News Clips

nivek

As Above So Below
Wow, very harsh...

British geologist Jim Fitton facing death penalty in Iraq for collecting broken pottery 'did not know it broke law'

A retired British geologist who faces the death penalty over accusations he tried to smuggle artefacts out of Iraq has told a court he had no idea he was breaking the law.

Jim Fitton, 66, collected 12 stones and shards of broken pottery as souvenirs while visiting a site in Eridu in the country's southeast as part of an organised geology and archaeology tour. He appeared with Volker Waldmann, a German tourist, before a panel of judges at a Baghdad court on Sunday wearing a yellow uniform.

They have been held in the country since the items were found in their bags as their tour group prepared to fly out of Baghdad on 20 March. The men told the court they had not acted with criminal intent.

Fitton said that he "suspected" the items he collected were ancient fragments, adding that "at the time I didn't know about Iraqi laws" or that taking the shards was not permitted. "There were fences, no guards or signage" at the sites, he said.

Jaber Abdel Jabir, the head judge, said: "These places, in name and by definition, are ancient sites. One doesn't have to say it is forbidden." When Fitton said that some of the shards were "no larger than my fingernail", the head judge said: "Size doesn't matter."

Fitton was in the habit of collecting such fragments as a hobby and had no intention of selling them, the court was told. Waldmann said the two items found in his possession were not his and had been given to him by Fitton to carry.

Both men could face the death penalty under Iraqi law.

Fitton lives in Malaysia with his wife, Sarijah. His daughter Leila Fitton, 31, and her husband Sam Tasker are based in Bath. Their petition - together with Fitton's son Joshua - calling for UK ministers to intervene to help free the geologist has collected more than 270,000 signatures.

The case was also raised in the Commons last week. Foreign Office minister James Cleverly said the British ambassador in Iraq has raised the case four times with the local authorities.


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nivek

As Above So Below
Ex-Federal Reserve chair says US economy is heading toward period of stagflation for first time since 1970s: CEO of Goldman Sachs says risk of America falling into a recession 'is very, very high'



The former head of the Federal Reserve says the US is heading toward a period of high inflation and low economic growth as the heads of Goldman Sachs and other global banks warn that a recession is coming. Ben Bernake, who led the Fed through the 2008 financial crisis, says 'stagflation' may be on the horizon. 'Even under the benign scenario, we should have a slowing economy,' he told the New York Times. Average prices are up by 8.3 percent from last year. 'And inflation's still too high but coming down. So there should be a period in the next year or two where growth is low, unemployment is at least up a little bit and inflation is still high. So you could call that stagflation,' Bernake added. Stagflation, a term coined in the 1960s, refers to low economic growth combined with high unemployment and high prices.

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nivek

As Above So Below
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nivek

As Above So Below
Former Trump aide posts searchable online database containing HUGE trove of more than 120,000 emails from Hunter Biden's abandoned laptop and calls them 'a modern day Rosetta Stone of white and blue collar crime'



Garrett Ziegler, 26, who worked under Peter Navarro in Trump's office of Trade and Manufacturing uploaded 128,775 emails to the Internet. Using the name Marco Polo, Ziegler described the emails as 'a modern Rosetta Stone of white and blue collar crime'. Included in the posts is one from Biden's former business partner James Gilliar which talked of 'H' holding 10% of the equity in a Chinese deal 'for the Big Guy'. That has widely been assumed to mean that Joe Biden would benefit from the deal. But nearly 15,000 emails, that DailyMail.com has verified, are missing from Ziegler's database

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nivek

As Above So Below
Chinese plane crash that killed 132 people in March 'was intentionally caused by someone in the cockpit', black box reveals



The China Eastern Boeing 737-800 went into a sudden nosedive, appeared to briefly recover, and then slammed into the ground in the mountainous Guangxi area on March 21. Today, the Wall Street Journal cited U.S. officials' preliminary assessment - who analysed both black boxes at a government lab in Washington, DC - which they say puts the finger at a person inside the most secure area of a plane. China Eastern airlines and the US National Transportation Safety Board did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Boeing 737-800 was en route from Kunming to Guangzhou when all 132 passengers and nine crew members died in mainland China's deadliest aviation disaster in 28 years.

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AD1184

Celestial
Chinese plane crash that killed 132 people in March 'was intentionally caused by someone in the cockpit', black box reveals



The China Eastern Boeing 737-800 went into a sudden nosedive, appeared to briefly recover, and then slammed into the ground in the mountainous Guangxi area on March 21. Today, the Wall Street Journal cited U.S. officials' preliminary assessment - who analysed both black boxes at a government lab in Washington, DC - which they say puts the finger at a person inside the most secure area of a plane. China Eastern airlines and the US National Transportation Safety Board did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Boeing 737-800 was en route from Kunming to Guangzhou when all 132 passengers and nine crew members died in mainland China's deadliest aviation disaster in 28 years.
Seems an all-to-common occurrence these days for airline pilots to steer the plane into the ground deliberately. They are some of the very worst mass murderers there have been, not counting heads of state, but it is not talked about very much.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
Audit finds half of Joe Biden’s Twitter followers are fake

Nearly half of President Biden’s 22.2 million Twitter followers are bogus, a new audit revealed. The audit, which was done for the social media giant by software firm SparkToro, found that 49.3% of the president’s followers are “fake followers,” according to Newsweek.

