World News

Turning Greenhouse Gas into Pure Liquid Fuel

September 6, 2019 by Source

Lab’s ‘green’ invention reduces carbon dioxide into valuable fuels

Rice University / Science Daily / September 3, 2019

Summary:

An electrocatalysis reactor built at Rice University recycles carbon dioxide to produce pure liquid fuel solutions using electricity. The scientists behind the invention hope it will become an efficient and profitable way to reuse the greenhouse gas and keep it out of the atmosphere.

A common greenhouse gas could be repurposed in an efficient and environmentally friendly way with an electrolyzer that uses renewable electricity to produce pure liquid fuels.

The catalytic reactor developed by the Rice University lab of chemical and biomolecular engineer Haotian Wang uses carbon dioxide as its feedstock and, in its latest prototype, produces highly purified and high concentrations of formic acid.

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We Had the Bronze Age, We Had the Iron Age – Now, We Have the Plastic Age, Say Scientists

September 5, 2019 by Source

The Guardian
Plastic pollution is being deposited into the fossil record, research has found, with contamination increasing exponentially since 1945.

Scientists suggest the plastic layers could be used to mark the start of the Anthropocene, the proposed geological epoch in which human activities have come to dominate the planet. They say after the bronze and iron ages, the current period may become known as the plastic age.

The study, the first detailed analysis of the rise in plastic pollution in sediments, examined annual layers off the coast of California back to 1834. They discovered the plastic in the layers mirrors precisely the exponential rise in plastic production over the past 70 years

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Asteroid ‘Out of Nowhere’ Flew By Only 45,000 Miles From Earth

August 5, 2019 by Frank Gormlie

On July 25 a hunk of space rock named Asteroid 2019 flew uncomfortably close to Earth. And no one seemed aware it was coming.

The rock was about 187 to 427 feet wide and it moved on a course that brought it within 45,000 miles of the Earth’s surface. That’s one-fifth of the distance to the moon. One scientist stated: “It’s probably the largest asteroid to pass this close to Earth in quite a number of years.”

As the Washington Post reported:

This asteroid wasn’t one that scientists had long been tracking, and it had seemingly appeared from “out of nowhere,”

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Native Hawaiians and Supporters Enter Second Week of Blockade of Work on Giant Telescope on Mauna Kea- ‘The Rock’ Joins Them

July 26, 2019 by Frank Gormlie

Protesters blocking the construction of a giant telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii’s tallest mountain, are about to enter their second week of the civil disobedient demonstration. They were joined on Wednesday, July 24 by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson who came to show support.

Johnson – the actor and former wrestler – joined the protesters during their 10th day of the blockade of the construction road leading up to the planned site of the observatory. Native Hawaiian groups say the mountain, which already hosts 13 telescopes, is sacred, and another observatory will further desecrate the mountain on the Big Island.

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OB Resister Sisters Remember Bastille Day

July 15, 2019 by Staff

Sunday, July 14 was Bastille Day, the national holiday in France commemorating the 1789 storming of the Bastille, the fortress-like prison in Paris.

The Resister Sisters of Ocean Beach hung this sign Sunday over the I-5 in downtown San Diego.

Vive La Resistance!

Oh, you don’t recall what happened on Bastille Day?

See this:

July 14th: Viva Bastille Day! Viva la France! Viva Revolution! Viva the modern world!

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Iraq Vows to Stand With Iran if Iran Is Attacked by U.S.

May 29, 2019 by Frank Gormlie

It’s a little-known story that’s not breaking through U.S. mainstream media, but something that Americans need to know:

Iraq’s leaders are vowing to stand with Iran if Iran is attacked by the United States.

Period. Now just grok that for a moment. Iraq will stand with Iran if Trump moves on Iran militarily.

Iraq’s Foreign Minister Mohamed Ali al-Hakim made the pledge following talks with his Iranian counterpart.

Hakim said:

“We stand by our neighbor Iran, and economic sanctions are unnecessary and cause great suffering to the Iranian people.”

