The Raw Story

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

Sunday, 28 December 2014

Mexico crop circles appear overnight on Christmas eve following local reports of 'bright lights'

© The Inquisitr Some barley fields in Mexico's Texcoco region were garnered with strange sprawling crop circle designs overnight Christmas Eve.Crop circles have been appearing around the world for decades, many believing the often very intricate and massive designs to be messages from some otherworldly entity. Skeptics, meanwhile, have long called crop circles man-made poppycock. Regardless, the fresh new crop circles in Mexico have sparked the...

WKUK- What anarchy might look like!

E-mails sent to Sott.net become the property of Quantum Future Group, Inc and may be published without notice.Reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views of the volunteers, editors, and directors of SOTT.net or the Quantum Future Group.Remember, we need your help to collect information on what is going on in your part of the world! Send your article suggestions to: Some icons appearing on this site were created by: Afterglow, Aha-Soft,...

Psychological warfare and Aztec death whistles? They produce intimidating human screams

© Unknown When odd, skull-shaped grave items were found by archaeologists decades ago at an Aztec temple in Mexico, they were assumed to be mere toys or ornaments, and were catalogued and stored in warehouses. However, years later, experts discovered they were creepy 'death whistles' that made piercing noises resembling a human scream, which the ancient Aztecs may have used during ceremonies, sacrifices, or during battles to strike fear into their...

The zombiefication of America

© End of the American Dream Do you know people that seem like they have had their souls sucked out of them? On dictionary.com, a "zombie" is defined as "the body of a dead person given the semblance of life, but mute and will-less, by a supernatural force, usually for some evil purpose".And that sounds very much like what has happened to tens of millions of Americans. When you look into their eyes, it doesn't look like anything is even there. That...

For real? Fox host speculates metric system brought down AirAsia flight

© screen grabFox News host Anna Kooiman Fox News host Anna Kooiman speculated on Sunday that an AirAsia flight could have gone missing because international pilots were trained using the metric system.During breaking coverage of missing Flight QZ8501, Kooiman asked former FAA spokesperson Scott Brenner if the "real reason" the plane had disappeared was because of the "different way other countries train their pilots.""Even when we think about temperature,...

North Sierra Leone in five-day Ebola lockdown

© Evan Schneider UN/AFP/FileA medic listens as UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon gives a speech during his visit an Ebola treatment unit in Freetown on December 19, 2014. Deputy communication minister Theo Nicol said "the lockdown for five days... is meant for us to get an accurate picture of the situation," adding: "Other districts will carry on with their own individual lockdown after this if they deemed it necessary."Ebola has killed more than...

Hundreds trapped as ferry catches fire between Greece and Italy

© AP Photo/SKAI TV StationTen hours after the fire began, some 131 people had been rescued, leaving 347 on board according to the Italian navy. Hundreds of people have been stranded for ten hours on the top deck of a burning ferry in the Adriatic sea as strong gales and rough waves hampered attempts to save them.As the sun set, rescue helicopters had resorted to the slow process of lifting the passengers on board the Norman Atlantic from the top...

Remember Libya? Civil war escalates with govt airstrikes on opposition

© Flickr/ Ben Sutherland Libya's official government conducted several tactical airstrikes in the vicinity of the town of Misrata Sunday, another episode in the ongoing war between the internationally recognized government of Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni and the coalition of his political opponents known as Libyan Dawn.According to the official reports, the Libyan air force, controlled by Thinni, hit several targets in the Libyan Dawn controlled...

Millions of Britons facing malnutrition and relying on food banks

© unknownShocking' figures show that for the first time since the Second World War, the poor cannot afford sufficient calories. Millions of the poorest people in Britain are struggling to get enough food to maintain their body weight, according to official figures published this month.The Government's Family Food report reveals that the poorest 10 per cent of the population - some 6.4 million people - ate an average of 1,997 calories a day last...

Indonesian VP not ruling out AirAsia plane crashed -- not confirming either

© REUTERS/ Darren Whiteside The missing AirAsia plane with 162 people on board might have crashed, according to Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla, Chinese news agency Xinhua reports Sunday."We haven't got any information that indicates where the plane crashed," Kalla said during a televised press conference Sunday evening, as quoted by Xinhua.Previously, it was reported that Kalla was directly in charge of supervising the rescue operation of...

The Disturbing Facts Regarding Refined Sugar

Refined Sugar is close to zero nutrition value Because of the industrial processes involved in manufacturing, sugar has practically no nutrition value: The vitamins and enzymes have become denatured (lose their molecular shape) and thus fail to contribute to the body’s metabolic requirements. Refined sugar is also devoid of mineral content.It is pure energyFor those who frequently eat significant amounts of refined sugar products, this can lead...

Bean goose from Eurasia takes a wrong turn and winds up on the Oregon Coast

© Sarah SwansonA tundra bean-goose (top) has been spotted at the Nestucca Bay National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. A bird rarely seen in North America has turned a small bay on the Oregon Coast into a major destination for bird watchers this winter.Sarah Swanson and her husband Max Smith run a blog in Portland called the Must-See Bird Blog. They tried to explain what it's like to spot a tundra bean-goose at Nestucca Bay in Oregon."It's just so exciting,...

