Conspiracy News

What's in Pepper Spray?

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 14:11:24 -0500

W hen seated Occupy UC Davis protesters turned their backs on Lt. John Pike and his UC Davis police squad clad in riot gear on Nov. 18, he had had enough.

Pike aimed a large can of First Defense aerosolized Oleoresin Capsicum at two-dozen occupiers, including student David Buscho and his girlfriend.

“The police officer came up to us and said, ‘If you guys don’t move, we’re going to shoot you,’ so we turned around,” Buscho said to a crowd of several hundred occupiers three days later in the same quad where he was sprayed.

“Then it happened,” Buscho continued as the angry crowd listened transfixed. “At that point I entered a world of pain. It felt like hot glass was entering my eyes. I couldn’t see anything. I wanted to open my eyes, but every time I did the pain got worse.”

But in one way, Buscho got off easy. Police in California generally do not use pepper spray that contains as its main ingredients the mainstays of several popular pepper sprays sold in Los Angeles and California retail outlets — the dry cleaning solvent and toxin tetrachloroethylene, or PCE, and its distillate, the once-common degreaser and toxin trichloroethylene, or TCE.

California’s Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, better known as Proposition 65, requires that the governor publish an annual list of chemicals known to the state to cause reproductive toxicity or cancer. Both PCE and TCE made the list in April 1988 as chemicals that cause cancer.

Yet no law is on the books in California to prevent PCE’s or TCE’s use in products meant to be sprayed directly into somebody’s face.

“California has banned other uses of TCE in consumer products, including spray paints and other aerosols,” says Sarah Janssen of the Natural Resources Defense Council in San Francisco. “It’s not a stretch of the imagination to think that significant exposures are occurring in the vicinity of pepper spray fumes.”

TCE-based pepper spray is being sold in California through the Internet by Fox Labs International and Personal Safety Corporation, according to the companies’ websites. And two of Personal Safety Corporation’s Pepper Defense products with PCE but without Proposition 65 warnings were being sold at True Value and Do It Best stores that L.A. Weekly visited earlier this month in Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Eagle Rock, Florence-Graham, Hollywood, Venice and North Hollywood.

Seven Fox Labs International pepper spray products are sold locally through Galls, a large police and public safety equipment and apparel company, with local stores in Los Angeles, Long Beach, Orange and Riverside. On the stores’ websites, No Proposition 65 warnings are indicated on these items.

“PCE and TCE are known carcinogens on California’s Proposition 65 list, which means products containing them should by law carry the Proposition 65 warning label,” says Ana Mascareñas, policy coordinator for Physicians for Social Responsibility–Los Angeles, a public health and environmental group.

“It is almost inconceivable that these pepper sprays are being sold in California without labels warning consumers of the cancer risks,” she adds.

Ed Ferguson, president of Michigan-based Fox Labs International, boasts: “First Defense has been described as ketchup to my Tabasco. You won’t find anyone hit with … Fox that wouldn’t rather be hit with a Taser.”

Fox Lab’s pepper spray is, by weight, 98 percent “volatiles” — meaning a liquid that is easily vaporized. And that volatile is TCE.

Ferguson takes umbrage at California regulators calling TCE a carcinogen.

“California’s the only people that say it,” Ferguson says. “Why is that? California don’t have their shit together and yet they’re saying a lot of stuff for a lot of people that puts them into bankruptcy.”

At Personal Safety Corporation, the producer of pepper spray containing PCE, president and founder Dick Olson tells the Weekly, “California probably has some of the most stringent interpretations of what’s carcinogenic and at what levels.”

Olson says Pepper Enforcement is made with TCE but that the “amount of that chemical is so minute as to not cause harm to humans. It’s a very minute amount.”

But publicly available Material Safety Data Sheets reveal a different story.

Material Safety Data Sheets contain data regarding the official known properties of a specific substance. The figures on the sheets regarding Personal Safety Corporation pepper sprays sold at True Value stores in California show that two of them come in formulas with PCE (volatiles) levels at 95 percent by weight.

Do It Best was quick to defend its California handling of Personal Safety Corporation products.

Do It Best communications director Randy Rusk says in an email, “Do it Best Corp. takes safety and compliance issues seriously, and we are looking into the labeling situation to affirm the products we carry and that our vendors are in compliance with state law.”

“True Value is a cooperative,” says True Value spokeswoman Marsha Burton. “That means our members created us. We can’t tell a member what they can and can’t sell. A lot of members could have bought [the Personal Safety Corporation pepper spray] from Do It Best.”

Burton subsequently supplied the Weekly with Material Safety Data Sheets showing that True Value does sell Personal Safety Corporation pepper sprays with 95 percent PCE.

Charity shop worker drowned in lake just 3ft deep after firemen refused to wade in due to health and safety rules

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 14:05:37 -0500

‘Too deep’: Emergency services are pictured here just after they recovered the body from the lake. They had refused to get into the water until specialists arrived because it was ‘too deep’

Drowning Simon Burgess, 41, was just 20ft away from firefighters but inquest hears they refused to save him

Police officer who went in to water was ordered back

Witness claims firemen told her they couldn’t go in if water was more than ‘ankle deep’

A charity worker drowned in a 3ft deep lake when a policeman and a paramedic were ordered not to try to rescue him.

Simon Burgess, 41, was left to float face down as emergency crews watched.

Health and safety rules stopped them going more than ankle deep into the lake, an inquest was told yesterday.

According to a doctor, Mr Burgess’s life could have been saved had he been removed from the water quickly.

The constable and the ambulance worker who volunteered to jump into the lake were given strict orders not to do so by fire station watch manager Tony Nicholls.

PC Tony Jones arrived at the scene on foot shortly after Mr Burgess fell into the water while feeding swans.

He told the inquest: ‘When I spoke to witnesses and found out the body hadn’t been there long I told my sergeant I was willing to go into the water.

‘He authorised me to do so and I took off my body armour but Mr Nicholls advised me strongly not to go in.

‘I said I would go in anyway and asked if I could borrow his life jacket but he said “No”, but I was going to do it regardless. It didn’t sit right with me that no one was going to get the body or assist the person in the water.

‘The control room was informed I was going in and they sent a message that under no circumstances could I go in the water.’

Paramedic Robert Wallace told the hearing he also offered to attempt to retrieve the body from the water at Walpole Park in Gosport, Hampshire.

‘I’m trained to swim in currents you go white water rafting in, but Mr Nicholls told me he didn’t want my help,’ he said.

Mr Nicholls, who is based at Gosport fire station, told the inquest that he understood the body had been in the water for five to ten minutes.

‘There were no obvious signs of life so from that I made an assessment it was a body retrieval and not a rescue,’ he said.

‘The officers were trained to go into ankle deep water, which is level one, so we waited for level two officers, who can go into chest high.

