The compound known as Rai Ki Wai, on more than 45 acres of land on the highest point of the Fijian island of Wakaya, originally went on the market for $12 million. Its living space totals about 23,000 square feet, spread across several expansive pavilions and three smaller guest “bures” (huts). After failing to sell at $12 million, the price was knocked down. It sits at $6,950,000 — and if it still doesn’t sell, it’s going to the highest bidder at auction Oct. 3.
Author: mediahitman
By Bill Hutchinson Foreign diplomacy doesn’t always resolve world-class problems, but it sure does rake in the swag. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was given a half-million bucks worth of diamond and ruby jewelry by Saudi Arabian King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz and received $58,000 worth of bling from Brunei. The lavish gifts were among a treasure trove of keepsakes bestowed upon U.S. leaders in 2012, the State Department disclosed Thursday.
Michael Tellinger is a scientist, explorer and internationally acclaimed author of numerous books, who has become an authority on the vanished civilizations of Southern Africa and the origins of humankind. His research and discoveries of an advanced vanished civilization in South Africa includes a diverse field of research and touches on human origins, spirituality, science & consciousness.
By Sumathi Reddy There’s an art to napping. Studies have found different benefits—and detriments—to a nap’s timing, duration and even effect on different people, depending on one’s age and possibly genetics. “Naps are actually more complicated than we realize,” said David Dinges, a sleep scientist at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine.
Facebook says it will expand its facial recognition database to include over 1 billion extra faces as it incorporates users’ profile pictures into its database, thereby increasing the scope of its existing, highly controversial technology. The world’s largest social network made the announcement Thursday in an update to its data use policy. Facebook’s “Tag Suggest” feature already automatically recognizes “friend” faces in photo uploads to speed up the process of tagging friends
This video is like a real-life horror movie. Kimberly Wookey of Terrace, British Columbia, woke up early Thursday morning to a loud, strange trumpet-like sound. She’d heard the sounds before, back in June, so she grabbed her camera and recorded it. This time, she said, the noises were more intense. Her 7-year-old son was already in the living room — he had heard the sounds and was scared, she said.
(These Snowden leaks are starting to look more like more disinfo everyday) United States intelligence documents leaked by former contractor Edward Snowden now confirm that US authorities positively identified the body of Osama bin Laden with a DNA test shortly after his May 2011 execution. According to the Washington Post, top-secret documents provided by the national security whistleblower revealed that a DNA sample was taken from bin Laden’s body around eight hours after he was killed inside his Abbottabad, Pakistan compound.
The New York Times was asked by British authorities to destroy classified intelligence files leaked to the media by former national security contractor Edward Snowden, Reuters reports. According to the report published Friday afternoon, the executive editor of the Times was approached by a senior official at the British Embassy earlier this month and was asked to purge any files her paper had received about UK intelligence from Mr. Snowden.
Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who exposed the most extensive US global surveillance operations, has been awarded this year’s German ‘Whistleblower Prize’ worth USD 3,900 in absentia. The biennial award was given to Snowden, 31, at a ceremony in Berlin yesterday in recognition of his “bold efforts to expose the massive and unsuspecting monitoring and storage of communication data, which cannot be accepted in democratic societies,” organisers of the prize said. In a message from his asylum in Russia, Snowden warned against the dangers of a surveillance state. “We should never forget the lessons of history when surveillance took the…
Microsoft and Google announced Friday they are going forward with a lawsuit against the US government for the right to reveal more information about official requests for customer data by American intelligence. The companies originally filed suits in June following revelations provided by Edward Snowden of their relationship with the National Security Agency and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which oversees the government’s requests of the companies’ systems.
The US Navy admits its underwater training and experiments will result in the deaths of hundreds of dolphins and whales over the next five years – but insists that its testing program is essential. Computer models showed that the Navy will likely kill 186 whales and dolphins off the East Coast and 155 near the coast of Hawaii and Southern California – its main operation areas – between 2014 and 2019.
The Syrian government says it’s expecting a military attack and is “ready to retaliate at any moment,” according to a security official who wished to remain anonymous. The US holds Syria accountable for using banned chemical weapons and threatens payback. “We are expecting an attack at any moment. We are ready to retaliate at any moment,” the security official in Damascus told AFP. This comes as the UN chemical inspection team finished its work in the Arab country and crossed border to Lebanon.
RT.com has been banned on Reddit’s /r/news section, with moderators accusing it of spamming. Puzzled with absurd allegations, RT views the sanctions as an act of censorship with many redditors expressing the same concern. The announcement of the ban appeared on Reddit at around 12:30 GMT Thursday, with the forum’s leading moderator posting: “RT.com has been banned for spam and vote manipulation.” It was soon followed by another message, saying that “brigading the thread, downvoting, and crying aren’t going to change it, sorry.”
Former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden has leaked a new top-secret document that for the first time ever publically discloses how the United States spends tens of billions of dollars annually on clandestine spy programs. The Washington Post revealed the so-called “black budget” on Thursday and reports that $52.6 billion was set aside for operations in fiscal year 2013. Among the biggest priorities for the intelligence community, the Post reported, are “offensive cyber operations” and research devoted to decoding encrypted communications.
by Tim Cushing Lawyers representing the city of New York have filed a request for a stay of Judge Scheindlin’s decision and court order pending appeal. Scheindlin found components of the NYPD’s stop and frisk unconstitutional in her decision and ordered several remedies, including the installation of independent oversight, changes to the UF250 (stop and frisk) form, an overhaul of the stop and frisk program itself and mandatory lapel cameras for police officers.
A British High Court has agreed to an order allowing UK police to continue inspecting material seized from Guardian journalist’s partner David Miranda. On August 22 two judges gave London police until August 30 to sift through electronic documents seized from the Miranda, the partner of journalist Glenn Greenwald, who broke the story on NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, in the interests of “national security”.
Julie Wilson Infowars.com Secretary of State John Kerry opened his speech Friday by describing the horrors victims of the chemical weapon attack suffered, including twitching, spasms and difficulty breathing. Attempting to drive the point home, Kerry referenced a photograph used by the BBC illustrating a child jumping over hundreds of dead bodies covered in white shrouds. The photo was meant to depict victims who allegedly succumbed to the effects of chemical weapons via Assad’s regime.
A new government study found that a 2007 fracking fluid spill in Kentucky killed off several species of fish, including two that were classified as “threatened.” Some of the surviving fish developed gill lesions, liver damage and spleen damage. “Our study is a precautionary tale of how entire populations could be put at risk even with small-scale [fracking] fluid spills,” lead author Diana Papoulias wrote in a news release.