The Raw Story

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

Sunday, 21 December 2014

No excuses: We can't 'cover our eyes' to CIA abuses anymore

Seven years ago, I interviewed Moazzam Begg, a British citizen who had been held by the United States in prisons in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay - without charge - for almost three years. His words described brutal torture inflicted by his American captors. But his tone was eerily matter-of-fact, delivered without apparent pain or anger. As I interviewed other former prisoners, it was the same - calm descriptions of horrific abuse. When I remarked on this to one of their attorneys, he told me what I should have figured out myself - this was the...

We're the bloodthirsty warmongers, not 'evil' Putin

© RIA Novosti Alexey Druzhinin This is a time of year for memories, and the ones that keep bothering me are from my childhood, which seemed at the time to be wholly happy and untroubled.Yet all the adults in my life still dwelt in the shadow of recent war. This was not the glamorous, exciting side of war, but the miserable, fearful and hungry aspect.My mother, even in middle-class suburban prosperity, couldn't throw away an eggshell without running...

The war on drugs just got even more vile: Police to begin inspecting your poop, seriously

© The Free Thought Project As the wasteful, immoral war on drugs continues in police states around the world, authorities are always looking for ways to track the use of "illicit" drugs. It's the intelligence aspect of their war, and some of the methods literally reek. Introducing "sewage epidemiology," coming soon to a community near you.Sewage epidemiology is a rapidly expanding field that can provide information on illicit drug usage in communities,...

Scotish orphans used in 'military experiments'

© The Express, UKLennox Castle Hospital is one of four Scottish institutions alleged to have been involved. The allegations centre on at least four institutions where thousands of children are said to have been experimented upon in conditions described as "like something out of Auschwitz".It is alleged that Porton Down, the top secret military facility in Wiltshire, was involved in trialling drugs for use in the Cold War on youngsters who were regarded...

Four-year old Virginia preschooler handcuffed, shackled, taken to sheriff's office for misbehaving

© WND Officials at a Virginia school turned an allegedly misbehaving 4-year-old preschooler over to law enforcement, where he was put in handcuffs and shackles and ordered to talk to jail inmates, according to a legal group intervening in the case.The unnamed student, who was enrolled in the pre-kindergarten program at Nathanael Greene Primary School, in Stanardsville, Virginia, was removed from the classroom Oct. 16 after allegedly "becoming agitated...

WikiLeaks releases classified CIA agents tips on infiltrating EU, Schengen

© Sputnik/ Iliya Pitalev The US Central Intelligence Agency has issued advice for its agents on how to infiltrate international passport control systems, including in the European Union and the Schengen area, according to two previously undisclosed documents published by WikiLeaks on Sunday."The European Union's Schengen biometric-based border-management systems pose a minimal identity threat to US operational travellers because their primary focus...

Introducing Alfreda Bikowsky: Senior officer at the CIA and otherwise known as "The unidentified Queen of torture"

© Sergey Petrov / shutterstock NBC News yesterday called her a "key apologist" for the CIA's torture program. A follow-up article dubbed her "The Unidentified Queen of Torture" and in part "the model for the lead character in 'Zero Dark Thirty.'" Yet in both articles she was anonymous.The person described by both NBC and is senior CIA officer Alfreda Frances Bikowsky. Multiple news outlets have reported that as the result of a long string of significant...

Oswald and Atta: Erratic, protected, seeking attention -- CIA patsies

Atta and Oswald: CIA suckers. Graeme MacQueen's new book, The 2001 Anthrax Deception , reveals stunning links between the 9/11 attacks and the anthrax attacks that immediately followed. The book also reviews some of the interesting actions taken by alleged hijacker leader, Mohamed Atta, in the years preceding 9/11. These actions suggest that Atta was trying to leave the people he encountered with memories that would support the official myth. In...

The blackmail 'reparations' continue: Germany to finance Israeli military

Your ancestors killed some of our ancestors: therefore give us weapons so we can kill other people. Germany plans to finance part of the cost of four new corvette warships for the Israeli navy made by German firm Thyssen Krupp under a deal struck with the Jewish state in November, the government said on Monday.Following approval by German parliament's budget committee the contract could be finalised before the end of this year, government spokesman...

Can psychopaths' brains be 'rewired' to make them less psychopathic?

© Shutterstock A clinical psychologist at Yale is attempting to improve the cognitive functioning of psychopaths using computer games, Vox reports.Arielle Baskin-Sommers claims that psychopaths are not, as is commonly believed, incapable of feeling emotion - and therefore unable to empathize with their victims. They suffer, she believes, from a cognitive deficit that prevents them from focusing on more than one subject at time, such that they pay...

