CARLY CASSELLA 31 JAN 2019

What was once thought to be a scattering of ancient stone huts on the outskirts of Johannesburg, South Africa, has turned out to be the remnants of a thriving city, lost to history for 200 years.

Beneath the dense vegetation, there isn't much to see with the naked eye. And after three decades of careful research, archaeologists in South Africa have barely scratched the surface of this long-lost settlement.

Now, however, thanks to the cutting-edge laser technology of LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), this site has been revealed for what it truly was: a veritable metropolis, made up of hundreds of households and trade networks.

The research has brought this city, called Kweneng, back to life. Home to a Tswana-speaking ethnic group, Kweneng's 800 homesteads are now thought to have housed no less than 10,000 people.

More:
https://www.sciencealert.com/archaelogists-re-discover-an-ancient-city-in-south-africa-lost-for-hundreds-of-years

New Zealand
Two men wielding a crowbar raid wild nests in Napier, possibly to sell the animals into the illegal wildlife trade

Eleanor Ainge Roy in Dunedin
@EleanorAingeRoy
Wed 30 Jan 2019 19.48 EST

Two of the world’s smallest and most vulnerable penguins have been stolen in a brazen overnight raid on their nests in New Zealand.

Little blue penguins – or kororā – are native to New Zealand and are listed by the Department of Conservation (DoC) as an at-risk, declining population. Little blues are the world’s smallest penguin, and are threatened by common predators such as dogs and cats, urban development on their coastal environment and being hit by cars, boats or caught in nets.

Last week two men wielding a crowbar orchestrated a late-night raid on a little blue penguin burrow at Perfume Point in Napier, on the east coast of the North Island.

The DoC believes the thieves used the crowbar to prise heavy rocks off the penguins burrow, and then hooked the instrument around the birds’ necks to pull them from their sanctuary.

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/31/new-zealand-baffled-after-protected-little-blue-penguins-stolen-from-nests

Venezuela: What activists need to know about the US-led coup
By Margaret Flowers

Two things stand out about the U.S. coup in Venezuela. First, it is unusually open. Typically, the U.S. tries to hide its coups. Second, the coup is built on a series of obvious falsehoods, yet the bi-partisans in Washington, with a few exceptions, keep repeating them.

First, we will correct the falsehoods so readers are all working from the same facts. Second, we will describe how this coup is being defeated. It will be another major embarrassment for the Trump administration and U.S. foreign policy.

It is important to understand Venezuela has become a geopolitical conflict as Russia and China are closely allied with Venezuela. China and Russia coming into the backyard of the U.S. challenges the antiquated Monroe Doctrine. In addition, Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world and the second largest gold reserves, as well as diamonds and other minerals such as coltan (needed for electronic devices).

Correcting the Record

There are a series of false statements repeated by DC officials and corporate media to justify the coup that are so obvious, it is hard to believe they are not intentional. In his two-paragraph comment on the coup, even Senator Bernie Sanders repeated them.

More:
https://www.opednews.com/articles/Venezuela-What-activists-by-Margaret-Flowers-Venezuela-Oppositions-Terrorism_Venezuelan-Coup-190130-611.html

Source: Colombia Reports

by Stephen Gill January 29, 2019



The commander of the United States’ Army South, the division that ousted Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega in 1990, arrived in Colombia amid growing tensions with neighboring Venezuela.

General Mark Stammer’s arrival was announced on the day that US National Security Adviser Michael Bolton sparked concerns in Colombia after revealing a notebook in which he had written “5,000 troops to Colombia.”

. . .

The visit of Stammer comes as Bolton, the hard-line adviser to President Donald Trump, told reporters in Washington that “the president has made it clear that all options are on the table.”

Colombia’s President Ivan Duque, who is facing major domestic security issues, has refused to rule out military intervention in Venezuela in contrary to his predecessor, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Juan Manuel Santos.



Read more: https://colombiareports.com/commander-of-us-division-that-ousted-noriega-visits-colombia/

by Megan Janetsky January 29, 2019



Human rights organizations rejected the appointment of a controversial military leader to spearhead the government program aimed at curbing the mass killings of social leaders.

A coalition of the country’s most important human rights and minority organizations called Colombian General Leonardo Barrero, who was removed from the military in 2014, an “ethically and morally handicapped person” to lead the so-called ‘Plan for Rapid Action’ (PAO) commission.

In a letter, the social leaders said that whoever does lead the commission, geared toward the protection of social leaders and human rights defenders, must have basic respect for human rights.

Barrero’s military career has been marred by a number of corruption, wiretapping and human rights scandals, including the murder of at least one social leader, who was dressed up as a guerrilla and presented as a combat kill to media.

More:
https://colombiareports.com/general-charged-to-protect-colombias-social-leaders-accused-of-war-crimes/

(This attempted appointment of a sadistic mass murder to a position of protecting targeted social leaders is far beyond cynical by Uribe-puppet President Duque.)

