From the Trenches World Report
Enforce our Bill of Rights
SEATTLE (AP) — Dot-bong, Marijuana Inc., the Green Rush: Call it what you will, the burgeoning legal marijuana industry in Washington state is drawing pot prospectors of all stripes.
Microsoft veterans and farmers, real estate agents and pastry chefs, former journalists and longtime pot growers alike are seeking new challenges — and fortunes — in the production, processing and sale of a drug that’s been illegal for generations. Continue reading “Prospectors seek fortune in legal pot”
BERLIN (AP) — A retired Minnesota carpenter, shown in a June investigation to be a former commander in a Nazi SS-led unit, ordered his men to attack a Polish village that was razed to the ground, according to testimony newly uncovered by The Associated Press. The account of the massacre that killed dozens of women and children contradicts statements by the man’s family that he was never at the scene of the 1944 bloodshed.
In June, an AP investigation found that Michael Karkoc entered the U.S. in 1949 by failing to disclose to American authorities his role as a commander in the SS-led Ukrainian Self Defense Legion, which is accused of torching villages and killing civilians in Poland. The investigation found that Karkoc was in the area of the massacres, but did not uncover evidence linking him directly to atrocities. Continue reading “Soldier: Minneapolis man ordered Nazi-led attack”
TACLOBAN, Philippines (AP) — All through her very short life, the parents had squeezed oxygen into her tiny body with a hand-held pump to keep her alive.
In the end, their prayers and whatever little medical care doctors could muster in the typhoon-ravaged hospital were not enough. Althea Mustacia, aged three days, died Saturday. She was born on Nov. 13, five days after Typhoon Haiyan annihilated a vast swath of the Philippines, killing thousands. The storm’s aftermath is still claiming victims, and Althea was among the latest. Continue reading “3-day-old girl dies in typhoon-wrecked hospital”
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — One museum has among its vast Confederate-centric collection Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson’s sword and the flag that flew at Robert E. Lee’s headquarters. The other museum strives to tell the story of the Civil War through the eyes of Northerners and Southerners, freed and enslaved blacks, soldiers and civilians.
Now the Museum of the Confederacy and the American Civil War Center are joining forces to build a $30 million museum in Richmond with the goal of creating the top Civil War museum in the nation 150 years after the deadliest conflict fought on U.S. soil. Continue reading “2 Civil War museums in Va. team up for new center”
ANNISTON, Ala. (AP) — The Pentagon spent $10.2 billion over three decades burning tons of deadly nerve gas and other chemical weapons stored in four states — some of the agents so deadly even a few drops can kill.
Now, with all those chemicals up in smoke and communities freed of a threat, the Army is in the middle of another, $1.3 billion project: Demolishing the incinerators that destroyed the toxic materials. Continue reading “Army scrapping 4 US chemical weapons incinerators”
The Russian Foreign Minister has revealed that there are no real differences on practical issues between the six-party negotiators and Iran. What is needed now is to set down our understanding in a document, Sergey Lavrov told the Russian TVC channel.
“The negotiations with the Foreign Minister of Iran [Mohammad Javad Zarif] have confirmed that for the first time in many years the sextet of negotiators and Tehran are ready to truly seek common grounds instead of presenting mostly uncorrelated positions,” said the Russian FM in an interview to Postscriptum program. Continue reading “No real dissent in nuclear talks between P5+1 and Iran – Lavrov”
Tests of a new missile for the advanced version of the Russian air defense system Tor-M2 proved it is capable of shooting down challenging targets with amazing precision, hitting moving missiles head-on, Russian arms manufacturer Almaz-Antey revealed.
In an attempt to push the limits of modern missile defense systems, Russian military design bureaus Almaz-Antey and Vympel NPO (now part of Tactical Missiles Corporation) have jointly developed the new 9M338 surface-to-air missile. Continue reading “Unique ‘direct kill’ air defense complex unveiled in Russia”
A powerful car bomb has gone off causing casualties in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, near the site where around 2,500 prominent Afghan elders will gather next week to debate a contentious security pact with the United States.
At least six people have been killed and more than 20 injured in the attack on Saturday, according to the Afghan Interior Ministry. Continue reading “Deadly warning? Blast hits Kabul ahead of key talks on US-Afghan security pact”
BEIRUT (AP) — Forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad have firmly seized the momentum in the country’s civil war in recent weeks, capturing one rebel stronghold after another and triumphantly planting the two-starred Syrian government flag amid shattered buildings and rubble-strewn streets.
Despite global outrage over the use of chemical weapons, Assad’s government is successfully exploiting divisions among the opposition, dwindling foreign help for the rebel cause and significant local support, all linked to the same thing: discomfort with the Islamic extremists who have become a major part of the rebellion. Continue reading “Assad gaining ground in Syrian civil war”
STEVENSON, Ala. (AP) — Weeping relatives watched as the body of an Alabama woman was exhumed from her front yard Friday, a bitter end for her husband who fought to keep her remains buried there.
