HELLO AND WELCOME

This is the first edition of Need to Know Around the World, which is the new name and look for Unfiltered News.

Unfiltered News was launched ten years ago for the customers of Reality Zone, the online bookstore and marketing outlet for American Media. It was to be an antidote to what Orwell called Newspeak by removing the bias and errors often found in mainstream media, and it soon became the trusted, go-to news source for truth-seekers around the world.
However, something important happened during those years. As our readership expanded, we found that we were reaching a much broader audience than just bookstore customers. We are no longer preaching to the choir.
Most of our new subscribers resonate with the message in the phrase, unfiltered news, but many are hesitant to identify with that militant stance when interacting with others. They value the information, but are not yet ready for the crusade.
There is an advantage to being perceived as mainstream while, at the same time, delivering the same content and objectivity as before, so we began thinking about changing our moniker to something more universally appealing.
It was a hard task, because we had become fond of seeing the name, Unfiltered News, in our mail boxes every Friday. But when we hit upon the name, Need to Know, it was an instant winner. It carries a sense of importance and urgency and also retains a bit of the original message suggesting access to hidden information.
OTHER CHANGES
With this name change comes a host of other changes as well. The most obvious ones are in design and functionality, but not visible – yet – is that we hope to build a network of information services, similar to this one, in every county in America. In fact, at the risk of sounding delusional, we are thinking really big and, in our dreams, we envision affiliates in many other countries as well.
This process already has begun, In June, we launched Need to Know – in San Luis Obispo County, California as a pilot for this project, and it already has become a huge success within the community.
I hope you like our changes. I think we are on to something big.

G. Edward Griffin
2015 August 7

P.S. Some features of this new site that are not yet functional. Please excuse our work-in-progress. Everything should be ship-shape in a few weeks. Thanks for your patience.

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THIS WEEK IN REVIEW

Video highlights of the Fox News Republican debate featuring Donald Trump, Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Chris Chrstie, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee and John Kasich. Fox News 2015 Aug 7 (Video)

A lawsuit by the Guardian newspaper forced Chicago police to disclose that they have detained and interrogated at least 3,500 people in a secret warehouse since 2004. Police and local politicians previously denied the existence of this operation. Arrests typically were for minor offenses such as drug possession and traffic violations. Records show that only three of those detainees had access to an attorney. Mainstream media is ignoring this story. PressTV 2015 Aug 6 (Story)

Tesco, a major grocery chain in the UK, is giving away unsold food at the end of each day to charities, such as homeless hostels and children’s breakfast clubs. The supermarket threw away 55,400 tons of food in the last year, more than half of which was perfectly good to eat. Wochit 2015 Aug 6 (Story)

The Israeli government, under its new zero-tolerance program to combat violence from Jewish right-wing extremists, jailed an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man, without trial, after he stabbed six people at a gay-pride parade. Before the new policy, only 7.4% of Jewish terrorists were formally charged. France 24 2015 Aug 4 (Story)

The FBI is investigating Hillary Clinton’s private email server that she used when she was the US Secretary of State. The cause of the investigation is that she sent out at least four classified documents that have been recovered from emails she deleted. No one knows how many others there may have been. CBS News 2015 Aug 5 (Story)

Jesse Benton, Ron Paul’s grandson-in-law and former campaign manager, was indicted for a pay-off scheme to obtain campaign support. Benton is accused of paying $73,000 to Congressman Kent Sorenson to switch his endorsement from Michelle Bachmann to Ron Paul and then laundering the money through Sorenson’s film company. Neither Rand nor Ron Paul is under suspicion of having participated in this. IBT 2015 Aug 5 (Story) (Cached)

Wireless medical devices easily can be hacked, which opens the door to high-tech assassination. Vulnerable devices include IV pumps and heart pacemakers. That is why former Vice President, Dick Cheney, had the wireless feature of his pacemaker disabled. CBS News 2015 Aug 4 (Story)

Kentucky: Kenton County Sheriff’s Deputy, Kevin Sumner, who works as a police officer at an elementary school, is being sued by the ACLU for violating federal law when he handcuffed two children that have hyperactivity disorders. Sumner handcuffed the children, ages 8 and 9, around their biceps, behind their backs. CNN 2015 Aug 4 (Story)

Syria: An Al-Nusra group that is tied to Al-Qaeda captured five rebels that have been trained by the US to fight ISIS. The US has trained only 54 rebels to fight ISIS, and there appears to be no military advantage to having such a small force in the field. US officials are having trouble justifying the small numbers. CNN 2015 Aug 4 (Story)