SparkToro has defined “fake followers” as “accounts that are unreachable and will not see the account’s tweets (either because they’re spam, bots, propaganda, etc. or because they’re no longer active on Twitter).”

Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who is attempting to buy Twitter, has expressed concern over the growing number of fake accounts and proposed a potential crackdown on the sham accounts.

Musk said he believes that 20% of all Twitter accounts are fake and vowed to not go through with his $44 billion purchase of the social media giant until the issue is resolved.

“My offer was based on Twitter’s SEC filings being accurate,” Musk said. “Yesterday, Twitter’s CEO publicly refused to show proof of <5%. This deal cannot move forward until he does.”


(More on the link)

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wwkirk

Divine
Audit finds half of Joe Biden’s Twitter followers are fake

Nearly half of President Biden’s 22.2 million Twitter followers are bogus, a new audit revealed. The audit, which was done for the social media giant by software firm SparkToro, found that 49.3% of the president’s followers are “fake followers,” according to Newsweek.

SparkToro has defined “fake followers” as “accounts that are unreachable and will not see the account’s tweets (either because they’re spam, bots, propaganda, etc. or because they’re no longer active on Twitter).”

Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who is attempting to buy Twitter, has expressed concern over the growing number of fake accounts and proposed a potential crackdown on the sham accounts.

Musk said he believes that 20% of all Twitter accounts are fake and vowed to not go through with his $44 billion purchase of the social media giant until the issue is resolved.

“My offer was based on Twitter’s SEC filings being accurate,” Musk said. “Yesterday, Twitter’s CEO publicly refused to show proof of <5%. This deal cannot move forward until he does.”


(More on the link)

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The scale of the deception is rather shocking! At least to me.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
The scale of the deception is rather shocking! At least to me.

I'm suspecting the Twitter group are responsible for setting up this fake follower count given the revelations from Twitter over the last few days, some of which has been posted in the Elon Musk thread...

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nivek

As Above So Below

nivek

As Above So Below
The US is the number one place in the world for dictators, oligarchs and crooks to stash their dirty money, new report claims

The United States has ranked first - and worst - in a global ranking for countries which provide financial secrecy to dictators, oligarchs, organized criminals and wealthy tax dodgers.

The US comfortably beat out perennial tax-dodge-enablers Switzerland into second place due to its refusal to reciprocally exchange information about who is using its financial services with other countries’ tax authorities.

The Financial Secrecy Index 2022, released yesterday, calculates each country's score by combining how intensely the country's financial and legal system allows individuals to hide and launder money extracted from around the world with the volume of financial services the country provides to non-residents.

The US' secrecy ranking is not so far from the norm at 67 out of 100 (with 100 being total secrecy), but as it provides some 25 per cent of the world's financial services, it is deemed to be the world's number one financial secrecy provider by the Tax Justice Network, the charity which produces the Financial Secrecy Index.

Microstates Singapore, Hong Kong and Luxembourg make up the rest of the top five, with Japan, Germany and the UAE coming in sixth and seventh and eighth respectively.

The top ten is rounded out by UK crown dependencies the British Virgin Islands and Guernsey, with the UK itself coming in at thirteenth. If the UK was combined with its crown dependencies, it would come in at first place for financial secrecy, ahead of the US.

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nivek

As Above So Below
Gas stations in Washington reprogram pumps to prepare for $10-a-gallon fuel as average price soars to $4.57-a-gallon - almost twice the $2.41 during Trump's final month in office

A national gas station chain is reprogramming its pumps in Washington state to accommodate $10-a-gallon fuel prices as the average price of gasoline across the country soars to $4.57 - almost twice the $2.41 average during Trump's last month in office. Other stations in the state have begun running out of gas, with a local Facebook group identifying 10 stations that have run out of fuel. Meanwhile some states - such as California - are reporting spiraling prices of up to $5.98 this week.

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nivek

As Above So Below
Biden reveals drastic plan to fix baby formula crisis as he FINALLY invokes Defense Production Act to speed up manufacturing and orders Pentagon planes to fly in shipments from overseas after pressure from his own party

President Biden invoked the Defense Production Act on Wednesday evening to boost baby formula production and issued a directive authorizing planes to bring in supplies from overseas, after growing pressure from Congress. Biden announced 'Operation Fly Formula,' which will direct Defense Department and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Health and Human Services (HHS) resources to getting planes loaded with formula that meets FDA safety standards from other countries to bring it to American parents. The announcement comes after earlier in the day 20 members of the House, eighteen Democrats, two Republicans, and many who face competitive re-election races, co-sponsored the resolution, led by Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J. Biden said imports of baby formula will bridge the gap until domestic production was increased.


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nivek

As Above So Below
'There's really nothing else I'd rather eat': McDonald's lover celebrates eating a Big Mac nearly EVERY DAY for the past 50 YEARS after consuming more than 32,000 of them since 1972



Don Gorske, 68, from Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, has been averaging two Big Macs a day since he ate his first one on May 17, 1972. He holds the Guinness World Records title for the most Big Mac burgers eaten in a lifetime after first setting the record in 1999. On Tuesday, he marked the 50th anniversary of his first Big Mac by chowing down on the burger at his local McDonald's, where a sign was put up in his honor. In the past five decades, he has only gone eight days without eating the burger. Gorske has had close to 33,000 Big Macs in his lifetime, and he plans on eating them until the day he dies.

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