World News & Politics

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US Government Green Lights Experiments to Reanimate the Brain Dead

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by Jake Anderson, The Anti-Media

It sounds like the logline from the recent sci-fi horror movie, The Lazarus Effect. But the story coming out of Bioquark Inc. is real. The biotechnology company is moving ahead with a groundbreaking experiment to reanimate the nervous systems of 20 clinically brain-dead patients.

With approval from the Institutional Review Board at the United States National Institutes of Health in the U.S., the ReAnima Project will begin recruiting patients who are all but clinically dead due to traumatic brain injury. With cooperation from their families, these patients will be kept alive by machines and administered a series of procedures meant to kickstart cellular regeneration.

CEO, Dr. Ira Pastor, hopes to prove the cells of human brains are as adaptable as those of salamanders, which can regrow limbs.

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The Disastrous 2016 Election Has Triggered a Third Party Revolution

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by Claire Bernish, The Anti-Media

While tumultuous, chaotic, contentious, outrageous, erratic, fraudulent, random, disheartening, and certainly unpredictable, could simultaneously describe this presidential election cycle, perhaps the most unanticipated development surrounds the categorical shunning of the soured, traditional duopoly — despite its previously adamantine grip on American politics.

This year, constant evidence substantiates the people’s collective scream: Enough!

In particular, once Ted Cruz and John Kasich abruptly halted their bids for the nomination this week — sending shockwaves across the already tempestuous election climate — the country’s umbrage against the establishment gained momentum. Again. Third parties and alternative candidates — and not just anti-establishment candidates conniving the system by running on one of the duopoly’s tickets — began blowing up the previously gaining trend in popularity.

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'Today Marks the End of TTIP': Greenpeace Leak Exposes Corporate Takeover

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The secret documents represent roughly two-thirds of the latest negotiating text, and in several cases expose for the first time the position of the U.S.

by Deirdre Fulton, Common Dreams

WikiLeaks had previously announced a €100,000 "bounty" for the full TTIP text. (Image: Greenpeace)

Confirming that the TransAtlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) amounts to "a huge transfer of power from people to big business," Greenpeace Netherlands on Monday leaked 248 secret pages of the controversial trade deal between the U.S. and EU, exposing how environmental regulations, climate protections, and consumer rights are being "bartered away behind closed doors."

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As Obama Preps To Send Troops Into Syria The US Gov’t Is Already Planning Their Next Major Coup

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by Claire Bernish , The Free Thought Project

A nonviolent coup to depose a democratically-elected president and install some of the most corrupt politicians — who, not coincidentally happen to be favored by the U.S. political establishment — is currently underway in Brazil. As the public’s attention zeroes on the readying of troops for deployment to Syria, the U.S. government has been able to quietly lend its approval to the crooked and baseless move to oust Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff. 

Indeed, though the controversy over quintupling U.S. ground troops in Syria — despite vows by the Obama administration at least 16 times there would be ‘no boots on the ground’ — constitutes a valid and pertinent debate, it can’t be allowed to obfuscate what’s taking place in Brazil.

To understand the importance of the ongoing tumult, you need only look at who matters to both the Brazilian and U.S. political elite — and it clearly isn’t the 54 million people who re-elected Brazil’s first female president just 18 months ago.

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Obama Admin Denies Saying "No Boots on the Ground" in Syria After Saying It 16 Times

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by Claire Bernish, The Anti-Media

What does a government do when it’s caught in a flagrant lie? If you are the U.S. government, you simply tell another lie — and laugh at anyone who tries to call out your hypocrisy.

Setting aside his oft-parroted no-boots-on-the-ground imperative, President Obama announced Monday the U.S. would be quintupling the number of special forces troops deployed to Syria to fight Daesh (the so-called Islamic State). In fact, the announcement was made later on the same day Obama claimed to have “ruled out” the deployment of ground troops.

Though this reneging on stated foreign policy has become somewhat par for the course, State Department spokesman John Kirby not only missed the hypocritical move, he flatly and bafflingly denied the Obama administration’s repeated claim there would be “no boots on the ground.”

