David Bowie’s Name Found In Kill List Drafted By British Intelligence Services


David Bowie has been nominated for the best rock album at Billboard Music Awards 2016 and will compete against Coldplay, according to The Telegraph. The “Space Oddity” singer, who died on January 10 at the age of 69, was nominated for his latest album Blackstar.

The posthumously nominated album Blackstar, which was released two days prior to David Bowie’s unexpected death, is set to compete against Coldplay’s A Head Full of Dreams, Mumford & Sons’ Wilder Mind, Alabama Shakes’ Sound & Color, and Twenty One Pilots’ Blurryface for the best rock album of the year.

David Bowie received only one nod at this year’s Billboard Music Awards, while the “Earned It” singer The Weeknd leads the nominations for the Billboard awards with 16 nods, including in the categories best artist, best male artist and top hot 100 song for both of his hit songs “Can’t Feel My Face” and “The Hills.”

Justin Bieber, meanwhile, has received 11 nods, while rappers Fetty Wap and Drake both received 10 nominations. The Billboard Music Awards, which will feature a tribute to David Bowie, will be held at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on May 22.

Famous photographer Steve Schapiro is set to release a collection of previously unseen photos of David Bowie later this month, according to NY Mag. The book titled Bowie: Photographs by Steve Schapiro, which will be published by powerHouse Books, is set to be released on April 20.

The book features rare and previously unseen photos of the legendary singer, who died from liver cancer earlier this year, taken during a private photoshoot between Schapiro and David Bowie in Los Angeles more than four decades ago.

On the 1974 photos, David Bowie was photographed drawing the Kabbalah Tree of Life diagram on the walls. In the introduction to his book, Schapiro wrote that the two “hit it off” from the moment the legendary singer arrived in Las Vegas.

In other news, David Bowie is among nearly 700 globally recognizable names that were given to drone targets by British intelligence services, according to Mashable. A new report published by human rights charity Reprieve shows that Bowie’s name was featured in the so-called “kill list” drafted by British intelligence services.

Apart from David Bowie, the Eurythmics and actor Robert Redford are also named in the list. According to Reprieve director Clive Stafford Smith, intelligence officers think it’s “funny” to dehumanize people they’re targeting in their strikes, which is why they name their targets after high-profile celebrities.

The charity managed to get its hands on the data about targets thanks to secret documents leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. The director of the charity that published the report featuring David Bowie’s name on Tuesday said that it would be “funny” if the naming process wasn’t related to killing people.

“Some people who are slated for what may be instant death by a Hellfire missile are codenamed based on pornography stars, or prophylactics; some are cartoon characters; some are musicians and actors who might well object to having their names used on a Kill List.”

Among the names used for targets are David Bowie, Italian porn star Rocco Siffredi, actors Robert Redford and Paul Newman, comic book characters Iron Man and Megatron, bands Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and Black Sabbath, a number of fictional places and many other names. Stafford Smith noted that the Eurythmics would be “horrified” to find out that the British music duo’s name was used for targets on the kill list, which features Taliban and Islamist terrorists, about 50 drug dealers from Afghanistan, and even pedophiles and sex offenders.

[Photo by Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images]

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