‘One of the police officers told me he would like to go in the water and I advised him in the strongest terms not to. A paramedic told me he was level two water trained, but when I asked him if he had protective equipment he said “No”, so that was the end of that.

‘I was under immense pressure from the three witnesses to go into the water but I gave them a short answer.

‘The specialist team arrived and three officers went in and removed the body.’

A witness told of her frustration at seeing 999 workers stand and wait.

Gillian Hughes said the specialist team measured the depth of the water with a pole and even called for a press officer before recovering Mr Burgess’s lifeless body. This was almost 30 minutes after the earlier teams arrived.

Mrs Hughes, 53, said Mr Burgess fell in while trying to retrieve a plastic bag from the water.

‘He looked like he was swimming and had a smile on his face,’ she said.

‘The next minute he had stopped and was lying face down. The firemen arrived with the police and I said “He’s only been there five or ten minutes so if you hurry you might save him”.

‘He just said “We’re not allowed’ and I said “But that’s your job”. Mr Burgess was only 20ft away. I thought they would get him straight away.

‘I believe one of the police went in to get him but was told he was not allowed. I said to one of the firemen “Why don’t you go in?” and he said they couldn’t if the water was higher than ankle deep.

‘I said “You’re having a laugh”. He said “No, that’s health and safety”.

‘After the incident I was unable to sleep because I kept blaming myself and now I have to live with it.’ Hampshire Fire and Rescue control room manager Deborah Coles answered Mrs Hughes’s 999 call at 12.17pm on March 10 last year.

She told the inquest that a number of rescue teams, including specialists, were sent immediately.

Brett Lockyer, a registrar of histopathology, told the inquest there were signs Mr Burgess had fallen into the lake because of an epileptic seizure, following unsuccessful brain surgery to ease his condition.

‘If he had been taken out of the water after ten minutes there is a slim chance he could have been resuscitated,’ he said.

‘The seizure would’ve made it look like he was swimming and explains why he had a grin on his face.’

Mr Burgess, from Gosport, was declared dead at hospital.

The hearing, at Portsmouth Coroners’ Court, continues.

Blind man uses sonar to 'see'

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 14:10:33 -0500

A Californian man who has been blind for most of his life can ‘see’ using sound, and is in Australia to help teach the technique to others.

Daniel Kish, who lost his sight to retinal cancer when he was just 13 months old, has dubbed his bat-like technique “flash sonar”.

He uses sounds to detect objects in his environment by sensing echoes from those objects.

“It’s an active form of echolocation that allows a blind individual to see using flashes of sound, instead of flashes of light,” he told ABC News Breakfast.

“An individual emits flashes of sound - and they may be in the form of a tongue click - and uses those flashes to illuminate the environment and extract information from the returning soundwaves, that return from surfaces in the environment.

“And then we can construct images based on the information we have extracted.”

Mr Kish combines echolocation with the use of his cane to boost his mobility, and leads groups on hiking and mountain bike adventures.

“I’ve always been able to do this. I think it has to do with how I was raised. I was raised to pretty much be involved in all of the other things that kids were doing,” he said.

“I went to regular school, I played with sighted children, I had to have an equaliser.

“As I’ve grown older, my interest has turned more to developing methods of teaching it and helping blind people to learn it.”

The Centre for Brain and Mind in the US has studied the activity in Mr Kish’s brain as he listened to the sounds he uses in flash sonar.

Researchers found that instead of activating the area of the brain responsible for interpreting sound, the sounds activated Mr Kish’s visual cortex - supporting the idea that sounds provide a visual effect that allows Mr Kish to ‘see’.

Mr Kish, who heads non-profit organisation World Access for the Blind, is currently holding a series of workshops with Australian students to teach them to see in new ways.

He says many blind people use echolocation to a certain degree but are unaware of it.

“Our hope is to help blind people become more aware of it so that they can become conscious of developing and refining it and integrating it more naturally into their daily lives,” he said.

“It generally helps people become more confident. They’re more aware of their surroundings, they’re more aware of the options they have within their surroundings.

“It enables people to interact with their environment more quickly, with more precision, with more grace.

“People can participate in a wider range of activities with greater levels of comfort and confidence. They can conduct themselves with more poise.

“It just basically adds a dimension to a person’s ability to interact with the environment effectively.”

Megaupload founder granted bail by NZ court

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 14:07:36 -0500

Photo: Kim Dotcom was arrested on January 20.

The German founder of file-sharing website Megaupload has been granted bail by a New Zealand court after a month in custody.

Kim Dotcom, who has New Zealand residency, is preparing to fight US extradition hearings over internet-piracy and money-laundering charges.

“I’m relieved to go home and see my family, my three little kids and my pregnant wife,” the 38-year-old told reporters in Auckland after being granted bail.

Dotcom was arrested on January 20 after about 70 armed New Zealand police raided his country estate at the request of the FBI.

Prosecutors say Dotcom - also known as Kim Schmitz and Kim Tim Jim Vestor - was the ringleader of a group that netted $US175 million ($164 million) since 2005 by copying and distributing music, movies and other copyrighted content without authorisation.

Dotcom’s lawyers say the company simply offered online storage and that he strenuously denies the charges.

Earlier this month, the High Court supported a lower court judge’s ruling that there was a significant risk Dotcom, who had passports and bank accounts in three names, might try to flee the country.

But on Wednesday, Judge Nevin Dawson granted bail on strict conditions, accepting that no new evidence of undisclosed funds has been found.

The other three co-accused had already been granted bail.

Last week, a US grand jury added more charges against Megaupload and its executives, alleging they took copyrighted material from sites such as YouTube for its own service.

Reuters

Scientists identify steamy 'waterworld' planet

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 14:04:55 -0500

An astronaut attempting to visit recently discovered planet GJ1214b would land in hot water - literally, United States scientists say.

Researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics said they have identified a new kind of planet, dominated not by rock, gas or other common materials - but water.

The planet is “a waterworld enshrouded by a thick, steamy atmosphere”, they said in a statement after scrutinising the planet with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.

“GJ1214b is like no planet we know of,” astronomer Zachary Berta said.

“A huge fraction of its mass is made up of water.”

GJ1214b was discovered in 2009 by the ground-based MEarth Project.

Described as a “super-Earth”, it is about 2.7 times Earth’s diameter and weighs almost seven times as much.

Further studies in 2010 led to scientists suspecting the planet, where the temperature is 232 degrees Celsius, was largely covered in water.

This was confirmed by Mr Berta and his co-authors using Hubble to study the planet when it crossed in front of its host star.

The light of the star, filtered through the planet’s atmosphere, gave clues to the mix of gasses, backing up the water vapour theory.

“The Hubble measurements really tip the balance in favour of a steamy atmosphere,” he said.

Further measurements and estimates led scientists to conclude the planet has much more water than Earth and much less rock.

That, together with high temperatures and pressure, likely produce some highly exotic results, including “hot ice”, scientists say.

Our solar system contains three basic planet types: rocky, like Earth; gas giants like Jupiter or Saturn; and ice giants like Uranus.

AFP

Tehran steps into US-Israel Iran row with threat of pre-emptive strike

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 14:09:23 -0500

Deputy Chief of Iran’s Armed Forces Gen. Mohammad Hejazi issued a new threat Tuesday, Feb. 21: “Our strategy now is that if we feel our enemies want to endanger Iran’s national interests… we will act without waiting for their actions.”
debkafile’s military sources report that an Iranian preemptive attack on Israel has been in the air for some weeks. It became realistic because the dragging out of the argument between Washington and Jerusalem over a military strike and the two government’s indecisiveness gave Tehran a golden opportunity to further its interests.

It bestowed on Iran the gift of entering into talks on its nuclear program with the six world powers (P5 plus 1) free of a military threat and therefore in a superior bargaining position. For openers, Tehran has already pocketed the Obama administration’s promise of permission to continue to enrich uranium up to 5 percent in any quantity and will be more than ready to lay down more demands.
Gen. Hejazi’s threat of a preemptive strike against Israel also serves the Islamic regime in its run-up to a general election on March 3. It aims to show the Iranian voter and Middle East public that Iran has successfully turned US and Israeli aggression against Iran against them and demonstrated they are no more than paper tigers incapable of carrying through on their rhetoric. The military initiative therefore stays in Iran’s hands.

In Tehran, the standard Israeli cliché of “We don’t’ advise anyone to test our resolve” has worn thin.
By letting two Iranian warships bearing arms for Assad pass Israel’s coast on its way to Tartus without interference, Israel encouraged Tehran to assume that, in the last reckoning, it will abstain from a unilateral strike to eradicate Iran’s nuclear facilities without Washington’s blessing.

The Netanyahu government’s resolve is expected to melt away under the bulldozer assault of one American emissary after another touching down at Ben-Gurion airport to corner them into backing down.
Once Israel lets its hands be tied, Tehran calculates, it will become progressively harder to break them loose, so that if Tehran does carry out a limited “preemptive” missile attack on the Jewish state, Jerusalem will again bow to Washington and let itself be coerced into not responding.

Thursday, Feb. 23, US National Director of Intelligence James Clapper arrives in Israel to tackle its military and intelligence chiefs on the question, after US National Defense Director Tom Donilon spent three days in fruitless discussions with government leaders Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the US Chiefs of Staff tried his hand at persuasion earlier this month. This cycle of pressure will peak with Netanyahu’s White House talks with President Obama on March 5.
The Iranians felt confident enough to safely deny requests from the team of IAEA inspectors who arrived in Tehran Monday for access suspect nuclear locations and meetings with scientists employed in their nuclear program.
Gen. Hejazi’s words were backed up by a four-day air defense exercise, dubbed Sarallah (God’s Revenge), in the south of the country. The Islamic Republic also took another initiative by cutting off oil exports to Britain and France and so turning the tables on the European Union’s oil embargo on Tehran.

A US government program secretly injected people with plutonium

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 14:25:51 -0500

The horrors of the nuclear age, in terms of exploding reactors and nuclear bombs, are well known. Behind the well-publicized threat of mass death lies a secret history of nuclear projects being used to destroy individuals. In the late 1940s, United States citizens were injected with plutonium without their knowledge.

In early 1945, Ebb Cade, a worker at the Oak Ridge Nuclear Facility, got into a car wreck. He survived, but was bed bound with a broken arm and a broken leg. When doctors interviewed him, they ascertained that the fifty-three-year-old African American man was otherwise perfectly healthy, eating well, drinking well, and had no history of serious illness. And so, having obtained a healthy subject, on April 10th his doctors secretly injected him with 4.7 micrograms of plutonium. Who exactly ordered the injection, and who exactly administered it, has never been determined, with the most likely candidates all contradicting each other.

What is certain is that no one administered the dose for the man’s health. Although radium was still being touted by unscrupulous companies to the masses as a health tonic, enough people had gotten cancer and radiation sickness that any scientists knew that radiation was bad news. Since the beginning of the Manhattan Project, tests had been done to see how plutonium isotopes affected living beings. Animals had been fed and injected with the element, and their subsequent health problems were noted. When a scientist working on separating isotopes of plutonium had gotten a face full of gas, his stomach was pumped, to get out any plutonium he had swallowed, and his face was thoroughly scrubbed.

Over the next five days after the injection, doctors collected any excretions from Cade to see how much plutonium he retained in his body. Other tests were more invasive. His bones weren’t set until April 15th, and before they were set samples were cut out of them to see how much plutonium had moved into the bone tissue. Fifteen of his teeth were pulled and sampled for plutonium as well. Ebb Cade was never informed about the reasons for any of this, but he might have had an idea of what was happening to him. According to one account, one morning a nurse opened his door to find he’d fled during the night. He died in 1953, of heart failure. He was the first person to be injected with plutonium in the United States, but not the last.

The next three injectees were patients suffering from cancer who had come into Billings Hospital in Chicago for treatment. From April through December, a man in his sixties suffering from lung cancer, a woman in her fifties suffering from breast cancer, and a ‘young man’ suffering from Hodgkin’s lymphoma were all injected. Not much is known about the third patient. He was not mentioned in many official reports, nor is the date of his death known. What is known is he was injected with 95 micrograms of plutonium, roughly fifteen times what anyone before had been injected with.

The University of Rochester also became the next facility to start injections of plutonium, as well as other radioactive isotopes, including polonium and uranium. The director of the program there wrote that nearly all the patients had diagnoses that meant they were unlikely to live for more than five years. Although it’s true that many patients did have serious illnesses, many had illnesses that allowed for more than ten years of life, three were still living when investigations into the plutonium injections began in 1974, and one was misdiagnosed entirely.

Researchers at the University of California also took part in these experiments. In May of 1945 Albert Stevens came in for treatment of his stomach cancer. He was injected with plutonium. After the injection, it was found that the cancer was actually an ulcer. When Stevens thought about moving away, he was offered a stipend to stay in the area, so the lab could continue to test him for radiation, but he was never told about the injection. In April of 1946, Simeon Shaw, a four-year-old boy suffering from bone cancer was the next test subject. His parents, who had brought him from Australia for treatment in the United States, were told that the injection, and a subsequent removal of some bone tissue, was part of his cancer treatment. When he got sicker, his parents brought him back to Australia, where he died. It wasn’t until thirty years later that they found out what their son was actually injected with.

In December of 1946, the Manhattan Project ordered a halt to the injection of humans with radioactive materials, at which point the Atomic Energy Commission took over. In April of 1947, possibly in response to the Nuremburg trials concerning human experimentation, it was recommended that patients be told that they would be injected with a ‘new substance’ and that ‘no one knew what it did,’ but that it could inhibit cancer growth. The trials continued. A thirty-six-year-old man named Elmer Allen was injected and his left leg amputated shortly after.

Although the injections themselves were halted at the end of 1947, follow up studies, including the removal of bone tissue and excretion monitoring, were conducted into the early 1950s. Some of the eighteen known patients injected with plutonium died and were actually exhumed for more tests to be conducted. Their families were still told that they had received an unknown mixture of isotopes purely for medical treatment. It wasn’t until the 1970s that a full investigation was conducted. Surviving patients were informed, families of the deceased were questioned and eventually informed. Only one surviving patient never knew what happened to her. Her current doctors judged her emotional state too fragile to be told about the injections.

The last survivor of the plutonium experiments was Elmer Allen, the man whose leg was amputated after his injection. When doctors looked back through his notes, they found that his prognosis, at the beginning, was very good, and that it was deemed likely that the then-thirty-six-year-old would live more than ten years. He died in 1991.

7 year-old branded 'racist' for asking student about skin colour

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 14:20:24 -0500

The mother of a seven-year-old boy was told to sign a school form admitting he was racist after he asked another pupil about the colour of his skin.

Elliott Dearlove had asked a five-year-old boy in the playground whether he was ‘brown because he was from Africa’.

His mother, Hayley White, 29, said she received a phone call last month to say her son had been at the centre of a ‘racist incident’.

She was then summoned to a meeting with Elliott, his teacher and the deputy head of Griffin Primary School in Hull.

Ms White, an NHS healthcare assistant, said: ‘When I arrived at the school and asked Elliott what had happened, he became extremely upset.

‘He kept saying to me, “I was just asking a question. I didn’t mean it to be nasty” and he was extremely distressed by it all.’

Ms White claimed she was asked at the meeting to read a copy of the school rules and in particular its zero-tolerance policy on racism.

‘I was told I would have to sign a form acknowledging my son had made a racist remark which would be submitted to the local education authority for further investigation,’ she said.

‘I refused to sign it and I told the teacher in no way did I agree the comment was racist. My son is inquisitive. He always likes to ask questions, but that doesn’t make him a racist.’

The school had launched an investigation after the younger boy told his mother about Elliott’s comment and she complained.

Ms White, who lives in a three-bedroom house with her son and nine-year-old daughter Olivia, has now applied to have Elliott moved from the school.

She claimed she was told there were places at nearby Thanet Primary School, but the council informed her last Friday that this was not the case.

‘I am going to appeal against this decision because I think Elliott is being victimised,’ she said.

Karl Turner, Labour MP for Kingston upon Hull East, last night insisted that the school and Hull City Council had a statutory duty to take racism seriously.

‘However, having spoken to Hayley, I’m satisfied that her seven-year-old son, Elliott, was not being racist in his remarks but just inquisitive,’ he said.

‘It seems the matter has been taken out of all proportion and common sense seems to have gone completely out of the window.’

In a statement, Griffin Primary head teacher Janet Adamson said the school had acted ‘in accordance with the council’s guidance for schools on the reporting of racist incidents’.

Vanessa Harvey-Samuel, head of localities and learning at Hull City Council, said: ‘There is a statutory duty to report any incident that is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person.’

Last year, it was revealed that teachers are branding thousands of children racist or homophobic following playground squabbles.

More than 20,000 pupils aged 11 or younger were put on record for so-called hate crimes such as using the word ‘gaylord’.

UK to take major role in making new 'eurodrones'

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 14:16:40 -0500

Plans to build a new generation of “fighter drones” that can wage war by remote control are set to be agreed today by Britain and France. David Cameron and President Nicolas Sarkozy are preparing to put their recent tensions behind them to launch proposals for the pilotless stealth aircraft at a summit in Paris. In a second agreement, they will promise closer co-operation on civil nuclear power.

Western nations increasingly regard the deployment of drones to launch surgical strikes on targets as a way of keeping military casualties to a minimum.

Several senior al-Qa’ida figures have been killed by unmanned American drones flying over Pakistan, while British drone missions could begin within months over Afghanistan. Critics claim the aircraft can cause “collateral damage” among civilians and that the low risk to service personnel from their use can encourage countries to turn to military force rather than diplomacy.

But the two leaders are preparing to put any qualms to one side as they sign a letter of intent of cross-Channel cooperation on the project.

Under the plan, Britain’s BAE and the French planemaker Dassault – rivals in the battle for sales of the present generation of fighter planes – will be asked to collaborate in the creation of a prototype of a Star Wars-type, ground-controlled “fighter drone” by 2020. Mr Cameron and Mr Sarkozy are expected to present the project as proof of continuing – or revived – Anglo-French friendship despite last year’s rift over tighter fiscal discipline in the eurozone.

The Paris summit, delayed from last November, will be the first lengthy one-on-one meeting between the two leaders since Mr Cameron vetoed an EU-wide fiscal pact in early December.

Mr Cameron will be accompanied by Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary, and Ed Davey, the Energy Secretary. The two governments will sign a declaration signalling their commitment to nuclear power as a source of safe and affordable energy that will also help cut carbon emissions.

Under the agreement, British and French public and private sector bodies in the civil nuclear power industry will work more closely on education and training, research and development and security. The two sets of ministers will also discuss cooperation in transport. Mr Cameron last night stressed the “strength and depth of Britain’s ties with France”. He said: “Our commercial relationship is deep and growing with exports increasing and French investment sustaining almost 10,000 jobs in the UK. Our militaries are working together on cutting-edge military technology. This relationship is vital for the national security and the prosperity of both Britain and France.”

The Franco-British “fighter drone” would take aerial combat into a new age, replacing all the “conventional” piloted fighter-planes now on offer. The two governments are thought to be ready to put a modest amount of public cash into the project at this stage.

The possibility of French and British co-operation on a drone aircraft – or Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) – was first mentioned in November 2010 when Mr Cameron and Mr Sarkozy signed a defence treaty committing the two countries to co-operate in military deployment and research. French sources said yesterday that German or Italian, or wider European, participation in the project would be welcomed. But the newspaper Les Echos reported yesterday the letter of intent to be signed by Mr Sarkozy and Mr Cameron was intended as a signal that the project would be under Anglo-French leadership.

American-made drones, sometimes controlled from thousands of miles away, are in service in Afghanistan for surveillance or to attack difficult ground targets. The proposed Anglo-French drones would take the concept a stage further – and into uncharted technological, strategic and moral territory.

The intention is to have a prototype flying by 2020 but it might take many more years before a computer-controlled fighter started service in the RAF or with the French air force.

Sources in Paris told Reuters that the summit would today announce the “next steps and intentions” for “a UAV design and development programme” and an “unmanned combat air system demonstrator programme”.

Unmanned aircraft: Britain’s fleet

Britain operates a fleet of six Reaper MQ-9 drones, and is spending £135m to expand it to 10 aircraft. They are operational over Afghanistan and last year fired their weapons for the 200th time. The drones are operated by 39 Squadron from a base in Nevada, but this year it is intended they will be controlled from RAF Waddington, Lincolnshire.

Reaper-MQ unmanned aircraft are US-made and can carry up to 14 Hellfire missiles, cruise at a speed of 170kts, and remain aloft for 14 hours.

A UK drone under development has the potential to stay in the air indefinitely. QinetiQ’s solar-powered Zephyr can reach altitudes of 70,000ft and in 2010 set a world flight record of more than 14 days.

Israel 'will make own decision' on Iran, says military chief

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 14:13:54 -0500

ISRAEL will ultimately decide on its own whether to strike Iranian nuclear facilities, its military chief of staff says, as a senior US official arrived for talks on the Islamic Republic.

“Israel is the central guarantor of its own security; this is our role as army, the State of Israel should defend itself,” Lieutenant General Benny Gantz told state-owned Channel One TV.

“We must follow the developments in Iran and its nuclear project, but in a very broad manner, taking into account what the world is doing, what Iran decided, what we will do or not do,” he said.

In recent weeks, there has been feverish speculation that Israel was getting closer to mounting a pre-emptive strike on Iran’s nuclear program, though Israel has denied reaching such a decision.

Tensions between Iran and Israel have been simmering with Iranian warships entering the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal in a show of “might”, a move Israel said it would closely monitor.

On Wednesday, Iran said it had installed another 3000 centrifuges to increase its uranium enrichment abilities and was stepping up exploration and processing of uranium yellowcake.

And Israel blamed a recent wave of attacks targeting Israeli diplomats on agents of Tehran, allegations that Iran denies.

US National Security Advisor Tom Donilon will begin talks with Israeli officials on a range of issues including Iran, two weeks ahead of a Washington visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for White House talks with US President Barak Obama on the same topic.

A recent article in the Washington Post said that US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta thinks Israel may strike Iran’s nuclear installations in the coming months.

According to Gantz, whose interview was conducted prior to the developments, Iran was not only an “Israeli problem”, but also “a world and regional problem”.

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak called on the world to tighten sanctions on Iran before the country enters a “zone of immunity” against a physical attack to stop its nuclear program.

Iran has been slapped with four sets of UN sanctions and a raft of unilateral US and European Union measures over its nuclear drive, which Tehran maintains is peaceful.

Humans Are Done Trading, It's Time For The Rise Of The Machines

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 14:12:07 -0500

We know this from driving cars — human beings can only react so fast.

This fact also applies, obviously, to driving the market. Human beings can still only move so fast, but the financial industry is calling for vehicles that move faster and faster. A group of professors and researchers got together to think out exactly what that means.

Their findings were published in a paper called ‘Financial black swans driven by ultrafast machine ecology’ (h/t NY Observer). In it, they discuss their analysis of 18,520 ultrafast black swan events that occurred in the market from 2006 to 2010. Financial institutions, they said, were most vulnerable to such events.

That’s one piece of bad news, and here’s the other: the researchers conclude that humans will be phased out of the practice of trading entirely. From the paper:

We provide empirical evidence for, and an accompanying theory of, an abrupt system-wide transition from a mixed human-machine phase to a new all-machine phase characterized by frequent black swan events with ultrafast durations

It’s a matter of reaction time, the more the machine is able to outpace a human, the more irrelevant a human decision becomes. The report uses chess as an example to illustrate this point:

A chess grandmaster takes approximately 650 milliseconds to realize that her king is in
checkmate — hence even if a human trader is as attentive and capable as a chess grandmaster, it
would take him 650 milliseconds to realize he is in danger of losing (i.e. king is in checkmate
20,21) before actually making a move to buy or sell. Given that a market is a collection of autonomous human and machine (i.e. computer algorithm) agents watching the latest prices before their next move, and yet human beings have limitations on how fast they can notice a particular situation and act on it, it is reasonable to interpret the transitions in Fig. 2 as reflecting the decreasing ability of human beings to influence price movements at smaller timescales.

Click here for the full report»

Revealed: The occult obsessions of Britain's greatest scientist Sir Isaac Newton

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 18:19:08 -0500

Broad interests: Sir Isaac Newton, whose studies included theology and the occult as well as physics, maths and astronomy

He laid the foundations of classical physics and is considered to be one of the greatest scientists of all time.

But Sir Isaac Newton was also deeply interested in the occult and applied a scientific approach to the study of scripture and Jewish mysticism.

Now Israel’s national library, which contains a vast trove of Newton’s esoteric writings, has digitised his occult collection and posted it online.

Among the yellowed texts is Newton’s famous prediction of the apocalypse in 2060.

The quintessential scientist, Newton revolutionised the approach to physics, maths and astronomy in the 17th and 18th century.

He laid the foundations for most of classical mechanics, including the the principal of universal gravitation and the three laws of motion which bear his name.

However, the curator of Israel’s national library’s humanities collection said Newton was also a devout Christian who believed that scripture provided a ‘code’ to the natural world.

‘Today, we tend to make a distinction between science and faith, but to Newton it was all part of the same world,’ said Milka Levy-Rubin.

‘He believed that careful study of holy texts was a type of science, that if analysed correctly could predict what was to come.’

To further his understanding, Newton learned Hebrew and delved into the study of esoteric Jewish philosophy, the mysticism of Kabbala and the Talmud.

For instance, he based his calculation on the end of days on information gleaned from the Book of Daniel, which projected the apocalypse 1,260 years later.

Newton figured that this count began from the crowning of Charlemagne as Roman emperor in the year 800.

He also believed that the geometry of Solomon’s temple encoded ancient wisdom about proportions in nature and man’s place in Creation.

Enlarge

Esoteric: The notes, held by Israel’s national library, include Newton’s notes on theology and myth

A depiction of the Coronation of Charlemagne as Roman Emperor on display in the Vatican: Newton used this event as the starting point for his calculations for the end of the world

The papers cover topics such as interpretations of the Bible, theology, the history of ancient cultures, the Tabernacle and the geometry of Solomon’s Temple.

The collection also contains maps that Newton sketched to assist him in his calculations and his attempts to reveal the secret knowledge he believed was encrypted within.

He attempted to project what the end of days would look like, and the role Jews would play when it happened.

Newton’s objective curiosity in Judaism and the Holy Land contrasted with the anti-Jewish sentiment expressed by many leading Christian scholars of the era, Levy-Rubin said.

‘He took a great interest in the Jews, and we found no negative expressions toward Jews in his writing,’ said Levy-Rubin. ‘He said the Jews would ultimately return to their land.’

But the university rejected his nonscientific papers, so the family auctioned them off at Sotheby’s in London in 1936.

As chance would have it, London’s other main auction house - Christie’s - was selling a collection of Impressionist art the same day that attracted far more attention.

Only two serious bidders arrived for the Newton collection that day. The first was renowned British economist John Maynard Keynes, who bought Newton’s alchemy manuscripts.

The second was Abraham Shalom Yahuda - a Jewish Oriental Studies scholar - who got Newton’s theological writings.

Mr Yahuda’s collection was bequeathed to the National Library of Israel in 1969, some years after his death.

Enlarge

They were originally owned by Oxford University, but were rejected by the institution and sold at auction

Treasure trove: The papers address a wide swathe of subjects including the geometry of Solomon’s Temple

The library exhibited the papers for the first time in 2007, and now they are available for everyone to see - free of charge - on the internet.

The collection contains hundreds of pages of Newton’s flowing handwriting on fraying parchment in 18th-century English.

Two versions in modern typeface are also available for easier reading.

A ‘diplomatic’ one includes changes and corrections Newton made in the original manuscript, and a ‘clean’ version incorporates the corrections.

All of the papers are linked to the Newton Project, which is hosted by the University of Sussex and includes other collections of Newton’s writings.

The Israeli library says the manuscripts help illuminate Newton’s science and well as his persona.

‘As far as Newton was concerned, his approach was that history was as much a science as physics. His world view was that his “lab” for understanding history was the holy books,’ said Levy-Rubin.

‘His faith was no less important to him than his science.’

UFO inspired metal boxes still vex experts while someone is taking the boxes away

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 18:15:16 -0500

In a world where people see lots of strange things on the Internet every day, something as interesting and unusual as these strange metal boxes has produced both suspicion and an unruly feeling of disorientation in people who can’t figure out what the boxes are, or where they came from. In turn, those who both viewed and touched a grouping of the boxes at a Florence beach Feb. 15 gave the boxes a sort of suspicious sideways squint. The boxes first surfaced as a story on Huliq last week after local UFO fans relating recent sightings at nearby Stonefield Beach. These UFO fans then pointed to “strange metal boxes” that “were revealed” after a recent UFO sightings. They said the boxes appeared “out of the blue,” while other locals simply said the boxes have the makings for yet more UFO lore; with people either believing or not believing. However, the metal boxes by themselves are something that is very real. So real, in fact, that William Hanshumaker, a Ph.D in marine education, and a member of the “Oregon Sea Grant Faculty” at the nearby Hatfield Marine Science Center, in Newport, has been investigating the “boxes” for the past week.

Strange boxes investigated

As of Feb. 15, Doctor Hanshumaker still doesn’t have a clue what the boxes are. Meanwhile, this marine science expert has passed around photos of the boxes – that are reported up and down West Coast beaches – and he said there is no consensus as to “what” the boxes are.

Sure, there’s been speculation that these “strange metal boxes” are possible docking pieces from oyster farms over in Japan — that broke apart after the March 2011 earthquake and Tsunami that also slammed West Coast beaches, but how could something as huge as these boxes travel almost 5,000 miles across the Pacific from Japan to Oregon coastal beaches?

Moreover, Doctor Hanshumaker noted that “the boxes would have barnacles underneath” if they were floating out in the Pacific.

However, seven boxes were examined at local beaches near Florence on Feb. 15, and they’re clean all around with no barnacles but a sort of “membrane” film that can’t be scraped off that covers each of the remaining boxes.

In turn, locals at nearby Stonefield Beach and Bray’s Point – who first noticed the boxes after a late evening UFO sighting Feb. 5 – “with boxes up and down the beach on the morning of Feb. 6,” said a Bray’s Point local named Errol.

Police not involved in box mystery

Due to a lot of local and even international interest in the nature of these strange boxes, the local Florence Police Department was contacted officially Feb. 15. In turn, a police department spokesperson named Sarah told Huliq in an interview that “we have not received any reports or complaints about these boxes.”

Moreover, Sarah stated that “the beaches,” or the “Oregon coast is considered a state highway, and state police have jurisdiction over what’s on the beach.” In turn, the Oregon, Washington and California state police were also contacted, and each department reported no actions being taken to investigate the boxes.

However, police officials did state that it’s illegal for people to take things from coastal beaches; even while it’s common for locals and visitors to take pieces of driftwood.

Someone is taking the boxes

At the same time, boxes were seen being moved by a number of “white trucks” with heavy chains and upwards of four to six people seen pushing and then loading these strange metal boxes into the white trucks.

One local Florence couple – who stopped to exam one metal box – said in a Feb. 15 Huliq interview that “it sure looks unusual.”

Also, the couple said they were “drawn to the box,” and that “it felt warm, like nothing we’ve ever felt before.”

People seeing and touching the boxes

“Feel me, touch me, see me,” seems like something these boxes “might be saying to us,” quipped local UFO “watcher” Errol when taking more than 100 images of a group of these metal boxes near his Bray’s Point beach home Feb. 15. “I want to document this before someone runs off with our three boxes down the beach there,” he added with a vividly inventive mind that seemed both self-confident and worried.

Errol then noted with the demeanor of a very capable head football coach that “what we have here is a failure to communicate. We shared our story about UFO sightings, and nobody ever believes that, and then we told you about these boxes appearing, and everybody seemed interested.”

Lilly Moll’s theory about the boxes

While local UFO watcher Errol has the temperament of an underfed grizzly when it comes to those who view him as nuts for his UFO theories, he points to another Bray’s Point local named Lilly Moll who Errol says “generates awe” when it comes to the telling of the strange metal boxes story.

“Something happened here a lot time ago. It was something that altered my view of who I was on this Earth,” explained Moll while sitting on one of these metal boxes near her beach home at Bray’s Point.

Moll, who has this striking exotic quality that Errol say people are attracted to since “she must be in her nineties, and not weigh more than 80 or 90 pounds but she radiates a kind of beauty that’s can’t be explained, but felt deep inside your heart and mind.”

In turn, Moll reveals in a quite enigmatic, cipher quality that “the boxes are not for us to understand. They’re here for now and maybe gone tomorrow. That’s all.”

Dream warriors? U.S. military to research 'battlefield illusions' to baffle enemies

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 18:11:58 -0500

Will use hi-tech optics and sound to confuse enemies

Research division is investing $4 million in technology

Aims to cause ‘auditory and visual’ hallucinations

The American military’s technology research division Darpa is to investigate hi tech ‘battlefield illusions’ designed to baffle enemy troops, according to budget figures announced this week.

The Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency is investing $4 million in the project, which includes research into causing ‘auditory and visual’ hallucinations in enemy troops.

The technologies could be similar to current measures designed to confuse radar systems, but applied to human beings.

The ‘illusions’ would likely use optical technology, and will be built to be mounted on vehicles.

‘The current operational art of human-sensory battlefield deception is largely an ad-hoc practice,’ says the agency.

The agency aims to investigate ‘how humans use their brains to process sensory inputs,’ to create technologies that will provide a tactical advantage on the battlefield.

Darpa says it aims to, ‘Demonstrate and assess the operational effectiveness of advanced human-deceptive technologies on military ground, sea, and airborne systems,’ according to the report in Wired.

Wired magazine’s Noah Schachtman says, ‘This is not the first time that military researchers have tried to confuse foes with sights or sounds that aren’t really there.’

‘The defense contractor BAE Systems recently developed an ‘invisibility cloak’ which it says can hide vehicles’ infrared signature,’ says Schachtman.

‘In the early years of the war on terror, many in the defense tech community floated the idea of a ‘Voice off God’ weapon. The idea was to use directed sound waves to convince would-be jihadis that Allah himself was speaking in their ears — and ordering them to put down their suicide belts.’

In the Fifties, the UK and U.S. governments both researched using ‘weaponised’ forms of LSD and another hallucinogen, BZ, for battlefield use.

The U.S. protecting opium fields in Afghanistan, maintaining the...

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 18:05:44 -0500

The U.S. protecting opium fields in Afghanistan, maintaining the addiction of Wall Street and the CIA to billions of dollars in profit.

more than 95 percent of the revenue generated by opium production is siphoned off to business syndicates, organized crime and banking and financial institutions.

In many instances, drug money is currently the only liquid investment capital, said Vienna-based UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa said last January. In the second half of 2008, liquidity was the banking systems main problem and hence liquid capital became an important factor.

Former Managing Director and board member of Wall Street investment bank Dillon Read, Catherine Austin Fitts, has long alleged that the banksters launder imponderable amounts of drug money. According to the Department of Justice, the US launders between $500 billion $1 trillion annually. I have little idea what percentage of that is narco dollars, but it is probably safe to assume that at least $100-200 billion relates to US drug import-exports and retail trade, writes Fitts.

The CIA has long secured the lucrative global drug market for Wall Street and for its own operational off-the-books purposes. The CIAs operational directorate, in other words thats their covert operations, para-military, dirty tricks — call it whatever you want — has for at least 40 years that we can document paid for a significant amount of its work through the sales of heroin and cocaine, Guerrilla News Network reported in an interview with Christopher Simpson.

The CIA has been in the drug running business since the 1950s. In Burma, Vietnam, Laos, Latin America, and Afghanistan, the CIA — also known as the Cocaine Import Agency — has remained at the forefront of the international illicit drug trade. The journalist Gary Webb and the San Jose Mercury News tied the CIA and the Contras to a large crack cocaine ring in Los Angeles. Webb paid with his life for revealing this information to the public.

Afghan drug war debacle: Blair said smashing opium trade was a major reason to invade but 10 years on heroin production is up from 185 tons a year to 5,800

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 18:04:20 -0500

The West is losing the heroin war in Afghanistan – ten years after Tony Blair pledged that wiping out the drug was one of the main reasons for invading the country.

Despite spending £18billion and a conflict which has so far cost the lives of almost 400 British troops, production of the class-A drug by Afghan farmers rose between 2001 and 2011 from just 185 tons to a staggering 5,800 tons.

It increased by 61 per cent last year alone.

The United Nations yesterday warned that the situation was out of control.

Declaring that the West had lost its war against the drug, a glum UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon added: ‘Time is not on our side.’

The UN figures make grim reading for those who backed the invasion.

Cutting the supply of heroin was one of the prime reasons given by then-prime minister Tony Blair in 2001 for sending in British troops.

Three weeks after the attack on America’s Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, Mr Blair said: ‘The arms the Taliban are buying today are paid for by the lives of young British people buying their drugs on British streets. This is another part of their regime we should seek to destroy.’

But ten years later, the UN figures reveal how the outcome has been so dramatically different.

Some 15 per cent of Afghanistan’s Gross National Product now comes from drug-related exports – a business worth up to £1.6billion each year, it was claimed.

Officials say there is clear evidence that the opium trade is being orchestrated by the Taliban, with vast profits used to buy weapons and fuel the insurgency.

The warning came at a meeting in Austria of more than 50 countries.

Britain alone has spent an estimated £18billion – a further £4billion is said to have been earmarked for this year – in Afghanistan, where 398 of its troops have died and thousands have been injured.

The most recent was Senior Aircraftman Ryan Tomlin, from 2 Squadron RAF Regiment, who was fatally wounded by small arms fire during an insurgent attack on Monday in Helmand Province – the heart of the opium industry.

Ironically, the Taliban had overseen a significant fall in heroin production in the months before the invasion. Their leader Mullah Mohammed Omar – collaborating with the UN – had decreed that growing poppies was un-Islamic, resulting in one of the world’s most successful anti-drug campaigns.

As a result of this ban, opium poppy cultivation was reduced by 91 per cent from the previous year’s estimate of 82,172 hectares.

The ban was so effective that Helmand Province, which had accounted for more than half of this production, recorded no poppy cultivation during the 2001 season.

However, with the overthrow of the Taliban opium fields returned, despite the destruction of crops by coalition forces and initiatives to persuade farmers to switch to other produce.

There was some success but, commanders said, the ‘reality’ was that forces were too thinly stretched to focus on crop destruction – a move that, anyway, turned farmers against the troops.

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime estimated that the 2006 harvest was around 6,100 tons, 33 times its level in 2001, a 3,200 per cent increase in five years.

Cultivation in 2006 reached a record 165,000 hectares compared with 104,000 in 2005 and 7,606 in 2001 under the Taliban. This fell in figures for 2010 because of crop disease, but the UN figures show that it increased sharply again last year when 131,000 hectares were under cultivation, producing some 5,800 tons of opium.

The rise came even though the Afghan government and Nato have boosted crop eradication measures by 65 per cent and made significant seizures in recent months. The UN says there are now 17 provinces in Afghanistan affected by poppy cultivation, up from 14 a year ago.

Experts say the Taliban’s involvement in the drugs trade ranges from direct assistance – such as providing farmers with seed, fertiliser and cash advances – to distribution and protection.

In his opening address to the Vienna conference, the UN Secretary General warned that the problem extends beyond those who abuse drugs and is threatening Afghanistan itself.

‘Drug trafficking and transnational organized crime undermine the health of fragile states, (and) weaken the rule of law,’ he said, ‘Above all, the Afghan government must prioritise the issue of narcotics.’

A report by the UN Office of Drugs and Crime said revenue from opium production in Afghanistan soared by 133 per cent last year to about £900million after the crop recovered from a 2010 blight and approached previous levels.

Ban Ki-moon, in his opening comments, cited a 2011 UN survey saying that poppy cultivation has increased by 7 per cent and opium production by 61 per cent in the past year.

Zarar Ahmed Moqbel Osmani, the Afghan minister, said his country understood international concerns but noted that ‘95 per cent of poppy cultivation takes place in nine insecure provinces’.

He urged the international community to work hard in preventing the components needed to turn opium into heroin from entering Afghanistan from neighbouring countries.

Russia is squaring up for a fight with America over Syria

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 17:59:59 -0500

Confirmation that the U.S. and its allies are studying their military options for helping the anti-Assad rebels in Syria is a worrying development on a number of levels, not least of which is the prospect of the West becoming embroiled in a direct confrontation with the Russians.

As I have argued before, I think the West – and that includes Britain – needs to proceed with great caution before it gets too closely involved in the Syrian crisis. As with the Libya situation last year, we still have no clear idea who the rebels are in Syria, or what their ultimate objective might be.

Homs, the centre of the anti-Assad rebellion, is a known centre for Islamist extremists, and if all Western intervention achieves is the replacement of the Assad regime with an Iranian-style Islamist dictatorship, then we will have scored a monumental own goal.

Of deeper concern, though, is the possibility that the U.S. could find itself involved in a direct military confrontation with Russia over the future of Syria’s destiny. We have been here before, of course, during the 1980s when, at the height of the Cold War, Moscow and Washington fought a proxy war over the fate of neighbouring Lebanon.

Even though U.S. President Ronald Reagan deployed thousands of U.S. Marines to Beirut, the Americans were eventually sent packing. During that conflict Russia backed the Syrians, who in turn used the Iranian-backed Hizbollah militia to carry out a series of devastating terrorist attacks against the Americans, ultimately forcing them to withdraw their forces from Lebanon.

The Cold War might be consigned to the history books, but a similar confrontation could easily arise if Washington decides to become engaged militarily in Syria to protect anti-government rebels.

This week’s visit by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to Damascus has highlighted Syria’s importance to Moscow. The Syrian port of Tartus is Russia’s only military base outside the old Soviet Union and, at a time when the West is strengthening its ties throughout the Arab world, the Russians regard Syria as a vital strategic asset. Consequently any attempt by the Western powers to meddle in Syria’s internal affairs is likely to prompt a robust response from Moscow.

One of the reasons the Lebanese civil war dragged on for fifteen years was that the conflict ended up being caught in a turf war between Washington and Moscow. I fear a similar fate could soon befall Syria

“Alien” Hybrid Or Starchild Discovered In China? A...

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 14:42:01 -0500

“Alien” Hybrid Or Starchild Discovered In China?

A boy has stunned medics with his ability to see in pitch black with eyes that glow in the dark.

Doctors have studied Nong Youhui’s amazing eyesight since his dad took him to hospital in Dahua, southern China, concerned over his bright blue eyes.

Dad Ling said: “They told me he would grow out of it and that his eyes would stop glowing and turn black like most Chinese people but they never did.”

Medical tests conducted in complete darkness show Youhui can read perfectly without any light and sees as clearly as most people do during the day.

Could Nong Youhui be a Hybrid or Starchild? A new and growing generation of extraordinary and gifted children are springing up across our planet, is the human species evolving, or possibly our Extraterrestrial visitors tinkering with our DNA? As always you decide.

NYPD "Stop and Frisks" Hit All-Time High

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 14:23:43 -0500

City police officers stopped and questioned 684,330 people on the street last year.

The number of so-called “stop and frisks” is rising.

City police officers stopped and questioned 684,330 people on the street last year, a record since the NYPD began yearly tallies of the tactic in 2002 and a 14 percent increase over 2010.

It couldn’t be determined how many people were patted down during the encounters, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Typically, half of the potential suspects who are stopped are frisked or searched.

Of those stopped last year, about 12 percent were arrested or received summonses. The rest were not charged.

Civil-rights advocates claim the practice unfairly targets innocent blacks and other people of color, and that many stops are made without proper cause.

The department calls the tactic an essential crime-fighting tool.

Last secret door of Great Pyramid 'to be opened in 2012', says British company

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 14:15:33 -0500

The ‘Micro-Snake’ robot which will explore the interior of the Great Pyramid once the ‘Djedi’ expedition resumes

The secret gates at the heart of the Great Pyramid may be opened for the first time in 2012, a British robot company believes - solving a mystery that has puzzled archaeologists since 1872.

Scoutek UK had already begun exploring behind the gates earlier this year - and produced the first-ever images from behind the gates using a ‘micro snake’ robot. But the exploration was halted by the recent unrest in Egypt.

Expedition leader Shaun Whitehead said, ‘I’m very confident we can resume work in 2012.’

Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities stopped granting permits for research such as the Djedi robotic exploration of the Great Pyramid.

But it has recently started granting permits again.

‘We’re still waiting for permission to return to the pyramid,’ Whitehead told Mail Online today. ‘In the meantime, we have been working on enhancing the robot.’

‘The main plan is to carefully survey and document the shafts, to gather as much information as possible to allow archaeologists to determine their purpose. We also still plan to look beyond the blocking stones at the ends of the shafts, if it is safe and practical to do so.’

The expedition is named Djedi after the magician who Khufu consulted while building the pyramid. It is a joint project founded by Dr Ng from Hong Kong University, and Scoutek UK, in cooperation with the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Egypt, Dassault Systèmes in France and the University of Leeds.

The four narrow shafts deep inside the 4,500-year-old Great Pyramid have puzzled archaeologists ever since they were first found in 1872.

The shafts are just eight inches across - and thus can’t be explored by human explorers. Many experts believe that the shaft was designed to provide an ‘exit’ for the Pharaoh’s spirit into.

The pyramid is the last of the seven wonders of the ancient world still standing, and is thought to have been built as a tomb for Pharoah Khufu, who ruled in the Fourth Egyptian Dynasty and died in 2566 BC.

Khufu had the Great Pyramid of Giza built as a monumental tomb, inside of which are tomb chambers, ante-rooms, chambers, ventilation shafts and access tunnels.

There are three main chambers: The King’s Chamber, the Queen’s Chamber and the Grand Gallery.

The King’s Chamber has two shafts connected to outside, but two tunnels from the Queen’s Chamber deep inside the widest part of the pyramid have two stone doors.

Some experts now believe this may indicate a secret chamber, further still within the pyramid.

It is not the first time robots have been used within the pyramid to gather evidence about the inner depths of the structure.

In 1993 a robot discovered a small door set with metal pins, the first time any metal had been found inside the pyramid, igniting speculation that the pins were keys or door handles.

In 2002 a different robot filmed a small chamber blocked by a stone after managing to drill through the first stone block.

The latest robot, built by UK company Scoutek, is a ‘micro-snake’ armed with a camera, designed to explore small spaces.

Designer Whitehead also worked on sensors for the Beagle 2 Mars exploration craft.

The door which still puzzles experts can be seen to be polished, thanks to the bendy camera, marking it out as an important part of the structure rather than simply as something to stop debris entering the chamber, says camera designer Shaun Whitehead.

Egyptologist Kate Spence of Cambridge University says the tunnels may purely be symbolic and relate to the stars.

Although she is not involved directly in the study of the Giza pyramid, Spence does not believe there is a further, hidden chamber behind the door, suggesting instead that the shafts could have been built to allow the Pharoah’s spirit to cross to the afterlife.