Quote:Optical illusion claims to reveal how stressed you are depending on what you see (but it's not what it seems)

'An optical illusion has drawn in thousands of viewers with a promise to reveal their current level of stress.

The mind-bending image, which was supposedly created by a Japanese neurologist to test stress levels, was
shared to TikTok @interestingthingsifind and has garnered almost 6,000 responses and 78,000 likes. Viewers
are invited to look at the image and to reveal if they are 'calm, stressed or very stressed' according to how
quickly or slowly they think it moves - or whether it's standing still.

The caption reads: 'This image was created by a Japanese neurologist. If the image is still, you are calm, if
the image moves a little bit, stressed, and if it moves like a carousel, you are very stressed. Tell me how are
you doing?'

However, the supposed neurologist - Yamamoto Hasima - does not, in fact, exist and the optical illusion was
originally created by Yurii Perepadia, a freelance graphic artist from Ukraine...'

Quote:

•     NASA is going back to the moon, and this time it means business.
  
•     Private companies are helping it build lunar transport, GPS, Wi-Fi, and more.
  
•     This new market, which is worth over $100 billion, could be game-changing for humanity.
  

If NASA has its way, it will send astronauts back to the moon by the end of the decade, making them the first humans to walk on the lunar surface in over half a century.

But this isn't just another scientific mission. This time around, NASA means business.

With its Artemis missions, the US space agency aims to lay the foundations for the first human settlements beyond Earth and pave the way for extraplanetary colonization. And business is at the core of its strategy.

"It's not theoretical at this point — it's happening," Brendan Rosseau, a teaching fellow at Harvard Business School who focuses on the space economy, told Insider.

The agency is tagging private companies like SpaceX, Blue Origin, Nokia, Lockheed Martin, and General Motors, to develop solutions for its lunar missions such as space-worthy rides, moon streaming, lunar GPS, and more.

This new market — worth over $100 billion— could be game-changing for humanity.

"Definitely the moon is going to be a big business," said Prachi Kawade, a senior analyst at NSR, a research-and-consulting company focused on the space market.

This creates a lot of opportunities for commercial development along the way, and NASA is aware of that.

"We want to leave behind a wake of commercial activity and commerce and more routine living and working in space," Steve Creech, acting deputy associate administrator for the Artemis campaign, told Insider.

There could be big bucks in moon mining

Ultimately, the moon's main commercial draw is its potential for "in-situ resource utilization," Creech said. This means finding ways to mine and exploit lunar resources on the moon or on Earth.

One commercially-interesting resource is regolith, the scientific name for moon dust. This could be mined for helium-3 — a rare nonradioactive particle that could be used in fusion reactors to create clean energy on Earth — or could also be used for construction on the moon. China, for instance, said it wants to build its lunar station out of regolith.

Another lead for moon mining is the rare-earth elements that millennia of meteorites crashing into the moon may have left behind. These could be mined for electronics, Kawade said.

But the moon's most attractive resource by far is water. Scientists discovered caches of water near the moon's poles that could be extracted and turned into fuel to extend lunar missions or to fill up rockets on their way to Mars, per Kawade.

"So the moon becomes a pit stop to Mars," Kawade said.

Per Rosseau, this model has started to bear fruit. Companies like Blue Origin and SpaceX likely wouldn't exist without NASA's ambition to go to the moon, he argued.

...
Astronauts will also need electricity. One plan is to build local power grids by bringing nuclear power reactors to the moon. Lockheed Martin is one of the companies working on a concept proposal.

NASA is also looking to develop appropriate moon-worthy rides. General Motors is teaming up with Lockheed Martin to develop a battery-powered lunar rover that could travel much further than those used in the Apollo days.

Another prerequisite for long-term settlement is navigation and communications. There's no GPS or Wi-Fi around or on the moon. That means missions rely on constant supervision from engineers on Earth, which will quickly become unsustainable as hundreds of missions are planned to be launched over the next decade.

To fill that void, NASA awarded a $14 million contract to Nokia to deliver internet to the moon. The firm aims to send a 4G network to the moon by 2024.

Fly me to the moon

However, the most lucrative part of the moon market by far is rocket development, said Kawade, who leads NSR's lunar-market report.

