The Raw Story

A non-profit news blog, focused on providing independent journalism.

Monday, 1 September 2014

U.S agricultural inspectors seize 1,304 giant African snails

Agricultural inspectors have seized 1,304 giant African snails, one of the world's most destructive invasive species, from sites around the United States, the Department of Agriculture said on Friday. The slimy pests, which can grow as big as rats, eat up to 500 different kinds of plants and can damage buildings and humans' health. They are a particular problem in Florida, where an extermination campaign is under way. The Agriculture Department said in a statement that officials with the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service seized an adult...

Revealed: Pennsylvania fracking has contaminated 243 wells in 22 counties

For the first time, Pennsylvania has made public 243 cases of contamination of private drinking wells from oil and gas drilling operations. As the AP reports, Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection posted details about the contamination cases online on Thursday. The cases occurred in 22 counties, with Susquehanna, Tioga, Lycoming, and Bradford counties having the most incidences of contamination. In some cases, one drilling operation contaminated the water of multiple wells, with water issues resulting from methane gas contamination,...

Lightning strike at New York City beach injures three as heavy thunderstorms sweeps through city

The fire department says the men were injured at Orchard Beach on Pelham Bay in the Bronx on Sunday evening as bad storms rolled through the area. The men are being treated at a hospital. The extent of their injuries is unknown. The lightning strike happened as heavy thunderstorms swept through the city. Torrential rain, thunder and lightning interrupted Labor Day weekend celebrations, halted play at the U.S. Open tennis tournament in Queens and forced the early end to a musical festival on an East River island. Dozens of commercial flights into...

Rapacious Israel announces 'unprecedented' land seizure

Israel announced on Sunday it was seizing 988 acres of land in the West Bank, an amount described as 'unprecedented' by a peace organization. The appropriation is reportedly in retaliation for the kidnapping of three Israeli teens in June. According to reporting by Haaretz, "The appropriated land belongs to five Palestinian villages in the Bethlehem area: Jaba, Surif, Wadi Fukin, Husan and Nahalin." Ma'an News adds: Part of the lands being confiscated are already home to the illegal Jewish settlement of Gvaot, part of the Gush Etzion settlement...

Power trips cloud thinking, lead to illusions of superiority and control

In life and in fiction we see power "going to the head" of a leader or other person in a position of authority over others. We've all watched this happen in our experience. Some of the most common effects are feelings of superiority and the poor treatment of subordinates. We also see the more dangerous aspects of power trips, such as when those in power make mistakes on a large scale due to what we might consider their arrogance. The heads of large corporations ignore common sense or advice and make big moves that prove disastrous, for example....

Death under strange circumstances: Small plane, headed for Manassas, crashes into Atlantic Ocean off Virginia coast

A single-engine airplane that was scheduled to land in Manassas crashed Saturday into the Atlantic Ocean off the Virginia coast, authorities said. The Coast Guard said the pilot, the only person on board, appeared unconscious as the plane flew southeast, at about 13,000 feet, through Washington's restricted airspace and eventually across Virginia's eastern shore. The plane eventually ran out of fuel and crashed about 50 miles southeast of Chincoteague, the Coast Guard sa...

Injuries as neo-Nazi march provokes clash with anti-fascists, police in Stockholm

Seven people suffered injuries after riot police clashed with anti-fascists at a neo-Nazi rally in Stockholm. Police say four law enforcement officers needed treatment, along with three civilians. The march was organized by the Party of Swedes, a far-right organization, and attracted around 150 members. They were far outnumbered by those protesting against the gathering, with thousands gathering in the city center. The vast majority of protesters were well-behaved, but a minority attacked the police with firecrackers, bottles, eggs and panels from...

If half of all species go extinct, will humans be next?

How many animal species do you think go extinct every year? Last week I conducted a highly unscientific polling of around 20 of my Facebook and Google Chat contacts, asking that same question. I'm not trying to brag, but I have some really smart friends, many of them with degrees in biology. Typical answers ranged from about 17 to a seemingly ludicrous 400. They were all wrong though - off by orders of magnitude*. In July, a summary article of nearly 80 papers, published in Science, stated that, "Of a conservatively estimated 5 million to 9 million...

Junk food in disguise: 15 'health foods' that will ruin your health

Unhealthy foods are the main reason the world is fatter and sicker than ever before. Surprisingly, some of these foods are considered healthy by many people. Here are 15 "health foods" that are really junk foods in disguise. 1. Processed "Low-Fat" and "Fat-Free" Foods The "war" on saturated fat is the biggest mistake in the history of nutrition. It was based on weak evidence, which has now been completely debunked (1). When this started, processed food manufacturers jumped on the bandwagon and started removing the fat from foods. But there's a...

