Society's Child

India Bans its Airlines From Paying EU Carbon Tax

Ammu Kannampilly
Agence France-Presse
Fri, 23 Mar 2012 00:00 UTC

India has barred its airlines from complying with the European Union carbon tax scheme, joining China in resistance to plans that have caused a backlash among the EU's trade partners.

The European Union imposed a carbon levy on air travel with effect from January 1, but no airline will face a bill until 2013 after this year's carbon emissions have been tallied.

Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh told parliament on Thursday that "the imposition of carbon tax does not arise" because Indian airlines would simply refuse to hand over their emissions data.

"Though the European Union has directed Indian carriers to submit emission details of their aircraft by March 31, 2012, no Indian carrier is submitting them in view of the position of the government," he said.

India's resolution to boycott the scheme follows China's decision last month to prevent its airlines from complying with the EU directive.

The two Asian giants have attacked the EU scheme, calling it a unilateral trade levy disguised as an attempt to fight climate change.

Half-Naked 42-Year-Old Man Found Dead in Queens Cemetery

Barry Paddock
New York Daily News
Sun, 25 Mar 2012 02:18 UTC

The man's body, pants around his ankles, was discovered by a mourner in Calvary Cemetery Sunday morning; victim not immediately identified

US, New York - A half-naked man was found dead in a Queens cemetery Sunday morning.

The 42-year-old man was found face up near a tombstone with his pants around his ankles just before 10 a.m. by a mourner visiting Calvary Cemetery, police sources said.

The victim's name was not immediately released.

There were no obvious signs of trauma. The city medical examiner will determine the cause of death.

Police are investigating the bizarre and mysterious death.

Police Detain Protesters in Moscow, St. Petersburg

The Associated Press
Sun, 25 Mar 2012 11:19 UTC

© The Associated Press/Dmitry Lovetsky
Police officers detain opposition activists as they try to march after finishing a sanctioned protest meeting against Kremlin policies and vote rigging. in downtown St.Petersburg, Russia, Sunday, March 25, 2012.

Russia - Police in St. Petersburg have detained more than 10 protesters who tried to march down the Russian city's main avenue following an opposition rally.

Several hundred people took part in Sunday's rally in St. Petersburg to express their opposition to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who in May will begin a new six-year term as president.

The demonstrators chanted "Putin is a thief" and "Russia without Putin," two slogans heard at most opposition protests in recent months.

In Moscow, police said they detained about 30 opposition activists near Red Square to prevent them from protesting.

Ekho Moskvy radio cited the opposition Solidarity movement as saying its activists were simply out for a stroll. They were wearing the white ribbons that have become a symbol of the peaceful protest movement.

Costa Concordia: Five More Bodies Found

BBC News
Thu, 22 Mar 2012 13:46 UTC

More than two months after the cruise ship Costa Concordia capsized off the Italian coast, a team searching the wreck has found five more bodies.

Italian authorities say they were found outside the ship, in a small space between the wreck and the sea bed.

Altogether 30 bodies have now been found since the vessel ran aground off the island of Giglio on 13 January.

The Costa Concordia was carrying 4,200 passengers and crew when its hull was torn open by rocks.

Civil Protection Agency chief Franco Gabrielli did not give any details on the sex or ages of the latest victims to be found.

Two people remain missing and are presumed dead.

Eight more bodies were found in late February, but forensic authorities are still working on formally identifying them.

A crew member from India and passengers from the US, Italy and Germany are reported to be among those as yet unaccounted for.

Hundreds of Israelis March in Tel Aviv to Protest War With Iran

Haaretz
Sat, 24 Mar 2012 14:59 UTC

Anti-war protest comes amid growing Facebook campaign linking Israelis and Iranians; campaign leaders: We have nothing to do with the protest rally.

Hundreds of Israelis marched in Tel Aviv on Saturday to protest against a possible Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear facilities.

The protest came amid a recent Facebook campaign linking Israeli and Iranian citizens in their opposition to war between the two nations. Campaign leaders, however, made it clear on their Facebook page that they had nothing to do with the Tel Aviv protest march.

Last week, graphic designers Ronny Edry and his wife, Michal Tamir, unknowingly began a Facebook phenomenon when they uploaded a poster depicting Edry and his daughter with the words, "Iranians, we will never bomb your country, we [heart] you."

That one image sparked a movement of sorts, with hundreds, if not thousands, of images sent from Israel, Iran, and elsewhere in the world, in support of exposing what participants consider to be the human side of the conflict between Iran and Israel.

Director James Cameron to Take Record-Setting Plunge

Agence France-Presse
Sat, 24 Mar 2012 00:00 UTC

© Agence France-Presse/Karin Zeitvogel
James Cameron, the Oscar-winninng director of Avatar and Titanic, is visits the National Geographic headquarters in 2011.