NASA built its own system for its upcoming Artemis moon missions, the Space Launch System (SLS) mega-rocket with its Orion spacecraft. But the agency has put the development of the mission's human landing system (HLS), which will bring astronauts from the moon's orbit to the lunar surface, in the hands of private companies.

Elon Musk's SpaceX has been the frontrunner in the race to land this bid, gaining billion-dollar contracts to develop the HLS for NASA's Artemis III and IV missions.

Along the way, Musk has promised to reduce the cost of launch and to make its rockets reusable, which could lower the cost of future missions. NASA's contracts also boosted the development of the company's flagship high-capacity mega-rocket Starship, SpaceX's most ambitious project yet. 

There is one drawback: though Starship is crucial for NASA's upcoming missions, the rocket hasn't yet successfully flown to orbit. In fact, it exploded on its first integrated launch in April.

Still, NASA isn't putting all its stock in SpaceX. Blue Origin recently won a $3.4 billion contract for NASA's Artemis V human lunar launcher, a win for a company that had lost its previous bids to SpaceX. The contract should boost the development of the company's own mega-rocket, New Glenn.

Even NASA's SLS spacecraft — which was built and developed in-house, a relic of NASA's old approach to rocket development — has been big money for the private sector.

Lockheed Martin was awarded a $2.7 billion contract and a $1.9 billion extension to deliver six Orion spacecraft for the Artemis missions III to VIII.

Welcome to the space race of the 2020s

Money isn't the only drive pushing the US and its allies to bring businesses to the moon. There are strong political incentives to get there before China, Rosseau said.

"It is a fact: We're in a space race," NASA's current administrator Bill Nelson told Politico in January.
"It is true that we better watch out that they don't get to a place on the moon under the guise of scientific research," he added. "And it is not beyond the realm of possibility that they say, 'Keep out, we're here, this is our territory.'"

More than 24 space-faring nations have signed the US's Artemis Accords, a set of rules drawn up by NASA for international cooperation on the moon.

China was not one of them. The nation has set its own independent path to the moon, for which it is seeking closer relations with space agencies in Russia, Latin America, and Central Asia.

The US still dominates space. It has more satellites in orbit — 3,433 US satellites in orbit versus 541 for China — and has more budget — about $60 billion in 2021 versus about $16 billion for China, Svetla Ben-Itzhak, an assistant professor at Air University in Pakistan, recently told The Conversation.

Still, China is moving toward the moon on a competitive timeline. It attempted 55 launches in 2021, four more than the US, per Ben-Itzhak. It was also the first nation to put a spacecraft on the far side of the moon in 2019 and has launched its own crewed space station into orbit, just as the International Space Station is nearing the end of its life.

Both the US and China are signatories of the Outer Space Treaty, which means they've agreed that no country can militarize or claim the moon. But there is still considerable "first-mover advantage" to whichever business gets there first, said Rousseau said.

One issue, for instance, is interoperability between infrastructures. While NASA has been working with collaborators to develop a language that could be used across all lunar devices, China has not been participating. If it gets there first, it could set a different standard, foiling the US allies' efforts.

"There's a real incentive for liberal democracies to get there — whoever gets there writes the rules essentially," Rousseau said.

(08-10-2023, 09:37 AM)BIAD Wrote: Recently, I became cautious of my laptop. I'm not a geek when it comes to computers, the internet and how they work,
but as a regular user, I began to see 'patterns' that remind me of a word displayed in the 'The Cycles Of Ice Ages' thread
here on Rogue Nation. Namely, 'Apophenia'.

I'd noticed it before on my HP laptop, the default opening page of my internet access is Microsoft Edge where supposed
news articles are quickly displayed and usually are nothing more than click-bait for the estabished news-outlets -certainly
of the UK. In between the momentary glances at the changing headlines, advertising appears for services that sometimes
seem more intriguing that the generated yarns from the MSM!

So when discussing a topic with my better-half, I may at times switch to the Google search engine and look up further
information to enhance or deflate our current opinion via that rarity on this cyber-highway, rational and neutral facts.
But if I return to that Microsoft Edge opening page, news items and advertisements suddenly appear that are theme
-connected to what my wife and I were discussing!

Wednesday evening: I watered my plants and noticed a multitude of seagulls wheeling about above me and realised
the young ants had taken to the air just as they do every year. Mentioning this glut of food for the so-called seabirds
to my wife, I switched on my laptop and Eh Presto, an article came up on Microsoft Edge's quick-turnover page with
an article about 'Flying Ant Day'!

