March 29, 2024

The Power Hour

Knowledge is Power

Today's News: January 24, 2019

World News

Military leaders claim Venezuela opposition leader is attempting a ‘coup d’etat’ as they back President Maduro in face of US opposition and street protests

Daily Mail – Venezuela’s powerful military high command threw its weight behind President Nicolas Maduro on Thursday as opposition leader Juan Guaido pressed a direct challenge to his authority with the backing of the United States and key Latin American allies.

Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino, a general, accused Guaido of attempting a ‘coup d’etat’ and said Maduro, 56, is ‘the legitimate president.’

Eight generals who command of strategic regions of the country reiterated their ‘absolute loyalty and subordination’ to the socialist leader in messages carried on state television.

Some ended their statements by adding: ‘Always loyal, never traitors.’

In Washington, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned the Maduro government against the use of force against demonstrators in a speech to the Organization of American States.

Russia, Turkey, China denounce US interference in Venezuela

Al Jazeera – Turkey, Russia, and China came to the aid of Venezuela’s leader on Thursday after the United States declared Nicolas Maduro was no longer its president.

The pledges of support came after opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself interim president of Venezuela in an address to tens of thousands of people on the streets of the capital, Caracas.

“We are with you,” Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told Maduro in a telephone call, according to his spokesman Ibrahim Kalin. “My brother Maduro. Stay strong, we are by your side.”

Erdogan said the democratic process must be respected.

“As a country that believes in democracy … wherever in the world there is a coup attempt, we stand against them all without distinction. Everyone has to respect the result of the ballot boxes.”

>> Related: Venezuela cuts US ties citing its support for ‘coup’ attempt

Al Jazeera – President Maduro fires back at US by breaking diplomatic relations and giving American diplomats 72 hours to leave.

Hitler’s plans for a ‘final solution’ in North America: Canada’s national archive acquires book owned by the Nazi leader that it believes was his blueprint for a purge of Jews

Daily Mail – A book which belonged to Adolf Hitler has been uncovered in Ottawa mapping the Third Reich’s sinister intentions for a ‘final solution’ for Jews across North America.

From remote towns with populations of just 52 Jews, to large metropolitan hubs like Toronto with tens of thousands of potential victims – the Nazis wanted their murderous purge of the Jews to extend across the Atlantic.

The book, ‘Statistics, Press, and Organizations of Jewry in the United States and Canada‘, is a grim analysis of the Jewish populations of North America.

It details Jewish demographics and distributions across the US and Canada, as well as important Jewish organizations and the Jewish press.

Hitler planned to keep the United States out of the war and Nazi propaganda, prior to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s declaration, had courted the American media.

Coincidence? Venezuela Green Lights Russia to Mine Gold, Days Later US Attempts Overthrow

Activist Post – The decades-long US infatuation with Venezuela came to a head on Wednesday as the United States, Canada, Brazil, and others all declared a man who never even ran for the office of presidency, much less got elected to the office, as the president of Venezuela.

On Wednesday, Juan Gerardo Guaidó Márquez took a public oath of office and swore himself in as the President of Venezuela. He assumed this office with zero democratic process—essentially making himself a dictator—and was immediately declared legitimate by Washington.

This move by Washington to recognize Guaidó as the official president is a page out of the book they’ve used over the last two decades to invade and destroy countries like Iraq, Libya, and Syria. The exact same rhetoric from the bipartisan warmongers in DC is being put out once more as shills like Marco Rubio threaten all-out war. All of the sudden, Trump’s haters are coming together in solidarity, seething with their warmongering mucus over the potential for a Venezuelan conflict.

For those who don’t remember, nearly the exact same tactics were used just before the US invaded Libya and turned this bastion of hope in Africa into a terror-infused hell-state in which human slaves are now openly sold in public.

