Weaponry

I have been filming in the Marshall Islands, which lie north of Australia, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Whenever I tell people where I have been, they ask, “Where is that?” If I offer a clue by referring to “Bikini”, they say, “You mean the swimsuit.”
Few seem aware that the bikini swimsuit was named to celebrate the nuclear explosions that destroyed Bikini island. Sixty-six nuclear devices were exploded by the United States in the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958 — the equivalent of 1.6 Hiroshima bombs every day for twelve years.

The 2016 presidential elections are proving pivotal in U.S. history, although not just for the self-proclaimed socialist-democrat Bernie Sanders, the feminist squabble unfolding around Hillary Clinton, or the larger-than-life wild card Donald Trump.
The elections are revealing more dramatically than ever the corrosive effect of big money on the U.S.’s decayed democracy. In a country founded on the principle that every citizen has an equal voice and an equal vote, how is money stealing center stage in U.S. elections?

In April 2014 I first visited Syria, going to Homs and Latakia, in addition to Damascus. On each of my three subsequent trips to Syria, speaking moderate colloquial Arabic, I have been able to interact one-on-one with Syrians there, whether in markets, taxis, on the streets or in areas I visited.

This month, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation interviewed Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban, Political and Media Advisor to Syria’s President. The methods used to undermine Shaaban’s message should come as no surprise.

As Hillary Clinton emerges as the front-runner for the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, she is receiving increased scrutiny for her years as Secretary of State. Many are criticizing her hawkish foreign policy, which is the best indication of what President Hillary’s foreign policy would be, with many focusing on her long relationship with Saudi Arabia.

Changes in our perception of reality usually arrive in small doses. Unexpected, tiny, bitter bites of truth offer us several choices. The vast majority of insouciant humans choose the route of denial, completely ignoring the possibility of an alternate version of what is real and what is not. Others cautiously taste the troubling morsels, then spit them out, trying desperately to forget them as nothing but irritating, nasty mistakes, then returning quickly to the sweet, familiar, satisfying flavor of the corporate matrix.

Since the beginning of the Syrian civil war in August 2011 to April 2013, Islamic State and Al-Nusra Front were a single organization that chose the banner of “Jabhat al Nusra.” Although, the current Al-Nusra Front is led by Abu Mohammad al Julani but he was appointed as the Emir of Al-Nusra Front by Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the leader of Islamic State, in January 2012. The current Al-Nusra Front is only a splinter group of Islamic State which split away from its parent organization in April 2013 over a dispute between the leaders of two organizations.

Just a few months into his reign, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau finds himself embroiled in Middle East politics.

The terror-ravaged neighbourhood of al-Zahra’a, in Homs, has again mercilessly been hit by western and Saudi-backed terrorists’ bombings. Local journalists put the number of murdered at 57 now, some hours after the double-vehicle bombing earlier today. Russia Today reports:

Jessica Reznicek, 34, an Iowa peace activist, was arraigned yesterday and charged with two felonies for breaking three windows with a sledgehammer at the Northrup Grumman facility outside the Omaha Nebraska Strategic Air Command at Offut Air Force base.  After her court appearance she was returned to the Sarpy County Jail where she has remained on $100,000 bond since her action on December 27.  Reznicek, who has no plans to post a cash bond, is facing up to twenty years in prison if convicted on both counts.   Her trial is set for May 24.