Titanic director James Cameron could dive as early as this weekend to the deepest place on Earth, further than any other human has on a solo mission, so long as the weather cooperates.

The Canadian filmmaker left the tiny Pacific atoll of Ulithi on Saturday headed for the the Mariana Trench's Challenger Deep, which plummets 6.8 miles (11 kilometers) down in the Pacific Ocean, according to mission partner the National Geographic scientific institution.

His goal is to become the first human to visit the ocean's deepest point in more than 50 years, and to bring back data and specimens.

"If seas remain calm -- a big if -- the team may proceed with Cameron's submersible mission to the trench's Challenger Deep this weekend," a National Geographic News report said.

It said the submersible that Cameron designed, a "vertical torpedo" of sorts, already successfully completed an unpiloted dive on Friday.

The sub is expected to allow the director to spend around six hours on the seafloor during which he plans to collect samples and film his journey with several 3-D, high-definition cameras and an eight-foot-tall (2.4-meter-tall) array of LED lights.

Thousands of Atheists Rally in D.C.

Agence France-Presse
Sun, 25 Mar 2012 01:44 UTC

Thousands of atheists, agnostics and other non-believers turned out in the US capital on Saturday to celebrate their rejection of the idea of God and to claim a bigger place in public life.

The Reason Rally, sponsored by 20 atheist, secular and humanist groups, was billed as the biggest-ever "coming-out" party for the fastest-growing religious group in the United States -- those with no religion.

"There are too many people in this country who have been cowed into fear of coming out as atheists, secularists or agnostics," said the event's star, Richard Dawkins, the British scientist and best-selling atheist author.

"We are far more numerous than anybody realizes," he said, prompting a loud cheer from the youthful crowd that defied gray skies and drizzle for an afternoon of speeches, music and satire on the National Mall.

Jesse Galef of the Secular Student Alliance, a spokesman for the rally, told AFP he conservatively estimated the turnout at 10,000. The National Park Service, which oversees the mall, had issued a permit for 15,000.

Smashed in the head by police at protest, victim now faces trial

Sandra Laville
The Guardian
Sun, 25 Mar 2012 10:51 UTC

© Graeme Robertson
Alfie Meadows at his home in Brixton following emergency brain surgery in December 2010. He was one of thousands of British students demonstrating again the Tory government's massive increase of student fees for 3rd level education. Alfie learned the hard way that he doesn't really live in a democracy.

Alfie Meadows, who had brain surgery after anti-fees demonstration, claims he was struck by police truncheon

A philosophy student who claimed he suffered head injuries from a police baton during the anti-fees protest in London faces trial on Monday for violent disorder at the demonstration.

Supporters of Alfie Meadows, 21, who underwent emergency surgery for his injuries, have vowed to demonstrate outside Kingston crown court, in Surrey, against what they say is an attempt to silence legitimate protest by pursuing the victim of an assault rather than investigating any police who allegedly carried it out.

Meadows had brain surgery after the anti-fees demonstration in December 2010 when he said he was struck over the head with a police truncheon. He was one of 44 people, including six police officers, treated in hospital after rioting broke out at the demonstration over student fees.

French Mayor Alerts MIVILUDES to New Age COINTELPRO

Oliver Pickup
The Independent, UK
Sun, 25 Mar 2012 09:17 UTC

Thousands of New Agers descend on mountain they see as haven from December's apocalypse

A mountain looming over a French commune with a population of just 200 is being touted as a modern Noah's Ark when doomsday arrives - supposedly less than nine months from now.

A rapidly increasing stream of New Age believers - or esoterics, as locals call them - have descended in their camper van-loads on the usually picturesque and tranquil Pyrenean village of Bugarach. They believe that when apocalypse strikes on 21 December this year, the aliens waiting in their spacecraft inside Pic de Bugarach will save all the humans near by and beam them off to the next age.

As the cataclysmic date - which, according to eschatological beliefs and predicted astrological alignments, concludes a 5,125-year cycle in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar - nears, the goings-on around the peak have become more bizarre and ritualistic.

For decades, there has been a belief that Pic de Bugarach, which, at 1,230 metres, is the highest in the Corbières mountain range, possesses an eery power. Often called the "upside-down mountain" - geologists think that it exploded after its formation and the top landed the wrong way up - it is thought to have inspired Jules Verne's Journey to the Centre of the Earth and Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Since the 1960s, it has attracted New Agers, who insist that it emits special magnetic waves.

Comment: Here we can see how New Age disinformation works hand in hand with the authoritarians' crackdown on anything 'unusual'. On the one hand organisations like MIVILUDES will be crying wolf about bizarre New Age activities in the lead-up to 21 December. On the other hand COINTELPRO will be driving the New Agers to increasingly hysterical states. Combined, the two hands of the same puppet will create public demand for a government crackdown on the 'end of the world' hysteria, which originates in agents of those same governments.