However, this Thursday morning generated another smile-maker when -after posting my artwork in the Banners thread,
I opened up another page where the same Microsoft Edge would be flashing tales at me and saw this title:
'Pigeon Guano Removal Or Clearing'.



"So what...?" you may say. On Tuesday I posted an article in the 'Google Map Mystery' thread where the last word I
used -not in the pasted piece, but the final word I used... was 'guano'.

Apophenia or a rigged game?

Quote:Trump seeks to make the most of historic Georgia mugshot

'The photo of Donald Trump scowling defiantly into the camera in the Fulton County Sheriff's office will go down
in history. The mugshot, the first of a former US president, came after his fourth arrest in five months.

Mr Trump posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, for the first time since January 2021 to share the address of
his website and the mugshot with an all-capital letters caption: "Election interference. Never surrender!"
Within hours, his campaign website was selling mugshot-branded mugs, t-shirts and drink coolers.

John Bolton, who served as national security advisor under Mr Trump, said the image was likely carefully staged.
"I think it's intended to be a sign of intimidation against the prosecutors and the judges," he told CNN.
"He could've smiled. He could've looked benign," Mr Bolton added. "Instead he looks like a thug."


Iffy?

Mr Trump was charged last week with 18 alleged co-conspirators with attempting to overturn his 2020 election
defeat in the state of Georgia. At least 11 of the co-conspirators - Mr Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell,
Jenna Ellis, Kenneth Chesebro, Cathy Latham, Harrison Floyd, Mark Meadows, Ray Smith, Harrison Floyd
and Scott Hall - have so far been booked and processed at the local jail in Atlanta.


The Crew.

While the former president and his supporters are clearly pleased with his mugshot, photos of his indicted allies
have been less well received. "I thought these were all memes at first," said Jake Olson, a photographer based
in Columbus, Ohio. "It's the perfect storm of bad photos, There are so many cardinal rules of photography that
they are just not following."

"They have this one interrogation-style light, you can see they all have that little highlight on their foreheads,"
said Pittsburgh photographer and professor Ray Mantle. "They all don't look great… they all look tired."

The expressions vary widely. Lawyer Jenna Ellis is beaming down the lens, while Ray Smith, also an attorney,
glares into the camera - two strikingly different choices for a photo that, unlike most other mugshots, will be
published far and wide. "For a lot of these people, this is their major public debut," Mr Mantle said. "They know
that everyone's going to see these."

Pulling off a good mugshot can be tough, said Cooper Lawrence, a journalist who has written extensively about
celebrity culture. It's a difficult balance to strike, a challenge that celebrities like Justin Bieber, Lindsay Lohan and
Paris Hilton have all had to face. "Don't smile. A smile will make it look too arrogant," Lawrence said. "You want
to smirk like Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton do. A smirk says, 'yes, this sucks, but I'm gonna be fine.'"

Hair, makeup and wardrobe - even while in the custody of Fulton County authorities - is crucial, she said. But
"keep it simple", she added. "You're going to jail, not on an audition." Mr Trump, however, is a man well aware
of the power of his public image.

Earlier this year he complained that producers on Fox News chose to "purposely show the absolutely worst pictures
of me, especially the big 'orange' one with my chin pulled way back". And to some the low quality of the Fulton
County mugshot looks especially strange on a former president, even with its possible promotional value.

"It struck me how humbling and humanising a bad portrait can be," said Mr Olson. "It's funny to see such a poorly
done portrait of somebody who has such a significant presence, to say the least." But despite the low resolution,
Edd Mair, a lecturer in the History of Modern America at the University of York, said Mr Trump's campaign "clearly
thinks there's a lot to get out of a photo like this". "What's most striking about it is how on brand this is for Donald
Trump. Even a mugshot there's a way of converting this into political capital and enthusing his base."

Some right-wing commentators have been drawing analogies with Nelson Mandela and Dr Martin Luther King Jr,
who had mugshots taken, including in an iconic 1963 shot from Birmingham Jail. "They did the same thing to Martin
Luther King Jr," tweeted comedian and Trump supporter Terrence K Williams. "They go after the good guys and
especially the ones who fight for freedom and expose evilness and corruption. I stand with President Trump and
this mugshot makes me want to vote for him even more."