With husband James Davis, his five children and some grandchildren standing by the log home, a crew unearthed the body of Patsy Davis from beside the front porch. Flowers still sat atop her tombstone. Continue reading “Alabama woman’s body removed from front yard grave”
Berlin has suspended the purchase of armed drones on the grounds that it “categorically rejects illegal killings.” This follows a report by Amnesty International that accused Merkel’s government of aiding the US with drone strikes in Pakistan.
A draft agreement between the Social Democrats and the Conservatives obtained by Der Spiegel condemns the use of drones for targeted attacks. Continue reading “‘We reject illegal killings’: Germany suspends drone purchase”
Three of the spent fuel assemblies that will be pulled from the Fukushima nuclear plant during a year-long operation were damaged before the 2011 earthquake and tsunami crippled the Japanese facility.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), which operates the plant, said the damaged assemblies – 4.5 meter high racks with 50 to 70 rods of highly irradiated used fuel – won’t be lifted from the plant’s Reactor No. 4 when a large steel chamber, or cask, is employed to move over 1,500 assemblies to safe storage, Reuters reports. Continue reading “Some Fukushima fuel rods were damaged before 2011 catastrophe”
China has issued a detailed reform roadmap, which promises to abolish the controversial labor camp system and allow some families to have two children instead of one. The reforms are part of a plan to stimulate the decelerating Chinese economy.
Several key decisions were made at this week’s gathering of top Chinese Communist Party leaders, known as the Third Plenum, the official Xinhua news agency said on Friday. Continue reading “Sweeping reforms: China to abolish labor camps, ease one-child policy”
Internet activist Jeremy Hammond who pleaded guilty to hacking servers of the private intelligence company Statfor and leaking its information to anti-secrecy site, WikiLeaks, was sentenced to ten years in jail on Friday, November 15.
The release of internal emails belonging to Strategic Forecasting Inc. or Stratfor, has become one of the most successful operations ever conducted by the hacktivist group, Anonymous, which Hammond admitted to being part of. A trove of emails attributed to Stratfor executives suggested that the private company, which employs many former officials from the CIA and other government agencies, kept close ties with the security apparatus. Continue reading “Stratfor hacker Jeremy Hammond sentenced to ten years in jail”
SEATTLE (AP) — Despite warnings that production of Boeing’s next generation 777 plane could go to another state, machinists in the Northwest voted late Wednesday to reject a contract proposal that would have exchanged concessions for decades of secure jobs.
In response, the Boeing Co. said it would begin a bid process to find a home for its 777 X production line. Members of The International Association of Machinists District 751 rejected the proposal with 67 percent of the votes. Union members who called for a no vote did so in protest of Boeing’s push to end a traditional pension plan and increase their health care costs. Workers would have received a $10,000 signing bonus if they approved the deal. Continue reading “Boeing workers reject plan linked to 777X in Wash.”
WASHINGTON (AP) — Bowing to pressure, President Barack Obama on Thursday announced changes to his health care law to give insurance companies the option to keep offering consumers plans that would otherwise be canceled.
The administrative changes are good for just one year, though senior administration officials said they could be extended if problems with the law persist. Obama announced the changes at the White House. Continue reading “Policy cancellations: Obama will allow old plans”
CLEVELAND (AP) — A mysterious defendant in a $100 million, cross-country Navy veterans charity fraud case was convicted Thursday of racketeering, theft, money laundering and other charges.
Jurors deliberated for about three hours Wednesday before reaching guilty verdicts on all 23 counts. They heard nothing from the ex-fugitive, who changed his mind and decided against testifying. His attorney said he wanted to tell his story but worried about his mental state if he faced aggressive cross-examination by prosecutors. Continue reading “Ohio jury convicts ex-fugitive in $100M fraud case”
BOSTON (AP) — Former Boston crime boss James “Whitey” Bulger was sentenced Thursday to life in prison for his murderous reign in the 1970s and ’80s, bringing to a close a case that exposed FBI corruption so deep that many people across the city thought he would never be brought to justice.
Bulger, 84, was defiant to the end, calling his trial on racketeering charges a sham and refusing to testify or provide information to probation officials preparing a sentencing report for the judge. A jury convicted Bulger in August in a broad racketeering indictment that included murder, extortion, money-laundering and weapons charges. The jury convicted Bulger in 11 of the 19 killings he was charged with participating in but acquitted him of seven and could not reach a conclusion on an eighth. Continue reading “Whitey Bulger gets life for racketeering, killings”
NATO is constructing a bold, new headquarters in Brussels, but the $1 billion project is raising eyebrows at a time of economic hardship and military spending cuts. It also suggests the Western military bloc is here to stay.
The sprawling steel-and-glass complex, which features four extending claw-like structures extending on both sides and a grandiose 105-foot-high (32 meters) entrance, will be headquarters for more than 4,000 NATO staff from the 28 member states starting in 2016. Continue reading “Ego building? NATO erects $1bn HQ as members slash military spending”
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RT News – by Robert Bridge