Similar to Ukraine, Serbia's breakaway province is an exercise in the 'rules-based order', where rules are made up for the convenience of Western powers...

On February 17, 2008, a group of US-backed "democratic leaders" headed by a former Western-sponsored terrorist declared the independence of Serbia's breakaway province of Kosovo and Metohija (its full legal name under Serbia's constitution).

It seemed oh so simple and straightforward at the zenith of the "unipolar moment," and Kosovo Albanians were "confidently awaiting Western recognition for their state despite the anger its secession provoked in Serbia and Russia's warnings of fresh Balkan unrest," as a Reuters report drily noted.

Their confidence was more than justified, as 22 of 27 EU and 26 of 30 NATO member states eventually recognized this unilateral act of secession, pulling along many other smaller, mostly Western-dependent countries to follow suit. UN Security Council Resolution 1244, according to which the province is to remain an autonomous province of Serbia pending a mutually agreed final settlement, was ignored, just as the UN and international law were ignored in the spring of 1999, when NATO unilaterally engaged in a 78-day bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, under the familiar pretext of protecting "democracy, human rights and the rule of law." This resulted in NATO's military occupation of the province that lasts to this day.

The case of "independent Kosovo" is in many ways the perfect embodiment of the post-Cold War West's "rules-based order." In contrast to international law, which derives from the UN Charter and numerous universally accepted post-WWII treaties and agreements, the "rules-based order" is pretty much anything its propagators deem it to be in accordance with their political interests du jour.

As Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov put it:

"'These 'rules' are 'created from scratch for each particular case. They are written within a narrow circle of Western countries and palmed off as the ultimate truth.'"

Last week, my friend Zain Khan asked me to share my thoughts about UFOs.

Within my 10 minute response, I shared my belief that the entire UFO disclosure movement only exists because of a long-term psyop which arose amidst the earliest days of the CIA's MK Ultra Project and Britain's 1950 Flying Saucer Working Group.

Since US intelligence agencies and MI6 are desperately doubling down on UFO psyops, I decided it that it was wise to showcase this discussion with Zain Khan and also the repost of my recent essay "What do UFO's, Laurence Rockefeller and MK Ultra have in Common?"

A new international study, coordinated by Sapienza in collaboration with Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan, the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research in Cambridge, the Universities of Aix-Marseille and Caen in France and University of Washington, reveals the existence of drillings in the skull of a Longobard woman, found in the cemetery of Castel Trosino, near Ascoli Piceno, central Italy.

Macroscopic, microscopic and computed tomography (CT) analyses revealed signs of at least two operations performed on the skull, including a cross-shaped surgery, shortly before the woman's death. Furthermore, thanks to a new high-resolution biochemical investigation method applied to one of the preserved teeth, specific changes in the woman's diet and mobility from early life to adulthood were reconstructed. This allowed the researchers to identify changes in her diet and environment throughout her life and to highlight the care and interest provided to her by the community.

International research team says highly connected gene pools over vast distances suggest migrations were common in North Asia since at least the Early Holocene.

An international team lead by researchers from the University of Tübingen, Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment in Tübingen and Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig have identified a previously unknown hunter-gatherer population in the Altai some 7,500 years ago which illustrates the high mobility between populations in Siberia and elsewhere in North Asia. Professor of Archaeo- and Palaeogenetics Cosimo Posth in Tübingen headed the genetic research and analysis team which found that the Neolithic hunter-gatherer population from the Altai was a mixture of two distinct groups that had previously lived in Siberia during the last Ice Age. Furthermore, the Altai hunter-gatherer group contributed genetically to many contemporaneous and subsequent populations across North Asia, showing how great the mobility of those foraging communities was. The study has been published in Current Biology.

The Altai region is widely known as the place where an archaic hominin group, the Denisovans, was first discovered. Yet this region is also highly important for the demographic history of our own species, says Cosimo Posth. "Its geographic location makes the Altai an important crossroads for population movements between northern Siberia, Central Asia and East Asia over millennia." The genetic data from the Altai show that East Eurasia harbor highly connected gene pools since at least the Early Holocene, some 10,000 years ago. "Such connection across long geographic distances is remarkable. This suggests that human migrations and admixtures were the norm and not the exception also for ancient hunter-gatherer societies," Posth says.

Descriptions and phrases used in the Revelation of John are similar in terminology to those appearing on curse tablets produced in antiquity and the associated sorcery rituals.
Curse tablets were popular and widely used in the ancient world. The corresponding incantations were often inscribed or carved on thin sheets of lead - with the intention that these would then cause harm to an opponent or rival. The use of curse tablets and the associated rituals spread as the Roman Empire expanded and have been found at sites all the way from Egypt to Britain. They were used by both the uneducated and those of higher status. A research project headed by Dr. Michael Hölscher of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) is investigating curse tablets and the role they play in the Book of Revelation, the final book of the New Testament. "There are aspects of curse tablet-related inscriptions and practices in Revelation. This may well have been an indirect expression of the need for segregation and the attempt at self-preservation of an often threatened early Christian community," explained Hölscher, a researcher at the JGU Faculty of Catholic Theology. The research project entitled "Disenchanted Rituals. Traces of the Curse Tablets and Their Function in the Revelation of John" is being sponsored by the German Research Foundation (DFG) over the period 2022 to 2025.