Trump Puts Notorious Regime Change Advocate, So-Called ‘Abettor of Genocide’ in Charge of Venezuela Policy
by Colin Kalmbacher | 6:12 pm, January 28th, 2019



President Donald Trump is officially pushing for regime change in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. On Thursday, the White House released a statement recognizing opposition leader Juan Guaidó as interim president in defiance of the country’s democratically-elected president Nicolás Maduro.

The man recently selected to lead the United States’ controversial overthrow efforts is so-called “abettor of genocide,” Elliott Abrams. A notorious neoconservative and coup plotter, Abrams pleaded guilty to crimes during the Iran-Contra affair but was later pardoned by then-president George H.W. Bush on the recommendation of once-and-likely-future attorney general William Barr.

Abrams later led unsuccessful U.S. efforts to destabilize and overthrow the Venezuelan government in 2002 under the auspices of George W. Bush‘s regime-change-friendly White House–just months after Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez, won a landslide re-election victory.

. . .

According to the Holocaust Museum of Houston, more than 200,000 people were slaughtered; exactly 626 villages were destroyed; and nearly 1.7 million people were displaced in a country with a total population of just over 7 million. Abrams never had a problem with those massacres and repeatedly criticized human rights activists and other critics of U.S.-backed Guatemalan death squads.

More:
https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/trump-puts-notorious-regime-change-advocate-so-called-abettor-of-genocide-in-charge-of-venezuela/

JANUARY 28, 2019 / 4:54 AM / UPDATED 3 HOURS AGO

Sarah Marsh, Marc Frank
4 MIN READ

HAVANA (Reuters) - A rare tornado ripped through Havana late on Sunday, leaving at least four dead and nearly two hundred injured as it tore off roofs, flipped vehicles and reduced some of the buildings in its path to rubble.

The twister was the strongest to hit Cuba in nearly 80 years, according to Jose Rubiera, a meteorologist with the Cuban weather service. It pummeled its way 7.15 miles (11.5 km) through Havana over 16 minutes, at times reaching 0.62 miles (1 km) in diameter.

The streets of the worse-hit neighborhoods, mainly in eastern and central Havana, were strewn on Monday with shards of glass and debris as well as downed trees and power lines. Some areas lacked electricity and running water.

“The noise made it seem like a plane was crashing down on us,” said Victoria Infanta Rodriguez, 47, surveying the wreckage of her home. “But when you looked it was more like a big ball of flame - something red, red, red as if the whole country had caught fire.”

More:
https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-cuba-havana-tornado/cubas-strongest-tornado-in-nearly-80-years-kills-at-least-four-idUKKCN1PM10J

by Adriaan Alsema January 28, 2019

US National Security Adviser John Bolton raised alarm in Colombia on Monday after holding a press conference on Venezuela while holding a notebook that said “5,000 troops to Colombia.”

Bolton, the hard-line adviser to President Donald Trump, told reporters in Washington that “the president has made it clear that all options are on the table.”

Colombia’s President Ivan Duque, who is facing major domestic security issues, has categorically rejected military intervention in Venezuela.

Colombia’s ambassador to Washington DC, Francisco Santos, spurred major controversy implying Colombia could team up with Trump and Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro to topple Venezuela’s Maduro, whose legitimacy is challenged by the majority of countries in the hemisphere.

More:
https://colombiareports.com/us-considering-to-send-5000-us-troops-to-colombia/

By Eleanor Imster in EARTH | HUMAN WORLD | January 27, 2019

We asked last week at EarthSky Community Photos for your snowflake images, then sat back and were dazzled by the beautiful and amazing photos you posted!



. . .



More:
https://earthsky.org/earth/best-snowflakes-photos-from-earthsky-friends

New documentary details unit’s disturbing obsession with HIV

Emma Graham-Harrison, Andreas Rocksen and Mads Brügger
Sun 27 Jan 2019 03.02 EST

A South Africa-based mercenary group has been accused by one of its former members of trying to intentionally spread Aids in southern Africa in the 1980s and 1990s.

The claims are made by Alexander Jones in a documentary that premieres this weekend at the Sundance film festival. He says he spent years as an intelligence officer with the South African Institute for Maritime Research (SAIMR), three decades ago, when it was masterminding coups and other violence across Africa.

The film also explores the unexplained murder of a young SAIMR recruit in 1990, whose family believe was killed because of her work on an Aids-related project run by the group in South Africa and Mozambique.

And it also claims the group’s then leader had a racist, apocalyptic obsession with HIV/Aids. Keith Maxwell wrote about a plague he hoped would decimate black populations, cement white rule, and bring back conservative religious mores, according to papers collected by the film-makers.

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/27/south-african-intelligence-officers-spread-aids-black-communities