Two arrested, several injured in massive teen mall brawl

© monroeville mall A Monroeville Mall brawl left several teens injured on Friday evening. According to the , the Monroeville Mall in Pennsylvania was closed early following "multiple fights" that broke out. Hundreds of teens showed up at the mall around 5 p.m., and the fights broke out around 8 p.m.. Mall employees said that the fights started on the first floor, and then the teens made their way up the escalators to the second floor, where they...

Civil asset forfeiture: Only the rich can afford to keep their homes

© Steven M. Falk / Phiv.com Staff PhotographerChristos and Markela Sourovelis at their Somerton home, from which they were ousted because of a son's drug dealing. Philadelphia prosecutors agreed Thursday to halt efforts to seize the homes of two of the lead plaintiffs in a widely publicized federal suit challenging the city's use of civil forfeiture laws in drug cases.Philadelphia drops a Civil Asset Forfeiture case to prevent any court from ruling...

Independent authors upset with Amazon's Kindle Unlimited program

© Joshua Bright/NYTThe author H.M. Ward says she left Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited program after two months when her income dropped 75 percent. Authors are upset with Amazon. Again.For much of the last year, mainstream novelists were furious that Amazon was discouraging the sale of some titles in its confrontation with the publisher Hachette over e-books.Now self-published writers, who owe much of their audience to the retailer's publishing platform,...

Propaganda extraordinaire: US puppet Merkel is Person of the Year for UK paper

Not RI's person of the year. Person of the Year, we say Puppet of the Year is more appropriate.British newspaper, , has named German Chancellor Angela Merkel "Person of the Year" for her contribution to European security.The British daily noted her important role in establishing a dialogue between the West and Russia.The Times noted:"Merkel is a prominent European politician and one of the most influential women in the world."European security....

French Alps hit by massive snowfall, thousands of cars stranded

© AFP Photo/Jean-Pierre ClatotA car is stuck in the snow on December 27, 2014 on the road to Les Saisies ski resort in Savoie, central-eastern France. Massive snowfall, aggravated by strong winds and ice in the French Alps, has trapped thousands of holidaymakers, with up to 15,000 people forced to spend Saturday night in emergency accommodation centers in the Savoie region in southeastern France.Conditions remained difficult on Sunday, a spokesman...

Warbler that should be wintering in western Mexico turns up in Louisiana

Lucy's Warbler. It is normally found in the Sonoran desert and winters along the Pacific coast of northern Mexico. A bird rarely seen in Louisiana was among 130 species heard or spotted on Grand Isle during the National Audubon Society's annual winter bird count.A Lucy's warbler, which normally lives in the U.S. Southwest or in Mexico, was the exciting find of the day on Grand Isle, said Chris Brantley, who organized the count on Louisiana's only...

Ferry catches fire off Greek coast, 466 passengers and crew are being evacuated

© AFP Photo / Philippe Huguen 466 passengers and crew are being evacuated from an Italian car ferry that caught fire near a Greek island on Sunday morning. The evacuation is being complicated by strong winds and lack of places in lifeboats, according to the media.Fire broke out on an Italian Norman Atlantic car ferry traveling from western Greece to eastern Italy at around 6.00 am local time (0400 GMT), coast guard officials said on Sunday."The...

Problems with another Air Asia aircraft: Flight AK6242 makes emergency landing due to technical difficulties

© East News/ AP AirAsia's flight AK6242 en route from Penang to Langkawi has made an emergency landing due to technical problems.An AirAsia aircraft has reportedly made an emergency landing due to technical problems during its flight from Penang to Langkawi (Malaysia) hours after another of the company's planes went missing. AirAsia's flight AK6242 en route from Penang to Langkawi has made an emergency landing due to technical problems, the Malaysian...

Space success: Russia launches new Angara space rocket

President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday oversaw the successful test-launch of Russia's newest heavy-class Angara rocket, a rare piece of good news in a week dominated by the economic crisis.The president oversaw by video link the launch of the Angara-A5 from Plesetsk in northern Russia at 0557 GMT, saying the new rocket would allow the country better protection."Indeed, for our space industry and I suppose for the whole of Russia this is a major, very...

Just in time: U.S. military aircraft deliver weapons to ISIS in Iraq

© Unknown Volunteer forces fighting against the ISIL Takfiri terrorists say US military aircraft have dropped weapons in areas held by the terrorist group in Iraq.American helicopters dropped boxes of weapons in Yathrib and Balad districts in Iraq's Salahuddin Province, according to the fighters. The report comes as the Iraqi army and volunteer fighters appear to be gaining the upper hand and making significant gains against ISIL. In October, a...

Russian Foreign Ministry: BRICS is "the most important element of global governance"

© PPIOBRICS Summit participants: Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi, President of Brazil Dilma Rousseff, President of China Xi Jinping and President of South Africa Jacob Zuma in Fortaleza, Brazil on 15 July 2014 Moscow has prioritised "efforts to transform the BRICS into one of the most important elements of the system of global governance" as part of a major foreign policy impetus, said the Russian Foreign ministry on Saturday."Crucial...
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