The Raw Story

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

Monday, 23 March 2015

World's largest asteroid impact zone believed uncovered by ANU researchers in central Australia

© SuppliedRock features showing shock metamorphic deformation in the mineral quartz from the Warburton Basin impact. Australian scientists have uncovered what is believed to be the largest asteroid impact zone ever found on Earth, in central Australia.A team lead by Dr Andrew Glikson from the Australian National University (ANU) said two ancient craters found in central Australia were believed to have been caused by one meteorite that broke in two."They...

Survivors of institutional abuse outraged at plan to seal abuse reports for 75 years

© UnknownEducation Minister Jan O'Sullivan Surviviors of institutional abuse have expressed outrage over Government plans to seal all major industrial school and orphanage investigation records for 75 years.The move, which also allows for the possible destruction of documents, must now be ratified by the Dáil in a bill which will be brought forward by Education Minister Jan O'Sullivan.The has learned that the bill has been approved by Cabinet for...

Rats And Sinking Ships: Chairman Of Greek Bank Rescue Fund Resigns

With "The objective of the Hellenic Financial Stability Fund is to contribute to the maintenance of the stability of the Greek banking system, for the sake of public interest," it appears the Fund's Chairman has decided to add some instability and leave the sinking ship:*GREEK BANK RECAPITALIZATION FUND CHAIRMAN RESIGNS: STATEMENT Ironic (or coincidental) timing as Draghi proclaims he is not blackmailing Greece and Merkel says "Nein" to more liquidity.As...

Paid shills: U.S. neocons defend Netanyahu and call Obama's priorities "screwed up"

© Reuters / Joshua Roberts Republican hardliners, ignoring newly-reelected Benjamin Netanyahu's pre-polling remark that a Palestinian state would not happen on his watch, accused Barack Obama of dropping the ball regarding Israel and the Islamic State.US partisan fractures deepened at the weekend following Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's reelection. With peace talks stalled, the Palestinians have attempted to win international recognition of...

The Petrocurrency War

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2007 had supposedly asked ex-Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd "how do you get tough on your banker?" This was over concerns about China's growing power and hold on US finances and according to Wikileaks Rudd told Clinton to keep force as a last resort. Do the Chinese trust the Americans? As superpowers, both are wary of each other. The business of America has always been business, not friendship or the...

Good for him! Okinawa governor blocks survey needed to build U.S. military base

© Reuters / Toru Hanai Okinawa's governor ordered a halt to an underwater survey needed for reclamation of land for a new $8.6-billion base, which would host US troops after the Futenma facility on the island is closed.Takeshi Onaga is delivering on the promise he made to voters to oppose the construction, after his election last November. At a media conference on Monday, he announced that defense ministry contractors must stop the survey due to...

Ex-cop says Royal family member was investigated as part of paedophile ring before cover-up

© Getty Image A member of the Royal family was claimed to be part of a suspected paedophile ring under investigation by police in the late 1980s, a former police officer has said.The former Metropolitan Police officer says he was told by a detective sergeant that the investigation into the ring, which was also claimed to include an MP, was shut down for national security reasons."I was in a car with two other vice squad officers. ... The detective...

ACLU finds Chicago police overwhelmingly target minorities with stop-and-frisk policy

© Reuters / Jim Young Move over, Manhattan. The controversial stop-and-frisk practice once common among the New York Police Department has spread to Chicago, according to a new report, and is more prevalent in the Windy City than in the Big Apple.A report published by the American Civil Liberties of Illinois on Monday accuses Chicago Police Department officers of overwhelmingly targeting minorities during an apparent stop-and-frisk surge last year.African-Americans...

Four cops fired for racists texts and KKK video

© Reuters / Lucy Nicholson Four cops are out of a job after an internal review within the Ft. Lauderdale Police Department in Florida uncovered a slew of racially-charged messages sent between officers, and even a homemade movie that's ripe with hateful epithets.Three officers have been fired, Ft. Lauderdale Police Chief Frank Adderley said at a news conference on Friday, and a fourth, Alex Alvarez, had already resigned in the midst of a five-month...

Researchers find that walking in a forest optimizes natural immunity

Anyone who has walked in a forest knows by common sense the beauty of it. It's why some people choose to live in forests, or next to them, and why other people travel thousands of miles to stand in Redwood forests, or the rain forests of Costa Rica or Ecuador. But researchers in Japan, where the tradition called shinri-yoku, or "forest bathing" is still strong, have discovered some biochemical reasons why. Researchers found that forest bathing...

Strong winds sweep wild fire in North Korea across South Korean border

© Evan Collis / DFES / AFPThe cause of the blaze was not known, and damage estimates were not immediately available. Strong winds swept a wild fire in North Korea across the heavily armed border with South Korea, prompting a suspension of cross-border movements into a jointly-run factory park in the North.About 50 firefighters and three helicopters were battling the fire on the south side of the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) border, according to an official...

