The Pentagon gave a controversial UK PR firm over half a billion dollars to run a top secret propaganda programme in Iraq, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism can reveal. Bell Pottinger’s output included short TV segments made in the style of Arabic news networks and fake insurgent videos which could be used to track the people who watched them, according …
Vaccines Provide Herd Immunity?
Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson recently reversed his opposition on mandatory childhood vaccination. When asked what caused him to make a U-turn and adopt what would seem to be an anti-libertarian position, he said, I’ve come to find out that without mandatory vaccines, the vaccines that would in fact be issued would not be effective.…It’s dependent [on having]mandatory vaccines so that every …
ROBERT FANTINA – Netanyahu, Palestine and Ethnic Cleansing
Well, once again, Israeli Prime Murderer Benjamin Netanyahu astounds. One would think that there must be some limit to the bizarre statements that issue from his mouth, but no, we learn again and again that he is willing to push the bizarreness envelope to places where, like the crew of Star Trek’s Enterprise, no one has ever before ventured. His …
RICHARD DAVIES – WHY COMPANIES MAKE THEIR PRODUCTS WORSE
There is much about computing to make the blood boil – the badly timed crashes and the endless software updates are frustrating. Yet most annoying of all is the fact that some products seem needlessly bad. Anyone setting up a home office, for example, will find that Microsoft has made the cheap version of its software worse by stripping away its email …
Studies Link Cancer Patients’ Survival Time To Insurance Status
Privately insured people with cancer were diagnosed earlier and lived longer than those who were uninsured or were covered by Medicaid, according to two recent studies. In one study, researchers examined data from more than 13,600 adult patients who had glioblastoma multiforme, the most common type of malignant brain tumor, between 2007 and 2012. The other study analyzed data from more than 10,200 adults …
MICHAEL J. SAINATO – How the Payday Loan Industry is Obstructing Reform
In June 2016, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau proposed new guidelines to protect consumers from payday loan traps. These traps help perpetuate the cycle of poverty and prey on individuals in low income communities who are unable to obtain loans from a bank. The multi-billion-dollar payday lending industry has garnered influence with both Republicans and Democrats in order to inoculate itself from …
John Michael Greer – The Coming of the Postliberal Era
One of the big challenges faced by any student of current events is that of seeing past the turmoil of the present moment to catch the deep trends shaping events on a broader scale. It’s a little like standing on a beach, without benefit of tide tables, and trying to guess whether the tide’s coming in or going out. Waves …
Robert Parry – Troubling Gaps in the New MH-17 Report
The key conclusion of the Dutch-led criminal inquiry implicating Russia in the 2014 shootdown of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 relied heavily on cryptic telephone intercepts that were supplied by the Ukrainian intelligence service and were given incriminating meaning not clearly supported by the words. The investigators also seemed to ignore other intercepts that conflicted with their conclusions, including one conversation that appeared to be …
92% of the world’s population exposed to unsafe levels of air pollution
27 SEPTEMBER 2016 | GENEVA – A new WHO air quality model confirms that 92% of the world’s population lives in places where air quality levels exceed WHO limits*. Information is presented via interactive maps, highlighting areas within countries that exceed WHO limits. “The new WHO model shows countries where the air pollution danger spots are, and provides a baseline for …
Duterte Calls for End to US-Philippine Military Exercises, Part of Tilt Toward China
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte promised an end to military exercises with longtime ally the United States today. Speaking from Hanoi, Vietnam, Duterte said that he was “serving notice now to the Americans” that an upcoming drill “will be the last military exercise.” That’s likely to come as a shock to U.S. officials, who have routinely insisted that, behind Duterte’s rhetoric, U.S.-Philippine cooperation …









