UN passes ‘landmark’ Arms Trade Treaty, despite key abstentions

Published time: April 02, 2013 20:13

The United Nations General Assembly has overwhelmingly voted to adopt the first ever treaty regulating international arms trade. Nonetheless, abstentions from major exporters and importers may limit its effectiveness.

154 countries voted for the treaty in New York, while Iran, Syria and North Korea voted against, and 23 countries…

Two spacecraft being built at a cost of £225million... so they can be CRASHED into an asteroid to look inside it

• Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment mission (AIDA) to launch 2019
• It will send two spacecraft on a three-year voyage to the asteroid Didymos
• Could show how 'dangerous asteroids can be deflected from hitting earth'

By …

'Monsanto Protection Act' slips silently through US Congress

Published time: March 26, 2013 01:34

The US House of Representatives quietly passed a last-minute addition to the Agricultural Appropriations Bill for 2013 last week - including a provision protecting genetically modified seeds from litigation in the face of health risks.

The rider, which is officially known as the Farmer…

1,000 dead ducks found in Chinese river as pig clean-up reaches 16,000

Published time: March 25, 2013 14:56

Around 1,000 dead ducks have been pulled from a river in southwest China’s Sichuan province. Residents found the rotten carcasses floating downstream in woven bags.

The ducks, which were found in the Nanhe River in Meishan city, have been disinfected with lime and buried 3…

Silence of the Homelands: Why is DHS stockpiling guns and ammunition?

Published time: March 23, 2013 09:01

The Department of Homeland Security has plans to buy enough ammunition to fight the equivalent of a 24-year Iraq War – on US territory – and even US congressmen don’t understand why.

Smack in the middle of the smoking gun-control debate, and despite deep spending cuts…

Obama’s cybersecurity plan: Monitor more of the Internet

Published time: March 21, 2013 22:06 

Edited time: March 22, 2013 06:22

President Barack Obama’s plan to protect the United States’ critical infrastructure against cyberattacks is accelerating quickly as more private sector businesses are signing on to share information with the federal government.…

Guantanamo Bay has become money pit - former prison official

Published time: March 22, 2013 05:02

Former Guantanamo prison official Ret. Col. Morris Davis has discussed with RT how the once 'temporary' facility has become a money pit as repair costs and yearly maintenance bills begin to pile up.

Democrats abandon proposed assault weapons ban

Published time: March 19, 2013 23:07

With the US Senate set to mull new gun legislation this April, a proposed ban on assault weapons will no longer be up for debate, the proposal's sponsors say. As a result, the ban is almost surely off the table for inclusion in a new law.

California Democrat Dianne Feinstein, who promoted the…

Soda kills 180, 000 people a year

Published time: March 20, 2013 18:59

Your sweet tooth could be deadly: researchers have found that 25,000 people died from drinking sugary beverages in the US in 2010 – and 180,000 have died worldwide. The data presents new evidence on the public health hazard triggered by artificial drinks.

Nearly half of all Americans, 48 percent, last year…

Married PCSO found guilty of using police database to strike up affairs with four vulnerable women on uniformed patrol 

• He used the police database to find phone numbers and addresses of women on his beat
  
  
• Defence lawyer had said that if politicians get away with affairs he should too
  
  
• Also said that if having tea is not criminal then consensual sex isn't…

NYPD's stop-and-frisk goes on trial

Published time: March 18, 2013 18:43

A trial challenging the NYPD’s controversial stop-and-frisk policy kicked off Monday. As the department argues the policy’s importance in stopping crime, opponents continue to challenge its constitutionality.

The class-action lawsuit, filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights, is meant to “end racially…

Syrian opposition elects US-educated tech exec as interim PM

Published time: March 18, 2013 23:56 

Edited time: March 19, 2013 03:04

The Syrian opposition coalition has elected Western-educated former businessman and US citizen Ghassan Hitto to oversee a provisional government for Syria's rebel-held areas in a vote in Istanbul on Tuesday.

Hitto received 35…

CIA must respond to request about secret drone program

Published time: March 15, 2013 14:54

A federal appeals court says that the Central Intelligence Agency was wrong to refuse a Freedom of Information Act request for details on the CIA’s drone program.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a FOIA request with…

'Obama’s financial spy plan moves US towards Orwellian police state'

Published time: March 15, 2013 14:25

The Obama administration’s financial spying plan, which if enacted will grant spy agencies access to US citizens’ finance data, is a shocking attack on personal freedom, independent journalist Charlie McGrath has told RT.

The planning …

'Monsanto Protection Act' to be voted on by Congress

Published time: March 14, 2013 17:38

Should Congress approve a proposition included in an agriculture bill up for vote this week, biotech companies like the Monsanto Company could win yet another victory in Washington.

The US House of Representatives is expected to weigh in on the Agricultural…

Thousands of Spain’s horses head for the slaughterhouse as economic crisis results in abandonment

By Agence France-Presse

Tuesday, March 12, 2013 2:34 EDT

In Spain’s boom years, they were a rich family’s status symbol. Now abandoned as a result of the economic crisis, horses are plodding in their tens of thousands to the slaughterhouse.…

Thousands rally against the Troika in Brussels

http://rudar.ruc.dk/bitstream/1800/2240/1/The%20trouble%20with%20triclosan.%20Risk%20governance.%20A%20new%20policy%20approach.pdf

The good Goering: Nazi Hermann's younger brother could be honoured for saving Jews during the Holocaust

• Albert Goering, who died in 1966, believed to have saved hundreds of Jews 
  
  
• Petitioned for them to be freed and funneled aid to refugees across Europe
• Yad Vashem in Israel preparing file for Righteous Among the Nations award

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'Cannibal cop' found guilty of conspiracy after plotting to kidnap, cook and eat women including his own WIFE

• Gilberto Valle arrested last year after FBI got tips from now estranged wife
• The 28-year-old plotted with others he met on fetish websites to abduct, torture and eat women he knew, including his wife

By …