According to The Hill , a council member in Washington, D.C., has introduced legislation that would lower the age to vote in federal and local elections to 16.
D.C. council member Charles Allen (D) last week introduced the legislation, which could allow 16- and 17-year-olds to vote in the 2020 presidential election, WUSA-TV reported.
Allen said he proposed the legislation after seeing the students march last month in Washington, D.C. for the “March for Our Lives” event to protest gun violence and demand new gun laws.
Seven of the 13 members of the D.C. Council are backing the measure, advocates of the proposal told WUSA-TV.
“I think people are getting excited about this, especially with what’s going on in the nation right now in terms of youth leading social change,” said Alisha Chopra, 18, a senior at School Without Walls in Washington, D.C.
“So I think that people are going to be very excited about it and want to get on board.”
Alex Shyer, a 16-year-old sophomore at Woodrow Wilson High School, told the television station teenagers can handle the ability to vote.
“We work, we pay taxes, we care for family members, we can drive, we can do so many other things. So, adding voting onto that isn’t going to be that big of a responsibility. We can handle it,” Shyer said.
Because Washington, D.C., is considered in some cases a state, it can change the voting age for federal elections as well as local elections. . .
“For those of us who worked on the top floor, the closest toilets were down four flights of stairs. People just peed in bottles because they lived in fear of being disciplined over ‘idle time’ and losing their jobs just because they needed the loo.”
Western powers claim their missile attacks struck at the heart of Syria’s chemical weapons program but what they destroyed included a scientific research institution producing cancer drugs.
The Pentagon said three chemical weapons facilities, including a research and development center in Damascus’ Barzeh district and two installations near Homs, were hit in the early hours of Saturday.
The Institution for the Development of Pharmaceutical and Chemical Industries, located in the Barzeh neighborhood northeast of the Syrian capital, specialized in producing specific drugs which are direly in short supply amid Western sanctions.
Saeed Saeed, head of the Institution for the Development of Pharmaceutical and Chemical Industries, said the center was previously used by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) but now works on pharmaceutical products.
“Since the Syria crisis broke out, the country has been short of all kinds of medicines due to the sanctions from Western countries. Foreign companies stopped exporting high-quality medicines to Syria, especially anti-cancer medicines. So we have been conducting researches on anti-cancer medicines here, and three cancer drugs have been developed,” he said.
Saeed noted that he could not have stayed at the research center after the strikes if it had contained chemical weapons, as claimed by the US and its allies.
“If there were chemical weapons in the building, we would not be here. My colleagues and I came here at 05:00 this morning. If there were chemical weapons, we would need to wear masks and take other protective measures to be staying here,” he said.
Last night Maori TV showed part 9 of the Vietnam War series.
During the period covered (February 1970 – March 1973), Nixon’s sole focus with to withdraw US troops from Vietnam without losing the 1972 election. He knew he would be defeated if Saigon fell. Much of this episode consists of tape recordings of Nixon’s Oval Office conversations with his chief security advisor Henry Kissinger.
Although the filmmakers refer to 1/4 of US GIs using marijuana in Vietnam and 40,000 being addicted to heroin, for some reason they neglect to mention the South Vietnamese army was the main source of these drugs.
They do report on the growing influence of Vietnam Veterans Against the War and play an excerpt of former naval lieutenant John Kerry’s (a VVAW member) compelling testimony before a Senate investigative committee.
1971 also saw the New York Times publican of the Pentagon Papers, leaked by whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg. This Defense Department study, covering 1945-1967, revealed successive US presidents had been continuously lying to the American public regarding their true motives waging war in Vietnam.
Nixon’s paranoia about documents Ellsberg and others might possess about his own lies led him to create “The Plumbers,” a secret team that broke into Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office (in the hope of finding material they could use to blackmail him).
Much of this episode focuses on the Paris peace talks, and Nixon’s efforts to force North Vietnam to agree to a favorable peace treaty. To this end, he resumed bombing raid on North Vietnam, which were far more brutal (in terms of civilian casualties) than those Johnson had been condemned for.
I was surprised to learn that Nixon’s recognition of Communist China (after nearly 40 years) was part of a ploy to increase Chinese and Russian pressure on their North Vietnamese allies to sign a peace settlement favorable to the US.
The latter would be signed on January 23,1973, and over the next few weeks the last US troops would leave Vietnam.
As of March 1973, over 58,000 GIs and 2 million Vietnamese had been killed in North Vietnam.
