DUISBURG, Germany – Crowds of people streaming into a techno music festival surged through an already jammed entry tunnel, setting off a panic that killed 18 people and injured 80 at an event meant to celebrate love and peace. The circumstances of the stampede Saturday at the famed Love Parade festival in Duisburg in western Germany were still not clear even hours after the chaos, but it appeared that some or most of the 18 had been crushed to death.
Authorities also suggested that some of the people killed or injured might have attempted to flee the crowd by jumping over a barrier and falling several meters (yards). Witnesses described a desperate scene, as people piled up on each other or scrambled over others who had fallen in the crush. "The young people came to celebrate and instead there are dead and injured," said Chancellor Angela Merkel. "I am horrified by the suffering and the pain." More>>
"Contact Between Them and Us is Inevitable"
BRAZIL - I received an email recently from A. J. Gevaerd, editor of the Brazilian UFO magazine, providing information on an interview he conducted with Retired Brazilian Army Lieutenant-Colonel Leo Tércio Sperb. The interview concerns the involvement of the military in a UFO incident in 1977 (the same year Operation Saucer occurred in the Amazon). Apart from some small grammatical changes to the translated version received, the following information has not been altered in any other way. More>>
UFO over Chinese airport
(Christian Science Monitor) The summer heat really must be getting to people. First there were two chupacabra sightings within 10 miles of each other in Texas. Then, China shuts down Xiaoshan Airport in Hangzhou after a UFO sighting (video below). Apparently someone didn't listen to Stephen Hawking and contacted the aliens.
Authorities in China are expected to discuss the object with a "bright comet-like tail," that was seen by a flight crew preparing for descent. Residents also said they saw the UFO emitting red and white rays of light.
- Ex-CIA chief: War with Iran seems more likely now
WASHINGTON – A former CIA director says military action against Iran now seems more likely because no matter what the U.S. does diplomatically, Tehran keeps pushing ahead with its suspected nuclear program. Michael Hayden, a CIA chief under President George W. Bush, says that during his tenure a strike was "way down the list" of options. But he tells CNN's "State of the Union" that such action now "seems inexorable." He predicts Iran will build its program to the point where it's just below having an actual weapon. Hayden says that would be as destabilizing to the region as the real thing. - Report: NSA, Pentagon officials linked to child porn
Dozens of National Security Agency, DARPA, and other Pentagon officials purchased and downloaded child pornography over the Internet, according to a report in The Boston Globe on Friday. The newspaper said it obtained more than 50 pages of documents revealing that the government workers identified in an internal probe included NSA contractors with top secret clearances, one of whom has fled the country and is believed to be hiding in Libya. Another involved a person working at the supersecret National Reconnaissance Office, which operates the military's spy satellites, who was transferred to a field office and has not been charged with a crime. In the United States, it is legal to possess obscene materials, which are generally defined as hardcore pornography involving consenting adults. It is also legal to possess non-obscene pornography. - NSA lifts veil on Ft. Meade expansion
Up to $5.23 billion could be spent on spy agency growth. The National Security Agency's (NSA) planned expansion in west county will cost billions of dollars and bring thousands of people to the area, according to a recently released draft environmental impact statement. At minimum, the project will cost $2.07 billion and bring in 6,500 workers to a 1.8 million-square-foot building. At most, it could cost $5.23 billion and use 11,000 people in a 5.8 million-square-foot building.