This is all in the midst of the US government ramping up its rhetoric against what it calls the Iranian threat.

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9 Easy Propaganda Steps to War With Iran

May 16, 2019 by Source

By Juan Cole / Reader Supported News / May 16, 2019

he Trump administration is now in full disinformation mode, using all the classical techniques of propaganda to put the gullible US public on a war footing with Iran. Here is how it is done.

1. Iran warmongers like National Security Adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pretend to speak for US interests instead of for the narrow and sectarian interests that want a war. Bolton has taken big bucks from the Iranian expatriate People’s Jihadis (MEK), which the State Department for long listed as a terrorist organization. NBC news at one point linked it to Israeli intelligence, and others have suggested a Saudi link. Pompeo is a Kansas oil man and we all know what oil men do to the Middle East (think Bush and Cheney).

2. Having hidden behind the flag, the latter-day Goebbelses then invent an emergency. The favored propaganda talking point at the moment is that US troops and diplomats are in danger. US troops and diplomats are always in danger. It is their job to be in danger. If we don’t want them in danger we should bring them home from dangerous places like Iraq.

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Once Again, Mainstream Media Get It Wrong on Venezuela

May 3, 2019 by Source

News outlets, dutifully supporting Trump administration calls for regime change, reported that a widespread uprising was underway, even though Juan Guaidó’s coup attempt had little support.

By Michael Fox / Nation Magazine / May 2, 2019

Caracas—It began with a tweet.

In it, Venezuela’s self-declared president, Juan Guaidó, stands in front of a line of military vehicles and rows of Venezuelan soldiers in green uniforms. Beside them is opposition leader Leopoldo López, whom they have freed from house arrest, which stemmed from his role in the 2014 guarimba street protests in which dozens of people were killed.

Guaidó, dressed in a black suit and a white shirt, talks to the camera. “Today, the armed forces are clearly with the people,” he says. “The time is now.” He calls on the military to rise up and says they are in the streets. He insinuates that they have taken the Carlota military base in eastern Caracas.

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Trump Administration Takes Illegal and Dangerous Actions toward Regime Change in Venezuela

April 10, 2019 by Source

By Marjorie Cohn / TruthOut / April 8, 2019

The United States is taking illegal and dangerous actions to execute regime change in Venezuela. In January, Juan Guaidó declared himself “interim president,” in a strategy orchestrated by the United States to seize power from President Nicolás Maduro.

In March, Guaidó announced that “Operation Freedom,” an organization established to overthrow the Maduro government, would take certain “tactical actions” beginning on April 6. Part of the plan anticipates that the Venezuelan military will turn against Maduro.

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‘Standing With Our Muslim Brothers and Sisters’

March 18, 2019 by Ernie McCray

By Ernie McCray – Posted on March 15, 2019 on Facebook

I had no idea
when I opened my eyes
on this beautiful day
that I would,
a bit later,
at midday,
be standing with a number
of loving peace seeking folks,
shaking our heads,
pledging, in our sadness,
to stay the course
against the madness
that brought us together
on this ill fated day:
our Muslim brothers and sisters
in New Zealand

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A ‘Lost Colony’ of Monarch Butterflies Found in Mexico

February 22, 2019 by Source

Long-sought hidden monarchs’ colony was found in December

From Mexico News Daily/ February 18, 2019

Owners of communal land located near the Nevado de Toluca volcano in México state have discovered a monarch butterfly colony long searched for by park rangers and conservationists.

A small group of ejidatarios, or communal landowners, was carrying out a routine patrol of their forested land within the Nevado de Toluca National Park just before Christmas when they found the butterflies hanging in massive clumps from the branches of Oyamel fir trees on a steep mountainside.

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Hey Trump! Hands Off Venezuela! – San Diego Protest – Friday, Feb. 22 at 4:30-6 pm

February 22, 2019 by Staff

There’s a “Hands Off Venezeula” demonstration this Friday, February 22, 2019 at 4:30 – 6 PM – at the San Diego Federal Courthouse in downtown San Diego.