Mr Mair said Trump supporters will be attempting to frame the mugshot in this way. "These people were deemed
as dangerous individuals going against the grain, but they were eventually proven right. This is what Donald Trump
and his supporters want to get out of this mugshot." But those on the left and the centre will see the photo very
differently, he said.

"Certainly it will be used in the same breath as Richard Nixon and the Watergate scandal too, but even Nixon never
got this far in actually having a mugshot. "I think on the left and in the centre ground this will be seen as quite a low
moment for the American presidency."...'

Quote:Nearly 4,000 Americans visit the emergency department every year after getting a 'foreign object' stuck in their rectums, official data suggests.

A first-of-its-kind analysis estimated that 38,948 Americans aged 15 and up went to hospitals with the embarrassing injury between 2012 and 2021, the equivalent of around 3,895 per year.

Men accounted for nearly eight in 10 cases, with the most common group being males in their 20s and early 30s, who made up a third of all ER visits.

Sex toys accounted for more than half of cases, while other objects found ranged from toy balls or marbles to bottles, bottle caps, cans, drugs and even stationary.



Researchers from the University of Rochester, New York, found that men were more likely than women to come to hospital with a foreign object lodged in their rectums. They suggested, however, that this may be down to reporting bias — because women were less likely to put non-sexual objects in their rectums, reducing the chances of their case being recorded


The above shows the objects that were found in people's rectums. Writing implements may include pens, rubbers or sharpeners. Miscellaneous could include light bulbs or even a World War One bomb.



Researchers at the University of Rochester, New York, who did the study, said there has been a lack of hospital data on 'retained rectal foreign bodies' in the US.

They were compelled to carry out the research after data in the UK, Europe, Japan, and the Caribbean indicated that the injury was becoming more common globally.



They then used national population estimates to extrapolate for the entire population, giving a figure of 38,948 — or 4,000 per year.

Bottles, jars or bottle lids were the most common non-sexual devices found stuck in people's rectums, they found, accounting for 10 percent of cases.

They were followed by drugs, five percent, and a ball or marble, three percent.

Other objects spotted were described as 'writing implements', or 2.3 percent, which may include pens, markers and crayons.

Some 20 percent of cases also involved 'miscellaneous objects'. Details were not given on what these were, but in previous cases, this has involved lightbulbs, dumbbells and even a World War One artillery shell.

About half of the incidents were linked to sexual devices, such as sex toys.

By age group, those aged 20 to 24 were most likely to be admitted to wards with foreign objects in their rectums, followed by 25 to 29-year-olds and 20 to 34-year-olds.

About 77 percent of cases were recorded among men — or more than three-quarters of the total.
Scientists did not suggest why the objects had ended up in people's anuses, but this has previously been linked to sexual pleasure or gratification.

In the case of drugs, this may be tied to people trying to smuggle them across borders or into events such as festivals for sale.



Doctors may first attempt to remove the objects using manual extraction, or where they gently manipulate the object to free it from the rectum.

When this fails, however, they deploy a range of other techniques.

This can include dilation, or where steadily larger cylinders are inserted to widen the anal sphincter until the object falls out, or by attaching forceps onto an endoscope and inserting this into the rectum to grab and pull the object out.

In more serious cases, doctors may be forced to perform surgery to remove the object.
Laxatives can also be used, but this is not recommended because the anal contractions they cause may push an object further into the body.

The researchers said their estimates also revealed that more people were visiting hospitals with objects stuck up their rectums.

Back in 2015, there were an estimated 2,433 visits to hospitals per year with the issue.
But by 2021 they suggested this had risen to 5,230 per year — or more than doubled.

Researchers at the University of Rochester suggested women may not be less likely to run into trouble with devices in their rectums than men.

Instead, they said their data may be down to a publication bias.

Cases involving uncommon objects were more likely to be recorded, they noted, but women were less likely to have non-sexual objects stuck in their rectums. This, they suggested, would lead to fewer cases being registered.

Dr Anthony Loria, a surgeon resident at the University of Rochester who led the study, and others involved in the paper said: 'These data quantify a frequently encountered clinical presentation that has received little research focus.

'Females present at younger ages, with a significantly higher proportion of sexual devices, and have lower odds of hospitalization.

