© AP Photo/ Steve Wood
"As we've investigated the case over the last six years, I think he's more of a person of interest now," Corina suggested. "I mean, we now know that he was the last person to be with Natalie before she disappeared."
Society's Child
"As we've investigated the case over the last six years, I think he's more of a person of interest now," Corina suggested. "I mean, we now know that he was the last person to be with Natalie before she disappeared."
© CC BY-SA 3.0 Ardfern
St Eugene's Cathedral, Francis Street, Derry, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland
St Eugene's Cathedral, Francis Street, Derry, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland
Belgrade, Sarajevo, Gaza, Jenin, Soweto, Belfast, and Derry are cities, towns and places where ordinary men and women have forged history neither by choice nor design but as a consequence of circumstances not of their choosing. And with this in mind, on a recent trip to Derry in Ireland I was reminded of something Bertolt Brecht wrote: "Because things are they way they are, things will not stay the way they are."
© Aziz Taher / Reuters
Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah
Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah
America's confused position in Afrin, northern Syria, is not the only location in the Middle East where Washington's loyalties are at odds with the reality on the ground. Lebanon, a country once called the 'Switzerland of the Middle East' for its Western pretensions, is now what many call a failed state which is consumed by corruption. And a confused one, for Washington to grapple with.
Lebanon is one of the highest net recipients of US military aid and because of its unique location (bordering Israel) and its dominance by Iranian-backed Hezbollah, that makes it a special case in the eyes of Washington. Indeed, only recently when Israel threatened to attack, it was the US which "pledged" support for the Lebanese Army, which it erroneously believes acts as a "counterweight" to Hezbollah. Is the US misinformed and comically out of touch of the recent developments in Lebanon, or is it simply confused about the realities on the ground?
Comment: Every hand on a gun, every faction in a back pocket. Status quo. Meanwhile, Israel is stirring the pot, picking for a fight.
- Israel's threat to Lebanon: 'Full strength' ground invasion in case of conflict
- Israel, Hezbollah brace for all-out conflict
- Lebanese Army ordered at 'full readiness' at southern border to face Israeli threat
© Carlos Barria/Reuters
Former US President Barack Obama, State of the Union address, 2016.
Former US President Barack Obama, State of the Union address, 2016.
Following Trump's first State of Union address this week, the conservative news outlet duped a number of students into believing that words uttered by Barack Obama - the more favourably-regarded president among young New Yorkers - were actually those of a Republican.
As the short video experiment shows, Trump's name can be controversial regardless of the content being shared. However, it also shows young Americans pondering the impact of their previous government's foreign-policy rhetoric.
On Barack Obama's stance on Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS), which was to hunt and destroy them, one respondent said: "[The president] should mind his own business and focus on America because he is the president of the US, not of the whole world."
Comment: As cleverly shown, bias colors how we input information and interpret it -- a thought process necessitating awareness and neutralization before forming opinions.
© AFP Photo / Mandel Ngan
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales
A look back on five of the biggest cases of political bias that gripped the site in 2017 should discourage anyone from looking to Wikipedia as a source for reliable and neutral information on the political topics of the day.
1. Instructor at Berkeley sending students on anti-Trump editing spree
UC Berkeley instructor Michel Gelobter launched a course in January 2017 for his students to edit Wikipedia advancing an "environmental justice" narrative. Gelobter's course description cited the importance of the course as being at "a unique moment in history...the first few months of a historically unique U.S. President whose agenda has been explicitly anti-environmental, sexist, and racist." He encouraged his students to "edit and/or create Wikipedia articles in order to create a neutral, well-documented record of the assaults on the environment and environmental justice expected to unfold early in the Trump Presidency."
Despite the clear bias of the course description, Helaine Blumenthal of the Wiki Education Foundation, which oversees such editing projects, posted it to Wikipedia without any alterations. After a few months, Wikipedia editors discussed the problems the course was creating and swiftly banned Gelobter from the site. While Wikipedia editors did delete some of the more egregious additions, others remained. In one of the worst examples, a lengthy section about "environmental injustices and the Trump Administration" consisting of over an eighth of the article on air pollution in the United States still remains essentially untouched, as do similar sections in the articles on food security and the Port Arthur Refinery in Texas. On Facebook, Gelobter insisted the pages were all neutral.