Protest Trump’s efforts to get his regime change in Venezuela.

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What’s Really Going On in Venezuela

February 6, 2019 by Source

By Marc Ash / Reader Supported News / Feb. 06 2019

What the US corporate media is not telling you about the situation in Venezuela is why the Venezuelan economy is in such trouble.

Since 1999, the US has waged economic warfare against Venezuela in an attempt to destabilize and deconstruct the Socialist Revolution started by former Venezuelan president and close Fidel Castro ally Hugo Chavez.

The US wants Venezuela, with its rich oil reserves, to be a compliant client-state. That was what motivated the Cuban Revolution and that is what drives anti-colonialist sentiment in Venezuela today.

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Team Trump Is Orchestrating a Coup in Venezuela In Plain Sight

February 5, 2019 by Source

By Marjorie Cohn / TruthOut / Feb. 2, 2019

As Venezuela’s second president, Simon Bolivar, noted in the 19th century, the US government continues to “plague Latin America with misery in the name of liberty.”

From engineering coups in Chile and Guatemala, to choreographing a troop landing at the Bay of Pigs intended to establish an exile government in Cuba, to training Latin American strongmen at the School of the Americas in torture techniques to control their people, the United States has meddled, interfered, intervened and undermined the democracies it claims to protect.

Now, Vice President Mike Pence, CIA Director Mike Pompeo, National Security Adviser John Bolton, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) and the infamous Elliott Abrams are working with opposition groups in Venezuela to carry out a coup d’état.

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World Health Organization Calls for Removal of Cannabis from Narcotics Scheduling

February 5, 2019 by Source

Cannabis Rescheduling Could Change Its Status on Global Scale

By David Mangone / Americans for Safe Access / February 01, 2019

On February 1st, the World Health Organization (WHO) made an announcement that has the potential to change the status of medical cannabis globally. The WHO has determined that cannabis and cannabis resin should be removed from Schedule IV of the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs (which is different than the U.S. Controlled Substances Act scheduling) and divided into more specific categories in lower schedules. For, example compound pharmaceutical preparations containing THC would be placed in Schedule III and CBD preparations would be removed from scheduling entirely.

If these recommendations are adopted by the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs this would effectively nullify the excuse of violating international treaty which many governments use as an excuse to block medical cannabis reform in their country.

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50 Years Ago Today – October 2, 1968: Massacre in Mexico City

October 2, 2018 by Frank Gormlie

Troops opened fire on protesters in La Plaza de las Tres Culturas - APWhen I traveled in Mexico in the late 1970s, I would often come across political graffiti that read “gobierno asesino” with ‘remember October 2’ inscribed on walls or fences. These referred to the huge massacre in Mexico City of protesters on October 2, 1968, right around the time of the Summer Olympics in that city.

Fifty years ago today. Thousands were killed by the bullets of soldiers and police in an unbelievable display of authoritarian might in our southern neighbor. This mass murder came down at the Plaza de las Tres Culturas in Tlatelolco . The protests in Mexico City mirrored upheavals around the world that explosive year – in Paris, in Prague, in Chicago. Yet no where else, did a government simply murder so many of its own citizens as in Mexico City.

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Today All of Palestine Is On Strike.

May 15, 2018 by Source

By Cathy

Today all of Palestine is on strike. No schools, no business as usual…all in solidarity with the people of Gaza. Words truly fail us today, but we are safe and together. The streets are eerily quiet.

When we visited Balata Refugee Camp last week a person on the delegation asked Ibrahim from Balata what he told his children about his life. He had been shot by the Israeli police at a demonstration and had been thought dead.

He told us that he never talked about this with his young children. That he talked with them about the need for a good education and that he wanted them to have hope.

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Recent Visit to Iran Dispels American Myths – Author Finds a Complex Country and Friendly People

July 26, 2017 by Source

By Beau Grosscup

With American claims abound both in the media and during the recent Presidential campaign that Iran is the de-stabilizing force in the Middle East (unchallenged by any presidential candidate) in mind, I recently accepted an invitation to speak at Tehran University’s Human Rights Conference.