Just like Guaidó claimed to be president and was recognized by the US, in Libya, the head of the Libyan National Transitional Council, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, threatened mass deaths if the West did not intervene and was quickly given control. Days later, the Libyan NTC was officially recognized as the Libyan government and the Gaddafi regime was out. Days after this, NATO powers, led by the US, proceeded to turn Libya into the war ravaged hell hole it is today.

Pope Francis: Fear of Migrants Is ‘Making Us Crazy’

Breitbart – Pope Francis told journalists that fear of migrants is “making us crazy,” when asked what he thought about the proposed border wall between the United States and Mexico.

“These are walls of fear,” continued the pope, the ruler of the only completely walled-in country in the world and the smallest independent state by both area and population.

In his short presser with journalists aboard the papal plane en route to Panama Wednesday, the pontiff went on to recommend a recent editorial in the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, which contrasts the idea of “brotherhood” with that of “fear.”

U.S. News, Politics & Government

Florida gunman, 21, kills five people in SunTrust Bank shooting

Al Jazeera – A former prison guard trainee who recently moved to Florida from Indiana killed five people during a standoff at a small town bank before surrendering to a SWAT team that stormed the building, police said.

Investigators said Zephen Xaver, 21, called police from inside the SunTrust Bank branch on Wednesday to report that he had opened fire.

He barricaded himself inside and when negotiations failed, the SWAT team burst in, capturing Xaver and discovering the bodies, police said.

Investigators did not offer a possible motive, and a police spokesperson said he did not know if the attack began as a robbery. The victims were not immediately identified as families are still being notified.

U.S. Combats Child Marriage Abroad, Grants Thousands of Spousal Visas for Immigrant Kids

Judicial Watch – While the U.S. government advances policies to prevent child marriage in foreign countries it approves thousands of petitions filed by Americans seeking spouse or fiancé visas for children born abroad. In the last decade more than 8,500 petitions for spousal entry into the U.S. involved minors, according to government figures included in a Senate Homeland Security report (How the U.S. Immigration System Encourages Child Marriages) released this month. In an overwhelming number of the cases girls were the younger party and in some there were “significant age differences,” Senate investigators found. Two were only 13 years old, 38 were 14 years old, 269 were 15 years old, and 1,768 were 16. The remaining 6,609 were 17 years old, according to the records which were obtained from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

In a disturbing example, the agency approved a 71-year-old American citizen’s visa request for a 17-year-old spouse from Guatemala. In another, the agency granted a 14-year-old U.S. citizen’s petition for a 48-year-old spouse from Jamaica. USCIS also rubber-stamped 149 applications involving a minor with an adult spouse or fiancé over the age of 40. Nearly 5,000 minors in the United States on spousal or fiancé visas received green cards to become lawful permanent residents, federal figures show. “U.S. law and U.S. Department of State policy aim to prevent and reduce the risks of child marriages occurring around the world, yet major loopholes in U.S. law have allowed thousands of minors to be subjected to child marriages,” the senate report states. “Under the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”), a U.S. child may petition for a visa for a spouse or fiancé living in another country, and a U.S. adult may petition for a visa for a minor spouse or fiancé living abroad.”

Economy & Business

Has Dollar Has Lost Half Its Value in the Last Few Years?

G. Edward Griffin – Commentary by Gary Gileno: A package of 600 Great Value paper napkins purchased several years ago from WalMart cost $3.97. The same brand a few years later was the same price, but there were only 500 napkins. Last week, the same brand in new packaging still cost $3.97, but the napkin count was 300. The cause of this is the Federal Reserve which creates more dollars each day chasing the same amount of goods, so it takes more dollars to buy them. Manufacturers, instead of showing the rising price, choose to reduce the quantity or quality of their goods, and most people thereby are not aware of how severe inflation actually is. The US now is $22 trillion in debt as a result of creating that extra money. Gileno thinks that, just before the 2020 election, the Fed will crash the economy, and the media will blame capitalism and Trump. He says the leftists then will take power and implement hard socialism. Very pessimistic scenario, but there is considerable evidence to support his prediction.