A new study finds, thanks to climate change, that the Gulf Stream is circulating at its slowest rate in at least 1,600 years. This slowing accounts for the severe 2017-18 winter in the UK. If the circulation stops completely, it would have catastrophic impacts on our weather.
Gulhttps://weather.com/news/news/2018-04-12-gulf-stream-slowing-climate-change-studyf Stream Slowest in 1600 Years Could Cause Changes in Weather
Scientists report concerns over a dramatic slowdown in the Gulf Stream, the ocean current that carries water from the tropics toward the North Pole.
At a Glance
A new study has found the Gulf Stream is circulating at its slowest rate in at least 1,600 years.
Climate change is to blame for the slowdown, the study also concluded.
If the circulation stops completely, it would have catastrophic impacts on our weather.
For years, scientists have studied a spot in the North Atlantic Ocean that has bucked the trend of a warming world. Now, they know what impact this colder-than-average region is having on the Gulf Stream.
According to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature, the Gulf Stream is flowing at its slowest rate in at least 1,600 years, and climate change is the likely culprit…
It’s a sad day for the US, Britain, France and Israel. Their proxy terror war in Syria is lost, and this latest maneuver was a desperate attempt to save face.
According to RT, Afghan president Ashraf Ghani has invited the Taliban to participate in the upcoming parliamentary election in October:
The unusual offer comes as the militant group continues to seize swathes of land in the war-torn country.
The Taliban, an Islamic fundamentalist movement which emerged back in the 1980s, now “can appear as a political party and participate in this process,” Ghani says. He added that Afghans are “tired of the bloodshed,” and urged the militant group “to be serious about elections.
President Ghani already offered recognition of the Taliban as a legitimate political group in late February. The offer included negotiating a ceasefire and the release of the Taliban’s prisoners, as well as holding including new elections that would involve the militants. The Taliban did not respond to the proposal.
However, Mohammed Akram Khpalwak, chairman of the Afghan High Peace Council – an agency in charge of negotiating with the Taliban – claimed on Saturday the group is considering the proposal. “As per our information, discussions are ongoing among them [the Taliban],” he said, as cited by TOLO News.
Arranging direct peace talks between the Kabul government and the Taliban has long been floated by world powers and Afghanistan’s neighbors. Recently, President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev said his country is willing to host negotiations.
Meanwhile, Ghani’s peace offer came several days after the Taliban scored another victory in Ghazni province, not far from Kabul. On Thursday, Taliban fighters killed the governor of Ghazni’s Khawaja Omari district, Ali Dost Shams, as well as his bodyguards, seven police officers, and five government intelligence agents, according to a local police official.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mojahid then said in a statement that the group now controls key parts of the district, including government and police headquarters. Provincial officials denied this claim. Khawaja Omari was considered one of Ghazni province’s safest districts.
Last year, the militant group stepped up its attacks, mostly in the north and south of the country. In July 2017, Taliban fighters raided and seized the district of Jani Khel in Paktia province located south of Kabul. The fall of Jani Khel marked the straight third victory by the Islamists in just four days.
Previously, the Taliban overran Kohistan district in the northern province of Faryab after storming the district government’s headquarters, forcing local security forces to retreat to another base. Just hours after the capture of Kohistan, the Taliban seized the Taywara district in western Ghor province.
The group has gained a significant foothold in the country despite initially being pushed back by the US-led invasion 17 years ago. Since then, tens of thousands of lives have been lost while Afghanistan remains plagued by deep-seated corruption, terrorism, and tribal divides.
Note: According to Business Insider, the US still has 9,800 troops and 26,000 private defense contractors stationed in Afghanistan. CNN puts US troop numbers in Afghanistan at 11,000.
The substance used on Sergei Skripal was an agent called BZ, according to Swiss state Spiez lab, the Russian foreign minister said. The toxin was never produced in Russia, but was in service in the US, UK, and other NATO states
Sergei Skripal, a former Russian double agent, and his daughter Yulia were poisoned with an incapacitating toxin known as 3-Quinuclidinyl benzilate or BZ, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said, citing the results of the examination conducted by a Swiss chemical lab that worked with the samples that London handed over to the Organisation for the Prohibition of the Chemical Weapons (OPCW).
The Swiss center sent the results to the OPCW. However, the UN chemical watchdog limited itself only to confirming the formula of the substance used to poison the Skripals in its final report without mentioning anything about the other facts presented in the Swiss document, the Russian foreign minister added. He went on to say that Moscow would ask the OPCW about its decision to not include any other information provided by the Swiss in its report.