In fact, instead of taking responsibility for initiating military maneuvers the public might find displeasing, the Obama administration has developed an apparent affinity for nitpicking semantics.

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How Two Toxic Trade Deals Just Got a Litttle Bit Less Likely

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(Photo: Flickr/Mehr Demokratie)

by Nick Dearden, Common Dreams

This week, the chances of passing corporate trade deal TTIP have been dealt several more serious blows. Even chances of passing TTIP’s sister agreement CETA (the Canada-EU deal) are starting to look decidedly shaky.

Here’s the key highlights of the week.

The big new fact is the sheer scale of opposition to ‘free trade’ deals in the US. All leading presidential candidates have expressed some opposition to the current free trade agenda, with even free trader Clinton saying she’s deeply uneasy. A new opinion poll shows only 18% of Americans support TTIP, down from 53% in 2014.

This matters because Obama only has eight months left in office and it seems unlikely that substantial progress will be made in that time. After that, the future is anyone’s guess. That’s a key reason Obama came to Germany this week – to speed things up.

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For First Time Ever, A Majority of People Identify as 'Global Citizens'

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by Nadia Prupis, Common Dreams

People around the world are increasingly identifying as global citizens, according to a new BBC poll that shines a light on changing attitudes about immigration, inequality, and different economic realities.

Among all 18 countries where public opinion research fir, GlobeScan conducted the survey, 51 percent of people see themselves more as global citizens than national citizens. It is the first time since tracking began in 2001 that a global majority identifies this way, and is up from a low point of about 42 percent in 2002.

The trend is particularly strong in developing countries, the poll found, "including Nigeria (73%, up 13 points), China (71%, up 14 points), Peru (70%, up 27 points), and India (67%, up 13 points)."

Overall, 56 percent of people in emerging economies saw themselves as global citizens rather than national citizens.

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“Nestlé is Trying to Break Us” Town Fights to Stop Bottled Water Megacorp from Stealing their Water

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by Claire Bernish , The Free Thought Project

Kunkeltown, PA — A small town in Pennsylvania is the latest to be targeted by Nestlé Waters North America, which, in typical fashion, is seeking to extract millions of gallons of freshwater to bottle and sell for an obscene profit — whether or not local residents approve.

Nestlé sneakily began testing waters in the Kunkeltown area as far back as 2012; but residents wouldn’t have discovered the desire for its water at all had the mega-corporation not rented an office in the community center, as Truthout reported. In fact, Nestlé’s plans comprise no small operation, as Truthout explained:

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To Protect Weed from Monsanto Patenting, Company Begins Mapping Cannabis Genome

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by Jay Syrmopoulos , The Free Thought Project

Portland, OR – A pioneering biotechnology startup has launched an online interactive guide that maps the genetic evolution of the cannabis genome, allowing for specific strains of marijuana that are already in the public domain a form of protection from patenting by large biotech firms such as Monsanto.

After two years of collecting samples, sequencing the plant’s DNA and developing the software to allow for a 3-D visualization of the collected data, the company was ready to unveil their long-awaited project.

“Sample collection was a huge part of this process,” Carolyn White, Sales and Marketing Manager at Phylos Bioscience told the Willamette Weekly. “One side was a collaboration with growers, dispensaries and labs to collect modern samples, and the other a process of hunting down ancient landrace strains from all over the world.”

The Portland company, fittingly on 4/20, went online with its interactive guide, which the company calls Galaxy.

According to a report in The New York Times:

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Peruvian Farmer Wins Monumental Battle Against U.S. Mining Giant

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by Amanda Froelich, True Activist

Acuña’s inspiring story is proof that activists’ efforts do matter, and that even the world’s largest companies will be held to account.

Peruvian activists knew they were entering a David-and-Goliath battle when they decided to shut down the creation of a $5 billion open-caste gold and copper mine next to a pristine lake, but they have so far succeeded.

However, much of the community’s success in this endeavor can be credited to Maxima Acuña, a farmer who owns a 60-acre plot of land on the exact site where the giant Newmont Mining Corporation desires to dig.

Earlier this year, the mother of four received one of six prestigious Goldman Environment prizes for pioneering the fight against corrupt mining corporations, and her story is definitely worth sharing.

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