whose forces seized the capital last month following weeks of anti-government demonstrations. The Shia movement had planned to hold a rally near the checkpoint later on Thursday.

Medical sources later said the death toll had risen to at least 42, including several children. The death toll was expected to climb further, with many of those wounded in serious or critical condition, they said.

In a separate incident, at least 20 government soldiers were killed in a suicide car bombing and gun attack in the east of the country, the state news agency Saba reported.