The new event seeks to do a "raid" to the region of the Atlantic Ocean, north of Cuba, where a number of ships and airplanes are said to have disappeared. So far, it has less sign-ups than its Area 51 predecessor, but the dynamics are promising.

Looks like the notorious "Storm the Area 51" flashmob received a worthy successor. More than 19,000 people reportedly signed up for an event to storm the Bermuda Triangle, a mysterious part of the Atlantic northeast of Cuba, rumored to be swallowing ships and even airplanes. In addition, some 25,000 people are listed as "interested."

Mirroring the Area 51 event's sentiment that "the guards can't shoot all of us," the new event's organizer, Anthony Carnovale, says the mysterious place "can't swallow all of us."

Responding to news that journalist Andy Ngo had been beaten by antifa protestors in Portland last month, a woman named Charlotte Clymer tweeted that "Ngo intentionally provokes people on the left to drive his content. Being attacked today on video taken by an actual journalist (because Ngo is definitely not) is the greatest thing that could have happened to his career. You know it. I know it. He knows it. We all know it. Violence is completely wrong, and I find it sad and weak to allow a sniveling weasel like Andy Ngo to get under one's skin like this, but I'm also not going to pretend this wasn't Ngo's goal from the start. I mean, let's cut the shit here. This is what they do."

Who is Charlotte Clymer? She is an activist who works at the Human Rights Campaign, America's "largest LGBTQ civil rights organization," which supposedly "envision[s] a world where LGBTQ people are ensured equality at home, at work [and] in every community." Andy Ngo, who has written for Quillette, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post and other publications, happens to be gay. So this is where we are right now: A staffer for a human-rights organization dedicated to helping gay people is publicly cheering the beating of a gay man. This should raise an eyebrow.

Palestinians built homes; years later Israel built a wall. Now the homes must be demolished because they are too close to the wall.

According to the Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions (ICAHD):

Since 1967 when the Occupation began in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, nearly 50,000 Palestinian homes and structures have been demolished - displacing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and affecting the livelihoods of thousands of others. Combine this with the 600 Palestinian villages that were demolished when the state of Israel was established (www.zochrot.org) creating 750,000 Palestinian refugees (3/4 of the population), and its ongoing demolition policy within the state of Israel itself, the figure exceeds more than 100,000 Palestinian homes demolished since 1948. This is a conservative figure because multiple level homes and apartment blocks count as one unit and it does not include the number of self-demolitions which is a growing phenomenon done because Israel issues a bill for the demolitions which many Palestinians cannot afford to pay

Palestinian homes are demolished for various and sundry reasons: the land they own has been declared by Israel "agricultural land" or "open green space;" they have no building permit (which the Israeli authorities refuse to grant Palestinians); the slope of their land is adjudged as "too steep;" their houses are too near settlements or Israeli-only highways (although the houses were there first); out of collective punishment for some action the punished people had nothing to do with; the "clearing" of vast tracts of land for military/security purposes; destruction for the sake of expanding roads, settlements and the "Separation Barrier;" houses "cleared" to make passage safe for settlers or for other security purposes; homes representing "collateral damage;" and more.

reposted from IMEMC, July 1, 2019

In the Spring of 2011, the brothers Melvin Davis and Licurtis Reels were the talk of Carteret County, on the central coast of North Carolina. Some people said that the brothers were righteous; others thought that they had lost their minds. That March, Melvin and Licurtis stood in court and refused to leave the land that they had lived on all their lives, a portion of which had, without their knowledge or consent, been sold to developers years before. The brothers were among dozens of Reels family members who considered the land theirs, but Melvin and Licurtis had a particular stake in it. Melvin, who was 64, with loose black curls combed into a ponytail, ran a club there and lived in an apartment above it. He'd established a career shrimping in the river that bordered the land, and his sense of self was tied to the water. Licurtis, who was 53, had spent years building a house near the river's edge, just steps from his mother's.