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Reflections on the Syrian Nerve Gas Bombing and the US Bombing Response

April 18, 2017 by Source

My Reflections on the Syrian Nerve Gas Bombing of April 4th, 2017, the April 7th U.S. Bombing of the Syrian Airbase, and Possibilities for the future!

by Peter Bohmer, April 15, 2017

The evidence has continued to mount that the Syrian air force dropped Sarin gas on Khan Shaykhun in Idlib province in Syria on April 4th, 2017 killing at least 80 people and seriously wounding hundreds. Evidence includes eyewitness accounts, statements by doctors and other medical personnel in Turkey who treated the wounded, statements by various scientific organizations that it was Sarin gas dropped from the air, the past use of Sarin by the Assad regime in 2013 gas and the implausibility and obvious falsehoods of the Russians and Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad about the attack.

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Russian Bots and Bernie Lovers

March 22, 2017 by Frank Gormlie

Last Tuesday night on MSNBC, Rachel Maddow did an extensive report on how Russians used information warfare during the 2016 presidential campaign to undermine the Hillary Clinton campaign. And, she said, they are still using those cyber tactics to this day.

One of the main ways the Russians worked to throw sand on the Clinton electoral machine, was to sow discord among Bernie Sanders supporters and divide them from pivoting after the Primary to give Clinton their donations and volunteer hours.

The primary example Maddow used when she was drawing attention to the Russian information warfare effort against the United States was a fake Bernie Sanders supporters Facebook page that appears to be part of the Russian game plan. It’s called Bernie Sanders Lovers, and despite what the home page says about it being from Vermont, it’s actually out of Albania.

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Nuclear Shutdown News – February 2017

March 1, 2017 by Michael Steinberg

Nuclear Shutdown News chronicles the decline and fall of the nuclear power industry in the US and abroad, and highlights the efforts of those who are working for a nuclear free world. Here is out February 2017 report:

By Michael Steinberg / Black Rain Press

1. Fire and explosion at French nuclear plant.

Various media outlets reported that on February 9, a fire and explosion happened at the Flamanville nuclear plant, forcing the shutdown of one of its two reactors there. The nuke is located in Normandy on that country’s northwest coast, facing the English Channel.

The BBC reported: “The explosion and fire happened in the turbine room.”

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Alternative Fact: There Ain’t No Such Thing as Global Warming

February 23, 2017 by John Lawrence

2016 Breaks 2015’s Record Which Broke 2014’s Record

By John Lawrence

Global WarmingFor the third year in a row planet Earth has set records for hottest year on the planet. It is the first time in the modern era of global warming data that temperatures have blown past the previous record three years in a row.

Meanwhile, President Trump took down the White House climate change website. He has called global warming a hoax and a Chinese plot, and staffed his administration with global warming deniers.

The heat extremes were especially noticeable in the Arctic region where temperatures are running 20 to 30 degrees Fahrenheit above normal. Sea ice is melting at a rapid pace and coastal communities are dealing with rapid beach erosion. Polar bears are losing their habitat and starving.

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Trump’s 7-Nation Immigration Ban Excluded Saudi Arabia – the Largest Purchaser of U.S. Military Equipment

February 16, 2017 by John Lawrence

Egypt Also Excluded – Major Recipient of U.S. Military Aid

By John Lawrence

Why did Trump try to impose tighter vetting on 7 nations in the Middle East without including Saudi Arabia and Egypt? Could it be that it’s because Saudi Arabia which is a hotbed of terrorism is also an ally of the US and an enemy of Iran?

Fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers were Saudis. Osama bin Laden was a Saudi. The machete wielding attacker at the Louvre recently was Egyptian. Neither Egypt nor Pakistan nor Afghanistan were included on the so-called President’s list. Pakistan harbored bin Laden. Afghanistan is the home of the Taliban. If Trump had wanted to keep terrorists out of the US, surely he should have included these countries in his ban. But terrorism is more about U.S. alliances than it is about morality or human rights.