By Sophie Mengal – Special Investigative Reporter Inside Syria Media Center
Not much time has elapsed since the tragedy in Syria’s Douma, which was the last stronghold of Jaish al-Islam militants. Several videos with the testimony of participants of the so-called chemical attack started to appear on the Internet.
Two medics from the hospital of Douma expose the truth about the staged video, widely spread by the discredited White Helmets. The participants also say the event in Douma is a provocation.
According to the medics, a group of unknown people broke into the hospital, started screaming about the chemical attack, panicked, and then sprayed people with a fire hose. At the same time, eyewitnesses confirmed that the “victims” on the videos had no signs of chemical poisoning.
It’s worth noting that the UN and OPCW representatives share the same opinion about the events in Douma, since there is no clear evidence of the use of chemical weapons. In this regard, Inside Syria Media Center decided to conduct its own investigation in order to find out what exactly happened in Douma. Our experts analyzed reports, photos, and videos that appeared on the Internet.
First of all, it’s impossible to determine the location of these shootings. They could also have been made in Idlib province, or in any other opposition-controlled areas where the White Helmets were repeatedly caught staging videos.
Moreover, the technical video and photos analysis indicates that the performance was prepared well in advance since in most files the metadata is either missing or changed intentionally.
Deleted metadata
It’s also worth noting that the representatives of “civil defense” quickly found themselves next to the “chemical attack”, having had forgotten to put the individual protective gear on. In fact, the concentration of chlorine would cause them to have a strong cough, which was not recorded in any video.
Secondly, it seems that the victims in the video have no chlorine poisoning symptoms. Once chlorine contacted human skin it causes blisters and burns. But we don’t see any of these symptoms on victims’ bodies.
The allegedly poisoned child in Douma
A man after chlorine gas contact
All the symptoms all over human body occur at the same time after a chemical attack. In case of a serious chlorine poisoning, there is an uncontrolled muscular contraction of the vocal folds which causes blocking of breathing in, cyanosis (bluish or purplish discoloration of the skin), swelling veins on face and neck, faint, convulsions, urinary and defecation incontinence.
With lesser poisoning, there may be oral mucosa and eyes hyperaemia , throat irritation, sneezing, lacrimation, dry eye syndrome, miosis and a strong cough with foamy pink sputum. Meanwhile, in the presented videos we may see some kind of white foam or saliva and no other signs of chlorine poisoning, mentioned above.
It is noteworthy that injured children were mainly shown in the video. Obviously, it is done to awaken anger and compassion.
Thirdly, the video analysis lets us say that “the show’s organizers” simply don’t know the chlorine poisoning symptoms, as well as how to carry out first aid to the affected. For example, a man (Screenshot 1) is quietly standing and talking to other people in a closed room. After a couple of seconds, he suddenly starts to portray himself as a victim, pouring water on his head. There is a man without any protection next to him. This person is trying to “disinfect” (Screenshot 2) himself and remove “chlorine-contaminated” water from the floor.
Screenshot 1 Screenshot 2
Meanwhile, for a person who has already been affected by chlorine, it is extremely necessary to provide access to fresh air (take him outside), remove clothes, flush his eyes and nasal cavity, wash mouth with 2% solution of baking soda, give him an alkaline drink (mineral water, milk), carry out inhalation with drinking soda and some mineral water, and finally put olive oil in the eyes.
Fourthly, another video shows the place of the alleged bomb site, dropped by the Syrian Air Force. The presented video raises even more questions because everything looks unnatural. How was the air bomb neatly laid on a wooden bed without damaging it? And why wasn’t the bomb allegedly dropped from an airplane even deformed after hitting the building? It seems that the bomb (if it really was the bomb and not an oxygen tank) was put there just before the shooting. We have repeatedly witnessed how such yellow cylinders “copy” ammunition with a poisonous substance.
Screenshot of the video of the alleged fall of the “chemical explosive item”
We are dealing with another pre-planned operation of the militants, the White Helmets, and their patrons. That is also confirmed by the testimony of doctors from Douma. At the same time, another fake was held on the anniversary of Khan Shaykhun chemical attack, when Assad was accused of using chemical weapons. But we shouldn’t forget that the chemical weapons in Syria were completely destroyed in 2014 under the international community control.
A man after chlorine gas contact
Screenshot 2
The Most Revolutionary Act 