© FNA
The Russian Army's large cargo ship has left the country for Syria's waters to join the Russian naval fleet in Eastern Mediterranean Sea, a media outlet reported on Saturday
The Russian Army's large cargo ship has left the country for Syria's waters to join the Russian naval fleet in Eastern Mediterranean Sea, a media outlet reported on Saturday
The Arabic RT quoted Turkish media as saying that the Caesar Kunikov ship passed the Black Sea's strait and entered the Mediterranean Sea on Friday.
The Russian sources had previously reported that the army's large cargo ship left Sevastopol port in Crimea for Mediterranean Sea to join the Russian naval fleet in Syria's Tartus port.
Comment: The Russian Navy has just fired several cruise missiles over the Idlib countryside, pro-government activists in Latakia reported this afternoon.
The cruise missiles reportedly targeted the eastern countryside of the Idlib Governorate, where the downed Russian pilot was killed today.See also: Russian Su-25 shot down by militants in Idlib, pilot killed - UPDATE: Russians launch retaliation strikes, kill 30 terrorists (VIDEO)
© Sputnik/Mikhail Voskresenskiy
Since the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the Middle East has primarily been the domain of Western powers. From the creation of new nations through French and British imperial mandates, through US-backed covert ops and military interventions from the mid-20th century to today, the Middle East has effectively been held in a state of arrested development for 100 years.
I believe however, that the Syria peace conference held in Sochi, Russia last week, marks a shift in the balance of power towards the region regaining control of its own fate.
© Mohamemd Asad/Middle East Monitor
Gazans look at the damage done to their home after Israel carried out a missile attack in Gaza on 1 February 2018
Gazans look at the damage done to their home after Israel carried out a missile attack in Gaza on 1 February 2018
For the first time, Facebook allowed residents in Gaza to mark themselves ‘safe’ following a gas cylinder explosion, however Palestinians who are targeted by Israeli occupation warplanes have not been given the same privilege
The area which was targeted had only recently been rebuilt following the devastation it suffered during Israel's 51-day war on Gaza in 2014.
According to the Palestinian news agency Wafa's report in July, three years after the war in 2014, only one third of the 11,000 homes destroyed have been rebuilt.
Many families continue to live in tents, according to a report by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) on the situation for civilians in Gaza.
Though Facebook allowed Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip to mark themselves "safe" for the first time this week following a home gas cylinder which left seven dead and wounding 15 others yesterday, the feature was not enabled following Israel's attack on the enclave.
Facebook has long been accused of being complicit in Israel's occupation through its closure of Palestinian activists' accounts and those of organisations critical of Israel. According to Israel's "Cyber Unit", 69 per cent of its requests to remove content were agreed to by social media giants including Facebook and Twitter.
Many have also questioned the inequality of the social media platform which allowed Londoners to mark themselves "safe" following the terrorist attacks in the British capital last year, but has yet to enable the feature for residents of Syria, Libya, the Palestinian territories and other war-torn regions.
Nero, four, was poisoned by barbiturates which is suspected to come from contaminated meat
Nero, four, was poisoned by barbiturates thought to have come from contaminated meat.
It happened last July at South Lakes Safari Zoo where 486 animals died in four years from January 2013, but the news has only just emerged.
The BBC was filming at the time in the park in Dalton-in-Furness, Cumbria. New bosses had invited them in to show the zoo was improving.
© REUTERS/ Ibraheem Abu Mustafa
Palestinian protesters hurl stones at Israeli troops following a protest against the blockade on Gaza, near the border between Israel and Central Gaza Strip May 19, 2017
Palestinian protesters hurl stones at Israeli troops following a protest against the blockade on Gaza, near the border between Israel and Central Gaza Strip May 19, 2017
A total of 177 Palestinians have been injured in a new wave of clashes with the Israeli servicemen in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip, mostly due to the use of tear gas, local medical organizations told Sputnik.
According to the Palestine Red Crescent Society's figures, a total of 164 Palestinians were injured in the clashes that took place in the West Bank on Friday.
"Eight of them were injured by military bullets, 25 by rubber bullets, 131 were injured by gas," Palestine Red Crescent Society's spokeswoman Erab Fuqaha said.
Comment: Also See: