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Monday, 1 December 2014

Largest stone block from antiquity found at Baalbek, Lebanon

© Deutsches Archäologisches InstitutThe largest stone block, partially buried. To the left is the Hajjar al-Hibla stone. German archaeologists have discovered the largest stone ever carved by human hands, possibly dating to more than 2,000 years ago.Still partially buried, the monolith measures 19.6 meters (64 feet) in length, 6 meters (19.6 feet) wide, and is at least 5.5 meters (18 feet) high. Its weight is estimated at a bulky 1,650 tons, making...

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 6.3 - 102km WSW of Sangay, Philippines

© USGS Event Time2014-12-02 05:11:31 UTC2014-12-02 13:11:31 UTC+08:00 at epicenterLocation6.138°N 123.168°E depth=617.9km (384.0mi)Nearby Cities102km (63mi) WSW of Sangay, Philippines107km (66mi) WSW of Kalamansig, Philippines133km (83mi) SW of South Upi, Philippines146km (91mi) ESE of Isabela, Philippines920km (572mi) E of Bandar Seri Begawan, BruneiScientific Data...

Total US Debt Rises Over $18 Trillion; Up 70% Under Barack Obama

Last week, total US debt was a meager $17,963,753,617,957.26. Two days later, as updated today, on Black Friday, total outstanding US public debt just hit a new historic level which probably would be better associated with a red color: as of the last work day of November, total US public debt just surpassed $18 trillion for the first time, or $18,005,549,328,561.45 to be precise, of which debt held by the public rose to $12,922,681,725,432.94, an...

Western attacks on Russian media only prove that it is telling truth

The US media has a long and fine tradition of misrepresenting large events in order to justify the government's involvements in war. Western attacks on Russian media vary from the abusive to the merely sarcastic, but what all of them have in common is the attempt to define the English language Russian media as a "propaganda instrument" of the Russian government.LONDON, November 30 (Sputnik) - The Ukrainian crisis has triggered an extraordinary series...

Putin says South Stream project impossible in current conditions, strengthens relationship with Turkey

© Sputnik / Mikhail Klementyev Russia is unable to continue the South Stream gas pipeline project implementation in current conditions, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday."Taking into account the European Commission's position, which is not contributing to the realization of this project, taking into account the fact that we have only recently received permission from the respective organizations in the Netherlands... Taking into account...

Psychopathic doctor who sexually abused child cancer patients jailed for 22 years

© AFP Photo / Fred Dufour A Cambridge doctor who admitted to serial sexual abuse of dozens of young cancer patients has been sentenced to 22 years in prison.Myles Bradbury, who worked at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, admitted to 25 offences including sexual assault, voyeurism and possession of over 16,000 images of children. The 41-year-old blood cancer specialist further admitted to the abuse of 18 young patients in his care between 2009 and...

SOTT EXCLUSIVE: More fear mongering as ISIS terror threats increasing

© Getty Two reports out today from the US and UK heightening the terror threat from ISIS.First from the UK as reported by Express:Terrorists are plotting to blow up five European passenger jets in a Christmas "spectacular", security experts say.The threat has been taken so seriously it came close to leading to an outright ban on all hand luggage, a senior insider has revealed.Mobile phones and electronic devices could still be banned from plane...

Putin: Since EU doesn't want our gas, we will redirect our resources

© RIA Novosti / Michael KlimentyevRussian President Vladimir Putin (L) and President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan during a meeting in the Presidential Palace in Ankara December 1, 2014. Russia is forced to withdraw from the South Stream project due to the EU's unwillingness to support the pipeline, and gas flows will be redirected to other customers, Vladimir Putin said after talks with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.We believe...

'Right now, it doesn't look good': WHO fails to meet its goal of containing the Ebola outbreak in West Africa

'The most dangerous thing would be if people now think Ebola is over and become complacent,' warns Ebola expert. © WHO/W. RomerilHealth care workers undergo infection control training in Sierra Leone The World Health Organization has failed to meet their December 1 goal for isolating and containing the deadly Ebola outbreak in many regions of West Africa, the United Nations reports.The targets, set in early October, aimed to get 70 per cent of the...

Wheat kill-off in the U.S. heartland from extreme cold during November

2015-2035 Mini Ice Age - Extreme cold in the U.S. heartland where farming takes place---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[embedded content]---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------With 130-year cold sweeping across the USA, temperatures -50F below normal are bound to have an effect on winter wheat seedlings that are just a few inches tall.Temperatures dropped to -26F/-32C, which caused an 8% increase in...

By way of deception: Bomb blast in Malmö Sweden

© Stig-Åke Jönsson/TTPolice in Malmö seal off the scene after an explosion at the justice centre on November 30th 2014. The bomb exploded just before midnight and damaged the main entrance and front of the building. Such was the force of the blast that several nearby properties had its windows blown apart.No one was seriously hurt but there was one person who had some minor injuries after being cut by shards of glass.Police have been speaking to...

Wheat kill-off from extreme cold during November

2015-2035 Mini Ice Age - Extreme cold in the U.S. heartland where farming takes place---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[embedded content]---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------With 130-year cold sweeping across the USA, temperatures -50F below normal are bound to have an effect on winter wheat seedlings that are just a few inches tall.Temperatures dropped to -26F/-32C, which caused an 8% increase in...

Indian ISIL recruit goes home after he's assigned to toilet duty instead of holy war

© ShutterstockPerson cleaning toilet in rubber gloves An Indian student who traveled to Iraq to join the Islamic State group has returned home disillusioned after jihadists made him clean toilets and do other menial jobs, according to media reports.Areeb Majeed, 23, left for Iraq with three friends in late May amid fears by authorities that IS militants were attempting to recruit from India's large pool of young Muslim men.The engineering student...

Cracks are forming in central economic control

John Rubino Last week saw the global financial system tip from delusion - where it had happily drifted for several years - into chaos. Consider the following more-or-less randomly chosen data points:French unemployment hits record high Italian unemployment hits record high Oil's price falls by $10.36/bbl, or 13.5%, in a single day, to its lowest price since 2010.Copper falls by 6% to $2.86/lb, 25% below its 2013 high.European bond yields fall to...

Mice with half-human brains four times smarter than their peers

© ShutterstockWhite lab mice According to a paper published in the latest , scientists have successfully injected human glial cells - which support the communication between neurons - into mouse brains, creating hybrid mice four times smarter than their peers.Steve Goldman and his team extracted glial cells from donated fetuses and injected them into mice. Within a year, the mouse glial cells had been significantly displaced by the human.Glial cells...

Lavrov and Mu'Allem: Syria-Russia diplomatic meeting in Sochi

The Foreign Minister and Minister for Expatriates of the Syrian Arab Republic, Mr. Waleed Al-Mu'allim, is in Sochi to meet with Russian President, Vladimir Putin, and Russian F.M., Sergei Lavrov. The meeting is face-to-face which required the Syrian top diplomat to fly to Russia. You can assume that the reasons for the trip have to do with secrecy, confidential exchanges of information and the need to prevent Western eavesdropping. This meeting...

Rare ice storm strikes Waldviertel in Austria

© APA/FF OTTENSCHLAG/FICHTINGERFirefighters preventing a tree from damaging a power line. Firefighters have been busy clearing away hundreds of trees from the vicinity of homes and power lines. The trees' branches had been bent almost double by the weight of the ice. The area near Ottenschlag has particularly been hit hard. A combination of very low temperatures and high humidity caused many layers of thick frost to form into heavy ice.Motorists...

Two Near Earth Asteroids to whiz pass Earth this week

© The Virtual Telescope ProjectThe live webcast starts tonite! It's a dangerous universe out there, for a budding young space-faring species.Killer comets, planet sterilizing gamma ray bursts, and death rocks from above are all potential hazards that an adolescent civilization has to watch out for.This week offers two close shaves, as newly discovered Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs) 2014 WC201 and 2014 WX202 pass by the Earth-Moon system.The passage...

Ottawa investigates reports ISIS captured Canadian-Israeli woman

© http://ift.tt/1e7zV6OGillian Rosenberg The Canadian government said on Sunday it was investigating reports that a Canadian-Israeli woman who joined Kurdish militias fighting in northern Syria has been captured by Islamic State (Isis) fighters.According to a blog linked to Isis, several female fighters who fought alongside the Kurds have been taken prisoner, including Gill Rosenberg, a Canadian-born resident of Tel Aviv. Israel Radio reported Kurdish...

Sickening hypocrisy: Human rights violations ignored in NATO's war in Ukraine

Grad rockets fired indiscriminately into populated areas by Kiev regime - a war crime NATO has condemned before, but only when politically convenient."The Grad rocket cannot be targeted, so shooting it into a town full of civilians, with no specific military objective, violates the laws of war." These words were found in a 2011 Human Rights Watch (HRW) document titled, "Libya: Rocket Attacks on Western Mountain Towns - Grads Striking Civilian Areas,"...

Biocide! Abandoned fishing nets trapping the ocean's turtles, seals, sharks and birds

Experts say up to 14,000 turtles could have died at the Gulf of Carpentaria, northern Australia in the last nine years These appalling photos reveal the largely unknown damage that abandoned fishing gear dubbed 'ghost nets' in a new campaign is doing to animals in the ocean surrounding Australia.Turtles are the main victims that get trapped in abandoned nets in the Gulf of Carpentaria in northern Australia and experts estimate there could have been...