Category Archives: International
Raw Brains and Penis Soup
Authorities in Papua New Guinea have arrested 29 members of a suspected cannibal cult accused of killing seven people before eating their brains and making soup from their penises. The accused are alleged to have been part of a 1000-strong group which was formed to take on suspected witch doctors. They believed their victims had […]
Final Report – AF 447
Flight AF 447 on 1st June 2009 (A330-203, registered F-GZCP) During the night of Sunday 31 May to Monday 1st June 2009, the Airbus A330-203 registered F-GZCP operated by Air France crashed into the Atlantic Ocean. The aeroplane had taken off at 22 h 29 to undertake scheduled flight AF 447 between Rio de Janeiro Galeão and […]
Assange loses appeal against extradition
[ABC -Rachel Brown/wires] Britain’s Supreme Court has ruled that Australian-born WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange can be extradited to Sweden to be questioned over sexual assault allegations. The seven-judge panel ruled five to two that Mr Assange’s extradition appeal be dismissed and he be extradited. The panel decided Sweden’s prosecutor was a judicial authority and therefore the […]
Chemical restraints
The Boston Globe reports that nursing homes in the United States continue to administer antipsychotic medications to patients who do not fit criteria for these drugs, in many cases to manage behavior considered disruptive by staff. For example, “in 21 percent of US nursing homes in 2010, at least one-quarter of the residents without illnesses recommended […]
The French breast implant scandal
[MeFi] In March 2010, a pair of health inspectors responding to multiple tips paid a three-day visit to the factory headquarters of the Poly Implant Prothese (PIP) company, a leading international maker of breast implants. On their second day, the inspectors found something odd: six discarded plastic containers of Silopren, a liquid silicone designed for industrial, not […]
Anonymous- A message to the elite
[storyful] The hacker group Anonymous targeted the US Department of Justice and several recording and movie industry websites with distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks on Thursday, following the FBI’s shutdown of the popular file sharing site, MegaUpload.com. At one point, the websites for Justice Department, Universal Music, the Motion Picture Association of America and […]
Australian man jailed in Israel
[ABC] An Australian man has been jailed in Israel after being found guilty of collaborating with the militant organisation Hamas. Eyad Abu Arga has been sentenced to 30 months in jail after being found guilty of providing services to an illegal organisation – namely Hamas, the Palestinian group that rules Gaza. Israel alleges he carried out […]
Background Briefing: Mining Afghanistan
[Radio National] As foreign troops withdraw, will foreign miners move in? They’ve known of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth for a century but it hasn’t been safe or easy enough to extract it. Now Western companies, including Australian miners, are behind the geopolitical eight-ball as China and India lock up mining rights. Reporter, Stan Correy … play mp3 […]
Russian journalist gunned down
[ABC] One of Russia’s leading investigative journalists has been shot and killed in Russia’s violent North Caucasus region. Gadzhimurat Kamalov was shot eight times as he left his newspaper office in the capital of the republic of Dagestan, which borders Chechnya. He was the founder of a newspaper that was well regarded for its independence […]
Australian pleads guilty to Hamas spy charge | ABC
[ABC] An Australian man faces 30 months in an Israeli prison after pleading guilty to charges of spying for militant Palestinian organisation Hamas. Eyad Abu Arga, 46, a Palestinian refugee who holds Australian citizenship, has been in custody since March when he was arrested at an Israeli airport. He claimed he entered Israel while on […]
Monsanto PR Firm Reportedly ‘Ended’ by Anonymous
[Activist Post - Mike Barrett] It seems that Monsanto may be having a rough week. Not only was the company hit by a press release declaring them the worst company of 2011, but a group of Anonymous hackers claim to have actually completely disrupted the operations of a PR firm which manages Monsanto’s own PR. […]
Tweeting Hurricane Bawbag
[storyful] Scottish Twitter users turned their weather travails into a trending Twitter topic on Thursday when they dubbed the high winds buffeting the country Hurricane Bawbag. Bawbag, a Scottish slang word meaning scrotum, was suddenly all over social media as the Scottish traded stories of the storms hitting central Scotland. As the hashtags #Bawbag and #HurricaneBawbag trended, Twitter […]
Assange Supreme Court Appeal
[Sweden Vs. Assange] 5 December, 2011 The UK High Court of Appeal has ruled that one of the two points raised by Julia Assange’s team are of “general public importance” and should be considered by the Supreme Court. The point that succeeded was the question of whether a partisan public prosecutor is a ’judicial authority’ […]
Syrian cameraman ‘mutilated and killed following arrest’
[journalism.co.uk - Joel gunter] A Syrian cameraman who was arrested on Saturday while filming anti-government protests has been found dead with his eyes gouged out, according to the New York-based charity the Committee to Protect Journalists. Citing local news reports, the CPJ says Ferzat Jarban was arrested by government authorities while covering the protests and local […]
Students Rally On UC Davis Quad
[AggieTV] A crowd listens to speakers on the UC Davis East Quad at a General Assembly – Anna Oh/AggieTV Thousands of students, faculty, staff and community members came together as part of the Occupy UC Davis movement to develop a community response to the events of the last week. The crowd and speakers made repeated […]