Obama has authorized military attacks against Syrian government forces if they threaten Washington’s newly trained brigade, including the five rebels that were captured by an Al-Qaeda group. Washington strategists predicted that Al-Qaeda would welcome these US-backed fighters but, once again, they got it wrong. [Interventionism is a losing game.] Ron Paul Institute 2015 Aug 3 (Story) (Cached)

Former City-of-London trader, Tom Hayes, was convicted of conspiracy to defraud and was sentenced to 14 years in prison. Hayes set up a network of brokers and traders spanning ten financial institutions and cajoled or bribed them to help rig international bank-loan rates to favor his trades. Hayes has confessed but insists that he was merely a small cog in the banking machine, that rigging rates and prices is common, and that he is a scapegoat to shift attention away from those at the top. BBC 2015 Aug 3 (Story) (Cached)

Joint Israeli-FBI operation discovers JPMorgan hacking scam. Four men, including two Israeli citizens, were arrested on charges of hacking into JP Morgan’s computers and gathering 83-million email addresses. Their intent was to conduct what is called a pump-and-dump scam to artificially inflate low-value stocks and then sell them at a substantial but unwarranted profit. The hack was so large that, initially, it was thought that the Russian government was responsible. Israel National News 2015 Aug 3 (Story) (Cached)

Former head of the Mt. Gox bitcoin exchange Mark Karpeles was arrested in Tokyo on suspicion of embezzlement. More than 850,000 bitcoins worth $400 million were supposedly stolen by a hacker, but former employees now are coming forward with information that implicates Karpeles as the hacker. CNET 2015 Aug 3 (Story) (Cached)

Venezuela: Shortages of food and other necessities have led to looting and violence. President Maduro blames this on businesses and leaders of his political opposition. It is generally recognized, however, that that the causes are low oil prices, a dysfunctional currency that has been destroyed by inflation, and price controls. Reuters 2015 Aug 1 (Story)

Researcher, Igor Yakymenko, reviewed hundreds of cell-phone radiofrequency studies and found evidence that cell-phone radiation can cause damage to DNA and is linked to cancer. Using a phone one hour a day for four years increased the risk of some tumors three to five times. Brain cancer can take 30 years to develop. NY Daily News posted 2015 Aug 1 (Story) (Cached)

A new study links Alzheimer’s disease to heavy TV watching and low physical activity. Those who watch television four hours or more per day have a higher risk of significantly lower cognitive performance in middle age. Fortunately, the effect can be reversed if lifestyle changes are made. CBS posted 2015 Aug 1 (Story)

A new strain of GMO rice is being promoted as a solution to global warming because it produces only 1% of the methane that organic rice produces. Environmentalists now are faced with choosing between accelerating global warming (most of them do not yet realize it is a hoax) or endorsing GMO crops. Examiner posted 2015 Aug 1 (Story) (Cached)

Senior US health officials stopped the FDA from informing dentists of the risks of using mercury fillings. The Department of Health and Human Services claims that they suppressed the warning because low-income patients would not be able to afford mercury-free fillings. As many as 10% of those with mercury fillings suffer from serious health problems relating to mercury toxicity. If it were established that these fillings are sickening people, manufacturers of dental products and most dentists could face serious legal consequences. [This may have more to do with suppressing the information than concern for low-income patients.] McClatchy posted 2015 Aug 1 (Story) (Cached)

Corporations are planning to harness the “idle capacity” of utility smart meters by connecting them to an enormous supercomputer platform. Utilities support this plan because smart meters are idle over 95% of the time. Running them at full capacity would be a bountiful source of additional revenue. On the down side is the fact that bursts of radio energy from these meters already are causing health distress to thousands of people, and the cumulative effect lies ahead. Health risk would increase significantly with constant duty cycles. Smart Grid Awareness posted 2015 Aug 1 (Story) (Cached)

Newly revealed emails show that the Environmental Protection Agency has been working closely with “eco-friendly groups” such as the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council. The significance of this is that these groups are funded by billionaires and corporations that economically benefit from EPA policies. Since EPA policies are greatly influenced by these same so-called Green groups, the conflict-of-interest becomes obvious. One critic says that this is the equivalent of the EPA collaborating with oil companies. Inquisitr 2015 Aug 1 (Story) (Cached)