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Breakdown of Eurotunnel train to France forces evacuations, strands people for hours

Sam Greenhill and Stephen Johns
Mail Online
Mon, 07 Jul 2014 16:24 UTC
eurotunnel

Stranded: Hundreds of passengers were left stranded in the Channel Tunnel and forced to get off their train and walk along a service tunnel (pictured) after a massive power failure
Hundreds of passengers wait patiently to be rescued yesterday after being trapped in the Channel Tunnel.

Many took selfies and other photos of the scene as they were evacuated from a car shuttle train which hit fallen power cables eight miles in.

The incident blocked one of the tunnel's two tracks for most of the day, throwing the travel plans of thousands of holidaymakers and other passengers into chaos.

Massive queues built up at London St Pancras and Folkestone.

There were fears of a knock-on effect today but operator Eurotunnel said it hoped services would return to normal by this morning.

BBC newsreader Sophie Raworth was among those whose plans were hit.

Her Eurostar train took five hours to make the journey from London to Lille instead of the normal 90 minutes.

The incident began at about 7.30am when the Eurotunnel shuttle service from Folkestone to Calais ground to a halt about a quarter of the way into its journey.
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Stock Down

World Cup not such a boon to Brazil: Disastrous decline in productivity while police continue violent repression of populace

Christopher Gaffney
Fusion Soccer
Sun, 06 Jul 2014 00:00 UTC
I
World cup demonstrators in Brasilia
© Reuters/Felipe Costa
Demonstrators protest against the 2014 World Cup in front of a major bus terminal in Brasilia, May 15, 2014.
n a normal month of June, Rio de Janeiro hosts at least 16 first-division soccer matches. São Paulo will typically see the same number. Salvador usually has around 8; ditto Recife, Fortaleza, Porto Alegre, Belo Horizonte, and Curitiba. None of these cities will host more than seven during the World Cup.

Compared to this time last year, Brazilian airlines transported 15% more passengers per day than they are doing during the World Cup. The airports seem empty because they have fewer passengers. Planes are on time because they have fewer problems getting out of the gate. This is not to say that the Brazilians aren´t doing a good job with airline transport, but that the predicted problems have not emerged because Brazilians were so afraid of the problems that they aren´t traveling the way they normally do.

In a normal month of June, Brazil receives around 600,000 foreign visitors. That is the expected number of tourists that the country will receive for the World Cup. "Normal" tourists have been replaced by World Cup tourists, who are being bilked by hoteliers and tour operators.

In every host city, for every game, there is some kind of holiday. That's 64 local holidays throughout the tournament. Schools have been closing to keep kids and teachers at home. If kids are not getting to school, some parents are staying home, too.

All of this - the holidays, the fear of logistical headaches, and a general party atmosphere - has been disastrous for Brazilian productivity, which has declined by as much as 30% during the first round of the tournament. These costs are never factored into the general budget for the event.
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Books

US armed forces prey on kids through the militarization of public schools

Steve Filips and Don Barrett
World Socialist Website
Sat, 05 Jul 2014 17:22 UTC
kids folding flag
© unknown
This fall, Syracuse, New York will join the still small but growing list of public schools dedicated to the training of students for military service in the United States Armed Forces.

This past April, the Syracuse Central School District (SCSD) approved the closure of Fowler High School in the city's impoverished Westside section and its transformation into the Public Service Leadership Academy (PSLA), which will focus on training students for military service, to work in the Department of Homeland Security, or as police officers and firefighters.

There are 18 military academies as part of the public school system in the United States. Six are located in Chicago. All of these schools are associated with the Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps (JROTC), whose goals include indoctrinating students with "patriotism," "responsiveness to all authority" and an increasing "respect for the role of the US Armed Forces in support of national objectives."
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Bad Guys

So much for government transparency: CIA forces out former agent after his quest to release information

Greg Miller
The Washington Post
Fri, 04 Jul 2014 00:00 UTC
Jeffrey Scudder
His CIA career included assignments in Africa, Afghanistan and Iraq, but the most perilous posting for Jeffrey Scudder turned out to be a two-year stint in a sleepy office that looks after the agency's historical files.

It was there that Scudder discovered a stack of articles, hundreds of histories of long-dormant conflicts and operations that he concluded were still being stored in secret years after they should have been shared with the public.

To get them released, Scudder submitted a request under the Freedom of Information Act - a step that any citizen can take, but one that is highly unusual for a CIA employee. Four years later, the CIA has released some of those articles and withheld others. It also has forced Scudder out.

