Author: mediahitman

The White House has announced that the CIA will never again set up a fake vaccination program as part of its espionage efforts, following the lethal response to the strategy it employed before raiding Osama bin Laden’s compound in 2011. The promise was made in a letter to the deans of 12 public health schools – who have criticized the Obama administration for using a vaccination effort as a cover for reconnaissance

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China has dismissed all US accusations of industrial cyber-espionage against five of its military officials and published proof that Washington is actually stealing data from China. Beijing also summoned the US ambassador for an explanation. Beijing reacted to Washington’s recent round of industrial espionage accusations by publishing its latest data on US cyber-attacks against China.

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The United States National Security Agency is reportedly collecting the contents of effectively every phone call dialed or received within the Bahamas, putting the conversations of countless residents and tourists into the hands of the NSA. Journalists at The Intercept on Monday accused the secretive American spy agency of participating in this massive but previously undisclosed dragnet surveillance system after being supplied with classified documentation provided to them by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.

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Uruguay, which has legalized marijuana, will also exempt pot production and sales from taxes. The move is designed to keep prices low enough to undercut black market cannabis, according to government advisers on the legalization. “The principal objective is not tax collection. Everything has to be geared toward undercutting the black market,” Felix Abadi, a contractor who is developing Uruguay’s marijuana tax structure, told Reuters. “So we have to make sure the price is low.”

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The new tax reform plan recently unveiled by Republican lawmakers may lower some tax rates in the United States, but without reducing government spending former lawmaker Ron Paul believes American liberties are at risk. In a new column published by the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, the former libertarian Congressman criticized the Republican-proposed Tax Reform Act of 2014 for attempting to lower rates but maintain current spending and revenue intake levels.

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Washington is to upgrade RAF Croughton, one of its UK bases allegedly involved in mass surveillance and drone strikes, to make it the largest intel hub outside mainland US and a center for its operations in Africa, The Independent on Sunday reports. The US government will spend $317 million upgrading Royal Air Force (RAF) Croughton, a US Air Force base in Northamptonshire, in southern England, to an ultra-secure intelligence facility with up to 1,250 personnel.

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The overall death toll in the unprecedented floods that have raged across the Balkans has reached 44, as more bodies were recovered from the Serbian town of Obrenovac on Sunday. In “Obrenovac alone we recovered 12 corpses,” Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said, as cited by the Associated Press. That brings the number of disaster victims in Serbia up to 16, while Bosnia has confirmed 27 dead and Croatia one.

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By Gabriel Black The FBI agent who shot and killed Ibragim Todashev, a key witness in the events related to the Boston Marathon bombing, is alleged to have falsified evidence, abused and intimated suspects, and been complicit in corruption during a four-year stint in the Oakland (California) Police Department. This revelation, published by the Boston Globe Wednesday, and ignored by the major American media outlets, supports the notion that Todashev was assassinated by the state because he knew too much.

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Attorneys for the state of Kentucky are in federal court Friday afternoon attempting to have the United States government release hemp seeds imported from abroad that were intended to be used in pilot growing projects. It became lawful to use industrial hemp in Kentucky starting in 2013, and a farm bill signed by US President Barack Obama earlier this year paved the way for states to grow the crop for research.

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Scientists leading the fight against Middle East Respiratory Syndrome say the next critical front will be understanding how the virus behaves in people with milder infections, who may be spreading the illness without being aware they have it. Establishing that may be critical to stopping the spread of MERS, which emerged in the Middle East in 2012 and has so far infected more than 500 patients in Saudi Arabia alone. It kills about 30 percent of those who are infected.

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