'Conversely, the incidence among males is bimodal [has two maximums] peaking in the fifth decade of life, and the rate of sexual devices is less than among females.'

They added: 'These data demonstrate that focusing exclusively on sexual devices would substantially underestimate the overall healthcare utilization related to this issue, particularly among males.'

The NIH said inclusion 'does not imply endorsement of, or agreement with, the contents' of the study, but the scientific and editorial quality of the journal will have been evaluated as part of the publication process.

Quote:Terrified Peruvian villagers claim they are under attack from 7ft-tall 'aliens' dubbed 'Face Peelers'
as they plead with authorities to send backup

*Members of the Ikitu tribe claim they have suffered repeated attacks by 'aliens'
*They have called for assistance from the Peruvian military and started conducting
their own night patrols to protect the vulnerable villagers

'Terrified villagers in a rural Peruvian district have claimed they have come under attack by 7ft-tall aliens
they have dubbed Los Pelacaras, or The Face Peelers. Members of the Ikitu tribe from the San Antonio
native community have reported mysterious figures in dark-coloured hoods attacking the villagers, who
live in the rural district of Alto Nanay, north east of Lima, Peru.



After one such 'attack', a 15-year-old girl had to be taken to hospital.
According to the community leader, Jairo Reátegui Dávila, the teenager narrowly escaped but 'as a result
of the struggle they cut part of her neck.'



Now, according to local media, members of the community are conducting night patrols to protect women,
children and the more vulnerable villagers, and have called on the authorities to send in the military. Some
community members said they can't sleep because they are in fear.

Locals described the 'extraterrestrials' as having large heads and yellowish eyes, and said the mysterious
figures are immune to their hunting weapons. They claim they have attacked them every night for nearly
a month since July 11.

Latina Noticias, a Peruvian news outlet, quoted Dávila as saying he had come face-to-face with one of the
so-called aliens. 'We have met almost face to face. His face is hardly visible. I have seen his whole body
floating at a height of one meter,' he said, suggesting the being was hovering. The group have now requested
a military presence from the authorities, however it reportedly takes a 10-hour river trip to reach the community
from Iquitos City.

'We need support for our community. The children do not sleep and the mothers stay up all night,' Dávila said.
'They appear to be armoured. I shot one of them twice and he wasn't injured, he rose and disappeared.
'We're very frightened about what's happening here in our community.'

He added: 'Their shoes are round-shaped, which they use to float... Their heads are long, they wear a mask
and their eyes are yellowish. They are experts at escaping.' Some villagers described the aliens as being like
'pelacaras', strange beings from folklore that feast on human faces, fat and organs. According to reports, the
police reached the remote area on board a speeder vessel and toured the village perimeter, including the area
where the teenager was allegedly attacked.

It is unclear if the authorities found anything to corroborate the villagers' claims and if the government intends
to deploy military personnel to the area for a sustained period of time to protect the villagers from the mysterious
threat. According to a 2017 national census, there are around 1,350 people who identify as being a member of
the Ikitu community...'

Quote:Peru’s 7ft-tall flying ‘alien’ attackers exposed as illegal gold miners on jetpacks


Ta-Da!

'Reports of ‘seven-foot-tall aliens’ terrorizing villagers in Peru stunned the world this week, with local leaders describing
the ‘armored’ and ‘floating’ menaces as impervious to bullets. The locals also compared their attackers to ‘green goblins’
and local Peruvian superstitions about ‘los Pelacaras,’ (‘the Face Peelers’) ― but now Peruvian law enforcement has
offered a new suspect.

Illegal gold-mining crime syndicates, they said, are to blame: branches of the storied drug cartels like Brazil’s ‘O Primeiro
Comando da Capital,’ Colombia’s ‘Clan del Golfo,’ FARC, and others who have ravaged Latin America for decades.
Peru’s National Prosecutor’s Office, which is now investigating the ‘alien attacks,’ has pointed the finger at these gold
‘mafias,’ who have been partially ejected from Brazil and Colombia by their militaries.

Now in Peru, these jetpack-flying gold cartels hope to inspire fear with their bizarre campaign of ‘alien’ terror, according
to prosecutors, keeping the locals in their homes and away from the cartels’ illegal gold pits. Prosecutors suspect that
these illegal mining cartels first used their jetpacks to prospect for gold deeper into the unforgiving jungles surrounding
Peru’s Nanay river.

