Drones

Mysterious crop patterns appear near Stonehenge (VIDEO)
Drone footage has revealed two elaborate new crop patterns in the English county of Wiltshire, home of the iconic Stonehenge circle. The images were captured by MrGro, a website that publishes drone videos of the mysterious shapes. Since the 1960s, the phenomena have been cited as evidence of the existence of extra-terrestrials, but sightings of irregular crop patterns date back to as early as [...]
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FBI negotiated ransoms for years with kidnappers, gov. source says
Despite US policy banning federal officials from doing business with kidnappers, particularly terrorists, a government source told the Associated Press the FBI has for years negotiated and paid ransoms to kidnappers both domestically and internationally. The government source said the FBI used a secret exemption begun under the Bush Administration which allowed the bureau to use money to engage [...]
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Man tasered for flying drone in Hawaii national park
Travis Sanders was out with his family at a lava lake at the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park last week when he was tasered to the ground for trying to take some snaps of the lava with a small toy drone. Sanders was minding his own business and flying his drone over the lava lake when he was apprehended by a park ranger who told him to land it at once. [...]
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US warns Damascus against interfering with its “aerial assets” in Syrian airspace
The Pentagon is yet to officially acknowledge the downing of a surveillance drone over ISIS-free territory controlled by the Syrian govt, but scarce details of the incident hint at US involvement going beyond its self-mandated anti-ISIS plan in Syria. Anonymously, US military sources have confirmed that the country has lost contact with one of its drones over Syria, after SANA news agency repor [...]
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Russia develops heavy drone, promises S500 missile system by 2017
The Russian military is putting the finishing touches to its very own heavy military UAV. The drone is part of a wider modernization effort, with the cutting-edge flagship S500 missile system coming in 2017. The drone “already exists,” according to Russian Deputy Defense Minister Yury Borisov. [...]
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Afghan “kill list” leak: NATO risked civilian lives by targeting low-level Taliban fighters
Besides targeting top Taliban leaders, NATO forces in Afghanistan included low-ranking fighters and drug dealers on their list of "legitimate" targets, risking civilian lives in a wider airstrike campaign, Der Spiegel reported, citing Snowden archives. Classified intelligence files from the NSA, GCHQ, and the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) from the archive of whistleblower Edwar [...]
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Countdown to ISIS: 7 ways that 4 US presidents failed in Iraq
Since 1990, the people of Iraq have sustained some level of US military aggression by four successive US presidential administrations. Yet they failed to find WMDs much like they failed to preclude the rise of the Islamic State. The Obama administration, while channeling weapons to anti-government Syrian rebels, many with connections to terrorist organizations like Al-Qaeda, [...]
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Supreme Court justice warns of drones creating ‘Orwellian’ future
US Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor has voiced concerns that, without sufficient protections, the age of unmanned drones and ubiquitous surveillance will usher in an "Orwellian world." Sotomayor told faculty and students at Oklahoma City University last week that technological capabilities allow devices to monitor "your conversations from miles away and through your walls." [...]
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Arms firms implicated in illegal US drone strikes “bought influence” at NATO summit – Reprieve UK
Arms firms that provide core military components for drones deployed by the US to conduct covert strikes in violation of international law allegedly bought access to NATO's summit in Wales last week, a British human rights charity says. The defense companies concerned doled out up to £300,000 to ‘exhibit’ their military wares at the conference in Newport. Among the firms present were Gener [...]
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US allies cultivated Islamic State. Now IS plans to ‘raise flag of Allah in White House’
As the Islamic State tears through minority communities in northern Iraq, the extremist terror group, that owes its ascendance to funding from US allies in the Middle East, sent a message to the White House: We're coming for you. “I say to America that the Islamic Caliphate has been established,” Abu Mosa, a spokesman for the Islamic State (IS), formerly know as the Islamic State in Iraq an [...]
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Ukraine’s Soviet-era drone captured by Donetsk militia (VIDEO)
An old Soviet Tu-143 reconnaissance drone allegedly deployed by the Ukrainian army has crashed near Donetsk, with local militia - obviously not aware of what that monstrosity was - claiming in the video to have downed Kiev's weapon of mass destruction. The YouTube video of the downed drone claims the archaic unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was shot down “at approximatly 13:30 local time near Sh [...]
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Obama’s ratings tumble in Germany, Russia in wake of NSA spying, Ukraine crisis
Revelations of the National Security Agency's global spy program, together with civil strife in Ukraine has severely damaged Barack Obama's popularity among Brazilians, Germans and Russians, a major US polling agency reported. Thanks to a series of global scandals, the United States in general, and its commander-in-chief in particular, [...]
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US wants to oust Maliki, while he refuses to resign in exchange for airstrikes
As the United States mulls whether or not to provide military support to Iraq in its battle against Sunni insurgents, recent reports indicate the White House wants Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki out of power. [...]
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Desperate Times! Kerry says US ready to turn to Iran, drone strikes, to fight ISIS
US Secretary of State John Kerry says that Washington is ready to use radical measures to halt the ISIS offensive in Iraq - including enlisting Iran'€™s help and launching air strikes. "We're open to discussions if there is something constructive that can be contributed by Iran, if Iran is prepared to do something that is going to respect the integrity and sovereignty of Iraq," [...]
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Constitutional collateral damage: Lawsuit over American drone deaths tossed out by US judge
Serious issues regarding constitutional law rose to the surface on Friday as a US federal judge dismissed a court case against the US government by families of three Americans killed in US drone strikes in Yemen. [...]
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UN Hammers US Human Rights Record on Spying, Torture, Drones and Death Penalty
A UN report hammers the United States'€™ human rights record, denouncing vast surveillance, ongoing unaccountability for torture, deadly drone strikes, one of the world's highest death penalty counts, and mass incarceration, among other black marks. [...]
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“I’m really good at killing people” – book claims Obama told aides
It seems that President Obama is very much aware of the effects of his drone campaign, as he reportedly told aides he'€™s "€œreally good at killing people."€ The quote comes from a new book called “Double Down,” by journalists Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, which chronicles the inside story of the 2012 election. [...]
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No more wiggle room: Drone wars a knockout punch to US credibility
This week saw the most extraordinary scene materialize in Washington DC. Nine-year-old Nabeela ur Rehman, from North Waziristan in the remote tribal region of Pakistan, arrived to a media blitz. She came to tell her own personal story to the nation, in front of the US Congress and national media, of drone horrors and the savagery of America’s secret assassinations overseas. [...]
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Victims of drone strike testify before Congress
The victims of a drone strike alleged to be launched last year by the United States spoke to members of Congress on Tuesday and urged the US government to stop killing civilians with weaponized unmanned aerial vehicles. Rafiq ur Rehman, a primary school teacher from North Waziristan, Pakistan, spoke through an interpreter on Capitol Hill [...]
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