New underground structures still being found at ancient Armenian city of Ani, first discovered by Georges Gurdjieff in the 19th century

For the first time in history, the academic world is paying attention to the spectacular underground world of Ani, a 5,000-year-old Armenian city located on the Turkish-Armenian border. Hurriyet Daily News reports that scientists, academics, and researchers have just met at a symposium in Kars titled 'Underground Secrets of Ani' to discuss the city's underground world mentioned in ancient parchments as the location of an ancient Mesopotamian esoteric school. Located on a hilltop near the bank of the Akhuryan River, Ani is the most famous among...

SOTT FOCUS: Israeli Collaborators, Provocateur Rocketeers and Cynical Ceasefires

Did anyone else notice that the 'ceasefire' in Gaza sort of came out of the blue? Pundits put this down to 'war weariness' on both sides, but the precise timeline of events leading up to the ceasefire has me a little perplexed. On Monday, 18th August, a 72-hour ceasefire was declared as part of the talks in Cairo. The following day, Tuesday, the Israeli delegation left at 4 pm, precisely the time when the IDF would later say that Hamas had fired rockets at Beersheba, thereby "breaking the ceasefir...

The worst Ebola outbreak in history is moving into Africa's cities, confusion and terror spread in its wake

The dreaded Ebola virus came to the children's hospital in the form of a 4-year-old boy. His diagnosis became clear three days after he was admitted. The Ola During hospital - the nation's only pediatric center - was forced to close its steel gates. Fear swelled. The boy died. The 30 doctors and nurses who had contact with him were placed in quarantine, forced to nervously wait out the 21 days it can take for the virus to emerge. And remaining staff so far have refused to return to work. They, along with millions of others, are facing the worst...

More Scare-mongering?: German security official warns of terror threat

© ReutersAn Islamic State militant uses a loud-hailer to announce to residents of Taqba city that Tabqa air base has fallen to Islamic State militants, in nearby Raqqa city. Germany's domestic intelligence agency expects that Islamic extremists who have traveled to Syria and Iraq will return and commit terror attacks.Unlike Britain, Germany hasn't raised its national threat level for terrorism recently. But Hans-Georg Maassen, head of the Federal...

'Paranoid' FL divorce judge accused of punishing woman who refused Facebook 'friend' request

© via official Florida court webpageJudge Linda Schoonover A Florida judge who is being investigated for sending a Facebook "friend" request to a woman whose expensive divorce case she was deciding is asking the state's Judicial Qualifications Commission to dismiss the charges against her,The Orlando Sentinel reports.In an August 25, 2014 hearing, Circuit Judge Linda Schoonover was charged with three dozen counts of improper conduct. Schoonover...

War: The State's worst atrocity

© Mises.ca "The lamps are going out all over Europe," Sir Edward Grey famously said on the eve of World War I. "We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime."It was 100 years ago last week that Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, setting in motion the unspeakable calamity that contemporaries dubbed the Great War. Well in excess of ten million people perished, and by some estimates, many more.Numbers, even staggering ones like this, can scarcely...

Al Gore predicted Arctic would be ice free: Ice cap now covers 1.7million square kilometres more than 2 years ago

© Unknown The speech by former US Vice-President Al Gore was apocalyptic. 'The North Polar ice cap is falling off a cliff,' he said. 'It could be completely gone in summer in as little as seven years. Seven years from now.'Those comments came in 2007 as Mr Gore accepted the Nobel Peace Prize for his campaigning on climate change.Butseven yearsafter his warning, The Mail on Sunday can reveal that, far from vanishing, the Arctic ice cap hasexpanded...

China wisely opposes additional sanctions against Russia by EU

© Cctvupload channel / YouTubeChinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang. China opposed additional sanctions against Russia on Monday over accusations Moscow was sending troops into Ukrainian territory, saying the European Union's push to draw up more measures would only complicate the crisis.The EU on Sunday threatened Russia with new trade sanctions, but sharp divisions among leaders at a summit in Brussels left the timing of any measures uncertain."A...

Kurdish 'ghost' oil tanker with $100mn cargo reemerges near Texas coast

© Reuters / US Coast GuardA still image from video taken by a U.S. Coast Guard HC-144 Ocean Sentry aircraft shows the oil tanker United Kalavyrta (also known as the United Kalavrvta), which is carrying a cargo of Kurdish crude oil, approaching Galveston, Texas July 25, 2014 A "ghost ship" oil tanker carrying approximately $100 million of disputed Iraqi Kurdish crude oil has reappeared on satellite imagery near the US coast Monday, after disappearing...