Members of Peru’s small Ikitu population are surrounded by dense jungle in rural Alto Nanay, where gold has deposited
itself like silt into the riverbeds along the Nanay river tributaries that flow into the Amazon. The Ikitu told reporters that
this summer’s ‘alien’ siege began on July 11, with locals facing vicious attacks by flying, 7-foot-tall mysterious beings
in dark-colored hoods ever since. (DailyMail)...'

Quote:"...So naturally – as he’s apt to do – Donald Trump took to Truth Social to complain about his situation.
“I have the Staysure Senior PGA Championship in Aberdeen, Scotland, on my great course, and I can’t go,”
Trump wrote.

“I have to stay around and fight off the Crazed Radical Left Lunatics, Communists, Marxists, and Fascists.
I wouldn’t want to be in Europe and watch this COUNTRY DESTROYING Scum work their disgusting and
illegal ‘magic’ on unsuspecting Republican ‘leaders’ who just don’t think it is appropriate to Fight Fire With
Fire. BUT WE WILL WIN. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”...'

Quote:'...'Doubly magic' form of oxygen may challenge a fundamental law of physics

After scientists created oxygen-28 in the lab, it almost immediately degraded, baffling physicists around the
world. For the first time, scientists have created oxygen-28, a rare oxygen isotope that has 12 more neutrons
than oxygen-16, the most common form of oxygen on the planet. This newly created "heavy" oxygen isotope
has the highest number of neutrons ever seen in an oxygen atom and was expected to be ultrastable and last
virtually forever...'

'..."I was surprised," Takashi Nakamura, a physicist at the Tokyo Institute of Technology and co-author of the
study, told Nature. "Personally, I thought it was doubly magic. But this is what nature says."...'

Quote:Why did Hamas launch its latest attack?

Although the attack by the militants on 7 October was unexpected, it came at a time of soaring Israeli-Palestinian
tensions. This year has been the deadliest on record for Palestinians who live in the Israeli-occupied West Bank,
which could have motivated Hamas to strike Israel with a spectacular attack.

Hamas might also have been seeking to score a significant propaganda victory to boost its popularity among ordinary
Palestinians. The capture of Israeli hostages is thought to be designed to pressure Israel to free some of the estimated
4,500 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons - a highly emotive issue for all Palestinians.

There is also speculation that the attack was orchestrated by Iran - Israel's arch-foe - though Iran's Supreme Leader
has denied his country's involvement. Iran and Hamas also staunchly oppose the growing prospect of an historic peace
deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia. This might be thwarted if Israel's military response to the Hamas attacks provokes
widespread anger in the Arab world...'

(10-15-2023, 10:38 AM)Ninurta Wrote: Has Col. Hecht's reaming of the Beeb been immortalized on video anywhere? I mean, something like that might be good to be played on an endless loop...

Quote:ISRAEL PROBE BBC launches urgent probe into Hamas-supporting journalists who called
attacks on Israel ‘a morning of hope’

'The BBC have launched an urgent probe into Hamas-supporting journalists who called attacks on Israel
"a morning of hope". Six reporters and a freelancer - including a senior broadcast journalist - have been
accused of anti-Israel bias.

The controversy was sparked after several social media posts by BBC News Arabic reporters appeared
to endorse comments that likened Hamas, a designated terrorist group, to freedom fighters. One of the
messages alleged to have been liked include a video of bodies and kidnapped people loaded onto a
Jeep captioned as a "proud moment".

The journalists also referred to the Hamas attack on October 7 as a "morning of hope," reported the
Telegraph. Hamas has been a proscribed terrorist organisation in the UK since November 2021,
meaning the Government sees it as a terrorist organisation.


(Left to Right Top) Mahmoud Sheleib. Nada Abdelsamad.
(Bottom) Sanaa Khouri. Sally Nabil. Salma Khattab.

A BBC spokesman said: "We are urgently investigating this matter. We take allegations of breaches
of our editorial and social media guidelines with the utmost seriousness, and if and when we find
breaches we will act, including taking disciplinary action." The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East
Reporting and Analysis investigation accused seven reporters of breaching the guidelines.