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Trump’s Long Shadow Falls on San Diego Immigrants, Refugees, Muslims

February 2, 2017 by Anna Daniels

From City Heights Town Hall to Airport Protest

By Anna Daniels / San Diego Free Press

“Tell me what democracy looks like!”

“This is what democracy looks like!”

The chant ran up and down the whole length of Terminal 2 of San Diego’s Lindbergh Airport, up and down the opposite side of the terminal and could be heard on the second floor walkway. Three lines of cars ran between the two and those cars honked their horns while passengers waved flags and held signs outside of the windows.

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Defending the Earth from Donald Trump

January 31, 2017 by Source

By David Helvarg / The Progressive

As a coastal developer, Donald Trump has bulldozed ancient sand dunes and opposed offshore wind turbines (because they “ruined the view”) in Scotland, sought to build seawalls and fill in (smother) seagrass meadows and coral reefs in Florida, and built golf club luxury homes on a geologically unstable bluff in California where the eighteenth hole had earlier fallen into the sea.

Myron Ebell, the man Trump tapped to oversee the transition team at the Environmental Protection Agency, is a well-known climate-change denier from the libertarian (and partly fossil fuel funded) Competitive Enterprise Institute. In the past he’s worked as the D.C. lobbyist for Chuck “Rent-a-Riot” Cushman, one of the more extreme leaders of the Wise Use movement of the 1990s. Ebell also promoted “safer cigarettes” (the “clean coal” of our lungs) with funding from Philip Morris.

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San Diegans Responding to Trump Muslim Ban With Airport Protests

January 30, 2017 by Doug Porter

Muslim Ban

By Doug Porter /San Diego Free Press

As of Noon Sunday – Jan. 29th -, two thousand people have responded to a call on Facebook for a protest scheduled for Terminal 2 (International Arrivals) at Lindbergh Field starting at 5pm.

According to social media posts, the theme for the demonstration is #NoBan #NoWall.

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Obama Commutes Sentence of Chelsea Manning

January 18, 2017 by Source

President Obama has commuted the sentence of Chelsea Manning, the Army intelligence analyst who leaked American military and diplomatic activities in 2010, and who had become a cause celebre over those years. This act likely saved her life.

According to the New York Times:

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Trump Foes Issue Call to ‘Resist Fascism’ – Urge Millions to Rise Up

January 5, 2017 by Source

‘Millions must rise up in a resistance [to] stop the Trump/Pence regime before it starts!’

By Nadia Prupis / Common Dreams

“No! In the name of humanity we refuse to accept a fascist America!” the ad states. (Image: RefuseFascism.org)

Thousands of activists, journalists, scientists, entertainers, and other prominent voices took out a full-page call to action in the New York Times on Wednesday making clear their rejection of President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence with the simple message: “No!”

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Veterans For Peace Statement on Syria

January 2, 2017 by Source

Veterans for Peace logo: dove with olive branch superimposed on army helmetBy Veterans for Peace

The war in Syria has been ongoing for five years, with the situation in Aleppo, once Syria’s most populous city, having deteriorated over the past four years into a multi-proxy war and a humanitarian disaster.

We have seen strong disagreements within the peace movement on the reasons behind this war, and on what our response should be. Those disagreements even exist within our ranks. As we struggle through the complexities of the war, we recognize that most of us are far removed from it, fortunate to be safe in our homes and able to voice these disagreements without fear of reprisal.

However, our mission at Veterans For Peace has not changed. We oppose war.

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The Celtic Roots of Christmas Traditions

December 24, 2016 by Source


by Alastair Kneale / Transceltic / December 15, 2016

The roots of the Christmas traditions that we recognize today can be traced back to pre-Christian celebrations of the Winter solstice.

The solstice is the twice yearly event when the sun appears to be at its highest or lowest point above the horizon. In the northern hemisphere the Winter solstice usually occurs annually between December 20 and December 23.

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