Google-Facebook duopoly now commands 80% of ad market

WND – If you think the internet is under the control of Big Tech now, it’s going to get much worse this year, reports a State of Digital Media White Paper.

Consolidation of revenue continues, with Amazon, Microsoft, Oath, Twitter and Snap spending $29 billion, compared to Google-Facebook spending a staggering $169 billion in 2018.

With this blatantly left-leaning cartel totally dominating the digital advertising market with boycotts and blacklisting, it’s more bad news for free speech and the free press.

And that’s not the end of the story, according to the report. Over the next five years, this cabal’s growth is projected to grow in double-digits over the next five years – “making life miserable for everyone else, particularly publishers,” says the report.

Energy & Environment

Alligators freeze in N Carolina swamp, only leaving nostrils above ice

RT – Alligators in North Carolina, clearly no fans of winter weather, have decided to ride out the season by freezing themselves in swamps with just the tips of their snouts poking out of the ice.

Science & Technology

Reaction Engines Targets 2020 to Test Hypersonic Engine for Space Planes

Next Big Future – In 2018, Reaction Engines has been building two test facilities which they will use to validate the performance of key parts of the SABRE™ spaceplane hypersonic engine.

In the US test facility (TF2) will enable the precooler test article (HTX) to be exposed to high-temperature airflow conditions in excess of 1,000°C (~1800°F) that are expected during high-speed flights up to Mach 5.

Microsoft’s Bing search engine resumes service in China after experiencing temporarily shutdown amid concerns over Beijing’s increasingly tight online censorship

Daily Mail – Microsoft’s Bing search engine is now accessible in China again after experiencing a disruption in service.

Attempts to access Bing had resulted in an error message for users starting late Wednesday, as the most prominent foreign search engine available in China experienced a temporary blackout.

The internet outage raised fears among social media users that Bing was the latest foreign website to be blocked by censors.

The website was blocked due to ‘an accidental technical error’, according to Bloomberg, citing two anonymous sources – rather than a deliberate attempt to restrict Bing, which already complies with local censorship rules.

‘Mark Zuckerberg killed a goat with a laser gun and knife, then served us the cold, still raw meat’: Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey recalls dinner with the Facebook rival as he jokes that ‘revenge is dish best served cold’

Daily Mail – Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey says Facebook‘s Mark Zuckerberg had him around for dinner once and served him under-cooked goat that he slaughtered himself with a stun gun and knife.

Dorsey revealed details of the dinner in an interview with Rolling Stone when he was asked to describe his most ‘memorable encounter’ with the Facebook boss.

‘Well, there was a year when he was only eating what he was killing. He made goat for me for dinner. He killed the goat,’ Dorsey said.

‘He killed it before. I guess he kills it. He kills it with a laser gun and then the knife. Then they send it to the butcher.’

When the reporter questioned the laser gun element, Dorsey said: ‘I don’t know. A stun gun.’

Health News

Chemicals in toiletries could trigger early puberty

Natural Health News – Girls exposed to chemicals commonly found in toothpaste, makeup, soap and other personal care products before birth may hit puberty earlier, according to new research from the US.

The researchers note that a number of chemicals can interfere with natural hormones in our bodies and have been linked to early puberty in animal studies including phthalates, which are often found in scented products like perfumes, soaps and shampoos; parabens, which are used as preservatives in cosmetics; and phenols, which include triclosan, which the FDA banned from use in hand soap in 2017 because it was shown to be ineffective, but which is still used in some toothpastes..

While decades of research suggests studies have shown that girls and possibly boys have been experiencing puberty at progressively younger ages the link with everyday chemicals is not well studied in human children. This is troubling because earlier age at puberty has been linked with increased risk of mental illness, breast and ovarian cancer in girls and testicular cancer in boys.

“We know that some of the things we put on our bodies are getting into our bodies, either because they pass through the skin or we breathe them in or we inadvertently ingest them,” said Kim Harley, an associate adjunct professor in the School of Public Health, University of Berkley. “We wanted to know what effect exposure to these chemicals has during certain critical windows of development, which include before birth and during puberty.”

The study, published in the journal Human Reproduction, used data collected as part of the Center for the Health Assessment of Mothers and Children of Salinas (CHAMACOS) study, which followed 338 children from before birth to adolescence to document how early environmental exposures affect childhood development.

Study supports physical activity as a preventive strategy against depression

EurekaAlert – While many studies have found associations between greater levels of physical activity and lower rates of depression, a key question has remained – does physical activity actually reduce the risk of depression or does depression lead to reduced physical activity? Now a team led by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators has used a novel research method to strongly support physical activity as a preventive measure for depression. Their report is being published online in JAMA Psychiatry.

“Using genetic data, we found evidence that higher levels of physical activity may causally reduce risk for depression,” says Karmel Choi, PhD, of the Psychiatric and Neurodevelopmental Genetics Unit in the MGH Center for Genomic Medicine, lead author of the report. “Knowing whether an associated factor actually causes an outcome is important, because we want to invest in preventive strategies that really work.”

European soils contain a cocktail of pesticide residues

Natural Health News  – The industrialisation of agriculture has radically transformed the way most of our food is produced and not always in a good way.

Scaling up production has led to more food being available at lower prices throughout the world. But, increasingly, we are seeing the negative side of this chemically intensive system of food production. Today, 2,000 pesticides with 500 chemical substances are being used in Europe. However, data on how such substances affect soil quality is incomplete and fragmented, and fails to clearly reflect their overall impact on soil systems and human health.

First-time research conducted in the course of two EU-funded projects, iSQAPER and RECARE, is shedding light on the state of European soils. The results are far from reassuring. According to a paper published in the journal Science of the Total Environment, pesticide residues were found in the vast majority of agricultural soils tested in 11 European countries.

The researchers analysed 76 different pesticide residues from 317 topsoil samples. Alarmingly, 43 of the 76 pesticide residues tested were detected in the soils. “Considering that we tested less than 20% of the active substances currently approved in the EU markets, pesticide residue occurrence in soils might actually be higher,” the authors state.

Pesticide residues were found in 83% of the analysed agricultural soils in 166 different pesticide combinations. The most common mixtures detected at the highest concentrations were the controversial weedkiller glyphosate and its metabolite aminomethylphosphonic acid, followed by the commonly used pesticide dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT, banned in the EU in 1986), and the broad-spectrum fungicides boscalid, epoxiconazole and tebuconazole.

The selected samples originated from soils used in the production of cereals, permanent crops, root crops, non-permanent industrial crops, vegetables, and dry pulses, flowers and fodder crops. Soils from root crops revealed a much higher pesticide residue content than those from other crops. In fact, all of the tested root crop soils contained pesticide residues, with 85% of them containing multiple residues.

Pet News

Adorable moment trainee service dog meets Cinderella at Disneyland and is instantly smitten

Daily Mail – This is the adorable moment a service dog in training falls in love with Cinderella at Disneyland in the US.

Elijah, a one-year-old Labrador and Golden Retriever mix, was in the California park with his handler Ashley Wilt when he met the Disney princess.

He was there to get used to being confident and relaxed around people and when he saw the beaming princess he plonked himself down in her lap, wearing his Mickey Mouse hat.

Alaskan Malamute sits very still on a plane seat after being allowed to take the flight

Daily Mail – Travellers on a China Southern Airlines flight recently welcomed an unusual passenger in the cabin.

A large brown Alaskan Malamute was filmed sitting quietly in its own seat after being allowed to travel on the flight with its disabled owner, who was said to be an emotionally vulnerable flyer.

A China Southern Airlines spokesperson told Southern Metropolis Daily that the service dog was qualified as an emotional support animal and has been approved by medical professionals with the relevant certifications.

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