Why Isn’t Anybody Talking About the Major Oil Discovery in Australia?

Crude found outside a small town in the land down under nearly outnumbers all the reserves in Saudi Arabia; former Cuban President Fidel Castro believes JFK’s assassination was part of a larger conspiracy; meanwhile, French President Francois Hollande stands up to Israel. These discoveries and more below.

On a regular basis, Truthdig brings you the news items and odds and ends that have found their way to Larry Gross, director of the USC Annenberg School for Communication. A specialist in media and culture, art and communication, visual communication and media portrayals of minorities, Gross helped found the field of gay and lesbian studies.

Massive Oil Discovery Is Deathblow For Saudis It’s the biggest find in 50 years and the media is completely ignoring it.

Which Side of the Barricade Are You On? For some time now, the daily commentary has focused on the public’s increasing anger and frustration about the sluggish economic recovery, dysfunctional government and a failure of leadership.

Egypt Passes Law Restricting Public Protests The interim president, Adly Mansour, signs bill that requires Egyptians to seek permission to protest ahead of event.

Snowden Leak: NSA Has 50,000 Computer Malware ‘Sleeper Agents’ Sleeper agents are among the most sinister spy assets: they lie in wait, wolves in sheep’s clothing, and then deliver a critical blow when activated.

Obamacare v. Philippines Typhoon: How Cable Covered Two Big Stories In a week dominated by two mega-stories—the continuing travails of Obamacare and the devastating typhoon in the Philippines—America’s hypercompetitive cable news outlets exercised very different news judgments, according to new data from the Pew Research Center.

Fidel Castro: ‘Oswald Could Not Have Been the One Who Killed Kennedy’ Fidel Castro shares at least one belief with the majority of Americans: He is convinced that the assassination of President John F. Kennedy was not the work of a lone gunman, but was the culmination of a broad conspiracy.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership Treaty is the Complete Opposite of ‘Free Trade’ The worse news is that, taking into account some of the unequalizing effects of the agreement — these treaties tend to redistribute income upwards — a Centre for Economic and Policy Research study showed that most Americans will actually lose because of the TPP.

The Left Party in France Joins the Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions (BDS) Campaign Against Israel During his visit to Israel, François Hollande declared before the most prominent Israeli political representatives: “Till today, you have never yielded when it comes to democracy, diversity, and human rights”.

The Rise of Brown Moses: How An Unemployed British Man Has Become a Poster Boy for Citizen Journalism We’ve written many times about how social media and what Om likes to call the “democratization of distribution” have changed the way that journalism works in a digital age, and how various media players — from The Guardian to NPR’s Andy Carvin — have made the practice of “open journalism” one of their guiding principles.

How Data Is Redefining Political TV Ads If 2013 was a harbinger of anything when it comes to political advertising, it’s the year that data infiltrated TV ads on both sides of the aisle.

Labor Fight Back: Time For Labor To Break From The Democrats Not only is this a time to make fundamental changes — such changes are long overdue!

Youth Unemployment Across Europe A chart showing the change in youth unemployment from the year ended June 2008 to the year June 2013.

Sawant Urges Workers To Seize Factories For Democratic Ownership Kshama Sawant was recently elected as the first socialist city council member in Seattle in more than one hundred years, and within days of her election, this lawmaker is already stirring controversy and drawing condemnation for her radical, truly socialist policies.