Curse rituals were part of everyday life in wide areas of the Roman Empire over a period of 1,000 years

Curse tablets began to be systematically compiled and investigated in the 19th century. However, previously unknown versions of these spells on little lead sheets are continually being uncovered and deciphered. Some 1,700 of these have to date been collated and provide insights into the culture and language of those ancient people who placed their reliance on them. The archaeological finds originate from an era dating from roughly 500 BCE to 500 CE. In other words, the rituals were being performed over about 1,000 years in a region stretching from the Mediterranean to the far north of Europe. Those curse tablets were targeted at opposing litigants in court cases, sporting adversaries in the hippodrome, or rivals in amorous affairs. The lead tablets with their inscribed curses were often deposited in specific places, such as graves or in the vicinity of sacred locations, the assumed abodes of spirits of the underworld, who would ensure the effectiveness of the curse. "The curse ritual as a whole was not simply restricted to the wording of the spell as such, but would have also involved the act of writing it down, the piercing of the tablets, or their burial in deliberately selected places," said Hölscher describing aspects of the tabella defixionis practice. The ancients considered it a form of witchcraft or black magic, which were prescribed under Roman law.

Scientists have unearthed the fossilized remains of the largest ever known penguin on Earth, a 340-pound (154 kilograms) behemoth that glided through the oceans around what is now New Zealand more than 50 million years ago.

The fossils of this newfound species, Kumimanu fordycei, were found alongside eight other specimens inside beach boulders in North Otago, on New Zealand's South Island. Five of the remaining specimens belonged to another newfound species, Petradyptes stonehousei, one belonged to another known giant penguin, Kumimanu biceae, and two were unidentified. The rocks dated to between 59.5 million and 55.5 million years ago.

In a study, published Feb. 8 in the Journal of Paleontology, researchers estimated the weight of the two newfound species based on the size and density of their bones compared with those of modern penguins. The team found that P. stonehousei weighed around 110 pounds (50 kilograms), which is slightly above the weight of living emperor penguins (Aptenodytes forsteri). K. fordeycei would have weighed more than three times that, tipping the scales at a whopping 340 pounds. For comparison, the average 20-year-old man in the U.S. weighs 198 pounds (90 kg), according to Healthline. (Without a near-complete skeleton, the researchers weren't able to estimate the body length of the new species.)

Two hippo butchery sites and the largest hominin tooth ever found may change the story of the 'Oldowan toolkit.'

Oldowan tools are some of the oldest known in the archaeological record; made of conveniently shaped rocks or crafted from knapped stones, these tools made it possible for hominin species to survive in a hostile world.

Now, a team of researchers have found Oldowan tools in southwestern Kenya that date between to 3 million and 2.58 million years old, broadening the known geographic distribution of this toolkit. They also found hundreds of animal bones as well as teeth of Paranthropus, an early hominin, indicating that the genus Homo may not have been the only sharp tool in the shed. One of the teeth — a molar — is the largest hominin tooth ever found. The findings are published today in Science.

"The Oldowan starts early in East Africa and then it spreads across Africa, and then ultimately leaves Africa and goes all the way to China. It's really the first persistent and widespread technology," said Thomas Plummer, a paleoanthropologist at Queens College and the study's lead author, in a phone call with Gizmodo.

Researchers have offered new insight into the abrupt collapse of the ancient Hittite civilization, with an examination of trees alive at the time showing three consecutive years of severe drought that may have caused crop failures, famine and political-societal disintegration.

Around 1200 BC, human civilization experienced a harrowing setback with the near-simultaneous demise or diminishment of several important empires in the Middle East and eastern Mediterranean region, an event called the Bronze Age collapse.

One of the mightiest to perish was the Hittite empire, centered in modern Turkey and spanning parts of Syria and Iraq.

A trio of codebreakers has accidentally stumbled upon a lost series of secret letters written by Mary, Queen of Scots in the years before her execution in 1587.

The incredible, seven-year-long correspondence was encrypted so successfully, the documents were archived in an unmarked file and mistakenly placed in a part of France's national library involved with Italian affairs.

When researchers randomly stumbled upon the 57 letters, however, it was clear none of them had anything to do with Italy. They were written in French and appeared to contain a sophisticated cipher system based on mysterious symbols.

When Mount Vesuvius erupted in A.D. 79, it carbonized a book on rulers who followed Alexander the Great. Now, machine learning is deciphering the "lost book."
A 2,000-year-old "lost book" discussing the dynasties that succeeded Alexander the Great may finally be deciphered nearly two millennia after the text was partially destroyed in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79 and, centuries later, handed off to Napoleon Bonaparte.

The reason for the breakthrough? Researchers are using machine learning, a branch of artificial intelligence, to discern the faint ink on the rolled-up papyrus scroll.

"It's probably a lost work," Richard Janko, the Gerald F. Else distinguished university professor of classical studies at the University of Michigan, said during a presentation at the joint annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America and the Society for Classical Studies, held in New Orleans last month. The research is not yet published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Only small parts of the heavily damaged text can be read right now. "It contains the names of a number of Macedonian dynasts and generals of Alexander," Janko said, noting that it also includes "several mentions of Alexander himself." After Alexander the Great died in 323 B.C., his empire fell apart. The text mentions the Macedonian generals Seleucus, who came to rule a large amount of territory in the Middle East, and Cassander, who ruled Greece after Alexander's death.

The lost book is from the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum, a city that was destroyed alongside Pompeii when Mount Vesuvius erupted after the turn of the first millennium. The villa, named for its vast scrolls of papyri, contains numerous writings from the philosopher Philodemus (lived circa 110 B.C. to 30 B.C.). These papyri were carbonized when the volcano erupted. At some point, the text was found, and it was given to Napoleon Bonaparte in 1804. He gave it to the Institut de France in Paris, where it now resides. In 1986, an attempt to unroll the papyrus resulted in further damage, Janko said.