Society's Child

Spanish journalist arrested after attempted sale of Assange surveillance videos

José María Irujo
El Pais
Sun, 28 Apr 2019 19:42 UTC

Comment: The following is a machine translation of an El Pais article, with light editing for fluency. The original article can be found here.

The alleged extortionists, who ask for three million for images and conversations of the activist, are from Alicante

José Martín Santos, Pepe, a journalist sentenced to three years in prison for fraud, and three computer scientists from Alicante are the people who have in their possession images, videos and personal documents of the alleged espionage of Julian Assange, the cyberactivist who took refuge for seven years at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and handed over on April 16 to the British police. The police are investigating whether a supposed Spanish communication agency is behind the extortion of the Australian activist, 47 years old, who is asked for three million not to disseminate his images.

Spanish agents from the kidnapping and extortion section monitored José Martín Santos and three of his collaborators after they offered the recorded material during the last two years of their stay in the diplomatic legation of the founder of WikiLeaks, according to sources close to the investigation.

Iraq vet mowed down 8 pedestrians thinking they were Muslims

RT
Sat, 27 Apr 2019 13:14 UTC

ISAIAH JOEL PEOPLES, 34, who is an Iraq War veteran, faces eight counts of attempted murder for injuring eight people

© Global Look Press / Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety
ISAIAH JOEL PEOPLES, 34, who is an Iraq War veteran, faces eight counts of attempted murder for injuring eight people

A US army veteran rammed eight people crossing the road in Sunnyvale, California, because he believed at least some of them were Muslim, police said. He may now face hate crime charges in addition to attempted murder.

"Based on our investigation, new evidence shows that the defendant intentionally targeted victims based on their race and his belief that they were of the Muslim faith," Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety Chief Phan S. Ngo said on Friday.

Isaiah Peoples, 34-year-old Iraq war veteran, ploughed his Toyota Corolla into a group of pedestrians and cyclists as they were crossing the street on Tuesday. Peoples reportedly made no attempt to stop, ramming the crowd, traveling at over 60mph. Out of the eight people injured, three are children: a nine-year-old boy, a 15-year-old boy, and a 13-year-old girl of South Asian descent. The girl was rushed to hospital with a severe brain injury and is now in a coma.

Comment: A case of mental breakdown, or was there something more sinister behind it?

Hundreds of migrants board 'The Beast' train in Mexico for quick trip to the US border

Lukas Mikelionis
Fox News
Sun, 28 Apr 2019 00:00 UTC

Hundreds of migrants boarded a train known as the "The Beast" in southern Mexico on Thursday, in a risky move aimed at transporting them to the U.S. border quicker.

The decision to board the train en masse comes after a breakout of migrants from a troubled immigration detention center in the southern border city of Tapachula on Thursday night.

Mexico's National Immigration Institute said the mass escape, which appears to be the largest in recent memory, involved around 1,300 Cuban migrants. Around 700 of them have since returned voluntarily, but hundreds remain on the run.

Migration authorities said nearly 400 migrants boarded the train, Reuters reported, with images showing men, women and children of various nationalities, most of them on the roofs of carriages.

Comment: See also:

Democrats' objection to citizenship questions is a ploy to accrue more votes for themselves

Jonathan S. Tobin
The Federalist
Fri, 26 Apr 2019 14:09 UTC

As far as Democrats and their cheerleaders in the mainstream media are concerned, there's only one reason the Trump administration is trying to include a question about citizenship on the next census. The Department of Commerce is being widely depicted as solely interested in undercounting Hispanics and minorities, who, Trump critics say, will be discouraged from participating in the constitutionally mandated process by which the government counts the number of people in the United States.

In doing so, liberals accuse Republicans of trying to artificially depress the count to deprive urban areas of much-needed federal funds and wrongly skew the figures to lower the number of House of Representative seats in states where minorities predominate.

That was the conceit of the plaintiffs' arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court when the suit brought by several states against the government over the inclusion of a citizenship question was heard this week. While this fits in with the narrative seeking to depict the Trump administration as incorrigibly racist (and Republicans as cynically partisan), this approach to the question actually turns the truth on its head.

Far from being immoral, let alone illegal, by trying to prevent the government from finding out whether census respondents are citizens, it is Democrats who are seeking to exploit the process to advance their political agenda.

Comment: See also:

Boeing whistleblower reports new issue with 737 Max Jets - report

RT
Sun, 28 Apr 2019 17:06 UTC

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is reportedly considering an entirely new angle on its investigation into Boeing's 737 Max line of jets after a company insider called a hotline to report a new issue with the aircraft.

All 737 Max planes across the world were grounded by regulators after two of the aircraft crashed in separate incidents that claimed 346 lives.

At least four current or former Boeing employees called the FAA hotline to make complaints about the 737 Max line after Ethiopia's transport minister released a preliminary report on the March crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 that killed 157 people, CNN is reporting.

German intel report warns of German far-right groups prepping for civil war, state collapse

RT
Sun, 28 Apr 2019 17:09 UTC

© REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay
A far-right protester wears a sweater that reads, "If you can't protect us - then we protect ourselves"

German ultra-nationalists believe a civil war and an eventual demise of the state will come about, and are preparing for it by training to use firearms and explosives, a local security service has warned.

