Author: Sunfire

RT – by Robert Bridge

Just like they’ve been doing every year since 1954, influential Bilderberg members – including journalists – assembled behind closed doors to hold off-the-record talks on a number of pressing global issues.

The best criticism I’ve seen yet against the Bilderberg Group was found on a banner that draped a barbed-wire fence surrounding a golf course at one of these high-powered pow-wows: “Bilderberg Ate My Hamster” the message declared. That’s basically the long and the short of it, because thanks to the group’s arcane cloak of secrecy, everything and anything can now be blamed on them.   Continue reading “Bilderberg 2017: Should we be worried yet?”

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MOSCOW (AP) — A Moscow court on Monday convicted the director of a Ukrainian library of inciting ethnic hatred to Russians and imposed a four-year suspended sentence. Natalya Sharina was first detained in October 2015 in the latest twist of the stand-off between Russia and Ukraine after Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014 and threw its weight behind separatist rebels in Ukraine’s east. She spent a night in jail before she was put under house arrest.   Continue reading “Chief of Moscow’s Ukrainian library gets suspended sentence”

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ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey on Monday refused to budge on its decision to refuse German lawmakers permission to visit troops stationed at a Turkish air base, saying it expected “positive steps” on Turkey’s requests for Germany to crackdown on Kurdish rebels and alleged coup plotters.

Speaking at a joint news conference with his visiting German counterpart, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Turkey would allow German legislators to visit a NATO base in the central province of Konya, but not Incirlik Air Base, where some 270 German troops are stationed with Tornado reconnaissance jets and a refueling plane. The German troops are part of the international coalition against the Islamic State group.   Continue reading “Germany, Turkey to discuss impasse over visiting troops”

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CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A Malaysia Airlines plane returned to Australia after a mentally ill passenger threatened to detonate a bomb and attempted to enter the cockpit before he was tackled and tied up by passengers, police said Thursday.

The 25-year-old Sri Lankan man had been discharged from a Melbourne psychiatric hospital on Wednesday before buying a ticket on the late-night flight to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Victorian Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton said.   Continue reading “Malaysia Airlines jet diverted in Australia over bomb scare”

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GAZIANTEP, Turkey (AP) — They are veterans of Syria’s rebellion, trying for years to bring down President Bashar Assad. But these days they’re doing little fighting with his military. They’re struggling to find a place in a bewildering battlefield where several wars are all being waged at once by international powers.

Syria’s civil war has become a madhouse of forces from Turkey, the United States, Syrian Kurds, the Islamic State group, al-Qaida as well as Assad’s allies Russia, Iran, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Iraqi and Afghan Shiite militias — all with their own alliances and agendas.  Continue reading “Short of allies, Syria’s rebels are down but not out”

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PRAGUE (AP) — A smoking ban in Czech bars, restaurants and cafes came into effect Wednesday, putting to an end to the Czech Republic’s status as one of the last havens for tobacco smokers in Europe. The ban, which applies to inside areas of bars and restaurants as well as public places like cinemas, theaters and sports venues, was approved by Parliament following years of heated debate and signed by President Milos Zeman, a chain smoker.   Continue reading “Czech restaurants, bars go smoke-free after years of debate”

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KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A massive suicide truck bombing rocked a highly secure diplomatic area of Kabul on Wednesday morning, killing 80 people and wounding as many as 350, an attack that left a scene of mayhem and destruction and sent a huge plume of smoke over the Afghan capital.

The target of the explosion in the Wazir Akbar Khan area was not immediately known, but Ismail Kawasi, spokesman of the public health ministry, said most of the casualties were civilians, including women and children.   Continue reading “Bombing in diplomatic area of Kabul kills 80, wounds scores”

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BERLIN (AP) — German state police questioned a 17-year-old asylum-seeker on Tuesday after a tactical unit took him into custody on suspicion that he was planning a suicide attack in Berlin. Police in Brandenburg state said the teenager was detained Tuesday in the village of Gerswalde, 100 kilometers (60 miles) northeast of Berlin, after they learned he had sent a farewell message to family members and told them that “he had joined the jihad,” or holy war.   Continue reading “Germany: Teen asylum-seeker held in alleged suicide attack”

RT

A member of the US Navy’s elite skydiving team has died in front of thousands of spectators on Sunday after his parachute malfunctioned during an exhibition jump at Fleet Week festival in New York Harbor.

