An advertising campaign in Canada raises questions about the US government's official account of the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. Are Canadians more sympathetic to anti-American conspiracy theories than Americans themselves?

The posters, displayed on buses in Ottawa, show an image of a World Trade Center building collapsing in the inferno of the terrorist attack that morning.

The advertising campaign is supported by a Lafayette, California-based organisation called Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth.

The office tower, 7 World Trade Center, may have been destroyed in a controlled demolition, members of the organisation purport, rather than in a fire.

Frank Greening, a nuclear scientist who lives in Hamilton, Ontario, knows the people behind the organisation - truthers, as they are known - well. He first met them years ago.

A federal appeals court in New York City has revived litigation against Saudi Arabia on behalf of families of victims of the September 11, 2001, attacks.

More than twelve years after the 9/11 attacks and eight years after a lower federal court ruled Saudi Arabia had immunity from prosecution, a three-judge panel of the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan ruled on Thursday that families of 9/11 victims can get their day in court against Saudi Arabia.

According to the families of 9/11 victims, the kingdom provided support to al-Qaeda prior to the attacks which killed nearly 3,000 people.

"This opinion is eminently correct and will give 9/11 victims their day in court," said Stephen Cozen, a partner at the Pennsylvania-based law firm Cozen O'Connor representing the plaintiffs.

"The parties will start over, and we are very, very satisfied that we will meet any defenses, both legal and factual, that are raised," Cozen added.

Recent studies by psychologists and social scientists in the US and UK suggest that contrary to mainstream media stereotypes, those labeled "conspiracy theorists" appear to be saner than those who accept the official versions of contested events.

The most recent study was published on July 8th by psychologists Michael J. Wood and Karen M. Douglas of the University of Kent (UK). Entitled "What about Building 7? A social psychological study of online discussion of 9/11 conspiracy theories," the study compared "conspiracist" (pro-conspiracy theory) and "conventionalist" (anti-conspiracy) comments at news websites.

The authors were surprised to discover that it is now more conventional to leave so-called conspiracist comments than conventionalist ones: "Of the 2174 comments collected, 1459 were coded as conspiracist and 715 as conventionalist." In other words, among people who comment on news articles, those who disbelieve government accounts of such events as 9/11 and the JFK assassination outnumber believers by more than two to one. That means it is the pro-conspiracy commenters who are expressing what is now the conventional wisdom, while the anti-conspiracy commenters are becoming a small, beleaguered minority.

Perhaps because their supposedly mainstream views no longer represent the majority, the anti-conspiracy commenters often displayed anger and hostility: "The research... showed that people who favoured the official account of 9/11 were generally more hostile when trying to persuade their rivals."

The United States poses the biggest nuclear threat to the world, former US Marine Ken O'Keefe tells Press TV in an interview.

"There is clearly no bigger threat to the safety and security of this world than the United States of America," O'Keefe said on Wednesday.He said the threat came from the US "unaccounted" nuclear weapons, adding, "The first nation that needs to disarm is the United States, but they're not going to do so willingly."

Is there any point in public debate in a society where hardly anyone has been taught how to think, while millions have been taught what to think?
--Peter Hitchens

What started off as Arab Spring has turned morbidly into Arab Fall. What began as a seasonal description became directional and self-destructive. Not only have movements that looked promising failed to benefit anyone but Israel, they have drawn their sponsors exorbitantly toward bankruptcy.

The Israelis and their lobbyists in the United States laugh quietly when they hear someone complain about the $3 billion in annual gifts America sends to Israel. Why is that funny? Because it only represents a tiny portion of what Israel really costs America. Add the total costs of all the wars the US has fought for Israel. The Iraq war alone has cost America $815 billion and it's still not over. It has benefitted no one but Israel - not America and certainly not Iraq. The number of Iraqis slaughtered in the US war and occupation of Iraq: 1,455,590.

Former US vice president Dick Cheney has described disabling the wireless function of his heart defibrillator over fears terrorists would hack into it to cause a heart attack.

Mr Cheney, who served as vice president from 2001 to 2009, had the defibrillator fitted after suffering from long term cardiovascular disease and surviving five heart attacks.

