RTFri, 09 Nov 2018 13:02 UTC
© AFP / Eric Piermont
Six people were injured after a Boeing 757 with more than 120 people on board crash-landed at Guyana's Georgetown airport, officials said. The aircraft was en route to Canada.
Less than 20 minutes after takeoff, the Toronto-bound jet had to change course and return to the departure airport due to mid-air malfunction. The crew noticed a problem with the hydraulic system and was forced to turn the aircraft back to Cheddi Jagan Airport.
However, the emergency landing resulted in a crash, as the Boeing 757 overran the runway and hit a barrier. The incident led to the brief closure of the airport, but it has now been reopened, according to local media.
RTFri, 09 Nov 2018 14:47 UTC
© Reuters / Christian HartmannFILE PHOTO
An ISIS-linked inmate is suspected to be an instigator of a prison riot that left more than 25 people killed in a high security prison in northern Tajikistan, according to media reports.
Violence broke out at the prison in the second-largest Tajik city of Khujand late on Wednesday. The prisoners joined a fellow inmate, allegedly an Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) militant, who attacked an officer and took away his weapon, Reuters reported citing security officials.
Rioters reportedly managed to take over one of the buildings of the facility, before special forces intervened and regained control.
RTFri, 09 Nov 2018 14:22 UTC
© Reuters / Hannibal Hanschke
Greenpeace activists have painted the roundabout surrounding the Victory Column in Berlin with biodegradable yellow paint in the "Sun instead of Coal" protest against coal-fired power, June 26, 2018
German police descended on as many as 29 flats and offices of Greenpeace activists in response to the group's offbeat July stunt that saw tons yellow paint being poured on a busy roundabout in the German capital.
Back in July, Greenpeace activists distributed 3,500 liters of "environment-friendly" paint on a busy Berlin road to protest the use of coal. Apart from a doubtful rationale behind the action, the stunt had almost brought the traffic on the five-exit junction to a halt around one of the most famous Berlin's landmarks - the Victory Column.
© Guàrdia Urbana Barcelona/twitter
A driver in Barcelona reportedly lost control of his vehicle and veered it onto the sidewalk on Friday morning, colliding with several pedestrians and parked motorcycles.
Comment: Sputnik has more
details on this tragedy:
Earlier, Barcelona police said that two pedestrians, including a ten-year-old girl, were injured in the accident, which took place Friday morning after the driver of an SUV apparently lost control of his or her vehicle and collided with several parked motorcycles and mopeds and then drove onto the sidewalk, ramming into a building wall.
The new video, published by Noticias CMM, shows workers cleaning up the damage caused by the incident and putting the ill-fated SUV on a tow truck to be taken away.
RTThu, 08 Nov 2018 16:26 UTC
© Sputnik/FSB
The Telegram messaging app acknowledges that thousands of its users are involved in terrorist activities, but still refuses to assist security services, Aleksandr Bortnikov, FSB head, said, calling the situation "paradoxical."
The owners of Telegram have "difficulties" understanding the need to facilitate the work of Russian government agencies, fighting against terrorism, Bortnikov said.
He reminded that the company refused to provide the Federal Security Service (FSB) with access to its encryption keys, saying that it would violate the rights of its clients and promising to delete illegal communications itself.
Telegram acknowledges that around 5,000 of its Russian users have acted in a way that revealed their affiliation to terrorist groups, Bortnikov said.
RTThu, 08 Nov 2018 11:57 UTC
At least twelve people, including an officer, have been killed after a gunman went on a shooting spree in a packed bar in Thousand Oaks, California. The suspect is also dead, police announced.
SWAT officers, FBI and ambulances rushed to the scene following the rampage. A bomb squad has been requested as well. It is understood that approximately 30 shots have been fired. Ventura County Sheriff's Dept. Sheriff Geoff Dean told a press conference that at least 12 victims have been confirmed killed by the gunman.
Among the dead was a 29-year police veteran, Ron Helus, who along with a Highway Patrol officer were the first responders to the scene. Dean said Helis was expected to retire in the next year.
Comment: UPDATE 8 NovemberRT
reports that local police have named the gunman as 28-year-old former US marine Ian David Long, an Afghanistan war veteran.
The Borderline Bar & Grill in Thousand Oaks, California, is known for its live country music and was packed that night with college students.
Long is reported to have opened fire there Wednesday night with a Glock 21 .45 caliber semi-automatic handgun.
The victims include a security guard outside the bar and a sheriff's deputy who was among the first to respond to the shooting. Long was also found dead at the scene, so it's assumed he killed himself before SWAT entered the building.
Police report that Long's firearm was legally purchased in Ventura County, although he "used an illegal extended magazine clip in order to carry more ammunition."
Law enforcement had several interactions with Long, most recently in April this year when police responded to a disturbance at his residence (which appears to be his mother's house).
Describing him as
"somewhat irate," and
"acting a little irrationally" at the time, the local sheriff said a mental health team was called to assess Long's mental health, but he was cleared and no further action was taken.
Previous incidents had included a minor traffic collision and in 2015, while Long was the victim of battery in earlier bar incident in Thousand Oaks.
UPDATES 9 NovemberThere are contradictory reports about the use of smoke bombs/flash grenades. The authorities have dismissed such reports twice now, though
eyewitnesses continue reporting that such were used...
John Hedge, who was standing at the front door with his stepdad at the time, said he saw the shooter "throwing smoke grenades all over the place."
Footage of the actual shooting:
A number of those in attendance
were also in attendance at last year's mass shooting at the Route 91 country music festival in Las Vegas:
As with so many other mass shootings in the USA, there's still no apparent motive, though it could have something to do with this:
Maidan
As fascist far-right nationalist groups regularly parade through the country demanding "Ukraine for Ukrainians," Ukraine faces a massive depopulation crisis. Millions of people of all ethnicities are leaving the country, fleeing poverty and war.