In case of new sanctions Russia reserves right for response

© AR-TASS/Gennady Khamelyanin Russia will take retaliatory measures in case the EU imposes new sanctions, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Monday.An analysis of the European Council's latest conclusions of August 30 shows that EU member states cannot overcome the inertia of unreserved support for Kiev authorities. "The hysteria at the European Council meeting about mythical 'Russian aggression' in Ukraine has brought fruit.""Based on absolutely...

Will the Ferguson shooting bring about a change in the police state?

© (Reuters/Larry Downing)We remember Michael Brown and all the other victims of police brutality, including dogs Only time will tell, but is it too soon to guess whether the Ferguson, Missouri shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown will mark a turning point in our march toward tyranny in America? There are signs that this could be the case. Yes this could be an overly optimistic assumption about the current direction of the police state in America,...

Flash floods and extreme rainfall cause chaos in southern Sweden

© Stig-Åke Jönsson/TTA car in Malmö on Sunday. The Skåne region of southern Sweden was hit suddenly by extreme rains on Sunday morning, with houses flooded, buses evacuated, and people having to swim to safety from their cars.Malmö, southern Sweden,received 20 millimetres of rain in under an hour on Sunday morning.One area near the town of Falsterbo rececived as much as 43 millimetres of rain during the night and early morning."We usually issue...

Henry Kissinger's psychopathic view of a New World Order

© European Pressphoto AgencyThe concept of order that has underpinned the modern era is in crisis, writes Henry Kissinger. Above, a pro-Russian fighter stands guard at a checkpoint close to Donetsk, Ukraine in July. Libya is in civil war, fundamentalist armies are building a self-declared caliphate across Syria and Iraq and Afghanistan's young democracy is on the verge of paralysis. To these troubles are added a resurgence of tensions with Russia...

Tax revolt? When high taxes lead to revolution

© Mises.org History is full of tax revolts. It's a fairly popular pastime, if historians are to be believed. But when do they come? What's the spark and what's the gasoline?In Sun-Tzu'sArt of War, he argues that long military campaigns are unwise because they exhaust the people, and he says that long campaigns exhaust "seven tenths" of the wealth of the elites.This is one of those oddly-specific claims that sometimes strike westerners as hilarious....

Copenhagen under water after rain pummels the city

© Jens Astrup/Scanpix Streets, basements and landmarks like Tivoli were flooded from the 100mm of rain that soaked the capital region in the early Sunday hours.Parts of Copenhagen were a wet mess on Sundayafter more than 100mm of rain pummelled the city in the early morning hours.Historic amusement park Tivoli, the prison Vestre Fængsel and the fortress Kastellet were among the locations reported as flooded by the Copenhagen Fire Brigade (Københavns...

Jewish ID politics and my criticism of Jewish 'left'

Extraordinary Tales, Extraordinary Writers: My name is Cara St.Louis and this is my show. Conversations with some of the most extraordinary people I have ever met. You will be seeing it as an acquisition elsewhere later. Please feel free to share. I bring you World Class Illustrator and Writer, Bridget Marzot and World-Renowned Jazz Artist and philosopher, Gilad Atzmon. Part 1 Part 2 Comment: Readers might be fascinated to read Gilad's book, The Wandering W...

Donetsk and Lugansk state their terms for staying part of Ukraine

© ITAR-TASS/Zurab Dzhavakhadze Comment:Russia has started using the term 'Novorossiya' to refer to the People's Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk in its official statements and documents these last few days. Putin even went so far as to refer to the'state' or 'statehood'of the Republics in a recent interview, which was immediately picked up by media as an endorsement for the republics' independence. While Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said there...

Tourist nearly drowns during vicious geese attack in Guizhou, China

© CEN / australscopeTourist Lu Chen is attacked by two geese. A hapless tourist nearly drowned in a vicious attack by two geese when he strayed too close to their river nest in southern China.Stunned Lu Chen had been paddling in the stream to cool down in Gaowen Village in China's Guizhou province, when the two large birds flew at him."I didn't know what was happening at first. There was a tremendous hissing and then they came straight at me," he...

Book Review: The Big Reset by Willem Middlekoop

SummaryMiddlekoop provides readers with a broad history of banking and money before discussing the unsustainability of the current Dollar-based global financial system.He argues that we are close to a tipping point at which actions by politicians and central bankers cannot prevent this debt-laden system from a game-changing restructuring: a "big reset".He proposes numerous scenarios which all mean the end of the Dollar's reserve currency status.While...
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