Germany's domestic intelligence agency, the BfV, sounded the alarm over the rise of the underground far-right, according to Die Welt. An intelligence report seen by the paper calls for increased surveillance of so-called "preppers" - a loose network of ultra-nationalists who prepare for apocalyptic scenarios.

Those people are collecting firearms and other supplies in preparation for "a civil war" or "a feared collapse of public order" in Germany, the BfV revealed. The preppers movement, which first emerged in the US, has long been rooted in survivalism - which sees far-right militias making stockpiles of food, ammunition and medicine that they would use in the event of a doomsday scenario.

Separately, there is an alarming number of extremists who could plot attacks involving improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and small arms. Notably, many of those on the far-right were indoctrinated "a few months or years" ago, but were not known to the agency before joining extremist groups.

German ultra-nationalists usually radicalize through social media and right-wing chats, where the perceived spread of Islam and inflow of immigrants dominate most discussions, the BfV report said. However, far-right terrorist acts - involving IEDs, knives or arson attacks - remain poorly organized, as there are "blatant gaps between planning and reality."

Russia's diamond titan Alrosa recovers giant gem-quality stone in Far North

RT
Sun, 28 Apr 2019 09:39 UTC

The world's largest diamond miner by volume, Russia's Alrosa, has revealed a huge light yellow rough diamond weighing almost 118.91 carats at its deposit in the northeastern region of Yakutia.

The precious stone, unearthed earlier this month, is the biggest discovery among the gemstone-quality diamonds at the company's 'International' mine over the past two years. A similar 109.61 carat gem was extracted at the same deposit in the summer of 2017.

The latest discovery is nearly a perfect example of a light yellow rough diamond, which has "salient edges, one of them with cleavage, and small inclusions in the central zone," according to Alrosa's press-release.

72yo Frenchman crosses Atlantic in a barrel-shaped capsule

RT
Sun, 28 Apr 2019 12:00 UTC

© AFP / Georges Gobet
Jean-Jacques Savin works on the counstruction of a barrel-shaped vessel at a shipyard in southwestern France in November 2018.

Transatlantic crossings have become somewhat mundane but this Frenchman turned his journey into a real tour de force, as he spent four months afloat on a small barrel-shaped capsule.

Jean-Jacques Savin's adventure was followed by more than 23,000 people as he posted updates on his Facebook page. On Saturday, around four months after casting off from the Canary Islands west of Africa on December 26, he finally announced that his mission is over.

"After 122 days and nine hours the meridian positions me in the Caribbean Sea. The crossing is over. Thank you all," the traveler wrote in an email cited by local media.

Savin said that he is currently drifting to Florida, US and is looking for a vessel that would take him to the nearest post.

Hundreds die of exhaustion after counting millions of Indonesian election ballots

RT
Sun, 28 Apr 2019 13:53 UTC

Counting millions of ballot papers by hand proved to be a life-threatening job for hundreds of election staff in Indonesia, as over 270 died and nearly 2,000 fell ill after working long hours, an official has said.

As many as 272 staff have died just 10 days after Indonesia held presidential and regional elections, mostly of fatigue-related illnesses, Arief Priyo Susanto, spokesman for the General Elections Commission (KPU), said on Sunday. Some 1,878 others had fallen ill after working long hours to count millions of ballots manually.

5 people found killed in 2 homes in Tennessee; suspect captured

Christina Carrega
ABC News
Sun, 28 Apr 2019 01:42 UTC

Police in Sumner County, Tennessee, have taken a suspect into custody after five people were found killed in two separate homes on Saturday night.

Officials with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) reported to a home on Charles Brown Road where four people were found dead while a fifth victim was found in another residence on Luvy Daniels Road.

The victims have not been identified. A fifth person at the initial scene was injured and transported to the hospital.

Police said hours after a manhunt was launched that 25-year-old Michael Cummins had been taken into custody. He has yet to be charged with a crime, authorities said.

Great interview with Professor Petrovsky, a very brave soul ! He is clear and concise from a Vaccine researcher /producer point of view and calls...

Gator

There's no mileage in anything the Smith's have to say, their well versed in interfering with things. So we can all sleep safely in our bed...

Winternights3

Seriously, lets break down these words, and I am fully equipped for this task that I give to myself NOW. gives OSHA the authority to act quickly...

Buffalo_Ken

Forensic pathologists performed a postmortem and concluded that the man had probably died mid-flight Let me see ... he walked onto the plane,...

HashAttack2

This ain't no fucking real emergency. It is an effing emergency in the mind of a few....who thought they were gonna put the rest of us into...

Buffalo_Ken

Society's Child

Spanish journalist arrested after attempted sale of Assange surveillance videos

Iraq vet mowed down 8 pedestrians thinking they were Muslims

Hundreds of migrants board 'The Beast' train in Mexico for quick trip to the US border

Democrats' objection to citizenship questions is a ploy to accrue more votes for themselves

Boeing whistleblower reports new issue with 737 Max Jets - report

German intel report warns of German far-right groups prepping for civil war, state collapse

Russia's diamond titan Alrosa recovers giant gem-quality stone in Far North

72yo Frenchman crosses Atlantic in a barrel-shaped capsule

Hundreds die of exhaustion after counting millions of Indonesian election ballots

5 people found killed in 2 homes in Tennessee; suspect captured

Latest News

Picture of the Day

Quote of the Day

Recent Comments

Quantum Quirk

Contact Us