His request set in motion a harrowing sequence. He was confronted by supervisors and accused of mishandling classified information while assembling his FOIA request. His house was raided by the FBI and his family's computers seized. Stripped of his job and his security clearance, Scudder said he agreed to retire last year after being told that if he refused, he risked losing much of his pension.
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Megaphone

Brazilians Hold anti-World Cup Rally in Rio


Fars News
Mon, 07 Jul 2014 16:57 UTC
Anti FIFA banner
© Unknown
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Cloud Lightning

Electrifying: Giant futuristic 'Tesla Tower' in abandoned woods near Moscow


RT.com
Mon, 07 Jul 2014 16:35 UTC
Tesla Tower_1
© Photo from www.esosedi.ru
No, it's not an alien colony, a time machine, or even a Russian version of America's ionospheric HAARP program. But in a forest near Moscow, this Soviet-era "lightning machine" has a capacity arguably equal to Russia's entire electricity output.

Bloggers flock to see this technical marvel, which has been dubbed the "High Voltage Marx and Tesla Generators Research Facility." The testing range, a branch of the Russian Electrical Engineering Institute, is in the sleepy town of Istra, 40 kilometers west of Moscow.
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Arrow Down

Utah man arrested for extinguishing a brush fire


Police State USA
Mon, 07 Jul 2014 14:42 UTC
Santaquin Bush Fire
© Nick Miller
The brush fire that Santaquin residents quickly extinguished, resulting in one arrest.
Santaquin - A man was arrested for disorderly conduct and obstructing justice when he refused to stop spraying water on a brush fire that had ignited in a field behind his home.

The incident happened on July 4th in a field located behind a row of houses. At approximately 9:30 p.m., some brush caught fire due to errant use of fireworks. Spectators quickly assisted and one woman called 9-1-1 for help.

"An apparent spark lit a tree over there from an old orchard on fire," said 36-year-old Santaquin resident, Jason Thornton. "Myself, my two nephews, and a few neighbors rushed to action, got our hoses out, contained the fire to one tree, waiting for the fire department to show up."

Mr. Thornton continued: "While fighting the fire, somebody said, 'stop!' I told them, 'no' in a very unpolite way. He told me again to stop. I said, 'No, I'm manning this fire. I'm not stopping until the fire department gets here.'"
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Card - VISA

Cash now no longer accepted on London buses

Alexandra Rucki
London Evening Standard
Mon, 07 Jul 2014 10:45 UTC
Image
© Nigel Howard
Cash free: passengers can no longer use cash to pay for a London bus journey
Passengers on London buses will no longer be able to pay in cash from today.

Transport for London said dwindling numbers of travellers using money to pay for their journeys sparked the change.

Passengers using bus services will only be able to pay with Oyster cards, prepaid tickets, contactless debit cards or concessionary tickets.

TfL are introducing a one more journey scheme to stop passengers from becoming stranded, which allows those with no money left on their Oyster to take a journey.

Commuters will receive an emergency fare advice slip to acknowledge the One More Journey feature has been activated and the credit will become negative. The Oyster card will need topping up before another journey can be made.

Mike Weston, TfL's director of buses, said: "The way our customers pay for goods and services is evolving, so we need to ensure our ticketing evolves too.
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Chart Bar

Ranked by residents, the worst possible U.S. states to live in

Tyler Durden
Zerohedge.com
Sun, 06 Jul 2014 13:56 UTC
It should come as no surprise that when Gallup recently conducted a poll asking residents to rank if their state is the "worst possible to live in" a whopping 25% of its residents, by far the most of any states, responded Illinois. Which were the other "worst possible" states? The table below ranks them all.
Image

Comment: America is completely corrupt and bankrupt. What is there to be proud of? High taxes, high mortality rates, extraordinary losses of human dignity, rights and freedom, horrific poverty, and astonishing wealth inequality:
  • U.S. worst place to live?

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Arrow Down

Eleven parachuters die in Poland as parachute club plane crashes


BBC
Mon, 07 Jul 2014 02:29 UTC
Poland plane crash
© Unknown
Eleven people have been killed when a plane carrying members of a parachute club crashed in southern Poland.

Rescue workers said only one of the 12 people on board survived and had suffered serious injuries.

The Piper Navajo light aircraft had just taken off from an airfield in Rudniki near Czestochowa. The cause of the crash was not immediately clear.

Witnesses said the plane's engines had made an odd, droning sound before it began to fall from the sky.

"It was flying from the south and the engine was making strange sounds," said Barbara Minczykiewicz, a resident of the nearby village of Topolow where the plane crashed.

Comment: Another crash involving parachuters: Vietnam military helicopter crashes killing 16 during parachute training

      Read More...
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