These were Mahmoud Sheleib, senior broadcast journalist; Aya Hossam, broadcast journalist;
Sally Nabil, correspondent; Salma Khattab, based in Cairo; Sanaa Khouri, the Beirut-based religious
affairs correspondent; Nada Abdelsamad, a Beirut-based programmes editor; and Egypt All Sports,
a company run by Amr Fekry, a sports correspondent and pundit at BBC Arabic.

Ms Hossam is a freelancer and would no longer work for the corporation, reports the Telegraph.
She retweeted a message which included the phrase “the Zionist must know that he will live as a thief
and a usurper”. Mr Sheleib, a BBC News senior broadcast journalist, tweeted suggesting that young
Israelis were effectively combatants.

The Cairo-based journalist also took part in a Twitter conversation in which he joked about a woman
whose grandmother was abducted by Hamas receiving an “inheritance”.

The Telegraph also reported that a message which appeared to describe Hamas as "freedom fighters"
was liked by Ms Khattab. Meanwhile, Ms Abdelsamad retweeted a video of Israelis cowering "inside
a tin container in fear of the Palestinian resistance warriors". 

It comes as the BBC was slammed by MPs for failing to call Hamas gunmen invading Israel “terrorists”.
Appalled politicians accused the publicly funded broadcaster of a gross distortion of the facts with its
coverage. Hit squads of killers swarmed over the Gaza border into Israel killing civilians as they slept
in their beds. But the BBC referred to the killers as “militants” not “terrorists”...'

(10-15-2023, 12:18 PM)BIAD Wrote:

(10-15-2023, 10:38 AM)Ninurta Wrote: Has Col. Hecht's reaming of the Beeb been immortalized on video anywhere? I mean, something like that might be good to be played on an endless loop...

I've been looking for the video clip for a few hours now and even used Hecht's name in the search engine
of the BBC website. Still nothing!

(10-15-2023, 07:25 PM)Ninurta Wrote: Surely the BBC would not even entertain the notion of suppressing the video of themselves getting called out and reamed! That would smack of censorship and narrative control!

Quote:BBC wildlife show fakery rows: How broadcaster has faced backlash for making up scenes in nature
documentaries including using film of a polar bear giving birth inside a ZOO

*BBC cameraman Hamza Yassin says wildlife documentary scenes are often faked
*Claims this makes viewers feel more 'emotional' about threats to natural world

'BBC cameraman Hamza Yassin has claimed wildlife TV documentary scenes are often faked to make
viewers feel more 'emotional' about threats to the natural world. The Strictly Come Dancing winner said
dramatic moments are invented and scenes manipulated to encourage viewers to 'do something' about
environmental issues.

But the revelation is far from the first time the corporation has been under the spotlight for making up or
doctoring scenes in nature documentaries.

The BBC has faced a series of fakery rows over the past few decades – with the most famous in 2011
when it was revealed scenes in Frozen Planet which apparently showed a polar bear giving birth in the
wild were actually shot in a Dutch zoo. It also recreates sound effects in its wildlife shows in a studio,
but has insisted that this is an industry-wide practice and is because animal sounds would otherwise
be difficult for viewers to hear above the rest of the ambient noise in a landscape.


Everyone Is Involved.

The polar bear scene from 2011 was in episode five of the BBC's £16million Frozen Planet series which
featured tiny polar bears mewling and nuzzling for milk from their mother. Eight million viewers believed
that the scenes were shot by cameramen who had endured sub-zero temperatures in an underground
cave in the arctic wilderness.

The scenes, however, had been shot in a mocked up cave made of plaster and wood and in a zoo
enclosure in Holland using fake snow. The footage was defended at the time by presenter Sir David
[Attenborough], who compared nature documentaries to 'making movies'.

But the following year, when the Africa documentary series came out, the BBC made it clearer when
footage had not been filmed in the wild with warnings that 'controlled filming' had been used.
While the polar bear footage was the most famous incident of its kind, it was far from the first time
that BBC shows had been the target of fakery accusations.

In 1997, in the most memorable scene of Polar Bear - Arctic Warrior saw a mother bear was filmed
giving birth to and snuggling with her newborn cub. Viewers were led to believe the scene took place
in the Arctic. In fact, it was filmed in a zoo in Frankfurt.

And in 2001, Sir David was accused of using deceptive techniques in Blue Planet when it included a
lobster spawning scene that was filmed in a British aquarium. Viewers were led to believe the scene
was taking place off the coast of Nova Scotia. Also in 2008, Sir David was accused of staging a
confrontation between himself and a cobra in a South African desert for the series, Life in Cold Blood.

