Governance of the skies: Attack on the drones: the creeping privatisation of our urban airspace We woke up before dawn and caught the first train to Waterloo, so we could capture some aerial footage in the early morning London light with no one around. We were interested in using a drone to get a vantage point that no rooftop could offer, looking down on the under-renovation South Bank Tower. Lifting off from a grassy, flat expanse next to the river Thames, we quickly vaulted to the height of a 30-storey building and began capturing slow, sweeping images from a bird’s-eye view. But then a security guard emerged from the building and ran towards us. “You can’t fly that here,” he yelled. We were keeping the drone within our line of sight, as per Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) regulations, and my co-flyer Adam Fish responded: “Sorry but we can.
Professor Sanders Offers a History Lecture Hillary Clinton once joked that she comes from the ’60s. But sometimes Bernie Sanders still lives there. As the Iowa caucus rapidly approaches, Sanders has begun some of his speeches with an ode to past social movements, including labor rights, women’s suffrage, civil rights and gay rights. In front of crowds, he ticks them off one by one and teaches them like a history lesson. In all of them, the moral arc is the same: some people had it rough, they banded together and fought the man, and then they won.
Saudi war crimes: Double standards and whitewashing? — RT Op-Edge Catherine Shakdam is a political analyst, writer and commentator for the Middle East with a special focus on radical movements and Yemen. Published time: June 05, 2015 13:08 Smoke billows from a Houthi-controlled military site after it was hit by a Saudi-led air strike in Sanaa, Yemen, June 3, 2015. (Reuters/Khaled Abdullah) As Yemen sinks further into the pyre of war, Saudi Arabia has used its billions to whitewash intolerable war crimes and human rights abuses against civilian populations. From cluster bombs to chemical attacks, is there an end to Al Saud’s spiral? For sick ground zero workers, 9/11 never ends Nearly 3,000 people died at the World Trade Center on 9/11. But the list of victims keeps growing. Seventy-thousand men and women worked in the ruins at ground zero. Many now suffer from illnesses officially linked to the toxic smoke and dust, including respiratory and gastric diseases.
Populism is poison. Plural cities are the antidote The world’s most powerful nation states are flirting with catastrophic conflict. Whether it is in Europe, Asia or the Middle East, for the first time since the 1960s we are facing a real possibility of nuclear confrontation. With nation states distracted, the threat of irreversible climate change also looms large. Global anxiety is feeding the growth of nationalist movements, emboldened by the drum beat of populism. Anti-immigrant and anti-establishment parties are capitalizing on public disquiet, gaining footholds in political systems across the planet. But as alarming as all this sounds, there are opportunities to head off potential disaster.
What is Mannerpunk? Your guide to weaponized etiquette You already know about Steampunk. Thanks to Mad Max: Fury Road you've hopefully heard about Dieselpunk. And if you're really on top of your cultural trends, you may even be into Dreadpunk. Donbass and the “Big Game”: Reformatting Ukraine is on the Agenda. “Russia will not Remain on the Sidelines” Latest horrible ceasefire violations in Donbass by the Kiev’s regime are likely intended to demonstrate the “inefficiency” of the OSCE mission to its Western patrons and are evidence of Ukraine’s attempts to circumvent the jurisdiction of the Minsk truce co-brokered by Russia, Germany, and France. Indeed, Minsk-2 is very inconvenient for Poroshenko, because it documents for the first time the need for direct dialog between Kiev and the Donbass. And they need to discuss more than just war and peace, because in fact there are a whole range of issues that must be resolved politically, such as the format for local elections, as well as constitutional reform and economic recovery in Ukraine.
Untold stories of heroism from 9/11 NEW YORK - Before the attacks of 9/11, the Courtlandt Street subway stop was at the foot of the Twin Towers. This was where tens of thousands of New Yorkers got off the train to head into the World Trade Center. Joe Irizarry was the motorman who drove many of them to work. "I have no desire to come back," Irizarry tells CBS News correspondent Jim Axelrod. Who could blame him? America’s dominance is over. By 2030, we'll have a handful of global powers The world's political landscape in 2030 will look considerably different to the present one. Nation states will remain the central players. There will be no single hegemonic force but instead a handful of countries – the U.S., Russia, China, Germany, India and Japan chief among them – exhibiting semi-imperial tendencies. Power will be more widely distributed across non-state networks, including regressive ones. And vast conurbations of mega-cities and their peripheries will exert ever greater influence.
Al-Aqsa Intifada timeline The second Palestinian intifada or uprising broke out at the end of September 2000 and is named after the Jerusalem mosque complex where the violence began. Frustrations that years of the negotiation had failed to deliver a Palestinian state were intensified by the collapse of the Camp David summit in July 2000. Ariel Sharon, then the leader of Israel's opposition, paid a visit to the site in East Jerusalem known to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif, and to Jews as Temple Mount, which houses the al-Aqsa mosque - and frustration boiled over into violence. The timeline below highlights the key events. 28 September: Ariel Sharon's visit to the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount - against the background of the failure of the peace process - provides one of the sparks that ignites a cycle of violence.
Bin Laden’s son asked US for father’s death certificate – WikiLeaks — RT USA Published time: June 20, 2015 14:37 Osama bin-Laden. (Reuters) WikiLeaks has released a letter revealing how one of Osama bin Laden’s sons had asked Washington for a death certificate after US Navy SEALS said they had taken him out. The document is one of 70,000 collectively dubbed “The Saudi Cables.” The trove, in its turn, is part of an even bigger collection totaling more than half a million papers tracing back to the Saudi Foreign Ministry and other institutions in the country. Israeli navy kills four Palestinians off Gaza coast Hamas policemen inspect a boat on the coast of Deir al-Balah, in Gaza. Photograph: Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images At least four Palestinians were killed when Israeli navy commandos opened fire on what they said was a squad of militants in diving suits off the coast of Gaza today. The Palestinians "were on their way to carry out an attack in Israel", a military spokesman said.
Sydney, Vancouver mayors vow to fight climate change despite... "Denial doesn't stop climate change accelerating so it's even more important for cities to do their bit" MEXICO CITY, Nov 30 (Reuters) - Cities around the world can combat climate change without national government support, the mayors of Sydney and Vancouver said on Wednesday, amid fears that a Donald Trump U.S. presidency could undermine efforts to limit global warming. The two were in Mexico City for the C40 Mayors' Summit, where nearly 50 mayors and deputies from around the globe will discuss environmental issues such as air pollution.
Q&A: Oil-for-food scandal Since Saddam Hussein was toppled in April 2003 evidence has emerged of corruption within the oil-for-food (OFF) programme administered by the UN. The BBC News website examines the key questions. Q: What was the oil-for-food programme? It was a $60bn (£32bn) scheme which was supposed to allow Iraq to buy food, medicine and other humanitarian supplies with the proceeds of regulated oil sales, without breaking the sanctions imposed on it after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. The programme - set up in 1996 - aimed to relieve the suffering of ordinary Iraqis under the sanctions.