Their great-grandfather had bought the land a hundred years earlier, when he was a generation removed from slavery. The property — 65 marshy acres that ran along Silver Dollar Road, from the woods to the river's sandy shore — was racked by storms. Some called it the bottom, or the end of the world. Melvin and Licurtis' grandfather Mitchell Reels was a deacon; he farmed watermelons, beets and peas, and raised chickens and hogs. Churches held tent revivals on the waterfront, and kids played in the river, a prime spot for catching red-tailed shrimp and crabs bigger than shoes. During the later years of racial-segregation laws, the land was home to the only beach in the county that welcomed black families. "It's our own little black country club," Melvin and Licurtis' sister Mamie liked to say. In 1970, when Mitchell died, he had one final wish. "Whatever you do," he told his family on the night that he passed away, "don't let the white man have the land."

The Palestinian Prisoners' Society (PPS) has reported, Tuesday, that a Palestinian detainee from Beit Fajjar town, south of the West Bank city of Bethlehem, died in solitary confinement in Nitzan Israeli Prison.

The PPS said the detainee, Nasser Majed Taqatqa, 31, was taken prison by Israeli soldiers on June 19 2019, and has been under interrogation since then. This was his first arrest by the army. It also denied allegations by the Israel Prison Authority about his death and confirmed that the Palestinian did not have any preexisting health conditions.

The PPS held Israel fully responsible for his death, especially while under interrogation, as Palestinian detainees are frequently physically and psychologically tortured, in addition to the very bad living conditions they face, and the lack of medical treatment.

The attackers included four gunmen on two motorbikes and a female suicide bomber, who was inside the hospital, media reports say, citing local police officials.

At least nine people, including six police officers, were killed in twin suicide attacks inside the trauma centre of a hospital in Pakistan's Dera Ismail Khan district on Sunday, National Herald says, citing local police officials.

There are conflicting reports regarding the number of people who were killed and wounded in the blasts.


According to India Today, three people were killed and seven others injured in the attacks, while National Herald says the death toll stands at seven people, including four policemen, with 40 others injured.

The combination of rare yellow color, clarity, and size makes a diamond unearthed at a mine in Russia's northwest one of the most unique gemstones ever discovered in Europe.

A deep lemon-yellow diamond weighing 47.61 carats found in the Grib mine in Arkhangelsk, Russia may be the largest of its kind unearthed in this part of the world. The "exclusive crystal" boasts flawless clarity and the right shape, which makes its attractive for major jewelry firms, according to the owner of the mine, AGD Diamonds.

Bones were collected from the depths of the Vatican Saturday, the latest effort to solve the mystery of a 15-year-old girl who vanished 36 years ago.

Representatives of the family of Emanuela Orlandi, who has been searching for the girl since she went missing from a street in the center of Rome in 1983, were at the Vatican at 9 a.m. local time when the containers holding the bones were unsealed.

Emanuela's sister, Federica, represented her family along with their lawyer, Laura Sgro, and a forensic expert, Giorgio Portera.

They remained there for six hours.

"Obviously it's an emotional experience because I think my sister's bones could be there, but I won't think about it until we have the results," Frederica Orlandi said.

Workers, peasants and youth in Ecuador began a five-day strike Monday against the draconian policies of the Lenín Moreno administration, which is seeking to strengthen its ties to Washington and its military-intelligence apparatus.

The strike constitutes the first major industrial action in the world demanding the freedom of Julian Assange. The demand is presented in the framework of growing opposition to the attacks against social and democratic rights associated with the Moreno administration's totally servile policy toward US imperialism.

While the corporate media outlets and the organizers themselves have sought to bury the issue during the strike itself, one of the few specific issues that the official call for the strike protests is the "rendition of WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, to the United States, placing his life in danger."

This refers to the withdrawal of Assange's asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he was seeking refuge from US efforts to capture him and process him under espionage charges potentially carrying the death penalty, for publishing hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables and other files exposing US and NATO war crimes, mass spying and diplomatic conspiracies around the world.

News that Natalie Portman will star as a female Thor in an upcoming Marvel film has sparked debate on social media as some fans reacted in anger to a woman being cast as the titular role in the popular comic book franchise.

While a female Thor character does appear in the comics, some fans were angered by Marvel Studios' announcement on Saturday, saying it was "too much" and claiming it was another example of PC madness messing with a beloved series to score diversity points. The casting revelation prompted some critics to ask if we should expect a man to play Wonder Woman, or female versions of Batman and Superman films.