News That Matters
It sounds like something straight out of George Orwell’s nightmarish Nineteen Eighty-Four.
In a move that harks back to the dark days of the KGB, the Russian security service has been given new powers to crack down on so-called ‘thought crime’.
Read Full Article
The US government secretly advised Scottish ministers it would be “far preferable” to free the Lockerbie bomber than jail him in Libya.
Correspondence obtained by The Sunday Times reveals the Obama administration considered compassionate release more palatable than locking up Abdel Baset al-Megrahi in a Libyan prison.
Read Full Article
President Obama on Wednesday appointed health-care expert Donald M. Berwick to administer the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, bypassing the Senate confirmation process over strong objections…
Read Full Article
What kid doesn’t love McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets? The white meat chunks are tasty and perfect for little mouths and hands. And while most parents are aware that McNuggets aren’t perfectly healthy, they probably don’t know exactly what goes into making them.
CNN has revealed that the fast-food chain makes this popular menu item with the chemical preservative tBHQ, tertiary butylhydroquinone, a petroleum-based product. Mcnuggets also contain dimethylpolysiloxane, “an anti-foaming agent” also used in Silly Putty.
Read Full Article
In its never-ending attempt to fabricate “mental disorders” out of every human activity, the psychiatric industry is now pushing the most ridiculous disease they’ve invented yet: Healthy eating disorder.
This is no joke: If you focus on eating healthy foods, you’re “mentally diseased” and probably need some sort of chemical treatment involving powerful psychotropic drugs. The Guardian newspaper reports, “Fixation with healthy eating can be sign of serious psychological disorder” and goes on to claim this “disease” is called orthorexia nervosa — which is basically just Latin for “nervous about correct eating.”
Read Full Article
Suspected U.S. missiles hit a house Tuesday in a Pakistani tribal region along the Afghan border where the army has been battling Taliban fighters, intelligence officials said. At least six suspected militants were killed, including a possible al-Qaida operative.
Read Full Article
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez denounced Israel as a “genocidal” government yesterday as he hosted Syrian President Bashar Assad on his first visit to Latin America.
Chavez has drawn close to Syria and Iran, and cut ties with Israel last year to protest its military offensive in the Gaza Strip.
“We have common enemies,” Mr Chavez said, describing them as “the Yankee empire, the genocidal state of Israel.”
Read Full Article
The United States has not had good intelligence on the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader, in years, Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, admitted on Sunday.
He also gave a sobering account of the war in Afghanistan, saying the Taliban seemed to be strengthening with a stepped-up campaign of violence, even as US-led forces undermine the Islamist movement with attacks on its leadership.
Read Full Article
The Supreme Court ruled for the first time Monday that the Second Amendment provides all Americans a fundamental right to bear arms, a long-sought victory for gun rights advocates who have chafed at federal, state and local efforts to restrict gun ownership.
The court was considering a restrictive handgun law in Chicago and one of its suburbs that was similar to the District law that it ruled against in 2008. The 5 to 4 decision does not strike any other gun control measures currently in place, but it provides a legal basis for challenges across the country where gun owners think that government has been too restrictive.
Read Full Article
Yes, you read that right. Ron Paul’s push to audit the Federal Reserve Bank and see who received how much money in the last few years has been drastically reduced. Amidst the many costly bailouts, recipients have included banks, large companies, and even foreign countries. And now it appears that much of what has happened will remain behind closed doors.
So much for transparency. So much for accountability. Remember those bright promises made a couple years ago, opening up a new era of hope and change?
Read Full Article
PHOENIX – Favoring the constitutional right to bear arms over others’ concerns about gun safety, Gov. Jan Brewer on Friday signed into law a bill making Arizona the third state allowing people to carry a concealed weapon without requiring a permit.
Read Full Article
The breakthrough gives hope of healthy children to couples with genetic disorders in their families.
It also offers the prospect of eradicating fatal genetic diseases.
But the procedure - dubbed three person IVF - sparked controversy last night.
Read Full Article
Goldman Sachs, which emerged relatively unscathed from the financial crisis, was accused of securities fraud in a civil suit filed Friday by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which claims the bank created and sold a mortgage investment that was secretly devised to fail.
Read Full Article
The Federal Communications Commission does not have the legal authority to slap Net neutrality regulations on Internet providers, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.
A three-judge panel in Washington, D.C. unanimously tossed out the FCC’s August 2008 cease and desist order against Comcast, which had taken measures to slow BitTorrent transfers before voluntarily ending them earlier that year.
Read Full Article
WASHINGTON — A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the National Security Agency’s program of surveillance without warrants was illegal, rejecting the Obama administration’s effort to keep shrouded in secrecy one of the most disputed counterterrorism policies of former President George W. Bush.
In a 45-page opinion, Judge Vaughn R. Walker ruled that the government had violated a 1978 federal statute requiring court approval for domestic surveillance when it intercepted phone calls of Al Haramain, a now-defunct Islamic charity in Oregon, and of two lawyers representing it in 2004. Declaring that the plaintiffs had been “subjected to unlawful surveillance,” the judge said the government was liable to pay them damages.
Read Full Article
In almost every major Chinese city, users reported that trying to access Google searches returned an error page.
The hiatus began at around 5pm on Tuesday in China. Although it was still possible to access Google’s websites, searches on any topic delivered an error message.
Google was unable to immediately confirm the cause of the problem, but said it was investigating. Chinese internet users blamed the “Great Firewall” for blocking Google searches. Google’s email services were unaffected.
Read Full Article
Copyright (c) 2008-2009 Real Current Events All rights reserved. Design by Free WordPress Themes • Powered by WordPress
