The Raw Story

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

Thursday, 9 October 2014

Air tanker crashes while fighting record wildfires in California

© Donald Talend / APSmoke rises from the crash site above Highway 140 near the Arch Rock entrance to Yosemite national park in northern California. An air tanker plane being used to fight a wildfire in Yosemite national park has crashed, killing the pilot, officials for the park and the California forestry and fire department have said.Emergency workers reached the crash site near the Dog Rock fire on Tuesday evening and found the pilot had been...

Georgia 'sovereign citizen' gets 4 life terms for raping 9-year-old girl

A self-described "sovereign citizen" was sentenced to four consecutive life terms in prison for raping a child.Chadrus Brown was convicted of rape, aggravated sodomy, and child molestation in the sexual assault of a 9-year-old girl in December 2012.The 40-year-old Brown, of Atlanta, fondled and then raped the girl after forcing her to sleep alone in a bed with him, prosecutors said.The girl told her family the next day, and Brown was arrested after...

Cubana Flight 455: Remembering who the real terrorists are

October 6th, is the 38th anniversary of the first act of terrorism against civilian aviation in the western hemisphere - the unparalleled Cubana air disaster on the coastline of Barbados on October 6, 1976 - the Barbados crime. Cubana flight 455 was hit by two C-4 explosives bombs just after the aircraft took off from the then Seawell Airport (now the Grantley Adams International Airport) in Barbados at an altitude of 18,000 feet.Rather than crashing...

Australian woman survives for 17 days lost in rainforest

© ShutterstockAustralian rainforest at late afternoon. A woman missing for more than two weeks in a rugged Australian rainforest has stumbled out alive after surviving a chase by a crocodile and eating small fish, officials and reports said Thursday.Shannon Fraser, 30, went missing on September 21 near the remote Josephine Falls in Queensland state after becoming disorientated, wearing just leggings, a shirt and flip flops.She was spotted by a banana...

Ukraine to fire up to million bureaucrats with ties to Russian past

© ReutersUkraine bureaucrats Ukraine's president approved a disputed anti-graft measure on Thursday that could see up to a million civil servants with alleged links to past Soviet or pro-Russian governments immediately sacked.The so-called "lustration law" follows the example of other eastern European nations that broke free of decades of Moscow's domination at the end of the Cold War.It was also a rallying cry of the protests that convulsed Kiev...

FLASHBACK: Malaysian woman rubber tapper survives bear attack

A bear pounced on a 60-year-old woman and dragged her into a jungle not far from where she was tapping rubber in Kampung Pasir Puteh in Marang, Terengganu.Asmani Yahya's painful screams caught the attention of her husband, who threw a sickle at the beast and whacked it with a tree branch to force it to let go of its prey, Harian Metro reported.Recalling the horrifying incident from her bed at the Sultanah Nur Zahirah Hospital in Kuala Terengganu,...

Elderly woman viciously attacked by a wild boar in Malaysia

Katijah showing her stitched-up hand after surviving the wild boar attack. An octogenarian was attacked by a wild boar and lives to tell her tale.Katijah Ibrahim, 81, left her home in Kampung Ulu, Batang Melaka at 6.15am for morning prayers at a surau on Wednesday.The 81-year-old stuck to her usual route when all of a sudden, a boar appeared from seemingly nowhere, charged at her and gored her. Her daughter Meriam Yunus, 58, said Katijah told her...

Archaeologists unearth remains of oldest Norman ever found which 'fills gap in our knowledge of pre-Neanderthal evolution'

© The Independent, UKThe arm bones, dating from 200,000 years ago, are 'the only known example from northern Europe'. On a bend of the river Seine near Rouen in Normandy, archaeologists have found the remains of the oldest Norman ever discovered.The three bones from the left arm of a pre-Neanderthal should shed fresh light on a little-known period. In particular, they could help scientists to understand the evolution of the squat, muscular hunters...