Feces to fortune: US sewage may contain billions in precious metals

© Heather Lowers, USGS Denver Microbeam LaboratoryMicroscopic gold-rich and lead-rich particles in a municipal biosolids sample. Scientists are perusing poop at America's wastewater treatment facilities for gold, silver, copper and other useful metals. The sewage from one million people could net $13 million in metals each year, all while making fertilizer more efficient.More than seven million dry tons biosolids (read: poop) are generated in the...

Another GMO: Research aims to create gluten-free grains amid rise of celiac disease

© Reuters/Bogdan Cristel Kansas farmers are funding a genetic research project aimed at developing gluten-free grains, as an increasing number of Americans are being diagnosed with an autoimmune condition preventing them from safely digesting wheat, barley and rye.The Kansas Wheat Commission earmarked $200,000 for the first two years of the project, which is seeking to catalog the DNA sequences of wheat which can trigger reactions in people suffering...

It was THAT big! Scottish fisherman nets Russian submarine after it strayed inside British waters in the North Sea

Angus MacLeod (pictured) a fishing boat skipper, has lodged an incident report with the Maritime and Coastguard Agency and the Marine Accident Investigation Branch following the unusual occurence. A fisherman told last night about the one that got away - a suspected Russian submarine which became entangled in his nets after it strayed inside British waters in the North Sea.Angus Macleod, 46, was fishing for haddock and skate when he became convinced...

No surprise: Israel and US 'boycott' UN session on Gaza conflict

© Reuters/Ibraheem Abu MustafaA Palestinian woman sits near her house, that witnesses said was destroyed by Israeli shelling during a 50-day war last summer, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. Israeli and American representatives were conspicuously absent from the UN Human Rights Council session on the Palestinian territories on Monday. The session aimed to look into the Gaza conflict which killed 2,200 people in 50 days in 2014."I note...

Competition between terrorist organizations raises threat level in France

© Reuters/Christian HartmannMember of the French GIPN intervention police forces. French security officials have warned more jihadist attacks are expected in the country as the level of terrorist threat has "reached a level without precedent." Counter-terrorism officials described the threat as "permanent"."Not one day goes by without an alert, the discovery of a network trying to send people to Syria or Iraq, or an intervention (by the security...

12 pilot whales dead in Bunbury harbour, Australia

© Bunbury MailPilot whales stranded in Bunbury harbour The fight to save members of a whale pod stranded at a beach in WA's south continues after a dozen long-finned pilot whales were confirmed dead.The pod of whales became stranded along the breakwater wall and adjacent beach in Bunbury harbour early Monday and Department of Parks and Wildlife nature conservation leader Kim Williams said 12 whales had died in the stranding, while six were earlier...

Don't throw out that fat -- put it to good use

© leitesculinaria.com If you're a hunter, a prepper, a homesteader, a chef or a crafter, you probably know at least a few uses for animal fats.If you're prepping, knowing which fats are best for certain projects will give you even more tools to work with when you may need them.Different animals yield different fat with different textures, melting points and flavors, and thus different uses. Also, some animals carry much more fat than others, so...

Large hailstones kill horses, birds and ravage cotton crops in northern New South Wales, Australia

A woman holds a huge piece of hail at Narrabri from a super cell storm. Large hailstones pounded the Narrabri region and winds close to 100 kilometres an hour ripped at crops and pulled at tiled rooves. The cotton crop of the Narrabri Community Education Trust farm has suffered extensive damage, but farmer Rob Eveleigh, who helps manage the crop, said other growers around it may have lost everything.He said the 60 hectares of cotton was being grown...

Oligarch infighting: Kolomoisky given 24 hours to disarm his private army after storming gas giant's HQ

The Ukrainian government has given the private army of billionaire Dnepropetrovsk governor Igor Kolomoysky a day to lay down their weapons, after they occupied and erected a fence around the headquarters of the national oil company."We won't have armed personal security forces of businessmen and politicians on the streets of our cities. This applies to every single one of them," Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said on his Facebook page."All security...

Assault on Canadian democracy - Stephen Harper terrorizing Canada with odious Secret Police Act

The Harper government's pursuit of its odious Secret Police Act (C51) is just another chapter in the most through-going, and massive social engineering project in the history of the country. Social engineering used to be one of the favourite phrases of the right in its attack on social programs - accusing both liberal-minded politicians and meddling bureaucrats with manufacturing the welfare state. They conveniently ignored the fact that there...

Kiev threatens to cut off Russian gas imports starting April 1

© Reuters / Laszlo Balogh Kiev said it will stop importing Russian gas from next Wednesday if Gazprom doesn't offer it a better price, according to the country's Energy Minister Vladimir Demchishin. Halting supplies through Ukraine could put Europe's energy security in limbo."It is necessary to buy Russian gas at the moment, but buying at a higher price than we can buy from Europe makes no sense," Demchishin said Monday, as quoted by TASS.Similar...

How the touch of others makes us who we are

© colormetwentysomthing Not only does touch seem to signal trust and cooperation, it creates them. Our sense of touch does much more than help us navigate the world at our fingertips. It is becoming clear that touching each other plays a fundamental role in our lives. It isn't just a sentimental human indulgence, says Francis McGlone at Liverpool John Moores University, UK. "It is a biological necessity."Touching gives the world an emotional context....
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