An ex-member of one of the world’s most dangerous mercenary groups has gone public

by ELEANOR BEARDSLEY PARIS — Marat Gabidullin’s face is lined from years of exposure to the elements, and his hair is thinning. But at 56, he has the trim physique and muscular arms of a man 30 years younger. He wears a chunky ring bearing the image of a skull. The skull is the symbol of the Wagner Group — a private Russian mercenary force believed to be financed by an oligarch with close ties to President Vladimir Putin. The group is fighting alongside the Russian army in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region. And it’s widely believed that at least some of … Continue reading An ex-member of one of the world’s most dangerous mercenary groups has gone public

How To Escape a Submerged Car Using Science

CASPAR BENSON The best tool for surviving a slowly sinking car is probably a glass breaker—but science is a close second. BY DAISY HERNANDEZ AND JOHN GALVIN For more than a century, Popular Mechanics has provided life-saving advice for outlasting storms, surviving outdoors, and preparing for disaster. Find out how to survive anything right here. Bridges collapse, roads flood, and GPS errors can mistakenly send you careening into a lake. A sudden and unexpected immersion of water can quickly turn your car into a suffocating death trap. According to The University of Manitoba’s Gordon Giesbrecht, who trains law enforcement officers and others on underwater-vehicle escape, you’ve got … Continue reading How To Escape a Submerged Car Using Science

3 OTHER MASSIVE EXPLOSIONS THAT LEFT US WONDERING WHEN TACTICAL NUKES WILL MAKE THEIR DEBUT

by Vic Bishop, Staff Writer Waking Times The world has been watching footage of the massive explosion in Beirut’s main city port yesterday, causing widespread speculation as to whether or not this was a covert military operation employing some new generation of tactical small-yield nuclear weapons. So far, all indications seem to be that this blast was the result of fatal mishandling of hazardous materials, and no faction has stepped up to take responsibility for this as an attack. The official story is that a fire in a fireworks factory ignited a six year old cache of ammonium nitrate that was … Continue reading 3 OTHER MASSIVE EXPLOSIONS THAT LEFT US WONDERING WHEN TACTICAL NUKES WILL MAKE THEIR DEBUT

Why South Africa’s Military May ‘Somehow Get Involved’ in Situation in Northern Mozambique

by Oleg Burunov Northern Mozambique has been in the grip of a jihadist insurgency since 2017, with the violence having reportedly already killed more than 1,000 people there. In an article published on the website Conversation, political scientist Theo Neethling from the Bloemfontein-based University of the Free State, focused on South Africa’s position pertaining to an increase in “deadly violence” in the northern parts of Mozambique. “There is now even a possibility that the South African National Defence Force might become involved in [Mozambique’s] most northern Cabo Delgado province, with a view to ending [… the] litany of atrocities, abductions and … Continue reading Why South Africa’s Military May ‘Somehow Get Involved’ in Situation in Northern Mozambique

A Viral Pandemic or A Crime Scene?

By Gilad Atzmon  We have recently heard from frontline medical physicians that the current global health crisis is something they have not been trained to deal with nor do they fully understand the spectrum of symptoms they encounter in hospitals and emergency centres.  Earlier this week, Dr. Cameron Kyle-Sidell, an emergency physician affiliated with Maimonides Medical Center (Brooklyn), posted two insightful videos urging health practitioners to accept that COVID-19 does not cause any form of pneumonia.  Instead, the virus causes a condition of oxygen deprivation, and ventilators as they are currently being used, may cause more harm than good for some … Continue reading A Viral Pandemic or A Crime Scene?

9/11 Was an Israeli Job

How America was neoconned into World War IV by LAURENT GUYÉNOT  Technical impossibilities Thanks to courageous investigators, many anomalies in the official explanation of the events of 9/11 were posted on the Internet in the following months, providing evidence that this was a false flag operation, and that Osama bin Laden was innocent, as he repeatedly declared in the Afghan and Pakistani press and on Al Jazeera.[1] The proofs of this appalling fraud have been accumulating ever since, and are now accessible to anyone willing to spend a few hours of research on the Web. (Although, while preparing this article, I … Continue reading 9/11 Was an Israeli Job

Zen terror

Nissho Inoue at the time of his trial in June 1933. Photo courtesy the author Master Nissho Inoue and his band of assassins teach some uncomfortable truths about terrorism, for those who will hear Brian Victoria is a senior research fellow at the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies, a recognised independent centre of the University of Oxford. He is also a Buddhist priest in the Soto Zen sect. He is author of Zen War Stories (2003) and Zen at War (2006). His upcoming publication is entitled Zen Terror in Prewar Japan: Portrait of an Assassin (2019). Edited by Sam Haselby On an early winter’s morning in 1945, four … Continue reading Zen terror

The True Origins of ISIS

A poster in Baghdad depicts a man painting over a picture of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.MOHAMMED HATO / AP A secret biography suggests that Abu Ali al-Anbari defined the group’s radical approach more than any other person. by Hassan Hassan Co-author of ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror Most historians of the Islamic State agree that the group emerged out of al-Qaeda in Iraq as a response to the U.S. invasion in 2003. They also agree that it was shaped primarily by a Jordanian jihadist and the eventual head of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The Jordanian had a dark vision: He … Continue reading The True Origins of ISIS

Are Suicide Bombings Really Driven by Ideology?

image edited by Fernando Kaskais The surprising anthropology of group identity. BY BRIAN GALLAGHER Harvey Whitehouse doesn’t like how New Atheists like Richard Dawkins make religion out to be a mere “set of propositions” amounting to a “failed science.” In a 2013 YouTube video, Whitehouse—the director of the Institute of Cognitive & Evolutionary Anthropology at the University of Oxford—strolls through a park and says, “Clearly religion is not just that.”1 The point of religion is not to produce a rational understanding of nature, according to Whitehouse. It is “more about building cohesion and cooperation in groups, among other things,” he … Continue reading Are Suicide Bombings Really Driven by Ideology?

Video Of Migrants Sold In Apparent Slave Auction In Libya Provokes Outrage Worldwide

“I am horrified,” the UN secretary-general said.  By Sarah Ruiz-Grossman After a video surfaced showing migrants apparently being sold at auction in Libya, people worldwide have been calling for action. Last week, CNN published a report on modern slavery in Libya, featuring a video that reportedly was shot in August and appeared to show a man selling African migrants for farm work. “Big strong boys,” the man said in the video, according to a CNN narrator. “400 … 700 … 800,” he called out the mounting prices. The men were eventually sold for about $400 each, CNN reported. The Libyan government said it has launched … Continue reading Video Of Migrants Sold In Apparent Slave Auction In Libya Provokes Outrage Worldwide