Mr Cheney underwent a heart transplant two years ago, aged 70.

In 2007, while he was serving as vice president under George Bush, the device was disabled by his cardiologist Jonathan Reiner to prevent terrorists from giving his heart a potentially fatal shock.

Mr Cheney was working with Mr Bush on his response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks and helping to coordinate the War on Terror.

Popular Showtime series Homeland features a plot in which a soldier helps to hack a device fitted to the fictional US vice president to administer a deadly shock, a plot that Mr Cheney said he found credible.

"I was aware of the danger that existed... I found it credible. I know from the experience we had, and the necessity for adjusting my own device, that it was an accurate portrayal of what was possible,'' he explained.

What the public were told by the US government via the corporate media, and what actually happened during the White House's much-celebrated "Bin Laden Raid" in 2011 -are not the same.

One thing which becomes clearer by the day about the fabled Bin Laden Raid which took place in Abbotabad, Pakistan, is that the US government has intentionally deceived the public about what happened. In other words, what President Obama described when he addressed the American people following "the raid" - was a work of pure fiction.

The following interview appeared on Pakistani broadcast channel, Sama TV, and includes a translation in English from an eye witness on the scene.

If the translation is accurate, then this eye witness blows the lid off of another plank in the White House's fictional drama.

The following is an interview with Muhammad Bashir, who lives next door to the alleged "compound" of Osama bin Laden. He claims that the first US helicopter suffered an explosion, which killed all of its US military occupants, somewhere between 10 and 20 men.

Based on this man's testimony, we have to ask the question: did the White House cover this up in order to protect the Dear Leader from a devastating "Jimmy Carter moment" (1979 Iran hostage rescue cock-up).

Tarek El-Sawah is in terrible shape after 11 years as a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay, a fact even the U.S. military does not dispute.

During his time in captivity, the weight of the 55-year-old Egyptian has nearly doubled, reaching more than 420 pounds at one point, and his health has deteriorated as a result, both his lawyers and government officials concede.

Lawyers for El-Sawah, and the doctors they have brought down to the U.S. base in Cuba to examine him, paint a dire picture - a morbidly obese man with diabetes and a range of other serious ailments. He is short of breath, barely able to walk 10 feet, unable to stay awake in meetings and faces the possibility of not making it out of prison alive.

"We are very afraid that he is at a high risk of death, that he could die at any moment," said Marine Lt. Col. Sean Gleason, a military lawyer appointed to represent him.

Details about the condition of El-Sawah, who has admitted being an al-Qaida explosives trainer but is no longer facing charges, are emerging in a series of recently filed court motions that provide a rare glimpse into the health of an unusual prisoner, and a preview of arguments that may become more common as the Guantanamo Bay prison ages into a second decade with no prospects for closure in sight.

He's not the only one of the 164 prisoners at Guantanamo who is seriously ill. Last week, a judge ordered the release of a schizophrenic Sudanese man who spent much of the past decade medicated in the prison psych ward. His lawyers argued he was so sick, with ailments that also included diabetes, that he couldn't possibly pose a threat and therefore the U.S. no longer had the authority to hold him. The judge's ruling came after the government withdrew its opposition to his release.

"Go home! Go home! They're blowing up the buildings!"

A video has appeared on the Internet featuring some never-before-seen footage from the events of September 11th, 2001. The video is a series of mashups seemingly taken from multiple sources. It begins with a distant shot of the towers, while the rest of the 14 minutes documents peoples reactions to the explosions. Conversations from incredulous New Yorkers can be heard discussing the events, many registering disbelief about the tragedy that was taking place. The video was just released today and has yet to undergo strenuous tests to verify its authenticity but it is an intriguing insight into the psychology of the people who were there in New York that day.

In 2006 Citizen Investigation Team launched an independent investigation into the act of terrorism which took place at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. This exhaustive three-year inquest involved multiple trips to the scene of the crime in Arlington, Virginia, close scrutiny of all official and unofficial data related to the event, and, most importantly, first-person interviews with dozens of eyewitnesses, many of which were conducted and filmed in the exact locations from which they witnessed the plane that allegedly struck the building that day.


More information is available at the Citizen Investigation Team website: here