Cure for Type 1 diabetes imminent after Harvard stem-cell breakthrough

© AlamyHarvard University has, for the first time, managed to manufacture the millions of beta cells required for transplantation. A cure for diabetes could be imminent after scientists discovered how to make huge quantities of insulin-producing cells, in a breakthrough hailed as significant as antibiotics.Harvard University has, for the first time, managed to manufacture the millions of beta cells required for transplantation.It could mean the...

At least 10 dead due to flooding in South Sudan

Local media in Sudan are reporting that at least 10 people have been killed in 2 separate incidents of flooding in South Sudan over the last 7 days.The Sudan Tribune reports that heavy rain in Eastern Equatoria state between 04 and 05 October 2014 caused severe floods in the county of Magwi. Roads and bridges have been damaged as a result of the flooding. The heavy rain has also caused landslides in the area. At least 6 people died in the flooding...

Tornadoes rip across UK as more wet weather and strong winds forecast

Twisters were reportedly spotted in Cumbria, Derbyshire and the Wirral Tornadoes were sighted in several parts of the country yesterday, as heavy winds and rain lashed the UK.Twisters were reportedly spotted in Cumbria, Derbyshire and the Wirral on Wednesday, as summer well and truly came to an end.An eyewitness video posted on YouTube showed a tornado whipping across fields in the Haverthwaite and Backbarrow area of Cumbria.And in the Derbyshire...

Tornado seen over motorway in the UK

The rare sighting of the intimidating twister was filmed by motorists who spotted the huge rotating column of air circulating over the M53, just metres in front of them A dramatic video has emerged of a tornado spotted over the M53 in Bromborough, Merseyside, UK on Wednesday afternoon.In the footage, captured by a passenger in a car, motorists can be seen pulling on to the hard shoulder to avoid the dangerous driving conditions.A Met Office spokesman...

Protests in St. Louis after goon cop murders 18-year-old 'armed' with a sandwich

"This is a dangerous situation for our city," local alderman says © AP Photo/St. Louis Post-Dispatch, David CarsonAn angry crowd gathered Wednesday night near the site where an 18-year-old black man was killed by a white St. Louis police officer. An off-duty St. Louis police officer shot and killed an 18-year-old African American man on Wednesday, prompting overnight protests in the streets of south St. Louis, just a few miles from Ferguson, where...

California aquifers contaminated with billions of gallons of fracking wastewater

© Reuters / Lucy Nicholson Industry illegally injected about 3 billion gallons of fracking wastewater into central California drinking-water and farm-irrigation aquifers, the state found after the US Environmental Protection Agency ordered a review of possible contamination.According to documents obtained by the Center for Biological Diversity, the California State Water Resources Board found that at least nine of the 11 hydraulic fracturing, or...

Propaganda alert! Oksana Bashuk Hepburn: Don't believe the Putin lie, Canada

© MICHAEL KLIMENTYEV / GETTYRussian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting with Government members in his country residence of Novo-Ogaryovo outside Moscow on October 3, 2014. Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian rebels clashed on October 3, 2014 around the flashpoint city of Donetsk, while trading blame over the death of a Swiss aid worker, four weeks into their shaky truce. It's frightening that some Canadians support President Vladimir Putin's...

Giant, stepwell found in Northwestern India

© The Times of IndiaThe stepwell that was found during the excavation by ASI in Dholavira, Kutch. Ahmedabad: A 5,000-year-old stepwell has been found in one of the largest Harappan cities, Dholavira, in Kutch, which is three times bigger than the Great Bath at Mohenjo Daro.Located in the eastern reservoir of Dholavira by experts from the Archaeological Survey of India working with IIT-Gandhinagar, the site represents the largest, grandest, and the...

US using destabilization to manipulate energy markets

© Reuters/David Alire The US is doing its best to estrange the EU from Russia to get the upper hand in a free trade deal, and also, to manipulate European countries into buying America's relatively more expensive natural gas.TTIP and Ukraine The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is a Euro-Atlantic free trade agreement that is the subject of ongoing negotiations between the US and the EU. The deadline for finalizing the TTIP free...