More recently in August 2019, the Serengeti series featured a scene showing a baby zebra struggling
through crocodile-infested waters – which the Sunday Times revealed was in fact a 'composite' of
multiple clips edited together. Shown in episode four, 'Misfortune', the young Zebra was seen
desperately swimming through a rushing river right next to a large crocodile.

It struggled to keep up with its group and, in a second scene, was swept away by the raging current.
Cameraman Doug Allan revealed at the time that the zebra was real and 'did really get carried down
the stream'. But he added: 'Whether the zebra was in that particular bit of water as seen on screen,
who knows. They could be in different places at different times.'

Mr Allan also revealed in 2013 that many wildlife scenes in BBC series are faked, saying that species
'smaller than a baby rabbit' are put in custom-built sets and filmed under controlled conditions, rather
than in the wild.

In October 2017, it was revealed that Blue Planet II viewers would not be told which scenes were filmed
in laboratories rather than the wild. Sir David's programme included close-up lab footage of corals bleaching,
which could only be filmed with lights and specialist cameras.

Producers for the show also recreated a rock pool and the burrow of a zebra mantis shrimp for close-up shots.
And a terrifying-looking fangtooth was filmed in a special chamber on a ship after samples were taken from
the deep ocean, according to The Guardian.

But the source of the footage was not made clear to viewers during the show, with executive producer
James Honeyborne saying at the time: 'You can't just break the spell.' He also insisted at the time that
underwater sound effects - which had been criticised by viewers for beibng 'ridiculous', 'awful' and
'nonsensical' - were 'representative' of nature.

Mr Honeyborne said the production team worked extremely hard on audio quality after facing trouble because
sound travels much faster in water than in air. His comments came after some viewers claimed the BBC was
exaggerating sound effects – including a tuskfish hitting a clam against coral - on the programme.

The previous year in November 2016, the BBC revealed that breathtaking Planet Earth II footage that appeared
to show a wild golden eagle's view of a mountainous habitat was actually filmed using a captive bird that lives
in a wildlife sanctuary in France.

The tame eagle, known as Slovak, was filmed swooping over the Alps at speeds of up to 200mph - taking
viewers with it via a 'lipstick' camera strapped to its back. In a video on its website, the BBC confirmed that
Slovak, who resides at the Park les Aigles du Léman, was turned into a cameraman using his professional
bird trainer.

In 2015, it emerged that a volcanic eruption scene in another BBC show, Patagonia: Earth's Secret Paradise,
had also been doctored. Impressive footage claimed to show a 'dirty thunderstorm' during the eruption, with
lightning strikes flashing through a cloud of volcanic ash. But it was in fact made by splicing footage of two
different volcanic eruptions together, one which happened in 2011 and the other in 2015.

Another BBC documentary: Human Planet: Deserts – Life in the Furnace, aired in August 2014, was also
exposed for misleading viewers, when a seemingly savage wolf was revealed to actually be semi-domesticated.
Staff at the corporation were subsequently forced to undergo an 'anti-fakery' course afterwards.

Last week Yassin, 33, who has been touted as the next Sir David Attenborough, said producers often edit
footage in way that will 'make a film that tugs on your heartstrings'.He told the Cheltenham Literature Festival
that documentary makers 'dramatise what we're seeing' and also sometimes pretend parts of the world remain
pristine.

According to the Sunday Telegraph, Yassin said: 'Now, spoiler, we're trying to make a film that tugs on your
heartstrings so that you guys get emotional about it and then you hopefully do something about it. 'The amount
of times we'll film a cheetah family, and she's got three babies, and we just zoom in slightly and crop out the
last baby. And the story goes, 'The mother has lost her baby?'

'Then you bring in a lion from somewhere else, something else, and the lion goes, 'Grrr', and you think,
'Oh, the lion's killed the baby!' 'And then five minutes of drama, then we just zoom back out again and
then you say, 'Ah, it's all a happy story.' No. That didn't happen.

'Sorry to ruin it for you guys but we are dramatising what we're seeing.'
Yassin, who was born in Sudan but moved to the UK as a child, has worked on programmes such as Animal
Park and Countryfile - and more recently his Strictly: Birds of Prey documentary last month...'