Since the restoration of capitalism in 1991,
the overall population of Ukraine has declined from just over 52 million to approximately 42 million today,
a decrease of nearly 20 percent. If the separatist-controlled provinces of the Donbass region and Crimea are excluded, it is estimated that just 35 million people now live in the area controlled by the government of Petro Porosehnko.
Ukrainian governments, including the current one, have been loath to carry out an official census, as it is widely believed that the population estimates reported by the country's State Statistics Service (SSS) are inflated by including deceased individuals. One aim of this is to rig elections.
An official country-wide census has not been held since 2001. In late 2015, the Poroshenko government postponed the 2016 census until 2020.
Public banking activists in Los Angeles
Last night, a national movement to create public banks had its eyes on the city of Los Angeles, where a down-ballot initiative, if passed, would have paved the way for the country's second-largest city to explore the creation of a municipal bank, which advocates say could save taxpayers money by
redirecting the interest the city pays to Wall Street bondholder to investments in infrastructure, housing and other local priorities.
But by a decisive 58 percent, L.A. city voted against
Measure B and decided against asking the city to amend its charter to allow it to operate a municipal financial institution. The bank proposal was billed by advocates as a socially and environmentally responsible alternative to the large banks whose risky investments contributed to the financial crisis in 2008.
Comment: The measure probably failed because people were not informed about it. It's not difficult to see why 'the system' would be reluctant for the idea to catch on. Public banking advocate Ellen Brown published this statement following the result:
I've gotten inquiries on the outcome of the Los Angeles ballot measure to approve a city-owned bank, so thought I would send a quick update. Unfortunately it did not pass, but it did get 42 percent of the vote. It was a remarkable outcome considering that the dynamic young Public Bank LA advocacy group effectively only had a month to educate 4 million voters on what a public bank is and why passing the measure was a good idea. If they had had another month, the bill could well have passed.
The City Council took supporters by surprise when it put the charter amendment on the ballot in July, leaving only four months to promote it. Passing a ballot measure typically takes a campaign war chest of $750,000 or more, and the all-volunteer PBLA group began with no funding and no formal group. The first challenge was clearing the legal requirement of forming a campaign committee, which itself takes funding and some expertise. The committee only began amassing campaign funds a month before the November 6 vote, after which it managed to bring in $60,000.
Most of the campaign, however, was conducted with sheer people power. According to PBLA political director Ben Hauck, in that short time the all-volunteer team managed to gain endorsements from over 100 organizations and community leaders, text message 350,000 voters, hand out over 50,000 flyers, reach over 500,000 voters through social media campaigns, get included in three mailers reaching over 1,200,000 voters, put up hundreds of yard signs and banners across L.A., talk with thousands of voters at events, universities, rallies and gatherings across the city, get featured in dozens of major news stories, articles and TV coverage, manage their own paid social media campaign, drive over 150,000 video views on a YouTube campaign, contact 200,000 voters via a robocall from the Chairman of the California Democratic Party, put on several significant campaign events, get featured in a press event with senatorial candidate Kevin de León and City Council President Herb Wesson, and create several featured videos, dozens of ads, and countless pieces of written content.
The PBLA team is pressing on undaunted. Leader Trinity Tran wrote after the vote, "Over a quarter million Angelenos voted in support of Measure B and the conversation on public banking has now been amplified across the country. This is just the beginning of the national movement. And it's a fight we are certain will be won."
We're hugely proud of the PBLA team! Their dramatic achievements in a very short time are a testament to the power of a committed group of volunteers working together at the local level for a cause they feel strongly about.
If you would like to follow the progress of the public banking movement across the country, please sign up for the Public Banking Institute newsletter, linked here.
Best wishes,
Ellen
EllenBrown.com
PublicBankingInstitute.org
RTFri, 09 Nov 2018 02:35 UTC
© Reuters / Jeenah Moon"No one is above the law" protest in New York City, November 8, 2018
Democrat activists groups have mobilized on short notice to hold rallies in cities across the US, demanding that the new acting head of DOJ recuse himself from overseeing special counsel Robert Mueller's "Russiagate" probe.
Mueller has been investigating Democrat allegations that Trump "colluded" with Russia during the 2016 presidential election, so far without any evidence to that effect. The probe was overseen by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, since AG Jeff Sessions had recused himself on account of being a part of Trump's campaign.
After Sessions
resigned on Wednesday, however, his chief of staff Matthew Whitaker was appointed as acting AG, prompting panic that Trump was moving to quash the Mueller inquiry.
Comment: Just when it couldn't get crazier.
RTThu, 08 Nov 2018 22:12 UTC
© Agence France-Presse / Mandel NganProtesters outside the White House in August
With the midterms over, the anti-Trump #resistance didn't have to wait long for its next extinction-level meltdown. Jeff Sessions' forced resignation gave protesters and celebrities the perfect excuse to plan a day out.
Sessions
resigned on Wednesday, at Trump's request, a move that came after months of speculation. Trump had publicly said several times that he was unhappy with Sessions' performance, and accused the former AG of failing to "take control" of the Justice Department.
The left's response was immediate. By Wednesday night, protests had been planned in 900 cities for the following day. MoveOn.org, a Democrat organization originally formed to oppose the impeachment of Bill Clinton in 1998, released a
statement saying "Trump putting himself above the law is a threat to our democracy, and we've got to get Congress to stop him."
Comment: Pretty rich coming from the people who flipped out when he was hired in the first place! How times have changed.
Comment: Sputnik has more details on this tragedy: