An Iranian soldier stands guard inside the Natanz uranium enrichment facility, 322km (200 miles) south of Iran's capital Tehran March 9, 2006. REUTERS/Raheb HomavandiReuters – by JUSTYNA PAWLAK AND FREDRIK DAHL

World powers and Iran are due to start implementing a landmark deal on Monday curbing Tehran’s nuclear program, amid hopes that it will pave the way for a broad settlement of a decade-old standoff and ease fears of a new Middle East war.

If, as expected, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog confirms in the morning that Iran is meeting its end of the agreement, the European Union and the United States will later in the day suspend some economic sanctions in return.   Continue reading “World powers, Iran to activate landmark nuclear deal after IAEA nod”

Fox 6 Now

CALEDONIA (WITI) — A Union Pacific train derailed in Caledonia just east of the intersection of 5 Mile Rd. and Nicholson Rd. on Sunday morning, January 19th.

19 cars went off the rails as a result of the incident. You can view pictures taken by the Caledonia Fire Department and FOX6 News crews below. The train had three locomotives and 135 coal cars from Wyoming headed for Sheboygan.   Continue reading “Train derails in Caledonia, 19 cars affected and rail damaged”

A fire shut down Shearon Harris Nuclear Plant on Sat. Jan. 18, 2014WRAL News

NEW HILL, N.C. — Shearon Harris Nuclear Plant was put on alert Saturday morning after a fire in plant electrical equipment, officials said.

Smoke was detected at about 10:15 a.m., and operators safely shut down the plant before on-site fire crews responded. No flames were detected.

According to Duke Energy spokesperson, Jeff Brooks, the fire was caused by a transformer that overheated.    Continue reading “Fire puts North Carolina Nuclear Plant on alert; no materials leaked”

NBC New York

Hundreds of people are searching for a missing 55-year-old Wall Street Journal reporter who left his New Jersey home for a walk on Saturday and never came back.

Sources close to the family told NBC News Thursday that the missing man’s credit card was used in Mexico Wednesday night. The family believes that his coverage of OPEC may be related to his disappearance.

The Journal said 55-year-old David Bird covers energy markets for the paper. He has also worked for The Associated Press and the Trenton Times.   Continue reading “Wall Street Journal Reporter Goes Missing in New Jersey, Credit Card Mysteriously Used in Mexico”

The Obama administration was forced to pull a warning about racism in Spain - just as the First Lady arrived in the country for a summer holidayDaily Mail

The Obamas’ summer break on Martha’s Vineyard has already been branded a PR disaster after the couple arrived four hours apart on separate government jets.

But according to new reports, this is the least of their extravagances.

White House sources today claimed that the First Lady has spent $10million of U.S. taxpayers’ money on vacations alone in the past year.   Continue reading “First Lady accused of spending $10m in public money on her vacations”

Congress-bin-ladenTalking Points Memo – by CAITLIN MACNEAL

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, on Sunday said thatPresident Obama’s Friday speech on National Security Agency reforms left Congress with some uncertainty about U.S. surveillance programs.

Rogers said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that the U.S. needed Obama to make a decision about the NSA’s data collection programs, but instead “what we got was lots of uncertainty.”   Continue reading “Rogers: Obama NSA Speech Left Us With More Uncertainty”

Breitbart

DEMING, N.M., Jan. 17 (UPI) —  Authorities in Hidalgo County, N.M., have settled a lawsuit for $1.6 million with a man who claims they illegally made him undergo colonoscopies and enemas.

David Eckert, 54, filed a lawsuit against the county and its police department in 2013, for allegedly violating his constitutional right against unreasonable searches and seizures during a 12-hour ordeal early in January 2013, CNN reported.   Continue reading “Man forced by police to have enemas, colonoscopy settles lawsuit”

Voice of America -by Daniel Schearf

SEOUL — A recent geological study indicates North Korea could hold some 216 million tons of rare earths, minerals used in electronics such as smartphones and high definition televisions.

If verified, the discovery would more than double global known sources and be six times the reserves in China, the market leader.

British Islands-based private equity firm SRE Minerals Limited announced the study results in December, along with a 25-year deal to develop the deposits in Jongju, northwest of the capital, Pyongyang.   Continue reading “North Korea’s Rare Earths Could be Game Changer”

Zero Hedge – by Tyler Durden

As we previously explained numerous times (here originally and here most recently) Africa is a crucial region in the world…

As Western economies start to regress in earnest following decades of failed and destructive monetary inflation and debt accumulation, as we warned previously, yield-starved investors are allocating real capital to the one industrially untapped continent in the world: Africa. However, we’re not seeing industry moving to Africa to set up shop. Rather, politically-directed capital flowing into the African resources sector is fueling and financing the strongest consumer boom in the world. It’s a vendor financing model for Asia, and it portends a major boom and bust cycle for the African continental economy.   Continue reading “How Erik Prince, Founder Of Blackwater, Will Help China Subjugate Africa”

Activist Post

More than 5,893 leaks from aging natural gas pipelines have been found under the streets of Washington, D.C. by a research team from Duke University and Boston University.

A dozen of the leaks could have posed explosion risks, the researchers said. Some manholes had methane concentrations as high as 500,000 parts per million of natural gas – about 10 times greater than the threshold at which explosions can occur.   Continue reading “5,900 Natural Gas Leaks Discovered Under Washington, D.C.”

New York Times – by AZAM AHMED and MATTHEW ROSENBERG

KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban claimed responsibility Saturday for an attack Friday on a popular Kabul cafe that killed 21 people, mostly Western civilians, saying it was in retaliation for a coalition airstrike earlier in the week in which a number of Afghan civilians had died in a village north of Kabul.

In their statement, the Taliban said they picked a restaurant frequented by “high-ranking foreigners” where alcohol was served. The attack, one of the most significant on Western civilians since the start of the war in 2001, occurred in the heart of one of Kabul’s most secure districts, very close to many embassies and coalition military bases.   Continue reading “Taliban Says Kabul Cafe Attack Was Payback for Earlier Strike”

Iranian students form a human chain during a rally to defend their country's nuclear programme outside the Fordo Uranium Conversion Facility in Qom, in the north of the country, on November 19, 2013Yahoo News

Tehran (AFP) – Inspectors from the UN nuclear watchdog arrived in Tehran Saturday in readiness to oversee implementation of a landmark deal that puts temporary curbs on Iran’s nuclear programme, state media reported.

The team is led by the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Iran task force, Massimo Aparo, and will hold talks with Iranian nuclear officials, the official IRNA news agency said.   Continue reading “UN team in Iran to oversee landmark nuclear deal”

Agenda 21The Western Center for Journalism – by SUZANNE EOVALDI, November 4, 2013

A covert game of hide and steal among the United Nations Agenda 21 Project, the U.S federal government, and Indian tribes will result in irreversible consequences that will let the feds control all national water rights. According to a press release by small ranchers and property owners in Montana, “Circuit Court Judge Cameron Wogan in Klamath Falls, Oregon, refused ranchers’ requests for a temporary restraining order to allow their cattle and horses access to drinking water.”    Continue reading “UN Agenda 21: The Feds and UN Coming for Your Water Rights”

Fox News

Police in Philadelphia were searching for a suspect in connection with a shooting that injured a boy and a girl hanging out with a group of fellow students in a high school gym Friday.

The shooting happened at the Delaware Valley Charter High School in north Philadelphia around 3 p.m., authorities said.   Continue reading “1 suspect arrested, another sought after shooting at Philadelphia school”

RINF – by Andrea Germanos

Freedom Industries, the company behind the chemical leak last week in West Virginia’s Elk River, filed for bankruptcy on Friday, the Charleston Gazette reports.

Roughly 7,500 gallons of the coal-cleaning chemical 4-methylcyclohexane methanol (or MCHM), leaked from a hole in a storage tank into the river, polluting the water supply of 300,000 West Virginians, exposing the lack of a response plan in case of a spill, lack of regulations, fallibility of  safety claims and potentially significant health risks.   Continue reading “Week After West Virginia Chemical Spill, Company Files for Bankruptcy”

File Photo (RIA Novosti/Bashir Aliyev)RT News

Twin blasts hit Makhachkala, the capital of the southern Russian republic of Dagestan, according to local police. Sixteen people were injured, among them four police officers.

Those injured have been taken to hospital, but none are thought to be in a life threatening condition.   Continue reading “Two explosions hit capital of Russia’s southern republic of Dagestan”

WNYC – by Jody Avirgan

The trove of documents leaked by Edward Snowden has revealed the elaborate tricks the NSA can use to monitor communications and data around the world. Here, a running list of things we now know the NSA can do, based on media reports and other publicly available documents — so far.    Continue reading “A Running List of What We Know the NSA Can Do. So Far.”

handcuffsThe Daily Sheeple – by Lily Dane

A man was handcuffed and detained for over an hour after giving a homeless man 75 cents.

Greg Snider was driving in downtown Houston when he pulled into a parking lot to take a business call.  A homeless man approached his car and asked him for money:

“That’s when the homeless man came up to me. He said, ‘Hey my name is Dave. I’m from Dallas. I’m down on my luck. Do you have any change?’”   Continue reading “No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Man Gives 75 Cents to Homeless Person, Ends Up in Handcuffs”