The FBI's plan to destroy privacy

© Privacy SOS Org You've probably heard privacy advocates talk about how it isn't just one set of data, or one surveillance technology, that we need to worry about, but rather the combination of them. When corporations and the government figure out how to seamlessly integrate our license plate records, cell phone location histories, education and health data, and biometric identifiers into one easily mapped dossier, the surveillance state will have...

Germany and Japan experiencing serious financial trouble

There are some who believe that the next great financial crash will not begin in the United States. Instead, they are convinced that a financial crisis that begins in Europe or in Japan (or both) will end up spreading across the globe and take down the U.S. too. Time will tell if they are ultimately correct, but even now there are signs that financial trouble is already starting to erupt in both Germany and Japan. German stocks have declined 10...

Earthquake Magnitude 6.6 - Southern East Pacific Rise

© USGS Event Time2014-10-09 02:32:05 UTC2014-10-08 19:32:05 UTC-07:00 at epicenterLocation32.109°S 110.890°W depth=10.0km (6.2mi)Nearby Cities567km (352mi) SSW of Hanga Roa, Chile3436km (2135mi) W of Lebu, Chile3442km (2139mi) W of Ancud, Chile3453km (2146mi) W of Chonchi, Chile2031km (1262mi) ESE of Adamstown, PitcairnScientific Data...

Elderly woman killed by her pitbull terrier

An elderly woman was attacked and killed by her own dog Friday afternoon in Cave City.Sharp County Dispatch received a 911 call around 2:16 p.m. from a woman saying a dog was attacking her mother.The Cave City Police Department, Cave City Fire Department, Sharp County Sheriff's Department and Spring River Ambulance Service responded to the house on North Melody Lane.Cave City Police Sergeant Brian Barnett arrived first and found 75-year-old Alice...

Ebola contained? Pandemic hits Germany, Turkey and Australia - Spanish nurse went un-quarantined for a week

© Getty ImagesThe Spanish nurse infected with Ebola is moved to Carlos III Hospital from Alcorcon Hospital on 7 October, 2014 in Alcorcon, Spain. Despite the still confident exclamations from officials that the Ebola pandemic is 'contained', more and more nations are admitting to Ebola-symptomatic cases or bringing infected patients back from Africa for treatment. Australia has its first potential case of the deadly disease, as reports a nurse who...

Czech Republic: EU should consider easing sanctions on Russia if gas negotiations succeed

Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka said that EU should consider easing its economic sanctions against Russia if it succeeds to negotiate natural gas deliveries with Ukraine The European Union should consider easing its economic sanctions against Russia if it succeeds to negotiate natural gas deliveries with Ukraine, Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka said in an interview published Wednesday by the Mlada fronta Dnes daily."In my opinion, it...

Autumn snow hampers traffic in the Urals, Russia

[embedded content]The snow has brought a lot of trouble for drivers because most have not yet changed tires."I was driving on the highway M5″ Ural ", the roads are very quickly swept out, - says Igor Nikiforov. - Maximum speed was 20 kilometers (12 miles) per hour, and even at this speed it was scary at some turn to go, the car just drifting. There were traffic jams because trucks could not climb the mountain, they stood and idled."Over the weekend there were forty serious accidents on the roads of the Chelyabinsk region.Meanwhile, resourceful...

Update: Super Typhoon Vongfong continues towards Japan - 250 kph sustained winds

© nternational Space StationVongfong, as a super typhoon on Thursday, October 9, viewed from the International Space Station. While Japan is recovering from former Typhoon Phanfone, Super Typhoon Vongfong will turn northward across the western Pacific Ocean and bring a new threat by the end of the week.Vongfong brought flooding rainfall and damaging wind to the northern Mariana Islands on Sunday, local time. Wind gusts over 89 kph (55 mph) and rainfall...

German farmers dress cows in diapers to protest EU fertilizer legislation

© Via twitter@eddballsmp A German farmer has been putting nappies on his cows in protest at EU legislation that forbids the use of fertilizers on steep slopes. With no bovine-sized diapers available from the local store, white bed sheets with pink ribbons had to suffice.The idea was the brainchild of Bavarian cattle farmer Johann Huber, who became fed up with an EU directive that did not allow farmers to fertilize slopes steeper than 15 percent....
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