Good Samaritan in Georgia pays electricity bills of strangers

A Good Samaritan in Jonesboro, Georgia decided to help the people in his small community by showing up at the electric company's officer, approaching random people, and asking if he can pay their power bills.The Good Samaritan, known only as Steve, told CBS46 News that he wanted to give to people in person rather than donating through a charity because he thought a lot of people in his community could use financial assistance around Christmas time....

Cannabis for kids: Medicinal marijuana could treat children with epilepsy

© Reuters / Alessandro Bianchi Children with a severe form of epilepsy could be treated with a new drug derived from the cannabis plant. The element of the plant used is non-psychoactive, meaning patients would not receive the usual cannabis high.The medicine, called Epidiolex, has been trialed in the US, where early studies showed promising results, reducing the frequency and severity of seizures.Trials of the drug, which contains the compound...

NSA and Electronic Frontier Foundation to square off in court over internet surveillance

© Reuters/Kai Pfaffenbach A digital rights group in the United States plans to argue in federal court this week that the National Security Agency's internet surveillance operations violate the US Constitution's ban against unlawful searches and seizures.Six years after the Electronic Frontier Foundation brought suit against the NSA on behalf of a former AT&T customer, Carolyn Jewel, US District Court Judge Jeffrey White for the Northern District...

Jon Stewart: Dick Cheney, a righteous warrior or psychopath?

© Unknown On Sunday's "Meet The Press," former Vice President Dick Cheney stubbornly - and, many would argue, illogically - defended the controversial CIA interrogation techniques that were the subject of a recent horrifying report. In part, he seemed to insist that they should not be labeled torture, despite the Senate Intelligence Committee's conclusions, because only the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States deserve that label.Jon Stewart...

Documentary: 'Unacceptable Levels' - The chemicals in our bodies; how they got there and what to do about it

Study after study reveals the negative health impact of the chemical concoction that we encounter daily in our foods, in our environment, and in consumer products. is a feature-length documentary which examines the results of the chemical revolution of the 1940s through the eyes of affable filmmaker Ed Brown, a father seeking to understand the world in which he and his wife are raising their children.To create this debut documentary, one man and...

Animals and insects can predict natural disasters and diseases

Anecdotal evidence has long suggested that certain animals can predict natural disasters, detect disease and more, and now science is proving many of these stories to be correct.Close observation of such animals could even help people to plan well in advance of coming problems, suggests a new paper in the latest issue of the journal Current Biology.Henry Streby of the University of California, Berkeley, and his colleagues discovered that golden-winged...

Calgary photographer captures fireball over Mount Rundle

© Brett Abernethy / Calgary HeraldCalgary photographer Brett Abernethy captured a shot of an apparent fireball streaking across the night sky in Banff over Mount Rundle on Saturday, December 20, 2014. Calgary photographer Brett Abernethy was out in Banff shooting aurora over the night sky early Saturday when he captured what appeared to be a fireball zipping over the mountains.Abernethy said he and a fellow photographer were set up at Johnson Lake...

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 6.6 - 157km WNW of Tobelo, Indonesia

© USGS Event Time2014-12-21 11:34:14 UTC2014-12-21 19:34:14 UTC+08:00 at epicenterLocation2.126°N 126.651°E depth=54.6km (34.0mi)Nearby Cities157km (98mi) WNW of Tobelo, Indonesia168km (104mi) NNW of Kota Ternate, Indonesia168km (104mi) NNW of Ternate, Indonesia179km (111mi) ENE of Bitung, Indonesia1042km (647mi) WSW of Koror Town, PalauScientific Data Want something else to read? How about 'Grievous Censorship' By The Guardian: Israel, Gaza And...

Private prison corporation with record of inmate abuse given control of immigrant detention center

© ReutersTwo young girls watch a World Cup soccer match on a television from their holding area where hundreds of mostly Central American immigrant children are being processed and held at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Nogales Placement Center in Nogales, Arizona June 18, 2014. The Department of Homeland Security this week handed the keys to the largest detention center for undocumented immigrant families over to Corrections Corporation...

Lukashenko says Belarus is ready to help Ukraine

© Michail Metsel/TASS Belarus is ready to offer support to Ukraine, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Sunday at a meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart Petro Poroshenko."I want everything in Ukraine to be well. Many interpret it as some kind of games. I know you are not among them," the Belarusian news agency BELTA quoted Lukashenko as saying. "That is why, and I have told you this before: if you want anything from Belarus, just...

CIA 'enhanced interrogation' vs. ISIS torture: See if you can tell the difference

© APA file photo of renovated Abu Ghraib prison, now renamed Baghdad Central Prison, Iraq. It's been a big week for abhorrent torture manifestos.On Tuesday, the Senate released its much-anticipated report outlining the CIA's brutal post-9/11 torture program. A few days before, the Islamic State (IS) group released what appears to be an "abhorrent" pamphlet to its followers with guidelines on how to capture, keep and sexually abuse female slaves,...
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