Noting that since the September 11th terrorist attacks on the United States, the response by governments to the threat of terrorism had been massively disproportionate, resulting in.
- fundamental rights being routinely violated and undermined,
- a raft of mass surveillance measures targeting journalists and media organizations being introduced,
- laws and regulations that undermine almost half of the minimum standards set out in the 1948 UN Universal Declaration on Human Rights being enacted by governments, often in the absence of scrutiny and debate, and
- media and independent journalism suffering in a “pervasive atmosphere of paranoia” which is leading to dangerous levels of self-censorship,
The entire 9/11 field of inquiry has been vilified, poisoned over the years by ridicule, sometimes fantastic conspiracy mongering, and fearfulness by journalists of approaching the material, lest they be branded as irresponsible or some kind of conspiracy freak. As a result, little work has been done to investigate, except by a small group of people, some of whom have raised some real questions …
Is it just me, or are the 9/11 commemorations oddly subdued? Actually, I don’t think it’s me, and it’s not really that odd.
Fifty new alien worlds, including 16 "super Earths," have been found—the largest extrasolar planet haul announced at one time, astronomers say. The discoveries bring the total number of known extrasolar planets, or exoplanets, to 645.
Last month was the deadliest for U.S. troops in Afghanistan in the ten years of the war there, with 67 killed, nearly half of them Navy SEALs in the downing of a Chinook helicopter — the deadliest single incident in this, the longest war in American history. More promisingly, it was also the first month since the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 that not a single U.S. soldier was killed there.
A furnace at a nuclear-waste incinerator in southern France exploded Monday, killing one person and injuring four others.
Similarly, a high-level military intelligence officer says that his unit – tasked with tracking Bin Laden prior to 9/11 – was pulled off the task, and there warnings that the World Trade Center and Pentagon were being targeted were ignored.
A substance found in a native British flower has been turned into a powerful "smart bomb" drug that can work against a range of cancers.
Authorities are trying to find 14,000 rounds of ammunition missing from Fort Bragg in North Carolina.