Four SEALs from the US Navy Parachute Team, the Leap Frogs, dropped out of a helicopter as part of the stunt, but one of the parachutes failed to open.   Continue reading “US Navy SEAL plunges to death after parachute malfunctions in NY harbor”

BGR – by Chris Smith

Google already tracks everything you do while inside any of its online services to make money off your data. The trade-off is worth it, many people will argue. Even if Google is able to learn a lot of details about you, it offers invaluable services including Gmail, Google Maps, and search. So if you’re already letting Google aggregate your data, you should know that Google Search now puts this particular skill to good use for you.

The Personal tab might not be immediately obvious to users, but it’s right there on Google Search, buried inside the More option.   Continue reading “Google Search just got a lot more personal”

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BAGHDAD (AP) — A massive bombing by the Islamic State group outside a popular ice cream shop in central Baghdad and a rush hour car bomb in another downtown area killed at least 31 people on Tuesday, Iraqi officials said.

Later in the day, bombings in and around the Iraqi capital killed seven more people. The attacks come as IS militants are steadily losing more territory to U.S.-backed Iraqi forces in the battle for Mosul, the country’s second-largest city. The Sunni extremists are increasingly turning to insurgency-style terror attacks to detract from their losses.   Continue reading “Nighttime, early morning bombings in Baghdad kill 31”

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BERLIN (AP) — Every weekday morning, white-haired women patiently line up before a door at a Dresden retirement home, step in, and quickly step back nearly six decades into their past in Communist East Germany.

Most of the women — in their late 70s at the youngest — are suffering from severe dementia, but the reminders from bygone days trigger memories and skills once thought lost, and produce surprising levels of happiness and comfort.   Continue reading “Reliving Communist past helps East German dementia patients”

RT

NASA scientists are outdoing themselves yet again: by reworking the planned route for a robotic mission to a giant asteroid worth $10,000 quadrillion, they’ve managed to cut costs, launch sooner and arrive four years earlier than planned. Not bad.

The Psyche planetoid, measuring 240km (149 miles) in diameter, is located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and is made almost entirely of iron and nickel.

At current market prices, such an asteroid, a truly unique object in our solar system, is estimated to be worth $10,000 quadrillion ($10,000,000,000,000,000,000). That is, if you could successfully tow it into orbit and then mine it (and find someone to buy all of it, of course). For scale, the entire global economy is worth over $74 trillion.   Continue reading “Asteroid worth $10,000 quadrillion ‘could transform global economy’”

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MARAWI, Philippines (AP) — Backed by tanks and helicopters, Philippine government forces launched “precision attacks” Thursday to clear militants linked to the Islamic State group from a city that has been under siege since a failed raid to capture a militant on the U.S. list of most-wanted terrorists.

Militants have torn through the streets of Marawi since Tuesday night, torching buildings, taking a priest and his worshippers hostage and sealing off much of the city. The violence forced thousands to flee and raised fears of growing extremism in the country.   Continue reading “Soldiers launch attacks in besieged Philippine city”

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WASHINGTON (AP) — There’s a glimmer of hope for America’s ailing honeybees as winter losses were the lowest in more than a decade, according to a U.S. survey of beekeepers released Thursday. Beekeepers lost 21 percent of their colonies over last winter, the annual Bee Informed Partnership survey found. That’s the lowest winter loss level since the survey started in 2006 and an improvement from nearly 27 percent the winter before.   Continue reading “Survey finds US honeybee losses improve from horrible to bad”

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MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Gov. Scott Walker wants to make Wisconsin the first state in the country to require childless adults applying for Medicaid to undergo drug screening, a move that could serve as a national model.

Walker’s plan, which needs federal approval, comes as he prepares to run for a third term next year. Wisconsin’s Republican-controlled Legislature approved Walker’s request for a waiver to do the drug tests two years ago, but is now digging into the details of how it would actually work.   Continue reading “Wisconsin seeks to be first to drug test Medicaid applicants”

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A massive landslide that went into the Pacific Ocean is the latest natural disaster to hit a California community that relies heavily on an iconic coastal highway and tourism to survive, and it adds to a record $1 billion in highway damage from one of the state’s wettest winters in decades.

The weekend slide in Big Sur buried a portion of Highway 1 under a 40-foot layer of rock and dirt and changed the coastline below to include what now looks like a rounded skirt hem, Susana Cruz, a spokeswoman with the California Department of Transportation, said Tuesday.   Continue reading “Landslide on California highway part of $1 billion in damage”